The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift)

by Catherine Cookson

  Before obeying the lady, Emma took a step towards the chair and, dipping her knee more than usual, she said, ‘Goodbye to you, sir. And thank you. I’m glad you liked the whips.’

  ‘Goodbye, child. You must come again.’

  ‘Oh’—the word seemed to come out of the top of her head—‘oh, that I will, sir. Yes, that I will.’ She dipped her knee again, then walked backwards for two or three steps before turning and almost bumping into the lady.

  Once outside the room, remembering her manners, she kept two paces behind the lady until they came to the big passage that was filled with the carved heads of men, and there the lady met another lady. This one wore a plain grey alpaca dress with white cuffs and collars, and the lady spoke to her saying, ‘Take this little girl down to the kitchen, Bella, and see there is a hamper made ready for her. Her grandmother I understand is in the kitchen; and so make it sufficient that they can carry it between them.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  The lady now turned and looked down on Emma, and Emma, who had hardly been able to believe her ears, bobbed her knee and said, ‘Thank you, ma’am. Thank you most warmly.’ And the lady smiled and inclined her head towards her, then motioned her to go with her companion.

  The woman called Bella waited for her to come alongside her, and like that they walked down the main staircase, across the hall, through the corridors and into the kitchen.

  Immediately her granny sprang up from her seat and looked towards her, and in this moment it came to Emma that her granny looked old. Her face was drawn and her lips were trembling, but when Emma, going towards her, smiled at her widely, saying ‘’Tis all right. ’Tis all right,’ Lizzie’s anxiety left her features and she whispered, ‘Thank God. Thank God.’ Then they both turned and looked to where the lady in the grey frock was talking to the housekeeper and the cook, and the housekeeper was saying, ‘A hamper, Miss Noble?’ And the lady in the grey frock answered, ‘Yes, that’s what I said, Mrs Atkins, a hamper. And Cook, bring a small ham out, will you please? And some pressed tongue, and—’ She put her head back now as if thinking; then nodding, she brought it forward saying, ‘A basin of brawn and some jars of preserve.’

  There was a long pause before the cook turned away and went through a door into a larder, when Miss Noble, looking at the housekeeper, said, ‘The fruit loaves. You always keep a number to hand, don’t you, Mrs Atkins? I think the hamper will hold one, say a medium size, four pounds, and a little sugared fruit. You always have a store of that, haven’t you?’

  Emma’s ears detected a soft persuasive note in the grey lady’s voice, but it seemed to cover a sternness that the others recognised, because now the housekeeper obeyed without any question, except by the look on her face.

  When the hamper was eventually filled, Miss Noble turned to Lizzie and Emma who were standing side by side in front of the settle and she said, ‘Do you think you can carry this between you?’

  Emma almost answered for her granny because it seemed such a long time before she said, ‘Yes. Oh yes, Miss. And…and thank you very much. Oh, thank you indeed. All that stuff! Well, well.’ She laughed, a shaky laugh, then added, ‘’Tis for us and not for the missis?’

  ‘’Tis for you, or at least for your granddaughter to share as she thinks fit. It is the mistress’ orders.’

  ‘Well, will you please thank the mistress most warmly from…from me? Please do. Oh yes indeed, please do.’

  Not only the staff from the kitchen but others, a number of them and all dressed in different uniforms, were gathered at the top of the kitchen watching their departure. Then in the stable yard there were men standing outside different doors and Emma realised that they were all looking at her as if she was the devil or something. She was glad to get out of the yard.

  They had only gone a little way down the drive but out of sight of the house when Lizzie eased her end of the hamper down onto the ground and Emma did the same, and Lizzie looking at Emma, a look she had never bestowed on her before, said, ‘How in the name of God did you do it, child?’

  ‘I’ll…I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.’ And with this Emma picked up her end of the basket again, and Lizzie had to do likewise, and it seemed in a way in this moment that Emma had come into her own. Fortune had turned its face towards her, she no longer felt the least of all the creatures, nor, no matter how the Yorklesses treated her in the future, would she imagine herself to be of no consequence.

  Six

  The village was agog. It had spread around that Emma Crawshaw had been accepted up at the House, not by Fordyke, no, but by the real boss there, Sir Peter Rollinson, the man whose daughter had married James Fordyke and had saved his place from being sold up. Three years ago when his ancestral home yon side of Durham had been burned down she had brought her father and all his trophies they could save to live at the House. He was known as a great hunter in his young days, and a great gambler in his middle life, and admired as such, but not so his son-in-law: James Fordyke was known as a gambler, yes, but also as a woman chaser, a chaser of very young women. Two young servants had been dismissed from the House not for the simple reason that they had obliged him, but because they had showed evidence of it with full bellies. Yet he went to church every Sunday and sat in his sheltered pew, and the villagers bowed their knee to him. One thing they did know and it was said openly, if the outcome of the incident had rested with him, young Emma Crawshaw wouldn’t have been stuffing her kite and that of her grandmother up in the cottage after the visit to the House, but would have been along the line in one way or another.

  And it was said…and she said herself, that she had been invited back to show her tricks to the old man. Did you ever hear the likes of it? It had come down through Mr Winters, the butler, that she had done her tricks up in the old man’s private apartments, throwing knives at buffaloes and deers and such animals that were stuck on the wall, and roping all the vases and things. Did you ever hear the like? What were things coming to? And to think of those two having all that special food when ordinary food was as scarce as gold dust owing not only to the bad harvests but to the flood of Irish who were coming over in their boat-loads at fourpence a head and working for next to nothing, so doing the honest Englishmen out of their rightful work. Hams and tongues and all kinds of luxury they were stuffing themselves with, and all because that young Spanish-looking Emma Crawshaw brought the young master down from his horse. I ask you, they said, what was the world coming to, it had turned topsy-turvy.

  So too thought Emma, for there had come a lightness on her life, and she sang whilst about her work, except when in the cow byre or the yard. Her granny and she joked together and they ate their fill for nearly a month from that hamper.

  The news even seemed to affect Mr Bowman’s chest, for his cough had eased off. As for the parson, on the following Sunday, after gazing at Emma as if in wonder, he had said, ‘Of all the people to captivate Sir Peter…the giant on the mountain, the dragon in his den, the bane of –’ he paused, then finished in a mutter, ‘a certain person’s life. You are a female incarnation of Saint George, Emma.’

  She liked to listen to the parson when he rambled on like this, and although, like when she listened to Mr Bowman, she didn’t always understand clearly his every word, she got the gist of what he meant. Then he had ended, ‘From now on, Emma, I think you can consider yourself safe, and have no need to carry your whip on your’—he had leaned towards her and whispered—‘evening treks. You have come under the protection of Sir Peter and so you have nothing to fear.’

  And Emma thought that too, that she had nothing to fear from anybody any more. But she was mistaken, and it was brought home forcibly to her one morning in the new year when Luke deliberately kicked her bucket of milk over the cow-splattered dirty floor of the byre, after which they had stood glaring at each other.

  The morning was deadly cold, the ice seemingly inches thick on everything. Her hands had just thawed out on the warm flesh of the last cow. She ha
d lifted the bucket of milk to the side and was rising from her stool when Luke’s tall figure darkened further still the entrance to the stall and after staring down on her for a moment he had lifted his foot and kicked the bucket over. As it clattered on the cobbled floor it hit the cow’s hind leg, and the animal jumped, its motion overbalancing Emma and she fell back onto her bottom, her hands splayed out in the slush. But no sooner had she hit the ground than she was up, yelling now, ‘You beast! That’s what you are, you’re a beast. I’ll tell her, the missis.’

  He stood aside, laughing at her as she grabbed up the bucket, and as she made for the door he called, ‘Tell her, an’ see what you get.’

  With that particular rage that she hadn’t experienced for a long time filling her, she ran across the slippery yard and without ceremony pushed open the farmhouse kitchen door and definitely startled both Jake and Dilly Yorkless who were finishing their breakfast at the table and, presenting them with the empty bucket, she cried, ‘He kicked it over on purpose. He came in and kicked it over on purpose.’

  ‘Who?’ The farmer had risen to his feet, and she cried at him, ‘You know who, your Luke. And I’m not gona stand it. Do you hear? I’m not gona stand the blame. I’ll go. I can you know. I’ll go.’ She was repeating what her granny had said to her only recently: You needn’t fear that ’un, meaning Dilly Yorkless, any more, ’cos she won’t get anyone to do what you do. And what’s more, she’d be afraid of what you might say up at the House to the old ’un, for in a way they’re still dependent on the House, ’cos they’ve got only thirty acres of freehold land and that includes my patch, the rest is rented from Mr Fordyke.

  Emma had turned towards her mistress as she spoke, and now Dilly Yorkless cried at her, ‘Get your mucky self out of this kitchen. Look at you!’

  ‘Yes, look at me.’ Emma held out her filth-covered hands. ‘But…but ’twasn’t my fault, so there. Don’t blame me.’

  She turned and marched into the yard, and Jake Yorkless followed her and on the sight of his son going into the stables he called, ‘You Luke!’ and when Luke turned towards him, he demanded, ‘What’s this? You kicked her bucket over?’

  ‘Kicked her bucket?’ Luke came slowly towards them. ‘She’s at it again, spinning her yarns. She slipped with the bucket in her hand.’

  Now Emma was almost screaming at him: ‘If I’d slipped with the bucket in my hand, I’d be covered with milk. What you did knocked me off the stool. And look!’ She turned her back to the farmer now and thrust out her bottom. ‘I would have been flat on my back but my hands saved me.’ Now she was thrusting her hands out towards him.

  Jake Yorkless stared at her for a moment right into her face; then he said in a quiet voice, ‘Get about your work.’

  ‘Yes, and don’t think because…’ His wife’s voice was cut off by him now almost barking at her, ‘Shut up, woman! Shut up!’ And on this he almost pushed her back into the kitchen and banged the door.

  Emma was left in the yard with Luke, and as she marched past him making for the yard pump, he stood still and his lips didn’t seem to move as he said, ‘I’ll get you one of these days. See if I don’t.’

  The parson had said she’d no need to carry the whip any more when she went out on her midnight jaunts. He might be right there, but she knew now that it would be wiser to carry the whip during the day when in the vicinity of Luke Yorkless, for no matter how often she told herself she wasn’t afraid of him, she knew that deep down he created a feeling of terror in her.

  Every Sunday following this incident she prayed a special prayer that Luke would get married soon and leave the farm. She felt she could only give the matter detailed thought on a Sunday when kneeling in the side pew and looking up at the parson, because he was the nearest thing to God she knew, and he looked at her so kindly when his eyes lit on her from the pulpit. During the week there was no time for praying, she was too busy and too tired at night and often too cold to think of anything but the need for sleep and warmth.

  Dan Yorkless died early in March and the day he was buried the snow was so thick on the ground that the horses couldn’t get through and the men from the village came and helped to clear a path from the farm down to the coach road, and a similar one to the churchyard.

  Even so, a roughly made sledge had to be used to convey the coffin; they had tried to harness a horse to it but the animal had slithered so much and they were fearful that should it fall they’d never get it up again in the narrow path. So Dan was pushed to his final resting place on a door nailed on skids.

  The farmer’s wife’s attitude to her son’s going puzzled Emma, until her granny explained, but kindly for once when speaking of her mistress, that why she wasn’t crying or wailing aloud was because she was relieved of a burden, because the boy had been completely bedridden for four months now and bleeding from inside, and she had had her hands full with him. As for the boy, he was now at rest and, as her granny said, would be glad of it.

  She had cried about Dan, he seemed so young to have to die. You shouldn’t have to die until you were old, as old say as Sir Peter. But then she hoped that he would live for a long time yet; she hoped she would soon have a call from him because she had a number of new twists to show him. Practising was very difficult: the only free times she had to herself were one whole Sunday in a month and half a Sunday for the rest of the time. Sometimes it would be in the morning when she could go to church, other times in the afternoon when she could go to Sunday school, but always for some time on a Sunday she would sit on the floor in the roof and practise with the whip.

  She couldn’t practise outside on the Sabbath day, and it had been a long winter and she had never ventured out at nights, but still, as she assured herself, she was keeping her hand in. Even so, it wasn’t like having plenty of space. The only time she had played the whips outside was one day last year when the mister and missis had gone into the market on the dray cart, and Luke and Billy had driven in the cattle that were for sale. That day she had gone round to the back of the house because she knew that Dan would be sitting up, and she had done her tricks for him, and when she was finished she put her fingers to her lips and he had responded in the same gesture. She could have liked Dan as she liked Barney.

  But now Dan was being buried. They said if you lay deep enough in the snow you got warm. She hoped he’d be warm always.

  Yesterday the missis had ordered her into the kitchen to help prepare for the big funeral spread. It was years now since she had worked in the kitchen, and she hadn’t been in it half an hour before she knew she wouldn’t like working inside ever again. After the hall kitchen it seemed a poky place, nothing to be proud of; but the missis, she knew, was very proud, not only of her kitchen, but of her whole house.

  She had peeled vegetables for broth, she had scraped the meat off the bones and chopped it up together with onions and herbs ready for the meat pies. She scored the skin of the newly dressed pig and rubbed salt into the cuts. She hadn’t liked doing this for she knew which pig it was, she had called her Nosey because she always pushed her snout into her hand like the dogs did.

  Between times she had washed pots and pans, kept the fire going, scoured the steel knives and forks with bath brick then washed them ready for the table, and lastly towards the end of the day, Dilly Yorkless took her into the main room where the meal was to be served. It was a sitting room but two trestle-tables had been placed in it to seat the mourners. It was the first time she had been in this part of the house and before her visit to the House she would have considered it lovely, but now she saw it as a very ordinary room, stuffed to suffocation with furniture, and all ugly. A black horsehair couch, two black horsehair chairs, unrelieved with cushions or antimacassars. The walls were dark with pictures all in black and white like photographs of people long dead. The mantelshelf above the fire, which was set for lighting on the morrow, was weighed down with ornaments, the like she had seen at the fairs, while the front of it was draped with a long piece of red material
tucked up here and there like a lady’s overskirt.

  Pointing to the thin carpet that covered the stone floor, Dilly Yorkless had said, ‘I want you to wash it.’

  ‘Wash the carpet?’

  ‘That’s what I said. You’re not deaf, girl, are you?’

  ‘But how’ll it get dry? I…I mean for the morrow.’

  ‘When you’re finished put a match to the fire. It’ll be dry all right.’

  ‘What’ll I do it with?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, girl. What do you usually wash with? Hot water’n soda.’

  Emma stared down at the carpet. Its background was grey with what had once been a blue flowered pattern on it and when some minutes later she started to scrub it she told herself it wasn’t fair, she had done a long day’s work, twelve hours so far, and she couldn’t work harder, and she likely wouldn’t work half as hard if she had a job in the House kitchen, or even, as her granny feared, down the mines.

  At nine o’clock that night when, bone weary, she entered the cottage she said as much to Lizzie. But Lizzie, who had been on her own feet the same number of hours and was tired to the heart of her, suddenly sat down in the rocking chair and, her hands joined on her knees, she said, ‘Don’t talk so, girl. I’ve enough to put up with in me life without you goin’ off now.’

  So Emma knew that was that: in her own way, her granny was telling her she needed her. So she was stuck here, and would be all her life until…until her granny died.

  The thought dragged on her legs as she climbed the ladder to her bed.

  She had been ordered to stand at the door and take the men’s coats, and this she was doing. She looked at them standing out black against the snow, each one as he came to the door kicking his boots against the wall and scraping the sole on the iron footscraper that stood to the side, then coming in and stamping his feet on the roped mat. She had noticed that men never seemed to wipe their feet properly, they banged them up and down instead of rubbing them backwards and forwards like women did.