But when she arrived back in the kitchen she heard a commotion in the yard. Going to the door, she saw the mister wagging his finger threateningly in Jimmy’s face and saying, ‘You lift a hand to her again, my lad, and it’ll be the last hand you lift to anybody. You hear me?’
Jimmy didn’t answer, he just hung his head; but he didn’t move until the mister cried at him, ‘Get back to your work or else I’ll let you have me hand across your ear in advance.’
It was later on that day that Emma went into the cowshed and drew Jimmy aside and said quietly, ‘Did you push her, Jimmy?’
‘Yes, missis.’
‘Why did you do it?’
When he hung his head and didn’t answer she said, ‘I want to know, Jimmy. Why did you do it? You won’t get wrong if you tell me, but I must know.’
Slowly he lifted up his head and muttered, ‘She’s always pushing me, missis, and…and when I was gatherin’ the apples she took the ladder away and I nearly fell onto the roof.’
The gnarled old apple tree, whose age nobody knew, grew by the side of the house and one of its branches touched the roof near the fanlight in the same attic that ran off the room where she and Barney had slept during those first months of their marriage.
Still muttering and his head hanging again, he went on, ‘I had to hang on the end branch. I was frightened, and when I got down, well, I pushed her.’
She looked at him. After a moment she said gently, ‘Well, if she annoys you again, Jimmy, don’t touch her, but come to me. Do it on the side, you know what I mean? and…and I’ll deal with her.’ He looked up into her face saying, ‘Aye, missis. Thank you, missis, I will.’
Jimmy was a good lad, a hard worker; of late he had been doing the work of a full-grown man; and what was more he was quiet and sensible. The parson spoke highly of him. He said that he was bright at his reading and writing. The parson had once tried to persuade Mary to let him go to the new school in Gateshead Fell, but Mary wasn’t for it. Three shillings a week then was three shillings a week and most of her family were married and away making homes of their own now, and since, she said, it took Ned all his time to work for his beer the family was kept mainly on what she earned and the wages coming in from her fifteen-year-old, who was her youngest son, and from Jimmy.
When had she become afraid for her daughter? She couldn’t actually put a finger on the time: she had been pleased to see her nestling in the mister’s arms and he patting and stroking her. Her father could have patted and stroked her, but she seemed to want nothing from him. It had been some time before Emma realised that her daughter was drawn to vitality; even a sick animal did not evoke her pity, but she would race with the dogs, roll with them in the grass as if she were a puppy herself, and she would disappear at times when she knew the hunt was on. One day about two years ago she was missing for a whole morning and she found her perched on a wall waving to the riders as they passed her. The fact that she didn’t care anything for Mr Bowman showed further there was this tendency in her to avoid all contact with sickness of any kind, for Ralph, as she had come to call him, could now feel so low that he spent his days in bed. She had been deeply saddened one day only last week when he said to her, ‘I never thought dying would take so long. If I had I would have assisted it earlier on when I had the courage. But now, strangely, I’m appreciating the days.’
She liked Ralph. She had found out something a long while ago: not through any spoken word or look that had passed between them had he indicated that he loved her, yet she knew he did; if only in a way, she thought, that he might have done had she been his daughter. Nevertheless, it was love. But it was a different kind of love altogether from Henry’s. Henry’s love was in his eyes, in everything he did for Barney, in his wading through snow, hail and rain just to come here and be near her and allow her to be near him without question. She felt, at times when she let herself think about it, that Barney’s accident had come as a sort of blessing for them both. It was a dreadful thought, but nevertheless it was true. She had come across a word of late that seemed to fit their position, sublimate was the word, it sort of meant you replaced one thing by another. Well, that wasn’t quite right, you gave up one thing for another. And no, that still wasn’t right, but she knew that the word fitted the position she was in with regard the needs of her body and the presence of Henry.
When later she went in to Barney he said, ‘Did you ever see such a change in a man in your life as in our Pete?’
And she laughed as she answered, ‘Never. And talk, he’d talk the hind leg off a donkey, and you remember you could hardly get a word out of him at one time. I suppose it’s because of all the places he’s been and all the sights he’s seen, and…and living with strange people.’
‘Yes, yes, I suppose it’s that, but I’ve been thinkin’ of late that a man hasn’t got to go abroad to see sights and learn things, there’s lots of things happening round here you know, Emma, that we know nothing about.’
‘Yes, I dare say.’ She straightened the quilt at the bottom of the bed.
‘Durham for instance. Amazing the things that happen up there. As the parson said only t’other day, one is apt to think that the only things that take place is where there’s industry. But each man has to live his life, and his life is the most important thing he has and so there is happenings all around him. He’s good at explaining things is the parson.’
‘Yes, yes, Barney, he is that.’
Barney now moved his head on the pillow and more to himself than to her he said, ‘Wonder he’s never married. Some woman’s missin’ a good man, for he’s very presentable, isn’t he?’
This time she didn’t answer, ‘Yes; yes,’ but went across the room to a small table on which stood a basin and ewer, and, taking up the ewer, she poured the remaining water from it into the dish, then went to walk out of the room when he stopped her, saying, ‘Mary says that Miss Wilkinson is still breakin’ her neck for him. She gets worse, Mary says, makes herself a laughing-stock. Huh! As if he would take anybody like her. She should have the sense to know he could only marry the class, for he’s a gentleman. He only has to open his mouth for you to know that. But some women get queer fancies into their heads, and if I remember rightly he was going to be married once. Do you mind that, Emma?’
‘Yes. Yes, I mind that.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
She paused a moment and drew a deep breath before saying, ‘As far as I recall the house wasn’t to her liking and the parish didn’t seem up to her standards.’
‘Well, well!’ He paused and narrowed his eyes at her as he looked across the room, asking now, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, why do you ask?’
‘You…you look peeved.’
‘I’m not peeved.’
‘No, no, you’re not peeved.’ His voice had a flat note and so, quickly now, she put down the ewer on the floor and went to him, and bending above him said, ‘I’m all right. What makes you think I’m not?’
He stared up at her, his face sad. ‘I don’t know, just something that came over me. Couldn’t say really, something in your face because you know, Emma’—he gripped her hand with his one good one—‘I know every shade and flicker of your eyes. When you’re not here I’m still seein’ your face. And, Emma…Emma—’ He pulled her closer towards him until their breaths were mingling, and his voice now low in his throat, he said, ‘I…I know what you must be goin’ through. Yes, I do, although me meself, I…I have no feelings left that way except in me heart, and that is full to bursting for you. But t’other, God yes’—he closed his eyes tightly now—‘I have a good memory and because of it I know what you must be feeling.’
There was a lump in her throat, her eyes smarted and she had to gulp before she was able to say, ‘You’re wrong then, you know nothin’ about it. You’re creating a worry that’s not there, at least not in me. It makes no difference, it doesn’t matter; just as long as you’re here, that’s all I want.’
‘We do. We do.’ She bent closer to him and put her lips on his, and he held her tightly in his arm for a moment before pushing her away and turning his head to the side; and she left the bed, walked across the room, picked up the ewer and went out into the kitchen. And there she wiped the tears from her face with a swift rub of her hand as she saw Mary entering by the other door.
Mary stopped and looked at her closely for a moment; then said, ‘Something wrong?’
‘No. Well, nothin’ more than usual. He…he gets sad at times.’
‘’Tis to be expected. You’ve got somethin’ on your plate, I must say that for you. And now I’m gona add to it, and not afore time. ’Tis Annie. She was with Mr Luke yesterday again, I saw them. They didn’t see me. Somethin’ passed atween them, a little parcel of some kind he gave her, an’…an’—’ Mary could not go on to say, ‘she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him,’ that would have been too much, and so she simply said, ‘You did warn her, didn’t you?’
Emma’s jaws were tight: she could hear the grinding of her teeth through her skull. Warn her? She had warned her not once, not twice, but a number of times. What was wrong that she should have a daughter so wilful? The girl was like no-one she knew: not her own mother or father, not herself or Barney, not her grandmother Dilly Yorkless, but from somewhere she had inherited a strain, a bad strain. She was a liar and she was inclined to favour…Her mind jerked away from the word men. ‘I’ll deal with her,’ she said.
‘Well, Emma, when you’re dealing with her, I’ve got to say this: tell her to stop pestering our Jimmy, else I’ll feel inclined to skite her across the lug meself. The lad’s worried an’ he doesn’t know what to do, because as he says the boss won’t believe a word against her. You’ve got a handful there, Emma. I’ll say that, you’ve got a handful there.’
Emma took no offence at Mary’s attitude: this wasn’t a situation of mistress and maid, Mary was now an elderly woman and Emma had looked upon her as a sort of substitute-mother right from the time she had come to work here, when nobody else would for fear of the cholera.
She passed her now without a word and went out into the yard. Making straight for the storeroom, she called sharply, ‘Annie! Annie!’ But there was no answer. Next, she went into the cow byre. Jimmy was swilling out and she asked, ‘Have you seen Annie, Jimmy?’
‘Saw her goin’ to the barn a minute ago, missis.’
As he jerked his head in the direction of the barn she turned from him and went hastily down the yard. There was no-one on the ground floor but she heard a rustle from above. Quietly she climbed the ladder and as her head came above the platform she saw Annie on her hands and knees in the far corner pushing something behind a broad stay-beam. As Emma pulled herself onto the platform, Annie swung round from the corner, jumped to her feet and, dusting the straw from the bottom of her dress, said, ‘You want me, Ma?’
Emma walked close up to her and, looking down into her face, she said, ‘Yes. I want you. What did I tell you some time ago about…about speaking to a certain person?’
‘I don’t, Ma. I don’t.’
‘Don’t lie, Annie!’
Emma had yelled, and now she hung her head and closed her eyes tight; then taking a pull at herself, she lowered her voice as she said, ‘You’re lying, Annie. I know you are lying. You were talking to your uncle yesterday.’
Annie shook her head, then flounced round, pushed her thumb into her mouth and began to nibble on it.
‘Look at me!’
When her daughter refused, but shook her shoulders, Emma said, ‘What have you got in that corner?’
Now Annie swung round, saying, ‘Nothing. Nothing. I thought I saw a rat there and I looked down.’
‘Stop it, stop it, girl. You say you’re afraid of rats and mice, would you go hunting them?’ And she pushed her to one side and now made for the corner of the loft. But Annie raced before her and crouched down beside the beam, saying, ‘’Tis nothing. They’re nothing, just bits…bits.’
Gripping the collar of Annie’s dress, Emma jerked her to the side; then bending down, she pulled the straw away from behind the sloping beam and saw four small wrapped packages, and as she lifted them up, Annie made to grab them from her, crying, ‘They are mine! They are presents.’
Emma swung round and tore open one of the four parcels, to disclose a string of gaudy glass beads. She had seen many such on the stalls at the big fairs when she was a child, and similar tawdry wares at the Gateshead market and at Newcastle hoppings.
The next small parcel displayed two hair-slides decked with bows of ribbon. In the third were three handkerchiefs, and these made her ponder because they were of fine lawn with soft lace edging. When she opened the fourth parcel she almost dropped the others for this disclosed a locket, a heart-shaped locket with a yellow chain that wasn’t made of brass, nor yet was the locket.
She swung round on her daughter who was now standing with her hands gripped tightly behind her back, and holding out her arm with the locket hanging from her index finger she demanded, ‘Where did you get this?’ Then she yelled, ‘Answer me girl! Where did you get this?’ But Annie didn’t answer.
Maddened, Emma threw the locket and the rest of the packages on the ground and, almost springing at her daughter, she gripped her by the shoulders and shook her till her head wobbled, stopping only when she herself had to gasp for breath.
Looking into Annie’s face, she said, ‘Tell me! Where did you get that locket, and…and the handkerchiefs?’
‘Uncle…Uncle Luke.’
Again she was shaking her. ‘Your Uncle Luke could not have bought you things like that, girl. The hair-slides and the beads, yes, but not that locket and chain and handkerchiefs. Where…where did you get them?’
‘I…I found them; they…they had dropped on the road. They…they were in a little box. I opened the box and…and I took them out and threw the…the box into the ditch. I…I can show you, Ma. I can take you, Ma. I’ll show you.’
Emma released her hold on her daughter, she had been gripping her so tight that for a moment she had a job to straighten her fingers. Then she drew in a long slow gasp of air and let it out before saying, ‘Well, this is one time you’ll prove if you’re a liar or not.’
‘I…I can. I can, Ma, I can. I’ll show you.’ Annie was running towards the ladder now, and Emma followed her. She followed her out of the barn, across the yard, through the gateless gap in the wall, along the lane, down the hill until they reached the coach road, then some way along it Annie dropped into the ditch and began searching. Presently, looking up with real fear on her face now, she said, ‘’Tis gone.’
‘Oh!’—Emma stood above her—‘you’re wicked. Do you know that? You’re a wicked girl. There was never any box.’
‘There was, there was, Ma.’ Annie began to scramble along the ditch; then with an almost joyful cry she held up a small wooden box about three inches in diameter. It was covered with velvet which had once been blue but was now discoloured. Scrambling out of the ditch, she pushed it at her mother, saying, ‘There…there. And that’s where I found it.’ She pointed along the road.
Emma stood, her head bowed. She was feeling faint with relief: it didn’t matter so much now about her lying over Luke, but the implication of that lovely locket and those handkerchiefs had been terrifying. She thrust out her arm now and pulled her daughter towards her, saying, ‘I’m sorry, dear, I’m sorry, but…but I was worried. Yet nevertheless’—her tone changed—‘you promised me you would avoid your Uncle Luke, and you haven’t, have you?’
‘No, Ma. But then, you see he stops me and speaks, and he’s nice.’
‘Your Uncle Luke is not nice, he is not nice, Annie. I’ve told you that before, he’s not a nice man, and when he speaks nicely to you it isn’t because he likes yo
u.’
‘He does, he does.’ Annie had pulled back from her now.
‘What makes you think that?’ Once again there was a stiffness in Emma’s tone.
‘Well…well, I know. You…you always know when somebody likes you, or doesn’t like you. Mr Bowman doesn’t like me and me da doesn’t like me.’
‘Oh, that’s wicked, Annie; your da loves you, and he’s hurt because you don’t spend time with him.’
‘He’s sickly.’
‘Yes, yes, of course his sickly. His back’s broken so he’s bound to be sickly, but that doesn’t stop him loving you and needing your company. Promise me you’ll go in to him more and talk to him.’
Annie hung her head but after a moment she muttered, ‘All right, Ma.’
‘Come on, let’s get home.’ As Emma went to put her arm around her daughter the sound of galloping hoofs stayed them. A coach was coming. They couldn’t see it as yet but they knew it must be nearing the bend in the road.
The sound of galloping dropped to a trot and round the corner came a coach and four, and on the sight of it Emma drew Annie from the road back onto a patch of ground where the verge widened and the ditch narrowed, and they were standing there close together when it passed them and they both saw clearly the faces within: James Fordyke was sitting at one window and his lady at the other. It was many years since Emma had looked on either of them but the lady she recognised immediately for she had scarcely changed. The man showed his years for his face and neck looked fatter than ever; only his eyes were as she remembered them, and for a flashing moment they looked into hers, and she had the idea that he smiled at her.
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 29
