the maltese angel (19 page)

Well, her ma's of the same mind as me self she could do without her fine if it means a new life for her. " His voice now dropping to a low tone as if his daughter wasn't present, he said, " Just for one of 'em to be given a chance, master, just one of 'em, 'twas like as if the good God hadn't forgotten us after all, for it seems to have been empty bellies an' cold nights ever since we settled here. But as I said to her, me missis, 'twas as if God was relentin' an' pullin' open a door in hell an' lettin' one of 'em out. I'm an ignorant man, master, like most of us down there, an' that life suits some of 'em, but not all.

Nothin' can alter for us elders, but for the youngsters, well, as I said, master . " He now hunched his shoulders and spread his hands out, and as Ward stared at him, for a moment he saw the whole situation through Fanny's eyes, but only for a moment. He had a farm to run; he had two good servants who were more like faithful friends; taking on this strip of a girl who looked all bones and eyes would surely bring discord into the place, and hadn't he enough discord flooding in from the village?

"Good morning, Mr. Riley."

"Good morning. Patsy."

Mike Riley looked at the slight form of the woman standing beside her husband and he smiled widely at her, saying, "Good morning to you, mistress. A very good morning to you. I've just brought this 'un."

Again he indicated his daughter by a movement of his hip.

"She sees now that you are right, she should stay on the job. And, ma'am, it's up to you how often you let her home. If it's once in a month for an hour or so, or once in six, I'll understand. An' I'll say this, ma'am, you've got me thanks from the bottom of me heart. An'

there'll come the day when she'll bless you an' all, won't you?" His hand went out and was placed gently on his daughter's shoulder, but she made no response, she just continued to stare at Fanny, and not without defiance in her look. Then her father, putting on his cap and pulling the peak to the side, addressed a definitely bewildered Ward, saying,

"If there's anyt'in in this world I can do for you, sir, I'm your man.

"Tis at liberty I am at the moment, so if you should need a helpin'

hand, just call on me, sir. Anytime, night or day, call on me." And with that he took three steps backwards before turning his glance on his daughter and in a soft voice saying to her:

"Tara girlo. Behave yours el Remember the crack we had." He stared at her one moment longer and it was evident that his lips were trembling before he turned and walked smartly away, leaving the girl looking after him, and Fanny and Ward looking at each other.

It was a week later and there was tension in the house, and it had touched every member of it, not least Carl.

The boy had been delighted with the news that he was going to have a cottage to himself; at least he was until the reason for it was put to him, which had been immediately after Mike Riley's departure.

"But she's dirty, mistress. They're lousy, all of them. They could keep themselves clean, but they don't, they're lousy."

"It isn't their fault, it's the conditions. It's those awful hovels that they live in, and they haven't any money."

"There's a stream; they could still be clean."

She had taken his hand, saying, "Carl, do this for me. Be kind to her.

She needs the work: her family are in desperate straits; they go

hungry. "

"The master gives them turnips, and he sent two sacks of taties."

' People cannot live just on turnips and potatoes. And what your

master sent them wouldn't have lasted long. "

"They all gang up down there and they steal."

"Well, Carl, you've never been in a position where you had to steal. I don't want to remind you but I must now. If it hadn't been for the master's kindness when you were in dire need, where do you think you would have been now? So, I'm asking you to extend the same kindness to the girl by way of repayment in part. Because, you know, we can never repay a good deed, but we must keep trying."

"Is ... is she coming into the kitchen?"

"Oh, no, no. Her meals will be sent out to her. She'll eat them in the boiler room, where it is warm or in the barn or up in the loft, wherever she chooses. But no, she won't be coming into the kitchen."

She said this emphatically as if Annie were prodding her.

When she had told him what work she intended to give her, he was amazed and he brought out, with a wrinkled nose, "She smells."

"She won't smell when I'm finished cleaning her. And' she had smiled"

I'm not much bigger than her, am I? So she will adjust to my clothes.

"

That was the first battle over. However, that had left two still to be won. One concerned the newcomer's wage. Ward had said a shilling a week.

Couldn't he make it two?

No, he could not. And it had been only by a great deal of self-control that he had not bellowed at her once more.

Even so, they had both known that the heated discussion with regard to the wage was but a small matter; it was the presence of the girl

herself and the reason why she was there. This butter and cheese

business; hadn't he enough to contend with?

But the third battle had been the hardest this time coming in the form of a verbal attack from Annie, who made her feelings plain, not to Fanny but to Carl.

"I've told the mistress I'll not go near that girl to learn her anything: I'll pass on what I know to her herself, and then she can please herself how she instructs that one. In any case, by the time any butter comes out of that dairy it'll be rancid. An' to think of the mistress cleansin' that one, stripping her bare. I can tell you this for nothin', 'cos afterwards she'll have to do some cleansin' of herself on the quiet. She's tried to keep it dark, but different fuels give off different smells an' that what came from the boiler house was singed cloth, if I know anything. Oh, I've never in all me born days experienced anything like this; an' it all goes back to Parson Noble's door, if you ask me, because they would have been hounded out of that Hollow years gone if he hadn't come an' put his nose in, with his live an' let live patter. I'm all for live an' let live me self but where is another question. And you, young Carl, keep your arm's distance from her. Her clothes might be clean and her body too, but you can't get nits out of her head in one, two, or three goes. They are

stickers, are nits. Oh, I never thought I'd see the day when the

mistress of this house got mixed up with that lot down there. Now the master's mother was the kindest body you'd ever come across, but would she have done a thing like that? No; no way. Send them down taties and such, but that would have been the limit. I don't know where it's gona end. I really don't."

It didn't end, but it began for Annie two further weeks later. The dairy now spotless, she showed Fanny how long the milk should be left in the big trays for the cream to rise to the top; how to use the

skimmer;

l57 then how the handle of the churn should be used, not jerked, but in a steady swing. And she had immediately exclaimed, "But you're not turning it. It'll have you dead in a day. If that 'un's here to be a dairymaid, then let her be a dairymaid an' get at it."

The progress made by the new dairymaid was related to Annie each

evening during the respite between supper and the last round. At least it was brought out of Carl by tactful questioning. At first he did not seem reluctant to tell of . that one's progress. Then one evening, having taken her seat at the side of the fireplace, Annie said, "Well lad, what's your news today?" But no answer was forthcoming. Carl simply bowed his head, which made her lean towards him, saying, "Ah-ha!

you've got something bad to tell me, haven't you?"

"No, no!" His head jerked up.

"Well, not really bad, no."

"What d'you mean, not really bad?

"Tis about her, isn't it?"

Yes; but .. "

"Come on, no yes, buts. What's she been up to? I knew she'd get up to something sooner or later, and the mistress would be covered with shame for makin' a stand on her behalf. Oh, I knew it."

"No, no; it isn't like that, Mrs. Annie."

"Well what is it like then?"

"She ain't eating."

"What? Ain't eating? I send her a good heaped plateful out twice a day. I haven't been spiteful like that, no matter what I think. If she's got to turn that churn, she needs something' in her belly. I've sent out two good .."

"Yes; yes, I know you have, Mrs. Annie. Well, it's like this. I took her dinner over one day during the week and I went back a few minutes after and her plate was clean."

She gollops, then? "

"No. No. I watched her the next day. The same thing happened. I'd seen her taking bits of paper from the waste heap and I wondered why.

But I found out this morning. You know' he looked down again 'the

mistress said she hadn't to be roused before six. And when I shout up the ladder, she generally shouts back, " All right", but this morning I was on me way to the new piggeries. It must have just turned half-past and it wasn't really light, but the moon was still out and I felt sure I saw her going round by the big wall, and when I went to see I made her out running like a hare across the fields. And ... and I followed her, near as I could, like, without her knowing. She went right over the bottom field an' all, and I stood at the side of the glass house and I could just make her out bending down at the railings. Then the next minute she came flying past. If she had put her arm out she could have touched me. And I waited until she was well away, then I went to the place she had been and I saw the little bundle of newspaper."

He stopped now as if he were thinking, and his voice jerked his head up as he went on rapidly, "I opened it:

it was the meat and some of your carrots and taties, that was the day's dinner, and there was some crackling and a bit of pork, that was from yesterday. That's as much as I could make out. I bundled it up quick.

"

They were now staring at each other in silence, and he watched her lean back in the rocking chair. She didn't rock herself, but her head fell back against the top bar and she bit her lip. Then she again startled him by bending forward and gripping his shoulder as she said, "Now don't you repeat a word of this to the mistress. Do you hear me?

Not a word, else she'll be clearing this kitchen to feed the whole tribe. But I've got to think about this. She can't do her work if she doesn't eat. And anyway, have you thought that she must have been in contact with one of them? "

"No' he shook his head " I don't think she'd be in contact, I mean, she wouldn't be close. She's likely told one or other of them, likely the brother who's next i59

to her, that if she got any bits she would leave them somewhere. I don't know. But now that she's clean I don't think she'd go near them

. well, I think she would know better, because if she got dirty again even the mistress would give her up. "

"Oh, I don't know about that. The mistress is a very stubborn lady underneath that gentle skin of hers. And look what she's been asking you to do now, 'cos the master won't let her do it herself: pass on your lessons to her, hasn't she?"

"Yes, but I don't mind."

"Well, you should mind; you're not paid to waste your time."

"I don't waste me time, Mrs. Annie. And anyway, the mistress said ..

"

Annie got to her feet now, saying, "I know what the mistress says; she says more than her prayers and she whistles them. Oh, what am I

saying? Look, I've got to think. I'll see about this matter later.

Now, as I told you, not a word to anybody, else I'll ring your ear for you, both of them, until you think there's two bells in the church steeple. "

It was from this time that the discord in the house eased, and no-one other than those directly concerned knew what took place on the day the master drove the mistress into Newcastle and Annie confronted the

dairymaid for the first time. The only result of this meeting was made plain to Carl when the slop buckets for the pigs were not so full of table scraps, and the dogs were given fewer meaty bones to chew upon.

The day came when the first ivy-leaved pat of butter was put on the kitchen table and Annie, reluctantly, pronounced it not bad.

So one more strand was worked into the pattern of their lives. And not only one, for on the day Billy took the first few pounds of butter into the market, a round of it was bought by Colonel Ramsmore's housekeeper.

A fortnight later a note came from Lady Lydia of Forest Hall to say she would be obliged if they could supply her with two pounds of butter weekly, and also if they were disposing of any suckling pigs, could she be informed.

This benevolent order made even Annie say, "Well, well! We're going up in the world, aren't we?

"Tis the country folk now coming to our door."

But whatever Ward really thought, his only comment to Fanny was, "This is Lady Lydia's doing, not the old fella's. He's of the type, know your place, man, and keep it. But as far as I can understand, she's go-ahead, and a very genial woman. I've glimpsed her a number of times and she looks as pleasant as her character. But there' he had tweaked her nose 'your butter business, my dear wife, is going to make a name for itself in the end." And to this she had answered, "Thanks to Patsy," only to have him come back scoffingly, "Oh yes, thanks to Patsy;' and then he added, " You know something? That girl has never opened her lips to me in all the weeks she's been here. But her eyes speak for her. "

"And what do you think they say?" asked Fanny.

"Oh, I wouldn't know, but one thing I do is, she'll take some mastering when she grows up, that one."

And Fanny, looking away from him, said softly, almost dreamily, "Yes, she will ... she will."

On the 20th December 1888, Fanny's second child was born. It was a daughter and on looking down on her for the first time Ward exclaimed,

"She's the image of you ... absolute image." And his face bright, he picked up the child and held it to him and repeated, "Just like you, the spitting image. We'll call her Angela. What about that?