It was a gentle neigh from the horse that caused them to turn their heads in his direction, but they could not see either him or the cart. In the shadow of the trees he watched them remain still for a moment peering towards the road; then there was a quick exchange of words before they got to their feet, she carrying the child now, and they went down the field and made for the gate that led into the extreme corner of the farmland.
Not until they were out of sight did he lead the horse forward, and then he took it from the road and tied the bridle to a tree, after which he walked a short distance and lay down in some long grass. There, at full length, he stared unblinking into the soil while he tore up handfuls of grasses and snapped them into small pieces. After a while, as if his body had suddenly been dropped from a height, he slumped into the earth and with his hand under his mouth he bit on the pad of his thumb until the blood came…
Fifteen minutes later when he entered the house, the baby was in the pen outside the dairy and Jane was in the kitchen, her arms in a bowl of flour. She looked at him as if in surprise, saying, ‘You’re back early.’
‘Where’s Matthew?’
‘Matthew! Oh, he’s in bed. You know he always goes to bed in the afternoon.’ She dusted the flour from her hands and turned her back on him and went towards the open oven.
He had the urge to pick up the heavy rolling pin from the table and batter her on the head with it. She knew, she knew. They must all have been laughing up their sleeves at him all this time, the three of them. Why? Why hadn’t he twigged anything before? He was seeing things now as plainly as a blind man who had been given his sight. That day Matthew had gone over the hills for her and the storm was supposed to have frightened her and he had taken her back; it had happened then. But Matthew had changed towards him long before that. And he could pinpoint the date. It was from the Sunday morning, in this very room, when he had told them he was going to ask her to marry him. God above! Christ Almighty! Why had he been so blind?
The answer was simple. He had trusted Matthew, because he had loved Matthew. Matthew was the only person in the world besides her he had loved, and they had both fooled him, right up to this very day they had fooled him. If God Himself had come and told him before he had seen them together he wouldn’t have believed it, because they never spoke to each other…Not when he was about…No, that was it, not when he was about.
And his mother, that old bitch there. No wonder they were all thick. He could murder the three of them. He could take a knife and go from one to the other and slit their throats. But where would that get him? The gallows. No, there’d be no gallows for him, he had paid enough for being who he was; but by God! Somebody was going to pay for this. He would play them at their own game. Christ! How he would play them. The cat and mouse wouldn’t be in it. He would make them think he knew, then make them think he didn’t. He’d give them such hell on earth they’d wish they were dead, all of them. Well, one of them soon would be, but he’d make a vow this minute he wouldn’t let him go until he had told him that he hadn’t been so bloody clever after all. He’d see he tasted hell afore he died; he’d play him like a tiddler on a pin; he’d play them all like tiddlers on a pin, and he’d begin right now.
As if answering an order, he turned and stamped out of the kitchen, across the yard and into the dairy. She was standing at the far end with her back to him, and even at this moment the sight of her slender form made him ache. She had half turned as the door opened and then turned away again, and he came up behind her and stood close and did not speak until, pressing herself against the stone slab, she slid away from him before turning to face him, her face stiff as always when she confronted him.
‘It’s a grand day,’ he said. ‘You should be out in the sunshine with the child.’
She continued to stare at him before she answered quietly, ‘You have allotted me duties; you would doubtless have something to say if I didn’t carry them out.’
‘Yes, yes, doubtless I would.’ He nodded his head at her; then went on in a casual tone, ‘I heard a bit of news in the market, caused some belly laughs it did. That’s funny, belly laughs. Barbara is five months’ gone. The old man worked well up to the last. What do you say?’
He watched the colour drain from her cheeks, her mouth opened and shut in a fishlike gape, then he turned from her and was near the door of the dairy before he looked towards her again and added, ‘By the way, I was talkin’ to a young doctor in the market, I was tellin’ him I had a son and about my half-brother being a consumptive. I said there was none of the disease on my side, not that I knew of, and could it be caught like, and he said, aye, it was better not to let the child come in contact with anybody who has the disease, so if I was you I’d break it to Matthew, eh? You can do it better than me, put it more gently like.’
He watched her for a moment as she leaned back against the slab for support; then he went out well satisfied with the result of his new tactics. He would get something out of this, something that would be more satisfying than sticking a knife in their necks. Although one of these days, he mightn’t be able to prevent himself from doing just that.
Two
When Mary opened the door and saw a small neatly dressed man standing there and, beyond him, on the road a hired cab with the driver slapping his arms about himself, as he stamped his feet, she thought: ‘Another of them. What’s this one after now?’ And that is what she said to him: ‘What are you after now?’ She did not add: ‘There’s nothing new happened for you to put in the papers.’
‘Is this Mr Mallen’s home, I mean the late Mr Mallen?’
‘Yes, it is; you know quite well it is.’
The small man raised his eyebrows slightly before saying,
‘I should like to speak with your mistress.’
‘She’s not seein’ nobody, neither of them.’
There was a slight look of bewilderment on the man’s face and he didn’t speak for a moment, but surveyed Mary; then he said quietly, ‘My name is Stevens, I am Chief Clerk to Maser, Boulter & Pierce, Solicitors, of Newcastle. I have some business I would like to discuss with your mistress. Please give her this.’ He held out a square of card, and she took it, glanced at it, then back at him before saying in a more moderate tone, ‘Well, come in then.’
In the hall she hesitated whether to leave him standing there or to show him into the breakfast room, the room that had once been the schoolroom. She decided to leave him standing there. Then giving him a look as much as to say, don’t you move, she went towards a door, tapped on it, then opened it immediately.
In the room she tiptoed almost at a run across it and, coming to Miss Brigmore, where she was sitting by the fire unpicking the skirt of the last of Barbara’s dresses in order to make it fit her during the late months, she whispered, ‘There’s a man here—not a gentleman, yet he’s not one of them—he’s from a solicitor’s. Look.’ She thrust the card at Miss Brigmore and noticed that she hesitated before taking it. She had been like that ever since…the business, hesitant about any contact with those outside. Well, she was like that herself; she hadn’t got over the shock yet and her conscience still worried her, especially at night. She still wondered if it all would have happened if the master hadn’t found her hidey-hole. He must have drunk a whole bottle, for that very night she had found it empty. Nothing worse could have happened if he had drunk the two bottles, but being the man he was he had taken only one and left her the other. Oh, the master, the poor, poor master. She was still sorry for him, she couldn’t help but be sorry for him. And she was sorry for herself an’ all because the business had put her off the stuff and there was no comfort anywhere, no, not anywhere, for this house that had once been merry and full of laughter, in spite of having to stretch every farthing to its utmost, was now as quiet as a cemetery.
‘Show him in, Mary.’
Miss Brigmore slowly rolled up the dress and laid it in the corner of the couch and she was rising as slowly to her feet when the man appeared.
From his manner and appearance she, too, knew that he wasn’t ‘one of them’. She looked at the card and said, ‘Will you take a seat, Mr Stevens?’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He motioned with a gentle movement of his hand that she should be seated first.
When they were seated facing each other, she said, ‘It’s a very raw day’; and he answered, ‘Yes, it is indeed, ma’am.’ Then coughing twice, he went on, ‘I won’t intrude on your time more than is necessary. My firm is wishful to trace the next of kin of the late Mr Thomas Mallen and thought perhaps coming directly to his home would be the surest way of getting in touch with his relatives.’
‘For what purpose?’ Her back was straight, her voice was almost that of the old Miss Brigmore, and he, sensing her distrust, was quick to put her mind at ease, saying, ‘Oh, it would be something to their advantage, I should explain. Mr Mallen had a son, Richard, that is so?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, apparently Mr Richard Mallen has sojourned in France for some years, but under an assumed name. This was the difficulty the French lawyers encountered when dealing with his estate. They eventually gleaned that he left this country under troubled circumstances, and so their enquiries were slow and cautious, but recently they contacted us through a French associate we have in Paris, and asked us to ascertain the whereabouts of Monsieur le Brett’s relatives.’ Mr Stevens again coughed twice before continuing, ‘We became acquainted with the fact that Mr Thomas Mallen had died intestate, unfortunately only a fortnight after his son’s death.’
Miss Brigmore now said, ‘He has two nieces, one is married and one still lives here.’
‘No close relatives? He was married twice I understand.’
‘Yes, his two sons by his first wife died. He has a daughter, she’s in Italy.’
‘Ah, a daughter in Italy. May I ask if you have her address?’
‘Yes, yes, I have her address.’
Yes, she had Bessie’s address. She had written to her telling briefly of the tragedy, and what had she received in return, a letter full of bitterness. They had scarcely got over the ’51 affair. Did she know that it had even got into the Italian papers? Alfo was angry, his people were angry, she had barely lived down the disgrace of her father being turned out of his home for debts, and her brother almost killing a man of the law, and now this—well, they said there was a curse on the Mallens…
There was indeed a curse on the Mallens, and all connected with them. If the last Mallen had married her, if Thomas had married her this man would not be searching for his nearest relative at this moment. She asked quietly, ‘Did he leave a large fortune?’
‘No, when the beneficiary eventually receives it, it will amount to about two thousand five hundred pounds, somewhere in that region. There has been a great deal of expense incurred—you can understand…’
No muscle of her face moved; not a considerable fortune, two thousand five hundred pounds! And they were now reduced to living on a hundred pounds a year. Their menu had been frugal for a long time, for she had seen to it that Thomas always had the pick of what was to be had, and when she became ill Barbara had continued along the same lines…Poor Barbara, poor Barbara. She dared not think too much of Barbara’s plight or her whole being would disintegrate in pity.
She thought in justifiable bitterness now that if anyone had earned Dick Mallen’s legacy it was herself. Her cheating of the bailiffs had not only helped to get him out of prison but had likely afforded him the basis, through the selling of the snuff box and cameos, of some nefarious business. But there, that was life, and life was bitter, like alum on the tongue, and she couldn’t see time washing it away.
She rose saying, ‘I will get you the address,’ then she added courteously, ‘Can I offer you some refreshment?’ As she watched his head move to the side and a thin smile appear on his face she added hastily, ‘A cup of tea maybe?’
The smile slid away, his head shook. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said, ‘but I shan’t trouble you; I had breakfast late and my dinner is awaiting me at the hotel, as also is the cabman.’ He smiled again, and she went out of the room to see Mary scurrying towards the kitchen door.
In the study she took Bessie’s letter from the desk drawer, copied the name and address onto a piece of paper. Then going back into the sitting room, she handed it to Mr Stevens.
‘Thank you, ma’am; I’m much obliged.’ He looked down at the address written on the paper. Then, his eyebrows jerking upwards, he repeated, ‘Countess. Well, well! I don’t suppose two thousand five hundred will mean much to her.’
He walked past her now as she held the front door open, and he doffed his hat and bowed to her, and he noted she did not close the door until he had entered the cab.
The door closed, she did not return to the sitting room but went into the study, and Mary coming into the hall and hearing the study door click shut stopped for a moment, looked towards it, then returned to the kitchen. That was one room she never barged into. When Miss went in there she wasn’t to be disturbed. It had become a sort of unwritten law. She sat down by the kitchen table and, laying her hands on it, she joined them tightly together and, bending her head over them, she shook it from side to side. Two thousand five hundred pounds going to that Miss Bessie, and her an upstart if ever there was one, never written to her father for years. Eeh! Things weren’t right.
She started visibly when the kitchen door opened and Barbara entered. She was wearing a long coat and had a shawl over her head.
Rising quickly, Mary went towards her, saying, ‘Eeh! Miss Barbara, you’ll get your death, I thought you were never coming back. Here, come and get warm.’ She drew her towards the fire, pulling off her gloves as she did so; then taking the shawl from her head as if she were undressing a child she pressed her into a chair and, kneeling beside her, began to chafe her hands, talking all the while. ‘You’re froze. Aw, you’re froze, lass; you’ll do yourself an injury, an’,’—she stopped herself from adding ‘the one you’re carrying’ and went on, ‘You can’t walk quick enough to keep yourself warm. You shouldn’t go out, not on a day like this; wait till the sun comes out.’
‘Who was that, Mary?’
‘Oh. Oh, you saw him. Well, you won’t believe it, you won’t even believe it when I tell you. It was the solicitor’s man. He came to find the nearest kin to…to the master.’ She never said ‘your uncle’ as she used to do, in fact no-one spoke of the master to her in any way; but now, having mentioned his name, she gabbled on, ‘Master Dick, you know, well he’s died and left some money and it goes to the next-of-kin. An’ you know who the next-of-kin is? Miss Bessie. You wouldn’t believe it, two thousand five hundred pounds. Imagine two thousand five hundred pounds an’ going to Miss Bessie. Eeh! If anybody should have that it should be her, meanin’ no offence, Miss Barbara, you know that don’t you, but the way she’s worked, what she’s done…’
‘And still doing.’
‘Aye, and still doing.’ Mary now smiled into Barbara’s face. It was the first time she had heard her make a remark off her own bat so to speak since ‘that business’. She rarely spoke unless to say yes or no; she moved around most of the time like someone hypnotised. She remembered seeing a man hypnotise a girl at the fair some years ago and the girl’s mother went hysterical ’cos the man couldn’t get the girl to come back to herself and stop doin’ daft things and there was nearly a riot. Miss Barbara put her in mind of that girl, only she didn’t do daft things, except to walk; she walked in all weathers, storms held no fear for her. Since that night of the great storm when ‘that business’ happened there had only to be the signs of a storm and out she went.
She rubbed the thin white hands vigorously between her own now, saying again, ‘You shouldn’t do it, you’re froze to the marrow. Look; an’ your skirt’s all mud. Go upstairs and change your frock. Go on, that’s a good lass.’
When Barbara rose from the chair she pushed her gently towards the door, then across the hall and up the
first three stairs.
Once in her room, Barbara didn’t immediately change her dress, but walked slowly to the window and stood looking out. It was late October. The day was bleak, the hills looked cold and lonely as if they had never felt the warmth of the sun or borne the tread of a human foot; the wind that was blowing was a straight wind, bending the long grass and the neat flowers in the garden all one way; the garden was no longer neat and tidy, for the boy came no more, not since Constance had been forced to deprive them of the second fifty pounds a year. She thought, as she often thought, that they had been cursed, that both of them had been cursed; the tragedy of the Mallens had fallen on them. He who touches pitch is defiled; perhaps that was the reason. It was like contracting a disease. She and Constance had been in close contact with the Mallens all their lives and they had caught the disease. Her stomach was full of it. She looked down at the mound pushing out her dress below the waistband. The disease was growing in her and she loathed it, hated, hated and loathed it. Given the choice she would have accepted leprosy.
She heaved a deep sigh. All life was a disease and she was tired of it. She would have made an end of it months ago if it hadn’t been for Anna. She could not add to Anna’s sorrow, she loved Anna, she was the only one left to love. Anna had given unselfishly all her life and what had she got? Nothing. Yet she knew that Anna would refute this. And now this latest injustice, two thousand five hundred pounds going to Bessie, Bessie was just a vague memory to her: a round laughing face and a white train which she and Constance held; it was connected with the memory of people saying, ‘Isn’t she pretty, isn’t she pretty?’ But they weren’t referring to the bride but to Constance. Poor Connie! Connie, who was now virtually a prisoner on that farm.
Again she asked herself why this should happen to them. Three people who had done no harm to anyone. Her mind checked her at this point. Constance had done harm to Donald before she married him, and she also harmed him by marrying him; but nevertheless she did not deserve the treatment being allotted her. She had not seen Constance since her visit to the farm, but every now and again she had a letter from her, smuggled to the carrier no doubt, for in each letter were the same words ‘Please write to me, Barbie, but don’t refer to anything I have said.’
The Mallen Streak Page 24
