The Solace of Sin

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What’s that you say?’ A woman put her head out from one of the outhouses to the right of the yard. She was evidently washing clothes, for her great thick arms were covered with soapsuds. ‘Oh, what’s this now?’ She was wiping her arms on her apron as she crossed the yard towards them, a woman, Constance guessed, of around fifty, and unmistakably Irish.

  ‘The folks were looking at the house, Hannah. They might take it. Where’s me Dad?’

  ‘In the kitchen, the last I saw of him. Your mother was seeing to his foot.’

  ‘Come away. Come away in.’ Moira smiled broadly at Constance, and Hannah, nodding to Peter, said, ‘It’s interested in the house, you are? Well, that’s good to know. Sean!’ She was shouting now as she led the way through a low door and into a small room that was stacked with boots, shoes, wellingtons, and odd-sized coats. Then through yet another small room; obviously a storeroom, for it was full of sacks of potatoes, above which were racks holding vegetables. Finally they entered what was evidently the living room, and for the first time Constance saw Sean and Florence O’Connor, and Sean was certainly not the big fellow of Harry’s description. The man was of medium height, thin, and with a head of thick grey hair, making it appear large. His wife, who had been attending to a cut on his foot, was also thin. But she was tall, even stately, and whereas Sean O’Connor’s voice and attitude stamped him immediately as Irish, his wife was unmistakably English, Northumbrian English, and of some breeding.

  ‘This lady’s after the house, Sean,’ explained Hannah.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ began Constance; then added, ‘I…I hope we’re not intruding.’

  ‘Not at all; be seated.’ Florence O’Connor pointed to a wooden chair to the side of a large table, its top bare and white; then she stooped and picked up a tin dish from the floor, and as she stood straight again she inclined her head down towards the man who was hastily pulling a sock onto his foot, and said, ‘This is my husband.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Constance too inclined her head.

  ‘He’s for it. He’s taken with it, Dad.’

  All eyes were now turned on Moira, and her mother’s voice came at her sternly, saying, ‘Moira!’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry, Mother.’ The round face drooped for a moment, only to come up again, a smile splitting it, as she said quickly, ‘Well, he likes it.’ She jerked her head towards Peter. ‘They both like it fine…Don’t you?’

  Before Constance could reply Sean O’Connor put his head back and let out a deep laugh. ‘That’s me girl! The only one in the family with a business head on her shoulders…Sit down, sit down.’ He was pointing towards Peter now, then added, ‘You’re the son, I suppose?’ and without waiting for confirmation he turned to his wife and said, ‘Put the kettle on, Florence.’

  ‘I was about to.’ Florence O’Connor moved towards the open range and placed the kettle in the heart of the red glowing fire that gave the room, on this hot day, the atmosphere of a bread oven.

  ‘Now, are you really interested in the house?’ Sean O’Connor stood up and made a painful grimace as he began to pull his boot on. ‘You’re not just passin’ by?’

  ‘Yes, I’m really interested.’

  ‘You know…of course you do, for Moira there is sure to have told you, the water’s outside, but like wine it is. I’m tellin’ you that, and it’s worth the short distance you’ve got to go for it. You’ll find nothin’ like our water in a tap. An’ you also know that sanitation is nil, as also is the lightin’? You know that?’

  ‘Yes; it was obvious, all of it.’ Constance smiled as she spoke.

  ‘Ah well, now we know where we stand. Put those three unimportant things to one side and you’ve got the finest house in the county, even though I’m sayin’ it meself. A house of character. My wife was born there, weren’t you, Florence?’

  ‘Yes.’ Florence O’Connor came to the other side of the table and looked at Constance. Her face held a composure, although there was a shadow of sadness behind it. Constance thought she was a woman who wouldn’t waste words, and she found it difficult, at this stage, to associate her with this rough-spoken, merry-eyed, congenial Irishman. She could quite imagine her saying, That is all, O’Connor, and the man touching his forehead and leaving the room. Florence O’Connor’s voice, like her face, had a controlled quality. She was saying, ‘And my mother was born in the house; and her mother, and grandmother. It was built in 1822, because this place—’ she spread her palm upwards—‘became too small for the family.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Sean put in now. ‘The Wheatleys reared grand families; eighteen, one of them ran to; and, you know, this very place and the wall around it was built in the seventeenth century. Would you believe that now? And ten families were housed inside it at that time, and all Wheatleys…Aye, they were a fine family, and they built well. This place will be standing when the buildings being thrown up everywhere today are rotting again. But now, to get back to the Hall—’

  ‘You call it the Hall?’ Peter’s voice held a note of surprise and Sean O’Connor turned towards him and said airily, ‘Shekinah Hall, to be exact.’ He pronounced it She-ki-nah.

  ‘What a quaint name,’ said Constance. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Oh, its meaning is simple; it means to dwell…A dwelling place, you know.’

  ‘We call it Snow Hall,’ put in Moira on a laugh, ‘because once you get in there in the winter an’ it snows hard you can’t get out again…’ The words trailed away under the eyes of her mother, and Sean cried, ‘There! they would hang you, wouldn’t they? Children…they would hang you. If I didn’t love you I would murder you at this minute.’ He was leaning towards his daughter, and although she looked concerned because of the look her mother had cast on her, she laughed into her father’s face and asked, ‘Shall I go and get Vin?’

  ‘Yes, away you go, you little witch, and fetch him. We can do nothing without Vin.’

  ‘I’ll be getting back to me wash,’ said Hannah now.

  Constance had forgotten about the woman who had ushered them in, but now she turned to see her still standing at the side of the door, the position she had taken up when they had entered the room, and she saw Florence O’Connor turn her head towards her quickly and say, ‘No, Hannah; you must be here. And anyway I’m going to mash some tea.’

  ‘Aw, that’s different. Who could walk away with a brew in the offing?’ Hannah now walked across the room to the window and sat down in a high-backed wooden chair, rolling down the sleeves of her blouse and buttoning her cuffs. She could not place her in the scheme of this household. She must be a servant of sorts, not a relative. No, she didn’t think she was a relative. Aiming to find out in what relation the Irish woman was to the Irish man and his English wife, she said to Florence, ‘Have you a large family?’

  Florence O’Connor was at the fire now, pouring water from the big black iron kettle into a large earthenware teapot, and her voice came low and muffled as she said, ‘We’ve had ten children.’

  ‘Ten! That is a large family.’ Constance smiled and nodded at Sean O’Connor and he nodded back at her, saying, ‘It’s an even number, anyway. And we like children; we both like children very much.’ The smile had gone from his face and his voice held a serious note now, and it seemed to alter the man completely; his manner no longer placed him in the role of farmhand but as the master of the house.

  There came the sound of Moira’s laughing voice from the other room together with a heavy tread, and Constance looked towards the door and saw, standing behind the child, the man Harry had described.

  He had to bend his head to enter the room. He was wearing corduroy trousers and a checked open-neck shirt, and he looked first at Peter, who was sitting directly opposite the door, then down the room towards Constance.

  As Harry had said, he had a granite-like face, all protruding bones. His mouth was large, the lips full and, in comparison with the rest of the features, soft. From this distance his eyes looked colourless, but they were directed hard on h
er and she felt her own waver under his gaze. She could understand Millie getting a fright at the sight of him. He was so big, hard-looking, and remote. That was the word that described him, remote.

  His father was saying, ‘This lady here, Mrs…?’ But he paused on the name and Constance prompted, ‘Stapleton.’

  ‘Oh aye, Mrs Stapleton. She’s interested in the Hall, Vin.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ The tall figure moved a step forward. ‘You’ve been over it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you like it?’

  She looked upwards at him now. ‘I like it very much. I…I don’t know whether I could live in it permanently, but…but we could use it for weekends to start with, that is if…if I can meet your price.’

  ‘Well; well now.’ It was Sean speaking again. Moving up to his son’s side, he said, quickly, ‘It’s cheap as houses go. Fifteen hundred, we want for it.’

  Constance’s attention was drawn back to the big man’s face. He was now staring at his father, his mouth slightly open as if he were about to say something abruptly; then he brought his eyes to her again and waited.

  A house such as the one they were discussing would have fetched around six thousand if it had been situated near a town and had the essentials of water, light and sanitation. As it was placed, it was just a well-built structure set in a very inaccessible spot in Northumberland. They were asking enough. A thousand, she had thought. Very likely it had been more than fifteen hundred for, from the son’s expression, his father’s statement had come as a surprise to him.

  ‘And that’s for a quick sale, mind. It’s worth two thousand of anybody’s money.’ Sean O’Connor was now walking towards the fireplace, and Constance noticed the expression on his wife’s face. He did not meet her eyes, but went on, ‘We’re hard-pushed, else we wouldn’t be parting with it. No, not for a minute. But needs must when the devil drives.’

  ‘Have this cup of tea.’ Florence O’Connor was handing Constance a blue-rimmed china cup and saucer. Constance and Peter had just emptied a flask a short while ago, but with her usual courtesy she took the cup, saying, ‘Thank you very much.’ She watched Peter doing the same. She was glad he hadn’t refused, although he didn’t care much for tea.

  She raised the cup to her lips and was about to sip at it when she became aware that Vincent O’Connor was still staring at her, so she stared back at him, and it was to him she spoke and not to his father when she said, ‘Would you give me a little time to consider it? I’ll…I’ll write you this evening, whichever way I decide.’

  He stared at her a moment longer, then said, ‘Very well,’ and on this he turned about and walked abruptly from the room, dipping his head quickly as he went through the doorway.

  The next minute her attention was brought to the large woman sitting by the window. She was now unloosening the buttons of her cuffs and quickly rolling her sleeves up again as she pulled her heavy body out of the chair, and she spoke apparently to no-one in particular as she said, ‘He’s vexed; you shouldn’t have done it. Your legs are not long enough to straddle mountains; you should have left the going to him.’

  ‘Hannah!’ Florence O’Connor spoke the name as she had done that of her daughter earlier. It was a censure and no more words were necessary to voice her disapproval.

  Hannah paused in the doorway, her face lost in the shadow from the next room, and her voice was a mumble as, still speaking in metaphor, she said, ‘When you gollop your food the belly sends it all up again; then what’ve you got?’

  Sean O’Connor, his face red, was looking at his wife now, and she was looking at Constance, and she said, ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t offered you anything to eat. A little currant cake? It was freshly made this morning.’

  ‘No, thank you; we…we just had lunch on the terrace.’ Constance made a motion upwards with her hand to indicate the house.

  As Florence turned again towards the fire, where her husband now stood with his hand on the mantelpiece, Constance made a silent signal to Peter, and together they rose to their feet.

  As they did so there was the sound of young voices shouting across the yard, and presently from the outer rooms came racing two boys. One was the image of Sean O’Connor, small, thin, brown hair; the other, taller, black-haired and dark-eyed. They were closely followed by a girl in her teens, black-haired like her brother, with brown eyes and thick cream coloured skin. She came in running, her head back, her mouth open, crying, ‘They pinched my—’ Her voice trailed away and she looked at the two strangers standing in the kitchen, just as the two boys were looking at them; and Florence, moving towards them, said, ‘Davie, just look at the sight of you. Where’ve you been?’ Then turning to Constance but stretching her hand back towards the girl, she said, ‘This is my daughter Kathy. This is Mrs Stapleton, Kathy. She has come with a view to buying the Hall.’

  ‘Oh!’ The girl nodded at Constance, then said, ‘How do you do?’

  ‘How do you do?’ replied Constance. ‘This is my son Peter.’

  The girl looked at Peter and said, ‘Hello,’ and likewise he answered, ‘Hello.’

  ‘My…my daughter is training to be a nurse.’ It was with evident pride that Florence was speaking now. ‘She’s doing children’s nursing for a year until she can get into the General Hospital. She’s not yet eighteen. This is her day off.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Constance nodded at the girl, who looked somewhat embarrassed, and she asked her, ‘Where are you studying?’

  ‘Newcastle.’

  ‘Oh, we live there.’

  ‘You do?’ The girl was smiling at her now. Then she turned and smiled at Peter, and he said, ‘It’s a small world after all.’ And it was as if his words held a depth of wisdom, the weight of which was silencing them all, because no-one spoke for a moment, until Constance said, ‘Well, we must be going. I have enjoyed meeting you very much, Mrs O’Connor.’ She held out her hand, and Florence O’Connor took it and they smiled at each other. Then she was shaking hands with Sean O’Connor, who was now strangely quiet. His verbosity seemed to have deserted him even to the point of saying farewell, for he mumbled only a word, then turned away and stood looking down at the fire.

  Florence O’Connor escorted them through the two small rooms and into the yard, where she checked Moira from accompanying them. And so they passed out of the gateless gap in the wall and walked across the field and up the hill. They didn’t speak until they were quite sure they wouldn’t be overheard, when Peter said, ‘That’s a bit steep, I think. And apparently they wanted more. They all seemed surprised when he stated the price.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that.’ Constance nodded. ‘But of course, as he said, if it were near a town it would bring a good deal more.’

  ‘But it’s not near a town…Still, the point is, do you like it?’

  ‘Yes, I like it. But I’ve got to think about it. It has to be furnished and…and we couldn’t live here in the winter. We’d have to have some place in town and that would mean keeping two places going. In the long run it would be as expensive as our present flat.’

  ‘Yes; yes, I suppose so.’ He put out a hand and helped her up and over a rise; then he stopped and, looking at her, asked, ‘What do you think of them?’

  She smiled at him, then turned and looked down onto the walled compound. ‘It’s difficult to say, having met them for only a few minutes. They’re…they’re quaint.’ She shook her head. ‘That isn’t the word, but I’ve never met anyone like them; I mean, a family like them.’

  ‘Nor I. But they seemed happy. Look how that girl came running into the room chasing the boys…Odd.’ His face became straight. ‘You don’t know these kind of people exist,’ and he swept his arm in a wide circle as he enlarged on this: ‘They could be in another country, sort of uncivilised…Oh no—’ he jerked his chin to the side—‘I don’t mean that, and not backward either. Oh, I don’t—’

  ‘I know what you mean. I’m as puzzled as you are. Come on, we’d better be getting back; it’s a long w
alk to the car.’

  She was panting slightly when they rounded the side of the house and stepped up onto the terrace, and they both stopped again, for there, standing by the doorway, apparently waiting for them, was Vincent O’Connor. He walked slowly towards them and without any preamble he said, ‘My father made a mistake about the price.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You won’t take it at fifteen hundred, will you?’

  ‘Well. Well, as I said, I would like time to consider.’

  ‘That’s what most folk say when they want to get out of an embarrassing situation. If you need time to consider you’ll consider against it…Is it only the price?’

  She turned and looked over the wide, wild landscape before saying, ‘No; not, not…entirely.’

  ‘I need the money, so you can have it for a thousand clear. Whatever expenses are involved in the transaction you would have to cover them; I want a thousand. The thing is, I want it now.’

  She was looking up into his face. His eyes were grey with brown flecks in them. They seemed to her to be the wrong eyes for the face, as was his mouth. The bony structure of his face should have been the setting for two black eyes, or cold steely blue ones, and his lips should have been thin and straight. The whole face was a contradiction, a strong contradiction. She had the idea at this moment that he was willing her, a stranger, to provide him with a thousand pounds.

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  His two front teeth nipped quickly at his lower lip.

  The face did not move into a smile, nor did he thank her. All he said was, ‘You won’t be the loser. You can’t go wrong at that price.’