The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  What he did say was, ‘I never mentioned marriage to Daisy, Mr Mason.’

  ‘No, lad; no. Perhaps you didn’t mention the word, but all your actions over the past years have sort of implied that was your intention. To tell you the truth, me and her mother took it for granted that you would one day match up, because she would have made you a good wife. She knows everything about a farm that is to know; besides which she’s a fine cook…Not much good with her needle.’ A faint smile came on his face now. ‘Not like her mother in that way; but you can’t have everything. I thought, though, she had everything that you needed, Ward. Oh yes. And I still do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Mason. I am indeed. I’m sorry to the heart to upset you and your wife, because you’ve both always been very kind to me; and I shall never forget the help you were when both Mam and Dad died. But look at it from my point of view if you can. I’ve known Daisy all me life. We were like friends. She was…well, it’s a funny way to put it, but she was like a mate to me, as neither Sep nor Pete were.’

  ‘Well, if that was the case, Ward, why did you continue to keep company with her and not take up with some other girl in the village or hereabouts? No…no.’ Mr Mason moved his head slowly now. ‘Be fair, Ward, there only seemed to be Daisy for you. You took her to the barn dances, you took her to the Hoppings, Sunday after Sunday you used to drop in to tea. Well, that was some time back, I admit, before your people went; but, nevertheless, our house was like your second home.’

  ‘That’s it, Mr Mason,’ Ward put in quickly, ‘it was like my second home; you were all too close; too familiar; there was no…well, excitement. Oh—’ He half turned away now, saying, ‘I’m sorry about all this. I keep saying that, but I really am.’

  ‘Tell me truthfully, Ward. Just answer me a simple question: have you found somebody else?’

  Ward turned now and, facing Mr Mason again, he said, ‘You could put it like that, Mr Mason; yes, you could put it like that.’

  Mr Mason now walked slowly past Ward and towards the door, saying as he went, ‘One could say, this is life, and these things happen; but that’s from people standing apart. They are the onlookers, not the ones it’s actually happening to. And it’s happening to my Daisy, and she’s hurt to the core.’ He stopped, and he opened the parlour door before turning and saying to Ward, ‘I haven’t it in me to wish you harm because I’ve always imagined you becoming another son, but I would be lying if I said I wish you luck and happiness in your choice, because, in a way, you’ve ruined my lass’ life. Yes; yes, you have, Ward.’

  When the door had closed on him, Ward turned to the mantelshelf and, laying his arm along it, he drooped his head onto it, and as he muttered, ‘God in heaven!’ his fist thumped the wood.

  After a moment he straightened up; and now he was looking into the iron-framed mirror above the fireplace, and his reflection was telling him Mr Mason was right: he had acted as if he had intended to marry Daisy. He had been utterly thoughtless, at least until a year or so ago when he guessed how things were with her. But still, in the end, perhaps he would have married her if this other thing hadn’t hit him, for there would have been this same strong need in him; and it wasn’t possible he would ever again come across such an obliging and understanding woman as Mrs Oswald.

  And now he was in a fix, all because he had dropped into The Empire a week ago.

  Was he mad? He must be. He had seen the creature only four times. God above! Why was he thinking of her as a creature now? Because she could be a creature: on closer acquaintance she could prove to be just a painted doll. Those bright lights bamboozled people. She could be a slut; most of them were; a lot of them sold themselves to men…old men, for money and big houses…or titles.

  He turned from the mirror, and his gaze now focused on the horsehair sofa that fronted the handmade rug set before the hearth, and he seemed to address it as his galloping thoughts said, Well the only thing to do to find out what she is really like is to wait till after the show’s over and speak to her.

  He had only once joined the crowd outside, and that had been on Saturday night. But she hadn’t put in an appearance. The leading lady had come out, and made her way to the waiting cab; and the comedian and the juggler and six chorus girls had come out of the stage door; but she hadn’t put in an appearance, and so, left alone on the pavement, he had surmised there must be another way out at the back of the theatre.

  But tonight, stage door or back door, he must speak to her—and he would, so what was he standing here for?

  When he reached the yard, Billy was coming out of the open barn and, seeing him, called, ‘I’m having trouble with the youngster.’

  ‘Trouble? Why?’

  ‘As soon as he saw Mr Mason come into the yard he scooted up into the loft, and there he is up against the timbers again as if he was glued. An’ I can’t talk him down. And another thing: I think his back should be seen to; one of those weals is running matter. Would you think about callin’ the doctor on your way to Newcastle?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t think about calling the doctor; unless you want the child to be whipped back to wherever he came from. What’s the matter with your head, Billy? You should know Old Wheatley by this time, for, either drunk or sober, he’s always for the law, especially where lads are concerned. Spare the whip and spoil the child. He wouldn’t give youngsters the light of day until they were ready for work, of one kind or another, if he had his way. You know him. Anyway, I’ll have a look at it when I come back…He seemed all right earlier on.’

  ‘Oh, I think he was trying his best to show us he could work. But now he’s a bundle of fear again. Could you give him a shout, do you think?’

  Ward drew in a long breath. Already he’d be too late for the opening; and so he’d have to stay at the back. Anyway, it wasn’t the show he wanted to see, it was her. But it was impatiently he marched into the barn and stood at the foot of the ladder shouting, ‘Boy! Come down this minute!’

  When there was no response, his voice louder and angry sounding, he cried, ‘I am dressed for the road, and I am not coming up this ladder. If you don’t put in an appearance before I count five you’ll be on your way back tomorrow to where you came from. Do you hear me?’

  He couldn’t have reached three when the small head looked down on him; then the thin shanks stepped down slowly from one rung of the ladder to another.

  Having reached the floor, he stood with his head down, and Ward, speaking slowly now, said, ‘You know what I promised you last night: that you could be here for good, but I want a worker.’ He now glanced sharply towards Billy before going on, ‘And not a lad that skitters into the barn every time a trap comes into the yard.’

  The small head came up, and the boy’s voice became a stutter as he said, ‘I…I th…th…thought he had come for me. He s…s…said he would.’

  ‘Who’s he? What’s his name?’

  Again the head drooped.

  Ward became impatient, saying, ‘I’m not going through all this again tonight. Now, listen to me, and finally: nobody’s going to take you back to that place. I promised you. Now go to the house and get your supper.’

  As the boy now hurried from them, Billy put in flatly, ‘He was right to skitter, for you could have the authorities round here if anybody gets wind of him. Well, I mean they would want to know where we got him, and all the rest of it. You know yourself you can’t keep anything quiet for long, not round here. In the village your business is their business, at least, so it seems. So, in a way, the youngster was wise to make himself scarce. They all seem to know about what they call the Poor Law Contract; they know they’ll be sent back, no matter where they’re found, either to the same farm or to the same workhouse. You know yourself what the so-called guardians are like. Remember the business over at Burnley’s farm a few years back?’

  ‘Those boys were mental.’

  ‘Aye. If I remember rightly they had escaped an’ all; but Burnley kept them on. Then what happened when he was taken up
for it? He said if the lads were mental then he was mental an’ all; and they should never have been put away as children…They fined him. Oh, heavy.’

  Impatient to be gone, Ward hurried from the barn and into the stables; and when presently he led the saddled horse into the yard, Billy called, ‘She hates the rain. You’ll get her undercover, I suppose?’ And at this, Ward turned a look of disdain on the man for whom he had a deep affection, before putting the horse into a trot that turned into a gallop as soon as they left the farmyard; and Billy’s remark to the wind and rain was, ‘He’s caught something a poultice won’t help.’

  He couldn’t understand it. He was on the pavement outside the theatre looking at the rain-soaked poster on the wall. It was the same as last week’s, except for one thing: there was no flying angel across the middle, but over it had been stuck a bill that read: Laugh With The Lorenzoes, the three side-splitting maniac acrobats from Spain. Above them and central was the picture of the soprano, with, to one side of her, the big fat woman and the little fat man with their four poodles, and, to the other side, the juggler. Below were the names of the ‘lesser turns’, the print getting smaller towards the end of the bill.

  But where was the Maltese Angel? Gone too was her picture from the sandwich-board that was positioned further along the pavement.

  He did not go into the booking hall but hurried towards the stage door at the side; and when he saw the doorman standing in the passageway, he gabbled, ‘What’s happened? I mean to the Maltese Angel? To…well, the dancer?’

  The doorman looked him up and down, and grinned as he said, ‘Oh! You here again? Not a night to come out and have your journey for nowt.’

  ‘What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Oh, she had a bit of an accident. She won’t be tripping the light fantastic for a few weeks, I would say. The wire gave way and she hurt her foot.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Oh; back at her lodgings, I suppose. Yes, that’s where she is.’

  As the spout above him overflowed, Ward stepped quickly into the doorway, and from there into the hallway to where the doorman had retreated, only to be surprised by being sharply admonished by the man: ‘Here! There’s no entrance this way,’ which succeeded in bringing forth an equally sharp reply from Ward: ‘I’m not thinking about going in this way, but I’m not going to stand out in that while I’m asking you a question.’

  The change of note in Ward’s voice caused the man to back from him and again to look him up and down, then say, ‘Well, the answer you’ll get to your question will be no; I’m not at liberty to tell you where she’s staying. An’ you’re not the only one this week who would have liked to know that.’

  ‘I can understand your position; but I must tell you, I mean the lady no harm…none at all.’

  ‘Aye; an’ I can tell you, mister, that’s what they all say, whether they’re from the town or the country. An’ you’re from the country, aren’t you?’

  Before Ward could get over his indignation in order to make an appropriate reply to this observant man and demand how the devil he knew he was from the country, the man told him: ‘Oh…Oh you needn’t get on your high horse, mister,’ he said; ‘I’ve seen ’em all. But none of your townees would come four times in a week an’ sit in the front row. No; by the second night they would have had a cab at the door an’ flowers sent to her dressing room. Oh, they’re all the same, London, Manchester, or here. I’ve seen ’em all,’ he boasted again; but then his tone changing, he said, ‘Anyway, I’m sorry I can’t let on where she’s stayin’, not even for a backhander.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about giving you a backhander. And seeing that you’ve weighed me up, and everybody else apparently—’ His words were cut off by the opening of the swing door to his right and through it the appearance of an enormous woman and a very small man, each of them carrying two dogs and each dog enveloped in a red flannel coat.

  The woman, ignoring Ward, spoke directly to the doorman, ‘That bugger won’t do that to us again. Put us on in the first half. We know our place. We should be third from last by now. I’ll have something to say to him at the end of the week. A year now since we first hit Newcastle, and it’ll be ten before we hit it again.’

  When one of the dogs in her arms moved uneasily and turned its head towards Ward while giving a sharp bark, she turned her attention to him, saying, ‘It’s all right, mister; as long as you don’t touch her she won’t bite you.’

  But Ward had already put his hand out and was scratching the immaculate white topknot of the poodle, and the poodle, instead of biting him, was licking his wrist, the sight of which brought an exclamation from the small man in a voice that was so high as to seem to be issuing from the mouth of a young boy: ‘Flora! Flora! Did you ever! Do you see what Sophia’s doing?’

  The large woman, looking straight at Ward now, said, ‘You used to animals, mister? Trainer or something?’

  He was forced to smile as he answered, ‘No; no; but I have two dogs of my own.’

  ‘Poodles?’

  ‘No. Sheepdogs. I’m…I’m a farmer.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ She now said pointedly, ‘Bitches?’

  He was still smiling as he answered her: ‘One of each.’

  ‘Well, all I can say she must have got a sniff of something that pleased her, because she’s very particular, is Sophia.’

  Ward looked at Sophia. He recognised her as the clever one that pulled the little bottle out of the man’s coat, withdrew the cork with her teeth, and then, standing on her hindlegs, put the bottle to her mouth; after which she staggered across the stage to the uproarious laughter of the audience, fell on her back and kicked her legs in the air, to be chastised by this woman, who picked her up, smacked her bottom and sent her off the stage, only for the dog to come slinking in the other side, supposedly unknown to anyone.

  The woman was addressing him now: ‘Have you seen the show, sir?’

  ‘Yes; I’ve seen the show.’

  She now leaned towards him, to peer in the dim light of the passage. Then, her mouth opening into a big gape and the smile spreading across her face, she exclaimed, Oh yes! The front row. The front row.’

  Rather shamefacedly now, Ward nodded and said, ‘Yes; the front row.’

  ‘To see Stephanie.’

  Before he had time to acknowledge this, the doorman put in, ‘This…this gentleman…This gentleman came to see Miss McQueen the night, but was very disappointed that she wasn’t on.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ The woman’s head was now bobbing up and down. ‘Well, I’m sorry you’ve had your journey for nothing, sir; but she had an accident, you see. Saturday night just gone. He let her down too quickly.’ She now turned her head and addressed the doorman: ‘He’s a bloody maniac, that Watson,’ she said. ‘He’s never sober. I’m not against a drink, you know that, Harry, but there’s a time an’ a place for it. And she’s as light on her feet as a feather. But he bounced her down. She stotted off that foot like a rubber ball.’

  ‘Is she in a bad way?’ Ward’s voice held an anxious note.

  ‘Well’—the woman shrugged her shoulders and the flesh on her body seemed to ripple—‘not in a bad way, really; no life or death business. Yet, what am I talking about? It’s her livelihood. Her feet are her fortune, you could say, and it’ll be a week or two before she’s able to go on the boards again. Yet she keeps rubbing it and declares she’ll be all right for Sunderland next week. But she won’t, will she, Ken?’ She turned to the little man, who answered accordingly, ‘No, Flora; of course she won’t. But she’s got pluck. Oh yes, she’s got pluck.’

  ‘Do…do you think…I mean, do you think I might see her? Sort of be introduced to her? I…I would like to make her acquaintance.’

  The woman and the man looked at each other, their glances holding for some time before she, as if having come to a great decision, said with emphasis, ‘I don’t see any reason, sir, why you shouldn’t make her acquaintance. Sophia here seemed to have a good op
inion of you, so, animals having much more sense than humans, I’ve always said so, and I would trust them any day in the week to give me the right answer, I would say, no, I don’t see any obstacle that need be put in the way. Have you got a conveyance?’

  The word conveyance came out on a high note and with a change of tone; and when he had to confess that he was sorry he hadn’t, only his horse, the woman laughed and her ah-la changed as she said, ‘Well, we can’t all get on that, can we? And so, as it’s only a stone’s throw from here, where we are residing, we could all walk the distance, couldn’t we? Goodnight, Harry.’

  She was nodding towards the doorman, who replied, ‘Goodnight, Mrs Killjoy. Goodnight, Mr Killjoy.’ And the little man answered, ‘Goodnight, Harry.’

  They were now in the street, Ward walking between the woman and the man, with the rain pelting down on them, and Mrs Killjoy wiped it from her face as she enquired of him, ‘And what is your name, sir?’

  ‘I’m Hayward Gibson, but I’m usually called Ward.’

  ‘Ward. It’s an unusual Christian name…Ward. Well, Mr Gibson, you know our occupation, so may I enquire if your farm is a large farm or a small one. You see, we are town folk, and the only thing we seem to know is that farms belong to estates where smallholdings don’t.’

  Ward smiled to himself at this diplomatic grilling, and he pursed his lip before he explained, ‘Well, my farm isn’t held on lease to one of the landowners, by which I mean it isn’t rented; it is a freehold farm, much bigger than a smallholding, but much smaller than some other farms in the country.’

  ‘Well, that is a fair answer.’ She now turned towards him and smiled broadly as she said, ‘We cross over here, and then we are almost there. But to get back to the farmers: you see, we are very ignorant of the country, we people who live by the boards, for entertainments such as ours are performed in the town, you know, aren’t they?’