The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No, I’m glad you won’t, thank you, but I can use my imagination.’ She, too, now was laughing.

  ‘Erb…Herbert didn’t need any calling. I think she pushed him out of bed the minute she got up. As for me, she would come to the bottom of those narrow stairs and bawl, “It’ll be on the table in fifteen minutes, Mr G.” And, oh, I would crawl out of bed, get into my clothes, all except my jacket and collar and tie, and down I would go into the scullery to wash.’

  ‘Oh, Gerald, you had to wash in the …?’

  ‘It was very good training, Mama, and I, being a gent, as she openly stated to anyone who would listen, and that was most of the neighbourhood, I was given the privilege of using the large tin bath on a Friday or Saturday night. I had my choice.’ This brought them both to a stop, and with her arm around her waist, she laughed loudly before she muttered, ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m quite serious, Mama. They all used the tin bath. And it wasn’t too bad; there was a boiler in the corner of the scullery. The only trouble was the time limit given to your ablutions. You weren’t allowed to relax in the, very often, almost scalding water she would ladle into the bath by the bucket. Then there was the possibility that either our Doug or our lad would put his head round the door, and more than once a neighbour, female, took the opportunity. Fortunately, I was either deep in the water or enveloped in a towel, which, I may say, seemed to be faced with sandpaper. Yet in a way, they were very decorous, especially with regard to their womenfolk, and the women themselves…Glad always sang loudly when enjoying her ablutions. This was mostly on a Friday evening before she went to the…palais de danse. She was a very good dancer, so I was told. I’d never witnessed her display. Not that I didn’t have constant invitations.’ He now went into an imitation of Glad. ‘“Ah, come, Mister G. Do you the world o’ good. Slacken yer knee caps…you’d be a wow down there, that’s if you opened yer mouth.”’

  ‘Oh, Gerald.’ Lady Lydia was looking at her son softly now and surprisingly she said, ‘It might have at that. Am I right in thinking that you have no attachments? Well, I mean, you haven’t made acquaintance with anyone…of a…?’

  He put his arm around her waist and pulled her to him as they walked on, the while saying, ‘No, Mama, I have not made acquaintance of anyone of that class, which was what you were trying to say, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’ She tried to pull herself away. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you were. You see, I have learned to study human nature. I’ve even written about it.’ He paused now as if he had said too much, and she pulled him to a stop as she said, ‘You have? I mean, you’re writing, actually writing?’

  ‘Yes, Mama, I am actually writing. And now I’ll let you into a secret. I have actually been paid money for my writing, stuff that’s come out of here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Fifteen pounds I got for my last short story. It was about the country.’

  ‘Really? About what you garnered when you were …?’

  ‘Yes, what I garnered when I was young and lived here and about the people I knew.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, the Gibsons.’

  ‘You didn’t…?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, no; I didn’t touch on anything that happened: I wrote about farmers and the way they lived, what they did.’

  ‘And you got fifteen pounds for it?’

  ‘I got fifteen pounds for it.’

  ‘That was kind of Mr Herbert and Mr Darrington.’

  ‘Oh, Mama, Mr Harry and Mr David would not have given it a second glance. Trite, one would have said. Simple, the other would have added.’

  ‘But if they saw your name?’

  ‘They wouldn’t see my name, Mama, because I used yours, at least your maiden name, Fordish. James Fordish, that was the name of my maternal grandfather, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Well, well.’ Her face was beaming now. ‘You are a strange young man, you know. You always have been unaccountable. But it could be a wonderful career.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it could be a career, if I ever get further than writing articles and short stories. It could be a career, but of sorts, a sideline.’

  ‘Well, what do really want to do, dear?’

  ‘To tell the truth, Mama, I’m not quite sure, except—’ he poked his face towards her now and whispered, ‘I’d love to sit in the library, in there’—he pointed back towards the house—‘And read and read and read, and have someone to feed me. And I would have a good wash once a week, but it would have to be in a tin bath.’

  ‘Oh, Gerald!’ She pushed him now. ‘Be serious. Anyway, did your…Mrs Cramp know you were a writer?’

  ‘Good Lord, no! Oh, no.’

  ‘Well what about James Fordish and any correspondence?’

  ‘Oh, I had an understanding with my publisher.’ He now cocked his chin up in a pose, moving his head from side to side, and saying, ‘It’s got a nice sound that, hasn’t it? My publisher. I really saw him only once. It was his editor I generally dealt with. But oh, as for letting the Cramps know I wrote anything and got paid for it, they would have had it out, they would have blazoned it all over the neighbourhood.’ And he now struck another pose, his arms folded, his head nodding: ‘“My gent writes. I told you he was different.” I actually heard her say that one day to her close friend, someone twice her size and that’s saying something, but with no wit. “Win,” she said, “he’s not just a lodger, he’s a gent, like them along, you know, the West End.” I won’t recall, Mama, how she then described my further connections, not only with the West End, but with further along in the large stone house.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, my dear.’ Her gloved hand was gripping his now. ‘You are very funny, you know. You could write funny things from the way you say them.’

  ‘Mama, I’m going to tell you something. Talking and writing are poles apart. If any writer could write the way he speaks he’d be a millionaire in no time. You see it’s getting the stuff from here’—he again pointed to his brow—‘down that arm, into the hand and onto the paper. That’s the difficult part. It loses something in the journey.’

  Her face straight now, she said, ‘I love you dearly, Gerald. You are my only son, my only child, my only offspring. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. But I’ve never been able to understand what goes on in that head of yours, nor from where you inherited it.’

  ‘Well, my dear, there was always an odd one in the family. You said so yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but your oddness is different. Anyway, what did we come out for on this bitter morning but to see what could be done with the grounds. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, Mama, that is so. And I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. All told, we have about sixty acres left, and part of this is taken up with two woods and what you’ve always called the stone field, because of all the rocks in it that border the Gibson farm. Now that leaves, as it is, about thirty acres. Not enough to set up a small farm; and anyway the buildings down at Brook End are in an awful dilapidated state and would take quite a bit of money spent on them before they’d be of any use. So what do you think about a market garden?’

  She screwed up her face as she said, ‘A market garden? You mean, vegetables and…’

  ‘Yes, Mama, that’s what I mean, vegetables and fruit. And you know, if anyone knows anything about growing vegetables it’s McNamara. And fruit, too. He’s kept the house supplied for years, hasn’t he, when there’s been very little else? As you’ve admitted yourself, there’s always been plenty of vegetables of every sort. And there’s the vinery and the greenhouses. When you were to meet me in London last year, you offered to bring me a basket of grapes, and if you remember I had to refuse because that would have needed some explaining to Mrs C: her gentleman’s people grew grapes. My! my!’

  ‘But would it pay? I mean, you would have to engage another man.’

  ‘Mama, there are farms all around us here and farmers are notorious for not bothering with flower gardens or wasting m
uch land on ordinary vegetables. Oh, yes, potato fields, turnip fields, but for the rest it’s dairy food and milk and beef they supply. Well, we could supply all kinds of vegetables, fruit and flowers. We have just passed through two large gardens which are now covered with a mat of dead flowers. It’s worth a try.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, dear, I can see that, but it’s…it’s labour.’

  ‘Well, I’ve worked that out, too: with McNamara, one more hand and myself. By this time next year we could be in business; and this is the time to start clearing the land.’

  She smiled now, saying, ‘Have you ever wielded a pick or shovel, Gerald?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, Mama; but for experience I have spent a number of mornings in Covent Garden, humping boxes of fruit and flowers with Erb and Doug. And after a few mornings I got used to my aching bones, and when the fortnight was up—it was during my yearly holiday—I was not only paid handsomely for my assistance but I later received ten pounds for an article I wrote about it. So, yes, Mama, I think I would be capable of wielding a shovel and, through practice, could handle a pick.’ He smiled at her now and patted her cheek as he said, ‘Well, what d’you think?’

  ‘Oh, I am with you. In fact, I am with anything you wish to do, Gerald, so long as I can have you with me. I…I have been so lonely.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, my dear. Please, Mama, don’t cry. Oh, don’t, don’t cry. You’ll undo me if you cry.’

  She turned away and they walked on in silence now until she murmured, ‘I never cried over your father: love dies, and one asks oneself if love had ever been born. The only evidence lies in…well, what it produces.’ She turned now and looked at him, and when she did not continue to speak he took her arm and pressed it close to his side.

  They had entered the wood on the east side of the grounds and there, stretching before them, was a long meadow, studded here and there with crops of rock. And the immediate effect of it was to bring them to a standstill. After a moment she said, ‘You’ll never be able to do much here.’

  ‘You never know. If we got the business going we could afford to engage a few navvies to uproot that lot. But look!’ He pointed. ‘It seems quite clear near Gibson’s border. There’s a long stretch there, not a rock to be seen.’ He now led her forward, skirting the mounds of rock on their way, until they were standing near the five-foot stone wall that Ward had erected, the coping stones set in a serrated style.

  They were actually standing close to the wall and looking over the frozen ridges of the ploughed field beyond, when a little girl came running up on the side of the field to their left. She had apparently caught sight of them before they had of her, but now she was coming round the corner and the curving of the high wall hid her from them for a moment. Then, there she was, standing below them, gazing up at them. ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Gerald answered, ‘Hello.’ And he turned to look at his mother, who was already gazing at him questioningly; then they both returned their attention to the child who was saying, ‘It’s a cold day, isn’t it?’ She was addressing Lady Lydia now, and she, nodding down at the child, answered, ‘Yes. Yes, it is a cold day, my dear.’

  ‘What is your name?’ Her attention was on Gerald again.

  ‘My name is Gerald Ramsmore,’ he said: ‘and this lady is my mother.’

  ‘Oh.’ The child now took a step backwards before gazing up into Lady Lydia’s face which seemed to be just topping the wall. And she kept her eyes fixed on her for a moment before she said, ‘My mother is sick.’

  ‘Is she, dear?’

  ‘Yes; she doesn’t walk about.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry for that.’

  The child now turned her gaze on Gerald as she said, ‘My grandfather walks about, but he isn’t well either.’ And she lowered her head and was looking down into the ruts when there came the sound of a loud cry from the far end of the field: ‘Janie! Janie!’ it called.

  But the child did not turn about and run; in fact, she took a step forward and towards the wall as she said, ‘That is my Auntie Jessie.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you go to her, dear?’

  The child didn’t answer but remained with her head back, staring up first at one, and then at the other.

  ‘I think we had better go,’ Lady Lydia whispered.

  ‘No’—Gerald did not move—‘Stay still, Mama. This could be interesting.’

  ‘Janie! Janie! Come here at once!’

  The woman was now taking a short cut over the ridges, holding her long skirt in both hands. And when she reached the child she was panting so much she could not speak for a moment. But after grabbing the child’s hand she stared at the two faces confronting her.

  That this woman standing there on the rough ground could be the one and same young girl who had flung herself on him in such frantic despair that night, the night which had seared a mark on his mind that he knew he could never erase and which in a way had stifled his natural emotions, Gerald could not believe. Was it only ten years ago it had happened? Surely not, for this girl…no, this woman looked to be in her late thirties, not twenty-six or twenty-seven as she must be now. He heard himself saying, ‘Good morning, Miss Jessie. Perhaps…perhaps you don’t remember me? Gerald Ramsmore; and this is my mother, Lady Lydia.’

  He watched her eyes flicker from one to the other of them; he watched her wet her lips and say, ‘Yes. Yes. Good morning.’ Then looking down at the child she was holding firmly by the hand, she said, ‘I’m sorry…I’m sorry if she’s troubled you.’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t trouble anybody, Auntie Jessie. I only wanted to talk.’ The child now looked up at them again and added brightly, ‘I like to talk.’

  ‘Come along.’

  Before the child was tugged away she called to them, ‘Will you come again?’

  Neither of them gave any reply to this, but Lady Lydia muttered, ‘Oh, dear me. Dear me.’

  Gerald knew that his mother’s head had drooped but he kept his gaze fixed on the woman and the child slipping and scurrying now across the ploughed field. And not until they had gone from his sight did he turn away and walk to where his mother was now standing some distance from the wall, and they looked at each other while she said softly, ‘That’s the child, the girl’s child whom they say they keep locked away almost like a prisoner.’

  Gerald, however, made no comment on this as they walked towards the wood; his jaws were clenched tight: he was seeing again the beautiful girl, her bare blood-covered limbs stretched wide. He could even feel the moan rising up through his own body again. It was nearly ten years ago; he shouldn’t still be feeling like this …

  The child was standing near a stool at the side of the open fire in the cottage that had once housed Annie. Annie had been dead now for eight years. And this cottage and the adjoining one were now linked together through a doorway between the two kitchens, and they had been the home of both the child and Jessie ever since Carl and Patsy had moved into the house.

  Jessie was bending over the child, saying in a harsh voice, ‘I’ve warned you, haven’t I? If your grandfather finds you roaming around there’ll be trouble.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve…I’ve told you why. He’s not well.’

  ‘He’s quite able to walk about. He won’t speak to me. He never looks at me.’

  ‘Child!‘

  ‘I am not a child, Auntie Jessie. I am nine years old. On my next birthday I shall be ten years old and I think things already, and I feel things. And I would like to know why I cannot see my sick mammy, and why she doesn’t walk about.’

  Jessie straightened her back now and sighed as she said, ‘I’ve told you, she never leaves her room and…and children, or a child like you, would annoy her.’

  The girl stared up at Jessie before saying quietly, ‘In the new book you got for my lessons there is a lady sitting with a little girl on her knee and…and she’s reading to her.’

  Jessie’s whole demeanour now softened as it was wont to do at her child’s need, for th
at’s how she thought of her, as her child. Softly now, and putting out her hand to touch the cream-tinted cheek, she said, ‘Don’t I have you on my knee when I’m reading to you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you do, Auntie Jessie; but you are not my mammy, are you? You are just my auntie.’

  Jessie swallowed deeply. ‘Yes, I may just be your auntie,’ she said, ‘but I have cared for you from the moment you were born, because’—again she swallowed—‘there was no-one else to care for you.’

  ‘Patsy once said she had brought me into the world.’

  Before she spoke Jessie thought, Oh, did she? That was stupid of her. But she said, ‘Yes. Yes, she did, but she handed you to me straight away, and ever since I’ve looked after you as my little girl.’

  For a moment longer Janie stared at Jessie; then sitting down abruptly on the stool she looked towards the fire, saying, ‘I…I get frightened at night now, Auntie Jessie. I…I have been having strange dreams.’

  Immediately Jessie was on her knees by the side of the wide-eyed child, saying earnestly, ‘But you never told me. You seem to sleep soundly.’

  The little girl brought her gaze round to Jessie’s again. ‘Well, it’s only this last few weeks or so, since I cannot help wanting to run, wanting to get out. I…I have no-one to play with. In all our books’—she looked towards the table—‘children are playing games: “London Bridge is Falling Down”, “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”, skipping and such.’

  ‘Well, you skip. You skip very well. And Carl and Rob and you and I have played ball together in the field.’