The Mallen Litter

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Have…have you said anything at all to him?’

  ‘What?’ She had difficulty in hearing his voice; it was as if she had gone deaf again.

  ‘I said, have you said anything at all to Dan?’ He was sitting away from her now on the side of the bed, slowly filling his pipe. ‘I mean did…did you admit anything, anything at all?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t.’ Her voice was unusually loud and he turned swiftly to her and, laying down the pipe on the side table, he bent over her again. ‘I’m only asking because I want to work out what’s best for you.’

  ‘I know what’s best for me, Michael.’ Her voice broke. He stared down into her face and nodded his head before saying, ‘I know, too, darling. I know too, and I’ll make it as soon as I can. When Hannah is just a little older and can stand on her own feet.’

  ‘In the meantime you expect me to stay in that house with that girl and see her carrying Dan’s child. I can’t do it, I won’t suffer it.’

  He sat back from her again but took hold of her hand now and said softly, ‘I’ve got to say this, Barbara, I must say it. You can’t blame Dan. If he has known about us, as you think he has for some time, you can’t blame him. The only wonder to me is that he hasn’t brought it into the open. It…it points to one thing in my view, he doesn’t want to lose you, he can’t bear to lose you, and…and I know how he feels. It appears to me he’ll be quite willing to let things go on as they are. It’s all up to you from now on.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said it’s all up to you, Barbara, from now on…What’s the matter?’

  She put her hand across her mouth, and then her two hands were covering her ears and her eyes were wide and filled with fear as she whispered, ‘I…I had to read your lips, Michael, I had to read your lips; I didn’t catch your last words. Two or three times today you…your words have faded away. I’m…I’m going deaf again. I’m going deaf again, Michael. Michael, I’m going deaf again.’

  He was holding her and rocking her, speaking above her agonised crying now. ‘You’re not, you’re not. It’s just that you’re upset, it’s emotional. It must have been in the first place for you to recover, and now, now you know what it is you can control it. Don’t…don’t get yourself so upset. Dearest. Dearest. There now. There now.’

  After some minutes she sat up against the back of the bed and dried her face, and as she looked at him she said, between gasps, ‘Michael, I…I couldn’t bear to be deaf again, not…not like before. I’d…I’d kill myself rather…’

  ‘Hush! hush! Don’t ever say such a thing because if you were to die I’d die too.’

  ‘Would you, Michael?’

  ‘Yes, yes I would, Barbara.’

  ‘You really would?’

  ‘I would, because I couldn’t live without you, you should know that.’

  She believed him because she wanted to believe him. Oh, she wanted to believe him, because if she stopped believing in him…Well, then…

  PART THREE

  BEN

  WAR

  One

  England was at war. The terrible Germans were massacring the poor Belgians, raping nuns and cutting off babies’ hands, but as everybody in England knew, they would soon be avenged because the British Expeditionary Force had crossed the Channel to put an end to it.

  Everybody said they had seen it coming. Why, look at the number of German bands that had been going about these last few years. And where did they go? Not into the country towns. Oh no, but into the industrial areas where there were shipyards, and mines, and foundries. German bands! They weren’t German bands at all, they were spy bands. And then there were all those German pork-butcher shops. Why weren’t the pork-butcher shops run by Englishmen? No, the Germans had inveigled themselves in through the Englishmen’s bellies. Feed them, fatten them and then slaughter them was their method. Did you ever know a German pork-butcher who didn’t want to talk, who didn’t make himself pleasant? Oh, they had seen it coming for years. Anyway it would soon be over. So they couldn’t really see the point of them taking the golden sovereigns off the market and dishing out paper money instead. Fancy a paper pound, and a paper ten shillings? But that wouldn’t last long either.

  On August 19th Kitchener sent his Fifth Division to France, then in September he sent the Sixth. Some people couldn’t see why, because the British Expeditionary Force was out there, wasn’t it? And it was the best equipped army in the world, wasn’t it? Well, as far as the newspapers went it was, for they said that there were as many as five thousand six hundred horses and eighteen thousand men to a division. Well, just think what they could do. Of course, they admitted to snags here and there. For one thing the army hadn’t wireless, like the navy, but still they had all those horses, hadn’t they?

  The British Expeditionary Force ran into the advancing Germans at Mons, and had to retreat.

  The men covered two hundred miles in thirteen days, many of them sleeping as they walked. There was muddle, and arguments in high places, midnight meetings between Kitchener and Asquith and the Cabinet, with the result that Kitchener crossed to France and told Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, who was boss.

  By November men were digging a maze of trenches in France and preparing to settle in them for the winter. By now the ordinary English family knew it was at war, and the postman knocked on thousands of doors and handed bewildered women telegrams, headed: On His Majesty’s Service.

  The Bensham brothers met at the end of August. By pre-arrangement they entered their home en masse, so as to get the shock over in one go, for all had enlisted in His Majesty’s Forces. They were going to fight for King and Country, and what they had all agreed upon was that they weren’t going to wait for conscription, not they.

  They were now twenty-nine years old and not one of them was married. Harry alone had come near to it. Two years ago he had been engaged to a Miss Powell, but Miss Powell’s character hadn’t been strong enough to cover her dislike of his mother, and when she had openly expressed her feelings to her future husband he had used it as the opportunity for getting out of an awkward situation.

  The Bensham boys weren’t the marrying kind, people said, but that wasn’t to say they didn’t like women, especially that Ben. Benjamin’s escapades with the ladies offered food for gossip, not only among the female workers in the warehouse and wholesale rooms of Bensham & Sons Ltd, but also among a certain section of the ladies in Newcastle. These might not be counted in the upper stratum of the city’s society, nor yet did they belong to the bottom layer. Benjamin Bensham was known to be choosy; it was also said that he never had to lift his finger twice.

  Benjamin was the tallest of the three brothers by some inches. He was also endowed with broad shoulders, narrow hips and a head of thick shining black hair, distinguished, as it had been almost from birth, by its white streak, which, now that he was in the army, he laughingly remarked to his brothers, he would have to live down. Generally a white streak came out in one, but his had been planted on him; it wasn’t fair. They all laughed about his white streak.

  Ben’s skin too seemed to have taken its hue from his hair, for it was dark; at times it looked as if he were deeply suntanned. No-one seeing the three together could have taken the other two for his brothers.

  Yet Jonathan and Harry were often taken for twins. Their height was no more than five foot eight, their stature was slight, very like their father’s, as was their hair, a sandy, nondescript colour. Their complexions were fresh and youthful, and they looked at least three years younger than Ben, and whereas they were of similar temperament to each other they varied from Ben in that they were of a sunny, easygoing nature, which showed little variation either up or down. As people said, you always knew where you had them, whereas Ben’s countenance when he was not in the presence of the ladies looked sombre, and nearly always there was a deep frown line between his heavy brows. Yet at times he could express a gaiety that was unknown to his brothers, while at others fall into a despond
ency that was equally unknown to them. Ben was one apart and always had been.

  Yet in spite of the differences in their make-up, they had been good friends from childhood, Jonathan and Harry remaining firm in their loyalty to Ben.

  When they decided, as Ben said, to honour the nation with their services they determined to do it together, so they gave out they were going on a joint fishing holiday. Only on one point did they differ, into which service each meant to enlist. Both Jonathan and Harry were for the navy, but Ben was for the army. He tried to persuade them into his way of thinking, whilst they combined their efforts to influence him. Neither side prevailed, and so it was into the navy that Jonathan and Harry went, and Benjamin joined the army.

  Ben could have been home two days ago but he had waited until he heard from the others that they were getting a brief leave.

  They stopped in the porch, and it was Jonathan who said, ‘As soon as we get into the hall let’s all sing ‘God Save the King’, that’ll bring them running. Well, I mean if Dad’s in, and the girls.’

  ‘Oh, the girls.’ Harry put his hand on his heart and swayed. ‘Wait till Ada sees us.’

  ‘What do you bet?’ Ben was pointing from one to the other now. ‘Twenty-to-one Betty cries.’

  Harry jerked his chin upwards with a scornful movement. ‘Come off it, lad, who d’you think you’ve got on? Now if you’d said twenty-to-one she doesn’t, then I’d take you on.’

  ‘We’d better go to Mother first.’

  The bantering ceased; they looked at Jonathan and nodded, then entered the house.

  As they crossed the hall, Ada came from the direction of the kitchen and she stopped dead for a moment; then lifting her apron she held it across the bottom of her face, and as she watched the three young masters come to attention and salute her she put her hand up and grabbed the streamers of her starched cap and exclaimed, as if in prayer, ‘Eeh! Dear God!’ then moved slowly towards them, and they, as always when teasing her, repeated in chorus, ‘Eeh! Dear God…and Ada Howlett!’

  ‘Oh, Master Ben. And you and you.’ She pointed to Jonathan and Harry in turn. ‘What you been an’ gone and done? Eeh! The missis’ll have a fit, she’ll pass out. Eeh! You had no call to go and do it, not right away you hadn’t. And all of a bunch. Eeh, by God!’

  The kitchen door opened again and Betty Rowe came into the hall, a different Betty Rowe, a plump, middle-aged Betty Rowe, and she, too, stopped and lifted her apron to her face. But when the three young men saluted her she ran towards them, beaming now, and what she said was, ‘Eeh, well I never! Don’t you look a sight for sore eyes. Eeh, well I never.’

  Benjamin exchanged a quick glance with Jonathan and Harry. Then looking at Betty again, he demanded, ‘Why aren’t you crying? Why aren’t you blubbing your eyes out?’

  ‘Cryin’?’ Betty’s face stretched. ‘What’ve I got to cry for? You look grand, all of you. We’ll have to chain the lasses up ’cos now they’ll be after you like cats in…’

  Betty’s descriptive phrasing of girlish pursuits was cut off by Ada’s elbow in her ribs, and Ada, now on her house-parlourmaid dignity, said, ‘The mistress is in her room, sir.’ As usual when the three young men were together she had addressed Ben, and laughingly they turned away as one and bounded up the stairs.

  They did not knock on the door but opened it slowly, as was their custom before entering, thus giving them time to close it again if it wasn’t convenient for her to see them. But when it was wide open they saw her standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, and they entered one after the other, Jonathan first, Benjamin coming last. This, too, was usual.

  Barbara had her hands to her hair, and she kept them there and she looked for a moment as if she had been turned into stone. Then swinging round, she faced them. And now her head moving from side to side, she said, ‘No! Oh no! No!’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right, dear.’ It was Jonathan who came forward and put his arms about her and, mouthing his words slowly, he said, ‘It had to come. Just as well sooner as later; we’ve got it over with.’

  She looked from his beloved face to Harry, whom she liked, then onto Ben, whom she disliked with an intensity that neared hate. His uniform was different. It would be, he would have to be different; he had always been different, and indifferent, obstinate, moody, unfeeling, selfish. The only thing she was glad about at this moment was that he’d be separated from the other two and no longer have any influence over them. But oh, oh, her Jonathan, her dearest Jonathan. He was her only comfort, at least in this house; this house that had become enveloped in silence with the years, this prison wherein she was provided with food and clothing. The only thing that had made it bearable for her all these years was Jonathan, the kind, dear, understanding Jonathan, loyal Jonathan.

  She did not know how much he knew. He had never probed and she had never proffered any information on the situation that existed between herself and his father, but always he had been loving towards her.

  It was he, and he alone, who had talked to her from the time all those years ago when he and his brothers had been allowed to take their meals in the dining room. It was after Ruth Foggety had left the house, and she had not left until her stomach had protruded like a barrel before her. She thought it was only Jonathan’s childish conversation and attention, childish but understanding attention, that had saved her reason during those days when Ruth Foggety had unashamedly carried Dan’s child; and when Dan himself had taken on a succession of images, the first being a drunken one. Scarcely a night passed for months when he didn’t sit downstairs and drink himself stupid, and not once during that time had she gone to sleep until she had heard his bedroom door bang. It was impossible to lock her door for there was no key to it, there were no keys to any of the bedroom doors, and there was no bolt inside.

  When this image slowly faded, it was taken over by the one who spent nights away from home. The last image, which was his present one, he had assumed some fifteen years ago, when he had picked up again his hobby of collecting old books. Most of the nursery floor was now like a miniature library.

  It was from the time that he had renewed his interest in books that he had also adopted a more civil manner towards her; it was impersonal but correct. He never enquired into her doings, not even as to the state of her health. Even when the deafness had come fully on her again he made no reference to it but resumed his finger language when he wanted to communicate with her, as if he had never stopped using it.

  Some years ago she had worked out a strategic pattern for herself. Some days she did not dine at home but had something to eat in town. And so when she decided to stay away all night he could not be sure whether or not she were in her room, unless he asked the servants, which she was sure he did not. This worked very well when Jonathan and Harry were at college, and Ben as usual about his nefarious business.

  But of latter years there had been few times when she had been away from home all night.

  She was sitting now on the dressing-table stool and they were standing before her in a half circle, and she shook her head from side to side as she said, ‘But…but why the navy and…and without a commission?’

  ‘Oh, that’ll come.’ It was Harry who answered her in his rapid fashion, both his mouth and his fingers moving. ‘Johnny here has told them he wants to be an Admiral and I said I wouldn’t mind being Rear, just as long as it was all in the family.’

  When Jonathan pushed him and they both flung their heads back and laughed, she said without a smile, ‘Don’t…don’t you understand what you’ve done? This…this is a shock.’

  ‘But, Mother’—Jonathan was bending over her—‘you knew we would do it, we’ve said as much for some time. We told you if war came we would go.’

  ‘But…but not like this. It could have been done in a different way. Will you be home for long?’

  Both Jonathan and Harry looked at her, their faces unsmiling now, and Jonathan spoke on his fingers, saying, ‘We’ve got to report back tonig
ht, and…and we’re for Scotland tomorrow. But where’s Scotland!’ He shrugged his shoulder. ‘We’ll be back at the weekend plaguing you again.’ He smiled. ‘And Ben here, he’ll be near, he’s stationed in the town, because they said they wanted someone to man the defences. Lucky devil as usual.’ He turned and grinned at his brother. But Ben didn’t answer the grin, nor did he look at Jonathan, he was looking at Barbara. And Barbara, turning her troubled gaze from Jonathan, met the defiant, sullen look without comment, while he took in her loveless stare and knew the feeling of rejection as fresh again as he had done when he’d first recognised it as a boy.

  If only once she had put her hand out to him, if only once he could have remembered her touching his hair, if only once she had kissed him, not just held that pale cheek out to be kissed, but kissed him. For years he had wondered why she hated him so; and then his dad had told him.

  It was on the night he was sent down from college. There had been no reprimand from Dan about ruining his career, just a quiet understanding of his unsettled state; then had followed the baring of souls.

  ‘I don’t want to act like I do towards her,’ his dad had said, ‘but she’s made me what I am, as she’s also made you what you are.’ He had then listened to the story of how his mother had come into life, and why, because he himself was a replica of the man who had sired her, she could not look on him without being reminded of her ignoble beginnings.