The Mallen Streak

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘I’m big enough to speak for mesel’.’ The younger boy was thrust angrily aside, and he would have toppled had not the hand that thrust him grabbed at him and brought him up straight again. The boy kept tight hold of the younger one now while he spoke from deep in his throat with a man’s voice, ‘I’m known as Donald Radlet, I’m from Wolfbur Farm an’ this,’—he jerked the arm in his hand—‘is me brother…half-brother, Matthew.’ There was a pause before he ended, ‘An’ you are Thomas Mallen.’

  There was a suspicion of a smile around Thomas’ lips as he answered, ‘True, boy, true, I am Thomas Mallen. But tell me, why have you taken this long to introduce yourself?’

  ‘’Cos I do things in me own time.’

  Thomas now stared at the lad long and hard, and his eyes had a steely glint to them. Then, as if considering the matter, he said, ‘Yes, I suppose you would. I suppose you would.’ Again he was silent, until on a somewhat lighter note he added, ‘Well, don’t let us stand here talking like hill farmers meeting in the market, let us go…’

  ‘Don’t say nowt against hill farmers, they’re the best ’uns. We’re hill farmers.’

  Thomas’ head jerked to the side, his jaws were tight. Six months earlier he would have taken his hand and skelped the mouth that dared to speak to him in that tone, but now, after a pause, he adroitly pressed the gaping children and Miss Brigmore and Mary Peel before him, and he walked in front of the two boys for quite some way before he said, ‘You’ve got to be a good farmer to make a hill farm pay.’

  ‘We are good farmers.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘Our cattle are good an’ all.’

  ‘You have cattle on a hill farm?’

  ‘Of course we have cattle. Anyway some; we have three flat meadows. We bought two of your stock a while gone an’ they were poor things; your byre man should’ve been shot. Their udders were sick, full of garget; the shorthorn was half dry, only two teats workin’; an’ if t’other ever gets in calf she’ll be lucky. Doubt if she’ll weather a service; the look of the bull’ll scare her. We were done…’

  ‘I’m surprised, and you so knowledgeable. You must have got the rakings, and very cheap at that…’

  Miss Brigmore did not hear the boy’s answer; she was hurrying the girls forward now. Such talk. Teats and calving and bulls. And she failed to understand Thomas’ attitude towards the boy. He had showed no sign of palpitation at the unexpected meeting. The boy’s aggressiveness seemed almost to amuse him; could it be possible he was seeing him as his son, because when all was said and done that’s what he was, his son. She cast a quick backward glance. Thomas was now walking alongside the boys; he seemed amused, and more alert than she had seen him for weeks. A thought entering her mind, she asked herself would she object to anything that would give him an interest in life? She was fully aware that she herself could only fill his needs in one way; or perhaps two; she saw to his comfort during the day as well as at night. But a man had to have something else, particularly a man of Thomas Mallen’s stamp. Would this boy supply it? She again glanced over her shoulder, at the same time pushing the girls farther forward out of earshot. Catching her glance, Thomas made a motion with his head towards her and it was as if he were confirming her thoughts.

  Thomas had guessed what his Miss Brigmore, as he playfully called her in the night, was thinking and he was wondering at this very moment if this young, raw, vibrant, brusque individual who bore his mark on his head might not be the answer to a prayer that he hadn’t known he was praying, for he was certainly no praying man.

  There had, during these past weeks, been a deep void in him, a loneliness, that even Anna hadn’t been able to fill. It wasn’t, he knew, so much the loss of his home and worldly goods and a way of living, or even the loss of his son; it was the way in which he had lost him, that had left on him the taint of cowardice and shame. He doubted he would ever see Dick again. And this thought brought him no great sorrow but what did sear him, even now, was the knowledge that he had no real friends.

  When the hunt for Dick was at its height no-one had come near him, at least no friend, but he had had enough company of officials. It wasn’t until the newspapers announced that Dick Mallen must by now be well away over the sea—in what direction wasn’t stated, for it wasn’t known—that Pat Ferrier had paid him a call and told him that Dick was in France. A mutual friend had taken him there on his private boat. But Pat Ferrier had brought no letter from Dick, no word of regret. Nothing. The irony of it struck Thomas when he thought that even his son could produce two good friends at least, while he himself went barren of all but Anna.

  He glanced towards the boy walking by his side. There was a resemblance between them, a definite resemblance, and not only in the streak. He could see himself again as a young boy; perhaps his hair had not been so black, or his eyes so dark, and definitely his manner had not been so arrogant, although his upbringing could have warranted it, for the proverbial silver spoon had certainly been in his mouth all his days. Yet here was this lad, brought up on a farm, and whether good, bad, or indifferent, it was still a farm, assuming the manner one might expect from someone of breeding and authority.

  When the boy turned his dark, fierce gaze on him he was put at a disadvantage, until, aiming to make casual conversation, he said, ‘How large is your father’s farm?’

  ‘A hundred and twenty acres, and he’s not me father. I call him Da; but he’s his father.’ He jerked his thumb towards the smaller boy while his gaze rested on Thomas’ face. And neither of them spoke during the further twenty steps they took, but the boy’s eyes were saying plainly, ‘Let’s have no more fiddle-faddle, you know the position as well as I do.’

  It was Thomas who broke the trance-like stare calling in a voice that was much too loud, ‘What are we having for supper, Miss Brigmore?’

  Miss Brigmore stopped abruptly, as did the girls and Mary, and stared at him. Then she said, ‘Cold soup, ham, and salad, and strawberry pastry.’

  ‘Have we enough for two extra?’

  She could not prevent her eyes from widening and her mouth opening and shutting once more before looking towards the boys and saying, ‘They will want to get home; they have a long way to walk over the hills. Their people may be wondering.’

  ‘They won’t be wonderin’.’The boy’s voice had that definite, hard, determined ring to it that seemed to be the very essence of his nature. ‘Da allows us half-day a week for roamin’; we can go back anytime so long’s we’re up at five.’

  Miss Brigmore was silenced. She seemed to have to drag her eyes from the boy, and when she looked at Thomas he smiled broadly at her and said, ‘Well there, you’ve got your answer. We have two guests for supper.’

  She turned, and they all walked on again. She should be happy that he had found a new interest but that boy disturbed her. He was too strong, too dominant for his age. She had never encountered anyone like him before. Now if it had been the younger one, she could have taken to him, for he was much more likeable, gentler, better mannered. But then he wasn’t Thomas Mallen’s son.

  PART TWO

  DONALD RADLET OF

  WOLFBUR FARM

  One

  Donald Radlet was born in the winter of 1838 when his eighteen-year-old mother, Jane Radlet, had been married about five months.

  Jane Radlet had been born on the West Farm of High Banks Hall. Her father was the byre-man, her mother the dairymaid. From the time Jane was born her mother hardly left her bed until the day she died; the midwife’s dirty hands had set up an internal trouble, for which there appeared no cure. Constant evacuation wore her body away, yet she lived on for twenty years.

  Jane was the only child of the marriage and she could remember back to when she was three years old, when she first visited the cesspool on her own to empty the bucket. She was about four when she began to soss the dirty sheets, and this she did every day of her life, until she was eighteen years and two months old when she left the farm and went
over the hills with Michael Radlet.

  On that day Michael Radlet took her past his farm without even stopping to look in, and to the church near Nine Banks, and there he married her, with the gravedigger and the parson’s wife for witnesses. She cried all the way back to the farm; she cried on her wedding night because she lay alone; and she cried at intervals during the following days, because she knew that for the first time in her life she was going to be happy.

  Michael Radlet was eighteen years her senior and he was known as a good, God-fearing, hard-working man, and a man who had rightly prospered through his hard work, for his farm, although small, was well stocked, and his land, although on hilly ground, was utilised to the last foot by his cattle. He worked daylight and moonlight for six days a week, but on the Sabbath he did only what was necessary for the animals; the rest of the day he read his Bible, as his father had taught him to do, and he allowed his one helper the day off to visit his people.

  He first noticed Jane Collins when he took his only two Ayrshires over the hills to be serviced by the High Banks bull. He could have taken them to Pearson’s Farm, which was only three miles away, but Pearson’s bull was of poor stock. Jane had been barely sixteen then, and for the next year he pondered whether he should speak to her father in case she should be snapped up. Yet he doubted if her father would allow her to be snapped up because, he understood, she was the only support in his house, where she looked after his sick wife and cooked the meals and generally did the work of an adult woman, and had, so he had heard, done so since she was a child. But he was quick to note that the long years of labour had not marred her beauty, for her face was round and smooth and her eyes gentle, and her hair a shining brown. Her body was good; her hips wide and her breasts promising high.

  It was on the day following the Sunday when he had read and dwelt on the birth of Benjamin that he went over the hills to speak to her father, the words of the good book drifting through his mind: ‘And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.’

  He wanted a son, badly he wanted a son. His first wife had been barren; that was God’s will, but Jane Collins would not be barren. He had a feeling about Jane, a strong, urging feeling to hold her, to love her. Some of his love was threaded with pity for her plight, for it was evident she’d had a hard life.

  John Collins was about his work in the cowshed when he confronted him, and when he put the proposal to him he was surprised that the man should bow his head deeply on his chest. It caused him to ask, ‘What is it? Is she already spoken?’ And John Collins had turned his head away before nodding; then looking him straight in the face he said, ‘You have come too late, she’s been taken down.’

  Taken down! He had not spoken the words aloud but they had yelled at him in his mind. He had come too late, she had been taken down. Well, it was as he thought, she could bear children. But he had imagined they would be his children, the children he needed, the son he needed. He experienced a hurt that went beyond anything he had felt before; even when his wife had died the sense of loss hadn’t been so great as now.

  His voice was hollow as he asked, ‘She is to be married then?’

  John Collins shook his head before he raised his eyes and said, ‘No, no, she is not to be married.’

  There was another silence between them, broken only by the jangle of the cows’ chains and their splattering.

  ‘You know the man?’

  There was another silence before John Collins, looking into Michael Radlet’s eyes, said, ‘No.’

  As they continued to stare at each other they both knew the answer was a lie, and John Collins knew that Michael Radlet knew it was a lie, and the denial told Michael Radlet immediately who the father of Jane’s child was, and why this man couldn’t speak the truth. There was only one man around these parts he would keep silent about, and that was his master, the whoring rake, Thomas Mallen. John Collins was handicapped. Should he protest to the Justices that his daughter had been raped, for raped she would have been by that sinning devil, then he would be out of a job with no roof over his head and a wife that needed a bed more than she needed anything else. And where would he get it for her but in the workhouse? He was sorry for the man, he was sorry for the girl; and he was sorry for himself also.

  When he had crossed the hills back to his farm the loneliness of the vast spaces entered into him as never before. He had lived among the hills and the mountains all his life, as had his forebears for eight generations before him. Space was in his blood, the space of the ever-rolling hills; the awe-inspiring space viewed from the peaks; the space of the sky reaching into infinity. He had always felt at home in space until that day, and on that day he had walked with his head down across the hills…

  It was six weeks later when he crossed the hills again, but with his head up now and his mind firm, one purpose in it: he would take Jane Collins in the condition she was. For five Sundays he had prayed and asked guidance of God and yesterday he had received his answer. The Good Book falling open in his lap, his eyes saw the words, ‘For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked and ye clothed me: I was sick and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

  ‘Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee and hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee?

  ‘Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

  ‘And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’

  He had wanted a sign, and he took it as a sign, and so the following day when he reached the West Farm he said to John Collins, ‘I will marry her,’ and the tears had run down the man’s face and he said, ‘She’s a good girl.’

  A week later, when Michael Radlet brought the girl over the hill and to the church, she hadn’t looked at him until he put the ring on her finger, and it was from then she had begun to cry…

  Jane Radlet had been surrounded by old people all her life. The four men on Mallen’s West Farm were old, their families grown up and scattered; her father was old. There were two young men on the East Farm, but they were both spoken for by maids in the house. It was on her journey to the East Farm that she had met the other old man, at least he had seemed old to her for he was in his forties, but he was different.

  Her only break in the week was on Sunday afternoon when her father took over the household chores and she went to visit his cousin, who was wife to the shepherd on the East Farm. She did not care for her father’s cousin but it was somewhere to go and someone to talk to. Sometimes on the road, too, she had met people, who gave her a word. It was on the road she had met the man on horseback. He appeared a very hearty man and he had stopped and talked with her, and told her that she was pretty.

  It was impossible for her to believe now that she hadn’t recognised the man as the master of the Hall. Yet there was an excuse for her for she had never seen him on his visits to the farm. Their cottage stood alone and well back from the farm buildings, and such was its situation that she needn’t go near the farm unless she wanted to take her father a message; yet even so she had told herself that anyone but a fool would have recognised the master because her father had talked of him, and her mother had talked of him. Big, dark, pot-bellied with high eating and drinking, but then he was no worse than the rest of the gentry and much better than some, being generous to his staff at harvest and Christmas.

  Came the Sunday they had met, he had got down from his horse and walked with her through the wood, and there he had tied his horse to a tree and had laughingly pulled her down beside him on the sward. At first he just talked and made her laugh; at fir
st she hadn’t realised what was happening; when she did she had struggled, but he was a big man, and heavy. When it was over and she sat numbed and dazed with her back against the bole of a tree, he dropped a gold piece down the front of her bodice, and patted her cheek before he left her.

  Weeks later, when her mother found enough strength to upbraid her, she had retorted with anger, ‘Who was there to tell me? I’ve seen no-one but you an’ da for years except for that hour once a week when I’ve talked with Cousin Nellie. And what does she talk about? Only the doings of her son in faraway America, and how to grow pot herbs and the like. Who was there to put me wise? Who? I had only me instinct to go by, and it didn’t come to me aid, ’cos I judged him to be an old man.’

  ‘Old!’ her mother had said. ‘And him only mid-forty. You’re stupid, girl, men are bulls until they die, be they eighteen or eighty…Instinct!’

  When her father had told her that she was to be saved from disgrace and that Michael Radlet was going to marry her, her only reaction had been, he’s old an’ all, besides which he was short and thick-set and with no looks to speak of. She had felt she was merely going from one servitude to another, until she finally reached his farm when he told her in simple words that he would not treat her as his wife until after her child was born. She had looked at him fully for the first time and seen that he was not really old, and moreover, that he was kind; and her crying had increased.

  The strange thing about her crying was that she couldn’t remember having cried at any time in her life before; and afterwards she realised that the constant flow of tears was a form of relief, relief from her years of servitude. Her whole life seemed to have been spent amid human excrement, washing it from linen, smelling it, emptying it. The smell had permeated the very food she ate. She had left her mother with no regret whatever. Her mother had cried at her going, not so much, she knew, at the loss of her as a daughter, but because now she would be at the mercy of an old crone from the village. She was sorry though to have left her father; she liked her father, for he was of a kindly nature.