She had only once replied to the letters, and that was as recently as a fortnight ago when Constance had desperately beseeched a word from her. The letter was short and terse and held nothing personal, except to hope that she and the baby were well. Her own plight was bad but she considered that her sister’s was worse.
She turned from the window and took off her dress and standing with it in her hand, she said to herself, But what of Anna’s plight should anything happen to me when the child is born?
It was the next morning at the breakfast table that Barbara said suddenly, ‘Do you think we could afford to ask our solicitor to visit us out here?’
‘Our solicitor?…why? Why do you want a solicitor, Barbara?’
Barbara lowered her head, rested the spoon against the side of her porridge bowl, then said slowly, ‘Should anything happen to me, I…I want you to be provided for.’
‘Oh, my dear, my dear.’ Miss Brigmore rose from her seat and came round the table and put her arms around Barbara and, pressing her head against her breast, whispered, ‘Oh, child, my dear child, don’t think about such things, please, please, for what would I do without you?’
‘One must think about such things. If they had been thought of before, you would be two thousand five hundred pounds richer at this moment.’
Miss Brigmore made no answer to this for she was surprised that Barbara had for the moment forgotten her own tragic condition and was concerned for her. It was the first time in seven months that she had made voluntary conversation. And she was right in what she said, if Thomas had thought of her…Oh, she must not start that again. She had wrestled for most of the night with the bitterness in her, not against Thomas, she could never feel bitter against Thomas, but against the quirk of fate that would now further enrich the comfortably off Italian countess by two thousand five hundred pounds, for although the count had been classed as a poor man, his poverty was comparative. Patting Barbara’s head now, she said softly, ‘We will talk no more about it; nothing is going to happen to you, my dear.’
Barbara withdrew herself from Miss Brigmore’s arms and, looking up at her, she said, ‘I don’t want to go into the town but if I’m forced to I shall.’
‘But…but Barbara, my dear, the money is in trust, Constance and you only receive the interest. It is something that couldn’t be transferred. If…if what you say did happen, and God forbid, unless you left…issue, the money would go back into the estate.’
‘I…I don’t think so. I’ve been looking into Everyman’s Own Lawyer, and there’s such a thing as a Deed of Gift. Anyway, this is what I want to find out, and make it legal, that if and when I die my allotment and share in the house will pass to you.’ She paused here and, staring fixedly into Miss Brigmore’s eyes, she ended, ‘Whether I have issue or not.’
‘But Barbara dear, you’re…you’re not going to die, you’re so young and…’ Her voice trailed away before she added, ‘healthy’, for that would have been, if not a falsehood, a grave exaggeration.
‘I shall write to Mr Hawkins today.’
Miss Brigmore sighed a deep sigh, went round the table and sat down. She was not thinking of what Barbara’s gesture might mean to her in the long run, but of the fact that they could not really afford the ruinous fees the solicitor would ask for coming all this way from Newcastle. If it had been from Allendale or Hexham it would have been expensive enough, but all the way from Newcastle…She wondered what they could do without, in order to meet this further expense…
When half an hour later she saw Barbara going down the garden path towards the gate at the bottom which led onto the fells, she opened the windows in the study and called, ‘Barbara! Barbara dear! Don’t go too far, please, please.’
She knew Barbara had heard her although she didn’t turn round. She looked up at the sky. It was high and blue and the sun was shining. It was much warmer than yesterday, in fact it was a nice day, an enjoyable Indian summer day. Not that the weather had any effect on her now, except that she worried about the extended cold days when they used more wood and coal than they could afford.
She closed the windows and sat down in the leather chair behind the desk. It did not pain her to sit in this chair, the chair in which Thomas had paid the price for his crime, the crime he had in all ignorance committed, for she knew he would have suffered crucifixion rather than knowingly perpetrate such a sin against Barbara, whom he had loved as a daughter.
She leant her head back against the top of the chair. She was feeling tired, weary, but strangely she was no longer enduring the physical weakness that had plagued her for so long following the pneumonia. Perhaps it was the shock of that night, and the call made on her inner resources, but since she had heard the gunshot she had ceased to be an invalid; necessity had made her strong enough to cope with the terrible circumstances.
‘Miss! Miss! Miss! Come quickly.’
As she pulled the door open she ran into Mary.
‘Oh, miss! miss…’
‘What is it?’
‘Miss Barbara, she’s, she’s in the kitchen with pains.’
‘But she’s just gone out.’
‘No, she’s back; like a ghost she is an’ doubled up…Oh! Miss!…’
When she burst into the kitchen Barbara was sitting by the table, gripping its edge; her eyes were tight closed and she was gasping for breath.
‘You have pains?’
She nodded, then muttered, ‘Something…something seized me. I turned back, and then a moment ago it came again.’
Miss Brigmore now turned to Mary, saying sharply, ‘Get an oven shelf, two, she’s freezing, and more blankets…Come along, dear, come along.’ She put her arm around Barbara’s shoulders and eased her to her feet. ‘We must get you to bed…’
After putting Barbara to bed with a blanket-covered oven shelf at her feet and one to her side she and Mary had a quick consultation in the kitchen. ‘It would be safer to get the doctor,’ Mary said. ‘It might just be a flash in the pan but on the other hand it mightn’t.’
Miss Brigmore did not think it was a flash in the pan. She agreed with Mary that it would be wise to get the doctor; but the carrier had passed and how were they going to get a message to him?
‘I could run down to Jim Pollitt’s,’ said Mary. ‘He generally drops in for his dinner around one o’clock. He might be takin’ the sheep over that way or goin’ to the farm, an’ Mr Stanhope might let him run in for he’s not a kick in the backside from Allendale.’
Miss Brigmore did not check Mary for her coarse saying for she knew it was only when she was anxious that she made such slips of the tongue in her presence. She said, ‘Get into your coat; wrap up well, for the sun’s gone in and there’s a mist falling. How long do you think it will take you to get there…I mean to Mr Pollitt’s?
‘I could do it in half an hour if I cut through the bottom of the Hall grounds, an’ I will. An’ if they catch me I’ll explain; they can’t hang me.’
As she talked she was winding a long woollen scarf around her head and neck. A few minutes later Miss Brigmore, opening the door for her, said, ‘Tell them how urgent it is, Mary,’ and Mary nodded at her and answered, ‘Yes, miss, I’ll do that, never you fear…’
It was two hours later when Mary returned. She had come back much slower than she had gone for the mist had come down thick. After taking off her things she went upstairs and before she reached Miss Barbara’s door she heard her groaning.
The doctor arrived when the dusk was falling into dark, and he confirmed what all three knew; the child was struggling to be born.
It struggled for the next ten hours, and when at last it thrust itself into the world it seemed to have little life in it, hardly enough to make it cry.
As Mary took the child from the doctor then hurried out, Miss Brigmore held Barbara’s two hands close to her breast and whispered in a choked voice, ‘It’s all right, my dear, it’s all right.’ But how, she asked herself, could she say it was all right? Half the time wo
rds were stupid, language was stupid for it did not convey what the mind was saying and at this moment her mind was saying that no-one should have to suffer as this poor girl had done in order to give birth. For what seemed an eternity she had sweated with her and her own stomach had heaved in sympathy; but even so she had not experienced the excruciating pain of the convulsions, although she would gladly have suffered them for her had it been possible.
The tears were spilling down her face as she murmured, ‘It’s all over, dear, it’s all over.’ But even as she spoke she experienced a new terror as she realised that for Barbara it was all over, for she was letting go of life.
Barbara had lifted her hand towards her and her lips were mouthing the name ‘Anna, Anna,’ but without sound; then on a deep sigh her head fell to the side.
‘Oh no! No! Barbara, Barbara my love, Barbara!’
Miss Brigmore’s cry brought the doctor from the foot of the bed. He took hold of Barbara’s shoulders as if to shake her while saying, ‘No, no! Everything’s all right. Come along now, come along now.’
There was a long silence in the room before he gently laid her back on the pillow. Then straightening his back, he looked across the bed at Miss Brigmore and shook his head as if in perplexity as he said, ‘It was all right. Everything was quite normal. The child is small but…but everything was all right.’
Miss Brigmore brought her agonised gaze from his and looked down on her beloved Barbara, Barbara who had been like her own daughter. Of the two girls, it was Barbara who had needed her most although she would never admit it; she herself had had to make all the advances. And now she was dead, as she had planned. If anyone had arranged her death she had. She had walked herself to death, she had starved herself to death, but more than anything she had willed herself to death. ‘Oh, Barbara. Oh, my dearest, my dearest.’ She fell on her knees and buried her head to the side of the limp body.
A few moments later the doctor raised her up, saying gently, ‘Go and see if the child is all right.’
When she shook her bowed head he insisted, ‘Go now, and send Mary to me.’
As if she were walking in a dream she went out of the room and down the stairs.
In the kitchen Mary was kneeling on the mat, a bowl of water at her side. She was wrapping the child in a blanket and she didn’t look at Miss Brigmore but said, on a light note, ‘It’s small but bonny.’ She placed the child on a pillow in a clothes basket in front of the fire, then turning her head to the side, she looked up at Miss Brigmore and slowly her mouth fell into a gape. She sat back on her heels and shook her head, and when she saw Miss Brigmore drop down into a chair and bury her face in her hands she exclaimed softly, ‘In the name of God, no. Aw no, not Miss Barbara now. Aw no.’
When, rocking herself, Mary began to wail, Miss Brigmore got to her feet and, putting her hands on her shoulders, she drew her upwards, and then she held her in her arms, an unprecedented gesture, and Mary clung to her, crying, ‘Oh, Miss Barbie! Oh, poor Miss Barbie!’
After a time Miss Brigmore pressed her gently away and in choked tones said, ‘Go up. Go up, Mary, will you, the doctor needs you.’
Rubbing her face with her apron, while the tears still poured from her eyes, Mary asked helplessly, ‘What’ll we do? What’ll we do, miss? What’ll we do without them?’ and Miss Brigmore answered, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, Mary.’
A moment later she knelt down by the wash basket and looked on the child, the child that was the outcome of lust and terror, Thomas’ child; Thomas’ son or Thomas’ daughter, she hadn’t up till this moment thought about its sex. As if loath to touch it she took the end of the blanket in her finger and thumb and slowly unfolded it.
It was a girl-child.
Three
It was towards the end of November, the dreary month, but as if to give the lie to the defaming tag the morning was bright; there was no wind and the earth sparkled with a thick rime of frost.
But the morning had no pleasing effect on Constance, she was numbed to the bone. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice trying to work up the courage to jump, and she knew she would jump if something didn’t happen soon to alter the situation.
Last week when they had returned from burying Barbara she had almost gone mad with grief, and at one moment had almost screamed at him, ‘It’s Matthew’s! Do you hear? It’s Matthew’s! Do what you like. Do you hear? Do what you like!’ Such an outburst would have taken the implement of torture out of his hands, but it was his mother who had prevented her. As if she knew what was in her mind she had said, ‘Be patient, lass, be patient, it can’t go on forever’; and she had looked at her and said, ‘It can, it can’; and Jane had shaken her head and answered, ‘God’s ways are strange, they are slow but they’re sure.’ And in that moment she knew that Jane was not only afraid of her son, but she hated him as much as she herself did, and the bond between them was strengthened.
The dairy door opened and now Jane’s voice came to her softly, saying, ‘Come on, lass, there’s a drink ready, and he’s bawling his head off.’
Constance left what she was doing, rubbed her hands on a coarse towel hanging on a nail in the wall, and went towards Jane who was holding the door open for her. Then on the threshold they both stopped at the sight of Donald crossing the yard with a man and boy by his side.
They themselves crossed the yard and met up with the men at the kitchen door. Donald went in first, but the man and boy stood aside until they entered; then followed and stood just inside the room.
‘Give them a drink of tea.’ Donald jerked his head towards the pair as if they were beggars; but they were dressed decently if poorly, and didn’t look like beggars.
When Jane had poured out two mugs of tea, she motioned the man and boy to sit down on the form, then asked, ‘Would you like a bite?’ and the man said, ‘Thank you, Missis, we would that; we’ve been walking since shortly after five. The others are outside.’
‘My my!’ she nodded at him. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Near Haydon Bridge, ma’am.’
‘Haydon Bridge? My! That’s a way. You must have found the hills cold this mornin’.’
‘Aye, an’ slippery underfoot; the rime’s thick up there.’
‘It would be, it would be.’
‘Who told you I wanted a man?’ Donald was standing with his back to the fire in his master attitude, and the man answered, ‘Mr Tyler who I worked for, at least did, afore he was bought out. He said he heard in the market you were goin’ to get somebody on.’
‘Aye, I was; but one man, not two of you and a family. You say you’ve got a family?’
‘Only two, I mean a wife and a daughter; we lost the others. But Jim here, he’s fourteen gone and can hold his own with any man. And the girl, she’s thirteen, an’ she’s been the last four years in the farm kitchen an’ the dairy. She’s very handy, me wife an’ all.’
‘Huh! I daresay, but I’m not asking for your family. Anyway, I’ve got no cottage to offer you; the only place habitable, and then not much so, are two rooms above the stables.’
‘We’d make do with anything.’ There was a deep anxiety in the man’s voice. ‘As long as it’s a shelter we’d make do. And you wouldn’t lose by it, sir. I’ll promise you you wouldn’t lose by it. We’d give you more than your money’s worth.’
‘What are you asking?’
‘Well, well,’—the man shook his head—‘it’ll be up to you, sir. But I can tell you we wouldn’t press as long as we had a habitation.’
‘Aye, yes.’ Donald walked from the fire towards the table and, lifting up a mug, he took a long drink of the hot tea before he said, ‘Habitations are necessary in the winter. How long were you at Tyler’s?’
‘Over ten years, sir.’
‘Always been in farming?’
‘No…no.’ The man’s voice was hesitant now and he said on a weak smile, ‘I was a footman at one time in the Hall, High Banks Hall, over the hills.’ He now jerked hi
s head to the side and looked at the young woman sitting at the table. She had spilled her mug of tea and the liquid was running between the plates. She did not seem to notice this but she stared at him and he at her. He knew who she was. But that was by hearsay, for he would never have recognised her from the child he remembered, and should she remember him that might be at the end of his chances.
‘What’s your name?’
He brought his eyes back to the master of the house and said slowly, ‘Waite, sir. Harry Waite.’
Waite…Waite. The name sounded like a bell in Donald’s mind awakening the memories of twelve years ago. Hadn’t Waite been the man who had started all the hubbub? The man Dick Mallen wanted to shoot? He glanced from him to Constance and at the sight of her face a mirthless laugh rose in him. He had the power to engage a footman, the footman who at one time had waited on her. Well, well! The irony of it. All round, it was going to be a very exceptional day. He had a surprise for her but this was added interest.
‘Drink up and I’ll show you those rooms. If you’re as handy as you say you are you should be able to make them habitable.’
Before he had reached the kitchen door the man and boy were on their feet, and the man, nodding first to Jane, and then to Constance, and awkwardly muttering his thanks, followed him.
Waite. The footman who had lifted the lid of the armour box and got them out. The man who had tapped her on the bottom, had tapped them both on the bottom, saying, ‘By! You’re a couple of scamps.’ The nice footman, as she had thought of him, but the man who was the cause of her sitting in this kitchen at this moment. Without him having expressed his opinion of his master it was doubtful if anything that had happened since would have taken place; but for that meek-looking man they might all still be in the Hall, Uncle Thomas, Barbara, herself…Yet how could she blame the man? As Anna so often said, lives were cut to a pattern, all one did was sew them up. The man looked desperate for work and shelter for his family, and he would get it. Oh yes. She had seen the look in Donald’s eyes; he thought that by engaging him he would be cutting another sinew of her pride.
The Mallen Streak Page 25
