The Glass Virgin

by Catherine Cookson

  She was worried about Manuel. The whole of her mind was in a perpetual state of worry over him, not only because he was in prison but because he was changed. She had seen him last week for the first time since the trial and he had looked haggard, even old, but what troubled her most was his moroseness. Hardly speaking, he had just stared at her as if filling himself up inside with the memory of her, storing her away against a vast hopelessness.

  And the visit had not been private; they had sat in a room with a score of other prisoners. Most of them had talked, some had even laughed, but the muscles of Manuel’s face had not moved.

  In her room there was a diary, put there thoughtfully by Rosina, but she wrote nothing in it except that each night she scratched off a date. Tonight she would scratch off 20 June, and tomorrow would be her birthday. Tomorrow she’d be eighteen years old and she hoped, oh she hoped, that Rosina wouldn’t give her an expensive present because, when the time came for her to leave, she would not take it with her, nor all the beautiful clothes she now had and which were of no interest to her at all. The only dress that interested her was the blue cord velvet with the beer stain down the front, and one day she would wear it again, no matter what it looked like, and on that day Manuel would be free.

  As she walked across the room, Rosina’s voice came at her sharply, saying, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Amy’s.’

  Rosina did not rise from the couch but sighed deeply, then said, ‘Must you go every day to see her?’

  ‘She lives on her own, as you know, and likes me to visit her.’

  ‘What if Uncle James should call? He . . . he was coming to see you on business.’

  Annabella’s shoulders stiffened and she stared at Rosina for a moment before saying, ‘I won’t be long, and should Uncle James come I will be pleased to see him, but I have no intention of listening to the business he will wish to discuss. I have already made that clear to him.’

  Not once while speaking had she used the word Mama. At one time she had punctuated her speech as thickly as commas with the title, but more and more now she found difficulty in saying it at all. Yet she still cared for this woman; she could say that she loved her. It was a love that was made up of deep gratitude but it was a love that she knew she would throw aside if she found it acting as a wedge between her and Manuel.

  She went out into the hall where Alice was passing, and the old woman smiled at her and said, ‘If you’re going out put your cloak on, there’s a keen wind blowing. It isn’t like June at all.’ It was as if she had been listening and knew where she was going. Alice was kind to her, gentle with her, but then she’d be kind and gentle to the devil if it meant making her mistress happy.

  She took her cloak, a new one, out of the wardrobe, put it on, and, leaving the hood lying slack, she went out, having said no word to Alice; and Alice stood watching her going down the path to the gate, and all the while she shook her head . . .

  Fifteen minutes later, when she entered Amy’s cottage, the old woman turned from her ginger beer making and said casually, ‘Oh, hello there.’ It was just as if Annabella had left the room a short time previously. ‘Well, how’s things? I won’t be a minute; this is the last bottle I’m fillin’. You look peaked, you eatin’?’ She stopped her pouring and, holding the jug in mid-air, she looked at Annabella, and Annabella, taking her cloak off and throwing it over the back of the wooden saddle near the fireplace, sat down, saying, ‘Too much, Amy. That’s all I do, sleep and eat.’

  ‘Good thing too, you need it.’

  ‘Uncle James is coming over today to talk about the annulment, Amy.’

  ‘Oh aye!’ Amy was again pouring the beer into the bottle. ‘He’s a sticker, I’ll say that for him.’

  ‘They’re all stickers, Amy.’ Annabella sighed. ‘They think they’ve just got to give me expensive clothes, good food and the promise of a holiday in Paris which’ – she nodded towards Amy – ‘they haven’t settled a definite date for yet but will arrange to take place when Manuel is coming out, they’ve only got to do all this, they think, and I’ll forget about him. Amy’ – she leant forward towards the old woman – ‘why can people be so widely different? Why have people the power to bottle up their emotions? Mama has. She must have been living under terrible pressure for years but she never really showed it.’

  ‘It’s trainin’. Like anything else, it’s trainin’. Just look back to yourself.’ Amy was now carrying the bottles into the scullery, and Annabella, getting up from the seat and filling her arms with them followed her, saying, ‘Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right. I know you’re right. It was, “Yes, Mama, No, Mama, Yes, Papa, No, Papa,” and remembering that young ladies didn’t laugh loudly or run, and that one never cried in public. Oh! That was the unforgivable sin, to shed tears in public. It was considered the height of bad form to show emotion of any kind in public. But, you know, Amy,’ she put the bottles down on the bench and put her hand intimately on Amy’s shoulder, and she smiled at the old woman as she said, ‘I could scream in public now with the best of them.’

  ‘I bet you could an’ all. Go on.’ Amy, on a hic of a laugh, pushed her with the flat of her hand, then said, ‘We’ll leave the rest; let’s have a sup of tea, eh?’

  When the tea was brewed Amy put the pot on a tin tray and took it outside, and they sat on the bench and there Annabella drank the liquid that was so different from the tea back in the House, as she continued to think of the cottage.

  Without any lead up, Amy said, ‘I dreamt of him last night. It was a pleasant dream though. He was swimmin’ the river and enjoyin’ it. Did you know that he used to swim the river here stark naked?’

  Annabella bowed her head for a moment; then slanting her eyes towards Amy, she smiled as she said, ‘I became acquainted with that habit very shortly after we left here, Amy; and I’m afraid I wasn’t only astonished but highly indignant.’

  They were laughing together now.Annabella drank the last of her tea and leaned against the stone wall. It was nice to be here; she could be herself here, no strain on her, no guard on her tongue in case she mentioned Manuel’s name. Here Manuel was a man, alive and vital, an attractive, charming man, but back there he was still the groom, the workman, the inferior being, the prisoner.

  She said now quietly, ‘They just won’t believe that I mean to go on with it, they cannot understand that I would give up all they offer, at least all she offers, to go and live in a caravan. I tried to talk to her the other day and tell her that Mr Carpenter would be only too pleased to take Manuel back, for now he has become entirely estranged from his daughter-in-law and his stepson. In fact I emphasised that he was looking forward to our return, but she just looked at me blankly as if I was talking in a dream and that when I woke up I would see how ridiculous the whole situation was.’

  Amy didn’t answer for a time, and then she said, ‘Well, lass, whichever road you pick, and knowin’ you as I do now I know you’re for him all along the line, but even then it’s going to be difficult for he’s a proud bein’ is Manuel, stiff-necked in a way, and for the rest of your life you’ll have your work cut out to make him see that you’re carrying no regrets about leaving all that.’ She nodded back towards the estate. ‘And it won’t be easy. Now mind, I’m tellin’ you it won’t be easy.’

  ‘Anything will be easy after these last two months, Amy, anything. You know I’m eighteen tomorrow?’

  ‘You are, girl?’

  ‘Yes, it’s my birthday tomorrow, Amy. But I don’t feel eighteen, I feel twenty-eight, thirty-eight, inside. It’s a year yesterday to the day that I went into Shields, just twelve months ago, but I seem to have gone through many lifetimes since then. I don’t feel the same person at all, Amy, I don’t think like the person I was a year ago. I don’t even talk like her.’ Now she smiled as she patted Amy’s arm, adding, ‘And this upsets Mama very much; and Miss Ho
ward would have a seizure if she could hear me at times.’ Again they were both laughing, but softly, quietly.

  ‘You know, Amy, if this year had never been I would never have known what it was to live, I would have gone on being the smug, correct, Miss Annabella Lagrange no matter whom I’d married, and I would never have lived. All I would have done would be to extend my education and learn to swoon correctly.’ She now turned her eyes upwards, put one limp hand in the air, the other under her chin and demonstrated, and Amy laughed out loud, saying, ‘You’ve spoken a true word when you say you’ve changed.’

  ‘Amy.’ Annabella’s voice was serious now. ‘Will you do something for me?’

  ‘Whatever is in me power, lass. Whatever is in me power.’

  ‘On the next visiting day will you come to Durham with me?’

  ‘Come with you? But don’t you want to see him alone?’

  ‘Yes, but I also want to convince him that they’re not getting complete control of me. If he sees you with me it’ll help.’

  ‘I’ll be only too pleased, lass. But what will they say?’ Again she jerked her head back.

  ‘They won’t know. Uncle James doesn’t offer me the carriage on visiting days. It is pressed on me at other times but not on visiting days. I go by coach. We’ll make arrangements later, Amy.’

  ‘We will that, we will that, lass. An’ I’ll tell him he hasn’t a thing to worry about.’

  ‘Thanks, Amy. Just convince him of that and I’ll be happy, as happy as I can until he’s free.’

  Seven

  Manuel’s time should have been up the last week in October but on the first Friday in October he came unexpectedly to the cottage. It was quarter-past three in the afternoon and they were in the middle of dinner. Harris had just served a roast hare and had taken from the housemaid a damson pudding, and it was as the maid went out into the hall that there came a knock on the front door. And when she opened it there, standing before her, was the foreign-looking groom, the man who had caused all the trouble.

  They stared at each other for a moment; then she said, ‘Yes?’ and to this he answered, ‘Tell my wife I’m here.’

  Her mouth agape, she surveyed him for a moment, then turned and looked towards the dining-room door. There was no-one in view from whom she could ask advice, neither Harris nor Miss Piecliff, nor even Cook. But she knew she must close the door because the wind was cutting. ‘Come in,’ she said, and he came in, his hat in his hand. And he stood in the hall, familiar to him as if he had crossed it yesterday on his way down that passage opposite to him.

  The maid now tapped on the dining-room door, entered, then sidled up to Harris where he stood at the serving table and, putting her face close to his, she whispered, ‘It’s him.’

  ‘What did you say?’ The whisper was as low as hers.

  ‘It’s him, the man, Mendoza.’

  His eyes moved from hers in the direction of the table, but he didn’t move his head. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’ve left him in the hall.’

  Now he was in a quandary. Should he inform the mistress or Miss Annabella? Well, it was Miss Annabella’s husband but he must do this tactfully. He went towards the table and, standing between his mistress and Annabella, he bent slightly towards both but addressed his mistress as he said, ‘There is a person to see Miss Annabella, Ma’am.’

  Annabella put her knife and fork slowly down on the plate and, looking up at Harris, she said, ‘A person, Harris?’

  ‘Who is it, Harris?’ It was Rosina asking the question stiffly now.

  ‘Manuel. Manuel Mendoza, Ma’am.’

  As if she had been hoisted from the table by a jib, Annabella was across the room and through the door. And there he was looking towards her, Manuel, her Manuel, free. Her movement towards him was as quick as it had been when she left the table. Her arms about him, her head buried in his neck, she muttered again and again, ‘Oh, Manuel! Manuel! Oh, Manuel! Manuel!’ Then looking up into his face, she said, ‘I didn’t know, I thought . . . ’

  ‘It was a remission.’ His voice was thick, flat, unemotional. He stared down at her face. They were alone in the hall. They remained quiet for a moment, and then he said, ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes, Manuel, yes.’ Her answer came without hesitation; then she added, ‘But . . . but you must have something to eat. Just a moment. Look, sit down, I’ll, I’ll tell her.’ Her voice was a low whisper now and she led him towards a hall chair, but he refused to sit. What he said was, ‘I can wait standing.’

  She stared at him again, then turned and hurried back into the dining room.

  ‘It’s Manuel.’ She was looking down at Rosina, but Rosina had her eyes fixed on her plate and she said, ‘He is earlier than you expected?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what do you wish me to do?’ Her eyes weren’t raised as she asked the question.

  ‘Ask him in to have a meal.’

  Now Rosina was looking up at Annabella, her face twisted with the incredulity of the request; then she said stiffly, ‘I can’t do that, I can’t possibly eat with Manuel, I don’t even eat with Alice. You understand, I couldn’t possibly eat with Manuel, ever.’

  There was a pause while their gazes held.

  ‘I’m sorry. Then we’ll go to the caravan.’

  ‘Annabella!’ There was sternness in the tone now. ‘You can’t do this, you mustn’t do this. Don’t you realise that, that I need you. Don’t you realise how much I need you . . . And after all these months together to, to leave me. You can’t . . . I will talk to Manuel and explain . . . ’

  ‘No, you won’t. Oh no, you won’t!’

  ‘Annabella! You forget to whom you are talking.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t . . . Mama.’ She laid stress on the word now, then went on, ‘I don’t, and I’m very conscious of all you’ve done for me, particularly these last few months, but I warned you from the beginning that as soon as Manuel was free I would go to him. I’m sorry, I’m really and truly sorry to leave you, but I must. I am Manuel’s wife, but I’m not doing this just out of duty because I’m his wife. I’m doing this because I love him. He is the only person for me, now or ever, and I’ve told you this before.’

  They stared at each other a moment longer and as Annabella made to turn away Rosina said brokenly, ‘Annabella, don’t go like this, please. Give yourself time; just stay a little longer till . . . till tomorrow.’

  She was at the door now and she turned and, after a moment, said, ‘Very well, until tomorrow.’

  When she entered the hall her eyes sprang wide for Manuel was no longer there, but Alice was.

  ‘Where is he? Where is he, Alice?’

  ‘He’s gone, he went off striding through the woods. The door was open, he has ears.’ Alice’s voice was stiff, her manner was stiff. It said, You are an ungrateful hussy, that’s what you are.

  Without waiting to put on her cloak she flew out of the door, down to the gate, and through the park towards the House, calling, ‘Manuel! Manuel!’ But she didn’t get him into view until she reached the pagoda walk; and then she shouted at the top of her voice against the wind, ‘Manuel! Manuel!’

  He stopped and waited for her coming, and when she threw herself against him and leant heavily on him, he supported her with his arm and said stiffly, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right. Don’t upset yourself.’

  ‘It’s ready,’ she gasped. ‘The caravan. I did as you said, I’ve kept it watertight, and Dobbie’s fit and well. We’ll . . . we’ll go in the morning. I want to collect my things.’ She checked herself. ‘I mean just a few personal things, the few I came with. Oh, Manuel! Manuel!’

  They had stopped on the drive in front of the empty gaping windows of the House, and now she put her arms around his neck, and he could resist her no longer. Pressing her tigh
tly to him, his hungry mouth fell on hers and they swayed drunkenly as if they were tossed by the high wind.

  When they had climbed up into the caravan they again embraced, holding tightly, silently, now clinging to each other as if fearing the very air would tear them apart; then breathlessly she said, ‘Look, do you like it? See what I’ve done.’ And he looked about him at the interior of fresh white paint, with rabbits and birds picked out here and there, and he said in surprise, ‘You did this?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded proudly at him. ‘And look, I made this bedcover in patchwork. And the curtains, I made the curtains and I embroidered them.’ She lifted one end of the tiny curtain; then flinging herself on him again, she cried, ‘Oh, Manuel. I had to fill every hour, every minute, or I would have gone mad. Now tell me.’ Her voice dropped and she now drew him down on to the side of the bed and asked, ‘How do you feel? How . . . how was it there?’

  He shook his head and looked at her hands clasped within his own and said, ‘In a way like death, because I was shut in; in a way terrible, because I couldn’t get you out of my mind; and in another way not so bad, breaking stones, sewing sail canvas, the work was like a holiday compared with what I had been doing. But I would have been willing to work twenty-three hours a day just to glimpse the sky above me at night, just to glimpse your face in the open air. I thought at one time I would go mad, an’ was for trying to break out, but then I thought they’d only catch me and bring me back again, and so I behaved meself, and it paid off in the end.’