Maggie Rowan

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Too near the nobs, Aunt Nell. And you know how some folks go on about pitmen getting free coal as it is.’

  ‘But it isn’t free, they pay for it in more ways than one.’

  ‘Aye, I know. But the old cry is they wouldn’t mind a bit being stopped off their wages if they could get a ton of coal for it. And some of them are out to catch a bloke selling his coal, you know.’

  ‘They want to go down and get it.’

  ‘Aye, they do that. They like to make cases in point, as they call them, out of such things. But, anyway, I heard the lads on about the allowance being cut—there might even be coal rationing—and if that’s the case me mother’ll be hard put to make do, for she can barely manage on the load a month she gets now, you know what she is with the coal. Night and day, summer and winter, there’s fires going. I thought she would have stopped it after the lads got washed at the pit; but it’s a habit, I suppose.’

  ‘Will you have a cup of tea, Chris?’

  ‘No. Thanks all the same, Aunt Nell.’

  In the awkward silence following this remark, Nellie busied herself about the room. Systematically she removed the ornaments from the brackets of the glass-backed sideboard prior to enhancing its shining surface still more with further rubbing. She was well on with this task when Chris spoke again.

  ‘Bit of news about our Fred, isn’t it? Fancy him being made a sergeant. Can you imagine it, Aunt Nell?’

  ‘Yes; somehow I can. They say the best way to cure rebels is to give them a bit of authority.’

  Chris laughed. ‘Aye, well, there’s something in that an’ all. And he was a rebel all right. Goin’ to put the world straight, he was. D’you remember, Aunt Nell? He was stood off the day I was married, and he never did a hand’s turn from that until he joined up. And now he’s a sergeant!’

  Chris moved uneasily in his chair as his mother’s voice, yelling at the twins, came to him from next door. Nellie turned and asked, ‘Have you been in?’ and he replied, ‘No, not yet. And if she doesn’t come in you needn’t say I’ve been.’

  Quietly Nellie asked, ‘What is it, Chris? Something’s wrong.’

  He rose from his seat, and twirled his cap in his hands for a moment before answering, ‘Well, nothing’s really wrong, Aunt Nell; but there’s something I came across, and I thought it might help you…I mean help Tom to…well, to straighten himself out.’

  ‘What is it, Chris?’ Nellie began to dry her hands on the duster.

  And Chris, looking at her stiff white face, stammered, ‘It’s really no business of mine, Aunt Nell, but I like Tom…’

  ‘Tell me what you know, Chris.’

  ‘Well, you see, I heard of a woman down Bog’s End way, in Blossom Row, who did a bit of scrap-gathering in a small way, and I went to see if I could do a deal and get her to collect for me. Well, that part was all right. But during the time I was there she got talking, like women do, and she was pretty bitter about her lad. It was him that used to gather the tagger as a sideline. But when the war broke out he was called up and he went into the Merchant Navy, and what did he do but leave his half-pay note to some lass. And then the old woman finds out that the lass is one of the Watson family, and…well, Aunt Nell, that’s it, she’s living with him.’

  He stopped, and Nellie, who was now wringing the duster as if it was a dishcloth, asked below her breath, ‘And she’s still with him?’

  ‘Aye…yes. You see, knowing how you were worried about Tom, I made it my business to find out what I could. Not that I interfere with people’s lives, Aunt Nell, you know that, because I’ve got enough to do to manage me own.’ His lids drooped for a moment before he went on, ‘Well, I found out she lives in one of the Boswell Cottages…those ones the council was going to pull down before the war, you know. And what’s more, he’s with her now.’

  Nellie passed her tongue round her dry lips. Then she sat down by the table, and taking the duster she wiped the moisture from her brow, from around the roots of her hair, and from the top of her lip.

  ‘If he knew that, wouldn’t it finish him, Aunt Nell?’

  Nellie nodded slowly. ‘It should do. But he’d have to see for himself, he’d believe no word against her. He’s gone mad…quite mad.’

  Her head moved now from side to side, and Chris said: ‘But surely he’ll believe you, Aunt Nell. What I had in mind was that you’d go and see her.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Well, if he goes she might spin him a yarn. You know what they are. And you could tell her straight.’

  Nellie stared across the table towards the fire. Then she stood up and shook out the duster, and she placed it on the table before folding it into a neat square. ‘When would I likely find her in?’

  ‘Any time, I should think. She’s working on munitions, but I gathered from the old woman that she’s off this week. Supposed to be with a cold…but it’s funny he should be on leave.’

  He watched her fold the duster again, then yet again with studied precision fold it into another, even smaller, square.

  He stood up and said, ‘Well, Aunt Nell, there it is. I’d better be off now in case me ma comes in. I hope you haven’t minded me telling you this.’

  Bringing her eyes from the duster, Nellie looked down on him, and her face softened as she said, ‘I can’t thank you enough, Chris. This is the second time you’ve done a good turn to my family…and to me.’

  He made for the door, saying, ‘That’s all right, Aunt Nell’; but he was puzzled to know what the other good turn could have been. Surely she wasn’t meaning him marrying Maggie. Yet it was the only thing he could think of. And as he walked into the street he felt glad that what he had done had, after all, brought happiness to someone.

  At half-past two Tom came in and, as was becoming usual now, he threw no cheerful greeting to his mother in the living room, where she was in the act of taking an earthenware dish from the oven. She placed it on the table, then stood near the fire waiting. It was some moments before he came into the room, and still he gave her no greeting, but went to the table and sat down.

  Without a word Nellie helped him to the rabbit and vegetables from the dish, and in awkward silence he started to eat.

  After some moments Nellie went into the kitchen and, picking up his bait bag, threw it among the dirty clothes. Then she washed out his water-bottle. And when she had finished she held it tightly between her hands, and her set face contracted before breaking up into twitching muscles. Slowly her head drooped over the bottle and her hands moved around it as if the bottle itself was the source of her trouble; and for a moment it seemed as though the tears were about to rain on it, but a tap on the back door brought her head up and her body straight. And when she opened it to the minister her face was set in its usual immobility.

  ‘Hallo, Mrs Rowan.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Fraser.’

  ‘Is he in?’ It was a conspiratorial whisper.

  She nodded and stepped aside; and as she closed the door behind him she said, ‘He’s at his dinner.’

  ‘I’ll wait a while then.’

  ‘No. I’d go right in, Mr Fraser, he’ll be finished by now.’

  ‘Any change?’

  Again she shook her head. And he shook his, too, as he walked away from her along the passage.

  His greeting to Tom, whose innate good manners still made him stand up on the minister’s entry, was cheery but failed in its attempt to be casual, as the set stubbornness and irritation in Tom’s face showed. Always Tom’s attitude towards Mr Fraser had been that of an eager pupil towards a loved master, but since the minister had gone over to the other side he had naturally become an enemy—all those who weren’t with him were against him, and no-one was with him. He’d had good proof of this an hour ago when they were waiting to come up, and when Ted Fuller had talked to him, saying to his marrer, ‘All the Holy Joes are the same. Have you ever read the Old Testament where that old bastard took a piece into his tent? They were all alike, all the bloody lot of
them…and they still are. And then they expect you to go to chapel. Bloody neck!’

  The new fierceness that had been developing like a hothouse plant within him these past few weeks had leapt out and on to Ted Fuller, even before his body made to push through the men towards his tormentor. Only David’s silent grip on his arm and the cage opening to receive Ted and his mates checked what would likely have led to an invitation to doff coats in the quarry.

  When they reached the top Ted was gone, and not until they were descending the stairs from the wheelhouse did David speak, and then only in terse, abrupt sentences.

  ‘What d’you expect? You can’t blame them. I told you what it’d be. And he’s right. You preaching types are the worst when you get going.’

  Tom paused on the stairs. ‘You an’ all?’

  ‘Aye, until you get some sense,’ said David.

  And now here was another of them. Tom rubbed his hand across his mouth. God in heaven! He looked at Mr Fraser and found he was now disliking him, and he hated himself for it, but was unable to check himself from thinking: He’s smarmy. Now he’ll ladle out his philosophy.

  And again he thought: My God! They seem to be right. I’ve changed clean through.

  ‘Finish your dinner, Tom.’

  ‘I have finished.’

  ‘There’s a nip in the air today, it gives you an appetite.’

  ‘Aye, it does.’

  ‘Your mother always has a nice fire on…’

  ‘Look, Mr Fraser, don’t beat about the bush. I know why you’ve come.’

  Mr Fraser lifted his round shoulders, and his brown flecked eyes fixed themselves on Tom, and his tone changed. Almost it changed to Tom’s own, as if to imply that he was meeting him on the ground of his own choosing.

  ‘All right, we won’t beat about the bush. We’d better sit down though, hadn’t we?’

  He took a chair by the corner of the fireplace and faced Tom as he sat at the far side of the table, and for a moment neither of them spoke, until Mr Fraser plunged in with a statement that acted like tinder to Tom’s dry anger.

  ‘You’re making a mistake. You don’t realise it now, but you’re making a stupid and grave mistake.’

  ‘Yes? Well, what about it?’ Tom’s face was unrecognisable to the minister. ‘If I’m making one it’s my mistake. It’s my business, and no-one’s going to pay but me. And who’s to say I’m making a mistake? You, above all people, I expected to see the other side of it. What about the casting of the first stone now?’

  Tom’s tone and attitude were such that, although Mr Fraser was prepared for opposition, he was now shocked by it, not to mention hurt. Who would have thought that this lad…no, he was a man now; but he had known him since he was a small boy, a dreamy little boy. He had watched him grow, and he’d had a hand in leading his tastes along their natural lines. He could remember his own delight when he recognised that in the young pit boy lay a born preacher, a boy with a love of God and who saw the good in man even before he understood him in the slightest. The irony of it all was that it was this very God-given quality that had led him into this mess. His inborn belief would not allow him to recognise the bad in the woman.

  ‘I’m casting no stones, I’m only thinking of you and your future.’

  ‘That’s past.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know it’s past; you won’t preach any more. I understand that.’

  The cool acceptance by the minister, that what had been his pet desire was no more, had the effect of startling Tom. It seemed that in stating the fact that preaching was now beyond him, the minister was himself pushing him into this world where seemingly everyone’s aim was to try to stay his entry.

  ‘The future I am referring to is your life, the life you will have to face if you marry this girl. You’ll be cut off from your own people; and not only your own people but the Church. You will lose what respect is still yours. And the greatest thing you must face is you will be like a stranger down the pit. Another man could have done this thing and it would have passed unnoticed. But not you; you have said too much. And during the past you have thrown your example far and wide.’

  Tom was on his feet. ‘All because of lying, spiteful tongues! What do they know of her?’

  ‘Quite a lot.’

  The quiet words checked the torrent, and Tom stared down into the set face of the minister, and his fevered brain sent a picture to him of three nights ago when he had gone across the fells to find, not Beattie, but a note from her hidden in the hole beneath the bushes, in which she told him she couldn’t see him for a week as she had a bad cold and had to stay indoors. And the last line had ordered him not to try to see her.

  He could even now feel the rage and suspicion that filled him; and he had called himself a fool and tried to whip up the courage to disobey her command. But he knew now, as he knew then, that he was afraid of what he would find if he did.

  The old adage, there is no smoke without fire, was ever with him, but he would not allow himself to believe that Beattie was bad, for once he acccepted that he imagined she would cease to exist for him. If he believed as others did, he would, he reasoned, act like them and shun her. Yet, he asked himself now, didn’t some part of him believe it? Didn’t the very fact that he’d accused the minister of casting a stone signify that there was a reason why the stone should be cast?

  God! He swung round from Mr Fraser and stared out of the window. And the minister rose and said with compassion, ‘Tom, I know how you feel. Will you please believe me? We are all human, God knows. He above all knows just that. There need be no shame in you feeling attracted to the woman…it’s generally the good men who are attracted by that type.’

  ‘Don’t call her…that type!’ Tom flung round, emphasising each word, and he stared at the minister as if it would take but one more word to bring his arm swinging out.

  But Mr Fraser was not to be intimidated. ‘If you don’t already know it in your heart there will come a time and soon, when you will have to face up to it.’

  ‘All right then. Say everything you say is true and I marry her, what then? She wouldn’t be allowed to come to chapel even if she wanted to. That’d be it, wouldn’t it? The God-fearing lot would turn their noses up at her, wouldn’t they? And I’d be cut off and shunned. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?…Well, let me tell you something. If that’s the case you have failed.’ He was shouting now. ‘Do you hear? Failed! All your preaching and your teaching me to preach that life is as nowt unless lived through God’s love and justice is all eyewash. You taught me to go into the highways and byways and to take His word with me, His word of love and forgiveness. Aye, forgiveness. You laid great stock on forgiveness…And now when I’ve done it…Do you realise that…I’ve done it? If what you think of her is true, I’ve done it. And what’s happened? You’re frightened of the result and of what folks’ll say.’

  Mr Fraser’s face was drained white, and he spoke through stiff lips. ‘You’re confusing sex with love.’

  Tom suddenly became quiet. It was as if the quietness had struck him as lightning strikes. His body relaxed; first his face; then his shoulders; and downwards. And his voice was as near to his old manner of speaking as the minister had heard it. ‘I expected that…I’m not denying that I want her, but I’m going to tell you something else. It’s gone deeper than that. I know…somehow I know, it’s as if God had told me Himself—I know she’s the only one for me…Aye, you can shake your head. But right in here’—he tapped the top of his waistcoat—‘I know. And you should believe that’—now his voice rose—‘for it was you taught me to search inside to find out what I really wanted…to find out what mattered.’

  ‘I thought you had done that, and that it was God.’

  A dull red crept up from Tom’s collar to his hair. ‘He still does, He still has His place.’

  ‘Huh!’ The laugh held both amusement and sarcasm. ‘His place! You have put Him in His place. His place comes after that woman. And you think He’ll be conte
nt to stay there?’ The raised eyebrows pressed the question, and for a moment Tom stared back at the minister, his body rigid once more.

  And he said in a harsh bewildered fashion, ‘I know nowt any more, nowt that makes sense. I only know I want to be left alone, to go to hell, if I’m going, in my own way.’

  Mr Fraser sighed, and made one last effort. ‘Why don’t you join up…get away? Yes’—he lifted up his hand—‘yes, I know you tried and they wouldn’t let you. But if I use my influence…I’m on the same committee as Mr Spencer; a word to him might…’

  ‘Get me out of the way? That’s it, isn’t it?’ The red had completely drained from Tom’s face now, and around his mouth ran a white line as if painted on the flesh. ‘Well, I don’t want to be got out of the way. I tried once to join up and I’m not trying again. My God, but it’s funny.’

  The words, used in a form of blasphemy, made the minister’s face tighten, and the sickness of his heart was shown in his eyes as he watched and listened to this unknown man.

  Tom was shaking his head slowly as if amazed at his thoughts. ‘It’s so funny, it’s enough to make you stop believing in God altogether.’ He nodded towards Mr Fraser. ‘You, a minister, would have me join up and go and kill men you have taught me to believe are my brothers. You would have me do this just so as I wouldn’t marry a lass who, because of her folks, has been given a bad name. You’d have me do this rather than shock the members of the chapel.’ He paused, and asked of the minister quietly, ‘Don’t you think there’s a bit of twisting, mind twisting, going on somewhere?’

  Mr Fraser picked up his hat from the chair and walked slowly to the door. And there he turned and said softly, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it. If ever I’ve seen the Devil at work in a man I’m seeing him now. He’s so manifest that at this moment it is hopeless to try and combat him. All I or anybody can do is to pray for you.’

  ‘Oh, go to hell!’ Whether Tom uttered the words aloud he did not know, but he thought them. For the first time in his life he reacted as he had heard other men react to preaching; the jargon of the pit which had never been his supplied him now with words to express his anger and irritation. Yet as he stood in the middle of the kitchen, so taut that his body looked ready to spring through the walls, his form of retaliation forced a disturbing thought into his mind. He had preached in his own way to the men, yet never had it been his lot to receive the retaliation, ‘Oh, go to hell!’ although he had heard it delivered many times to others; and into his anger flowed the knowledge that the men had liked listening to him, and young as he was they had believed in him and what he had said. But now their reaction would be not such as they would show to some fellow who had a bee in his bonnet about God—and there were a number of such—but they would be violent, as men are when they feel they have been played for suckers.