The Obsession

by Catherine Cookson

  There was something wrong with her, something on her mind. He knew his Rosie. Oh yes, he knew his Rosie. But his Rosie didn’t know him, not yet at any rate.

  Instead of going straight to the house, Rosie made for the gazebo that lay beyond the tennis court, and there she sat down. She wished she had someone to talk to. But whom could she confide in about this thing that was on her mind? Because she might be wrong. But then again she knew she wasn’t wrong.

  She put her fingers between the slats in the seat and gripped the wood. Life wasn’t nice; but it had been until recently. Although she knew her father hated Robbie, and Beatrice, too, disliked him almost as much, that had been something else, and she had lived with it. But this other thing was something new and nasty.

  She turned her head quickly now as the sound of approaching footsteps came to her from behind the gazebo, with Helen’s voice saying, ‘Let’s stand behind here, Marion, because you know Beatrice: she’s got eyes at the back of her head, at least when she’s on the west end of the balcony. And if she sees us walking and talking she will want to know what it was all about . . . You say you would like us to have a double wedding, Marion?’

  ‘Oh yes, I would, Helen. Anything to get away. I had a letter from Harry yesterday. He said there’s every possibility of his being sent to India early next year and he wants to come down and see Father. And you know, up till recently I didn’t really know how I felt about him; but after his letter I . . . well I know now that I love him. And the thought of going away to India with him, or to follow him out or just to be married to him, has become exciting. I could see a new life opening out for me.’ There was a pause. ‘Do you love Leonard?’

  There was another pause before Helen’s answer came, ‘Who could help loving Leonard? He’s so kind, so good, so caring.’

  ‘Yes. But do you love him, Helen?’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes, I love him . . . Yes!’ – the voice was louder now – ‘I love him. I’m going to marry him, aren’t I? I love him.’

  There was another silence before Marion asked, ‘Would you put it to Father about us having a double wedding? I’ll be nineteen next month, so it isn’t as if I’m a child. And I know something and I think you know the same thing, that Beatrice will be glad to see the back of both of us.’

  Rosie now turned and stared at the wooden partition that separated her from the others as she heard Helen say, ‘But what about Rosie? She’ll be left.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it mightn’t suit Rosie, Helen, but it’ll suit Beatrice, ’cos if Beatrice likes any one of us, it’s Rosie. Odd, but I always thought she’s treated Rosie as the child she’ll never have. She’ll not let Rosie go easily. And Rosie, somehow, is still so young for her age.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know so much about that; she’s on eighteen. And remember the garden party and Teddy Golding? He’s very smitten with her, and she likes him, too. And don’t forget he’s been down four times since. Of course, the last time he didn’t see her when she supposedly had measles that turned out not to be measles after all. And he would get Father’s permission all right, because the Goldings are very well off and equally so connected. What’s more, he’s in the Diplomatic Service. That sounds good at the tea table or in the Gentlemen’s Club. Anyway, what do you think we’ll do? Leonard did suggest we be married in February, but I pushed it on to Easter. He thinks he will be sent abroad and that’s why he wanted to make sure I would be with him . . . Oh, I think it will be all right for both of us. But wouldn’t it be better still if three of us were to go up the aisle on the same day? And that would be possible I’m sure if it wasn’t for our dear older sister.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it could be.’ This was Marion’s voice now, and she added, ‘Oh, how she gets on my nerves about the house. The house. Father’s got a mania for land and she’s got a mania for the house. She’s like an old maid. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her going round with a feather duster one of these days. How different it was when Mama was alive, and different again when Grandpapa and Grandmama were still here. Life was good then, wasn’t it, Helen?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Marion; looking back, life was good then. And we all seemed so young and untroubled. Even after Grandpapa went, we could still laugh about him and Robbie next door. But it didn’t seem to last for long.’

  Hearing a rustle in the grass, Rosie almost sprang out of the gazebo, landed on her toes for a moment, then made a grating noise with her feet as if she were coming down the gravel path. But when she rounded the gazebo the sisters were no longer there. Helen was walking towards the house and Marion was making for the rose garden.

  When she had first sat in the gazebo she had felt sad and worried, but now a sense of desolation was added to these feelings. Helen and Marion wanted to get away. Well, they weren’t the only ones; she, too, wanted to get away. Oh yes, she did, even more than they, but for different reasons. She had made arrangements to meet Teddy on Saturday and should his manner be anything like her sisters had predicted, she would in no way repulse him. Oh no! And it wouldn’t only be to get away from here, but because she liked him. Did she love him? Yes. Yes, she thought she loved him, too, and she would give him an indication of it on Saturday. Oh yes, she would. She would.

  Four

  The church bells had been ringing for the past half-hour. People were passing the surgery window on their way to the church, many of them intending just to stand outside to see the Steel girls emerge after their double wedding. It was quite an event, two sisters being married together, with the youngest sister acting as bridesmaid.

  When the bells had stopped ringing, John lay back in his revolving leather chair and closed his eyes tightly. But even then he could visualise it all: Helen was walking slowly up the aisle now on the left arm of her father, with Marion on his right. The grooms were waiting, standing beyond the first pew.

  He glanced at the clock. It was half-past ten in the morning. On an ordinary day there would still be patients waiting in the other room, but today there was just one. He knew it was Ethel Hewitt, for her stick was beating its usual tattoo of impatience on the floor. He forced himself up from his chair and opened the door. ‘Good morning, Ethel. Will you come in?’

  ‘Not before time an’ all, Doctor, and the place empty.’ As she hobbled past him and took a seat at one side of the desk, she added, ‘It’s a wonder you’re not along there with the rest of the daft ’uns. They don’t know what’s coming to them, they don’t. A bed of roses, they think. But just you wait, they’ll get their eyes opened. Rich and poor alike, it’s all the same.’

  ‘You’re a born pessimist, Ethel.’

  ‘I’m not from there, Doctor. What makes you say that? I was taken for a Lancastrian once, but I’m Durham born and bred.’

  Another time he would have laughed, but not today. ‘How’s your leg?’ he said.

  ‘Well, I’ve still got it on,’ she said.

  ‘That’s fortunate.’

  ‘Why aren’t you along there?’

  ‘Well now, I ask you, if I was along there how could I see to you. And anyway, Doctor Cornwallis had to be there; he brought those two young ladies into the world and—’

  ‘Aye,’ she interrupted him, ‘and he’s going to see them out of it, but in a different way, ’cos they’re going into another world. You know that, don’t you? But then you don’t because you’ve never been married . . . have you? I have three times. You can’t tell me anything about marriage. If I had that kind of brain I could write a story.’

  ‘Without . . . that kind of brain, you could still write a story, Ethel. Anyway, come on, let me have a look at your leg.’ . . .

  Fifteen minutes later he escorted Ethel to the surgery door with the usual warning, ‘Keep off it as much as you can. Rest it; if not you’re in for trouble. I’ve told you.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve heard you. What d’you expect me to do? Hop around on on
e leg, with eight grandbairns coming in at all times of the day and sometimes the night?’

  ‘You’re a lucky woman, you know.’

  As she was about to step into the street she paused, turned her head round towards him and her thin wrinkled face took on a smile as she said, ‘Aye, I know I am blessed in a way, ’cos to speak plainly, all the bairns like me. One or two of them better than their mams and dads. ’Tisn’t that I’m soft with them either. I scud their backsides, then end up makin’ them taffee.’

  He could hear her still chuckling as she hobbled down the empty street that led to the church.

  Doctor Cornwallis was in the habit of iterating how, at one time, there hadn’t been a house or cottage between the church and this his family home, that could go back for almost three hundred years. When John had first heard this remark he had laughingly replied, ‘Well, it’s time it was seen to here and there, don’t you think?’ but afterwards knew he had made a grave mistake when his superior had no conversation with him other than about medical matters for almost a week.

  The surgery and waiting room were cut off from the main house by a long passage and as he locked the door of the surgery, there appeared at the end of the passage the figure of a woman. Her appearance made him stiffen slightly, and before she could approach him he said, ‘You’re too late, Mrs Wallace; I’ve an urgent call.’

  She walked towards him, saying now, ‘It’s just something for me stomach, Doctor. I . . . I can’t go, you know.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t see to you in any case, Mrs Wallace; you’re Doctor Cornwallis’s patient.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But the old fellow’s at the wedding isn’t he?’ She grinned at him. ‘And I thought you might oblige. You see, I haven’t been for days.’

  ‘Another few hours won’t hurt you. And as I said, I’ve an urgent call.’

  She was standing right in front of him blocking the way out.

  ‘I could go to Mrs McDougal, but the doctors don’t like that, do they?’

  ‘Well, that’s up to you, Mrs Wallace. You know what happened the last time you went to Mother McDougal. She certainly made your bowels work, didn’t she?’

  The woman made no reply for a moment, but hitched up her breasts with her forearm and, her manner changing from its fawning style and her voice now without its pleading note, she said, ‘You know what you are, Doctor?’

  ‘No! What am I, Mrs Wallace?’

  ‘You’re a nowt. You’re a snot and you’re out of place here. You ought to go back to where you came from, because you don’t fit in. Never did and never will.’ And on this she pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose so much that, for a moment, he thought she was going to spit at him. Then she turned and flounced along the passage, leaving him standing where he was. And in this moment he felt she was right, for he didn’t fit in, and he longed to be back where he came from, to where people did not come out with mouthfuls of dirt. But he had burnt his boats, for added to the weight of the practice was this great hollow inside him that had resulted from two short meetings, the first of which had been on a mere introduction.

  He squared his shoulders and went out into the street and walked in the opposite direction from the church.

  It was his weekend off, and so he took the train to Middlesbrough; and from the station a two-mile walk brought him to his aunt’s cottage, where his mother was waiting for him. She was standing outside the gate and she called to him over the distance: ‘Look! No sticks.’ As she lifted one hand from the support of the railings, she wobbled and laughed; and when he reached her and put his arms around her, he said, ‘No, only a length of railings. But you’re looking fine. Feeling the same?’

  ‘Yes. Physically I’m heaps better, although mentally I’m much worse.’ She was laughing at him.

  ‘Go on with you.’

  He had his arm around her waist now as he led her up the path towards the ivy-covered cottage. ‘I’m bored to death, Johnny,’ she said quietly. ‘If we were in the town it wouldn’t be so bad; but what do I see here? Cows, sheep, goats, a stray fox. Oh!’ – she wagged her head now – ‘great excitement last week. There was a travelling fair. I didn’t even see that, really, but I heard the hurdy-gurdy from here.’

  Inside the cottage, he looked about him and said, ‘Where’s Aunt Ada?’

  ‘Oh, she decided to go into town. She wanted something special for your dinner, something different. And by the way, I’ve got news for you, she’s selling this place. She’s going to live with George down in Devon.’

  ‘No! Live with George? But what about George’s Vera? They’re like cat and dog when they meet.’

  ‘She knows that, but I think the cat and dog business is between him and Vera now, and she wants to be near him. And I can understand it.’ She turned now and patted his cheek none too softly. ‘I would go to Halifax or the Klondike if it meant being near you. And don’t think I’m going soft in the head because I’ve said that openly for the first time.’

  He kissed her again and said, ‘Well, you had the chance to live near me, practically next door, but you didn’t like Fellburn.’

  ‘Then I hadn’t seen Fellburn, had I? and we had only just left beautiful Sussex, hadn’t we? Remember?’

  ‘Yes; and I also remember your first impression: you wouldn’t be found dead in the place, so you jumped at Aunt Ada’s offer to live here.’

  She pulled herself away from him, saying, ‘Well, I’m prepared to be found dead in Fellburn from now on. And what d’you think? She wants me to buy this place. She reminded me I was glad enough to come here, and that I was supposed to love the country and gardens. But look out there. How big is that? Are those gardens? It would take four of that garden to make a small allotment. No, Doctor Falconer, I have decided,’ her voice dropped to a soft note now as she ended, ‘very definitely, lad, that I want to be near you. At least near enough to catch a glimpse of you dashing backwards and forwards with your little black bag, even if it’s only out of the window, at least once a day.’

  He was holding her again. ‘Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, for you know what, I was getting fed up with Fellburn myself, and why on earth I ever decided to buy a partnership in the practice that’s going to keep me there for another five years, I’ll never know.’

  Her voice loud now, she said, ‘It needn’t keep you there for five minutes longer if you don’t want to. Look, I’ve told you, we’re pretty warm now. What with look, lad, pet, and hinny, I’m getting as bad as these Northerners. Anyway, I got much more than I expected for the house, and then your father’s shares have doubled in value in the last year or so. You could go and put your share back on his table tomorrow and tell him . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Mrs Falconer!We’ve been through all this before; it’s got hairs on it. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine will be when I work for it. And anyway, you’ve spent enough on me already. So forget about that. Shut up! No more!’ He wagged his finger in her face. ‘But I tell you what. I feel like dashing back now and seeing if there are any rooms to let.’

  ‘Oh no! No’ – she shook her head – ‘I’m not going into any rooms. I want a house and I’m going to have a house, and in a decent part. And

  . . . with what I call a garden. If I’ve got to look through a window, I want to see something worth looking at, not a brick road or a cobbled street or ancient houses drunkenly supporting each other, which seems to make up the main part of Fellburn.’

  He was smiling at her now. ‘There is always Brampton Hill, and the houses there have lovely gardens, some of them two to three acres, and six to eight bedrooms, servants’ quarters, butler’s pantry, the lot.’

  ‘Well, I could afford one of those, Mr Sarcasm. And I just might, if you can’t find me anything decent in the town or near you . . . well, not in the town proper, you know what I mean.’

>   He came to her again saying, ‘Yes, old lady, I know what you mean. And now, as we have to wait for dear Aunt Ada to come back with the special something for my lunch, do you think, in the meantime, I might have a drink of tea or coffee? A drop of the hard stuff would be even better.’

  She hobbled from him now towards the kitchen, saying, ‘It’s going to be tea. Doctors shouldn’t drink, not hard stuff, in the mornings. You should have learned that already from your partner. By the way, how is he?’

  ‘When he’s not putting it on he’s bad, when he’s putting it on, for some reason or other, he’s on the point of death. But seriously, that leg of his is going to be the finish of him if he doesn’t watch out.’

  ‘Well, then you could buy the practice.’

  ‘Mother!’ He sounded shocked. ‘Give over, wishing him dead! He’s a decent old fellow really.’

  ‘He’s a selfish old devil. Don’t talk to me about people being decent. The majority only do what suits them: if they go out of their way they want something.’

  ‘I don’t know whom you take after, Mrs Falconer. Your cynicism is bitter. Grandma and Granddad were the sweetest couple.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and everybody loved them and thought they were a pair of old dears. That was in company and when they were being made a fuss of; but let me tell you, like everybody else, they had selfish streaks, some broader than an arrow on a convict’s back, and would go for each other, like cat and dog at times. I was often woken up by it; all that sweetness and light business made me sick.’

  He sat down near the kitchen table and started to laugh as he watched her making the tea. He knew that her rheumatics, as she called her arthritic pains, were likely giving her gip and that she, herself, was putting on an act for him. Oh, he was glad she was coming to be near him, for he needed her company even more than she needed his: there was a great emptiness in him. But if she were available he could see life taking on a lighter pattern; she was so good to be with. Funny, yet so sensible, and kind. And these qualities he needed very much at the moment.