The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift)

by Catherine Cookson

  Six

  They were all in the sitting room. Pete and Emma were standing but Jake Yorkless was slumped in a chair. His head was bandaged, and every now and again he leaned it to one side and placed his hand over his ear as if to ease the pain. But no one of them was looking towards the bed where Barney lay, his head turned to the side, his eyes fixed on his daughter who was dressed in last summer’s frock, and the change in her was shown, if by nothing else, by the fact that the hem of her dress barely reached the bottom of her calves and that her breasts were straining the buttons at the front. But for the men gazing at her, the change was more apparent in her voice and brazen attitude, for now she was yelling at them, ‘I’ll not stay. You can’t make me. I hate it here. I always hated it here. It stinks. Mud, animals, smells and…and it’s on you all.’ She now jumped back towards the fireplace wall as Jake Yorkless made to spring from his chair only to be held back by Pete, saying, ‘Steady. Steady. Watch your head,’ and he pressed his father back into the chair for he was already holding his head in both hands now as he muttered, ‘She’s gone demented.’

  ‘No, she hasn’t gone demented, she knows what she’s saying.’

  They all looked towards Emma now where she stood supporting herself against the back of the horsehair chair, and she went on, still quietly, ‘You’ve got to face up to it, all of you, there’s no difference in her now from what there was before she left. It was there then, but you closed your eyes to it, all of you.’ Her moving gaze settled on Jake Yorkless, and he held it for a moment before drooping his head and muttering, ‘God Almighty! That this should come upon us. The village will be alight by noon.’

  ‘It needn’t be.’ Emma’s voice was quiet. ‘It can be said she’s come back on her own, she just walked in late last night. She’s been no further than Howdon staying with some folks, friends of yours.’ She nodded again towards Jake Yorkless. ‘I’ve told her what to expect if she says otherwise.’ She turned and stared at her daughter, and Annie returned her look defiantly, as she had done half an hour ago when Emma had said to her, ‘Open your mouth as to who was your companion and your granda or uncle will swing. You understand that, don’t you?’ And Annie’s answer had almost driven her to lift her hand and fell her daughter to the ground, for she had said, ‘I like him. He’s nice. He buys me nice things, scent and that.’

  They had been standing in the room that had once been used by Barney and Luke. It was situated above the sitting room and she’d had to clamp her hand tightly over her jaw to stop herself screaming, but she hissed, ‘Shut up, you dirty little trollop you!’ And the helplessness of the situation almost overcame her as Annie retorted fearlessly, ‘I’ll not shut up. And you can’t keep me locked up forever. He’ll come for me; you’ll see.’

  Then overwhelming rage overriding all her other emotions, she had sprung forward and gripped her daughter by the shoulders and had shaken her till her head wobbled. And when she ceased, the girl had leant against her for a moment gasping and she thrust her from her, but had then leaned towards her, saying, ‘You’ve got to promise me one thing, just one thing, and I won’t lock you in. Don’t mention his name downstairs. If they ask you for names, or who took you there, say you didn’t know them by name. Just that, you didn’t know them by name.’ And she stopped herself from adding, ‘Only by the sight of their nakedness.’ Then she had stood looking down at the girl, her fair hair tousled like that of a child about her face, her blue eyes wide, her red lips in a wet pout. Like this, she still appeared the child, and no doubt she acted the child, but beyond that face there was a woman, a ravenous woman that had come into being a long time ago.

  As she lay wide-eyed in bed waiting for the dawn, she had tried to find excuses for this girl who was part of her, because she herself knew only too well what suffering the frustrated urge of the body could bring to a woman. At times you longed for your body to be separated from your mind, yet she knew it was in the mind that the longing started. Pictures of love conjured up by the mind seeped like a poison into the bowels and there brewed the torment. Oh, she knew all about the longings of the body. But they hadn’t attacked her until she had become a woman.

  But when did one become a woman? This was the question she had asked as she stared into the blackness of the night, and when the answer had come to her, from birth, when you first suckled the breast, she had tossed her head against the idea, for that smacked too much of the painter’s reasoning. Oddly, her mind would always call him the painter when she connected her thinking with him.

  At one point during the night she had argued with herself. Who was she to condemn, what about the parson?…Dear, dear Henry. This disparity in their ages now seemed little; yet hadn’t she loved him from the first time she set eyes on him, when she was seven and he twenty-four years old? What about that then? Oh that was different, different, the parson was a man of God …

  The parson was a man. And wasn’t she reminded of the fact every time their eyes met, so much so that they didn’t even dare touch hands.

  At first light she rose and went in to her daughter, and after their encounter she then brought her down to face her father and the others, for what had to be said amongst them had to be done before Jimmy and Mary put in an appearance.

  During the whole proceedings, Barney did not open his lips, his head lay sideways on the pillow; like the rest of his body, it too could have been dead. His eyes were unblinking as he stared at his daughter, and she had hardly looked at him since coming into the room. And her words upstairs concerning him were still ringing in Emma’s ears, for she had said, ‘I don’t like me da. I never did, ’cos he’s sickly.’ If there was anything more needed to confirm that this girl was so alien as to make her think that she hadn’t been born of her own flesh, it was this utter lack of compassion. As she stared at her daughter now she wondered what she was going to do with her, what life was going to be like in this house from now on. She would have to watch her every move.

  When Barney’s head moved on the pillow and lay straight, his eyes staring upwards towards the low ceiling, Emma went to her daughter and, taking her arm, she pulled her out of the room, across the hall and into the kitchen, and there she said, ‘You’ll help Mary in the house. You’re not to put a foot outside this door today, do you hear? Leave me to do the talking. And—’ She leaned forward to look hard into Annie’s eyes and, her voice low and grim, she said, ‘And if I find you making up to Jimmy, I’ll take you up into that attic and I’ll whip the hide off you meself. Do you hear?’

  But if only Jimmy would take her and marry her. That would be a life-saver. But Jimmy was no fool, he had resisted her for years and now he wouldn’t likely touch her with a bargepole. As wouldn’t any other lad in the village. They might take advantage of her nature. Oh yes, they would do that all right, and she’d be only too willing to let them. But marriage, no, because most of them had mothers, and as mothers they weren’t fools, they would put two and two together as to where Annie Yorkless had been over the past year; and her return would certainly be linked up with her grandfather’s bandaged head and Pete’s black eye and busted lip. No; people weren’t fools.

  She was turning away from her daughter when Annie let out a long yawn and to Emma’s amazement she saw the girl stretch her arms well above her head. It was as if she had just awoken from a long and untroubled sleep; it was a natural action, but under the circumstances it caused Emma to turn away and walk into the kitchen, her shoulders stooped, her whole attitude one of hopelessness. As she entered the yard Jimmy came through the gap in the wall, and he touched his forelock, saying as he did so, ‘Morning, missis.’

  ‘Good morning, Jimmy.’

  ‘Gona be another fine day.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I should think so.’

  He came abreast of her now, saying, ‘Riders out early this morning. Must have been up afore their clothes is on.’ He laughed.

  ‘The hunt?’ There was a slight note of surprise in her voice.

  ‘Well, no not a
t this hour, but lady from the House is out and about. Saw her jumpin’ stile further back and she’s makin’ for this way. She’ll be along in a minute, should say. I’ve seen her out ridin’ in the mornin’s afore but not as early as this. She must like gettin’ up better’n I do.’ He grinned at her, then went on towards the tack room.

  She was about to turn and go into the byres when she saw a horse and rider filling the gap. She stopped in her stride, turned her head and stared towards them, and when the rider’s hand was lifted in a beckoning motion she made no move towards it. If Jimmy hadn’t told her who it was she would have recognised her, and she knew why she was here. It wasn’t until she saw her dismount with the intention of leading the horse into the yard that she herself moved.

  Emma came to a stop about a yard from Kathleen Fordyke. Neither of them spoke for a moment; then Kathleen Fordyke said, ‘May I have a word with you, Mrs Yorkless?’

  Emma gave her no answer but continued to stare at her until she saw the woman bow her head and mutter in a broken voice, ‘It is terrible that I should be called upon to do this.’ Then after a moment, lifting her head, she added, ‘Will you walk with me a little way along the lane?’

  Emma glanced back into the yard. It would be better to comply than to stand here because if Pete or the mister saw who the early morning visitor was they might start asking questions.

  For answer Emma now walked out through the gap, and Kathleen Fordyke, picking up the skirt of her riding-habit in one hand, took the horse’s bridle in the other and slowly now began to walk down the lane. Neither of them spoke until, after some distance, they rounded the bend when Kathleen Fordyke drew the horse to a stop in the shadow of a clump of trees. And now facing Emma, she said, ‘I…I don’t know how to begin. I only want you to know that I’m not doing this for my husband’s sake.’

  The question, ‘Then whose?’ was on Emma’s lips but she didn’t voice it, she only stared at the woman in front of her for whom she had held kind memories over the years.

  ‘I…I am here to plead for your silence, Mrs Yorkless, as I said, not for my husband’s sake, but for my sons’. They have both grown up into fine men with excellent careers, and…and this has been a source of comfort to me, seeing—’ now she swallowed deeply in her throat before she ended, ‘who their father is. Fortunately, they have developed traits of my own father whom you will remember was a fine old gentleman. Well—’ She now began to pick nervously at the fabric of her riding-habit, an action similar to that of plucking a chicken, and for a moment Emma felt pity well up in her for this woman and she could have stopped her talking at this point by saying, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want this made public no more than you do, because I have a care for my brother-in-law and even…however little the regard I had for my father-in-law, I would not wish to see him suffer through what he might to do your husband;’ but she remained quiet, listening to the refined voice saying, ‘My eldest son is to be married next month. His future wife is of high standing, her…her mother is a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. They are a truly religious family, and should any…of…of this matter be voiced abroad, then I’m afraid there would be no marriage, and…and John is in the army, his career would be affected too. My other son Peter is also engaged to be married. They have both taken time in choosing wives and Peter’s choice is…is’—again she swallowed—‘is similar to that of his brother. It is because of them that I am here, and…and not because of how the scandal would affect my husband for—’ Her head came up and her chin wobbled slightly and her words seemed to tumble out now as she said, ‘He…he deserves horsewhipping, and…and not only now. Your daughter is not the first. Oh no, no.’ Her head now moved from side to side. ‘You are a married woman and I can say this to you as one to another, he and I have never lived together in that way since my second son was conceived. It was then I discovered his predilection. I was for returning to my father at that time, but he, my husband, swore it was but a slip and that there was nothing other than a fondness that he felt for…little girls. He hoped our second child would be a daughter. I thank God she wasn’t. Later, again I was about to leave him but on the advice of my father I stayed, for as he said a reason must be given for our separation and would I be able to stand up to the exposure of my husband’s weakness? I knew I wouldn’t. The disgrace would have been too humiliating. And my husband at one time said—’ She turned her head away now and, taking her hand from the rein, she drew it down the horse’s neck as she added, ‘It was a sort of compulsion he couldn’t conquer and that the only happiness he had in life was when he was with the young, and…and that he meant them no real harm.’

  ‘No real harm.’ Emma’s voice disturbed some birds in the trees behind them and as they fluttered noisily away she put her hand over her mouth. It was the first time she had spoken and she had yelled. But wouldn’t it make God in heaven yell, this woman, this lady, to say that such men as her husband meant no real harm to young girls and little children? She felt sick.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Yorkless, I can understand how you feel, I can. Believe me I can, but I beg of you not to take this matter up, not to expose him. He…he has promised it will never happen again, because although he is what he is, he is very fond of his sons and would not willingly hurt them, especially their careers.’

  Emma closed her eyes for a moment: Dear God! He would not willingly hurt his sons, especially their careers…They thought differently, the gentry, they didn’t think about their lives, they thought about careers.

  ‘He has said he will return the land to you and…and even make it freehold…’

  She only just stopped herself from yelling again, but her voice now came from deep within her as she said scathingly, ‘You can tell him I want none of his hush money through the land. He took it from us out of spite, well, he can’t buy me with it now. I want none of it.’

  There was silence between them for a moment; then Emma watched the head in front of her bow low and when the muttered words came to her: ‘I feel humiliated to the soul of me,’ she had the instinctive urge to put out her hand and touch the woman and say, ‘It’s all right. You needn’t worry,’ because it wasn’t good to see a woman of this standing brought low. And what she must have felt when that white slug of a man crawled to her in the night as he must have done, begging her to be the means of shielding him from exposure.

  It was of no comfort for her to realise that the rich could also suffer the torments of the damned, even more so than ordinary folk for they stood to lose more, position, respect, the being brought down from high places, from pinnacles. The poor had no pinnacles to cling to, so really their suffering was more of the body than the mind. But here was she herself, and she wasn’t of the gentry and her suffering was all of the mind.

  As she couldn’t stand to witness any more of this woman’s pain she said, her voice still stiff, ‘You need have no worry. Up till now, anyway, I’ve told no-one and I’ve warned my daughter what will happen to her grandfather and her uncle should she mention your…husband’s name, because then I wouldn’t be responsible for what would follow, especially from her uncle. But you can tell him this from me, that my silence only holds as long as he makes no move towards her, nor pays one of his cronies to do so.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you, Mrs Yorkless. And…and I can promise you there will be no repetition…’

  ‘How can you, if he’s got an obsession like that?’

  Emma watched the head droop again and the voice was merely a mutter now as the woman said, ‘You’re right; but…but I swear to you he will not come near your daughter again.’ The head lifted now. ‘May I add this: if ever you or yours are in need of help which I could provide, you have only to approach me. It is strange’—a sad smile now touched the lips—‘You know, if my father had lived you yourself might have been in a different position altogether. He talked of you often. He recognised your intelligence and felt that something should be done for you and was intending to do it after your second visit, but then…well’—her
shoulders moved slightly—‘God’s ways are strange.’

  Emma could not stop the words spurting out: ‘And man’s more so.’

  ‘Yes, yes I agree with you, man’s more so.’

  They stared at each other; then Kathleen Fordyke said again, ‘I’ll be forever in your debt, Mrs Yorkless. Now I will go. Goodbye, and thank you.’ At this she led the horse slightly forward, then looked about her for a place from which she could mount, a tree stump, or a gate, and after a moment’s hesitation Emma stepped forward and, joining her hands together, she bent her body, indicating that she would act as a hoist. But Kathleen Fordyke shook her head, saying, ‘No, no, Mrs Yorkless. Thank you.’ As Emma straightened her back and her hands dropped to her sides, they again stared at each other and as equals for in a strange way Emma knew that the woman in refusing to use her as a hoist had lifted her momentarily up to her own level, and on this plane there rose in her for this woman a feeling of respect that outweighed all other emotions at the moment.

  She stood now watching the rider and horse walking up the lane. Then she turned and walked slowly back into the farmyard.

  Pete was at the far end, about to go into the barn, and as she herself went towards the kitchen door it opened and the mister came out, saying, ‘Pete’s yelling for you.’ And then he added, ‘Me head’s burstin’, and what for, I ask you?’ He glared back into the kitchen and Emma said,

  ‘Wait, and I’ll bathe it for you.’

  ‘It’s been bathed; it’s no good; it feels as if the fellow’s boot went inside it. I’ll have to see the doctor.’

  She stayed a moment watching him go across the yard, his shoulder hugged up to his ear. Last night the big man had kicked him in the head as he lay on the floor and she had been told that the man would have repeated the action if the little fellow hadn’t jumped on his back and knifed him.