The Tallow Image

by J. T. Brindle

  It was Mr Leyland the blacksmith who carried Maria home. He laid her gently beneath the blankets on the big iron bed, where only a short while ago she had been warm and safe in the arms of her man. ‘I’d best fetch the doctor straight away, Mrs Manners,’ he said grimly, ‘but I don’t think it’ll do any good.’ Before departing the room, he looked once more on the crumpled sorry mess that was Maria. ‘If you ask me… there’s nobody can help that poor creature now.’

  Elizabeth Manners’ answer was to chase him from the room with the harshly whispered warning, ‘Every second you waste, her life ticks away! Go as fast as you can, and don’t stop until you’re sure the doctor is out of his bed and making haste for Henry Street!’ When, flustered, he hurried from the room she then recruited the urgent assistance of a large busy-faced woman by the name of Ada Reynolds, who promptly cleared the room of all those who had congregated there – the anxious, and the curious, who had been roused from their beds by the terrible events of this night. Satisfied that Maria’s daughter was now soundly sleeping and watched over by a kindly soul, Elizabeth lost no time in attending to Maria. ‘There are logs downstairs in the hearth,’ she told Ada Reynolds. ‘Be so kind as to fetch them up and get a fire going in the grate there.’ She pointed to the small fireplace. ‘We must keep her warm at all cost.’ While the other woman hurried about her task, Elizabeth turned her whole attention to Maria. It was obvious that the birthing was imminent. Half-conscious, Maria struggled between life and death. ‘Don’t let my baby die,’ she pleaded, her wretched gaze never once leaving Elizabeth’s face.

  ‘I won’t, child,’ she was promised, ‘with God’s help… I won’t.’

  During the next thirty minutes or so – when Elizabeth feared more than once that the doctor would not make it in time and that God had deserted them – Maria slipped further and further away. ‘Keep your senses, child,’ Elizabeth pleaded. ‘You have to help. I can’t do it without your help!’

  She wondered how she herself might have been, lying there, her heart broken by the sight of what she had witnessed. Deliberately thrusting it from her mind, she worked with desperation to bring a small new life into this world.

  She could not push it all from her mind, though. Not all of it. Not the lingering image of a woman, naked in all her glory… a woman? Or just a figment of hallucination, born out of fear and terrible panic. Elizabeth did not know. All she did know was that it was the strangest and most unnerving experience of her life. And, for all of her life, she would never forget it.

  They found Ralph Ryan just as the dawn broke through, a magnificent dawn that split the night asunder, marbling the sky with fingers of brilliant reds and gold. When they stretched him out on the sands, silently gathering round him with bowed heads and huddled shoulders, there were those who wept unashamedly. There were those who said, later, that they would not forget this day, nor the look on Ralph Ryan’s face as he stared blindly towards the sky, a look of wonder, they said, a look of disbelief. A look of horror. No, they would not forget. In that very same moment, when they uttered a prayer over Ralph Ryan’s soul, the trap-door was slung back beneath the gallows, and Rebecca Norman plunged to her death.

  A heartbeat later, Maria’s own fight for life was sadly lost. At first it was feared that the son born to her would not survive either. Weakened and exhausted by his struggle into this world, it seemed as though he was destined to go the way of his mother and father. But, against all the odds, he survived. The doctor said it was because he had been blessed with the unique strength and determination of his mother; Elizabeth Manners believed that it was because, in those final moments when she had almost despaired, the Good Lord above had answered her prayers and spared the child.

  Ada Reynolds tied the bonnet strings beneath the girl’s chin. ‘There you are, Agatha,’ she said, straightening up and taking the child by the hand, ‘you’re as pretty as the day’s long.’ When Agatha made no response but to cast her soulful gaze to the ground, the woman sighed and turned to Elizabeth Manners, who was in the process of making herself ready. She asked, quietly, ‘Do you think the authorities will let you keep the children after all?’ Looking round Elizabeth’s homely little parlour, and knowing the exemplary character of that dear soul, Ada thought the children would be safe here.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Elizabeth replied, going to the sideboard and opening the small wooden chest that was Maria’s. She had it in mind to place into it the unusual tallow doll which she had found in Maria’s parlour. ‘You know how the authorities like to take their time, my dear. I shall just have to be patient.’

  She was greatly saddened at the objects which were lovingly placed in the Ryans’ wooden chest which was now in her keeping – none of them items of any value, but each one a part of Maria and Ralph’s life: the small butterfly-shaped brooch of silver filigree; a box of hairpins and a mother-of-pearl slide; the badge from Ralph’s work jacket which bore the name and place of the establishment where he was employed; a small enamelled pill-box into which Maria had proudly hidden one of little Agatha’s first curls, and beside it a thin dark strand of hair from her son’s head and which Elizabeth had now thoughtfully put there.

  There was also a small blue notebook. On its face, in perfect longhand, was the name Maria Ryan. Elizabeth suspected it was a diary. Of course, like any other woman, she was curious as to its contents, but her respect of Maria was such that the very idea of perusing its contents would be both unthinkable and unforgivable.

  Keeping back the tallow doll, she closed the lid over these private and personal articles. Ralph and Maria were at peace now, side by side in the churchyard. Their belongings would go to Agatha, small consolation though it was. ‘You go ahead, my dear,’ she told the other woman, ‘and pray that they agree to me keeping the children and raising them as my own.’ She had been allowed to keep them for over a week now, while decisions were made as to their future. The prospect of parting with them was daunting to her. If she was fortunate enough to keep them, she would call the boy Matthew, after her own father. ‘Look, Agatha,’ she called, going to the child and holding out the doll, ‘look what I found… it’s yours, isn’t it?’

  The girl shook her head. She had never seen the doll before.

  Elizabeth was surprised, and yet on all the occasions when she had called on Maria and played with little Agatha, she herself could not recall ever seeing the doll before.

  ‘Oh?… Not yours?’ She smiled. ‘Perhaps later, eh? Till then, I’ll put it safely away in the chest. Shall I do that?’ When the child eagerly nodded her head, she bent to kiss her firmly on the mouth. ‘That’s what we’ll do, then, sweetheart,’ she said.

  Going across the room, she examined the doll, a strikingly beautiful thing, with exquisite features, long dark tresses and vivid black eyes, which were really deep hollows etched into the tallow. Although it was clothed in a coarse grey gown, it had the look of a princess. Made of tallow though, mused Elizabeth, it was not really suitable for a child to play with. It occurred to her now that it may well have belonged to Maria. ‘We’ll put it away in the chest,’ she told Agatha, ‘where it will be safe.’ Then, collecting the infant boy from his cradle, which she had previously arranged to be brought from next door, she wrapped him warmly in a shawl, and followed the other woman and Agatha out of the door. Today, the children’s fate would be decided. And, consequently, her own.

  It was darkly silent in the cramped interior of the chest, where the tallow doll lay unmoving, nestling down amongst the things that were once so cherished.

  Yet it was not so dark, or lonely, as the place where its mirror image lay, secreted deep within the padded wall of a cell, the cell where Rebecca Norman had devised her merciless vengeance.

  Though made with the same hand, and in the same material, the two images were not so alike. Where one was young, the other was old – one being incredibly beautiful, the other repugnant to the eye. One was fashioned in Rebecca Norman’s own likeness, the other a model of her aged
grandmother. Each was of tallow, each was clothed in remnants plucked from her own garment, and the blood from her torn fingertips was speckled in one as in the other.

  To the unknowing, these two were more different than alike. Only their maker could tell. Only their maker knew of the sinister quality woven into each one – an unspeakable quality that bound one with the other for all time. An intangible thing, a merging of evil that would grow and fester down the years; sleeping now, patiently waiting. All things were in the heart. And the heart was secret.

  Part 2

  1988

  Bedford

  England

  …a dark

  Illimitable ocean without bound,

  Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,

  And time and place are lost;…

  Milton, Paradise Lost

  4

  ‘Let me see!’ Laughing, Cathy grabbed at the envelope, her grey eyes alight with excitement.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ Keeping her at bay with one arm encircling her tiny waist, Matt stretched his other arm above his head, teasing her by waving the envelope out of reach. ‘If you can guess what’s in it, you can have it.’

  ‘I know what’s in it,’ she cried, tiptoeing against him and throwing her arms about his neck.

  ‘No, you don’t.’ He looked into her upturned face and his heart swelled with love.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve booked a honeymoon for us.’ Pointing to the envelope she observed, ‘And don’t think you’ve been clever, Matt Slater, because you forgot to cross out the travel agent’s stamp… see?’ She giggled as he clumsily placed his thumb over the agent’s bright yellow logo. ‘So you might as well own up.’

  He sighed. ‘All right then. I’ve booked us a honeymoon.’ Even when she squeezed him, gazing up with wide bright eyes, he kept the envelope out of reach. When she knew, he hoped she would understand. Their destination would be part honeymoon, and partly a search for his ancestors’ history, and consequently his own. He thought of his father, Abel, and he knew it was right to go.

  ‘I thought you said we couldn’t afford a honeymoon… what with the new costly stable block and our business only now breaking even?’

  ‘I lied.’ His dark eyes danced with mischief.

  Playfully digging him in the ribs, she demanded, ‘Let me see, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, Matt!’ she cooed, snuggling closer, nuzzling into his broad chest and licking at his mouth with the tip of her tongue. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Guess.’

  She winced, biting his lip until he cried out. ‘You’d better tell me,’ she threatened, pressing her body into his, ‘unless you want me to seduce you here and now.’ She was well aware that one of the stable hands could walk in at any minute.

  ‘What… again!’ he groaned, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and feigning boredom. ‘When does a man get any peace round here?’

  She began to undo his trousers, all the while rubbing against him and softly moaning as though in the throes of lovemaking.

  The voice of a woman called from the outer hallway. ‘Hello! It’s me… Laura.’

  With his trousers loose about his hips and Cathy’s hand fumbling for his growing member, Matt didn’t flinch. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t,’ he told Cathy mischievously.

  ‘Cathy, are you in there?’ Laura’s footsteps were coming down the passage.

  ‘You monster, Matt Slater!’ Cathy hissed, snatching away. ‘I do believe you’d charge her money to see us at it.’

  ‘I would!’ he lied. ‘Oh, I would!’ He grinned as she hurried from the room, carefully closing the door behind her and leaving him both dishevelled and fully aroused. ‘You little sod!’ he muttered, then in a softer voice, ‘But I love you. Aggravate me all you like, and I’ll just love you all the more.’ Cathy and he were soon to be wed, and she was his life. As hard as he had worked to build up the successful livery here, he would let it all go tomorrow, rather than lose her.

  A valued employee, Laura was a superb horsewoman and trained instructress. She was skilled in dressage and blessed with a natural ability to take on a yearling and school it into a fine showjumper. A handsome woman in her thirties, she possessed a ready smile and an abundance of auburn hair. ‘Nervous, are you?’ As they walked to the stables, she glanced sideways at Cathy. ‘The big day looms nearer,’ she teased, ‘I think I’d be losing my courage right about now.’ Taking a piece of ribbon from the pocket of her jodhpurs she tied her long hair back. As they hurried down the lane, she was glad Cathy couldn’t read her thoughts, because they would betray how she wished it was her and not Cathy who was soon to walk down the aisle with Matt.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m scared stiff!’ Cathy confessed. ‘I’ve been watching my weight so much that I’m worried the dress won’t look right on the day. I’m concerned about the reception and whether the cake will be everything I hoped. I’m having nightmares about the service… will it be too long or too short, and whether people will like the hymns I’ve chosen. And on top of all that, I still haven’t been able to persuade Dad that Matt and I would like to pay half the bill.’ She chuckled. ‘He’s a stubborn old bugger, my dad!’

  ‘You’re lucky to have a father like that.’

  The sadness in her voice didn’t escape Cathy, and she was mortified that she might have sounded ungrateful. ‘I know,’ she answered, ‘and I wouldn’t want you to think for one minute that I don’t appreciate everything he’s done for me. I do! More than he’ll ever know. It’s just that the wedding is proving to be more expensive than I first thought. Matt and I can afford to chip in, but Dad won’t hear of it.’

  ‘Let him have his way,’ Laura suggested. ‘It’s natural that he wants to pay for his only daughter’s wedding.’

  ‘I know you’re right,’ Cathy admitted, ‘but Matt and I reckon it will amount to about two thousand pounds. It’s such a lot of money, and though he’s built his business up to a thriving concern, he’s not a wealthy man by any means.’

  ‘Enjoy your wedding. Worry about the cost afterwards.’

  Cathy laughed. ‘I seem to be looking for things to worry about! I dare say he wouldn’t insist on paying for it if he couldn’t afford it.’ She always felt relaxed in Laura’s company. Not for the first time, Cathy wondered about her. Though she was an exemplary employee and a lovely person, Laura never revealed anything of her background. There were times when she seemed lonely. It was during these times that Cathy would try to draw her out of herself. That was why she had asked Laura to fetch her the minute the kittens were born. To tell the truth, she wouldn’t mind having Laura as a friend.

  ‘They’re real beauties, aren’t they?’ Laura told her now, as they came into the tack-room and peeped into the deep wooden box. The big ginger cat was licking the newborns all over as they struggled to stand on their fat little legs. There were three of them, one ginger, another black as coal, and one tiny little thing, multi-coloured with a snow-white nose. ‘I don’t think that one could make up its mind which colour it wanted to be.’ Looking fondly on the kitten, Laura explained, ‘It’s a bit of a mongrel.’

  ‘I think they’re all lovely,’ Cathy said, leaning down with the intention of lifting one.

  Laura stopped her. ‘Sometimes, if the mother smells the touch of humans, she’ll kill the kittens and eat them.’

  Cathy was horrified. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

  ‘It’s true. Not so much with domestic cats. But these are part wild… unpredictable.’ She looked at Cathy and realised why Matt had fallen in love with her. She was not only beautiful, but she had a warm, trusting nature that made her unusually vulnerable. ‘You can stay here if you like… watch the mother feed them.’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Cathy had been won over by the multi-coloured one. ‘I think we’ll keep him at the house,’ she said. The mother cat’s tongue had left a deep wet shine on his long coat, giving him a sleek, darker appearance. ‘
He’s beautiful, don’t you think?’

  Laura agreed. Then, leaving Cathy convinced that she had said something to offend, she quickly went out of the tack-room and made her way to the top of the yard. A feeling of loneliness had come over her, and she needed to shake it off. The sooner she got started on her work, the better.

  Concerned, Cathy came to the door of the tack-room and watched as Laura’s figure disappeared out of sight. Her instinct was to follow and offer to lend a hand with the work. But she got the feeling that Laura wanted to be alone, so she went back inside the tack-room and watched the kittens for a while. Later, she would make herself useful.

  A few minutes later, Matt found her. She was seated on a bale of hay with her knees drawn up to her chin and a thoughtful look in her grey eyes as she watched the kittens sucking on their mother’s laden teats. Her face lit up on Matt’s arrival. ‘I’ve guessed where you’re taking me for our honeymoon,’ she told him as he strode across to her. ‘We’re going to Devon.’ She had always liked Devon. He knew that.