Sarah, her legs dangling over the edge of the saddle, looked on in dumb amazement. She was well acquainted with trouble, and she knew it was once more in the kitchen, but the form it was taking was unusual…He’s in a way, poor lad, he’s in a way, she kept repeating to herself. And oh, if he would only stop carrying on like that!
When Kate, after what seemed an eternity, felt Pat release her lips and the tenderness she was used to creep back into his touch, she gently pressed him away and sank down into a chair. She was breathless and a little afraid.
As he still did not speak, but stood looking so strangely at Kate, Sarah said quietly, ‘What is it, lad? Tell us what’s happened.’
After a silence that was painful in its length, he turned slowly to Sarah. He looked suddenly childish and forlorn. ‘It’s Connie Fawcett, ma! She’s done this.’
‘Connie!’ Kate and Sarah exclaimed together. Then, ‘What’s Connie got to do with us, Pat?’ Kate asked; while a rising fear told her that Connie, at this moment, had everything to do with them.
‘Oh, me darling. Oh, me Kate.’ Pat’s long frame doubled up and he was on his knees in front of her, with his head in her lap and his arms around her once more.
Kate looked helplessly over his bowed head at her mother. Sarah, pink with embarrassment, for she had never witnessed anything like this, murmured, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’
‘Look, Pat,’ Kate said, taking his head between her hands and raising it. ‘You must tell me what has happened. What has Connie done that you should go on like this? I must know,’ she said firmly.
His eyes roamed over her face, and he moaned aloud. ‘Yes, you must know.’ He lumbered to his feet. ‘And I’ve got to tell you! I’ve been telling meself that for hours as I walked the streets. I’ve been saying…I’ve got to tell her!…Holy Mary, I’ve got to tell her…Well, I’ll tell you; but I can’t look at you and say what’s got to be said…Don’t go, ma,’ he added, as Sarah got up; ‘it’s best you should hear this, too.’ He turned and looked into the fire, and began to talk.
Kate and Sarah stared at his broad back and at his outstretched hands, clasping and unclasping the brass rod under the mantelpiece, and listened as he went back to the night of Peter Fawcett’s wedding.
The pain in Kate’s chest was like a tight band, constricting her breathing; her eyes and throat burned…She saw the cupboard under the stairs and the straw mattress. She saw Pat, roused from a drunken sleep, open his arms to a woman whom in his stupor he imagined to be her…It was over and done with, there was no going back…and the probable consequences, that had only too truly come about, had sobered him, and he had threatened to strangle her…The weeks had passed, and he had tried to forget it and what she might do. And then, last night, her father had come to him, together with Father O’Malley, and Father O’Malley had made him swear to marry Connie. He had made him give his word for the sake of the child.
‘Do you hear, Kate?’ Pat said, turning to her, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I had to swear that I would marry her. But, as Jesus is my judge, I hate the very name of her. This also I swore, and on the altar, unknown to Father O’Malley, that she’d have me name but nothing else. I made sure of that this morning, for I joined up.’
‘If you ever live to regret this day, Kate, may my death soon follow…’ His words of a year ago came back to her, and she had a horrifying glimpse into the future…As on a screen flung up before her mind’s eye she saw his mangled body half buried in mud, unrecognisable but for the crucifix he always wore round his neck. She felt hot and sick; the kitchen receded. Her mother was standing close to Pat, begging him to do something…‘Forget your promise,’ she was saying…as if he could; Father O’Malley knew how to seal an Irishman’s oath…They floated away from her, and she felt herself falling gently into thankful blackness.
She came to herself breathing air that stung and pricked and made her gasp; and she realised she was sniffing smelling-salts, and wondered vaguely from where they had come…she hadn’t any, there wasn’t any need, for she rarely had a headache and she had never fainted before…This feeling of lying in between two worlds was pleasant, you didn’t think here, not about new fathers or lost husbands, or anything. If one could just go on and on like this…She felt her head lifted and a glass put to her lips. She was comfortable and at rest in the crook of an arm, until a burning liquid ran down her throat. As she coughed, her mind flashed back once more into the throes of pain. Her eyes opened and she looked up into the doctor’s face. She felt the tweed of his greatcoat against her neck and cheek, and his gay, woollen scarf dangled like a ladder onto her chest. His black eyes looked down into hers, and he smiled at her as he laid her head back on the saddle.
‘That’s what is meant by a doctor being on the spot, Kate,’ he said. ‘You faint, and I knock at the door.’
She neither answered nor smiled, but closed her eyes again. Her mother said, ‘Is she all right, Doctor?’ And Rodney answered, ‘Yes, she’ll be all right; just let her rest.’
There was quiet in the kitchen. Kate felt the three of them looking down on her. Then a sob from Pat rent the silence, and she heard a thud as he turned away and flung himself into a chair, and the beat of his fist on the table.
She listened to Rodney’s voice, low and questioning, and she listened to Pat’s muffled replies. Then, from soothing tones to one of utter incredulity, Rodney’s voice changed to low, bitter cadences: ‘He can’t do it, Pat!…Why, man, don’t be a fool!…Come on, pull yourself together!’
There was a movement of the chair as Pat writhed in agony.
‘See here, Pat! You don’t mean to tell me you are going to let that damn priest wreck your life, and, what is much more important to you, Kate’s?…You can’t let him do it! He hasn’t the power to make you marry anyone you don’t want to; he has only the power you give him, through your fear of him.’
Kate thought, You don’t understand…You’re wasting your breath; you’ve got to be a Catholic before you can understand…
‘Pat…go to him now; tell him you’ll support the child; tell him that you were tricked into it…Look, Pat, I’ll stand by you in this…You won’t be without friends; let her take you to court.’
‘You’re a grand fellow.’ There was the utterness of finality in Pat’s few words; and they conveyed to Rodney the hopelessness of his appeal…But it mustn’t be hopeless! Pat must marry Kate; he had got to marry her! She must be made safe, put out of reach…He didn’t want that internal war over again, it had been hell. He had seen the danger signal last Christmas Eve…She must get married; there must be some barrier put between them…He started talking again, and no-one answered him.
The back-door latch clicked, and Kate opened her eyes. And when she heard her mother’s surprised voice say, ‘Father!’ she thought, No, no, it can’t be! This is too much…Her mother continued, ‘We don’t often see you.’ And, realising it was Father Bailey, she relaxed.
‘I’ve been to your lodgings, Pat; I’ve been looking all over for you.’
‘Have you, Father?’ said Pat, in a dead voice.
‘I wanted you to know how sorry I am about all this, Pat.’
‘I know it.’ There was a soothing quality in Pat’s words, as if he intended to lessen the pain of the priest’s embarrassment.
‘Sir, do you consider this is right?’ Rodney addressed the priest without using the usual prefix. ‘To trap a man, half demented with trouble, into marrying a woman he hates…?’
Father Bailey, looking at Rodney sadly, broke in, ‘We all have our own ideas of what is right and wrong, Doctor. When a wrong is done someone always suffers, it’s inevitable. And when it’s the ones we know and respect it appears like injustice, and we see the enforcing of right as cruelty or wickedness. But,’ he added wistfully, ‘a lot, of course, depends on how it is enforced.’
‘What right has Father O’Malley, or any man for that matter, to wield the power of fear to make another follow the course that he deems right?…Sur
ely you would admit that such coercion is diabolical?’ Rodney faced the priest, his beard stuck out in anger.
‘I would admit that coercion by fear is diabolical,’ answered Father Bailey calmly. ‘But then, we have both to explain to each other what we mean by fear and by coercion. I think we view the former from different standpoints. It’s a question I’d like to talk over with you some time, Doctor, for it makes for lengthy discussion. And now, if you will excuse me…’ He turned once again to Pat: ‘Would you care to walk part of the way home with me, Pat?’
Pat nodded dumbly, then made to go towards the saddle for some final word with Kate. But he changed his mind, and, with a violent shake of his head, he stumbled out of the back door.
The priest went to Kate and bent over her: ‘You’re not well, Kate. I can understand that; but try not to worry,’ he said. ‘I will see you later and have a talk…God is good, and the path is all mapped out for us; He knows exactly where we are going.’ He patted her shoulder, then followed Pat, and there was silence in the kitchen once more.
The path is all mapped out for us! Kate shuddered. Why struggle? Why try?…The path is all mapped out…It always had been; she had tried to take a side road last Christmas Eve. She had seen herself as good and noble, and the spasms of happiness that had been hers this past year she had accepted as payment for her goodness…Pat, the buffer, had gone, and with him the cloak she had wrapped around her real feelings. She had not dramatised anything; she knew, as she felt Rodney standing over her, that it had not been her imagination which had played her false; she had played herself false and had clung to Pat, as a drowning man to a straw.
What lay before her now?…A struggle, or a giving up?…A delightful giving up…and involving what?…Scandal? Well, she had been scandalised when she was innocent. But the other person…what would scandal bring to him?…Disaster, finally! She sensed this more than she knew it, glimpsing the lengths to which his feelings would carry him…And what of her mother and of Annie?…and of the other Annies who might come?…No, she must fight it! But could she?…The path is all mapped out!
She suddenly began to laugh, and once more found herself in the shelter of Rodney’s arm.
‘Don’t do that, Kate!’ he said sternly. ‘Come now!’
As she saw his free hand come up to touch her cheek, she burst out, ‘Did you hear what he said?…The path is all mapped out!’
‘Stop it, Kate! Do you hear?’
She laughed the louder.
‘If you don’t stop it I’ll have to slap you!’
‘The path is all mapped out!’
He laid her back and struck her twice on the face, two ringing slaps which made her head reel.
She stopped and lay still, then the slow tears brimmed her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Her breath caught in her throat and she sobbed painfully and bitterly.
Rodney stared down at her, and gritted his teeth. Then, swiftly falling to one knee, he gathered her into his arms. His face pressed into her hair, he held her, and she clung to him in the paroxysm of her weeping.
Sarah leant against the kitchen table, listening in amazement to the endearments dropping from his lips; her hands, gripping each other, were pressed into her chest. She stared at them, her eyes fixed with anxiety and fear, praying, ‘Don’t let her do it…Oh, Mary, Mother of God, don’t let her do it!’
7
The Belt
Rodney opened the gate which led from the lane, and walked up between the frost-painted shrubs of the lower garden and across the glassy lawn of the upper to the house. How different it all looked after only ten weeks! Different, but as formal; absence could do nothing to soften its formality, either inside or out. The difference lay, he thought, in his seeing it after a complete break; for nine years he had merely felt it, without seeing it.
Mary opened the door to him: ‘Why, sir, we weren’t expecting you. The mistress is in Newcastle; she went right after lunch, and she won’t be back till tea-time.’
‘That’s all right, Mary. I’ll have a bath and something to eat in the meantime…How are you?’ ‘Oh, fine, sir.’
Mary watched him as he walked up the stairs…Coo! he didn’t arf look funny without his beard…barelike! But the khaki suited him all right. Well, that would mean another one for dinner tonight…But cook wouldn’t mind; fair daft about him, she was…be dashing upstairs as soon as she knew, seeing her ladyship wasn’t in…I wonder if she’ll be pleased! The thought brought an inward smirk…See, what did I tell you! she said to herself, as cook hurried up the stairs as fast as her lack of breath allowed.
Rodney called ‘Come in!’ to the knock on his door. ‘Hallo, cook, it’s good to see you!’ he said.
‘Oh, sir, and it’s good to see you…I am glad you’re home for Christmas, sir.’
‘So am I, cook, and I’m as hungry as a hunter. Can you do anything about it?’
‘I’ll soon fix that…Do you like the life, sir?’ she asked.
‘Oh, it’s all right, cook; you get a bit bored at times, you know; nothing much to do…likely to be more next year!’
She nodded. Yes, when we went over the water there would be more, not arf there would. But she would see he had a good Christmas, for her part, anyway; might be his last, you never could tell. He wouldn’t like it when he knew there was a high falutin’ dinner tonight, with that band of conchies! What else were they, with all their palavering and reading parties, when poor lads were roughing it in the trenches and being knocked off like flies?…‘Well, I’m glad you’re home, sir,’ she said. ‘And I’ll have a meal ready as soon as you are; say half an hour?’
‘Fine!’ He grinned engagingly at her. ‘I’ve missed your cooking.’
‘Go on, sir!’ she said, smiling back at him…Ah, it was nice to have him home; he was human, he was…‘I’ll get Mary to light a fire, this room’s like ice,’ she said.
‘Thanks, cook.’
‘Look, sir, there’s a good fire in the mistress’s room. Why don’t you dress in there after your bath, sir, till this warms up?’
‘All right, cook; don’t you worry. I’ll pick the warmest spot. Trust me.’
Mrs Summers went out, leaving him strangely comforted, with the new sensation of being fussed over.
As he lay in his bath, luxuriating in the pinescented warmth, he wondered what he would do with his seven days…Seven days with nothing to do! No bodies to examine, no feet to inspect. He’d see old Peter and Peggy a lot, that’d be good, and do a few shows in Newcastle…with Stella? No, he didn’t think so. What was the good of putting on a front when things stood as they did; he had made his last and final effort a long time ago. What time does to one! he thought; it seems impossible to believe she can hurt me no more and that she hasn’t an atom of power over me. I’ve been a fool all my life where she’s concerned, but now I’m free…What had really brought it about? he asked himself. Kate? No, I was waking up long before Kate entered my mind. I suppose I saw her shallowness and devilry, for she is a devil. Oh, God, what it was to feel free of all desire of her!…He lashed the water with his feet for a moment; then became still, thinking of Kate…But was he free? Wasn’t he chained to Kate with stronger chains than ever Stella had welded? Yes, he supposed he was. But with what a difference.
He thought back to last Christmas Eve, when he had given up fighting and held Kate in his arms, for the one and only time. He had known then that, had the mother not been there and they could have talked, she would have been his…She was his; he was convinced of that; as irrevocably as if they had been joined together by that damned, fear-inspiring priest. He had wanted her more than he had ever wanted Stella, the ache for her had persisted from the night he had taken her for the drive two years ago. But he also felt for her something he had never felt for Stella; a certain protectiveness, coupled with a deep admiration for the fight she had made to emancipate herself from the fifteen streets…he had wanted only Stella’s body, her mind had irritated him.
When he had left K
ate, on the sound of Tim Hannigan’s steps in the back-yard, he already knew what he intended doing…He would take a little house, perhaps a cottage, outside Newcastle, and install her there, with Annie. No-one need know, and if they did what would it matter? He could laugh at all their social codes which cloaked such rampant immorality. He would be hurting no-one, the only hurt to Stella would be to her pride…Over the holidays he had been excited and on edge. When he had called and found that Kate was not on her usual Christmas holidays, but was back at the Tolmaches, he had gone straight there, feeling he had but to see her to hold her in his arms again. His heart had pounded against his ribs at the first glimpse of her; she had looked pale and tired, with a sadness darkening her eyes. He had tried to catch her eye, so that a mingled glance would join them together once again; but within a few minutes of his arrival she had left the room without looking at him. The brothers and sister had discussed the recent happenings with concern, being as troubled and worried as if she were their own. His conscience had pricked him when, using Sarah as an excuse, he had asked if he might go and speak to her about her mother, as he had found her in a really bad state and was afraid she would have to go into hospital. This, he comforted himself, was the truth, but he had hated the idea of making use of it and of deceiving these kind and trusting old people. He had felt sure that, frail as Bernard Tolmache was, he’d have been quite capable of kicking him out had he known the real reason for his desire to see Kate.
When he had opened the green baize door of the kitchen and had seen her sitting by the table, her head resting on her hands, a deep and protective tenderness had been born in him. Swiftly he had taken her hands in his and had drawn her to her feet; but no further, for when his arms would have gone round her she had whispered tensely, ‘No, no!’
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