The Parson's Daughter

by Catherine Cookson

  She was laughing loudly now and Nancy Ann was forced to join her. As they rose to their feet she put out her hand and said, ‘What would I have done in this situation, Pat, without you?’

  ‘Followed the advice of your grandmama. Anyway, she and I think alike. I’m going to call in some day this week and see her. Now come on, let us not spoil Flo’s little party, which I really did think promised to be dull until I saw Jim and Maggie O’Toole. When they start on their Irish yarns they make one forget all one’s troubles. Chin up! Shoulders back, and stomach out.’ And on this last quip her laughter rang through the room as she led Nancy Ann out of it without allowing her to have the promised cooling drink …

  It could be said that the evening was a pleasant one. The conversation at the dinner table was merry, made so as Pat had foretold by the two Irish guests, with the husband and wife outdoing each other in telling tales of events that took place in their homes on the outskirts of Dublin. Rene Myers, too, seemed in very high spirits as she quipped across the table with the men opposite her, and more often than not including Dennison. Her husband, on the other hand, had little to say. He was a dour man with a long face, black hair that lay flat on his head, and he had the disconcerting habit of staring fixedly at one without speaking. It was widely known that he was in love with his wife and that he put up with her foibles because he didn’t want to lose her. It was also widely known that he was a very rich man. A millionaire twice over some said.

  There being no room to dance and no tables set out for cards, by eleven o’clock most of the guests had departed. The night had become cooler and the remaining company were seated in the drawing room.

  Dennison was sitting on a couch with Maggie O’Toole on one side of him and Rene Myers on the other. And every time Maggie O’Toole came out with some funny remark causing general laughter, Nancy Ann noticed that the woman, as she thought of her, lolled against Dennison, even going as far as putting her head on his shoulder.

  She herself was sitting on one edge of a love seat, with George on the other side.

  On another couch, Jim O’Toole sat beside Florence Rowland; and flanking Florence was Arnold Myers, with Arthur Rowland sitting perched on the end. And that was the company when Dennison, leaning forward in Nancy Ann’s direction, said, ‘Do us the McLoughlin fellow, dear.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Nancy Ann shook her head. But then Pat and George put in together, ‘Yes, do, Nancy Ann. Come on,’ and Pat, turning to Maggie O’Toole, said, ‘She’ll beat you at your own game.’

  ‘Well, let’s see it. Let’s see it,’ cried Maggie O’Toole. ‘What does she do?’

  ‘She mimics. It’s amazing. Come on, do.’ Pat thrust out her hand in a wagging movement as if she were lifting Nancy Ann from the chair. And when Dennison said again, softly, ‘Come on, dear,’ she said to herself, Why not? She had this one gift, and it was a gift because, as her grandmama said, no-one in the family on either side had ever been on the stage. Anyway, it was unthinkable that they should have been, so her accomplishment must be in the nature of a gift. And she had practised it for years; even lately, in the privacy of her own room and for her own entertainment she had imitated the various members of her staff.

  She got to her feet and by way of explanation she said, ‘I…I’ve known the McLoughlin family since I was a small girl, and I was surprised one day when I saw the eldest son in the courtyard, and this is the conversation that followed.’ She moved to stand in front of the flower-banked fireplace and, assuming a matronly dignity, her hands joined at her waist, she began, ‘You are one of the McLoughlins?’

  Then, when her whole expression and her manner changed with very little movement of her body and there came out of her mouth the thick Irish vowels speaking the northern dialect, there was a gust of laughter from the company, and she had to stop until it subsided. And Pat’s voice admonished them, ‘Be quiet now. Be quiet. Let her go on.’

  And they tried to let her go on, but there were tears of laughter running down the cheeks of Maggie O’Toole and that of her husband by the time she had finished.

  Amid the clapping Maggie O’Toole cried, ‘I’ve never seen the likes. The Dublin Group couldn’t have done any better, could they now, Jim?’

  ‘They couldn’t that. It’s on the stage you should be, me girl, not stuck away in this backwater. Now if you ever want a career for yourself, I know the very…’

  ‘Be quiet, Jimmy!’

  She was about to go on when the thin voice of Arnold Myers cut in, saying, ‘Give us some other servant.’

  Unsmiling, Nancy Ann looked at him now from where she was still standing before the fireplace and in a cool voice she said, ‘I don’t do servants. I only do Shane because, as I said, I have known his family for so long and because I am sure he would enjoy being mimicked.’

  ‘Give us the ticket collector.’

  She looked at Sir George and, smiling now, she said, ‘All right, the ticket collector.’ Then she went on to explain.

  ‘It happened this way. I was in Newcastle station with my papa. We were to meet the boys, my two brothers coming back from university. When my papa went to the enquiry office I went to buy some platform tickets, and in front of me was a lady and her daughter who was about nine years old. She was a very prim lady and spoke precisely, and what she was saying was—’ She now took up the stance of the lady and in a high mincing voice she said, ‘One and a half returns to Jayro.’ Then immediately her head seemed to sink into her shoulders, and it tilted to one side as if she were looking up under a grid and, her voice changing into the thick twang and dialect, she said ‘What was that, missis? Where d’ya wanna go?’

  Again she changed. ‘Jayro,’ she said. ‘One and a half returns to Jayro.’

  Again she changed. ‘Jayroo? ’Taint on this line, missis.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, man.’

  ‘Tryin’ not to be, missis.’

  Turning her head to the side and her mouth twisting, she said, ‘Willy! Here a tick. You know where this place Jayroo is?’

  She had lifted her elbow as if nudging another man. Then quickly she again changed her stance. Her face stretched, her eyebrows went up, and this new character, Willy, turned its head slightly and apparently looked down on a child, saying, ‘Where does ya ma want to go, hinny?’

  ‘Jarrer.’ The voice came out like that of a little girl.

  Then with lightning speed she was once again the long faced man turning to his companion and saying, ‘It’s Jarrer, man, she’s askin’ for…Jarrer!’

  ‘Oh, Jarrer. Well why couldn’t she say that instead of talkin’ like a bloomin’ foreigner…Jayroo.’

  There followed enthusiastic applause, much laughter, from all present, except, Nancy Ann was quick to notice, that woman, who had never even smiled once during her performance. She had been aware of her attitude right from the start, when she had done Shane, and the advice her papa had laughingly given to James when they were discussing how to hold an audience, whether it be a congregation or a class in a schoolroom, had come to her. ‘Concentrate on the one that is about to go to sleep, or on a face that you know resents you, or, in my case, on someone who has been dragged to church unwillingly,’ her papa had said. ‘Get that one’s attention and you needn’t bother about the rest of the company.’

  But tonight she had been unable to apply that advice: that woman’s determination not to be amused was too strong.

  She now watched her pull herself to the end of the deep couch and attempt to rise, a signal for Dennison to get to his feet and offer her his hand. And now she was looking around her, saying, ‘Well, we must be going because we are leaving early in the morning for London,’ and glancing at her husband while adding, ‘I don’t know why he’s got to work when other people are on holiday. Town will be empty.’

  It was Maggie O’Toole’s voice that broke in now, saying, ‘Well, we’ll be passing through next week, Rene, for we’re off to Rome; the Pope’s giving a ceilidh.’ And she put her head back and laugh
ed, the others also joining in. Then she turned to Rene again, saying, ‘We’ll look in on you and beg a meal.’

  ‘Do. Do.’

  And now Nancy Ann felt a restriction in her throat when the woman turned back to Dennison and said, ‘Are you coming up, Denny?’

  ‘I may do. I may do,’ he answered casually.

  ‘Well, you’ll drop in, won’t you?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. Thank you.’

  ‘That’s a promise. I’ll expect you to honour it.’

  She now turned and looked towards her husband and nodded.

  There followed a chorus of goodbyes, and when Arthur Rowland said, ‘I’ll see you to your carriage,’ she flapped her hand at him, saying, ‘Don’t worry, we can see ourselves out.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Arthur and Flo went ahead, Arnold Myers followed, but his wife seemed to linger, saying a last word here and there, and when she eventually passed Nancy Ann, who was standing a little apart, she did so as if she weren’t there.

  Those remaining had seated themselves again, Jim and Maggie O’Toole, Pat and George, and Dennison. And to Nancy Ann they were like a family group. And with this feeling it seemed that the devil entered into her. She wanted to hit back in some way at the woman whose attitude towards her, she felt sure, had not escaped those present tonight, and so, as if she were indeed among her own family, she did another turn. Pointing her feet slightly outwards, and seeming to pull her head down into her neck, her already prominent stomach thrust further outwards, her arms held away from her sides as if by fat, she waddled two or three steps up the room, saying as she did so in an exact imitation of Rene Myers’s voice, ‘I’m off to London tomorrow to spread my charms over the male population, and there’s enough of me to cover them and plenty to spare.’

  She knew she was reacting spitefully, and she really did not expect laughter from those present, but she felt they would understand the reason for her retaliation, especially Pat and George. But they were all staring at her, wide-eyed; and yet, not at her, but beyond her. She turned her head slowly to see standing there in the doorway the person she had been mimicking. She drew in a long deep breath as she watched the woman walk slowly up the room to a side table, pick up a vanity bag, turn as slowly about and walk down the room again. But when she came to Nancy Ann’s side she paused for a moment but did not speak, yet the steely glint in her eyes spoke for her. She was passing through the doorway into the hall when Dennison’s voice called, ‘Rene. Rene. Wait!’ And as he passed Nancy Ann almost at a run, the look he too cast on her also spoke his thoughts.

  She stood shivering, her eyes closed, until she felt Pat’s hand on her arm and heard her voice low, saying, ‘You shouldn’t have done that. Come and sit down.’

  ‘No, no. I…we’d better be going.’ She looked to where the O’Tooles and George were standing, and she muttered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, away with you!’ Maggie O’Toole was by her side now. ‘Don’t you be sorry for having said that. It’s what we all think but haven’t the nerve to say it, me dear. You’ve got no need to worry. You’re a match for her, I can see. But I’ll tell you this—’ and smiling, she leant forward close to Nancy Ann as she whispered, ‘Having listened to you there, it surprises me that you come out of a vicarage.’

  At this point Dennison entered the room and said to George, ‘We’ll be away.’ That was all.

  He did not look at or speak to her until five minutes later when they were seated in the landau which now had the hood up. They had been driving some distance when, from deep in his throat, he said, ‘If that insult had come out of a whore’s mouth I could have understood it. You have made an enemy tonight where you could have made a friend.’

  She had an answer to this, but she gritted her teeth and decided to wait until they were in the privacy of their room.

  Once they reached the house he did not follow her upstairs as was his rule and have a drink brought up to him, but he went into the library. And when she entered the bedroom and saw Anderson waiting for her, she threw off her cloak, saying, ‘Just unbutton my dress, please, and undo the lace of the corset, I will see to the rest.’ Then she added thoughtfully, ‘You…you must be tired. Get to bed.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’ And the woman did as she was bid.

  Half undressed, Nancy Ann sat down on the chaise longue and, bending forward, she buried her face in her hands.

  Finally she finished her undressing and got into her dressing gown, but she did not go to bed, she sat waiting for his coming up. It was almost an hour later when she heard him enter his dressing room and talk to his man, and another half an hour passed before he entered the bedroom. He stood looking at her for a moment where she sat, not the picture of dejection as he might have expected, but straight-backed and stiff-faced. He seemed to be waiting for her to make some comment, and when she didn’t, he said, ‘What you might not know, Nancy Ann, is that the O’Tooles, as charming as they are, are chatterboxes and gossipers, and your spiteful little charade will be around half the county by this time tomorrow night.’

  She rose to her feet and, her voice controlled, she said, ‘I shall ask you a question, Dennison’—she gave him his full name now—‘and for once I should like a really truthful answer. Was that woman your mistress?’

  She watched the muscles of his face tighten, his cheeks darken to a red hue, before the answer came, grimly, ‘Yes, she was. But let me add that it was in the past, she is in the past. I shouldn’t have to explain to you that I have hardly left your side since I first proposed marriage, and that my whole way of life has altered. I don’t even have the friends I once had: I have dropped them, or, as has generally happened, they have dropped me, because I wanted to fit in with your type of life. And I have imagined I had achieved what I had set out to do. What is more, if I had married a woman of the world and she had suggested what you suggested at your little charade, I would have understood it. But that you, of all people, with your upbringing, and a guest in someone else’s house, should imply that another guest was nothing more than a…’

  His teeth clamped together and he shook his head, but it was she who put in the word now: ‘Whore?’ she suggested.

  When he stared at her, she went on, ‘You implied my words could have come from the mouth of a whore, and that I was implying something other than I was. What I was alluding to was her fat and her monopoly of all the men in the company. There was no deeper meaning in my mind. It was you who put the wrong construction on it.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ He put his hand to his brow and turned from her, muttering now, ‘Your innocence is worse than your knowledge.’ Then he sprang round and faced her again as she cried at him, ‘Then in my innocence I hit the truth, because she is a whore.’

  ‘She is no such thing. And don’t you dare say she is. And don’t let me hear that word come out of your mouth again. She was a good friend to me, a good companion, and she took my marriage to you in a very civilised way, and I’m ashamed of your attitude. Let me tell you something, Nancy Ann, you have a lot to learn yet about this way of life. Goodnight.’

  Her mouth dropped open, her eyes widened as she saw him walk into the closet room and close the door. She wanted to run after him and say, ‘I’m sorry. Oh, I am sorry,’ but she couldn’t. That woman had been his mistress: she had lain with him; she had…She closed her eyes tightly on the thought, which provoked the reaction: It’s just as well he sleeps alone, for I could not bear his touch tonight.

  Five

  The rift between Dennison and herself was momentarily forgotten the next afternoon when she arrived at the vicarage and into a scene of some commotion, because Peter was there, having got leave from school, as also was Mr Mercer. Peter met her in the hallway and immediately drew her into the study, saying, ‘The Bishop’s been. Father has to retire.’

  ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘that doesn’t come as a great surprise. We’ve been expecting it, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but the point is, they’ve g
ot to leave here.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that too.’

  He looked at her closely, saying, ‘Are you not feeling well?’

  ‘Not too bright today, Peter.’ And his immediate assumption was that her condition was causing her discomfort.

  ‘Graham is in with Grandmama,’ he said. ‘What do you think of the idea of them going to live in the little Dower House?’

  ‘Mr Mercer’s?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep calling him Mr Mercer. He’s Graham.’

  ‘Well, yes, I think it’s a marvellous idea.’

  ‘Come along then and let him explain.’ And now he led the way to the sitting room where, on their entering, Graham Mercer rose from his seat beside Jessica who said, ‘Oh, there you are, my dear. There you are. Come and sit down. There is a lot to talk about.’

  ‘Good afternoon.’ She inclined her head towards Graham, and he said, ‘Good afternoon, Nancy Ann.’

  ‘Has Peter told you about the Bishop and…and the kind offer of Graham here?’

  ‘Yes, yes he has, but…but what does Papa say?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ her grandmama replied, ‘except that he seems quite willing to give up the living, and equally willing to take Graham’s offer of living in the Dower House.’ She now turned and looked at Graham, saying, ‘I cannot tell you, Graham, what this means to me because, as I’ve already put my cards on the table to you, had we to buy a house it could, of necessity, have been little more than a cottage, and that of the meagre kind; you see, what money I had has gone. Oh, my dear.’ She turned now and thrust out her arm towards Nancy Ann whom she had seen was about to protest in some way, likely to say that Dennison would provide any monies necessary. And she went on, ‘I know what you’re going to say, but you already know what your father thinks, and the solution that Graham here has offered is a real godsend. There’s no other word for it.’ And she turned to him now, adding, ‘It is a beautiful little house. We are indeed fortunate.’