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The Glass Virgin

Page 30

by Catherine Cookson


  ‘Oh no, no, not while I’m working.’

  ‘Go on, Ma wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘No, I’d rather not. Perhaps later.’

  ‘The morrow night.’ Agnes’ face was one big beam. ‘We always have a get-together on a Saturday night. Dave comes over, that’s my young man, that’s his night for coming, Saturday, and Michael goes over to the Pranks to see Lizzie and he generally brings her back ’cos they’re a doleful bunch, the Pranks; and Sep’s girl, Sarah, she comes over in the winter, but in the summer they go into the town. But now, just think, if you’d play the piano we could have a bit of a do. I love a bit of a do.’ Agnes moved her head widely. ‘At New Year we always have a good do. Can you play dances, do you think?’

  ‘I could play waltzes.’

  ‘Oh, that would be grand. Later on I’ll tell Ma and see what she says. By the way,’ Agnes raised her finger warningly now to Annabella, saying, ‘the morrow night when they’re all here you’d better be prepared because somebody’ll tell about the day’s do; the lads will do anything for a laugh, so you mustn’t be offended. Now will you?’

  Annabella’s eyelids drooped before she said, ‘No; it’s all right, Agnes. I won’t be offended.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Agnes nodded at her now; then, attacking the work with renewed vigour, she ended, ‘By! I’m going to look forward to the morrow night; I’ll get the lads to go up into the attic and rake out the music. Ee! fancy being able to have a do in November. I’m glad you’ve come, Annabella, I am that. I knew I’d be when I first clapped eyes on you.’

  ‘Thank you, Agnes, thank you.’

  And they had ‘a do’ on the Saturday night. After Annabella and Manuel had been introduced to Dave Pearson, a young farmer and Agnes’ husband-to-be, and Miss Lizzie Pranks and Miss Sarah Percy, simply by saying, ‘Here you Dave, you Lizzie and Sarah, this is the girl, Annabella, and the man, Manuel.’ This was followed by a nodding of heads, then a complete ignoring of them for the time being while the visitors vied with each other to tell of this happening over at Stanhope where Miss Percy lived and the doings of the week in Woolsingham from Miss Pranks. Dave Pearson talked loudly to Mr Fairbairn and was definitely out to impress. Annabella thought that he didn’t seem nice enough for Agnes; it also came to her that of all the five men present not one of them looked as well as Manuel, although Michael, Sep and Mr Pearson were in broadcloth and Mr Fairbairn and Willy, who because they had to do a last round of the animals, were still in their knee-cords but had donned fresh shirts and coats, while Manuel was wearing cords, freshly washed and showing it, as cords did after contact with water. His shirt and neckerchief were clean but his coat was stained here and there, yet he carried these clothes as none of the other men did. There could be no doubt that she herself was the shabbiest of the women, yet, the Miss Annabella Lagrange not quite dead in her, she felt a certain superiority to them, not perhaps over Mrs Fairbairn and Agnes, but decidedly over the two prospective brides, one of whom minced and aimed at being refeened and pronounced her words wrongly; this was Miss Lizzie Pranks.

  When Agnes, grabbing Annabella up from the corner of the settle where she was quietly sitting, watching and listening, said, ‘Come on into the parlour, Annabella, and do your pieces,’ the visitors stopped talking and stared at the new girl, and Agnes cried at them, ‘She plays! Wait till you hear.’

  And in the parlour Agnes, picking up one of the pieces that had been set apart on top of the piano, whispered, ‘Play this first, just to let them see.’

  As Annabella sat down at the piano she smiled inwardly as she thought that Agnes looked upon her as an asset. It wasn’t everybody who had a housemaid who could play the pianoforte – ‘hard bits’ as Agnes had dubbed them last night, when she had played pieces from Beethoven and Mozart. The piece Agnes handed her now was Mozart’s Sonata in A flat Minor.

  As Annabella began to play Agnes ran to the parlour door, crying, ‘Shut up, will you! Listen. Listen.’

  And they listened, and gradually they came into the room, awkwardly at first, and seated themselves near the fire; but they all looked towards the spinet and Annabella, and when she had finished and turned slightly towards them, and they still looked at her and didn’t speak, she said, ‘I’m . . . I’m slightly out of practice.’

  ‘Coo! I wouldn’t mind being out of practice and play like that, what do you say?’ Michael pushed his fiancée, and Lizzie Pranks answered somewhat stiffly, ‘It was a very nice execution,’ and on this Annabella had to turn quickly towards the piano again before she was tempted to say, ‘Well, I will try to kill this one too.’ When she played ‘Gigue’ the crossing of her hands impressed the company as much as the music, but her talent also embarrassed them a little, and Manuel was aware of this. He was the only one who hadn’t seated himself. He was standing to the side of the piano a few feet away and near the wall and as she played he never took his eyes off her. The music aroused in him a tender sadness, and at the same time a wild deep longing that took on the form of a pain, not only because of the hopelessness of it but because of the sight she presented to him, her sad face crowned with that mass of gleaming brown hair and her body covered with clothes that any decent maid would be ashamed to own.

  He must buy her some things. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? She was making that dress but it would be weeks before it was ready. He’d buy her a dress, and shoes. What matter if it lightened his belt. He should have done it when they were in Hexham.

  They were clapping now, and he clapped with them, and the sons were all exclaiming their praises.

  ‘Why, Annabella girl! Never heard anything like it.’

  ‘You could play on the stage.’

  ‘Seems a pity you have to do housework when you can play like that.’ Willy was the last speaker and he stood looking down at her, his eyes shaded, his lips slightly apart. Manuel watched him. He knew the signs when a man was taken with a woman, and his stomach muscles contracted and his thoughts started to gallop.

  ‘If you could catch taties as fast as you could play, Annabella, you would have done a juggling trick yesterday; did you hear about it?’ Willy turned now, laughing widely, saying, ‘Aw, I’ve never laughed so much in me life.’

  Ten minutes later, the joke against her exhausted, at Agnes’ request she played a waltz, and out of time and rather ungainly the three couples hopped around the kitchen table, while Manuel and Willy watched her, and Mr and Mrs Fairbairn sat comfortably back and enjoyed the performance as a whole.

  The dance over, amid laughter and clapping they ate from the dishes on the sideboard and drank parsnip wine. Then it was Mrs Fairbairn who said to her son, ‘Get your whistle out, Willy, and let them do the de Coverley . . . can you do the de Coverley dance, Annabella?’

  Could she do the de Coverley? Yes, and the mazurka and the minuet. She said quietly, ‘Yes, Missus.’

  ‘Well then, you take Manuel and get into your places . . . ’ And so for the first time she danced with Manuel, and felt strangely and deeply excited.

  When nine o’clock came there were great exclamations on how the time had flown. Warmed with hot soup, the visitors took their leave. Accompanied by Michael and Sep they crowded into the trap amid hilarious laughter.

  Back in the house, Annabella and Agnes cleared away the debris of dishes, then they tidied the parlour, for they couldn’t leave it until the Monday, for on a Sunday there was no work of that kind done, Agnes explained, except what was absolutely necessary for eating.

  Manuel went out with Willy to take a last look round the cattle and not until they were finishing their round did Willy say, ‘It’s been a grand night, Manuel.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Willy, it’s been a grand night; best I’ve known in a long time.’

  ‘Same here . . . Your cousin, she’s a very accomplished girl.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘I
t’s a great pity.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Well, I mean that she should be in the position she is with all her accomplishments; great pity her folks died. Must have been a blow.’

  ‘It was. Yes, it was.’

  ‘Goodnight, Manuel.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Willy.’

  Manuel went straight to his house. It was dark and cold. The evening’s enjoyment had faded. He lit a candle and got quickly into bed, but not to sleep. He lay staring into the blackness and after a time he said aloud, ‘Goodnight, Manuel. Goodnight, Mr Willy.’

  It was the end of a train of thought that had been very revealing.

  Five

  On Sunday they all went to church with the exception of Manuel who was left to look after the place. In the brake Willy sat next to Annabella and on the journey he pointed out different places of interest to her. That was Bolt’s Burn; over there near Rookhope there were some fine waterfalls, grand sights; and at Tunstall there was good fishing; and had she ever been round the castle and caves in Stanhope?

  She liked Willy; he was kind and it went a long way to make up for his coarse looks and equally coarse voice.

  That he should have taken his seat next to her in the church was not lost on the family, and Agnes, while sorting the enormous pile of washing which was the Monday morning’s chore, laughed as she said, ‘You know something, Annabella, our Willy’s smitten with you.’ Then, ‘Oh my! you’ve gone the colour of beetroot.’

  ‘Please, Agnes, you shouldn’t say . . . ’

  ‘But I do say, ’cos it’s true. Be funny if you should cotton on to him, wouldn’t it?’

  As Annabella stared at the daughter of the house she realised she was utterly devoid of any feeling of class distinction and that were she herself to become . . . smitten by Willy she would be accepted by this family. It was very strange, for they were not poor farmers like the Skillens.

  ‘Mind you, if it were the case, it wouldn’t be smooth going, not with Betty here it wouldn’t. She’s had her eye on our Willy this three year back, but he don’t take no notice of her. Well, not much; laugh with her like ’cos it gets lonely out here at times in the winter. I’m glad you’ve come, Annabella, I’m glad you and Manuel come. Manuel’s fine looking, isn’t he? I wished my Dave looked a bit like him.’ She giggled now. ‘But Dave’s all right and he’s doing fine; seventy-five acres he’s got now and all his own. It’s a marvellous start. Come February I’ll be gone, can’t believe it. Anyway, by that time you’ll be doing all this with your eyes shut.’ She lifted up a dozen flannel shirts and thrust them into a tub of soapy water, then taking a heavy poss stick, she wielded it as if it were a wooden spoon, and as she pummelled the clothes she said, ‘Mind you see that Betty takes her fair share with the wash; she doesn’t like washing, Betty. Doesn’t mind anything else, kitchen, dairy, anything, but she doesn’t like washing. She should be here the morrow.’

  To all this Annabella smiled inwardly and thought that Agnes talked exactly like her mother; and she wondered a little about this Betty, but she felt that if she was a girl whom all the family liked, then she must have some quality and she herself couldn’t fail to like her.

  On the Tuesday night Betty arrived at half-past eight, but Annabella didn’t meet her then for she was in bed, Mrs Fairbairn having packed her off a half an hour earlier because her nose and eyes were running and she was sneezing. The alternation between the steaming hot wash-house and the bleak field where she hung out the clothes yesterday had given her a cold.

  After being given a dose of cough mixture that almost choked her, and a jar holding goose fat, which Mrs Fairbairn said she must rub on her chest, she had come upstairs. But not to sleep.

  It was almost an hour and a half later when, wide awake and curious, she heard Agnes’ voice long before she reached the attic landing, and she was saying, ‘Your bed’s in the same place; we put her over by the window. You’ll like her; we’ve all taken to her. An’ what do you think about him, Manuel? He’s something, isn’t he? He’s got good manners for a cowman, don’t you think? Still, it’s ’cos he hasn’t been a cowman long, was a coachman for years. Bit a mystery about him I think, like her. She’s different, ’twas the convent as I told you, but you’ll like her, oh you’ll like her.’

  The door opened and the candlelight flickered over the ceiling and Agnes whispered, ‘You see, she’s not in your way. Goodnight. You’ll sleep like a top.’

  ‘Goodnight Agnes. Ta. I’m glad I’m back.’

  ‘So’s we.’

  The door closed. There were soft footsteps across the room. The bed became illuminated with light. She stared upwards into the eyes above her, and the eyes stared back at her. They were screwed up, narrowed in perplexity while her own were wide and stretching wider as memory thrust her back down the years to when this face had been prominent in her life. It was fatter now, older, but it was still the same face, the face of Watford. Staring as if hypnotised, she watched all its features registering the incredibility of the situation. She watched the candle go higher and Watford’s face come closer to hers; she watched her drop backwards on to the foot of her bed, and then she heard her whisper, ‘In the name of God, Miss Annabella! It is, isn’t it, Miss Annabella? You’ve hardly altered.’

  Annabella did not speak; she was leaning back on her elbows now still and taut, and she remained like that for minutes until Betty said, ‘I heard you’d been lost. They said you’d been drowned after you were thrown out . . . ’

  Annabella pulled herself up and leant against the wall and she watched Watford’s features smooth themselves out and into an odd smile, and it was with the smile that the fear erupted in her. Watford was talking low and rapidly now, ‘Well I never! Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? My God, the times I’ve cursed you, specially during those first two years when I couldn’t get a decent place ’cos I hadn’t got a reference. Why did you leave your last place, they said? ’Cos I called the daughter a bastard. Could I say that? No. I had to lie like a trooper. I was in seven jobs durin’ those two years. Do you know that?’ She now poked her head forward.

  There was another silence before she began speaking again and again prefaced with the words, ‘My God!’ She was shaking her head widely now. ‘I just can’t believe it, you playin’ at bein’ dead, and alive and kickin’ here. Me da told me you were in the papers and the pollis were lookin’ for you all over. An’ it’s true what he said an’ all, the mighty are always brought low: old Lagrange breakin’ his neck or somethin’, the business gone flat, the place all shut up. Aye, aye, how are the mighty brought low. But here, wait a minute.’ Her voice rose and she straightened her body, put out her arm and placed the candlestick on the top of a low chest of drawers, then hitching herself slightly up the bed, she leant forward again. ‘This cousin business, him down there, that Manuel. He’s no relation, never heard of him. He’s not a gentleman. How come the cousin business?’

  Annabella tried to speak. She opened her mouth twice but the words wouldn’t come. She was staring at Betty like a rabbit would in its last seconds before the ferret choked it, and here was a ferret. Betty had always been a ferret, and a talker, a gossip.

  ‘Look! You’re no longer Miss Annabella so you can drop your airs; I haven’t to wait any longer to speak afore I’m spoken to. I’ve just asked you a civil question. Who’s this cousin you’ve dug up?’

  ‘Oh! Oh! Watford, I can exp—’

  The bed creaked with the sharp movement of Betty’s body, and her voice was equally sharp as she muttered, ‘That’s enough of the Watford. The time’s past when you can call me Watford, me name’s Betty, and failin’ that I’m Miss Watford. I’ve got a name if you haven’t, and I’m not sorry for sayin’ it either. I’ve suffered enough at your folks’ hands, and yours an’ all, quiet, underhand, sneaky little brat that you were . . . Well, who is he?’

&
nbsp; Annabella pulled herself from the wall and, joining her hands tightly on the coverlet, she bent forward. She was overcome with a feeling of helplessness and fear. She could see Betty downstairs tomorrow morning telling them all the whole story. She could see herself and Manuel on the road again, tramping, tramping. She had only been in this house six days, yet it felt like six years. She had touched on the fringe of a happiness and contentment that she never knew existed, and now this chance encounter could be the end of it. Her voice held a deep note of pleading, pleading for understanding as she said, ‘He’s . . . he’s not my cousin, Betty, we . . . I had to say that because we were travelling together. He was the groom. He came just after you left. He taught me to ride and was good to me, so when the catastrophe . . . ’ she paused, ‘when it happened, I left the house.’

  ‘Aye, you did an’ all.’ Betty now nodded her head. ‘And you went down to Crane Street, didn’t you? It was all over the place, me da said, and what you found out there made you do yourself in, so the story went. Everybody’s sorry for you, but they wouldn’t be if they knew where you were. But why did you come on the road with him? Did you plan it, eh?’

  ‘No, I didn’t plan it. Of course I didn’t plan it.’

  Betty could almost hear Mrs Lagrange speaking and she pulled her chin in and compressed her lips as Annabella went on, ‘I was ill, I didn’t know what I was doing. I must have lain on the moors for two nights and then a cottager took me in. It happened that she was a friend of Manuel’s and . . . and so I wanted to make my way to London and he was going that way, I . . . we . . . well, we journeyed together.’

  ‘I’ll-say-you-did.’ The words were weighed with insolence. ‘But why did you stop afore you got to London?’

 

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