The Mallen Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  It happened during the evening of the yearly event when Constance had the Waite family in for supper and, as Jane Radlet termed it, a bit of jollification. Little Sarah, after entertaining the company with a clog dance taught her by her cousin Jim, was receiving the loud applause of all those present when she found herself suddenly sitting on her bottom on the farm kitchen floor. Although the floor was covered with drugget it was made up of slabs of stone, and the impact caused the little girl to howl aloud. The only one who dared voice her disapproval was Constance, who said, ‘You’re a naughty girl, Barbara,’ accompanying her words with slapping Barbara’s hands.

  Miss Brigmore was very annoyed and she expressed her annoyance to Constance. Didn’t she understand the situation? she asked. Wasn’t it natural that Barbara should be jealous when she saw Michael making a fuss of the Waite child? Didn’t she understand that in her little mind she imagined Michael belonged to her, like a brother? It was merely a childish reaction and she would grow out of it.

  Miss Brigmore remembered for a long time afterwards that Constance had made no reply whatsoever; she had just stood staring at her before turning about and walking out of the room.

  Her prediction that Barbara would, with the years, change her attitude toward Michael had not, however proved correct; if anything Barbara’s possessiveness had increased, until now Miss Brigmore found herself longing for the winter so that their visits would be controlled by the weather. In the summer Barbara insisted on trailing her over the hills at least once a week. Lately, she had broached the subject of having a horse; if she had a horse she would not need to trouble anyone, was her argument now.

  Among other fears also assailing Miss Brigmore was the fact that the childish infatuation Barbara had for her cousin Michael might not die away during her adolescence, but might mature into love, and such an outcome as this was definitely not in her plans for her child. As prosperous a farm as Wolfbur was, she did not see Thomas Mallen’s daughter acting the farmer’s wife. No, the route she had mapped out for her lay in the opposite direction, just a mile or so down the road where stood the Hall, High Banks Hall in which Barbara’s mother had spent her young days, and over which Miss Brigmore was determined her spiritual daughter should reign in the future. And everything would work out splendidly, she felt, for already John Bensham, at sixteen, was showing a marked interest in Barbara. If only the child would get over this obsession for Michael and also her equally strong hate for young Sarah Waite, for the two were linked together.

  She would, at this moment, like to be able to reassure Barbara that she had nothing to fear from a girl like Sarah Waite, because after all what was she but a maid, and the niece of a farm labourer. True, she was not actually treated like a maid, and so therefore did not act like one, for Constance had made the mistake of teaching the girl to read and write. She would have been happy to reassure her that her Aunt Constance did not prefer a little working-class maid to herself. But she knew this was not true. Constance had no feeling for Barbara, and this was strange because she had loved Barbara’s mother. The sisters had been inseparable. Yet Constance, she suspected, would prefer that her son stepped out of his class and took someone like the Waite child to wife rather than her own niece.

  It was a most strange state of affairs, Miss Brigmore thought; yet it suited her book, because were it otherwise the second stage of her life’s work would go for nought.

  She now sat down on a chair and, drawing Barbara to her, she held the child’s hands between her own, and looking up at her, she said slowly, but in loud tones, ‘Don’t you understand, my dear, that when you quarrel with Sarah you are bringing yourself down to her level?’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, I can hear you.’

  Miss Brigmore stared up into Barbara’s eyes, which had now turned as black as her hair, and she dragged her lower lip slowly between her teeth before saying in a normal voice, ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said that when I quarrel with her I reduce myself to her level.’

  The answer was correct and the words were as precise as Miss Brigmore would have wished; she sometimes forgot that this child could read most of what she was saying by the movement of her lips, and so she said, ‘Well then, you understand what I mean, only inferior people quarrel openly. You mustn’t forget that you are a young lady…’

  ‘And I mustn’t forget that I am deaf. I’ll soon be stone deaf, won’t I?’

  ‘No, no, my dear.’ Miss Brigmore’s head was moving slowly and her words were merely a whisper and full of compassion. ‘No, no,’ she repeated. ‘No, no; something will be done, Mr Bensham promised to see a certain gentleman in Manchester; he’s heard of a man who’s very clever with ears…’

  ‘Yes, he’ll give me a big horn to stick in it, like the caricatures in…’

  ‘No! No! No!’ Miss Brigmore’s voice was loud again and with each word she shook Barbara’s hands up and down. When she stopped they stared at each other, both in deep sadness. Then the girl, her thin body seeming to crumple, fell onto her knees and buried her face in Miss Brigmore’s lap, and, her voice high and tear-broken now, she gasped, ‘Why am I deaf? Why? Why?’ She lifted her face and appealed, ‘Brigie, why? why should I be deaf? Is it because Michael tipped me out of the barrow?’

  Miss Brigmore did not answer immediately because this was always a question in her own mind. It had seemed that there had been no ear defect at all until the child was five years old; yet of late she had recalled having before this chastised her for disobedience, whenever she appeared to take no notice either of some question or of being called.

  The accident appeared a minor one at the time. Michael had been wheeling her in the farm barrow when it capsized and she fell head over heels and suffered a slight concussion. Was it from that time that her deafness became noticeable? Or was it really from the time of her first nightmare?

  As if the girl were picking up her thoughts she said, ‘I told Michael today that he was to blame for my deafness.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, my dear; it…it isn’t true.’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘Your hearing was slightly defective before that.’

  ‘Throwing me on my head didn’t help.’

  ‘That was an accident.’

  ‘The doctor said it didn’t help, didn’t he?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I saw you talking to Mrs Bensham one day.’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Miss Brigmore closed her eyes; then slowly she said, ‘It may not have helped but…you would have become deaf in any case, so I understand. Yet, as I have said, there are remedies; I refuse to believe there are not. And I want you to believe that too, you understand? Now dry your eyes.’ She dried them for her. Then taking the child’s face gently between her two palms she looked down into it and said slowly, ‘It doesn’t matter so much about your impediment, just remember you are very beautiful and highly intelligent.’

  A sad smile slowly spread over Barbara’s face, but there was a glint of mischief in it now as she said, ‘I haven’t got a bust, not a sign of one, and you can’t be beautiful without a bust.’

  ‘Oh Barbara! Barbara!’ Miss Brigmore was trying to suppress her laughter. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, one doesn’t, they’re not…’

  ‘Ladylike?’

  ‘Yes, if you put it that way.’

  ‘That doesn’t alter the fact that I haven’t one. And look at yours; you’re old and you’ve got an enormous bust.’

  ‘Really! Barbara.’ Miss Brigmore rose to her feet and her voice lost a little of its controlled calmness as she retorted, ‘I’m not, I haven’t.’

  Jumping up now, Barbara placed her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter; then she fell against Miss Brigmore as she giggled, ‘Well, you have; and it’s a lovely bust, a lovely bust.’

  When she went to put her hand on the tightly laced breasts Miss Brigmore slapped at it hard and bringing her upright, said, ‘Barbara…Barbara…behave yourself.’ H
er lips moved widely now. ‘One does not mention these things. I have told you before there are certain parts of the anatomy to which one does not make reference. Nor does one refer to another’s age. You’re old enough to have learned these things, they are elementary.’

  ‘Oh, Brigie!’ Barbara flounced away, only to be pulled sharply round to face Miss Brigmore again.

  ‘Never mind taking that attitude. Come, sit down, I want to talk to you.’

  Seated once again, they looked at each other and Miss Brigmore’s mind was distracted from her theme as her protesting thoughts said, Old, indeed! She felt younger now than she had when Thomas was alive. Her body was straight and firm; she had as yet no grey hairs, and but for some lines under her eyes her skin was smooth; as for her mind, it had never been more active than during these last few years. Old indeed! She swallowed deeply; then folding her hands on her lap, her head slightly tilted to the side, she said, ‘Tell me exactly what caused the rum…’ She had almost said, rumpus—Mary’s speech had a way of infiltrating. ‘What caused the altercation at the farm?’

  ‘Need you ask? It was Sarah, as usual.’

  Miss Brigmore did not say, ‘Sarah is not always to blame’; instead she asked, ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She said I was deaf.’

  ‘Did she say it spitefully?’

  Barbara heaved a deep sigh, closed her eyes, and slumped back in her chair before saying, ‘Spitefully or not, she said it.’

  ‘Sit up straight; put your buttocks well back…straighter. Don’t have to be told so often.’

  ‘Will sitting straight make me hear better?’

  ‘Don’t ask ridiculous questions, Barbara. You shall hear; I’ve told you, you shall hear; everything is being done. What you must understand is that you’re not the only one who has this impediment.’ She now tapped her ear; then dropped her hand away as if it had been stung, remembering too late that nothing angered the child more than sign language. Yet if only she’d admit to her deafness the sign language would be of untold help to her. She herself had been reading at great length recently about the different methods of sign language; it was amazing what one learned through tribulation. She would never have dreamed there had been methods of trying to make the deaf and dumb speak as far back as the seventeenth century. She had also learned that deafness could be brought about by shock. This new knowledge, gleaned only during the past week, had brought the nightmares into question again and opened up another possibility for the child’s deafness. For she had received a shock; as she herself had the first night Barbara’s screams had awakened her. When she had reached the child’s bed it was to see her sitting stiffly upright, her arms stretched out her finger pointing to the corner of the room, and screaming hysterically, ‘The man! The man! The big man! Send him away.’

  Even after she took Barbara into her own bed and soothed her by telling her that she had been dreaming, the child still insisted that there had been a big man in her room, a big man with a fat stomach and white hair all over his head and face, and blood coming out of his coat. The description had been like a pen picture of Thomas just before he died, and for nights afterwards she had hardly slept and she had talked to the unseen figure, begging him to go and rest in peace and not to frighten the child.

  She had never before associated this, and further incidents of the same nature, with Barbara’s deafness, being of the opinion that deafness was congenital and could slumber for years in a child except in cases of malnutrition which supplied bad blood to the brain and resulted in bad eyesight, deafness, and rickets. Nor did she associate deafness such as Barbara had with that of the deaf and dumb. The latter she considered a malady quite apart, and associated with mental defects; at least she had done until she’d had cause to go more fully into the matter.

  She said now, ‘Your deafness is different; it’s a deafness that could go like that.’ She snapped her fingers.

  ‘Or get worse like that!’ Barbara imitated her.

  ‘Barbara!’ Miss Brigmore’s voice was stern again. ‘You’ve got to believe what I say; and you’ve also got to help yourself.’

  ‘By talking on my hands?’ She now made wild exaggerated gestures, then said, ‘I won’t, I won’t. It makes you look mad; people think you’re mad, daft. That’s what Mary said when I did it. “Don’t act daft,” she said.’

  Oh! Mary. Miss Brigmore said sharply, ‘Mary wasn’t implying that you were…’ She stopped, and now she closed her eyes in irritation and flicked her hand as if dismissing Mary before saying, ‘I have been reading about a Mr Pestalozzi and a Mr Froebel. Mr Pestalozzi was from Switzerland; he had a school there. He was a great educationalist and advises…’

  ‘That you should take your earwort medicine. Oh you! You! You’re silly; with your Mr Froebel and Mr Pestalozzi, and all your ideas. Pestalozzi! Psst! Psst!’

  When Miss Brigmore’s hand came out and struck Barbara’s with two resounding blows the girl was really startled, for she couldn’t remember Brigie striking her, not for insolence or anything else. Then her pale face went a shade paler as she read Miss Brigmore saying, ‘All right, all right, I’m silly, as is Mr Pestalozzi, so we will have it the way you want it. I shall no longer continue to probe into ways and means of helping you. But one thing I shall do, I shall see that you are helped, I’ll send you away to a school for the deaf. Yes, yes; That’s what I’ll do.’

  Miss Brigmore stood up. Her body was as straight as a ramrod, her neck was stretched and her head pushed back on her shoulders.

  For the first time in her life Barbara now felt real fear. Brigie was wild; she…she could mean what she said. She was so determined that she should hear that she could really mean what she said and send her away. Oh no! She would die…Like a young animal, she sprang on Miss Brigmore, clutching her, crying, pleading, ‘Brigie! Brigie! no. Please, don’t be angry, don’t be angry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll do what you say, I’ll do all that you say, only don’t, don’t send me away to school. I’d die. Yes, I’d die, or do something. You know I would, because I get so angry inside, and I can’t help it, and should you send me away I’ll get worse. Please, please, Brigie, please…Look I’ll go over, straight back tomorrow, to the farm and tell Sarah I’m sorry, because I know she didn’t mean it, I know she didn’t. It was Bill Twigg really. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, he mumbles; and it was then that Sarah said to him, “She’s deaf. Don’t you know she’s deaf? Make your mouth go more.” It was that…when she said make your mouth go more. It was awful. It was as if they were talking to one of the animals; I felt like an animal I did, I did. Brigie, I felt like an animal and I went wild. I couldn’t hit him so I hit her. I’ll apologise, I will, next time, or tomorrow. I tell you I’ll go over tomorrow.’ Her voice broke on a high sob.

  ‘There, there,’ Miss Brigmore was breathing deeply. Her body slowly relaxing, she put her arms around the girl and drew her close and stroked her hair, murmuring now, ‘There, there; don’t cry, don’t cry.’

  After a moment Barbara raised her tear-stained face and said, ‘You’ll never say that again will you, Brigie? Never say you’ll send me away to one of those schools.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to co-operate.’

  ‘I’ll…co-operate.’

  As Miss Brigmore stared into the beloved face and saw the fear still on it, she realised, perhaps for the first time, the full extent of the child’s agony of mind caused by her affliction, but she also realised that the very fear of being sent away had given herself a handle, a handle that she meant to use.

  Two

  The following day being Monday, they arrived at High Banks Hall at nine-thirty sharp. With the exception of holidays, this had been the daily procedure since Miss Brigmore had taken over the education of Mr Bensham’s daughter, Katie, ten years ago in 1865. Unless they were returning late in the evening or the weather was stormy Miss Brigmore insisted on them walking. The distance from the cottage to the Hall was well over a mile along the main road before they ent
ered the gates, but unless she had been battling against the wind she always mounted the steps leading to the front door of the Hall without any show of exertion.

  Brooks, the butler, invariably opened the door to her. He was no longer called ’Arry, for Miss Brigmore had pointed out very tactfully to the mistress of the house the fact that two ’Arrys in her household might cause some confusion, one being her husband, so ’Arry became Brooks to all except the master of the house. Miss Brigmore had found that there was very little she could do concerning certain matters when dealing with the master of the house. In some things he was quite pliable, in others most obdurate.

  ‘Good morning, miss.’

  ‘Good morning, Brooks.’

  Miss Brigmore led the way across the hall, up the main staircase, turned to her right across a wide landing, and made her way toward the gallery. As she pushed open one of the double doors she almost knocked over a bucket of water from which Alice Dunn, the third housemaid, was wringing out a cloth.

  ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No, miss. No, miss.’ Alice Dunn smiled as she shook her head vigorously, then she sat back on her heels and watched the pair go down the long gallery before she dried up the soap from the mosaic tiles of the floor. It was as they said, she gave folks their place. Yet some resented her, saying they didn’t know who was mistress of the Hall, her or Mrs Bensham. Still, as everybody knew, Mrs Bensham couldn’t run a place like this, not really, not cut out for it. And The Brigadier, give her her due, had done a good job on the bairns, there was no doubt about that; they behaved themselves, at least when she was about. They could be devils, oh aye, but they weren’t upstarts of devils like some she had seen in other houses; spit on you some of the younger ones would, and did. Talking about spittin’; they were sayin’ in the kitchen The Brigadier’s next battle was to get the master to take the spittoon out of the bedroom. By! aye, that would be the day. She hoped she lived to see it.