Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  Then Rodney came in at half-past six. He came in with William, who had walked all the way to the pithead to meet him and to try, in his own thoughtful way, to lighten the shock. But by the look on Rodney’s face he hadn’t succeeded.

  He came in the back way, as he always did when coming from the pit, but tonight he did not take his black, damp, coal-impregnated coat off and bang it against the wall underneath the lean-to. He did not even drop his can on to the shelf outside the back door, but he entered the kitchen as he had left the pit, and inside the door he stopped and looked at his daughter.

  Katie was sitting at the far side of the table, not eating, just sitting, and she no longer needed to wonder how her ma would go about telling him, for she knew immediately that he knew. He looked taller than usual, older, terrible. His eyes were no longer the nice grey colour but seemed to be shining red out of his black face. He approached the table slowly, the can still in his hand.

  Catherine, at the stove where she was stirring a stew in a black pot, did not turn round. After the first sight of her husband’s face she could not bear to look at him, and as her father came in and sat slowly in his chair she thanked him in her heart for taking this burden from her. She went on stirring the pot, and all the while Rodney stood at the table staring down into his daughter’s face.

  All along the road he just wouldn’t believe it. He had wanted to strike William when he told him this thing about his beloved child, whom at times he had thought he would never rear because she was so good, so beautiful. Never a Sunday went past that he didn’t kneel in the chapel and thank his God for the gift of her; for her gaiety, her joy, her kindly nature, her beauty. And now she had come to this. He stared at her until her head drooped deep into her chest, but he didn’t speak to her. His feelings were beyond words. Slowly, he turned away and walked into the bedroom, and William, quickly putting out his hand, touched Catherine and indicated the door with a jerk of his head.

  Catherine took the pot off the fire and placed it on the hob. Then, rubbing her hands on her coarse apron, she went into the bedroom and closed the door. And there they stood looking at each other until he said simply, ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ve asked her?’

  Catherine lowered her head on to her breast and swung it from side to side as she said, ‘Until I’m tired. All afternoon I’ve been at her. She wouldn’t tell Mrs Davis—Mrs Davis brought her home.’

  Rodney looked away from Catherine towards the little window. He could see the sun going down behind the roofs of the cottages opposite. It was a calm, quiet, October night, a night when after a wash and a bite to eat he would have taken a walk in the long twilight and become refreshed in mind and spirit. But now the darkness had enveloped his spirit. It was a darkness blacker than the bowels of the mine when a man was entombed behind a fall. He said slowly, ‘That’s what has been wrong with her all these weeks.’ He turned his eyes back to her. ‘She didn’t mention anything to you?’ The words came from between his gritted teeth.

  ‘No. No.’ Her voice became high for a moment; then it dropped to a whisper again as she added, ‘How could I have kept it from you?’

  Thrusting his body round as if pressing it against a force, he turned his back on her and demanded, ‘Why am I pestered like this? Four of them taken, Lizzie as she is, and now this. A shame before God. Brought down to the level of the middens.’

  ‘Rodney!’ She went to him and put her hand gently on his shoulder, and she gazed at his stiff black profile as she said, ‘She must have been taken against her will. Mrs Davis said as much. She came in here and had a word with me. She said she had grieved since the day following the ball; she had grieved long before there were any consequences.’

  Rodney did not look at her as he asked, ‘Hadn’t she any idea at all?’

  ‘Only the gardener’s boy, Billy Denison, but she said that Katie had denied flatly that it was him, and she’s denied it to me an’ all.’

  Turning now, his step heavy but unhurried, Rodney went into the kitchen and, facing Katie again, he said to her, ‘Will you give me his name, or have I to go up to the house?’

  She looked up into his face, her eyes wide and dry. They were burning as if they had been sprayed with hot sand. If she said Mr Bernard he would stalk up to the house, but he would never get inside. They wouldn’t let him into the real part of the house. And should he wait for Mr Bernard and waylay him and hit him, what then? He would, as she had known all along, be sent to prison. If she could only be silent and keep on being silent…She could as long as they didn’t blame Billy Denison. Although she didn’t like Billy, she wouldn’t want to get him into trouble through her. They might send him packing too, and he was from the orphanage.

  ‘Very well.’ Rodney answered her silence. Then, still with the unhurried step that spoke more clearly of his anger than any bustle could have done, he stripped himself to his small clothes, washed himself in the tub of water that Catherine had got ready to the side of the fireplace, changed into the only pair of decent trousers and coat that he possessed, and without bite or sup after his twelve-hour shift, and without speaking another word to anyone, he left the house.

  He must have reached the road leading off the fells by the time the lie came into Katie’s mind, the lie that, with her agile, imaginative brain, she should have thought of much earlier if she hadn’t been half demented with worry about the very thing that was taking place now, what her da would do when he found out. She sprang from her seat, making both Catherine and William start; then she was out of the front door, rushing by the cottages, past Mrs Weir and Mrs Bailey, who were talking at their front doors about the trouble that had come on young Katie and the Mulhollands; for anybody with half an eye could see the way the wind blew with the housekeeper bringing her home, then big Rodney going along there looking like that. And they didn’t need two guesses as to where he was making for. She ran unheeding past three girls coming home from the rope factory who knew nothing yet about the scandal, and who half paused and greeted her almost in a voice, saying, ‘Why, hello, Katie. What’s fetched you hyem?’ and she flew past the men who were playing quoits at the top of the end cottages.

  She caught sight of Rodney as he dropped on to the road from the heathered bank, and she cried, ‘Da! Da! Wait, Da.’

  Rodney turned and waited, and when she was standing before him, gasping for breath, unsteady on her feet, he put a hand to her shoulder and stayed her.

  Her words interspersed with gasps, she looked up at him and cried, ‘Don’t go, Da. Don’t go. I’ll tell you. ‘’Cos…’cos it wouldn’t be any use you goin’.’

  She bowed her head; then after a moment, during which he waited without speaking, she went on, ‘It was the night of the ball. It was dark, late. I…I was tired. I…I went into the yard to get the air so’s I wouldn’t feel so sleepy. It was warm and I went through the arch and along the path by the wall for a little way, and…’ The lie now stuck in her throat, but her da’s voice eased it out as he said, ‘Aye, go on.’

  ‘Well. Well, somebody caught hold of me. They put their hand over me mouth.’ That was true enough, anyway. ‘And…and I couldn’t do anything. It…it was then…’ Her voice trailed away, and after a space he said, ‘You didn’t see him, his face?’

  ‘No, Da. No.’

  As he stared down on her bent head he remembered the moon had been shining on the night of the ball because Catherine had remarked it would be lovely up there. The moon shining and it being nice and warm, the guests would likely be strolling in the garden. He said, now, ‘The moon was shining, Katie, remember?’

  Her head jerked, and she looked up at him under her eyelids, staring at him for a moment before saying, ‘It was dark, where…where he pulled me into the bushes.’

  ‘Tell me one thing, and tell me truly, for you’re bound to know. Was it one of the staff?’

  ‘No. No, Da.’ She could tell the truth about this, and she was wise to the fact that her da
would know that she knew the difference between the clothes of a servant and those of the gentry. Moreover, as she had found, there was a distinct smell about all gentry—not only a soap-and-water smell but the smell of pomades on their hair and such.

  Rodney turned his gaze from her and looked into the blue misted night light falling over the fells. There had been a hundred guests at the ball; half of them would have been men. If he went up to the house now he would have to say, ‘My daughter was taken by one of your guests,’ and they would laugh at this. ‘Send round the three counties,’ they would say, ‘to find out which man had had a tussle with a maid behind a bush in the garden, a place where she didn’t ought to be on that particular night. What was she doing in the garden, anyway, if she didn’t want trouble?’

  The hopelessness of the situation pressed his anger down and there came into its place a feeling of compassion. When his arms went out and drew her gently to him, the dam of terror inside her was released, and there, in the growing dusk on the fell, her crying reached a height of hysteria, until Rodney, lifting her, carried her up the bank and sat down on the heather and cradled her as he hadn’t done since she was a child, and rocked her until he brought a measure of comfort to her.

  Chapter Six

  George Rosier pulled himself up straight as the carriage entered the drive. He tugged at his green satin waistcoat, patted his protruding stomach and smiled to himself. It had been a very good day. He’d had a fine lunch with James Talford, but, what was more important, there had been present at that lunch Mr Charles Palmer. It had been stimulating just to be in Palmer’s company…There was enthusiasm, drive and the Midas touch if ever he saw it. Palmer was no age yet, only thirty-eight, and the yard had only been going nine years, but he was coining money, making it hand over fist; not only was he building ships but he was making the materials on the spot to build the ships. Jarrow was booming. He had turned it from a village into a literal iron and steel gold mine. The thought that thrilled his breast now was that he, too, would soon have access to this particular mine. He had prepared the way over the last few years. Young Palmer knew what was in his mind, but he was no fool. If, as was likely to happen, the concern which was growing too fast for Palmer and his brother to handle was turned into a limited company, then he intended to be of that company, and young Palmer could make the going easier and would do so if he got his finger in another mine. He had already more fingers down mines in the county and about than he had on both of his hands, but he wouldn’t mind having another down the Rosier mine. Oh, he was no fool was Charles Palmer, this fast-rising star, who was cunningly making a name as a philanthropist. We could all be philanthropists if we could dig gold out of steel.

  But in the end it all boiled down to the number of shares one could buy, and this was where Talford came in. Talford himself was too old to take an active part in a company like Palmer’s, but he had the wherewithal to make it possible for both him and Bernard to accomplish this—an active part. He had the vision of himself running the shipyard. And why not?

  So buoyant did he feel that his small body almost bounced out of the carriage and up the steps to the house. Kennard was waiting at the open door, and although the lamps were burning at each side of the door he held another at head height to illuminate the steps; then he ushered his master through the lobby and into the hall and there relieved him of his hat and coat, before saying, ‘The family are in the library, sir.’

  George Rosier glanced at his butler, at the man who had valeted him for the last twenty years. There was little they didn’t know about each other, and the inflection in Kennard’s voice told him that his words meant more than they said.

  ‘Mrs Noble arrived this morning, sir.’ Kennard did not make the mistake of still calling his master’s daughter Miss Theresa.

  ‘Yes. Well?’ He stared at Kennard. He was surprised to learn that Theresa had arrived; she wasn’t due until next week. If…if there were any more bees in her bonnet about leaving Noble and coming home he would soon scatter them for her.

  ‘Mr Bernard is also in the library, sir. They have been closeted for some time.’ Kennard’s voice dropped to a discreet whisper as he added, ‘I went to attend to the fire, sir; I found the door locked.’

  George Rosier’s face puckered, his eyes narrowed to slits, and he gazed at Kennard for a moment longer before turning briskly away and marching towards the library door. The bees in her bonnet must be working, and Agnes and Bernard must be trying to cope.

  He turned the handle of the door, and when it didn’t respond to his touch he said loudly, ‘What’s this?’

  The next moment the door was opened and there stood Agnes, her face under its coating of powder and rouge looking like dirty dough. He glanced beyond her to his son and daughter, then in his usual bustling manner he charged into the room.

  Bernard was standing with his back to the middle window and Theresa was sitting to the side of the fireplace. His son’s face, he noticed immediately, was not pale but almost purple. Of the three, his daughter looked most composed. He hadn’t seen her for some weeks; she looked different, older, a woman, and yet that was not the proper description for his daughter. Always being devoid of womanly attraction, he did not imagine her marriage to old Noble would have improved matters in that direction. But there was a change in her.

  ‘What’s this?’ He stalked to the centre of the room and cast his eyes from one to the other; then when he received no answer he bellowed, ‘What’s this, I say? Locked doors in my own house. What next!’

  ‘George.’ Agnes Rosier moved slowly towards her husband, and when she was close to him she said in a strangely quiet voice, ‘Sit down, George.’

  ‘What the hell’s this? I’m not sitting down. Come on, spit it out. What’s the matter? You’re acting like a lot of bloody amateur players.’

  Her husband’s swearing and obscenities no longer affected Agnes Rosier. The first time he had levelled a mouthful at her, shortly after their marriage, she had swooned, and immediately he had made sure she wouldn’t do it again by swearing even more roundly as he slapped her face on both sides. But she did close her eyes before she said, ‘Theresa is determined to make trouble.’

  ‘Trouble! What about?’ He looked towards his daughter, and Theresa, rising to her feet, looked towards Bernard and said, ‘You’d better ask him, Papa.’

  Now George Rosier turned towards his son and demanded, ‘Well?’ Whereupon Bernard, taking one step from the window and bending his body in the direction of his sister, growled through his teeth, ‘She’s mad. She should be locked up, certified.’

  ‘And I have no doubt but that you’d try it. You’d try anything, wouldn’t you, to shut me up. Well, you won’t.’ Now she swung round to her father and went on, ‘Do you know that the Mulhollands have been turned out of their house under the pretext that Mr Mulholland is an agitator.’

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with you, girl?’ George Rosier moved towards the back of a chair and, gripping the knobs at the top, bent his head over it and peered at her.

  ‘Did you give the order that put them out, Papa?’

  Slowly he straightened up and looked towards Bernard. No, he hadn’t given the order. He didn’t know what this was all about, but he’d damned soon find out. Returning his attention to Theresa again, he said, ‘That’s neither here nor there. Anyway, what have the Mulhollands to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing, Papa, except that Katie Mulholland was your scullery maid, and she was dismissed last week because she was going to have a baby. But she hasn’t, up till now, said who gave her that baby because it’s likely she was frightened of the very thing that has just happened—of her father being dismissed from the mine and the family turned out to live on the fells.’

  George Rosier was experiencing a feeling as if a cold hand had been pushed inside his shirt and was gripping his flesh. He wanted to look towards his son but kept his eyes on his daughter and said grimly, ‘Go on.’

  And Theresa wen
t on. Her voice sounding thin and cold and coming through lips that scarcely moved, she said, ‘It was on the night of the ball, the ball that was celebrating his engagement to Ann Talford, that he took Katie Mulholland into his room…I…I was crossing the landing turned four in the morning; I was feeling unwell and had been for a draught, when I saw him pushing the child out into the corridor. She was crying and in great distress. I immediately went into his room and told him that if anything should happen to that child he wouldn’t get away with it this time, it wouldn’t be another case of…of Maggie Pratt.’

  Now George Rosier was looking at his son, and Bernard, his whole body quivering visibly with his rage, cried, ‘I tell you she’s mad. Her mind’s gone.’ But before his father could make any reply to this Theresa put in, ‘As I’ve said already, you’ll have to prove that, but I wonder what the Talford’s will make of my state of my mind when I tell them the pretty story…’

  ‘What did you say?’ George Rosier sprang round to her, and again he cried, ‘What did I hear you say?’ This was followed by a silence that trembled on the outburst of terrible rage.

  At one time Theresa would have been intimidated by her father’s voice alone, but now neither his voice nor his ferocious attitude had the slightest effect on her. It was as her father had recognised, she had changed. Six months of marriage had brought her slumbering, shrewd, unfeminine, dominant personality to the surface. She had just passed her eighteenth birthday and she was as mature as she would ever be, and more so than many a woman four times her age. She knew she would never like men—perhaps with one exception, her brother Rodger. The knowledge that she preferred women’s company and that their figures and faces gave her pleasure did not frighten her. She knew now why she had always been attracted by Katie Mulholland, why she liked looking down on the kitchen quarters from the hill.