She watched the old man now twist his body about and look straight at the couch; after which he turned back again, nodded his head, closed his eyes, and said, ‘Well, there’s no doubt he’ll be very grateful that you’ve decided to stay on and attend to him until such time as he can make the journey back to the house. Of course, how he will show his gratitude is another matter because he’s a very unpredictable fellow. Oh yes, very unpredictable. I could venture to say he might buy you a diamond ring, or I could say he might just bawl your head off; or he might do neither. But what I really feel he could do is to be the means of securing you a post after your own heart. Yes. Yes, he could do that, if he’d let himself.’
His voice had trailed away into silence and now he was apparently asleep. Wide-eyed she lay and watched him.
A diamond ring, bawl my head off, or secure me a post after my own heart. That would be as a housekeeper.
Judging from the tone in which he had said this, she didn’t know whether or not Doctor Pippin liked his assistant; that he should be sitting up all night with him was no proof, doctors did that for all sorts of people.
She did not know what time it was or whether she was half asleep or awake when she started upwards at the sound of Nancy calling her name from the hall. It was so loud that she could still hear the echo of it when she was standing on her feet.
Doctor Pippin hadn’t stirred. She looked swiftly from him to Harry. He was still lying in the same position, apparently in a deep sleep.
Swiftly now she tiptoed down the room and up the passage and into the hall. The lamp had been turned down, but she could see that the hall was quite empty; the door was closed, bolted. She looked towards the stairs. Roland and Aunt Sophie were up there but there was no sound. Peg was in her room beyond the kitchen.
She drooped her head. She must have been dreaming, yet the voice had been so clear, with an appeal in it. It was the way Nancy used to call her name after she’d had words with Mildred. ‘Martha Mary! Martha Mary!’ She’d come running down the stairs and cry, ‘Do something!’ It was that kind of an appeal that the call had held.
She walked slowly down the passage and into the room again. All sleep had gone from her and for a moment the dead feeling of weariness, for once again she had been alerted to life and the needs of those dear to her.
Had Nancy actually called to her from that house? From that room wherein she would now have to spend a lifetime of nights with a man to whom she was in no way suited?
Her mind gave her no answer. Quietly she placed more wood on the fire, then sat down, pulled the blanket around her and waited for the dawn.
Eight
It was still raining the following morning at eleven o’clock when Doctor Pippin, ready to take his departure, stood by the side of the couch and, looking down at Harry, said, ‘Well now, I must be off. You know your own treatment, doctor, don’t you; and if you follow it you will be well enough to rise in a few days. But I’ll be back long before then, that’s if I can make it through the mud, you understand? This hired horse is not a patch on Bessie. Poor Bessie. How she made it home with that stab in her rump I’ll never know.’
Harry didn’t speak but he made a slow painful movement with his head.
Doctor Pippin now lifted the cape of his coat upwards around his chin, pulled on his gloves, looked towards the door where Roland was waiting, definitely chaffing with impatience, turned his gaze on Martha, who was standing to his side, and said, ‘I’ll leave him in your hands, Martha Mary! When he starts bawling you’ll know he’s better and ready for the road.’ He turned a twisted smile on Harry; then his voice becoming serious, he said slowly, ‘There’s one thing I’d like to know before I go, if you’re not up to answering we can leave it, but I want the constabulary after those would-be murderers as soon as possible. Have you any idea who they were?’
Harry gazed up into the doctor’s face. His mind was in a fog; he couldn’t recall anything about the attack except a faint recollection of looking into an open mouth that had the front teeth missing. He screwed up his eyes against the pain of thinking, then his hand moving slowly up to his mouth, he muttered, ‘Nick Bailey, no teeth.’
‘Nick Bailey!’ It was Martha who repeated the name; and then she murmured, ‘Oh no!’
‘He was your outside boy?’ Doctor Pippin was looking at her now, and she said, ‘Yes, doctor.’
‘Doctor Fuller had some trouble with him over some animals, cats I gather?’
‘Yes, yes, he had.’
‘And so this was by way of retaliation.’
The old man’s face was grim as he looked down on Harry. ‘All right, leave it to me, I’ll see to it.’ He was about to turn away when Harry, his voice now more like his own, said, ‘Fred.’
Doctor Pippin opened his mouth, closed it, glanced at Martha, then said tersely, ‘Don’t worry about Fred, he’s…he’s all right, just do what you’re told, rest and get yourself out of that as soon as possible because I need you. Do you hear?’
Harry made no sign, he just lay and watched the doctor and Martha leave the room.
In the hall Doctor Pippin looked at Martha and said quietly, ‘He mustn’t know about the animal yet; he thought a great deal of that dog…Is he buried?’
‘Yes, I got Dan to do it early this morning.’
‘Good, good.’ The doctor, now glancing towards the stairs and nipping at his lower lip, said, ‘I should have a look at your Aunt Sophie while I’m here but…’
‘Doctor—’ Roland’s voice brought his head sharply round—‘the journey back is going to be difficult, it may take much longer than anticipated, and I have to meet a train. We shouldn’t waste any more time.’
The tone and the words were a command and the doctor cast a look on Roland that caused him to turn away towards the door; then speaking to Martha again and his words unhurried, and his tone subdued but loud enough to carry to Roland who was now descending the steps, he said, ‘Well, my dear, expect me in a day or two; although as I said, it all depends on the weather. But should it prevent me from coming out I’m sure it won’t prevent Doctor Fuller from returning as soon as he’s steady on his legs, nor you from coming into town to take up your new position.’
Martha did not reply to this; she imagined the doctor was taking it for granted that she would get a position in Hexham. What she did notice was that his words checked Roland on the third step and brought him round to look up at her, but she avoided his eye, bid the doctor goodye, closed the door on the driving rain and stood for a moment breathing deeply as she looked around the dim hall.
Never before had the hall and stairway appeared to her as shabby. She had the odd sensation she was seeing it, really seeing it for the first time. The worn turkey carpet lying in the middle of the flagged floor, the grey uneven flagstones surrounding it, the green embossed wallpaper faded to a dirty grey, the blanket chest looking like a coffin; and the china cabinet in the recess full of her mother’s collection of china appeared from this distance nothing but a jumble of odd pieces of crockery. Her eyes lifted to the bare oak stairs leading to the landing. Up there was the same shabbiness in all the rooms, except that which had been her father’s and which Peg had hastily prepared for the coming guest …
… Coming guest. Was that the reason why she was seeing the house as it really was, because this is how a stranger would see it? And what would Roland’s future wife think of the dining room and its meagre fare? She herself would have to prepare some food for them all. Under ordinary circumstances she would have gone out of her way to lay on a good meal, but tonight the honoured guest would, like the rest of them, have to savour the remains of yesterday’s meal, which was stewed mutton, with an apple and blackberry pie to follow.
As she was about to cross the hall, Peg appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a tray and she spoke to her as she descended, saying, ‘She hasn’t eaten half her breakfast, Miss Martha Mary, she’s gone right off her food. As I’ve said before, she’s still got plenty of fat on
her to keep her goin’, but at one time she was always ready for her food, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, Peg.’
Resting the tray on the corner of the side table at the foot of the stairs, Peg now looked up at Martha Mary and asked quietly, ‘What’s gona happen to her when you go?’
‘That’s Roland’s responsibility.’ She had since yesterday omitted the ‘master’ when speaking of him.
‘I’m not stayin’ you…you know, not when you’re not here, Miss Martha Mary, I’m not, no.’
‘You must think about your grandmother, Peg.’
‘I’ve thought about her; an’ I’ve talked it over with Dan early on this mornin’.’
‘With Dan? Why?’
‘’Cos…well’—she lowered her head and wagged it from side to side—‘Well, I’m fifteen on Wednesda’; another year or more an’ I could get sort of engaged like. He’s for me…was right from the start, an’ me for him an’ all. An’ he thinks the same as me; he doesn’t want to work for nobody but you, but as I said to him, we both can’t go stark starin’ mad, so he’ll stay on an’ I’ll go along of you.’
Martha now bent down and gently touched Peg’s cheek. ‘Do you want to please me, Peg?’
‘Aye, miss, more than anybody in the world.’
‘Then…then stay on here for a while and look after Aunt Sophie. I…I don’t think she’ll need you all that long, but…but if you do this just for me I won’t forget it. And later…well, we’ll see, we’ll work together. If I get a housekeeper’s position I could always make room for you and…Oh, don’t, don’t cry, Peg, please.’
Peg now wiped her face roughly with her apron, then picking up the tray, she looked up as if in defiance at Martha, and said, ‘It’s a bloody shame, that’s what Dan says, an’ I say it an’ all an’ that’s swearin’ to it, that you should be so treated like this. There isn’t no justice, there can’t be no God; Dan says there can’t be no God.’ She was walking sideways now, nodding back at Martha. ‘He says there can’t be no God except for those who earn more than two pounds a week; then they make him up just to thank somebody for their luck.’
She was still mumbling as she put her buttocks to the kitchen door, thrust them backwards, then edged herself in with the tray.
Martha hadn’t moved from the bottom of the stairs. There was no justice, there could be no God except for people who earned over two pounds a week and then they made him up in order to have someone to thank. It was odd, strange, the things that Peg and Dilly had come out with from time to time…and boys like Dan. It was as if they worked out a philosophy all their own.
Her throat was full; she turned about, went down the passage and into the study, and as she entered the room and looked at the prone figure on the couch she wished in the back of her heart that she was as simple as Peg and the man lying there as uncomplicated as Dan.
It was almost at the moment when she heard the trap drive into the yard that Harry opened his eyes for the third time that day and looked at her, but it was the first time he had spoken to her. ‘Hello there,’ he said, and as she looked down on him she had difficulty in answering in the same vein. ‘Hello to you, too.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Just on four o’clock.’
When he made to raise himself on his elbow he groaned and she put her hands gently on his shoulders and said, ‘Now please, don’t move, lie still, and…and don’t talk.’
He blinked up at her as he gasped, ‘Know something?’ Then his eyes closed before he ended, ‘I don’t want to talk.’
‘Well, that’s very good.’ She turned her head slightly away from him now as she heard voices in the hall. But when her name was called, and in quite a loud cheerful way, her chin jerked slightly upwards.
By the sound of his voice her brother intended to pass everything off as normal.
The door opened, but Roland didn’t enter, he merely put his head round it, saying, ‘Martha Mary, can you spare a minute?’
She looked back at him, her gaze straight; then turning once more to Harry, she said gently, ‘I won’t be long.’
When he murmured something she bent right down to him, her face close to his, and said, ‘What is it?’ Again she watched him close his eyes, swallow deeply, then say slowly, ‘I said…it’s arrived.’ His lids lifted; they were looking at each other and there was the faintest exchange of amusement in their glance.
It’s arrived, he had said. He had called the invader it, not she, madam, or her ladyship, but it. She wanted to laugh not only at his effort to put a jocular side to the situation, but with relief at the fact that his brain was clear. He was remembering all the incidents of yesterday. He remembered who was expected. Doctor Pippin had said the concussion might block from his memory a number of events that occurred yesterday, and there was one in particular that she wished him to remember: ‘Call me Harry,’ he had said.
When his hand came up slowly from under the blanket and touched hers and he said, ‘Go on and do battle, but…but don’t give in an inch,’ she could say nothing.
Slowly she withdrew her hand from his, straightened her back, stared at him for a moment longer, then turned about and went from the room …
In every way the visitor was a surprise.
When Martha opened the drawing room door from where she heard the voices coming and the visitor swung sharply about and faced her, all her preconceived idea of Roland’s choice was whipped away. She had imagined someone tall, even as tall as Roland, with a scholastic bearing, seeing that she wanted to turn this house into a school, and educated to the extent of speaking three foreign languages. But what she saw was a person who hardly came up to Roland’s shoulder. Moreover, she was plump. Martha was reminded instantly of her father’s mistress, but as she advanced and took a closer look of the visitor she saw that there the similarity ended, for this young woman’s hair was not in ringlets but taken straight back from her forehead, and she had no claim whatever to prettiness. When they came face to face what struck Martha more forcibly than anything else and with something of a shock, was that Roland’s future wife was already a woman, and of…an age. She could be all of twenty-five years of age or twenty-seven. What she was certain of was that she was much, much older then herself.
‘My…my sister Martha Mary. And this is Eva…Miss Harkness, Martha Mary.’ Roland’s introduction was brief, and hesitant.
‘How do you do? I am so pleased to meet you. I have heard so much about you from Roland. He’s for ever singing your praises to the sky. In fact at times it has given me a feeling of inadequacy.’
Martha hesitated before taking the hand extended to her. When she did, she merely offered her fingertips, while the voice went on non-stop: ‘What a charming house! I love it already. And the setting, so wild and beautiful. How fortunate you both are.’ She flashed a look towards Roland, who stood to the side smiling at her as if captivated by her charm, her ease of manner, her cleverness, the whole of her.
And yes, Martha detected at once that this person should be admired for her cleverness if for nothing else, for she certainly had mesmerised Roland.
‘I’ve been wanting to make your acquaintance for so long. Although Roland told me what you would be like I couldn’t help, well, but be a little afraid of you.’ She now joined her hands together under her chin as if in prayer, and the childish attitude she posed was so ill-suited to her self-assured manner that it was almost embarrassing, so much so that it penetrated Roland’s trance as she finished, ‘I have so much to learn from you. But I can assure you you’ll never have a more willing pupil,’ for now he brought his sheepish gaze to rest on Martha.
The smile had left his face; he now looked like a young boy caught out in some misdemeanour, and when he lowered his head Martha, speaking for the first time, said, ‘I’m afraid, Miss…Harkness, isn’t it? I’m afraid my brother has misled you, I shall not be able to instruct you in any way as I am leaving the house in the very near future. In fact had our doctor not suffered an
accident last night I should already be gone. But I’m staying only as long as he requires my aid, which I should imagine will be another two to three days at the most.’
Miss Eva Harkness seemed to be taken off her guard for a moment, her expression looked blank; but then with the same swift twist of her body with which she had turned to view Martha as she entered the room, she now confronted Roland, saying, and as if to a naughty child, ‘Roland, you didn’t inform me of this, why?’
‘There wasn’t time, Eva, and…and I wanted you to see the house and explain in full…’
‘Your other sisters, are they staying at home?’
The glance Roland now flashed towards Martha was no longer boyish but held a look of venom, and she stared back at him as she said quietly, ‘Miss Harkness asked you a question, Roland.’
‘You are out to make it difficult, Martha.’
‘I don’t agree with you, Roland, but…but as I said, Miss Harkness is waiting for an answer.’
‘Perhaps you would give me the answer.’ The small figure was confronting her now, any touch of girlishness in her manner having utterly disappeared.
‘Very well, since you insist. My sister Mildred, who is next to me in age, works in Hexham in our bookshop; she returns each evening except when, as now, the weather makes the roads almost impassable. My youngest sister Nancy’—she paused now and glanced at Roland—‘was married yesterday and has taken up her abode some four miles away. And now to save time and further misunderstanding, Miss Harkness, I think you should be informed that there is no staff here to speak of, except a young girl of fifteen called Peg Thornycroft and an outside boy. Moreover, there is an invalid in the house, but I suppose Roland has informed you of our aunt and her condition.’
Miss Martha Mary Crawford Page 27
