The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  In the yard, the girl was still standing as she had left her, and saying, ‘Come with me,’ Fanny led the way across the yard.

  She pushed open a weather-beaten door next to the cowshed, and stood aside, indicating to the girl to enter, which she did with some caution, looking around her in a half-fearful, half-defiant manner.

  It was a square room, with a long stone slab attached to one wall; along another was a table holding buckets and bowls and platters, and from their lack of brightness the utensils showed that it was some time since they, had been used.

  But in the middle of the room stood a large wooden churn, its wheel as big as that of a small dog-cart.

  ‘This is a dairy,’ said Fanny, ‘where butter and cheese are made. Now, my dear, I cannot offer you a position inside the house, but I would like this room cleaned up and made very bright again.’ She pointed to the utensils. ‘Then we might start making butter and cheese. But, you see, to achieve this, everything must be very clean, spanking clean, and the person who will work in here must also be clean.’ She paused, and looking down into the dark staring eyes and unsmiling face, she emphasised this: ‘Very clean. You understand me, dear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, I understand. An’ I said me hair’s clean, an’ I’ll wash.’

  Fanny turned her head away for a moment before looking back at the girl and saying, ‘I must be truthful to you: the persons who would do such work as required must be scrupulously clean…very, very clean, and must not be in contact with anyone who is…well, not so clean. If my husband employed you, I would have to see to your well-being and clothes and such; but the main thing would be you would have to sleep on the farm.’

  The girl’s voice came brisk now, saying, ‘Not go back at night?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, that’s what I mean: you would have to stay here and only visit your people on leave days.’

  ‘No, no. I couldn’t do that, missis. Me ma wants me at night; the bairns are fractious. Nights? No, no, I couldn’t.’ The head was shaking violently now. ‘An’ me da. Well…well, we go rabbit…in’.’ The word trailed off.

  ‘In that case,’ said Fanny, ‘I’m sorry, my dear. But you go home and talk it over with your mother.’

  At this, the girl looked round the room, and it seemed for a moment that she might be about to change her mind. But turning, she darted out of the door, leaving Fanny standing with her head bowed for the moment. When she did go into the yard it was to see the girl running into the distance beyond the farm gate …

  ‘Well, that’s a good job,’ said Annie. ‘You must have been mad, ma’am. I can tell you, if you had taken her on she wouldn’t have got into my kitchen, ’cos if she had, I would’ve walked out. Have you ever seen those hovels they live in, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, I have seen them, Annie, and that is why I felt I must do something for that child.’

  Ward’s relief was the same as Annie’s, although he didn’t express it so plainly: ‘And there was the school, you know. They have been on her to go to school. And yet from what I hear, they keep the whole tribe from the Hollow to one side of the class, and the other bairns are told not to play with them. There’s been mothers up there complaining before today.’

  As Fanny tugged at some straw poking out from a bale Ward had just stacked, she muttered, ‘I could have seen to that, the same as Carl.’ Then she almost jumped at the sound of her husband’s voice, for he barked at her, ‘By God, no! You wouldn’t have seen to that. I put up with the lad and the time wasted; but I’ll draw the line at another, and such another. If you had your way you’d have a school running in here shortly.’

  As they stared at each other, his mouth opened and shut twice before he turned from her and beat his fist against the stanchion of the barn, saying, ‘I’m sorry, dear. I’m sorry.’

  She did not answer for a moment; but then going to him, she placed her head on his shoulder, saying, ‘It’s all right. I understand. And it’s not the first time I must have tested your temper with my silly ideas.’

  He turned towards her and, taking her by the shoulders, he repeated, ‘I am sorry, my love. I am. I never imagined anything could make me bark at you.’

  She was smiling at him now, saying, ‘Well, you have been proved wrong, and you were right.’ But although she thought them, she did not add the words, ‘I suppose.’

  At this he bent his head over her until his brow touched hers and he whispered, ‘I would do anything in the world for you, anything.’ To which she answered, ‘I know, dear. I know.’

  It was his statement that was put to the test the following morning …

  Ward, Billy, and the boy had been up since before five o’clock lambing, and Annie had left her cottage shortly after five to get the fire blazing and to attend two orphaned lambs that had been dumped into her kitchen. And she had just finished serving a number of long thick rashers of bacon, six eggs, dabs of white pudding and slices of fried bread onto the three plates which she now laid before her master, her husband and the boy, when Ward asked, ‘Has she had her cup of tea?’

  ‘Had her cup of tea!’ Annie shook her head. ‘This hour gone. And what’s more, she’s had her bite. But I wish she ate like you lot.’ She now flicked her hand across the table. ‘Anyway, for the last hour she’s been at her books, preparing stuff, I suppose, to knock into that one.’ And with her thumb she indicated Carl, and he, his mouth full, turned and grinned at her.

  There was no more conversation until they had almost cleared their plates, when Billy said, ‘Another night like this ’un and we’ll need an extra hand. What do you say, master?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. And yet…aye, perhaps yes. We’ll see.’

  At this moment came a knock on the back door. They all looked towards Annie, who spoke for them, saying, ‘And who’s this at this time in the mornin’?’

  ‘Well, until you go to the door you won’t find out, will you?’ Ward said to her. And she flounced out of the kitchen, only within seconds to flounce back again and to go and stand close to Ward, her face almost near his ear, and to say, ‘You’ve got two visitors instead of one, an’ they’ll both be alive.’

  He stared at her for a moment before rising; then he turned his gaze on Billy as if to confirm his thinking, before slowly walking from the kitchen and through the boot room, where stood Mike Riley and his daughter Patsy.

  ‘Mornin’, master.’

  Ward’s voice was a low mutter as he answered, ‘Morning.’ But then in a clearer tone he asked, ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well ’tis like this, master: your good missis, she gave this one here’—he nudged his daughter with his hip—‘the chance of a lifetime yesterda’, an’ the silly little bugger, what did she do now but turn it down ’cos she thought her ma couldn’t do without her. Well, her ma’s of the same mind as meself, she could do without her fine if it means a new life for her.’ His voice now dropping to a low tone as if his daughter wasn’t present, he said, ‘Just for one of ’em to be given a chance, master, just one of ’em, ’twas like as if the good God hadn’t forgotten us after all, for it seems to have been empty bellies an’ cold nights ever since we settled here. But as I said to her, me missis, ’twas as if God was relentin’ an’ pullin’ open a door in hell an’ lettin’ one of ’em out. I’m an ignorant man, master, like most of us down there, an’ that life suits some of ’em, but not all. Nothin’ can alter for us elders, but for the youngsters, well, as I said, master…’ He now hunched his shoulders and spread his hands out, and as Ward stared at him, for a moment he saw the whole situation through Fanny’s eyes, but only for a moment. He had a farm to run; he had two good servants who were more like faithful friends; taking on this strip of a girl who looked all bones and eyes would surely bring discord into the place, and hadn’t he enough discord flooding in from the village?

  ‘Good morning, Mr Riley.’

  ‘Good morning, Patsy.’

  Mike Riley looked at the slight form of the woman standing beside her husband
and he smiled widely at her, saying, ‘Good mornin’ to you, mistress. A very good mornin’ to you. I’ve just brought this ’un.’ Again he indicated his daughter by a movement of his hip. ‘She sees now that you are right, she should stay on the job. And, ma’am, it’s up to you how often you let her home. If it’s once in a month for an hour or so, or once in six, I’ll understand. An’ I’ll say this, ma’am, you’ve got me thanks from the bottom of me heart. An’ there’ll come the day when she’ll bless you an’ all, won’t you?’ His hand went out and was placed gently on his daughter’s shoulder, but she made no response, she just continued to stare at Fanny, and not without defiance in her look. Then her father, putting on his cap and pulling the peak to the side, addressed a definitely bewildered Ward, saying, ‘If there’s anyt’in in this world I can do for you, sir, I’m your man. ’Tis at liberty I am at the moment, so if you should need a helpin’ hand, just call on me, sir. Any time, night or day, call on me.’ And with that he took three steps backwards before turning his glance on his daughter and in a soft voice saying to her: ‘Ta-ra, girlo. Behave yoursel’. Remember the crack we had.’ He stared at her one moment longer and it was evident that his lips were trembling before he turned and walked smartly away, leaving the girl looking after him, and Fanny and Ward looking at each other.

  It was a week later and there was tension in the house, and it had touched every member of it, not least Carl.

  The boy had been delighted with the news that he was going to have a cottage to himself; at least he was until the reason for it was put to him, which had been immediately after Mike Riley’s departure.

  ‘But she’s dirty, mistress. They’re lousy, all of them. They could keep themselves clean, but they don’t, they’re lousy.’

  ‘It isn’t their fault, it’s the conditions. It’s those awful hovels that they live in, and they haven’t any money.’

  ‘There’s a stream; they could still be clean.’

  She had taken his hand, saying, ‘Carl, do this for me. Be kind to her. She needs the work: her family are in desperate straits; they go hungry.’

  ‘The master gives them turnips, and he sent two sacks of taties.’

  ‘People cannot live just on turnips and potatoes. And what your master sent them wouldn’t have lasted long.’

  ‘They all gang up down there and they steal.’

  ‘Well, Carl, you’ve never been in a position where you had to steal. I don’t want to remind you but I must now. If it hadn’t been for the master’s kindness when you were in dire need, where do you think you would have been now? So, I’m asking you to extend the same kindness to the girl by way of repayment in part. Because, you know, we can never repay a good deed, but we must keep trying.’

  ‘Is…is she coming into the kitchen?’

  ‘Oh, no, no. Her meals will be sent out to her. She’ll eat them in the boiler room, where it is warm or in the barn or up in the loft, wherever she chooses. But no, she won’t be coming into the kitchen.’ She said this emphatically as if Annie were prodding her.

  When she had told him what work she intended to give her, he was amazed and he brought out, with a wrinkled nose, ‘She smells.’

  ‘She won’t smell when I’m finished cleaning her. And’—she had smiled—‘I’m not much bigger than her, am I? So she will adjust to my clothes.’

  That was the first battle over. However, that had left two still to be won. One concerned the newcomer’s wage. Ward had said a shilling a week.

  Couldn’t he make it two?

  No, he could not. And it had been only by a great deal of self-control that he had not bellowed at her once more.

  Even so, they had both known that the heated discussion with regard to the wage was but a small matter; it was the presence of the girl herself and the reason why she was there. This butter and cheese business; hadn’t he enough to contend with?

  But the third battle had been the hardest—this time coming in the form of a verbal attack from Annie, who made her feelings plain, not to Fanny but to Carl.

  ‘I’ve told the mistress I’ll not go near that girl to learn her anything: I’ll pass on what I know to her herself, and then she can please herself how she instructs that one. In any case, by the time any butter comes out of that dairy it’ll be rancid. An’ to think of the mistress cleansin’ that one, stripping her bare. I can tell you this for nothin’, ’cos afterwards she’ll have to do some cleansin’ of herself on the quiet. She’s tried to keep it dark, but different fuels give off different smells an’ that what came from the boiler house was singed cloth, if I know anything. Oh, I’ve never in all me born days experienced anything like this; an’ it all goes back to Parson Noble’s door, if you ask me, because they would have been hounded out of that Hollow years gone if he hadn’t come an’ put his nose in, with his live an’ let live patter. I’m all for live an’ let live meself, but where is another question. And you, young Carl, keep your arm’s distance from her. Her clothes might be clean and her body too, but you can’t get nits out of her head in one, two, or three goes. They are stickers, are nits. Oh, I never thought I’d see the day when the mistress of this house got mixed up with that lot down there. Now the master’s mother was the kindest body you’d ever come across, but would she have done a thing like that? No; no way. Send them down taties and such, but that would have been the limit. I don’t know where it’s gona end. I really don’t.’

  It didn’t end, but it began for Annie two further weeks later. The dairy now spotless, she showed Fanny how long the milk should be left in the big trays for the cream to rise to the top; how to use the skimmer; then how the handle of the churn should be used, not jerked, but in a steady swing. And she had immediately exclaimed, ‘But you’re not turning it. It’ll have you dead in a day. If that ’un’s here to be a dairymaid, then let her be a dairymaid an’ get at it.’

  The progress made by the new dairymaid was related to Annie each evening during the respite between supper and the last round. At least it was brought out of Carl by tactful questioning. At first he did not seem reluctant to tell of…that one’s progress. Then one evening, having taken her seat at the side of the fireplace, Annie said, ‘Well lad, what’s your news today?’ But no answer was forthcoming. Carl simply bowed his head, which made her lean towards him, saying, ‘Ah-ha! You’ve got something bad to tell me, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, no!’ His head jerked up. ‘Well, not really bad, no.’

  ‘What d’you mean, not really bad? ’Tis about her, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes; but…’

  ‘Come on, no yes, buts. What’s she been up to? I knew she’d get up to something sooner or later, and the mistress would be covered with shame for makin’ a stand on her behalf. Oh, I knew it.’

  ‘No, no; it isn’t like that, Mrs Annie.’

  ‘Well what is it like then?’

  ‘She ain’t eating.’

  ‘What? Ain’t eating? I send her a good heaped plateful out twice a day. I haven’t been spiteful like that, no matter what I think. If she’s got to turn that churn, she needs somethin’ in her belly. I’ve sent out two good…’

  ‘Yes; yes, I know you have, Mrs Annie. Well, it’s like this. I took her dinner over one day during the week and I went back a few minutes after and her plate was clean.’

  ‘She gollops, then?’

  ‘No. No. I watched her the next day. The same thing happened. I’d seen her taking bits of paper from the waste heap and I wondered why. But I found out this morning. You know’—he looked down again—‘the mistress said she hadn’t to be roused before six. And when I shout up the ladder, she generally shouts back, “All right”, but this morning I was on me way to the new piggeries. It must have just turned halfpast and it wasn’t really light, but the moon was still out and I felt sure I saw her going round by the big wall, and when I went to see I made her out running like a hare across the fields. And…and I followed her, near as I could, like, without her knowing. She went right over the bottom field
an’ all, and I stood at the side of the glasshouse and I could just make her out bending down at the railings. Then the next minute she came flying past. If she had put her arm out she could have touched me. And I waited until she was well away, then I went to the place she had been and I saw the little bundle of newspaper.’

  He stopped now as if he were thinking, and his voice jerked his head up as he went on rapidly, ‘I opened it: it was the meat and some of your carrots and taties, that was the day’s dinner, and there was some crackling and a bit of pork, that was from yesterday. That’s as much as I could make out. I bundled it up quick.’

  They were now staring at each other in silence, and he watched her lean back in the rocking chair. She didn’t rock herself, but her head fell back against the top bar and she bit her lip. Then she again startled him by bending forward and gripping his shoulder as she said, ‘Now don’t you repeat a word of this to the mistress. Do you hear me? Not a word, else she’ll be clearing this kitchen to feed the whole tribe. But I’ve got to think about this. She can’t do her work if she doesn’t eat. And anyway, have you thought that she must have been in contact with one of them?’

  ‘No’—he shook his head—‘I don’t think she’d be in contact, I mean, she wouldn’t be close. She’s likely told one or other of them, likely the brother who’s next to her, that if she got any bits she would leave them somewhere. I don’t know. But now that she’s clean I don’t think she’d go near them…well, I think she would know better, because if she got dirty again even the mistress would give her up.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. The mistress is a very stubborn lady underneath that gentle skin of hers. And look what she’s been asking you to do now, ’cos the master won’t let her do it herself: pass on your lessons to her, hasn’t she?’