‘What about Latin?’
‘Oh, Latin.’
‘Yes, oh Latin. Your English will be wanting without the knowledge of Latin. I’ve always said that to you.’
‘Yes.’ She sighed now before she went on, ‘You’ve always said so many things to me, Joseph, but not the things I want to hear. And why?…Why? Because you do love me, I know you do.’
He turned sharply away from her, saying, ‘Please!’
‘Well, you do. And look, Joseph, we are not children any more. I’m not a child nor am I a silly young girl, and I’ve never been a silly young girl where you’re concerned. I’ll be eighteen next month. I have finished with schooling. They can no longer send me away or…’
He swung round on her, crying now, ‘There you have it. They can’t send you away, but I’m going away, not apparently being sent. Oh, and I’m not grumbling, because your people are the kindest couple in the world. But for years now, for some reason or other they have striven to keep us apart. And there must be a reason, because your father is no snob, nor your mother. It isn’t just because I’m the son of the maid, because they’ve done everything to further my position in life, so to speak, for here I am now, ready for Cambridge, and here you are now, left at home, safe out of my presence, and the distance between us will widen…’
‘Oh, Joseph, don’t say that. Don’t talk like that. But you’re right in some ways, I know. And at times, too, I feel that there is something they’re withholding from me. What, I don’t know. I come upon them talking seriously, and they stop and turn their laughing faces to me. And that’s another thing.’ Her voice dropped and she half turned from him, and he watched her bite down on the side of her forefinger before she said, ‘They’re so wrapped up in each other that it’s painful sometimes to watch…well, at least to me. They tell me that they love me but I feel it’s a sort of second-hand love. They’ve been married now nearly nineteen years and they’re oldish. Well, mother is on forty-three, and they act like…well, if I was acting like that, even now they would say, “Dear! Dear! Don’t be silly,” or “You’ve got it bad,” or some such comment.’
His voice was low as he now remarked, ‘Don’t you think it’s nice that they still feel like that for each other after all this time?’
‘Yes, in a way. But as I see it they’re not going to give me a chance to feel like that about you when I’m forty-three.’
His head went back now and he let out a ringing laugh in which she joined, and as it subsided she watched him rubbing his eyes with his fingers as she said, ‘You know, that’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh in months.’
He was still smiling when he said, ‘You know, in other circumstances you’d be termed a brazen young hussy, chasing a poor young fellow like you do.’
He expected her to come back with some quip to this remark, but she didn’t, and her head drooped and she said, ‘That isn’t all true, Joseph, about the chasing. For years you were as eager for my company as I was for yours. You used to wait for me coming from school. Hide round the side of the lodge or make a nuisance of yourself in Father’s workshop while waiting for me coming in…When did you change, and why?’
He took a step towards her now and his voice was harsh as he said, ‘I don’t know when I changed but I know why I changed, if change I did. And we’ve just been over the reason. What you want to do is to go back and ask your mother, as I have asked myself a lot of late, would she have taken in a working-class girl who was a widow with a small child and bestow much kindness on her if she had known she was going to have a daughter eighteen months or so later? As I see it, in a way she had burnt her boats when she befriended my mother and…well, when you came, nothing could be done about it. She couldn’t in all faith, turn her out.’
‘My mother would never have turned Lily out. She’s very fond of Lily, and both she and Father are very fond of you, though you won’t recognise it.’
‘What I recognise is that they are kind, extremely kind to me, always have been, and this is the question that looms large in my mind: Why are they so kind to me? And why all these years I have never known my mother to look really happy? D’you know that? She never seems happy. It’s as if she’s carrying a burden of some kind and that burden I feel has brought on this illness that is going to be the finish of her.’
‘No, it won’t, Joseph. Don’t say that. I asked Mammy what was wrong with Lily and she said she had a little stomach trouble, but she was mostly exhausted and tired.’
‘Exhausted?’
‘Well, that’s what she said; but as I see it Lily has only had light things to do, such as sewing and housekeeping, which she took over after Jessie died, and that’s years ago.’
‘What I fear has exhausted my mother is in her mind.’
‘You’re bent on making a mystery out of this situation, aren’t you?’
‘No; there’s no need, the mystery is already there. And I’d like to get to the bottom of it, but I can see no way, because in the past when I have tried to probe my mother about my father, all I’ve got out of her over the years is that he died before I was a year old.’
When the sound came to them of a distant handbell being rung, she said, ‘Oh, that means they’re waiting supper. I’ll have to go. Will I see you tomorrow?’ He paused before he answered, ‘Yes, if you want to. There’s three weeks to go yet. I don’t leave for Cambridge until the first week in October.’ She stepped back from him, repeating, ‘If I want to? You know, there are times when I feel humiliated by how I lower myself to you.’
‘Well then—’ His manner changing abruptly, he cried, ‘Don’t lower yourself. Oh, I wouldn’t want you to lower yourself, not to my level. Oh no, you mustn’t do that, never!’
‘Oh you! I don’t mean that way and you know I don’t. You are always twisting things. I mean, within myself I always seem to be crawling.’ Her lips were trembling new, her eyes blinking. And when he suddenly caught her hands and pulled her towards him they stared at each other until, with a break in his voice, he muttered, ‘Don’t…don’t cry. Please. All right, I’ll say it, but there’s nothing can come of it. D’you hear? Nothing. But I love you. I’ve always loved you…’
‘Oh, Joe!’
‘Now, stop it, stop it. Go on, go on’—he pushed her from him—‘because if I were to kiss you…that would be that. Go on.’ His voice was now rough and she backed from him, her eyes running with tears but her expression soft, illuminated by the light not only of young love but of a love that had seemed to possess her since the day she had looked up into the face of the boy rocking her cradle, which at three years old she still preferred to her cot and would sit in whenever she got the opportunity, in order that he should rock her.
Two
‘You should just be…coming…back from your holidays.’
‘Well, if that was the case I would just be worn out, sunburnt and blistered all over and still feeling seasick. I don’t like foreign parts, never have, so stop worrying about that.’
Bridget sat close to Lily’s bedside in the narrow room. The lamp was burning on a small table on the opposite side of the bed and Lily, with no vestige of the beauty she once had remaining on her countenance, lay back among the feather pillows as she waited patiently for the end to the torturous pain that was writhing her bowels and which the doctor’s potion was now failing to dull. Only the laudanum seemed to have any effect, but that clouded her mind and she wanted that left clear during these last hours of her life.
She said now, ‘Is…is he still asleep?’
‘Yes, dear, he’s still asleep.’
‘Four nights running; he can’t keep it up.’
‘Now will you stop worrying about him? He makes up for it during the day.’
‘No. No, he doesn’t…Ma’am.’
‘Yes, Lily?’
‘After…after it’s over will you still see to him?’
‘Of course, of course, my dear, we shall. You know we shall. We…we care for him; you know we do. Mr Dougl
as will always see to him.’
She always referred to her husband as Mr Douglas when speaking in private to Lily; it hadn’t such a possessive and controlling sound, as did ‘master’.
The wick of the lamp spluttered and cast a dark shadow over the room for a moment. Then Lily, her voice very low, said, ‘He loves her so much and…and he’s not like the other one.’ She turned her deep sunken gaze on Bridget, then ended, ‘There’s no bad in him.’
As Bridget, with a rapid, agitated movement of her fingers, stroked the hand within hers and said, ‘I know. I know, dear,’ her mind at the same time was crying, anything bred of Lionel Filmore couldn’t wholly escape his character. And what was more, if not recognised by law, in nature young Joe and Amy were full cousins and the coming together of such never bred good.
But she said again, ‘Now, Lily, you mustn’t worry. Everything will be all right. He’s going up to university, he’ll be away three years. He’ll meet up with all kinds of people. After all, he’s young, they are both so young, and as you know, feelings and affections can change. So, don’t worry, just know this: we shall always look after him. He will always be our charge, even if he doesn’t come back to us, but decides to go on and make a life of his own.’
Lily was looking straight down to the foot of the bed now. ‘It isn’t fair what the Bible says…that the…sins of the fathers…are visited on the children even to the third…an’ fourth generation…’tisn’t fair.’
When the door opposite the foot of the bed opened and she saw her son enter, she repeated this in a whisper, ‘’Tisn’t fair.’
Bridget had stood up now and was saying quietly, ‘You were sound asleep ten minutes ago.’
For answer he said, ‘Mr Douglas is downstairs waiting for you.’
‘Oh, dear, dear, did he wake you?’
‘No. No, I was having a wash when he came in.’
Bridget turned to the bed again and, bending over Lily, she said, ‘Now rest quiet. I’ll be back in a little while.’ Then looking at Joseph and, pointing now to the little side table, she muttered, ‘In half an hour, the two doses. But anyway, I’ll likely be back then.’
‘There’s no need. I’ll be all right. You go to bed.’
She nodded at him, saying quietly, ‘We’ll see.’ And at the door she turned and looked towards Lily and smiled, then she went out closing the door swiftly behind her.
Before Joseph took his seat by the bed he went to the table and from a bowl took the top pad of a number that had been soaked in eau de cologne; going back to the bed now he wiped his mother’s brow with it. Then taking one hand after the other he wiped her palms before depositing the pad in the china slop pail that stood under the table.
Seated by the bedside now, he again took her hand and held it. But no words passed between them for fully two minutes or more, and then it was Lily who said, ‘I…I must talk to you,’ and at this he said, ‘Yes, Mother.’
‘First of all, I’ve got a bit of money put by. The book is in the top drawer there.’ She made a motion with her head towards the small chest of drawers. ‘I…I have saved it with one purpose, that you will know, well…a little independence when you go to that place. I’ve…I’ve never had to buy anything out of my wage except our clothes. We’ve both been housed and kept by them and also I started with a wage of…five shillings a week.’ She stopped here and closed her eyes and her fingers now involuntarily tightened on his, and this caused him to turn his head and look back to the table. But now she was going on. ‘Then it went up to seven and sixpence, and so for the past almost nineteen years I’ve been putting it by. So there is over three hundred pounds in the bank. And also I took out a policy that will bring in a hundred pounds, and…and I reckon after the necessary money is paid out…’
‘Mother, please!’ He had his head bent on his chest now and Lily, bringing her other hand onto his head, said, ‘Listen, please, my dear, these things have to be talked about. Time is runnin’ out. Now, now, now, look at me.’ When he raised his white strained face, she said, ‘That is all that need be said about money. But there is something else more important and I have been fightin’ with meself for a long time whether I should tell you or not. But if I don’t, I feel that it will come to you sometime or other in your life.’
She now took her hand from his head and lay back in the pillows and, her breath coming in painful gasps, she remained silent for some minutes, and then hesitantly, she began, ‘You, I know, have been aware of something…not quite right. But before I tell you anything I want your promise.’ She turned her head and looked into his face and repeated, ‘Your promise, a solemn promise, that whatever I say you will not let on…well, I mean, divulge it to them. Well, not to anybody, but not to the mistress…or to Mr Douglas, because there is a reason why they have wanted to keep you and Amy apart. You are known as Joseph Skinner. That is not your name. My dear Joseph was not your father. I wish to God he had been, for he was the best and kindest man that ever walked this…earth. Your name should have been Carter. I was known as Lily Whitmore, but that was my…stepfather’s name. I was working in Miss Bridget’s, I mean ma’am’s blacking factory when I became pregnant. I had misbehaved. I’m making no excuses, no, none at all; all I can say he was a gentleman, a man of the world and I was a silly, stupid, ignorant girl, and when I was on three months pregnant—’ she stopped here and her head drooped and again she was gasping for breath before she could go on, ‘Joe Skinner, who was foreman in the factory, saved me from having to go into the workhouse. He married me and I grew to love him. In the few months we had together I grew to love him and I have never stopped to this very minute. Nor has one day passed from that day on which he died but that I have thought of him.’
When once more her head fell back onto the pillow and she closed her eyes, he brought his face close to hers and even he himself could not hear the words that came from his mouth in a thin whisper, so that he had to repeat them, ‘My father? Who was he, then?’
She opened her eyes and looked deep into his and she said now, ‘Your promise? Your promise?’
‘Yes. Yes, Mother, I promise.’
‘You’ll…you’ll not let on that…that you know?’
He was bewildered, puzzled, but he muttered, ‘Yes, yes, I mean no, I won’t let on. I promise.’
‘His brother.’
He withdrew slightly back from her, his face twisted in bewilderment, repeating, ‘His brother! Whose?’
‘Mr Douglas’s.’
He shook his head, then sat well back in the chair now and stared at her. She was lying with her eyes closed, her chest heaving the bedclothes into billows. ‘His brother? Mr Douglas’s brother, the master’s brother? God! No, because that would mean…’ He closed his eyes tightly and put his double fist on his brow as if to steady his racing mind. Then after a long moment he made a sound like a sigh. He had imagined that made him and her half-brother and sister, but it just meant they were cousins.
And that’s what it had all been about. They were cousins. And that man, the one who had a bad reputation, the one who had deserted his wife and mental child for years, until the woman he was living with died and he returned to the house. He had heard nothing of them for years, not even their name mentioned.
‘I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘Oh, you should, you should.’ He was holding both her hands now, reassuring her. ‘I…I only wish you had told me earlier and then I would have understood their reaction towards me.’
‘They…they have been good to you.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know, I know, and I’ve always wondered why. But he…he in a way is my uncle?’
‘Yes.’ She made a slow movement with her head. ‘In a way, yes. But…but never claim it. You…you won’t, will you?’
He paused just a moment before saying, ‘No. No, I won’t. Rest easy.’
‘In…in the bottom drawer’—her head was moving again—‘there is a tin box. Fetch it.’
When he
laid the small round tin box on the bed he noticed the writing on the rim: ‘Doctor J. C. Murray’s Ozonised Snuff’. It showed a pestle and mortar in the middle and in between them the words, ‘Trade Mark’.
‘Open it.’
When he opened it he saw a small, grey-looking chamois leather bag. It was stiff to the touch and after Lily made a signal to him to open it, he did so.
He did not tip out the coins but handed the bag to her and it was she who, turning his hand over, poured the five sovereigns onto his palm.
He stared at them for a moment before lifting his eyes to her and saying, ‘What do they mean? What do they stand for?’
‘That’s…that’s what was paid for you.’
‘Paid for me?’
‘Yes. Pu…pu…put them back and…and never use them. But remember the price…’
She stopped now and gritted her teeth, and at this he roughly bundled the sovereigns and the tin to the foot of the bed; then he went to the table and poured out first a dose of the doctor’s medicine and then a measure of laudanum into another glass. When he took them to the bed she almost grabbed both glasses from him and one after the other she swallowed their contents. Then, as her hands dropped onto the counterpane, still holding the glasses, she let out a long slow sigh, and smiled wearily at him as she said, ‘Everything will be all right now.’
He took the glasses from the counterpane, after which he put the money back into the bag and returned it to the tin box, which he replaced in the drawer. He didn’t fully understand her last words about the payment; but he wouldn’t trouble her any more tonight. She would go to sleep now.
He arranged her pillows, and once more wiped her face and hands with a dampened eau de cologne pad; then he was about to take his seat when she held out her arms to him and, drawing his head down to hers, she kissed him, and, her voice quite light-sounding, she said, ‘I want you to remember something, and it’s this. I’ve never regretted havin’ you from the minute you were born, and, if it is possible, each day I’ve become prouder of you.’
The Black Candle Page 31
