The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  Victoria made a movement with her head, and Bright turned and went out; and within a moment or so she followed him.

  She always tapped on her father-in-law’s door before entering the room and if she didn’t hear him shout she would go straight in.

  William Filmore was propped up in bed. He seemed not to have aged over the years: in fact, his face had a fresh look and the mound of his stomach had definitely decreased. But his voice and manner had apparently remained the same, for he greeted her with, ‘Why the hell don’t you keep her out of his sight!’

  ‘Tie her up again?’

  ‘No. No; but keep an eye on her.’

  She made no reply to this last statement but, standing near the head of the bed, she said, as she always did, ‘How are you this morning?’

  But instead of his usual reply, ‘As you see me, as you see me,’ he said, ‘Too bloody well for my age. And it’s your fault. If it wasn’t for this damned leg.’ He pointed down the bed to where the bedclothes were arranged over a cage above his legs. ‘Your meanness to the cellar hasn’t done much for it. And the same applies to the meals: wholesome, yes, but delectable, no.’ His expression changing and his voice, too, he said quietly now, ‘Sit down, woman, sit down.’

  Victoria hesitated a moment before pulling a chair to the side of the bed. Once she was seated he put out a thick blue-veined hand towards her but it reached only the ruffled edge of the counterpane, and this he patted before he said, ‘He’s at it again…the divorce business. A new proposal this time. He’ll waive all rights to the child…of course, in every other way but one, he’s already done that. And he promised you an income almost double his last offer. Of course, you would have to find other quarters so that when I decide to kick the bucket he can bring his fat hog into this house, and her money would renovate it. I asked him why she keeps him on such a short rein now if she’s willing to spend a fortune once he marries her, because it’s as much as I can do to get that twenty pounds a month out of him. He spends as much on his horses. But he must have his horses. I told him to get rid of one of them at least. I asked him again, too, where he thinks they and the rest of us would have been if it wasn’t for your allowance.’

  He stopped talking and stared at her. Not one of her features had changed its expression, and there was a deep note of pity in his voice now as he said, ‘My dear girl, and, you know, that’s how I think of you in my mind. In spite of the structure you’ve built around yourself over the years, the girl is still there. I upbraid myself many a time, you know, for my manner towards you when you first came. I sometimes think I’ve passed into a simple-minded dotage, because, lying here most of my days, what can I do but think? Read and think. Yet, on looking back, I don’t consider my life ill spent. I lived it as I was bred to live it.’

  He had now looked away from her, and his head was nodding and his gaze directed down towards the counterpane as he said, ‘There was enough money in my father’s young days, and then in my growing up, to afford us to live like gentlemen. We followed a pattern. All my ancestors had been cosseted from birth to grave: one played a little, one drank, a little or much according to taste, and one gambled and took risks. You know’—he was looking at her again—‘people always associate gambling with cards or dice, even perhaps dominoes; they never associate it with gold mines; the very mention of a gold mine creates a mirage. And when that disappears, what have you? The result of greed: a falling house in which you find it impossible to pull your horns in and to live according to what’s left in the coffers. No, that would be too much to ask. So you live on debt until you have to become servile to your grocer.’ He now nodded at her as he added, ‘You do with sixty pounds a month, my dear, what wasn’t achieved with six hundred at one time. Give me your hand.’

  She hesitated for a moment before placing her hand in his; and then he gripped it and said, ‘You are lonely, my dear. You are lost for companionship of your own kind. Why don’t you get in touch with her? She seemed a kindly creature in spite of her stiff make-up. She was good to you for years, and is still good to you. If she wouldn’t visit here, you could visit her. What do you say?’

  What could she say? How to explain to this old man how she felt? How could she say she’s the last person on earth I want to see. How could she say at times I’m eaten up with hate of her, because it was she who brought me to this state in paying a man to marry me, a man who would have done anything…anything, rather than tie himself to a penniless girl had he been aware of the circumstances beforehand. But what did she do? She offered him two thousand a year. And why? Because she wanted rid of me, for some reason or other she wanted rid of me. But she would have me think it was for my own good because otherwise I would have died for love…God in heaven! Died for love of that swine of a man.

  She turned her head away and looked towards the end of the room to where the sun was streaming in between the faded brocade curtains onto the equally faded and worn carpet. And she asked herself, as she always did following the increasing tirades in her mind: Had she ever loved him? Was she really, as her cousin had said, besotted with him? No. No, she wouldn’t have it; at least, she wasn’t so deeply enamoured that she couldn’t have got over it if left to herself.

  ‘Don’t look so sad, my dear. I only suggested it because I would like you to have…well, a little happiness in some way. I can do nothing for you, yet it is strange you do a lot for me, and you have no need, you know…I mean, it couldn’t be expected of you. Anyway, to get back to the beginning. I told him that the answer would be as before, that you’ll stay here as long as I’m alive. And I added that the way you look after me it could be quite a while yet.’ He was again nodding down towards the counterpane, and his voice was little above a mutter as he ended, ‘And my answer to what he said next was to ask if he intended to finish me like he had…’ He blinked rapidly, jerked his head upwards and looked towards her.

  She was staring at him, but seemed to be waiting for him to go on. And after swallowing a mouthful of spittle he went on: ‘His horse,’ he said. ‘Cruel bugger at bottom, cruel bugger.’

  She rose from the chair, saying, ‘The sun is shining. Are you going to get up today?’

  ‘I’ll…I’ll think about it.’

  ‘I’ll tell Bright to come up and see to it.’

  As she made towards the door he called brightly, ‘What’s for dinner today?’

  She opened the door and half turned towards him again as she said, ‘Vegetable soup, minced veal, French potatoes, and a fruit pudding.’

  ‘Plain and wholesome again,’ he said jokingly. ‘I’ll have no stomach left by the time you finish with me; it’s half gone already.’

  She closed the door, then walked down the corridor to her own room and as she sat down at the dressing table she let out a long slow breath and her upper body seemed to collapse. She was staring into the mirror and she spoke to the white, taut face, saying, ‘Oh God, don’t let it happen. Guide me. Please guide me; my child needs me.’

  Four

  Mrs Daisy Barnett’s house was situated just beyond the far outskirts of Newcastle. You could say it was where the city was left behind and the country began. It was a small house, comparatively that is, having only twelve rooms, but it was beautifully appointed, and if there was a comfort to be had, Lea House possessed it. Its driveway led directly off the main road, and it was surrounded by five acres of its own land.

  Over the past ten years Lionel Filmore had looked upon it as home: Daisy Barnett had provided him with the niceties of life and seen to it that even though his position in the shipping company remained still the same as it had been when he first joined, his salary had more than trebled. This, of course, was not shown on the books. That she was older than him by ten years had not at first, nor had since, detracted from his feeling for her; in fact it was her maturity that had at first drawn him to her, together with her intense physical need of him: it would, indeed, have been past his understanding or acceptance to recognise her as a mother
figure, a soothing, petting, mother figure, a protective mother figure.

  Not that their alliance hadn’t been through troubled waters. The excitement of flaunting respectability by taking a young man as a lover when she herself was nearing forty had faded somewhat with the years, and she was now wanting the cloak of respectability. Although she had had two husbands, she desired now the protection of a third, and for reasons known only to herself.

  Daisy had two sons, the result of her first marriage. Both men had, from the beginning, looked askance at her association with what they privately termed the waster.

  So the bone of Daisy’s contention was her dear boy’s freedom. She was even willing to pay for his release by providing for the wife and the mad daughter. She would go so far, she said, as even to put it in writing, and this in itself brought home to Lionel how much she wanted his freedom and his name, for over the years he had come to realise that his dearest Daisy was very reluctant to sign anything, as she was also reluctant to discuss business. After ten years strong acquaintance all he knew was that she held fifty per cent of the business and her sons twenty-five per cent each. The business was no longer connected with shipping as such—their last ship had been sold two years ago—but it was now concentrated on chandling and victualling. And that’s where he had come in: first, on the victualling side, and then on the chandling side, and although it irked him, even angered him at times, to think that he was no more than a shop assistant in an ironmongery, he had learned a great deal about the business of equipping ships with all they needed.

  That he was looked on with suspicion and dislike, both among those above him and those below him, he was well aware. But he was also treated with covert respect, as would be one who was in…the owner’s pocket; nevertheless, this had not saved him from being twice attacked, once in the daylight and once in the dark. On the latter occasion the attack had taken place, not in the city, where one might expect it from a thug, but within a mile of his own home. And he was convinced he knew who was behind the attacks; one or other of them, anyway. His dear wife…and yet from where would she get the money to employ thugs? The other was his brother. He was apparently rolling in it now from his own efforts as well as sitting pretty on his wife’s fortune. By God, he would like to throttle him! Above everyone else he’d like to throttle him and, given the chance, he would do it. If he hated anyone in this world it was his brother; and his snipe of a wife came next.

  Although nothing further had happened to him in that way over the past two years, his mind was still in the same turmoil, in fact more so. The urge to be free, free from that woman—he had ceased long ago to think of her as a silly girl—had become an obsessive thought, because he knew that if he didn’t marry Daisy soon, the atmosphere in that particular house would surely change. Just as he himself was obsessed with one thought, so, he knew, was she: she had turned fifty and the years were showing on her, while he, at forty, was now holding his age extremely well.

  He seemed to have spent most of the last year in convincing her that she wouldn’t lose him, and for once in his life he meant what he said. If he had ever loved anyone it was this big, even voluptuous, ageing woman, for she had given of herself from their first coming together as no-one else had or could ever hope to.

  He had been wise enough never to have teased her about the other women in his life, but often did about his horses. And strange as it may have seemed, she was jealous of these rivals because she didn’t like horses. There was a coach house in the yard and buildings that could have been turned into further stables, but she wouldn’t hear of his bringing his horses here, even though it might have meant spending more time with her than he already did. She herself patronised a particular hostelry, and this would send her a coach or a cab whenever she required one…

  On this particular fine day he walked up from the quay and into the city to partake of his midday meal. He was well known in the hotel and exchanged greetings here and there in the dining room. But he had hardly taken his usual seat at the single table near a window when he saw, with some surprise, threading his way towards him down the room, Daisy’s gardener and handyman. Lionel found this man a surly individual. He had attempted to be on friendly terms with him, at least as friendly as he would ever allow himself to be with a servant; yet the man had never responded. But Daisy seemed to think a lot of her Rogers. Apparently he had been in her service since her first marriage and he was about the same age as herself.

  The man now handed Lionel a letter, saying, ‘The mistress sent this. She doesn’t need a reply.’ And with that he turned about and left the dining room.

  Somewhat surprised at her sending him a letter at this time of the day, he slit open the envelope, then read:

  ‘My dearest boy,

  I heard from Bernard this morning that he and Marie are bringing their latest addition for inspection. They will be arriving this afternoon and I cannot say for sure that they will leave tomorrow. I should imagine they will stay another night in order to prepare the poor, delicate creature to face the return journey.’

  At the end of this sentence there was drawn a stick figure.

  ‘I will merely exist until Sunday evening. Take care, my dearest…I know with whom you will spend the weekend, and if I was near one of them I would surely kick it.

  Your very own Daisy, your little flower of the field.’

  At the end of this there was a cross within a circle, which she had explained to him was her being kissed within the circle of his arms.

  He wasn’t entirely displeased that he had the weekend entirely free. It meant two full days of riding and the thought of it made him attack his meal with relish; at least until he recalled that between times from this evening and over the following two days he would not only have to encounter her, but also that other thing, that wild jangling creature. God! He’d have to do something about that one soon for the very sight of her, even from a distance, caused the hairs on his neck to stand up. The fact that any part of him could be active within the creature was abhorrent to him. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. What was prolonging this endurance was his father—he was the stumbling block, for once he was gone she had promised to leave the house and take her daughter with her so long as provision was made for her. And Daisy would do that, all right.

  He had a vision of Daisy installed in the house and it renovated from top to bottom. And she would do that, too. She would make it into a large Lea House and from then on he could see the far past being brought into the present. The county would open its doors again; perhaps not all of them, but enough to make life interesting, variable…yes, variable.

  He did not see his daughter. He met up with his wife three times but they did not exchange a word. On the Saturday morning he had an early breakfast and rode the Admiral until lunchtime. And when he returned he gave orders for a snack lunch, after which he rode Prince until both he and the horse were covered in sweat, which led Ron Yarrow to say later to Mr Bright, ‘Those beasts are gettin’ on and he’ll wind them one of these days and they’ll drop down dead under him. He’s supposed to care for horseflesh. Funny caring, to my mind. But then, that’s him all over.’

  He had ordered a hot bath to be got ready, after which he went to the dining room, where Bright had set a meal for him at the end of the dining-room table. It consisted of soup, braised brisket and vegetables, followed by a milk pudding which, when Bright placed it in front of him he pushed aside, saying, ‘Bring the cheese.’ Bright hesitated only a moment before leaving the dining room and returning with a platter on which was a piece of cheese weighing about a quarter of a pound. Next to it was a pat of butter and two slices of bread.

  When he had cleared the board he said to Bright, ‘Bring me a jug of coffee, not a cupful,’ and poured himself out yet another glass of water from the carafe, the third glassful he had drunk during the meal. He found it almost impossible to eat a meal without the assistance of wine, and for years now this table had been bare of wine, exc
ept when he thought to bring a bottle with him. He knew that she allowed his father a bottle in his own room but he told himself that he hadn’t yet stooped so low as to go and beg for a glass of wine.

  Sunday followed much the same pattern, except that his ride in the afternoon was short, and by four o’clock he was ready to leave the house.

  He was standing in his father’s bedroom. The old man was propped up in an armchair near the window, his gouty foot resting on a stool. And William Filmore looked up at his son and saw a fine figure of a man dressed in a dark grey suit, his shirt and necktie matching, the patina on his hand-made shoes showing their quality, and he wondered how anything that looked so good on the outside could be so rotten inside, because this son of his was not only a mean man and a cruel one, he was a murderer. He seemed to have forgotten that. It was something that had never been mentioned for years, not even alluded to, but nevertheless it was always to the forefront of his own mind that his son was a murderer. And a low type of murderer, for he hadn’t killed one of his own breed in a fair fight, he had done to death a common man. What was more, he was a fornicator of the worst type. Most men were fornicators, but there was a distinctive class among them. There was also a word that seemed to sum him up completely in his own mind: a bastard, not in the real sense of the word, but in the sense that it embodied everything in a man that was no good.

  He turned his head to look out of the window as he said, ‘She’s let you off the lead for a couple of days. What’s the reason?’

  ‘No reason. I merely wanted to get a bit of riding in.’

  ‘You’ll come one day and those horses won’t be there.’