The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, my goodness me, girl!’ and Annie let out a long slow breath. ‘It isn’t my house. I’ve told you afore, you’ve got to know your place, like I know mine. You can have who you like: the old Queen if you like, or that juggler friend of yours and his pal; you can do what you like in your own…’

  ‘Annie, I know, I know; I am well aware of that, but I hold you in such regard that I don’t want to put on you with more work, or displease you.’

  They had now reached the yard and Annie walked on without answering. She pushed the door open so that her mistress could precede her through the boot room and into the kitchen; and there, dropping the basket of crockery onto the table, she bent over it before she said, ‘You know, sometimes, ma’am, I think you’re too good to be true, and it’s just as well I am who I am else you’d be taken advantage of up to the hilt.’

  ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t Annie! I’m not as simple as it might appear.’

  ‘Oh, ma’am; there’s nothing simple about you. Funny thing is, you’ve got a head on your shoulders; but you get too soft about people, you could be taken in.’

  ‘Annie.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’

  ‘I am now going to say to you what I have heard my husband say so often in his way of appreciation…Shut up!’

  She now lumbered round the table and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Annie biting on her lip to stop herself from laughing; but as she saw the door close on her mistress, she said to herself, ‘Just think what this house would have been like if he had taken that big hulk. Dear God in heaven! I should go on me knees and thank God for big mercies, not little ones.’

  She was on the point of scooping up the dishes from the table to take them to the sink when she heard her name being called, but in a way she hadn’t heard before, for this time it was in the nature of a cry.

  Within seconds she was in the hall, there to see Fanny clinging to the stanchion of the parlour door.

  ‘Lord above!’ Annie almost carried the bent form towards the couch, and there she exclaimed, ‘It’s coming?’

  Lying back, and her eyes closed, Fanny made a slight movement with her head as she muttered, ‘Bad pain.’

  ‘Lordy!’ Annie straightened up, looked about the room as if waiting to be directed what to do, then said, ‘Not a soul in the yard. Now, do I go for them? or do I get you upstairs?’

  The answer came from Fanny who, sitting forward, said, ‘It’s eased off; but if you would help me upstairs, and then…get Ward.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s the best thing. Come on now.’

  A few minutes later, in the middle of undressing, Fanny was again brought double with pain; and with this, Annie exclaimed, ‘You’re not going to wait for Mrs Killjoy then?’

  The spasm passed, and Fanny breathing heavily muttered, ‘Go and get Ward, please Annie…now.’

  And to this Annie replied, ‘I think it’s Billy who’s more necessary than your lord and master at this minute, lass. He’ll have to get the midwife an’ Doctor Wheatley, that’s if the old sod’s sober enough, yet I hope he isn’t, so the young ’un can come. Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ Left alone, Fanny finished her undressing and climbed into bed; and there, lying back amidst the pillows, she closed her eyes, and now, as if appealing to an unseen but present force, she said, ‘Help me through this and bring my child into life,’ then lay quiet.

  Presently she nodded her head twice and, as if in reply to a suggestion, she let her body sink into the depths of the feather tick.

  ‘It isn’t seemly; you can’t go in.’

  ‘Seemly bedamned! I could do something. It’s gone on too long.’

  ‘You’re not talking about a cow. What d’you think you could do? Put your arm in up to the elbow? I tell you it’ll come in its own time, as Doctor Wheatley said.’

  ‘Doctor Wheatley. Where is he now? He should be back here.’

  ‘Master Ward’—Annie put out her hand and rested it on Ward’s shoulder—‘I know how you feel. It seems it’s always the same with the first, the man gives birth an’ all; but it eases off with the second and third and fourth…at least so they tell me.’

  He stared down into her face, then muttered, ‘Oh! Annie, I’m frightened. It’s been going on since seven last night; now it’s half past two in the morning. And…and she’s not the heifer type, is she?’

  ‘No. No, she’s not, lad. But it’s amazing how calm she keeps in between times. But you go on downstairs and get Billy to make another pot of tea.’

  ‘It’s no time since the last.’

  ‘I know. I know. But it’s hot work in there; and Kate must have lost a couple of pounds already in sweat, I should think.’ She made an attempt at smiling as she pushed him away.

  When he entered the kitchen he realised, by the way he pulled himself to his feet, that Billy had been nodding in the chair; but even so the question he would ask of Ward was plain enough in his eyes, and for answer Ward shook his head; it was the boy, who had been sitting on the low cracket at the other side of the fireplace, his arm around Pip, the poodle Mrs Killjoy had brought as a present for Fanny, who spoke. ‘I…I rubbed Delia’s stomach. I kept rubbing it and she stopped whingeing,’ he said.

  Both men now looked at the boy, and it was Billy who said, ‘What d’you mean, you kept rubbin’ her stomach? She must have had it in the middle of the night, around two o’clock?’

  Carl hung his head now, saying, ‘Aye, I know. But…but Delia…she knows me.’ He now glanced at Ward. ‘And so…and so I came down and sat with her.’

  Three days previously, one of the cows had calved somewhat before its time. She hadn’t been too well and they had been dosing her. She had been placed in the rest box, as they called the section that was railed off at the end of the byre.

  The two men exchanged glances, but it was Billy who said, ‘No wonder you were dozy an’ asleep on your feet t’other day. The beasts know what to do without your help, young man.’ But the chastising words did not carry any harshness, rather a note of kindness and understanding. Ward now walked slowly to the window through which the moonlight was streaming.

  It was like daylight outside. A wind was blowing and he could see wisps of straw being lifted here and there as if they were dancing…Dancing. He drew his lower lip tightly between his teeth. If anything happened to her he would go mad. Yes; surely he would. He wanted a child, but not at her expense. Last night, while holding her as the pains increased, he had thought, I shall soon have a son, and he had felt elated. But no longer.

  He turned towards the boy. The dog was making that thin whining sound as he strained from the boy’s arms to go towards the door. That dog loved her. It had never willingly left her side since the day it had arrived. And that boy loved her, too. And he was a good boy; a boy who would stay up half the night to comfort an animal was a good boy. He could hope if he did have a son he would grow up like this youngster. There he was again: it didn’t matter whether it was a son or a daughter; the only thing that mattered was that she should come through this alive.

  He turned from the window, remembering why he had come downstairs, and said to Billy, ‘They want more tea up there.’

  Almost before he had finished speaking Annie’s voice came to them from a distance, and at the sound they all three dashed to the kitchen door and into the lamplit hall, to come to a stop at the foot of the stairs and look up to Annie who was shouting down to them, ‘It’s come, the bairn! It’s a girl.’

  There was a split second of disappointment before Ward leapt to the stairs, only to be checked by Annie’s strong arms and her saying, ‘Now look! Hold your hand a minute. Hold your hand. You can’t go in there yet. She’s in a bit of a mess, and she’ll want to be cleaned up. But I’ll bring the bairn out in a minute. She’s big and bonny.’ She laughed outright and pushed him none too gently in the chest, crying, ‘She’s like you. Got your hair already.’

  He made no further protest, but stood now with his back against
the landing wall, his head dropped almost onto his chest. She had come through and he had a daughter. Well, he had a daughter.

  It was almost a half-hour later when he saw his daughter; but it was to his wife he went first. And after standing for a moment looking down on her almost deadly white face, he dropped onto his knees by the side of the bed and laid his head on her shoulder while his hand stroked her face; and as Kate Holden said later to Hannah Beaton in the grocery store, ‘You never did see anything like it: on his knees he was, as if she was the Queen of England who had just delivered. Although that would have been a miracle at her age, wouldn’t it? Still, talk about excess and palaver. Not like a man at all, he wasn’t, but like some daft lad. And what he gets out of her two penn’orth of nothing beats me, because she’s hardly a bit of flesh on her bones. Talk about being bewitched.’

  And at this moment, Ward felt bewitched: his angel, as he thought of her privately, had come through and given him offspring.

  Presently, he lifted his head, rose from the bed, and walked round the foot of it to where a wooden cradle stood, draped in white lace. And he looked down on his daughter for the first time.

  The face was wrinkled; the eyelids were opening and shutting; the lips were moving in and out; and there was a tuft of hair, almost black, like his own.

  Well, well! So this was his daughter. But he hoped she wouldn’t grow up to look like him, like her mother, yes. Oh, yes, she must look like her mother.

  ‘Satisfied?’

  He turned and looked at the midwife. As he put it to himself, he had no room for her; besides being a blowsy piece, she had a very slack tongue. Nevertheless, she was good at her job, so he understood; and although it had taken a long time, she had been good at this one. And so he answered her, ‘Yes, you could say I’m satisfied.’

  ‘Not disappointed because it wasn’t a lad?’

  He was quick to reply, ‘No; oh no; as long as my wife is all right, that’s all that matters to me.’

  ‘Aye, well, she’s come through; and not many squeaks out of her, which’—she now turned and looked towards the bed—‘when you come to think of it is odd, because she’s not as big as two penn’orth of copper. Still, she’s done it. It doesn’t really surprise me, though, because I meet all kinds in this line of business.’

  Then with a sly grin, she said, ‘Seeing how you’ve suffered in this lot, are you for trying again?’

  His countenance darkened, and she did not wait for what would have been a brusque reply, but went out laughing.

  He returned to the bed, and sitting down on the edge of it, he leant over and placed his lips gently on hers. Then, his face hanging over hers, he whispered, ‘This must never happen again. It has been torment.’

  She closed her eyes while saying, ‘Oh, Ward. You can be very funny at times.’

  ‘I’m not being funny, Granny Shipton,’ he said and gently tweaked her nose; but when she smiled and sighed, then closed her eyes, he said, ‘You’re tired, my love. Go to sleep.’

  Without opening her eyes, she said softly, ‘I have been thinking of names, and I wonder if you would mind Flora, because, as you know, Mr and Mrs Killjoy have, in a way, become as dear as parents to me. If it had been a boy, I should have liked Kenneth, Mr Killjoy’s name.’

  He, too, had been thinking of names, but those of his father and mother, John and Jessie. He liked the name Jessie. He simply said, ‘Whatever you wish, my dear; I only know if it had been a boy, I would have been dead against Hayward.’

  He watched her smile widen; yet her eyes still remained closed.

  Slowly he rose from the bed; then quietly he walked around it again and looked on the child.

  Flora Gibson. It was a nondescript name somehow. Flora Gibson. He’d much rather have Jessie…He’d put it to her later.

  Only the very necessary work was done on the farm that day. The weather was still very dry: the stooks could remain for a day or two before being gathered in. What was more, Ward was definitely needed at the house to receive the number of visitors. The first was Fred Newberry; and he took hold of Ward’s hands and shook them up and down, much to the new father’s embarrassment, for it happened in the yard, and not only Billy and the boy were there looking on, but Annie was, too, from the kitchen door; and they all listened to Fred gabbling, ‘Oh, I am pleased, man. I am pleased. And the lass…a girl. Mam said straight away you’d be calling it Jessie; and Dad’s got a great idea for a christening cake. Mam’s coming over later. She’s bringing some sugar dollies. Dad’s baking them now. Eeh! I am glad you’ve got it over.’

  At this Ward was forced to let out a bellow of laughter in which Billy joined, and the boy too; but Annie from the kitchen door cried, ‘You’re a fool, Fred Newberry. Always were and always will be. Why aren’t you surprised that the father isn’t in bed with a binder on?’

  At this, it was her husband who let out a bellow of a laugh, in which Fred joined as he answered Annie back, saying, ‘Well, I only know that Dad says he suffered twice as much during Mam’s carrying the three of us than she did. And he had to get drunk each time to help him get over it.’

  ‘Oh you’re an idiot, all right.’ Ward thumped Fred on the back, then urged him towards the kitchen door, saying, ‘Come in and have a drink.’

  Maisie Dempster was the next visitor; and she cooed over the mother and baby. Then Jane Oldham, the shoemaker’s wife, called. But she wouldn’t accept the invitation to go upstairs to see the mother and baby: she had been unable to have children of her own, and it was known that this brought on dark bouts in which she might weep a lot. However, she called to pay her respects and to leave a basket of fruit, all picked from their garden.

  Frank and Jane Noble were the last to call; and Frank was already talking about the christening. But it was as they were leaving and he was helping his wife up into the trap that he saw Carl. The boy was carrying a bucket of swill from the boiler house towards the pigsty, and he called to him, ‘Would you like to come to the magic lantern show this evening, Carl?’

  The boy stopped, put down the bucket, and he was on the point of expressing his delight, but he looked towards Ward, who was standing near the curate; and Ward answered for him, saying, ‘Get your work done, and you may go.’

  The boy picked up the bucket again, and without having said a word, hurried away, and Frank Noble, turning to Ward, said, ‘You’ve got a good boy there. And Fanny has done a wonderful job on him. He can read whole passages of the Bible, as good as myself.’

  At this, Ward put on a mock serious expression as he replied, ‘I’m not interested in what he can do with the Bible, but how quick he can carry that swill.’

  ‘Go on with you!’ Frank thrust him aside; then mounted the trap, and Jane, from her seat, called to the boy, ‘We start at seven, Carl,’ and Carl answered, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Then stood still while watching the trap leave the yard; that is until Ward’s voice caused him to jump: ‘You’ll get your work done standing there gaping, won’t you?’

  Carl did not immediately turn and run; but he stared at Ward, saying, ‘Would…would you let me have a look at the baby, master?’

  Ward pulled a long face as if he were listening to an impossible request; then shaking his head as if addressing company, he said, ‘And he’s going out to a magic lantern show? It doesn’t matter to him about the evening chores. Oh no. And now he’s asking for more time off in order to see the baby.’ He adopted a false glare as he stared down on the boy; but then quickly he thrust out his hand and, laughing, grabbed the thin veined arm as he said, ‘Come on. Come on. You’ll see the baby.’

  However, their hurried progress was checked by Annie emerging from the bedroom and demanding, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ And she looked from one to the other, then ended, ‘Eh?’

  ‘I am taking this young gentleman to see my daughter. Is there any harm in that?’

  ‘Could be. Could be,’ said Annie. ‘Stay there till I see if they’re ready to receive you.’

 
; She pushed open the bedroom door, put her head round, saying, ‘You’ve got more visitors; are you up to it?’

  If there was an answer it was inaudible, but Annie stood aside and allowed them to pass her, Ward still holding the boy by the hand.

  ‘Oh! Hello, Carl.’

  ‘Hello, ma’am. Are you better?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Carl. Thank you. You’ve come to see the baby?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Please.’

  ‘Well, there she is, in the cradle.’

  They both watched the boy now walk towards the cradle and stand looking down on the child. Then his hand, in the act of moving downwards, wavered, and he looked across the bed towards them, saying, ‘Me hand’s clean,’ and immediately returned his attention to the child, resting his forefinger on the tiny fist, and when it was grabbed his face became alight and he actually gurgled; and turning to them again, he whispered, ‘She’s got my finger.’

  Ward glanced at Fanny, and she at him, and the look they exchanged was soft with understanding: the boy was experiencing, next to suckling, one of the first natural instincts of a baby, but the impression on Carl’s face was as if it could never have happened before; and it hadn’t, not in his world.

  When his finger was released, he lifted his hand and looked at it; then his lips were drawn in between his teeth as if to suppress some inner emotion connected with either tears or laughter, but with something new and strange springing from the depths of his growing and groping mind.

  He now left the cradle and, walking to the side of the bed, he said, ‘She is beautiful…lovely, ma’am. Thank you.’

  He did not look at his master, but turned and went from the room, across the landing, down the stairs, and into the kitchen where Annie said, ‘Well, what d’you think?’ But he gave her no reply; he did not even stop, leaving her gaping after him and saying aloud, ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered! That was a response and a half.’