The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift)

by Catherine Cookson

  Having reached the coach road, they walked not close but not too far apart. They were like a couple out for an evening stroll and as such he remarked on the weather. ‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ he said, and she answered, ‘Yes, it is. And it was a very red sunset, which augurs good for the morrow.’

  ‘Yes; yes, indeed.’

  As they turned from the coach road onto the lane that led to the farm, she wanted to say, ‘Don’t come any further,’ but such was the longing in her to lengthen these moments alone with him, to walk with him like this, that she made no protest. But halfway along the lane he stopped and, turning to her, said, ‘I’ll come no further, Emma. I…I think I’ll cut across the fields and have a word with Ralph. I haven’t seen him for three or four days.’

  ‘I saw him yesterday.’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘Not too bad at all. He’s…he’s like a creaking door, I think he’ll go on for ever.’

  He paused, then said, ‘I would like to think so.’

  The twilight had almost gone; their faces were veiled with the coming darkness, the slightest move and they could have fallen against each other, and as if he had suddenly become aware of the danger, as she herself had earlier on, he stepped back from her, saying, ‘Goodnight, Emma,’ and, turning abruptly, hurried away across the field.

  Very soon he was lost to her sight and, as she was wont to do when greatly distressed, she clamped her hand across her mouth before she too turned and forced herself to walk towards the farm whereas the urge in her was to throw herself into the grass and to cry her heart out at the hopelessness of her life at this present moment and the fear of what this hopelessness might drive her to in the future.

  There was a light in the cottage and Henry, after tapping on the door, went to open it, but finding it locked, which was unusual, he called, ‘You there, Ralph?’

  After a moment the door was opened and Ralph, dressed in a thick rough dressing gown although the night was so warm, said, ‘Yes, I’m here; where do you expect me to be? And what’s brought you out at this time of night?’

  ‘I was taking a stroll to calm my nerves and I saw your light in the distance. What are you doing up so late?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t sleep these nights and I find it’s much more comfortable in front of the fire.’

  As he took his hat off Henry turned round and looked at the door, saying, ‘You never used to lock it. Have you had an intruder?’

  Ralph sat down in his chair, pulled the dressing gown over his knees, and arranged its lapels over his chest before saying, ‘Not yet; but it’s prevention.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Ralph put his hand into his hair now and scratched his scalp for a minute before saying, ‘You’ve been up above these last few days?’

  ‘Yes, the day before yesterday.’

  ‘How did you find Lady Annie?’

  ‘Much as I told you in the first place, defiant, if not more so.’

  ‘Who’s keeping an eye on her?’

  ‘Well, now Pete’s gone there’s really only Emma, because Farmer Yorkless is in a bad way. That blow to his head is becoming serious; I think there must have been some internal damage done.’

  ‘Where are they sleeping her?’

  ‘Annie?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Well, as far as I know in the upper room. And Emma locks her in at night.’

  Ralph now put his head back and laughed, repeating, ‘Locks her in at night. By! if ever there was a born madam in this world, she’s one. I thought they were made by circumstance, or came to it by the evil touch of man…’

  ‘Look, talk plainly, Ralph. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Only that our dear little Annie manages to escape her prison at night.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh yes. There you’ve got’—he jerked his head now—‘the reason for the locked door.’

  ‘She’s been here?’

  ‘Not exactly; but she certainly had it in mind.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘I will, Parson, I will,’ Ralph said mockingly. ‘It was around one o’clock this morning. The old machine here’—he patted his chest—‘was working at top speed. I got up to have a drink. I passed the window there’—he pointed—‘the moon was shining and at first I thought: Ralph, you’ve done it at last; you’ve died, old fellow, and there’s one of the angels come to guide you to your heavenly home, because there, coming along the road, was what I took at first to be an apparition. Then, as the saying goes, my eyes nearly popped out of my head when it paused at the gate and I recognised the angel. She had grown certainly, but no-one could mistake our Annie, could they? I don’t know what she had on her feet, but I do know what she had on her body, and it was simply her nightgown. Of course, the night was warm, but as you yourself know a cold mist can roll up in a second. Still, I don’t suppose that would have affected dear Annie, for there she stood at the gate deliberating. Yes, I’m positive of that, she was deliberating whether to come in or not. Fortunately, she moved straight on and I breathed again, because, Parson’—his voice was still mocking—‘I cannot give you my word that I would have been able to withstand her charms at that time of…’

  ‘Shut up!’ Henry was on his feet.

  ‘Oh, don’t sound so shocked. It isn’t like you.’

  ‘I am not shocked, I am only defending your character against your opinion of yourself.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Henry, it is.’ Ralph looked at his friend, a half-smile on his face, then said seriously, ‘In my opinion it’s a great pity they ever brought her back. Emma had enough on her hands without this. And I’ll tell you something, Henry, while I’m on. I’m worried about that girl, Emma I mean. I fear she’s at breaking point. And no wonder. And the visitors are not helping. She was telling me yesterday she’s being plagued: she didn’t know she had so many well-wishers, she said; people that she’s hardly spoken two words to hereabouts dropping in on her just to say how pleased they are that she’s got her daughter back, and wanting to meet the daughter.’

  ‘She said nothing about this to me.’

  ‘Well, you’re not her only confidant and she’s likely afraid you’ll go to your parishioners and tell them to mind their own bloody business or else you’ll name them from the pulpit for lack of charity.’

  His bantering tone changed again and he added, ‘Have you heard anything further about the house in Newcastle?’

  ‘No; only that when the police went the following day after being notified of what happened, they found the whole house empty; stripped of furniture, too, not a stitch of anything in it.’

  ‘Amazing. Yet not so. That madam would likely have a number of such going, and willing hands make labour light, so they say. Anyway, what do you think should be done about the midnight strolls?’

  ‘Emma will have to be told.’

  ‘Yes, I thought of that, but how can she prevent her, short of tying her up? You know what I would do if I were her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d let her get out during the daytime and go back to where she’s been for the past year, because if anybody was made for it that girl is. And you’ll never alter her, not in this life.’

  If only because of his calling, Henry should have protested loudly at this, but he said no word because he knew that what Ralph had said was absolutely true. Annie, only God knew why, had been made for that kind of thing. Yet he did not want to connect ‘that kind of thing’ with the midnight strolls for he remembered that her mother, his dear, dear Emma had been in the habit of taking midnight strolls.

  As if Ralph had just that moment picked up his thoughts, he said, ‘Funny, but Emma used to take midnight jaunts when a girl, didn’t she? Yet it would seem it’s the only thing she’s passed on to her daughter and our dear Annie is not going to waste the trait if she knows anything about it. I wonder what will happen if she meets up with someone, say one of the poachers, or the moler.’ He began to laugh
now as he ended, ‘You know, she’d be disappointed, for at the sight of her in that white nightie they’d take to their heels and run, especially if they’d just left The Tuns.’

  Eight

  Emma had imagined that nothing more her daughter could do would have the power to upset her further; yet the news that Annie had been walking the countryside in the middle of the night in her nightgown raised such anger in her that she felt capable of murder. However, she had warned herself that shouting and yelling, and shaking and slapping, had proved of no avail, she must try other tactics, she must try to reason with the girl.

  And that’s what she had been doing for the last half-hour or so. Annie was sitting on the edge of the pallet bed in the attic, her ankles crossed, her knees sticking up at an angle so that her calves were exposed making Emma want to interrupt her reasoning and say, ‘Pull your clothes down, girl. That’s how boys sit.’ And she might have done so except she felt that her daughter would have laughed.

  When she had confronted her with the fact that she had been out at night, the girl had answered calmly, ‘Well, you won’t let me out on me own during the day, will you, Ma?’ And when she had come back sharply, saying, ‘I should have thought you would have been used to being locked in by now,’ Annie had retorted, ‘’Twasn’t like that at all, I wasn’t locked in.’

  And now Emma had become reduced to pleading: ‘Annie—’ She leant towards the girl saying softly, ‘Won’t you try to be different? Try to act like other young lasses of your own age, just until it’s time for you to marry?’ Her words were crushed by the thought, who would marry her? Who would take her on? No-one from around here, that was certain. But she ended, ‘You could be married when you’re fifteen.’

  Annie made no response to this and Emma straightened herself and asked now, ‘What makes you do it? Why?’

  The girl lifted her head and for the first time her face looked serious, as her voice sounded when she said, ‘I don’t know, Ma; I’ve always felt like this. I want…well, I want’—she shook her head—‘I don’t know how to put it.’

  Emma’s own head now moved slowly from side to side and, her gaze directed to the bare wooden floor, she said, ‘It’s bad, Annie, it’s bad.’

  ‘No, Ma.’

  ‘What!’ Emma was looking at her daughter now through narrowed eyes. ‘You don’t think it’s bad?’

  ‘No, Ma…And Ma—’ Annie uncrossed her ankles and, drawing her feet under her, she half knelt up and leant towards Emma, saying in a tone that held a plea and seemed to ask for understanding, ‘I…I liked it there. I did, I did, Ma. Don’t look like that, Ma. ’Twas a nice house and ’twas warm; it had nice furniture and lovely curtains and we had lovely things to eat.’

  ‘Oh, Annie. Annie.’ Emma’s head dropped onto her breast and Annie said, ‘We weren’t locked in like you think. Well, at least I wasn’t, or Alice or Rene, and Mrs Boss took us out…’

  ‘Mrs Boss?’

  ‘Well, she was called the boss an’ we called her Mrs Boss. And she did, she took us out on a Saturday. We went to the market, and once’—her face spread into a wide smile—‘we went to the Newcastle theatre. Eeh! it was lovely, Ma, beautiful, the ladies on the stage. And we were dressed up to look like ladies an’ all.’

  ‘Be quiet, Annie! Be quiet!’ Emma’s face was screwed up tight.

  ‘But Ma, I’m just tryin’ to tell you. And Fordy, Mr Fordyke, he was kind. I liked him, Ma.’

  Emma rose hastily from the broken-backed chair, crying now, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’

  ‘Ma! Ma!’

  The cry halted Emma as she reached the low door of the attic that led into the bedroom and, with her hand on the sneck, she said, ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Ma’—her daughter was behind her—‘don’t lock me in, please Ma. I promise I won’t go out at night. Honest to God I won’t go out at night.’ Slowly Emma turned round and faced the girl and she repeated, ‘You promise?’

  ‘Yes, Ma. But will you let me walk round in the daytime on me own?’

  Emma swallowed and looked to the side, and Annie said, ‘I won’t go far; I just like to wander the fields.’

  ‘Have I your word that you won’t run away again?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘And you won’t go near the village?’

  ‘Oh no, Ma.’ Annie’s voice was louder now. ‘I won’t go down there; they don’t like me down there, the women anyway.’

  Oh Lord, Lord, what was she to do? She had no choice; and so she said to her daughter now, ‘Come down into the kitchen and do the dishes and clean up; Mary’s legs are too bad, she won’t be able to make it for days, and I have your granda in bed this mornin’.’

  ‘All right, Ma.’ The voice was full of willingness. ‘And…and I’ll dust the rooms if I can go out this afternoon. Can I?’

  For answer, Emma nodded her head twice; then bending her back, she went through the door, and Annie followed her.

  When they were on the landing Annie ran ahead of her down the stairs, and Emma stood watching her for a moment, the pain in her heart so great that she likened it to a crucifixion…

  ‘This all comes about of foreign blood.’ Jake Yorkless spoke from the bed in which he was propped up, his hand held seemingly now in a permanent position against the side of his head. ‘Nowt in my family that would bring out anything like this, nor was there in Lizzie’s as far as I know but that foreigner of a circus man.’

  ‘He was a Spaniard, and he wasn’t a circus man, and as far as I remember he was a good and respected man, and there’s nothing in me that I have passed on to Annie. But if I recall what you said on the night of my wedding, that your grandfather tried his son’s bride first, then I don’t think you’ve got to look much further for the reason why your granddaughter is as she is. ’Tis known that these traits jump generations…’

  ‘By God! if my head wasn’t in this state I’d give you the length of me tongue, if not me hand.’

  ‘You’d give me neither, mister, and you know it. I was pretty young when I took your measure. You made a brave show of going rescuin’ Annie, but underneath you were like a frightened rabbit. You’ve always been like a frightened rabbit; if you hadn’t been, you would have married me granny and not the tartar you took on although she had her belly full of you. Now, I’ve seen to your head, and the doctor says that you’ve got to rest.’ And on this she turned away and lifted the bowl of water from the wash-handstand, and as she passed the foot of the bed he said, ‘What’s goin’ to happen down yonder?’

  She paused for a moment, looking over the brass rail as she said, ‘I don’t know. Something will have to go, and it’ll have to be the house, for we depend on the animals for our bread and there’s no money to hire another hand, at least not that I know of. Do you know of any?’ She watched his eyelids flicker before he replied, ‘How should I?’

  ‘Well, you do the buying and selling.’

  ‘You know what I get and you know where it goes.’

  ‘I thought I did.’

  On this she turned and left the room, thinking as she went down the stairs, Yes, I thought I did, but Jimmy had come back from the market yesterday after delivering butter and eggs and milk and he had given her three shillings and sixpence more than the mister was supposed to get for the same amount of produce.

  Her next task before she went outside was to go and see to Barney. When she entered the room his voice was querulous as he greeted her, saying ‘Here it is near the end of the morning and I haven’t seen a soul. Where’ve you been? What’s happenin’?’

  ‘I told you, your father’s in bed, the doctor says he’s got to stay there, and Mary hasn’t come, and she’s not likely to with the state of her legs, so there’s only me and Jimmy.’ She did not mention Annie’s name to him as he hadn’t spoken it since the morning he had talked of love that had turned to hate.

  ‘What’s to be done?’

  She did not answer him in the same vein as she had answered his father but said, ‘Don
’t worry; we’ve weathered storms before, this one will pass.’

  ‘Not before they bury you.’

  ‘Well, you only have to die once, so they say.’

  Softly he said, ‘I get lonely, Emma.’

  ‘I know you do.’ She went closer to him and took his hand, adding, ‘I wish I could be with you more.’

  ‘’Tisn’t fair.’ His lips trembled slightly. ‘This place has turned you into a carthorse, more so, because horses get their rest periods. ’Tis a good job you’re healthy, with no aches and pains. They say the wiry ones last the longest.’

  If there had been a laugh left in her she would have bellowed. Did she ever have any aches and pains? Her body should be inured to aches and pains, yet when she dropped into bed at night there was a protest in every limb; but it was worse in the morning when every fibre of her being resisted rising from the bed. Did she ever have any aches or pains! But what were body pains compared to those of the heart? Oh, for God’s sake, don’t let her start on that tack at this time of the day, especially with all that lay before her. She was about to say, ‘I must get going, Barney,’ when his next words stayed her. ‘I don’t want to see the parson today,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t want to see…why? I thought you looked forward more than anything to his readings and your chats and…’

  ‘Well, I just don’t want to see him today.’ His voice had changed, the whole expression of his face had changed, and her voice changed, too, when she retorted, ‘All right, all right, you don’t want to see him, so I’ll tell him. I’ll say to him, “Parson, Barney doesn’t want to see you. You’ve travelled this road for years now coming up here in rain, hail and sunshine, when many a time you must have had better things to do, but you just wanted to help somebody out. But now I’ve got to tell you that that somebody doesn’t want to see you. No explanation, just that, he doesn’t want to see you.”’