Stroking Lucy’s hair, Emily silently endorsed this, thinking, ‘Me too, Lucy; how I wish I was going with you,’ knowing, at the same time that Lucy’s going must, in a way, tie her to this house, for she was now under an obligation to its master. Nevertheless, the wish to be gone was strong in her at this moment and it wasn’t only because the mistress had thrown the dinner at her; it was more in a way because of what the master had done to his wife. People in a position like the master shouldn’t hit a woman; that to her mind only happened among the working class, the poor working class. Somehow he had gone down in her estimation. But then she had known right from the beginning that he wasn’t a gentleman, not in the right sense of the word, not a real gentleman. So, after all she supposed it wasn’t so surprising that he should hit his wife.
Only a few hours ago he had stood in the kitchen here and told her she was beautiful, and the way he had said it had put all kinds of fancies into her head…Well, that scene up there had cleared her head.
What would she do if a man ever went to hit her? Oh, she knew what she’d do, she’d pick up the first thing to hand and let him have it, she wouldn’t stand for any man hitting her; she had seen too much of it in Creador Street…What had she just said? She’d pick up the first thing and let him have it? Funny, but that’s what she up there had done, but the other way about, she had thrown the dinner first.
An odd idea struck her at this moment…the mistress hadn’t really thrown the dinner at her, she had thrown it at him.
Two
The doctor sipped slowly at his coffee until the cup was empty; then he placed it on the table and looked to where Larry was staring fixedly at him and nodded as he said, ‘I thought it only right to tell you.’
‘You mean to say she suggested that I might try to do her in?’
‘Yes, something along those lines. She also said she didn’t wish to be buried with undue haste when she died, she would like a week to elapse before interment.’
‘My God!’ Larry rubbed his hand hard along the side of his jaw before saying, ‘Is there any way she can do me out of the farm and…and all this?’ He made a sweeping motion with his hand.
‘No, no’—the doctor shook his head—‘you have a husband’s rights. As far as I can see the house and farm will be yours. You are her lawful husband and, therefore, have a legal claim to what is hers. I don’t really think you need worry yourself very much on that score, but I would advise you to go gently with her. She’s a very sick woman; I would give her no cause for complaint against you…She hasn’t asked to see your solicitor of late, has she?’
‘No. No, she hasn’t mentioned him. But since you speak of it, that is another point, my solicitor does not act for her; the deeds of the house and her personal business are, as far as I know, still with Clark, Maine and Sutton. They’ve always attended to any legal business required. It was she who suggested I should go for any advice I needed to Barrett and Golding.’
He rose to his feet now and started to pace the room, the doctor watching him for a moment before he, too, rose, saying, ‘Well, I must be on my way.’
‘I don’t like it.’
The doctor turned his head to the side and looked at him and sighed before saying, ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t be of any help to you on legal matters, I can only advise you that if it is at all possible you keep her happy.’
‘Keep her happy!’ Larry gave a huh! of a laugh now and, looking straight at the doctor, said, ‘You know as well as I do, doctor, that it’s not in her nature to be happy. Let’s face it, she’s a vindictive woman.’
The doctor now turned away and walked down the length of the drawing room and he had reached the door before turning to say, ‘Well, about that you should know best.’
The following morning a letter came from Lucy and Emily’s face beamed as she read it. Lucy was settling down in that faraway place at the other end of the country. She had made a friend called Miss Rice. Wasn’t that a funny name? But Miss Rice was lovely. She was twenty-two years old and her people lived nearby, and when they came to visit her they brought her lots of fruit and other things, and Miss Rice shared them with her. She ended her letter by saying that Miss Rice was a lady, if Emily knew what she meant, and she hoped Emily was as well as it left her at present.
Emily put the letter on the table, smoothed out the four corners of it, gazed down on it, and laughed aloud.
She was still laughing when George Archer, the new help, came and stood in the open doorway and, looking towards her, said, ‘If you tell me what you’re laughin’ at I’ll laugh with you, Emily.’
‘Oh’—she wagged her chin up and down—‘it’s me sister. I’ve had a letter from her. She’s gettin’ on like a house on fire in this hospital I told you of.’
‘Oh, I’m glad to hear that.’
‘You want your tea? Give us your can here.’ She reached out across the table and took the can from him, and as she stood at the stove filling it from the teapot he asked quietly, ‘How’s the missis this morning?’
‘Oh, same as usual.’
‘Can’t she move at all?’
‘Only the top half of her.’
‘She can’t walk about at all?’
She looked at him over her shoulder before she replied, ‘No.’
‘You have to do everything for her I suppose?’
‘Aye, everything.’ She now came back to the table and put the lid on the can, and as she thrust it down with the pad of her thumb she repeated, ‘Everything.’
‘Some job!’
‘Yes, as you say, it’s some job. But then beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘Huh!’ He laughed now. ‘I couldn’t ever imagine you begging, Emily.’
‘Well, I was nearly on the point of it when I got this place…Do you like him?’
‘Who?’
‘The boss.’
‘Aye, yes, I like him. Yes, I think he’s a decent bloke, as far as I can gather. Some of them wouldn’t give you the smoke that went up the chimney.’
‘I’m glad you like him. You be fair to him and he’ll be fair to you.’
‘Well, I’m doin’ my best.’
‘I know you are, George. Do you want a shive?’
‘I wouldn’t say no.’
She now went into the pantry and returned with a thick ham sandwich and a square of currant cake, and as she handed them to him he said, ‘Ta, Emily…By, you’re a bonny lass!’
‘Go on with you!’ She flapped her hand at him. ‘Go and tell that to the cows, it might work on them.’
‘It does. It does.’ He was laughing loudly now. ‘Every time I play up to Pansy she gives me another half gallon.’
As he went out laughing she laughed too. She liked George Archer. He had been on the place only three weeks but he had already proved himself to be a good hand. He had come straight off the road, having tramped all the way from the West Country doing a bit here and there without getting anything permanent, and now it appeared as if he could be set for life if he kept on working as he was doing, and he was quite young, not thirty yet, and not bad looking either.
At the end of his first week Larry had said to her, ‘I think I’ve struck lucky with Archer.’ ‘Aye,’ she had answered; ‘I think you have. And if you could persuade Mrs Riley to come full-time I’d feel I’d struck lucky an’ all.’
But as yet Mrs Riley couldn’t be persuaded to stay out in the wilds, as she termed it, for all of a full week. In her heart, Emily didn’t blame her, for at times she got very tired of the wilds herself, when she would develop a longing like a deep homesickness to pick up her skirts and run from the place, right back to Shields and the waterfront itself. She might stop at Aunt Mary’s in Gateshead but the waterfront would be her destination.
At such times she would tell herself she wasn’t made for the country; this would be when she felt the urge to talk to someone, to have just a little natter. She missed Lucy. Oh, she did miss Lucy.
In any spare time she had at night
s now she had taken to reading. She read the Newcastle papers that the master brought in twice a week, and now and again she would take a book from the library, but most of these she found very hard going. There was little of the love story in them; the few she had worked her way through seemed to go all round the houses before getting to the point, so she considered.
She couldn’t believe that by next Tuesday she would have been in this house a year, and yet when she looked back it seemed more like ten, or a whole lifetime. Yes, a whole lifetime…She needed a break of some kind. She’d never had a holiday in her life and she was never likely to. But apparently she wasn’t the only one, for there was that funny piece of poetry in the little book Sep had given her. It went:
‘John Gilpin’s spouse said to her dear –
Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years,
Yet we
No holiday have seen.’
There were lots of funny and interesting bits in the book. She had been reading it of late by candlelight in bed. It stopped her thinking about Lucy and helped her to fall asleep.
She had come to the conclusion that whoever the person was who had written the things in the book didn’t think much about women because one of the quotations, written under the heading of ‘Hannah Cowley’, read: ‘But what is woman?—only one of nature’s agreeable blunders.’ And there was another which read: ‘It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a bawling woman in a wide house.’
Yet of all the pieces in the book she liked the one about the tide. Somehow it brought her closer to Shields and the river running into the North Sea. And that last line, ‘Never say die’; she hadn’t said that for a long time, perhaps because there had been no emergency, no need to prod herself.
There was a sameness about life now. Every day in this house was a matter of routine and it all centred about the room above the kitchen…which reminded her: it was close on eleven o’clock. She had the mid-morning tray to take upstairs, and then go across to the farm with Abbie’s break tea. Oh, he was a stubborn old devil, that Abbie, for he wouldn’t let George bring it across for him ’cos, naturally, he was resenting the young fellow’s presence; nor would he come for it himself. One of these days she would leave his tray under the arch and yell, ‘There it is, Abbie! You’ll have to come to it afore it comes to you.’
The hot milk and biscuits on the tray, she whipped off the coarse apron she wore over her white one in the kitchen, smoothed out her bib, pulled her mob cap straight, lifted up the tray and went out of the room.
Outside the bedroom door, she balanced the tray on one hand, tapped on the door with the other hand, then turned the knob, and when it didn’t respond to the slight push she gave it she dropped her hand from it and stepped back and stared at it as if it had personally offended her in some way.
Having placed the tray on the table to the side of the door, she took the knob in both hands and pushed at the door. But it did not even shudder.
‘Well, I never!’ She even said the words aloud in surprise. The door hadn’t been barred for weeks; there had been tantrums and sulks, and fights with the master, and the ignoring of herself, but the door had remained open.
‘Madam!’
She put her ear to the door; it was no use putting her eye to the keyhole for that was blocked.
As she listened she had the idea that she heard a shuffling movement across the room, but of course that was sheer imagination, it was likely the sound of her scratching at the bedcover, as she did with her two forefingers when irritated…yet no, it wasn’t like that.
There it was again. What was she up to in there?
‘Madam, I’ve brought your drink.’
She straightened her back. Oh well, she’d open the door when she got hungry enough. But then, she hadn’t seemed very hungry of late. She had picked over her food; even the special tasty dishes she made for her were left, and there was never an excuse or a word of thanks such as ‘I’m sorry I was unable to finish it, Emily, because it was so very nice.’
She often thought if her mistress was ever really civil to her she would faint away. It was a pity she wasn’t a nice woman because she would have enjoyed looking after her, and she felt that she could have made her happy in a way. She could have made her laugh by telling her about her Aunt Mary and her squad. And what was more, she could have learned things from her. For instance, she could have asked her to explain some of the things that she read and didn’t understand, especially some of the bits in the little black book. But there, the woman was made as she was and nothing would alter her now.
She picked up the tray and went down the stairs again, and when she reached the kitchen she stood for a moment by the table thinking. Should she go and tell him or wait till he came in? It wasn’t half an hour ago that he had been upstairs, and there had been no row. She had heard the murmur of their voices talking, but that was all; and when he had come downstairs and passed through the kitchen he had looked quite pleasant, not grim as he sometimes did after a visit to the bedroom. Well, she had better tell him.
As she ran across the yard the wind that was fresh and cold lifted her hair from behind her ears and blew it into her eyes, so that she didn’t see him until she bumped into him as he came sharply around the corner. ‘Whoa! Whoa there! Where do you think you’re off to?’
‘Oh.’ She laughed up at him now as she kept thrusting her hair back with her fingers. ‘I…I was coming to find you.’ She paused now as if to let the smile slide from her face before she said, ‘The door’s barred again.’
He didn’t answer her immediately but he screwed up his eyes and moved his head slightly; then half turning from her, he said, ‘Keep going up. If it’s not open by dinner time I’ll see to it.’
‘Aye, all right.’
‘Emily.’
She went on her way through the arch again, and she stopped and turned towards him. He had his hand half extended towards her and was about to speak, but all he said after a moment was, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
She watched him swing round and march back towards the byres; then she turned again and went towards the house, walking thoughtfully now.
At dinner time the door was still locked and he banged his fist on it, calling, ‘Rona! Stop playing about. Come on, open up!’ But there was not even the sound of her scratching the quilt now by way of an answer …
After three more attempts during the afternoon he was now standing at the open kitchen door looking out into the darkening twilight, and as Emily watched him biting on his thumbnail, a habit of his when he was angry or troubled, she voiced something she had often thought of before. ‘Why don’t you get a ladder?’ she said.
He looked at her over his shoulder and answered simply, ‘I promised her that I’d never attempt to get into her room by a ladder. To her way of thinking it would be breaking down the last barrier against her privacy.’
He had for a long time now when speaking of his wife to Emily referred to her as she, or her.
‘Well, the way I see it, there might come a time when you’ll have to break that promise. You know, she looked poorly this mornin’, whitish, and she didn’t touch a bite.’
He stepped back into the kitchen and looked up towards the ceiling, then down at Emily again, saying, ‘Perhaps you’re right. Yes, perhaps you’re right.’ And on this he swung round, and from the kitchen window she watched him hurrying across the yard and through the arch; and she remained still, waiting until he returned with a ladder.
When he had placed the ladder against the wall she went out and stood at the foot of it and watched him mount upwards. She watched him place one hand over his brow and cheek and press his face against the window. He kept it there some time before turning his head slowly about and looking down at her, and even in the dim light the incredulity registered in his expression was plain to her.
‘What is it?’ she asked softly.
He didn’t reply but again with his hand he sh
aded the side of his face and peered through the window. Then of a sudden he began to come down the ladder so quickly she thought for a moment he’d lose his footing and topple to the ground, and when he stood facing her he seemed unable to speak.
‘What is it? What’s up?’
‘She’s…she’s on the floor, lying on the floor near the fireplace.’
‘Eeh! No!’ she shook her head. ‘She can’t be.’
And now he repeated, ‘No, she can’t be.’ Then he almost bawled at her, ‘But she is!’ At this he looked wildly around the yard; then rushed into the kitchen, to return within a second carrying a poker in his hand.
She held the foot of the ladder while he quickly mounted it, but when he broke the window pane with the poker she sprang back to avoid the falling glass, and from a distance she watched his hand groping inside for the latch, then knock out the peg that prevented the window from being opened more than a couple of inches or so.
The moment he disappeared through the window she herself darted from the yard, through the kitchen and hall up the stairs, but when she tried the bedroom door it still held fast.
After a moment, during which she stood with her ear to the door, it was pulled open. She stared at him; his face looked colourless. Slowly she moved past him and, turning her head, looked at the bed on which her mistress lay.
There was no need to ask if she was dead, for she had the same look on her face as had been on Mrs McGillby’s; but added to that there was a cut stretching from the front of her ear up to the line of her hair and it was thick with dried blood.
He was standing by her side now, and when he whispered, ‘How in the name of God did she get there?’ they both looked towards the fireplace. It was all of ten feet from the foot of the bed.
Emily now turned her attention back to the bed. What was puzzling her now was the fact that the quilt was on the floor. She always tucked the quilt well down at the foot of the bed in order that it wouldn’t slip off, but there it was lying in a heap at yon side of the bed. Slowly now she went round the bed and picked it up, and after a moment’s pause filled with reluctance to go near the still figure, she laid it gently over her mistress. When she came round the bed again to where he was standing wide-eyed and staring like someone dazed, she had to prod him with her voice. ‘You’d better send for the doctor, hadn’t you?’ she said.
The Tide of Life Page 25
