The Tide of Life

by Catherine Cookson

  She straightened her back as she tapped on the door and entered her mistress’s room, but before she had time to close the door, Rona Birch was crying at her, ‘That sister of yours, she’s a clumsy idiot. Look what she’s done; she’s spilt the water all over the bed.’

  Emily stood looking from the wet bedclothes down to the large glass jug that held the drinking water; then she lifted her eyes and stared at her mistress. She knew that Lucy hadn’t spilt the water because Lucy would have told her, just as she had told her about being sick; the woman herself had done this on purpose because she knew that they were rushing through the work this morning in order to be ready to go on the cart at eleven o’clock.

  ‘Well! Strip the bed. Get fresh linen. Pick that rug up.’

  ‘My sister didn’t upset the jug, madam.’ She was trembling as she made the statement.

  ‘What! What are you saying?’

  ‘You heard what I said, madam. My sister never tipped that water on to your bed.’

  ‘How dare you! How dare you! Change this bed immediately and bring me a fresh nightdress.’

  ‘I’ll do it after you’ve been washed, madam, just in case there’s another…accident.’

  ‘You insolent slut you!’ As the hand shot out and picked up a thick bound book from the table Emily reared and cried, ‘You throw that at me, madam, and you’ll get it back. An’ me aim is likely to be better than yours.’

  She stood gasping as Rona Birch dropped back on her pillows, her face a picture of suppressed fury, while at the same time showing incredible astonishment. Her mouth opened and shut like a fish, her rage was choking her and checking for a moment the spate of words fighting for release. And then they came: foul words, blasphemous words, swear words, filthy words, words that Emily had closed her ears to when she had heard them uttered in Creador Street or by drunken women fighting in the gutter, or by men rolling up the street late on a Friday night.

  Now her mouth was open, she was aghast, she couldn’t believe her ears. This was a lady! There might be doubt about her master being a gentleman, but there was no doubt that her mistress was a lady born and bred. But she was a lady with a filthy mouth. She was mad, she must be. The master had told her to make a stand against her, well, she could make a stand against her throwing anything but not against such talk.

  Rona Birch’s voice had reached a pitch of intensity that was causing Emily to screw up her face against it as she backed from the bed when the door was thrust open and Larry Birch entered, crying, ‘Shut up! Stop it this minute, woman!’

  Emily watched him grip his wife by the shoulders and shake her roughly until her head wobbled and her voice was lost in a gasping breath.

  Quite suddenly he let go of her and she slumped into the pillows, her eyes, which at times appeared colourless, now showing a dark depth from which hate seemed to rise like a vapour. Then seeming to forget the presence of Emily, she now said slowly and quietly, but in the same venom-filled tone, ‘You! You low down muckraker. You dung-bespattered drover! You would, wouldn’t you, you would engage the lowest of the low. She attacked me; she threatened me; and you put her up to it, didn’t you? You stopped her doing my hair and attending to me and when she tells her sister to spill water over me and I ask her to clear it up, what do I get? Threats. She threatened me. But you won’t let this affect your judgement, will you, dear Larry? Such a good worker, you said she was. We mustn’t do anything to upset her, you said…And does she work well in bed, Larry?’

  Her lips had hardly closed on his name when his hand caught her with a resounding whack full across the side of her face.

  As Emily gasped he turned and yelled at her, ‘Get out! Get out!’ and she got out.

  But once on the landing, she stood there, her hands cupping her face. He had hit her. Well, she deserved to be hit, didn’t she? She had seen women hammered black and blue for less, oh much less. But then they were common people, not like ladies and gentlemen.

  She had the urge to run up into the attic, throw their things into the hamper, and leave this place. There was something not quite right about it, she didn’t know what, but it was something that she could feel, and not only just now, and the feeling made her uneasy. She could hear her mistress’s voice now, saying in a perfectly steady tone and with no sound of tears in it, ‘You’ll regret that, Mr Birch, for the rest of your life. I promise you, you’ll regret that.’

  ‘I’ll regret nothing, only having taken you on. And I should have done that afore. You’re filthy! Do you know that? Rotten right through, and filthy.’

  ‘Well, you’ve changed your opinion since you took me on, haven’t you? But then it wasn’t me you wanted, was it? It was the farm, the house. Oh you wanted this house, didn’t you? “It’s a lovely house, Miss Fullwell,” you used to say; “a beautiful house. It has a charm about it.”’

  ‘Yes—’ and now his voice came harsh and clear from the room, crying, ‘and you invited me in, didn’t you? You broke your neck to get me inside, and up into your room.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did, Larry; but you weren’t to be tempted, were you? No. You know I’ve often thought it’s a pity that you couldn’t have become pregnant and so trapped me into marrying you. But you did the next best thing, didn’t you, you kept me at arms’ length and whetted my appetite by going off on a Sunday to meet your dear Lizzie. But dear Lizzie didn’t stand a chance against Croft Dene House, did she? And now you are master of all you survey, from the kitchen to the attic…’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it! Rona, I’m warning you. But you’re right. As you say, I’m master of the house, and you can’t do anything about it now, not a blasted thing, can you?’

  Emily waited to hear her mistress answer, and when none came her fingers began to beat against her lips. Was he choking her? Then she actually started as she heard the high-pitched hysterical laugh and the voice breaking through it, crying, ‘Master! Master! Oh, it’s funny. If you could only see yourself as I see you, you’d die at this moment, and not with laughing. Master, you say? Oh, you’ve got a surprise coming to you, Larry. One of these days you’ll get such a shock you’ll wish they would bury you alive.’

  ‘You’re mad. You’re mad, woman.’

  ‘You’d like to think I was, wouldn’t you, Larry? But I’m as sane as you are.’ There was no laughter in the tone now, only a deep bitterness, a grinding bitterness. ‘It’s a wonder I haven’t gone mad lying here all these years, but I determined that I wouldn’t. I don’t know how long I’ve got left but I hope to live long enough to see you brought low, right down to where you were at the beginning.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait a long time for that, Rona, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not as long as you think, Larry.’

  Emily shook her head. They were now talking in ordinary voices but the substance of what they were saying was more awful than when they were screaming at each other. Lucy wasn’t the only one who was feeling sick.

  She turned quietly away and went down the stairs and into the kitchen, to find Con standing in front of the fire. He was looking down into the burning glow, and he showed no sign that he knew she was in the kitchen; but when she sat down by the table he said quietly, ‘You won’t go, Emily, will you?’ When she didn’t answer he turned about and came and stood before her, and she looked up at him. There was that expression on his face that always made her think of a young child, and he said softly in his slow way, ‘Don’t…go, Emily. She’s sick, she doesn’t…mean it, not what she says. And…and we need you. Larry needs you. He says you’re better than…Chrissey and Betty…put together; you’ve got…a head on your shoulders…he says. And Abbie likes you. And Abbie…doesn’t like everybody. But Abbie…likes you. And Hannah likes you, Hannah Rowan. She told Larry he…was lucky and we had to keep you. And then…there’s Lucy.’ He turned now and looked towards Lucy where she was sitting on a cracket with her hands pinched tightly between her knees. ‘The air’s good for…Lucy’s cough. Don’t go, you won’t will you, Emily?’
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br />   The tears were spilling from her eyes now and she blinked them away before, taking her apron, she moved it roughly round her face as she said, ‘It’s all right, Con, it’s all right. Don’t worry.’

  She was still rubbing her face when the kitchen door opened and Larry entered and, speaking straight away to Con, he said, ‘Go up. Take the top covers off the bed and give her dry ones. Then stay with her. I’ll be up again directly.’

  ‘Yes, Larry.’ When Con obediently went from the room, Larry looked at Emily, who was now on her knees before the hearth slab raking the ashes from under the grate onto a shovel, and he said to her, ‘Well, what have you decided to do?’

  She stopped raking and turned her head and looked at him. ‘If you want me to stay on, I’ll stay.’

  He was standing to her side now and of a sudden he dropped on to his hunkers so that their faces were on a level, and he stared at her for a moment before he said, ‘Want you to stay on? Of course I want you to stay on; you’ve handled her better than anyone for years.’

  Her mind was saying, I have? Well, mister, you could have hoodwinked me. However, she didn’t voice it, but looked at him as he went on, ‘You can see how things are for me. It’s like walking a tightrope; you never know how you have her from one minute to another.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have hit her.’

  He was staring at her, his lips slightly apart, and she was staring back at him, and she knew that from this moment things would be different between them. She didn’t know in what way, but the fact that she had dared to tell him he shouldn’t hit his wife had somehow broken through a barrier, and strangely she viewed him no longer as someone on another sphere, but as an ordinary man, as ordinary as Sep McGillby. In a way she thought that Sep had more about him than this fellow. Sep would never have hit Mrs McGillby. But then she must remember that Mrs McGillby hadn’t a filthy mouth. Mrs McGillby wouldn’t have come out with the things that that one upstairs had.

  He now made a small sound like a laugh and shook his head slowly as he said, ‘You know, Emily, you are the only human being I’ve really talked to in years; those from where I sprang, in my own class, they look upon me as an upstart, and those from higher up look down on me as an upstart, and both sides are waiting to see me topple from me perch. But inside here’—he now tapped his forehead—‘are claws, Emily, and those claws are fast on my perch and I’ll take some knocking off. What do you say?’

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. The perch, she knew, he was referring to was this house and the farm, and he was proud that he was master of them. That’s what made him assume the cloak of a gentleman. But the cloak didn’t quite fit him; he couldn’t keep it buttoned up all the time, as it were, and when he let it slip he showed the ordinary fellow he was; and she found she liked the ordinary fellow better than the one he pretended to be.

  ‘I’ll go along with you there,’ she said evenly; ‘you’ll take some knocking off.’

  Still looking at each other, they both now stood up, and he said quietly, ‘Go and get changed, we’ll leave straight away. I’ll be better out of the place for a while. Con can see to her till we get back.’

  He turned and looked towards Lucy. It wasn’t that he had forgotten she was there, but as if it didn’t matter what he said in front of her. Emily thought that he looked upon Lucy very much as she herself did, like part and parcel of herself.

  Up in their room they changed their clothes. They had already washed in the kitchen; it was easier than carting water up all this way.

  When she took off her dress she lifted up her top petticoat and from the band of the under one she unpicked a tiny bag that held a sovereign. She had already explained to Lucy about the money and the watch, and together one night they had cut up two of her three handkerchiefs and sewn each sovereign into a little bag, then diligently attached them at intervals like buttons around the band of her petticoat. The watch also she had placed in a bag but this she pinned to her shift.

  Now and again she would take the watch out from its cover and they would both look at it. Only last night they had looked at it in the candlelight and she had said to Lucy, ‘What am I ever going to do with it? I daren’t wear it.’ Lucy had giggled and said, ‘You could the day you got married; you could say your husband bought it for you as a weddin’ present.’ At this she had pushed Lucy across the bed and fallen on it herself, and both smothered their laughter. Then she had stared at Lucy, saying, ‘Fancy you thinkin’ like that, talkin’ about me getting married! It’ll be years afore I get married now, that’s if ever. But what matters as long as we’ve a roof over our heads. Never say die, eh?’ And again they had fallen on the bed and held each other for a moment.

  Now holding Lucy’s hand, she said, ‘I’m going to get you some woollen bloomers an’ a woollen habit shirt.’

  ‘Habit shirt?’

  ‘Yes, camisole like.’

  ‘Oh…Oh, that’ll be lovely. Woollen?’

  ‘Aye, woollen to keep you warm. And if we can find a second-hand shop in Gateshead, we’ll go and see if we can get you a coat. And meself one an’ all; you can almost see the wind through this one.’

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Aye, what is it?’ Emily was now standing with knees bent in order that she could see in the little mirror on the low dressing chest as she pinned on her hat.

  ‘Are you frightened of her?’

  She paused in the act of pushing the hatpin through the back of the hat, and she looked at her reflection in the mirror; then, her head drooping to the side, she said, ‘No; at least I’m not going to be. If she starts any of her capers again I’ll do what he says and give her as much as she sends, like I did the day.’

  She continued to look at her reflection. She was filling out, her face looked plumper, her cheeks were rosy. Was she bonny? Everybody said she was…Eeh! Fancy asking herself such questions at this time, and on a day like this, after that do downstairs an’ all. Was she bonny indeed! Huh!

  She straightened up and smoothed down the front of her coat. It was a nice feeling to be told you were bonny but to be really bonny you had to have nice clothes, smart clothes, and shoes, not boots. She looked down at her feet. That’s what she would do an’ all the day when she was out, she’d get herself a pair of shoes. Yes, that’s what she’d do the day. She needed something to take the bad taste of this morning out of her mouth, she’d spend, and be damned.

  ‘Come on.’ She caught hold of Lucy’s hand; then pulled her to a stop as the younger girl made for the door, and she bounced her head down at her, saying, ‘We’re goin’ out and we’re gona enjoy ourselves. Remember that, Lucy Kennedy. Do you hear me? We’re gona enjoy ourselves, and forget about this place and everything.’

  Her face crinkled with laughter now, Lucy leant against her for a moment; then they looked at each other, warm from the endearment, and went out and down the stairs determined to enjoy their brief period of liberty.

  They arrived in Fellburn market about twelve o’clock. It had been a beautiful drive; the sun had shone all the way; the air was nippy but bracing. Two incidents had occurred on the road that puzzled her and made her think again of Con. She recalled her first impression of him as someone who seemingly couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Yet this she had proved to be wrong; anyway, in her case and in Lucy’s. Though Lucy was more than fond of him, she had never seen him touch her, not in the way they were suggesting anyhow.

  The first incident took place when they had been on the road about ten minutes. They were passing a drover sitting on the bank above a ditch while his herd cropped the grass behind him, when he shouted from the bank, ‘Hello there, Larry, how’s tricks?’ She had been surprised at the man’s familiarity and also at Mr Birch’s response when he said, and in his ordinary voice, ‘Not too bad, Joe. Could be worse.’

  ‘I’ll say, I’ll say,’ was the man’s next response. Then when the trap was well past him, he shouted, ‘How’s Con? Don’t see him about these days.’

  E
mily had looked at Mr Birch. He was staring straight ahead and he made no reply to the remark.

  Then when they were passing through the village there was a girl standing beyond the blacksmith’s shop. She was carrying a wooden bucket in each hand. The buckets were empty but they seemed to weigh her down and backwards, and Emily realised the reason was that her stomach was well up towards her time. She, too, called to Mr Birch. ‘Hello there!’ she said. But this time the only answer Larry Birch gave was to turn his head in her direction and stare at her. But when he jerked the reins to hasten the horse on, her voice came to them, shouting. ‘Tell Con I’ll be takin’ a walk over to see him one of these days.’ At this he swung round in his seat and glared at the girl, and Emily turned her head, too, and saw that the girl was laughing.

  Other folk on the village street had looked towards the trap but, as on the day she had first driven through the village, no-one gave him any sign of recognition.

  They were out of the village and going round the frightening curve above the quarry when he next spoke. Looking straight ahead, he said, ‘She’s a liar, that girl. She’s been with more men than there’s days in the week. Con never touched her. I want you to believe that.’ He now jerked his head towards her. ‘He isn’t like that. Affectionate, yes, but not in that way. It wasn’t Con. But it’s only her word against his.’

  She could believe him but she said nothing, it wasn’t her business…Had more men than days in the week, he had said, and she could believe that about the girl, for she looked a low, common piece, and not one to be easily tripped up in the dark.

  In the market he helped them both down onto the road, then said, ‘Be back here by half past three sharp, I want to get home before it’s dark. But if I shouldn’t be here when you arrive…well, you’ll just have to wait.’ He gave her a tight smile, then added, ‘I’m driving over into Washington. I have some business to see to there.’