The Glass Virgin

by Catherine Cookson

  The result of the apparition on the three children had differing effects. It made the boy dive head first into the hawthorn thicket in an effort to escape. It made the smaller girl cry out ‘Ma! Ma!’ But it reduced the older girl into a fear-filled trance from which she neither spoke nor moved, only stared unblinking at the silk-clad, ribbon-bedecked girl of her own age.

  ‘Do . . . do you like strawberries?’ The voice and what it said stopped the boy’s struggling limbs; it stopped the child crying; and it caused the elder girl to come slowly out of her trance.

  ‘May I help you to pick some?’

  ‘Who you?’

  She was well accustomed to the northern idiom but she had difficulty in making out what the girl was saying. Then the boy was standing up making the question plainer. ‘You from here?’

  ‘You mean, do I live here? Yes.’ She inclined her head politely towards them. ‘My name is Annabella Lagrange.’

  The boy and the girl looked at each other; then the boy, looking at Annabella again, said in thick, guttural tones, ‘You say we can pick some?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, as many as you want. They get sick of them, I mean the servants. Watford says they feed them to the pigs.’ She smiled widely. It was nice talking to someone of her own age.

  When the three pairs of eyes continued to stare at her she said, ‘I would help you but I have to get back – I’m doing my lessons.’ That was a better explanation than saying she was afraid that Watford would miss her.

  When they didn’t speak she asked, ‘Where are you from?’

  The boy and the girl again exchanged glances before the boy answered, ‘Rosier’s village.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Rosier’s village. Oh, I’ve driven through there. My papa knows Mr Rosier.’

  ‘Aye, we do an’ all.’ This retort came quickly and with such bitterness that it turned the boy’s voice into that of a man’s and it stilled the happy feeling inside her; and she stared back into their eyes and after a moment asked, ‘Are you hungry?’

  And now it was the girl who replied, ‘Yes, Miss, all the time. They’re on strike and we’ve been turned out, the Irish are in.’

  She couldn’t quite follow this. The only thing of which she was aware was that the three faces that were looking at her were hungry faces. She had never glimpsed such faces before; even when she went out in the carriage with Mama and had seen poor people they hadn’t looked as these children looked. She said now quietly, ‘If you went up to the house and asked Cook I’m sure she would give you something to eat.’

  The boy’s voice came again, thick, bitter and hesitant now. ‘You can’t go nowhere near that back door unless you’ve got a penny.’

  ‘A penny?’

  ‘Aye, the bits ’ave got to be paid for there; an’ we haven’t got no money, nowt.’

  When she moved a step nearer to them they backed as one towards the hedge, and she said, ‘You mean you have to give Cook a penny before she will give you any food?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I mean, scraps.’

  She said more slowly, ‘I have my dinner at three o’clock, but I’ve got to rest after; could you come back at half-past four and I will bring you some of it?’

  When they didn’t answer her she said, ‘If I’m very late and you can’t wait I could put it . . . ’ she looked around, then pointed to the hedge where the boy had tried to get through, ‘in there. I would wrap it in a napkin. But I’ve got to go now.’ She paused and looked from one to the other. ‘Goodbye.’

  Not one of them spoke and she turned from them and went through the gap and up the incline and down the other side, past the stream and the sewers and entered the house by the way she had left. She hadn’t run one step of the distance, and she didn’t mind if anyone saw her or not; but she met no-one until she opened the gallery door, and then she saw Watford.

  Watford was standing with her hands cupping her face and staring towards the oak door at the far end of the room. And now she turned towards her and she jumped and was as startled as the children had been at the sight of her, and then she had her hands on her shoulders as if she was going to shake her, but instead she gasped, ‘Where did you get to?’

  Her mama said it was wrong to tell a lie. If you couldn’t speak the truth you had to be silent. But this was an occasion when she couldn’t speak the truth nor yet could she be silent. This was an occasion for . . . what was the word? . . . diplomacy. ‘I went to the closet,’ she said, ‘and then I wanted another book.’ It was better to give two places. ‘I’m sorry I’ve worried you.’

  ‘You went to the closet by yourself? Are you clean?’ Watford pulled her round a little and looked at the back of her dress as if seeking for evidence.

  ‘Of course, Watford.’ There was a slight note of indignation in the reply and Watford smiled, drew in a deep breath and said, ‘Of course you would be, you’re a good girl. But eeh! I was worried. I just couldn’t find you. I went to the classroom an’ to the nursery an you weren’t there.’

  ‘I . . . I came round the long corridor. I like to look at the pictures there.’ Once started on this diplomacy it was quite easy; one had only to be, what was that other word? . . . inventive. She said now, ‘Do you think I could have another meringue, Watford, please. Or perhaps two?’

  ‘Oh, lor, Miss, yes. Aye, of course. I’ll go and get them right away; Cook’ll be over the moon ’cos you like them.’

  Annabella now said, ‘Please tell Cook I like them very much. And . . . and Watford, if, if there’s an apple or any fruit I would like some, it’s a long time until dinner.’

  ‘Why, Miss . . . ’ Watford bent down and looked into her face as she said, ‘I’ll bring you anything you want. Would you like a tray?’

  ‘Oh yes, Watford. Thank you very much.’

  A few minutes later Watford, her hand raised in the air, exclaimed to Cook, ‘What did I tell you? Her parky appetite’s all because the bairn’s fed on the bible and such like; she’s not like a child of seven at all, more like one of ten, or twelve, sometimes like an old professor. “May I have a meringue, Watford?” she said “Two,” I said, “the cook will be over the moon.” I tell you, once she’s left to me on me own she’s different. I’ve always said it.’ She leant over the table. ‘Make her a plate up of ham and tongue, an a piece of that Camembert on it. Give her a treat.’ Suddenly dropping on to a chair, she exclaimed with slow-weighed words, ‘Lord! I’m tellin’ you, Cook, I nearly had a fit. I tell you I nearly died. I thought she had gone through the door at the other end.’

  At one o’clock Watford took her for a walk in the garden. The sun was out and the ground was steaming, and the smell from the rose gardens was as drowsy-making as a drug, and Watford blamed the atmosphere for Annabella’s lethargy for she didn’t want to play ball or hide-and-seek, all she wanted to do was to sit and talk, and all about the strangest things: about the people who lived outside; about Mr Rosier’s village. She had never mentioned Mr Rosier’s village before, not to her knowledge, but then, of course, her mother and her might talk about it, Rosier being a friend of the master’s. And, as she related to Ada Rawlings afterwards, she had the wits startled out of her when the child asked, ‘Do you know what it feels like to be hungry, Watford?’ and she had replied truthfully, ‘No, Miss, I don’t.’

  Thank God she had never been hungry. And that was partly owing to having Mrs Page for a great-aunt and her being housekeeper in the Hall for the past eighteen years. She didn’t like her aunt, she had never liked her, but she had her to thank for this grand job, and moreover for never being hungry. Having been born and bred in the village of Jarrow with its fluctuating fortunes, its coke-ovens and salt-pans disappearing, and men having to learn new trades like building iron ships, and who had ever heard of anybody building an iron ship, work came and went, and food came and went much more quickly. Oh, aye, she and her fa
mily had a lot to thank their Aunt Eve for, so she could truthfully say to Miss Annabella she had never been hungry. But what a question to be asked! And, as she said to Ada, on a steaming hot day an’ all.

  At three o’clock Watford, assisted by Cargill, the third footman, brought the dinner up to the nursery day room and laid it out on the round inlaid mahogany table. Uncovering the first dish, she smiled at her charge and said, ‘There, a little sole with cream, it’s lovely.’

  ‘What else is there, Watford?’

  ‘What else, Miss? Oh!’ Watford seemed pleased at her young mistress’ sudden interest in food. ‘Well now, knowing that you’ve got an appetite I’ve brought you some veal fillet an’ braised ham an’ a little breast of cold fowl and three vegetables. Now how’s that?’

  ‘Very nice, thank you, Watford.’

  ‘And there for your dessert’ – she pointed to a cut glass dish – ‘is an iced puddin’ all for yourself.’

  ‘Thank you, Watford, it’s very kind of you.’

  ‘That’s all right, Miss. I’m glad you’re eatin’.’

  ‘Watford!’

  ‘Yes, Miss?’

  ‘I can see to myself. You can go and have your own dinner.’

  ‘You can, Miss? Do you think you can manage?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, I’m sure I can, Watford.’

  ‘Well, Miss, if you’re sure. Now you’re positive?’

  ‘Yes, I’m positive, Watford. You go and have your dinner.’

  Watford stared down at her charge, into the green eyes half-shaded with the long, dark lashes, and as she stared she thought, She’s a nice bairn, an’ she could be bonny, but at this moment she could go either way. And what if the religion she’s having pumped into her doesn’t catch on and she takes after him an’ turns out a devil? Eeh! because no matter which way you look at it he is a devil. The mistress not being out of the house a few hours and his order coming downstairs for a plentiful meal to be taken up. They all knew what a plentiful meal meant, enough for two, if not three. But no, it would be only two the day. And he had ordered his bathwater at half-past three. Of course he took baths at all hours of the day, that was no surprise, but to have his dinner at five he was cutting it fine, when the mistress could be home any time after six. But then she came by the west drive and the master’s visitors always came by the east drive, and then only halfway along it; and when the carriage stopped they had to shank it the rest of the way. He was careful in his ways was the master, and being a gentleman he didn’t flaunt his pastime openly. If the mistress knew what was going on it was more by guesswork than anything else, she surmised. It was an odd set-up in this house altogether, religion in one side and whoring in the other. But she wasn’t going to grumble about either, oh no. With ten pounds a year and an extra allowance made for tea, sugar and beer she was in clover, and if she knew anything she was going to stay in clover.

  ‘Is there something wrong with my face? Have I got a speck on it?’

  ‘No, no, Miss; I was just lookin’ at you. You’re seven the morrow, you’re growing up.’

  ‘Yes, Watford, yes, I’m growing up. I may have a governess soon.’

  ‘What!’ It was high exclamation, almost a shout. ‘Who said? Who said you were going to have a governess?’

  ‘Papa said I should, but Mama isn’t in agreement.’

  ‘Oh! Well, get your dinner, eat it all up.’ She turned about and went hastily out of the room. A governess. That would alter the situation, and not for the better. But still, if the mistress was against a governess and wanted to go on doing the teaching herself there was hope that it would come to nothing, for whereas the master’s word was law in everything in the house, it was tempered towards the upbringing of his daughter. And that was funny when you knew the ins and outs of the whole affair. Yet she supposed, as they all supposed down below, that he had to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. And he was a shorn lamb pretty more than not where money was concerned. As Mr Harris said, you’d have to have a gold mine an’ minting it on the premises to keep up with the master’s wants. Sometimes she thought that the butler didn’t like the master. Likely this was because he had served the mistress’ father for years, having started, like Cargill was now, third footman; but he, too, knew on which side his bread was buttered and had the sense to see his feet were placed right, one in each camp . . .

  After dinner it was the rule that Annabella should rest on her couch for a while, but today she had taken advantage of the situation and asked Watford if she could return to the gallery, there to pursue her books, and Watford had been very agreeable. And so it was that she watched Faill and Cargill carrying the great copper cans of boiling water along the gallery and leaving them outside the oak door, from where Constantine picked them up and took them into the mysterious depths beyond.

  After making their sixth journey with the cans Faill said to Constantine, ‘How’s that? Enough?’ and the Negro nodded his head and said, ‘Enough.’

  When the green-liveried silk-stockinged men had gone back through the door into the House, Annabella watched Constantine lift two of the four remaining cans and, with his buttocks thrusting out, he pushed the door wide, then taking two steps he flicked back his leg and aimed his heel at the bottom of the door, which action, up till now, had closed it.

  Annabella waited for the door to close as it always did but today it didn’t close. Getting off the sill, she hurried up the gallery and when she reached the door it was in a position she had never seen before, one third open. Greatly daring, she put her head on one side and looked through the opening and there, stretching before her was a fairy-tale hall of enchantment. Numbers of glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling; not just four like in the hall of the House but eight, twelve, she couldn’t count, and the wall that she could see to the right of her was alive with colour; great portraits in gold frames covered the walls right up to the ceiling. The carpet was a warm glowing red, not faded like the one in the gallery. In the few seconds during which she had taken in the spectacle, she had also been watching Constantine’s back and it was at the moment that she saw him disappear into a room halfway down the hall that she heard her father’s laugh. It was soft and thick and happy. He always laughed like that when he was happy; he must have a friend with him, perhaps Mr Rosier. Her papa had introduced her to Mr Rosier once. If she saw Mr Rosier today she would ask him why the people in his village were hungry. No-one should be hungry, and if Mr Rosier couldn’t feed people her papa would. Look at all the food that was in the larders and cellars below; whole beasts, and pigs, eggs by the hundred and milk by the gallon. She felt that it was only her father’s ignorance of the matter that caused it to exist; once he knew people were hungry he would feed them. Her father was kind.

  She didn’t remember stepping over the threshold; it only came to her that she had done so when Constantine’s steps, coming muffled from the distance, created the instinct to hide, and quickly she pushed open the first door she came to and went inside. She did not quite close the door after her but held it ajar and, peeping through it, she saw Constantine passing up the hall carrying the last two cans. After that she turned and with her back to the door looked about the room. It was very disappointing because all the furniture was shrouded in dust covers; but here, too, the walls were thick with paintings, and on one wall, opposite a big, open fireplace, the sun was shining full on the pictures and the people in them seemed to be alive. Slowly she walked towards the wall and looked upwards, until her mouth fell into a most unladylike gape. She was looking at lots of ladies and a gentleman, but they were different ladies from any she had ever seen, and the gentleman wasn’t really a gentleman, he was all hairy and frightening, but they were dancing and drinking and they were uncovered.

  Never before had she seen any part of a human body except the face, hands and feet. She had never seen her own body because Watford, after taking o
ff her dress and top petticoats, put over her head the linen cape and took off the remainder of her things in this manner, and in the morning she again put on the linen cape before she took her nightdress off; old Alice had shown Watford how it should be done. She couldn’t remember at what age she had commenced this form of dressing and undressing but she remembered the old woman demonstrating it to the new nursemaid. And then there was the bathing. Some part of her objected to the practice that was imposed on her when she had a bath, but she did not protest against being blindfolded before her drawers and linen stays were taken off, because to protest, she felt, would be a form of sin, sin against something. What this something was she wasn’t quite sure, not yet. This sense of sin weighed heavily on her and frightened her in the night when she put her hands under her nightdress and felt the contours of her stomach and the parts where her legs were joined on to it.

  As if in a trance she moved on along the wall until she was brought to a halt by the picture of a little girl kneeling at a couch with a woman standing to the side of it rolling up her sleeves. These two figures were well in the background but they drew her attention immediately because she saw herself as a little girl and the figure as retribution for sin. The little girl was going to be smacked, perhaps because, like herself, she had been looking at the lady in the front of the picture. The lady was lying on a white couch and at her feet was a little dog. This lady, too, was uncovered; but she did not look as if she was afraid of sin, she looked happy. She moved further towards the picture and read the tablet beneath it: ‘The Venus of Urbino’. What was a Venus? A lady likely, a lady with no clothes on. And who was Titian? Slowly she moved away and looked at the other pictures, and there was the name again, Titian, and it came to her that he was the gentleman who had painted these ladies. He must have been a very sinful man, like some of the men in the bible.