The Lord and Mary Ann (The Mary Ann Stories)

by Catherine Cookson

  She had stood with her back to him looking towards the scullery door, and in that moment she had decided that the time was right to do as Mr Lord had bidden her. So turning to him, she said, ‘Da . . . you know that school Mr Lord wanted me to go to? Well, I want to go.’ She remembered the look that came over his face, but she could not even now say to herself it was a vexed look, or a nice look. She had no name in her mind to pin it down, because it was a different look.

  Mike himself could not have interpreted his feelings on hearing Mary Ann make her request . . . irritation, disappointment, a touch of the old anger, and, covering all, a feeling of anticipated loneliness filled his mind. He thought, Something like this would have to happen.

  He had said weakly, ‘But why do you want to go? We are going into the farmhouse.’

  This alone he had felt should have been attraction enough, affording her something to brag about for months to come; but her answer was, ‘Yes, I know, but I . . . well, I want to go to school . . . and . . . and talk nice.’

  ‘And talk nice?’ The old revolutionary in him was up in arms for the moment, and then he thought: It’s a chance; who am I to deprive her of it? If I’d had it things might have been different. But as he looked at her he couldn’t imagine any school being such an inducement that it could compete with himself.

  His eyes slowly narrowed and his head lifted, and he asked quietly, ‘Has Mr Lord been talking to you?’

  Her eyes had opened wide, and she had replied, ‘Mr Lord talking to me? What about?’

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘going to school.’

  Now Mary Ann had lied for him all her life, but she had never been able to lie to him. Something in his eye always brought the truth out of her; it was as if she had no power to be other than what he demanded. But now, with the intuition born of her love, she knew from his odd quietness and the look on his face that Mr Lord was right – if her da should guess she was going to school in exchange for his job he would get into a rage and everything would be spoilt. She could see him going to Mr Lord and their fighting; and the result would be misery for them all again. So she cocked her head on one side and gave the first conscious acting performance of her life.

  ‘Only when he was in the kitchen that day,’ she said, ‘and he mightn’t send me now, but you could ask him . . . Will you, da? ’Cos you’re always on to me about fighting, and I can’t stop fighting where Sarah Flannagan is. She’s always at me. And I’d like to talk nice, and show her.’

  Mike’s eyes were back to their normal roundness, and he turned towards the fire, saying, ‘Go on now, we’ll see about it later.’

  She had gone out, but her ma had followed her to the gate, and there she had buttoned up her coat; then she had kissed her, a hard kiss, pressing her tightly. The kiss was not the usual morning peck, and it sent Mary Ann down the lane thinking, not of her da and his reactions, because she knew that he had believed her, but of her ma.

  Before telling her mother that her teacher required a note to say she had been sick on the particular morning she had played truant, Mary Ann had informed her that she hadn’t been to school but had gone to Mrs McBride’s, the excuse she gave being that it was dictation morning and she couldn’t do dictation, and also that she was afraid of Miss Thompson. As both these statements in a way were true, she had not felt so bad about lying to her mother, but Lizzie had looked at her long and hard and, to her surprise, had not reprimanded her in any way, only tucked her in bed and said goodnight. She had put this lenient attitude down to her ma’s joy at the turn of events. Yet now she wasn’t sure, for her ma had said to her the next morning, ‘Mind, say nothing to your da about staying off school and going to Mrs McBride’s.’ And she had said ‘All right’, and thought: Just as if I would.

  All told, she was finding the whole business disappointing. There was no excitement about it, only the excitement of knowing that she was acting, and that Mr Lord knew she was acting. So the conclusion was reached that she was destined to become an actress, after first, of course, becoming a lady at that school.

  Miss Thompson’s voice exclaiming, ‘All you for Confession,’ brought the future bang into the present. She had forgotten about Confession . . . Bust! And it’d be Father Beaney. And if she talked too much, he’d blow her up. Well, she decided firmly, she wasn’t going to him. She’d march with the rest, go in and pay a visit, say a ‘Hail Mary’ for Father Owen, then go and see how he was.

  But alas, there was still Miss Thompson to be reckoned with. Under that teacher’s gimlet eye, it was quite impossible to carry out her plan, and in due course she found herself kneeling outside Father Beaney’s box and wishing that she was ten miles away, or that he was. Her preparation for Confession was orthodox, but not her entry into the box; for she went in in a spirit of defiance. Yet she emerged, as one should, chastened; she had made so many promises she couldn’t see them being fulfilled until she was an old woman. Oh, Father Beaney . . . he got on your nerves; he wasn’t a bit like Father Owen. Fancy him saying she must stop ro . . . romancing . . . she didn’t do that, she only made on about things. And she’d had to promise that she wouldn’t fight any more, either with her tongue or hands, and that she would love her granny . . . Well!

  In a state of very mixed feelings she made her way to the altar of the Holy Family, and there she said her prescribed penance. It was no use, she knew, getting on about Father Beaney to them, for she could see by the look in their eyes they were on his side. She’d only get the worst of it. She next prayed for Father Owen. ‘Make his cough better,’ she asked them. ‘And let him come out again; or let me in, ’cos I want to talk to him and tell him all that’s happened. And thank you, dear Holy Family, for making all these fine things happen to us, especially to me da.’ The gifts she had received from their hands made her contrite, and she added, ‘I’ll try to be a better girl, like Father Beaney said, and not fight with Sarah Flannagan ever again, or swank to her; and if I do, may I be struck down dead.’ There! She felt that that spirit of sacrifice should please them. ‘And dear Holy Family, will you make Miss Honeysett let me in so as I can see Father Owen? Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Amen. Oh’ – she was almost off her knees – ‘there’s just one more thing . . . me granny. She won’t come near us now, ’cos she knows everything’s all right. But will you make me ma send me down to her so’s I can tell the old . . . her . . . me granny, all about everything?’ Here she paused, and, when by neither sign nor feeling an answer came to her, she concluded that they weren’t in favour of this request.

  As if before some gentle rebuke, her head drooped, and she said dejectedly, ‘But it’s no use, I can’t love her. You know yourself what she’s like.’

  Was it the sound of a chuckle that brought her head up? Well, it was something; and there, lo and behold, the whole lot of them were smiling. They were laughing about her granny – they knew what she was like all right, better’n Father Beaney.

  She rose from her knees, genuflected deeply, smiled broadly up at them; then, on reverent tiptoe, she went up the aisle and to the door leading to the porch. Here she stood for a moment, wallowing in her holy feeling and pulling on her woollen gloves. Then she straightened her hat, for she must be tidy if she was to meet Father Owen. Dusting down the front of her coat, she slowly made her way up the porch, but before she reached the door she was checked by a voice, low but audible, coming from the street outside, saying, ‘Eeh! It’s a wonder God doesn’t strike her down dead. Me ma says that one of these days the heat from the devil in her will set light to the confessional box and she’ll go up in blue smoke. D’you know what she’s saying now – she’s saying her da’s been made manager and that she’s going to be sent to a posh school and be made into a lady. Did you ever!’ The voice rose: ‘Her! . . . Me ma says you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, she says . . . ’

  Mary Ann had heard enough . . . Silk purse out of sow’s ear! She wasn’t exactly sure of the meaning of this saying, bu
t that it reflected detrimentally on her she was sure. So she took three majestic steps out of the porch and confronted Sarah and her solitary listener, and startled them both by exclaiming, ‘You can tell your ma you can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, so there! What does your ma know anyway?’

  Sarah, casting one devotional glance down the church porch, hissed quietly, ‘You’re starting again, and you’re asking for it, and if we weren’t near the church I’d give it to you.’

  ‘You’ll give me nothing,’ said Mary Ann, ‘that I won’t give you back. And I am going away to a posh school, me ma came this morning, you saw her.’

  ‘I saw her come because you got wrong for not bringing Miss Thompson a note, and you couldn’t ask your ma for it, ’cos she didn’t know you were playing truant.’

  ‘It wasn’t, you see; I had brought the note . . . Oh! . . . ’ Mary Ann’s eyes slowly mounted the grey stone of the church and reached the heavens; then descending earthwards again and seeming to have received a celestial message, she said with aloof dignity, ‘It’s no use talking to you. As me da says, some folks is born numskulls and some fall on their heads.’

  With this parting shot Mary Ann marched off, filled with a righteous feeling. She’d got the better of that do and she hadn’t fought in the street.

  Sarah’s ‘Oh . . . oh!’ followed her, and she had not gone more than a few steps before Sarah’s footsteps were behind her. Expecting at least a dig in the back and knowing that she would be forced to retaliate, she fled from temptation by spurting the few extra steps to the sanctuary of the priest’s front doorstep, and, without waiting to turn round, rang the bell.

  This action alone stayed Sarah’s hand – the daring of this enemy of hers had at times the power to bring on a stillness akin to paralysis. She stood now stock still, gaping at Mary Ann, who had the temerity to knock on the priest’s front door, and him bad!

  The door was opened and Miss Honeysett, looking like a replica of the avenging angel, stood there.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Can I see Father Owen, please?’ asked Mary Ann in a small voice.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Oh; is he worse then?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Is he up then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And is he out and about?’

  ‘No, he’s not, he’s not out of his room. And I’m sick of answering this door.’

  ‘My name’s Mary Ann Shaughnessy,’ said Mary Ann in her politest tones, ‘and if you told him it’s me he’d let me in.’

  Now Miss Honeysett became the avenging angel himself; she swelled, and wrath emanated from her. ‘He would not! Nor is he going to see anyone for days. You’d kill him, the lot of you. And don’t come back botherin’.’

  The door banged. There was a loud snigger from behind, and Sarah, her face wide with glee, said, ‘Can I see Father Owen, because I’m the great Mary Ann Shaughnessy? And I’m going to a fine school, and me da’ as manager . . . baloney!’

  Mary Ann, stumped for the moment, could only retort: ‘Aw, you! You think you’re clever. I’ll get me own back on you, you wait.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Sarah, grinning from ear to ear. ‘The only way you’ll get your own back is when you spit in the wind.’

  At this utter vulgarity, Mary Ann tossed her head and moved off until she came to the alleyway leading to the presbytery backyard. Here an idea struck her, and, turning to Sarah, she gave one emphatic bounce of her head, gathered up some gravel from the gutter, which action caused Sarah to duck, then marched disdainfully up the alleyway.

  Father Owen had had a very trying day, during which the theory of loving his neighbour, in the person of his housekeeper, had been severely put to the test. For as many years as he could remember she had been trying to nurse him; in fact, he suspected her of praying illness on him. And now her prayer in some measure had been answered, and she had him where she wanted him . . . But for very little longer; tomorrow he was out of this, if he had to shoot his way out. He smiled wryly at the picture of himself, two guns at his hips, shooting at Miss Honeysett. God forgive him, she was a good woman – if only she didn’t fuss.

  He looked towards the window. Well, he supposed he should be thankful. It was a grey day and the March wind had a nip in it, and here he was with a nice fire and a comfortable chair. What had he to grumble about? What? He lay back and closed his eyes, and was soon dozing. And now his dreams began to repay him for all the trials of the day and his life in general, for had he not here, in his very hand, an envelope with three thousand pounds in it, and not a word whom it was from, except to say it was for the restoration of his church? And Jimmy Connolly, him who was known never to have put more than a penny on the plate, and not that if he could get off with it, Jimmy had left six ounces of the best baccy together with a bottle of the finest Scotch on the doorstep, with the written injunction to take a good stiff dose of the latter to ward off a cold . . . Oh, the kindness of people. You’d never think, never dream. Under the skin they were all kind.

  It was at this point of Father Owen’s dream, and for no reason whatever that he could see, except perhaps for the unpredictability of human nature, that Jimmy Connolly fired a gun at him; from the vantage point of the outhouse roof, he fired at him, clean through the window.

  ‘In the name of God!’ Father Owen sat bolt upright in his chair. The noise of the gunshot was so realistic that it took some seconds for him to realise that he had been dreaming. He pushed his hands through his thinning strands of hair. He had been dreaming all right . . . six ounces of baccy and a bottle of Scotch! Not forgetting the three thousand, of course. With a muttered exclamation of impatience he made to lean back again, when he was almost brought clean out of the chair by a loud ‘Ping! Ping!’ on the window and as near resembling the crack of a gun as to be one.

  ‘Glory be! Somebody throwing stones at the pane.’

  Pulling himself up, he went to the window and peered down into the yard. But he could see no sign of the culprit, until a waving arm, coming from the end of the passage a little to the right of him, brought his eyes to Mary Ann.

  Oh, it was Mary Ann. The child had come to see him. Well, well. He smiled and waved to her. What was she saying? With a stealthy glance behind towards the bedroom door and pulling the neck of his dressing gown well up about his chin, he opened the window.

  ‘Hallo, there, Mary Ann.’

  ‘Hallo, Father. Are you better?’

  ‘Right as rain.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to see you for ages, and she wouldn’t let me in.’

  ‘She wouldn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just wait till I see her, she’ll get the length of me tongue.’ This whisper just reached Mary Ann, and that was all. She leant her head back now and whispered up hoarsely to him, ‘A lot’s happened, Father; I’ve piles to tell you.’

  ‘Go on then, tell me.’

  ‘Well, you know what you said about me da being manager?’

  ‘Yes, I do, well enough.’

  ‘Well, he is. Mr Lord’s made him the manager.’

  Now Father Owen’s surprise was genuine and his tone so full of awe that Mary Ann was filled with gratification.

  ‘You don’t say!’ he said.

  ‘Yes, and we’re moving into the farmhouse.’

  Father Owen stared down at the child. She was a modern miracle factory if ever there was one . . . Old Lord to do that . . . And why not, at all? It was the power of God working in him. And not before time.

  ‘And you know something else, Father?’

  ‘No . . . tell me.’

  Before Mary Ann told him she sent a swift glance down the alleyway and her voice became a number of tones higher. ‘He’s sending me to a posh school.’

  ‘He’s not!’

  ‘He is . . . a convent.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes . . . And you know some more?’

  ‘No . . . go on.’

&n
bsp; ‘I’m goin’ to be a lady and go on the pictures.’

  ‘Glory be to God!’ said Father Owen.

  ‘And,’ went on Mary Ann, remembering Sarah’s saying which coupled the farmyard and the bag industry with herself, ‘Sarah Flannagan says, Father, that I’ll not, she says you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ cried the priest. And then again, ‘Nonsense! You tell her from me you can; for was not I meself modelled out of one?’

  ‘You were, Father?’

  ‘I was . . . I was indeed.’

  ‘There you are then,’ said Mary Ann loudly to the world at large. ‘And won’t me da be a gentleman, Father?’

  Father Owen was not called upon to sin his soul further, for a voice from behind him crying, ‘Father!’ brought his head in, and with a hasty wave and a wink to her he was gone.

  Glowing now with triumph Mary Ann sped down the alleyway, and just in time to stay Sarah’s ignominious flight. With the width of the pavement between them they confronted one another. A swarm of cutting remarks were tumbling over each other in Mary Ann’s mouth, some fancifully embellished, some flowery, and some just plain statements of fact, but something in Sarah’s face checked their flow and they stuck between her teeth; and to her profound amazement and horror, she found herself actually feeling sorry for this dire enemy, so much so that she almost contemplated going off without a word. It was the most disconcerting feeling she had experienced in the whole of her life; and was not under any circumstances to be encouraged, for should she go off without some pithy remark Sarah would think she had gone soft and would yell after her. And nobody, least of all Sarah Flannagan, was going to think that she had gone soft. So gathering all the remarks, fancy, flowery and plain, she tied them together and delivered them as a bouquet:

  ‘Spit against the wind yourself!’ she said, and marched off . . . unmolested.