The Mallen Streak

by Catherine Cookson

  Quickly now she began to unbutton her dress. Having stepped out of it, she folded it lengthwise and laid it over the back of a chair, as of habit; then she undid the strings of her first waist petticoat and stepped out of that; and she did the same with her under petticoat. It was as she stood in her bloomers, soft, lawn, lace-trimmed bloomers, a new innovation created by an American lady—the daring pattern of which she had copied from a ladies’ journal—that the door opened. She did not turn her head to look towards it, but with one swift movement she gathered up her two petticoats and holding them against her neck she dropped down onto the edge of the bed and drew up her knees under their trailing cover.

  Slowly and with a look of amusement on his face, Donald came towards her and, standing above her, he shook his head as he put out his hand and gently but firmly made to relieve her of her undergarments. When she resisted he closed his eyes for a moment, then said softly as if reasoning with a child, ‘Constance. Constance, you remember what happened today?’ He now stretched his face at her in amused enquiry. ‘Eh? You were married, remember?…Look,’—he now caught her hand and, holding the wedding ring between his finger and thumb, he shook it vigorously—‘you were married…we were married. Come.’ With a twist of his body he was sitting beside her, one arm about her, the other forcing her joined hands down over her chest.

  When her protesting hands touched her lap he released them, and his fingers now moved upwards to the buttons lying between her breasts. As if she had been stung she sprang away from him and, grabbing up her nightdress, pulled it over her head, and now, half shielded by the foot of the bed and with rapid contortions, she undressed under it as she had done as a child when she shared her room with Barbara.

  Miss Brigmore had early on introduced them to this pattern, reciting a little poem that went: ‘Modesty becomes maidens making ready for the night.’ And when alone, they had mimicked her but altered the words to: ‘Modesty becomes maidens who are little mealy-mouthed mites.’

  Still seated on the bed, Donald surveyed her. He was no longer smiling, no longer amused. From a deep recess in his mind a thought was oozing, like the matter from a suppurating sore. As it gained force it brought him up from the bed, and the action seemed to stem its flow; but he was still aware of it as he gripped her by the shoulders and said from low in his throat, ‘Constance, you are me wife, you’re no longer in the cottage with them, you’ve started on a different sort of life. And you’re not a child, so stop acting like one.’

  When he thrust her from him she fell backwards and leant against the brass rail at the foot of the bed. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. She watched him for a moment as he turned from her and walked across the room and pulled open the top drawer of the chest; then like the child he had denied she was, she scrambled up the side of the bed, tore back the bedclothes, and climbed in.

  When she next looked at him he was undressed down to his trousers. At this point she closed her eyes. She did not open them again until she felt him moving by the side of the bed; and what she saw would, under happier circumstances, have made her laugh, for he was dressed in a nightshirt that barely reached his knees. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a man dressed in a nightshirt, she had often glimpsed her uncle on his journeys back and forth to the water closet in the early morning. But then her uncle’s nightshirt reached his ankles. But Donald’s nightshirt exposed his lower limbs and she saw that they were hairy, as also was his chest that she glimpsed through the open shirt; and for a reason she couldn’t explain she became more fearful.

  Her body stiff, she waited for him to put out the lamp; but when he clambered into the bed the lamp was still burning. Now, leaning on his elbow, he was hanging over her, looking down into her face, saying nothing, just staring at her; and as she stared back at him she saw his whole countenance alter. There came over it the softness that she had glimpsed now and again, and her thoughts, racing madly, gabbled at her. It might have been all right if that storm hadn’t overtaken them. Yes, yes, it might. If only she could forget what had happened in the storm, put it out of her mind, at least for tonight. But she couldn’t because Matthew was there, somewhere across the landing, coughing—and knowing, and thinking.

  He still did not speak when he drew her into his arms and held her body close to his. But he did not bring his face close to hers; he kept his head well back from her and peered at her, and his whisper bore out the expression in his eyes: ‘I just want to look at you,’ he said, ‘look and look. I’ve dreamt of this moment for years. Do you understand that, Constance?’

  As the muscles of his arms suddenly contracted her body jerked against his, yet remained stiff. For the moment he seemed unaware of it, lost in the wonder of his own emotions and not a little blinded by his own achievement. But when his mouth dropped to hers and there was no response from her lips he brought his head up again, and now he asked, almost a plea, ‘What is it? What is it, Constance? Don’t be afraid, please. Don’t be afraid, I love you. I told you I love you, and I’ll love you as no-one has ever been loved afore. I need to love you, and I need you to love me. Do you understand that?’

  ‘… Say something.’ Again her body jerked within his hold.

  When she did not speak, the softness seeped from his face and he said thickly, ‘That damned old cow has filled your head with bloody nonsense about marriage, hasn’t she?’

  At this she managed to gulp and mutter, ‘No, no.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  If she had replied, ‘I’m afraid, Donald; it’s all so strange, everything,’ he undoubtedly would have thought he understood and might even have given himself another explanation for what he was to discover within the next few minutes; but she could not put on an act for him, she was not subtle enough, sly enough, and she was aware of this.

  ‘No, no! Not yet, please, please, not yet!’ Her voice was strangled in her throat, his mouth was eating her. His hands seemed to have multiplied like the snakes on Medusa’s head and were attacking her body from all angles…

  It was a full three minutes after she ceased to struggle that he raised himself from her. In part she had known the man Donald Radlet five minutes earlier, but she knew nothing of the man who was gazing down at her now. The face that she was staring into had about it a stricken look; then like wind-driven clouds that changed the face of the sky, the expression turned into one of wild black ferocity. She held her breath and tried to press her body deeper into the feather tick in order to ward off the violence threatened by his expression, but to her relief and surprise his body moved away from hers until there was a foot of space between them, and he was sitting upright, half turned from her, but with his eyes still on her.

  As if obeying a warning voice within himself, Donald moved still farther towards the edge of the bed, but continued to look at her. And as he looked he knew that the pus from the secret store in his mind was flooding his brain, and that if he didn’t control it he would put out his hands and throttle the thing he loved, and wanted to go on loving. But now there was a question about that for he knew that he had been duped; he, Donald Radlet, who was no man’s fool, who was as smart as they came, who allowed no-one to take the rise out of him without paying for it, who knew, who had always known, that if you followed the principle of wanting a thing badly enough you would surely get it, had been made a monkey out of.

  This then was the reason for her attitude. He could see it all plainly now; it was as clear as the white light that occasionally covered the hills, the light that took your gaze away into infinity. Her manner this past week, her being afraid to face him a week gone. She had taken to her bed when he dashed over the hills to find out what the trouble was.

  It was as he was leaving the cottage that he had met the Ferrier boy, because that’s all he was, a smooth-chinned, weak-kneed boy. But he was just going back to Oxford he’d said, and it was doubtful if that old cow would have left him alone in the bedroom with Constance for a moment. But if not he, then who else?

 
; There was that family in Allendale, with two sons. Both were a deal older than her, but what did that matter? Look at the old man for example. Yet it must have been a month since she had visited Allendale and what had taken place had taken place within the last fortnight.

  He looked into her face, beautiful, even angelic looking…but fear-filled. Had he made a mistake? Hell’s flames, no! he had made no mistake. He was no amateur coming to bed for the first time; he had been but fifteen when he took his first woman. And that was the correct term, took her; she hadn’t taken him, although she had been long at the game. She had laughed at him, and liked him, and every market day in Hexham he had managed to slip up the alley. She had supplied him until he was eighteen.

  One particular time when he went up the alley the door was opened by a young girl. Bella had died the previous week she said, but would he like to come in. Her name was Nancy; she was fourteen and she was the one and only virgin he’d ever had. But if he’d never had the experience he would have known that she, lying there, his wife, on this the first night of their marriage was no virgin.

  His pride was under his feet, his head was dragged down, his arrogance was broken, his self-esteem was as something he had never heard of for his mind was utterly deprived of it. He was no longer a Mallen flaunting his streak, finding pride in his bastardy, and through it feeling he had the right to confer condescension on even those who considered themselves his superiors—he was nothing. He was now as he had been that day in the market place when the Scolley brothers had laughed at him and called him a bastard. Yet he was not even as he had been on that day, he was less, much less, for on that day he had become aware that there was high blood in him, gentleman’s blood. On that day he found out that he was the son of a man who owned a grand Hall over the hills, a man of property and substance; and on that day he had sworn that he would grow so big in all ways that nobody would turn a disdainful look in his direction without paying for it, and whatever he desired from life he would get…

  And he had got it. She was lying there, and she was no better than any whore.

  She smothered a scream as he pounced on her, his hands round her throat, his nose almost touching hers, his words like grit spitting into her face. ‘Who was it? Tell me! Who was it?’

  When her body became limp under his hands he released the pressure of his thumbs; but now he had her by the shoulders, lifting her bodily upwards, and in a whispered hiss he demanded, ‘Tell me! Else I’ll throttle it out of you.’

  When she moved her head from side to side and gasped he shook her like a dog shaking a rat, and when the tears spurted from her eyes and a cry escaped her lips he turned his head quickly and looked towards the door before thrusting her back into the mattress.

  He remained still, listening. Then satisfying himself that if her cry had carried beyond the room they would likely take it as the result of a marriage-bed caper, he moved up to her again. And now leaning over her, his hands one on each side of her, he said, slowly, ‘You’ve been with somebody, haven’t you?’

  Her hands were holding her throat as she shook her head; then she stammered, ‘N…n…no.’

  ‘You’re lying. You can’t hoodwink me, not on this anyway. Who was he? I’ll keep askin’ you, I’ll shake it out of you. I’ll beat it out of you. Who was it?’

  ‘I tell you, I tell you…nobody.’

  He screwed up his eyes until they became mere slits, then repeated, ‘Nobody? Nobody you say? Then why didn’t you come over as you intended last week? It must have taken some storm to have put you to bed.’

  ‘It…it was…it was the storm.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  As she gazed into his face she realised that not only would she have to lie, but lie convincingly, for she knew that this man was capable, as Matthew had predicted, of slitting her throat as he did the pig’s.

  Like an actress taking her cue she obeyed the inner voice in her and, hoisting herself away from him, she tried to assume indignation, and in no small tone she cried at him, ‘You are mad. I don’t know what you mean, what you suspect, and…I won’t stay with you to be treated in such a manner, I’ll go home…’

  Immediately she knew she had overdone her part for he turned on her now, growling low, ‘You what! You what!’ His lean face was purple with his anger; the fact that she could even voice such a thing showed him a new aspect of his humiliation, a public aspect, something to be avoided at all costs, especially in his case, for were she even to attempt to go back over the hills he could never outlive the humiliation. But being who he was he knew that he would never allow it to get that far, and he told her so. In a thick whisper now, leaning towards her but not touching her, he said, ‘You’ll go home, as you call it, when they carry you over in a box to the cemetery but not afore, not if I know it.’

  When she closed her eyes and the tears washed down her face his teeth ground into his lips, and he bowed his head for a moment and, in real agony now, he groaned, ‘Oh Constance! Constance! Why? Why? How could you do it?’

  ‘I didn’t, I didn’t. I tell you you must be mad. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  He was looking at her as he said, ‘Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about why do you say you didn’t?’

  Her head wagged on her shoulders in a desperate fashion now as she muttered, ‘Because you are suggesting that I…I…’

  She suddenly turned from him and rolled onto her face and pressed it into the pillow to stifle the sound of her sobbing, and he straightened his back and turned from the bed. Having crossed the room to where his clothes lay, he slowly got back into them, all except his shoes, and these he carried in his hand.

  Without a backward glance towards the bed, he went to the door and, gripping it firmly so that it shouldn’t creak, he opened it and closed it after him. Cautiously he crossed the landing and went down the stairs. There was no light; he didn’t need one, he knew every inch of this house. Unbolting the back door, he went into the yard.

  He looked up at the sky for a moment. It was high and star-studded; the air was sharp with frost, there would be rime on the walls in the morning. He crossed the yard and went through a door next to the cow byres and into the warm steamy atmosphere that came from the boiler where the pig mash was simmering. The room was part harness room, part storeroom. He pulled down a bundle of hay and brought it near to the boiler and, sitting on it, he dropped his head into his hands and for the first time in his life Donald Radlet cried.

  Towards morning he must have dozed; but he became wide awake at the sound of the cockerel giving answer to the faint echo coming from another of his breed across the valley. He rose from the hay on which he had been lying and dusted himself down, then went out into the yard. He did not look up into the sky to see the light lifting, for his attention was caught by the gleam of the lamp coming from the kitchen. His mother must be up but it was early for her.

  When he entered the kitchen and Matthew, a teapot in his hand, swung round from the fireplace, he stopped and stared at him before saying, ‘Why are you up?’

  Steadying the teapot in both hands, Matthew went to the table and placed the teapot on it before he muttered, ‘I…I needed a drink; I…I had the shivers.’

  Donald was standing at the other side of the table now and he said, ‘Why didn’t you knock for Mam?’

  When Matthew gave no answer but reached out and drew a mug towards him Donald’s eyes focused on his hand which was trembling; then they lifted to his face. His skin had not the usual transparent glow about it this morning except for the two high spots of red on his cheekbones; it looked yellow, as if it had taken the tint from his hair. His gaze was held by the odd expression in his eyes; it was a startled expression holding fear. Well, he would be fearful, wouldn’t he? When a man knew he was going to die it would make him fearful.

  ‘How…how is Constance?’

  ‘Look out, you’re spilling the tea all over the place. Here! give it to me
…She’s all right, tired, exciting day yesterday.’ He actually forced his lips into a smile; it was the first effort in the pattern he had worked out for himself last night. He would act before the others as if everything were normal, and he would see that she did the same. By God! He would. One thing he wouldn’t tolerate and that was pity; even from those in this house who were near to him, for he knew that, being human, they could not help but think, And how are the mighty fallen! His da had a saying: If the eagle dies in the air it still has to fall to earth. Well, he had been an eagle and last night a vital part of him had died and he had fallen to the earth; but no-one would know of his fall.

  ‘Here, here! Hold on a minute.’ He could not get round the table quickly enough to save Matthew from falling backwards. When he reached him he was lying on the floor, his face now no longer yellow but deathly white.

  ‘Matthew! Matthew!’ He raised his head, then put his hand on his heart; it was still beating and quite rapidly. Bending now, he picked the inert figure from the floor as if it were a child and carried it upstairs, and as he passed the first door on the landing he put out his foot and kicked it as he yelled, ‘Matthew’s bad, get up.’

  He was lifting his foot again to thrust it out towards Matthew’s bedroom door when he saw Constance standing in the open doorway of their bedroom. Her face looked almost as white as the one hanging over his arm, and he cried at her, ‘Come and make yourself useful.’ It was his second move in the new game and it seemed to have an immediate effect on her for she sprang from the doorway to his side and as he made his way towards the bed she muttered, ‘What…what have you done?’