The Maltese Angel

by Catherine Cookson

  He smiled and pushed her gently in the shoulder, saying, ‘More than the next, Annie.’

  ‘Are your boots clean?’

  He looked down at them, saying, ‘Yes; yes, they’re clean; the ground is as hard as flint.’

  A minute later he was knocking on the study door, and when Ward’s voice called, ‘Come in!’ he entered the room, which was small, although it was lined with bookshelves, the only other pieces of furniture being a desk and two chairs, in one of which Ward was sitting, the other one being placed near the window.

  Pointing to it, Ward said, ‘Draw it up; I want to talk to you.’

  They sat for a moment looking at each other; then Ward, running his fingers through the front of his greying hair, said, ‘I’ve asked you here because this is a private talk. It will be the one and only, I suppose, we’ll ever have along these lines. How old are you now?’

  ‘Oh…Oh. Well, you know, master, I wasn’t sure whether I was nine or ten when I came to you, but I reckon I am now twenty-seven.’ And he was in such a position in this household that he could add, ‘I wouldn’t have thought you would have to ask that.’

  ‘Oh, perhaps not. But I just wanted it to be emphasised that you are twenty-seven; you are no longer a youth, not even a young man, you are a fully-fledged man. And now I am going to ask you if you have thought of your future.’

  ‘Oh yes; many a time.’

  ‘Have you ever thought that one day you could own this house and farm?’

  Carl moved slightly on the chair, which caused the legs to squeak on the polished boards; then emphatically he said, ‘No! No, never!’

  ‘Well, well; you surprise me, because any onlooker, any close onlooker, that is, would have said you have been running this farm for a good few years now.’

  ‘Oh no…no.’

  Carl was shaking his head, when Ward put in, ‘But yes; I don’t want to hear any false modesty: you know you’ve been carrying the weight of it since I lost my’—he had to gulp in his throat before he could bring out—‘wife. I haven’t been the farmer I was before. My mind has been centred on protecting my daughters; and yes…and yes, myself, too. I have enemies in that village, strong enemies. I’m only too well aware of it; and because of this, I’ve left you to carry on, for you’ve not only helped to grow the produce, you’ve seen to the marketing of most of it. I’ve taken the profit and paid out the bills and wages, and in a way, I am still master here, but I haven’t been running my farm. You have. So, what would you say if I offered to make you my heir? But wait!’ He lifted a hand. ‘There is a condition. And the condition has weighed heavily on me for some time. I am going to ask you a straight question: do you like Jessie?’

  Carl sat perfectly still for at least ten seconds; then he closed his eyes and bit on his lower lip before he said quietly, ‘Yes; yes, of course, master, I like Jessie. Apart from yourself and Annie, I was the first to hold her. She is like…’

  ‘Don’t…don’t say she is like a sister to you, because she is not your sister; and she has never felt that she was your sister. Jessie is very fond of you.’

  Carl drew in a deep breath before he said, ‘Yes…yes, I know that, master; and I am fond of her…’

  ‘But what you are going to say is, fondness isn’t love; you don’t love her.’

  ‘Yes; that’s about it, master.’

  ‘But let me tell you, Carl, that after marriage fondness very often grows to love, a lasting love. There’s more to marriage than a burning flame that attacks you.’

  It was at this point that Ward sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. What was he saying? More to marriage than a burning flame. Had he not been consumed with the flame? Were not its embers still burning within him? It wasn’t only protection of his daughters that had filled his mind all these years, it was the constant ache for his loss, for his love had been a mania; there was nothing reasonable or logical about it. And here he was telling this young fellow, whom he already thought of as a son, that love grew out of fondness.

  He was actually startled when Carl said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, sir. And anyway, now that we’re speaking openly, I love someone else, and I am sure you know who that is. And I’ve often felt, sir, that as you loved your dear wife so I, in a similar way, love…’

  ‘Don’t say it! Don’t speak of Patsy Riley in the same breath as my wife, or of my feelings for her. What is she? She is not even a village girl, but springs from that Hollow where pigs are cleaner than some of their owners. And don’t say to me that she is different, for breeding will out. Just look at her father and her brother. Do you want to link yourself with that lot? You will either marry Jessie or you will no longer remain here.’

  Carl was now on his feet looking down on the man whom he had loved as a father, and his heart was sore for him as he said, ‘I would do anything in the world for you, sir, because I owe you a great debt, but if I did what you ask I would make two people very unhappy, not to mention a third, for I don’t love Miss Jessie as a man should love a woman, and she would suffer for that. Then the woman I love would suffer, too. And yes, she is from the Hollow, but she is an intelligent woman; she is a fine woman. You, sir, have never spoken more than half a dozen words to her in all the years she’s been in your employ. And now I am going to say this: your wife valued her; she lent her books, and she talked with her on the side when you were out of the way so it wouldn’t annoy you, because she realised that the little Irish girl who came to your door, pointing out that she had washed her hands and her hair in the river, was worthy of better treatment than that meted out to a pigswiller or dairymaid.’

  They were again looking at each other, each in deep sorrow now.

  When Carl stepped back, he asked one question: ‘Do you want me to leave now, sir?’

  It was noticeable to them both that he was no longer using the word master; and with averted gaze Ward answered, ‘You may work your month.’

  When Carl passed through the kitchen, Annie turned from her seat and, looking at him, asked, ‘What is it, lad? Something wrong?’

  ‘Yes, Annie. Yes, you could say that, something’s wrong. I’ll…I’ll talk to you in a short while.’ And with this, he hurried out into the yard, where he stood as if in a daze, until he saw Patsy coming from the open barn.

  He ran towards her and, taking her arm, drew her back into the barn, into the corner where some bales of hay were stacked but where the sunlight streaming in through the shrunken old oak slats dappled them both in light and shade as they stood looking at each other.

  Patsy did not question, ‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’ for from the look on Carl’s face she guessed something vital to them must have taken place; and when he suddenly moved from her to lean back against a supporting beam, his head touching the wood as he muttered, ‘We’re free!’ she sprang towards him, her hands on his shoulders now, her voice rapid as she said, ‘You’ve told him? You’ve told him? And he said we can? Oh Carl! Carl!’

  He brought his head down to the level of her own now, and quietly he said, ‘No, he didn’t say we can, he gave me the option: he offered me the house and the farm if I married Jessie.’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘He made it as plain as that?’

  ‘Yes, my dear; he made it as plain as that. But I told him I couldn’t make her unhappy and myself at the same time because I loved you.’

  When she fell against him, her head on his shoulder, he placed his arms gently about her; and as he held her he said, ‘It was awful, Patsy, really awful. Although I felt I owed him so much, the price he was asking was too much for me to pay.’

  ‘It’s my fault.’

  And to her almost inaudible mutter, he replied, ‘No, it isn’t your fault; it’s nobody’s fault. Anyway, we’ve got a month to find another place. And we’ll be together, in the open. That’s the main thing, because it’s been a long time’—he raised her face to his now—‘overlong. It’s odd, you know, but I was thinking about it this morni
ng, that it was overlong already. Now we’re going to be like Jimmy Conway and Susan Beaker. By what is said in the village they had been going together since he was nineteen and she eighteen, but he had to stay with his father until he died, and she had to stay with her mother until she died. And there they are now: she’s thirty-six and he’s thirty-eight, almost twenty years’ courtship; and I could see ours being the same, because we’ve known each other for nearly sixteen years. Anyway, they are being married today. That’s what made me think of it.’

  She turned from him, yet retained a hold of his hand as she said, ‘Strange that you should mention them; that was the first thing I thought of, too, this morning. I thought it was because Ma said yesterday that there would be high jinks in the village tonight, for both inns were stocking up, and Da said there would be free drinks all round because the butcher’s business has been thriving and he had been the closest of men, and so Jimmy would be very warm. And he said the Beakers would be, too. Strangely, though, I didn’t think about their wedding, I just wondered if we would have to wait almost twenty years, and if we could last out.’

  They turned together to look at each other.

  He bowed his head and, his lips in her hair, he said, ‘For my part, I doubt it.’ Again they were in each other’s arms; and now tightly holding, he added, ‘We can make it as soon as you like.’

  ‘Oh, Carl; as soon as ever you like.’

  After they had kissed again, a gentle, warm gesture now, they separated from each other and walked side by side into the yard.

  But beyond the farther side of the barn, Jessie did not move, only, just as Carl had done, to lean her head back against the wood as she pressed her lips into an indrawn thin line in order to prevent the tears from spurting from her eyes. She hadn’t meant to listen. It was as she walked along the back of the barn towards the hen pens to gather the morning eggs that she heard their voices, and stopped for a second to look through a cleft in the wood. And so she saw and heard almost all they had to say to each other.

  Now she was saying to herself, ‘Oh, Daddy! Daddy, why had you to do it? I could have borne it. But never to see him again. I might have been able to change my feeling into that for…a beloved brother. Yes. Yes, I could, because I am not a silly girl; I never have been; I have been made old by my feeling for both of you, you and him; and soon there will be only you, and you don’t know I exist.

  Two

  ‘Look, Mummy! You promised. And you know it gives old Noble a kick if you’re there. You’re always saying he’s a saint and should be supported.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Gerald; but I made that promise before your father came in an hour ago and said Percy and Catherine would be popping in, and so I can’t possibly leave the house. And Alice and Nell will be with them, and so you should be here, too’—she now wagged her finger at him—‘you should stay and support me.’

  ‘The very sight of Nell terrifies me, Mummy; you know that. I shouldn’t be surprised if she were to bring her horse into the drawing room one of these days. She smells of the stables.’

  Lady Lydia Ramsmore gave a girlish giggle, then put a hand over her mouth as she said, ‘She does rather reek a little of the horseflesh, I admit; but Alice is nice, different.’

  ‘Not different enough, Mummy. Anyway, I’d rather sit through a night with Captain and Mrs Hopkins and their two eligible daughters.’

  ‘Your father will be annoyed.’

  ‘I can’t help that, Mummy; it’ll only add one more annoyance to the list I create.’

  ‘You’re still of the same mind, dear?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy, I’m still of the same mind. And always will be.’

  ‘But literature, dear, is all very well; and you know how I like reading. As far as I can judge it will be very difficult to make a career out of writing poetry and such. And another thing, dear: I just cannot understand why you are so against entering the Army, because you know you must have inherited something from both sides. You know, my ancestors, too, were involved in the battling business, oh, far back. And you know, dear, your father can’t help getting annoyed when he hears Percy Hopkins rattling on about his boys fighting in the Boer War, and who will be sailing for India shortly. Don’t you feel any remorse? I mean…well, not actually remorse, but…Oh, I don’t know what the word is.’

  ‘The word is guilt, Mummy. No, I don’t feel any guilt in not going to shoot someone I have never seen in my life before. And let us state plain facts, Mummy: they are men who are trying to protect their own way of life and that of their families.’ He bent over her now, where she was sitting on the couch, and his face close to hers, he said, ‘I’m a changeling, dear; and at times I feel that you’ve had a hand in it. Now tell me, just between ourselves, did you not, in your gay days, fall in love with somebody like me, a literary man? A classics scholar, perhaps?’ he teased.

  ‘Oh, you are impossible.’ She slapped him lightly on his cheek; but she was laughing as she pushed him away, saying, ‘No, I didn’t! But I have an idea from where you might have sprung, and from your father’s side, too, for there was one of them more than a bit odd: he would eat nothing but greenstuff, and he lived for the last twenty years of his life in the end of the Hall here, the part that was first built, and he never left it. I understand he sewed himself into his clothes.’ She laughed outright now as she said, ‘What he must have smelt like would certainly have put Nell in the shade. Anyway, he didn’t waste his time, it must be admitted, and apparently he translated things from the ancient Greek language; but what it was he translated nobody seems to know. I think it’s quite possible that the following generation wanted to forget him.’

  ‘Where did you hear that, Mummy?’

  ‘I didn’t hear it; I read it one day when I was browsing among the tomes in the library. I came across a sort of diary in which there were a few sentences about him, and when I mentioned it to your father his response was, ‘Oh, him!’

  ‘Well, Mummy, I can promise you that there’s a chance I might follow the old fellow, and within the next forty, fifty, sixty years translate something from Latin or Greek, but I can also promise you I shall never do anything that will make me smell. By the way, you said he ate only greenstuff. I suppose that means vegetables. Odd that, don’t you think? Because I’m not very fond of meat, am I? I’ll have to look up that old fellow and get to know more about him. But now to the present. You won’t come to the show?’

  ‘We’ve been through it, dear. I can’t come to the show. I have to live with your father, remember, while you can jaunt off, to Oxford or London or wherever your fancy takes you. Where’s your fancy going to take you for the remainder of the vacation?’

  ‘I’ve been invited to Roger Newton’s in Shropshire.’

  ‘Oh well. I’ll miss you, dear. I always do.’

  He now dropped down onto the couch beside her and, putting an arm around her shoulders, he said, ‘I needn’t go to Roger’s; it was to be for only a short spell. They’re having a hunt ball, and you know how I love hunting and shooting.’

  ‘Then why are you friendly with him at all if he loves hunting and shooting?’

  ‘Simply because we have like ideas. And fortunately for him he isn’t plagued to take up arms. His people are in law…Oh, look at the time!’ He pointed to the gilt clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I must be off.’

  He bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek, and then, pulling a face at her, he said, ‘Give my love to the girls, won’t you? Have a nice evening.’

  She again laughed at him, then said, ‘Are you riding in?’

  ‘No; I’m going to walk; it’ll be a lovely evening, for there’ll be a full moon.’

  She watched him striding down the room, but before he reached the door she called to him, ‘Your father will have something to say to you, remember.’

  He paused and looked over his shoulder at her, and his voice was flat now as he said, ‘Yes, I suppose he will, dear.’ And with this, he went out, and she lay back on the couch and sig
hed. He was such a lovely boy. No; not a boy any more, a young man. But she wished, oh how she wished he didn’t annoy his father.

  The magic lantern show was over and Frank Noble was showing the children of the Hollow out of the door. One by one he spoke to them as he handed to each child a square of barley sugar, and they, in turn and each in his own way, assured him it had been the best show ever.

  It had been a poor audience tonight. In the past, there had been as many as twenty children, but tonight there had been only four from the outlying farms apart from the children from the Hollow: a wedding tea had been held in Farmer Green’s barn earlier on, and at this very moment a dance was being held there which would likely continue into the small hours if the patrons from the inn should decide to join them. There would be some sore heads tomorrow and, as Jane had said in her forthright way, other results, too, if she knew anything about barn weddings.

  He turned now to his last three guests. His young friend Gerald was gathering up the slides while Jessie and Angela seemed to be wiping their eyes. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he called to them; ‘It does give off a fug, doesn’t it, that coke stove.’ He coughed, then said, ‘It gets me, too; but I wouldn’t have an audience without the stove, now, would I?’

  When they smiled at him, he said, ‘Carl should be here shortly. But we did finish earlier than I expected.’

  ‘It was the dogs running, I suppose,’ said Angela. ‘It made the time go quicker.’

  He laughed at her joke, saying, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. It was a funny bit, that, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Angela nodded at him. ‘You would actually think the dogs were running. You made them go so quickly; and it was so funny when the little one hung on to the policeman’s trousers.’ She paused before ending, ‘I like the funny ones.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to see if I can get some more…Do you like the funny ones?’ He looked at Jessie, who answered, ‘Yes, I do. But I also like the ones showing the black children. They all look so merry.’