The Mallen Streak

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Ssh! Ssh! What is it? Something’s happened?’

  They were now in the hall and Miss Brigmore looked about her. Thomas was in his study reading or dozing, Barbara was in the outhouse with Mary pickling onions and red cabbage.

  Sensing that something more than ordinary was afoot, Miss Brigmore said again, “Ssh! Ssh! Now come upstairs. Come.’ Soft-footed, she led the way hurriedly up the narrow stairs, and when they were in the bedroom she closed the door and, untying the strings of Constance’s hat, she asked, ‘What is it? what has happened? Oh my goodness!’ She looked down at her skirt. ‘Look at the condition of you; your dress is filthy, and your cloak, too. Constance?’ She backed from her just the slightest, her brow furrowed; then said sharply, ‘Come, get those things off and into a clean dress. Come now, stop crying and change, and then tell me.’

  A few minutes later, when she’d buttoned the dress up the back, she turned Constance about and sat her down, and sitting opposite to her she took her hands and said firmly, ‘Now.’

  It was an order, but Constance couldn’t obey it. How could one say to the person who had been teacher, and then friend, since one could remember anything, how could one say, ‘I have given myself to a man. The act took place on the filthy floor of a derelict house. So much for all your training…Miss Brigmore.’

  ‘Something’s happened to you, what is it? Tell me.’ Miss Brigmore had leant forward now and was shaking Constance by the shoulders. Then as a thought came into her mind, she suddenly straightened her body, sat back in her chair, and clasping her hands tightly against her breast, murmured, ‘You…were attacked?’

  ‘No, no.’

  Miss Brigmore heaved a short sigh, then demanded, ‘Then what?’

  ‘… can’t marry Donald, Anna.’

  ‘You can’t marry Donald, what do you mean?’

  ‘Some…something’s happened.’

  Again Miss Brigmore joined her hands and pressed them to her breast. ‘Then you were attacked…’

  ‘No, I wasn’t attacked…But Matthew, he, he loves me. It was in the storm. We were sheltering in that old house. Something happened, happened to us both. He…he isn’t to blame.’ Her head drooped now onto her breast, and then she repeated in a whisper, ‘He isn’t to blame.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  Not only the words but how they were expressed brought Constance’s head up. She had never heard Miss Brigmore speak in such a way; it was as a mother might, fearful for her daughter’s chastity; it was too much. She flung herself forward on to her knees and buried her face in Miss Brigmore’s lap.

  It was a second before Miss Brigmore laid her hands on Constance’s head. The consequences of the situation were looming before her, racing towards her. She was demanding that her mind think clearly but all her mind kept saying was, She must have gone insane, she must have gone insane. And with Matthew of all people!

  She said it aloud, ‘You must have been insane, girl, and with Matthew of all people! He…Donald will kill him when he knows.’

  ‘He…he needn’t know. He’ll never know.’ Constance had lifted her tear-drenched face upwards. ‘I can’t marry him.’

  Miss Brigmore stared down at her for a long moment, and then she repeated, ‘You can’t marry him? Are you going to marry Matthew then?’

  ‘No, no. Matthew…’ She couldn’t say ‘Matthew won’t marry me’; what she said was, ‘Matthew can’t marry me; he wants to but he can’t. He’s a sick man as you know, and…and as you said, Donald would kill him if he knew, and I believe that.’ She nodded her head now. ‘He’s capable of killing him even though he loves him.’

  Once more Miss Brigmore took hold of Constance’s shoulders; and now she was hissing at her, ‘And you say you are not going to marry Donald? What of the consequences of your act today then? What if you have a child?’

  For the second time that day the breath became stilled in Constance’s body, and when her lips did fall apart it was to emit it in a thin whisper as she asked the question, ‘It could happen after just…just that once?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, girl, after just that once.’ Miss Brigmore’s voice was still a hiss.

  They stared at each other in wide-eyed silence as if watching the consequence taking on actual shape.

  It was Miss Brigmore who broke the silence, her voice weighed with sorrow now as she said, ‘This morning if you had said you weren’t going to marry Donald I would literally have jumped for joy, but now I’m forced to say you must marry him, and I also must add, thank God that the ceremony is but a week ahead…Oh dear! Oh dear!’ She put her hand to her brow now and closed her eyes and groaned. ‘Constance! Constance! What possessed you? What in the name of God possessed you?’

  For answer Constance turned her head slowly towards her shoulder and gazed out of the window, and when she saw that the sun was shining now she almost said, ‘It was the weather, you could put it down to the weather.’ And in a way that was true because if she had not been afraid of the storm and had not taken shelter in the derelict house it certainly, certainly would never have happened. Who made the weather, God? Well, if He did He had certainly laid it as a trap for her.

  She now looked towards Miss Brigmore where she was bustling about the bed, turning down the counterpane, adjusting the pillows; and when she said, ‘Get your clothes off,’ Constance did not say, ‘But I’ve just changed,’ but she did say, ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re going to bed. Your uncle and Barbara must be given a reason for your return, and they will accept the fact that you’re upset by the storm. Moreover, you must be in bed when…when he comes, as he will. This will save you having to talk at length with him.’

  Without a murmur she began to undress.

  When at last she was in bed, Miss Brigmore said, ‘Don’t sit up on your pillows like that, lie down, and say little or nothing to anyone except that the storm made you ill, that you just couldn’t go on, and Matthew had to bring you back…Oh, and it’s fortunate in a way that Pat Ferrier is calling this afternoon with a friend. Your uncle received a letter just after you left; he is going back to college at the weekend. His presence will divert Barbara’s attention from you, for whatever you do you must not tell her about this. Barbara could never look lightly upon such a matter, she’d be shocked.’

  She was tucking the sheet under Constance’s chin when Constance, staring wide-eyed up at her, asked in a whisper, ‘Are you shocked, Anna?’

  In response Miss Brigmore sat down quickly on the side of the bed and, enfolding the girl in her arms, murmured, ‘No, child, no; for I did the same myself, didn’t I? There’s only one difference between us, you have the chance to cover up your mistake, and in this way you are lucky, very lucky. You can have your cake and eat it. It falls to too few of us to have our cake and eat it.’

  Three

  It was over. The wedding party had been driven to the church in Donald’s new acquisition; it wasn’t a trap but what he called a brake, a sturdy, square vehicle on two large wheels. It seated three people at each side and another beside the driver. It looked more suited to utility than pleasure for the seats were plain unpadded wood and the backrests afforded little comfort, being but two low iron rails. Donald had explained that it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but it was the only one going at the sale and it would do in the meantime.

  He had driven over the hills alone. He should have been accompanied by Matthew as his best man, but Matthew, unfortunately, as he explained, had had a bad bout of coughing last night and had shown blood for the first time. It was understood without saying that neither his mother nor his stepfather would attend the wedding.

  It had been anything but a merry wedding party. The only one who had shown any sign of gaiety was Thomas, and, as he commented to himself, it was getting harder going as the day wore on. What was the matter with everybody? He said this to Miss Brigmore immediately on their return. They were alone in his room. He was loosening his cravat to give himself more air, and he exclaimed impatiently,
‘Wedding! I’ve seen happier people at a funeral. Look,’ he turned to her, ‘is there something going on that I should know of? I’ve had a feeling on me these past days. She wanted to marry him, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she wanted to marry him.’

  ‘Well, then, why does she look as she does? In that church it could have been a funeral and she a lily on the coffin, I’ve never seen her looking so pale…And Barbara, I can’t get over Barbara, not a word out of her these days. As for you…now Anna,’ he came towards her wagging his finger, ‘I know when something’s amiss in your head, so come on,’ his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘tell me. Is there something I should know?’

  She stared at him for a moment while her nostrils twitched and her lips moved one over the other in an agitated fashion, and then she said, ‘If there was something you should know, do you think I could keep it from you? It’s your imagination. It’s Constance’s wedding day; wedding days I’m told are a strain. Though of course I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Aw An-na, An-na, that’s hitting below the belt. Tell me,’—he took her chin in his hand—‘do you mind so very much for if you did…’

  ‘If I did, you would still do nothing about it so it’s well that I don’t mind, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re a wonderful woman.’

  ‘I’m a fool of a woman.’ There was a deep sadness in the depths of her eyes as she smiled at him. Then taking his hand, she said, ‘Come, we must join them now, and please me by being your entertaining self.’

  At the wedding breakfast Thomas did his best to please her but as much for his own sake as for hers, for he was susceptible to atmosphere. He could never tolerate company where there was a feeling of strain. If he found it impossible to lighten it, he parted with it at the earliest opportunity. He would have liked nothing better now than to retire to his study, but as that was impossible he spread his congeniality as wide as possible, extending it to the meal and to Mary. When she almost tripped as she was carrying a dish to the table he cried at her, ‘You’re drunk, woman! Couldn’t you wait?’

  As Mary placed the dish in front of him she spluttered, ‘Oh, Master, the things you say. I’ve never even had a drop yet; I’ve not even had a chance to drink to Miss Constance’s health.’ She smiled at Constance and Constance smiled back at her, a white, thin smile.

  No-one seemed to notice that Mary had excluded the bridegroom. Although she would have said she had nothing against him, and she would have gone further and said there were things about him that she admired, the way he had got on for instance, and the way he presented himself; but she would have also said that in her opinion he wasn’t the man for Miss Constance. Miss Constance should have married a gentleman, and although Donald Radlet was the master’s son he was in her opinion far from being a gentleman. But anyway, it was done, and there she was, poor lamb, looking as white as a bleached sheet. Yet she supposed that was nothing to go by, most girls looked white on their wedding day. Now that was funny; Miss Constance had never wanted to be married in white. Months ago she had made up her mind to be married in yellow, and she had brought the material, yellow taffeta with a mauve sprig on it, and together she and Miss Barbara and Miss Brigmore had made it; and they had made a job of it because she looked lovely, really lovely.

  Barbara, too, thought that Constance looked lovely, and she knew in this moment that the soreness in her heart was concerned not only with the loss of Donald, because, as she had told herself, how could you lose something you had never had, but with the real loss of Constance herself, for she hadn’t been separated from Constance since the very day she was born. In those early days she had cared for her like a little mother, and in this moment the pain of losing her was obliterating every other feeling. She could see the winter days ahead; for her the inside of the house would be as barren as the outside. There would still be Anna and her uncle, but she must face it, they had each other. Even Mary; Mary had someone she went to see on her day off once a fortnight; they lived over near Catton. She said it was an old aunt of hers but she also mentioned that the aunt had a nephew. She had never said how old the nephew was, but it was noted by all of them that Mary always came back from Auntie’s very bright-eyed and somewhat gay. For years past Mary’s Auntie had been a private joke between Constance and herself. Well, whoever he was, Mary had someone. They all had someone, except herself. And in another few years she’d be twenty-five. Then she would be old, and being plain, past the attractive stage, unless it was to some old man who needed nursing.

  But even an old man who needed nursing would be better than reading her life away in this isolated spot where a visit from an outsider was a red-letter day. And she knew now that even the red-letter days would be few and far between once Constance was gone; not even young Ferrier would come any more.

  Barbara was startled as a hand gripped her knee tightly and she turned her head to look into Miss Brigmore’s eyes. Miss Brigmore was smiling and her eyes were telling her what to do. Miss Brigmore’s eyes were very expressive. She remembered the time when she had first realised that Miss Brigmore was two people; it was on the day she had told her she thought she was wicked. She had dared to tell her what she had seen, and Miss Brigmore had knelt before her and held her hands and she talked as if she were speaking to an adult. Strangely, she had understood all Miss Brigmore had said, and when she had finished she had realised that servants, even governesses, had few privileges compared with people such as herself; and in her old, young mind she had come to the conclusion that Miss Brigmore was someone she should be sorry for. Now, Miss Brigmore—dear, dear Anna—was someone whom she envied.

  The meal was almost at an end. When it was over Constance would change her dress and leave immediately. Would she be able to talk to her before she left? She had become very distant this past week, almost as reticent as she herself was; reticence was part of her own nature but it never had had any place in Constance’s character. Constance was open, uninhibited, but these past few days she had scarcely opened her lips. This attitude had caused a secret hope to rise in her in that perhaps Constance was going to change her mind and not marry Donald. Yet at the same time she was well aware that if this should happen it would avail her nothing because to Donald Radlet she was merely someone who read books and newspapers which gave her a knowledge of everyday matters, on which he could draw for his own information without taking the trouble or time to garner it himself.

  Cynically she thought that he had used her as a form of abbreviated news-sheet, and she could imagine him repeating the information he had gathered on his sundry visits to his associates or at the cattle shows, or in the market. She imagined him throwing off bits of world news with an authoritative air, which gave him the name for being a knowledgeable fellow. Oh, in spite of her feelings regarding him she knew him, indeed she thought she knew him better than Constance ever would.

  She looked at him and found that he was surveying her. There was a smile on his lips, a possessive, quiet, controlled smile. He looked so sure of himself, proud, as he should be for he had gained a prize in Constance; much more so than if he had married her, for she had nothing but her brains to recommend her…

  Donald, looking back at Barbara, thought: ‘She really hates the idea of me having Constance. She feels as bad in a way about it as that crab across there.’ He turned his set smile on Miss Brigmore and let it rest there. Well, he had beaten her, well and truly he had beaten her, and she knew it. When he entered the door this morning there had been a look on her face he had never seen before; it was there still. He took it to mean defeat.

  He now turned his gaze on the man who was his father and wondered how he really felt about it all. He was the only merry one present; except Mary of course. He didn’t seem to mind Constance going. But then you could never tell with the old man really; behind that boisterous laugh and his joking tongue there was a keen awareness, a cunningness that was the shield of his class and which covered his real feelings. Well, let them all
react as they might; he had won Constance, she was his. In one hour or less they’d be setting out over the hills. She was his wife, she was his for life. At last he had something of his own! And he would love her as a woman had never been loved before. And each year she’d give him a child, sons first, daughters later. He’d bring the colour back to her cheeks, conquer her fear of storms. By God! Yes, he meant to do that after what Matthew had told him about the effect the weather had on her. He wasn’t going to allow her to be fear-ridden for the rest of her life; he’d conquer her fear or he’d know the reason why.

  They were drinking to them now. There they stood, the old man, and—her, and Barbara. As he gazed at them he quietly groped under the tablecloth for Constance’s hand and when he found it he squeezed it tightly; but she did not turn and look at him, for she was looking up at the three beloved faces that were gazing down on her. And they were beloved faces, each and every one of them was beloved. She had never imagined that leaving them would be such a wrench. She knew that she loved them all, but in different ways. She felt like flinging herself forward and embracing them all at once and crying to them, ‘Don’t let me go. Don’t let me go.’ She could not believe that she was now a married woman, that the short ceremony in the bare and quiet church had given her over to Donald for life. Yet she recalled that the moment the ceremony was finished she had known a surge of relief, for now should a child be born through her madness there would be no disgrace. No life isolated in this cottage and burdened with the stigma of an unwanted child. No, the short ceremony had made her safe—but at what a price.

  Donald did not stand and respond to the toast, he knew nothing of such ceremony, but he drank deeply, one, two, three glasses of wine, and all to his wife, while she still sipped at her first glass.