A Grand Man (The Mary Ann Stories)

by Catherine Cookson

  Peter Lord was an old man now, and what was in his life? Money and land. Yet God help him, he wasn’t to blame entirely. Thirty years ago he had been a man splendid in his prime and if he had only managed his private affairs with the same sagacity as he did his business he would undoubtedly have had an exceptionally happy life, but like many another able man before him he had to go and pick on a feather-brained vain piece of a girl, and what a life she had led him. And she had given him nothing, not even a child; and then to leave him when she thought he was going broke. Oh, she had been a right bad piece that. And there he was alone in that barracks of a house where he lived like a hermit. Life was strange. Just imagine, if he had had someone to pour out love on him as did that child back in the church there on that hot-headed devil of a father of hers, it would have made all the difference in the world.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Mary Ann.’ He stood to one side and made room for her on the step beside him in the half-open doorway. ‘Have you been to confession?’

  He was well aware, perhaps not that he was blind in the confessional, but that he was to Mary Ann an entirely different being once out of the box, and of being quite incapable of recognising her as the same child who a few minutes before had poured her heart out to him.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ said Mary Ann, but there was no smile on her face tonight as she said it.

  ‘That’s a good girl . . . you’ll be qualifying to lead the procession again next year, I can see that.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ She managed a very faint smile. As he patted her head the sound of a car starting up made him turn his gaze up the street and as he watched it approach his hand became still on her head; then swiftly, without looking at her again, he gave her a little push backwards, saying, ‘Stay there now.’ And as Mary Ann stood within the shelter of the porch he stepped briskly to the kerb and hailed the driver of the car.

  ‘Have you a minute?’

  The car had not gathered any speed and Mr Lord brought it to a standstill, saying, ‘Hallo – what are you after now?’

  ‘Have you a minute?’

  ‘Yes, and nothing else, and even that is valuable.’

  The priest laughed and was in no way put out at the brusqueness of the tone. ‘Oh yes, yes. Don’t I know.’ He bent his face down to the open window and cast his eyes sidelong at the erect forbidding figure sitting behind the wheel. ‘Well it’s only two minutes of your time I want, and I’ll pay you when my ship comes in, or perhaps I’ll just leave it to God and good neighbours.’

  ‘What are you after now?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m after anything?’

  ‘If I know you it’s something to do with money.’

  ‘You’re wrong then, this time at any rate. But if you’ve got any going . . . ’

  ‘Not a penny. Three hundred you had out of me last year.’

  ‘Was it that much? Good gracious.’

  ‘Was it that much!’

  ‘Well, well, doesn’t it mount up?’

  Mr Lord surveyed the priest with a hard, forbidding look which did not intimidate Father Owen, who, putting his head and shoulders farther into the car, changed his tone and said, ‘You can do me a favour if you would.’

  There was no Yes or Nay or What is it? from Mr Lord, but in still silence he waited for the priest to go on.

  ‘I heard you’d bought up Coffin’s farm.’

  Still silence surrounded Mr Lord.

  ‘And I’ve heard,’ said Father Owen, ‘that Coffin took his hands with him, at least that’s what I’m given to understand. They must have been fine workers; when a man gets good farmhands these days he keeps them. Of course Coffin was good to the men. Didn’t he have those two fine cottages built for them?’

  Mr Lord closed his blue-veined eyelids for a second, then stared ahead through the windscreen and said, ‘Come to the point, I want to get home.’

  ‘All right – I want you to give a man I know a job – it may be the making of him. Have you stocked up? Have you got your men?’

  ‘No.’ Mr Lord turned his head slowly towards the priest. ‘And I’m not stocking up with any of your riff-raff. I’ve had experience of your recommendations before and whoever you’re wanting to palm off on me now would likely not be able to recognise one end of a cow from the other.’

  ‘Ah, but you’re wrong there – he’s a right fine man with cows.’

  Whether intentionally or otherwise Father Owen had adopted Mary Ann’s voice and her words, and he had to laugh at himself for so doing. But his hilarity had an irritating effect on Mr Lord. He moved his hand on the wheel saying, ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  ‘Look, just a minute.’ Father Owen stretched out his hand and laid it gently on Mr Lord’s arm. ‘If you were to give this man a chance it would likely mean the saving of a family.’

  ‘Why should that particular point be any concern of mine?’

  The two old men stared at each other. Then Father Owen brought back the dim past when this man and he had been firm friends before the bitterness of life had erected the barrier between Peter Lord and all men, by saying, ‘Peter, do this one thing for me.’

  The use of his Christian name seemed to have little or no effect upon Mr Lord’s feelings, for his countenance remained forbidding, but after a moment during which he seemed about to drive off despite the fact that Father Owen was half in and half out of the car, he asked, ‘Who is it, and why are you so bent on getting him on a farm?’

  Father Owen kept all eagerness from his voice as he said, ‘Because it’s his natural work – he’s like a fish out of water in the yards.’

  ‘But there’s plenty of farm work going, they’re crying out for farmhands.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not issuing cottages to go with them; and you know yourself there are no set hours for a good farmhand, and the farms are so few and far between here that a man would have to stay on the job and travel home at odd times, and this fellow can’t stick that. He’s tried it. He wants his family with him. He’s the kind of fellow who . . . ’ He did not finish this and add, ‘who falls to pieces without his wife,’ but said: ‘Well, he’d pay you a good dividend in labour if you could settle him and his family in a cottage.’

  ‘What’s his name?

  ‘Shaughnessy.’

  Mr Lord turned in his seat until he was square to the priest. ‘Shaughnessy?’ he asked heavily.

  ‘Yes, that’s him . . . a big red-headed chap.’

  ‘Ha, ha!’ It was supposed to be a laugh, but resulted in a dry splitting crack of a sound. ‘You want me to take Mike Shaughnessy on? Why, if he was the last man on God’s earth I wouldn’t give him breathing space. Do you know what he did in my yard last year, or tried to do?’

  The priest remained sadly silent.

  ‘He would have had the men out – like that.’ He snapped his fingers; and Father Owen said lamely, ‘I hear he’s a good worker.’

  ‘A good worker! He won’t do a bat of overtime except with his tongue; besides which he’s never sober. What do you take me for? Goodbye, Father.’

  The farewell salutation was weighed with sarcasm and Father Owen withdrew himself from the car, which almost immediately shot forward and away.

  As he turned towards the church again there was Mary Ann looking at him from the step, and he walked up to her, and they surveyed each other in silence.

  How much had she heard? Her eyes were so full of strangled hope. He said, ‘Mr Lord has a job and a cottage going for a farmhand. I thought I might get it for your da.’

  She did not reply but continued to gaze up at him.

  ‘He’s not feeling too well tonight – he’s in a bit of a bad mood – or perhaps I just didn’t put the case properly.’ He smiled gently down at her. ‘Now you, Mary Ann, would likely have put his case much better – I mean your da’s.’ His voice trailed off and he became uneasy under the fixed pain of her eyes. ‘Well, we must never give up hope. Keep on praying, Mary Ann; it’s amazing the miracles the Holy Family pe
rform. Just you ask them for advice. They never fail you. Now I must be off to my tea. Goodnight, my child.’

  He moved hastily into the church and her eyes followed him, but she did not speak, not even to answer his farewell, and after a moment she too moved away, walking slowly in the direction of home.

  The kitchen was empty when she arrived, but she knew that both her parents were in, for her da’s black cap was hanging on the back of the door and the table had not been cleared and her mother never went out without first clearing the table. She was removing her coat and hat when their voices came to her from the bedroom. They sounded normal, quiet voices and her hands became still and hope sprang afresh into her being and overwhelmed her for a moment, until, moving farther into the room, her father’s voice, like the backwash of a mighty wave, sucked it away again.

  ‘I’ll allow you so much . . . But don’t take my word for it, have it done legally; you’ll be safe then . . . When are you going?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘To your mother’s?’

  ‘No – a place in Hope Street.’

  ‘Are you taking the bits?’

  ‘No, it’s furnished.’

  ‘Well, you may as well sell them because I won’t be staying here. Can I . . . see the bairns sometime?’

  There was a pause before Lizzie answered, ‘Yes.’

  To Mary Ann the voices sounded even and untroubled; they sounded the same as when they were discussing something that had appeared in the Shields Gazette. They sounded like that but they weren’t like that; they were final voices, voices that had ceased to shout or yell or fight, or even plead; they were voices from which emotion had been drained; and they frightened Mary Ann more than any other voices could have done. She fled into the scullery and, covering her face with her hands and pressing herself into the corner of the wall between the sink and the cupboard, she began to pray.

  Chapter Nine: The Lord

  The steps were very wide, the widest she had even seen attached to any house, and the house was the biggest she had ever seen. When she had pulled herself below the barbed wire and into the wood she had been scared at the size of the trees, at the thickness of the undergrowth and of the dim, weird light, but when she had emerged from the wood and seen across the meadow the house looking gaunt and weary with a sort of stripped look in the early morning sunshine she had been more than scared. It had taken her quite a time to cross the meadow and get through the fence. She hadn’t seen a gate and she had walked through the pathless, tangled garden, and here she was, standing on the top step, her hand hovering towards the great knobbly doorbell, and she was, in truth, scared out of her wits.

  She knew she had had the dream in the night and that the Holy Family had told her to come and see the Lord himself, but they, as far as she could see, hadn’t come with her, and never in all her life had she known fear such as this. She tried to recall the courage she had felt in the night when she had talked with the Virgin. She had actually gone right up to Heaven and seen the Virgin busy with her task of making babies, and the Holy Mother had stopped her work and took her on her knee and had listened to all that she had to say, and then she had told her what she must do. And St Joseph himself had set her to the gate. And then she had woken up full of courage. The courage had kept her awake until daylight. It had helped her to dress and get past her mother, who was asleep on a shakedown near the fireplace, and out of the door without awakening anyone.

  She reached up a little farther and touched the bell, and of its own volition it seemed to come out of the wall for a surprising length, and the clatter it made would have raised the dead. She was still gasping with the shock of it when the door opened.

  To say whose face showed the more surprise would be difficult. Mary Ann had expected to be confronted by . . . the Lord; instead, before her stood a thin old man in a baggy old suit. His head was long and pointed and without hair, and his shoulders stooped as if he were carrying a weight upon them, but it was his face that surprised Mary Ann. If she had not been overcome with fright and worry she would have laughed at it. His mouth hung open and his nose twitched like a rabbit’s and sent the wrinkles across his cheeks with each twitch.

  But of the two, she was the first to find her voice, and even if at first the words wobbled round her mouth reluctant to come out she made the effort and stammered, ‘P . . . please, I came to see the Lord.’

  ‘What?’ The old man’s voice sounded cracked.

  ‘The Lord – I’ve come to see . . . the Lord. I want to t-talk to him, if you please.’

  ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘Through the hedge – the gate was fastened.’

  ‘Through the hedge?’ The baggy suit appeared to swell with indignation. ‘You got in through the hedge?’

  ‘Yes, under the barbed wire.’

  ‘Well, the quicker you get out the better it will be for you. Now away with you.’

  He pointed a shaking finger over her head, but she did not move, and he said, ‘Did you hear me?’

  Slowly Mary Ann’s mouth drew to a button which would have been a warning to anyone who knew her, and she answered with deceptive quietness, ‘I’m not going till I see the Lord.’

  ‘You’re not what?’ The bones seemed to rattle within the suit. ‘We’ll see about that.’ His hand made as if to descend on her, and she rasped at him, ‘You touch me and I’ll bite a piece out of you.’

  His hand remained threateningly over her, but it said much for her attitude that it didn’t descend on her, but his voice rose to a shrill yet muffled cry as he exclaimed, ‘Get out of this!’

  ‘Not until I’ve seen the Lord.’ As she spoke she placed herself in front of the stanchion, making it impossible for him to close the door.

  ‘In the name of all . . . !’ Her defence staggered him, and his pursed lips threw bubbles from his mouth. ‘You would . . . defy me? Well, we’ll see about that.’

  ‘I’ll scream, mind, if you touch me.’ This threat seemed to intimidate him for a moment and he cast a backward glance over his shoulder; then whispered fiercely, ‘You do if you dare.’

  He made a grab at her but with a wriggle of her body she slipped past him and into the hall.

  For a moment he stood looking at her as if she were something uncanny wafted into the morning from another world, and he asked, not without a trace of fear in his own voice, ‘What are you after?’

  ‘I want to see the Lord.’

  ‘Who told you to come here?’

  ‘The Holy Family.’

  ‘The what—?’

  ‘The Holy Family.’

  Now understanding and a trace of compassion touched his face. The child was mad. But mad or no, he must get her out of this before the master came down, so he said softly, ‘The Holy Family sent you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mary Ann nodded emphatically.

  ‘Ah, well, yes, now I quite believe that. And what did they send you for?’

  ‘To speak to the Lord.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About me da.’

  ‘And what about your da?’

  ‘I’m going to tell the Lord.’

  ‘Now come, come.’ He advanced slowly towards her. ‘You tell me and I’ll tell the mast . . . the Lord. How about that – eh?’ As the old man came on Mary Ann backed away from him until she was at the foot of the stairs. Here she stopped and said, ‘I won’t tell nobody, only the Lord.’

  ‘Now look here’ – the old man’s patience was swept away by the defiance that embodied this minute child – ‘I’m having no more of it,’ he declared. ‘Do you hear? You get out of here this minute.’

  ‘I’ll scream, mind . . . I will.’ Mary Ann’s warning cry had no effect this time and as his hand caught her none too gently by the shoulder she let out a high, shrill scream.

  By now almost on the verge of hysteria himself, he was attempting to muffle her cries when a voice thundered over them. What it said neither of them knew but its mighty tone flung them apart an
d Mary Ann and the old man gazed up the staircase to where stood a figure with a pose of the avenging angel. Step by step the master of the house descended upon them, until he stood on the last step but one.

  Had he, by one movement of his hand, now ordered them both to be shrivelled up in consuming flames it would not have been of the smallest surprise to Mary Ann. As he gazed down on her she actually stopped breathing, and when he thundered, ‘What’s this, may I ask?’ she released her breath and opened her mouth still wider in an attempt to speak, but the old manservant forestalled her.

  ‘I found her at the door, sir – she darted in.’

  ‘What is she doing here?’

  ‘She says she wants to see you.’

  ‘Me?’ Mr Lord brought his eyes from Mary Ann and laid them on his servant, as if to extract without further preamble the meaning of the outrage.

  ‘That’s all I could get out of her, sir. I don’t think she is’ – he made an effort to straighten his bent shoulders as he delivered his verdict – ‘compos mentis, sir. She says she was sent here by the Holy Family.’

  Mr Lord looked once more at Mary Ann, and Mary Ann made haste to press home the advantage she imagined the servant had unwittingly opened for her.

  ‘He’s right,’ she said, in a voice that was a mere reflection of her normal and anything but quiet tone, ‘They did, last night. Go to the Lord, they said, and tell him what a grand man your da is, and everything will come all right.’

  Mr Lord’s bushy eyebrows gathered and hung over his cheekbones like miniature palm trees.

  At this point, collecting the shreds of her shattered courage, she half turned her back on the servant, and stretching to her fullest height, whispered confidentially in much the same tone as she used when addressing God, ‘Lord, I want to talk to you.’