‘Tony…Tony’s lea…ving. He’s going to marry Mrs Schofield.’
Lizzie straightened her back. Her mouth was open and her gaze directed to where Mike was coming in from the scullery, but she could only stare at him, she could not speak.
Eight
The Typing School term had ended and Mary Ann had received a diploma for her speed at typing and a certificate for her shorthand. Moreover, she had written her first short story, but she knew that no magazine would print it, because it was much too sad, and too long. Also she realised, from what she had read about short-story writing, that it lacked two main essentials: a plot and a twist. Her story was just about people and the sad things they did. She could not write about the reverse side of life, for at the moment she could not see it.
There had been no word at all from Corny since Mr Lord had come back. Mrs McBride would undoubtedly have heard from him. But in spite of her promise to go and visit his granny, Mary Ann had not been near Burton Street for some weeks. Mrs McBride, she knew, would have been kind. She would likely have laughed the whole thing off, and the louder she laughed the more awful, Mary Ann knew, it would have been. She couldn’t risk it. Nor had Lizzie been near her old friend, but she had sent a parcel now and again and had received a card in Fanny’s almost illegible handwriting to say thank you. Neither of the women mentioned Corny…or Mary Ann.
So many things were adding to the sadness of life for Mary Ann at the present moment. Her mother, for instance. Her mother had taken the news of Tony much better than she had expected. At least, that was, at the time, that early morning in the kitchen. But as the days went on there seemed to settle on her the lassitude of defeat, and this quietness spoke of her disappointment louder than any words. Mary Ann thought that if it hadn’t been for Sarah’s presence in the house, which strangely enough had a brightening effect on them all, the place would have been more dismal than a cemetery.
If Mary Ann could have measured her own feelings, she would have found that her sadness, which was balanced between Corny and Mr Lord, tipped not a little towards Mr Lord. Although the shindy on that particular early morning had not caused him to have a heart attack, it seemed to have brought him up to date with his age, for suddenly he was a very old man. The vitality that had suggested youthful vigour was gone. So much so, that he had been into town only twice during the last month. As Mike had said macabrely, ‘The house was like an open grave, with him lying in it just waiting to be covered up.’
Mary Ann left the warmth of the kitchen and the Christmas smell. She left Sarah sitting in her wheelchair close up to the table, happily helping Lizzie with the Christmas cooking. Getting her hand in, as she laughingly said, for when she would have to do it herself. Sarah had become very close to Lizzie during these past few weeks and this had aroused just a tiny bit of jealousy in Mary Ann, although she saw that the urge to be close came from Sarah. Lizzie made no effusive return of affection, but Mary Ann knew that her mother was pleased with Sarah’s gratitude; moreover, she liked Sarah. With the wisdom that was an integral part of her, Mary Ann realised, despite her own feelings, that this state of affairs was really all to the good, because Sarah was going to need her mother in the future, more than she herself would.
She pulled the coat collar around her ears as she went up the hill towards the house. It would snow before the morning, she could feel it. Like most northerners, she could smell snow coming.
Her breath was rising before her face in clouds when she entered Ben’s kitchen. Ben was setting the tea tray with old-fashioned silver that was polished to reflection standard. Mary Ann smiled at him as she took off her coat, saying, ‘There’ll be snow before morning.’
‘We don’t want that.’
Mary Ann looked towards the Aga cooker and said, ‘Is the tea made? I’ll take it in.’
‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Ben hadn’t even looked at her. He was going about his duties as if she wasn’t there. But that didn’t affect her, for she knew he was always glad when she came up. One day lately she hadn’t paid her usual visit and he had trudged all the way down the hill to find out why. He hadn’t seemed satisfied that having a tooth out was sufficient reason for her not coming up to see his master. Ben, too, seemed to have aged in the past few weeks. He had always appeared to Mary Ann as a very old man, half as old again as Mr Lord, but now the word ancient was more appropriate to him. She said impetuously, ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll carry it in.’
‘When I’m not able to carry the tea tray in, then you can do so with pleasure. And I won’t mind, for I won’t be here.’
She gave in and said, ‘How is he?’
‘Just the same. Very cold. I doubt if that coal will see us over the holidays. We should have had another ton in.’
‘Oh, there’s plenty of wood down in the shed. I’ll get Len to bring some up.’
She tapped on the drawing-room door and without waiting for an answer went into the room. In contrast to the outside atmosphere the room was stifling. There, before the fire, almost lost in the huge armchair, sat Mr Lord. He turned his face towards her as she came across the room, but did not speak. She sat down in the chair at the other side of the fireplace. She did not say ‘How are you?’ or ‘We’ll have snow by the morning,’ but she sighed and leant back in the depth of the chair. Then after a few moments she said, ‘I’ve just finished a short story.’
He nodded his head at her. ‘What about?’ His voice was just a mumble.
‘Oh, I don’t know…’
For a moment he seemed to come out of his cocoon, and a tiny spark of the old irritability was visible as he said, ‘Don’t say such silly things. You say you have written a story, so you are bound to know what it is about.’
She said, ‘Well, I meant to say that it wasn’t the right way to write a short story, there are too many people in it doing too many things.’
He said now with a show of interest that caused her to move in the chair, ‘You must bring it and read it to me.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why?…Is it about me?’
‘No. Oh, no.’ Her denial was too emphatic, and he lifted his hand wearily as if to check any further protest. Now leaning his head back against the wing of the chair and closing his eyes he said, ‘What would you like for Christmas?’
What would she like! She knew what she would like. He had taken from her the person she had liked best in the world, apart from her da, and he could give him back to her. For it was in his power to bring Corny tearing across the Atlantic. But she wouldn’t want Corny that way, she wouldn’t want Corny as a gift from Mr Lord. She didn’t want anyone who hadn’t a mind of his own. She was going to answer him, ‘I don’t know,’ when Ben entered the room following a tap of the door. But he was not carrying a tea tray. He came right up to the side of his master’s chair and, bending his already stooped back further down, he said gently, ‘There’s someone to see you, sir.’
‘Who is it?’ Mr Lord had not opened his eyes.
‘It’s a lady, sir.’
‘A lady! Which lady? What’s her name?’
‘She did not give me her name, sir.’ This had been quite correct, there was no need for the visitor to give Ben her name. If he hadn’t already known it, he would have surely guessed it.
Mr Lord now opened his eyes, and his wrinkled lips flickered as he said, ‘I don’t have to tell you that I’m not seeing anyone, lady or gentleman. Why have you…?’
There was a movement in the room, and as Mary Ann brought her head from the cover of the wing, she almost gasped to see Mrs Schofield standing well inside the drawing room. With a wriggle and a lift, she was on her feet, apprehension showing in every part of her.
Mr Lord had his eyes on Mary Ann, and now he slowly moved his body in the chair, bringing it round so that he was looking squarely at Ben. Then his eyes, flicking to the side, came to rest on Mrs Schofield, where they stayed a moment before returning to Ben. His voice was louder than Mary Ann had heard it fo
r a long time when he said, ‘I have no desire to see this lady, Ben. Kindly show her out.’
‘I know you don’t want to see me, Mr Lord, but I must see you.’ Mrs Schofield’s voice was low but her words came slow and distinct.
‘You heard what I said, Ben.’
Ben turned away, but he did not go to the door and hold it open for Mrs Schofield. He passed her and went out and closed the door after him, and the action brought a flow of blood to Mr Lord’s deathly complexion.
Mary Ann now brought a chair towards Mrs Schofield, and Mrs Schofield looked at her, and thanked her, as if she had brought her some precious gift.
‘I do not wish you to sit down, madam.’ Mr Lord was not looking at Mrs Schofield but directly ahead, and now Mary Ann, coming to the side of the chair, surprised even herself, with not only her tone, but her words as she said, ‘Don’t be so silly.’
Mr Lord’s Adam’s apple moved up into the hollow under his chin, stayed there for a second, then slid down to the deeper hollow at the base of his neck.
Mary Ann said, ‘I’m going now…Listen to her…listen to Mrs Schofield. There can be no harm in listening.’
‘Sit down.’
‘But I’m—’
‘I said sit down.’
Mary Ann, turning from the chair, sent an apologetic glance towards Mrs Schofield, then sat down.
After a moment of an uneasy silence she looked towards the older woman, and her first thought was, ‘By, she’s beautiful!’ and then, ‘She’s not old.’
Mrs Schofield was staring at the averted profile of the old man, and her lip was trembling just the slightest as she began to speak.
‘I haven’t come to plead my cause. I am not going to marry your grandson, Mr Lord.’
Mary Ann’s eyebrows sprang upwards, drawing the contours of her face with them. She transferred her wide gaze to Mr Lord, but his expression had not altered in the slightest.
‘I—I intended to marry him when my divorce was made absolute, but since he left you I have realised that should I marry him I would have to combat you for the remainder of my life.’
Now there was a movement in the old man’s face. For a moment Mary Ann felt he was going to turn his glance on Mrs Schofield and it would have been one of inquiry. But when his nostrils stopped twitching he remained immobile.
‘My married history will, I am sure, be of no concern to you, but I have been combating forces, seen and unseen, for the past seventeen years. And I am tired, Mr Lord, very tired. I am tired of putting on a front. I have acquired a deep feeling for Tony, but it isn’t strong enough to enable me to take up my life with him, knowing that you will be always there in the background of his mind, and whether he would believe it or not, he would be blaming me for having separated him from you. I have started by telling you this, but it isn’t the only reason for my visit. Nor is it, I think, the real reason, for I didn’t come with any hope that you would relent and give us your blessing. I came…I came because Tony has had an offer from Brent and Hapwood. Since they heard about his break with you they have been after him. They have even offered him a place on the board, so badly do they want him.’
Even before Mrs Schofield had finished speaking, Mr Lord’s body had turned towards her. Slowly, as if on an oiled pivot, he brought himself round to face her. And then he spoke. ‘Hapwood,’ he said under his breath. ‘Hapwood? Why do you think they want him? Do you know why they want him?…They want him because they imagine I will relent and leave him everything. There is nobody else to leave the yard to, is there? And so I will relent…Old Lord wouldn’t leave his money to a Dogs’ Home or Spastic Children. No of course he wouldn’t. He’s only got one kin and he’s too fond of him not to relent. That’s the idea, isn’t it? And when I’m gone—which won’t be long they hope—they will be able to amalgamate Lord’s yard with their fiddling, little-finger-in-every-pie industry. Well, you can tell him and them that I have no intention whatever of relenting. So if they are going to employ him it better be for his work alone.’
There was a pause before Mrs Schofield said, ‘It may be difficult for you to believe, Mr Lord, but I am convinced that Tony does not want your money. But he must live, he must work. He doesn’t want to go to Brents, he—he wants to come back to you.’
Her voice had sunk to a whisper and Mr Lord continued to stare at her for a long moment before saying, ‘Then why, madam, may I ask, had he to send you as his advocate?’
‘He didn’t send me. He doesn’t know I’m here. Nor would he admit to me that he wanted to come back. But I happen to know him.’
‘Your acquaintance has ripened in a very short time.’
‘I think you can live with some people for twenty years and know nothing at all about them. Well, there it is, Mr Lord, if I drop out of his life will you have him back? Make—make the first gesture.’
‘Make the first gesture!’ Mr Lord’s eyes looked like small pale-blue beads. ‘No, madam, I will make no gestures whatever. I didn’t bring about this state of affairs, it was he who did that. Whatever gestures are to take place they must come from him. If he is sorry for deceiving me, and is man enough to say so, then I hope I will be man enough to listen.’
On this pompous statement Mary Ann closed her eyes. Tony was too much of his grandfather ever to admit openly that he was in the wrong. She could not envisage him coming to this house and saying, ‘I am sorry, please forgive me.’ But it was not so much Tony she was concerned about at the moment, it was Mrs Schofield. She wanted to cry for Mrs Schofield. With the impetuousness of her emotional make-up she wanted to fly the few steps to her and comfort her, to put her arms around her, and bring her head down to rest on her shoulder. She felt that if anyone needed comfort at this moment it was Mrs Schofield. She was sitting there, looking so humble, sad, sweet and painfully humble. If she went to her she knew she would say, ‘Oh, don’t look like that, he won’t thank you for it. He knows nothing of humility, you’ve got to stand up to him.’
In the next moment Mr Lord brought her attention away from Mrs Schofield, and, listening to him, it seemed that he had regained a spark of his old self, for picking up a point that Mrs Schofield had made earlier he said, ‘You decided before you came here that you weren’t going to marry my grandson?’
‘Yes. Yes, I came to that decision.’
‘Because you thought his conscience would be an irritant to you?’
‘If you like to put it like that.’ Her voice was so low her words were scarcely audible.
‘Taking the supposition that he might some day return, what then?’
‘I’ll give you my word, I won’t marry him.’
Mary Ann was sitting right on the edge of the chair. With intent concentration she was watching Mr Lord. She could almost see his mind at work. Tony back in the fold, Mrs Schofield’s promise to which she would hold, making the way clear—Tony would be in the market for herself again. ‘No. No.’ The protest was so loud in her head that it burst from her mouth, startling both Mr Lord and Mrs Schofield. But it was to the old man that she addressed herself, and without any finesse. ‘I’ll never marry Tony. Don’t think that if he were to come back things would go as you want, because if there had never been Corny I wouldn’t have married Tony, because I don’t like him enough to marry him. Nor he me. He never wanted to marry me, so don’t get that into your head.’
‘Mary Ann.’
Definitely it was the tone of the old Mr Lord, the Mr Lord who would brook little or no interference. But for the moment she was past caring. She was standing up now and their heads were on a level. She had regained her breath and her next words caused him to close his eyes, for she was speaking in the idiom that was natural to her, and claimed no connection with her convent education. ‘Now look here, an’ I’m tellin’ you, if Tony comes back an’ he doesn’t marry Mrs Schofield, then I’ll leave home. I can, you know…if I made up me mind. If there’s a good enough reason me ma or da wouldn’t stop me, I know that. Not if I went to live with Mrs McBri
de, an’ that’s where I would go, an’…’
‘Be quiet!’ Mr Lord still had his eyes closed, and he repeated in what was nearly a growl. ‘Be quiet!’
Mary Ann became quiet. The room became quiet. There was no sound, not even of hissing from the fire, until a knock came on the door and, following it, Ben entered, pushing a trolley noiselessly over the thick carpet. As Mary Ann turned towards him she knew that he had been standing outside the door listening, and must have felt that this was the strategic point at which to make his entry.
Mr Lord looked towards Ben and the moving trolley, but he made no comment. Slowly he turned his body away from both Mary Ann and Mrs Schofield, and sinking back into the big chair he directed his gaze towards the fire.
Ben now moved the trolley close to the side of Mrs Schofield’s chair, and his action, and words, startled not only her, but Mary Ann, so much so that she waited for Mr Lord’s thunderous countenance to be turned on his servant and to hear his voice blasting him out of the room. For Ben said, ‘Would you care to pour out, madam?’
Ben’s voice was not low, nor was it loud. It was just clear enough to make sure that his master heard it, and in hearing, would know his servant’s opinion on this delicate matter.
And Ben’s opinion, Mary Ann knew, was conveyed to Mr Lord as clearly as if he had shouted ‘I’m for her.’ And not only that, Mary Ann saw that Ben’s deferential attitude, as he arranged cups to Mrs Schofield’s hand, also said clearly that she was a woman he wouldn’t mind having about the house. Mrs Schofield might not be able to read this from the old man’s attentiveness but she could, and, what was more, Mr Lord could.
When the door had closed on Ben, Mrs Schofield looked appealingly at Mary Ann, then flicked her eyes towards the figure in the big wing chair. All Mary Ann did was to nod. It was an encouraging nod which said, Get on with it.
Life and Mary Ann Page 17
