The Silent Lady

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The woman’s head drooped forward, and Bella took her meaning: she wasn’t going to say. So she said to her, ‘Lift yourself on to this mattress here; and don’t worry, I promise you you’ll be safe until the morning.’

  The woman did as she was told; then Bella said, ‘I’d take off me shoes if I was you.’ But for answer the woman drew her feet upwards and tucked them under the long coat, at which Bella said, ‘Well, have it your own way. They’re your feet and as far as I can see they’re wet. Are you hungry?’ But as she said this Bella thought she needn’t have asked, and immediately turned to the men and said, ‘I don’t suppose either of you has a sandwich or anything tucked away in your pocket?’

  Big Joe said nothing, but Pimple said somewhat shyly, ‘Well, I’ve got a couple of buns in me coat.’ Then he added quickly, ‘I bought them, I didn’t nick them. I got them along at the bakery, you can ask.’

  ‘Shut up! Anyway, hand one over.’

  Bella offered it to the woman, who was now sitting half upright propped against the warm wall side of the boiler. She looked at the hand holding the bun and her lips moved each over the other before her hand came out and picked it from the extended palm. She did not immediately put it to her mouth; but, her head turning slowly, she looked towards the small man, and there were the two words that she had been known to utter before, only this time in a croak as she said, ‘Thank you.’

  The effect of this on Pimple was to make him move swiftly from one foot to the other. It was as if he was about to do a jig. Then he looked at his companion, and from Joe to his boss, and what he muttered was, ‘She’s a different kettle of fish.’

  Bella looked at him. He had a feeling in him, had Pimple: as he said, that one sitting there was a different kettle of fish. For a moment she wondered how long it had been since she’d had a square meal – her arms felt fleshless. On an impulse she said, ‘You come with me, Joe, and I’ll give you a bowl of soup for her; and if you’re civil I might find a can of cocoa for you both.’ And then she added as she went out of the door, ‘I must be going up the pole;’ and to this Joe said on a laugh, ‘Just as you say, boss, just as you say: you must be going up the pole.’

  Ten minutes later Joe was being pushed back through the gates by Bella. He was carrying a small straw basket in which stood a bowl of soup with a plate over it, and on the plate was a large bacon sandwich, and to the side of this was a lidded can of steaming cocoa. And as she stood locking the gates he did not walk away, but turned to look back through the rusted iron tracery and say to her quietly, ‘You’re a bit of all right, you know, Bella. A bit of all right. There’s never been a better.’

  Bella Morgan watched the big fellow disappear into the darkness; then she walked slowly to her front door, unlocked it, and entered her house.

  After locking the door, she sat down in the basket chair, and she repeated, ‘You’re a bit of all right, you know, Bella. A bit of all right. There’s never been a better.’ That was a compliment and a compliment indeed. And nobody in her life, not even Ham, after she had nursed him all those years, had said, ‘You’re a bit of all right, Bella. A bit of all right.’ It had taken that big rough galoot of a fellow to pay her the first compliment of her life. Here she was, thirty-eight years old. She was five foot two, fat, and as plain as a pikestaff, so marriage hadn’t been for her. Men ignored her. No, not all men. Her father hadn’t . . . She got swiftly to her feet and shook herself: she had never cried in her life and she wasn’t going to start now.

  2

  The following morning, Bella was eager to get into the yard to see what had transpired during the night. Her first surprise was that both her helpers were up and dressed. They met her half-way up the yard, and she said to them, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Where you left her last night, and she’s sound asleep. It must be the warmth of the boiler – she’s as close to that wall as to be almost inside it,’ said Joe.

  ‘Did she eat her soup?’

  ‘Eat her soup?’ Pimple put in. ‘Bella, she wolfed it; and the sandwich an’ all; and I gave her a can-lid full of cocoa; and she took it from me without shrinking back.’

  ‘She shrinks from me,’ said Joe. ‘It must be me size. What you goin’ to do with her? Give her a job of some sort?’

  ‘Ask yourself, man, what job have I got to give her? Anyway, it takes me all me time to keep you two goin’.’

  ‘By the looks of her,’ said Pimple, ‘I don’t think she’d expect much, only to be warm and have a bite. I thought . . . well,’ he swung his head from side to side, ‘I’m sort of sorry for her. She’s not like others about ... I mean any of them sleeping rough. And she looks so scared. I’ve a feeling she must’ve had a great shock of some kind and it’s turned her head, because she can speak. Well, you know, you heard her; but she won’t talk; she can hear all right, though . . . everything. I’d like to know where she comes from. One thing seems certain’ – his voice was firm now, unusual for him – ‘it wasn’t the gutter, because in spite of the muck, I mean the state her clothes are in with mud and that, I swear she’s known a different class.’

  ‘My! She’s got you, hasn’t she?’ said Bella, on a laugh.

  She left them, to go into the wash-house. As they had said, the woman was still fast asleep and curled up against the wall, which held the warmth from the dead fire. She did not know whether or not to waken her, and she asked herself, waken her to what? To go out on the road again to scratch for food, just as, apparently, she had been doing, and sleeping rough? Yes; and by the sight of that coat, very rough indeed. But, then, what was she going to do with her? She had no work to offer her; in fact, she thought, if, as Pimple surmised, she was a real lady, she might never have dirtied her hands in her life. But if that was the case why weren’t her people looking for her? She was not one who could be easily overlooked. Somebody would surely have remembered seeing her: hereabouts she must have stuck out like a sore thumb. That coat and funny hat had not been bought at any second-hand stall, of that she was certain. She had felt the cloth of the coat when she had gripped the woman’s arms. It was blanket thickness, and under the collar it was still a bonny green, as was the top of the cloche or turban or whatever name you could put to the hat.

  She went out, thinking, I’ll leave her for a while, but she must be out of there before I set up me stall.

  It was some time later when she had got the can of tea and a breakfast bite ready for her workers that the knock came on her front door again, and there stood the two men, both grinning widely as they said, ‘You want to come and see what’s happening.’

  ‘What d’you mean what’s happening?’

  ‘What she’s doing, the one we left asleep.’

  She handed them the straw basket holding their food and drink, then accompanied them back through the gates and into the yard.

  It was broad daylight now and there was the woman. She was sweeping the remnants from the boxes into a heap in the middle of a cleared piece of the yard. A number of boxes in good condition were standing neatly piled one on top of the other against the far wall, broken ones were placed on the ground at the foot of them.

  Bella turned and looked at the two men, and Joe said, ‘What d’you make of that now?’

  ‘What I make of it,’ she said tartly, ‘is that she’s startin’ to clear the yard, as you should’ve done a long time ago.’

  ‘Oh, Bella.’

  ‘Never mind oh, Bella.’ She walked from them now and when she approached the woman whatever she meant to say was checked by the refined but muffled voice saying, ‘Thank you – work.’

  To this Bella answered, but only after a moment, ‘There was no need; but thank you all the same.’

  Then pointing to the rest of the disordered yard, the woman again said, ‘Work.’

  Bella looked from one to the other of her men; then, turning to the woman again, she said, ‘You mean you’re asking to work for me here?’

  Now the head m
ade a downward motion, and to this Bella said, ‘But . . . but I can’t afford to take anybody else on.’

  Now the woman’s head was shaking, and she turned and pointed towards the wash-house and then to her mouth, and it was Pimple who translated her seemingly deaf and dumb language by muttering to Bella, ‘I think she’s trying to say she doesn’t want pay, just somewhere to kip and something to eat.’

  The woman’s gaze was now on Pimple, and she was nodding.

  ‘You mean you’ll sleep with the men?’ said Bella.

  Immediately the woman stepped backwards quickly, her body seemed to shrink inside the big coat and her head drooped on to her chest; again Pimple translated, saying, ‘She doesn’t want to sleep along of us. That’s awkward, isn’t it, Bella, ’cos that’s our kip?’

  Bella made no comment, for she was experiencing a most strange feeling as she stared at this long-coated odd creature, and the feeling told her that whatever arrangement had to be made she couldn’t let the woman go into the outside world, of which she sensed she was afraid and where she would certainly be taken down by some man and probably end up in the river.

  She turned to the men: ‘Get your bait, then before you go I’ll give you a bite to put in the wash-house for her. You, Pimple, try and explain to her - I mean about me locking the gate. Make it plain to her she can’t get out even if she wants to.’

  ‘By the look of things I don’t think she’ll bother too hard to get out,’ said Joe.

  ‘You leave that to me; but when you’re out look about and see if you can get your hands on a single mattress of some kind; but see it’s clean, not walking.’

  ‘Aye, Bella. Aye, I’ll do that,’ Joe assured her. Then they all turned and looked at the woman, who was sweeping again as if her work had not just been interrupted . . .

  She was still sweeping, but more slowly, when at ten o’clock Bella went out to her and said, ‘Drop that,’ nodding towards the brush, ‘and come into the wash-house and have this.’

  The woman obeyed her. When they were inside Bella handed her the can of tea and a paper plate on which there was a thick slice of bread and dripping, and she said, ‘Sit down and take it easy; if you mean to clean that yard it’ll take days. And another thing, I don’t know where you’re going to sleep because you won’t sleep in here with the men, will you?’

  The woman turned her head away, and Bella, a little irritably, said to her, ‘What’s your name?’ and when the head did not turn towards her, Bella said, ‘You must have a name I can call you, for goodness’ sake!’ The woman muttered something, and Bella repeated, ‘Rain?’

  The woman now stared at her; then wetting a finger, she went to the dirty window and on it she traced out the letters RE, and Bella said, ‘R . . . E? RE?’ Then almost on a laugh, she said, ‘Ren-e?’ The woman’s head was nodding now. ‘Reenee! Reenee! Aye. Aye.’ Bella was nodding too. ‘I see now: not rain, but Reenee.’ Then more nodding, and Bella said, ‘Nice name, Reenee.’ Then, being the practical woman she was, she asked, ‘You found the privy in this yard, did you?’ And to the unspoken confirmation, she said, ‘Well, that’s something. And that’s a place now that wants cleaning out. Those two beggars should’ve seen to it. But don’t you bother with it; I’ll have a go at them. I’ll be back around twelve.’ And with this she turned and left Reenee, wondering, as she did so, why the woman should bother her. But bother her she did; as did wondering where she was going to let her kip that night. She certainly wouldn’t let her stay in the house. Oh, no; she wasn’t going to have any of that. But there was the cellar. It was as cold as charity, but there was the fireplace. Old Ham used to have that fire on when he brought in pieces of old furniture, what he called antiques, and at such times the fire would be lit while he worked at mending them. Well, that seemed the only solution; but God in heaven, why was she bothering? It was Saturday and she had a decent lot of stuff to sell, the best she’d had for some time . . .

  At a quarter past twelve, after she had finished her own meal, she took a bowl of soup and a meat pie into the girl, as she now thought of her, with the name Reenee, and found her chopping up boxes into kindling. In the wash-house the boiler was already full of water and the fire on. She called her in, then said, ‘My word, you’ve been busy, haven’t you? And you’ve cleaned this place up an’ all. I’ve not been able to look through that window for years. Now sit yourself down and have this bite.’

  Reenee’s eyes were on the little fat woman now and there was no longer any fear in them.

  ‘I’ve thought of where you might kip. I - I mean sleep. But it couldn’t be tonight because you’d freeze. It’s in the cellar. There’s a fireplace down there. It used to be the kitchen of the house, you know, and it’s a good burner, and once that’s lit . . . well . . . well, you could sleep down there. That’s if the lads can get a mattress.’ And then she added thoughtfully, ‘And nobody would be able to get at you ’cos the door to the outside is bolted top and bottom, and the only way you can enter it is from my kitchen. So you wouldn’t have to worry. You understand?’

  Reenee nodded; then, her hand going slowly out, her fingers touched the little fat woman’s wrist. It was only a featherlight touch but it brought a rush of feeling into Bella’s body such as she had never experienced before. She did not realise it to be compassion, she knew only that she felt sorry for the creature, sorry to the bottom of her heart. But the reason for feeling like this she couldn’t fathom. She was experiencing the strangest emotions. Look at last night: that big galoot had spoken to her like he did, and now the feeling for this broken reed.

  Why, she asked herself sternly now, should those words come into her head – broken reed? Then she remembered seeing them in a magazine somewhere when some body’s sad life was being described. They were a broken reed, it had said. ‘Get on with your bite,’ she said, as she turned abruptly and went out.

  Her stall was cleared by half past three in the afternoon. There wasn’t even a cabbage leaf left, and the little guttersnipe gathered up the empty boxes, together with the trestles, and took them to the iron gates. When she opened them he carried the stuff inside and, as usual, went to throw the boxes into a heap, only to be stopped by Bella yelling at him, ‘Stack them up! D’you hear me? Take them over to that wall where the other ones are.’ She pointed to the far end of the yard and, much surprised, the youngster made three journeys with the boxes and stacked them against the wall. Then, still obeying orders, he put the trestles and the planks into what had once been a coalhouse. But he was a bit peeved when Bella added nothing to the twopence she gave him daily for running errands and clearing up.

  She did not go to see what the new acquisition to her staff was about, but went into the house and made herself a cup of tea, then sat thinking about the girl and her sleeping quarters. If she let her stay in the cellar she would have to come through this house to get to it, because in no way could Bella risk giving her a key to the back door. Let’s face it, she told herself, she didn’t know what the creature might be up to. The word ‘creature’ had kept popping into her mind when she thought of the girl, probably suggested by the weird coat and hat she wore. Of one thing she was certain, the girl wasn’t quite normal: something had happened to her to knock her off balance. What it was she would like to know, and she was sure she would come to know eventually; but it would take time because she would be dealing with a still very frightened creature. One thing more, there must be somebody, somewhere, looking for her: a girl like that wouldn’t be without a family. Surely not. Whoever had been the cause of her distress must be known to others, and they must definitely, if they had any heart at all, want to know what had become of her. Yet she had been in the gutter, so to speak, for at least some months now. Well, she told herself, there was no use sitting here mulling over something she couldn’t get to the bottom of, not as yet anyway. She’d take the girl down and see her reactions to the cellar.

  When Reenee entered Bella’s house for the first time she stopped abruptly within the
small hall and gazed about her; and Bella, seeing this, said, ‘Surprised, are you? You didn’t expect to see it clean and tidy and holdin’ decent pieces. Well, come and see something better still.’ Pushing open the door, she said, ‘This is my kitchen and sitting room. I have a parlour but I don’t use it. No need to; but it would also surprise you.’

  Again Reenee had stopped and looked around her. Then her eyes became fixed on the fireplace, where a large iron pan stood on the hob, something quietly bubbling within it.

  ‘This wasn’t really the kitchen,’ Bella said, ‘it was a sort of dining-room. The kitchen’s downstairs in the cellar. Come on.’

  At the top of the stone stairs, she switched on a light, then another when they reached the bottom. And this showed up the long room, bare but for a pile of broken furniture in one corner.

  Bella pointed to the rusted iron range. ‘That’s what I was talkin’ about. It’s a good fire, had to be in those days for all the cookin’ they did. But it eats wood, and needs coal.’ The word coal immediately presented her with the idea that she could pay Reenee by giving her a bag of coal each week. Aye, that would be an idea.

  She unlocked the back door and, pointing towards a door across the yard, she said, ‘That’s the privy, a better one than the other; but if you intend to sleep down here, don’t go out to it in the middle of the night because . . . well, there might be vans in the yard. That’s another thing. Don’t take any notice of the commotion there might be around late evenings or in the dead of night. There’s nobody trying to get in, they just . . . well, they just store their vans there until the next morning. You understand?’

  Reenee indicated that she did. Then she looked up and down the large yard and the look of bewilderment on her face made Bella ask, ‘What is it? I told you, nobody can get in except the vans and the men on them. Look yonder: there are two stout gates and they are locked. You’ll be all right here, only always keep your door bolted because somebody might get curious if they see smoke coming from the chimney. You never know; there’s always a sharp one among them. Oh, for that matter’ – she was talking as if to herself now – ‘they’re all sharp, a weird lot.’ She pointed again to the lavatory. ‘Do you want to go to the lav?’ And when Reenee indicated that she did, Bella stepped back into the room to wait. Looking about her, she asked herself again why the hell she was doing this and going to all this trouble. Was she lonely? Did she want company? Well, if she wanted company she had picked on the wrong one, hadn’t she, because the girl had hardly opened her mouth. Most of the time she talked in sign language like someone dumb.