The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘It may be for you, Riah, but it’s never been that way for me; so I have nobody to exhume. It is here with me all the time.’

  She got to her feet, thrusting the chair back as she exclaimed, ‘Now I told you.’

  ‘Riah, sit down, please.’

  Such was the note of pleading in his voice that after a moment’s hesitation she sat down again. He remained lying still with his eyes closed as he said, ‘I want to ask one last request of you; and it is a last request, I’ll never ask anything of you again. I want to see David, just once more.’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Don’t say it like that, Riah.’ He still had his eyes closed, but now his fingers began to pick at the thread-worn silk of the padded eiderdown and he went on, ‘I don’t mean you to bring him here, not inside. I…I just want to glimpse him from the window.’

  She bowed her head and rested her hand on the edge of the bed before she said, ‘I’ve got to tell you, he…he doesn’t look like he used to.’

  ‘No?’ He opened his eyes and turned his head towards her.

  ‘No. He’s changed.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I…I can’t explain it. Yes, I can. He’s not…well, beautiful any more, not like he used to be as a boy. You would only be disappointed.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I say you would, because…’

  When she didn’t go on he said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Because I myself am disappointed.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In different ways. He’s changed. He’s no longer the Davey that I knew, he’s rougher.’

  ‘Well, of course he would be, working with four stable hands: their minds must become like the backsides of their horses, unpleasant.’

  ‘He’s not like that. He’s not unpleasant, just…just different.’

  ‘As you say, just different. Nevertheless, I would like you to arrange this one thing for me.’

  ‘I…I can’t.’ She was on her feet again.

  ‘Why? You see him on his leave days. You have your meeting in the stable.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ She paused. ‘Our Biddy…she had no right. I’ll…’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, Riah, unless you want to distress me, for Biddy, besides having a brain, has a heart. Oh, if I’d only more time to see the finished Biddy. I’m telling you this, Riah, Biddy has more understanding than you. She is but a girl, a child in years, but her mind is away, away above yours and all your class.’

  Her lips trembled as she looked at him. He could still be viciously hurtful, could this man. Her and all her class. It made her feel like scum, and she said so: ‘You talk as if we were scum.’

  ‘That wasn’t my intention, but because your kind have been deprived of education your minds have not learned how to function, how to reason. Only when people can do this can they understand fully the pain that they are not suffering, the hardships that they are not enduring and the quirks of nature that, thankfully, they are not burdened with. People of lesser minds, through their ignorance, condemn. If your daughter ever condemns anybody it won’t be through ignorance or superstition.’ He lifted his head upwards now, saying, ‘If I’m not mistaken, that’s the front doorbell. It will be my visitors.’

  Hurriedly and gladly, she turned from him and when she opened the front door it was to admit three gentlemen: the usual clerk, and two other men. The third man was differently dressed and it was apparent from the start that he was also a superior of the other two for there was a cutting edge to his voice as he said, ‘I’m Mr Butler, of Butler and Morgan. Please announce me to your master.’

  She took his hat and coat while the other two men divested themselves of theirs; then going to the drawing room door, she opened it and without any announcement she allowed them in; then closed the door after them. It had been usual for her, when admitting the clerk, to say, ‘Mr Tate, sir, to see you.’ But that man had, as she put it to herself, got her goat. What, she wondered when she went back to the kitchen, was this all about? He had no money to leave, nor anything else that she knew of: the house and furniture would be claimed by the cousins. She pictured the spinster lady storming into the house and finding fault with everything. As she set the tray for refreshments she thought to herself, I’ll make it me business to go into the town next week and see what kind of jobs go on market day. It was no use her going to the parson to ask him if he knew of any such position that would fill her needs because since the rift with Tol there had been no lift for the children to church on Sunday, and in the winter they had often returned frozen and wet to the skin. And so she had dared to keep them away from church. And strangely, this stand of hers had pleased the master, but had, for a time, caused a rift between him and the parson, for he refused to use his authority to force her to send the children to church and Bible school in the afternoon whatever the weather.

  The solicitor and his clerks did not stay long, not more than half an hour, and when in the hall they stood ready for departure Mr Butler looked at her through narrowed eyes and, shaking his head, he said, ‘Dear, dear.’ She did not know what to make of this; but then as he went out of the front door she thought she had the explanation when he turned to her and said, ‘When it happens, send immediately for the doctor, and then he will get word to me.’

  She watched them mount the shabby-looking coach, and after they had disappeared down the drive she went indoors and stood looking towards the drawing room. Was it really as bad as all that? She would put the question to the doctor when he next came …

  The following day when Doctor Pritchard called, she did put the question to him as she was seeing him out of the front door. ‘Is he in danger of going?’ she asked. And looking at her straight in the face, he replied, ‘Any minute, and has been over the past two years. That being so, he could go on for another two, if you tend him as you’re doing. Keep worry from him, and—who knows?—he might see you out.’ He smiled, a brown-tooth smile.

  She had never liked the doctor: his teeth were decayed, his cravat and coat were always snuff-matted, and at times he smelt strongly of spirits. And it was said that he wouldn’t be paid in either pig meat or fowl by the common people; if they hadn’t a sixpence they got short shrift.

  It was a fortnight later on a Sunday afternoon. The October sun was thin; the air too was thin and sharp. There was no wind, a stillness everywhere. It was, as Biddy put it to herself, a real Sunday. Sundays she always considered were funny days: you hadn’t to work on a Sunday; you hadn’t to read anything but the Bible on a Sunday, although she did; you had to go to church on a Sunday, which she didn’t; it was an extra kind of sin for a man to get drunk on a Sunday, yet, and this was an odd thing, it was no sin for couples to roll in the grass, or to cuddle and kiss behind the hedges on a Sunday. Funny that. She would have thought there would be more sinning in that than getting drunk, or reading other than the Bible.

  The master had laughed when she voiced her opinion on this matter. She liked to make him laugh. She wished she could make him happy. He had never been happy since the accident, not really, and that was all through their Davey, because, as far as she understood it, the master wanted to act like a dad and make a fuss of him and he didn’t like it. She had tried to talk about it to her ma, but her ma had shut her up quick. It was as if she had sworn or used bad words or something, the way she had gone for her that time.

  She had never been fond of her brother, and with the years she had grown less fond. But the master had told her himself this morning that there was only one thing he wanted and that was to glimpse their Davey again. And he’d asked her help. She didn’t know what she should do. Herself, she couldn’t see any harm in it; but why he should want to see their Davey the Lord only knew.

  She couldn’t understand her mother’s attitude towards the master, not really, because he was a kind man. He’d been kind to all of them. She should say he had. Look how he had taught them, particularly her. She couldn’t imagine what she would ha
ve been like if he hadn’t taken time to teach her…all empty inside, because her mind would have had nothing to work on, whereas now, she felt learned, and she considered she knew things that nobody else did. Not that she’d brag about them, but she felt sure there was not a girl in the village or in the city itself of her own age who could rattle off things like she did, so therefore she was very grateful to the master. And yes, she would, she would do as he asked. When her mother went to meet their Davey today, she would get the master through the kitchen and along the corridor and to the window at the far end that looked on to the stables and the little barn. And so she told him.

  ‘Thank you, Biddy,’ he said. ‘About what time does he arrive?’

  ‘Round half past two.’

  He smiled wanly at her as he mimicked, ‘Round half past two.’ He had stressed the ‘round’. And she answered his smile with a wider one as she, aiming to imitate his voice in return, said, ‘About har…f par…st two.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Biddy. What a pity I shall not be here to see the flowering of you.’

  ‘Oh, you could be here a long time, sir, if you took care.’

  ‘What did I tell you about speaking the truth?’

  Her lids fluttered and she looked downwards as she said, ‘You’ve also pointed out that diplomacy is made up of white lies and that it’s often kinder to use it.’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed, that’s true. Do you know something, Biddy?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I think that you will be the only one who will really miss me when I’m gone.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she was quick to retort now, ‘we’ll all miss you, sir. We’ll all miss you, me ma and all of us.’

  ‘Me ma.’ He shook his head; then smiling he said, ‘I doubt, Biddy, whether me ma…will.’

  ‘Oh yes, she will, sir. She’s always telling us not to worry you, and to do what we’re told, and how lucky we are to have been taught by you.’

  ‘She has?’

  ‘Yes, she has.’

  ‘Well, I am pleased to hear that. Yes, yes, indeed I am.’ He paused for a long moment while looking at her; then he said, ‘Has your mother talked to you about David and me?’

  Her eyelids fluttered again and she said, ‘No, no; not much.’

  ‘Have you ever felt afraid of me, Biddy?’

  Her eyes sprang wide and her voice registered a higher note as she answered, ‘Afraid of you, sir? No, never. I couldn’t imagine anybody being afraid of you…well, I mean, not when they got to know you.’ Her smile was soft as she went on, ‘I’ve never been afraid of you, not even when you used to bellow at me because of my “a”s and “s”s and colloquial sayings.’ She felt happy when she saw his body shake slightly as if he was laughing inwardly, and she knew he was laughing when he said, ‘Remember the day when you cheeked me because I was reprimanding you all for saying “us this and us that”, and you stood up and said, “Well, usses is fed up to the teeth”?’

  Her laughter filled the room: she screwed up her eyes and, her arms hugging her waist, she rocked herself for a moment, then said, ‘Eeh, yes!’ And he mocked her again, saying, ‘Eeh, yes! Well that’s an improvement. At one time you would have said, Eeh, aye!’

  She became silent, and he too, and they looked at each other; then on an impulse she bent towards him and, putting her hands round his shoulders, she kissed him on the cheek before turning and scampering from the room.

  He lay motionless for a full minute; then slowly he turned his head on the pillow and for the first time since he had stood by his mother’s grave did he allow tears to roll down his face.

  It was with difficulty she had got him through the kitchen and into the passage. He seemed to have no strength in his legs, not even in his good one, and she put her arm round his waist and said, ‘Lean on me. It isn’t far now and I’ve put a chair there.’

  The passage led into the small hall before going on again to the end of the house. It was narrow and they could hardly walk abreast. There was a small sitting room went off it and she said, ‘There’s a couch in there. Wouldn’t you like to lie down and I’ll tell you when…?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll go to the chair.’ He nodded to where the chair was set sideways to the wall and opposite the end window, and when she had him seated he closed his eyes, and it seemed for a moment that he was unable to get his breath.

  She looked at him in concern. His face had changed colour: it looked grey and seemed to accentuate the whiteness of the hair about his ears. She placed her hand on the back of his head where his hair was straggling over the collar of his dressing-gown and she thought, I’ll clip that when I get him back to bed. It looks raggledy. I wonder me ma hasn’t done it before now. And at the thought of her mother she felt a little tremor, not of fear, but of apprehension go through her. What if she should find out? Anyway, she’d have him back in the room and tucked up before she returned from setting Davey on his way again.

  ‘They wouldn’t have come, would they?’ he said softly.

  ‘No, no; the door’s open; she usually closes it, me ma.’

  ‘Then what happens?’

  ‘Well’—she paused—‘after a bit she comes over and gets a tray of tea and things.’

  ‘How long does he usually stay?’

  ‘Oh, not very long. If the weather’s fine, they dander…I mean they walk round the fields, but sometimes he doesn’t stay long; that’s when he wants to go into the town. But if it’s like the day, chilly, he stays longer in the barn. Oh!’—she put her hand on his shoulder—‘here they come.’

  He leant slightly forward, saying, ‘Where?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see them in a minute, they’re coming through the passage. I wouldn’t get too near the window in case me ma turns…’

  He took no heed of this, but, his face almost touching the pane, he waited. Presently, there came into his view a tallish woman and a youth walking by her side. At the sight of him, he felt a stab of pain go through his heart, but it was not caused by the disease from which he was suffering, nor was it connected with the love he had once had, and still felt he had, for the boy David, but the figure he was looking at now was that of no boy. He could not imagine that that bulky form had ever been slim. True, the figure might be exaggerated by the corduroy jacket, but there was no covering except the cap to exaggerate the head which seemed to be so much larger than he remembered it.

  The pair were half across the yard and as yet he had only seen the profile of the youth. Then the head was turned in the direction of the house, and now he saw the face in full view and the sight sharpened the pain in his breast, and his head made almost imperceivable movements as if keeping time to the monosyllables no! no! that his brain was repeating. As he gazed at this once beautiful boy, who had rapidly been enveloped by rough young manhood, disappearing into the barn he did not see Riah turn, as if drawn by some force, and look across the yard and directly to the window. But Biddy saw her and almost roughly she jerked her master back into his seat. Yet she wasn’t greatly perturbed that her ma had espied them for she knew that the master wasn’t long for the top, and surely she wouldn’t begrudge him this; although again, for the life of her, she told herself, she couldn’t see what attraction Davey had ever held for a man like the master. ‘Come on,’ she said gently. ‘Come on.’ When he didn’t move, she bent towards him and looked in his face. His eyes were closed, and she shook his shoulder gently, saying, ‘Master, come on. Come on; you’ve got to get back to bed or me ma’ll be on us.’ She put both her arms under his oxters now and helped him to rise; then slowly led him back to the kitchen. But there he had to sit down a moment to gain enough strength for the journey to the drawing room.

  It was five minutes later when she had him settled in the bed, and she put her fingers to his brow and stroked his hair back as she looked at his closed eyes, saying anxiously, ‘You feeling worse?’

  ‘No.’ He opened his eyes and looked at her as he added, ‘It would be impossible, Biddy, to feel worse.’ The
re was something in his look that pierced her. It went right down through her ribs into her stomach and seemed to twist her guts. This was the description she gave herself when in after years she tried to describe the weird pain it caused in her. At the moment the pain was such that she had the desire to throw herself alongside him on the bed and cuddle him, stroke his white weary face and tell him that she loved him, and that no matter what had happened that day between him and Davey, although she didn’t know the rights of it she didn’t blame him because nothing he could do would be bad.

  ‘Don’t, don’t, my dear Biddy,’ he said. ‘Please don’t cry.’ He put out his hand and gently brought his fingers over both her cheeks as he said, ‘I am grateful to you for your tears, always remember that; and also, my dear Biddy, remember that love has as many facets as a bursting star. Will you remember that? Love has as many facets as a bursting star.’

  She gulped audibly in her throat, then said, ‘Yes, I’ll remember that: love has as many facets as a bursting star.’ Then in a practical way she said, ‘Lie you still and I’ll make you a pot of tea.’

  When the breath caught in his throat his hand delayed her; then after a moment he said, ‘Before you go, hand me my writing board and the ink.’

  After she had placed the board across his knees and the ink on the side table, she hastily left the room, and in the hall she took up the bottom of her pinny and dried her eyes. She was still rubbing at her face when she entered the kitchen but she stopped dead inside the door for there was her mother about to lift the tray to take to the barn. But she too had stopped, and what she said was, ‘By! madam, I’ll deal with you later.’ And on that she picked up the tray and went out…

  It was about an hour and a half later when they met again, and whereas previously Biddy had known that her mother was mad at her for what she had done, she had imagined in the time between she would have cooled down a bit; but she saw now to her surprise that her mother was in a real temper. ‘I could knock your head off your body this very minute. That’s what I could do,’ she said. ‘You think you know everything, don’t you, you with your learnin’?’