by Jess Foley
‘A shilling.’
He opened his purse, shook out coins and counted them out. ‘Get my debts settled,’ he said, ‘before anything else is done.’
Lydia held out her hand and he dropped the coins into it. As he put his purse away, Mrs Halley stepped to the table and said to him, ‘May I, Father?’ and reached out and took up the lamp. Carefully she set it before her, turning it so that the light caught the cherubs and the roses. ‘Why, you can barely see the joins,’ she said. ‘That young man, Mr Hammondson’s son, he’s clearly a very clever young man.’
‘Oh, he is,’ Lydia said, ‘and proud of his work too. Rightly so as well.’
‘Yes, rightly so,’ Ryllis said, leaning over. ‘Look at that rose. I swear that if you didn’t know it, you’d never think it had ever been broken.’
Delicately with one finger she touched the tip of one of the mended rose petals, and then at once came her father’s voice saying, ‘Well, don’t test the break, girl. Unless you want to see it broken all over again.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the shade and the funnel? We might as well put it all together.’
‘I’ll get them.’ Lydia went to the cupboard under the stairs, and brought out the lampshade and the funnel and set them on the table. She also brought a container of oil, from which she filled the reservoir. Carefully she set all in place, and soon the lamp was complete again.
A few minutes later Mrs Halley set before her husband a plate of salad and cold meat, with potato salad, cheese and pickles. Then fresh tea was made and a mug was placed at his right hand. He ate in silence for a minute or two, and then said to Lydia, ‘Was it busy in the centre at Merinville today?’
‘Quite busy,’ Lydia said.
‘There are some days when it can get unbearable. Mind you, that’s usually on a Thursday, market day. Did you see Cranbrook in his shop when you got the collars?’
‘Yes, he was there.’
‘Did he have his dog with him?’ Mrs Halley said. ‘He often does.’
‘Tinny, yes. He was there with him.’
‘He doesn’t have the dog in the shop, does he?’ Mr Halley said.
Lydia said, ‘Yes, he does. He has a basket there in the back.’
Mr Halley shook his head in disapproval. ‘It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll never understand the man.’
At this Mrs Halley spoke up. ‘I know you don’t care for him, Father,’ she said, ‘but he was so very kind to me that time, when I got stung by the bee.’
‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ Mr Halley said. ‘He didn’t do anything that anybody else wouldn’t have done.’
‘I don’t know about that. He was very kind, and I’ve always found him to be extremely pleasant.’
‘Have you now?’ he said. ‘Well, I never liked the man. His wife neither. That busybody of a woman, and one who showed little respect at times, always ready with a sharp comment if things weren’t to her liking. I do believe she used powder on her face. Sometimes I wondered how they kept their customers.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Halley said, ‘it’s a very successful business.’
‘I know it is,’ said her husband. ‘It’s amazing how success can sometimes come to the most undeserving of men. Men who are unbelievers.’ He sniffed. ‘I believe he has a fine house in Merinville too.’
‘He doesn’t live over his shop?’ Ryllis asked.
‘He used to, I’m told,’ Mrs Halley replied, ‘but I believe that was before he was married. By what I’ve been told, his wife had the house left to her by her father, so after they married he moved in there.’
‘I should think Mr Canbrook does very well,’ Ryllis said.
‘And what would you know about it?’ Mr Halley asked sharply. ‘Are you so knowledgeable?’
Ryllis shrugged. ‘Well, it’s just that he – he employs several members of staff, and they seem to be kept busy enough.’
Mr Halley swallowed a mouthful of ham and said, ‘Anyway, it doesn’t figure what any of you tell me about the man, because I don’t like him – and right now I’m tired of hearing his name, and of the wonderful things he’s done.’
‘How’s your tea, Father?’ Mrs Halley said, eager to mend fences. ‘Could you eat another slice of ham?’
He did not answer. Idly, he had picked up the copy of the newspaper that Ryllis had brought back. He was staring at one of the pages.
‘What’s this?’ he said.
His voice drew their attention, and three pairs of eyes saw that he was holding up the paper, turning it towards them. The page put to their view showed columns of classified advertisements, some of which showed Ryllis’s pencil markings.
Frowning, he pointed to one of the circled advertisements. ‘Is this you?’ he said to Lydia. His tone was darkened with disappointment. ‘Lydia, don’t tell me you’re thinking of leaving Cremson’s.’
No one spoke. Then Ryllis broke the silence. ‘No, Father,’ she said, ‘it was me. I wrote on the paper. I got it when I was in Redbury today.’
He glared at her for a moment, then pushed his half-finished plate away and slapped the paper down on the table, the jolt making the shade of the lamp rattle on its newly repaired base. Then with his finger he jabbed at one of the marked entries.
‘So,’ he said to Ryllis, ‘it would appear that you’ve got your sights set on moving on. Is that right?’
Ryllis did not answer.
‘Well, miss,’ he went on, ‘when you want to start thinking of another situation, perhaps you’d have the good manners to talk to me about it first.’
‘But Father,’ Ryllis said bravely, ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you about it, but I never think you want to listen.’
Now his voice rose in his growing fury. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that,’ he said angrily, a little fleck of spit flying from his lower lip. The room went quiet. ‘I think we should get something understood,’ he added. ‘You are sixteen years of age, and still my responsibility, and even for a sixteen-year-old you’re immature. Sometimes I think you haven’t got the brains of a rabbit. That being said, you are not in a position to choose a post for yourself.’
‘But Father,’ Ryllis cried, tears suddenly spilling over and running down her cheeks, ‘I hate it at the Lucases. I’ve as good as told you in my letters. You know that.’
‘Oh, I do, do I? What I know is that you’ve got a job that many a young woman would be pleased to have. You’re well fed, and they give you the occasional half a day off, and a weekend sometimes, like now. You even get clothes given to you by Mrs Lucas. I don’t know what sort of position you’ve got in mind, but I doubt very much that you’d find another one any better.’
‘What do I want with Mrs Lucas’s old cast-offs,’ Ryllis said passionately. ‘For one thing she’s almost twice my height. I can’t wear her clothes. Besides, they’re horrible. As you said, I’m sixteen. What do I want with some worn out old clothes of an old-fashioned woman of fifty?’
‘I’ll tell you what you want,’ he said, his lips thinned into straight lines, ‘and that is to show some respect for your elders and betters. I’ve met Mr and Mrs Lucas, and I’ve got the highest respect for them. Have they ever abused you? They never have, have they?’
‘Well, no, but –’
‘No, and they’re not likely to. Mr Lucas is a much respected man in the law, and his wife is a good woman, I’ve got no doubt.’
‘But, Father –’ Ryllis’s face was wet with her tears.
‘Enough!’ he cut in. ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister? You don’t hear her complaining about every little thing, but you, you’re never satisfied. I found you a very suitable position, but you’ve refused to settle into it or even make any attempt to be happy.’ He slapped the palm of his hand down on the table. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. And as for this –’ He picked up the newspaper, folded it once and tore it across and across, then tossed the pieces down on to the table. ‘That’s what I think of that. Now, young lady, I suggest that you go upstairs to your room and tr
y to get some sense into your head.’ He waved a hand. ‘Go on. I’m sick of the sight of you. I’ve got to go out in a few minutes, and I don’t want to see your ungrateful face again before I go.’
Ryllis got up, her hands clasped over her mouth, and, with a sob, turned and ran out of the room. At once Mrs Halley rose to her feet, ready to go in pursuit. ‘Stay where you are,’ Mr Halley said, halting her. ‘It won’t hurt her to cry for a while. It’ll do her good to have to face reality for once. She never does. She lives in a dream world and never thinks of anyone but herself.’
Mrs Halley sat back down. For a few brief moments they heard overhead the sound of Ryllis’s feet, but then all was quiet again. Lydia stared down into her cup. On the mantelpiece the old clock ticked into the quiet. Mrs Halley got up and moved to the hall door. ‘I must go up to her,’ she said.
‘I told you no.’ Mr Halley got to his feet. ‘I told you to leave the girl alone, and I meant it.’
‘But she’s so upset. I can’t leave her like that. Sometimes you’re so hard on her.’
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ he said. ‘I will not be defied by you, nor by my children.’ He pointed to the chair so recently vacated by his wife. ‘Sit down. I tell you, sit down.’
Still Mrs Halley remained standing. The pair stood facing one another.
‘I told you to sit down,’ Mr Halley said, glaring at her. He was almost white with anger.
After a long moment Mrs Halley lowered her eyes and sat back down in her chair.
‘Now.’ Mr Halley moved to the bureau and took up his hat. He put it on, then turned to face his wife and daughter.
‘I’m going back out now,’ he said, ‘and I hope by the time I return there’ll be a little change of attitude in this house. I’m talking specifically to you, Mrs Halley. Perhaps when you’re through encouraging your younger daughter in her contrary ways we can find a little more pleasure in the house.’
He put a hand up to adjust his hat, then moved to the doorway and stepped down into the scullery and out of sight.
The echo of the sharp closing of the scullery door rang briefly and then swiftly died. In the silence Lydia and Mrs Halley sat at the kitchen table. They sat there for two or three minutes, neither looking at the other, neither making a sound. Then Mrs Halley rose from her chair, moved to the hall door, opened it and started up the stairs. After a moment Lydia could hear the murmur of voices as her mother and Ryllis spoke together. Two minutes later Mrs Halley was coming back into the room with Ryllis following at her heels.
‘There,’ Mrs Halley said, ‘now we can all three relax. We’ll get tea for ourselves and do as we want to for the evening. If he’s going back to Pershall Dean he won’t be home for a while.’
‘There are times I could wish he’d never come back at all,’ Ryllis said.
‘Hush, Ryllis,’ Mrs Halley said. ‘Don’t say such things.’
The three of them prepared a light meal for themselves, and later, as they washed the dishes in the scullery, Ryllis said, unable to let the matter drop: ‘I don’t know how I always manage to upset Father so much, but somehow I’ve always had the talent for it.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Mrs Halley said. ‘He gets into these moods when things don’t go as he expects, and then gets into his tempers. There’s no reasoning with him at such times.’
‘Well,’ Ryllis said, ‘I’m afraid he’s going to get upset again, because I intend to keep my eyes open for another position.’
When the dishes had been put away, the three left the scullery, to settle back in the kitchen. Lydia lit the newly repaired lamp and it sat on the table glowing amid them as they took to their sewing and mending. Gradually their moods lightened, and eventually they were smiling as they spoke.
Ryllis was working on a nightdress for her mother, with the cotton that Lydia had earlier brought from Merinville. Leaning in a little closer to the lamp, trying to catch the best of the light, she began to tell of life at the Lucases’ house, and to relate anecdotes of little incidents that had taken place there. Most of her stories, Lydia was amused to observe, were those that showed Mr or Mrs Lucas in a bad light. Clearly, in Ryllis’s book there was to be no respect shown for her employers.
‘And there’s the time she went out to the pigsty,’ Ryllis said, speaking yet again of Mrs Lucas. ‘She had a friend visiting, and was showing off the place – but can you imagine, keeping a pig? A lawyer keeping a pig? You’d have thought they’d have enough money to buy a piece of bacon whenever they wanted it, rather than keeping a pig of their own with all the smells and the mess, but no, they have to have their own pig.’ Ryllis shook her head in contempt, and then gave a little laugh as she thought back to the incident that had given rise to her anecdote.
‘Anyway, there she is, Madam Lucas, one afternoon, with her visitor from Redbury or somewhere, and takes her down to the kitchen garden to show her the produce, and on the way back they stop by the pigsty. I was out in the yard at the time, having just got in some vegetables for Cook, so I saw it all. Mrs Lucas had brought from the kitchen a bit of something for the pig to eat – though on normal days she never even noticed that the creature existed. But here she was, showing off her little kingdom, and stopping at the pig’s pen she leans over and tosses this bit of food for it. I don’t know exactly what happened then, but the next second she’s yelling out, “Oh, my brooch! my brooch!” and is leaning way over the rail, stretching out her hand. I ran up to see what was wrong and just at that moment – oh, my God! – just at that moment she loses her balance.’
Ryllis gave a great hoot of laughter at the memory so fresh in her mind and put her hand to her face. ‘Oh, poor woman,’ Mrs Halley said, unable to stop herself smiling. ‘What happened? Did she fall in? Don’t say she fell in.’
‘No, she didn’t fall in,’ Ryllis said. ‘Unfortunately. I’d have loved it if she had, but you should have seen her none the less.’ Her words were interspersed with her peals of laughter. ‘Oh, you should have seen her. Talk about lack of dignity. There she was, trying to reach out for her brooch, which was down in the mire, but then suddenly the pig is there, snuffling up to her, all curious, and then she’s having to push the creature away, and she gets sort of stranded over the rail, so that for a second you don’t know whether she’s going over or not.’ Ryllis could barely speak now for laughing. With her arms she demonstrated how Mrs Lucas had lain across the bar, her hands swinging wildly. ‘I tell you,’ Ryllis shrieked, hardly able to get the words out, ‘she couldn’t get up. She looked like one of those beetles that land on their backs, their legs going every which way! I tell you, if you –’
Suddenly her words stopped, for her swinging left hand had caught the lamp a heavy blow, rocking it on its base, and sending the sound of an impact on the glass shade ringing out in the room. All laughter was forgotten in the space of the time it took for the inhabitants to gasp aloud, and all three of them turned their eyes to the lamp, Ryllis, clutching the cotton fabric to her cheek, giving a little cry and saying, ‘It’s broken!’
Lydia stood gazing at the lamp as if mesmerised. The same expression of horror was on Mrs Halley’s face as she sat close to the lamp, one hand at her mouth. The lamp’s shade was cracked from top to bottom, and it was a wonder to Lydia that it had remained in one piece.
Silence reigned in the room, silence touched only by the sounds of their breathing.
At last Lydia said, her voice almost a whisper, ‘Perhaps Father won’t notice it.’
‘How could he miss it?’ said Ryllis. ‘Anyone’d be bound to see that.’
‘We’ll get another one,’ Mrs Halley said.
‘That’s all very well,’ Ryllis said, ‘but tomorrow’s Sunday. We can’t get to a shop before Monday. What do I do in the meantime?’
Lydia and Ryllis were side by side in their bed. Neither was sleeping. Lydia, lying on her side, could feel the tension emanating from Ryllis’s body just a foot away. They had barely spoken since getting into bed some
twenty minutes before. As they lay there they heard the church clock strike ten and Lydia silently counted off the strokes. Both of them were listening.
Then, at last, there came the sound of footsteps on the cobbles beneath their window. Lydia tensed even more, lying almost rigid on the mattress, and though no whisper passed between them, she knew that Ryllis was doing the same. Lydia drew in her breath, listening even more intently. Their father had returned home.
Downstairs in the kitchen Mrs Halley also heard the sound of Mr Halley’s boots in the yard, and applied herself once more to her sewing. The damaged lamp, its flame turned out, had been put on the side, and the room was lit by a smaller lamp that sat on a small table at her elbow. With the broken lamp not in plain view it was hoped that Mr Halley would not notice the damage. Then, on Monday, Lydia could buy a new shade when she went into Merinville – one that matched, if possible.
There came the sound of the back door opening, footsteps across the flags, and then Mr Halley came up the step from the scullery and entered the kitchen. Mrs Halley could see at once from the set of his mouth, from the way he moved his tense body, that things had not gone well for him. Nevertheless she felt bound to ask, ‘How did it go, Father? Did you meet the gentleman you set out to see?’
He took off his hat as he spoke, and threw it down almost violently on to the shelf beside his chair. ‘It didn’t go well at all,’ he said shortly, ‘and as for that imbecile Winsford – he still wasn’t anywhere in evidence by the time I returned. I had to wait a further half hour before he got in. Then it turns out that the hall isn’t available after all on Monday.’ He drew back his lips over his teeth. ‘It meant the whole journey was for nothing.’ He looked up towards the ceiling. ‘Are the girls upstairs?’
‘Yes, they are.’
He pulled out his chair at the head of the table and sat down. Then he bent and began to untie the laces of his boots. At once Mrs Halley got up and started towards him. ‘Here – let me do it.’
He straightened, and she came to him and crouched and untied his boots and eased them off.
