The Man Who Cried

by Catherine Cookson

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  life and he didn’t want her as a wife she said. What did he want her for then, eh? Dirty old sod.”

  Mr Donnelly now paused for breath; then quickly turning, he again spat into the fire, after which he stood looking down towards it and, his voice quiet, even sad, he said, ”Well, she’s got what she wanted, she’s got a start, big house an’ a business that’s goin’ places. I should be glad. Aye, I should be glad for her.” He turned now and looked at Abel, adding, ”I thought the world of her you know, always have done. From she came I took very little notice of Florrie, put her aside sort of, hurt Florrie. Aye, I did. Yet Florrie’s worth twenty of her. Still, you can’t direct your feelin’s, can you?” He raised his eyes and stared up at Abel, and Abel, remembering Alice, moved his head slowly from side to side and answered, ”No, you’re right there, you can’t direct your feelings.”

  Mr Donnelly now walked to the table, saying on a different note now, ”I can’t offer you anything, haven’t a drop in the house, only tea.”

  ”That’s all right; I’ve got to get back, at least after I’ve been to to your other daughter.”

  ”Oh” - there was surprise in his voice - ”she’s sending to Florrie is she, not leavin’ it to me?”

  ”Yes, she asked me to call and tell her. She . . . she needs company tonight I think, a woman’s company.”

  ”Oh aye, aye, this is the time for company. You can’t be alone with the dead no matter what you thought of them. Well, it’s nice of you to come, mister. What did you say your name was ?”

  ”Abel Gray.”

  ”Oh aye, Abel Gray. Well, I suppose we’ll meet again. Not that I’ll ever be a regular visitor, she’ll have to ask me first, but to show me respects I’ll turn up at the funeral. Then again” - he turned his head to one side - ”I’ll feel a bloody hypocrite after all I’ve said about ’im. Still, if I don’t go she’ll bear that against me an’ all. Well, I’ll be seein’ you.”

  ’Yes, yes. Good-night then, Mr Donnelly.”

  ”Me name’s Fred.”

  ”Good-night, Fred.”

  ”Good-night to you an’ all.”

  The door closed behind him. He walked for some distance down the street, then paused and once again he looked up into the sky. Amazing . . . amazing, people’s lives, the things that went on.

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  He thought his own was strange enough yet there app$red to be something strange in every life he touched on.

  46 Brampton Hill he found was as different again from 109 Temple Street as it was from 3

  Newton Road. It looked the kind of house that had once been an industrialist’s mansion. Now there were ten nameplates inserted in a mahogany frame on the lefthand side wall of the tiled lobby. They were set out in sections of three three’s with a single name at the bottom. The nameplates were grouped in floors, ground floor at bottom he presumed. Starting from the top he looked for the name Donnelly, but he didn’t come to it until he reached the bottom where it said

  ”Miss F. Donnelly, Garden Flat.”

  He looked about him. Where would he find the garden flat? Outside he supposed. As he turned towards the main door again the hall door opened and a man came through.

  ”Excuse me” - Abel turned to him - ”could you tell me how to get to the garden flat ?’

  ”Oh yes, yes. But you needn’t go outside, it’s rather misleading. You go into the main hall, turn right along the corridor; it’s the door at the end.”

  ”Thank you.”

  ”You’re welcome.”

  He went into the hall now and stood gazing about him for a moment. It looked vast; big enough, he thought, to make three flats. The floor of the hall and the circular staircase leading upwards were bare of carpet, but as he remarked to himself who would want to cover wood like that. He turned to the right and went along a corridor. There was a blank wall on one side and a row of curtainless, deep-bayed windows on the other and there at the end was the door to the so-called garden flat.

  He hesitated a moment before ringing the bell. Of one thing he felt sure, anyone who could choose to live in a place like this wouldn’t be likely to show much connection with Mr Fred Donnelly.

  When there was no answer to his ring he pressed the bell again, holding his finger on it for some seconds now, and as he did so he hoped there would be no response to it, for somehow he didn’t want to meet this sister. The whole situation was too complex, he didn’t want any more surprises tonight.

  ”Yes, what is it?” .

  He was now weighed down with surprise. The door was open and he was being confronted by a woman who appeared almost as tall as himself. She was wearing a white woolly dressing-gown, and her hands were extended above her head as she continued to pin her hair up.

  Again she said, ”Well?”

  ”I’m . . . I’ve come from your sister Mrs Maxwell. I’m the hand there, Abel Gray. She . . . she sent me with a message.”

  In the silent seconds that followed she had arranged her hair in a rough position on top of her head, then said, ”Oh!” then again, ”Oh!” but she now added, ”Well, come in.”

  As she closed the door on him she laughed, saying, ”I didn’t expect anyone at this time, I’ve been drying my hair. They don’t like doing it at the hairdresser’s, it takes too long, to dry I mean. It’s my only concession to the idea of the old-fashioned girl. Come in. Sit down.” She had gone before him through a hallway that was as big as his sitting-room above the stables and his moving glance took in the pieces of furniture standing against the wall. No modern stuff here, antiques if he knew anything about them, pieces like Lady Parker used to have in her drawingroom.

  And now they were in the sitting-room ; or was it a drawingroom? Whatever one had a mind to call it, it was an amazing room; even in the subdued light the colours flowed over you. French grey walls dotted with broad gold-framed pictures; a deep cherry-coloured carpet and on it and flanking a white marble fireplace, two deep couches upholstered in warm brown velvet.

  When she motioned him to sit on one of the couches he sank into the down cushions, and even when she was seated opposite to him waiting for him to speak his mind was so taken up with the room that she had to prompt him again. ”You said you had a message from Hilda?”

  ”Yes.” He smiled at her now and nodded, adding, ”I’m . . . I’m sorry if I seem to be wool-gathering but. . . but it’s an unusual room, very beautiful.”

  ”Thank you. But it’s easy to make a room beautiful when the proportions are right; with the skirting boards and ceilings this high” - she waved her hand upwards - ”you can’t go wrong.”

  ”Oh, I wouldn’t agree with you there.”

  ”No? Well, perhaps not.” She returned his smile, then sat waiting, and his face becoming straight and a conventional tone

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  in his voice, he said, ”It’s rather sad news that I brin& Mr Maxwell died this evening.” f*

  ”What I”

  With a quick jerk of her body she had pulled herself to the edge of the couch, and there she seemed to hover for a moment before saying, ”No!”

  ”I’m afraid so.”

  ”How did it happen?”

  In a few words he told her how it had happened and when he was finished she sat back once more and, her head dropping back now on to the cushion, she made a sound between a laugh and a huh. Then bringing her head forward again, she stared at him as she said slowly, ”And she wants me round there ?” Her tone had altered, it was now on the defensive. ”You mean off her own bat she’s asking me to go round there ?”

  He returned her stare. The voice she was using now was different from the one with which she had greeted him and had carried on the introductory conversation. That voice had been the voice of an educated person, the tone of this voice could be linked with 109 Temple Street, Bog’s End; he wouldn’t have imagined that she had ever lived there, or that she had been bred by that particular old man.

  He continued to stare at her, taking in
her face. She was a beautiful woman. Well no, not beautiful, her nose was too big for beauty, her mouth too wide. Her eyes, too, although dark brown and deep-lashed should also have been wide in order to qualify for beauty; instead they were round. And yet they looked widely spaced; but that was the effect of her eyebrows which curved well beyond the bone formation of the eye sockets. Her skin was pale and in this light appeared colourless ; but her hair, her hair was another thing, that was beautiful. It wasn’t blonde or flaxen or light brown. What colour was it ? A bit of all three, and she had plenty of it. He just couldn’t place her as that old man’s daughter or as Hilda Maxwell’s sister. Oh no, not as Hilda’s sister. Not only was there no resemblance in the faces, their figures denied any family connection whatever. Hilda was short and plump, seeming still clothed in her puppy fat although she was well past twenty. Homely had been his first impression of her; it still was. But this woman, she didn’t appear to have any shape to her body : her chest was as flat as a boy’s underneath that garment, and her

  >

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  ankles and slippered feet looked bony, yet her thinness suggested elegance. She looked a woman.

  She was a woman; he doubted if she would see thirty again.

  ”I suppose you know all about me?”

  ”What!”

  ”I said I suppose you know all about me?” Her words were spaced.

  ”No, I can assure you I know nothing about you. I didn’t know of your existence until tonight, just over an hour ago to be exact; nor of your father’s either.”

  ”My father? Oh.” She put her hand across her mouth in order to still her laughter and she almost spluttered as she said, ”You . . . you haven’t . . . you haven’t, have you ?”

  ”Yes.” He was smiling broadly at her.

  ”You mean you’ve been along to see my father ?”

  ”Yes ; I’ve just come from there.”

  ”Oh! Oh, my goodness! . . . Did he throw anything at you?”

  ”Only words.”

  ”I bet.”

  She got to her feet now, looked down at him for a moment, bit on her lip, then crossing her arms, she pressed both hands under her oxters and walked twice up and down the rug that lay between the couches before she stopped and looked at him again, saying slowly now, ”She must be feeling low to send for us, particularly me dad. ... I say particularly him, but I am as bad. Oh no, worse; in her eyes I’m a bad woman.” She bent down towards him now nodding her head at him.

  ”Do you know that? I’m a bad woman.”

  ”No, I didn’t.” A corner of his lips was pulled up in a onesided smile.

  ”Well, it’s a wonder she didn’t warn you before sending you out on this errand. But don’t worry, now she’s brought me into the open you’ll hear the whole tale. Oh dear me !” She straightened up, bit tight on her lip, put her head back and looked towards the high ceiling as she ended on a note that sounded like compassion in her voice, ”Poor Hilda!” Then swinging round from him with the agility that put him in mind of the nicking end of a whip, she was across the room and at the far door, having said as she went, ”I’ll be ready in two or three minutes.”

  He was looking towards what was apparently the open bed-

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  i room door when she appeared again, saying, ”Inpnat cabinet

  |! behind you you’ll find some drink, help yourself.”

  .:’ j He was on the point of saying ”I’m on the waggon, I’ve had to ji I be,” instead, remaining quiet he pulled himself upwards from the I ! couch and went towards the cabinet. Here, opening the doors, he |! I displayed a double row of bottles and a whisky decanter three-

  | quarters full. His hand on the decanter he looked over his shoulder, i saying, ”I’ll . . . I’ll have a whisky; shall I pour you something ?”

  ”Same as you.” The voice was muffled and he gathered she was getting into some garment or other.

  He had poured the whiskies and brought them to a small table at the head of the couch on which he had been sitting when she i?w came into the room again. She was wearing what appeared to be

  a shapeless blue woollen dress. It hardly reached her calves and i was clinging to her body like a skin. She had a pair of high-heeled

  I shoes in one hand and a dark blue coat over her arm. Sitting down, U she threw off her slippers, then pulled on the shoes, and when she I stood up to take the drink from his hand their eyes were on a*Mfc I ’ level.

  I The first swallow of whisky hit the back of his throat and as he

  | bent forward and coughed she said, ”You definitely want more I water with it.”

  I | Still coughing and patting his mouth with his handkerchief, he I I said, ”I’m not used to it, I’ve been on the waggon.”

  I ! ”Oh, I can quite believe that. 3 Newton Road’s a T.T. citadel.

  I i It had to be with Mr Maxwell, and, of course, Hilda wouldn’t I ! have had it otherwise. Oh no ; not our Hilda. ... I sound spiteful, I1 don’t I?”

  ; ”You must have your reasons.”

  ”Oh, I’ve got my reasons all right. But on the other hand so has she, and we both think they’re good ones. Anyway, let’s get going.”

  As she went to get into her coat he quickly put down his glass and assisted her and she looked over her shoulder and stared into his eyes for a moment before saying, ”You don’t look the kind of fellow somehow to stand a set-up like that.”

  He stepped back from her, on the defensive for the moment as he replied, ”I was more than glad to accept what they had to offer six months ago, I was out of work, had a young boy to see to.”

  ”Yes, so I heard. Well, the saying is, beggars can’t be choosers 94

  . . . and I know something about that an* all.” She did not elaborate on this but went from him now and switched off the table lamp, saying as she made her way towards the french window,

  ”We’ll go out this way, it cuts off about a quarter of a mile and that’s something to consider when you’re walking in high heels. . . .”

  ”I’ve . . . I’ve got the car outside.”

  ”Oh. Oh.” She made a deep obeisance with her head/”The car. Well! well! that’s different. But we can still go out this way.” She switched on an outside light, then pulled back a pair of velvet curtains, unlocked a french window, and when they were outside again, she relocked it before saying, ”Round this way. I’ll leave the light on until I get back.”

  She was seated in the car and he was about to close her door when she said softly, ”God! but I’m as nervous as a kitten.”

  It was such a change of front that it was a moment before he leaned down towards her and said,

  ”Nervous? Why?”

  ”Of ... of meeting our Hilda.” There was that ordinary tone of voice again, the voice that was wavering between Bog’s End and Brampton Hill.

  ”Why should you be nervous of meeting her? I should have imagined the boot would be on the other foot.”

  ”Oh no.” She gave a tight laugh. ”Our Hilda’s the kind of person who can enlarge your sins without saying a word, she’s just got to look at you. Even as a child she was the same. Good people are like that and she’s good at bottom ; you haven’t got to believe all that Dad says about her. He’d give you the impression that she just took Maxwell because of his business and his house. But I don’t believe that, well, not all of it. Naturally there was an attraction in that quarter, and I don’t blame her for that. Oh no, it’s no use the kettle calling the frying-pan black. No, I think she’s one of these people who really tries to be good, but. . . well” she gave another small laugh - ”they sort of make you uncomfortable doing it. You know what I mean?”

  He answered her laugh with a quiet chuckle as he said, ”Yes, yes, indeed, I know what you mean.

  But I can only repeat I can’t see you’ve got anything to worry about.”

  ”Aw, lad” - she was laughing aloud now - ”you know nothing, nothing at all about our set-up.”

  He started the car. In some
strange way there was rising in him a kind of happiness, it was just a tinge, a tiny, tiny candle flame in

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  the univetse of sorrow that had been weighing”him down for months. Buried under the gratitude he owed the Maxwells and under the new security and happiness that Dick had found had remained the ache left by Alice. Now, for the first time a corner of the pall was being lifted. He didn’t ask himself how or why.

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  There was a large turn-out at Peter Maxwell’s funeral. As the vicar remarked to Hilda, it was very gratifying, not only from her point of view but from dear Mr Maxwell’s, for it showed how highly respected he had been among the parishioners, a good man, in all ways a good man.

  Later that evening, when the last well-fed mourners had left and there remained in the sittingroom only her father and sister and Abel, Hilda repeated the vicar’s words from where she was sitting on the edge of an armchair. She looked from the small man seated in the chair opposite, to the tall, lithe figure on the couch, but her accusing glance did not take in Abel as she said, ”He was a good man. Say what you like, he was a good man.”

  ”I’m sayin’ nowt against him, lass. He’s gone an’ he’s where the good God pleases at this minute. Let the dead bury the dead so to speak, that’s my opinion.”

  ”You never had a good word for him when he was alive, either of you.” She was still looking at her father.

  ”What’s past is past.”

  ”It isn’t in my mind.”

  ”Aw well -” Fred now wriggled himself up out of the chair, saying in a voice that was much more natural to him, ”If you’re gonna start on that track I’ll make meself scarce ’cos I don’t want to bandy words with you the night of all nights. If you want me you know where I am, I’ll come if you call, but I’m not stickin’ me neb in now, no more than I did afore.”