The Silent Lady

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘How long has she been with you?’

  Bella had to think. ‘Oh, since late ‘twenty-nine,’ she said. ‘Two years or more. She’s happy here, I know she is. She never goes out, not unless she must, and then it’s only to help somebody.’

  He stared at her for a moment then went to his bag, took out a phial and a needle, then gripped Reenee’s arm, and jabbed the needle into it. She was now yelling, ‘No! No! I won’t! I won’t! Please!’ She turned her face into the pillow and, lifting up her arm, she covered her eyes, muttering as she did so. ‘I won’t, not like that. No! no, I won’t.’

  Slowly the arm fell from her face, her body sank and went limp in the bed. He said, ‘Does she always struggle like this?’

  ‘Oh, yes; yes.’

  ‘Well, let’s get her things off.’

  ‘Oh, Doctor.’

  ‘Woman!’ His voice was sharp. ‘I’ve got to examine her chest.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Bella now pulled down the sheet and the blanket to expose Irene’s body covered in the woolly shift she remembered seeing through the wash-house window. It was clinging to her skin showing her slight form, and it looked grey and dirty, but Bella knew it wasn’t. This was the garment, together with her underclothes, that she washed in the basin last thing at night when they were all in bed, and which she dried before the fire and over the fireguard. It used to be that she crept downstairs in the dark at night; that was until they got the bathroom. Now, sometimes three times a week, she would bathe herself last thing at night when they were all in bed, and likely she would wash her clothes in the bath and dry them over the kitchen fire as she had before. Poor girl.

  Bella couldn’t tell the doctor all this, and when he said, ‘Does she always wear this thing?’ she could only nod at him. ‘Well, help me to get it off her shoulders; it goes right up to her neck.’

  When they handled the woollen garment they found it was wringing wet. He said, ‘That’s got to come off; she’s got to have something dry on. Come along; pull it right down.’

  ‘It’s her I’m thinking about; but I suppose it’s all right, she doesn’t know. Thank God she doesn’t know.’

  ‘Get a couple of towels, warm ones. She must be rubbed down.’

  After Bella had hurried from the room, he examined the heaving chest and found what he already suspected. It was pneumonia. If she survived this she would be lucky. He now touched her breast where a blue mark ran for about half an inch under the nipple, and he peered at it for a moment. The breast was running with sweat, and he looked about him to see if there was a towel at hand. There wasn’t, so he took a handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and wiped it dry. Again he looked at the mark.

  The other breast, he saw, showed two blue marks, but further down, and his eyes narrowed. Then he looked at the girl’s stomach. It was quite flat, and he passed over it until he came to her groin. There, using his handkerchief, he again wiped away the sweat, and he could see now what looked like a dark stain on the skin. It was like the imprint left after skin had been flailed with a whip or rope. He had seen sailors’ backs criss-crossed with this sort of scar from old floggings, but no, surely this couldn’t have been caused by a whip or a rope?

  Gently he heaved her over on to her side. There were no marks on her back but there, on her buttock, the one visible to him, were blue stains, like those on her breast. They were very like the stains left from pieces of coal that punctured miners’ brows, but he knew that these marks were not from a whip or a rope, they were from teeth. He lifted the other buttock carefully, and yes, there they were again, more of them. He stood up. This woman had been abused, and savagely too.

  The door opened and Bella brought in a couple of warm towels, and together they gently dried Reenee’s body.

  When he came to her feet he lifted up one foot and examined her ankle, and there again was scarring. Why on earth hadn’t somebody found this out before? Yet who would have recognised the marks and the stained skin unless they had knowledge of how they had come about? They might have termed the bluish marks love bites, but there were love bites and love bites. These marks were in another category. Poor woman.

  ‘Have you a dry nightgown?’

  ‘Aye, I have a couple, but they’re calico and stiff; she’s not used to . . .’

  ‘No matter what she’s used to, she has to be changed into dry clothes at regular intervals during the next forty-eight hours or so.’

  Again Bella darted from the room, and when she returned it was to see that the doctor had covered the sweating form with the sheet and blanket.

  It was about fifteen minutes later when he sat at the little table near the window writing out a prescription. When he handed it to Bella he said, ‘Get that made up as quickly as possible and give her a spoonful every three hours. The directions will be on the bottle. Also, there is a salve to rub into her chest. The main thing, though, is to keep her warm and dry. To my mind, Miss Morgan, she should really be in hospital.’

  ‘Oh, no! No, she would hate that, she couldn’t bear that, Doctor.’

  He stared at her. ‘What do you know about her?’

  ‘Very little,’ she admitted dolefully, ‘only that she’s a lady and I’m sure has been very well bred.’

  He put in quietly, ‘Very badly treated by someone.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor?’ It was a question.

  ‘Oh, yes. Her body is marked where it shouldn’t be. I’ll tell you this much, Miss Morgan, and it might sound very crude, but if she had been a prostitute I could have understood it, but not if, as you say, she is a lady. But my examination has indicated that she has been very badly treated by someone she must have known well. Do you think she was married?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she was married.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well,’ Bella pointed to two ring fingers on the left hand, ‘she went to the pawn shop once. It must have cost her something to do that: she pawned a wedding ring and an engagement ring. They must have been of some value because she got thirty-five pounds on them.’

  He raised his eyebrows as he said, ‘Thirty-five pounds! Yes, they must have been of value. But why did she do that?’

  ‘She . . . Well, to tell you the truth, Doctor, it was she who suggested in her deaf and dumb way that the poor people who travel the streets or sleep rough should have a bed, and it was she who suggested starting up my business. She wrote it out on a piece of paper, a kind of design, and we had four men here, members of a little street band, and they were of all trades, building trades, I mean. So, you see, although there are times when she could be taken as being mental, she’s not. She worked out that these men could do this job if there was enough money for materials. But I hadn’t the money that it would cost. I said this, naturally, in front of her, and to the men, and one day she slipped away. I thought I’d lost her for ever, and I nearly went mad because . . . well, I’ve got very fond of her, and that’s what she did.’

  He stared at her before he said, ‘Why on earth would she still have two valuable rings on her if she was in the condition you said you found her? Why didn’t she sell these before and get a lodging or food to eat?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve asked myself dozens of times, Doctor, but I think they must have meant something to her.’

  He turned now and looked at the bed and the face lying there, and he said quietly, ‘How strange. And she’s been a very beautiful woman. She still is in a way. Well, Miss Morgan, I must go now. Take that to the chemist’ – he pointed to the prescription on the table – ‘as soon as possible, and I shall call back this evening. If she’s awake I won’t attempt to examine her further. At the moment, sleep is what she requires; and, as you say, she’s afraid of men. And well she may be,’ he said, as he took up his bag and made for the door. ‘Yes; well she may be.’

  For the next week Bella had her work cut out; and she didn’t know how she would have managed if it hadn’t been for Carl, who gave up his daily street travelling and
acted as help and housemaid, running between the kitchen and the bedroom.

  On the third day after the doctor had seen her, Reenee had certainly passed through a crisis, when both Bella and Carl had thought she was dying. But the next morning the fever subsided. Now, after a week, she lay limp in the bed and seemingly lifeless, and she did not protest at Bella’s ministrations. Nor had she made any comment on the stiff calico nightdress that covered her. Surprisingly, too, she did not object to Carl’s help, for example when he put his hand behind her head and lifted it up in order that she should drink . . .

  It was three weeks before she was able to get out of bed and sit by the small fire that Carl had kept going day and night. She was wearing the housecoat Bella had given her, but her lower body was shrouded in a large blanket.

  She did not make any reference to the whereabouts of her underclothes: two silk undergarments, a cotton petticoat, the woollen shift and her long stockings had all been washed and ironed. Then there was her velvet dress hanging over the back of the chair. If she noticed, she did not remark, even to herself, that an attempt had been made to clean the marks and mudstains off the bottom of the skirt by washing it, which had improved it little.

  For some days now she had been aware that she was feeling different. More quiet inside; her mind wasn’t groping so much. It seemed as if it were resting, like her body.

  There was one thing that, in a small way, did disturb her. It was when she felt the approach of the strange man, the doctor. She had never raised her eyes to his face; she only knew that his chin was clean-shaven and that he always wore a soft white collar, not a stiff one, and that his voice was kind. Yet some part of her mind would remind her that this man had seen her body.

  Today he stood in front of her and said, ‘It’s bitterly cold outside. This little fire gives off a good heat, doesn’t it? But you will soon be able to get downstairs into the sitting room, where you’ll feel more comfortable.’

  As she listened to him, she thought she was very comfortable where she was and she would like to stay here always, just sitting, never moving, never being forced to take notice of anything or anyone, and never, never being forced to speak.

  When he took her hand to feel her pulse she made no resistance. He remarked, ‘That’s good.’ Then, as if he were talking to an ordinary patient, he added, ‘But you must take care, you know, of that chest. Always see that you wrap up well when you go out.’

  Outwardly she remained unresponsive. He had said ‘when you go out’. She was never going out. She would never leave this house again, this security and Bella. Oh, Bella, Bella. And Carl . . . yes, Carl.

  She did not tell herself that Carl was a man. No, he was just Carl . . . like Andy and the rest of the men she now thought of as family.

  She knew there was a change in her, but she couldn’t question it or tell herself why she should think of those four men as being part of Bella’s family. But they were, and she could look at them without fear.

  Something in her mind moved swiftly: the word ‘fear’ had stirred something. She recalled that she hadn’t thought of that word for a long time – at least, it seemed a long time, although she could vaguely recall when the doctor had struggled with her.

  The word ‘struggled’ now became prominent in her mind, and she shook herself. The quick movement of her body caused the doctor to say, ‘You’re not feeling cold, are you?’

  She shook her head, and Bella indicated to the doctor that he should come with her out of the room. And this he did, but not before saying, ‘Well, my dear, I’m glad to see you so much better. I won’t pop in again for a week, and then just to make sure you are perfectly fit again. Goodbye.’

  She went to raise her head, then stopped; her mouth opened and she made a sound in her throat, but it did not form any word.

  Out on the landing, Bella said, ‘She often gives that shudder, and I think it is when she is recalling something, or her mind is troubling her in some way, but it didn’t seem as if she was troubled today. And she hasn’t been, not for days; well, I would say, since she got over the bad bout.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure your diagnosis is quite right, Miss Morgan.’

  ‘If you will come into the parlour, Doctor, I will settle your bill, and gladly.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no hurry for that.’

  She said, on a laugh, ‘Well, if you don’t take it now you might never get it. I might go out and spend it.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind if you did, Miss Morgan, because you really have had a very strenuous three weeks. And, may I say, I don’t know what you would have done without your butler.’

  As they went down the stairs she said, ‘I’ll tell Carl your new name for him, he’d like that.’

  Then her voice sobered. ‘He’s a good fellow is Carl, Doctor. God, or the devil, put a curse on him, but get behind that face and you’ll find he’s got a mind and that it works. He thinks a lot and is wise. I suppose it’s because of his reading – he reads anything and everything he can get his hands on.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure all you say about him is true, but what I say is that in his misfortune he has found a very good mistress in yourself, Miss Morgan.’

  10

  As the months wore on and another winter approached, the routine in the little business seemed to carry on much the same day after day. But outside in the streets in the daytime men begged for work or bread; at night on park benches, in shop doorways, under bridges there seemed to be more and more humanity lying huddled in disarray, for unemployment and starvation were driving men into London where, night after night, shivering creatures had to be turned away from the gates that led into the yard. This would be after they had taken in perhaps an extra half-dozen and let them sleep on the warm bare boards up the centre of the room, and perhaps another four in the men’s wash-house next to the urinal. As this place was cold the men were provided with thin pallets and a blanket; but there was always a bowl of soup before they lay down and a breakfast of tea and new bread in the morning.

  Things were coming to such a pitch in this way that the four men of the original band were now in Bella’s kitchen, together with Joe and Carl. Reenee had gone to her room. What John was suggesting was that if Bella could afford to get the wood they would knock up a kind of shelter at the far end of the backyard. It would be a rough affair, but nevertheless it could be made to take eight mattresses. Joe had said there was to be a clearing out of the warehouse and there were still some mattresses there, which might be going cheap. He had already told her that there was something astir in the warehouse. The far sheds were being cleared of everything, but not the retail part: ‘The legal and above board part,’ Carl put in, thereby somewhat relieving the gravity of the looming situation.

  ‘As I told you, Bella,’ Joe said, ‘they’re scared about something. The mattresses, mats and things like that have all been brought over to our side for what they call a big sale. They’re packed up to the roof there.’

  Bella said, ‘Whatever sale there is, Joe, mattresses will still cost money. As for the wood, well, I’ll have to know how much it’s goin’ to cost because I can only do so much. You know that.’ Recognition of the fact echoed through the group.

  ‘Leave it until tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’ll think it over because I’m as concerned as you are about those fellows standing outside the gates at night. Talk about the Bible and the beggar at the gates. Dear, dear! Well, as I said, lads, I’ll see you in the morning.’

  The four men made their departure, only Joe and Carl staying behind, as they always did, to have a last word with Bella. And apparently Joe had something special he wanted to say.

  ‘Sit down a minute, Bella. I want to tell you something, or ask you something. You’ve always said you hate the lino in your bedroom and that you’d like a nice carpet.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I have. I’ve said many other things too that I’ll never get, and often.’

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘there’s one going. Dixon took me on the side an
d said, “There’s a carpet left over there, lad,” and he pointed to one of the stores. “It’s a lovely thing – they say it’s Chinese – but they daren’t take it out to sell it because it’s of such quality they would get nabbed for it. And then there’s the size,” he said. And then it came: “D’you think your missis would be interested in it?” and I said, “Well, I’ll ask her; but how much?” And . . . well . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bella; ‘go on, spill it.’

  ‘Ten pounds.’

  ‘Ten pounds!’

  ‘Aye, that’s what he said. Well, what he said was it was worth hundreds. If it was sold in one of the big shops it would bring hundreds; but I know they want to get rid of it. Why they didn’t take it to the other place I don’t know, but I think they’re cleaning that up too. There’s certainly a scare on of some kind, aye. Well, Bella, the rumour is that your Mr Weir, you know the one who always lets you have things half price, he’s in trouble, and I think he’s on the run. He’s not showin’ his face anyway, we’ll say that much. They’re cleanin’ up the place before there’s an inspection by the police. You know, ours – I mean where I work – isn’t the only warehouse he’s got, he has two or three in the city, I understand, or he had.’

  Bella was staring at Joe now, and she said again, ‘Ten pounds! You couldn’t beat him down?’

  Joe drooped his head and said, ‘I already did, Bella. He was askin’ fifteen, and I said I knew you couldn’t go to that, so he said he would take ten for it, ready money, if it was moved out the morrer night.’

  ‘What if the police were to come here and find it?’

  ‘Well, you would say you bought it second-hand from the store, and you didn’t know what kind of carpet it was. It could be from Timbuktu or John O’Groats or anywhere else. But Dixon seems to know his stuff, and he said it’s a spanker and that he would’ve had it himself, only it’s too big for his front room. They’re not askin’ around about it, because some of his fellows might get a drink and open their mouths too wide.’