Miss Martha Mary Crawford

by Catherine Cookson (Catherine Marchant)

  A further postscript stated, ‘I am sitting up with Aunt Sophie; she’s had a very bad bout.’

  Five

  Never before had Martha visited Hexham on two consecutive days; in the past there would have been an interval of a month between any two visits to the town.

  After once again leaving the trap in the chandler’s yard, she made her way now in the direction of the Abbey. She felt both nervous and excited; nervous because she had never before had the task of dismissing anyone, and because Miss Streaton was a quiet, unprepossessing individual it was going to make the business even more distasteful. Yet it had to be done; five shillings a week was five shillings a week.

  With regard to her feeling of excitement, she did not need to search far for its cause; she was now her own mistress, she could pick and choose as she pleased, and that is what she was going to do. This time forty-eight hours ago she would have thrust such an idea deep down into her mind, there to stay for at least six months in respect for the dead. But the dead had killed all respect in her.

  She glanced at her watch. The shop would now be closed for half an hour while Mr Ducat had his midday refreshment, which he partook of in the little room behind the shop. He had once laughingly pointed it out to her as his office-cum-dining-room-cum-second home.

  As she went under an arch and up the alleyway she straightened her bonnet which the strong wind that was blowing had put awry: then turned into the narrow passage from where the back door led into a small yard. And at this point the thought came to her that perhaps she need not take on the unpleasant task of dismissing Miss Streaton, Mr Ducat would do it for her. Yes, of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? As manager of the shop, it was really his place to engage and dismiss. He hadn’t been given this privilege before, but things were going to change…Oh yes, indeed they were. In this moment she felt mature, and very much a woman of the world.

  The window of the office overlooked the yard and to the side of it was the back door. She had her head slightly turned towards the window as she passed it. Then she was brought up stock still; her head became rigid as she stared through the window onto the scene beyond. Mr Ducat was sitting in his shirtsleeves and well back in the old leather chair, and on his knee and cradled in one arm was Miss Streaton; his other hand was inside her open blouse and his lips were tight on hers.

  It was either her shadow blocking the light from the window or some involuntary sound she now made which caused him to pull his mouth from Miss Streaton and turn his head to the side, then almost shoot Miss Streaton onto the floor.

  Martha took three slow stiff steps forward, opened the back door and stood within the threshold looking from one to the other. It seemed that Mr Ducat had been struck speechless. But not so Miss Streaton. Gone was the timid, unprepossessing little creature and in her place was a pert, self-assured miss. ‘Well, what of it?’ she said; ‘we’re as good as engaged. It isn’t a crime.’

  Martha turned her gaze slowly onto Mr Ducat. He seemed visibly startled by Miss Streaton’s announcement.

  The girl now bobbed her head at him before buttoning up her blouse; then with a sharp movement of her buttocks which caused her serge skirt to make a swishing sound she turned about and went out of the office, banging the door behind her.

  ‘Oh! Miss Crawford, I am deeply ashamed, I am. I…I am. It was…How can I say it? It was a moment of weakness. And there is no truth in what she said.’ Groping behind him now, he picked up his coat from a chair and hurriedly dragged it on, then pushed agitatedly at his shirt cuffs which were hanging almost to his fingertips, before taking a step towards her and repeating in a soft fawning tone, ‘Believe me. Please believe me, it was just as I said, a moment of…’

  ‘Keep your distance, Mr Ducat. And as you are about to say once more that it was a moment of weakness, I have not the slightest doubt that it is a weakness that has attacked you every day for some long time past.’

  ‘No, no, you’re wrong, Miss Crawford.’

  As he smoothed his ruffled hair back from his forehead she stared at him, or rather glared at him, seeing him as he really was, as most people saw him, a weak, shallow, upstart of a man, getting by on his good looks and his surface knowledge of literature. And she had thought she loved him! She could have sworn she had loved him. For the past two years hardly a night had passed but she had thought of him, and often with longing. Whenever there had been no opportunity to come into the town and visit the bookshop she had seemed to pine inside. And what had she been pining for? This nasty shallow, horrible individual. All men were horrible. Her father, that man in the station who had gone to visit that woman, this creature here, they were all horrible. Horrible!

  She was about to turn away when he asked with no note of pleading in his voice now, ‘What do you intend to do then?’

  ‘What do you mean, what do I intend to do?’

  ‘Are you going to give us both the sack?’

  She made herself look him straight in the eyes as she said coolly, ‘Not as long as your work continues to be satisfactory. What you do with your private life after all is entirely your affair. Good day, Mr Ducat. Oh—’ once more she turned to him—‘you may be wondering at the reason for my calling today. It was to tell you to dismiss Miss Streaton as I have someone, a friend of mine, whom I wish to put in her place. But now I can see it would be very remiss of me to subject a young girl to the risk of being molested. Of course, I am not suggesting that you have molested Miss Streaton, I suppose that in certain classes it is not considered improper to take liberties with your future wife. Good day, Mr Ducat.’

  As she stepped into the yard he was close behind her. His voice low but rasping, he spluttered at her, ‘You’ll be sorry you said that; there’s other places. For your information, Miss Crawford, I’ll tell you this, Cunningham’s have been after me. Do you know that? Do you hear that? Cunningham’s have been after me.’

  She continued to walk away from him, down the yard and into the alleyway. She was trembling from her head to her feet. Over the past two days she had experienced a number of emotions but this present feeling was entirely new. She felt utterly degraded, dirty, nasty, as if she had submitted her body to being handled, and by him.

  She was walking by the Abbey now. She must find some quiet place where she could sit because her whole being was aching to cry. Yet she mustn’t cry. Oh no, not in the open, she must control herself.

  She found a seat in a quiet corner, and sat heavily down, drooped her chin onto her chest, and asked herself what more could happen. She felt she was being assailed by life all at once, and from all sides, by the horrible side of life. No longer did she feel mature, and she could even laugh at the thought of herself as a woman of the world; she saw herself again, but even more clearly now, as a gullible creature, a very young impressionable girl who, because she ran a household, had played at being a woman.

  Slowly she raised her head and gazed straight before her. Well it was over, parental love and respect, romance, and any thought of marriage. She knew now how Aunt Sophie must have felt when she returned from the church unmarried. It was as if she, too, had been spurned, rejected, and not by one man alone but by two.

  What had happened to Aunt Sophie had turned her brain, was it also going to happen to her? Oh no! No! She actually shook her head at the question. She’d become strong, independent of men and all they stood for. She would make a purpose in life, and the purpose would be The Habitation, to keep it going so that it would shelter them all for as long as they needed it. And she’d keep the businesses going, at least the bookshop. She had no doubt in her mind but that Mr Lawrence Ducat would soon present her with his notice, thinking that he was dealing her a blow and that the business would fail entirely. Well, she would show him; she would show them all.

  As if the thought had spurned her to make the attempt without further delay she rose swiftly to her feet and was about to walk away when a voice from behind her said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Crawford.’

&n
bsp; Turning as swiftly again she gulped slightly, blinked and said, ‘Oh! Good afternoon, Mr Brockdean.’

  The young man was holding his hat in his hand, his body bent slightly towards her. He had grown inches since the last time she had seen him, which was almost a year ago, and was much more handsome. His thick, fair hair seemed even fairer than usual, and he had now acquired a small moustache. She had, even up to their last meeting, thought of Lady Brockdean’s only son as a young boy, but here he was, a young man. You could almost say from the looks of him a mature man, although he was not yet her own age.

  He said now in a tone of voice that suited the words, ‘I was very sorry to hear of your father’s passing, Miss Crawford.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She veiled her eyes.

  ‘It was so sudden.’

  ‘Yes.’ She still kept her gaze cast downwards.

  He now glanced towards the seat from which she had risen and said, ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed your…’ He seemed to be searching for a word in his mind. He moved his hard high hat from one hand to the other and she relieved him of his embarrassment by saying, ‘That is quite all right. I just rested for a moment; I’m on my way to collect the trap at the chandler’s.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He nodded at her. ‘Well, I’m going in that direction too. I’m to meet my mother; she’s visiting a friend in Gilesgate.’

  They had left the precincts of the Abbey when he asked ‘How is Belle? I do hope there’s nothing serious wrong with her foot.’ He paused as she turned her face sharply towards him, her gaze wide and inquiring, and now he appeared slightly flustered as he ended, ‘I…I came across Nan…your sister just by chance when I was out riding.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, Belle is slightly lame but I…I don’t think it is anything serious.’

  They walked in silence now, almost for the length of a street, and then he stopped and, raising his hat again, said, ‘I must say goodbye here, Miss Crawford.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Brockdean.’

  They bowed to each other, then went their separate ways.

  He had been about to call Nancy by her Christian name, and said he had met her while out riding. She had been out riding for almost four hours yesterday, Mildred said. And he had also referred to Belle by name. She thought back to the summer. There had been times when Nancy, returning from a ride, had appeared overflowing with high spirits, when her whole being seemed to be pulsating with joy, and she had wished that she herself could get such a feeling from horse riding. But horse riding had never really attracted her; in fact, she confessed to herself, that she was a little afraid to be mounted on a horse. She could handle an animal expertly when seated in a trap, but that was the only way she enjoyed riding.

  She must speak to Nancy, and forcibly. Nancy must not harbour any ideas in the direction of William Brockdean. But then she wouldn’t surely, for hadn’t she seen the futility of Mildred’s efforts to gain even an acquaintanceship with Lady Brockdean? Anyway, Nancy was such a child, although she was approaching eighteen.

  Before she mounted the trap she told herself she had made a grave error in allowing Nancy to ride out alone, but this was one thing she would nip in the bud and instantly, the moment she reached home.

  On a shuddering breath she asked herself what more could happen …

  However, when she did reach home she did not chastise Nancy, for Nancy herself met her at the gate and gabbled that Peg had pulled a kettle of boiling water over herself and they thought she was dead.

  PART TWO

  THE DOCTORS

  One

  Doctor Pippin’s house lay a minute’s walk from Beaumont Street which fronted the Abbey and was, as everyone said, a credit to the town with its fine wide thoroughfare, a promise of more suchlike to come they hoped.

  The doctor’s house had a three-storey frontage. It looked tall and deceptively narrow for it had six rooms on the ground floor. Three of these were taken over by the waiting room, the surgery and dispensary, and the dining room; the rest were the kitchen and the staff quarters. On the first floor was a large comfortable sitting room running the length of the house and overlooking the garden at the far end, a small library, a large bedroom and a dressing room, and a smaller bedroom.

  The top floor was given over entirely to the use of Doctor Pippin’s recently acquired assistant. This consisted of four large attics, two of which were crammed with oddments of furniture, Doctor Pippin having at one time been prone to buying anything going cheap at an auction. The third was a sparse looking bedroom, and the fourth what was called a sitting room, only Doctor Harry Fuller had as yet no time to sit in it, even should he have wished to.

  In many ways Doctor Pippin liked the new fellow, but in many ways they were deeply opposed, and not all with regard to the medical profession. One of the things he strongly disagreed with was Fuller’s insistence on having that damned animal up in his room; a dog’s place was in a kennel in the yard not in a bedroom, filling it with fleas. The fellow could argue as much as he liked that no-one need have fleas if he kept himself clean, or was kept as clean as he kept Fred …

  Fred. Did you ever hear of an animal being given such a name? It was, in a way, not quite right to give a human name to an animal, and such an animal, which was neither sheepdog, whippet, nor hound. As he’d said to Fuller, its predecessors must have frolicked until they didn’t know back from front.

  Still, as he had continually told himself these past weeks, he could have chosen worse. Yes, yes, he could have, for he was having to admit that not only night calls but day ones too were testing him now. He had a great disinclination to rise from his bed in the mornings, and his leg at times would swell to alarming proportions. What had Fuller said? Substitute water for wine and give the leg a chance. Well, yes, he supposed he was right but he was too old in the tooth now to take advice. Anyway, he had always hated taking advice.

  It was thought in the town he was nearing seventy; well, he would never see seventy-four again and he was getting tired. All he wanted to do these days was sit in his garden when the weather was clement, or by the fire at night with a pipe in one hand and a glass in the other and a book before his eyes…and no more medical jargon. No, he had read all that he was going to read along those lines. Reading about new ideas which filled your head with ideals was a young man’s game. Let Fuller delve into it all he wanted. Anyway, that fellow had enough new theories of his own to fill a book.

  That was another thing that irritated him about the fellow, his new theories. Times were changing, he knew that only too well, but you couldn’t throw overboard wholesale all the work of the past, and he had told him just that last night as they sat here talking—no, arguing, almost quarrelling at one in the morning when it would have benefited them both to have been in their beds.

  And where was he now? It was already black dark and freezing cold, and more than likely they were in for a great downfall of snow, and he had that journey to make to The Habitation where the maid had almost scalded herself to death, at least so said that dolt of a fellow. But then it wouldn’t take much boiling water to scald poor little Peg Thornycroft to death for she wasn’t the size of two pennorth of copper to begin with…Where the hell had he got to!

  As he made to rise to his feet he heard the trap coming into the yard, but it was almost ten minutes later when his assistant entered the dining room.

  ‘Where’ve you been all this time?’

  ‘Where have I been?’ Harry Fuller thrust his fingers through his sandy hair and his blunt-featured face crinkled in inquiry as he moved towards the fire, adding, ‘Why do you ask that? You know where I’ve been.’

  ‘You only had three calls to make.’

  ‘You’re forgetting that one was on Mrs Saidy and daughter Jenny.’

  ‘Yes, well, what about it?’

  ‘She wants her married, that’s what’s about it.’

  Doctor Pippin now threw his head back and laughed as he said, ‘Oh aye. Oh aye. She’s been trying to get Jenny off her hands for
years, so she’s flinging her darts at you, is she?’

  ‘More like tomahawks; if I don’t watch out I’ll be scalped.’ He again thrust his hand through his hair and this time laughed; then shaking his head slowly he said, ‘Women! I sometimes wish I’d gone in for veterinary work, I could have managed cows better.’

  Again the old doctor laughed, and louder this time, before he said, ‘I’m with you there; your manner with the ladies leaves a lot to be desired.’ Then, his face assuming a solemn expression, he nodded towards Harry, saying, ‘You must alter that, me boy. If you want to get on in this business, get on the side of the women first, particularly the bedside. I’m speaking from experience.’

  As Harry turned sharply from the fire John Pippin held up his hand exclaiming, ‘No arguments! Not now. Get a bite into you’—he pointed to the table—‘because you’ve got a ride before you.’

  ‘No! Where?’

  ‘The Crawfords, Morland House, The Habitation, as it’s known thereabouts. It’s six to seven miles out. You’ll have to take Peter with you; you could have found it in the light but not at night.’

  ‘Who’s that sick that I’ve got to make the journey at this hour?’

  ‘The maid, a wee undersized lass. They say she’s scalded herself almost to death.’

  Harry now went towards the table and as he picked up a wedge of cold veal pie and began eating hastily John Pippin said, ‘Seat yourself down and get something into you, a few minutes won’t make much difference, I don’t suppose. If she’s as bad as the lad said she’ll be gone afore you get there.’