Feathers in the Fire

by Catherine Cookson

  McBain was not to be found on the farm. She asked here and there, everyone in fact except Amos – she never mentioned her father to Amos. It was Will Curran who informed her that the master had gone down to the bottom pasture to see what the animals might be picking up, as three cows had dropped their calves during the past month.

  She did not give way to her feelings and run down to the lower cow pasture; she was nearing her twenty-eighth birthday and her running and scampering days were over, but she hurried almost on the point of a run.

  The ten years that had passed had not altered Jane very much. She was a little taller, a little less thin, but she was still neither pretty nor yet plain. Often, in a matron of twenty-seven, you could add the word comely but not to Jane, there was nothing comely about her. If she had ever thought of dressing up like a boy she could have passed for one. She would have been shocked at the suggestion for within herself she was utterly feminine, and being so her emotions tended to guide her tastes. She liked a good story with a love interest in it. She was a devotee of the Brontë sisters; on the other hand she didn’t care much for Mr Dickens, whose writings smacked too much of caricature, and caricature, she thought, was cruel; and all the pictures in Mr Dickens’ books tended to show queer creatures. In music her taste was towards Strauss and did not go beyond Mozart. She thought that it was because her tastes were so plebeian that nothing satisfied her. In spite of being betrothed to Arnold she felt lost. Amos no longer needed her, even when he persisted that she keep him company. It was only her father, and of course Arnold, to whom she could act as a staff. Yet Arnold, as dear as he was, had for twenty-five of his forty years, taken care of himself. His only need of her, she felt, was as a loving companion. Well, what more did she want at her age?

  She lifted the top bar of the gate from the hook attached to the low stone wall, closed it after her, then went across the field to where she saw her father standing breaking up a tuft of grass with his foot.

  ‘Father.’

  He turned showing slight surprise, he hadn’t heard her coming. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve . . . I’ve just passed the malt house. There are men there, workmen.’ She watched his eyes flicker to the side. It was an evasive action; she knew it of old when he was reluctant to discuss the matter in hand. ‘What are they doing, Father?’

  ‘Well, what do you imagine builders do when they go into an old house, they restore it. I’m having it restored.’

  ‘The malt house?’

  ‘You’ve just said you’ve seen them there. Yes, the malt house.’

  ‘Have you changed your mind? Is it for Johnnie?’

  His eyes flickered away again, and his lips went into a hard line; then he brought his head sharply upwards and looked at her, saying, ‘No, it is not for Johnnie, it . . .it is for you . . .and . . .’

  ‘Me! Father?’

  He did not immediately answer her startled exclamation but dusted a straw from his breeches before saying, ‘It will be your home when I remarry.’

  She thought she was going to sink into the ground; she actually recoiled as if from a blow. It was her expression that brought his head up and his body straight as he said rapidly, ‘I am not an old man, I am but fifty-six. I have lived an isolated life long enough. Anyway, this should be good news for you for, from when I take a wife, you will be free to marry. I have been a hindrance; you might never have married with me at this end, and old Wainwright at the other.’

  Her body slumped slightly; the shock was leaving her, being replaced by a certain tenderness. He wasn’t remarrying out of purely selfish motives, he had been thinking of her. It was true what he said. With him holding her here and Parson Wainwright refusing to allow a married woman to share his home, they had been handicapped, for Arnold’s stipend wasn’t sufficient to provide for himself and a wife. And this state of affairs might have gone on until they were too old to care, but her father had thought of this. She blinked her eyes and said softly, ‘I . . . I understand, but . . . but what about Amos?’ The eyes flickered away again. ‘He’ll go with you of course; that will be one of the crosses you’ll have to bear in your married life.’

  She would have liked to say, ‘Oh, Amos won’t be any cross, Father,’ yet she knew that he would be, for he was of a jealous nature. He did not even like to see Arnold touch her hand. They had to be very circumspect in his presence. But that didn’t matter; that contingency would be met in the future. As Arnold would quote, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ She gazed at her father tenderly now. Perhaps things were taking a turn for the better at last. Perhaps the woman he was marrying – although at the moment she couldn’t think of anyone he might have chosen – perhaps she was motherly and she would grow to love her.

  Then it was as if a mighty hand passed over her, sweeping her generous thoughts away into the wide sky and filling her body with anger and resentment, for her father was saying, ‘I want you to prepare a dinner for a week come Wednesday. I will be bringing the Reeds over. They are aware of my intentions; I will be settling the matter with them at the weekend. I am in little doubt but that Agnes is willing.’

  AGNES REED! The name came spiralling upwards and seemed to dive out of the top of her head like a startled lark, the echo of the name filled the sky. ‘You can’t mean AGNES REED, Father!’

  His colour changed; the nose that had at one time been thin, but was now bulbous, turned purple, and the tinge spread up over his eyes and brow into the bald dome at the front of his head until it became lost in the black and grey streaked hair sprouting above his ears.

  ‘She’s younger than me!’ she was yelling at him, ‘You can’t. You can’t, Father, not Agnes Reed. She’s flighty, common, the talk of the countryside, she’s . . . ’

  ‘Be quiet! I command you, hold your tongue. She’s a fine young woman of proper—’ he had almost said proportions, but quickly altered it to principles. ‘Because a young woman rides a horse as good as a man, why should she be slandered?’

  Her indignation was burning her up. As she glared at him she saw him as he really was, as he had always been, a man who favoured young girls. She had a picture of him as he held Molly to him; she saw his lips like wet slugs sucking her breasts. And Molly hadn’t been the first. No, her mother in her delirium had mentioned a name, that of another girl, a very young girl, who was now a married woman but who had always looked at her strangely when they met in Hexham . . . And his jaunts into Newcastle on a Tuesday, what did he do there? He had no business in Newcastle. Oh, she knew what he did there.

  But Agnes Reed; that silly addle-headed girl. She hadn’t met her more than half-a-dozen times but once would have been enough to know the type she was. And now she was to be turned out of her home, the home that she loved, that she had helped to tend and care for over the years, the home where she had thought she and Arnold would be spending the rest of their lives . . . when they married. It was no use her reason telling her that if her father had chosen an older woman she would still have been turned out of the house, for she would have countered this with, the house would not have been closed to her as it would be if Agnes Reed became its mistress. She shouted at him now, ‘You can’t do this, Father, you can’t! It’s indecent . . . Arnold won’t marry you; he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t countenance it.’

  ‘Arnold shan’t be asked to countenance it, I shall be married in Hexham.’

  They stood glaring at each other now. The wind had loosened her hair and a strand had fallen over her eyes. She pushed it to one side and with it the first tears, but so full was she of anger that they ran slow. But not so her legs when she turned from him and, picking up her skirts, raced through the fields.

  When she entered the farmyard she looked like someone demented. Amos was coming out of the stables and he called to her, ‘What’s the matter, Jane? Jane! Stop a minute. What is it?’ But she took no heed. Nor of
Molly in the kitchen who came from the sink, saying, ‘Good God, Miss, what’s happened to you?’ She ran past her and up the stairs to her room, and there she stood gasping for a minute before throwing herself on to the bed.

  It was only seconds later when Molly entered the room and, putting her hands on her shoulders, said gently, ‘Tell us, Miss, what is it? What’s upset you?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ She shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Aw, Miss! now come on, you don’t get in a state like this, not you for nothin’ you don’t.’

  ‘What is it?’ Amos came hobbling into the room and, thrusting Molly aside, he dropped his crutches on the floor and hoisted himself on to the side of the bed and, pulling Jane round to him, gazed tenderly down into her tear-swamped face, saying, ‘Tell me, tell me what’s happened. Someone done something?’

  She gulped in her throat, then drew her fingers across her eyes, groped for a handkerchief, wiped it round her face, and looking at him, gulped quietly, ‘Father . . . Father’s going to marry again.’

  The expression on Amos’ face remained as it had been a moment before, full of concern, kindly; then as the seconds passed it slowly took on a look of utter blankness.

  She glanced from him to Molly, who was standing near the door now. Somehow she felt it was right that Molly should hear the news first hand. ‘But . . . but Amos’ – she moved her head from shoulder to shoulder – ‘I wouldn’t mind him . . . I wouldn’t mind him remarrying, but . . . but it’s who he’s going to marry.’

  ‘Who is he going to marry?’ Amos’ inquiry was quiet.

  ‘Agnes Reed.’

  ‘Reed? Agnes Reed, the twin girl?’

  She nodded her head. ‘She’s two years younger than me, it’s indecent. And, and Amos, it’s not fair’ – the tears were still raining from her eyes as she gazed into his face – ‘is it? Is it?’

  He did not answer her, nor did his expression give her any indication of what he was thinking, or if he was thinking at all. But he was thinking; his mind was galloping ahead into the future.

  Sitting taut, his body straight, and in this position he could have been taken for a tall, hefty young man sitting on the side of a bed, his feet on the ground, and speaking figuratively his feet were on the ground, so much so that he knew exactly what to expect from life, but also what he meant to demand from it by way of compensation . . . Going by age his father was not really an old man, but in the jargon of the farmyard, which he used more often than the stilted form of speech taught him by the parson, he considered his father was not long for the top – frustration and drink had played havoc with him over the years – and it was not a thought brought up from his deep subconscious when he wished his father dead, but an ever present desire in the forefront of his mind.

  The hate for his father had increased with the years. He had hated him before he learned, through eavesdropping on Will Curran talking to Johnnie Geary in the harness room, about his father giving orders to drown him, and how Molly Geary was said to have hesitated, and the question still remaining open whether she would have or not if Davie Armstrong hadn’t appeared on the scene. He had heard vague reference to the episode of his father whipping Molly Geary because she had fallen, and he knew that his mother had taken to her bed, not only because of his birth, but because his father had had a woman on the side. He hadn’t as yet learnt the name of the woman but it wasn’t of any interest to him anyway. He was also aware that there was sniggering in certain quarters with regards to his friendship with Biddy, but he put this down to her being Molly’s fly-blow and himself McBain’s son, which in one way was correct.

  He gathered a great deal of information through his quiet approach. There were rubber cups on the ends of his crutches, and he wore hand-made soft leather shoes on the appendages referred to as his feet; he came upon people so suddenly that he startled them. He had discovered this trick early in life and had always used it to advantage, sometimes to scare an unsuspecting worker almost out of his wits, or to creep up on a conversation.

  He had worked out for some time past what he was going to do with the farm when it became his. He would sell all the lower land lying towards the river, Sir Alfred had been after it for years, not only in order to extend his own land but with the idea of building a house for his son, for from the rye field there was one of the finest views in the county. The Manor had nothing to compare with it; all the manor lands lay too low, whereas this particular part of the farm took in the source of the burn; it sprang from high up in a rock wall as out of a gorgon’s mouth; it was a silver spray in the summer and a roaring cascade in the winter. But who saw it unless they made the rough journey to it. No, that part could easily be done without, and it would bring in a pretty penny. He would enclose the farm, bringing it down to workable size so that they needn’t employ outside labour. What had to be done would be done by Will Curran and the two Gearys. What the farm wanted was reorganisation; less land would need less scattered labour on walls and ditches and hedges. And he’d get rid of the hunters; they ate money, hunters. Look at what was spent on them and look at what was doled out to himself. On the first of every month Jane gave him a pound . . . the allowance his father made him – a pound! He wanted to spit at the thought. At one time it had been only five shillings and he had been forced to supplement it with his winnings from the marbles and chucks. Even as a child he could beat the men at their own game. A ha’penny a game he would play. They had thought it funny at first, until, losing as much as threepence a week, they called a halt to his monetary gains.

  Lately he’d had a craving for money. He had designed a new trap, a spanking affair, something different from the makeshift he used now. It was to have a removable hood and a soft leather seat shaped like a tub armchair from which he could drive. He imagined himself galloping into Hexham or even as far as Newcastle in the rig-out. In it he would feel the eyes on him, women’s eyes, in fascinated admiration. God, what he would have done to them if he’d had legs! But he wanted to rivet their attention on to what he had become without legs, a smart dashing figure in a spanking rig-out.

  With money he’d have a tailor who’d make clothes to suit his bulk. And trousers. He had even designed a pair of false legs made of light wood strapped to his waist by leather. And the picture these last presented to the forefront of his mind was of him walking up the aisle of the church with Biddy on his arm.

  Apart from her being the only one who was likely to have him, he loved her, craved for her. He hadn’t seen her bare body since she was ten. She’d got shy and proper after that, but every time he looked at her he stripped the clothes off her. It made not an atom of difference that she was old Geary’s granddaughter and that she didn’t know who her father was. What the hell did that matter?

  And the idea of marrying Biddy had an added attraction, for it would cause a stink round about. One thing he was sorry for, his father wouldn’t be here to see it because all this could not happen until he died.

  . . . Now Jane was saying he was going to marry again, and to Agnes Reed, which would mean he would start a family, for the woman was a frustrated breeder by all accounts. Goodbye to the farm; goodbye to dreams; goodbye to compensation; where would he end his days? up in the attic? The bogeyman to the litter that would fill the house. As if he had asked the question aloud Jane said, ‘He’s . . . he’s having the malt house renovated for us.’

  ‘The malt house?’ He gaped at her, then brought his head down towards her and repeated, ‘The malt house?’ She nodded silently. ‘Well, well, that is kind of him. It’s quite a way to the malt house from the farm, we’ll be nicely tucked out of his sight.’ He now put his hand on to her shoulder and, gripping it, said, ‘Don’t worry; he hasn’t done it yet . . . he could have a stroke.’

  For a moment she looked horrified; then hastily wiping her face she muttered, ‘Oh, Amos, don’t say things like that.’r />
  ‘I was just hoping.’

  ‘Oh Amos!’

  He brought his joined hands together and pressed them down into the coverlet between the stumps of his legs. Then he turned his head and looked at Molly, who was still standing by the door, and as if he too considered her one of the family he asked, ‘And what do you make of it?’

  ‘I’m not all that surprised,’ Molly answered, then turned and walked out, down the stairs and through the kitchen and into the dairy where Winnie was scouring milk pans, and without any lead-up she said, ‘He’s gona marry again.’

  Winnie turned her head, her face wrinkled in perplexity, then she repeated, ‘He?’

  ‘Aye, the master.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Aye, it’s true. An’ who do you think it is? That Miss Reed, the horsey one, the one that got her name up two or three years back and went away for a long holiday abroad they said, you remember?’

  ‘No, never! She’s younger than Miss Jane.’

  Molly now folded her arms and patted her bare flesh as she said, ‘Well, here’s one who won’t stay and welcome the bride.’

  ‘Where will you go, lass?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know as yet, Winnie, but I think it’s time I was making a move, for more reasons than one, don’t you?’

  They looked at each other in silence now. The reason was speaking from both their eyes and Winnie, turning to her work again, said, ‘Well, perhaps you’re right, lass; in fact I know you are. Pity you didn’t tell her years ago.’

  ‘Aye, it is. But then there are some things that are hard to get out.’

  Two

  The dawn was breaking when Amos slipped out of the house the following morning. Molly was not yet in the kitchen, or Biddy in the dairy. Their time for arriving was half-past five, half an hour earlier than in the winter, but winter and summer now, Winnie did not begin work until half-past six, it was a concession to her age.