South Riding

by Winifred Holtby

  And her gratitude for the relief of these afflictions steeled her to make her statutory visits. She could look without flinching at the padded rooms where frenzied creatures tore wildly at the leather which at once protected and imprisoned them. She could pass from bed to bed where bodies lay, like houses tenantless, bereft of all but a strange physical survival. She could even face the more harrowing experience of refusing the pleas of the intermittently sane.

  They came to her with trust in her honest kindliness.

  “Oh, Mrs. Beddows! You know who I am. You know I am as sane as you are. Please, get me out of here. I’m not mad. I’m not mad.”

  There were others who had accepted their defeat. They greeted her as a familiar friend with touching dignity. She knew now the eccentricities of the patients. She was prepared to collaborate in their life-long dreams. She asked after Kate Theresa, the lively kitten now growing into a fat spoiled playful cat, the darling of the bedridden old women. She paid the requisite compliments to the farmer’s wife, who tied up her hair with artificial flowers and thought that all the doctors were in love with her. She comforted Miss Tremaine, the saintly deaconess, who wept all day at the thought of Mortal Sin. She stroked the cheek of the “baby” held by Mother Maisie, who had killed her own child eighteen years ago in the basement scullery where it was born, and who ever since had crooned and hungered over a roll of towels cuddled in her arms. She played the pitiful games of make-believe, doing it for Carne’s sake. Because of her friend she must, she felt, help those who shared his suffering.

  But the day tired her. Standing here with Matron on the top corridor of the Administration Block—she had been brought here to see the site for the new cisterns—she sighed as she looked down into the November garden. So much sorrow seemed to lie below her. Her ankles ached with tramping the stone corridors; her heart ached with the thought of work unfinished. The matron was telling her about the children’s wing. It was overcrowded. There were thirty children at least who did not need such close confinement.

  “When will you give us a country home for them? There are several who are really almost normal.”

  “Oh, one day. Soon, I hope. Ask Alderman Snaith.”

  The consciousness of her three-score-years-and-ten arose and smote her. There was so much to do that she must leave undone.

  She fought her lassitude, summoning her resources of valiant optimism.

  “I hope you’ve got a nice cup of tea for me when we’re through this? Any lemon buns?”

  “If Mr. Tubbs hasn’t eaten them all.”

  “Come on, then. Let’s see. Just the voluntary patients’ ward now, haven’t we?”

  “That’s all. Yes—do go there. There’s a Mrs. Ford of Cold Harbour who’s always asking for you—a sad case—intermittent melancholia and attempted suicide. She tried to hang herself two months ago. Such a nice woman.”

  They descended the stairs and traversed a covered bridge into another block. Here on the third floor a wide glass-roofed gallery was surrounded by the small cubicle bedrooms of the women paying patients. It was comfortably furnished with easy-chairs, bright pictures, plants in pots and magazines on the table. Here women sat knitting, reading, writing; one played patience; at a corner table a bridge game was in progress. As Mrs. Beddows entered, she heard “Three hearts.”

  “Double three hearts.”

  The place might have been a women’s club, except that by the table an attendant was showing a small girl how to knit. When the door opened the child turned her head and her face was the face of a woman of sixty-five.

  From her game of patience rose a tall handsome woman. Her black dress was neat, her dark grey hair was coiled in a dozen plaits round her stately head. Dignity and authority moved with her. She walked like a queen.

  “Alderman Mrs. Beddows?” she asked gravely. “You don’t remember me?”

  “Mrs. Ford?” Prompted by the matron Mrs. Beddows smiled. An over-brilliant pleasure lit the woman’s sombre beauty. “You remember me?”

  “You lived at Cold Harbour?”

  “Twenty years ago. In the house by the Willows. Your boys used to come and play with mine.”

  “Of course. I do remember. Dick and Eddie Ford. They used to go spiking for flaties in the mud.”

  “Aye, and what a mess they got their boots in. There was your Dick.”

  “He’s in Australia.”

  “We called them the two Dicky birds. And Willie . . .”

  “He’s a widower. He lives with me now.”

  “And Bertie, the best of the family. He stayed on with my boys.”

  “He—what?”

  Bertie was Emma Beddows’ favourite!—the boy who might have been brilliant as Chloe, if he had not coughed his life away with gas poison in a military hospital at Etaples. He had not been nineteen.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Ford said eagerly. “They all went to France— your boy and mine, and liked it so much they decided to stay there. Mine have come to see me two or three times, but they always go back again. And Bobbie Carne. He went too, but then, he came back. A pity he left poor Mrs. Carne behind. Do you remember her? Such a pretty creature. It didn’t suit her to be left behind. He should have taken her.” She sighed deeply. “You know, I’ll tell you something. She couldn’t stand it. She went off her head. Lovely she was—and brave, afraid of nothing—a great rider to hounds. Now she’s hunted herself. They say the mad are happy. Don’t believe it. I’ve seen—I’ve seen some things in my life. She’ll never be better. No more use to her husband. What’s a woman for if she’s no use to her husband? Better be dead, I say. Better be dead.”

  “Yes, we know you feel like that,” the matron began soothingly, but Mrs. Ford silenced her with a queenly gesture.

  “Why does God do it?” she asked. “Mrs. Beddovvs, I’ve asked Him. I’ve talked to Him, as woman to man; I’ve reasoned with Him, asking Him the question. Where’s justice? Where’s mercy? Where’s the everlasting Providence? With him alone in that house and her shut away from him? Who’s to give him his tea when he comes in from a day’s hunting? With her longing for him and crying out to God? Poor thing, poor thing!” She raised her hands above her head and exclaimed with astonishing emphasis and passion. “I curse God for it. I curse Him. Let Him open the earth and let hell swallow me. Let Heaven open and rebuke me. I curse God.”

  The other women hardly lifted their heads. They tolerated each other’s eccentricities, absorbed in their own thoughts, patient and indifferent. The fury and drama of Mrs. Ford’s denunciation affected them no more than another’s magpie habit of kleptomania, or the gentle persistent indecency of a third.

  And suddenly Mrs. Ford was silent. The tears filled her fine eyes and rolled unchecked down her smooth sallow cheeks. The matron took her and led her to her cubicle. She lay down meekly and let herself be covered.

  “She’ll go to sleep now and be all right to-morrow. Every few days she’ll be like this,” said the matron. “Her husband left Cold Harbour after her first attack. They’ve been living in Hardrascliffe. She comes back here every so often, though sometimes she’ll be perfectly normal for months together. We can’t find out why she’s got Mrs. Carne so much on her mind. Curious, isn’t it? Apparently she used to go up to Maythorpe Hall to do sewing for her, and took a great fancy to her. That must be a sad case.”

  “It is,” said Emma Beddows.

  “Well. It’s always Mrs. Carne now that troubles her. It’s Mrs. Carne that’s shut away. Never herself.”

  “Oh, poor thing. Poor thing.”

  The sadness of life swirled about Emma Beddows in great engulfing waves.

  “Well. I don’t know. She still has her use in life, you know. She’s about the best influence we have here. Gentle, unselfish, wise. Wonderful with the other patients. A rare and fine personality. We don’t choose our way of service in this world,” said the matron.

  They were wandering now through the long corridors and across the garden towards her little room where she served tea
to visitors. Emma Beddows moved slowly.

  “She’s beginning to feel her age,” thought the matron. “I hear Maythorpe Hall’s coming on to the market,” she observed irrelevantly, her mind still busy with the problem of housing defective children.

  “Maythorpe?” Mrs. Beddows stopped dead.

  “So Dr. Flint heard from Dr. Campbell. He attends the Carne child, you know.”

  “Yes—but—Midge isn’t ill now?”

  “Well—she’s upset—and no wonder.”

  Why hasn’t he told me? What is this? Why haven’t I known? Mrs. Beddows wondered.

  “That accident up at school . . .”

  “An accident?”

  “Oh, nothing serious. One of the mistresses had a bad attack of hysteria. She laid open the child’s cheek with a ruler. Not very good for her. She’s an unstable little thing. Heredity bad, of course. We ought to have her here.”

  There was no malice in the matron’s calm voice. She believed in the remedial work done by psychiatrists at her hospital; residence there conveyed to her no sense of stigma.

  But Emma Beddows’ heart turned over, and rose, cold, to her throat.

  “She’s not bad? It’s not affected her mind?”

  “The mistress?”

  “Midge?”

  “Not yet.”

  Not yet. The placid ominous threat of the specialist. She could not forget it. And she could not bear it for Carne.

  Walking between the drooping cabbages, the neat raised dykes of celery, all the ordered ugliness of the asylum garden, she protested against her uneasy spirit.

  What if Carne had been right? What if this was the wrong school for Midge? What if Sarah Burton’s appointment had been a mistake? Carne had not wanted it. Mistresses in well-conducted schools do not cut children’s cheeks open with rulers. Why hadn’t she heard? Why hadn’t he told her? Because it was she who had persuaded him to send Midge to Kiplington? Anguish racked her.

  She followed the matron into her sitting-room and endured the greetings and excuses of Alderman Snaith and Councillor Tubbs, already installed with Dr. Flint and drinking tea.

  “Come in. Come in, Mrs. Beddows. I’ve left you a lemon bun.”

  “Here’s an angel cake made by one of our women. She worked in Ainsworth’s confectionery place. Marvellous cook. Try it.”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “Paranoia . . .”

  “Let me see, two lumps, Mrs. Beddows?”

  “Mrs. Beddows—you know Carne. We want you to persuade him to let us have Maythorpe Hall cheap.”

  She roused herself. The wounds to her pride and friendship smarted sharply, but she must learn the worst.

  “Matron was telling me. But I don’t think it would be suitable.”

  “Position’s excellent. Air good. Grand garden, and we need a farm for the men at Minton.”

  “But who said Carne was going to sell? No, no more to eat, thanks.”

  Food would choke her. She gulped down the blessed tea. Oh, why didn’t he tell me? she mourned.

  “It’s not official.” Anthony Snaith’s voice was precise and soothing. “The property really belongs to the bank that holds the mortgage. It’s been losing heavily. Carne’s done it well; the land’s in good condition, they say, though the house is pretty bad. But it’s been farmed extravagantly, and he can’t keep it up. I think we could get it very reasonably.”

  “But does Carne want to go?” Emma Beddows could force herself to ask just that.

  “Well. In the circumstances—the choice is hardly his. He could hold on a year or two, I suppose. I don’t know what his resources are—of course, this is strictly confidential.”

  “Ain’t it a bit dilapidated—the house, I mean?” asked Tubbs.

  “Yes. But we should have to make considerable alterations in any private house, and because this has been let go so badly, we should get it all the cheaper.”

  Tubbs sniggered.

  “It’s suitable enough in one way. Maythorpe’s always been a bit of a madhouse. It’ll be a real one now.”

  Oh, God, prayed Emma Beddows to that seat of incommunicable justice, you can’t let this happen. It’s too cruel.

  But whether the cruelty was to herself or to Carne, she hardly knew.

  She heard Snaith continue: “That’s why I feel it would be a good idea for us to press in every legitimate way the need for a new children’s home. In our visitor’s report, for instance. It will strengthen our hand with the finance committee.”

  She wanted to go home. She wanted to go to bed, to lie with her mind drugged happily by the absorbing incongruities of a Wild West romance, to forget this world in which doom fell inexorably, and men were cruel, and even benefit for defective children was bought at the price of ruin and defeat. She felt her age pressing upon her, with her swollen ankles and smarting eyes and aching knees. But something in her, stronger than disappointment or resentment or fatigue, controlled her actions.

  Her statutory visit over, she was driven by the Mental Hospital car to Yarrold station; but there, instead of catching the Kiplington train, she took a bus to Maythorpe. Jealousy, curiosity and determination to take her place as Carne’s intimate friend might move her a little, quicken her breath, scald with hot tears her eyeballs, stiffen her tongue; but overriding these ran her love, her generosity, her grief which was for him, not for herself.

  The Maythorpe drive seemed unusually long that evening. She felt as though she would never reach the dark bulk of the house, piled beyond the sad chestnuts and limes and sycamores. She was too weary even for speculation when she entered the open sweep of lawn and gravel before the porch, and saw a small saloon car standing there.

  Elsie opened the door.

  “Is your master in?”

  “Why, it’s Mrs. Beddows. Yes, do come in. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. One of your own kind.” Elsie liked the alderman, and, in her bustling welcome, had opened the dining-room door and thrust her in before Mrs. Beddows could ask: “And who’s the visitor?”

  Unannounced therefore, she entered the long shadowy room, lit at one end by fire and lamp-light. So far was it from door to fireplace that the alderman could at first see only the lamp and tea-tray on a low stand between the fire and the great table; then, as they turned towards her, she observed, seated comfortably in two arm-chairs, tea-tray between them, Robert Carne and a woman. For a second her mind leapt back for twenty years and she thought “Muriel!” But the firelight caught the red gleam of the woman’s curling hair, and she knew Sarah Burton.

  She had dragged herself there to comfort, warm, uphold him, to offer help with Midge and counsel about finance. She saw that he had already found a confidante.

  Her quick wits failed her.

  “Oh,” she gasped.

  They rose and came forward, Sarah quickly, Carne with his slow deliberation.

  “Oh, Mrs. Beddows. This is nice of you. Come to the fire.”

  His welcoming smile drew her forward; but some unrecognised shock withheld her.

  “I came to inquire after Midge.”

  “Oh, she’s practically all right again.”

  “How did you hear?” smiled Miss Burton.

  “You’ll have some tea?” Carne peered solemnly into the big silver pot. “This has gone a bit cold. I’ll get some fresh . . .”

  “Elsie’s looking after me,” Mrs. Beddows permitted herself that small satisfaction. She refused the low chair vacated by the head mistress and settled herself in one turned from the head of the table. “No. I always sit here, thank you. Robert knows I’ve no use for low chairs—don’t you?”

  She was establishing intimacy around her, shutting out Sarah, proving the ripe confidence of her old friendship.

  “I wish you’d tell me how you got to hear about Midge,” repeated Sarah, a little pucker of worry about her brows.

  “I suppose it might have been Wendy?” teased Mrs. Beddows.

  “But she doesn’t know. No one knows, unless her form h
as gossiped. I tried to stop them. But of course . . .”

  Girls will talk—you can’t trust Judy. I suppose I was a fool to keep it quiet.

  Candour and malice warred in Emma Beddows’ mind; candour won.

  “As a matter of fact, I heard to-day at the Mental Hospital, through Matron who’d got it from Dr. Flint, who’d heard from Campbell.”

  “I thought there was such a thing as professional secrecy,” said Sarah, a little bitterly.

  “Not in the South Riding. And after all, you’re a public institution. Ah, good, Elsie. Just how I like it.”

  The maid set the new teapot on the tarnished tray. Carne looked at his older visitor, then silently rose and went to the sideboard, returning with a whisky decanter.

  “You’d better have a pick-me-up,” he said. “Been visiting?”

  “Yes.”

  Her gratitude for his thoughtfulness was beyond reason. She watched his fine big hands measuring out the drink—the whisky, the tea. His fingers were still well kept, but a nail was broken; there was dirt ingrained in two deep cracks, and a scratch across the knuckles. He had been working. An impulse made her want to seize those hands, caress them weep over them, because she was so sorry for him and loved him so completely.

  All she said was: “Here. I’ve got to catch a bus back tonight, and you’ll have me up before my betters as drunk and disorderly.” She gave an unsteady little laugh, then turned to Sarah. “Now, I’ve heard the story that’s going round.” She told it. “You’d better let me have your version.”

  “Well”—Sarah plunged into the story. She told of Miss Sigglesthwaite and of her own unfulfilled desire that the woman would resign. She told of the A.S.S. and Midge’s part in it. With delicate tenderness for the father’s feelings, she gave her interpretation of the lonely child’s bid for popularity. Her low husky voice was appealing in its humour and vitality. It became obvious to Emma Beddows that Sarah was minimising her own efforts to set the trouble right. She was still nursing in her own house the shattered science mistress. She had visited Maythorpe that afternoon to bring home the partially restored Midge—now enjoying a pampered invalid tea upstairs in bed.