The Glass Virgin

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Not in the least, not in the least. Seventeen on the twenty-first, you could hardly be termed childish and immature. Dear, dear! I’ve known you for many years, Annabella, and even as a child I never considered you immature; indeed you used to frighten me with your wisdom and knowledge. I’ve never forgotten the day we visited the glass works for the first time. You staggered me.’

  ‘You are laughing at me, Mr Boston.’

  Whatever remark he was about to make was interrupted by Faill appearing and addressing Annabella. ‘The mistress would like a word with you, Miss Annabella.’

  ‘Thank you, Faill . . . Will you excuse me, Mr Boston?’

  ‘Of course.’ He was still laughing at her. ‘But I’ll walk back to the house with you; I want to have a word with Manuel. Fine fellow that with animals, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a very good horseman.’

  ‘Your father’s hardly had need of a vet since he’s been on the place. That’s the kind of staff to have, the kind that will save you money.’

  As he talked he smiled and his last remark made her think, He’s enjoying the whole situation. He’ll take Manuel, he’s always wanted him. On this thought there entered into her an emptiness. There had never been a servant like Manuel. He was the only one of the household staff she would regret losing. Why couldn’t her mama keep Manuel instead of Harris? She’d put the suggestion to her. But then her papa might decide to take Manuel with him. Yet where would he take him? Where would her papa live if not in the Hall? And how would he live without the glass works and her mama? This question she had asked herself more than once since last night.

  On the drive she parted from Boston and went into the House, where Harris met her and told her that Madam was in the little drawing room.

  The little drawing room was at the end of a long passage on the east side of the House. It held a piano on which Annabella practised. It was a small room compared to the others, and less formal and, because of its position, more private than the main rooms, and it was for this reason that Rosina chose it for the interview with her husband.

  She knew that he was going into town with Mr Boston and when he went into town he sometimes didn’t return for two or three days. She understood he stayed at his club; where he stayed was of no interest to her at all now, but under the circumstances, and the circumstances were that no money was coming in from outside and that she herself was now utterly dependent on her mother’s charity, she must talk to him about the state of their affairs.

  When the works closed he should have been the one to come to her and discuss the situation, but as ever he would not face up to the facts. He always imagined that there would be some gullible person to loan him money, or he would win some, but now he’d have to win a great deal, in fact a small gold mine in order to sustain his way of living. No, this was the end of a long, reckless road for him and he had ridden over so many people on the way that she doubted if there was a friend left who would help him; except, of course, Mr Boston. Their relationship, she considered, was very strange, for he acted as if Mr Boston was in his debt and not he in Mr Boston’s.

  Now their last talk, their last discussion about money would be over in a few minutes. She had asked him to wait on her here. She had also called Annabella to the meeting because she told herself this concerned her as much as anyone. But the real reason why she wanted Annabella with her at this interview, and which she scarcely hid from herself, was that she hoped her presence would temper her husband’s rage, for she was tired; deep inside she was tired.

  Annabella and Lagrange met almost outside the door of the small drawing room.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Mama wishes to see me.’

  ‘Oh!’

  He pulled a long face at her, then said mockingly, ‘And Mama wishes to see me too; let us not waste time.’ He took her hand and led her into the room as if on to a dance floor; then looking towards his wife, who was seated by the window, he exclaimed, ‘Here we are, Madam. Here we are.’ Although his manner was frivolous there was no sign of jocularity on his face, his countenance looked strained, his skin blotched and his eyes had a glint in them that told Rosina he was in no good temper.

  She said gently, ‘Come and sit down.’

  Annabella obeyed her but Lagrange just stood looking at her; the request, to say the least, was surprising. He stared at her, waiting for her to begin, and when she did he noticed that her voice trembled slightly and also that she used his name as a prefix, which was more surprising still. ‘Edmund,’ she said, ‘I would like to get the matter of the House and servants settled.’

  He brought his head forward just the slightest. His chin drawn in, he repeated, ‘House and servants? What matter?’

  ‘Their disposal, at least the servants. The matter of the estate can wait a while, but you must know that we cannot go on keeping this large staff now that we no longer have any income from the works.’

  He moved a step forward and sat down on the edge of a chair and, slowly leaning towards her, his elbow on his knee, he surveyed her for a moment before he said, ‘You sit there and calmly tell me that we’re to dismiss the servants, not just cut down the staff as I expected you to say, but dismiss them lock, stock and barrel?’

  ‘Yes, Edmund, that’s what I said. Unless you have some source from which you can feed, clothe and pay them.’

  He waved his hand slowly at her now, saying, ‘We’ll come to that in a minute.’ His voice too was slow as he went on, ‘Tell me, Rosina. The servants are all gone, the House empty, where did you propose we should live?’

  Rosina lowered her eyes for a moment and her teeth almost imperceptibly bit at her lower lip before she could bring herself to answer, ‘I’m going to the cottage with Mother; I’m taking Harris with me.’

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ He was on his feet; his chair spinning away from him across the polished floor gathered into a heap an animal-skin rug in its flight. ‘You can sit there, woman, and coolly tell me you are dismembering the House and going to live with your mother – who by the way you should never have left – and where in all your planning have you arranged for me to live? . . . on the fells?’

  He had used the same phrase as Annabella had earlier.

  ‘I imagined you would live at your club; you . . . you spend a good deal of your time there, it should make very little difference to you.’

  His next reaction brought an exclamation of fear from Annabella, for, bending his body almost double, he gripped his hair in his fists and raised it from his scalp, while his face became so contorted almost to be unrecognisable.

  Rosina sat rigid, her face deadly pale, and Annabella sat gripping the arms of her chair, staring at her father’s performance, her mind telling her that this show of rage was an example of what her mother had had to endure for years.

  Now Lagrange was looking at Annabella, pointing at her, speaking to her. ‘And to where are you going to be allocated? Not the cottage, that’s certain, because dear Grandmama has never been able to stand the sight of you . . . ’

  ‘Edmund!’ Rosina’s voice was sharp and he turned towards her, saying mockingly, ‘Yes, Rosina dear, have I said something I shouldn’t? But tell me, because you’ve got it all planned out, where is she going? . . . Oh.’ He held his arms wide as if about to embrace her – ‘Don’t say that you are going to leave her in my care. Is that what you intend to do? And without a fight? Come, come. Let me hear you say it.’

  The muscles of Rosina’s face were twitching as she said, ‘Annabella’s future is . . . is taken care of, or will be very shortly.’

  ‘No! Her future taken care of? Well now, this is very interesting.’ His voice had dropped deep in his throat and his eyes were stretched in genuine surprise. ‘Go on, tell me more.’

  ‘I can tell you nothing further until Friday.’


  ‘Friday? Why Friday? Oh yes, it’s her birthday.’ He swung himself round towards Annabella; then bending over her and looking into her face he said, ‘What’s going to happen on Friday that makes your future secure? Come along, my dear, you can tell me.’

  Annabella now put her hand to her throat. She dragged her eyes from her father’s penetrating gaze and looked at her mother, but she received no signal from her, neither an acquiescent bow of the head that would indicate she could tell her father, nor a slight shake which would mean that she had to remain silent, and so, forcing herself to look back at Lagrange, she said, ‘I am hoping to marry Stephen, Papa.’

  A long heavy silence followed this statement, during which not even a muscle of Lagrange’s face moved and he kept in the same position, half bent over her. He stayed like this for seconds that seemed countless to Annabella, and then he startled her, and his actions now she likened to those of a madman, for he began to laugh. It was a high, raucous, jarring sound, a terrifying sound, and all the while he flapped his arms from side to side as if he was aiming to leave the ground and fly. Finally he threw himself over the table, his whole body convulsed with his mirth.

  Rosina had risen to her feet and she stood white and shaking staring at him. His actions and the sound of his laughter recalled the night he had come into her room and thrown Annabella on to her bed.

  His laughter slowly subsiding, he levered himself up and, again pointing at Rosina, he said, ‘You fool! You blind senseless fool! You’ve planned this for years, haven’t you? And now you think the time is ripe, eh, you think the time is ripe for their mating? How nice for you, Rosina. You’re telling yourself you’ve saved something out of the chaos of your life, aren’t you? Tell me, just as a point of interest, what makes you think that he’ll pop the question on Friday? Tell me, I’m listening.’

  Through dry lips she said, ‘He wrote and told me so.’

  ‘WHAT! Woman, you’re crazy, you’re stark, staring mad. That young pip would do lots of things, but he would never write and tell you he was going to offer his hand and heart to my dear Annabella. You’re making it up, aren’t you . . . Wishful thinking?’

  ‘It is not wishful thinking; I have his letter and he asked us to go on Friday.’

  She watched him lower his chin on to his chest; then with the palm of his hand thump his forehead, before dashing to the door and yelling, ‘Reeves! Faill!’

  When Faill came running down the corridor he cried at him, ‘Go up to the Hall. In my office you’ll see some news-sheets on the desk. Fetch them, and quick. Quick! Do you hear?’

  When he turned, Annabella was standing close to Rosina, and slowly he walked to the middle of the room and looked at them. Then, his eyes focusing on Rosina, he growled low, ‘You know what you want, woman, you want horsewhipping. All these years you’ve led her to believe that he meant something and that something was marriage . . . ’

  ‘Papa!’ Annabella’s voice was trembling. ‘Stephen loves me and I love him.’

  He moved now until he was standing in front of her, and then he asked her a question.

  ‘Has he ever said it? Has he ever put it into words?’

  Her eyes flickered away from him and across the room. No, Stephen had never said, ‘I love you,’ but his every action had told her of his feelings, and she knew that he would have declared his love openly before now but he had to put all his mind to passing his examinations both in Oxford and London. But there were the words he had written in her mother’s letter. Didn’t they speak plainly enough? She returned her gaze to her father and he, flinging his head up and to the side, exclaimed loudly, ‘Huh! God!’ at which moment there was a knock at the door and Faill entered bearing three slim newspapers. Lagrange grabbed them from the man and, selecting one, he turned over the double sheet, saying, ‘This is Monday’s London News, I got it yesterday. I intended to bring the little announcement to your notice this morning but under the pressure of other business it slipped my mind. But wait, wait.’ His finger moved down the paper, and then he exclaimed, ‘Ah! here it is.’ He now folded the paper and held it some distance from him and, looking first at Rosina and then at Annabella and back to Rosina again, he read,

  Mr Stephen Conway-Redford and Miss Kathleen Wainheart. The engagement is announced between Stephen Conway-Redford of Lincolns Inn and Weirbank House, Durham, only son of Stephen Michael Conway-Redford, deceased, and Kate Mary Conway-Redford, also deceased, and Kathleen Wainheart, eldest daughter of Colonel James Wainheart and Lady Amelia Wainheart of The Dolphins, Ascot, Berkshire.

  He looked at them. They were standing shoulder to shoulder like a pair of petrified deer, and he said, ‘There can be no mistake, can there? Stephen Conway-Redford of Lincolns Inn and Weirbank House, and you’ll both remember Miss Kathleen Wainheart from your visit to London. If I’m right, she attended all the balls you attended. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and a china-doll complexion. Perhaps you’ve forgotten her?’ He was looking straight at Annabella now.

  There was a great stone weight on her chest, there was a great stone weight on her mind; it was trying to prevent her from crying aloud, ‘Oh, Stephen! No, no, Stephen!’ Stephen loved her. He kissed her and teased her, they shared jokes. He had chased her round the garden at Weirbank and when he had caught her he had put his arm around her waist. If these actions did not speak of love, then what did they speak of? What advances had a man to make before you could think that he loved you, that you were always in his thoughts? Her father was speaking again; his voice level and cold now, he was saying, ‘Even if he hadn’t become attached to this girl, and even if he had wanted to marry you, I wouldn’t have let it happen in a thousand years. Do you hear me? Not in a thousand years.’ Now turning on Rosina again, he cried, ‘Your plan has gone awry, hasn’t it? But my plan won’t. I told you years ago that I’d pick the man for her and you should have known, even then, that when I say a thing I mean it.’ He spoke now as if Annabella wasn’t there, adding, ‘She will marry Boston and she’ll be secure for life.’

  ‘WHAT!’ They both said the word together as they stepped back from him, but it was Annabella who, now detaching herself from Rosina, cried, ‘Marry Mr Boston! That man? Never! I’ll never marry Mr Boston, Papa. How can . . . how can you be so cruel!’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, girl. Boston is a man of wealth. He is not too old and not too young for you, he is just right; and the important thing is your future will be secure.’

  ‘And yours.’ The words were a bitter whisper squeezed through Rosina’s lips. ‘That’s why you don’t want the servants dismissed. You’ve given her to this Boston man at a price, and the price is not only her future security but your own. Well, I’d rather see her dead first. Do you hear?’ Now she was bending towards him. ‘Married to that man she’d have a life similar to that which I’ve known with you. You’re two of a kind . . . ’

  ‘Be quiet, woman!’

  ‘I shall not be quiet; you’ll not have your way in this.’

  ‘Don’t drive me too far. Remember, don’t drive me too far.’

  As Rosina began to shake as with an ague Annabella went to her side and, putting her arm around her shoulder, said brokenly, ‘Don’t worry, Mama, don’t worry, nothing on earth would influence me to marry that man, nothing.’ And looking with pain-filled eyes at her father, she added, ‘Do you hear, Papa? Nothing you can do will make me marry Mr Boston.’

  Lagrange, too, was shaking, but with suppressed rage, because he saw that this being whom he had used as a pawn since she was four weeks old was no longer under his control, and he also saw clearly that he himself wouldn’t be able to induce her to marry Boston. But Rosina would, ah yes, Rosina would.

  He now turned his infuriated gaze on his wife and said slowly, ‘What about it, Rosina? You can make our dear daughter see sense, can’t you? You can tell her that after all it is the sensible thin
g to do if she wishes to continue to live in the style in which you’ve brought her up.’

  The trembling of Rosina’s body passed through Annabella, and her mother’s evident distress caused her to forget her own heartache for the moment and, confronting her father, she said, ‘It’s no use intimidating her; nothing she can say will make me consider Mr Boston for a moment. I’d rather beg my bread than marry that man.’ She had no idea of what the cliché entailed but at this moment she meant it.

  ‘Oh!’ He gave a short mirthless laugh. ‘You’ll never have to beg your bread, my dear, there’s ways of earning it, especially looking as you do. What do you say, Rosina?’

  Rosina turned her head slowly and looked into the face of the only person on earth she loved. If she persuaded her to marry Mr Boston, which she doubted she could do, she would be lost to her and she would have before her, as she had said, a life of humiliation. If she refused to co-operate for the last time with her husband then he would make plain to her child, and she felt that Annabella was her child in every sense of the word, he would make plain to her her early beginnings.

  Annabella returned her look with tenderness, and, her voice catching in her throat, she said, ‘Don’t worry, Mama, you could never persuade me to marry Mr Boston. If . . . if I cannot come to Grandmama’s and live with you then I . . . I will find some place else.’

  Lagrange, seeing his plans melting away before his eyes, seeing his future outside this house barren of all comforts, no Old Hall to himself, no servants, no stable, NO STABLE, there erupted in him a force that burst with a yell and brought their shoulders hunched up against the sound. And now he was screaming at Annabella, ‘You thankless bastard! Get out of my sight, get back to where you sprang from! Do you hear? Get back to where you sprang from, Crane Street. Remember . . . remember the nice lady who ran by the carriage and wanted to look at you, remember? Well, she’s a whore and she runs a house of whores and she . . . she, my dear Annabella, is YOUR MOTHER. Do you hear me?’ His voice rose to a thin scream. ‘Jessie Connelly is her name and she’s your mother!’ He now flung his arms wide in Rosina’s direction. ‘This is simply my wife, a barren woman. I brought you to her when you were four weeks old, and I threw you at her and her starved, cold body clawed at you and sucked warmth from you. But she’s not your . . . dear mama; she’s no more to you than a nursemaid. That’s what she’s been to you, a nursemaid.’