The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘I can’t help it, Lady Lydia, because it’s true. You can hardly eat for worry, you’re all skin and bone.’

  ‘Ho! ho! Look who’s talking. If I’m all skin and bone I would describe you as two laths.’

  ‘Yes, you might,’ said Janie now, her head bobbing: ‘but there’s a chance that I’ll develop in places, at least I hope so. But you’ll just fade away if you’re not careful. Then what will he do? Come on; you look frozen.’

  ‘Yes, yes. And he’ll be frozen in here.’

  ‘No, he won’t. That fire gives out a lot of heat. And if it’s on night and day the place will soon be snug, and many a one would be glad of it, let me tell you.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, dear. Those poor men on the road. The war was going to make all the difference. But what has it done? Turned this country topsy-turvy, with young men who had commissions in the Army now having to do menial jobs, door-to-door salesmen, and glad to do it. It’s unthinkable really. The world will never be the same again.’

  As they walked back to the house Lady Lydia exclaimed, ‘Something will have to be done to this path; you could break your neck on the ruts.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that later,’ said Janie, again tersely. And then she added, ‘Because if Mohammed can’t go to the mountain, the mountain should come to Mohammed. And let’s hope it happens.’

  ‘Yes, my dear, yes.’ Lady Lydia could not help chuckling. ‘Indeed, let’s hope it happens. But until it does, my dear, I must ask you to promise me not to go anywhere near the cottage. As I said before, Arthur will take down what is necessary.’

  For four days Arthur visited the cottage, only to report no-one was there, and that he had replenished the fire. But on the fifth morning he came hurrying into the kitchen and asked Nancy to inform her ladyship that he had found the cottage door locked and that there was smoke coming from the chimney.

  On her way upstairs Nancy had met Janie coming down, and excitedly she had said, ‘He’s back! He’s back! Arthur found the door locked. He’s back!’ And as Janie made her way slowly down the remainder of the stairs and to the kitchen, she thought, for all the change it’s going to make to me he might as well be still in the hospital. But what I’d like to know is why he doesn’t want to see me. She could understand him not wanting to see people. But she wasn’t people, she was Janie, his Janie, and he was her ‘nice man’. At least that’s how it had been before he went away. But now no more.

  Seven

  It was now May 1921, and Gerald had been ensconced in the cottage for seven months, and Janie hadn’t seen a sight of him, even though she was now living permanently at the Hall.

  This arrangement had been amicably made after Carl and Jessie’s return from their honeymoon. It was Carl who had suggested tactfully to Lady Lydia that Janie’s Auntie Jessie was concerned for her future career and was urging that Janie take up a course of some sort or other, such as nursing, that would provide her with a livelihood later on, because she didn’t want to stay on the farm. However, he wondered, would Lady Lydia consider taking her into a partnership, for the girl seemed to be adept at managing labour? He said he was aware that she, Lady Lydia, was giving Janie a generous portion of the profits, but again he pointed out that her aunt was concerned with her future security, and at the moment the part of the profits she was receiving did not suggest future security.

  The thought that her protégé would leave her to start on some trifling course or other filled Lady Lydia with dismay, and so, ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she said. But as for a partnership, she herself did nothing towards the business: the men did the work, but it was organised by Janie, who seemed to have great plans for extending the smallholding.

  From this, Carl went on to say there was just one more point: perhaps she knew that Janie had refused to live in the farmhouse, and they didn’t like her staying alone in the cottage, so would her ladyship consider Janie living at the Hall with her? Yes. Yes. Her ladyship was only too delighted to agree to this: and so it had come about.

  As it had also come about, and you could believe it, that her ladyship had adopted ‘that one’ and ‘that one’ was running the place, ordering this done and that done. And the latest was a horse and cart, all out of veg and fruit…I ask you!

  Then there was the son living in a broken-down cottage in the wood. He was still round the bend in his head. And this latter was the cause of another division between the patrons of the two inns. Some said he was still barmy, and some said he wasn’t, that he was writing, and writers had to be on their own. He’d be doing a war story. He was at it every day…But what did he know about the war? it was questioned.

  He was a conchie.

  So the village gossiped as usual, and the recluse stayed in his fastness in the wood, seeing only his mother and a man called Arthur. Meanwhile, Janie went on building up the business of the smallholding and defiantly riding through the village by the side of Arthur on a Saturday morning, when they attended the market in Fellburn where, more and more, she was greeted with smiles and kind encouraging words.

  She had never allowed herself to question Arthur about what happened when he took the stores down to the cottage, until this particular Saturday morning. It was when passing through the village and after the second unknown person had looked towards her and smiled and brought the remark from Arthur, ‘There now, people aren’t as black as they’re painted, are they? Things are changing, I understand, from what they used to be.’ It was then she asked, ‘Have you found any change in Mr Gerald since he came?’ And after a moment he said, ‘Yes and no. He’s always civil and we have a word now and again.’

  ‘What kind of a word? What do you talk about?’

  ‘Oh, the weather and the crops.’

  ‘Does he ask about crops?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. I mention them with the weather, you know.’

  She now forced herself to say, ‘Does he ever speak about me and…what I do? I mean with the business?’

  ‘Oh no, miss, no, nothing like that. He doesn’t touch on the house, just the weather an’ that.’

  Just the weather and that, she thought, and not without some bitterness. Why didn’t he get himself out of that place and clear the scrub? He had started chopping his own wood, but that was about all. If he could do that he could cut the undergrowth and use a shovel. The more she thought about him the more mad she got at him. And Lady Lydia had to go along that path because it was impossible to cut back all the roots of the trees. That way was never meant for a path. The only reason why the men had made it was that it was a straight run from the front of the house, over the sunken lawn, through the shrubbery and into the wood. One of these days she would blow up, she knew she would.

  And the day wasn’t far ahead.

  It had been a hard winter. There had been a heavy and unexpected fall of snow at the beginning of May. It was then that Lady Lydia caught her chill. And after a week of taking linctus which did nothing to alleviate her cough and the pain in her chest, she took it upon herself to ring for the doctor. When Philip Patten came, he ordered her to stay in bed for at least a week, threatening that otherwise her bronchitis might develop into something more severe. And when he finally said to her, ‘Now we understand each other, don’t we, your ladyship?’ she had said, as in an aside, ‘Yes, Doctor.’ And when he insisted, ‘You won’t disobey my orders, will you?’ and she had answered, ‘I can’t promise you,’ he said nothing more. But when going downstairs with Janie, he remarked tersely, ‘If she goes out into the cold I won’t be answerable for the consequences, so see she stays in bed. And by the way,’ he added, smiling at her, ‘I hear very good reports of you as an excellent businesswoman.’ Then he added further, ‘You don’t miss the farm?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ The two words were emphatic, and he said, ‘No, no, of course you wouldn’t. But it’s a happier place now, you know.’

  ‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, it would have
to be. And…and how is the other patient?’

  ‘I don’t know. He keeps to himself. He does a lot of writing.’

  ‘So I understand. Anyway, he doesn’t need a doctor, that’s something.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s something.’

  ‘Now do what I say and keep an eye on her ladyship and don’t let her get out of bed.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Doctor.’

  She did that for a week; but when her ladyship said she felt better and able to get up a while, Janie was emphatic: ‘No, you can’t! If you attempt to, I’ll get on the telephone to Doctor Patten straight away,’ a threat to which Lady Lydia seemed to accede, for she now asked Janie, ‘Has…has Arthur said anything?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. But the person in question must know you are not well, and if he can’t see fit to take his legs along that path just for once, then I feel he wants…’ Oh dear me. She closed her eyes and turned away. She had nearly said, ‘Somebody’s foot in his backside,’ a threat she had often heard Mike use to Rob, a threat that worked. ‘If you don’t get on with that you’ll have me foot in your backside.’

  ‘What were you going to finish on, my dear?’ said Lady Lydia with a smile.

  ‘Something that would have shocked you, I can tell you that.’

  ‘No doubt, no doubt. Well, I promise you I’ll stay put for the next two days. The weather has changed, and I’m so much better now, I’ve hardly coughed at all today. Just two days more and then I’m getting up.’

  As Janie went out of the room she remarked to herself, ‘That’s what you think.’ Then downstairs, she pulled on her old field coat and a woollen hat and actually marched out of the door and thence along the rutted path. But when she came in sight of the cottage she stopped. Her heart was beating against her ribs. Why it should, she didn’t know, only perhaps, she thought, it was with temper. Who did he think he was sitting in there all day? Even if he was scribbling.

  When she reached the door she hesitated a moment; then determinedly lifting her hand, she knocked twice.

  She heard a movement inside the room and she knew there was somebody now standing just behind the door. When there was no reply, she knocked a further three times; and when again she received no answer she put her face close to the door and yelled, ‘If you’re afraid to open the door, I’ll give you the message through it! Your mother is ill in bed, and you must know that, else she would have been along to see you. And why she should the Lord only knows, because you’ve still got two legs and you could walk. But no! You’ve got to hide yourself away. Well, there you have it. She’s been ordered to stay in bed, but she’s not going to because she has to come along here and see how you are. And to my mind you’re not worth bothering about. You’re cowardly…’

  The door was pulled open with such force that she staggered back. And there he was, this tall, thin, spare-looking figure that gave her no semblance of the ‘nice man’. He was glaring at her. His eyes looked black, whereas she remembered they had been grey. But now, like his face, they seemed ablaze. She didn’t know this man. He was like no remembered image that she had retained of him and that she had conjured up during the years since she last saw him on the day she learned of her beginnings through the conversation in the cow byres. The ‘nice man’ she remembered was all gentleness, whereas this man looked like a demon; and she stood gulping, her hand gripping the top of her coat, too terrified to turn and run now. Then she saw the man seeming to melt away and the figure lean against the stanchion of the door and close its eyes. And when his voice came low, saying, ‘Go away,’ she still stood. And when, in a croaking whisper, she said, ‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘Go away, please.’

  She went to turn about but something stopped her. What, she didn’t know. Whatever it was it made her take three steps towards him. And now in a trembling voice, she said, ‘I’m…so sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that. I didn’t know.’ She did not add, ‘you were still ill,’ or that, ‘I should not have called you a coward.’ Perhaps it was that word, because Carl had told her and explained to her about the conscientious objectors, and it would seem not one of them could be called a coward.

  When she put her hand on his arm he jumped backwards as if he had been stung, and again she said, ‘I’m…I’m sorry.’ Then she watched him almost stagger to the easy chair and drop into it and lean his head back while his eyes stared straight in front of him.

  She stood within the doorway now, saying softly, ‘I…I just came to ask you if you would come and see your mother. There’s…there’s no-one there after five o’clock. I mean, the men finish and…and go upstairs above the stables, and then out. You could come in the back way. There’s only Nancy in the house, and you know Nancy. I’ll…I’ll leave the back door open for you…shall I?’ She saw him now close his eyes and she could see a vein standing out on his left temple. It was throbbing. She said softly, ‘Shall…shall I make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘No!’ It was as if he were about to spring up from the chair again; but all he did this time was grip the arms. She had stepped further back, and now he said, but in a normal-sounding voice, ‘Please go away.’

  She stayed for a moment or two longer; then she backed out of the door and pulled it closed, and on the sound of it he opened his mouth wide; then gripping his chin, he muttered, ‘No, no,’ and slowly his mouth closed again. No more gas attacks. No, no. That part was finished with. But that she should appear at the very moment when he had just finished writing of that first night with Susie and how her face had turned into the child’s, and in what followed he had felt the purity of the child in Susie. It had been the most wonderful experience. Nothing he had thought of before had ever come up to it. He had been glad he had waited for that ecstasy that hadn’t ended in a moment but had gone on and on. And then to learn…

  He now flung an arm wide as if throwing off the child who had become defiled, and he was the defiler, just as all men were defilers.

  It had been following the shock of Susie and while on a forty-eight-hour pass that he saw them, a line of them, laughing, joking, going from one foot to the other while they stood in the queue waiting their turn. It had come to him in that moment the unfairness of the saying that man acted like a beast: beasts would never act like man; they were selective and there was a time arranged by nature to satisfy their needs. In that place there hadn’t been much chance of selection. So they had lined up. To what? To a victim, or another Susie? The sight had created a stench in his nostrils that remained with him, a stench that was stronger than any of the blood-soaked, mutilated, gangrenous limbs that he had handled on the trains. And then he had asked himself if he was less of a man because he thought this way? He had wanted love, and to love, and to feel the essence of love, but it had ceased to be clean. It had become dirtier than the war had become, on a par with gas. Yes, gas. Oh, gas. That had been the end. Gas. The blind eyes, the choking throats, and agonised hands. The bursting lungs spewing forth.

  But why had she to come at that moment? the moment he had dreaded to face up to and then to write about; and that word she used to him. He could have struck her. And she had looked so frightened. And yet where had the child gone? Where had the girl gone? She now looked a young woman. How old was she? Sixteen, seventeen? Oh yes, she must be that. She was so tall. Yet her face hadn’t changed, nor had her voice. But why had she come? Oh, yes, yes; his mother was ill. Well, hadn’t he known something was wrong with her, else she would have been here? Why hadn’t he gone to see her? She did not represent civilisation, nor people, and chatter, and daily papers, lying daily papers covering up the faults of old men. But they couldn’t cover up the graves, could they? Nor the numbers, hundreds, thousands, millions that would look upon the stars no more. Were they all looking down from heaven? The padre used to say that they were at rest now in heaven. Were they standing up, or laid out in rows, the hundreds, thousands, millions? Why weren’t they falling through the clouds?

  He sprang from the chair, put his hand on hi
s head, drew in a long, long, slow breath and said aloud, ‘Stop it! No more! Get rid of it! Go on writing it out!’

  He went into the other room and was about to sit down at the table on which, at one side, lay his writing case and a pile of papers, all sheets covered in a close spidery hand, and at the other books and loose-leaf folders. He didn’t sit down, but he said, and again aloud, ‘Do it now! Don’t put it off. You must do it now!’ And with this he went to the door, took his greatcoat off a hook, pulled a cap onto his head, and left the cottage.

  During the following week Gerald visited his mother three times, and each time Janie had been aware that he was in the house simply by going to the side entrance and finding the door closed; she always left it ajar until she was about to go upstairs to bed. But in no way did she show herself during his time in the house.

  On his third visit he sat with his mother for almost an hour. In order to keep him by her side a little longer, she felt she could ask him about his work. Was he, for instance, going to compile his writings into a book?

  Yes, he said, that was his plan.

  And was it all about the war? she dared to ask him.

  Yes, but the war of a conscientious objector. The title would be ‘My Conscience, My Cross’.

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ They looked at each other for a moment before she asked, ‘Has it helped you? Will you publish it?’

  ‘Yes, definitely it has helped. But no, I won’t have it published, because that would mean—’ he moved uneasily on his seat before going on, ‘Well, you know what it would mean, and I couldn’t bear…well, publicity…people.’

  ‘You could use another name.’

  He smiled wanly at her. ‘And this same address? Just imagine what would happen. The things that I’ve dared to say and…and expose would cause questions to be raised in Parliament and stir up the white-feather gang again.’