Justice is a Woman

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, dear God!’

  ‘The doctor wanted to put her into hospital, but she refused to go. She kept telling me to come for you. She promised me she wouldn’t do anything more if I would bring you back.’

  ‘Oh, Joe.’ Her face was screwed up as if in pain.

  ‘You’ll come?’

  ‘Of course, Joe, of course.’

  She watched his shoulders slump as he came towards her and when he was standing close to her he took hold of her hand, saying, ‘We’ve missed you. Nothing’s the same: Father’s lost; there’s been trouble with Ella again; she cheeked Elaine and she wanted me to dismiss her, but…but I couldn’t. I explained to her there’s three out of work in Ella’s house. It’s odd, you know, Betty, but she doesn’t seem to understand the situation; I mean, of ordinary people. Somehow I don’t think she ever will. How is it you can see their side and she can’t?’

  ‘I…I suppose it’s the business of being kept in the nest for too long.’

  ‘Well’—he nodded at her now, smiling wryly—‘it’s just as well for all of us that you were pushed out early on.’

  She had to withdraw her hand from his, saying now, ‘I must pack. Would…would you mind going downstairs and talking to Lady Mary; try to explain. If…if you tell her everything, she will understand; she’s really a very understanding person when you get beyond her sting.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell her as much as I can.’ He turned towards the door, then stopped and looked at her. ‘Had…had you made up your mind to stay?’

  She had already turned to pick up a case, and she looked down at it as she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I had, Joe.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He turned slowly and went out.

  Less than ten minutes later she entered the drawing room again to see Lady Mary sitting bolt upright in her chair. When she looked at her the old lady did not say, ‘Well, you’re going then’; nor did she voice any reprimand, but, lifting her hand, she beckoned Betty towards her and said, ‘I can understand that you’ve got to leave now, but remember, I’ll go on waiting for you to come back, and I mean, to come back for good. But in the meantime I shall buy that car and hire that chauffeur and I shall send it down to that house to bring you here for a few days at a time. You will come?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I shall come, Lady Mary. And thank you, thank you so much for being so understanding.’ She now leaned forward and kissed the wrinkled cheek; but there was no response from the old lady; nor did her position alter in the slightest; all she did was to champ her lips together, gulp some spittle down her throat and say, ‘Well, if you’re going, get yourself away; I’ve never believed in sobbing farewells.’

  ‘Goodbye, Lady Mary.’ Betty turned slowly and walked up the room. And Joe, too, said quietly, ‘Goodbye, ma’am. And thank you for your understanding.’

  Left to herself Lady Mary’s stiff back bent forward; her hands, which had been flat on her lap, curled inwards. Then, her eyes blinking the moisture back into the sockets, she exclaimed aloud, ‘Blast all empty-headed, selfish, pregnant women!’

  Five

  Elaine’s second child was born on the last day of March 1930, and when Betty held her in her arms she shuddered as she moaned inwardly, ‘Oh no! No!’ and whatever exclamation she might have been about to utter was silenced by the doctor as with a look, he indicated to the nurse that she take the child out of the room.

  When Joe saw his daughter, he said, ‘Oh my God!’

  When after twelve days no-one would bring the child to Elaine she got herself up and went to the nursery, and when she saw what she had given birth to she screamed and fell into a dead faint.

  After a month, by which time the child had made no effort to move its limbs, the doctor confirmed there were definite signs of brain damage.

  It was left to Betty to see to the child. From the first moment she had taken the flannel over the harelip, and had wiped the matter from the corners of the small eyes that were set at an angle in the domed head, and had gently washed the right leg that resembled a piece of twisted rope, she knew that as long as this child lived she’d be bound to the house.

  Strangely, the only one not repelled by the sight of the child was Martin. He would stand by the side of the cot, chattering away to it, and he would always begin with, ‘Hello, little girl.’

  The child had not been christened, nor had she been given a name. When Martin had said to Betty, ‘Nice baby,’ she had replied, ‘Yes, she’s a nice little girl; she’s your sister.’ From then on he had called her ‘little girl’.

  In the works it was known that Remington’s classy wife had given birth to a monstrosity. Few of the men had known of such an idiot, for surely an idiot it must be. There might be some in Bog’s End who were not very bright, but they weren’t idiots. No, by God! They left that kind of thing to the high-breeders.

  During the following months the atmosphere in the house changed, becoming charged with gloom from Mike’s quarters down to the kitchen; while on the first floor war raged.

  Joe understood Elaine’s feelings, because he knew how he had felt that first moment when he had looked on the child. So, for six months, he bore her outbursts of grief, her prostration when, for days on end, she would remain in bed, and he also accepted her sudden change of attitude towards their first-born, for whereas previously she had left him almost solely to the care of Betty and Nellie, she now monopolised the child. But when she decided that her son must sleep in their room he put his foot down. Even her suggested compromise that Martin should have a room to himself was met with a firm, ‘No!’ because, as he pointed out, Martin was the only one in the house who saw their daughter as normal: to him she was a baby, and as yet he did not see the difference between her and other babies.

  Up till then he had not accused her of being the cause of the child’s deformity, because when he had put the question to the doctor as to why such an event had occurred, the answer had been evasive: such children appear in all families, the doctor had said; the cause wasn’t really known.

  Not until the child was a year old, which was in March 1931, did he openly accuse her of being the cause of the baby’s deformity…

  Apart from worries at home Joe was experiencing additional problems at the factory. The orders for packing cases and suchlike had dropped to almost half of what they had been in 1927. Unemployment in the country was rife, with almost two million people out of work. The previous week he himself had had to lay off half a dozen men, and there was the likelihood that another half dozen would have to go within the month if he didn’t bring off that York order.

  A few years before it seemed to be only the miners that were hard hit, but now it was every industry.

  This worry alone would have been quite enough to cope with without the complexities he had to face with his wife and the tragedy that lay immobile in a cot in the nursery. So his mind was in anything but a peaceful state when he arrived home at six-thirty on this particular evening to be informed almost immediately by Ella that the mistress had gone into Newcastle.

  ‘Really!’ He smiled at Ella. ‘Did she order a taxi?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Joe.’

  ‘Miss Betty didn’t go with her?’

  ‘No, Mr Joe…Miss Betty’s up in the nursery.’

  ‘Thanks, Ella.’ He still called her Ella.

  He hurried up the stairs and into the nursery, and Betty turned from the cot, saying, ‘Oh, hello, Joe.’

  Instead of answering her greeting he said, ‘Ella tells me that Elaine’s gone into Newcastle.’

  ‘Yes, she suddenly took it into her head this afternoon.’

  ‘Didn’t she want you to go with her?’

  ‘No.’ She scraped the spoon around the bowl and gently placed the contents in the child’s mouth; then going to the basin in the corner of the room, she wetted a flannel and on her way back to the cot she said, ‘It’s a good sign.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it is. Did she say why she was going?’

  Betty didn’t answer until she had drie
d the child’s face and had lifted up the side of the iron-railed cot and dropped it into place. The precaution of the railed cot was not so much to prevent the baby from falling out as to stop Martin from climbing in beside it. And now she turned and looked at Joe and said slowly, ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps she just wanted to go out, to see the shops.’

  ‘Yes, yes, perhaps that was it.’

  They stood staring at each other, he waiting for her to say something, she thinking, She’ll likely tell him about the telephone call herself. If she doesn’t, then it’s just as well I haven’t mentioned it.

  ‘How’s himself?’

  ‘He has what he terms the hump. I tried to persuade him to come downstairs; he’s alone too much up there and…and I can’t get up as often as I would like.’

  ‘I know that, Betty.’

  She started visibly when he caught hold of her hands, saying, ‘What would we do without you? They say that there are compensations in life, and by! you’ve been a compensation to everybody in this house.’

  ‘Oh’—she jerked her hands away, her face unsmiling—‘don’t start pinning wings on me. I do what I do because I like it. I wouldn’t do it otherwise; I have my selfish side; I’m allowed to be human.’ She was making for the door when he said in a perplexed fashion, ‘I’m sorry, Betty, I…I was only trying to tell you…well, how grateful I am.’

  She stood with her back to him for a moment; then, turning to him and her expression soft now, she said, ‘I know; I’m sorry I was so sharp. I’m…I’m a bit on edge today.’

  ‘You’re tired.’ He was moving towards her again. ‘You must have a break. Go up to Lady Mary’s for the weekend, and tell her I sent you. That might put me in her good books. To go and fetch you away once was bad enough, but to repeat it was unforgivable in her eyes. She hates the sight of me.’

  ‘Oh no, she doesn’t; she quite likes you.’ She now assumed Lady Mary’s voice and manner as she said, ‘You’re quite ordinary but a pleasant-enough fella. And that, I may tell you, is high praise from her; you should hear what she says about her male relations, Lord Menton in particular. Anyway’—she nodded at him—‘I think I shall take a break just for a couple of days. Are you going upstairs?’

  ‘Yes; I was just on my way.’

  ‘Bring the tray down with you, will you? It will save Jane’s legs.’

  ‘Yes, righto.’

  They went out of the room together, Betty making her way to the dining room and the kitchen to see that everything was ready for the evening meal, and Joe to the upper floor. It was part of the pattern of the day.

  Ella was sounding the gong for dinner when a taxi drew up at the front door and, at the same time, Joe came down the main staircase. When he opened the door Elaine was mounting the steps and she looked up at him and said, ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for dinner.’

  ‘No, no.’ He smiled at her. ‘The gong’s just sounded; I’ll tell Mary to hold it back until you’re ready…Had a nice time?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, very nice.’ She walked past him and up the stairs, and he paused to look at her for a moment before following her. And when they entered the bedroom he closed the door behind him and asked quietly, ‘You feel better?’

  ‘A little.’

  She took off her coat and hat, then went to the dressing table and, sitting down, drew a comb through her hair before she added, ‘I…I would feel better still if you’d agree with what I’ve decided to do.’

  He came and stood behind her and looked at her face reflected in the mirror, and he asked quietly, ‘What have you decided to do?’

  She now moistened a pad of cotton wool with an astringent, wiped her lips with it, then said quietly, ‘Put her in a home.’

  ‘Put her in a home?’ His face was screwed up as if he didn’t know to whom she was referring, and he repeated, ‘Put her in a home?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said.’ She now swung round on the stool and, her hands gripped tightly together on her knees, she gazed up at him and in a pleading voice she said, ‘Let me do this, Joe. I’ve…I’ve been to see a…a Dr Rice, who has a home for such thi…children, outside Newcastle. He says he will come and see you and…and her.’

  He hadn’t moved, nor had his expression altered much; only his eyes darkened, and now he said slowly, ‘Why didn’t you call her “the thing”, as you were about to do? So you’re going to throw her out, put her in a home!’ It seemed now that his body was pushed, so quickly did he move backwards to the middle of the room from where, his jaw thrust out and his voice a growl, he spat at her, ‘No, you don’t! Oh no! you don’t. For once in your life you’re going to shoulder a responsibility; and she’s your responsibility as well as mine…she’s your daughter.’

  She too was on her feet now, and her own anger almost matched his as she cried back at him, ‘She’s not my daughter! I don’t think of her as my daughter. She’s not human. She was a mistake from the beginning. I knew it, I knew it. You should have let me get rid of her then.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is you tried your best and what she is now is the result of that best. I don’t care what any damn doctor says about its happening to anyone, what you did to yourself you did to her. She’s yours, and as long as I’ve got any say in it she’ll remain yours, and in this house.’

  ‘You’re inhuman. You’re almost like her.’

  ‘Well then, you’ve got the two of us on your plate.’

  ‘You’re vile, you’re common, raw…’

  He made no answer to this, only stared at her, and now she cried at him, ‘I hate you! I loathe you!’

  The muscles of his face twitched as if he had been struck a blow. He passed one lip hard over the other, gathered spittle into his mouth, swallowed, then said, ‘Well, now I know where I stand, don’t I? And now I’m going to tell you where you stand. You tell your Dr Rice to keep away from here, because if he puts his nose in the door I’ll tell Betty to go. And I don’t think she’ll be sorry, because she’s worn out. Then you’ll have to take on the real responsibility of your daughter. If you don’t, there’s an alternative; but we’ll come to that later.’ And on this he turned from her and walked slowly from the room, and into the bathroom.

  Some minutes later he mounted the attic stairs to his father’s room and almost collided with Betty as she was about to leave.

  Mike, standing in the middle of the room leaning on his stick, looked towards his son as he asked, ‘Who declared this war?’

  Joe wiped his face with his handkerchief and blew his nose heavily; then he said, ‘She’s been to some fellow in Newcastle, a Dr Rice; she wants to put the child into his home.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mike shifted his stick an inch or two on the carpet, looked down at it, and said again, ‘Oh?’ Then casting a sidelong glance at Joe, he added, ‘Well, as I see it, and as things are, it seems sensible to me.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Don’t bawl, lad. Don’t bawl. I understand how you feel, but I can see her point.’

  Joe’s eyes were wide, the amazement showing on his face; and now he turned and looked at Betty as if for support, but she, after a moment of answering his glance, looked away from him and her voice was merely a mutter as she said, ‘Yes, I can see her side of it, too. She’s likely thinking of Martin and the impression on him as he grows older.’

  ‘She’s not thinking of anyone but herself.’ Joe’s voice was loud again. ‘How many times to your knowledge has she shown any interest in the child since it was born, eh? Tell me that.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her voice now was no longer a murmur and she was staring straight at him. ‘What I do know is that you are both bound to see the situation from different angles.’

  ‘Tell me one thing, Betty, just tell me this: if she was yours, would you put her in a home and leave her there to lie until she dies, which could be tomorrow or next year or ten years’ time; would you?’

  As she looked back into his taut face she blinked, then jerked her head to the
side before turning and going towards the door, saying, ‘She’s not mine, so I can’t give you any answer to that.’

  The two men looked at each other in silence until Mike said, ‘I say again, lad, I think she’s right.’

  Joe did not come back at his father now but, turning to the side, he sat down heavily in a chair, placed his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, and from between his fingers he said, ‘I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.’

  Presently, he straightened up and turned to Mike, who was now seated near the window, saying, ‘I was talking to Jack Farrow yesterday. They have a four-year-old mongol child and he said there’s been more happiness in their house since the child was born than ever before. It’s brought them closer together, and the other children think the world of it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard that said afore, but your daughter is not a mongol, Joe; the doctor gave me the straightforward answer the other week when I asked him how she’d be classified. He said there was no heading under which they could put her; in fact, medically speaking she was nothing.’

  ‘Oh, my godfathers!’ Joe’s cry and his action, as he rose, of turning his head to the side as if away from something frightful caused Mike almost to castigate him, saying, ‘Aye, you can be horrified but you’ve got to face it, and in facing it you’ve got to understand how Elaine’s looking at the situation.’ In a calmer tone, he went on, ‘There’s one thing you mustn’t do, though; you mustn’t let the child cause a permanent rift atween you; that is if you still care for her…Do you?’