Mulligan's Yard

by Ruth Hamilton

  Mary jumped up. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to? I’ve been here longer than you.’

  ‘Bring it all back. Every bit of it.’

  Mary swallowed. ‘And what if it’s been sold?’

  ‘Buy it back.’

  ‘What with? Buttons? Mind, I’m not saying I stole owt. But if somebody has been pinching, there could be a good reason, like hungry people.’ She nodded vigorously. ‘It’ll be a daily woman. It’s usually a daily woman that steals.’

  Sally gave not one inch. ‘Just you listen to me, Mary Whitworth. I’m not having anybody accuse me of thieving. Now, think about it, try to be sensible if you’re going to blame me. If I’ve been pinching, where’s the stuff? I never go anywhere to sell it. I’ve no family to give it to.’

  ‘Big house, could be anywhere.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Sally crossed the room to place her flat irons on the grille in front of the fire. If necessary, she would tell Mr Mulligan what had been going on. After all, she was an orphan, and orphans had to fight for a place in the world.

  ‘So, I have changed my mind and decided that the children should carry on at their school in Bolton,’ said James Mulligan. ‘For the time being, at least. You will recognize the girl, I suppose, though her school might well have forgotten what she looks like. I daresay her teachers have seen less of her than we have.’

  Amy could scarcely bring herself to look at him. All she could recall was a vague notion of kneeling over her mother’s body and accusing this man of causing her death. She sat in his yard office, her eyes fixed to the half-mast blind at the window. Her mind was elsewhere, as if she didn’t really exist in the here-and-now any more. Dr Jones said it was the shock and that she should take things at an easy pace for a while. Being other-worldly was odd and confusing. But Dr Jones said it would clear up after a while. He might have been talking about a rash or a head cold.

  ‘You came in here once while I was telling her off. It was that business with the dog and the sheet and a lad we never caught. Diane had laid a plan to rob the wash-house. I have to admit that the Misses Walsh are not my favourite cup of arsenic, so I found the whole thing rather amusing.’

  Amy missed her mother. There was a gaping hole in her life, a bottomless pit into which she had felt like jumping for several weeks after the funeral. Eliza had been quite composed given the circumstances, though Margot, like a two-year-old with an uncontrollable temper, had taken to absenting herself again. The oldest Burton-Massey was at a loss. She was a sensible girl who knew her own limitations, and she had to admit to herself that she was not capable of managing Margot. Then there was money – or too little of it – wages to pay, food bills—

  ‘The grandmother reminds me of my mother – and of yours.’

  At last, Amy forced herself to look at him. ‘I’m sorry. Tell me again, please.’ Wasn’t this a man who never said much? He seemed to be making up for lost time . . .

  So he retold the tale of Ida, Diane and Joe Hewitt, emphasizing Ida’s depression and the children’s plight. Outwardly calm and constructive, he was heartbroken in the presence of Amy. All three girls had been shattered by Louisa’s death, but here sat the one with the world’s weight on her shoulders. Not only did she have the home and the business to think about, she was struggling to keep Margot on the straight and narrow. Also, she was the cleverest of the three girls. The brainy inevitably suffered most.

  ‘They’ll live for a while at Bramble Cottage,’ he said. ‘And, in case it doesn’t work out for them or for me, I’ll bring the children to and from school. Some townsfolk can’t settle in the country.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t really. Amy could not understand how the world had the temerity to continue without her mother. The business of clothing women would have drawn Louisa out, would have given her so much joy. Amy could imagine her mother losing herself in a length of silk, becoming excited when a dress worked properly for its owner. Mother had been about to flower, had been on the verge of something wonderful. It was all so unfair, yet everything carried on apace, as if no one cared.

  ‘You’re not hearing me,’ James said.

  ‘What?’

  He jumped up. ‘I know your mother is dead and that you blame me. Well, I give you permission to blame me, full and absolute permission. But I cannot stand by while you allow yourself to be dragged under like a sinking boat.’

  She had never heard him shouting before. What on earth was wrong with him?

  ‘I watched my own mother being destroyed by life, by her own silent acceptance. I would talk to her for hours, but she never heard me. I understand that your mother was like that for five years. Ida Hewitt is a similar case. And now you, a young woman of twenty-one—’

  ‘Twenty-two,’ she interspersed.

  ‘Whatever. Open that business, Amy. Get Eliza and Margot to help you. You cannot separate yourself from life in this way. Even from a practical point of view, there is a great deal of money tied up in that shop. How will you live?’

  Why should he care? she wondered. As far as she was concerned, A Cut Above could remain idle for all eternity. They would manage financially, though details remained vague. But Eliza might teach music, while Margot could work with horses. Margot. Where was she now? Where had she been last night until almost eleven o’clock?

  ‘Well, Diane could sweep the floors after school, pick up bits and pieces for you, while Joe might be useful here. Not that he can do much.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She had missed several more minutes, she guessed. ‘You expect me to open up the shop just to give your vagabond child a sweeping-up job? For goodness’ sake, we’ve just lost our mother.’

  ‘It’s November,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? It could be the ninety-eighth of January for all I care. Mother died in there. And I’m no longer interested in clothing the idle rich.’

  ‘I see.’ This had to stop. Louisa Burton-Massey had been dead for almost two months. ‘Then what were you doing in the shop when I saw you just now?’

  ‘Picking up the post.’

  He sat down again. It seemed that he had spent his whole life among sad women, that he was condemned to talking them round, bringing them back into the realm of the living . . . only for them to die? No. Mammy and Louisa were dead, but Ida, Amy and Eliza were still of this world – physically, at least. Margot was another matter. Margot, parentless and silly, was spending time with Rupert Smythe again. For all James knew, Margot could be on her way to becoming a very lost sheep. James needed to talk to someone about Margot, but there was only Amy, and Amy seemed to be unreachable. If James had measured the Smythe boy correctly, Margot might well be misplaced for ever. The cad knew that Margot had no real guardian, so—

  ‘Mr Mulligan? James?’

  ‘Sorry.’ It had been his turn to go absent without leave this time. ‘Sorry,’ he repeated. It occurred to him in that moment that he and Amy were similar in some ways. She, like him, was inclined to quietness when troubled.

  She thrust an envelope under his nose. ‘I found this. It’s addressed to you.’

  He stared at the writing. It was a beautiful copperplate hand in black ink and was addressed to him ‘in the event of my death’. Strangely unwilling to open the letter immediately, he picked it up and pushed it into his breast pocket.

  ‘It’s from my mother. I found it in her davenport a few days ago. Aren’t you going to read it?’

  Her tone was flat, he noticed, as if she didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Later. Amy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You need to be doing something. Try to open A Cut Above in the New Year.’

  She blinked rapidly. Christmas. How was she going to face Christmas without Mother? ‘When . . . when is New Year?’ she asked. When was anything? When was morning, night, noon? When was peace? ‘How many weeks?’ she asked.

  He consulted the calendar. ‘About seven.’

  Amy folded her arms neatly on the edge of his desk,
placed her head on them and wept. She didn’t know what to do about the shop, about Margot, about Christmas, about money . . .

  James froze. His hands clasped themselves together like a pair of small animals seeking warmth and companionship. Knuckles whitened. A signet ring dug deep into flesh. James remembered Ganga, his mother’s father, who had given him this ring while lying on his deathbed. ‘Look after your mammy,’ Ganga had implored. Amy was still sobbing. An unseasonal fly bumbled about on the window sill. The pain in his finger joints increased. He must not weep.

  ‘I . . . can’t go on,’ she mumbled into her forearms. She had not expected to miss Mother so badly. In fact, until a few months earlier, Amy’s affection for Louisa had been eroded by the awful lassitude that had surrounded Louisa for years. But the new Mother had been so lively, so strong and likeable.

  The room darkened. James realized that the darkness was not real, that it came from within himself, an imagined dusk, an internal veil. He was reacting to the tears of a woman, was hearing the sobs of his own mother, too. A small spark of fury ignited in his head, turned quickly into an inferno. No, no, he must stay quiet. But the roar was too big. It erupted in his throat, forced his jaws apart, spilled itself into the room.

  She sat up abruptly. ‘James?’

  He heard nothing. When his arm swept items from the surface of his desk, the remaining corner of clarity in his head was grateful for the desk’s relative emptiness. Red and blue inks stained a rug. James saw the red and called it blood.

  ‘James?’

  ‘Hating a dead man is never easy.’ The words hissed their way past clenched teeth. ‘Especially when that man is my father. This is his temper, his temper in me. Thomas Mulligan was a murderer, a thief and a cheat. I am his son.’

  This latest and completely unexpected happening dried Amy’s tears like a piece of magic. James Mulligan, too quiet, too sober, too rigid, had exploded. She could see and hear that he was terrified of himself. ‘Stop it,’ she ordered softly. ‘You are nothing like him.’ They must have been like chalk and cheese, she mused. This man was buying and selling horses just to make a hydro, to make a living for three girls to whom he owed nothing. James Mulligan was kind, generous and very angry. Anger and temper were not the same.

  He glanced sideways at the debris on the floor.

  ‘Things,’ she told him, ‘they’re only things. You would never harm a living soul, James.’

  He turned his gaze on her. ‘I killed your mother. Had I found a way to put her life back together, had I—’

  ‘The Burton-Masseys are a stubborn, proud lot,’ she said. ‘You are to blame for nothing. The responsibility for my mother’s health and happiness was never yours.’ Amy was feeling something at last. She was angry with the man’s opinion of himself, guilty because she had contributed to his sadness and fury. ‘You didn’t kill my father or my mother. I know I’ve said things in the past, unkind things, but you are not a cheat or a liar.’ She watched his face for several seconds. ‘Why are you so afraid of yourself?’

  ‘Because I almost killed him when I was a boy. Because I know that I can be stirred up beyond reason, just as he could.’

  ‘And as a result of this you stay alone?’

  ‘That’s a part of the reason.’

  ‘Then you are sillier than I am. None of us is responsible for our parents’ behaviour. Do you really believe that you must be a drunkard and a gambler because your father was? You are far more likely to steer away from those particular weaknesses. As for me, my mother has been dead just a few weeks. Her death does not imply that I am going to mourn, like she did, for years on end.’

  He found himself relaxing. It occurred to him that he and Amy seemed to have swapped places in recent moments: he had been urging her on, now the boot was on her smaller, younger foot.

  She tried a faint smile, wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks. ‘We’re both hopeless, aren’t we?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Amy realized that she had, at last, achieved comfortable eye contact with James Mulligan, that troubled, secretive owner of Pendleton Grange. Without knowing him, she understood him. There was a deep, almost unbearable sadness in the man, a gap in his armour. ‘You’re selling the inn?’

  ‘Yes.’ James got out of his chair, knelt to pick up pens and ink bottles. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because it is yours. Anyway, with whatever the inn yields, I should be able to think about the hydro, also pay off a bit of the mortgage on Pendleton Grange. If the hydro is successful, we shall all benefit.’

  Tired of arguing about who owned what, Amy dried her eyes and steadied her breathing. James Mulligan seemed to be an amazing person. He had dragged her back into the land of the living without her consent, had forced her to react, to feel. During the later months of Mother’s life, he had drawn her out, too, had even encouraged Eliza to practise on the piano at the Grange. Yet nobody truly knew him.

  Having recovered the items from the floor, James picked up the letter. ‘Shall I read it now?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Amy gathered up bag and gloves. ‘Had Mother wanted me to know the contents, she would have read it to me, I’m sure.’

  ‘Amy?’

  ‘Yes?’ She prepared to leave, fixing her hat at a straighter angle, adjusting a scarf.

  ‘Spend Christmas with me at the Grange – all of you.’ He waited for a reply, received none. ‘And if you need help with . . . with anything at all, you know where I am.’

  Amy nodded to convey that his message had been received. She didn’t know what to do about offers of help. Helen Smythe and Camilla were always calling at the farm, usually laden with savoury tarts, casseroles and words of advice. James was here, eyes full of sorrow, mind brimming with thoughts he couldn’t bring himself to frame. ‘You can manage women only one at a time,’ she commented, no judgement in her tone. ‘You win us round singly.’

  James achieved a tight smile. ‘I had just the one mother,’ he replied softly. ‘And after her, I lived in an exclusively male environment.’

  She gazed at him for a second or two. ‘Yes, that would fit the symptoms, I suppose.’

  ‘Symptoms?’

  Amy walked to the door, turned. ‘Your awkwardness with company probably stems from being incarcerated with men and boys. As for the cellar – that is where you vent your anger. I envisage a row of desks covered in pens and inks, all ready for you to attack.’

  ‘And to reach those conclusions about me, you had to think for a moment about something other than your loss.’

  ‘True.’

  He joined her at the door. ‘You and yours are welcome at Christmas – or at any time. And open that business. Give yourself three months to see does it go well.’ He decided to aim below the belt. ‘If you don’t, all your mother’s efforts will go to waste. Think of the designs she left, her cleverness in creating one basic style, then turning that into ten different dresses just by careful choice of trimmings.’ He smiled, nodded at her. ‘Oh, yes, your mother explained to me about tucks and braiding and lace. In fact, she left me quite educated in the fashion department.’

  Amy thanked him, stepped outside, then walked out of the yard and up the alley towards A Cut Above. The windows needed cleaning. Ah, well. After Christmas, perhaps.

  Caldwell Farm

  19 August 1921

  Dear Mr Mulligan,

  I used to refer to you as the Irish upstart and I apologize most sincerely for voicing my uninformed opinion. Please forgive me and read the following with open mind and heart.

  I am dead. Were I living, you would not be reading these words. I cannot understand fully why I am writing to you, but a partial reason may lie in the fact that I have come to trust you more than anyone else – with the exception of Amy, my oldest daughter. My death will have brought her a great deal of grief and responsibility, so I beg you to bear with me.

  There is a sickness in me. When I grow tired, my whole body shakes
and shivers. Sometimes, my head hurts so badly that it threatens to explode. In spite of this, I feel I should continue to work towards opening a business for the girls. None of us envisaged a future in trade, but I must leave my daughters a degree of security.

  I ask you to keep watch on all three. Help them to make a success of A Cut Above. Although you owe us nothing, I appreciate your need to make amends for the behaviour of your father. Do bear in mind that my late husband played no small part in reducing us to our current state of embarrassment. The truth is that Pendleton Grange would probably have been sold by now, as poor Alex was out of control after his return from France.

  Amy is a pleasant, clever girl, with a good head for business. She has been a dutiful daughter and has worked extremely hard. However, she is rather too selfless and pays little heed to her own wants and needs. She rarely smiles these days. It seems hard to believe that I had to chide her only six months ago for spending too much time with your horses. If only I could see her now, draped across my furniture, her clothes covered in mud. My Amy needs encouragement and someone in whom she might confide. Of the three, she is the most sensible and, I believe, the easiest to deal with. I pray that you will talk to her and make her aware of her own true value.

  Eliza is not as ladylike and correct as she chooses to appear. She has a giddy side and might easily be led astray. While Eliza has tried to be the perfect daughter, she does not fool me. She wants bright lights and music, bangles and beads. In Eliza, I have been truly blessed, since she has given up so much just to please me. Mr Mulligan, this girl wants settling before she is much older. She requires a good man, a decent house and some children. I know that you cannot supply those needs, but if you would kindly try to keep her away from the theatres in Bolton and Manchester, she may calm down and find a nice husband. I have heard her singing in the woods; the songs she performs are popular in variety theatre. I cannot bear the thought of her dashing off to seek her fortune on the stage.

  So now I come to Margot, apple of everyone’s eye, a treasure and a torment, a worry. She is headstrong and spoilt, a great sportswoman. There is an energy in Margot, which, if not properly directed, will lead her to ruin. She does not belong in A Cut Above, so please, I beg you, use her in your stables. Margot is capable of mastering the most difficult of beasts, as she is gifted in calming animals. She has recovered from her shallow passion for you and, of late, has thrown herself at Rupert Smythe. There is every chance that he will abuse and abandon her, as he is not a man of good character.