The Slow Awakening

by Catherine Cookson (Catherine Marchant)

  ‘Do you want to marry him?’ Miss Cartwright was bending towards her, her tone as conversational as Mrs Poulter’s.

  Kirsten looked at her again. Did she want to marry Colum? Yes. Yes…of course she did; it would be lovely to live forever with the Flynn family amid their warmth and laughter…and have a child of her own. But hadn’t she a child of her own? She looked towards Oscar where he was sitting at Miss Cartwright’s feet building a tower with bricks, and the knowledge came to her that this child could never be hers. If she could pick him up and walk out of the gates with him now he would have the stamp of the house on him. He already spoke differently, he had an air about him. He was already the little master. But Colum’s child would be hers…Yes, she loved Colum. She wanted to marry Colum. But what about…? Never mind what about—she actually shook her head at the thought—the master only needed her because of the child—and perhaps because he was lonely at times. She looked back into the dark eyes and said, ‘Yes, I want to marry him.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’ Miss Cartwright actually pulled her chair nearer. She had only to put out her hand to touch Kirsten’s knee, and she bent her whole body towards her as she said under her breath, ‘Is it because you haven’t enough money?’

  Kirsten’s lips moved to say, ‘No, it isn’t that.’ Yet it was the lack of money, at least on Colum’s side. He had used more than half the money from the shaft on the solicitor man. The solicitor had written to say that his firm had been put to a great deal of work to disprove Mr Knutsson’s case.

  And she, too, had spent some of the money; for on one wonderful day when she had asked for a long leave, Colum had driven them all into Newcastle on the cart and she had bought everybody presents, and yards of material to make dresses for Elizabeth and Dorry and the girls. This had thinned down the remainder of the money considerably, and a sovereign slipped to Elizabeth now and again when things were tight had reduced the hoard to a thin layer in the bottom of the stone jar on the delf rack.

  More than once Colum had said they should have married when they first found the money. But she made no comment on this for she knew it wasn’t money that was preventing her from marrying him; the reason she wasn’t across the river at this moment was at her feet. And Miss Cartwright should know that, she did know. Wasn’t that the contention between them? Wasn’t the child the reason she had tried to throttle her?

  She looked at the child, and as if her eyes had drawn him he swung round, crawled towards her in his energetic way, pulled himself to his feet and, grabbing at her hands, said, ‘Nurse, nurse, play.’

  Kirsten stilled the child’s tugging by placing an arm around him, and she looked at Bella and her eyes said, ‘You have your answer.’

  Bella read the answer but she was quick to point out the weakness of the arrangement. Her voice lower still, she said, ‘He calls you nurse, he thinks of you as nurse, he would not miss you if you left him. I’d see to that, I promise you, and I would be kind to him. I promise you faithfully I would be kind to him, because—’ her hand made a movement forward towards the boy, but she checked it as she ended, ‘he’s a lovable child, I grant you.’

  Kirsten stared back at this new Miss Cartwright, this more human Miss Cartwright, but she was still wary of her and emboldened enough to say, ‘But if I married I’d be still about, I’d, I’d just be across the river.’

  Bella stared into the face before her. It was a beautiful face. She had to admit that. Even with the eye flickering it was still beautiful, and she told herself that if she herself could see beauty in the girl how much more so did it affect him? Her main thought up to a few months ago had been to devise a way to get rid of the girl entirely. Her madness even suggested having her shipped out of the country; these things were done. But now it appeared to her that the severance would be more effective if the girl were married, and to a man who hated Konrad, and whom Konrad hated. Only then would she know peace, for if the girl were still in this house when Florence did what she feared she had in her mind to do then he would turn to this girl as surely as the earth revolved around the sun. This knowledge would be unbearable even were she miles away when it happened, but if she had to witness it she would burn herself out with hate.

  Bella felt now that she was fighting for her life. If Florence in her madness went off with Gerald, her own position in this house would be in jeopardy. Even if Konrad didn’t go as far as to marry this girl he would surely take another wife. Oh, yes, she was sure of that, he would have a fourth wife. This she would have to endure, and she would suffer it if he made his choice from his own class. But there remained the dread that he would go as far as to take openly this remnant of the road, to whom promises meant nothing, who had no moral standard, who had defied her openly. This was the possibility she must erase, or die. It was her or the girl.

  ‘Here.’ She thrust her hand deep down into the pleated pocket of her grey dress. Then she was holding out her palm right below Kirsten’s face, and Kirsten was looking down on a beautiful ring.

  ‘This can be yours. I will give you this ring. You can sell it; it’s worth a great deal of money, two, three hundred pounds, more. Take it. Go on, take it. Tell Mr Flynn it is mine, my own property. Look, don’t be afraid; I…I will sign a paper to say I gave it to you. There is a shop in Newcastle where you could take it. I’ll give you the name. Then you could be married quickly; you could do it before the…the master returns, because, you know, he would try to prevent you from marrying that…that man, as there’s always been an enmity between them.’

  ‘No.’

  Kirsten had risen, pushing the child away from her as she did so and causing him to wince when he fell hard on his bottom, and she repeated again, ‘No, I don’t want your ring. And…and if I could marry the morrow I wouldn’t do it until the master returned…I, I promised him.’

  Bella had also risen to her feet. Her face was white and stiff now, her eyes glinting with the dull gleam of pitch. She said slowly, almost pleadingly, ‘Girl, instead of your enemy I could be your friend, a good friend.’

  Kirsten stood gazing at the tall woman, not in fear now but, strangely, in pity, in deep saddening pity, for she knew that Miss Cartwright did not want rid of her only because of the child and her relationship to it, but because of the master and what she imagined was her relationship with him. She remembered the master saying in his drunken prattling, ‘Bella wants me,’ and although she had thought then they were the ramblings of a very drunken man, she now knew them to be true; Miss Cartwright did love the master, and with such a depth and force that it begged for pity, for compassion. And in this moment she gave her both, even though at the same time a dread settled on her.

  Miss Cartwright, more than ever now, was a woman to be feared, more so, Kirsten realised, because this woman, this lady, feared her herself; she feared her because of the influence she thought she had with the master; and so in an effort to convince her that she was wrong she began to gabble, ‘As soon as Colum…Mr Flynn is ready, and asks me, I’ll go. He won’t ask me properly until he’s fixed. It may be a year, two, but I’ll go then. I promise you I’ll go then.’

  Bella stared back into the quivering face. Promise. That word promise. The girl didn’t know what it meant. She was immoral in all ways. She just prevented herself from dragging up the cross that had its permanent home on her breast and crying, ‘You remember this? You promised on this.’ But no, to deal with this tinker’s piece she must be subtle; threats were no good in this case, the girl had an inward strength, or ignorant stubbornness would be a better name to describe her attitude, and she was full of guile, and guile must be met with guile. A year! Two years…she said; this house could be torn asunder before three months had passed if she was any judge of her cousin, and before that this creature must be safely set across the river; or failing that…Well, the necessity for haste would present her with a solution to her problem. It had to, it must.

  What she said now was, ‘You may change your mind. Talk it over with the y
oung man, men see things differently.’ She placed the ring back in her pocket, then made herself stoop down and pat the child’s head before turning and going out quietly, as a friend might have.

  Kirsten stood gripping her stiff white apron in both hands, then she lifted it to her mouth and bit hard on it.

  The child, feeling her concern, came towards her now on all fours and when he demanded to be lifted up she drew him into her arms and walked with him to the window, and seating herself on the broad sill she looked out over the gardens and through the bare trees of the park, and as she did so a flurry of snow came from the low leaden sky and the child cried, ‘Look! Look!’ and she said dully, ‘Snow. It’s snowin’,’ and he gazed up into her face and repeated, ‘Snowin.’

  ‘Yes, snow-in’. It comes from the sky. You know, like I told you, in the story, Jinny’s up there pluckin’ her geese.’

  He opened his mouth wide and laughed, then leant forward and pressed his hands and face on the window pane. ‘Pre-tty,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, snow is pretty,’ she agreed.

  It had not been a bad winter in that there had been no real heavy falls of snow, but since the New Year hard frosts had persisted. It was now April and spring should have been in evidence with bursting buds and green grass, but the buds were still dormant and there was no melting of the grasses from their frozen spears.

  The house was warm and in some quarters happy. Rose, on her sneaked visits up to the nursery, regaled Kirsten with the happenings of the kitchen, also the prevailing scandal. Ruth Benny had one in the oven, but then it was her own fault. First time she had been with a bloke, said Rose, ’cos she was feared of her da. And then she had to go and get dropped. She had told her to take hot salts to skite it out of her, but would she? No. She was the one that was lucky; so she thought. Anyway, who would think that Jackie Wallace from the stables had it in him to give anybody a bairn. But then Jackie said it wasn’t his’n, they should try Farmer Weir, he said; Ruth had been down to her granny’s cottage, which was next to Weir’s farm, on her last three times off. Oh! There was high jinks in the kitchen. You had to laugh, said Rose. And then the mistress. By! Eeh! Hardly been in the house since the master went away, and nobody was going to tell her that it was cousinly affection she had for Mr Gerald. Why, she went daft when he was around an’ didn’t act like a mistress at all, more like any kitchen slut, that’s what Mr Slater said. Fancy him calling the kitchen staff sluts.

  Kirsten was quick to notice that all the time Rose talked in her rambling, friendly way, she was eyeing her, and would allow pauses in her conversation hoping no doubt for an equally friendly exchange, a confidence. Although Rose was the only one in the house who still talked to her on equal terms since the nursery had been moved to the east wing and the master had taken up his rooms there, there was about her, too, a wariness; yet no calculation, for, as she put it herself, she wasn’t sucking up to be pushed up.

  Rose looked at the child now and said, ‘By! He’s bonny. And his legs are comin’ along fine. Why look! He can totter.’ She pointed as the child stumbled towards her, then added, ‘It’ll be a pity if they don’t straighten up proper, won’t it? Well, I hope they do for the master’s sake, anyway.’ She slanted her eyes towards Kirsten. ‘He’s potty about him, isn’t he?’

  Kirsten brought her eyes from the child and looked at Rose and answered quietly, ‘He’s very fond of him.’

  They were holding each other’s gaze when Rose said, ‘He should be back any time. It’s over three weeks an’ the weather hasn’t been bad, for the boats I mean. But I think it’s goin’ to snow. I hope he gets in afore it lies, that’s if it comes. But, you know’—she sniffed at the air—‘I can smell snow I can. Me granny could an’ all, it was a kind of gift. I bet you what you like we’ll see snow afore very long.’

  Kirsten glanced towards the window. She could see right into the far distance, where a trace of sun was touching the treetops; the weather didn’t speak of snow to her, it was really too late for snow; biting black frost, but not snow. ‘I should think the storms are over,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you believe it.’ Rose walked towards the door. ‘Why, I remember the first year I came here. It was in the middle of April; me mother brought me over from Prudhoe and I couldn’t get a lift on the carrier’s cart ’cos of the snow, but she had to bring me nevertheless ’cos I was expected, an’ I might have lost the job, you see, if I wasn’t on time. We were like two frozen rats when we got in, an’ she had to stay the night, an’ the next day when she went back she couldn’t find the pack-horse bridge, it just being a little one. She got completely lost and was frightened to move in case she fell down the bank into the river, an’ if it hadn’t been for a parson, Parson Thompson, struggling through to Farmer Watson’s deathbed, he’d have had to bury her an’ all. He took her back to the farm and there she had to stay another night, would you believe it?’ She started to giggle. ‘Me da was nearly up the pole. But I’m just tellin’ you, you can get snow in April an’ at the back end.’ She opened the door, then closed it swiftly again and, her mouth wide and in a deep whisper as if imparting a secret, she said, ‘Roast pork the day, coo!’ She thrust her tongue out and worked it round her lips. ‘Cracklin’, stuffed apples, an’ suet pud.’ The saliva actually ran down to her chin and she wiped the drops quickly away with the side of her finger as she ended, ‘Me favourite.’ Then jerking her head sidewards she said, ‘Them, they’re havin’ fillets of whitin’, lobster cutlets, roast ducklings an’ ginger cream. They can have it; give me pork an’ cracklin’. Ta-ra. Ta-ra, Kirsten.’

  ‘Ta-ra, Rose.’ Kirsten laughed to herself when the door had closed, then went on with her business of tidying the nursery and arranging the child’s clothes for his second change of the day, and while she worked she thought: Rose, she’s funny. She liked Rose. She glanced towards the window. Snow. She said it was going to snow; she never saw it less like snow. She stopped what she was doing and went to the window and stood looking out, her knees pressed against the edge of the sill. She’d love to take a walk. It was six days since the child had been outdoors and then only for a short time and if the child didn’t go out then she couldn’t go out. She wondered what Colum was thinking. Did he come to the river bank? Did he come across the steppy stones? Did he venture into the park and look up towards the house? He would, he would when pushed do even that. There had been no means of getting word to him. She couldn’t ask anyone to take a note; the only person she could have asked was Mr Dixon and he had been down flat on his back with his rheumatics until yesterday…She wished the master was back, and not only because she would then be able to go out, she just wished he was back. She missed him, she missed him very much. It was strange how, when her mind touched on the master, Colum came before her eyes, and when she thought of Colum the master seemed to rear up before her. It was puzzling, even frightening.

  The door opened abruptly and Mrs Poulter entered the room, saying, ‘Hello there, girl.’ She said it in a quite friendly fashion, but she did not follow it up with, ‘How are you, child?’ She never did now. She looked down at the young master and, on a high note, exclaimed ‘By! There’s a fine fellow. What have you got to show me this morning?’

  ‘Dog.’ The child picking out a book from a number, walked towards Mrs Poulter, falling on the way and rising again before reaching her side, when he said, ‘Look, Poll, dog, big dog.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that is a big dog. But more like a wolf to me.’ She patted the child’s head; then looking at Kirsten again she asked, ‘Have you everything you want?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mrs Poulter.’

  ‘Have you enough coal in?’ She walked towards the fireplace and, lifting the lid of the big wooden scuttle, said, ‘You’re half down. Hasn’t Styles been up this morning?’

  ‘Ye…s.’ Kirsten hesitated, and at this Mrs Poulter went to the other side of the fireplace and opened the companion box and, finding it empty, she said, ‘I’ll break her neck, the lazy trollop. And
why do you say she has when she hasn’t? That won’t save her. What will happen if you run out of coal?’

  ‘I could bring it up meself, Mrs Poulter.’

  ‘Girl! What are you thinking about?’ Mrs Poulter’s voice and expression indicated her horror. ‘Touching coal with a child to see to! It’s well you don’t say that in the master’s hearing, or yet in Miss Cartwright’s.’

  It was at that moment, as if the name had conjured up its owner, that the door opened and Bella entered. She did not say ‘Good morning, Poulter’—Mrs Poulter and she had already met when, from the room she called her office, Bella had as usual issued the housekeeper with the daily orders—she did not speak to either of them but walked towards the child, who greeted her boisterously, pressing the wide stiff skirt of her dress out of shape as he hugged her leg.

  ‘It’s a beautiful crisp morning.’ Bella addressed no-one in particular, but Mrs Poulter answered, ‘So it looks, miss; but I think there could be more snow.’

  ‘Snow?’ Bella turned her head towards the housekeeper. ‘Oh, no. No.’ She now stooped and picked up the child and walked to the window and looked out as she said, ‘It’s a pity it’s so cold, he could have taken the air.’ She paused before turning to Kirsten and saying, ‘You haven’t been out for some time, I need a message taking to Bywell. You can go with it; it will give you some air. I will not count it as your leave time.’

  ‘But…but I’d rather, I’m…’ Kirsten stammered as she looked from one woman to the other, and Mrs Poulter, thinking she was being of help, said, ‘The child will be all right. I’ll see to him myself.’ She switched her gaze to Bella, saying now, ‘Is it the seamstress, Miss Cartwright?’