The Travelling Man

by Marie Joseph

  ‘It might never ’appen, lass,’ he said, neither expecting nor getting any reply.

  Annie’s eyes darted from one side of the road to the other. She had no idea how long they’d been travelling, but the ridge of distant hills loomed ever closer. The stony road wound uphill now and the horse made a ferocious snorting noise, the breath from its wide nostrils steaming in the freezing air. She had often wondered what it would be like to travel away from the town. There’d been little enough time for walks since her mother died, but she remembered as a child, one clear summer’s day, standing with her mother on a hilltop, looking away from the smoke of the mill chimneys to Pendle Hill in the north, the bump of Boulsworth and the fells leading to the Pennines in the east. ‘Look at the world!’ she’d shouted excitedly, throwing her arms wide. ‘Mam! Look at the world!’

  When the carrier stopped the cart to disappear for a minute or so into the bushes, Annie climbed down to stand by the side of the road, waiting for him.

  ‘You can leave me here,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for the ride.’

  The carrier looked at her with suspicion. ‘Nay, lass. I can’t leave you here on the fell road. There’s nowt round here for miles but the odd farmhouse, and mebbe a cottage or two.’ He took off the top hat and scratched a shiny bald head. ‘Look’ere, lass. I know it’s none of my business, but my guess is you’re running away from home.’

  ‘I’m going into service.’ Annie pointed to a building in the far distance. ‘See that cottage with a lot of black smoke coming out of the chimney? Over there, to the right of that row of trees. Well, that’s where I’m going. The wife’s got bronchitis bad and can’t do the outside work, so they’re taking me on.’ The lie came easily. Annie could actually ‘see’ the farmer’s wife coughing herself sick by the fire, ‘saw’ her husband lead her gently away to her bed, telling her that the girl would be coming that day to take over and ease her pain. ‘It’s very sad. It’s more than likely that she’s consumptive,’ Annie embroidered. ‘I was told her mother went the same way.’

  ‘Aye, well … as long as I know you’ve a place to go to.’ The carrier swung himself back onto the cart. ‘You’ve a fair walk across them fields.’

  Annie nodded, raised a hand in salute and stood perfectly still by the side of the road, clutching her bundle, waiting until the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves faded away.

  Now she was really alone. Now she could turn her back on the road to the workhouse and walk until she found a farm with plenty of jobs for a strong and willing girl to do. It would be a while yet before her shape gave her secret away and by that time … by that time …

  She threw her bundle over a drystone wall, climbed after it and set off across a field with horses standing beneath the bare branches of a spreading tree, their heads lowered against the biting wind. She wouldn’t think about what might happen when the baby showed. That was the future. What mattered was now, and finding shelter before it got dark.

  Round about four o’clock when it was time to light the lamps and get the coal in for the night, Edith Morris went round to the Clancys’ house to break the news that her mother had died.

  She was finding it hard to understand why Annie hadn’t been round to pay her respects. Nextdoor had made a lovely job of laying her mother out, sliding her on to a board to keep her straight, putting pennies on her eyes and crossing her hands over a nightdress with a pin-tucked bodice. Young Annie had thought such a lot about her Grandma Morris – it really was a mystery why she hadn’t been. Edith knocked at the Clancys’ front door.

  It was immediately obvious that Jack Clancy’s new wife had no intention of asking Edith in.

  ‘Annie? You’re asking after Annie?’ She lifted a pendulous breast and had a good scratch. ‘She’s gone away and she won’t be coming back, not if she knows what’s good for her.’

  ‘Hold on a minute!’

  Edith took a step forward, just too late to prevent the door being slammed hard against her. For a long moment she stood irresolute on the pavement, chewing on her thin lips till they almost disappeared, holding her head up as if she scented the sounds of battle in the air.

  Edith Morris had just spent the worst forty-eight hours of her life. Not one tear had she shed in front of the neighbours crowding into the little front room to pay their last respects to the old woman who could be trusted to keep her mouth shut, no matter what tempting secrets they confided in her. Edith’s eyes might be dry, but inside her she was weeping tears of blood. What would she do with her life now her mother was dead? Who would need her now? She was too distraught to look even a day ahead.

  ‘Where’s young Annie gone? That’s all I want to know. Where, in the name of God, has she gone?’ She burst into the Clancy house like a tornado, eyes flashing.

  Florrie was flabbergasted. You could have knocked her down with a feather, as she told Jack later on when he came up from the mine.

  ‘I don’t remember asking you in, Miss Morris!’ She could only stand there gaping at the scrawny-necked woman, with eyes bulging from their sockets like shiny marbles. Gone clean off her chump, by the look of her.

  ‘Annie was pregnant. Mother and me guessed,’ Edith said straight out. This wasn’t the time nor the place for fancy words. ‘Pregnant!’ she said again. Overcome by too much emotion she put a hand out to the table for support. ‘Just tell me where she’s gone and I’ll find her – go after her and bring her back.’ The shiny eyes rolled wildly. ‘I’ll look after her. She can live with me. I’ll help her bring her baby up. The Lord giveth even as He taketh away. Don’t you see? My mother is dead, but Annie will bring new life into my house. It is the will of God. He has made His purpose clear.’

  ‘Best thing you can do, chuck, is go home and have a bit of a lie down.’ Florrie mentally crossed herself. It was funny how religion turned some folks’ heads. Couldn’t this potty woman see that bringing Annie back to the street was out of the question? She could just imagine Jack’s reaction to the news that his daughter was moving back with her shame. ‘Don’t take on, chuck,’ she soothed, coming round the table and taking Edith by the elbow. ‘I’ll come back with you to your house and have a look at your mother, and as soon as we hear from Annie I’ll let you know.’

  ‘You promise?’ Edith’s anguish had gone straight to her neck as usual, flushing it up like a scald.

  ‘On my honour, chuck. On God’s honour,’ Florrie soothed, feeling that would carry more weight.

  ‘She’s a sight for sore eyes,’ she said, crossing herself as she stared at the corpse. ‘Have you touched her up yourself, or did you have the Co-op in to do it?’

  ‘Where’s our Annie gone?’

  The boys were getting their teas down as fast as they could so they could join their mates round the lamp on the corner of the spare land. Two of the miners on the early shift were due there to play a game of marbles for higher stakes than had been known for many a day. Threepence a hit was rumoured, and some said it was as high as sixpence. Eddie could hardly wait for the excitement to begin; he could almost hear the iron bobbers pinging against each other. One thing about the teas his new mother made: you could eat them standing up if you wanted. They never varied much. Thick slices of bread with jam in between them; sometimes potted meat. And shop meatpies followed by pineapple chunks on a Saturday, when she was flush.

  ‘Annie’s gone working away.’ Florrie was passing round half-pint pots of strong sweet tea. ‘Maid to a Duchess, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘When will she be coming back?’ John’s mouth drooped. ‘Why didn’t she tell us she was going?’

  Florrie ruffled his hair. ‘Because she was called to go sudden, chuck, that’s why.’

  ‘Can you show me on the map where she’s gone?’ Timmy went to the shelf for his beloved atlas. ‘Is it as far away as Scotland?’

  ‘Ask your dad. He’ll be in any minute now.’

  But there was no time for that. Not with the game due to start any minute, not with stakes as high as wa
s rumoured. When Jack Clancy came through the door, a black bent figure wearing old clothes and heavy clogs, his wife was frying four lamb chops, two for him and two for her, her fat rear swaying from side to side as she turned the meat over and over in the hot fat.

  Annie was long past feeling hungry. She just kept on going, placing one foot in front of the other, with no real idea of her whereabouts. She had accepted of course that there was a world outside the town where she’d lived all her life, but had never once asserted her right to explore it. Now, after two miles of steady walking, her boots were rubbing blisters up on her heels, making every step a burning agony. The wind blew flurries of frozen rain into her face, pricking as sharp as needle jabs.

  The sky looked dark and swollen, a much bigger sky, Annie was sure, than the sky she’d left behind. She seemed to be walking into nowhere, up a muddy lane flanked by drystone walls, with no sign that anyone had lived there, ever. A mile further on the walls petered out at a derelict cottage, open to the sky, and she knew she was lost, knew that when it was properly dark she would have no idea in which direction she was walking.

  She remembered how during the spell of bad weather before Christmas, a woman in the next street had wandered out from the town, crazed in her mind after her baby was born dead. How she’d been found, frozen stiff, her features set in a horrific mask, her mouth wide open as if she’d cried out for help right to the last. Quite dispassionately Annie wondered how long it would take for her own body to set hard as a rock. Two hours? Four? And would it hurt, or would she merely drop off to sleep, then wake up dead?

  Sitting herself down on the ruins of a low wall she gingerly eased a foot out of a boot. What she saw made the tears spring to her eyes. The blister had burst, and the black wool of her stocking was sticking to it in a patch of wet blood. The sensible thing to do, the right thing to do would be to walk back to the top road. At least she’d get somewhere that way. Here was the middle of nowhere, the ‘back of beyond’, as Grandma Morris used to say about her nephew who had gone to live in the village of Whalley. ‘Burying himself and his new bride alive,’ she’d said.

  It was funny how the old lady kept popping into her mind. It was because she hadn’t gone in to say goodbye, Annie decided.

  Closing her eyes against the agony, she eased her foot back into her boot. By now, if she’d done as she was told, she could be inside the workhouse, sitting at a long table with rows of tramp women in white caps, eating pobs out of wooden bowls, being silently grateful for every single mouthful they took.

  Grandma Morris would have understood that the workhouse was an unthinkable solution. She was forever saying that she had never been beholden to nobody – even though Edith waited on her hand and foot. Edith would think Annie had got what was coming to her for being so wicked as to lie with a man before she was married. Annie stood up, pulled her cloak closer round her throat and took a painful step forward.

  By now it was almost dark and the skyline was so bleak and hopeless Annie felt like lifting up her face and howling her misery at it. Soft yellow lamplight shone from the windows of a row of cottages, but she limped on by. It was the big houses she must make for, the mill and pit owners’ mansions, where they would be glad of an extra pair of hands. The long twilight seemed to be never ending, as she stumbled, head down, staggering from side to side of a deeply rutted cart-track.

  When the horse appeared suddenly round the bend of the road she was too late to dive for the ditch on her left. In her dark cloak, with her head down, she was practically invisible, but as the horse reared up its rider had a split-second view of her face, eyes wide with terror, mouth open in a soundless scream.

  As she fell, he jerked hard on the reins, his reaction as swift as was humanly possible, but just too late to prevent his startled horse kicking out as it struggled frantically to regain its footing.

  Seth Armstrong slid from his saddle to bend over what he took to be an old woman of the roads. With fingers grown skilled at tending animals, he examined the crumpled figure as well as he could beneath the cloak and the layers of clothing, relieved when his hands came away unbloodied. The tramp woman was alive, thank God, though deeply insensible. As he lifted her easily into his arms, her head lolled back, her face an indefinable blur in the darkness.

  Turning the horse he set off for home, holding Annie and her pathetic little bundle in front of him. He urged the horse on, upwards towards the hills, then across a narrow path hung over with the bare branches of trees, his horse treading the familiar path by instinct.

  ‘Mrs Martindale? Mrs Martindale?’

  Seth was calling out before it was even faintly possible that she could hear him, but his housekeeper was there in the front room of the old stone-built house; he could see her moving about lighting the lamps, coming over to the window to draw the long velvet curtains.

  ‘Mrs Martindale!’ The woman was more deaf than she would admit to, and it was Biddy’s afternoon off though time she was back. Seth led the horse right up to the glassed-in porch and dismounted.

  From round the back of the house Biddy Baker disentangled herself from her current sweetheart’s arms. Quickly she adjusted her clothing, ramming her felt hat down over ruffled hair.

  ‘What’s he yammering on about? It’s no use him shouting his head off. Old Ma Martindale wouldn’t hear him if he fired a starting-pistol up her nose. I’d best go before he splits his tonsils.’

  By the time she got there Seth was lifting what looked like a dead woman down from his horse.

  ‘The door, Biddy!’ he shouted. ‘The door …’

  Biddy thought the animal doctor looked terrible, and by the expression on Mrs Martindale’s face as she came out of the parlour, she thought so too.

  ‘The lamp, Biddy!’ she cried, all of a twitter. ‘Hold it high so the master can see where he’s going.’

  ‘Nay, sir,’ she protested, when he kicked the door of his own room open, ‘you can’t put her in there.’ She bustled up to the bed. ‘She’s a tramp woman, sir. The spare room’s where she belongs. Just look at the dirt from her boots on my nice clean spread.’ She glared at Biddy as if it was all her fault. ‘You should have called me, sir. I was drawing the parlour curtains or I’d have seen you.’

  Seth didn’t bother to turn round. ‘Put the lamp down there, Biddy, and I think we’ll have the candles lit as well. I’m going to need all the light I can get.’

  ‘I’ll see to them, sir.’ Mrs Martindale almost snatched the box of matches out of Biddy’s hand.

  ‘I couldn’t avoid her …’ Seth pulled the scarf and the flat cap from Annie’s head, releasing the long fall of her hair. ‘Good God, she’s only a child! I was sure she was a vagrant making for the nearest barn.’ He started to unfasten the clasp at the top of the black cloak, his hand cold against Annie’s throat. ‘Let’s see what damage is done.’

  At once Annie opened her eyes, saw the face of a strange man bending over her, and moaning, tried to twist away from him.

  ‘Best leave her to me, sir.’

  Nellie Martindale didn’t know what to do for the best. She was so overcome with embarrassment she could hardly speak. Surely the master could see it was a young woman he was undressing and not a child? And that silly Biddy was having a bit of a cough to disguise the fact that she was laughing her head off. It was all right the master running his hands over an injured animal, keeping his fingers clear of bared teeth, reaching for his phial of chloroform, whispering in that special voice of his that even animals seemed to understand. But this was a different kettle of fish altogether. She moved to the bed as Seth slid the girl’s cloak away, before making a determined start on her blouse buttons.

  ‘Nay, sir.’ Forgetting her place for once, Nellie actually tried to push him aside. ‘Let me do that. See, she’s gone over again, the poor soul. You just leave this to me.’

  ‘Hot water, Mrs Martindale. Towels. And my box from downstairs!’

  Nellie moved away. She knew that tone of voice. One wor
d from the master when he was in that mood and you jumped to it. Quick!

  ‘Come with me, Biddy.’ She marched straight-backed towards the door.

  Seth’s voice was a whisper, but it seemed to come at them like a pistol shot. ‘Stay where you are, Biddy!’ He continued undressing Annie. ‘I might need you to hold up the lamp when I’ve got all her clothes off.’

  Nellie Martindale could hardly stop her legs from dithering, she was that upset. Dismissing her as if she was nothing but a maid of all work! Speaking to her like that in front of Biddy! Calmly stripping that ragamuffin. Slipping her blouse down, whipping her skirts away. It was disgusting!

  Downstairs in the stone-flagged kitchen, tut-tutting to herself, Nellie took a cross-stitched holder down from its nail and lifted the kettle from the hob. She poured a stream of hot water into a bowl, added cold from the tap at the wide slopstone, then still chunnering snatched three towels down from the airing-string above the fireplace.

  Nellie Martindale looked far older than a woman in her early sixties had any right to look. Her hair, screwed up on top of her head in a sparse bun, was the dirty grey of well-trodden snow. Long, long ago she had married a dashing soldier who had failed to tell her that he was a deserter trying to avoid being shipped to India. The union had hardly been consummated when two detectives had burst into the room to snatch Nellie’s bridegroom from her arms. Three weeks later he had been shot at point-blank range when the military, hounding him through a wood, mistook the branch in his hand for a gun.

  From that day Nellie had never glanced at any man in what she would have described to herself as ‘that way’. She was saving herself, she told Biddy, for when they met again in heaven, where they would carry on where they had left off.

  Exactly where they’d left off? Biddy found the notion fascinating.

  Nellie started for the stairs. It should have been her and not Biddy up there in the master’s room. Mr Armstrong might be the best animal doctor for miles around, but that didn’t make him into a proper doctor used to dealing with people. Only last week Nellie had seen him splinting a wild cat’s leg, holding the spitting and snarling creature still, talking to it in that special way he had. But this wasn’t the same, not at all the same.