The Stepson

by Martin Armstrong

  Having returned with her scissors Kate gathered a great bunch of pink and yellow roses and carried them into the house. In the parlour Emma was cleaning the windows. Time had done nothing to improve her attitude towards Kate. Whenever Kate appeared she fled from her presence, not as if afraid but as if avoiding someone unendurable to her; and now, as Kate, having laid the roses on the table, was taking a large glass bowl from one of the cupboards in the sideboard, Emma gathered up her cloths and with her usual scowling face made for the door. Kate, occupied in her search for the bowl, had not particularly noticed her, and now, looking round as Emma passed her, she said to her:

  ‘Emma, you might bring me a jug of water to fill this bowl. I want to arrange the roses.’

  To avoid unpleasantness she had always, as far as possible, refrained from assuming any authority over Emma, and this had been easy because Emma’s duties were largely matters of routine which were watched by Mrs. Jobson; but this request, a request that might have been made to anybody, was so innocuous that it had not occurred to her to think twice about it.

  Emma went out of the room without making any reply, but this did not surprise Kate, accustomed as she was to Emma’s uncouthness. What did surprise her, however, was Emma’s delay in returning with the water; and with the glass bowl and the roses on the table before her, she sat waiting, uncertain what to do. It would have been easy for her to take the bowl and fill it herself, but if she did so she would be showing an impatience which, in the case of Emma, she was anxious to avoid; and so, faced by this small but irritating dilemma, she sat waiting as patiently as possible. Just as she had made up her mind to get the water herself, footsteps came down the passage and Emma returned carrying a tray. Kate looked up. The tray was loaded with plates and cutlery: there was no jug on it. Kate’s face flushed: she was, in truth, afraid of Emma and she very much disliked quarrels, but she saw that this innocent request of hers was being used by Emma as a trial of strength between them and her self-respect would not allow her to ignore the challenge. She looked at the sulky girl from under her black brows and the sinister ghost flickered for a moment in her eye, but her voice was quiet.

  ‘Did you hear me just now, Emma?’ she said.

  Emma had set down the tray and was moving the plates and cutlery on to the sideboard. A flame spread over her face, but she made no reply. Kate’s heart began to beat rapidly: a tide of anger rose in her.

  ‘Emma,’ she said sternly, but still restrainedly, ‘will you kindly answer when I speak to you.’

  Emma raised smouldering eyes, but meeting the firm, cold eyes of Kate her gaze flinched and she looked away. ‘What do you want to know?’ she said, her voice dull with suppressed anger.

  Kate paused for a moment. ‘You heard me ask you to bring me some water,’ she said. ‘I’m still waiting for it.’

  Emma’s face closed into a still heavier scowl. ‘I’m busy,’ she muttered. ‘You can see I’m busy.’

  Kate rose to her feet. She was trembling, but her face, though paler than usual, was even now very calm. Hearing her move, Emma turned. She was on the point, it seemed, of breaking out into a torrent of speech, but at that moment the window was darkened; someone had passed outside; the torrent was arrested, and as the two women stood immovable staring at one another, a man’s steps were heard to enter from the yard and advance down the passage. Kate lowered her eyes and turned away: she was determined to have this out with Emma in private. And Emma, seizing the opportunity, hurried out of the presence of the woman she hated as Ben, bright-eyed, alert, and rubbing his hands together, came into the parlour.

  XV

  Kate had no opportunity during the rest of that day of getting Emma to herself and so their contest remained in suspense; and as night came on, Kate, weary of the tension, decided to let matters rest. The storm would have blown over by next morning and she and Emma would resume their former relation. But when she and Ben had gone to bed, she found that the quarrel had so agitated her mind that she could not sleep and she lay open-eyed beside the sleeping Ben, going over the brief scene again and again and imagining an ending, at each repetition discovering for herself more and more telling phrases, phrases which would finally have reduced Emma to abject submission. She told herself now that it was her duty not to let the matter rest where it had been interrupted by Ben, that this silent antagonism of Emma’s could not be allowed to go on; and feeling her face flush with shame, she realized for the first time that from Emma’s point of view the contest had not been suspended but victoriously terminated, for she had ignored and disobeyed Kate with apparent impunity. If, then, Kate did nothing more about it, Emma would know that her power over her was firmly established. Yes, she resolved that to-morrow morning, when Ben had gone out, she would summon Emma to the parlour and settle the matter; and having so decided, she lay agitated and wide awake till her nerves had wearied themselves out and allowed her to sleep.

  Next morning she awoke with a weight on her mind, but her decision held firm and she did her best to banish from her thoughts the task that lay before her, for it was useless, she knew well enough, to worry about it beforehand and to imagine, as she had been doing for half the night, words and scenes that might never occur.

  She got up feeling almost cheerful, for her resolution of mind produced in her a corresponding alertness and vigour of body, and she talked as usual to her husband as they dressed and during their early breakfast in the parlour. How absurd it seemed to her now to have thought of giving in and dismissing yesterday’s incident. How could she, in her own house, have contemplated for a moment such cowardly behaviour? And so she went all morning energetically about her work, for there was work which could not be interrupted or postponed which would last her till at least eleven o’clock, and Emma too was busy washing up the breakfast things and, after that, scrubbing the kitchen floor. But passing by the kitchen just after eleven, Kate saw that Emma had almost finished her scrubbing, and meeting Mrs. Jobson in the passage on her way to the parlour she asked her to send Emma to her there as soon as the scrubbing was done. Then she took a work-basket from the cupboard and sat down in the window-seat to darn a stocking.

  In the kitchen Emma rose from her knees and, taking up the pail which stood beside her, went out and emptied it down the drain in the yard. When she returned to the kitchen Mrs. Jobson took the empty pail from her.

  ‘Give me the pail,’ she said, ‘and go to Mrs. Humphrey in the parlour. She wants you.’

  Emma did not move. She stood with her red arms hanging at her sides and a scowl on her face. ‘Wants me?’ she said. ‘And suppose I don’t want her?’

  Mrs. Jobson turned, amazed and indignant. ‘Mind what you’re saying, my girl,’ she said sharply, ‘and do what I tell you.’

  Emma had been accustomed to do what Mrs. Jobson told her for nearly three years. She respected and liked the old woman and, besides that, she had long since discovered that it was not wise to disobey her. Now, therefore, she turned down her skirt and with a cloudy brow went off down the passage.

  As Emma entered the parlour Kate looked up from her work. ‘Shut the door, please, Emma,’ she said.

  Emma obeyed. She, too, foreseeing that the contest was to continue, preferred that the door should be shut.

  Kate threw aside her darning and stood up. ‘You know what I want to talk to you about, Emma,’ she said.

  Emma’s face grew stubborn. ‘How should I know?’ she muttered.

  Kate ignored the reply, but its intentional falsehood irritated her. ‘Now listen,’ she said sternly and coldly, ‘things can’t go on as they’re going between you and me, Emma.’

  Emma looked up challengingly. ‘I don’t see it,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Well, I do, Emma. Understand that. It’s going to stop, and it’s for you and me to settle now how it’s going to stop. I’ve borne with it patiently enough in all conscience, but after what happened yesterday I’m not going to bear with it any longer. You’ve been against me e
ver since I came. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  Emma met Kate’s eyes. ‘It is,’ she replied maliciously.

  ‘Very well!’ said Kate coldly, ‘The question is, now, whether it’s going on or whether it’s going to stop. Which is it to be?’

  Emma stood silent, her face stubborn, her eyes veiled.

  ‘Which is it to be, Emma?’ Kate repeated.

  Again Emma raised malicious eyes to her adversary. ‘That’s my business,’ she said.

  ‘It may be; but it’s mine, too,’ answered Kate. ‘A house can’t have two mistresses, and I’m the mistress of this one.’

  Emma sniffed derisively. ‘Not so much as you think, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate, bringing the palm of her hand down on the table beside her, ‘yes, every bit as much as I think.’

  ‘Humph!’ Emma sneered. ‘That’s all you know.’

  ‘What do you mean, girl? Talk sense.’ A sharpness in Kate’s voice showed that her forbearance was at an end.

  ‘Ask Ben what I mean,’ Emma broke out with a malignant laugh. ‘He’ll tell you, if you want to know.’

  At Emma’s words and at the sound of her laugh Kate felt as if a half-healed scar within her had been torn open. She knew at once, in a flash, that what Emma implied was the truth. Her mind flew back to the incident of Easter Sunday, and the brazen assurance of Emma’s words, now, convinced her. It was as if this life at The Grange in which she had believed and trusted for all these months were crumbling into ruin before her eyes. That sinister mystery which had raised its head for a moment on Easter Sunday was now revealed to her in all its vileness. Her face grew very pale and a tremor shook her mouth, but next moment she had controlled herself.

  ‘I shall ask him nothing,’ she replied. ‘There is nothing I want to know’; and turning to the mantle-piece she took from it a purse and slowly counted out some money. Slowly and deliberately she counted it over again.

  ‘Here,’ she said when she had finished, handing the money to Kate, ‘here are your wages up to to-day. Go at once and pack your box and the gig will take you to Elchester at half-past one.’

  Emma stared at the money and then she stared at Kate. Her face was crimson and suddenly her chin began to tremble. ‘I’ll not,’ she blubbered. ‘I’ll do nothing by your orders. You’re not my mistress. I came here before you and I’ll stay here till Mr. Humphrey tells me to go.’

  Kate laid the money on the table. She was very quiet. ‘You’d better take it,’ she said. ‘It’s your last chance. If you don’t take it now, you’ll leave here without it. And listen to me; if you refuse to go quietly when the time comes, I’ll have you thrown out of the house.’

  They stood facing one another, Emma gulping spasmodically, with a face of fire and a heaving breast; Kate very pale and calm, with nothing to betray the tension within her but the rapid pulsing of her nostrils under the stress of her constricted breathing. ‘I mean it,’ she added, fixing the girl with her cold, level gaze.

  And Emma saw that she meant it. She hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she gave it up, and snatching the money from the table she rushed sobbing from the room, and Kate, listening in the parlour, heard her steps turn not down the passage to the kitchen but upstairs to her bedroom.

  She drew a deep breath and then glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to twelve. In ten minutes Ben would be coming in for dinner and the table was not yet laid. She turned to the sideboard and opened the drawer in which the tablecloth was kept, then, changing her mind, she went first to the kitchen, where Mrs. Jobson was taking a meat pie from the oven. When the old woman had set it down on the table, Kate laid a hand on her arm.

  ‘I’ve had a row with Emma,’ she said, ‘and the result is that she’s got to go. I’m sorry to have done it without talking it over with you, but believe me, Mrs. Jobson, I have very good reason for what I’ve done.’

  Mrs. Jobson glanced at Kate sharply. ‘I know it, my dear,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Who better? It was bound to come sooner or later. Does Mr. Humphrey know?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Kate, ‘but he will, when he comes in to dinner. I’ll just get the tray.’ She smiled at Mrs. Jobson as she set the tray on the kitchen table. ‘I shall be doing Emma’s work till we get another girl, so don’t you worry,’ she said.

  Mrs. Jobson smiled back at her. ‘Oh, you and I can manage all right between us,’ she said as she took up the tray and Kate ran on ahead to the parlour to lay the table.

  A few minutes later, just as Mrs. Jobson had put the joint on the table, Ben came into the parlour. He passed the old woman as she went out with the empty tray.

  ‘Hello!’ he said to Kate. ‘What’s the matter with Emma? Is she ill?’

  ‘Ill? No!’ replied Kate. She was unprepared for so sudden an opening.

  ‘I mean, why was it Mrs. J. who brought in the dinner?’ he added.

  ‘Because Emma’s going,’ said Kate.

  ‘Going? Where to?’

  ‘Going for good. Leaving. This afternoon.’

  ‘Leaving?’ Ben’s eyes questioned her, blazing. ‘Who says she’s leaving?’

  ‘I say so,’ answered Kate.

  ‘But … but …!’ Ben was stuttering with surprise and indignation. ‘I’d like to hear something about this, please, Kate.’

  Kate met his angry glance firmly. ‘Are you quite sure you would, Ben?’ she asked significantly, and it seemed to him that those grey-green eyes, so calm but for the dangerous ghost that stirred vaguely behind their calmness, were gazing through him. His rising anger gave way to apprehension and then to shame. He could no longer sustain her scrutiny: his eyes glanced aside.

  ‘While I stay here,’ said Kate with quiet determination, ‘I am mistress here. That stands to reason, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why, of course! Of course!’ muttered Ben. He had shrunk for the moment into a foolish chapfallen old man.

  ‘George will have to take Emma into Elchester this afternoon,’ Kate went on, as though the thing was purely a matter of course. ‘The gig must be ready at half-past one.’ And a few minutes later, when Mrs. Jobson came in to take out the joint for the kitchen dinner, Kate said to Ben: ‘Hadn’t you better send a message to George now, by Mrs. Jobson, about the gig?’

  ‘Yes, to be sure!’ said Ben, shamefaced and obedient, and he turned to Mrs. Jobson. ‘You might tell George, Mrs. J.,’ he said, ‘to have the gig ready to go to Elchester at half-past one. Tell him he’ll have to drive and he’s not to mind about the things I told him to do here this afternoon.’

  That was the end of the matter: nothing more was said. Ben by his sudden and complete capitulation had chosen the wisest course, but he had also inevitably proved to Kate that her own suspicions and Emma’s hints were no less than the truth. As for Emma, she remained upstairs till the time of her departure, refusing sulkily to come down to dinner. Seeing from her bedroom window that George was harnessing the mare in the yard, she knew that Ben had acquiesced in her dismissal and that protest would be in vain. Mrs. Jobson went up, when the gig was ready, and helped her to carry down her box and, as she climbed into the gig, put a parcel of meat and bread on the seat beside her.

  XVI

  Three days later Kate was ironing sheets on the kitchen table. She had hung out the week’s washing that morning in the hot July sun and it was already almost dry. On the previous day in Elchester she had been fortunate enough to secure a girl to replace Emma, but the girl would not be free for over a week and so Kate and Mrs. Jobson were still doing all the work between them. During these days she had little time for thought, except when, as now, she was engaged in that kind of semi-mechanical work which encourages a flow of half-conscious, half-unconscious meditation. The knowledge she had gained from her quarrel with Emma and the disillusionment which it had caused her had wrought a profound change in her. She had little experience of life, and of men, except for Ben and her father, she knew nothing. Her mind was innocent and she believed implicitly in the innocence of
others. Ben’s second marriage a few months after his first wife’s death, and even his marriage with herself three years after the death of David’s mother, had seemed to her innocent heart a kind of infidelity which had provoked from her that cynical comment when Ben had shown her the old photograph-album; but such changefulness, she was ready to admit, betokened no more than a certain lack of deep affection in Ben’s nature. She had liked and respected him: he was kindly and cheerful and, like herself, thorough, energetic, and happy in his work; and even though his love, as she soon discovered, was more a thing of appetite than of the heart, at least marriage made it lawful. But now that she found he was also unfaithful and dishonest, that he had secretly and slyly deceived her with this girl who hated her, her pride was cut to the quick and her innocence horrified. She turned away from him with disgust, for it seemed to her that he had behaved towards her with unforgivable treachery. He had enticed her to The Grange on false pretences and having got her there he had deluded her with the outward semblance of an honest, happy, and respectable life. He had watched her, no doubt with a cynical amusement at her innocence, happily accepting his pretence, while all the time this hideous secret had been festering like some rank fungus at the very heart of their existence.

  At the first shock she had felt that she could not live with him a moment longer. But where was she to go? She could not return to the dry, joyless life with her father, to escape from which she had made so great a sacrifice. She would rather die than do that. And how could she leave Mrs. Jobson and the other friendly folk at the farm, and the happy, busy life of which she had become a part? How, above all, she asked herself with a thrill of the heart, could she go away and leave David? No: even though she hated and despised Ben, she must somehow tolerate him for the sake of all these things which had grown so precious to her.