Kate Hannigan's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  She answered, ‘Yes, of course’; then plucked at his arm in agitation: ‘What’s the matter with yer? You don’t understand. Don’t wash in the room, man, the lord has never likely seen anything like that.’

  He drew his brows down in a puzzled frown and shook his head. ‘Weel, don’t fash yerself,’ he said soothingly; ‘He’s seed more than that in His time, if ye’re to believe the Book.’

  She looked at him, puzzled, and dropped a step behind him. He turned in by the little gate and walked resolutely to the front door. Pushing it open, he marched over the threshold, only to pull up short, his mouth dropping open and his whole demeanour showing surprise. He stood gaping at the tall man rising from the armchair by the fire. God, what a blasted fool he was! It must be Terence’s lord. She wasn’t barmy. He glanced quickly back at his wife with a look as near to an apology as he would allow himself.

  Terence was standing by the hearth. There was an air of defiance about him. He moved forward, saying in a voice that seemed too loud for the room, ‘This is my father…Da, this is Lord John Dane Dee.’

  The young man came forward with outstretched hand, and Mr Macbane went automatically to place his in it, then withdrew it again, saying, ‘I’m reet pleased to meet yer, sir. But see, I’m all muck.’

  Dane Dee laughed and gripped the reluctant hand, shaking it heartily. ‘Mine will be all the better for it,’ he said. ‘And I, too, am very glad to meet you, Mr Macbane. I must apologise for coming like this without an invitation, but I really came to renew my efforts to persuade Terry here to join me in a little sailing before we go up to Oxford again. But I must admit I have failed. So,’ he laughed, ‘I shall spend the rest of the vac making him show me Tyneside.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Mr Macbane. ‘Weel, there’s not much to see round here. Nowt but muck.’ He looked at his son.

  He knew why Terence wouldn’t go with this fellow. It was hard when you couldn’t stand your whack. He felt his wife take his bait tin from his hand, and he made a big effort to assert himself as boss of his house and as host: ‘Sit doon, sir…Sit doon and make yerself at home, for ye’re very welcome.’

  He sat down, and listened intently to Dane Dee talking easily on. But he wasn’t taking in what was being said, for he was thinking: A lord in my house! By, who’d’ve believed it? And a pal of our Terence’s. Eeh, lad, wait till this gets aboot the pit!

  Terence brought him to himself by saying, ‘You’ll want to get washed; we’ll have a walk.’ There was again the same odd note of defiance in Terence’s voice. Mr Macbane hurriedly rose to his feet, and with raised hand exclaimed, ‘No, lad. No. Sit yerself still. There’s nowt to stop me washing in the scullery, nowt at all.’

  Giving an imperceptible shake of her head, Mrs Macbane stared at her husband, then followed him into the scullery.

  Dane Dee remarked to Terence: ‘He seems a fine man.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ said Terence non-committally.

  ‘You’re very like him, you know.’

  ‘I suppose that’s to be expected.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Dane Dee appealed. ‘I know I shouldn’t have landed on you like this; but being in the next county, it seemed such a good idea to look you up, and I thought it would be fun if we could have a week on the river. If I’d written you’d only have said no. Do unbend. Be yourself. You know what’s the matter with you, Terry, don’t you? You’re a snob.’

  Terence made a sound like a snort, and leant his head back against the chair, saying nothing. How easy it was for people like John to call others snobs! Why the Devil had he come? He belonged in Oxford, to discussions and poetry, to walks by the river. Up there, he himself had contrived for a time to be on the same plane with him, at least mentally. Now he felt he never could be again. Before the vac John had written to him at the school where he was spending the term doing his teaching practice, asking him to go on a motor tour of France and afterwards to stay for a time at his sister’s place in Northumberland. He had refused the offer, saying there was a great deal of work he must get through during the vac. He realised now that John must have guessed he was hard-up, for they had spent much of their leisure time together at Oxford during the term preceding his teaching practice, and not once did John suggest they should go anywhere which would cost money. He liked his friend. With the exception of one thing, he thought he was a fine fellow. That one thing was his casual attitude towards women. But he wished he had not come here.

  Dane Dee leant forward and put his hand on Terence’s knee. ‘You put too small a value on yourself…Come on. Snap out of it! Whether you like it or not, I’m going to enjoy my stay on Tyneside. I’ve left the car in the village,’ he added; ‘she wants a bit of first aid, I’ve been running her hard…We’ll get around.’

  Terence relaxed. It was impossible to keep on one’s guard against such a friendly overture and he was really glad to see John. He gave a half-smile, and was about to say, ‘All right, just as you say,’ when John went on, ‘Extraordinary-looking neighbour you have…Never seen such a blonde…green and gold goddess.’

  Casting a keen, startled glance at him, Terence rose hastily from his chair.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ said John.

  ‘No, it isn’t ah-ha!’ Terence snapped, and suddenly felt ridiculous.

  ‘Then if it isn’t ah-ha, why the excitement? All right, all right, I promise you faithfully, no trespassing. Relax, man. Relax.’

  ‘It isn’t that. Oh, forget it!’ Terence closed his eyes for a moment and turned away. What an utter fool he was! But the idea of John amusing himself with Annie was infuriating. His friend’s exploits with women were well known to him, and they never ceased to puzzle him, for he knew Dane Dee to be deeply in love with the girl he was going to marry. She was at present on a visit to America with her parents, which accounted for his being at a loose end. Although the marriage was partly a matter of arrangement between two old families, fortunately both the parties concerned had fallen in love. But that did not stop John from having his affairs, and the thought that he would likely make Annie Hannigan one of them was unthinkable.

  ‘Come on,’ said John, getting up. ‘Let’s walk this mood off.’

  In the scullery, Mrs Macbane washed her husband’s back as he stood naked in the tin bath. He chuckled as he soaped his arms. ‘I thought ye’d gone barmy, lass, I thought yer meant God had come. Fancy our lad with a lord fer a pal, eh, missis? He’s gettin’ hisself some posh friends: thor’s that doctor’s lass tacking aroond him…Not that I give much to her, somehow…And now a lord pops in to see him. Just like that!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Eeh, by, lad! Eh?’

  Mrs Macbane said nothing. Posh friends or no posh friends, she knew her lad wasn’t happy. Her mind couldn’t formulate the term ‘internal conflict’; she could only think: He’s not happy inside.

  Kate, Rodney and Annie sat looking at Cathleen, who was standing in the middle of the drawing-room, moving her hands expressively as she talked. ‘I think John’s a pet…And can’t he make that car move! Phew! Fancy’—she turned towards Annie—‘my Terence hobnobbing with a lord!’

  Annie’s expression did not change from its fixed smile, and the pain behind it hurt Kate so much that she felt almost compelled to get up and go to her, to touch her and to give her some comforting word. It was with great difficulty that she continued to sit still and listen.

  ‘John wanted us to go to a play in Newcastle,’ went on Cathleen, ‘but old Terence wouldn’t go.’ She made a wry face and pursed up her full red lips. ‘Stupidly independent! But as I told him, that fellow has so much money he doesn’t know how to get rid of it…You know, Uncle Rodney,’ she turned to where Rodney sat watching her with unconcealed amusement, ‘his family date back to the fifteenth century. I looked it all up today. And he’s the only son. And what do you think? He’s got his own yacht.’

  Rodney let out a burst of laughter. ‘Poor Terence! I can see what’s going to happen to him. Thrown in the gutter for a lord!’

  ‘Oh
, stop teasing me, Uncle Rodney!’ Cathleen ran to him and shook him playfully by the shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t give Terence up for the world…Exchange my Terence?’ She turned swiftly from Rodney on a high note of exclamation, and her eyes seemed to send streaks of dark light towards Annie as she continued, ‘Terence would have something to say about that…No. I was only thinking, what a chance for you, Annie!’

  Kate’s face stiffened. This was like sticking pins in a fly. Oh, why didn’t Annie fight her? Why didn’t she say something instead of sitting there with that fixed smile on her face? It was unnatural. She rose, saying, ‘I’m a little tired; I think I must say good-night, Cathleen.’

  ‘Oh well, I’m just going,’ said Cathleen. ‘It’s nearly ten, and I’ve got to go home by myself tonight.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s my own fault; I insisted they should have this evening to themselves. Good-night, pet.’ She reached up and kissed Rodney, who had risen and was standing by Kate.

  Kate saw the red lips press into Rodney’s cheek, and she shivered. What was it about this girl that repulsed her so? She seemed to turn an affectionate kiss into the embodiment of sex. She remained still when Cathleen’s hand touched her. ‘Good-night, Kate. Take care of yourself.’

  Cathleen’s voice, softly sympathetic, elicited no reply from Kate, but Rodney answered, ‘Good-night, my dear. Be a good girl, mind.’

  She laughed and flashed what was meant to be a wicked glance at him. And over her shoulder, as she went out, she called, ‘Good-night, Annie.’ And her voice, ending on a mocking note of laughter, cried, ‘You be a good girl too, mind.’

  Rodney followed Cathleen into the hall, and Kate turned to where Annie sat, quite still, the smile fixed on her face. Standing in front of her, she said softly, ‘Annie, my dear …’ They looked at each other, their eyes wide. ‘My dear,’ said Kate again, ‘don’t mind.’

  ‘I hate her!’ Annie’s voice, a mere whisper, was thick with concentrated feeling. ‘I hate her so much I feel I could kill her!…It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it. Oh, Mam! There’—she relaxed against the chair and inhaled deeply—‘I’ve said it! Oh, Mam, am I wicked?’ She looked up beseechingly.

  ‘No, my dear. No. If it were me I think I should fly at her. Coming in here night after night bragging about that fellow!’ Kate put out her hand and stroked Annie’s hair.

  Annie caught it and held it tightly between her own. ‘Rodney likes her. He really likes her!’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Yes, I know. But it’s mostly because he thinks he owes so much that cannot be paid for Peter’s and Peggy’s kindness to him after he came back from the war. I’m sure his liking is mostly because of that, dear.’

  Annie shook her head, unable to understand. ‘I’m going to bed. It’s dreadful to feel like this, dreadful. It makes you hate yourself for hating.’

  They kissed, and Kate held her tightly for a moment, then watched her go out. If only there were some way in which she could help. She heard Rodney call after Annie, ‘Good-night, princess.’ And when he came in he remarked, ‘She seems a bit off-colour. Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, after a pause, during which she had been tempted to tell him what the trouble was. But she could hear him saying in his tolerant way, ‘Well, you know, dear, you can’t order love…We two should know that.’ And he would kiss her and repeat his old formula on Cathleen, ‘She’s a bit wild, but there’s no harm in her.’

  Rodney asked, ‘Will you go to bed, my dear, while I do a last round at the clinic? I’m not happy about Tony Batey. I could phone Sister, but I’d rather have a look at him…Will you be all right?’

  ‘Perfectly, darling.’

  ‘And you’ll go to bed?’

  ‘No, not yet. I’m not really tired. I only said I was to speed our parting guest.’ They laughed together. ‘How long will you be?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, not more than twenty minutes, I should think.’

  ‘Well, I’ll come and meet you in a little while…Yes, I will,’ she insisted as he began to protest. ‘It’s a beautiful moonlight night and I’ll sleep better for a little walk.’

  ‘Mind you see it’s only a little one,’ he warned her before going out.

  Kate thought of going upstairs to Annie, but decided against it. Tomorrow she would talk to her. She waited fifteen minutes after Rodney’s departure before setting out to meet him. The moon wasn’t as bright as she had imagined. It was sailing along behind drifts of pearl-grey cloud; now and again it would escape, and the path before her would show each blade of grass silver-pointed, and in the brightness the cypress hedge would become one with its shadow and seem to have immense depth.

  When she reached the swimming-pool, which lay by the side of the stream, the moon disappeared behind a bank of cloud, and she stood waiting, hoping it would reappear, for she liked to see the reflection of the bridge in the stream and the bushy top of the otherwise naked Scotch fir, which grew on the far bank, cast its shadow across the pool. But the pearl mist about the moon thickened, and she walked slowly on.

  The path broadened and met the main drive to the clinic. She turned into the drive, and in the distance she could see the lights of the clinic, like little lanterns hanging on the trees. She decided to walk no further, and made for the rustic seat that stood on the grass verge, where she sat down to wait for Rodney.

  The wood around her was alive with soft hushed movement. She wasn’t aware of it until she sat quite still. Then the silence became full of scurryings and flutterings.

  When she first heard the whisper, it came to her as part of the night sounds, causing her no alarm. But when it was repeated, and followed by a ‘Shh!’ she stiffened and sat alert. Someone was behind her in the thicket, and he wasn’t alone. Tramps, perhaps; the roads were full of them now, a mixture of the workless, the residue of the war, and the idle who would neither work nor want. The wood often bore evidence of their little fires. Should she get up and walk on, or sit still? Evidently they weren’t sure of her whereabouts. Rodney should be here at any minute. She wasn’t afraid; they wouldn’t touch her; very likely they were the couple of young men Summy had fed earlier in the day…Still, she wished Rodney would come.

  The whisper came again, and this time it brought Kate to her feet, for she recognised the voice and she heard the whispered words, ‘Go and see.’ Holding herself taut, Kate stepped behind the seat to where the shadows were deepest. She knew if Cathleen found her here she would accuse her of spying on her and Terence.

  A few feet away someone was moving. She felt the movement rather than heard it, it was so cautious. Then on the edge of the shadow of the trees appeared a bulky figure. After standing quite still for a time it turned its head, first up, then down the drive. Kate saw the pale blur of the face standing out against the darkness of the clothes. She gripped her coat tightly about her, and drew in her breath. She felt that the great start of surprise she gave must have been audible. For a moment it was impossible to take in the meaning of the situation: Cathleen and Steve. Cathleen and Steve!

  Steve moved back into the thicket as noiselessly as he had emerged. There was no sound for a while, until Cathleen’s voice, low and biting, said, ‘Sneaking around!’ Now the voices seemed to Kate to be almost behind her back. Steve was saying, ‘He’s likely at the clinic, and she’s going to meet him, though I’ve never known them go up there so late as this. You’ll have to go out through the wood; you should have done that in the first place. My God!’—there was terror in his voice—‘we nearly walked into her.’

  ‘Whose fault was that?’

  ‘Look,’ said Steve, ‘get this straight, once and for all: you’ve done all the ordering and arranging so far, you’d take any risk to suit yourself. Now you’re going to take them to suit me.’

  ‘But if I don’t want to…if I don’t want to come? What about that?’

  ‘You’ll come nevertheless. You started something that’s grown a bit too big for you.’

  ‘You’re jealous.�
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  ‘Yes, but not in the way you imagine…I’ve told you to leave Macbane alone.’

  ‘But you told me I should get a young fellow.’

  ‘Yes, I did. But not Macbane.’

  ‘Why not him?’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘Ho-ho! He’s mine too, very much mine.’

  Kate closed her eyes tightly as she heard Cathleen say, ‘Don’t! Don’t be the he-man!’ and Steve reply, ‘He-man! I couldn’t be he-man enough for you at one time…By God! I could kill you for what you’ve done, egging me on till I’m half mad.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk like a male virgin.’

  There was a sound of a ringing slap, then silence. Cathleen’s voice sounded old and thin as it came to Kate’s ears, saying, ‘That was a mistake which you’ll pay for…Don’t think you can frighten me. How will it sound when I tell them you were in love with Kate, and when you found out that I knew you enticed me to your room and seduced me, a young girl, still at school?’

  To Kate the night became dense. She moved slowly out of the shadows and walked along the verge as if sleep-walking…Steve…poor Steve. There was no blame in her mind for him. This was what was worrying him. Oh, that girl! She was evil. Evil. She was quite capable of doing or saying anything. Kate began to hurry. She must see Rodney and tell him; he would understand. And if Cathleen were exposed it would free Terence…Surely Terence wouldn’t even look at her if he knew…And Rodney—he would know at last what Cathleen was really like…But what was it Cathleen said she would say? That Steve was in love with her? Cathleen’s numerous hints and insinuations during the past years flooded back to Kate in all their meaning. She thought of the day last month when they met on the Jarrow road. Cathleen would tell Rodney this, as an illustration. But Rodney wouldn’t believe her. No, he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. She began to hurry, her feet moving with her mind. Rodney would laugh…But would he? He couldn’t bear to think of her having even a friendly interest in any man other than himself. Was Steve really as fond of her as Cathleen said? Of course not. He had never shown her anything but the deepest respect. It was utter nonsense. Poor Steve!