The Obsession

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Yes, it would be that. Has he ever been away this long before? I mean, kept away all day?’

  ‘No, never! Never!’ Dave Wallace paused before he said, ‘I haven’t been all that long back from a drove. I hear’ – another pause – ‘that Mr Steel has died. He was hit by a falling tree, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Quite a tragedy. A rotten branch. Well, you know what they’re like in this weather. They can snap with the speed of lightning. The most dangerous place on earth is in a wood when there’s the kind of frost there was this morning.’

  ‘What time did it happen?’ asked Dave Wallace.

  ‘Oh, about the middle of the morning.’

  ‘And in the wood?’

  ‘Yes. Yes; not far from your place.’

  When there was no response to this statement and the man turned sharply away, John stood watching the swaying lantern, indicating that Wallace had jumped a ditch which would take him into a field and to Bishop’s Meadow. He wanted to say, ‘Hold your hand a minute, and I’ll come along with you;’ but he was tired, and he was hungry. There came to his mind the odd accidents in the past which had happened to that woman’s visitors; or at least, to their property. And Steel had been coming from the direction of the farm; and the boy had been missing all day, and Dave Wallace was a tormented man. It all seemed to link up. And so it was no surprise to himself when he heard his voice yell out, ‘Hold your hand a minute, Davey; I’ll come along with you.’

  After removing the lamp from his bicycle he pushed it into the ditch, and jumped over it.

  Dave Wallace did not slacken his pace, but when John caught up with him, he said, ‘There’s no need, Doctor. Thanks, all the same.’

  They had to climb a stone wall to get into Bishop’s Meadow, and then they were walking down the gentle slope towards where the burnt-out farmhouse had stood. As they approached it, John raised his lamp head-high, and it showed up a doorless scarred wall. But most of the roof had gone too, the slates likely now patching some other farmer’s house. When he brought down the lamp again, Dave Wallace had already stepped through the opening, and John could see what his lantern had revealed: the boy crouched in a corner. He made no movement, but his eyes were staring out of his head and his mouth was agape.

  Within seconds they were both kneeling by his side and Dave Wallace was saying, ‘It’s all right, son. It’s all right. It’s all right. D’you hear? It’s all right.’

  John now took one of the boy’s wrists and began to check his pulse. The fingers were stiff and dead cold, and so he chafed the hands. The boy’s face was deadly pale, except for a blue tinge.

  ‘I . . . I didn’t mean it, Dad.’

  ‘It’s all right, boy, it’s all right. Don’t talk.’

  ‘But he’s . . . he’s dead. I . . . I didn’t mean it, Dad.’

  ‘I know you didn’t; I know you didn’t.’

  ‘Just . . . just to frighten . . . just to frighten him. The branch was rotten. Wouldn’t . . . wouldn’t hurt, not . . . not really. Didn’t mean it, Dad.’

  ‘Come along. Get up.’

  When they both now attempted to help the boy to his feet, his legs buckled under him, so they laid him down again and began to rub the frozen limbs.

  ‘Did . . . didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Shh! Be quiet now. Be quiet. Your father knows you didn’t mean it,’ John said.

  It was as if for the first time the boy had become aware of the doctor, for his mouth opened wide and he gasped, ‘Don’t . . . don’t take . . . don’t take me away.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to take you away. The only thing is’ – John was patting the boy’s cheek now – ‘listen to me. Don’t talk about it. Do you hear? Don’t talk about it. What did I say?’

  ‘D-d-d . . . don’t t-talk . . . about it.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s right. Nobody knows but you. Your dad doesn’t know, and I don’t know, only you, so don’t talk about it. It was a rotten branch. Everyone knows that. Do you understand?’

  ‘Don’t . . . d-d-don’t talk about it. Y-yes, Doctor. I’m hot. I . . . I was cold. I was cold for a long time, Dad. I was cold.’

  ‘You’ll soon be home, son. Come on now; get on your feet.’

  They lifted him up again, but his legs still wobbled as they supported him out of the derelict house, then up the slope. But ten minutes later when they reached the farm, the boy was walking unaided, although his head was drooped and his breath came in short gasps.

  After Dave Wallace pushed the cottage door open with his foot, John realised he was no longer the quiet man.

  The room led into the kitchen and there was his wife standing at one side of the table, and her head wagged as she said, ‘So you’ve found him, have you? Causing trouble, as usual. And the doctor with him. My goodness! We have company this evenin’, haven’t we? What have we done to deserve this?’

  Dave Wallace made no response to his wife’s quip; it was as if he hadn’t noticed her. But he guided his son and John past the foot of the stairs in the middle of the room, and through a door into a bedroom.

  Here he thrust the lantern onto a low chest of drawers before leading his son to the bed.

  If the boy had been capable of saying anything he would have remarked that this was his father’s and mother’s bed; but he wasn’t and so allowed his father and the doctor to strip his clothes off him, then rub him down with a rough towel before putting him under the bedclothes.

  When, in a low voice, John said, ‘I’ll have to go back to the surgery; he’ll need some medicine,’ Dave Wallace said quietly, ‘Before you go, would you stay with him for another five minutes? There’s something I have to do.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Dave. Go on.’

  Dave Wallace walked slowly from the room and closed the door behind him. Then, moving calmly to the table where his wife was still standing, and without saying a word, he drove his fist between her eyes; then as she fell back screaming, he gripped the front of her blouse, pulling her towards him until their breaths fanned each other. Then he growled, ‘You filthy, dirty, common slut! You’re not fit to live. For two pins I’d send you along with him. You’d served him well afore the tree hit him. Well, better than the gun I was going to use on you both, for it saved me own neck. Now, you dirty whore, get up them stairs an’ get your fancy dibs together, and out. No waitin’, no talkin’ it over this time. No promises. Out! Out!’ It was his voice that was screaming now. He thrust her towards the stairs and, her back hitting the bannister post, she almost slid to the floor. Then, her hand over her brow, she said, ‘You . . . you can’t do this. I’ve nowhere to go.’

  ‘What! You’ve nowhere to go? What about your clients? Their wives would welcome you, especially Gladys Knowles. She would tear the hair from your head if she knew that you had started to serve him again. Now get up there before I kick you up.’ His foot went out as if he was about to carry out his threat, and she stumbled up the stairs. And he followed her.

  Half the landing was taken up with a large cupboard, the doors of which he pulled open, and from it he dragged a two-handled canvas bag and threw it at her feet, saying, ‘There you are! Get your fancy dibs into that, and what it doesn’t hold you can hang around your neck. But do it, and do it now. And if you don’t look slippy I’ll throw the whole damn lot out of the window an’ you after them.’

  She stood for a moment defiant, her bottom lip trembling as she said, ‘Big fellow all of a sudden.’

  ‘But not before time,’ he yelled at her. ‘No, by God! Not before time. If there’s anybody been a bloody fool in this world, it’s been me. Now get packin’.’ This time he did lift his foot and kicked at the bag, saying, ‘I’m warning you, I’m only givin’ you minutes.’

  Furiously she now grabbed up blouses, skirts and underwear. Then as she went to get some oddments from the lower shelf
, she said, ‘The bag’s already full an’ I want me bits and pieces from downstairs.’

  ‘Oh yes, your bits and pieces. Your cheapcrack jewellery and your powders. Oh, you’ll get those all right; you’ll need ’em in your trade.’ And he leapt down the stairs, and from the back of the kitchen door he grabbed a bass bag and rushed into the bedroom. The lantern on the chest of drawers he pushed to one side, and, with a curved arm, he swept a number of fancy boxes into the bag. Then he pulled open the top drawer and tipped up its contents into the bag.

  During all this John had not turned from the bed, where he was chafing the boy’s limbs. However, he was aware of the woman’s voice yelling, ‘I’ll get me own back on you, Dave Wallace, you’ll see. An’ . . . an’ what’s more, I haven’t any money.’

  ‘Didn’t he pay you this morning? Get out! Get out! else before God I’ll do for you.’ There was the sound of the door being banged closed.

  Dave Wallace did not return immediately to the bedroom, for he felt as if he had just emerged from a long physical battle. Instead, he slumped against the door, his head drooping to his chest; and so he remained for some minutes. But the minutes were long and brought John to the bedroom door, then across the room towards him. And he put his hand on his shoulder as he said, ‘Come on; sit on the bed. The boy needs you there. He keeps asking for you. And I’ll get away; but I’ll be back shortly. Just keep him warm – put an oven shelf in the bed and give him a hot drink.’

  Dave Wallace spoke no word of thanks, but just allowed himself to be led to the bed. And there he put his arm around his son and brought his face up to his.

  It was almost an hour later when John returned to the cottage, entering it very quietly.

  Dave Wallace was still sitting at the side of the bed: he was holding his son’s hand and it was evident that the man had been crying.

  Seven

  Perhaps it was because of the fresh fall of snow that the funeral had been so sparsely attended. Very few of the mourners returned to the house, but what was noticeable to the family was the presence of four very well-dressed gentlemen who weren’t known to them, but who drank the mulled wine and seemed to enjoy the meal that was provided.

  But now it was four o’clock in the afternoon. The drawing room fire, heaped with logs, was burning brightly. The gas chandelier filled the room with light, although no such illumination was registered on the faces of the small assembled company. There was Beatrice, her skin taking on the patina of alabaster against her heavy black garb, her eyes wide-stretched, her lips tightly closed. Then there was Helen, tall and looking more elegant than ever in her mourning clothes. Next to her sat her military looking husband. And lastly there was Rosie. She was not sitting straight up in her chair as were the others, but leaning on the side, her head resting on her hand, her elbow on the arm of the chair. And she did not raise her head when the solicitor, Mr Coulson of Coulson, Pratt & Sanders, who was sitting behind the sofa table, said, ‘There is little to read as there are no bequests, but just a simple letter. Your father left no will.’ He was looking straight at Beatrice now. ‘There had been a will of sorts, but that was before your mother died. After he mortgaged the house . . .’

  ‘What?’ Beatrice was sitting on the edge of her chair now. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, Miss Steel, after your father mortgaged the house, and I may add, although there is no will to read, there’s a great deal to be told.’

  ‘Mortgaged the house? This house isn’t mortgaged.’

  The solicitor’s sigh was audible to all of them and patiently now, his eyes still on Beatrice, he said, ‘This house, Miss Steel, is mortgaged to an amount of ten thousand pounds. That is a great deal of money. But the security for it did not rest with the house alone. Numerous articles in it had to act as security, including a number of the pictures which are listed here.’ He tapped a document on his desk. ‘Five pictures in all, I think, which he imagined were of great value. But only two were authentic, one a Boucher. Unfortunately, the Rembrandt was a copy.’

  His words were checked by Beatrice, who almost screamed at him, ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Be quiet for a moment, Beatrice!’ put in Helen.

  Beatrice turned on her now and yelled, ‘It’s all right for you, sitting there po-faced! You’re out of it, nicely out of it; I’m left with all the responsibility, and here I’m being told . . .’

  ‘Do you wish me to continue, Miss Steel? Or shall I leave the matter to one of my partners, and you can come to the office?’

  Beatrice bowed her head for a moment, her knuckles showing white where her hands were gripping each other and pressing a dent into her black skirt. There was silence in the room before Mr Coulson resumed his address: ‘I will now read this private letter. I don’t know its contents; I only know that the deceased gentleman’ – he seemed to stress the last word – ‘left it in our care to be opened after his death.’

  He slit open the envelope, took out a single page, then stared at it for a few seconds before he raised his head and looked from one to the other of the small company. In a low voice he then read:

  I leave my estate to my eldest daughter, Beatrice Steel, and express the wish that she find some means of maintaining it.

  Signed, Simon Arthur Steel

  Those assembled were all looking towards Beatrice now; even Rosie had straightened herself up. Beatrice’s lips were no longer set in a line, her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a gasping fish.

  It was Leonard Morton Spears who broke the silence. His voice too was quiet, and he looked at the solicitor and said, ‘What is the income?’

  ‘Very little, sir, very little. In fact, it’s negligible now.’

  ‘It’s not! It’s not!’ Beatrice was shouting again. ‘There are bonds, securities; Father received the interest every quarter.’

  ‘Your father, Miss Steel, had for the last six months received a loan from a company that charges exorbitant interest rates. The bank had not allowed him a second mortgage, and he was reduced to borrowing.’

  ‘But Mama’s bonds, and investments, and . . .’

  Her voice now trailed away to a whisper, and the solicitor, with pity in his eyes and his voice, said, ‘Your mama, I’m sorry to say, Miss Steel, had to sell a number of her interests and bonds to meet—’ he paused here, swallowed, then glanced at the others before adding, ‘your father’s debts.’

  It was in a whimper that Beatrice asked, ‘But . . . but what debts? He only went to Newcastle to his club twice or three times a week, and very rarely to London.’

  ‘You don’t need to travel far, Miss, to spend thousands of pounds when you’re addicted to gambling.’

  ‘Father addicted to . . . ?’ Now Beatrice turned appealingly to Helen; then her eyes lifted to the man at her sister’s side. But neither of them could find anything to say to comfort her.

  Beatrice was looking at the solicitor again and she said, ‘He . . . he could not have lost all that money on gambling; he . . . he must have won sometimes. He must.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he won at times, a little. But from what I gather, that was only an incentive to lay on more money, sometimes hundreds.’

  Then the company was startled by Rosie’s words stabbing like a wasp’s sting: ‘And then there were his women, Beatrice, there were his women. You know nothing about that, do you?’

  Helen now rose from her chair and went to Rosie and, putting an arm around her shoulders, she said, ‘Shh! Shh! Rosie, please!’

  But for answer she got, ‘No, Helen! Let it all come out. Mr Coulson is too polite. And I’ll tell you something else, Beatrice. The morning he died he had just been visiting one of his lady friends, just one of them. But he had to pay them, hadn’t he? And you had to give him two pounds out of the housekeeping money.’

  They were all on their feet now.
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br />   ‘You’re . . . you’re insane, girl, insane!’

  No-one responded to this remark for a moment. Then Mr Coulson, sitting down again almost with a plop, said, ‘No, Miss Steel; regrettably she is right. But I was too polite to put it as boldly as she has. Your home and land is in the state it is today because of your late father’s weaknesses.’ His voice becoming brisk, he said now, ‘There is one small item of business to be discussed, but it is important. So will you please be seated.’ He now drew towards himself a large number of sheets of paper which had been lying to the side, and tapping them, he said, ‘There are many outstanding bills, not only from the local shopkeepers, but from certain . . . we’ll call them gentlemen, who are here today. Two are directors of the loan company, the others are from a gambling syndicate. Now their demands are substantial. But there is a point here. As there is no money in the estate, I don’t know whether, legally, these men can call upon you to pay your father’s debts. I’ll have to look into this. The interest on their money alone will take some finding. To that, I’m afraid, has to be added the interest on the mortgage. If I may advise you, and if there is any possible way you can manage it, I would see to the local debts immediately; and also think about reducing your staff. Consider too what you intend to do with the property, because, as I see it from here, it will be impossible for you to continue living here under the conditions I have stated.’

  As he picked up a leather case and began to return the papers to it, Leonard Morton Spears said, ‘Leave the bills for the local debts, I shall see to those.’

  ‘Oh, that is kind of you, sir. And . . . and you know, there is still hope. There is still something you can do.’ He was now looking across the table at Beatrice who was staring at the floor. ‘You still have about fifty acres of land here, some of it unused, I should imagine; well, I mean, it’s just rough woodland. I think you should sleep on the idea of selling a strip of it. You can get a good price for building land today; that is, for good-class houses. I’m sure the bank would support you in this.’