The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift)

by Catherine Cookson

  She had never thought to see this broad strong young man shed a tear; nothing in life she imagined—if she had even thought of it—could be of such pain as to make a man cry, especially this one.

  Her tears now mingled with his and as his cheek pressed against her lacerated ear which was hidden now by a pad under the white cap she had taken to wearing, she did not wince, and when his whispered words coming as if through a layer of blankets pleading now, ‘Say you’ll not stop loving me. Say it’ll make no difference,’ she lifted her face from his and as she blinked the streaming water from her eyes and gazed down on him, it came to her that never yet had she spoken the word love, never once had she said to him, ‘I love you, Barney’; he had just taken it for granted that she couldn’t have married him otherwise. But now she said slowly and firmly, ‘I’ll never stop loving you, Barney; not till the day death separates us will I stop loving you.’

  ‘Oh, Emma. Emma.’ His face was screwed up, his eyes tight, his lashes dripping, the water running from his nostrils over his lips.

  Her breasts heaving, she withdrew her arms from about him and, taking up the corner of her white apron, she gently drew it around his face saying as she would to the child, ‘There, there, my dear. There. There, no more now, no more.’

  When his crying had eased and he lay staring at her, he asked, ‘What are we going to do? I mean, how are we going to manage?’

  ‘Leave that to me, I’m very good at working things out. And Billy’s had a new lease of life.’ And now she forced a smile to her lips as she said, ‘And…and Mary has stopped talking and is filling the time with extra work. It’s all arranged. That side of it’s all arranged. Now lie still.’ She made a slight movement as if to bite her lip on the words but rose from the bed, saying, ‘I’m goin’ down for your broth and to make sure that your daughter hasn’t wrecked the kitchen. I’ll bring her up in a little while,’ She bent over him now and pressed her lips tightly to his; then straightening herself, she touched his cheek lightly with her finger before turning and hurrying out of the room.

  She didn’t go immediately downstairs but went into the closet where the linen was kept at the end of the landing, and there she laid her head on her arms on the slatted shelf, and the sobs attacking her afresh, she cried the agony out of her. And when at last she could cry no more she reached out and, taking a towel, she wiped her face vigorously with it. When she had finished she did not prepare to take it downstairs with her or fold it up and put it back on the shelf, but, holding it in both hands, she smoothed it out and stood looking down on it.

  God has strange ways of working; but his punishment wasn’t just, He made the innocent pay for the guilty. A minute ago she had said to her husband she would love him until death separated them, and this she must do, no matter how long that be, or how the body burned to be eased. The last time he had slaked his thirst, as he named his loving, she had let her mind drift away from it and had asked herself how the parson would have gone about the same process; but, as she knew then, the answer to that would remain a mystery. She knew now only too clearly that never again would any thirst be slaked on her, and this was the penalty God was extracting from her for letting her mind rest on another and a particular another…one of His chosen, like in the Bible. She was, in a way, being made to pay for committing a sacrilege.

  PART FIVE

  THE DAUGHTER

  One

  Pete sat to the side of the single bed in the sitting room of the farmhouse. To the parson who was seeing him for the first time since he had left home thirteen years earlier when he was already a man, he seemed to have grown to twice his size, not in breadth, for he was sparse of flesh, but for some reason in height. He was even taller than himself. His voice too had changed; no longer was it slow nor was he hesitant with words. This apparently was his fourth visit home, and as on the other occasions so now he was holding his audience riveted with his tales, and neither of his two listeners was concerned that he exaggerated.

  ‘You have to see it, the river in London I mean. I have no words with which to tell what it’s like. Newcastle is like a plaything to it. Wide it is past Greenwich, and so full of ships unloading and loading with everything you could put your mind to. The river’s packed but the quays is crammed. You know, out foreign parts I once saw an ant-heap almost up to the ceiling.’ He raised his head and his arm simultaneously and the eyes of both Barney and Henry followed the direction. ‘’Twas crawling alive with billions of ’em. Well, the London quays, ’tis like that, with yards and docks and cranes and houses. Aye yes, livin’ dwellings all jumbled up together. And I thought when I last saw it, which was but a week gone, I had never seen no port in the world so full of franticness, an’ when inshore no such mixture of rich and poor. There’s poor enough around here; you know that, Parson.’ He nodded towards Henry, and Henry answered, ‘Yes, indeed, Pete. Yes indeed, I know that only too well, and I have thought that parts of Newcastle would be hard to beat. But from some of the things you have told us before, there are many worse places.’

  ‘Oh aye, Parson, Oh aye, many worse. And ’tis the children that make it worse for them. And’—he grinned widely now—‘worse for your pocket if you’re not wary. Oh aye. An’ ’tis no use to pity ’em, that’s fatal: give to one and you have ’em on you as thick as that ant-heap I was tellin’ you about. An’ the children are not the only ones who rook us, we sailors. One of me mates last trip was beaten up an’ was only saved from death by our captain and his brother. They nabbed the culprits but what did they get from the judges? Hardly anything, so our captain said, but the same day a man was sentenced to penal servitude for stealing half a crown from the housekeeper of a rich man, an’ he did it for bread for his bairns. There’s no justice, not in London city.’

  During Pete’s pause for breath Henry said, ‘But you seem to like the sea more and more, Pete.’

  ‘Oh aye, I like it, Parson. I wouldn’t say more and more. But I didn’t like it at all as you’ve heard’—he now laughed from one to the other—‘those first two years. Oh no! I longed for this room and me bed upstairs. When the skin came off me hands as they stuck to the frozen rails, I thought to myself, Pete Yorkless, you were considered a mutt back there in the village, an’ they’re right.’

  ‘You were never any mutt, Pete.’ Henry’s face was straight now. ‘It would be a fool to himself that would put such a name to you. You know what I would say of you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, Parson, no I don’t.’

  ‘Well, I would say, Pete, that you have it in you to be a writer.’

  The roar of laughter that Pete let out echoed round the room, and his shoulders were still shaking as he said, ‘You be funny, Parson. You be funny. Here’s me can but write me name and count a bit, and you say to me I could be a writer. You meant of a book, didn’t you, Parson?’

  ‘Yes, I meant of a book, Pete. And there is plenty of time yet for you to learn to write.’

  Again Pete’s head went back. ‘Never me, Parson. I haven’t a head on me shoulders like me brother there.’ He thumbed jovially to where Barney was propped up against a pile of pillows set on a wooden frame. ‘Now, you have learned him to write, good and proper; and read an’ all. And he was telling me only last night, weren’t you, lad?’—he pushed his closed fist in Barney’s direction—‘that in a way you saved his life, I mean from goin’ barmy, you’ve given him somethin’ to think about. Why, he talks an’ flatters like a gentleman, he can even match yourself now.’

  ‘He can that. Yes, he can that.’ Henry was laughing at him.

  ‘Well then, well then, get him to write your book.’

  ‘Not a bad idea either.’ Henry looked from one to the other. ‘You keep telling him your tales, Pete, and he’ll put them down.’

  Barney now thrust his head back in the pillow and gazed upwards. His face had changed little over the thirteen years since he had broken his back, but his hair had receded from his brow and the side-whiskers that came down to below his cheekbon
es were in contrast to the brown on the top of his head, being almost white in parts, and the effect lent premature age to his face.

  He turned his head slowly now for his brother was speaking again and as he listened to him, he thought, the parson’s right. ’Tis a great pity he can’t handle a pen, for his words create pictures before your eyes. Listen to him now: ‘Frozen mits and hard tack an’ maggot meat can be forgotten for a moment at certain times. Have you ever seen a four-master going before the wind, Parson?’

  ‘No, never, Pete.’

  ‘Then it’s somethin’ you should hope for, ’tis somethin’ that affects every man on board from the top to the bottom, be they good ’uns or bad ’uns, decent men or murderous bullies. They stand still and look at a sight like that. You can’t see it on your own boat, but on one passin’, there you have the picture. You talked about me writin’ a book a minute ago, Parson. Now that never entered me head, but it has done to paint a picture. Oh aye. But not being able to paint a picture, nor know how to start, I took up whittling, for you have a knife always to hand and wood for the picking up, and as you have seen I haven’t done too badly.’ He now pointed to the mantelpiece on which stood three small carvings of sailing ships.

  ‘Not too badly?’ Henry shook his head. ‘They’re splendid! Splendid.’

  ‘I’ll do you one on my next trip should you like, Parson.’

  ‘I would indeed, Pete. Oh, I would indeed.’

  ‘I’ve done a number’—Pete was now nodding towards Barney—‘an’ I’ve sold them. What do you think about that?’

  ‘I think there’s more in you than meets the eye. Always have done.’

  ‘You may be right there’—Pete was nodding and laughing at Barney—‘chief mate gave me half a crown for the last one.’

  ‘You’ll soon be a rich man.’ There was a trace of tiredness in Barney’s voice now, and as Pete said, ‘Me? No, I’ll never be rich, but I’m savin’ me money, an’ for a purpose.’ He nodded knowingly. Then seeing that Henry had risen to his feet, he said, ‘You on your way, Parson?’

  ‘Yes, Pete; I think Barney’s had enough chatter for one day.’

  ‘Aye, yes. They tell me once I get started I forget to stop.’ He again thumbed towards Barney.

  Looking at this brother of his, Barney could not believe that at one time this was the man whom, truth to tell, he had considered a little dull in the wits, kindly but nevertheless not as bright as his age demanded.

  Henry now moved up the side of the bed and bending slightly forward said to Barney, ‘I may not be able to look in tomorrow, Sunday being my working day’—he pulled a face—‘but likely Monday.’

  ‘Thanks, Parson.’ As Henry made to go out of the room, Pete, also nodding towards Barney, said, ‘Leave you to rest for a while, eh, and get me hand in outside. The only thing is, once I start out there among them the feeling comes back and I ask meself should I or shouldn’t I go?’

  ‘You can’t help yourself, the sea’s got you now.’

  Barney smiled gently across the room to this strange seafaring brother, and Pete, nodding as he followed Henry, said, ‘You’re right. Yes, I think you’re right.’

  The two men crossed the hall and went into the kitchen, there to see Emma, her hands pounding a large lump of dough on a floured board on the kitchen table. ‘He seems tired,’ Henry said; ‘I wouldn’t let him do too much today.’

  Looking up at him, Emma said quietly, ‘He won’t take much notice of what I say. Anyway you started it.’

  They now exchanged a quiet smile and Henry said, ‘Yes, I have that on my shoulders, and I feel guilty at times because I get more enjoyment from it than he does.’

  And as she thought, I too, she took her doubled fist and almost rammed it into the middle of the dough; then lifting it up, flicked it over and kept her eyes on it as she answered his goodbye.

  When Pete said, ‘I’ll go and tackle that bit of drystone wall, Emma,’ she said, ‘Will you Pete? Oh, thank you.’ And then when he asked, ‘Where’s Annie?’ she answered, ‘Down at Mr Bowman’s.’

  ‘She works regular down there now?’

  ‘Well, she dusts and that, but I still cook for him. Anyway, she prefers that to doing anything around the yard.’

  ‘Well, she would, she is but young,’ said Pete as he opened the door to go out.

  Emma paused in her pummelling and looked towards the small window and into the yard. She was worried, and it was a strange worry, a worry she couldn’t put a name to, or at least she wouldn’t put a name to. The worry had begun about two years ago when Annie was eleven. Up till then life had taken on a pattern, a smooth if painful pattern. The pattern was set within weeks of Barney’s accident: the parson was then calling twice a week and he asked Barney if he would like to hear some stories, stories of adventure, those written by Sir Walter Scott, and Barney out of politeness had answered, ‘Yes, Parson.’

  At first, she hadn’t sat in on the readings for she couldn’t waste time. Mary continued to do her utmost, having taken over the household, the cooking and the seeing to the child, while she herself attended to Barney’s wants, his main demand being for her presence. But Billy Proctor’s energy had soon flagged, and so for most of the day she had to be outside, helping with the milking and churning, seeing to the pigs, the chickens; and in the seasons helping with the crops. They no longer had any sheep and their cows only numbered eight, but she had trebled the heads of poultry and those of the pigs, and this in some way made up for the loss of the sheep and lambs. Her day started at five in the morning and very rarely ended before ten at night.

  It was the parson, too, who suggested that they bring Barney’s bed downstairs in order, he said, to afford Barney some interest, as one of the two windows in the sitting room looked onto the yard. But she had known that this suggestion of his was also to save her legs up and downstairs to the bedroom, necessitated by the carrying of meals, water and slops.

  Besides the reading of stories, the parson brought newspapers, and as time went on she was amazed to hear Barney referring to national and worldwide events. At night when she lay down by his side and when all she wanted was to drop into deep sleep to ease her weariness, he would say such things as ‘That Napoleon the Third is starting something. If we don’t watch out there’ll be revolutions here. Wealth’s badly divided; Parson himself says so.’ Another time it would be, ‘Navy’s gone to pot. Cutting down all round, them up there. Big piece about it in the paper this mornin’. One mornin’ we’ll wake up and find the Frenchies have swum across.’

  At other times it was the Russians. ‘Maniacs them Russians. Parson says they’re after India now.’

  There were times when she would force herself to stay awake and listen to him, for although his knowledge was fragmented he was talking about places he hadn’t even dreamed existed a few years ago, and although she could never get interested in the events of the day other than what was happening about her she felt proud and pleased that he was learning.

  Then there were evenings in the summer when Ralph Bowman came up. His first visit had amazed her for he had never been known to enter any house in the village or thereabouts; and sometimes when the parson and he were with Barney there would issue from the front room great gusts of laughter. At these times the mister would be sitting in the kitchen nursing Annie. He had quickly grown very fond of the child. And he might look at Emma and smile or pass some remark such as, ‘Must have been mustard in that joke.’ He himself spent very little time with his son. Sometimes days would go by before he went into the front room; and then their conversation would be brief: ‘How are you, lad?’

  ‘All right, Da.’

  ‘Been a nice day.’ Or, ‘A cold ’un.’

  ‘Aye, it has. How’s things?’

  ‘Goin’ good.’

  ‘Stone field doing all right?’

  ‘Aye.’ Sometimes: ‘Fine. Barley straight as a die.’ Or, ‘Oats middlin’, but ’tis the weather. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodni
ght, Da.’

  Emma felt that the only pleasure the mister now got out of life was through his grandchild, and she returned his affection equally. Strangely, like her grandfather, she would spend no time with her father. Even when she was small and Emma put her on the bed to kiss him goodnight she would dutifully do this but scramble into Emma’s arms again, or, as she grew older, onto the floor. She had always been a pretty child and big for her age, but now at thirteen years old she could have passed for much older. The buds of her breasts were already risen; her buttocks were forming fast; but it was her face that gave the impression of age. Her eyes were large, almond-shaped and pale blue in colour; her brows followed them in the arc; her nose was small; her mouth too was small but full lipped; her face was round; her skin like her hair very fair; and as she grew she promised prettiness but no beauty. Her manner was pert, saucy. She could be amusing, especially when there were men present. Although she attended Sunday school she had no special girlfriends, but she always made a point of coming back with Jimmy Petty. Jimmy was Ned Petty’s nephew, and when the boy’s father and mother had died of the typhus, Mary had taken him into their overcrowded home, and from when he was seven Jake Yorkless had employed him on the farm, with a starting wage of sixpence a week, till now at sixteen years old he earned seven shillings together with his food and one pint of skimmed milk a day to take home, as well as three eggs and half a stone of potatoes a week.

  Annie had followed Jimmy around from the first day he had come to the farm and he hadn’t seemed to mind until lately, when he had become surly. Annie had, in fact, complained that he had pushed her and cheeked her. The first time she complained was about six months ago when she came into the house saying petulantly, ‘I don’t like that Jimmy Petty.’ And Emma, on her way down the kitchen carrying a tray in to Barney, said over her shoulder, ‘You’re late in finding that out, aren’t you?’