She was gripping the counter now and looking down into the bubbles of froth on it and seeing for the first time the myriad flashes of colour radiating through them. When of a sudden the colours faded she knew someone had passed the window and temporarily blotted out the sun.
She lifted her head and looked at Mr Tate. ‘Thank you,’ she said and turned away, and the men in the bar moved aside and let her pass.
She spoke to no-one else, and she walked back to the farm, not running any more. Mary met her in the lane outside the gap in the wall. She waited until she came right up to her before speaking, and then her voice was a whisper as she asked, ‘Any word?’
‘No.’
They both walked into the yard together. Emma couldn’t see Barney through the window so she knew his head would be back on the pillow. As they neared the kitchen door Jake Yorkless came out and he looked at Emma, and she looked at him. Then she shook her head, and now he demanded, ‘Didn’t you see anybody who’d had a glimpse of her? She just couldn’t have disappeared.’
She looked him full in the face now as she said, ‘She was seen talking to a strange man; he’s been staying at The Tuns this past week.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘What do you think it means?’
‘God in heaven!’ He took a handful of his grey hair as if he was going to pull it from the roots, and now he yelled at her, ‘She could speak to a man in the village and that wouldn’t be a sign that she was going to disappear.’
‘I’m afraid in this case it was.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘I don’t know, only Miss Bonney said they were laughing together. And it wasn’t in the village, it was well out of it, near Freeman’s, and Freeman’s is well away.’
He now bent towards her, his fists clenched by his sides, and said, ‘Are you meaning to imply?’
Still unflinching, she looked back into his face as she said, ‘I’m implying nothing from that incident, I’ll just let you judge for yourself, but what I will tell you is, that if she is gone it hasn’t really come as any surprise to me.’
‘What!’ She watched him bring his lips back from his teeth and she thought for a moment that he looked like a horse that was about to neigh. And, yes, he did have a face somewhat like a horse. But now his neigh was more like a bellow from a bull as he cried at her, ‘You’re an unnatural mother, that’s what you are. She’s but a bit of a lass, an affectionate, lovin’ bit of a lass.’
She dared to answer him, still in a steady voice: ‘Yes, affectionate and loving all right, but with a twist. And inside she’s no bit of a lass. And—’ Now her voice was almost as loud as his and her manner as ferocious as she almost bent her body double as she leaned forward screaming, ‘And you are a blind, thick-headed, stupid, ignorant old man.’
From the corner of her eye she watched Mary clamp her hand over her mouth, and as Jake Yorkless drew his fist up to strike her she screamed at him, ‘You do. Just you do, mister, and I’ll promise you I go up those stairs to that attic and bring down one of those whips that I haven’t touched for years and I’ll make you dance this yard, because now, let me tell you, I’ve put up with enough from you and yours since I entered this yard: first your wife, then your son, then you encouraging my daughter from she was a child to defy me, petting her in a manner that no man should, except a father, and then not even him. You can pet a little lass, a baby, yes…a child, yes…but not a girl that’s growing up fast into a woman. So let me tell you, mister, I’ve stood enough from you and yours. The only decent one among you is crippled’—for the moment she had forgotten about Pete—‘and if it wasn’t for him I’d walk out of this place this minute. So I’m tellin’ you, watch out.’
They were both shaking with their anger and she out-stared him until he swung round and marched across the yard.
She was swaying on her feet as she passed Mary; then she covered her eyes for a moment before going into the kitchen, through it and into the sitting room.
Barney was waiting for her and he moved his head on the pillow, then brought it upwards, and when she stood looking down at him he said, ‘I heard it.’
‘Then that’ll save me wasting words, won’t it?’
She was amazed at her own manner now towards him.
‘Why do you think she’s…she’s done it?’
‘Don’t ask me why I think she’s done it’—she was bawling at him now—‘she had it in her. She’s always had it in her.’
‘Look…look, don’t shout, Emma, don’t shout…but…but just think. What’s gona happen to her?’
She had turned away from him; now she swung herself back and, almost glaring at him, she cried, ‘Whatever happens to her, she’ll enjoy it.’
‘God Almighty!’ He brought his hand up, his fist clenched, and beat it against his brow, saying now, ‘What’s come over you? Our daughter’s gone God knows where and to what doesn’t bear thinkin’ about, and you say she’ll enjoy it.’
She came back to the bed and now taking his hand gently from his brow she opened out the clenched fingers, then stroked his hand, saying, ‘You are bound to have seen quite a bit from the window over the years: you know how she’s carried on, running after Jimmy; you’ve even checked her yourself from pawing round the parson.’
‘That was years ago.’
‘No, it wasn’t years ago. Anyway she continued to do it until he slapped her hands.’
‘The parson slapped her hands?’ There was anger now in Barney’s voice, and she said, ‘Yes, and rightly. He did it gently but firmly, and because of it she’s never liked him since.’
He moved his head slowly and bit hard down on his lip before saying, ‘What if she suddenly turns up and has just been to the fair, or someplace, with this man?’
‘I’ll be surprised, but I won’t recall any word I’ve said this day.’
He put his head back now on the pillow and through his gritted teeth said, ‘I wish I was dead.’
Then his eyes sprang wide as her voice came to him quietly now, saying, ‘That makes a pair of us, for you couldn’t wish it more than I do at this minute.’ And on that she turned about and went into the kitchen.
Mary was standing at the open door. She was rolling the corner of her coarse apron between her two palms and she said to Emma, ‘I don’t want to tell you this but I think I’d better. Our Jimmy said he saw Annie talking to her uncle last night, and on his way home one night during the week he saw Mr Luke with the man who was lodging in the inn, not the one who has his wife with him, ’cos they come often and are known, but this man was a stranger. He was clean-shaven and well put on, Jimmy said, not like a gentleman, but not like a working man either. They were coming out of the bar together and they stood on the cobbles and talked a bit. Then Mr Luke went on his way towards the Lamesley road an’ the man went back into the inn. Well, for what it’s worth I thought you’d better know.’
Emma said nothing for a while, then quietly she asked, ‘Will you go and tell mister what you’ve just told me?’ And Mary said, ‘Aye, I will; but he might aim to hit me an’ all.’
‘I don’t think so, but I think he should be told, and I can’t do it.’
Mary went to turn away, but she turned back as quickly and asked under her breath, ‘What if she should turn up, like if she had been to the fair or something?’
‘That’s what her father’s just said, and we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’
‘Aye, that’s all we can do, Emma, wait and see.’
They waited all that day and the next; then Jake Yorkless put on his Sunday suit and went into Gateshead Fell and spoke to the justice. And when he returned he seemed to have aged still further.
Sitting down on the settle without even taking his hat off, he looked at Emma and, his tone subdued, he said, ‘They tell me it’s happenin’ all the time. The justice said that people should look after their daughters and not let them wander. He said there were people like that man at the inn, respectable
soft-spoken men who act as go-betweens. He said he would pass word on to the dock authority. When they get reports like this they search the ships before leaving port, at least those that are suspect of taking lasses abroad.’
‘What?’
He blinked his eyes and repeated, ‘Of taking lasses abroad.’
Emma now took her first finger and thumb and pressed them tightly on her eyebrows, moving them backward and forwards over the bones as if aiming to remove a picture from her eyes. Her thoughts hadn’t led her that far, not for her to be shipped away. Oh God! No, not that. But would it be any worse, for what would happen to her in a brothel here?
She brought her hand from her face and it trembled as she extended it towards her father-in-law as she said, ‘Luke…you know about Luke talking to the man, you’ve got to go and ask him what he knows.’
Jake Yorkless straightened his back suddenly and, taking off his hard hat, he threw it onto the settle beside him, saying, ‘Confront our Luke with that! He may not be the best of men, but he’d never stoop to that, not his own flesh and blood, ’cos after all she is his brother’s child. No, no; me go to him, after me telling him to get out? What do you take me for, woman?’
What did she take him for? She would like to tell him and say, a coward inside that big rough frame. He would strike young Jimmy or he would strike her, but the idea of coming to blows with his son was another thing. There was a name for men like Jake Yorkless: he was boast inside, as her granny often said and truthfully, full of wind and water, but no guts.
She went from him and into the hall and up the stairs and into the bedroom and, opening the wardrobe door, she took down her Sunday coat, and from a hatbox on top of the wardrobe her Sunday bonnet; then took off her boots and put on a pair of shoes.
When she stood ready she looked in the mirror as she tied the bonnet strings under her chin, making sure to pull it slightly to the left side in order to cover her lobeless ear. Her skin looked white, not creamy as it usually appeared; her eyes had dark rims below them; and she thought, I’m old before my time. But what does it matter how I look? Then turning from the mirror she closed her eyes and joined her hands together and prayed: Lord, help me to keep my temper when I see him, and help me to find her and bring her back. Yet even as she made the last request the pattern of life it presented to her made her shiver.
She had timed her visit to the evening. She rode on the flat cart from the village towards Birtley, and the driver stopped before the outskirts and she walked down the narrow winding road to the hamlet of Lamesley. She did not know exactly where Mrs Nixon lived. It was Mary who said she had moved from Birtley township to the adjoining hamlet.
As she passed the church she saw a woman coming out of the side door and she approached her, saying, ‘Could you tell me please where a Mrs Nixon lives?’
From the immediate expression on the woman’s face, her slightly lowered lids, the pursing of the lips, she knew that the name had not met with favour and there was a slight motion of the head that wasn’t quite a wag but sufficient to cause the lady’s straw hat to slip further down on to her brow, and when with an impatient movement she said, ‘Mrs Nixon or Miss Nixon, I suppose it’s all the same, but she lives over there’—she pointed—‘about a quarter of a mile distant.’
‘Thank you. Is the house on the road?’
‘The house you refer to is merely a cottage, and you won’t be able to miss it, you’ll be able to recognise it by its neglect and dilapidation.’
‘Thank you. Good day.’
‘Good day.’
At another time the woman’s manner would have brought from Emma an amused chuckle: she was evidently the parson’s wife and she was what one would expect a parson’s wife to be like. Her mind swung away from the woman and her position and she asked herself how she would begin. What would she say to him? What if he wasn’t in yet from work? Would the woman let her into the house and allow her to wait? By the sound of it, it was a shambles.
Within yards of the cottage she saw that the parson’s wife, or whoever she was, had not exaggerated in her description of the habitation. The railing fronting it was down in parts, what had once been a little garden in front of the cottage now appeared like a dump, for rubbish, ashes, bottles, and pieces of ironwork lay scattered about, the only clear part being the path to the cottage door.
Her heart was thumping so violently that she almost became afraid she would have a seizure; she could feel the sweat running down from her oxters as she lifted her hand and knocked gently on the paintless wood.
The woman who opened the door was a surprise in all ways. She was tall, her face and hands were clean, her capless hair tidy, and although her blouse and skirt were gaudy they fitted her well. What was more surprising still, she appeared near her own age.
It was she who spoke first, saying, ‘Yes, and what do you want?’ She stretched the ‘you,’ then leaning forward to get a better look at Emma, she emitted a long, ‘Oh!’
‘I’m Mrs Emma Yorkless. I…I wondered if I might speak with Luke?’
‘Mrs Emma Yorkless. Oh my God!’ The young woman shook her head from side to side, her mouth wide with laughter now. ‘Of all the visitors on this earth, you’re the most unexpected. And you want to speak to Luke? Well, all I can say, you’re not without spunk. Well’—she sighed—‘he should be here any minute. Come in.’ She pulled the door wide and, having slowly passed her, Emma was once again amazed at what met her eyes, for the room, unlike the garden outside, was neat and showed comfort. She moved her body as she looked round it, and then she was startled by the woman’s high laugh, saying, ‘Surprised, are you? Asked your way down there, I’ll bet.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the hamlet. ‘Bad name I’ve got down there, in more ways than one. And I won’t let them across the door, keep them guessing. Drive them mad I do, with piling muck outside. Sit down.’ She pointed to a brown leather chair to the side of an open fire which had a hob in front of it and an oven to the side, both brightly blackleaded, the hearth in front being whitewashed and framed by a brass fender.
As she sat down the woman said, ‘I hope you’re prepared for sparks, because if there’s anybody alive that Luke hates more than another in this world it’s you. And it’s the first time I’ve had a good look at you. I’ve seen you from a distance once or twice. But you know’—she lifted her shoulders high round her face—‘you don’t look the tartar that you’re made out to be.’
‘I don’t think of myself as a tartar.’ Emma’s voice was stiff, and the woman laughed and said, ‘Nobody does. But you’ve done things to Luke that no man could stand for and…’
‘I did nothin’ to Luke, only in self-defence.’
‘You marked him. He’ll carry the scar till the day he dies. They say you’re clever with whips, and yet, lookin’ at you—’ She shook her head now, no smile on her face as she ended, ‘I would say you were the last to hurt anybody. Yet who can tell what’s under the skin? I know that. That skin’s the biggest liar on God’s earth. Anyway, what do you want with him? Has your man gone, I mean died?’
‘No, but…but my daughter’s gone.’
The woman now leaned her head towards Emma and narrowed her eyes as she said, ‘The young lass Annie?’
‘Yes, Annie.’
‘You say she’s gone, what do you mean by that? She’s run off?’
‘No, not run off, she’s been enticed off by some…man.’
‘And you think Luke’s got somethin’ to do with that?’
The woman’s voice had risen sharply; there was anger in her tone now and she ended, ‘By God! you’re askin’ for trouble if you confront him with that.’
‘I’m…I’m not blaming him, but I feel that he might be able to lead me, or tell me something about the man who enticed Annie. He…Luke was seen talking to him.’
‘Luke talks to everybody who’ll talk to him: he tells them the story of his life, how he’s lost his inheritance to the farm and…and separated from his family thro
ugh a woman. And that woman’s you; that’s what Luke would talk about to that man or anyone else. Oh God above!’ She turned and went to the window now and drew the lace curtain aside, saying, ‘Here he comes. Well, if I were you, missis, I would go very careful. I know Luke an’ I know what he’s capable of.’
‘So do I.’
With these words Emma had risen to her feet and the two young women confronted each other for a moment before turning to the door to watch it being thrust open. And there was Luke. His gaze was directed towards Emma and, strangely, there was no surprise on his countenance. Without speaking he took off his hat and threw it onto a backless wooden settle, then slowly took off his coat and did the same with that, and now in his shirtsleeves he came across the room towards her, and if he had screamed at her, or had gone to strike her, the fear would not have been as great as it was when, with a note of laughter in his voice, he said, ‘Why! hello Emma. This is a pleasure. Isn’t it Laura?’ He did not look at the woman as he spoke. ‘’Tisn’t every day we have visitors. The front garden puts ’em off. Didn’t it put you off, Emma?’
Her name had ended in a high note of enquiry and she turned her eyes from him, drew in a shuddering breath and said, ‘Stop playing games, Luke. You must know the matter is serious or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand that, Emma.’ He was now stroking the red weal on his left cheek that ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. It was a faint mark but nevertheless noticeable.
‘You…you know a man called Gardiner. He was staying at The…The Tun…Tuns.’ She stammered on the word and when he nodded at her without speaking further she said, ‘Annie is missing. There are those who have seen her with this man and also those who have seen you talkin’ to him.’
‘I’ve been seen talking to a man who was staying at the inn.’ He had now turned his face fully towards Laura Nixon, and went on, ‘Now isn’t that strange? Somebody’s seen me talking to a man who was staying at the inn.’
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 31
