The Year of the Virgins

by Catherine Cookson

  She sat gasping for a moment before she was able to say, ‘Mrs Jackson’s; it’s in the phone book. He’ll be there with her. But she’s to be married tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid that she’ll be one man short. It wasn’t him she was marrying, was it?’

  ‘Oh, no, no. She’s his aunt. She’s marrying a black man. He’s nice, though.’

  Whatever comment the policeman might have made at this was cut off by his companion saying, ‘There’s the ambulance. By the way, who’s their doctor? I mean, the young man’s at the end; who’s his doctor?’

  ‘Doctor Peters.’

  ‘Well, come on; be a good lass and go and ring him. No; on second thoughts, just give me the number. I’d better speak to him.’

  And now the other policeman said, ‘Yes, I think he’d better come and see the damage afore they are lifted.’

  When Doctor Peters pulled down the quilt that was now covering Daniel his teeth gritted for a moment before he lifted up the bloodstained hand and felt for the pulse. He then went to Maggie where she too lay covered up, and after feeling her pulse he looked at the ambulance man, saying, ‘Get them there quick.’

  ‘What about the young man; the invalid?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve seen him. But first of all, get these two off.’

  ‘And the young fellow?’

  ‘Oh, Stephen? I’ll have a look at him and I’ll ring you if you’re needed again.’

  When the doctor looked down on Don he thought for a moment, as the policeman had done, that he was already dead. But when the pale eyelids flickered, he leant close to the face, saying, ‘Don. Come on. Come on. You’re all right.’

  In raising his head and looking beyond the bed he noticed the pills on the floor and so, turning to the policeman, he said, ‘Would you get those pills, please; then help me to raise him up just a bit. Come on, Don. Have this drink.’

  The eyes flickered, then opened and now the head moved slightly. After taking in the presence of the policeman, his eyes came to rest on the doctor, and his lips moved a few times before he said, ‘Mother. Mother…’

  ‘Yes, yes, we know. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Stephen?’

  ‘Stephen’s all right. He’s all right. Come on, take this drink of water, then swallow your pills.’

  Don sipped at the water, then painfully swallowed the pills. And as he lay back again, he said, ‘Mother,’ then added, ‘mad.’

  ‘Yes, Don. Yes, we know. Now, just rest. Go to sleep; you’ll feel better in the morning.’

  Don kept his eyes on the doctor for a moment, then he sighed and closed them.

  Out in the hall again, the doctor spoke to the policeman. ‘She’s done a thorough job. Now she’s got to be found before she does any more harm, although I don’t think she’ll be back here again. But then, there are two other members of the family…’

  ‘We’ve contacted the son in London. He’s catching the midnight train back. He seemed in a bit of a state, naturally. But that’s one who escaped unharmed, anyway.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ The doctor put his hand to his head. ‘If she knows about the child she’ll make for the hospital, and she’s mad enough to act sanely to get what she’s after.’

  He grabbed up the phone and got through to the hospital and within a minute or so was explaining the situation to the doctor on duty, who assured him that they would be on the lookout and would put a nurse in charge of Mrs Coulson and the baby.

  Next, he phoned the superintendent at the asylum, telling him in direct words that he had better get his men out and start looking for her, for she had played havoc in her home and he didn’t know if two of her victims would survive the night, only to be told they were already searching.

  Following this, he now turned to Stephen, who had been hovering in the background all the while, and said, ‘Go upstairs, Stephen, and Peggie will run you a bath. Now get into it, and then I’ll have a look at you, because at the moment I can’t see where the damage has really been done. That’s a good fellow.’

  Peggie had him by the arm when he turned and, looking at the doctor and the policeman, he said, ‘Will she come back?’

  ‘No, no, she’ll not come back. Never.’

  ‘You mean that, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes, I mean that.’

  Yet, even as he said this, Doctor Peters wasn’t quite sure in his own mind, because it was as if he had been waiting for this call for a long time. What he was sure of was that until she was safely under lock and key, there would be no accounting for the events of this night as having ended here and now…

  His examination of Stephen revealed that the main source of blood had come from a three-inch cut in his skull behind his ear. Fortunately it was only surface deep; his thick hair had cushioned the blow; but his arms, back and legs were covered with bruises, which tomorrow would be giving him more pain than they were at present.

  When the doctor was making for the door, Stephen said, ‘Don’t like her. Nobody likes her.’

  And the doctor paused, then looked down for a moment, thinking, that’s the trouble, nobody likes her. Nobody has ever really liked her. And she knew it.

  Joe arrived at half past seven the next morning and was dazed by the turn of events that had taken place during his short absence, as related by the garbled descriptions coming from both Stephen and Peggie.

  Peggie and Lily had taken charge of the house now. A new day nurse had just put in an appearance, because the last thing the doctor had done before leaving early in the morning was to get in touch with Nurse Pringle and ask her to come and take over again in the sickroom…

  It had snowed heavily in the night: there was all of three inches lying. Everyone said it had been expected; it was cold enough for it. But here it was, the end of March. Really! It shouldn’t happen.

  Bill White came up to the house and half apologised to Joe, saying it wouldn’t have happened if he had been on duty. But as Joe assured him, there was and could be no blame attached to him for, apart from it being his night off, she hadn’t come in by the driveway but had got in through the wood room. Naturally she had known where the key was kept.

  There had already been men from the asylum asking for exact details of when this and that had happened. But Peggie didn’t know anything, and Stephen couldn’t tell them how long he had been lying on the floor before he himself came to.

  There was now a police guard on the gate, but that hadn’t stopped two reporters getting through to the house at half-past six this morning. Bill White, however, had given them short shrift.

  Everyone was glad to see Joe back, because now there was someone who could take the responsibility.

  And this is what Bill White said to John Dixon as they stood in the warm greenhouse discussing the events of the past night. ‘Joe’ll see to things. Anyway, at bottom, he always has.’

  ‘This’ll put her away for life,’ John said.

  ‘Well, it’s not afore time, if you ask me, because from what our Lily tells me she was a bitch to him; no wife at all for years. And, you know, our Lily was right about more than one thing. She’s been saying for some time now she suspected there was something going on atween Maggie and the boss. Then, of course, there they were found like that, him stark naked, and her an’ all. You surprised?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ John Dixon shook his head. ‘I’ve known which way the wind was blowing in that direction for a long time. She had him followed, you know, when he used to go to Bewick Road. I tipped him off once or twice.’

  ‘You did? You never said anything to me.’

  ‘Well…well, you’ve got a wife an’ all, you know’—he grinned now—‘and you would have likely told her and it would have been passed on to Peggie, because she’s your niece and you know Peggie’s got a mouth like a pontoon; and I thought, well, the boss had enough to put up with; it’s best to keep a still tongue sometimes. Anyway, I wonder where she got to after she went through the house with her mallet or whatever she had in
her hand.’ He paused before saying, ‘What’s the matter with Larry?’ and he pointed through the glass door to where a small Scotch terrier was barking furiously. ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘Smelt a rat or something. He’s always like that when those devils are about.’ Bill White opened the door and the dog ran to him and jumped up, then darted back, turned and waited, and Bill said, ‘All right, all right. Come and show me.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any rats for weeks,’ John Dixon said. ‘Likely it’s rabbits coming in from the fields.’

  They both went out, pulling the collars of their duffel coats up around their necks, and as they crunched over the snow in the wake of the dog, Bill said, ‘Who’d believe this, snow at this time of the year? You know it’s my opinion it’s those atom bombs they’re dropping all over the world. It’s altering the seasons.’

  ‘Where’s he going?’ John Dixon now asked.

  ‘He’s going for the hen crees. I bet you what you like a fox is around.’

  They passed through an opening in a low hedge and so into a small field, at the end of which was a row of hen crees; although only one or two hens had come through the hatches.

  ‘They don’t like the snow, but I bet if we put the food outside they’d come out fast enough. What’s he after?’

  They now followed the dog along by the side of the crees to an open shed used for storing boxes and crates. The front ones were partly covered with snow that had fallen during the night. Then they both stopped within yards of the place and looked at the two feet sticking out from among the tumbled boxes.

  ‘Eeh no!’

  ‘God above!’

  At a run now they reached the shed and, pulling the boxes to one side, they exposed the stiff body of their mistress.

  ‘Is she dead?’ Bill White was bending over John Dixon as he was tentatively putting his hand inside the crumpled coat; and after a moment he said, ‘Can’t feel anything. Look; dash back to the house and tell Joe to ring for an ambulance. And you’d better bring a door or something. We could never carry her like this.’

  Bill raced up the garden, straight over the frozen herbaceous beds, and made for the front door. He didn’t ring but banged on it, and when Peggie opened it, he gasped at her, ‘Joe…Mr Joe, where is he?’

  ‘Along with Mr Don. What’s happened now?’

  ‘The missis. She’s in the garden.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘Close the door.’

  ‘Stop it!’ He pushed her. ‘As far as I can tell she’s dead. Get Mr Joe. Go on!’

  Within seconds Joe was standing before him, saying, ‘What! In the garden? Where?’

  ‘In the box house. We must get a door or something; couldn’t carry her, the weight she is. And…and you’d better call the doctor an’ all.’

  Joe stood for a moment as if dazed; then, looking at Peggie, he said, quietly, ‘Ring for the doctor. Tell him it’s urgent.’

  Peggie ran to the phone, crying, ‘He’ll know it’s urgent if it’s anything to do with this house.’

  But Joe was already following Bill at a run to the outhouses; and there, Joe said, ‘There’s no doors here except that big glass one, and that’s too heavy as it stands.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right, Mr Joe. But there’s a sling…well, it was a hammock, like. It’s up in the loft.’…

  It was a full twenty minutes later when they brought Winifred back into her home in a sling and laid her on the hall floor. The doctor was waiting; then as he knelt down by her side he shook his head slowly. But after a moment he looked up at Joe, saying, ‘She’s still alive. Phone for an ambulance.’…

  Sitting by her side in the ambulance, Joe pondered on the events of the last few days. There was Annette and the baby in one part of the hospital, and his Dad and Maggie would be in another part. And he still didn’t know whether they were dead or alive. And now here was his adoptive mother being taken to the same hospital. It now only needed Don and Stephen to go and they’d all be there; and by the look of him Don could soon be joining them. And poor Stephen, black and blue from head to foot and yet still carrying on. He had experienced an awful night; and, as Doctor Peters had just said to him, if it hadn’t been for him they could have all lain in their battered condition and would very likely not have survived the night.

  What had come upon them? It was like a curse. But it was no curse, it was simply mother love, twisted mother love. As he looked down on the dead-white face, the ambulance man who was sitting near him said, ‘She’s in a bad way. Lying out all night in that; it would kill a horse. It’s amazing she’s still breathing.’

  Yes, it was amazing she was still breathing, and some part of him wished fervently that she wasn’t, because, after this, what would her life be? They certainly wouldn’t send her back to the County but to some other place of high security, especially if either his Dad or Maggie died. And then there was Annette. How to tell her? Because she was still weak. The birth had taken it out of her more than somewhat. His talk of her sitting up and being perky had been diplomatic bluff.

  There was more bustle at the hospital, and, as his mother was being wheeled away he was surprised to see in the hallway a nurse whom he recognised as being from the County Asylum, accompanied by a man. And she, seeing him, approached him immediately, saying, ‘Tragic, Mr Coulson, isn’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, nurse, tragic,’ he said.

  And as if somewhat apologetically, the man said, ‘We searched the garden last night. Although it was dark we went over it thoroughly after we knew she had been to the house.’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have thought of looking among those crates and boxes,’ excused Joe; ‘but how did she get out?’

  He turned to the nurse and she replied, ‘Apparently with the help of two of her roommates. They’re wily…they’re all wily. They had done the old trick of packing pillows in her bed, and they did it thoroughly because, as you know, she’s a size.’

  ‘But she’d have to get through the gates?’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t go that way. She must have had this in mind for some time and had looked around the garden and the strip of woodland. She climbed over the wall. There’s a tree grows near the wall and one of the lower branches touches the top of it. How she managed to get up there with her weight, I don’t know, I just don’t know, but they think that’s the only way she could have escaped. She was very agile on her feet, you know, very light. Still, to climb that tree! But in that state they’ll do anything, and can achieve anything once they set their mind to it. Do you think she’ll live?’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘I hope not,’ but he answered, ‘I can’t tell.’ Then, saying, ‘Excuse me,’ he turned away and went to the desk and said, ‘May I see Mr Coulson and Miss Doherty?’

  ‘If you’ll just take a seat, I’ll enquire,’ said the receptionist and lifted the phone. Presently she beckoned to him, saying, ‘If you go to number four ward, Sister Bell will see you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sister Bell took him into her office and, after offering him a seat, she said, ‘What a tragedy. I’ve just heard that your mother, too, has been brought in.’

  He made no answer to this but said, ‘How’s my father, and Miss Doherty?’

  ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘it appears there’s little change from last night. Yet they’re both alive and we can only hope for the best. But I would say your father is in a much worse state than Miss Doherty.’

  ‘May I see them?’

  ‘Yes; if you stay just a moment and don’t start a conversation.’ She shrugged her shoulders now, adding, ‘Not that it would be of any use.’

  When he stood by his father’s side he looked down on a face that was swollen and so black and blue as to be unrecognisable. There was a tube up his nostril, one in his arm, as well as what appeared to be wires attached to his arm. He looked much like Don had looked after the accident. He wanted to put his hand out to him and say, ‘Oh, Dad. Poor Dad,’ for the w
ords were like whimpering inside of him. Stephen had said she had been carrying a lump of wood. Well, it must have been a hefty stave, but then she was a hefty woman, and in her madness she could have wreaked havoc with a hairbrush.

  When, next, he stood by Maggie’s bed, her eyes were open and peering out from the bandages around her head and face. He said aloud, ‘Oh, Maggie.’ And she went to raise her hand from the bedcover, but the effort seemed too much.

  Looking down on her he felt his throat was full: Maggie of all people, why did she have to suffer like this? But why not? She had, in a way, made his mother suffer, for she couldn’t have been unaware of her cook’s feelings for her husband. Yet she must have, or else she would have sent her packing years ago. If she hadn’t been mad to begin with, that bedroom scene would surely have tipped the scales.

  He brought back to mind the sight of Stephen standing there in the corridor that morning, almost before he had got into the house, and gripping the lapels of his coat as he stammered, ‘Dad was on the floor, Joe, with no clothes on. And Maggie, she was an’ all, with no clothes on. That was bad, wasn’t it? Maggie shouldn’t have been there, not without her clothes. I haven’t told Don, as he’s still asleep. Anyway, that new day nurse wouldn’t let me in.’

  Joe had shaken him gently, saying, ‘Now, be quiet, Stephen. Be a good lad. And from what Peggie tells me you’ve been a very brave fellow getting the doctor and the ambulance.’ He didn’t mention the police.

  ‘My head aches, Joe, an’ all over. I’m paining, Joe.’

  ‘Well, go upstairs and get into the bath and I’ll be with you in a minute or two.’

  ‘But I’ve had a bath, Joe.’

  ‘Well, go and have another.’ He had only just stopped himself from yelling at him, but keeping his voice level, he went on, ‘Lie in it: it’ll help to take the pain away. Then I’ll come up shortly. Go on now.’

  ‘You won’t go away, Joe, will you?’