The Obsession

by Catherine Cookson

  Five

  Simon Steel stood before the hall mirror adjusting his cravat. Beatrice was at his side holding a thick overcoat and a tweed hat with side flaps.

  She watched her father now wet the end of a finger and rub it along each side of his narrow moustache. He was a handsome man, and she was very proud of him. As she now helped him into his coat, she said, ‘It’s very cold out. How far are you intending to walk?’

  ‘That all depends upon how I feel, Beatrice. If I reach town I might stay and have a bite.’

  ‘Why don’t you take the carriage, Father?’

  He turned on her now, saying, ‘I’m not an old man, Beatrice: I don’t have to ride in the carriage every time I want some fresh air. I hope that necessity doesn’t happen for the next twenty years.’

  ‘Of course not, Father, of course not. I was only . . .’

  ‘Yes, you were only playing the mother again. And you play it very well, dear, very well indeed. You’re to be congratulated.’ As he took his hat from her with one hand he was feeling in his pocket with the other and he said, ‘Oh, have you any loose change?’

  ‘Loose change, Father?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said. Let me have a couple of sovereigns, perhaps three.’

  ‘But . . . but, Father’ – she stepped back from him – ‘I . . . I have only enough of the housekeeping money to see us through the week, until . . . until the end of the month. And then there are the bills, Father.’

  He closed his eyes as if attempting to be patient and he said, ‘You needn’t remind me of the bills. They will be settled at quarter day and that is in three weeks’ time. Now can I have some small change? You are the housekeeper; I would have thought that, like most good housekeepers, you manage to keep a little on the side.’

  ‘I . . . I do, Father; but it’s eaten up with’ – she had almost added, ‘with your demands for small change.’ Grim-faced, she now turned about and walked down the short corridor to the office. Taking a tin box from a drawer she looked down on it in apprehension for a moment before selecting two sovereigns. A few minutes later, when she handed them to him, he looked at them and the only remark he made was through a statement that cast her down: it was, ‘You have the makings of an old maid.’ Then he marched across the wide hall, pulled open the front door and closed it none too gently behind him, the while she remained standing where he had left her.

  She loved her father. She thought she understood him. He was a wonderful man, kind, generous: he was always helping people, wanting money to give away. But at times he said hurtful things. Yet she understood that as well, because she was the only one in the family who took after him: she, too, said hurtful things when she was annoyed. And she was annoyed now, for there was Rosie coming down the stairs, all dressed up for going out, and she cried at her, ‘Where are you going on a bitter morning like this?’

  ‘Why are you asking the road you know, Beatrice? I’m going next door, the only place I have to visit.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is you’ve got very poor taste. I’ve warned you, haven’t I? If Father knew you went there so often there would be the devil to pay. And you know what he has threatened to do with those animals should they stray round that fence. And he’ll do it.’

  Rosie stood at the foot of the stairs. She was half a head taller than her sister and she looked down on her as she said quietly, ‘If he didn’t do it, you would, wouldn’t you, Beatrice?’

  There was a pause before Beatrice said firmly, ‘Yes. Yes, I would, because he’s on land that doesn’t belong to him.’

  ‘But it does belong to him; it was his father’s. Grandpapa gave it to his father. He saved . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t go over that again. I’m sick of listening to it. But I’ll tell you this much: Father’s going to see if something can’t be done; there might be a loophole in this deed of gift business.’

  Rosie fastened the button on the collar of her coat under her chin, as she said slowly, ‘Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you? To see them turfed out, to see his livelihood taken away. Well, if that was the case and I wasn’t going to marry Teddy, I would go with him.’

  Beatrice laughed sneeringly at this, saying, ‘Don’t talk stupidly. Anyway, you can’t do anything for nearly another three years: you’re under Father’s jurisdiction until you are twenty-one. He could have you brought back from wherever you were and made to look foolish. So, get that out of your head. It’s a wonder he allowed you to become engaged to your dear Teddy. I was surprised.’

  Rosie leaned towards her now and quietly said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you why he permitted it, it’s because Teddy is in the Ministry, the Diplomatic Service, and knows lots of people in high places, and Father is a snob of the first water. And you take after him.’

  As Rosie walked towards the door Beatrice gaped at her open-mouthed. There went someone who had suddenly changed. Rosie was no longer her favourite, the only one she liked among her sisters. She had been the little girl who could be scolded, then pampered; she had been the child to whom she could play mother. But the child had gone; in fact, the young girl had gone. She rested her hand on the bannister as if for support. She knew what both Helen and Marion thought of her; but Rosie had always been on her side. Even when she had chastised her about her visits next door, she had never turned on her and retaliated as she had just done.

  Of a sudden she felt a loss and she cried out against it. Rosie had been a kind of companion, with little to say but such a good listener. And she laughed easily. Even when she had upbraided her she would laugh.

  She turned her head to look towards the door. It had closed on her sister, not loudly, not with a bang, as it had done on her father, but it had just closed as if it had put an end to something, softly. But what?

  She told herself she must not go for Rosie any more, at least in connection with those next door. No matter what she thought, she would keep it to herself: she couldn’t lose Rosie, too. Before she had become engaged to Edward Golding, she herself had had fears at times of what might happen between Robbie MacIntosh and her, for it made little difference that he was ten years older. She herself had been against the idea of her becoming engaged to Edward, but the alternative was unthinkable.

  She gazed about the hall. She should be happy, very happy, for now she was mistress of this house, this beautiful, beautiful house. She’d always loved her home, but now it had become an obsession with her. She ruled it. She didn’t own it, but she ruled it. Now and again, though, a particular thought would frighten her: What if her father decided to marry again? In her mind she had screamed at what she saw as the consequence. She would go mad. She couldn’t bear another woman ruling this house. It wasn’t so much she could not think of her father taking another wife, but it was another woman being mistress of this house.

  She took her hand abruptly away from the bannister and her skirts seemed to dance from one side to the other as she briskly made her way towards the drawing-room to check Janie Bluett’s work of the morning.

  Instead of taking her usual way by the wall and the water to get into the smallholding, Rosie walked through the main gateway of the house and proceeded along the road.

  She found it strange that by whichever way she entered this place it was as if she were moving into a different world: she took deeper breaths, and she always had the desire to sit down, even to lie down somewhere and stretch her body to its full extent and relax.

  Today, Annie MacIntosh hailed her from that part of the garden where the animal enclosure was railed off and she called to her, ‘Isn’t it a snifter! But I love these mornings. I’m coming in, don’t come down.’

  Rosie merely nodded at her, then went into the cottage and straight to the kitchen, where immediately the warmth met her like a wave.

  After loosening her coat, she flopped down into the basket chair to the right of the larg
e open fireplace, and she emitted a long-drawn-out sigh. If the kitchen had been that of a huge farm it could not have represented it more fully, for from its oak-beamed ceiling hung legs of smoked ham and bunches of herbs. A long white-topped kitchen table ran down the middle of the room. The china-decked dresser stood against one wall, and flanking another was a padded settle, at the end of which a door led into the long, cool larder.

  Rosie always felt this to be a comforting room, so unlike the one in the house, and at the present moment she was feeling in need of comfort.

  The little woman came bustling in and as she dropped a heavy basket of sprouts onto the table, she said, ‘Me finger ends are dropping off.’

  ‘Where’s Robbie?’

  ‘Oh, he’s gone into town with a load. The cabbage is finished, and the carrots. There’s only the sprouts left and the last of the clamped taties.’

  She stopped in the act of pulling her mittens off and, looking hard at Rosie, she said, ‘What’s the matter, girl?’

  ‘Oh, everything, Mrs Annie. I’ve just had words with Beatrice. The house is awful these days. Oh! I wish I was married and away.’

  Annie MacIntosh took off her short coat before reaching up to the delft rack to lift down two cups and saucers. Then, putting these onto a tray she asked quietly, ‘You want to be married so much?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, Mrs Annie.’

  ‘You want to be married just in order to leave the house?’

  Rosie did not answer immediately: she stared at this dear friend of hers while she seemed to consider, then she said hesitantly, ‘I want to leave the house, but I do like Teddy.’

  ‘You like Teddy? What does that mean, girl, you like Teddy? You like me, you like Robbie, but if you’re going to marry somebody you’ve got to more than like them.’

  ‘Well . . . well, yes. Yes, I more than like him, I’m very fond of him.’

  ‘Very fond of him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rosie’s voice was loud now.

  ‘Does that mean you’re in love with him?’

  ‘In love with him? Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘You suppose so.’

  Annie went to the hob now, a teapot in her hand, tilted the spout of the sizzling kettle over it, then brought it back to the table, put its lid on and then covered it with a tea cosy. And what she then said had nothing to do with love or emotions: ‘I’ve made up a new recipe, a kind of currant bun. I had a go at it last night. D’you want to try one?’

  Rosie was breathing quickly. She didn’t answer but stared across the table at the elderly woman; then of a sudden, she burst out laughing, spluttering as she said, ‘You’re the funniest person I know, Mrs Annie.’

  ‘Well, so far you don’t know very many, hinny.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do. But they never say anything funny.’

  With her head now thoughtfully to one side, she added, ‘Come to think about it, the people around here are dull. They just talk about the weather, or birthdays or deaths. All, that is, except Doctor Falconer. I like him; he made me laugh the other day: he said, “You know, last night I dreamt I was a worm.” And I said, “What on earth made you dream that you were a worm?” “Well,” he said, “I was called up to The Hall, and it was the way the butler looked at me. They call him Lemas, so I made a funny rhyme up about him.” She started to laugh again. ‘I can’t remember it now, but it was funny. Yes, I like the doctor.’ As she took the cup of tea from Mrs Annie’s hand, she added, ‘I’ll meet a different class of person altogether when I’m married.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Mrs Annie quickly, ‘I hope they suit you. But let me tell you, girl’ – now she wagged her finger at Rosie – ‘you’ve got a lot to learn, and from what you’re saying now it’ll be painful. I myself would say, fancy talk and highbrow conversation doesn’t make for happiness: it often hides meanness and many other things. And you haven’t got to go very far to find people like that.’ As she now stamped around the table Rosie got to her feet and laid her cup down, and, her head bowed, she said, ‘I wasn’t meaning anything nasty, Mrs Annie. I’m just . . . oh, I don’t know . . .’

  When her voice broke with the tears, Mrs Annie was around the table again and holding her in her arms, saying, ‘There now. There now. I understand. You have a pretty gloomy time next door; you always have had, as your mother did before you.’

  ‘What?’ Rosie’s head came up from Mrs Annie’s shoulder and she blinked and swallowed, and said again, ‘What? What do you mean, as my mother before me? My . . . my mother was very happy.’

  ‘Your mother, girl, let me tell you, appeared to be happy in order to keep you girls happy. She wasn’t a happy woman. Now that’s all I’m going to say. There’ll come a time when you’ll know more about your mother.’

  ‘Well, who’s to tell me if you don’t?’

  ‘Well, I’m not saying any more, so there. I’ve said too much already. But it was your attitude made me do so. I can tell you this much though: your sisters can’t enlighten you either. So it’s no use asking them. Now drink up your tea because I’m off for the outside again: Mary Ann’s not like her mother with her litter; she’s not letting them suckle properly. Let’s go and talk to her; she likes to be talked to. Wrap up again.’ She now lifted her hand and said, ‘I can see by your face you’re going to ask questions. Well, girl, it’s no good. I’m not going to say anything more. I’m sorry now for what I’ve said. But I’ll add this: your mother, as you know, paid me many visits when your grandfather was alive, and we talked. And some day I may tell you what we talked about. But not today, or tomorrow, or the next day, so come along.’

  Rosie followed the bustling little body out of the door, and down the garden and into the animal enclosure, where the sow, with her twelve of a litter, was rubbing herself uneasily on the frozen ground as the youngsters tried to find her teats.

  ‘Now, now, Mary Ann,’ said Mrs Annie. ‘Lie still and let them have their feed. Now be a good girl.’ She put her arm over the low wall but could not reach the pig’s head, so, without removing her arm, she said, ‘You try, Rosie.’ And Rosie pushed up her sleeve, leant over the wall and quite easily laid her hand on the sow and began to talk to her, saying, ‘What’s the matter, Mary Ann? Got a pain in your tum-tum? Be a good girl now and let them have their breakfast.’

  When the pig grunted, Mrs Annie smiled and said, ‘Keep at it, girl, she’s answering. You might do more than the vet man can do, because I was thinking of getting him the day, although I hate paying him good money for what I used to do myself, but seemingly I’ve lost the touch lately. But she’s talking to you. There she goes again. Oh, and look, they’ve all got one. That’s good. Is your back breaking?’

  Rosie muttered, ‘No, no. I’ll stay like this until they have their feed.’

  ‘Funny if I had to call on you every time they wanted a suck,’ Mrs Annie said, then added on a giggle, ‘I would have to go to the back door though, wouldn’t I? and say, please tell Miss Rosie to hurry up, Mary Ann’s refusing to give her bairns their dinner.’

  Rosie’s body shook and she muttered, ‘Don’t make me laugh, these bricks are sticking in me; in another minute I’ll be down there beside her.’

  ‘Well, take your hand away now and see what she does.’

  Slowly Rosie removed her hand and painfully straightened up. Then they both stared down at the sow who remained passive and allowed her litter to get on with the job. And Mrs Annie smiled and said, ‘I’ll tell Robbie. He’ll be pleased, because he’s been worried about her. He tried all ways yesterday to let her give them a full belly, but she was no sooner down than she was up. Thanks, lass.’

  ‘You’re welcome, madam. That’ll be two and sixpence.’

  ‘Will you have it now or will you wait till you get it?’

  They turned from the sty and went over to the cowshed, where the two cows we
re peacefully chewing their cud.

  ‘I haven’t let them out the day, the grass is so stiff it would cut their throats.’

  In the yard once more Mrs Annie pointed to the chickens trying to scratch the earth and said, ‘Oh, I had to laugh, the young ones couldn’t understand why they couldn’t mount the bank, they were sliding down on their backsides. Some of them were persistent, and it was funny. Robbie brought me out to see them. He cleared the steps, but they won’t take the steps, they’ve been used to the grass.’

  Rosie looked towards the mound. It wasn’t very high, and yet from the top of it, there was an amazing view of the surrounding country.

  Mrs Annie seemed to have sensed her thoughts, for she was saying now: ‘Things will be standing out sharply from up there, this morning. I can’t understand why people say that frost flattens everything; to my mind it brings things to life. It gives the land another picture, different again from when the snow’s lying.’

  ‘I’ll go and take a look,’ Rosie said.

  Standing on the uneven top, she shouted down, ‘Oh, yes, it is different. It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen it like this before. And away to the right the countryside looks pink, not white; must be the sun slanting on it that way.’

  She turned about, then cried, ‘Good gracious! I can see Col Mount, the chimneys and the roofs. That must be nearly three miles away.’

  ‘All of that,’ Mrs Annie called back to her. ‘’Tis an extremely hard and bright frost. Frosts are not all alike, you know. Nature’s got her moods through sun, wind and rain. Oh yes, yes, she has.’

  ‘Good gracious! I can see Wallace’s farm as if it was almost next door. Good Lord! We never see it from down below. I suppose the wood cuts it off.’