The Mallen Litter

by Catherine Cookson

  Her father too had changed of late; he was lighter, gayer, if she could ever apply that word to him. She had felt that in his own way he had loved her mother, yet she thought from his present attitude that he must now be experiencing a happiness with Brigie that he had never known before. She felt a sudden surge of jealousy. Here was Brigie, her one-time governess, mistress of this beautiful house—and for the first time in her life she was seeing it as a really beautiful house. No. 27 was a two-up and two-downer compared with it. If Brigie hadn’t married her father she herself could have come back here and run the place and taken delight in it.

  It was like a revelation to her in this moment that this was part of her trouble. She had been missing this kind of living. The giving of herself over to good works seemed now like the act of a silly wilful young woman, who didn’t know what she wanted from life. Yet five years ago no-one could have convinced her otherwise but that she wanted to give her life to improving the lot of the workers, the Manchester workers in particular. The afternoons ahead had glowed with the thought of discussions on welfare and the rights and wrongs of class, and her evenings with the soul-satisfying task of the educating and raising up of the underprivileged. Now she faced the unpleasant fact that the first year had not passed before her passion for self-sacrifice had ebbed, and it had become an increasing strain to hide the fact that her devotion to good works had, as it were, gone out with the tide.

  ‘What did you say?’ She lifted her head sharply and looked at Brigie.

  ‘I said your father has something to tell you.’ Brigie now looked at Harry and added, ‘Go on, tell her. Why keep it?’

  ‘Well, I like that!’ Harry laid down his knife and fork. ‘It was you yourself who said let’s eat first, wait until we’re sittin’ down after, then we can talk about it.’ He did not add ‘in private like’ but, casting his eyes towards where Armstrong was attending to the dishes on the side table, he sat back in his chair and said, ‘All right then, all right. Everybody in the house knows so why shouldn’t you. It’s Dan and Barbara; what do you think?’ He leant towards her now; then, his voice awe-filled, he whispered softly, ‘They’ve had triplets, Dan and Barbara…triplets.’

  ‘Triplets!’ Katie sat back in her chair and stared at her father and again she said, ‘Triplets?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said, triplets, just three of ’em not four lots of three,’ he answered, thrusting out his hand in the direction of Brigie to draw her attention to his joke.

  But Brigie did not join in with it, not even by offering him a faint smile; instead, she said below her breath, ‘Please!’ then turned her glance again towards Katie who was sitting staring at her but without, she knew, seeing her.

  ‘What is it, dear?’ She leant slightly forward and Katie, slowly rising from the table, said, ‘Would…would you excuse me please? I’ll…I’ll go into the drawing room, it’s cooler there. No. No, please, don’t come with me.’ She waved her hand from one to the other, and they watched her go hurriedly down the room and out of the door. But it had hardly closed on her when they, too, both rose to their feet and followed her to the drawing room.

  ‘What is it, lass? Something’s not right with you.’ Harry was sitting on the couch beside her, holding her hand now.

  Katie, looking at her father through a mist of tears, bit on her lip. Then glancing up at Brigie who was standing over her, she muttered, ‘I’m…I’m so glad for Barbara. Don’t…don’t think otherwise.’

  Before Brigie could make any reply Harry put in, ‘Aye. Aye, I knew you’d be over the moon. And it’s your turn next.’ He shook the hand within his. ‘This time next year you could beat her with quads, or whatever they call four of ’em.’ He cast a glance at Brigie.

  Brigie made no comment; instead she asked Katie quietly, ‘Is it Willy?’ And Katie, nodding slowly up at her now, said, ‘Yes, it’s Willy. I…I’m not going to marry him.’

  There was silence in the room for a while. The hammer on the open-faced clock on the mantelpiece beat out the seconds; a blackbird that should have been at roost gave evidence of its late journeying with a frightened screech as it passed the window.

  Harry drew in a deep breath, then said, ‘Well, lass, well; well now, this is a state of affairs.’

  ‘I’m sorry…I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.’

  ‘Disappointed? Me!’ Harry dug his thumb into his chest, turned his head from side to side, then exchanged a glance with Brigie before ending, ‘Don’t be sorry for me.’

  ‘No?’ It was a question.

  ‘No. It’s the other way about. I’m sorry for you. An’ yet…well, I won’t speak me mind on it until I know the rights. Who broke it up, which one of you an’ why?’

  ‘I…I did.’

  ‘Aye, I thought it would be you, it wouldn’t be him. It was a daft question to ask. Now tell me why.’

  ‘Because—’ Katie now turned her face towards Brigie but she didn’t speak for a moment. When she did, what she said was, ‘You’re to blame you know, Brigie, because I found I was judging him on your standards, those…those you pumped into me. I found him more unbearable as time went on, everything he said, everything he did.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t mean it like that.’ She put her hand out and caught Brigie’s and drew her down onto the couch to the other side of her. Then leaning back, she looked from one to the other and said, ‘It’s…it’s a long, long story. I just didn’t give him up the day before yesterday, I only got up the courage to tell him then; I gave him up a long time ago, a year or more. Oh, much more.’

  ‘Then I blame you for one thing, lass.’ Harry’s voice was stern now. ‘You shouldn’t have gone on, you should have come out with it and told him how you felt.’

  ‘It’s difficult, Dad, to come out with things to Willy; Willy usually only listens to one voice and that’s his own.’

  ‘Aye, aye, well, you’re right there. An’ you know something?’ He gripped her hands now and brought his face closer to hers. ‘You mightn’t believe this but it’s the truth, an’ that one there knows it.’ He nodded towards Brigie. ‘I’ve never said it in so many words, but she’s quick off the mark and she knows that at this very moment I’m right glad it’s all over atween you and him, for you’re worth something better than Willy Brooks…Mind your eye, there’s not a cleverer bloke in any mill in the town, I’ll grant him that, but like father like son, there was something there that me stomach just didn’t take to.’ He leant back now, and in his favourite pose looked up towards the ceiling as he ended slowly, ‘It’s a wonder he hasn’t come down here hell for leather.’ Then straightening up he said briskly, ‘But me, meself, I must look slippy an’ get meself back there ’cos with this happenin’, well, I’ll have to keep me eye on Master Willy for a bit. And make our John look out an’ all. He’ll need to keep on the qui vive now, if I know owt.’

  Katie now asked quietly of Brigie, ‘And you, what do you think?’

  ‘That goes without saying, my dear. You knew I never thought him suitable for you. Now what you must do is take a long rest and get some colour into your cheeks.’ She put out her hand and gently patted the pale face. ‘And then you must think about a holiday. Yes, a holiday, that’s what you need, a complete change.’

  Miss Brigmore, who would always supersede Brigie, or Mrs Bensham, when it came to arranging lives, was already arranging Katie’s holiday. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, she would bring the conversation round to the benefits of taking a holiday abroad, and she would couple this with her need to have a personal report on how Barbara was faring, and also emphasise the happiness Dan would experience at the sight of his sister.

  It was strange, she thought, how things worked out, very strange. If you longed for a thing passionately enough you eventually achieved some section of it, because prayer after all was merely wanting, and working at the wanting, and oh, how she wanted to see Barbara again. In spite of all the cruel things Barbara had said to her, in spite
of her desertion and leaving her alone to face old age in dire loneliness she longed to see her, for was she not after all her child in all but birth, and it was part of a mother’s role to bear ingratitude.

  It was wonderful too to know that she had achieved motherhood. Perhaps her babies would soften her heart, perhaps they would teach her to love again, love Dan, and herself. Oh yes, she needed to love herself in order to forgive herself.

  Four

  It was almost four weeks later, towards the end of August, and the evening before the day when Katie was due to leave for her holiday in France. Letters had been exchanged between Brigie and Barbara, cordial letters with more warmth in Barbara’s than had been previously shown. Letters had also been exchanged between Dan and Harry, and Dan was most enthusiastic at the news that Katie was going to visit them.

  And Katie. There were moments when she felt a stir of excitement at the prospect of going to France, not that it was her first trip abroad for she had twice before been to France. True, the trips had been short; she had hardly been able to recover from the outward sea passage before she was returning again. But this trip would prove different altogether because, firstly, she was travelling alone, and secondly, she was staying at an hotel alone. Apparently Dan’s apartment wasn’t big enough to house her. This had surprised them all. Still, she understood the hotel was quite close to their apartment. Moreover, on this occasion, being her own mistress, she could stay as long or as short a time as she pleased, go where she pleased, see whom she pleased. She was twenty-four years old, and although she wasn’t married she could be considered a matron. And it was as a matron at this moment that she saw herself.

  It was just before she retired for the night that Harry manoeuvred her into the library just, as he said under his breath, for a word alone with her. Now would she do this for him, would she sound out their Dan and find out if there was any chance of them coming back? She was to tell him that it needn’t be Manchester. John had it in mind they needed to expand and thought of setting up their own warehouse and distribution centre in Newcastle. Also John had the idea that Willy was working something on the side, or to put it more plainly he wasn’t working as he had done afore. Two orders had been lost in a month, long-established orders; they had gone across the town to another mill. Why? That’s what he wanted to know, and he’d find out an’ all afore long. If Willy could play that game, so could he. And it would be the very thing if Dan would come back and take charge of the Newcastle end. Tell him, he said, there’d be no muck or grind, he’d just be a sort of head piece, ’cos we’d send a couple of good fellows with him to get started. And he had ended, ‘Tell him I miss him, will you? Tell him that, Katie. Tell him I’m not gettin’ any younger an’ I miss him. And what’s more, I’d like to see me grandbairns.’

  She said she would do all he asked and more. They kissed awkwardly, and he said, ‘You’re a good lass, Katie.’

  She had barely closed her bedroom door when there was a tap on it and Brigie came in. She, too, just wanted a word with her in private before she left. Would she give Barbara her love and tell her how much she missed her and how she longed to see her? And would Katie herself find out if there was the slightest possibility of them ever coming back to England, because the years were flying? She wasn’t getting any younger and she would love to see Barbara again, and, of course, her dear, dear children.

  Katie promised to deliver her message too, and they kissed and Brigie said, ‘I’m so fond of you, Katie.’

  When at last she was in bed she turned her face into the pillow and cried, she cried for so many reasons. People, she realised, could be happy yet there were gaps in their happiness; the need of children, grandchildren. Needs went deeper than the one called love. Love had no connection with her own need at this moment. It was so physical that she even imagined that she would have welcomed Willy’s arms about her. Life was made up of needs, all kinds of needs. She could never see her own being satisfied.

  Finally, she went to sleep crying solely for herself.

  BARBARA

  One

  ‘She’ll think it’s very small, tiny.’

  ‘Knowing Katie she’ll consider it cute. And where else can you see half Paris from your window…that’s if you stand on a chair?’

  Dan Bensham smiled wryly and looked up towards the top of the narrow window, one of two that gave light to their sitting room, which was no more than sixteen feet long and furnished with an odd assortment of furniture ranging from a Dutch cupboard that dominated one wall, two bookcases that took up the space at each side of the fireplace and which were packed tight with books of all sizes, and in the middle an assortment of chairs and small tables; these holding not bric-a-brac, but again books.

  ‘Are you excited?’ He caught his wife’s hand and drew her down the room, across a passage and into another room, this one only large enough to hold a small single bed and two cots.

  When they came to a stop at the foot of the cots Dan, as always, gazed down in silent wonder on two of his sleeping sons before turning his gaze to the third, who occupied the bed. Here lay the ‘big fellow’, as he had nicknamed him.

  They’d had trouble over names; he’d had to be careful what he suggested. He did not touch on Michael, nor yet Thomas, the first being the name of her lost lover, and the second the name of the father which had been thrown at her on the day she lost her mind. Yes, he’d had to be very careful about names. After some discussion she had complied with his suggestion to call ‘the big fellow’ Benjamin, and had accepted Harry as soon as he had mentioned it, because she had nothing against his father who had always been very good to her; in fact, but for his father’s generosity her early life would have been refined bread and scrape, indeed it would. Jonathan she herself had suggested.

  As yet Jonathan and Harry were only half the size of Benjamin. Benjamin grew every day more like his name, full-bodied, full-blooded. He yelled the loudest and demanded the most, and in consequence he got the most. Such was life.

  Barbara now whispered, ‘You must see about getting another place, we simply can’t go on here. Marie can’t keep taking them out for the air all day, and the concierge never lets me pass but she makes some remark about the voiture d’enfant, and I dislike that woman as much as she dislikes me. Dan’—she turned to him now, a plea in her voice—‘do try, please. I know…I know you like these rooms. It was different when Madame and Monsieur Abeille were here but everything has changed since these new ones have come. It’s because we’re English I suppose.’

  He turned to her and gazed into her face, as he said softly, ‘It’s because you’re beautiful and she’s such an ugly old hag. I could never imagine her even being born, let alone being pretty. But I promise you I’ll start looking tomorrow…Promise, faithfully.’ He crossed his heart.

  ‘It would have been nice if we could have lived above the shop.’

  ‘Yes, it would; it would have solved all problems. But that was in the agreement when I took it over. The Reynauds have the apartments for life. And although Madame is nearing eighty she looks so hale and hearty she could go on for another twenty years. And’—he nodded at her—‘I hope she does. They’ve been good to us, we mustn’t forget that, they’ve been good to us.’

  ‘I don’t forget it.’

  Dan turned away now and, taking up a pose, he stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat and swaggered from the room, saying, under his breath, ‘Daniel Bensham, one-time Englishman, of no occupation, kept by his father.’ For an instant he dropped the pose, turned his head on his shoulder, raised his eyebrows and nodded at her as he added quickly, ‘And still kept by his father.’ Then adopting the pose again he went on, ‘Now owner of a bookshop of some repute, small, granted, but visited by not a few of the intellectuals of this city of culture. Oh indeed, yes.’ Dropping his pose quickly now as she came through the door into the passage he turned and asked quietly, ‘Shall I tell Katie about a certain intellectual?’

  ‘No, no, I’d
wait. Let…let it come about naturally.’ He nodded in agreement, pursed his lips, then went hastily into the small kitchen, and as he put the kettle on the fire he said, ‘I’m glad, in fact I can say I’m delighted she broke it off with Brooks. I could never stand his father, and much less him. The only consolation I seemed to get when I thought about their marriage was that I wouldn’t have to meet him, unless they decided to come to Paris for their honeymoon. Well’—he turned to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek—‘make me a coffee, just a coffee, nothing else. Anyway, I haven’t time.’ He pointed to the clock on the wall. ‘Good Lord, look at it! If I don’t put a move on the train will be in before me, and there she’ll be standing in the Gare du Nord like little orphan Annie.’ He laughed as he went out of the room quoting:

  ‘Little orphan Annie came to our house to stay

  To chase the chickens from the porch and sweep the crumbs away.’

  Barbara now leant forward and gripped the handle of the large black kettle that was slowly beginning to boil, and she closed her eyes and muttered to herself, ‘Oh Dan, Dan,’ and her words sounded as if they had been sieved through pain.

  That silly rhyme. That pathetic rhyme. He always quoted it when he was troubled, and he was troubled now. Or was he just disturbed because of the coming meeting with Katie? Dan, she had found, was a complex being who laughed when he was sad and sang when he was troubled. He had said that he owed the Reynauds so much. He always thought he owed people so much, he never thought of what people owed him, of what she owed him. The sadness of it was that she could never repay him because she could never love him; like him, yes, even be very fond of him, be concerned for him, but love him, no. And not because he was unlovable, but because she had no love left in her to give to any man. At one time she had been filled with love, it had oozed out of her very pores; then it had been drained out of her, torn out of her on a hillside in faraway Northumberland, on a day when she had struck a girl and maimed her for life, and a man had struck her and restored her hearing after years of silence, only to enable her to hear her loved one say, ‘I never want to see you in my life again.’