The Fen Tiger (The House on the Fens)

by Catherine Cookson (Catherine Marchant)

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank you very much.’

  ‘Water spoiled, that is.’ Maggie was sitting at the other side of the fireplace, moving her body with a motion as if she were in a rocking chair, and there now followed a space when not one of them spoke and the seconds began to beat loud in Rosamund’s head. Michael Bradshaw was still leaning against the dresser, his look seeming to be turned deeply inwards. She forced herself to break the uncomfortable silence by saying, ‘It’s almost dark, I’d better be making my way home.’

  Michael Bradshaw moved from the dresser and put his cup on the table. He did not speak as he went towards the door, but Maggie, stopping her rocking movement and raising her head, smiled at Rosamund as she said, ‘Aye well, we’ll be seeing more of you if she’s taken to you. There’s not a doubt but we’ll be seeing more of you.’

  Rosamund could make no reply to this, so all she said was, ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Miss…By the way, what’s your name? I didn’t hear it.’

  She did not say, as she usually did, ‘Rosamund Morley’, but used the more familiar Rosie, ‘I’m Rosie Morley.’

  ‘Aw, it’s a nice name, Rosie, comfortable like. Well, goodnight, Miss Rosie…ma’am.’ She laughed as if she were enjoying a private joke.

  Once again he stood aside as she went out of the front door. The courtesy seemed natural to him, yet up to an hour ago she would never have coupled any kind of courtesy with this man. He walked by her side to the gate without speaking and when they were on the field path he asked abruptly, ‘Do you like the fenland?’

  ‘Yes, I love it.’

  ‘Well, you either love it or hate it, there are no half measures.’

  Yes, she knew this. Jennifer’s attitude had taught her this much: you either loved or hated the fenland. They had walked on some distance before he spoke again, and then he began hesitantly, ‘I…I don’t know what to say as regards the child. I…we can’t keep her fastened up, and now she’s found her way to the river’—he didn’t add ‘and you’—‘she’ll make herself a nuisance.’

  ‘Oh no. Please don’t think that. If you don’t mind her coming I certainly don’t mind seeing her.’

  When he stopped she went a step ahead of him before she too halted, and as last night, they stood looking at each other. Then he said quietly, ‘Except Maggie and some of the Irish in Agnestown you’re the only person who hasn’t shown herself to be utterly repulsed by her.’

  Her throat felt tight, and she swallowed before saying, ‘You…you mustn’t think like that. It’s just that people are not used…They are apt to stare but they don’t mean…’

  ‘Were you used to seeing anyone like her?’

  ‘Well…I worked for a short time in a day nursery’—she did not say three days—‘and there was a child there, she was very like Susie.’

  In the gathering dusk she saw his cheekbones moving, indicating the pressure on his jaws, and then, as if forcing the words through his teeth, he said, ‘It makes me mad, furious, raving, when I see the way they look at her.’

  ‘Has she been to school?’ Rosamund’s voice was very low. ‘A special school?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been to two. They are very good in their way, and they have an effect on some of them. Some of the children improve, but not Susie—they couldn’t get through to her.’ He looked away from her and he knew he was seeing the child again when he said, ‘In the last place she was sitting there like a dumb animal in a cage. All the others were playing, laughing, talking their own particular jargon, but she was just sitting there, waiting, waiting for me.’ He turned round to her now, almost fiercely. ‘Somewhere there’s a spark of intelligence, I know there is—it’s only being able to get at it—she understands some things.’

  After a space of time during which she looked at him she said quietly, ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right.’

  She watched him draw in a deep breath that pushed back the lapels of his coat, and then he said brusquely, ‘You know, you’ve been very kind…after the other night. My manner, I’m afraid, wasn’t very tactful, or helpful. I’m sorry about that, but…but not about yesterday.’ His tone was rapid now. ‘Oh no. I would willingly murder anyone who calls her frightful…you understand?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand.’

  They were staring at each other again when their glances were snapped apart by a faraway voice calling, ‘Rosie! Rosie! Ro…osie!’

  ‘I’ll have to go now. They didn’t know I had come; they’re wondering where I’ve got to. Good…goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  She turned quickly from him and began to run. She found that she was running, not only to relieve Jennifer’s mind, but to get away from something. What, she didn’t rightly know. She only knew she was now running in a sort of panic and the desire was strong in her to escape, not only from the man whom she felt was still standing where she had left him, but away from the fens, the beloved fens, the deep, secret fens.

  When she came to the boat landing Jennifer and her father were on the far bank, and Jennifer cried across to her, ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  She did not reply but dropped into the boat and pulled herself across the water.

  Her father said, ‘I was worried when you weren’t about—you didn’t say you were going out.’

  She pulled herself up the bank before she said, ‘I had to take the child back, she was in the water.’

  ‘What, again?’ Jennifer’s voice was high in her head. ‘You should have left her alone, you don’t want to encourage her.’

  Rosamund’s manner was so ferocious that it surprised even herself as she turned on Jennifer, crying, ‘And let the child drown, or be sucked into the mud! I was just to sit on the bank and watch it happen?’

  ‘Well, you needn’t bellow at me like that.’

  ‘Then don’t be such a damned fool.’

  She stamped up to the house, her body quivering with a rage that was new and startling; it was as if she had touched the Fen Tiger and had become contaminated with his ferocity.

  ‘Rosie, wait a minute.’ It was her father’s voice, quiet and puzzled. She took no notice, but marched through the hall and upstairs and into her room. They could make their own supper, they could look after themselves. She had left the house for half an hour, and because she hadn’t told them where she was going they were bawling the fens down. As her mind attacked them she knew that her attitude was merely a weapon warding off something else, something deeper, something that had made her run from the owner of Thornby House, the father of the Mongol child.

  Chapter Five

  The following morning, when Jennifer brought her a cup of tea up to bed, Rosamund was embarrassed, ashamed, and a little amused at this gesture, and to cover her reaction she said, ‘I’m glad of this, I’ve got a splitting headache.’ She was looking down into the cup as Jennifer said quietly, ‘I’m sorry about last night, Rosie.’

  She glanced up swiftly at her sister and, putting her hand out, gripped her wrist as she said, ‘It’s me who should say sorry. It wasn’t a good day yesterday, was it? Tempers were running high on all sides. Let’s hope today will be better.’

  ‘Father’s made a good start anyway, he’s been in the workshop since around six.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, and he’s off now down to the post.’

  ‘What on earth time is it?’ She glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed. ‘Nine o’clock! Nine o’clock?’

  Jennifer smiled broadly. ‘You slept on and we didn’t disturb you.’

  ‘Lord!’ Rosamund leant back and handed the empty cup to Jennifer. ‘Fancy me sleeping until this time, I’ve never done that before.’

  ‘I’ll do your breakfast. Would you like it up here?’

  ‘Good gracious no, I’m getting up. Thanks, all the same.’

  When Jennifer had left the room, she lay with her hands behind her head staring up at the ceiling. That’s what crying yourself to sleep did. Slowly now she rai
sed herself up into a sitting position. That was strange; she hadn’t had her dream, not any part of it. She couldn’t remember a night for years when she hadn’t had her dream. It had become part of her life. She couldn’t have been more surprised at this moment if she had realised that she had stopped breathing during her sleeping hours. Still, she swung her legs over the bed. The past two days had been unusual. You couldn’t expect the pattern of life to remain the same.

  As she entered the kitchen from the hall her father came in the back door.

  ‘Hello, had a good sleep?’ He smiled at her—he looked well this morning. As he handed her three letters she said, ‘Yes, I can’t remember sleeping like that for years.’ She looked at the letters, two brown envelopes and one white. The white one brought a warm glow into her body and a sense of well-being. She did not open it but put it into the pocket of her dress.

  Jennifer, aiming to be tactful this morning, made no comment on this, nor did she ask the obvious question ‘Who is it from?’

  It took quite some will-power on Rosamund’s part to eat her breakfast, then help wash up and clear away, before she allowed herself to go into the mill proper. She had always felt it was a bit childish to keep Clifford’s letters until she was sitting on the platform high above her world of the fens.

  Once in the mill house she raced up the rickety stairs and was tearing at the envelope before she curled her legs under her to sit on the wooden floor.

  ‘My dear Rosamund.’ She was smiling as she began to read, but by the time she had turned over the single page of the letter her face had a stricken look, and when she came to the last words and read, ‘See you when I get back,’ she dropped her head until it met her uplifted hand.

  She remained still for a moment, her fingers pressed on to her eyeballs in an effort to shut out the meaning of the letter. He would see her when he got back. His plans had had to be changed. His mother thought that as he was going to America, anyway, it would be nice for them all to have the holidays there. His mother had a great desire to see her cousin in Washington as they hadn’t met for years—‘I’m disappointed, Rosamund, but will see you when I get back.’

  When would he get back? This was June, the holidays stretched through July and August and into September. And would he come back? Her aunt would see to that—she had smelt a rat. She was clever, was her aunt, wily. She could even hear her saying to Clifford in her high nasal voice, ‘Well, why go back to England? You’ll only have a double journey. Why not stay on, now that you’re here?’

  With a sudden gesture Rosamund crushed the letter in her hand. She hated Clifford; he was weak, weak, like clay in his mother’s hands…No, no, she didn’t hate him—Clifford was nice, kind and gentle. Clifford’s trouble was that he wanted to please everybody; his mother included. She remembered again that she hadn’t had her dream last night and the reminder brought with it a stab of fear and anxiety; and she spoke aloud, trying to quell her fears. ‘Why worry about that? Nothing has changed. You’ll be here as long as father’s here…But it isn’t only that, it isn’t only the mill.’ And it wasn’t only that, it wasn’t only the mill. She wanted something else besides the mill. She wanted the kindness and the tenderness of Clifford.

  She could see no beauty at the moment in the sun-drenched land below her and went slowly down the stairs and into the house.

  As she entered the hall Jennifer was going into the workroom and she turned. ‘Well?’ She was smiling with the question.

  Rosamund gave a little cough before saying, ‘Clifford’s not coming, he’s going to America. They’re all going for their holidays.’

  ‘What! Oh, Rosie, that’s Aunt Anna. But why can’t he come and see you before he goes?’

  ‘He’ll be very busy; they’ll be off soon.’

  ‘But all this must have been done in a hurry. Oh, Rosie’—Jennifer put out both her hands to her sister—‘don’t take it so hard.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Rosamund quickly warded off the sympathetic touch. ‘I told you, didn’t I, that there was nothing. It was you who insisted.’

  ‘All right, have it your own way.’ Jennifer moved slowly back towards the workroom now, and just before she opened the door she turned her head and remarked, ‘It isn’t the Morleys’ week, is it? Andrew first, now Clifford.’

  Rosamund made no answer but went into the sitting room, and there she began an onslaught on the furniture. At one point, when she was rubbing vigorously, deepening the already deep lustre on a small sofa table, she spoke to it, saying, ‘We must keep you at your antique best, mustn’t we, for when Aunt Anna takes you over again.’

  Oh dear, dear, she hated to be like this. As Jennifer said, why couldn’t Clifford have come and told her? Perhaps she would have understood then—at least she wouldn’t have felt so hurt. The letter in her pocket was as cold and informal, as if from a stranger. If he didn’t care for her why had he kissed her on his last visit? They were at the end of the Cut—she was standing on the bank watching him as he started up the engine of the boat—and just before he let in the throttle he had jumped out of the boat and on to the bank again, and before she knew what was happening she was in his arms and he was kissing her…once, twice, three times. And then he was down in the boat again. She had waved to him, not just with one hand but with her two high above her head, waved until he was lost to sight. And now he was off to America.

  When the sting of tears came into the back of her eyes she chided herself sternly, saying, ‘No more of that, you’ve done enough crying lately. If this is the way things are to be there is nothing you can do about it but face up to it.’

  It was about half-past eleven when her father came hurrying from the garden into the kitchen, and, speaking below his breath as if his voice could be heard across the water, he said, ‘He’s just taken it back.’

  ‘Taken it back? What do you mean?’

  ‘The child.’

  ‘Was she…was she right here?’

  ‘No, I first noticed him racing over the field. Then I saw him stoop and pick something up. It was the child.’

  Rosamund shook her head. ‘He’s going to have his work cut out.’

  ‘A child like that should be in a home, you know, Rosie.’

  ‘She’s been in a home, two homes. Apparently she pines. I should say she wants love…’ She stopped and added cynically to herself, ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘She’s not normal, Rosie.’ Her father’s voice was slightly persuasive as if trying to convince her of something, and he went on. ‘She won’t feel things like other children.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She had rounded on him angrily, and now she bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, but, Father, that type of child needs it more than the normal ones.’

  ‘Yes; well, perhaps you’re right. You nearly always are. You’re a wise little bird.’ When he came up to her and slipped his arm round her shoulders she wanted to cry at him, ‘Don’t, don’t.’ She wanted no sympathy today, no praise for being the little mother—she was tired of being the little mother, she was tired of playing the little mother to him and to Jennifer…and…and oh, she was tired of everything.

  By teatime Michael Bradshaw had come within sight of the mill three times to Rosamund’s knowledge alone, and the last time she had seen him carry the child back she had thought to herself, ‘This can’t go on, he’ll never get anything done at this rate.’

  It was as they sat having tea on the lawn in the shadow of the mill wall, out of the sun, that she said, and without leading up to the matter, ‘Tomorrow I will have the child across here.’

  ‘Oh no, Rosie, I just couldn’t bear it.’ Jennifer held her cup of tea poised halfway to her lips.

  ‘Well, don’t you see that the man can’t spend his days trying to stop her from coming here?’

  ‘That’s his business, I should think. Why doesn’t he get someone to look after her?’

  Rosamund opened her mouth to make a retort, then closed it again. Why? Yes, why? Jennifer was right there.
The old woman Maggie was less than useless for running after a child. There came into her mind a picture of the bare house and the scantily furnished child’s room and kitchen. She had seen such furniture before in the cheapest of cheap rented rooms. Why hadn’t he waited for his furniture to come before opening up the house? Why had he bought that poor stuff? And why, if he was going to farm, was there no machinery, no man to help him? Why was he grubbing out roots with a mattock? Her thinking seemed to force the next words out of her mouth. ‘Well, if you can’t tolerate her here I shall go over in the afternoons and see to her. Anyway, until we can get to work in the shop there’s nothing to do.’

  Noticing her father’s uneasy movement at this statement she could have bitten her tongue out for her tactlessness.

  ‘It’ll look very like pushing, won’t it?’

  ‘Oh, Jennifer—’ Rosamund bestowed on her sister a knowing sidelong glance and just prevented herself from saying, ‘You’re the one to talk about pushing.’

  ‘Well, you go. Go ahead, do what you like, but he’ll show you the door, you’ll see.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, try it.’

  ‘I have.’

  Jennifer was silent. ‘Did he ask you in last night?’ It was her father asking the question.

  ‘Yes, he did, and I put the child to bed and then he offered me a cup of tea.’

  She saw Jennifer’s face darken and she understood her feeling at this moment. She herself would have felt much the same in her place, but she knew she would have refrained from making such a retort as now came from Jennifer.

  ‘It’s a case of love me, love my dog.’

  ‘Jennifer!’ Rosamund was on her feet. ‘The child is not a dog, she’s not an animal.’

  ‘Now, now, now. Both of you.’ Henry Morley spread his arms between them. ‘What’s come over you all of a sudden? You’ve never been like this.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry…I’m sorry.’ Rosamund slumped down into the chair again, and after taking a deep breath she said quietly, ‘It’s this heat, it’s been unbearable all day. I think I’ll go down to the pond after tea and have a swim…and cool off.’ She smiled apologetically across the table at her father and Jennifer. But it was her father only who returned the smile, saying now, ‘I’d do just that. I wouldn’t mind going in myself but it’s such a long trudge down to that pond.’ He looked towards the river and added musingly, ‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea if I were to clear a part up here. It mightn’t be deep enough for swimming, but you could have a dip. Down near the bend there, say. What d’you think?’ He looked at Rosamund for approval, and she was just about to answer when again she saw the child. She remained still, her eyes fixed across the river, and she knew that her father and Jennifer had followed her gaze.