The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Go on; you’re an imp.’ Bridget pushed her daughter away from her, then watched her run from the schoolroom, crying, ‘I’m going to see Daddy.’

  Bridget didn’t leave the room but walked across to the window and waited. And after a moment or so she saw the small figure emerging from the gardens and running down the field to the workshops, where the little farmhouse was now occupied by Sam and his wife and grandson, Harry, who was fourteen years old and had lived with his grandparents since being orphaned five years ago…

  Amy burst into the workshop, gasping from her running. And when Sam looked up from his knees, where he had been chipping at the base of what looked like an obelisk, he said, ‘Out of puff again, Miss Amy? You’ll go up in smoke one of these days with your runnin’.’

  ‘It’s only balloons that go up in smoke, Sam.’

  ‘Oh, is it? Oh, we learn somethin’ every day.’

  ‘…Daddy.’ She now tripped to the end of the barn and to where Douglas was bending over a long wooden table on which there were various sheets of paper; and he turned his head and said, ‘Hello, trouble.’

  ‘Daddy.’

  ‘Yes, dear?’ His attention was on the paper again and the pencil in his hand began to trace a line, but stopped when she said in a small voice, ‘I want to talk to you.’

  He straightened his back, sighed and said, ‘Well, this isn’t the place, dear, is it?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know of a better one, Daddy, because when you’re in the house you’re always with Mammy, and what I want to ask you I can’t ask you in front of her, because she always…well, fobs me off.’

  ‘Well, if the questions are annoying, I’m likely to do the same.’

  She came close to his side now and put her hand through his arm, saying, ‘They’re not annoying, Daddy. Can’t we take a walk outside?’

  ‘No, we can’t, dear. Look, I am very, very busy. This is an important order and it has to be completed in a certain time.’

  When his daughter withdrew her hand from his arm and turned away, he quickly caught her shoulder and said, ‘Come around here,’ and drew her round to the other side of the table and, sitting down on a long wooden form, he said, ‘Well, fire away. What is it you want to ask me?’

  ‘You won’t be mad at me?’

  ‘That all depends.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care if you are mad at me as long as you answer my question.’

  ‘And that all depends, too, I mean whether I answer your question. But, go on, ask it.’

  ‘Well…and’—now she was sticking her finger into his chest—‘I don’t listen in to people talking, and I don’t do it on purpose; but I have sharp ears…well, what I mean is, I can distinguish birds’ songs and…oh’—she shook her head—‘what I’m going to say is, I heard you and Mammy talking. She had got a letter from the man called Bright, and she told you your father was bedridden.’

  He stopped her here, nodding and saying, ‘All right, all right, you listened in, and my father’s bedridden. Yes, he’s been bedridden for a long time. Now what are you going to make of that?’

  She looked down towards the grit-covered floor and her voice was small as she said, ‘I didn’t know until then that I have a grandfather and…and I thought it would be nice to see him. Other girls talk of their grandmothers and grandfathers and they seem to like them.’ Her head jerked up, an action immediately reminiscent of Bridget, and the look on her face and the sound of her voice could have been Bridget’s, as she said, ‘Why don’t you visit him? Why don’t you take me? And, too, I am supposed to have an uncle there who is your brother, and his wife is related to Mammy. It’s all very puzzling. People have quarrels and rows in families but they get over them. I…I am ten and a half, Daddy, and I’ve never seen my relations.’

  Douglas stood up, reached over the table and drew towards him the piece of paper on which he had been drawing; and it looked as if he was going to take up his pencil again, but instead, he dropped his hand flat onto the table, the fingers spread out, almost as though he was trying to indent the shape of them onto the wood. Then, as if he had come to an unpleasant decision, he muttered, ‘I can never promise you, dear, that you will see your grandfather, or your uncle. There are grave reasons for my saying this, very grave reasons, serious reasons. You see, I can never go back to that house again, that house in which I was born; nor can your mother, and for different reasons from mine, one in particular being that her cousin doesn’t desire her to visit her. She is an embittered woman, her cousin, and I cannot see anything that is going to change her attitude. Now, my dear—’ He turned to her, sat slowly beside her again, took her hand, then said, ‘Do something for me. I have never asked you to do anything for me, have I? I have never asked you to promise me anything…have I?’

  She blinked, then shook her head and said, ‘No, Daddy; not that I can remember.’

  ‘Well, then, I’m asking you to promise me something now, and it is that you won’t pester your mother by bringing up the subject that we’ve just discussed. But I can promise you that if in the future there is anything I think I can tell you to explain all this strange behaviour, then I shall do so. It will be when you are older; at least’—he now looked away from her—‘I’ll be able to explain in part. But—’ He lifted his hand now and cupped her rounded, still babyish chin and, looking into the eyes that were so like his own, while the other features were those inherited from her mother, he said, ‘Just remember this, my dear, I love you. I love you very much.’ Then he was startled by her next words.

  ‘After Mammy.’

  It was a moment or two before he could answer; ‘No, not after: on the same lines, but in a different way. But what makes you say that, dear? What put that idea into your head?’

  ‘Well’—she glanced again towards the floor, then one shoulder gave a little hunch—‘you…you never seem to leave her. I mean, except when you are down here working. And then she comes down and stays with you at times.’

  ‘Well, miss’—he tweaked her nose now—‘how often have your mother and I to go hunting for you? And where do we find you? With Joseph. During the holidays we hardly ever see you.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t see the difference, madam.’ He put on an indignant pose now. ‘One code of rules for you and another for your mother and me.’

  Her head was bent, her lids lowered; and now bending down, his face close to hers, he said, ‘My dear, get it into that little probing head of yours that you are very precious to both of us. We love you dearly, so very dearly. You’re all we have, but you are all we want.’

  Swiftly now she threw her arms around his neck, kissed him, then, turning, fled from the shop.

  Douglas stayed by the table for some time, but he didn’t resume his work. And when presently he went down the shop Sam, as if talking to the stone, said, ‘Queer kettle of fish. Young Harry’s all mixed up an’ all. ’Tis the times. I can’t remember bein’ like that in me young days. I think I must have been born when I was about twenty-five.’

  Douglas laughed as he said, ‘It’s a very good age to be born, Sam,’ the while thinking that Amy wasn’t the only one with good hearing…

  It was later that night when, lying wrapped in each other’s arms, Bridget said, ‘What a strange thing for her to say. It isn’t as if she has been neglected. In fact, she’s been spoilt.’

  ‘She’s like her mother, she’s very perceptive.’

  Bridget did not take this up, but asked, ‘If he wasn’t there, if he left her or was dead, would you go back to the house?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I would; but he would have to be one or the other of the things you have just said, left or dead.’

  ‘Well, in that case, my dear, you know what I think and I’ve thought for a long time.’

  ‘No. What do you think, sweetheart?’

  ‘I think there is something behind the fact that Victoria found out about the money. I feel there is something else that you’re withholding fr
om me. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  It was a good minute before he answered, ‘I won’t say you’re not right, dear, but I can only say this: what there is lies between him and me and I want it to remain like that. And I promise you this, it’s the only thing in my life that I shall ever withhold from you.’

  ‘Then I will ask you this. Is what happened to his detriment alone or to…the detriment of you both?’

  ‘It is to his detriment alone.’

  ‘Well, that’s all I wanted to know. Goodnight, my love.’

  ‘Goodnight, my dearest, dearest Bridget.’

  Three

  ‘She’ll have to be put away in the end. If Mr Lionel had had his way she would have gone long since. But it means money. She’s never had a tantrum like this for some time. The master heard her and Mr Bright came up to ask me why couldn’t I stop her. I mean…a daft thing to say.’ Katie Swift made an indignant movement with her head, which cook confirmed by bobbing hers, then adding, ‘It would take a regiment to calm her down when she starts.’

  ‘D’you know what Ron said?’ Katie Swift leant over the table towards cook and, lowering her voice, said, ‘He thinks it’s mostly because she’s almost deaf and gets frustrated because people don’t understand what she’s sayin’. He says if they had got proper attention to her from when she was a bairn she could have been improved on. Now what d’you say to that, cook?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Rose Jackson sighed. ‘There are times when she wanders around like any ordinary bairn, except that she’s always swinging her arms about and her legs never seem to be still. Her whole body’s at a jangle at times. But she doesn’t make any trouble, and once she gets into the vegetable garden she’ll stay there for hours. Jimmy gives her a little spade and she digs away. I say little spade. D’you remember a few months ago when she practically threw it at him and walked into the tool house and picked another one, not a full-sized one but one that Joseph Fable used when he was gardener here? He never liked heavy work, that one. It was a lightish spade. Well, Jimmy said, she went at it like a navvy. And she plants things, any old way and how because there’s nobody to show her different. The last odd-job gardener was frightened to death of her, you remember? ’Cos she went for him with the shovel. But Jimmy said it was just because he wouldn’t show her how to plant. Jimmy’s good with her, you know: whenever he’s got a spare minute from those two damned horses, he goes down and takes her into the greenhouses and shows her seeds an’ things. But as he says himself, what does he know about gardenin’? The nearest he gets to it is the muck.’

  Both women now shook with their laughter; then cook, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece, said, ‘It’s time for the mistress’s coffee, although she won’t be in her office this mornin’, she’ll be up in the nursery calming that one down, if not tying her down.’

  ‘Oh, cook, she’s never been tied down for a long time. How I used to hate that business ’cos she would look at you from the bed an’ her eyes used to be sometimes wild, an’ at times they would be sort of pleadin’. I tell you, Minnie an’ me have had many a bubble when we’ve come down those stairs. But that was the fault of old Doctor Ledman; Doctor Curry put a stop to it when he took over. He went for Bright and the mistress. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, but you can’t understand half he says, him talkin’ in thick Scots. And it’s queer to see him with her: he talks to her and she mouths words back at him. Anyway, she’s had a better life of it since he came on the scene. But what started this last blow-up, I don’t know.’

  ‘Did…did she see her father?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Yet it was just the sight of him that used to set her off into tantrums afore, remember?’

  ‘Remember! I’ll never forget that night in the hall. I thought he was goin’ to choke her. I think he would have done if the mistress hadn’t punched him in the face like she did. Of course, he was as drunk as a noodle. Eeh! That was a night one way or another. Well, there mightn’t be much money in this house, but there’s certainly plenty of excitement.’

  ‘Here! Take the mistress’s tray, an’ find out where the youngster is. I’ve put another cup on the tray in case she’s with the mistress, because she likes coffee.’

  Katie Swift found that she had to take the tray right up to the nursery, and there she found her mistress sitting on the side of the bed. But her daughter wasn’t in the bed, she was sitting on the floor, her back pressed tight against the base of it.

  Katie put the tray on a small table, then said, ‘Will I pour your coffee out, ma’am?’

  ‘No; leave it. I’ll see to it.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Katie glanced at the girl on the floor, and the girl looked back at her, and the maid who had witnessed her birth thought, as she had done many, many times, Dear God! What a waste of a beautiful face.

  The door closed, Victoria bent forward and tapped her daughter on the arm; then, turning her palm upwards, she twice made an upward motion with it. And at this the girl shook her head, to which Victoria’s response was to bend over and bring her hand down sharply on the narrow wrist, making her daughter wince before turning slowly onto her knees and rising from the floor and to stand before her mother.

  For a girl of eleven years of age she was tall and her body was straight. At first glance she looked to be a normal girl and, as Katie said, a beautiful one. That was until her arms began to jerk and her head to wag as if it was loose on her shoulders. And looking on this for the countless time since she had first witnessed it, Victoria told herself yet again, if she could remain perfectly still for minutes at a time she could stop these antics. Old Doctor Ledman used to say it was the result of sheer bad temper—he had seen others like it—that was at first, until he had pronounced her deaf. But Doctor Curry had a different diagnosis. He called the temper frustration, and he said she wasn’t totally deaf, she could hear certain sounds, even some voices. He had suggested she be sent away to a special school, where she would be taught to talk, at least better than she did now, but also quite well on her hands.

  But what had come of that? The school, like everything else meant money, and what was more, she didn’t want her sent away. She was the only thing she had in her life on which she could express the little love that remained in her. That it took a hard form at times, didn’t matter, nor the fact that often she had to slap her child with slaps verging on blows in retaliation for having herself received similar treatment from both hands and feet.

  She had found that if she stood straight in front of her daughter and spoke slowly and mouthed the words there was a gleam in the bright eyes, a gleam, she dared to hope, of understanding.

  She didn’t know what had created this last outburst, only that it was over, and that it wasn’t likely to happen again for some while.

  She kept her lips well apart, then mouthed, ‘Pour…the…coffee…’

  The girl’s head dipped slightly with each word her mother spoke; then she made a sound in her throat that was quite unintelligible to Victoria and moved to the table. There, after pouring out two cups of black coffee, she looked at her mother; and when Victoria pointed to herself with her index finger, she lifted up one of the cups and took it to her.

  Again mouthing the words, Victoria said, ‘Thank…you.’ The girl was returning to the table to take up her own cup when there was a tap on the door and Bright entered. He looked to where the young girl was now walking with her cup of coffee towards the chair, and he smiled at her before saying to Victoria, ‘The master would like to have a word with you, ma’am, when you have time.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  There was no, ‘Thank you, Bright,’ for such preliminaries had been done away with many years ago. These two understood each other, and the man who had despised the silly-headed bride had come to respect and pity the woman she had turned into. It could be said now there was between them an understanding almost verging on friendship. In a way it was akin to that which Bright felt for the old ira
scible man in the four-poster bed. To himself he likened this three-part association to a triangle, the edges of which were tightly morticed one into the other against the man who treated this house mainly as a lodging.

  She now turned to her daughter again and once more began to mouth words: ‘Go…into…the…garden…for…a…walk.’

  She didn’t say, ‘Take your spade and go to the vegetable garden,’ because that would have indicated her daughter was a menial, but she knew that once her daughter got downstairs and out of the house she would make for the vegetable garden. She was never afraid that she might, instead, go out of the grounds, for she had, as yet, never shown any inclination to wander.

  The girl now rose from the chair and almost at a run went past Bright, who was holding the door open. And both he and his mistress stood where they were, listening to her feet pounding the bare boards of the landing, then to the sound of them running down the linoleumed stairs, and not until the sound died away did Victoria speak. And then she asked, ‘What brought on the tantrum, do you know?’ and Bright answered, ‘It was an encounter, ma’am. Mr Lionel was coming out from the master’s room and Miss Henrietta was’—he paused—‘about to enter.’

  Miss Henrietta was about to enter. She could see it all, the child’s hand raised to knock at the door and he coming out; the exchanged glance of hate, then his arm thrusting out to sweep her aside as usual. Sometimes she would fall, sometimes she would just stagger back. But as she had grown older, there had been other times when she had literally attacked him, the last time tearing at his face and bringing the blood. Then, she had thought he would, in some way, have carried out his threat and had her put away, in spite of his father’s opposition. And yet it was really the poverty of the house that had stayed his hand; although his standing in the county had sunk, it wasn’t so low that he could risk bringing censure upon himself for putting his daughter into a common asylum.