the maltese angel (9 page)

And then she pleased him by saying quietly, "She's different from what I expected. You could travel far and fare worse. In fact, later on, when I come to think over it, I might even consider she's a bit too good for you," and before he had time to reply, she added, "Anyway, this calls for a drink, doesn't it?"

"Yes, Annie; I think it does."

"Well, get them all into the dining-room and I'll see to it. But' she paused 'by the way, how about taking the little 'un in with you?"

He turned to look towards the boy whose face was bright and eager

looking, only for his attention to be diverted to Billy who was now shaking the hand of his future mistress. However, he quickly turned back to answer Annie: "Why not? Why not indeed! There's ginger beer there, isn't there?" And at this he thrust out an arm towards the child, saying, "Come along, scallywag. Come and experience your first celebration. And remember, you'll never in your life be at a happier one."

He now caught hold of the boy's hand and with his other arm he drew Fanny to his side and linked thus, like a family, it seemed to foretell their future.

The vicar's plump figure swelled with indignation: "I never thought I should say this to you, Ward Gibson, but I find your suggestion utterly insensitive. You come here asking me to call the banns of your

marriage to a person who has spent her life on the stage, and that would be questionable even if it were depicted in a higher form such as the noble prose of Shakespeare, or in the works of Mr. Dickens; but not a dancer of the lowest type ..."

"Be careful, parson! And let me tell you something: if it wasn't for your cloth you would now be stretched out on your vestry floor ... Yes; you may well step back, for, let me tell you, I'm marrying a lady. "

"So you think. So you think. But what about the lady you've courted for years and have left desolate, slighted, and with a weight of

disgrace lying not only on her but on her people, so much so that they cannot bear to come to church."

"Oh. And you'll find that a great pity, won't you, parson? There'll be no more comforts handed out to you to fill that swollen belly of yours. You'll miss the suckling pigs, and the lamb carcass now and again, not forgetting your daily milk that you get free while your curate is called on to pay for his. Isn't that so, parson?"

The vicar's face was showing not only a purple hue but also an

expression that revealed he was consumed with a blazing anger now as he cried, "You're a wicked man, Ward Gibson. And you are bringing disgrace on the village. This is a family community. And let me tell you, the general opinion of you is the same as mine."

Ward's lips spread out from his teeth and his whole expression was one of disdain.

"That may be so, parson," he said, 'but have you any idea of what the general opinion is of you, and has been for as far back as I can

remember? Well, if you don't know I'll tell you now. You're a

sucker-up to those 'that have and you ignore those that haven't. It's left to your curate and others to help them. Aye, those who dare to be Methodists or Baptists, even those who belong to no church or chapel.

What about the Regan family down in Bracken Hollow:

they wouldn't turn their coats, would they, and go to St. Matthew's down there, so you disputed whether the old man should be buried in the graveyard. You'd have left him on the moor if you'd had your way, 'cos there was a taint on them, wasn't there? They were Catholics. It was the same with the McNabs. But John McNab put you in your place, didn't he? He kicked your backside out of the door. And it's odd, isn't it, when others were getting poor law assistance a few years back, they would have starved if it hadn't been for a few unchristian people

living in this village. Oh, parson, you would know how you are thought of in this place and beyond if it wasn't that half of your congregation are afraid of opening their mouths, for fear that what they might say would go back to their employers when you are sitting stuffing your kite at their tables. Well, here's a member of the community, if not of the village, who's going to tell you how you appear to him, and that's as an overblown, unintelligent crawler ..

crawler, always crawling. So now you've got it. " And on this he turned from the infuriated countenance and strode out of the vestry and into the church, and there, standing by the pulpit, he yelled back towards the vestry, " The next time I put my foot inside your church it will have to be for some very, very good reason. Aye, a very good

reason. "

"I'll talk him round, Ward. Well, what I mean is, I'll tell him that I'll marry you down at St. Matthew's. It's just

about big enough to hold a wedding party. For myself, I prefer it to St. Stephen's: more homely and .. holy, I dare add. And it was built with love by the Ramsmore forebears. It was a better idea than that grotesque lump of iron cutting off the altar. Oh, that screen gets on my nerves. "

Ward looked kindly on the young curate, who called in at the farm the following day.

"Thanks all the same, Frank," he said, 'but I've made up me mind, and Fanny is with me in this, it'll be a civil ceremony in Newcastle.

Candidly, it doesn't matter a damn to me where it takes place, so long as it does and we are married. "

"She's a charming girl; I can understand your feelings for her.

Anyway, what I've come to say is, Jane would like you to pop in for a meal. It'll be nothing special, for, as yet, I'm the recipient only of new potatoes. And these only at intervals. But I can have as many

turnips as I care to store. "

"I heard just a few days ago that you were having to buy your milk from Hannah Beaton's shop in the village."

"Yes; that is so. And Jane prefers it that way, unlike me, holding my hands out gratefully for scraps; but she wants no charity, she says.

It irks her that our living itself is a charity. "

"Your living? What d'you mean, Frank?"

"Oh well; Lady Lydia, you know, happens to have a cousin, who happened to go to school with Jane's mother, and through the beating of the tom-toms it was discovered that dear Jane had married an impecunious and ailing curate, and that they were living in the most awful

conditions, almost under the river itself in the lowest part of

Newcastle. It simply could not go on. And as there happened to be a small church, and a so-called vicarage next to it, occupied by a very aged pastor who was incapable of even taking the service, and who was allowed to remain there only through the clemency of Colonel Ramsmore, the suggestion was to transfer the old fellow to a cottage and let the poor curate take

over. His wife and child would at least have fresh air, if nothing else. And so that's how it came about. "

"What did you mean, Frank, ailing? Are you ill? You've never looked it to me, never spoken of it."

Frank Noble now patted the left side of his chest, saying, "A touch of tuberculosis. Just a little bit. I don't even cough any more; I'm

really fit. But, and this I'll confess to you. Ward, as I wouldn't even to Jane, I'd rather be back on that river front among many more who are in the same boat, some coughing their lungs out because, you see, the people are different there. I've always detested villages. I was brought up on the outskirts of one, very like the one here." He inclined his head to the side.

"And there were so many irritations, apart from the marked division in class. There has got to be this division, I know; there always has been and always will be; but narrowness in both sets used to prey on my mind at times, and I had no sympathy with either lot. You know, I

still haven't." And now he bent towards Ward and whispered, "I don't know why I'm in this garb ... in this job, so to speak. I've asked God a number of times, but He never gives me a straight answer. But Jane, now, she's on much better terms with Him and gets a straight answer every time. You've made the biggest mistake of your life in your

choice of a career, she tells me at least once a week. And you know something, Ward? If of a sudden I were to decide to leave and go and look for a job in a shipyard or a factory, or down a mine, she would jump for joy. I know she would." He laughed before adding, "Perhaps not as much now as she would have done three years ago, before the children came. Anyway, you're coming to supper. Which night?"

"Any night you choose."

"Say Thursday. A quiet day all round, Thursday, don't you think? By Wednesday, the locals have chalked up so much on the slate in the inns that Thursday is a comparatively dry night. Friday, everybody's very busy getting ready for Saturday's market, to be followed by a swilling at night in the inn to finish off the week. Of course, that doesn't include our small band of Methodists. Decent lot, the Methodists.

Always thought that."

He was backing away now, laughing and waving at the same time, and Ward stood shaking his head and smiling broadly. Frank was a man after his own heart, and to his mind he certainly wasn't in the wrong

profession:

he should be in the parish; and he wouldn't be afraid to speak his mind from the pulpit; and he'd have more than six sermons a year to work on.

It was good to feel he had one friend .. What was he talking about? He had a number. There was Fred, over the moon about being asked to be best man. And his father, his brothers, John and Will, and Mr.

Newberry, who had promised to bake a wedding cake. It was supposed to be a surprise, but as Fred wasn't good at keeping secrets, he already knew it was to have two tiers and the best egg-white icing above an almond topping.

He stood and watched until the young parson had disappeared along the road, when he turned and hurried into the house.

In the hall he shouted, "Where are you?" And Annie calling from upstairs, cried back at him, "Where do you think?"

He bounded up the stairs two at a time, shouting as he went, "What are you doing up there?"

Again he was given the answer, "What d'you think?" And her voice led him to the room that had been his parents'; and there, Annie, standing on a chair, was taking down the curtains from the window.

"What are you up to? Get off that chair. With your weight, you'll go through it and break your legs. Get down, woman!"

"Don't rock me unless you want me to fall on top of you. And wait a minute until I get this pin out of the ring."

When she had accomplished that task, she dropped the heavy curtain, half of it falling across his head.

And now on the floor once more, she exclaimed, "These should have been down years ago. Your mother liked tapestries. She picked these up at least ... oh, twenty-five years ago; in fact, just before you were born, when they were selling off the things at Quayle Manor. It was beautiful stuff then; but now, I bet, it won't bear the look of

water;

it'll drop to bits. "

"What do you propose putting up then?"

"That depends on you and what stuff you buy. I think something nice and light; something that will tone in with the new carpet. Aye,

aye."

Now she was poking her finger at him.

"Just look down at your feet.

That's been down ever since I was in this house, and it must be claggy with sweat from your father's bare feet, for, you know, once in the house he would never go round in slippers if he could help it. "

He stood back from her, saying, "Well, that's a carpet and curtains.

Now what about the furniture, Annie? You want all that removed? "

"You know, what I don't want now is any of your sarky remarks. And in taking this on me self I'm only pointing out your dimwittedness, for if you'd had any sense you would have had Miss Fanny up here and asked her what colour drapes she would like. And that's what you can do now.

Are you going in the night? "

"Of course I'm going in the night."

"Then I suggest you also go in first thing in the morning and bring her back, for what it must be like sitting in those lodgings all day, I don't know."

He stared at her now as she gathered up the heavy dust-dispersing

curtains, but said nothing, until she staggered past him, her arms full, when he suggested, "How would it be if I brought her back tomorrow and let her stay in the house for the next three weeks?"

She stopped and, her chin stretching over the material towards him, she said, "Wouldn't shock me."

"No, I don't suppose it would, Annie. For two pins I would do it, too, for you know what? Old Tracey has refused to marry us in

church."

"No.r " But yes. Frank though, he's offered to do it along at St.

Matthew's.

But I said no, we'd have it done at the registrar's. "

"He's an old bugger, that, if ever there was one." She humped the curtains further up into her arms, then said soberly, "But perhaps it'll work out for the best, because whether you know it or not there's a civil war goin' on down in the village. Some are backing you, but others are backing Daisy Mason; in fact, things, I understand, have hot ted up in that direction, stirred by the two Mason lads. What they're goin' to do, or what they would like to do to you is nobody's business, but like and actin' are two different things.

That Pete is a big mouth. But Sep, he couldn't knock the stuffin' out of a feather pillow. Anyway, we'll only have to wait an' see which side comes off best, won't we? And by the way, I've made an egg

custard for her; take it in with you. She needs feeding up, and you don't want to marry a clothes prop with a frock on it, do you? "

Ward nodded his head, which then seemed to be in answer to her previous comment when he muttered, "Yes, we'll just have to wait and see,"

before he turned and moved towards the brass and iron bed, and he stood looking at it. He had been born in that bed; and his father had been born in it. But it had a different mattress on it then; two feather ticks, they said, and you sank through one into the other.

He looked about him. It was a large room. The furniture was good

solid mahogany, but the walls could do with new wallpaper. Annie was right;

it needed brightening up. The whole house needed brightening up; and yes, she must have a hand in it, so he would go in early morning and bring her here every day, and