The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Nonsense. Nonsense. Your heart is in the state it is because of all the worry you’ve had and the treatment you’ve had from that man who was my son.’ Then he looked away from her and stared over the foot of the bed; and from there he turned his gaze to the window, where a weak wintry sun was doing its best to lighten the room, and he said, ‘Imagine killing your son, murdering him and not feeling a trace of regret.’ Slowly he turned his head to look at her again and said, ’I wonder how God will deal with me? Because I believe in Him, you know. While ignoring Him for years I somehow got to know Him when I had to lie here day after day, month after month, year after year. When I’ve talked to Him in the middle of the night He would answer me quite frankly. And some of His answers were very hard, condemning. Yet I think He will weigh this business up and see it as something I just had to do, if for nothing else, to save a child from being incarcerated in an asylum.’

  She was again holding his hand between hers as she said softly, ‘Whatever God does or says about your action, I thank you for it, and from the bottom of my heart. You did what I have longed to do for years, and as I stood over him there’—she turned her head and motioned towards the floor—‘and I laughed, I became terrified that he had won, that from even being dead he had won and that I was going to go mad, because, as you know, I couldn’t stop that laughter for a long time. But now I don’t think I shall ever laugh again, not really. Smile, yes, but never laugh, because laughter is a terrifying thing when it is humourless.’

  He now asked, ‘How is the boy? I think of him as a boy, although he must be close on twenty; yet he is a boy, and my grandson. A bastard grandson. Huh! I…I wouldn’t care if he was a bastard ten times over…he…is my grandson. I…I wonder what Doug will make of it.’ He again said, ‘Huh! He’s known who he is all the time…But do you think he knows he’s here?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so because, before he became unconscious, in a rambling way he asked me to tell him.’

  ‘Why do you think he came here?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Very likely he just wanted to find out to whom he belonged, really belonged.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, likely you’re right, dear. Where…where have you put him?’

  ‘Just along the corridor.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be well enough to come and see me before…?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she interrupted him; ‘I’m sure he will; and I’m sure he’d want to.’

  ‘Victoria.’

  ‘Yes, Father-in-law?’

  ‘Do you think I could have a port…a double, before Bright returns?’

  Her smile was soft and her voice, too, as she assured him, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  As she rose from the bed he asked hesitantly, ‘Tell me, Victoria, do you think that one could have a feeling almost akin to love for a servant?’ and, looking down on him, she answered simply, ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But it would be very hard to speak of it, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps; yet I imagine that it would be the best way to pay a debt through speaking of it, or a gesture by the hand that indicates it.’

  He nodded his head slowly before allowing it to fall back on the pillow; then he closed his eyes and said softly, ‘Thank you, Victoria.’

  Ten

  Five days later, after an inquest, they buried Lionel Filmore, and it was noticeable that few people attended his funeral; that, in fact, his brother was the only relative present. Nine days later they buried his father, William James Filmore.

  Perhaps it was the clear frosty day which accounted for the very large cortège that followed the family coaches to the cemetery.

  Following a short service in the little church, they stood round the grave watching the coffin being lowered into the earth. As the newspapers later briefly reported, his relatives were the younger son Douglas, with his wife and daughter, and next to her the newfound cousin Joseph Skinner, the illegitimate son of the man who had been killed by his father during a family feud.

  It wasn’t the first time that the papers had referred to Joseph’s parentage; in fact, they’d had a field day with regard to the murder and of himself having been shot at the same time as his natural father.

  Joseph’s arm was still in a sling; his coat was buttoned over it. He stood now, bareheaded, his hat in his hand, as he watched the first clods of earth being shovelled onto the coffin, the while he recalled the final meeting with his grandfather: he could see the tears raining from the bleared eyes, and feel again the swelling in his own chest and the restriction in his throat which prevented words from passing through his lips. He heard again the old man saying, ‘Bend down, my boy,’ and when he did so the arms came about him; and he returned the embrace, tightly, hungrily, and, as now, his heart was full. But his eyes were dry; yet it was a burning dryness. But not so Bright, who was standing at his side: Bright’s head was bowed low and the tears were dripping off the end of his nose and his chin; and when he went to take the older man’s arm, he muttered, ‘Leave me, sir, just for a while,’ and Joseph, after a moment’s hesitation, turned slowly and walked to where Amy was waiting for him.

  Douglas first helped his wife into the carriage and then his daughter, and lastly he went to assist Joseph; but Joseph, turning to him, said, ‘I…I won’t be coming back with you.’

  ‘What!’ It was as if Douglas hadn’t heard aright.

  Now Bridget and Amy were leaning from the carriage and they both said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m…I’m going to stay with Mrs Hanratty for a few days.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  He looked at Amy and said quietly, ‘I can. I want to.’

  ‘Why?’ Douglas’s voice too was low but the word was hard-sounding.

  ‘Because I…I want to sort myself out. And anyway I’m all right now…and’—he gave a tight smile—‘I’m no longer working there.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re being awkward again. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Amy, please! Look, I’m going to stay with Mrs Hanratty, I’ve told you.’ And now he looked from one to the other.

  ‘This is ridiculous. Who’s going to look after you?’ It was Amy again, and he turned to her, saying, ‘There’s nobody better than Mrs Hanratty.’

  ‘But how are you going to get there? Will we drop you off?’

  He turned to answer Bridget: ‘No, thank you. There’s a cab waiting. Mrs Hanratty saw to it.’

  ‘Dear! Dear! Dear! You have been busy.’ Douglas’s head was nodding now and he looked anything but pleased as he muttered, ‘You are an awkward cuss, you know. It’s as Amy says.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. I know that, but I’ll likely grow out of it.’

  ‘Please’—Bridget was extending her hand towards him—‘come back with us. Please.’

  ‘Mrs Filmore,’ he said, ‘please see my side of it: they’ll all be waiting; I’m a curio. It’s been awkward in the house these last few days: I was a worker, the lowest in the small staff, and now who am I? They are having a job to find out how to treat me, even Bright. And then you are expecting half this crowd to go back to the house, aren’t you? It’s amazing’—he smiled quizzically now—‘how many friends the old fellow has suddenly accumulated. He has lain there for years, I should imagine, and not one of them looked in on him. If, for nothing else, I should feel too cynical to face them today.’

  Douglas looked at this tall young man whom he had seen grow from a boy into a youth and had now jumped from a young man into maturity. It wasn’t two full months since he had last seen him yet he seemed to have put on years. He placed his hand on his shoulder, saying, ‘Have it the way you want it. We’ll come along there tomorrow; we’ve got a lot to talk about.’

  Joseph let the carriage bowl away before he turned and walked to where a solitary cab was waiting. He did not even address the driver, but got into the cab and lay back in a corner of it and closed his eyes…

  Bertha Hanratty was waiting for him. Her face was bright, her hands outstretch
ed in welcome, and they were gentle as they helped him off with his coat, then practically led him, as if he were an invalid, up to the fire and to the basket chair; and not until then did she speak, saying, ‘Well, you got it over?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Hanratty, I got it over.’

  ‘You know something?’

  ‘No. What should I know?’

  ‘I’d rather you called me Bertha.’

  ‘That would be nice, Bertha. Yes, I’ll call you Bertha.’

  He looked round the room, sighed and said, ‘It’s good to be back.’

  ‘Aw, lad.’ Her hands one on each side of the chair, she bent over him, her face close to his and said, ‘You’ve got no idea how good it is for me an’ all. You know, from the minute you came to that door’—she jerked her head back—‘as wet as a duck that forgot to oil its wings, me whole life has been different, changed. And yours has an’ all…I mean, changed, hasn’t it?’

  She straightened up now, adding, ‘And to think you belong to that lot down there. Eeh! It’s like somethin’ that you read about.’

  ‘I don’t really belong, Bertha. I’m an offshoot that shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘You belong all right, signed paper or no signed paper.’ Her voice had hardened somewhat. ‘Half the royalty were got on the wrong side of the blanket and they belong all right. And you belong.’ And her tone becoming lighter, she said, ‘Now, what are you goin’ to have? Let’s get down to eatin’, eh?’ only to add with some concern, ‘Don’t you feel like anything?’

  ‘Nothing to eat for a while, but I tell you what I would like: a good big glass of your elderberry wine, the oldest stuff.’

  ‘That you’ll have in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  He watched her hurry from the room to the scullery and again his gaze wandered about him. How was it he felt so at home here? How was it he had ever come here in the first place? Just because he was as wet as a duck that hadn’t oiled its wings, she had said. He smiled to himself. She came out with some funny things. The old man would have liked her. Oh, yes, he would have liked little Bertha. They would have got on like a house on fire. Funny, but he couldn’t get him out of his mind for very long. And then there was his father…A murderer.

  That part hadn’t reached the papers. No, it was too complicated, and the fact that the younger brother had kept silent about it all these years would have made greater headlines still; and would they have believed that he was unaware of his brother’s guilt until after the innocent man had been hanged? No; as Douglas had said to him, nobody would have believed it. What was more, he would have been termed an accessory after the fact.

  As for the episode that had ended it all, all he could recall vividly was the hate that had swept through him as he tore Henrietta from her father’s grasp, and from her grasp on him. In the split second before the bullet had struck him, had his father pulled him forward to protect himself? He would never know for sure, but the suspicion would always remain in his mind. And had the hate of him died? No. No, it hadn’t; it was still there. He could only hope that time would dim it. And that’s what he wanted, in all ways…time. Time to know what he was going to do with his life. Would he go up to Cambridge? No; he didn’t think so. Then what would he do? Well, he didn’t know, did he? That’s why he was here, for if there was any place he would find himself, it would be in the company of Bertha Hanratty.

  It was after he had eaten, some two hours or more later, and they were sitting before the fire, that she brought the subject up by saying to him, ‘What d’you intend to do with your life, lad?’ and he had answered, ‘To tell you the truth, Bertha, I don’t know.’

  ‘Will you go to the university?’

  ‘No; I’ve already made up my mind about that.’

  She was looking into the fire now as she said, ‘Well, whatever you intend to do, don’t waste it, lad. You’ve only got one life. But, you know, you never realise this until you are halfway through it, that’s if you get the chance to reach that stage. Often life is taken from people before they realise that they value it. I used to be always sorry when I heard of life being snatched from the young. But then again, it might have been better that way for them, for it may have saved them suppin’ sorrow. You know, Joseph, I’m a very healthy woman. I’ve never known a day’s illness in me life and yet I’ve known such unhappiness that at times I would have swapped it for the peace which some chronic invalids seem to have inside themselves. D’you know what I mean?’

  He didn’t answer her, not even with a nod, and she went on, ‘You’ve heard me talk about me son in Australia an’ that I hear from him every Christmas and that I hope he’ll just pop in the door one day. Well, that’s all bunkum, lad, all bunkum. Our Jimmy, who’s now, I should say, forty-three, come the twentieth of next month, never gave a thought to anybody in his life. I’ve never heard from him in fifteen years. No Christmas card.’ She slanted her gaze towards him now. ‘I heard from him when he married and the wife wrote to me when each of the children were born, just a short note. Now I don’t know whether any of them are alive or dead. I wrote to them at the last address they gave me but I got no reply. And our Lena, she’s forty, has two children. I told you she lived in Jersey. She sends me a Christmas card and I send the bairns something every Christmas. From what I understand she’s married decently off, quite warm in fact. But none of the warmth ever came this end. Why didn’t they take after my Willie? Very odd, you know, about families, Joseph, very odd. And so, now you know why I nearly ate you up the day you landed on the doorstep in the rain. I was lonely. I look back an’ I know I’ve been lonely every day since Willie died. But from the minute you stepped into the kitchen, as I told you, me life seemed to change. Lad, if you walked out the morrow and I never saw you again, the memory of these last few weeks, waitin’ for you comin’ in at night, seein’ you out in the mornin’, the memory of that’ll last me.’

  ‘Oh, Bertha.’ He leant forward and caught her hand, and she lifted it up and pressed it against her cheek, and at the contact he asked himself, how many kinds of love were there? Because here he was telling himself that he loved this little woman in a way that he had never loved his mother, because he had never been able to talk to his mother, at least his mother had never been able to talk to him, as Bertha had. Looking back, he thought that his mother had buried herself in the quicklime that had covered his stepfather. She had only been half-alive all those years, living only because she had to bring him up. It had been a sad life and the sadness had impregnated him. Yet, with Bertha here, it was different. For him, there was a glowing warmth emanating from this little woman, and, although he couldn’t tell her, he knew that for the rest of his life he would feel that wherever she was, he must be near her, at least within visiting distance, and that often. ‘What about another glass of your lifesaver?’ he said.

  And this brought her to her feet with a laugh, saying, ‘At your service, sir! At your service. And you know somethin’?’ She poked her head forward. ‘If you hadn’t been to a funeral the day I’d put the phonograph on.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Do you think the old man would have enjoyed it?’

  ‘Yes, he would, I’m sure he would, and this kitchen…and you.’

  ‘Well, that bein’ so I’ll go and get it. It’s in a cupboard in the front room.’

  He lay back in the chair, his head moving from side to side: he had just buried his grandfather and now they were going to have the phonograph on. He must be back in the dream, he must. Life was crazy, but sort of happy at this moment.

  Eleven

  They were sitting side by side in the drawing room. Victoria was lying back on the couch with her feet on a high footstool; Bridget was holding her hand and saying, ‘Do you think she understands all that has happened? I mean, the relationships, that Joseph is her half-brother, and Douglas her uncle, and Amy her cousin?’

  ‘Oh yes, she understands, although—’ Victoria paused here, then said, ‘she may no
t have understood how it all came about because I have not told her about her father’s connection with Joseph.’ She again paused and made a movement with her head as if dismissing something before ending, ‘And Lily’s part in all this.’ Then turning to look fully at Bridget, she asked quietly, ‘When are we leaving?’

  ‘Any time, my dear. Everything is ready for you down at the house. It could be this afternoon.’

  Victoria now raised her head from the couch and looked round the room, saying as she did so, ‘Once I step out of this house I’ll never enter it again, but not a day will pass of those I’ve got left but I’ll be walking its corridors, its rooms, wishing for something to happen, something drastic, something terrible that would wipe him out of my life and leave Henrietta safe. You know, Bridget, if I could have got my hand on a gun, I would have shot him years ago. I’ve wondered since if it was because he sensed this as much as his need for money that he sold the contents of the gun room, only keeping one or two in his own room…and under lock and key. You know, at the height of my hate I would turn to the Bible for help, and every character I read of there had some redeeming feature. But I could find none in him, at least I don’t think so, except that perhaps he might have had a love for his mistress, judging by the letters and a photograph I found in his drawer. She looked to be an elderly woman, too, which was surprising. Well, all I can hope is that she perhaps found some redeeming feature in him, because I never did.’

  Bridget patted Victoria’s hand, saying, ‘You will forget, and it will be like old times when we were young…’

  What a stupid thing to say. Nothing would be like old times, and what had happened in the past twenty years would obliterate even the thoughts of those far-gone days. Victoria had said that every day she had left she would recall the time spent in this house. And that was likely, because, if she were to believe the young doctor, her condition was such that her days might spread into a few months, and perhaps with special care and attention, a little longer.