The Devil and Mary Ann (The Mary Ann Stories)

by Catherine Cookson

‘I didn’t have to have much money, I passed for the Grammar School. Left when I was sixteen and got a grant to agricultural college. The little money that I did need had to be borrowed. I’ve still got to pay that back.’ His voice was bitter.

  ‘What’s happened to your grandmother?’

  Mary Ann waited for quite a while before she heard Tony mutter, ‘She died, a year ago.’

  ‘Damn good job, I should say.’

  Mike’s words had been quick, and Tony’s response was even quicker. ‘Shut up! Don’t you dare say that. I’ll have none of it. As I’ve said, you didn’t know her.’

  Mary Ann held her breath in the silence that followed. Her body was nerve-stiff, they were nearly fighting.

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.’ It was Mike speaking.

  Then after a moment Tony said, as if struggling with his emotion, ‘You didn’t know my grandmother, I repeat that, she was a wonderful person, but you know him, and yet you’re taking his part.’

  ‘Aye, I am in this. I know he’s a hard man, and I know if he sets his heart on anything he doesn’t care who he tramples on while getting it. But there’s another side to him, and I’ve had to admit this, as much as it’s irked me. Up to a point he’s just, and sometimes beyond the point. And you must remember this, lad, a man isn’t born hard – something makes him hard. Anyway, what I’d like to know is, why, if you hated him so much, did you seek him out?’

  ‘I didn’t seek him out. I came this way looking for a job. Oh, I know it looks like it. Perhaps I really did come this way to see him, I can’t tell exactly what my feelings were, but at the time I was looking for a job and was given three farms to go to. I didn’t know he had a farm. It was the name, Lord, that first suggested that this one might be his. Even the day I walked along the road I still didn’t know if I was on the right track, but as soon as I saw him in the yard, then I knew.’

  ‘If he dies, what about it then? Will you claim?’

  Mary Ann stiffened – they thought he was going to die.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll have some job proving your case. Your grandmother gone, your parents gone. Anyway, if he survives what’s to stop the old boy saying that you’re a fraud? How can you prove your mother was his daughter, couldn’t she have been the other fellow’s?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Mary Ann could feel them looking at each other.

  ‘I think you’re his grandson all right. Something puzzled me about you from the first. I couldn’t quite place it. It was your temper, your manner when vexed – it’s just like his.’ Mike gave a soft, consoling sort of laugh, and then he said, ‘Well, whichever way things go there’s going to be an upheaval.’

  ‘Do you think I had better go?’

  ‘Go? What in the hell are you talking about! How can you go now?’ Mike’s voice was harsh. ‘Don’t you realise that it’s the fact that the old boy recognised you as his that brought the attack on? What’s going to happen if he comes round and you’re not here? You wait a minute’ – Mary Ann could see her da in her mind’s eye, holding up his hand – ‘let me have me say. You’ve got to face him. And what’s more, and I say this, you’ve got to hear his side of the affair. You needn’t go black in the face. Anyway, you knew there’d got to be a showdown some day. I feel that’s what you came here for.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ The protest was vehement.

  ‘Well, why the hell were you messing about with that trunk?’

  ‘Because my grandmother used to talk about when she was first married, and how, in her lonely hours, she would wander about that great house waiting for him coming home, and likely as not, end up in the attics. She happened to mention the old black trunks with the quaint brass bands, and it was because I thought I might find something of hers that I looked in them.’

  ‘I’m sorry to keep harping on about this’ – Mike’s voice was plainly sarcastic – ‘but from what I’ve heard she wasn’t the kind of girl that would spend her time sitting in an attic waiting.’

  ‘Do you know how old she was when she married him? Seventeen. After the honeymoon she sat at home like a good wife for nearly a year, and then she realised that she could go on sitting like that for the rest of her life. There were times she didn’t see him for days – he would sleep at the office – but when he came home he’d expect to find her there.’

  ‘Couldn’t she understand what he was going through? He was trying to save his business.’

  ‘Get a beautiful woman in her twenties to understand that when a man won’t go near her for days on end. You say I have no experience – I know this much of human nature. Five years is a long time when you’re young. She had nothing to do but spend money.’

  ‘And not caring a damn that she was taking it out of a swiftly sinking ship.’ Such was the tone of Mike’s voice that Mary Ann’s muscles jerked and she would have turned round and spoken in order to break up their conversation, but at that moment she heard the door burst open and Michael’s voice say quickly, ‘Da! Me ma wants you to go into Newcastle with the doctor.’

  There were no more words between Tony and Mike, and a moment later she heard the door close again and she knew that Michael had gone back with her da. She had the desire to turn round and look at Tony, but something kept her with her face to the wall, and then she heard an odd sound, mixed with the scraping of the chair on the stone floor. Then came the very faint but recognisable sound of crying, the smothered difficult crying like their Michael did . . . Tony was crying! He was a grown-up, like her da, and he was crying! Her ma could cry; their Michael could cry; but not her da, not men; and Tony was a man. The situation had become such that she felt she was unable to deal with it, so she lay stiffly staring at the wall while the quietly muffled sound went on.

  Chapter Eleven

  The school holidays had started, as was evident in the back streets of Jarrow. Tumbling, gambolling, squatting groups covered the pavements, and the roads, and as Mary Ann threaded her way amongst them, often being pushed or jabbed and returning the thrusts with interest, she thought: I wish I was home. She had been sent on errands to the butcher’s, the chemist’s, and the Home and Colonial, and in all three she’d had to wait. Waiting always irked her, and now she gladly saw the bus stop ahead. In another minute or so she’d be on the bus and back home and be experiencing once again the waiting feeling. She was thinking about this waiting feeling that was permeating the farm, when her mind was swept clear of the sombre issues by being brought swiftly to a personal one, and one that set her mouth agape. Then, coming towards her, was none other than Sarah Flannagan, but not accompanied by her mother or her cronies, but by – two lads.

  Mary Ann’s eyes widened; her mouth contracted again and slowly formed an ‘O’ and her eyebrows went up even farther. In this moment she did not know what to expect. Would Sarah Flannagan stop and attack her, aided by her male escort? If so, she was lost. Reluctantly she kept walking, every step bringing her nearer to the trio, until they were almost abreast. And not till then did she realise that something was wrong with Sarah Flannagan. She knew Sarah wasn’t blind – she had second sight where she herself was concerned – but she wasn’t seeing her! She was looking straight ahead. One of the boys was talking to her while the other moved silently along, his head down and his hands in his pockets, yet seemingly, and this was evident to Mary Ann, seemingly pleased to be where he was.

  How anyone could want to be with Sarah Flannagan was quite beyond the powers of Mary Ann to understand. These two lads must be daft.

  The three were abreast of her now, and she stared pop-eyed at them. Could it be that Sarah Flannagan was sick, ill, or had she really been struck blind, for she was going past without a word, without even a look? The only sign that could be taken for recognition, Mary Ann’s hypnotised stare told her, was the slight lift of Sarah’s chin. They were past, and Mary Ann was brought to a stop and forced round to stare at the three receding backs, walking all very decorously along the
street. And then it dawned on her . . . Eeh! Sarah Flannagan had a lad. Eeh! Sarah Flannagan was going with a lad. Eeh, two lads!

  This astounding knowledge seemed to press heavily on her, and her steps, as she approached the bus stop, were weighed down. She couldn’t get over it. For the first time in their lives she and Sarah had passed each other without a blow or a word, and all because Sarah Flannagan had a lad. There was something here that needed strong concentration and, of course, some condemnation. You shouldn’t have lads, not when you were only nine or ten. But then Sarah was eleven. Perhaps when you were eleven you could have a lad. Suddenly she remembered Sammy Walker. Sammy Walker had been in her class last year in Jarrow, and he would sometimes give her a sweet. But there were times when he didn’t and pinched her bottom. She didn’t like Sammy Walker. Yet she did like Bobby Denver. But Bobby Denver never looked the side she was on.

  The bus came, and it was a very puzzled Mary Ann who took a seat, as was her wont, near the front, so she could think by herself. If Sarah Flannagan had a lad, why shouldn’t she have a lad? If she went back to Jarrow School next term and Bobby Denver was in the same class . . . Her thoughts came to an abrupt stop. She didn’t want to go back to Jarrow School next term, even if she did want to see Bobby Denver and he should take it into his head to slip her sweets. Perhaps she could get another lad. If Sarah Flannagan could have two, then why not her? Why not! She’d ask her ma when she got home. She would say to her, ‘Ma, how old have I to be afore I can have a lad?’

  For the rest of the journey her mind was taken up, apart from Bobby Denver, in selecting a lad. Fat ones, thin ones, dirty ones, and clean ones, she went over all the boys she knew, but somehow she didn’t fancy any one of them, and by the time she approached the farm, even Bobby Denver no longer appeared desirable.

  She was coming under the influence of the waiting feeling again.

  She had just reached the cottages when she saw her mother. She was some way down the road from their gate and was waving frantically to her. On the sight of her Mary Ann sprinted forward, her mind saying, ‘Eeh! What’s up now?’ As she neared her, Lizzie’s hand came out and grabbed at the basket. This she put down straight away on the road, then automatically began to straighten Mary Ann up as she talked, her words low and rapid. ‘Now listen: you’re to go the house, he wants to see you. And mind—’

  ‘Me? Mr Lord . . . he wants to see me?’

  ‘Yes . . . what am I telling you! By, you’ve been some time. Where have you been? It’s over an hour since he asked for you.’

  ‘I had to wait in the chemist and the Home and Colonial, Ma.’

  ‘Let me have a look at your hands . . . Here!’ Lizzie wetted her apron and rubbed at a mark on Mary Ann’s palm. ‘Now there you are, you’re all right. Now mind, listen to what I’m saying. Mind your p’s and q’s and be careful what you say.’

  Mary Ann made no reply to this, she only stared wide-eyed at her mother, but she did ask, ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘As right as he’ll be for some time. Don’t be cheeky, don’t fidget, just speak when you’re spoken to, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  Mary Ann made to move hastily off when Lizzie grabbed at her, and stooping down and pulling her foot up, she quickly dusted her shoes, one after the other, gave another tug to her coat, another touch to her hat, another push, and said, ‘Go on. And mind, be civil to Ben.’

  Mary Ann had no time to think, no time to wonder what she was going to say. As if she had been dropped from the wind she found herself at the back door of the house, and it would seem that Ben had been standing behind the door waiting for her knock, for immediately he opened it and looked down on her. His face was the same as ever, grim as the grave, yet now, it seemed to Mary Ann as if it was older. How that had come about she didn’t know, for to her mind Ben could get no older, he was as old as old. Without a word she stepped into the kitchen. She hadn’t been in the house since the furniture came in, and now she scarcely recognised it. It was like one of them kitchens in a magazine, all colour and light, and the woman in her said that such a kitchen as this would be lost on such a man as old Ben. Now if her ma had it . . .

  Ben, too, like her mother, was looking at her clothes. He pushed her hat to one side, in the opposite direction to that which Lizzie had placed it; he pulled her coat straight; and he, like Lizzie, looked at her hands. Then he spoke. ‘Come along,’ he said.

  Mary Ann came along through the hall, splendid with its antique furniture. There were no big bits from the other house, only little bits, she noticed, tables with curved legs, chests against the walls, with brass standing on them. Then up the stairs, deep and soft to her feet, the colour startling to her eyes, cherry red, and this against startling white walls, with bits of gold here and there.

  Such was the change in the house that the furniture and decorations had made that for a moment or two her mind forgot why she was here. Then they were on the landing, big, too, as big as the kitchen and again all white and yellow and cherry. Then a pause before a door, and Ben’s wrinkled face coming close to hers, his breath hot on her cheek as he muttered, ‘Mind you be careful. Don’t upset him.’

  She did not answer but gave the slightest shake of her head. Then Ben tapped on the door and they were in the room.

  The first thing Mary Ann saw was not Mr Lord but a nurse, a great big nurse, nearly as big as her da, and when she smiled, her smile was big, too, cheerily big, and when she spoke her voice matched everything about her.

  ‘Ah! There you are,’ she said. ‘Now you mustn’t stay long, ten minutes, that’s a good girl. Go on.’

  Before Mary Ann moved towards the bed, over the foot of which she had not yet raised her eyes, she looked back at Ben. But Ben was looking at the nurse and it was evident to Mary Ann that he disliked her as much as he had, at one time, disliked herself. It wasn’t until the door closed on them both that she looked over the bottom of the high bed to the propped-up figure, and such was her relief that she nearly blurted out her thoughts: Eeh! He didn’t look much different, only thinner, perhaps, and whiter. But that, likely was his nightshirt that was buttoned up to his chin. The look in his eyes was as she remembered it, penetrating and hard. But she didn’t mind this for he was seeing her; he was not pretending that she wasn’t there. Slowly she walked round the bed and to the head, and there they were, close together again, his hand only a few inches from hers.

  His eyes had never left her face, and although she remembered that she hadn’t to talk, the silence between them was really unbearable and she said, very softly, ‘Hallo.’

  Mr Lord did not speak, but lifting his hand slowly from the coverlet, he pointed to a chair, and Mary Ann, realising that if she sat in it she would be unable to see him, gently and with some effort, lifted it round. Then, getting onto it, she sat up straight. But even so he seemed miles away.

  ‘Sit here.’

  Mary Ann stared in surprise. ‘On the bed?’

  He did not reply, but pointed to the chair, indicating that she could stand on it to reach the bed. This she did and when she let herself down very gently, near his legs and with her face now almost on a level with his, only with an effort did she stop herself from laughing and saying, ‘Eeh! What if Ben comes in?’

  ‘How are you?’ His voice was very low and thin, not a bit like she remembered it.

  To this polite inquiry she blinked her eyes. That’s what she should have asked him.

  ‘I’m all right, thank you. How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right, too.’

  He didn’t look it, not now, for though he didn’t look as bad as she had expected him to look, close to like this he looked awful. The silence fell heavily between them again, and she became a little embarrassed under his stare and sought in her mind for a topic of conversation which they both could share. Then a brainwave, as she put it, made her remember the nurse, and she asked, but very quietly, ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘Nice? Who?’ His brow puckered.
r />   ‘The nurse.’

  It was evident immediately that she had said the wrong thing – the nurse mustn’t be nice – for she felt his legs jerk to one side and his head moved impatiently on the pillow. Then he said, ‘I didn’t send for you to talk about the nurse.’

  ‘No? Oh.’

  ‘No. I want an explanation.’

  ‘An explanation?’

  ‘You heard what I said.’ He took a few short breaths. ‘Are you sorry for your escapade?’

  Mary Ann’s head dropped and she started to pluck at the bed cover with her fingers, pulling at the threads of a hand-woven design. ‘Yes, I’m very sorry – very.’

  ‘You didn’t like the school?’

  Her head was still lowered as she answered, ‘It wasn’t that, I did like the school except Sister Catherine and a girl there, but—’ She stopped. She’d better not tell him about her da and Mrs Polinski, that would make him mad, so she finished, ‘I missed everybody. I wanted to be home.’

  ‘That wasn’t the only reason, was it?’

  She raised her eyes to his and was forced to say, ‘No.’

  He did not press her any further, but moved again with some impatience, then said, ‘They’ll push you out in a few minutes. I want to ask you something. And mind’ – he stopped again and took some breaths – ‘I want a truthful answer.’

  She looked up and watched him strain his neck out of his nightshirt, then her eyes dropped to his hands, for very much as her own had done, his were plucking at the bedcover. ‘That boy—’ There was a pause, and he started again, his voice rasping, ‘That boy on the farm, do you like him?’

  Her face must have shown her surprise, for he demanded, in a voice that was much stronger, ‘Well?’

  ‘You mean Tony?’ She waited then went on, ‘Yes, I like Tony very much.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos he’s nice.’