The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  George Fields was waiting for her, and he greeted her with, ‘He looks like a bairn with a new toy, miss, but he knows only too well it’s no new toy. He won’t let you down. Don’t worry. No, he won’t let you down. And I’ll show him some more ropes afore I leave. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.’

  They were walking through the factory again and she was nodding in answer to a farewell here and there. Out in the yard, after the old man had called for her horse, she thanked him warmly for suggesting Joe as his successor. Then, as always, she mounted her horse without help; her left foot in the stirrup, she threw her right leg over the animal ‘as good as any bloke’, as the workers nearly always remarked among themselves, and to raised caps she walked the horse across the yard on to the road, past Honeybee Place, on to Ponder’s Lane, deserted at this time of day. Beyond here she turned left and crossed three fields, letting the horse have its head; then at a gentle trot through woodland before skirting farm fields which bordered the outskirts of Low Fell and Birtley; then on to a long bridle path, past the iron gates of Grove House and the Filmore estate. Another half-mile’s ride and her horse knowingly turned and trotted between two stone pillars which supported a filigree iron arch in which the words Milton Place were woven.

  The drive to the house was comparatively short. It was not, as seemed to be usual, bordered by huge trees but, on both sides, by a neatly clipped beech hedge. On the large stretch of lawn that fronted the ivy-coloured house and standing like sentinels were two enormous blue sitka spruce. Between these, six broad stone steps led down into a terraced rose garden, now ablaze with colour.

  She rode into the stable yard, and before she could have dismounted on her own, Danny Croft was holding out one hand to her while taking the reins in his other hand and saying, ‘By, miss, you must be sweltered! And he’s stewed an’ all.’

  ‘Yes, he is somewhat, Danny. Give him a good rub-down, but a short drink first.’

  ‘I’ll do that, miss, I’ll do that this minute.’

  She did not go back out of the stable yard to enter the house by the front door, but she made for the kitchen door at the far end of the yard, loosening the buttons of her riding jacket as she went. At the door she pulled off her hat and was fanning herself with it as she entered the kitchen, saying, ‘Oh, Peg, you must be stewed in here.’

  ‘Just about, miss; but it doesn’t seem to take me fat down, does it?’ The cook laughed, then added, ‘And you look stewed an’ all, miss. A cup of tea, eh?’

  ‘No, no, Peg; something cool from the cellar.’

  ‘A beer?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, a beer; anything wet and cold.’

  The cook now turned to a young girl, saying, ‘Away with you, Mary, and bring up two bottles!’

  As she went up the kitchen she said, ‘I’ll have it upstairs, Peg. I’m going to change.’

  ‘Very well, miss, very well. It’ll be there in a minute.’

  Bridget left the kitchen and by way of a short corridor entered the hall. The sun was shining through two long windows flanking a heavy oak door and their light illuminated the whole long room and the staircase rising from the middle of it.

  She was about to go up the stairs when Jessie Croft, emerging from the dining room, said, ‘You’re back then, miss. You must be roasted alive. What a day!’

  ‘It is pretty hot, Jessie. I’ve sent Mary down for a beer.’ She did not say that cook had suggested the beer and sent Mary down to the cellar.

  Jessie, like her husband Danny in the yard, was very conscious of their position in the household, and neither of them was behind in making it felt with the rest of the small staff: they would point out to anybody who was interested that not only did they see to the smooth workings of this house, but also to the other one in Shields. And they would also point out that if they had any choice they knew which one they would prefer to live in; for you couldn’t smell the sea so far out in the country, now could you?

  ‘Is Miss Victoria in?’

  ‘Yes; she’s up in her room, miss.’ And Jessie bent her flesh-endowed body forward and said quietly, ‘And she’s had a visitor again.’

  Bridget’s answer was brief: ‘Oh,’ accompanied by a nod of her head, before she hurried up the stairs, across a narrow balcony and to a broad corridor. And she was about to enter her room when the door opposite opened and Victoria Mordaunt said, ‘Oh, you do look hot, Bridget. Why must you ride out on a day like this? Look; I’ll get you a drink.’

  ‘There’s one coming. I hear you’ve had a visitor.’

  Victoria followed Bridget into her cousin’s room, laughing as she remarked, ‘Old Mother Shipton’s been quick.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, there’s nobody as quick as Old Mother Shipton. Do I have to have two guesses as to who your visitor was?’

  ‘No, Bridget, dear, just one…Oh!’ Victoria now dropped onto Bridget’s bed with a plop and pulled up the wide skirt of her dress and petticoats to almost knee height, then spread the ends out across the bed before exclaiming, ‘I’m so happy, Bridget. I…I could take off, you know, like a bird…He’s wonderful. And you know what? We are invited to a ball.’

  ‘What ball?’

  ‘Just a ball at Grove House.’

  ‘You are going to the ball, not me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stuffy, darling, please. Here, let me pull your boots off.’

  Victoria now jumped up from the bed and went quickly to where Bridget was sitting and slid down onto her knees and began to pull at one of the riding boots. And as she did so Bridget laughed and said, ‘I’ve told you countless times that’s the wrong way. I can manage better myself.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to turn round and let you stick your foot in my bottom.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you won’t, get off your knees and I’ll do it myself.’

  They were both laughing now as Victoria tugged at the boot and then fell backwards as it finally loosed itself from Bridget’s leg.

  When there was a tap on the door and the housemaid Florrie McClean entered with a tray bearing two bottles of ale and two tall glasses, Bridget called to her, ‘Put them down there, Florrie, and come and pull this other boot off for me else Miss Victoria will have my leg off.’

  There was more laughter as the maid, with one good tug, released the other boot and Bridget cried as she nodded at Victoria, ‘There! That’s how it’s done. I told you.’

  ‘Will I pour out for you, miss?’

  ‘No, no, Florrie. I’ll see to it. Thank you.’

  The room to themselves again, it was Victoria who poured out the beer while Bridget divested herself of her breeches and silk shirt and long stockings, leaving herself still in her corsets, bloomers, and habit shirt while waiting to take the glass of cold beer from Victoria, which she then almost drained at one go, after which she closed her eyes and sighed deeply, saying, ‘Nectar!’

  ‘Where’ve you been all afternoon?’

  ‘You know where I’ve been, down to the works. I told you I was going.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not usually as long as this.’

  ‘Well, I was held up in the polish factory.’ She would never term it ‘blacking factory’, for she hated the sight of that blacking. ‘Old George is having to give up, and not before time. And…and Joe, you know, Joe Skinner, he’s going to take his place.’

  ‘Joe Skinner? But isn’t he young?’

  ‘Not so young. Same age as me, twenty-three, and, at present, I feel as old as the hills.’

  ‘Of course you do, dear, because you won’t dress properly. Why must you go round like you do? You could look marvellous in the new styles. You could, you could,’ and Victoria bobbed her head to emphasise this.

  ‘Don’t be silly. And don’t start that again.’

  ‘I will, and I’ll keep on, because you go round like a rag bag most of the time. You only look dressed when you’re on a horse. And you could look lovely. I know you could. If you’d only let me…’

  ‘Look,’ Bridget’s voice sounded weary, ‘this
is a subject I get tired of, you know I do. Have I to point out to you again I am not inclined to be in the fashion, any fashion, never have been, never will be. Now if you could give me a bit of your hips and your bust, and…and, oh yes, your beauty, there might be a chance that I would look presentable. But here I am, just as I heard Jessie once describe me, a line of pipe water, not a curve to be seen, neither back nor front.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, and you know it. Now look at Sarah Tweedle. She’s thinner than you, much.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t look it, dear. And we know, don’t we, why she doesn’t look it. But neither you nor any one else is going to get me to wear a bustle and false breasts. What if they slipped? What if they fell out of the bodice and a gentleman had to pick them up?’

  They were both sitting on the edge of the bed now, leaning together and rocking with their laughter at the picture her words described.

  When their laughter had subsided Victoria touched Bridget’s face gently with her fingers, saying quietly, ‘You could look lovely, you know: you have high cheekbones and beautiful eyes.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know, dear, and a big mouth, and hair like tow. And I am noted for my brilliant conversation when I am in company.’

  ‘Oh you!’ Victoria pushed her cousin into the pillows, saying, ‘Yes, you are right, you are really terrible in company. You would think you had never been in a drawing room in your life, the things you say, and mostly to men…Men don’t like to be contradicted, you know. As for the ladies, you come out with terrible things. Remember Kitty Porter?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember Kitty Porter.’

  ‘Well, you were terribly rude to her, you know.’

  ‘I wasn’t as rude to her as she was cruel to Mrs Forrester, all because not one of her five girls was married.’ She began to mimic: ‘They’re all in the maiden lady stage, but you’re going to be well comforted when you’re old, dear, aren’t you?’ Then reverting to her normal voice, she said bitterly, ‘She’s the type of woman that can smile while cutting your throat.’

  ‘Well, you cut her throat all right that night. She nearly had a fainting fit when you smiled back at her and asked why it was that only dogs were called bitches. Eeh!’ Victoria put her hand over her mouth, then exclaimed again, ‘Eeh! I thought we would have died, I from choking with suppressed laughter and she from mortification. But she’ll never forgive you.’

  ‘That worries me! But there you have the reason I don’t want to go to any more balls.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘And you stop saying don’t be silly; it’s a silly thing to say.’

  Again they were pushing at each other like two children, just as they had done since, in fact, they were children, since the day she was ten and her Uncle Sep had arrived on the doorstep with an eight-year-old beautiful, but motherless, little girl. She herself was an only child, and had lost her own mother when she was but six. It was from that time she had become her father’s companion, and she had thought she had wanted no other until she saw Victoria, and from that day they had ceased to be cousins and had become like sisters, passionately close.

  Bridget got up from the bed and went to the wardrobe, took down a long white lawn petticoat and a blue print dress, and from a chest of drawers took out a pair of white silk stockings. And as she began to dress she said, ‘Let’s be serious, Victoria: do you really care for him? I mean, is it not just a passing fancy? He’s very charming, he’s very handsome and naturally attractive, but what does he do for a living? From what I understand, he hunts and shoots, plays cards and also plays at being a farmer, although from what I’ve seen of it their farm is a very small one and could be run with a couple of men.’

  ‘He works on the estate, too, Bridget. I told you so. He goes to an office in Newcastle. I think they used to be in shipping. He mentioned his father has had a number of losses at sea recently, the latest on the London run from the Tyne, you know, with coal.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bridget was pulling her garter over her knee and she twisted it round so that the small silk rosebud should be in the centre as she said, ‘If, for instance, you were never to see him again, how would you feel about it? I mean, if he were to tell you he was going to marry someone else?’

  When Victoria did not answer she turned and looked at her where she was now sitting on a pink satin upholstered chair. Her eyes were closed and her chin was almost touching the bare flesh above the square neck of her dress and her voice came as a whisper as she said, ‘I’m not exaggerating but I think I would want to die if…if he became cool to me now.’

  ‘Have…have you ever felt like this before, dear? I mean, so intense?’

  ‘No, never. I thought I was in love, you know, with Captain Turner. You remember when he used to come to the house to see Uncle Harry, and remember I cried when I heard he was drowned?’

  Yes, and she, too, had cried when she heard he was drowned. And he hadn’t come to the house to see her father, he had come to the house to see her. And she might have married him in the end. Yes, she might have, because her father had liked him. Just a fortnight before her father died he had said to her, ‘Robert is a fine fellow. He could give you twelve years, but if it were left to me he’s the man I would choose to look after you if anything should happen to me. ’And it had happened quite suddenly. He had been out to a meeting; and after returning had had a late supper, gone up to bed, and then she had heard him cry out for her; but he was dead before the doctor arrived.

  She was just on nineteen when, overnight, she became a very rich woman: an inheritor of two factories, both of which had grown from cottage industries and had been making good profits over the last forty years; also the owner of properties in a number of the towns around; maybe only cottages in one, but streets in another. Then there was the interest from various industries carried on along both sides of the river. Yes indeed, she had become a rich young woman. But instead of doing what some ladies would have done after a period of mourning, travelled for a time with a suitable companion, then looked around for an equally suitable husband, what Bridget Mordaunt did was no surprise to her close associates; and it hadn’t surprised Andrew Kemp, her father’s solicitor, nor the accountant, William Bennett, nor the agent, Arthur Fathers, and least of all, not their two old servants Danny and Jessie Croft, for she stepped into her father’s shoes and carried on doing exactly what he had done. Under his tuition she had become conversant with every shade of his businesses, riding or walking side by side with him when he visited the factories or sitting with him in his Newcastle office.

  Victoria had rarely accompanied them on any journey because, as her father had laughingly put it, she was more bother than she was worth, for she was always afraid to get her dress soiled. No; Victoria stayed at home and busied herself, as she termed it, with housekeeping. And it showed itself, for it was undeniable that she had a taste for furnishings and how things should be arranged; and she loved dressing up. Whenever she changed her costume in the afternoon Bridget’s father would laughingly tease her by saying she was aping the gentry, or preparing herself to run somebody’s mansion.

  ‘It’s a lovely place.’

  ‘What’s a lovely place?’

  ‘Grove House, of course, Lionel’s home.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes. But to my mind it wants a lot doing to it. It’s been neglected and will cost a fortune to put it into good order.’

  ‘You can turn the hall and drawing room into one huge room. Lionel showed me. You wouldn’t believe it, that panelling folds back, just like a concertina.’

  ‘Does it now? When did this display happen?’

  ‘Well, I told you, when I visited last week, when he came and picked me up. And you being your stubborn and charming self stated flatly that you had no time to waste.’

  ‘I said that to you, not to him.’

  ‘I know…you wouldn’t say it to him. Yet’—she pulled a long face—‘you would, if the mood was on you, wouldn’t you, dear?’

  ‘Yes, dear, yes
’—Bridget’s head bobbed—‘I would say it if the mood was on me. Pour me out another glass of that beer; and then I don’t know what you’re going to do till supper time but I have work to do. I’m going down to the office.’

  ‘Oh, that office! I’d like to set fire to it at times. Why do you want to go there now, I haven’t seen you all day.’

  ‘I’ve got a special letter to write; Joe’s going to be married and he wants a house.’

  ‘My, my! Joe Skinner again, your pet protégé. What are you going to give him as a wedding present, the factory?’

  ‘Could do. Could do. I’ll have to think about it.’

  As Bridget made for the door Victoria ran to her and, catching her arm, said, ‘You will accept the invitation, I mean, to the ball? I can’t go on my own. You know I can’t.’

  Bridget looked into the soft gaze of this girl who was very dear to her, and she sighed now as she said, ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘And you’ll get a new gown?’

  ‘No, I won’t get any new gown.’ She pulled open the door, with Victoria still hanging on to her arm, tugging at her and saying, ‘You will get a new gown. If you won’t go into town I’ll order half a dozen or so to be sent up for you to choose from.’

  ‘You dare!’

  ‘I dare, because on the last…well—’ She shook her head and the small ringlets hanging down in front of her ears bobbed on her cheeks as she now cried, ‘I’m ashamed for you. Four occasions during the last year you’ve worn that same old grey thing. I’ll tear it up. I will. It makes you look like a…’

  Bridget was smiling now, and she, too, bobbed her head as she said, ‘Yes, I know, a line of pipe water.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good description, in that grey thing anyway.’ Bridget was now walking out of the corridor on to the balcony, saying, ‘It’s good material; it’s Italian brocade.’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s Chinese tapestry from the Ming, Bing or Bang period.’