‘What am I going to do with her?’ She now turned her head slowly towards him and he blinked once or twice before shaking his head and saying, ‘There’s only the one thing. As I said in the beginning, I must tell them where she is. It’s unthinkable that she should be left on her own.’
‘She doesn’t want that, she’s dead against it.’
‘She doesn’t know what she wants, she’s still in a state, Amy. She’s acting like men do after a battle. They don’t think it’s over, they still think it’s on. On me way back I’m going to the old lady’s place to see if I can have a word with the mistress and tell her. I’ll let you know what happens. I may not get over afore dark if he’s still on the rampage. He’s going off his head I think; he’s turned the stables into a fortress and he thinks I’m one of the garrison, but I’m not. Do you know something, Amy? I won’t breathe easy until I’m on the road and miles away from that place the morrow.’
Amy now closed the lid of the box and, holding the piece of blue serge material to her breast, she looked at him and said, ‘I’m going to miss you, lad.’
‘And me you, Mother.’
On the term of endearment he sometimes used she bowed her head and the tears rolled down her cheeks, and he bent towards her and drew her into his arms and stroked her hair as he said, ‘I’ll be back. One of these days I’ll be back, and that’s a promise I’ll make to you on the cross.’ He marked out a cross with his finger on the top of her grey hair and after a moment she pulled herself away from him and, her head still bowed, she said, ‘Go on, get back and get it over.’
He went down the ladder and out into the sunshine again and, standing before Annabella, he said thickly, ‘I’ll see you in the mornin’ afore I go on me way.’ He now bent slightly above her and said softly, ‘Don’t worry. Everything will pan out, you’ll see . . . ’ and she answered dully, ‘Yes, Manuel.’
Ten minutes later he went through the gap and into the grounds, but this time he didn’t take the path towards the stables. Instead, turning left he made for the cottage. It had always amused him that a house of this size should be called a cottage.
When he approached the front door he saw it was open and crossing the hall was the familiar figure of Alice. She turned her head quickly at the sight of him; then coming towards him, she said, ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘I . . . I would like to speak with the mistress.’
‘You can’t do that, she’s very poorly. She’s still in bed, she sees no-one.’
‘This is important, Miss Piecliff. I’ve got to see her, it’s about Miss Annabella.’
‘They . . . they’ve found her?’ She brought her thin face closer to his, and he said, ‘No, they didn’t find her, but I know where she is.’
‘Dear Lord, dear Lord. I don’t know. I don’t know.’ She held one hand against her ear now and rocked herself, then said, ‘I’d better tell the mistress . . . I mean Mistress Constance. Stay there a minute.’
He stayed where he was for five minutes before Alice returned and then she said under her breath, ‘Come this way,’ and he followed her across the hall and into a long, narrow room where, at the far end, stood a figure dressed in black.
He had caught sight of the old lady at intervals over the years sometimes walking in the park, and once or twice in the early days he had seen her going into the Chapel, but she always went in before the household and took her seat behind the partition that screened her from prying eyes, and she never left until the place was empty. Now, for the first time, he was looking at her face and was really surprised to see the remnants of a beautiful woman. She bore no resemblance at all to her daughter, except perhaps in the steely dead blankness of her expression.
A big book, which he took to be a bible, lay open on the table and above the fireplace hung a large ebony cross. Her approach was abrupt. ‘Yes; what have you got to say?’
‘I would like to speak to the mistress, Madam.’
‘My daughter is too ill to be disturbed; whatever news you have you can tell me.’
He hesitated a moment, then said, ‘Miss Annabella is staying at Mrs Stretford’s cottage,’ he jerked his head backwards, ‘along the river bank. She’s been ill. She made her way there and collapsed about . . . about three days after she left here.’
The grey eyes were looking straight into his and her voice sounded emotionless as she said, ‘Well, wherever the girl is, is no concern of ours . . . ’
‘But the mistress, she was concerned?’
‘She’s no longer concerned. My daughter has been very ill; the doctor has given strict orders she’s not to be disturbed in any way. My daughter is at last free . . . ’ She checked herself; the features had tensed, her lips were straight and tight. Manuel watched the whole body of the woman give a shudder before she continued, ‘For years my daughter has suffered torment because of that girl, now it is over. The girl, I understand, has a home to go to; the quicker she adapts herself to it the better. You can convey that message to her.’
He stared at her unbelieving. ‘Do you know what kind of home she’s got to go to, Madam? It’s a house of prostitution.’ His voice was loud, harsh, and Alice put in quickly, ‘Manuel! Manuel! Remember who you’re talking to.’
He looked at her, and said, ‘I know who I’m talking to an’ I won’t forget in a hurry.’ He now looked back at the old lady and continued with hardly any change in his voice. ‘You say she’s to adapt herself. What do you think is going to happen to a girl like her who’s been brought up to think she belongs here? She talks like a lady, she thinks like a lady, because the mistress made her that way.’
‘Manuel, be quiet. You’re forgetting yourself,’ Alice put in again.
He almost answered, ‘Forgettin’ meself be damned!’ but the old lady was speaking. ‘Then she should be grateful for the advantages she has had over the last seventeen years. It doesn’t fall to the lot of everyone born as she was to be so fortunate.’
He glared at her hardly able to believe his ears. Then almost flatly he asked her, ‘Have you thought that they might meet? What if Miss Annabella stays around here? They could easily bump into each other.’
The old lady did not answer for some seconds, then she said, ‘It would make no difference. My daughter would not recognise her; she has lost her mind.’
Alice turned her head swiftly and looked at her mistress as she ended, ‘You can inform the girl of this too . . . That will be all.’
He did not leave her presence immediately but continued to stare at her. The coldness of these women, the inhumanity of them. God give him the women in Crane Street any day.
He turned and stamped out of the house and made his way back to the stables, there to be confronted by Lagrange who, finding no-one to take care of his horse, was in a frenzied rage. He stood now within the stable door, his feet apart and pulling his riding crop through first one clenched fist, then the other, and what he said was, ‘You’re asking for trouble, Manuel, aren’t you?’
‘I want no trouble, Sir.’ Although his feelings were enraged with the whole lot of them he tried to keep his voice even.
‘Where have you been?’
‘I went for a stroll, Sir.’
‘You’re not paid to go for strolls.’
‘My time is up tonight, Sir.’
‘Your bloody time is up, man, when I say it is and not before. Understand? You attempt to walk out of here and I’ll be after you and skin you alive.’
Manuel’s answer to this was to walk forward, take the horse and lead it into the stable.
A moment later Lagrange was yelling at Armorer, who had been in the House having a meal which he had had to prepare for himself.
When the coachman came into the stables his face was grey, and under pretence of examining the horse’s hoof he said, in a low undertone, ‘He’s beside himsel
f. I’ve never seen him as bad as this. Do you know what Harris has just been telling me? He says Constantine told him that the nights the master’s been riding out, when he thought he was in Newcastle at the tables, he’s been raking the whole of Shields; he still thinks she’s somewhere there. In a way I’m sorry for him; he’ll go off his head with one thing and another.’
‘Armorer.’
‘Yes, Manuel?’
Manuel now went swiftly towards the stable door and looked into the yard; then coming back, he said hastily, ‘I’m leaving the night. My time’s up the night, so I’m going.’
Armorer was standing straight, his face anxious, as he said, ‘But in the dark? Where will you get to in the dark?’
‘Oh, it won’t be the first time I’ve tramped the roads in the dark. I’ll be all right, never fear. But I’ve got to get away when the going’s good. He’s not accountable for his actions and I wouldn’t be accountable for mine should he raise his hand to me. You know how it is.’
‘Aye, Manuel, aye, I understand. But I’m tellin’ you this.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’ll be sorry to see you go. I’ve never worked with anybody that understood the animals like you; I’m heart sorry to see you go man.’
As Manuel gripped the outstretched hand, he said firmly, ‘And me too. But I won’t lose sight of you, George. You’ll be staying on here and one day I’ll be around this way again; I’ve promised meself that.’
Armorer turned away quickly now, saying, ‘I’ll try to get some grub from the kitchen to put into your sack. What time will you be off?’
‘Late twilight I should say, because if he does take it into his head to follow me he’ll have a job picking me up in the dark.’
And the twilight was deep when Manuel again shook hands with Armorer and set out, the skin bag on his shoulders. He went by way of the middens and came to the broken wall by way of the orchards and the strawberry field. As he walked along the river bank he peered over the distance of the fells in the direction of the main road where he thought he heard the sound of a horse galloping. The road was sunken from the actual rise of the fells and he could see no-one, but he stopped and listened. There was no sound of a horse’s hooves, only the bark of a dog fox.
When he came up the path Amy was sitting by the door and she said in some surprise, ‘You’re going now then?’ and he answered, ‘Aye, it’s better so.’ He lowered his voice when he asked, ‘Where is she?’
For answer Amy jerked her head backwards towards the inner room, then asked, ‘Did you tell them?’
‘Aye, I did, Amy, I told them, at least the one I saw, the old one.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Nothing.’ He dropped the pack off his back as he said, ‘There’s some bitter, hard-hearted swine in the world; you learn more about them every day.’ He drew her away from the door now and on to the stone slabs forming the rough terrace, and there he added, ‘They’ll have none of her. “Let her go back to Crane Street,” she said.’
‘Never!’
‘I’m tellin’ you, Amy, that’s what she said to me. “She’s got a home to go to,” she said. “Let her go back to Crane Street.”’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Oh, you can believe it. Do you know something? I wanted to knock her down. Never before have I felt that way towards a woman . . . They’re a strange lot back there, Amy, they’re heartless, all of them. I’m glad I’m goin’. The only thing I’m sorry for is that I won’t know what’s happening to her, for what in the name of God will she do?’
‘Manuel.’
‘Yes, Amy?’
‘Take her with you.’
Such was the effect of her suggestion that his body made a movement as if he were going to spring from the ground.
He did step back, with his trunk and head pushing away from her, and his eyes narrowed as if to get her into focus in the fading light. ‘You mad, Amy?’ he muttered.
‘No, Manuel, I’m not mad, an’ it isn’t the day or yesterday I’ve thought about it. I say again, take her with you; they don’t want her, nobody apparently wants her. I’m a stranger to her compared with you. You’ve known her since she was a child, take her along.’
His mouth was open, his head was shaking wildly on his shoulders, he was about to exclaim, ‘In the name of God! what would I do with her on the road,’ when a movement in the shadow of the doorway turned them both sharply about, and there she stood, her face like a ghost’s, the eyes lost in their sockets. She walked over the threshold and on to the terrace until, standing before Manuel, she stared up into his face, and whispered, ‘Please, Manuel, please do as Amy says and take me with you.’
He couldn’t speak, he could only work his tongue in his mouth to bring the saliva running again; his throat was dry, his mind in a whirl. Part of him wanted to laugh. He was going on the road, he would be sleeping wherever a shelter afforded, a barn, a hayrick, under a bridge in a town, he had done it all before, and even he himself wasn’t looking forward to doing it again after years of having a roof over him and a good bed, and here was she, the daughter of the house, asking to come along with him. It was insanity of the first order, and he said so.
‘No, Miss Annabella.’ He moved his head slowly and emphatically with the words. ‘This is one thing I cannot do for you. You don’t know what you’re askin’. You stay here along with Amy and something will turn up. Write to one of your friends. The world isn’t filled with people like them back there.’ He jerked his head again.
‘Manuel.’ She now actually caught hold of his hands with her thin fingers. ‘You know I have no friends who would take me. I can’t go back there, you’ve just said so yourself. I heard what you said, every word; they don’t want me, and . . . and I don’t want them any longer. Also there are reasons why I can’t go to . . . ’ Her chin made a downward movement before she added, ‘Durham. I have no-one to turn to.’
He was gripping her hands now close to his breast but almost unaware of what he was doing for his head was swinging in a wide half circle, his eyes were closed and his mouth was open to say emphatically, ‘It’s impossible, impossible,’ when a sound brought his eyes springing open and his head jerking round towards the end of the terrace.
They were all looking towards the end of the terrace half expecting to see an animal, for the sound of the low growl was that of an animal, but out of the dusk walked Lagrange. His body was arched, his left arm was held out at an angle as if to balance himself while his right fist, gripping his riding crop, was moving slowly back and forward along his thigh. His lips were parted, his eyes wide and staring and his whole face looked in the evening light as if it was running in blood, so red was it.
‘You! You little bastard.’ His mad gaze was fixed on Annabella. He took two steps forward, then stopped again, and, his neck now craned outwards, he spluttered a mouthful of profanities all punctuated with ‘You! You! You!’ Then his left hand thumped his breast and he cried loudly, ‘Searching the docks, the whorehouses, night after night and all the time you nesting within a stone’s throw. You, you bloody, little . . . !’
‘Be quiet!’
Manuel was still holding one of Annabella’s hands, and now he thrust her behind him as he said, ‘It can be explained.’
Lagrange gaped at Manuel, his mouth and eyes even wider, as if he was reading another explanation written on the air between them for, his voice rising in a spiral from deep within him and finishing almost in a scream, he yelled, ‘You dirty whoremaster you! You’ve been laughing up your sleeve, haven’t you? All these weeks playing the meek one, you bloody, foreign-looking pimp! I’ll finish you for this. I’ve always intended to finish you, do you hear?’ His last words seemed to lift him from the ground and the next minute he was flaying Manuel with his crop.
Manuel, putting up one forearm to shield his head and face, tried to get
a grip on the infuriated man’s shoulder with his other hand, but Lagrange was a man possessed, and he lashed the crop backwards and forwards over Manuel’s head, until, becoming impregnated by the rage of his assailant, Manuel shot out a fist and caught Lagrange on the side of the jaw, and the blow sent a shudder through his own body. Gasping, he saw Lagrange stagger back for some steps, then stand perfectly still for a moment before falling heavily to the ground.
Amy, who had been holding Annabella, released her now and came and stood by Manuel’s side and she whispered hoarsely, ‘Are you hurt, lad?’
Yes, he was hurt. You couldn’t have a flaying like that and not be hurt. His head was throbbing as if it had been hit by a hammer; the side of his throat was burning where the whip had licked round it more than once.
Annabella moved from the wall, then slid along by the seat until she was close to Manuel’s side again, and the three of them standing in a row looked down at the twisted figure lying on the stones. There was no movement from him and Amy whispered, ‘You’ve knocked him cold. You’d better get going before he comes round.’
Slowly Manuel walked forward now and stood by the head of Lagrange; then dropping on to his hunkers he stared into the still face and there came over him a feeling as if death itself had touched him, and he cried loudly within his head, ‘No, no! Oh God, no!’ Slowly now he put his hand inside the waistcoat. The silk of the shirt caught at his rough fingers as he pressed them over Lagrange’s heart. Then with a quick movement his head was on Lagrange’s breast, his ears to his ribs, and like that he turned and peered up at Annabella; and then slowly he rose to his feet.
Annabella looked down at the still face of the man she had always called Papa, of the man she had loved for years, even when she knew he was a bad man she had still loved him because he had loved her. Up till that morning in the drawing room when he had doled out to her the same treatment that he had doled out to his wife for years, he had loved her; but not from then, because she had dared to cross him; and now he was . . . Oh no! No! Because if he were, if he were dead it would mean that Manuel . . . She looked at Manuel. Even in this dim light his dark skin looked pale. She looked from him to Amy. Amy was kneeling by the figure now, lifting its eyelids. When she got to her feet she stood with her head bowed and her body visibly trembling.
The Glass Virgin Page 21
