The Mallen Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘She hasn’t lost her senses, Dad.’

  ‘Well, she’s lost something, lad; if she won’t open her mouth or talk with her hands as she used to I can see Brigie having to nurse her for the rest of her life.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You say no, no, as if you know something different. Does she talk to you?’

  ‘No.’

  They were staring at each other very hard when Harry said quietly, ‘It surprised me, you know, when I discovered you had ideas in that direction. Gave me a gliff, to say the least. I used to think you liked going down there for the air and change ’cos your nose couldn’t bear the rotten stink round these quarters, and then, well quite candidly, lad, I thought you were a bit gone in the nut, even to think of her, because as far as I could see she had firmly made up her mind in another direction. And another thing, if I remember rightly, you two never did hit it off, sparring was your occupation when you met. Now, well, I’ve got to thinking otherwise. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, Dad.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Try to get her to marry me.’

  ‘Aw, lad! lad!’ Harry pulled himself forward to the edge of the chair, leaned his forearms on the desk and bowed his head over them before he went on, ‘You’re lashing a dead horse, aren’t you, from all sides as I see it. In the first place, if she was so mad over the young farmer that she almost killed the lass because he looked at her, then she’s not goin’ to forget him lightly. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘I’ve thought of that.’

  Harry lifted his head back on his hunched shoulders and stared at his son, and his voice had a kindly note to it as he continued, ‘And then apart from her being in this trancelike state, and from what I can gather from Doctor Carr, aye’—he nodded sharply now—‘I had a talk with him about it. He explained it like, to use his words, it’s sort of like a safety guard on a loom, as I see it, put there so’s you can’t probe too far, and as he said it could go on for years. Then there’s this other thing she’s got to live with, her deafness. Lad, have you thought well about it ’cos you’ll be taking something on your plate whichever way you look at it?’

  ‘I’ll be glad to take it on my plate, that’s if I get the chance.’

  ‘Oh, well, you know your own business best. Does it mean then you’re going to settle down and stick it out here?’

  ‘No.’ The answer came sharp and definite, and Harry showed his surprise on his stretched face and he repeated, ‘No? Then what do you intend to do, ’cos in any case she’ll have to be kept in the style, as they say in that class, to which she has been accustomed? Brigie has given her the manners and education, and it’s meself that has supplied most of the trimmings so to speak. Not that I minded doing it, ’cos I was very grateful for what Brigie did for you all, especially Katie. But now’—he gave a short laugh—‘it looks to me that Brigie’s efforts in that quarter have been wasted an’ all ’cos something’ll have to be done with our Katie. Talk about a rebel in the camp, my God! I never thought to live to see the day. But that’s another story and it’ll have to be dealt with later. At present we’re talking about you and…and Barbara. You say you’re not staying on here, so would you mind telling me what you intend to do?’

  Dan moved a step away from the end of the desk. He turned his head and looked at a glass-fronted bookcase that held few books but stacks of ledgers and papers; then he rubbed his hand hard over the lower part of his face before looking at his father again and saying, ‘We…ll, it’s something I was going to bring up with you but…but later. I was going to ask you if you’d be kind enough to give me my share that would be due…’ He closed his eyes and gave his head a jerk to the side, then added rapidly, ‘I didn’t mean that, there’s nothing due to me, you’ve given me everything so far and generously, but…but you would in the end, I suppose, be sharing things out between the three of us, and…and I wondered if you’d give me what you consider, well, the amount that…that I might get later on, or at least some of it, enough to enable me to travel for a while with…’ He stopped.

  Harry was glaring at him now but his voice was quiet as he said, ‘Aye, go on.’

  ‘Well, with Barbara; if she’ll have me.’

  ‘And…and how much do you think your share will be?’

  ‘I’ve…I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But you’ve got a sum in mind?’

  ‘Well, I thought three or four thousand.’

  ‘Three or four thousand.’ Harry pressed his lips tightly together and sucked them inward for a moment, then he said, still quietly, ‘Three or four thousand, just like that; three or four thousand. And if you get it, how long do you think it’s going to last you travellin’ the world?’

  ‘Quite some time the way I would spend it; I’m…I’m not looking for the high life. I…I just want to see places, learn, think. Oh’—again he shook his head, closed his eyes, then jerked his chin upwards—‘I…I can’t explain it properly, I’m not putting it over as I should. I…I only know that I’ve got this urge in me to move. And whether she comes with me or not, I’ve got to get away.’

  Harry now dropped his chin forward and, his voice very low, he said, ‘That makes me sad, lad, to hear you say that you’ve got to get away; it’s as if we had the mange.’

  ‘Aw! no, no, Dad. You’ve got me wrong, quite wrong. I…well, how can I put it? I…I care deeply for you and John and Katie. We’re a family, we’ve always been happy together. How can I make you understand my needs?’

  ‘Don’t try, lad, don’t try; but if gettin’ away’s so important to you there’s nothing more to be said. You know me, I keep nobody against their will. But let me put this to you, have you thought about if she’ll marry you and not want to move? An’ then there’s the woman who’s been mother and father to her, who she’s clung to all these years, will Barbara want to leave her? And there’s still another side to it. You take Barbara away from the cottage and what has Brigie got left? Nowt as I can see. She’s built her world around that lass, she’s eaten, breathed, and slept her. I can look back to when she was a little bairn, Barbara, and Brigie holding her in her arms and the mother look on her face. Have you thought about that side of it?’

  ‘No, but now that you mention it I…I would be very concerned for Brigie’s feelings; but it wouldn’t stop me taking Barbara if she’d come.’

  ‘Well then, that’s settled.’ Harry now clapped his two hands flat down on the desk. ‘As I see it all you’ve got to do is to persuade the lass to come back to life, then woo her as the saying goes, marry her, and go off…How long do you think it’s going to take you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And if she doesn’t have you, you say you’ll still go off?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll still go off.’

  ‘Aye, well’—Harry pulled himself to his feet—‘now we know where we stand, at least you do, but I’m still left with that bloody house and all its bloody problems.’ His voice was getting louder now. ‘And I’ve nobody to go to but meself to ask for advice, so I ask you, do you see any reason for me keeping it on? John doesn’t. As soon as he’s settled he’ll go over to Pearson’s semi-mansion ’cos Jenny doesn’t want to leave old Walter. Funny that, John gone, you gone; I wonder if Katie will insist on bringing Willy here ’cos she’ll think I’ll be lonely. Well, if she goes, I’ll say this to her, no bloody fear. I like Willy, I’ve got nothin’ against him, but when I leave the mill, I leave the mill, I don’t bring it home to bed. The mill’s becoming a mania with Willy…You said something along those lines a while ago, if I remember, not that it’s a bad thing mind, as long as it’s kept in its place. Well, what I’m saying is, I just couldn’t stand the two of them in the house: trade unions, politics, slum conditions, an’ the poor for breakfast, dinner, and tea. No, no, I’d rather finish the race on me own. But I can’t see meself finishing it sitting in that Hall alone, nor yet here.’

  There was a faint smile on
Dan’s face as he said, ‘Aunt Florrie’s doing her best.’

  Harry turned his head slightly to the side while keeping his eyes fixed on Dan, and he said, ‘Aye-aye. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. But I thought you didn’t fancy her as a stepmother.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Oh, well, whether you do or don’t makes little odds, your future’s yours, though of the two, mine seems more plain sailing. Anyway, lad, let’s get to bed if we want to get up in the mornin’ with the lark.’

  Dan did not move for a moment, but stood looking toward Harry before he said quietly, ‘Thank you, Dad, thank you for everything. And…and I’d like you to know that I’ve always appreciated what you’ve done for me.’

  Harry, his head nodding up and down now and a twisted smile on his face, said, ‘Well, that’s something to know; ’tisn’t every son that thanks his father for bringing him up. But if the truth were told I’ve only been the provider, standin’ in the margin so to speak, letting the others get on with it, while your mother and, of course, not forgetting Brigie, did the work…Aw, Brigie’—he put his hand on to Dan’s shoulder and led him toward the door and out into the hall, saying now, ‘Funny how that woman’s been the pivot we’ve swung round on for years, isn’t it? Brigie this, Brigie that; would Brigie like it? Would Brigie approve? And if ever there was a bloody stiff starchy bitch, she’d been it; never bend an inch, would she? An’ still won’t.’

  As they looked at each other and laughed, Harry said, ‘You know, I’ve only see her off her guard once, an’ then it was ’cos she thought I’d insulted her, but…but I was just leading up to something, something I was going to say to her when our John came in and that was that. I admitted to meself later on that I might have been a bit tactless in the way I put it, saying to her that nobody would think she’d been mistress to a man for ten years, but in my way I meant it as a compliment and…’

  Dan stopped at the bottom of the stairs and his mouth remained open for a moment before he whispered, ‘You…you didn’t, Dad! You didn’t say that to her?’

  ‘Aye. Well’—Harry looked to the side—‘I suppose saying it ice-cold like that it does sound a bit much, but, as I said, I was leadin’ up to something else and I thought it was common knowledge anyway, and she knew that. And it is, it is. She was an old man’s mistress, wasn’t she? Talk of the countryside. I’d heard all of it afore I ever clapped eyes on her, and when I did meet her I couldn’t believe it. She was so blasted ladylike, I couldn’t imagine her ever taking her shift off to go to bed.’

  ‘Oh! Dad.’ Dan was laughing deep in his stomach now and as the laughter rose he again said, ‘Oh! Dad.’ And Harry’s laugh now joined his and he gasped, ‘By! it is funny, isn’t it, when you come to think on’t? I’m still a bloody ignorant bugger at bottom. It’s true what they say about silk purses and sows’ ears.’

  They went upstairs together, step in step, their heads back, their mouths wide, and when they parted on the landing and went to their respective rooms they were still laughing.

  Seven

  Dan sat on the side of the bed and looked at Barbara lying propped up on her pillows. Her cheeks were hollow, her face was colourless, she could have been thirty years old from the look of her. Her hands lay on top of the coverlet, separate, the fingers straight out. ‘Would you like to see Dad, he’s downstairs with Brigie?’

  Her eyelids closed, which meant no, and when her mouth opened and her lips trembled slightly he said quickly, ‘All right, all right.’ Then after the pause that followed he said, ‘It was an awful journey down, freezing, but I was better off than Dad, I was squashed between two fat women.’ He demonstrated with his hands the size of the women. ‘It was so desperately cold that I nearly cuddled up to one, the one with the foot warmer.’

  There was no flicker of amusement on Barbara’s face, but her gaze held his and he went on, ‘But I’d pass through Ireland to get out of Manchester and away from the mill and’—he smiled wryly now—‘number forty-seven. I can look back to the times when the meals used to be jolly affairs, but not since Katie took over. Oh my! Our Katie!’ He shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t believe the change in her, you wouldn’t, Barbara.’ He nodded at her. ‘The only thing I can say in her favour is that she’s taught me a lot of social history just from listening to her. How she must have read this last year! And you know, she’s made me read too, just to be able to argue with her. I got a bit tired of hearing the unions glorified. And there’s so many of them: the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, societies of bricklayers, iron founders, iron workers, cotton spinners, weavers’ unions, and I forgot to mention black pudding, pease pudding, and rice pudding associations.’

  He laughed down into her face as she stared back at him; then his smile slowly fading, he asked softly, ‘Do you feel any better, Barbara?’

  Was there a slight movement of her head or did he just imagine it? There was another pause while he looked into her eyes, then he sat back and, assuming his jocular tone, went on, ‘To hear our Katie talking about the unions you would think their members had been bred in monasteries, all the men are so good, honest, upright individuals, all fighting their wicked masters. Mind, I’m not saying that some of the masters don’t deserve that title and they need to be fought, but hearing it from Katie meal after meal got to be too much, so’—he now nodded his head at her—‘you can understand when I came across a certain piece of information concerning a little gunpowder plot, and nothing to do with Guy Fawkes but with a union and its members, I lapped it up, so the next time she started I said to her, in my most aggravating and superior way, you know what that’s like’—he pulled a face at her—‘I said to her, “Did you ever hear of a tin of gunpowder that was placed in the house of a Sheffield non-unionist in an attempt to blow him up?” Oh, you should have heard her. Yes, she had heard of it. But that was in sixty-six and the men had been provoked beyond endurance, she said. And then I asked if she had heard of the Sheffield unionists and those members of the Manchester brickmakers’ clubs who had done murders in the name of the unions—they had actually killed one employer whom they considered was unfair. Of course, they’d hired someone to do their dirty work and paid him twenty pounds for the job.’ He laughed again as he ended, ‘Believe me, Barbara, I nearly laid myself out for assassination, she became so angry. She was red in the face and bawling. This was an isolated case, she said; the unions were fighting for their lives, which meant the lives of their wives and children…Do you know, it’s a good job they don’t allow women in Parliament else she’d be there tomorrow. If the men of the towns hadn’t got the vote in sixty-seven, believe me she would have got it for them this year. She talks of a junta, of Comte’s theories, you know positivism. Or perhaps you don’t. I didn’t. Anyway, he was some French philosopher who died over twenty years ago. He started a religion of humanity, as he called it, and this is what our Katie keeps on about, among other things of course. You wouldn’t recognise her, Barbara. I tell you you wouldn’t. She quotes from some fellow called Harney, who ran a newspaper. The Red Republican. Every proletarian who does not see and feel that he belongs to an enslaved and degraded class is a FOOL, was what he said, and she believes it. She talks about the death of the Chartists’ Movement as if it were a family affair. There was a prominent member of it called O’Connor and the other night during the whole of dinner she gave us his life. I went to blow her up but Dad just laughed. Fifty thousand people followed his hearse, she said. The poor fellow had died in the asylum, I think, and I told her that that’s where she’d end up if she didn’t stop all this ranting.’

  He stopped suddenly; and now, his voice very soft again and his lips moving widely, he said, ‘You’re tired; you don’t want to hear all this rubbish.’ And when her eyes blinked rapidly he said, ‘Oh well, then, our Katie’s doing some good with her life after all.’

  But he found he couldn’t continue yapping about Katie and her socialistic ideas; for at this momen
t he had the painful, awful, gnawing desire to drop his head forward and rest it on her shoulder, on her breast, to put his arms about her, to put his lips on that still mouth, gently at first, then hard, fiercely, to bring it into life. He took up her hand and held it between his own, stroking the thin, bony fingers, and he looked into her face again, saying, ‘It’s beginning to snow again. Remember when we used to take the sledge over to the hills? Remember the time when I went head first into a drift and there were just my legs sticking out and nobody bothered to pull me out right away because you were all laughing your heads off? I might have died.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I might at that, and you would still have gone on laughing. Do you remember?’

  There was no movement from her lids and he bent forward and said softly, still mouthing the words, ‘Oh! Barbara.’

  He was brought upright by the door being pushed open and Mary entering carrying a tea tray. When he turned towards her she cried at him, ‘Sitting on the bed again, Mr Dan! I’ve told you it spoils the mattress, it does.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a new one, Mary.’

  ‘Likely have to by the time you’re finished.’

  ‘I thought you were out.’

  ‘Well, I’m not, am I? I got back fifteen minutes or more ago. By! It’s cold. It would freeze the nose of a brass monkey, and sittin’ on that cart I told him, I told Ben, I did. You should have a cover over this, I said, an’ supply blankets. By the time I got off I didn’t know whether me feet finished at me knees or not. And then in the town you couldn’t get moved.’

  She kept up her chattering as she poured out the tea; then taking a cup to the bed she put it to Barbara’s lips, saying ‘There, dear, there; just as you like it,’ and as Barbara sipped at the tea, she added, ‘That’s a good girl. That’s a good girl,’ as if she were speaking to a small child. Then turning to Dan, she added, ‘If you want to go downstairs, Mr Dan, I’ll stay put here for a time.’