The Black Candle

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What did you say?’

  Before she could answer Kitty said, ‘She only repeated what I said: That’ll be the day when she drives a car.’

  ‘Is that all? And that’s why she went for you?’

  ‘Now, now, Alice,’ said Douglas. ‘Let’s forget about her.’

  ‘That’ll take some doing.’ It was the first comment Amy had made, and Douglas turned and looked at his daughter, and agreed solemnly, saying, ‘Yes, dear, you’re right. But it’s Christmas Day; come on, come on, all of you. By! Weren’t the boys amazed? I’ve never seen such genuine pleasure on anyone’s face for a long time.’

  ‘Oh, Grandpa; then you didn’t look at my face when I saw my violin.’ Jonathan sounded so disappointed. ‘Of all the things in the world I’ve hoped for, that’s always been the top, a good violin. Not that’—he was nodding now towards his father—‘the one that you bought me wasn’t good, but…well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, indeed, Jonathan, I know what you mean. You mean that the one I bought you didn’t cost a quarter as much as that one.’ Joseph now nodded to where the violin case lay on a side table.

  ‘Oh, Dad!’

  ‘Never mind oh dadding me.’ Joseph made a gesture of flapping his son aside; but then smiled at him and said, ‘Well, you want to get some practice in for the jig tonight. And you, too, Alice, get at that piano. How many are coming?’ and he turned questioningly towards Amy; and she, after thinking a moment, said, ‘Well, there’ll be Malcolm’s two friends, which brought a quick retort from Jonathan who, lifting his chin as far as it would go, said, ‘The sons of Sir Arnold and Lady Fordyce, Masters James and Percy.’

  ‘They’re not half as stuck up as you are.’

  ‘Now, now, Kitty,’ said Amy; then went on, ‘Then there’s William’s friends, the Robsons, Arthur and Hazel. And yours, Alice, Winnie and her two brothers.’

  ‘Oh, yes, don’t forget the Barnett brothers,’ put in Jonathan now.

  ‘No!’ Alice retaliated sharply to her brother; ‘nor your friends Sam McBane and his Irish cousin, begorra, Patrick.’

  ‘Well, there’s one thing to be said for begorra Patrick,’ Joseph said, trying to calm the situation, ‘if anybody can get you laughing it’s him. In the end he’ll likely turn out to be a Catholic priest, because he’s always laughing at himself and his religion.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Kitty now, ‘with the Robsons, to my reckoning that’s seven males and three females, and counting us there’s an extra male. Well, that’s as it should be, I suppose.’

  Joseph had quietly gone to Bertha, and he asked her, ‘How you feeling?’

  ‘I’m all right, fine.’

  ‘Would you like to go and lie down?’

  ‘Lie down? No! Of course not. Anyway I’m looking forward to that dance tonight.’ She now looked past him and spoke to the girls, saying, ‘I’ll dance you off your legs, you’ll see. I can still do the clog dance, you know. I had a real dancing pair of feet for it at one time. You’ll see, you’ll have to look out for your lads else you’ll lose ’em.’

  Almost as though it were an invitation, William approached Bertha, made a deep obeisance towards her and in a high-toned voice said, ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, Miss Bertha?’ only for her to come back at him, she, too, adopting a highfalutin voice, saying, ‘No, sir; I’m afraid you can’t; me programme’s full.’ And she held out her hand as if presenting the programme to him. ‘What’s more, I understand that you are in the band providing the music, and I have always made it a point never to dance with bandsmen. They can never be trusted; they’re worse than sailors.’

  Amid the general laughter Amy rose and went from the room unnoticed, except apparently by Joseph. That was another thing that irked him: she could never stand or appreciate Bertha’s humour. She had never really taken to her right from the beginning. He felt he knew why, and it didn’t come into the heading of possessiveness.

  The partition between the drawing room and dining room had been pushed back and Alice at the piano and Jonathan on his violin had provided music for a number of dances. At first, the visiting guests had shown decorum by their politeness, but after a couple of games of musical chairs and winkey, the decorum seemed to have been pushed into the background, and when Bertha actually demonstrated that she could still do the clog dance, even in a pair of soft leather shoes, she was applauded uproariously.

  It was now time for refreshments and the old and the young were scattered about the room, plates on their knees, cups and glasses held carefully away from their dresses or suits. A couple sitting at the end of the conservatory on a slatted form had lain their plates and wine glasses to the side of them, and Alice, nibbling politely on a sandwich, gazed at her partner, while her heart was pumping at more than its usual rate, the exertion being not due to her dancing but to the effect that this young man was having on her. It was not a new effect, for she had first experienced it nearly a year ago at a school friend’s birthday party.

  He was saying to her, ‘You have left school for good? I mean, you are not going on to another?’

  ‘No. No…well, not to school as such; I’m going to study under a very good music teacher.’

  ‘You play beautifully.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The young man looked along the length of the conservatory, then glanced sidewards through the open doors into the drawing room and said, ‘This is a beautiful house.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is; and…and you know something? This seat here’—she patted it—‘it was really here, right just here, that my grandparents first met. There used to be a big palm tree’—she pointed—‘cutting off the view of the drawing room, and two men were quarrelling behind the palm and it almost fell on Grandmother…And what happened that night was to set off a train of events’—she shook her head—‘which you certainly wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Oh yes, I would. I…I know quite a bit about the history of your family.’

  Her face became straight, her tone a little defensive now as she said, ‘Well, then, I…I suppose you were shocked.’

  ‘Shocked?’ He laughed. ‘Shocked, because you had a rake of a grandfather? I’ll tell you something.’ He leant towards her and looked into her eyes as he said, ‘You and I are close in more ways than one. Well, what I mean is, we are associated through our family because my grandmother, Daisy, was the mistress of your notorious grandfather. Their association, I understand, went on for a long time, years, ten years or more.’

  ‘Really?’ She was biting on her lip now, her face wide with suppressed laughter, and when he nodded at her and said, ‘Yes, really. They were very naughty, a disgrace to both families. But if your grandfather was a bit of a roué, my grandmother was a devious woman, if all tales were true. In fact she even played the dirty on her lover. I’m the youngest of a family of ten; I’m what you might call an overspill. It was never intended that I should be born, and my father always became enraged, I understand, when…the disgrace was mentioned. But from my eldest brother, who was eighteen years older than me, right down to my sister, who was seven years my senior, and there are twins in our family, too, well, we all enjoyed the story and—’ He paused now and, taking her hand and in a low voice, he said, ‘When I first met you, Alice, I thought how strange, how very strange that I should fall in love with the granddaughter of that man.’ And now there was a plea in his voice: ‘Alice, tell me: Do you like me?’ She could only mutter, ‘Oh! Oh, Roger, more than like, more than like…’

  Just as years before a couple had been distracted by the noise and gaiety from the ballroom, so now the scraping of a chair, likely the very one that Bridget had vacated all those years ago for the seat behind the palm, was also blotted out; but not Kitty’s face, as she appeared in the doorway and grinned at them before turning away.

  Kitty now looked around the room and sighting her father hobbling past the partition that divided the rooms, she ran towards him and, taking his arm and her face full of glee, sh
e said, ‘Daddy! Daddy! You’ll never guess. Roger…Roger Barnett is making love to Alice in the conservatory. And you know what he said, and who he is?’

  She was surprised when he suddenly growled at her, ‘Shut up! Come this way.’ He now caught hold of her arm and, hobbling, he drew her to the far end of the corridor to his study and pushed her in, saying, ‘Well, now you may spill the rest.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy. Well, I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Never mind what you meant, just tell me what you were going to say.’

  ‘Well…well…I didn’t mean to listen.’

  ‘You’re always listening, Kitty; but that’s no fault, except when you repeat what you hear. In this case though, repeat it to me exactly.’

  ‘Well, he said that his father, I mean his grandmother, was the mistress of our grandfather.’

  Barnett? Barnett? Daisy Barnett? Yes, he knew all about Daisy Barnett.

  ‘Had our grandfather a mistress? Or was he making it up or…?’

  He limped forward to his seat behind the desk, then beckoned her to him, and when she was standing by his knee he took her hand and said, ‘Now, on no account, do you hear me, on no account, must you repeat this to anybody. There has been a great deal of scandal in this family. You know nothing about it yet. Your grandmother has gone through a great deal of trouble, as have I, and one day you will likely hear the whole story and from the horse’s mouth, and that will be mine, or if not mine, your grandfather’s. Your grandmother’s version might be biased, and she would certainly be biased in this case if she knew Alice was becoming involved with a young man whose grandmother had caused her beloved cousin, Victoria, that is, or was, Henrietta’s mother, a great deal of grief. Now you understand what I mean? I know it’s puzzling you, but listen: I want you to promise me you’ll say nothing about what you overheard tonight passing between Alice and that young man. Now, your solemn promise?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy. I’m…and I’m sorry. I just…well I thought it was…funny, especially about the woman being the mistress…’

  ‘Do you know what a mistress in that sense means?’

  She stared at him blankly for a moment; then, a small smile on her face, she said, ‘Well, it doesn’t mean a schoolmistress, it means a woman who is wicked and entices a gentleman from his wife and family.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s what it means; but the woman need not be wicked, and in some cases neither is the man. But in the case we’re talking about neither of them were very nice people; at least, I can speak for one of the parties. But now go back and join the company, and when you see Alice, don’t give her that look you sometimes do which says, I know something that you don’t know.’

  ‘Do I look like that, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Remember when Malcolm was smoking and he set fire to the hay in the loft but he and Willie managed to put it out? And what did little Kitty do? Came to me and said, Daddy, I know something that you don’t know. Do you remember?’

  Kitty’s head drooped, then she looked up at him under her eyebrows and said, ‘Well, I know something else that you don’t know, Daddy; I’d had a puff at a cigarette, too, that day.’

  ‘What!’

  As she went to scamper from him his hand caught her across the bottom, and she ran out squealing merrily, leaving him standing and shaking his head.

  He sat down again and placed his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hand, and he nodded to himself as he said, ‘What is a mistress?’ There was indeed a funny side to this: Daisy’s grandson and Bridget’s granddaughter. But he couldn’t laugh about it because the moment it came into the open, Lionel Filmore would rise again from the dead. Bridget would see to that.

  Four

  ‘You did well to get it for six-eighty.’

  ‘Well, I pointed out to her that it would take a few hundreds to put it into order before we could let it. It’s a real mess inside, and there’s a bit of dry rot in the basement; and anyway, she’s not without a penny: she’s pretty warm, I should imagine, and she doesn’t really need money.’

  ‘A lot of people don’t’—Bridget pursed her lips at him—‘but they’ll still beat you down to the last farthing if they can. By the way, Douglas and I were talking last night: we think it’s only fair that you should be working under your own name. What do you say to that?’

  What Joseph wanted to say was, ‘You mean Filmore?’ But that would get her back up. Yet strangely, if he were to say it to Douglas he wouldn’t mind in the least. In fact, he would say what he had said before: If everyone had their due, that would be your name. So he said, ‘That’s nice of you.’

  His tone was not exactly one of kindly acceptance, and she sensed this and moved some papers on her desk before looking at him again: ‘It would please Amy, too, don’t you think?’ she said.

  Now he was unable to hedge, and so he said, ‘I don’t think she is interested one way or another in what name I work under.’

  ‘What is the matter with you these days, Joseph?’

  Before answering, he leant towards her across the desk and, looking her straight in the face, he said, ‘You should put that to your daughter, Bridget. And you know as well as I do what’s the matter with me, only you’ve closed your eyes to it. But being her mother, you have likely spoken to her woman to woman about this matter.’

  He slowly drew himself backwards as he saw her face flushing scarlet, and she snapped, ‘I don’t go into my daughter’s private life.’

  ‘Well then, without going into it, you’ve been married long enough to know what oils a marriage.’

  ‘Really! Really, Joseph!’ She had risen to her feet, but he laughed now as he said, ‘Oh, don’t pretend you’re shocked, Bridget, not you. Anyway, to get back to the question that led up to this matter, what will my new status entail?’

  Her voice was stiff as she replied, ‘It would entail that what business you get in future will be your own; and don’t say not before time, because that, I know, is what you think. But don’t forget, over all these years, it is we who have kept The Grove going.’

  ‘No. No, I don’t forget that, Bridget; nor do I forget that it isn’t my home. It belongs to Douglas and, therefore, you, and when anything happens to Douglas it will go to my eldest son, although not of necessity because the place isn’t entailed, but because my eldest son is also the son of your daughter. Oh, I know all that, but when I’m told not to forget certain things, I would remind you, Bridget, that I worked the first six years on that house for practically nothing, but I looked upon it as payment for my schooling at your expense. Yet, at the same time, I considered you were getting good interest on it. We’re speaking plainly now, aren’t we? And for the last fourteen years I’ve worked in your business. Oh, yes, I’ve been well paid, but that was on percentage, too. So, I feel that what you’re offering now is somewhat overdue. Yes, overdue. So, I’ll say good day to you, Bridget, and go about…your business, or what in future is going to be mine.’

  Bridget sank back into her chair and looked at the door that had just banged closed and she told herself that there indeed went the son of Lionel Filmore. Oh yes, indeed.

  In the street, Joseph got into his car and he drove straight to Bradford Villa. He opened the door and passed into the musty hall; and there he stood, leaning with his back against the wall, feeling that he had just stepped out of Bridget’s office, for he could still see the look on her face.

  Well—he stepped back from the wall—she wouldn’t go back on her word. From now on he’d be in business on his own, but he felt sure that the change had come about through Douglas’s suggestion and not hers.

  He walked slowly through the house, seeing immediately the work that needed to be done: a wall down here, a bathroom there. It could be made into a really nice house.

  The garden, he saw, didn’t take up more than half an acre of the land, and there was all that field beyond. He stood at the corner of the outbuildings looking across the field. He reckoned that
if he added another half acre to the garden, or even a bit more, there would be sufficient land left to build four good houses right up to the wall of Mrs Dunn’s off-licence.

  Mrs Dunn’s off-licence? He should call in and thank them personally. He had thought about them a number of times during the past few weeks.

  He turned quickly, locked up the house, got into his car and drove down the main road until he came to Downey’s Passage, then drove up to the shop…past it, parked his car, then got out.

  He stood for a moment looking in the shop window at the display of spirit bottles before going in. There was no-one in the shop, but the door bell had rung.

  When the woman appeared behind the counter she began by saying, ‘Yes, sir? An’ what can I do…?’ Then on a high note she exclaimed, ‘Why, Mr Skinner! Why! Come along in. Come along in, sir.’ She whipped up the counter flap and he passed through, saying, ‘I just thought I would like to come and thank you personally…’

  ‘Go on through. Liz has just made a cup of coffee.’ Her voice rose: ‘Liz! See who’s here?’

  There was no-one in the sitting room, but her daughter’s voice came from the kitchen apparently, saying, ‘Oh, has Nibbles come back?’

  At this Mrs Dunn let out a roar of laughter and, looking at Joseph, she explained, ‘That’s the cat, Nibbles. Sit yourself down.’

  He was smiling as he sat down in the chair he recalled sitting in before, and he also recalled now the cheery atmosphere of this room and the two women.

  He heard the daughter’s voice saying, ‘Two nights on the tiles is one too many.’ Then she appeared in the far doorway, bearing a tray on which were two cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits.

  She stopped dead for a moment before exclaiming, ‘Good lord! You said it was the cat.’ She looked at her mother, then back to Joseph; and now she said, ‘Hello, there.’

  ‘Hello,’ he replied. ‘I…I thought it was about time I came and said thank you in person.’