It was as recently as last summer that Donald had shown this side of himself when, entering the cottage on their Sunday visit, they had found company there. There were two young men, one called Ferrier, scarcely more than a boy, and the other by the name of Will Headley about his own age, which was twenty then. It wasn’t the first time he had encountered these two young men; at different times over the years they had met up. He understood them to be the grandsons of Thomas Mallen’s old friends and so it was natural that they should visit him.
On this particular Sunday when they entered the sitting room they were engulfed in a burst of laughter. Constance was laughing gaily; but then Constance always laughed gaily, her beauty of face and figure was enhanced by a joyous soul which contrasted sharply with Barbara’s looks and temperament. But on this day Barbara, too, was laughing unrestrainedly, and he thought that it was this that had annoyed Donald, for he scarcely spoke during the whole of their visit; in fact his presence put a damper on the gathering. They had hardly left the cottage on their return journey when he burst out, ‘That old witch of a Brigmore is planning to marry them off.’
Matthew did not contradict the statement but it overwhelmed him with sickness. He’d be very sorry for Donald if Barbara did marry Will Headley; but rather that than it should be Constance. He did not take into account the Ferrier boy; he was much too young and, as he gathered from the conversation, his mind was on nothing but this Oxford place to which he was going in the autumn.
Matthew now shook his head slowly from side to side. He was shaking it at himself, at his blindness, at his lack of knowledge of this half-brother of his. He should have known that Donald never did anything the way other men did, for he wasn’t like other men, he had a canker inside him that gnawed at him continuously. He had been born and brought up on this farm, but from that day when he was nine years old he had disowned it while at the same time attempting to run it, even of late be master of it.
But there was one thing sure, if he didn’t belong here, then he certainly didn’t belong over the hills in the house where his real father lived, for always when in the company of Thomas Mallen Donald appeared gauche and out of place, and this caused him to assume an air of condescension, as if it was only out of the goodness of his heart that he visited this old man. The butter, cheese, and eggs he took over every week only emphasised this attitude. But Thomas Mallen showed plainly that he liked this son; and Donald’s attitude seemed to amuse him. And the girls liked him; they, too, had been amused in those early years by his bombast; and when the bombast had, with time, turned into a cautious reticence they had tried to tease him out of it, at least Constance had.
There was only one person in that household who didn’t like him and who showed it, and that was Miss Brigmore, and Donald, on his part, hated her. Years ago Matthew felt he should hate her too because Donald did, but secretly he had liked her, and whenever he could he drew her into the conversation because he learned from her. He knew that Miss Brigmore had things that he wanted, she had knowledge, knowledge to give him the power to talk about things that he understood in his mind but couldn’t get off his tongue; things that came into his head when he looked down into the water, or watched the afterglow, or when his thoughts deprived him of his much needed sleep and he crept quietly from the pallet bed and knelt at the attic window and raced with the moon across the world sky—Miss Brigmore had once said it wasn’t the moon that raced but the clouds, and he just couldn’t take that in for a long time. It was she, he knew, who could have made these things more clear to him, could have brought his feelings glowing into words; but he did not talk with her much because it would have annoyed Donald, and he was, and had always been, secretly afraid of annoying Donald.
But oh dear, dear God! Matthew’s thoughts jumped back into the present. Donald had just said he was going to ask Constance to marry him. Constance in this house every day. He wouldn’t be able to bear it. He had loved Constance from the moment he saw her offering Donald a strawberry; he knew it had happened at that very moment. He also knew that it was a hopeless love, for he considered her as far above him as the princesses up there in the palace. So much did he consider her out of his reach that he had never even thought of her and marriage in the same breath; what he had thought was, I’ll never marry anyone, never. And when he thought this he always added, anyway it wouldn’t be fair, not with his cough. They hadn’t said he had the consumption, but he’d got the cough all right, and as time went on he became more and more tired, so much so that often he thought that it would be a poor lookout for the farm if Donald weren’t as strong as two horses. And Donald delighted in being strong. Give him his due, never had he balked at the extra work. Many a day, aye, many a week he had done the work for both of them, and he had been grateful to him. But now as he stared into the dark face, whose attraction was emphasised with a rare smile, he experienced a moment of intense hate. Then he began to cough, and the cough brought sweat pouring out of him.
‘Don’t let me news choke you.’ Donald came round the table and thumped him on the back. ‘Here, take a spoonful of honey.’ He reached out for the jar, but Matthew shook his head and thrust the jar away.
When he regained his breath, Donald asked him, ‘Well, now, are you going to say something?’ and Matthew, after a deep gulp in his throat, muttered, ‘Have…have you thought that she mightn’t fit in here, in the house I mean?’
‘The house? What’s wrong with the house? It’s as good as the one she’s in now.’
‘But…but it’s different.’
‘How do you mean, different? It’s got as many rooms, counting the loft, an’ the countryside around is bonnier.’
Matthew shook his head again. What could he say? Could he say, ‘Yes, but it’s an old house, and it’s a cold bare house because it hasn’t got in it the draperies and the knick-knacks, nor yet the furniture that’s in the cottage’? Yet, of its kind, he knew that it was a substantial house, a house that many a farmer’s daughter would be glad to be mistress of. But Constance was no farmer’s daughter, and although she had been brought up in an atmosphere provided by Miss Brigmore, an atmosphere of refinement and learning, Constance was a lady. They were all ladies over there, in spite of their poverty. Then again, their poverty was relative. He understood that they had two hundred pounds a year between them, and that to him, and thousands like him, was far from poverty. He said now, ‘I thought it was Barbara.’
‘Barbara! Good God, no! Never Barbara. Barbara’s all right, mind, she’s got a sensible head on her shoulders, but she’s as far removed from Constance as night from day; sometimes I wonder at them being sisters. No, never Barbara.’ He walked down the length of the kitchen now and stood looking out of the window and into the yard. A line of ducks were waddling down the central drain on their way to the pond. His eyes ranged from the stables, over the grain store and the barn, to the side wall where the cow byres began, and next to them the dairy. He now pictured Constance in the dairy. She would take it all as fun. She mightn’t take to the work as quickly as another brought up on a farm, but that didn’t matter. There would be no need for her to do all that much, his mother would do the rough as usual. But Constance would transform the house; transform him, she would bring gaiety into his life. He had never experienced gaiety, only as an observer when he went on his Sunday visit across the hills. Although he rarely allowed himself to laugh he liked laughter, he liked brightness in another, and she was all laughter and brightness. She would rejuvenate the whole atmosphere of this place; she’d bring to it a quality it had never known. It was a sombre house, and he admitted to himself that he was responsible for a great part of the feeling. It all stemmed from something in him he couldn’t get rid of. Yet even before the knowledge of his parentage had been kicked into him on that day at the fair he could not recall being any different. But once Constance was here, once he was married, he would feel different.
He thought wryly it was as if he were a female bastard and marriage would give hi
m a name, a legal name. He couldn’t explain the feeling even to himself; it was mixed up with his children; he knew that as each one was born his isolation would lessen. What was more he intended to give them the name that should rightly be his. He would call his first son after Matthew because he liked Matthew—he did not use the term love—but following the name Matthew he would add the name Mallen. Matthew Mallen Radlet; and as time went on he could see the Radlet fading away and his children being known as Mallens; and if they bore the streaks as he did, all the better.
One thing troubled him and then but slightly, what would be the old man’s reaction to him wanting Constance? He knew that the old man liked him, and he took credit for bringing a certain spice to his life. Without his weekly visits he guessed that Thomas Mallen would, over the years, have been very bored indeed with his existence, for he had grown sluggish in his mind if not in his body; the latter had been kept active, no doubt, by that shrew of an old crow, who not only acted as if she were mistress of the house but to all intents and purposes was mistress of the house. He had no doubt whatever about her reactions to his wanting Constance because she would not want to lose Constance, nor the hundred pounds a year that went with her.
He himself wasn’t unconscious of the hundred pounds that Constance would bring with her. He could make a lot of improvements on the farm with an extra hundred pounds a year. Oh, quite a lot.
When he turned from the window Matthew was gone, and he pursed his thin lips and pushed aside the feeling of irritation that the empty kitchen aroused in him. But he could excuse Matthew for not being enthusiastic at his news; Matthew was sick, and he’d be more sick before he died. He jerked one shoulder, he didn’t want to think about Matthew dying. Anyway, the consumption could linger on for years; if he was well cared for he might live till he was thirty.
He walked smartly out of the room; he must away and get changed. This was one day he’d look his best, his Mallen best.
Two
Miss Brigmore set the bowl of porridge, the jug of hot milk, and the basin of soft brown sugar at one side of the tray, and a cup and saucer and silver coffee jug at the other, and in the middle of the tray she placed a small covered dish of hot buttered toast. As she lifted up the tray from the kitchen table she looked to where Barbara was attending to her own breakfast, as she always did, and she asked, ‘Did she cry in the night, do you know?’
‘She’s taken it much better than I expected.’
‘You can’t tell; beneath her laughter you don’t know what she is thinking; her laughter is often a cover.’
Miss Brigmore raised her eyebrows as she went towards the door which Mary was holding open for her, and she thought to herself that she was better acquainted with what went on inside Constance’s head than was her sister. In fact, she was well acquainted with what went on in both their heads. It would have surprised them how much she knew of their inner thoughts.
She went slowly up the narrow stairs on to the landing, turned her back to the bedroom door and pushed it open with her buttocks, then went towards the bed where Thomas Mallen was still sleeping.
‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Her voice had a chirpy note to it. ‘Your breakfast is here.’
‘What! Oh! Oh yes.’ Thomas pulled himself slowly up among the pillows, and when she had placed the tray on his knee he blew out his cheeks and let the air slowly pass through his lips, then said, ‘It looks a grand morning.’
‘It’s fine…I think you should take a walk today.’
‘Aw, Anna.’ He flapped his hand at her. ‘You and your walks, you’ll walk me to death.’
‘You’ll find yourself nearer to it if you don’t walk.’
He looked towards the window, then said, ‘It’s Sunday,’ and she repeated, ‘Yes, it’s Sunday.’
They both viewed Sundays with different feelings. He looked forward to Sundays; she hated them for this was the day when that upstart came over the hills and acted like the lord of the manor himself. Talk about putting a beggar on horseback and him riding to hell; if ever he got the chance there was one who would gallop all the way.
She had never liked Donald Radlet from when he was a boy; as he grew into manhood her dislike had at times touched on loathing. She, who could explain everyone else’s feelings to herself, couldn’t give a rational explanation for her own with regard to Thomas’ natural son. It wasn’t jealousy; no, because if his son had been Matthew not only would she have liked him but she might also have come to love him. But in Donald she saw only a big-headed, dour, bumptious upstart, who made claims on this house because of his bastardy.
But perhaps, she admitted to herself, there was a touch of jealousy in her feelings towards Donald, because although the matter had never been discussed openly she guessed that Thomas not only liked the man but strangely even felt a pride in him. In a way she could understand this, for not having had a sign or a word from Dick all these years he had come to think of him as dead, and had replaced him in his affections with this fly-blow, because that’s all Donald Radlet was, a fly-blow. She did not chastise herself for the common appellation for she considered it a true description. But for the tragedy that had befallen the Hall and its occupants those ten years ago, Donald Radlet would not have been allowed past the outer gates and Thomas, although he might have been amused by the persistency of the boy who viewed the Hall from the top of the crag, would no more have publicly recognised him than he would any of his other numerous illegitimate offspring.
Thomas said now, ‘How is Constance?’
‘I haven’t seen her this morning, but Barbara tells me she passed a good night; at least she didn’t hear her crying.’
‘She was disappointed.’
‘More than a little I think. It was dastardly of him to call as often as he did when all the while he was planning his engagement to another.’
‘As any man before him he was likely astraddle two stools. If things had been as they used to be he would, I’m sure, have chosen Constance, but which man in the position the Headleys are in now could take a young woman with a hundred a year? They are almost where I was ten years ago, an’ I should crow. But no; having tasted such bitterness, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’
‘He had no right to pay her attention.’
‘He didn’t pay her attention as such, he’s called here for years.’
‘You didn’t see what I saw.’
He put his hand out towards her now and caught her arm and, gazing into her face, he said softly, ‘No-one sees what you see, Anna. Have I ever told you you’re a wonderful woman?’
‘Eat your breakfast.’ Her eyes were blinking rapidly.
‘Anna.’
‘Yes, what is it?’ She stood perfectly still returning his look now.
‘I should marry you.’
The start she gave was almost imperceptible. There was a silence between them as their eyes held; then in a matter-of-fact way she said, ‘Yes, you should, but you won’t.’
‘If I had put a child into you I would have.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t then, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed it is; but you can’t say it wasn’t for trying, can you?’ His voice had dropped to a low whisper and the corner of his mouth was tucked in. She now smacked at his hand playfully before saying, ‘Eat your breakfast, the toast will be cold, the coffee too. And then don’t linger, get up; we’re going for a brisk walk through the fields.’
‘We’re doing no such thing.’
She had reached the door and was half through it when she repeated, ‘We’re going for a brisk walk through the fields.’ And as she closed the door she heard him laugh.
She now paused a moment before going across the narrow landing and to the door opposite, and in the pause she thought: ‘Men are cruel. All men are cruel.’ Thomas was cruel; he would have married her if he had put a child into her, and how she longed that he should. She needed children. There was a great want in her for children. That the time was almost past for her having any of h
er own hadn’t eased the longing, and she assuaged it at times with the thought that once Barbara and Constance were married there would be children again who would need her care; she would not recognise that marriage might move them out of her orbit.
As for Thomas not giving her a child, she knew that the fault did not lie with him—the proof of this came across the hills every Sunday. But over the past ten years he had not strayed for she had served him better than any wife would have done. In serving him she had sullied her name over the county. Not that that mattered; she cared naught for people’s opinion. Or did she? She held her head high now but if she had been Mrs Mallen it would have needed no effort to keep upright.
And now here was her beloved Constance suffering at the hands of another man. Will Headley had courted Constance since she was sixteen; there was no other word for it. Before that, on his visits he had romped with her and teased her, but during the past year his manner had changed; it had been a courting manner. Then yesterday when she was expecting a visit from him, what did she receive? A beautifully worded letter to the effect that he had gone to London where his engagement to Miss Catherine Freeman was to be announced. He thanked her for the happy days they had spent together and stressed that he would never forget them, or her.
The Mallen Streak Page 12
