When the door was thrust open and Mildred and Nancy came rushing up the room, Dilly’s raised hand checked them and they stood looking at the unusual sight and sound of Martha Mary crying, and crying in such an unrestrained way.
Dilly’s voice now brought their eyes from Martha to herself as she said curtly, ‘Go into the kitchen, both of you, an’ ask Peg to show you how to cut up the rabbits. Tell her it’s for a stew. Go on now.’
They both hesitated, Mildred evidently about to bristle, but on this occasion thinking better of it she turned abruptly and went out of the room and Nancy, after staring at Martha who was showing such unusual distress, bowed her head, bit tight on her lip and, turning, followed Mildred.
In the hall they looked at each other, and the tears now raining down Nancy’s own face, she bent forward and whispered fiercely, ‘You see…you see what you’ve done.’
‘Me? Now don’t you dare blame me…’
‘Yes, I will blame you. You were the last straw, and…and you’re a fool. You…you don’t appreciate what a chance you’re getting. Oh…!’
Mildred now watched Nancy running towards the kitchen and she stood for a moment, her lips pressed tightly together as she considered her last words…Perhaps it was a chance, she would be going out into the world, she’d meet people; and Martha Mary’s gibe might not be so far out either. If only she hadn’t to suffer the indignity of riding on the carrier’s cart. That was too much, most undignified. She now cast her glance back towards the drawing room door as she thought. And that scene in there too was undignified, Martha Mary giving way like that, howling her eyes out in the arms of Dilly as Peg or any of her like might have done. She recalled Miss Simpson’s words when teaching deportment in the private school, ‘A lady never shows her emotions in public, we leave that to the common people.’
She walked slowly towards the kitchen now. In a way there were lots of things about Martha Mary that were common; she raised her voice, she showed her temper, and she had no idea of keeping servants in their rightful place. Now if she had been the eldest …
Two
It was the end of March and the wind was still sheathed in ice; it raged round the house and penetrated the warped window frames, the doors and the chimneys; particularly the chimneys, for it whirled down the drawing room one and blew the smoke all over Mr Paine and made him cough. And Harry, too, coughed for he was sitting straight opposite the fireplace. Roland who was sitting to the left of him did not cough but turned his head away while the three girls to the right of him bowed their heads and made small noises in their throats.
Mr Paine’s bout of coughing over, he now cast his glance about them all as he said, ‘It would appear that I never visit you except on sad occasions, yet I am very pleased to say there’s a little brightness attached to this particular one. The deceased, Miss Lilian Thompson, who worked as a servant in this house from when she was a young girl did not forget the kindnesses shown to her, particularly by you Miss Martha.’
Martha looked straight back through the pale grey atmosphere at Mr Paine. She knew what was coming and she felt a deep embarrassment, but it was not untouched with excitement. Dear Dilly had left her her savings, and no matter how small they might be they would be the means of alleviating the financial stress which at present was more than ever weighing on the house.
‘Miss Thompson confided her wishes on this matter to Doctor Fuller’—Mr Paine inclined his head towards Harry—‘and the doctor, after writing down her wishes, brought the document to me, because he was not sure of its legality as she was unfortunately only able to make her mark with a cross. I was able to point out that this being so a witness would be needed and as, you may remember, I happened to be passing this way when the doctor was calling, together we made the document legal.’ He now exchanged a penetrating look with Harry before saying, ‘Isn’t that so, doctor?’
‘Yes, Mr Paine.’
‘Well, now, there are no complications in this will, so I shall read what it says.’ He now lifted up the sheet of ordinary paper and read:
I, Lily Thompson, who am in my right mind and, having no relatives of my own left upon this earth, leave my life savings, which are in a tin box under my bed, to Martha Mary Crawford, who I helped bring into the world, and who has been like my own since, and who is now lovingly seeing me out of it.
Two wishes I will make: first, that she spend most of the money on herself, and second, that she give to Peg Thornycroft ten pounds.
Signed this fourth day of February, 1880.
Martha’s chin was now on her chest and all she could think was, Oh Dilly, Dilly. And there returned to her the feeling she’d experienced as she washed and dressed Dilly for the last time that she had lost the only friend she had on earth. No-one had understood her as Dilly had. She had never been demonstrative, her tongue had been sharp at times but always Martha knew that Dilly had liked her…loved her, were the words she should use. And she had loved Dilly. But she hadn’t shown it, not until that night when she had cried her heart out in her arms.
Tears were choking her again. There was a silence all about her and in it her sensitivity picked up a feeling of hostility. She raised her head and looked from one to the other. Oh, she wished Dilly had spread her savings and had left the others something, particularly Roland and Mildred. But they would get the benefit of it in the long run because she would spend it on the house…Yet it wasn’t the same and their expressions endorsed this.
‘Well, we’d better open the trunk.’ Mr Paine was now inserting a key into the padlock of the red tin trunk that the doctor had lifted onto the table at his side. The key made a grating sound. He lifted the lid, stared downwards for a moment, then looked about him before putting his hand into the trunk and lifting out one small calico bag after another.
When the last bag was on the table he passed his hands around the inside of the trunk, saying, ‘I think that is all. What is left in here now appears to be a few personal garments.’ Then looking at Harry, he asked, ‘Would you help me, doctor?’
Harry, getting to his feet, went to the table and together they undid the strings that tied the small hand-sewn bags. One after the other they turned out their contents until there was lying on the table a goodly pile of sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and such was its size that it amazed all those present, even Harry, but mostly it amazed Martha.
When she finally heard Mr Paine saying, ‘Two hundred and twenty-three pounds. Would you check again, doctor?’ all her mind seemed capable of saying was, Oh, Dilly, Dilly.
‘Yes, two hundred and twenty-three pounds, Mr Paine.’
They both now turned and looked at Martha, but she couldn’t see them; it was quite impossible to prevent her tears from flowing. She heard Mr Paine’s voice saying, ‘A tidy sum…indeed a tidy sum. I’m happy for you, Miss Martha Mary.’
She should have said, ‘Thank you,’ but she couldn’t speak. She heard the door opening and Peg’s voice saying, ‘Tea’s all ready, Miss Martha Ma…’
Peg’s voice trailed away as she realised she had come in at the wrong time, but the doctor was speaking to her, ‘Come here a minute, Peg,’ he said.
Martha hastily wiped her eyes and saw Peg tentatively approaching the company. She saw the doctor stooping down to her and then pointing to herself, saying, ‘I think your mistress has something to tell you.’
She watched him press Peg towards her, and when the slight form was standing in front of her she put out her hands and took hold of the two scarred ones and, her voice breaking, she said, ‘Dilly…Dilly left you some money, Peg, ten pounds.’
‘What!’ The single word crescendoed at the end, then she glanced round at those present before looking back at Martha and saying, ‘Me? She left me ten pounds? Dilly! Why, ’tis a fortune. Eeh! I never thought to see the day. An’ she always went for me.’ She had turned her head and was nodding up at Harry now. ‘But I never took no notice, ’cos I knew how she meant it, her bark was worse’n her bite. But ten pounds.�
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Her mouth was in a gape when Mr Paine said, ‘Would you like to give it to her now, Miss Crawford?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’ She rose to her feet and went to the table and counted out, not ten sovereigns, but fifteen, and she placed them in one of the linen bags that Dilly had so carefully sewn and, smiling softly, she handed it to the small girl.
‘Eeh! Miss Martha Mary, eeh! That I’d live to see the day. Thanks, ta, to think that Dilly would remember me. An’ you to stick another five in. You had no call to do that, you give me enough, an’ the way things look you want every pen…ny.’ Her voice trailed away under the sea of eyes looking at her.
Martha closed her eyes for a moment. There was too much emotion filling the room, she would break down completely if she didn’t curb it. Putting her hand on Peg’s shoulder now, she pressed her in the direction of the door, while at the same time saying, ‘Would you please come into the dining room?’
As she walked ahead they filed out of the room after her, Mildred, Nancy, Roland, Mr Paine, and lastly Harry, and as he passed the table strewn with the shining sovereigns he thought that it certainly was one of the quirks of life that a servant could leave the daughter of the house what was equivalent, as Peg had said, to a small fortune, while its master had left her nothing but debts. She would, he supposed, use it to help ease the burden on the house, and in so doing it might help to take the strain from her shoulders…and her face.
It was two hours later. The guests had gone, and the family was back in the drawing room.
The money had been removed from the table but not from their minds, and Roland spoke briefly of what was in his, and not without bitterness.
Standing with his back to the fire and taking up most of the heat, he said, ‘She mustn’t have had much use for the rest of us.’
Martha turned her head slowly and looked up at his averted face. ‘She knew I would use it for all our good,’ she said.
‘That isn’t the point.’ He was now glaring down on her, ‘She could leave Peg ten pounds, why couldn’t she leave us a similar sum just to show she had no animosity towards us?’
‘Dilly held no animosity towards anyone.’
‘On the face of it I don’t agree with you, but what she certainly had was favourites.’
‘I spent more time with Dilly than any of you.’
He did not take up her remark but said, ‘She indicated you were special because she brought you into the world; she brought us all into the world for that matter.’
‘Roland’s right, I think it was spiteful. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if she had left you the bulk as long as she had remembered us in some small way. What do you say, Nancy?’ Mildred now turned to Nancy who, seeming at this moment to have to collect her thoughts, replied, ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter; as Martha Mary says, she’ll use it for all our good.’
‘What will you use it for?’
Roland held Martha’s gaze as she paused for a moment before answering, ‘I haven’t quite decided yet.’ She turned her eyes away and looked down the long room towards the window and the grey day merging into fast approaching twilight. That wasn’t true, she knew what she was going to do with the money, yet at the same time she asked herself why. Why had she thought straight away of using it to send Roland to the university? Why not use it in an effort to alleviate the pressure of the debts? Or on herself as Dilly had wished? Why was it she didn’t want Roland at home? Was it that she was afraid he would take her status from her, and he would have the first say in everything? Didn’t she want to get rid of the burden of responsibility? Or was it because he was so akin to Mildred that, at bottom, she didn’t really like him? Oh no, no. What was the matter with her that she could think this way? The reason she was doing it was in order that with a university education he would have the qualifications to take up a profession.
She left the matter here and said quietly, ‘I do know how I’m going to use it. If you’re still so inclined Roland, it will help to keep you at the university, at least for a year or so.’
They all remained still until Roland spoke. ‘Martha Mary!’ His body was slowly bending towards her, his hands were extended, and as she looked up into his face she saw it as an exact replica of her father’s when he was pleased; and he was pleased, delighted.
‘Oh, that is kind of you, generous. But…but I can’t really accept it.’
It was her father speaking, all his charm evident. ‘The money was left to you…no, no…but I’ll always remember the gesture. Yes, yes, always. No matter what happens, Martha Mary, I’ll always remember you made this generous offer to me.’
A surprising irritation not unmingled with regret for her generous action brought her to her feet and for a moment she was tempted to say, ‘All right, I’ll pay off some of the debts, and I’ll buy a new gown, and I’ll do a thousand and one other things I’ve always wanted to do.’
She went hastily from the room and left them all silent. No word followed her. But as she mounted the stairs she heard his voice, the doctor’s, saying to her, as she thanked him and bade him goodbye, ‘I don’t know on whom or on what you’re going to squander your fortune, but if you were to ask my advice, which I am sure you wouldn’t, I’d say make a big effort to start with yourself.’
And why hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she? She had been mad to make that offer to Roland. Here she was, maid-of-all-work, even reduced to mucking out the stables. She could have an outside boy; she could have a new gown and bonnet…No, a hat with a feather on it, a brightly coloured feather lying around the brim, a hat that would make people notice her as she walked through Hexham, and when she ran into him, he would be startled by her changed appearance.
Shut up! Shut up! You are going mad. You are.
Three
The sun had been shining all morning, but the wind was very high and the air still bitingly cold. Nancy hugged her cloak about her as she walked from the house towards the meadow that bordered the river. It was a great effort not to run, but she had just said to Martha Mary if she couldn’t ride Belle then she must take walks.
She had answered Martha Mary with unusual sharpness today and she was sorry, but she couldn’t help it, and she would apologise to her when she returned because then she’d be feeling better. Oh, she hoped she’d be feeling better because today he’d surely be there; if not, she would surely find a note in the hiding place.
He had been home for a week now, a full week and they hadn’t met. It had never happened before, and he wasn’t indisposed because he had been riding in the town. Mildred had been so full of her news yesterday, telling how he had accompanied his mother and sister and a guest into the shop, and how she helped them to choose books. She had talked of nothing else the whole evening, not so much about William, or his sister or their guest, but about Lady Brockdean herself, because her ladyship, she said, had spoken to her for quite a while and asked her opinion on current literature, and had thanked her so warmly for her services.
Mildred had been in high fettle all evening, she had even been gay and had made Roland laugh as she imitated some of the customers who came into the shop. Overnight she seemed to have been turned into a different being, all because Lady Brockdean had paid her a little attention. Well, hadn’t she herself been turned into a different creature because William had paid her a little attention? More than a little attention…Oh, William. William.
Her step quickened as she walked along the river bank, but she still did not run until she had crossed the stepping stones and mounted the far bank. It was hateful of her, she knew, but she suspected that Martha Mary might have taken it upon herself to go up into the attic from where she would have a view of the river bank almost to the stepping stones. Martha Mary had been acting oddly of late.
Once into the wood, however, she picked up her skirts and ran along the well-known path. She ran until the trees thinned out where the ground became steeper. She was panting hard when she reached the top of the rise, and when the wind caught her cloak
and billowed it out she turned her back on it and looked about her for a moment. She nearly always stopped at this spot, not only to regain her breath but because the view all around was so beautiful.
She looked back over the way she had come and she could see over the tops of most of the trees. The river was hidden from her, but there, away to the left of her and looking as if it had sunk into the ground, was the house. It was only when viewing it from this point that she realised how low down it lay in the valley.
She now faced the wind again. In the far distance the hills rose. There was no snow on top of them now. They appeared to her to be floating in the clear air; as did the homesteads dotted here and there. She couldn’t see Corbridge or Hexham, nor if she turned to her right any part of Prudhoe. All she could see was a clear sky, the racing clouds, and what she would find in ten minutes’ time…who she would find in ten minutes’ time.
She scampered now over the open land, her skirts held well above her ankles, her hood flying back from her head and the tendrils of her hair flying loose from the ribbon that bound it.
She thought on a laugh, as she had done often before, that she wished she could join in the hill races for she would beat them all. It was only the wind that could beat her when she was running at her best.
And she was running at her best today, leaping over small boulders, skirting large ones, bounding over rutted holes until she came to the point where her running always stopped. It was a small copse of trees, but unlike the other groups of trees hereabouts it stood within what appeared at first sight to be a circular crumbling wall, closer inspection of which showed that it was not man-made but made up of outcrops of rock. Inside, the trees were so sparse she could see through them to where, beyond the farther side of the circle of rocks stood a dying oak, its bark scaling away, its lower branches so bleached of life that it looked naked.
Miss Martha Mary Crawford Page 18
