The Mallen Litter

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘You seem to know a lot about them.’ Constance narrowed her eyes at her granddaughter and Hannah, looking back at her, said, ‘No, I don’t know a lot, not yet, but from what I’ve seen…’

  ‘From what you’ve seen?’ Sarah’s crutch made two dull taps on the drugget-covered stone floor as she took a step forward, and now she was leaning over the table as she cried, ‘You haven’t been over there already?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been over there already. And what’s more, I’ve seen the wicked old witch herself, Mrs Bensham. the one you used to call Brigie.’ She turned her head and nodded towards her grandmother. ‘And how you can keep up a feud against an old woman like that beats me. Not that she needs your sympathy. From what I’ve heard she may look like a little wizened nut but her mind’s still intact and everybody there knows it. And she’s respected, highly respected…’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Constance stared at her granddaughter for a moment, then turned from the table. The mention of Brigie, the mention of ‘the little wizened nut’ caused an ache, like a homesickness that she often experienced at night when her memories took her back to days which, over the distance, now seemed to have been gloriously happy, when Michael was young, and Barbara was young, and they had harvest suppers in the barn and everybody danced. Sarah had danced, the niece of the farm labourer, she had danced with the young master of the farm, and even Brigie had danced. She had been light on her feet, had Brigie.

  The early jealousies, the rejections, even her disastrous marriage to Donald Radlet, appeared from this distance all part of a peaceful time compared with these latter years. These years that covered nearly half her lifetime and had been fraught with nothing but bitterness and recrimination.

  She would never admit to herself that if Barbara had come into this house as Michael’s wife she could not have suffered more, in fact she knew she would have suffered much less, for then she would not have lost her son. Then she would not have been forced to stand by the side of a daughter-in-law whom she had trained from ignorance into some semblance of literacy, but whose basic thoughts and attitudes still remained those of the lower-class farm workers from whom she had sprung.

  Her years spent instructing Sarah would have undoubtedly borne fruit if the girl, and then the woman, had been happy, but the crippling of the girl’s body had also crippled her mind, until now she was nothing more than a shrew, a small, loud-mouthed, deformed shrew. Yet she had allied herself to her for years; for after all, she had told herself Sarah was only human, she had to have someone on her side, at the same time arguing that she herself was morally defending right.

  Time and again it amazed her that anyone like Michael, who fundamentally was not strong-minded, for at one time she could sway him as she wished, could keep up this intrigue over what had been a lifetime, and hold them to ransom as it were. Years ago he had given them an ultimatum. In this very kitchen he had faced them both and said, ‘I’ll give you a choice and this is my last word on it because I’m sick to death of you both; leave me to go my own road, as I’m doing now, and things stay as they are; keep on and tell me just once more I’ve got to stay home, then I’ll tell you the date when we’ll all leave because I’ll sell up…like that!’ He had snapped his fingers and the sound had been like the crack of a gun reverberating through the kitchen. And it could have been a gun, for his words, like bullets, pierced her heart. ‘I’m seeing her. Aye, I’m seeing her. Let’s bring it into the open. And I’m going on seeing her. Now you’ve got it, it’s up to you both to choose. Get your heads together as usual and decide. You needn’t worry, I won’t see you left in a field. There’s Palmer’s cottage down the road; it’s been empty this while back. It’s more than a cottage; it’s a house, and has six good rooms. I’ve already enquired the price of it. It has two good acres of land to it; you could both be self-supporting. As I said, it’s up to you.’ And on that he had walked out, leaving them speechless. And from then, daily, without let-up, she had prayed that something would happen to that sperm of hell, because that’s all she was, that’s all she had ever been, she had come from a hellraiser, and a line of hellraisers, and she had been a she-devil ever since.

  But the seasons came and went, the years came and went, and her prayers weren’t answered. She did hear a faint rumour that Barbara had lost her hearing again but it was never confirmed. But it was confirmed that she had lost two of her sons, drowned at sea, and together. On that day she had thought, Now she’ll know what it feels like. But she has still one son left.

  Now Jim said he was in the Hall and as mad as a hatter. One of the orderlies had told him he was the worst one there. They had given him a room to himself, not because he owned the place, or would when the old girl went, but because he lashed out right and left on the slightest provocation.

  And Hannah was going there.

  Constance could not actually sort her feelings out with regard to this move; the only thing she was sure of was her concern wasn’t entirely caused through fear for Hannah’s safety. Hannah was a self-possessed, self-willed individual and in the main could take care of herself. Part of the feeling was resentment at the fact that her granddaughter was going into her old home, and that she had already recognised Brigie as the owner of it.

  Brigie, Constance considered, had come out of all this very well. When one came to think about it there was really no justice, for all their misfortunes had begun with Brigie. If she hadn’t become their Uncle Thomas’ mistress none of the tragedies, with the exception of their Cousin Dick almost killing that bailiff, would have happened.

  Her thoughts were cut off when the door opened and Michael entered.

  Michael at fifty-three looked every year of his age. The hair that had been corn-coloured was now completely white. Although his body was still straight, it was heavy. His face was lined, and jowls were showing beneath the chin. Yet overall he still appeared an attractive man.

  As soon as he stepped over the threshold he took in the situation. But in any case he wouldn’t have been left in ignorance of it for long for Sarah turned on him immediately, crying, ‘Do you know where this one’s going?’

  He went to the sink that stood under the window and, gripping the pump handle to the side of it, he worked it two or three times before he said, ‘Yes, I know where she’s going.’

  ‘Oh, of course you would. And you agree with it. In fact I shouldn’t be surprised but you put her up to it, felt she was ready for a family gathering…’

  He had the soap between his palms when he turned round and looked at her, stared at her, and then he said one word, ‘Careful,’ before turning slowly about and finishing the business of washing his hands.

  As he dried them on a towel he stood staring out of the little window above the sink. ‘And you agree with it,’ she had said. He had been floored when Hannah told him where she was going, because even to his mind it didn’t seem right somehow, piling insult on top of injury, as the saying went. But there, Hannah was an individual, she would go her own gait. And he was glad of that; oh yes, he was glad of that. But nevertheless he couldn’t say he was happy about her decision to take up work in the Hall. Apart from it being sort of enemy ground to those two back there, Ben was there, Barbara’s one remaining son, and although he felt, in fact he knew, she had no feeling for him, she was likely to take it amiss that his daughter—and Sarah’s daughter—was going there to work, to live there, and could come in contact with him. There was no knowing. He made a slight movement with his head against his thoughts: the whole thing, the whole business seemed like a web with some giant spider going round and round dragging them like flies to the centre and to some final conclusion, as it were.

  His head now jerked as if tossing his thoughts aside, for thoughts troubled him these days. So many things troubled him these days. He never imagined the time would come when he would think Barbara troubled him, but she did. She had become a sick woman. She had one focal point in her life, and that was himself. It was one thing to love, and be loved,
and they had both done that, oh yes, yes, the stolen days with her had been all that made life bearable at one time, but of late even before she lost the boys there had been a change in her. He sometimes thought that behind her loving she was constantly condemning him. And there was every possibility that she was, for he had broken his promise to her, more than once.

  He should have left those two behind there when Hannah became able to take care of herself, but he hadn’t, because he had realised, and he had tried to make her realise, that they too had to be looked after. His mother had grown old rapidly; she was old even ten years ago; and Sarah, well, Sarah had to be provided for, he owed her that. He couldn’t say to Barbara that he was being forced to stay with his wife by way of payment for the injury she had inflicted on her.

  It was all so complicated, so brain-wearying, so hellish at times.

  He turned and looked at his daughter now and said, ‘What time are you leaving?’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘Have you any bags?’

  ‘No; they went from the Infirmary straight up there yesterday.’

  There was a combined catch of breaths expressing indignant astonishment from both his mother and his wife, and without looking at them he said, ‘I’ll get the trap ready then,’ and turned on his heel and walked out.

  Hannah looked at her mother and grandmother and they stared back at her; then her mother, flouncing ungainly around, hobbled towards the door leading into the hall muttering unintelligibly, and Constance, after shaking her head sadly at Hannah, exclaimed through twitching lips, ‘Girl! Girl! You don’t know what you’re doing,’ then turned and followed her daughter-in-law.

  Left alone, Hannah rested her head on her hand and closed her eyes tightly. Oh, those two; they always managed to make her feel in the wrong, so that every time she left them she was overwhelmed with guilt and torn with pity for them. But she mustn’t let them break her down. Once she did that she too would be finished. She must get away, even if the Hall did turn out to be a madhouse, it would be preferable to this one.

  Two

  Anyone who had known the hall before the war would not have recognised the interior if they had entered it now. Beyond the lobby was what appeared to be a hotel reception area in that it had a long desk to the left of the staircase and a number of easy chairs in groups of three, each with its own small table, placed in set positions to the right of the stairs.

  The drawing room had the word ‘Private’ nailed to a panel, and it was private inasmuch as it held, stacked almost from floor to ceiling, most of the pictures and the best pieces of furniture from the first floor. The dining room remained almost as it had been, a place in which to eat; but the cutlery was no longer silver and the china was that issued for the use of Army officers.

  The library was the only room in the house that had not been changed; it was known now as the rest room.

  The morning room was now the matron’s bedroom and sitting room combined, and the rooms off the kitchen corridor had been utilised as small dormitories for the staff, while the servants’ hall had become their dining room.

  The first-floor bedrooms had all been turned into dormitories, with the exception of the smallest which was at the far end of the landing and near the new set of stairs leading to what had been the nursery floor.

  The gallery, too, was a dormitory, but the doors giving access to it from the main landing and those at the far end leading onto the wide passage, from where the lift now rose, were kept locked. The gallery was known by the patients as the ‘Bonkers Bunker’. Most of the men who came to the Hall had their introduction to it through the ‘Bunker’. After a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, when they were no longer afraid of the bars across the lower parts of the windows, and could look up and appreciate the painted ceiling, they left the Bunker and went into E dorm, and some quickly, others not so quickly, graduated through D, C, and B, until one day they happily found themselves in A. That was the time they shook hands all round, laughed, joked, thanked the sister, kissed some of the nurses and got into the coach and were driven to the station; the coach because Mrs Bensham didn’t like motor cars, although she allowed them into the grounds in the form of ambulances, staff cars and food trucks.

  Ben did not pass through the Bunker. Since he first came he had been given a room to himself, which arrangement was considered ‘a bit thick’ by some of the officers; everybody who came there went through the Bunker, and if anybody needed to go through the Bunker it was the new admission, because he kept the whole floor awake for nights running.

  It was the matron who finally answered the complaints with, ‘Gentlemen, Captain Bensham, I think, is entitled to a small room in what is virtually his own house.’

  The grumblers apologised and said they understood and that she would hear nothing more from them.

  But in the days that followed it was difficult for them to keep their promise, for the Bensham fellow seemed to wait until midnight before starting his pranks. First he would talk, and then he would yell, and then he would scream, and what he screamed burned their ears, until he was quietened with a jab in the arm. And again they said it was a bit thick and, what was more, it wasn’t right that the nurses had to put up with him; he should be in the Bunker where the orderlies could take it. In fact the general opinion was that he should have had an orderly to himself both night and day, but then as most of them knew they hadn’t enough orderlies to staff the Bunker.

  But Captain Bensham remained in the end room. Special nurses were detailed to him and the door was locked whenever they left him alone.

  Hannah had been three weeks in the Hall before she saw Captain Bensham.

  It came about that Nurse Byng, who was a hefty fifteen stone, developed tonsillitis and was ordered to the sick bay. Her relief was Nurse Conway, who although not so big, was well equipped to hold her own, at least she had a pair of lungs that she could use with some force if she ever needed help.

  The only nurse at the moment available for relief work was Nurse Pettit, who as a not-fully-trained nurse had been put on ‘breaking-in duties’, which meant seeing to the chair patients, keeping an eye on those in D and trying to get coherent answers from those in C. So Matron Carter told Sister Deal to take Nurse Hannah Pettit along to Captain Bensham’s room and to introduce her to Nurse Conway who would show her what must be done.

  The first thing Hannah noticed about Captain Bensham was the white streak of hair. Her father had told her about that, the thing that singled out the Mallens. Then it had become of little or no interest as she took in the rest of the man.

  He was sitting in a chair by the side of the window and she had never, not in all her life, seen anyone so still, not even in death.

  She had washed and laid out a number of dead but there had remained a softness about them. Although their hearts had stopped beating there still seemed some life left in their flesh. But this man had about him the stillness of stone.

  He was a big man, at least she thought he would be if there was flesh on his bones. His face looked deathly white against the blackness of his hair. His eyes too looked black, but it was a dull blackness, devoid of sheen, like spent coal. His hands lay palm downwards cupping his knees. He reminded her of someone she had seen sitting just like that. The Sphinx? Abraham Lincoln? He didn’t look human.

  Nurse Conway said to her without bothering to lower her voice, ‘He can sit like this for hours, but don’t take anything for granted, he can come out of it like the crack of a whip, and with just such a sound. It’s as if something snaps, and then he’ll start; talk, talk, talk. He’ll start telling you everything as if he knew who he was talking to. It’ll all be mixed up, but—’ she stopped and jerked her head and, looking at him, she smiled. ‘The other day he did know who he was talking to. I nearly fell over backwards; he called me by name. Poor devil.’ She went to him and drew her hand gently over the top of his hair; it was as if she were caressing a child.

  She turned now and looked at Hannah, s
aying, ‘You can go about your usual stuff; tidy up, put fresh flowers in when they send them along, but just keep your eye on him. Remember if you hear that snap, I don’t know where it comes from, his mouth doesn’t move, it seems as if something goes click inside him. Oh, there’s another thing, he may not talk at all, he may just stare at you. You’ll have to put up with that. Don’t move away, it seems to agitate him when you move away, just go on with whatever you’re doing, knitting, reading, anything. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  Hannah wanted to keep looking at the man, this man who was the son of her father’s mistress, or woman. Whichever way you looked at it, it amounted to the same thing. But she made herself attend to the requirements of the room.

  It was a pleasant room, not clinical. There was a bow-fronted chest of drawers, a rosewood wardrobe and dressing table; only the bed was similar to the furniture in the dormitories, it was the usual hospital iron-framed bed.

  When at last she allowed herself to sit down, she took a chair at the opposite side of the window and once again she looked fully at the patient, and her mind emitted two words, and they were almost verbal: Poor devil. And again she thought, Poor devil.

  He must have been a good-looking man at one time; his height, his hair, the bone formation of his face, his mouth; his mouth was wide and the lips full. She only just in time stopped herself from visibly starting and getting to her feet when he moved. Although it was just the slightest movement of his head in her direction it was as if she were watching a granite statue being impregnated with life. For a moment she felt as fearful as if she were actually witnessing such a spectacle.