The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift)

by Catherine Cookson

  Emma stared back at her helplessly, saying, ‘All right, all right, you want air. Well look, go to the barn and take a scoop of oats down to the chickens. Spread it about, mind. And see what eggs there are; some of them are late layers. I got a good few this mornin’ but they are going off. We’ll have to wait for the young pullets I suppose. At this time of the year they don’t pay for their feed, never mind their lookin’ after.’

  ‘Yes, Ma. Yes, Ma.’

  ‘Now wrap up well. Put my old cloak on and put the shawl over the hood. And don’t stay out long mind, because I don’t want to have to go out in that and look for you.’

  ‘No, Ma.’

  A minute later Annie came down the kitchen. Emma’s cloak fell to the caps of her boots, her face was lost in the hood and the shawl covering it. And then she did an unusual thing, she came round the table and, poking her face forward, she kissed Emma lightly on the cheek. ‘You’re nice you know, Ma,’ she said, her eyes blinking as she looked at her mother. ‘You’re nice you know.’ Then turning, she ran to the door, pulled it open and went out into the yard.

  Emma stood, one hand on the table, one hand against her cheek. That was the first time her daughter had voluntarily kissed her in years. She was a strange girl, strange. But there was good in her. Oh yes. She had proved it of late; there was good in her.

  It was dark and Annie hadn’t returned and now the snowstorm had turned into a blizzard. Emma had a coat on, a shawl on her head and above that a split sack, one bottom corner acting like a hood and protecting her back as she struggled from one end of the farm buildings to the other shouting, ‘Annie! Annie!’ As yet she hadn’t called on Jimmy for assistance. She had warned Annie not to go near him, and for his part he had never needed any warning to keep away from her, but now staggering into the stable, she called, ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’ And he left what he was doing and came swiftly towards her and she clutched at his arm as she said, ‘Annie hasn’t come back and the drifts are neck high in parts, see if you can make your way down the lane towards the road. She might have got stuck some place. I’ll go by the chicken runs; she was going to gather eggs.’

  Jimmy buttoned up his coat, and took his cap from a nail in a wooden stanchion. Then as he took his lantern from another nail she said, ‘If it isn’t one thing it’s another.’

  ‘Don’t worry, missis; she’s likely in a drift. She should never have gone out. ’Tis madness to risk out a day like this if you haven’t got to. I was gona say to you meself, I would stay put the night and sleep in the loft ’cos if I don’t I’ll never get up here the morrow, by the looks of it.’

  ‘That would be a good idea, Jimmy. Yes, yes.’

  They were outside now and she said, ‘If it’s too thick on the lane, come back. I might have found her at this end; don’t you get stuck an’ all.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ He went towards the gap in the stone wall while she turned and, with body bent almost double, made her way up the yard towards the passage that divided the byres from the barn, but this she found almost half-blocked with snow. When she eventually got through it was only by instinct that she found the hen crees, for the lantern did nothing but show up a circle of whirling flakes.

  The wind had drifted the snow away from the front of the crees and when she pushed open the door and stepped inside there was a fluttering and a cackling and the birds jumped off the barks, then jumped on again. She put down the lantern on top of one of the egg boxes and stood quietly until they settled. It was peaceful in here and relatively warm. After a moment or two she moved along the row of egg boxes. There were a number of hens sitting in them and, putting her hand underneath one after the other, she felt to see if there were any eggs, and out of the twelve nests on one side and ten on the other she picked up six eggs, which in the ordinary course of events was very good for a late laying at this time of the year. But the significance of it was frightening. Annie hadn’t been here. Even if she had intended to pick up the eggs on her return journey she wouldn’t have taken the oat scoop with her, she would have left it here, and the lantern light showed no empty scoop.

  As her mittened hand gripped the handle of the lantern it became still and her other hand went to her face as she thought, Oh no, she couldn’t be, not as devious as that. No, she wouldn’t believe it. No, she couldn’t believe that that had been a kiss of goodbye, because then it would mean that all these weeks she had been biding her time while playing the reformed girl. No, if she believed that she would have to believe that her daughter was not only bad but evil, for if she had gone off again she would surely know her destination; she liked her comfort too much to chance wandering round Newcastle aimlessly, she wasn’t that kind of a whore …

  Oh my God! what was she thinking? ‘No! No!’ she cried aloud now, and once again the hens were startled. Her daughter wouldn’t do a thing like that, she couldn’t, not after the softness and sweetness of the past weeks. She pulled open the door and the wind brought a swirl of snow onto her and the hens fluttered and the cock protested. No. No. She kept repeating the words to herself as she struggled back to the yard. Her daughter was out there somewhere and she would find her.

  Two of the eggs were broken when she put them on the kitchen table; then just as she was she went out of the kitchen, through the hall, and into the sitting room. The lantern was still in her hand and it added to the glow of the oil lamp on the centre table, and she looked such a weird sight that Barney’s body seemed to rise momentarily in the bed as he asked, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Annie. She went out for a walk, she hasn’t come back. I…I’m goin’ out to look. Jimmy’ll be here. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Emma.’ His head was raised well up from the pillow now, his one arm extended towards her. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I’ve got to.’

  ‘How long has she been gone?’

  She paused a moment thinking. ‘Almost…two hours I should say.’

  ‘She’s not worth it, Emma. There’s a blizzard out there. It’s been raging all day and all night. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Aye; aye, I’ve noticed, but Barney, I’ve…I’ve got to go. I won’t go all that far, and Jimmy’s helping. Anyway, I’ll tell him to stay put. Ring the bell hard and he’ll hear it.’

  ‘In the name of God, Emma, how long do you intend to be?’ He was yelling now.

  She peered at him with a dazed look in her eyes. How long did she intend to be? As long as it took to find her daughter. But why was she bothering? As Barney said, she wasn’t worth it. What was the matter with her? She put her hand up underneath the sacking and pressed her forehead. Her head was aching, she felt sick. But it was no use standing here. She turned and went out of the room, his voice calling after her, ‘Emma! Emma!’

  As she opened the kitchen door, there was Jimmy. The rime was standing on his thick eyebrows and his lashes, and he gasped before he could speak, saying, ‘See nothin’ of her, missis, and there’s no footprints ’cos they’re covered up as quick as they’re made with this lot. Where you off to?’

  ‘I’m goin’ to look, Jimmy, and after you’ve tended the animals stay in the kitchen, will you? And when his bell rings, go in, go in to him.’

  ‘But, missis, you’ll get nowhere in this.’

  ‘I’ll get as far as Mr Bowman’s cottage. She…she may have taken shelter there.’

  ‘I don’t think you should go, missis.’ He put his hand tentatively out towards her, but she passed him, saying, ‘Do as I say, Jimmy. Do as I say.’ Then with body bent again, she was pushing her way towards the opening and into the lane.

  Once when she found herself walking on practically exposed ground, she stood for a moment and shouted, ‘Annie! Annie!’ But the falling snow seemed to whirl her words about her within a radius of the lantern; and so she went on, sometimes walking on a clear bit of road, the next minute she was in drifts almost up to her waist.

  Sometime later she saw the old signpost sticking out of the snow, and she realised
she had missed the path that cut off to the cottage. Perhaps it was just as well because she would never have got through that way, whereas there had been some kind of traffic along the coach road up till recently and in places the newly fallen snow was lying in hard packs, so the going was easier this way.

  She wasn’t aware of how long it took her to reach the cottage, nor of what was happening to her mind for at times she imagined the object of her journey was to see that Ralph had plenty of fuel inside and had enough food to see him through the storm.

  She actually fell against the door and slumped onto her knees before she lifted her fists and banged on it. It was some minutes before it was opened, and then she felt herself being hauled inside. And again she fell to her knees and only managed to steady the lantern as it hit the floor.

  ‘In the name of God! girl, what’s brought you out in this?’

  She remained posed, resting on her hands for a moment, before flopping to the side and looking up at him, saying, ‘Annie…I’m looking for Annie. Is she here?’

  ‘Come on, get up. Come to the fire.’ And he helped her to her feet, saying now, ‘No, she isn’t here, and not likely to be. Get that sack off you and out of those things.’

  ‘I’ve got to look, Ralph.’

  ‘You’re looking no further until you thaw out.’ He was now seized by a bout of coughing and after wiping his mouth with a handkerchief he said harshly, ‘Go on, get your things off, woman. I’ve got some soup heating in the kitchen.’

  When he left her, she slowly took off her head shawl and coat. Another time she would have carefully shaken the snow off them in the hearth, but now she just let them drop to the side of the chair on top of the wet sack; then flopping down onto the chair, she leant her head back for a moment, closed her eyes and began to mutter to herself, ‘Oh dear me. Oh dear me.’ She wanted to go to sleep. That’s all she wanted, just to go to sleep.

  ‘Here, get this into you.’ She opened her eyes and reached out and took the bowl of soup and, putting it to her lips, she drank it greedily. When she had finished she handed him the bowl, then laid her head back in the chair again. She felt better now, more awake, but she understood how people could readily lie down in the snow and die. That’s what her Annie had done likely. Oh yes, yes, that’s what had happened. Her mind grabbed at the idea. Well, it would be better so than…Now her mind jumped, as did her body when there came a thump on the door, and she was on her feet and rushing towards it. She was right, she was right, the lass had found her way here. Ralph was beside her when she pulled the door open to see there in the lantern light the tall snow-covered figure of Henry.

  Her body seemed to fold in two. She stepped back and watched him knocking the snow off himself right and left; then he was in the room, the door closed, taking off his hat and overcoat and these he dropped to the floor by the side of the door before walking to the fire. And all the while he had not given one answer to Ralph’s rapid cough-punctured words: ‘Are you another mad one? What in the name of God has brought you out? Well, say something man.’

  Henry was bending over the fire, his hands extended to the flames as he said, ‘Let me thaw out a bit.’

  ‘Thaw out! You don’t deserve to thaw out. Mad, that’s what you are. I told you this morning I’d everything I needed.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Henry now turned round, his voice sharp. ‘But I went up above’—he jerked his head backwards—‘and Jimmy told me that—’ He now turned his gaze on Emma and said slowly, ‘You needn’t worry about Annie lying in the snow, she’s gone, Emma. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? What do you mean?’ As if she didn’t know what he meant she repeated again, ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’

  She watched him turn and look at Ralph, and he, taking a seat beside her now, put his hand on hers as he said, ‘She’s gone back to where you took her from, Emma. She’s been preparing for it for some time. You’ve got to face up to the fact that she’s made that way and nothing on God’s earth is going to change her.’

  ‘Preparing?’ She swivelled round to the edge of the seat, her manner bristling now. ‘What do you mean, preparing?’

  Again she watched the two men exchange glances, and now it was Henry who spoke to her saying, ‘She’s been meeting Luke in Openwood for some long time. Billy the ratter saw them and heard them. He’s a discreet old fellow, not a gossip, and he didn’t say anything until a few days ago when he told Ralph here, and he said he thought you should know, but—’ He stopped, and it was Ralph, his head hanging, who now ended, ‘I…I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, Emma. In fact I made up my mind that I wouldn’t tell you, because if she didn’t go now she would go sometime.’

  There was a deep silence now in which you could almost hear the hush of the falling snow outside. Then a blast of wind, coming down the chimney, blew smoke into the room and Ralph coughed.

  Emma sat back in the chair and after looking from one to the other she closed her eyes, and again the feeling came over her that she wanted to sleep, not only to ease a great tiredness that was on her but to shut out life, dirty life, body-aching, mind-bedeviling and soul-searing life. What was it for anyway?…It was for living and working at. You must get back and see to Barney. It was as if a voice had shouted loud in her head and she sat up straight, saying, ‘I’ve got to get back.’

  ‘I’ll go with you, you’ll never make it alone.’

  ‘You’ll both have a job to make it. Why don’t you stay, there’s plenty to eat and drink inside?’ Ralph jerked his thumb towards the kitchen, but it was Emma who shook her head, saying, ‘I must get back, there’s no-one to see to him.’

  She now began to scramble into her outdoor things, and when she put the sack over her head its warm wet weight seemed to drag her down and she pulled it off again.

  Henry was standing ready at the door and saying to Ralph, ‘We’ll go by the coach road, I think it’ll be the safer.’ And Ralph answered, ‘Try to find the middle of it, because remember, there’s ditches at both sides and they’ll look solid enough on top.’

  Ralph had his hand on the latch of the door when he turned to Emma, saying quietly, ‘Face up to it, lass, and as soon as you can, for your own good.’

  Face up to it, he said, face up to the fact that her daughter was a sneaking, lying, filthy little bitch, that she had been smiling her angel smile on her for weeks now, while on her jaunts for air she had been meeting Luke. Face up to it, he said. He didn’t know what he was talking about. She went through the door without giving him any word of farewell, and when she felt Henry’s hand gripping her arm, his touch brought no fever to her body.

  Close together now, their heads bent, they pushed as one against the snow-filled wind and, like the bow of a ship dipping and rising in the waves, they were walking on firm ground one minute then wallowing in deep drifts the next.

  Emma had left the guidance to Henry and when he stopped and turned them about, their backs to the wind, she knew instinctively that he had lost all sense of direction. They should still be on the coach road, but the last drift they had gone through had taken her above the waist and he’d had to haul her upwards.

  ‘I think we’ve come off the road,’ he yelled at her.

  She made no answer but she lifted her lantern higher. He did the same, but the light showed them nothing but swirling snow, and a pinky white circle that turned to grey beyond the penumbra.

  He had taken her arm again and once more they were stumbling on. Twice they stopped and leant against each other, his arm about her shoulders; but their closeness meant nothing now.

  At one place the wind had almost cleared a path ahead, and when she felt the ridged hard ground beneath her feet she knew they were in a ploughed field. But which one? If it was their bottom field they had only to find the wired fence and it would guide them to the farm. If it was one of Alec Hudson’s fields, then they were on the wrong track and going away from the farm.

  When he hauled her on, she gasped, ‘’Tis a field…
a ploughed field.’

  And he yelled back to her, ‘Yes, I know.’

  When they came up against a post in the wire fence, she thrust her hands deep down into the snow beside it, and when she could feel only two wires leading from it she knew it wasn’t their field. Jake Yorkless had put three wires round one field he kept for his few sheep, the other wiring that had been done under Mr Fordyke’s orders had been a kind of mesh. They were, she knew now, on the other side of the road and going away from the farm and so she shouted, ‘Hudson’s field.’

  Henry didn’t answer but peered at her through the lantern light before gripping her arm again and leading her now along by the wire fencing. But when the posts ended abruptly she lifted her lantern high above her head and through its light she saw through a gap the dark blur some distance away to the left. She knew where they were. It was she who now gripped his arm and pointed. Then they were struggling through drifts of snow waist high, and when they came up to the ruined mill they leant against the wall for a moment gasping for breath.

  Presently, pushing herself from the support of the wall, Emma gasped, ‘The…the door to the side.’

  The snow at the side of the building came only up to their knees but it had drifted through the partly open door, yet when they pushed it open it was as if they had come out of a raging sea and onto a beach, for they both dropped down on to the earth floor and lay flat for some minutes while they regained their breath.

  Henry was the first to get to his feet. Going to the door, he kicked the snow to one side until he could push the piece of rotting wood back into its original position. But even then it hung drunkenly. Now lifting the lantern, he looked about him. He had passed this place literally hundreds of times but only seen it as a dirty ruin with a leaning chimney and a broken roof, the holes of which got bigger as the years went by as different villagers or farmers helped themselves to the old tiles, some of which were eighteen inches square and made of thick flat stone. He surmised that the whole roof would have gradually disappeared if the tiles hadn’t been so heavy to get down.