The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  Now she was in the sitting room at the farm and there, facing her, were her Auntie Jessie and Carl. And she had just opened their present, at least one of two presents, and was exclaiming aloud as she held up in front of her the lovely pale blue taffeta dress, saying, ‘It’s beautiful. It looks too good to wear.’

  ‘It could be a party frock.’ Carl was smiling widely at her. And she looked at him for a moment with a look that didn’t exactly hold disdain, but something they both understood, for it said: what party?

  ‘And the pearls will go with it.’ Jessie held up a double strap of necklet pearls.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Oh, thank you both.’ And impulsively she kissed Jessie, then Carl.

  And now Jessie said, ‘But these aren’t all. You should see the lovely cake that Mrs McNabb has made for you. She thought she would keep it till teatime and we’d have a little party on our own.’

  ‘Oh, Auntie Jessie. Oh, I’m sorry. I…I won’t be able to come, I don’t think, not today.’

  ‘What! Why not?’ It was Carl asking the question now. ‘Surely they can get on without you for one afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know, but…well, I must tell you something and…well, it’s this.’ Before she went on she turned and picked up the dress from where she had dropped it on a chair before she had embraced them, and she laid it carefully over the back. Then turning to them again, she said, ‘I’m…I’m becoming engaged to be married today.’

  They stared at her blankly, then glanced at each other. It was Jessie who said, ‘What! Engaged…who to? Who are you engaged to be married to? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just what I said, Auntie Jessie. I could have told you before, weeks ago, but I promised myself I would wait until my seventeenth birthday and then you couldn’t say, Don’t be silly, you’re still a child or some such, as you always do. I’m seventeen today, Auntie Jessie, and I feel I’ve been seventeen, eighteen or nineteen for a long time. And as you know, I’ve been doing the work of someone older for a long time. And I know my own mind, I always have, always, for years and years.’

  ‘Who are you becoming engaged to, dear?’ Carl’s voice was quiet.

  ‘Well, need you ask? To Mr Gerald.’

  ‘No! No!’ It was almost a scream from Jessie. ‘No! I won’t allow it. You’re mad, girl, as mad as he is.’

  ‘He’s not mad. Never has been mad.’ Janie’s voice was quiet but each word was emphatic. ‘He went through so much in the war that his mind closed up against it and all those people who perpetrated it. He is no more mad than you or I. But speaking of me, there’s more chance of my going mad with my background than of his.’

  ‘He’s old enough to be your father.’ Jessie closed her eyes tightly at this. What had she said? But Janie picked it up, saying, ‘But he didn’t happen to be one of the three, did he, Auntie Jessie? He was, though, the one who found my mother, so I understand, and carried her back here. And he was the only one, let me tell you, who showed me any kindness, apart from you, Carl; because you didn’t, Auntie Jessie, you were my gaoler, and I was just something to fill up the gap in your life. You see, the way I’m talking is not as a young girl would, Auntie Jessie; someone who doesn’t know her own mind. Now, no matter what you say or what you do, you’ll not stop me in my purpose.’

  ‘Has he asked you to marry him, dear?’ The question coming from Carl was again quiet.

  Janie looked away from him for a moment before answering, ‘No, he hasn’t, and I know he never will. But what I do know is that he loves me. And I’m going to tell him today that I love him and we are going to marry. Not straight away, but we are going to marry.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Neither Carl nor Janie went to Jessie’s side as she slumped into a chair; but Janie looked at her, saying now, ‘You never liked him, did you, Auntie Jessie? For the simple reason that he told you your treatment of me was wrong. Well, there it is. I’m sorry I won’t be over today, but if you still want me to, I will come tomorrow. And very soon’—she now turned to Carl—‘if you’ll allow it, Carl, we’ll walk over together to see you…because, in a way, I’ve known he’s always looked upon you as my guardian.’

  Carl said nothing.

  But when she turned to look at her Auntie Jessie again she saw her actually shudder. Slowly she picked up the dress and the string of pearls, saying, ‘Thank you so much for the pearls.’ And then she added, ‘I suppose I may keep them?’ which brought a grimace from Carl as he said, ‘Don’t…don’t say things like that.’ Then she walked out.

  The minute the door was closed on her, Jessie sprang from the chair and, going to Carl, she said, ‘You…you’ve got to stop it! It’s indecent. That man must be forty or near it.’

  ‘My dear’—he put his arm around her shoulders—‘I can’t stop it, and I wouldn’t if I could. In fact, I’ve known it would come about some day. Yet, I must admit it was a bit of a shock, especially today and the way she put it over, when she implied he would never ask her. And what he says when…she proposes to him will never be known, I suppose.’

  ‘But he’ll take her.’

  ‘If he’s wise, yes he will, dear. She’s loved him from the beginning, I know that; and that man had a most protective feeling for her as a child, which must have grown with the years, especially of late.’

  ‘Oh dear Lord!’ She turned from him now. ‘More fodder for the village.’

  ‘Damn the village!’ She almost jumped at the sound of his voice, and he repeated, ‘Yes, Jessie, damn the village. That village is not going to impinge on my life or on this farm any more. And she being who she is, it won’t impinge on hers. I’ll take a bet on that. So damn the village!’ And on this he, too, walked out of the room, and she was left exclaiming to herself, ‘Oh, that girl! That girl! She’s been the bane of my life. And now this. Is it ever going to end?’

  The bane of her life was standing at the farm gate and Carl was saying to her, ‘I understand, dear. Yes, I understand.’

  ‘And…and he’s not forty, Carl, he’s thirty-seven or perhaps thirty-eight.’

  He smiled at her now, saying, ‘What does a few years matter? The main thing is that you love him. But how do you think he’s going to take your proposal?’

  ‘Not quietly.’ She smiled at him. ‘He’ll argue a lot, put up more obstacles than Auntie Jessie would ever dream of, and…well, I’ll take it from there. Whatever he says I’ll point out to him that I consider myself engaged and…and that next year we could be married.’

  He suddenly pulled her to him and said, ‘You’re one in a million. You always have been.’

  When she put her free arm around his neck and said, ‘Thanks for everything, Carl. Next to him I love you best of all. And oh my!’—she pressed herself from him—‘my dress will be all crushed,’ she said, and she made motions of smoothing out the dress, then said, ‘Bye-bye, Carl.’

  ‘Bye-bye, love. Come over tomorrow. I…I want to hear the end of the story. No, no, not the end, the beginning.’

  ‘Yes, Carl, I’ll do that…and the beginning.’ …

  It was an hour later when she reached the cottage. The weather had turned sultry, the sky was low and it promised rain. He was standing outside in his shirtsleeves and he greeted her with, ‘Hello. I think we’re going to have a storm.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said; ‘we could have a storm.’

  ‘Happy birthday, Janie.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you feel any different?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I feel twenty-seven.’

  He laughed his gentle laugh. ‘You have a long way to go, my dear, before you come to that. But come in. Look, it’s spotting rain.’

  ‘Have…have you been working?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, ma’am, I’ve been working since early on. I should say that I have a quarter of an acre ready for planting. So watch out, I might beat you at your own business.’

  ‘It isn’t my business, never was my business. It’s your business. I’ve just been carrying it on for you.’r />
  ‘Now, now, now, don’t start, it’s your birthday. Look, I’ve got a little present for you. Stay there.’ He pointed to the couch, and she sat down. When he returned to the room he dropped a parcel onto her lap, saying at the same time, ‘I’d better light the lamp. It will soon be dark in here.’

  As he lit the lamp she undid the paper and looked down on what, if it had been bound, would be the flyleaf of a book, and the heading was, ‘Conscience Crucified’. And, underneath was a pen and ink drawing of the Three Crucifixions. She looked up at him and said, ‘You’re…you’re giving this to me? You’re not having it published?’

  ‘No. No, I told you I wasn’t having it published. And, although I am giving it to you, I would urge you not to read it for some time. Put it aside as one of those useless Christmas boxes that one gets, say, for about another year.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ He looked up towards the low smoke-dyed ceiling and repeated again, ‘Why? Well because I don’t want your emotions to be torn to shreds by the wailings of a conscientious objector.’

  ‘They’ve already been torn to shreds by the wailings of a conscientious objector.’

  ‘Huh! Huh!’ He was chuckling now. ‘I’ve never known anyone in my life to come back with answers to a statement that asks for further questioning. But in this case I am not going to ask you the question about your emotions.’

  ‘No, because you’re afraid to.’

  ‘Now, now, Janie, don’t start. We made a pact some time ago. Remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember, and that pact was we were to be friends. But friends can talk plainly to each other, otherwise they are not friends but just acquaintances who have to be polite and probably lie while doing so. Anyway, it’s my birthday and you’ve given me a present. I…well, there’s something else I want.’

  ‘Something else?’

  ‘Yes, something else.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘I want to be engaged.’

  He screwed up his face. ‘Engaged? Engaged in what?’

  She was on her feet now and actually yelling at him, ‘Don’t be so damned stupid! I want to be engaged to you!’

  ‘What? You must be…this is romantic nonsense, girl. You are seventeen years old and I’m nearing forty. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’

  ‘I won’t stop it, and you don’t want me to stop it; you are just covering up again. You’ll marry me sometime, so it might as well be soon.’

  ‘I’ll…I’ll not marry you sometime.’ He now held both hands up before his face, though not touching it. It was as if he were putting a shield between them. And when she grabbed them, saying, ‘You know that our ages have nothing to do with it. You love me, you always have. And I look back and I cannot remember the time when I started to love you, nor the time when I will ever stop.’

  It sounded like a whimper. ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord, Lord…’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing! Only remembering something that someone said, and I’m appealing to Him now to keep me sane, or, what is more important, to bring you to your senses.’

  When she stepped back from him his hands slowly dropped to his sides and, looking at her, he said, ‘You’ll never know how much I…I am more than honoured, but I can’t let you throw your young and clean life away.’

  ‘Will you stop talking like some character out of a book? We’re standing facing the truth in this awful little cottage.’ She now flicked her hand to the side. ‘I am seventeen and you are thirty-seven and you love me. And what’s more, you need me. And I love you and I want you, and it will come about sometime. I know it will. And you in your heart want it to come about. And now, please, please, Gerald, hold me, just hold me.’

  He did not raise his arms towards her until she lay against his chest, her head under his chin; and then he was holding her, every fibre of his body shaking as he pressed her to him. And then he kept repeating her name, ‘Oh, Janie! Oh, Janie! My Janie! Oh, Janie!’ And when her brow became wet she looked up at his face to see it aflood with tears, silent tears. And now she beseeched him, ‘Oh, don’t cry. Don’t cry, my love. Please, please don’t cry.’

  But he went on crying and now taking her with him, he stumbled towards the couch, then dropped onto it. And when his crying became audible, she beseeched him, ‘Gerald! Gerald! Listen to me, it’s all right. I’m sorry. Please!’

  But between loud agonising sobs he gulped out, ‘Let me cry, my love, let me cry. I…I have never cr…cried, never. Hold me tight, Janie. Hold me tight. Don’t ever leave me. And let me cry.

  ‘Oh, let me cry. Let me cry, my love.’

  The End