The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  Once again they fell about together, making it necessary for Bridget to grab the balustrade of the stairs, and with tears of laughter in her eyes and in a throaty voice, she exclaimed, ‘If Miss Rice were here she would say, “Vases, Ming period, Victoria. Vases not vaises.”’

  As they descended the stairs, Victoria said, ‘And I would have piped up, “And couldn’t there have been tapestries also, Miss Rice?”’ bringing the expected response from Bridget, resuming the deep tone again, “‘Sit down, miss. Sit down.”’

  They were in the hall when Victoria, now really shaking with laughter, said, ‘And you remember the day the old cat added, “Your brain, Victoria, is afflicted as is your voice, it’s weak”?’

  ‘Oh yes, and you came home crying. She was an old cat. But now, stop your jabbering and go to the kitchen and see what Peg’s up to. Nothing hot. Ask her to give us cold soup. Yes, that’s an idea, ask her to give us cold soup.’

  ‘She’ll have a fit.’

  ‘No doubt, but, nevertheless, ask her. And don’t disturb me for the next half-hour.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am,’ and Victoria dipped her knee twice before turning and skipping towards the kitchen, while Bridget, leaving the hall, went down the corridor and into a room at the far end which looked part library and part office, for the shelves along one wall held an array of books and those along the other tin boxes and ledgers. The boxes, all bearing labels, and the ledgers were in sections docketed by a tin label attached to each shelf. It was called an office, and it looked an office except perhaps when you looked at some of the titles on the bookshelves: Brontë, Wilkie Collins, Mrs Gaskell, and in between these Tennyson and Plato’s Apologia, while on another shelf, next to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, were volumes of George Eliot and Anthony Trollope.

  Whereas the ledgers and tin boxes were meticulously docketed, the books had no order but spoke of a wide and mixed taste in literature.

  If Bridget had been questioned about her taste and the jumble of books on the shelves behind her desk, she would have replied, ‘Oh well, you must come down to our real home in Shields and there you will see an ordered library. The books all beautifully bound, all in the same dark red Moroccan leather, their titles engraved on the spines, but so small you can hardly read them. There must be a few thousand books in that library, and they’re only distinguishable one from the other by the tone of the leather. You see, in my grandfather’s time it was the done thing not just to have a library but to have the books well presented; the bindings must be all similar. The size of the books, too, had to be graded onto different shelves. He would buy books by the dozen, and have them bound by the hundred. But as my father said, to his knowledge he didn’t think his father had ever opened one unless there was some indication that it held a map within its pages, because his only interest was in shipping and he studied maps of all kinds.’

  Bridget lowered herself into the outsize leather chair which had fitted her father’s broad beam but in which she often slid from side to side, especially if she was wearing breeches. From a brass rack to the right side of her she took out a sheet of notepaper. There was a heading to it, saying simply, Henry Dene Mordaunt, and underneath, Manufacturer of Polishes and Candles. Andrew Kemp had suggested she alter the heading into her own name and she had laughingly said, ‘What! Bridget Dene Mordaunt, Blacking and Candle Manufacturer?’ No, that was her father’s heading and it would remain.

  She now wrote a letter to her agent in Newcastle, heading it with one word, ‘Immediate’, before beginning: ‘Dear Mr Fathers.’ That name always amused her. She then went on to tell him that he must inform her of those vacant properties in the nearby towns, those at an available distance to the factories being preferable.

  Having signed and sealed the letter, she rang a bell, and when Jessie herself answered it, she said, ‘Take this letter, Jessie, and get one of them from the yard to ride to the post office. I want it to catch today’s post if possible.’

  ‘Important?’

  ‘Yes, important, Jessie.’

  Jessie paused a moment, the letter in her hand; but when her mistress made no further comment she turned and left the room.

  Bridget shook her head as she looked towards the closed door. Jessie was ageing rapidly but, as with Danny, such a thing as age must not be mentioned. She couldn’t remember ever opening her eyes as a child and not seeing Jessie’s face hovering above her and speaking the same words, ‘Come on, pet, open up your blinkers.’ If there was any way of translating the word loyalty, then both she and Danny exemplified it, for they had been in her grandfather’s service. After his death they had then gone on to see to the house for her father and mother. And Jessie had attended her mother through her long illness, the while contriving successfully to be comforter and friend to herself in those early years, especially those prior to Victoria’s appearance on the scene with her father, and with his death she had drawn the little girl into her almost motherly warmth, while at the same time condemning her for her dollyfiedness, as she termed it.

  And so it had been ever since, except that Bridget knew it was she who held first place in Jessie’s affection, as some of her down-to-earth remarks showed when she would say, ‘Fancy feathers make peacocks, but you pluck them and see what’s left.’ The vision of a plucked peacock would always send a gurgle through Bridget’s stomach.

  Yet Jessie was very much on Victoria’s side the day she herself had donned breeches for the first time to ride out: ‘Eeh, pet!’ she had said, her hands to her cheeks, ‘you’ll get your name up. If anything’ll get your name up that rig-out will. Lass, it’s not done. Eeh, the shock of wearin’ bloomers on bicycles will be nothin’ to you, lass, once you’re seen on that road in that rig-out!’

  And Jessie’s opinion had seemed to be the general one: Dreadful, disgraceful, like a man, so immodest…she’ll never be married.

  That last remark had been made within earshot of her, and she had startled the speaker by going to her shoulder and saying in a soft voice, ‘Take off your bustle and I’ll take off my breeches and the pattern underneath will be much the same.’

  ‘Dreadful person. Comes out with the most outrageous remarks. She’s originally from Shields, you know. Vulgar, but dirty rich. But her sister—or is it her cousin?—she’s different altogether, quite a young lady.’

  Oh, Bridget knew exactly what the opinion of her was among the crowd in which Lionel Filmore moved. And there was something beginning to worry her, too. At first it had amused her, but not any more: the fact that she was considered to be the working partner in the Henry Dene Mordaunt Company. She was the one who saw to the business, while the ladylike one took her rightful place and acted according to her position. Yes, and the niggling thought had now connected itself with the ball and Lionel Filmore. Well, she could do nothing about it at the moment; in any case, perhaps he was only amusing himself. She hoped he wasn’t, not with Victoria’s feelings being at the height they were. On an earlier stay here, she had heard that he was seeing a lot of Elizabeth Porter, the cat’s daughter, as she herself thought of Kitty Porter. Yet, here he was now, pressing his attentions on Victoria, and the word was pressing, because this was his fourth visit within a matter of three weeks. She had mixed feelings about the man. She didn’t know if she liked or disliked him, but as Victoria loved him so deeply, then, she told herself, she had better concentrate on his good points and work up a liking.

  She pulled a ledger towards her but didn’t open it. Her hand flat on the scarred leather, she wondered what it was that directed one’s feelings towards another? Was it just the urges of the body? She shook her head at this and her mind answered, No. Yet they were there. Yes, they were there all right. But no; it was something that emanated from the other person. There was no finger that could be put on it. You didn’t ask for it or, when it came, welcome it, because such kind of love began with a troublesome feeling: it was based on hopelessness. Yet one couldn’t stop it growing, even though in a way despising one
self for the weakness that allowed one to foster such a thought. She had even tried to kill it with ridicule, likening herself to a missionary falling in love with a Zulu who could only communicate by sign language and war dancing. But it hadn’t made any difference.

  She opened the ledger and got down to the therapy of figures.

  Three

  William Filmore stood with his back to the empty grate. It was a position he took up when the fire was blazing, and it usually blazed during all the winter, spring and autumn months. So it was a matter of habit, his standing in this position, especially whilst enjoying his after-dinner cigar.

  Opposite him, in a deep leather chair, sat his elder son. Lionel was well aware of his assets: he was tall, had an abundance of thick fair hair and a countenance that could only be classed as handsome, whereas his brother, Douglas, a year younger, was short in comparison, being only five foot six inches tall, with no manly figure to speak of, being what you would kindly call wiry. Also in contrast to Lionel, he was dark haired. His eyes, too, were dark, deep brown, almost black. His face was longish, his chin inclined to jut. His mouth was wide and thin lipped. His disposition, too, was in contrast to his brother’s, in that he was of a quiet retiring nature and had what the family considered to be strange pursuits, diverse in their choice: he liked chipping stone or whittling wood; and he had a feeling for pigs. Whenever he was not working in one of the big outhouses he had claimed as a workshop, he could be found on the farm looking at the pigs, assessing them, even talking to them, it was said.

  Both men were looking at their father now as he said, ‘We’ve got to put on a show, it’s important. And you should know that.’ He nodded towards Lionel; and Lionel came back with, ‘You needn’t stress the point, Father. I know it is important, and not only to me.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ The protruding stomach seemed to expand, the red jowls bristled, and William Filmore, with a backward flick of his hand, knocked the ash off his cigar; then, his arm going forward, the cigar, now glowing between his fingers, was thrust in the direction of his son, and he said, ‘This’—the cigar now made a half circle—‘this will be yours before long. What do you intend to do with it? Sell it? Well, I can tell you, if it went on the market it wouldn’t cover half the debts. And then there’s your way of life. You couldn’t live without the hunt, could you? And empty stables out there would be unbearable to you.’ The cigar now was pointing towards the long latticed windows at the end of the room; then when it was brought back towards his chest, he said, ‘And there is your tailor, and your drink, not forgetting what you lose at cards, because you’re the most unlucky bugger on God’s earth with a pack of cards in your hand. So—’ The cigar was now thrust back between the blue lips, its essence to be savoured for a moment; then, his voice dropping a tone, he said, ‘It’s a ball we’ve come to discuss, and at it I hope you’ll settle your future. There’s no more playing around for you, for slip up here and I’d advise you to take a boat to America and see what you can do with your charm there.’

  ‘You’ll need more staff.’

  Both the father and brother looked at Douglas. It was as if they had never before heard him speak. And his father’s voice was quiet as he said, ‘Yes, Doug, you’re right, we’ll need more staff. So, have you any ideas on the subject?’

  ‘Not really; only I was nineteen when we last had a ball here. That’s six years ago, and we had eleven indoors then and eight out.’ He looked from one to the other before he ended, ‘But things have changed.’

  ‘That’s an obvious statement if ever I heard one.’ Lionel looked scathingly at his brother; then he added, ‘And it can’t go down in the annals that you’ve done much to stop the rot.’

  There came a slight tightening of Douglas’s jaw, and the chin moved out a bit further, but his voice was level as he said, ‘Well, you could say I’ve been serving my apprenticeship. I sold two pieces last week.’

  ‘You what!’ It was a joint exclamation, and surprise had caused the father to lay down his cigar on a silver stand that was to his hand on the mantelshelf, and it had brought Lionel screwing round in his chair, asking now, ‘You sold your stones, I mean your pieces? Who to? The marble merchant in Gateshead? When was this? What were they?’

  ‘One was the boy fishing, the other was the angel.’

  ‘What did you get for them?’ This question came from his father.

  ‘A hundred and twenty for the angel and eighty-five guineas for the boy.’

  ‘Good God!’ His father was smiling. ‘By, you are a sly cuss! You never let on. We could have drunk to it. What did you do with the money? Have you got it? Was it in cash!’

  ‘Yes, it was in cash, but I’ve spent it.’

  The expressions on the two faces slipped now, and it was Lionel who asked, ‘What did you spend it on?’

  ‘On good stone. I’ve got three more orders.’

  Again his father’s face was expanding. And now, throwing his big florid and grizzled head back, he seemed to speak to the decorated ceiling as he said, ‘I’ll be buggered. The runt of the litter earning a living.’ Then he looked at this second son, for whom he had never had much use, mainly because he looked a weed and, what was more, he had no conversation, and seemingly no interests except as a boy whittling away at wood, then later chiselling stone, and making it apparent that the money being spent on his education was a waste, verified by school reports which were always the same: he didn’t work; he was absent-minded; he was a dreamer. Well, by the look of it his dreams had gone into stone and they were actually making money. And more orders ahead, he said. Well, it wasn’t a fortune, nothing like what he expected his elder son to capture in order to keep a roof over their heads, but it promised one of them a living. Yes, indeed.

  He stared at his son. There was more to this thin, undersized individual than met the eye. Indeed, indeed. He asked now, ‘Where are your pieces going to?’

  ‘London, I think. I’m not sure. Anyway, the man does business there. He was a monumental mason himself.’

  ‘Monumental mason! Gravestones and crosses!’ His brother’s tone was scathing.

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so; but he’s got a sideline, too. And that, he says, is where I come in. He will take all I can turn out.’

  Lionel, pulling himself to his feet, now said, ‘A few hundred pounds isn’t going to save the city.’

  ‘No, it won’t save the city.’ Douglas, too, had risen to his feet, and as he passed between his father and his brother he added tersely, ‘But it will provide me with a living when this part of the city falls.’

  The two men watched the slight figure walk down the room with his loose shambling gait. And when the door banged behind him his father, throwing his half-smoked cigar into the fireplace, remarked, ‘There goes a dark horse. But he’s right, you know. Oh yes, he’s right, because if your deal doesn’t come off, how do you think you’re going to exist? I’ve asked you this before. On your wits? But they won’t take you far at cards. And I’ve said this before an’ all. So what is for you? Kitty Porter, you know, won’t allow you back into her nest again to pluck her chicken. And so it would mean America. Or you could resort to what some of your type have done before, escorting rich dames around watering places. It’s quite the done thing, I hear.’

  Facing his father now, Lionel said with some bitterness, ‘You don’t like me, do you? You’ve never had any use for me, or for Doug, for that matter. And I’ll say this, if there were prizes given for looking after number one, you’d be top of the list. And you know something, the things you don’t like about me are what are very prominent in yourself. What pattern did you set for me? Whoring was the first that came to my notice, and under Mama’s nose at that. Drink was next; followed by gaming, and that not all straight either, else you wouldn’t have had to sell up the London house and resort to this end of the country, which you hate.’

  ‘Get out of my sight!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that, Father, for the present. But just one
more thing: what if I marry her? And oh, I’ll marry her all right because she’s ripe for the taking. There’s no doubt about that. But what if she doesn’t want to live here and support your ruin? What if she were to decide we should take up residence in Milton Place? It’s a very nice house that, very well kept, not a rambling mausoleum like this. So then what about it?’

  ‘The same about it as if she decided to live here, you’ll have control of her money, and I think you’ll just be in time because there’s a law afoot to give women rights to what’s considered their own. So whatever there is I’ll expect you to use it in the right way.’

  ‘Well—’ Lionel stepped back and as he did so he tweaked each side of his small moustache with his forefinger. ‘That remains to be seen, Father,’ he said. ‘That remains to be seen.’

  When he, too, left the room, William Filmore almost groped his way to the leather chair from which he had so recently risen and, dropping into it, he lay back and put his hand to his brow as he asked himself, how was it that one could dislike the flesh and blood that was part of one, that one had made? Well, perhaps he was right, he was part of himself in many ways. But it was too late now for self-recrimination; he hadn’t a long time to run; not the way he was feeling now, he hadn’t. Then there was Doug. That strip of an individual. All the Filmores had been big-made, burly types. The gallery and the staircase showed them for two hundred years back. There wasn’t a fleshless one among them; yet, there he was, the second son, who at twenty-five still had on him a body that made him look like a strip of a boy. And just five foot six tall. That wasn’t his family. But what had he just done? He had shown his big burly handsome brother that he, at least, could earn a living.

  Strange that he had never bothered with Douglas; but there had seemed to be nothing to bother with in this undersized Filmore man. For a moment there intruded into his thoughts a deep sense of loss that in his old and shortening age he might have experienced a sense of friendship and perhaps comfort through this unusual descendant in the Filmore clan. But it was too late now.