The Branded Man

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, it should happen that one day, while seeking his advice once more, a lady comes along the road walking a lame horse, and from the moment I saw her there stirred in me something that had been dead for years, although I felt there was no hope of making her acquaintance. Mr Harding told me something of her circumstances and the turmoil her home was in at the moment. Also, on that day, I had already made the acquaintance of the person supposedly the cause of all the trouble, a young, pregnant girl, and when I saw the two sisters walk off together I imagined that would be the last I would see of either of them. And then’—he held out his hand now and took hers—‘a few days later you came into the yard there and thanked me for saving your horse. My response was an invitation asking you to call on me again, even though I knew I was piling up trouble for myself. And each day since I have looked forward to your coming; and I knew I was falling in love with you.’

  Evelyn now put her other hand on top of his as she said softly, ‘You could be telling my own story. You see, you are trying to tell me you have nothing to give to me but yourself and this small farmhouse; well, I, too, have nothing to bring to you, only myself and a small dress allowance that wouldn’t keep a donkey in hay.’

  Her voice dropped and there was a definite break in it as she said, ‘I’ve been up for sale for a long time now, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Oh! Evelyn, don’t say that, because you’re such a beautiful young woman; I’m really amazed that you’re not married already.’

  She smiled at him now, saying, ‘Oh as a result of the last campaign, I could easily have been, but you see he was forty-eight, had five children, one nearly as old as myself, and his stomach was already protruding.’

  As his laugh rang out he got quickly to his feet, and pulling her up, he put his arms about her and, holding her close and with his lips almost touching hers, he said, ‘Tell me honestly, dear one, would you really marry me and come and live in this house and be prepared to do the chores it demands; and not only inside, because a farmer’s wife is expected to work outside too. Would you be prepared to do all that?’

  Slowly she lifted her hand and ran her fingers through his unruly fair hair, and softly she said, ‘Yes, Nathaniel. If you are willing to take on someone who can neither cook, nor clean nor wash clothes, then I say I’d be happy to marry you. Oh yes, happy and willing.’

  When his lips fell hard on hers, her arms went about him and they swayed until they fell against the edge of the table. Then they parted, flushed and laughing.

  He now held her face tightly between his hands and, looking into her eyes, he said, ‘I’m happy as I never thought to be in my life again; and to the very best of my ability, my dear Evelyn, I will aim to make you as happy as myself.’

  ‘Oh, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Not Nathaniel any more; that’s too much of a mouthful, at least for a wife. It’s Nick from now on. And look, as it’s Saturday afternoon and even the would-be farmer has to have a break some time, let’s go to the Hardings and see Sally, because I’m sure she will become your teacher. Would you like that?’

  ‘Anything you say…Nick.’

  ‘Well then, madam, I’m going to spruce up. I’ll do it in the wash-house; there’s more room in there. In the meantime, I’ll leave you to go over the house and judge for yourself if this is where you’d be content to spend the rest of your life.’

  Their hands touched before they parted, then she went out of the kitchen and into the small hall, and from there to the plainly furnished and not very comfortable sitting room. Upstairs she found the three square bedrooms plainly furnished. Then the large boxroom. She did not climb the ladder into the attic, but she stood on the landing and looked out of the long window, then said to herself, I’ll make it into a home, a loving home; that is, after I have won the battle with Mother, for a battle there will surely be.

  Five

  You shall not, girl; I will not, be humiliated any further. A farm labourer indeed!’

  ‘He is not a farm labourer, Mother; he is a farmer. A small farmer, yes, but he is a farmer.’

  ‘How can he be, girl, when Vincent says his land is no bigger than our kitchen garden? Anyway, you are not marrying a farmer, I shall see you dead first. Oh, how can you, knowing what I have suffered? Imagine how you’ve been brought up, how you live now…yes, even with a depleted staff, still waited on hand and foot. Do you think you can spend the rest of your life in a little farmhouse on what’s no bigger than a workman’s stint, so I understand?’

  Evelyn’s voice was low and steady when she replied, ‘I’m picking up your words, Mother. How I live now…how we live now; like hermits. Do we ever go out visiting? Of course, you couldn’t possibly go out visiting, could you? In the small carriage, oh no. And do we ever have any of our old friends dropping in on us? Two of your old cronies, Lola and Bertha, two wizened old maids who spend their lives going from one house to the other carrying gossip, they love to come here and pour on your head all that’s being said about you, but done so expertly that you can’t get back at them. Every word you say goes back to The Hall, The Mount, the Bluetts, the lot of them. Well now, even if I am going to be just a farm labourer’s wife, I’ll have some variety.’

  ‘Variety, girl?’ Veronica Lawson was screaming now, her self-control seeming to have left her entirely. ‘Do you know what you’ll have to do? Do you, girl, you who’ve been pampered since the cradle?’

  It seemed that Evelyn’s voice was as loud as her mother’s as she screamed back at her, ‘Yes! Yes, I do know. I shall have to cook and clean and wash clothes. Yes, wash clothes. I’ll have to muck out stables. Now I know how to do that, I’ve seen it done many times; and add to this, piggeries and hen crees. Mrs Harding does it, and she’s an expert teacher. She knows the whole lot, and so shall I, in a very short time.’

  Veronica Lawson just stood gaping at her daughter. Then she turned from her and marched to the mantelpiece. There, gripping the edge of the marble slab, it was as if she were about to wrench it from its fixture; but then, suddenly swinging round, she cried, ‘We’ll let your father deal with this. Surely he’ll have enough pride left to put his foot down on this last piece of degradation I’m being asked to suffer. One daughter a whore about to give birth to a bastard, and now you, the proud Miss Evelyn Lawson lowering herself to the dregs of society.’

  ‘I will contradict you on those two points, Mother. Marie Anne is no whore. She slipped up, as I once nearly did, and she actually witnessed the event, which had no result such as hers. It was what she saw that disgusted her and made her hate me. Yes; stretch your face, Mother, stretch your face. And I’ll tell you something further: the incident took place with Lady Mabel’s cousin, he who got the maid into trouble. Remember? Now, if you wish me to leave this house before I am ready, I’ll do so, and I’ll go along to my grandfather’s; or, rather, I’ll go along to Marie Anne’s, where I know I’ll be welcome. Isn’t that funny, Mother? Marie Anne will welcome me. I’ll pack some of my things in readiness. You can give me your answer later on as to whether I am to stay or go, but go I will, and to a registry office.’

  It wasn’t Evelyn who now left the room, but her mother. She did not so much leave it, but staggered blindly from it, and silently.

  As Pat emerged from the woodland into the patch of open ground before Don’s cottage, he called, ‘Hello there!’ and when he received no answer he knocked on the cottage door.

  On getting no welcoming call, he pushed the door open. The fire was burning brightly, but there was no sign of Don. But as he turned and looked through the open doorway towards the river, he heard the dog bark, and up over the green sward came the bouncing pup.

  As the sheep-cum-Labrador dog, now all legs and hair, bounded towards him he saw Don emerging from the far end of the woodland that ran down to the river bank, and, almost simultaneously, they hailed each other.

  ‘I looked into the house,’ said Pat; ‘I thought maybe you had got drunk and were sleeping it off.’

  ‘What d’
you want at this time of the day? How are the ships leaving the quay without you?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve ordered them to wait. I wanted a word in private with you.’

  ‘Yes? In private?’ Then on a laugh Don said, ‘That’ll cost you; I only hear confessions by the hour.’

  At this Pat laughed. ‘I’ve often given thought to you Catholics and confessions,’ he said. ‘Do you really spill the beans?’

  ‘Yes, boy, every one of them, ’cos if you don’t, you know what’s going to happen to you.’ He nodded his head solemnly now. ‘You keep anything back and you’re for hell. Oh yes, boy, hell. And you have to take your own driftwood with you.’

  At this Pat laughed outright and said, ‘Well, Father, I’ll keep nothing back, I promise you.’

  With Nippy prancing around them, they went into the cottage, and inside Don said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thanks, Don,’ Pat replied; ‘I really have work to see to. The fact is, I want to be married.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I want to be married.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you, but what’s so important about that to bring you from your work? And to me.’

  ‘Well, it’s like this: I want to marry a Catholic, and I should like to be clear on what this might entail. You see, we’ve never discussed religion, and her people are strong Catholics, with their only son a priest. They’re a lovely couple. And there’s another snag. Knowing how Mother’s courted the county all these years has caused me to keep my affairs quiet. You see, Anita’s father is the manager of a pit; it’s a very good position, but Mother would never see it that way, especially now that Evelyn has broken the last straw, because she is determined to marry her farmer. But to get back to religion. Quite candidly, I don’t want to become a Catholic, but I know that Anita would want her brother to marry us. Nothing has actually been said, but where would I stand? Would they marry us if I still remained a Protestant?’

  Don gave a short sardonic laugh as he said, ‘Yes; but only after your head was bloody and bowed with the pressure of why you refuse to turn. One thing would be demanded of you: that you agree to your offspring being brought up as Catholics. Even if you do this, from the day you are married, your wife will be under pressure to get you into the Catholic Church. You see, they will still consider you to be living in sin, especially her; the penalty for failure on her part will be high in the hereafter.’

  There was silence between them now until Pat uttered one word. ‘Really!’ he said.

  ‘Haven’t you discussed it at all with the family?’

  ‘No; not even about becoming engaged. It’s odd, now I come to think of it, but on my last two visits to Anita’s home for tea, there was a priest present, a Father Nixon. He had little to say to me, but I knew he was weighing me up. Afterwards, too, her father made a joke about him, which I thought was rather significant: It was said of him that if he could get the devil into a room for an hour he’d bring him out a Jesuit, he said.’

  ‘Oh-ho!’ Don nodded. ‘I’ve heard that one before. It’s the oldest in the Brothers’ joke box. Why had you to go and pick a Catholic to fall in love with?’

  ‘I didn’t; it just happened. It was about two years ago. I had just come up from the stokehold with the engineer. I remember rubbing my hands on a bit of tow when we were both startled by girlish laughter coming from the quay; and there were two young women chatting with what I assumed were two officers from the French boat moored next to us. They were still laughing when they moved away, and as they passed our ship I don’t know what made me do it, but I raised my hand and gave them a sort of salute; then one of them returned the salute on a laugh. It was a gay, youthful sound. She stayed on my mind for a day or two, but there was no way of getting to know who she was. And so a whole year passed. Then Henry Morton, one of our clerks, who was about to leave us after thirty years of good service, brought some relatives to the farewell do we were giving him, a Mr and Mrs Brown and their daughter Anita. It was strange but we recognised each other immediately, yet previously we had seen each other only for a matter of seconds…Well, that’s how it started. She is twenty-four years old; she teaches French at a private school; and I doubt if you would consider her beautiful, but to me she is the loveliest and gayest creature alive. And I mean to marry her, whether she be Catholic or Protestant or whatever.’

  Don laughed, saying, ‘Well, you have been forewarned, and my advice to you is, gird your loins for a fight, for fight there will be if you are determined not to join the fold. Are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I know very little about it; but what I’ve heard so far, and you’ve added to it, it’s not for me. Do you know, Don? Something’s just struck me. We…I mean our family, hasn’t one Catholic friend; the whole lot of them are Church of England. You are the first Catholic to have become a friend of the family.’

  ‘Well, I’m honoured, Pat, indeed I am; but what about Sarah? She might not be much of an openly practising Catholic, but you scratch the surface and you’ll find whose side she’s on. And doesn’t it seem strange to you that it should be she who befriended and saved Marie Anne? I seem to have been given the credit for bringing Marie Anne home, but that’s misplaced, I couldn’t have done anything without Sarah.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Pat said, rising to his feet. ‘And apart from religion, it’s very odd, but she’s brought a different atmosphere into the house. By the way, you’ll likely soon get a visit from her if you’re not careful. You’ve been only once to the house for nearly a fortnight. They’re all wondering what you’re up to.’

  His tone now changing to one of enquiry, Pat said softly, ‘Do you ever get lonely here?’

  Don did not answer, but turned his half-masked face away from Pat: Lord; Lord; what a question to be asked, Do you get lonely? He couldn’t say, I get more lonely here now than I did before I started to visit your home. And what if he should add, and for women’s company? What he did say was, ‘Yes, Pat, naturally I do get lonely; but this last week or so I’ve been working hard on a piece of sculpture, and I suppose I’ve been too tired towards the end of the day to spruce up to make a visit. You know’—he now pointed down to the settee—‘that’s a comfortable old couch; and if the logs are burning brightly and I have a little drop of the stuff that warms the heart, I drop off to sleep…But tell them I’ll be along shortly. Please convey my excuses to them.’

  Looking closely at Don, the thought passed through Pat’s mind: Yes, there were excuses. But what reasons he could give for thinking so, he could not tell. He said, ‘Well, I’ll be off, Don. And thanks for your help. And you have been a help, believe me you have, because I’m going to that pit village, at least to a house beyond it, on Saturday to open my mouth wide. And you know something, Don? I hate going through that village, because the pithead is at the end of the street. Have you ever been down a mine, Don?’

  ‘No; never.’

  ‘Well, if you’re ever given the opportunity, refuse it, for you’ll never look upon human nature in the same way again. I’ve always thought it dreadful the way some shipping companies treat their crews, especially the stokers. That was until Mr Brown took me down his mine, when I actually saw men crawling like ants on their bellies, and young lads—they must have been fourteen, because of what is called the Children’s Act—pulling and pushing bogies; and my eyes wouldn’t believe that men were crawling and digging along passages not eighteen inches high. You know something, Don? I realised that day that I had never before really experienced fear; but I wanted to turn and run from that hell-hole and get into the animal cage and up to earth. I was so ashamed, but I was almost sick when I breathed in fresh air again. Yet, that very night I went to a concert in the village, and there were some of those same men singing their hearts out in harmony and under a real conductor.’

  Don nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have heard that down there is the nearest place to Hades. Yet families, generation after generation, follow each other down. There should be som
e other way to earn a living.’

  There seemed no answer to this, and they both moved towards the door, where once again Pat gave Don thanks for his help, and extracted from him a promise that he would be along to dinner that evening.

  In the bedroom of the cottage Don drew the Nottingham lace curtains across the window but left the heavy, faded, tapestry side ones hanging. He now went to the low chest of drawers, on which was the small double-door cabinet and knelt down before it; then opening the doors, he stared at the crucifix. There was still enough light in the room to enable him to see the words written in beautiful script on parchment attached to the inner side of one door, and although the contradiction of the words written there was engraved in his mind, he nevertheless read them aloud to himself.