The Branded Man

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Did you tell her you were expecting her back?’

  ‘Of course. Of course I did.’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what to believe. I think there’s something fishy going on. McAlister’s only been here three times in the last fortnight. He tells me he’s working on something quite big. That might be so, but he’s changed too. It couldn’t be that he’s missing Sarah, could it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Grandpa.’ Her tone was high, her voice stiff, and when he added, ‘Could there be anything between them, do you think? You know what I mean?’ she actually shouted, ‘Yes; yes, I know what you mean, Grandpa, and I still say I…I don’t know.’

  When the break came in her voice he looked directly at her but said nothing. Then he watched her turn from him and hurry to the door, mumbling, ‘I’m…I’m going up to the nursery.’

  The old man twisted around in the bed, which movement brought on a spasm of coughing. This over, he lay looking towards the fire. So that was it, was it? He recalled to mind the little dramatic scene on the day of the christening, when that good fellow owned up to never having been kissed by a woman. He himself had been greatly touched by that and the courage of the man who could openly confess to such an omission, if that’s what it was. And he had kissed Miss Foggerty as if he meant it. Oh yes; yes, he had. And if his memory was recalling aright the expression on her face, that woman had enjoyed it too.

  Now if such was the case, what about his dear Mary Anne? Where did she stand in this? Apparently on the outside. That would come as another blow in her life. First, being cast out by her mother and into the dubious care of that woman in London; then being raped; and rape it must have been, because he couldn’t imagine the child willingly acceding to such a thing. And then the trauma of that period of poverty, only to be brought back to suffer the murderous attack by her brother. Surely she could never have come through without Sarah Foggerty. And now where was that woman? Supposedly looking after her sister. There must be something behind all this…He moved uneasily in the bed as he thought, Here comes that blasted nurse. I can always tell; she has flat feet.

  He sighed deeply.

  Two days later the final letter came. It began:

  Dear Marie Anne,

  You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? I won’t be returning to the house. I knew I wouldn’t when I left because by then all my thinking on the matter had been done, and I know I’ve chosen the wisest course.

  But there’s one thing you can be sure of Marie Anne; I shall always love you. For a period you were my child, my daughter, and my friend. But that period is finished, and from now on you can start a new life, and if you are wise you will not hide your feelings. I’m sure you know what I mean.

  Please don’t worry about me. I’m all right; and I’m with my family again. Also I have got part-time employment. Having said all this, it is not to say that I won’t miss you so very much, and, too, all those kind people in your house, especially your grandfather. If you should get talking to him some time, give him my love, because I found him a very lovable man.

  Goodnight, my dear, and God bless you always.

  Your Sarah.

  Marie Anne crushed the letter against her chest and her mind cried, No! No! Oh Sarah! Sarah! What am I to do? What am I to do?

  She began to pace about the room like someone demented: she couldn’t tell her grandfather that Sarah wasn’t coming back, nor could she tell her father, for her father would be looking for more reasons than would her grandfather. She could talk about this to Pat; but Pat was in Newcastle working, as was her father. She could go to Evelyn; but then again, although Evelyn was much changed, she was bound to think as their mother had done, that she courted disaster, that her very presence caused discord. Hadn’t it been apparent since she was a child?

  She stopped in her tramping. There was Don.

  Oh, how could she go to him? She’d have to tell him the truth, that is if he didn’t already guess it, for the few times in the last fortnight he had called at the house, there had been little warmth in his greeting of her. Oh, he had been polite, yes studiously so, but it was only he who knew Sarah and who might have some influence on her …

  Don had just finished a cold meal when the knock came; and he was wiping his mouth with his handkerchief as he opened the door; then the surprise showed in his voice: ‘Marie Anne!’ he said ‘Oh, come in. Come in. I’m…I’m sorry’—he motioned towards the table—‘I was still eating.’

  ‘I’ve interrupted your meal?’

  ‘Not at all. Not at all. It was just a cold snack; and I was about to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?’

  ‘No thanks; not now.’

  For a moment he looked closely at her, then said, ‘Sit down, please,’ and he motioned to the couch that was already pulled up at an angle towards the fire in which logs were blazing merrily. He moved to one side the little table on which lay his dinner tray; then he drew up a chair and sat facing her.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked.

  She drooped her head as she murmured, ‘Yes, Don; yes, something’s very wrong. I’ve…I’ve had a letter from Sarah: she says she’s not coming back.’ She swallowed deeply here before looking up at him and adding, ‘Apparently she has known she wasn’t coming back from the day she left and’—again she swallowed—‘and I’m to blame.’

  He did not say, Oh, I wouldn’t say that, or, Why d’you blame yourself? but just waited; and after another session of gulping she went on, ‘I’ve been deluding myself, telling myself I’m a sensible person who wouldn’t take umbrage at silly things. Well, I know now that I’m not a sensible person and that I do take umbrage at silly things. At times I am petty in my attitude to people, mostly those that I love, and I love Sarah. I still love Sarah, and always will, and yet I could act as I did to her. You see, I know why she left.’

  Her eyes wide and bright, her lips trembling, she waited for him to say, Do you? But when he spoke he didn’t ask a question, he made a statement.

  ‘I do too,’ he said.

  She now felt the colour seeping over her face, but she couldn’t take her eyes from him as he went on, ‘She impetuously kissed me and I returned it, and with fervour and gratitude. Yes, and meaningfully and gratefully because she was the only woman who had ever kissed me. The whole incident might have appeared stagey to all those present, but I didn’t think about that at the time, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had because, through my confession, I knew I was returning a little happiness to a woman who has spent her life unselfishly giving happiness to others. She is such a good woman, and at that moment I loved her, and I still do. There’s all kinds of love, and I repeat, I still do. From when I first met her I realised that her life was made up partly, or mainly, of an act: she was out to please, to make others happy, to create laughter. I knew that, and I thought there was someone else who did too, and that someone else I imagined was you.’

  The tears were now running unbidden down her cheeks. His words were tearing her apart, but she didn’t ask herself why she was sitting here suffering them, in spite of being aware that whatever chance she had had of him ever kissing her, of ever owning up to his love for her, she had killed. And his next words seemed to put a stamp on it, for he said, ‘I thought you would understand, knowing her so well, and knowing me’—he paused—‘not a little. But whatever you conveyed to her in your look must have shaken her very deeply for her to take the steps she did, because I think she assumed you knew that she would never do anything in this world to hurt you, that you would always come first with her, no matter what her own feelings were. Then, by your look or your manner, or whatever you did—and here I must tell you I’m just putting my own interpretation on it—I think she must have felt that she was no longer the close, wonderful friend of this young woman, but was merely her servant who had stepped out of line and who was making a fool of herself in front of guests. Moreover she was taking advantage of her association with me. But as for that, I must say that n
othing could be further from the truth, for if I were to claim a deep friendship with anyone in your household, or back during our short acquaintance in London, say, it would have been with her, for ever since we first met in Ernie’s Eating House she has looked me straight in the face. She looked at me then as if the mask and the slouch hat didn’t exist. To her I was a man. It is rarely that I have had that response when a woman has peered under the felt hat, before turning her gaze swiftly away.’

  Marie Anne’s face was awash with tears. Her head bowed, she sprang up from the couch, crying quite loudly, ‘Stop it! Stop it! You are being cruel. All the time you are being cruel. I came here to ask…to ask for your help. I knew I had done wrong and I felt low enough in my own estimation, but now you have left me with not even any self’– she choked and gasped before she could bring out the word—‘respect; and let me tell you,’ her head was up now and she licked the tears from her lips before nodding at him as she said, ‘I can do without your advice because, like Sarah, I knew before I came here what I should do, and I’ll do it, and I’ll tell you—’ She was gulping again as she searched in the deep pockets of her overcoat for her handkerchief. Then dabbing her face with it, she repeated, ‘And I’ll tell you this. As I listened to you pontificating, I thought it was a pity that you hadn’t become a priest or a monk or a Brother or some such, so that you could find a real outlet for your domination. And finally, and this is my last word to you, why, I ask you, did you bring me back from the grave with the talk of needing me, your only real friend?’ Her mouth was now agape; her eyes were wide and unblinking as she stared into his face; then her mouth clamping shut and her eyes screwing tight, she swung about and ran blindly towards the door.

  But he was there before her, and his arms about her shoulders and his voice soft, he said, ‘Marie Anne. Marie Anne.’

  She was actually wailing now, her crying unrestrained.

  Gently, he led her back to the couch. When she dropped onto it, she laid her forearms on the arm and drooped her head onto them; and thus he let her stay for a minute or so.

  When he pulled her round to him and cradled her head on his shoulder, holding her with one arm, he took the pin from her hat, which had gone askew on the back of her head, and threw them aside. Then, his arms about her, he held her close, saying soothingly, ‘There now. There now. It’s all right. It’s much better out…That’s what I would like to do at times, too. Crying is a wonderful cleanser, so why is a man considered weak if he indulges in it? There now. There now.’ Gently he brought her face upwards and with a clean handkerchief he wiped it, talking softly the while: ‘I’m so glad you came. I was lonely for the sight of you, but mad at you for losing Sarah; yet all the time understanding why you lost your temper; and it was temper, wasn’t it? I’ve been told that you have a real devil of a temper.’ He was smiling gently at her; but she didn’t respond, for she was still full of pain; and so he went on, ‘And why Sarah went off as she did. Then I have been so cruel to you when you came asking me for advice. Well, only I know why I reacted so, and now is not the time to tell you, not yet anyway. You are the mother of a baby, but you are also just seventeen; you imagine childbirth made you into a complete woman; but you must know that your grandpa, your father, and even Pat, all still consider you a very young girl, even still a child not yet touched by life. Now, what do you think would happen if I were to go to them and open my mind about you? What! A man of my age, and appearing as I do—for God knows what they imagine lies under the mask—and asking for the hand of their fledgling? I would be shown the door.’

  She made no response whatsoever, other than to stare into his eyes.

  He leaned forward and touched her red lids with his fingertips, saying, ‘You’ll have to wash your face in cold water before you go home or the questions will be flying at you, especially from your grandfather. And another thing, my dear, I could kiss you now and you would be the second woman I have kissed, but I would kiss you as you’ve never been kissed before. Yet you don’t want me to, because you’d hardly be out of the door than you’d be telling yourself it was only because I was sorry for you; or that it was a way of apologising for being so harsh, or it was an aftermath of all that has happened. When I do kiss you, Marie Anne, it’s not going to leave any such thoughts in your head, I assure you.’ He now smiled at her before continuing, ‘I don’t know if this is the priest, the monk or the Brother speaking, but I only know it’s taken a lot of their willpower to make me talk and act as I’m doing at this moment, when all I desire to do is something entirely different. But it is not the time.’

  He now brought her hands together and held them to his chest as he asked her, ‘Tell me what you intend to do.’

  She drew in a long breath before she said quietly, ‘Go up to London and try to bring her back.’

  ‘Yes; I thought you might do something like that, and I think it’s the only way you will get her back; and you know in your heart that things will never be the same unless she returns.’

  Still holding her hands, he pulled her up from the couch, saying briskly, ‘Go and wash your face; and while you’re doing that I’ll write a short letter to Sarah.’

  She made no response to this, but went into the kitchen, and he, going up the room to the writing desk, sat down, pulled a piece of paper towards him and wrote simply:

  Sarah, dear,

  Your sacrifice has backfired, because I know she won’t have anything to do with me unless you return. And let me tell you, you are much missed in that house. The old man is lost; he is very unwell with bronchitis and seems to be giving everyone hell. As for me, I am lonely, for there is a space in me which only you can fill. Come back, my dear.

  Come back.

  Yours,

  Don.

  After he had sealed it, he rose to his feet, to see Marie Anne standing by the couch pinning on her hat. He went to her and, handing her the letter, he said, ‘It’s just a note. Will you give it to her?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘When will you be going?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Are you letting her know you are coming?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s the best way.’ He now made an impulsive movement towards her and, putting his hands on her shoulders, he said softly, ‘Marie Anne…Marie Anne, I wouldn’t have you hurt for all the world. Believe me. When you come back, things…things will be different, you’ll see. You’ll be happy again. I promise you. In the meantime I shall look forward to your eighteenth birthday, all the while gathering the courage to present my credentials. You understand?’

  He now let loose of her, saying, ‘Wait a minute; I’ll get my coat, I’ll walk to the house with you. I won’t come in.’

  ‘No! No!’ she protested, and with her hands raised as if warding him off. ‘I…I want to think. And there’s much arranging to be done before tomorrow.’

  He opened the door for her; and just as he had watched Sarah walk away, now he watched Marie Anne. But on his closing the door, his reactions were different: he did not stand with his back to the door and damn her, but after walking towards the fire and staring down into it, he began to stroke the side of his mask, the while thinking, it’ll all depend. She’ll have to see this first and what she’d have to live with.

  Two

  Marie Anne arrived in London at three o’clock the following afternoon. Less than half an hour later a cab deposited her at the opening to Ramsay Court, and as the ever-pervading smell of the yard struck her, that smell that was re-created daily by hot cinders meeting wet rubbish, she experienced the strangest feeling: she had come home. Gone were the years before her short sojourn in this yard and the time since she had left it, for it seemed to her that she had had no life other than that which she had spent here, because every minute of it passed through her mind in a series of bright episodes.

  There was no-one in the yard, not even children scampering about; lavatory doors were all ajar; there were no poss tubs outside the wash-h
ouses or the sound of mangles grinding.

  When she entered the hallway she stood still for a moment looking up the stairs, for here she was being enveloped in a different smell, that of cooking, cabbage water, and the odour of bodies in close proximity.

  On the second landing she stood opposite Annie’s door. She was panting slightly with the unusual exertion and she was also shivering inside as if fearful of her reception. Her knocking on the door was more in the nature of a tap, yet it was quickly opened, and there stood Annie, looking aghast but exclaiming, ‘Dear God in heaven! Where’ve you sprung from?’ Then, ‘Well I never! Come in. Come on in.’

  Except for the youngest child the room was empty.

  There was no sight or sound of Sarah.

  ‘Sit down, won’t you? Well, I never! Of all the shocks to get. Last night we sat talking about you until the small hours. He’s away on a job and the children were in bed. Eeh!’—she put a hand to her brow—‘I can’t believe it. D’you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, I could do with a cup of tea, Annie, thank you.’

  ‘Just a second while I put the kettle on.’

  During the time it took Annie to fill the kettle and put it on the fire, Marie Anne looked about the room. It was so familiar. Everything was in the same place as she had last seen it, and that was almost a year ago, but the youngest child was no longer in the wash-basket, but standing in the far corner holding on to a small chair which she was aiming to push towards her, until her mother cried, ‘Stop that! Rose. Sit down! Be a good lass.’

  The child sat down, but still held on to the chair, and Annie explained, ‘She’s learnt herself to walk by pushing that thing. Himself says he’s going to buy her one of those scooter things, as she’s always wanting to use her legs…There you are, then! We’ll let it brew for a minute,’ and she patted the teapot on the hob, before sitting down opposite Marie Anne and saying, ‘Eeh, girl…miss! I can’t get over it.’