Feathers in the Fire

by Catherine Cookson

  When it was over Molly drew in a deep breath and said, ‘You made no mistake, it’s them all right, short and sharp. Lie still now, I won’t be a minute.’

  When she reached the kitchen Davie was brewing tea and she said abruptly, ‘You’d better leave that and get a move on if you want him to be here when it comes.’

  ‘Eh!’ He dropped the teapot on the table. ‘As near as that you think?’

  ‘Nearer. I wouldn’t take the trap, I’d just ride Benny, he’s fresh, you could be there in less than an hour.’

  Before she finished speaking he had grabbed up his coat from the door; but as he went to go out he looked towards the stairs. But she said abruptly, ‘There’s no time for that,’ and he turned and faced her for a moment, his face red and angry looking. Then he went out; but the next minute she was calling to him as she ran after him, ‘Look here, put these gloves on, the reins will sear your hands. They’re bad enough as it is.’

  He grabbed the gloves from her without thanks, and she stood for a second in the dark listening to his feet pounding the road as he ran towards the stables.

  An hour and a half later the child was born and Molly delivered it and cried joyfully as she saw the perfectly shaped feet slip out of the womb, ‘God in Heaven! I’ve never seen anything so quick in me life. Well! Well! would you believe it. Aw, lass, lass.’

  ‘Molly.’ Jane’s voice was a faint whisper.

  ‘Aye, lass. Aye, Miss Jane.’

  ‘Is . . . is it all right?’

  ‘All right? Why, it’s perfect. A little lass and it’s perfect. Hair on its head an’ all. Now lie still, lie still, don’t move, I’ve got me work cut out. An’ listen ’er, just listen ’er, she’s lettin’ you know she’s here.’

  She severed the cord and knotted it before wrapping the child in a warm sheet; then she attended to Jane, saying, ‘Lie still, lie still, the afterbirth will be comin’ away any time now. There, let’s wipe your face. By! you look bonny. Aye you do, white but bonny.’

  ‘Oh, Molly! Molly!’ Slow tears ran down Jane’s face. ‘Oh, Molly! Molly!’

  ‘There now! There now! Don’t start me on else I’ll flood us out.’

  ‘Molly.’

  ‘Aye, Miss Jane.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what I would have done without you, ever. Thank you, Molly.’

  Tears gushing from her eyes, Molly turned away abruptly, saying, ‘I told you, didn’t I? I told you, an’ as soon as he comes in the house he’ll go for me. Bubbling your eyes out, he’ll say, and upsettin’ her. That’s what he’ll say, he always blames me. Aw!’ Her tone changed as she bent over the white bundle. ‘Aw! but she’s lovely.’ She lifted it up and carried it to the bed, saying between sniffs, ‘Look. Look at her. Now just take her in your arms a minute, just a minute, ’cos I’ve got to get her cleaned up, she’s in a mess.’

  It was at this point that the door opened and Davie came in, and he stood stock still for a moment looking in amazement towards the two women and the child. Then he moved swiftly to the bed, and Molly stepped aside and went out of the room.

  Slowly now he dropped on to his knees and stared at the little wrinkled face peering out from the white sheet. Then looking at her he murmured, ‘Jane . . . Jane,’ and he kissed her gently and stroked her face while she gazed up at him, unable to speak. Slowly now he undid the wrapping round the child and looked down on its perfect limbs.

  ‘A girl,’ he said softly.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Mind? I wouldn’t mind if it was a heifer.’

  ‘Oh! Davie.’ Her face crumpled into a broken smile. ‘Don’t. You’re as bad as Molly. I . . . I don’t want to laugh, I feel so tired.’

  ‘Aw, my dear.’ As he took the child and laid it on the bottom of the bed there was a bustle outside the door as Molly announced her entry, and she came in, saying, ‘I’d better have it afore it needs a pick and shovel to get it clean.’

  He looked at her as she picked up the baby and bustled out again. He wanted to say, ‘Thanks Molly, thanks.’ And he would, later. He knelt again by the side of the bed and stroked the wet hair back from Jane’s forehead. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said. ‘Go to sleep, my dear, my very dear.’

  ‘Yes, Davie, I’ll go to sleep, I’m very tired, so tired. But the afterbirth hasn’t come yet.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, it’ll come in its own good time, and Doctor Cargill will be here shortly. By! he’ll get a gliff just like I did.’

  He watched her eyes close and her breathing get deeper. Then slowly she half opened her lids again and said in a thin, thin whisper, as if her thoughts were escaping in spite of herself, ‘You have never said you loved me, Davie, do you know that, not once. You have never said you love me.’

  The muscles of his face dropped as he stared down at her. Had he never said he loved her? But hadn’t he proved it in a hundred and one ways? Yet had he never said he loved her? No, he hadn’t, he hadn’t said it in so many words . . . Oh Jane! Jane! He went to put his lips on hers, but realised she was fast asleep, and slowly he rose from his knees and stood looking at her.

  He wasn’t given to soft words but he must try to put this thing into words to please her, for she herself put it into words every day. Women were queer cattle; all of them were queer cattle.

  The afterbirth didn’t come away. When Doctor Cargill arrived at nine o’clock that morning it showed no sign of coming. Two hours later when he left it still hadn’t come, and Davie returned to Hexham with him to collect some medicine that would help it on its way.

  By evening Jane was in a high fever and Davie sat by her side wiping her brow with a cold cloth.

  At six o’clock Will Curran took the trap into Hexham, and at half-past eight Doctor Cargill was again in the house, and everything was bustle. Sprinkling chloroform on a pad of cotton wool he held it above her face for a moment as he said, ‘Just breathe deeply and when you wake up everything will be all right.’

  But when she woke up everything wasn’t all right, for she was bleeding heavily. She held tightly on to Davie’s hands while she retched against the sickly sweet smell of the chloroform and Molly, under the direction of the doctor, wrung out cold cloths from a bucket of well water and placed them on her stomach in an effort to stop the flow of blood.

  Just before midnight before losing consciousness she whispered, ‘Davie! Davie!’ and, his face close to hers, he said, ‘Yes, my dear; yes, my dear.’ And her last words to him were, ‘Name her Delia. My mother would have liked that . . . ’

  She died as the dawn was breaking, and he could not believe it, he would not believe it. He held her to him and rocked her and moaned, ‘No! No! Jane. No! No!’ and the doctor, worn out with his efforts, and Molly near to collapse, left them alone.

  After a time he laid her back on the bed. Her face was white and smooth and beautiful; the beauty that had always just evaded her, except on her wedding day, had been permanently released by death.

  Feathers in the fire. That’s what his granda had said they all were, nothing but feathers in the fire. But why did the burning of a feather leave so much pain in the beholder?

  Five

  The summer had gone. It was October again and the winter loomed ahead. The child was six months old. It was a fat, bouncing, gurgling baby; strangely it had not suffered a day’s illness since its premature birth. It laughed a great deal, and only cried when it was hungry; and when it was hungry it wouldn’t be put off with a dum-tit.

  Molly cared for the child. She washed, dressed and fed it, carried it in a wash basket and laid it in the yard outside the dairy whenever it was fine; when it wasn’t she left it in the dairy. She never left it alone in either of the cottages, for fires were burning there night and day, and now she had a horror of fire.

  She missed Jane as she would have a dearly beloved s
ister, yet at the same time she felt relieved at her going, but suffered for this failing with self-recrimination.

  She had given him three months to get over the worst of his grief, but when the three months had passed, during which it had been difficult to get a word out of him, and he still showed no interest in her, and at times appeared barely civil, she experienced a new despair, a final despair, for if working alongside him from morning till night like a galley slave, if tending his child as if it were her own, and it could have been, judged on the feelings she bore towards it, if cooking for him and keeping his house clean could not draw from him a kind word, let alone a glance from his eyes that told her she was still a woman, then nothing could.

  Her past, she felt, was as alive for him today as when it had happened all those years ago, a long lifetime ago. He had been a stubborn, block-headed youth then, and was now grown into a hard, unforgiving man.

  She had made allowances when, following the fire and Jane’s death, she would watch him at odd times, mostly in the late evening looking at the great shell of the house. She had only realised of late that Davie Armstrong had been an ambitious man, and the knowledge had created the thought that this could have been the reason why he had married Miss Jane; but she had dismissed it. She wouldn’t give him the bad credit for being so mean. But nevertheless he’d had a feeling for the house and the land more than was usual in a worker.

  Then to cap it all, today she’d had a shock, and it had released a frightening prospect. They’d had a visitor. Into the yard, around three o’clock, had ridden Miss Agnes Reed. She had said she was thirsty and could she have a glass of milk, and while she drank it she had sat looking at the blackened house; then she had said, ‘Mr Armstrong . . . is he about?’

  ‘In the fields.’ Her answer had been short and sharp. She had watched her ride down the road and through the gap in the stone wall.

  The Reed girl had never shown her face at the farm after the master had died; what was she after now? Need she ask? She knew what she was after. She had a name, that one, a clothes prop with trousers on would do her, as long as it acted like a man. But Davie was no prop with trousers on, he was well set up, attractive, handsome; although his face was grim, he was still a handsome man, and what was more he had sense. But did any man have sense when a woman threw herself at him, and from the height of Agnes Reed’s station? It was enough to turn any man’s head.

  Fifteen minutes later when she returned to the gate and saw him walking up the field by the side of the horse and rider all she could say to herself was, ‘My God!’

  Davie, too, said the same words, but to himself as he looked up into the smiling face of Miss Reed. But he added, ‘What they’ll stoop to!’ And that Miss Reed was stooping he had no doubt. It wasn’t the first time he had seen her since Jane had died; he had encountered her a number of times in Hexham, and although she hadn’t acknowledged him with a movement of her head, her eyes had remained fixed on him much longer that was seeming in a woman of her standing. But what standing? From what he could gather she was nothing but an upper-class unregistered whore.

  ‘It seems strange,’ she was saying as she looked down into his eyes, ‘but if things had taken their course I would have been mistress of that dead pile. However, the course took a turn, and now you are master of it.’

  ‘That’s so.’ He jerked his head, his face unsmiling.

  ‘What do you intend to do with it? It’s an eyesore as it stands.’

  ‘Yes, you could say it’s an eyesore, but . . . but I have me plans for it.’

  ‘Really! I’m pleased to hear that. You must tell me of them some time.’

  He made no answer to this, just stared back into her pale grey eyes, eyes that strangely reminded him of McBain’s. They had reached the gap in the wall, and he stood aside and said, ‘Good day to you,’ and after a pause she said, ‘And good day to you, Mr Armstrong.’ Then digging her heels sharply into the horse’s flanks she cantered off, while he stood looking not after her, but down on to the top of the wall. The end sandstone brick had been worn smooth with the hands that had grasped it over the years as they went in and out of the field, and now he grasped it tight as he thought, slut! And the nerve of her, thinking he would jump on to her hook. Clients must be getting scarce in her quarter.

  He was filled with a sudden wave of indignation as if he had just suffered an insult. He watched his fingers moving backwards and forwards rubbing the stone, and there returned to him her words, ‘If things had taken their course I would have been mistress of that dead pile. However, the course took a turn and now you are master of it. What do you intend to do with it?’

  What did he intend to do with it? He had thought once or twice lately that he would gradually knock it down and with the stone build a wall on the north boundary that would show old Tuppin he wasn’t coming any further.

  When it had become known that the land, and what was left on it, was legally his, Sir Alfred’s solicitor had written him a letter offering to buy the place and had stated a sum he wouldn’t have taken for the cowsheds. In his best writing, and his best manner, he had written back and said he had no intention of selling the farm now or at any time in the future. He had heard nothing since.

  He was well aware that everybody was giving him the cold shoulder; he was out of favour in both camps, that of his own kind and that of those in power. He had been condemned by the former because he had gone to Jane’s funeral in his wedding suit; true he had a black band on his arm but who had ever heard of a man going to his wife’s funeral in a light grey suit? Jane had loved him in that suit, she had been proud of him when he wore it. And he hadn’t cared a damn what anyone thought.

  And he had worn it again when he had been summoned to the bank in Newcastle, and there he had met the manager’s condescension with arrogance, and had the last word in the interview, saying, ‘I am not thanking you for letting me keep what I consider me own through me wife.’

  No; no-one had come to his aid, for he was, on all sides, considered an upstart, and they had left him alone. Except for the visitor today. He turned now and looked along the road; then gave a short mirthless laugh before walking briskly back to the farm.

  Crossing the yard, he approached the house. He had never been in it from the day they had unearthed from among the charred beams what remained of Amos. Now he went through what had been the front door and, his feet crunching into the burnt wood, he stood where the stairs had been and looked upwards and into the high clear blue sky.

  He remained standing in the hall for almost ten minutes, ten minutes idling, doing nothing, but think.

  When he came out Molly was passing down the middle of the yard with the basket on her hip, the child in it, and he called to her, ‘Molly!’ When she didn’t stop, just turned her head towards him, saying, ‘I’m goin’ to make the meal,’ he looked after her puzzled for a moment. She seemed upset about something.

  He hurried after her, shouting, ‘Molly! Here, wait a moment.’ When he caught up with her, she said, ‘What is it? What do you want?’

  ‘What do you mean, what do I want?’ He stared into her face. She was in a temper. She had shown him nothing but kindness and consideration for months past; he felt he would have gone mad without her; but now she was fuming. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Now what could be wrong? I ask you, what could be wrong?’

  ‘All right.’ He nodded at her. ‘As you say, what could be wrong. You’ll tell me in your own time I suppose, but . . . but listen, I’ve got an idea.’ He pointed back towards the house. ‘I’m going to rebuild it.’

  ‘What!’ She jerked the basket on her hip and the child gurgled.

  ‘Aye, I was for pullin’ it down, but I’m goin’ to rebuild it. Not the old part, that’ll go. It’s had its day anyway. Look, give her to me, Here.’ He grabbed the basket from her. ‘Come on, I�
��ll show you.’

  She did not now walk by his side but remained a couple of paces behind him. In front of the house he placed the basket on the ground, then pointed to the front door, saying, ‘I’m going to clear it all out. That’s the first thing, clear it all out. Then brush the stone. The stone’s all right except for a crack here and there, and that’s easily remedied. Then I’ll lay the floors, an’ fix in the beams.’

  Her voice came at him, derisive, saying, ‘It’ll take a lifetime. An’ where are you goin’ to get the wood, beams an’ all that?’

  He turned to her. ‘Five years. I could have it up in five years. As for the wood, I’ll buy a bit at a time for the floors. The beams, why’ – he pointed out towards the road – ‘there’s all those trees in the copse. That’s the first thing I’ll do after clearing it out, get them down so they can be seasoned. I’m going to build, Molly.’ His shoulders were bent, his head thrust towards her. ‘The old house meant something to me, but it’ll be nothing to the one I’ll build. That’ll be mine. Are you with me? Will you help me?’

  She stared at him while the muscles of her face sagged. ‘Help you?’ she said.

  ‘Aye, help me.’

  ‘Well’ – her shoulders jerked – ‘you pay me, don’t you, so I don’t suppose it matters which way I earn me money?’

  He stared hard at her for a moment. Then his gaze dropped away from hers, and he stooped and picked up the basket and, holding it out to her, said, ‘I’ll manage, I want no forced labour.’

  Her mouth was tight as she turned away.

  It was pitch dark and he hadn’t come in. She looked at the child sleeping peacefully in the basket by the side of the fire. Will Curran had been finished this past hour.

  The usual procedure that ended her day was that she cooked the meal in her own oven and between times washed the child and got her ready for the night; then when she heard Davie come in she gave him time to get his wash before taking both the meal and the child next door.