The Lord and Mary Ann (The Mary Ann Stories)

by Catherine Cookson

  The afternoon had passed off not unpleasantly. Mrs McMullen had shown no approval of anything in the cottage, but still she had not voiced her disapproval, except about the condition of the road and the distance from the bus. This latter grouse had not been displeasing to Lizzie, for she thought that it would hasten her mother’s departure before Mike should come in. Although he knew of his mother-in-law’s proposed visit, there had been no mention of it between them, and as he had not returned to dinner she hoped now that he would not return before teatime. He had not forbidden Mrs McMullen the house, yet Lizzie knew he would hate to see her in it. Perhaps he was already back on the farm and was not going to put in an appearance until she was gone.

  When it was half past three, however, and Mrs McMullen was showing no signs of taking her leave, Lizzie became uneasy. And not about this alone. She knew from experience that if into her mother’s small talk there should creep a note of mystery, it brooked no good. Three times already during the afternoon her mother had alluded to a surprise that was in store for her, and now she was at it again. Sipping at her seventh cup of tea since her arrival, she was saying, musingly, ‘Funny how things turn out . . . By, it is! But you’ll get a surprise one of these days . . . you will that. I’ve told you, I know more than you think.’

  ‘Look, Mother’ – Lizzie endeavoured to keep her impatience from being revealed in her voice – ‘don’t be so mysterious. What can surprise me? I think I’ve had all the surprises I want in my life. If this is something unpleasant, let me know now.’

  ‘Who said it was unpleasant?’

  Mrs McMullen put her cup down carefully into the saucer and surveyed it, first from one angle, then from another, before continuing, ‘It might be for some. It all depends how you look at it, and who looks at it, and what you look at.’

  Lizzie went into the scullery. She could not trust her tongue. It might be for some. She knew what that portended – trouble with or for Mike. Why was her mother so vindictive? Why did she continue to hate him?

  ‘Aren’t you going to put a light on? I can hardly see a finger afore me.’

  In answer to the querulous demand, Lizzie returned to the kitchen and switched on the light, saying, ‘Yes, it’s dark sooner than ever tonight.’ Then she added, ‘You’re going to find it difficult getting to the bus.’

  ‘I got here, didn’t I? Well, I’ll get back. Don’t worry about me. Where’s that ’un? Running the roads, and it near dark.’

  ‘She’ll likely be somewhere on the farm. There’s no worry about her being out in the dark here.’

  ‘No? You’ll always have worry with that madam, you mark my words. And Michael, I’ve only seen him for five minutes. Why couldn’t you keep him in? It isn’t as if I’m on the doorstep every day.’

  ‘He’ll be in the byres . . . he likes to help. Will you have another cup of tea?’

  ‘No.’

  A silence settled on the room. The glow from the fire, the pink-shaded light reflecting on the Christmas decorations, and the homely furniture gave it an atmosphere of comfort and of gaiety; but it had ceased to charm Lizzie. She knew why her mother was sitting tight. She had no intention of going until she had seen Mike. But why? Even in the past she had always taken her leave before the time Mike was due home.

  But any further speculation Lizzie might have made was cut short by Mike’s entry – he came in like a strong wind, bursting into the room, seeming to fill it. His presence, like the wind, stirred things with unseen power, although the gay light in his eyes was shadowed on the sight of his mother-in-law. Lizzie felt his excitement, his vitality, his joy at being home again even after only a few hours away from her, and the love in herself answered his. But she kept it veiled from her eyes.

  Now Mrs McMullen rose to her feet. ‘I’ll have me hat and coat,’ she said. She did not look towards Mike, but took her hat from Lizzie and slowly pinned it on her head. Lizzie next helped her into her coat, and as she did so Michael came in, and she said to him, ‘Your granny’s just going, are you coming with us to the bus?’

  ‘All right,’ said Michael. He did not appear at all eager, and he added, ‘But if you want the half past four you’ll have to hurry.’ Turning from his mother he said to Mike, ‘Have you just got back, Da?’

  ‘Just this minute,’ said Mike. He spoke pleasantly to the boy while reaching for one of three pipes from a rack to the side of the fireplace. Scraping the bowl, he sat down by the hearth.

  Mrs McMullen paused in her dressing, and her eyes darted from father to son. The friendliness between them was not lost on her, and it both surprised and annoyed her. The boy had never liked Mike, which had been mostly of her doing, and so to think that now Michael could even tolerate his father seemed to her entirely wrong. The wicked should be made to suffer, not only hereafter but now, and they would be. She wasn’t done yet, not by a long chalk. She’d have her own back on that big gormless Irishman, if it took the last breath she breathed.

  She stood drawing on her gloves, glancing covertly at the back of Mike’s head as she did so. Then looking up at her daughter and in a manner which would have led anyone to believe that she was picking up the threads of a conversation just recently dropped, she exclaimed, ‘So old skinflint Lord’s going to spend his ill-gotten gains and build himself a house here, is he?’

  Lizzie stared at her mother. Mr Lord’s name had not been mentioned, nor the building of his house. Her face, screwed up in perplexity, was asking her mother silently how she knew this, when Mrs McMullen continued, ‘It’s a small world. Fancy Bob getting that contract. That’s a feather in his cap, that. Ten thousand pounds the house will cost afore it’s finished. That’s some money, isn’t it? That’s a contract. Well, come on . . . ’

  Lizzie stood stiffly watching her mother go from the room. It was almost diabolical the way in which she had manoeuvred this piece of news to hit Mike. This, then, was the surprise.

  She could find it in her heart to hate this woman, who was relentless in her attempts to achieve a separation between her and Mike, and all under the guise of wanting nothing but her happiness.

  Outwardly Mike had not moved except to draw deeply on his pipe, but the news had caused something to leap within him, a mixture of fear and hate and envy. Slowly he lifted his eyes and looked into the mirror above the mantelpiece. In it he could see Lizzie. Her face was turned from him, and she did not turn towards him or speak a word to him as she followed her mother out. He kept himself still, although some vital part of him had flown through the room and grasped his mother-in-law by the neck and swung her round and away; and he watched her, spinning away and over the hills, over the river, away, away into Eternity, nevermore to touch their lives with her bitterness and venom.

  Suddenly he leant forward and sharply knocked his pipe upon the bar, knocking the nodule completely out. So Quinton was coming here to build the old fellow’s house. Well, what of it! What of it? Lizzie would see him – she wouldn’t be able to help it. His fine car would come into the lane and she would watch him daily directing operations on the hill practically opposite the kitchen window. He would come in here – he was an old friend of hers, he should have been her husband – he would sit in this chair and look at her; and they would laugh together while he was at his work.

  As he stood up abruptly the front door banged and Lizzie came into the room. There had not been time for her to go to the crossroads and back again, and Mike looked towards her as she stood within the door pulling off her coat. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then she said softly, ‘Look Mike, I knew nothing about it until a minute ago.’

  He stared at her. ‘Who’s saying anything?’

  ‘But you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Who’s saying I don’t believe you?’

  ‘But I can tell. She sprang it on me – his name had not been mentioned, or the house, or anything.’

  Mike gave a tight laugh. ‘Well, now, ask yourself if that doesn’t take some believing. The old bitch was full of it. It’
s hard to imagine her keeping that up her sleeve, and it didn’t sound as if she had.’

  ‘But Mike, that’s just the point, she had. She did it to cause trouble. She’s my mother, and at this moment I hate her.’

  So intent was Lizzie in trying to convince Mike of the truth that she took no heed of the click of the outer door. Nor did Mike as he turned from her and looked into the fire and rasped his hands over the dark stubble of his chin before saying, ‘She’ll never rest till she’s done it.’

  As Lizzie went to his side and gripped his arm Mary Ann’s head came round the door. She had been about to give her da a fright, but her mischievous intent was checked and the impish gleam died out of her eyes as she stared at them. They were fighting, the quiet fighting like they had done in the bedroom at Mulhattans’ Hall. Yet they couldn’t be fighting, they hadn’t had time. Their Michael had just told her that their granny had gone and their da had just come in.

  She saw Lizzie put her arms about Mike and pull him almost fiercely round to her. As she listened to her mother’s low, urgent words, the old fear, the fear that at one time had made her want to die, came flooding over her again.

  ‘How often have I told you she can’t separate us? Nor can Bob. You’re the only one that can do that. Haven’t I told you, Mike? Let him come and build the house, what does it matter? I don’t want a car or a fine house; I only want you and what you can give me. Do you believe me? Mike, tell me . . . ’

  Mary Ann watched her da look into her mother’s eyes with that lost look she knew so well; then with a suddenness that drove the breath from Lizzie’s body he pulled her into his arms.

  The fact that they were kind again was no solace to Mary Ann. Quietly she retreated, her gloved fingers pushed deep into her mouth. It was her granny had done it. She had made Mr Quinton come and build the house for Mr Lord and upset her da . . . Oh, her granny! If only she would drop down dead.

  She stood under the lean-to biting on her fingers for some time. She stood until she felt the cold creep up past her knees, and one foot went dead. But what did it matter? All of a sudden everything was spoiled, Christmas and Mr Lord’s house, even the reason for the visit to Newcastle.

  With flooding eyes she stared upwards into the sky. Venus was making its way towards its zenith. Tomorrow night that big star, she knew, would come to rest over the stable, and Jesus would be born. And as she stared, she was not surprised to see the star wink at her. It grew brighter and bigger every time she blinked her tears away, and brighter and bigger still, until right in the centre she actually saw the Infant Himself.

  Her hands under her armpits, she swayed now backwards and forwards trying to still the cold, and as she swayed the Child nodded to her. ‘Go on in,’ He said. ‘Go on in now and be nice to your da. And the morrow pay a visit to the Crib and we’ll see what can be done.’

  After she had blown her nose, the star decreased to its normal size, and slowly she went indoors.

  Her da was sitting before the fire as if nothing had happened, and her ma turned and smiled at her. She took off her hat and coat and went and stood between her da’s knees and pressed herself close to him.

  ‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘Don’t you want to ask me anything about Newcastle?’

  She shook her head.

  Mike lifted his eyes to Lizzie and she came and, bending over Mary Ann, asked, ‘Do you feel bad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you been fighting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Put your tongue out then.’

  Mary Ann stuck out her tongue to its surprising length, and Lizzie said, ‘Well, just in case you’ll have a dose of syrup of figs, and off to bed with you.’

  When there was no objection to this, Lizzie and Mike looked at each other with knowledge in their eyes. They knew the reason for their daughter’s quietness. As usual, with or without intention, she had been listening.

  Lizzie turned away, and Mike bent his head and rubbed his face reassuringly against his daughter’s cheek.

  Chapter Four: The Old Firm

  Lizzie lifted the square box onto the bus platform and said to the conductor, ‘Will you help her off with it at Pratt’s Lane, please?’ But before that obliging man could agree, Mary Ann exclaimed for the twenty-sixth time that morning, ‘I tell you I can carry it meself!’

  Lizzie stepped back, not so much to avoid being knocked over as to restrain herself from lifting Mary Ann off the bus and boxing her ears.

  As the bus began to move, Mary Ann looked from her mother’s set face to Michael, who was standing by her side, and, as was her way, she was suddenly overcome with remorse – it was because of her persistence and tantrums that Michael wasn’t coming with her to give Mr Lord the cake. Gripping the rail, she leant forward and shouted, ‘You can take me own Christmas box to him by yourself this afternoon, you can.’

  But Michael’s reaction to this offer was lost on her, for the conductor, holding her securely by the collar, pushed her into the bus and onto a seat. He placed the box by her side, saying, ‘You’re going to have your work cut out carrying that, it’s nearly as big as you. Is anybody meeting you?’

  ‘No – and I can carry it.’

  ‘Well, if you say you can, you can.’

  Left to her own thoughts Mary Ann looked at the box, and her eye penetrated the wrapping and saw lying snugly in layers of soft paper the Christmas cake, all iced and beautiful. She gave a deep sigh; she was taking it on her own to him. And she was surprised that she was, for it was only just before going to sleep last night that she had decided she must take the cake to Mr Lord all by herself, because if their Michael went with her as arranged it would be impossible for her to talk to Mr Lord, and it was absolutely necessary now, after what she had heard, that she should do so. The new threat to her parents’ happiness had even made the news that Mr Lord had given Lena a pair of ballet shoes for her Christmas box lose its sting.

  She sat lost in her plan of campaign. After he had opened the box and been overcome by the beauty of the cake’s green and white trelliswork icing, she would make her request. Of course, she would do it properly and nicely. And what with the cake and it being Christmas Eve, he would not, of course, refuse her so simple a thing.

  Long before they reached Pratt’s Lane, Mary Ann was on the platform, the box at her feet. When the bus stopped and the conductor lifted the box off and placed it in her arms, she thought for one horrifying moment that she was going to drop it. The conductor’s caustic comments followed her as she moved along the road towards the big iron gates. Once there, she propped the corner of the box on a low spike and, panting heavily, rested against it. Then she pushed the other half of the gate open, and when she had passed through she was careful, even under her present difficulties, to follow the same procedure and close it, for it wouldn’t do to annoy the Lord this morning. She was actually staggering to the end of the long drive when she saw him coming down the dilapidated broad stone steps of the house.

  Mr Lord’s brows had gathered in surprise at the sight of Mary Ann carrying a box as broad as herself and apparently twice as heavy, and it must be admitted that at the sight of him her staggering became so exaggerated as to suggest she was either on a heavy sea or drunk. As neither of these things was possible, it could only be the tremendous weight of the box that was weighting the child down.

  The old man moved swiftly towards her, and as Mary Ann relinquished her burden to him with a sigh that was not altogether acting, he demanded, ‘Who sent you with this?’

  ‘Me ma,’ she gasped.

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Yes; it’s for you, for Christmas.’

  ‘You mean to say she sent you with this great box? Where’s your brother? What’s he doing he couldn’t bring it, if it had to come?’

  Mary Ann remained silent, and Mr Lord, glancing at her, knew without further explanation why Michael had not been allowed to carry
the box and whatever was in it.

  And so they entered the house. In the hall they passed Ben, or it would be more correct to say Ben passed them. He passed them as if he were blind, for on no account could Ben be brought onto the side of Mary Ann. To Ben the child was uncanny. Most of his life had been spent with the man who was his master, and there was nothing that he didn’t know about him. He knew him to be a hard man and not always just; he was a bitter man and had cause to be; he had for many long years hated women, and children he abhorred, and no female foot had entered these doors for twenty-seven years, until that child came in early one morning. Like a mist she came in, for only a mist could have penetrated the barbed-wire fencing and the high stone walls that bordered the house. Now the gate was left open, the master drove children to school in his car, and, latest madness of all, he was going to build a new house . . . at his age! And all this since that child had been allowed in here, that uncanny child who had the temper of a banshee and the coaxing ways of the wee folk. Well, the master could build the house, but would never get him inside it, he would die before that. His usefulness was done. He shambled on into the kitchen.

  Mary Ann, standing by the table in the dining room, said ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s your Christmas box from me ma, she made it herself. And you know what?’ Her voice sank to an awed whisper. ‘There’s a glass of brandy in it.’

  ‘Brandy?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Go on, open it and see.’

  Mr Lord somewhat slowly undid the string and opened the box, and lifting the many papers, he unveiled the cake.

  Mary Ann’s eyes had not left his face, and after some time, noticing no ecstatic change taking place, she rose on her toes and peered into the box. Yes, there it was. She cast an eye up at him. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’