The Moth, page 24
‘But how? He’ll never be able to go in the trap in this state.’
‘No, I’ve thought of that. I wonder if you would mind if I took a loan of the cart? It has high sides and I could lay him in it. It would keep the wind off him.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. And we’ll put a mattress in it and cover him with blankets. Yes, yes; that’s a good idea. By the way, did you have any rest?’
‘Aye, I dozed.’
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Ruthie’s seen to it. They were all up early, they haven’t had much sleep either. I’m sorry for the disturbance.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ She gave an impatient shake of her head, and on a different occasion her very ordinary response would have brought a twinkle to his eyes. But now he merely looked at her, then said quietly, ‘I was thinking in the night, it’s an odd thing about this house, it seems to create events. At least that’s how it appears to me.’
She returned his look steadily, and then she said, ‘I don’t think it’s the house, it’s wherever you go, you yourself. Some people are made like that, they alter the atmosphere and create storms. However—’ her tone changing now and her head moving in a brisk nod, she said, ‘I will go and see about the preparing of the cart. And Hubbard can go in with you. He can drive the trap in and bring the cart back, and you must stay with your uncle until the doctor sees him, I’m sure your aunt will be glad of your presence in the house.’ She waited a moment as if expecting some reply, but when he didn’t speak, simply stared at her, she turned about and walked hastily from the room . . .
It took four of them to carry John Bradley out to the cart and lay him on the mattress. He made no protest whatever, seeming to be oblivious of what was going on. The women saw to it that he was well wrapped up with blankets. They were white house blankets brought from the linen cupboard, satin bound and almost half an inch thick. It was one of the things that Robert noticed and thought: That’s silly, they’ll get messed up. He had never seen the like before and he guessed that neither Peggy, Ruthie, nor Maggie would have brought such quality down to be used on the back of a farm cart.
As he drove the cart out of the yard and along the drive in front of the house, he saw her standing at the hall window. She was wearing a dark blue dress and in the white light of the frosty morning she stood out against the long pane as a painting in a frame.
He dragged his mind from her and to the business at hand. What if his uncle died? In a way that too would be laid at his door. A poor man coming out on such a night to ask his forgiveness, that’s what they would say, not that he had been in the wrong in the first place: righteousness belonged to the dead in the minds of most folk. Oh, he wasn’t such a bad old stick, some would say; yes, he had his faults, but then who hasn’t?
He had heard it all before . . .
When they arrived in the yard and his aunt opened the back door, she remained for a moment as if petrified, and he had to call to her, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right, Aunty.’ When she came to the end of the cart and looked at her husband wrapped in blankets, only his eyes, nose and mouth visible, and these latter running with sweat, she said, ‘Oh, dear God, where did you find him?’
‘He came up to the house. Now don’t worry, only get the bed ready.’
As she ran back into the house she called over the yard, ‘You there, Tim?’ And when Tim appeared at the door of the workshop he too stood for a moment as if unable to take in the situation, until Robert shouted, ‘Come and give us a hand.’ And when Tim reached the cart he looked from Robert to Greg and back to Robert again, saying, ‘He went after you then?’ But Robert made no answer to this except to say, ‘Give us a hand, we’ve got to get him to bed.’
It took the three of them all their time to get the still limp burden up the stairs; but once he was lying on the bed, Alice said, ‘I’ll see to him. I’ll see to him.’ And they all went out of the room and down the stairs, and there Robert, looking at Greg, said, ‘When you’re taking the cart back, will you go out of your way and call on the doctor? Tell him it’s urgent.’
‘Aye, I’ll do that.’ Greg nodded at him, then added, ‘But it being New Year’s morning I doubt if he’s been long in bed, and he’ll be like a bear with a sore skull. I wouldn’t expect him to come running.’
‘You tell him it’s serious. Don’t leave a message, see him yourself, will you?’
‘Aye, I’ll do that. Will you be back the night?’
‘Yes, most likely.’
As both Greg and Tim went out of the back door, Nancy Parkin entered the kitchen and she stood for a moment looking at him before saying, ‘Well, well, look what the New Year’s brought in. You brought him back then. Where had he been?’
‘For a walk.’
‘Huh! You haven’t changed, have you? She’s nearly been out of her mind. Do you know that? He went after you, didn’t he? Went to beg your pardon for putting the blame on you. Tim says he’s been yapping on about it for days, you and God.’
‘Has he? Oh’ – he raised his eyebrows at her – ‘nice to know that I was linked with good company for a change.’
‘Are you stayin’?’
‘I haven’t made up me mind yet.’ He stared at her now through narrowed lids, asking himself how on earth he had ever imagined her to be good company.
‘I’m gona be married.’
‘Are you now? Well, I’m not surprised, you would have to be married sooner or later, wouldn’t you? I’m sure your mother must be over the moon. Mr Pendle it was, wasn’t it? Mr Harry Pendle.’
‘You can scoff. I can tell you this much, he’s a better man than you’ll ever be.’
‘I’ve got no doubt about that. I’m sure you picked the best, although as I said before, Nancy, I wasn’t long in the running, was I? I mean, I was a late starter, sort of pushed into the race, if you know what I mean. I hadn’t much option.’ A grin spread over his face now as he ended, ‘Until I came to the sticks, and then I baulked. Some horses are born jumpers, others aren’t.’
She flounced past him now on her way towards the far kitchen door, where she turned and said, ‘You think you’re funny, don’t you, smart aleck? But I know this much, nobody’s safe with you. You would have taken me down, then skedaddled, as me mother says. If you weren’t responsible for poor Carrie, it wasn’t because you hadn’t tried it on . . . ’
The leap he took across the floor caused her to squeal and with the flat of his hand he pushed her against the door, hissing at her now, ‘You mind what you say, and tell your mother the same. I’m telling you both, watch out or else you’ll find yourself standing before the justice proving your words. A joke’s one thing, banter’s another, but you’ve got an evil tongue in your head. Now I’m warning you. You speak one more word against my character and the money for your wedding will go on a court case. And I mean it.’
And he did mean it, and showed it by grabbing at her by the shoulder and, swinging her back to the direction from which she had come and pushing her towards the back door, he said, ‘As long as I’m here in this house, don’t show your face. What’s to be done I’ll help me aunt.’ And opening the door, he thrust her out and just prevented himself from banging it after her, only the thought of the man lying in the room above staying him. And he stood with his back to it, his teeth grinding, his hands clenched. They said men had mucky minds; by God, most of them only came second to some women! For months past, almost a year now he’d never been near a woman, not even for a cuddle. At times his body had burned and his mind had been a torment but he had worked and walked it off, because a new emotion had come into his life. He wouldn’t have said he was a highly sexed man, he was though an ordinary fellow who had his needs, but like any priest he had sublimated them. Yet here was that bitch insinuating that, given a chance, he would have taken Carrie down.
As his body relaxed he told himself he had been a fool to get so angry. The trouble with Nancy was frustration and the fact that she preferred him to her future husband. Oh, he knew what was narking her.
He now went out of the room and up the stairs and knocked on the bedroom door, and as he entered his aunt turned to him, saying, ‘Give me a hand, will you, Robbie? It’s getting this shirt on him. He came to himself a little while ago and helped me ease off his clothes, but now he seems gone again . . . he’s in a fever.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded at her as he hoisted the limp form up and she pulled the nightshirt down her husband’s back. ‘It must have been the journey out last night, it was a bitter.’
‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s spent days sitting in the workshop neither eating nor drinking; he was blaming himself but he should have been blaming me.’
‘Oh no, Aunty, no.’
‘Yes, yes, Robbie. If I hadn’t lied she would have likely been here today; he would have found solace in your company and you would have helped both me and Carrie to bear his censure. But all I could think of at the time was to stem his wrath.’
‘I would have done the same; everybody wants to protect their own.’
‘I wish I could think that.’ She lifted up the corner of her white apron now and passed it over her face. Then coming round the bed, she looked at him as she said, ‘Have you to hurry back?’
‘No, no. There’s no hurry. She . . . she told me to stay as long as was necessary.’
‘You like it up there?’
‘It’s all right.’
‘You’ve changed, you know, Robert.’
‘Me changed? In what way?’
‘Well, I don’t know, I can’t put me finger on it: something about you, it’ll likely come to me when I least expect it.’ She turned quickly to the bed now as her husband groaned, and as she stroked the grey hairs back from his brow she murmured, ‘I wish the doctor would hurry up.’ . . .
It was two hours later when the doctor arrived and looking as if he himself had just got out of bed, and the first thing he said to Alice was not, ‘What’s the matter with your husband?’ but, ‘Do you have any coffee in the house?’ And when she said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Make it black and strong, will you?’ Then he added, ‘Why the devil do people take a New Year’s day to get born and to die? I’ve been up since five o’clock.’
‘I’m sorry.’
On the soft-spoken apology he smiled as he said, ‘I’m glad you are. It’s a change from my last patient, the man who died. He was blind drunk and he went out swearing, mostly at me. Walked under a horse, the idiot, and it wasn’t standing still.’
He was speaking of a man dying.
The effect on Robert was to make him want to burst out laughing. Life was funny, odd: it was drama mixed up with comedy; scandal bred on lies; it was the joy of life escaping at intervals out of Miss Millie; most of all it was the loneliness in her eyes . . . Agnes’ eyes. For the first time he gave her a name in the back of his mind.
The doctor said that John Bradley was in a high fever and that his resistance at the moment seemed to be very low. He would leave some pills and call later in the day when he would bring a bottle with him. ‘In the meantime,’ he said to Alice, ‘keep his body sponged down. Don’t change the sheets too often: it’s his own sweat and it won’t harm him as much as cold sheets against the skin.’
When he had gone Alice said with a note of surprise in her voice, ‘None of the Parkins have been in this morning. Nancy has been very good.’
He looked at her sheepishly, with a smile on his face as he now said, ‘I’m afraid I gave her her marching orders.’
‘Her marching . . . Whatever for, Robbie? You mean, you told her to get out . . . Nancy?’
‘Yes. I told her as long as I’m here not to show her face.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh’ – he turned away – ‘she said one or two things that annoyed me. I don’t mind people telling me what I am if it’s the truth, but if it isn’t . . . well, I almost rough-handled her. After her dad comes home tonight I expect he’ll pay me a visit.’
‘Oh, Robbie.’ She shook her head now, saying, ‘Don’t you understand? Whatever she said, it was out of jealousy. She was very sweet on you, you know. She’s going to be married, but I don’t think he’s her first choice.’
‘Well, Aunty, I gave her to understand from the first that I wasn’t the marrying kind . . . but I’m sorry now that I acted as I did because you’ll need her.’
‘No, no. I was never one for neighbours popping in and out, and I must admit they’re a nosy lot. I was glad when I heard a little while ago that he’s thinking about leaving. Some of the lads are working in Newcastle now: one’s a brass finisher, and another a dyer, and Mary Ellen has been taken on as apprentice milliner. But it’s the travelling, especially in the winter. But for what he’s asking for his house, I’m afraid they’re going to be stuck there for some time. Three hundred pounds! Did you ever hear? It’s only got three rooms and an attic. It’s got a decent bit of garden, but who’s going to pay three hundred pounds for a place like that? Do you know what he paid for it twenty-six years ago? Fifty pounds. And now three hundred. Mr Bradley would have bought it off him, but not for that price. But—’ She changed the subject now as she looked up into his face, saying, ‘Now . . . how long do you think you can stay? I mean, how much leave can you take from up there?’
‘Oh, a couple of days.’ He nodded kindly at her. ‘By that time the fever should be down, and then’ – he put out his hand and patted her shoulder – ‘you can have Nancy back.’
‘Oh! Robbie, Robbie. You know who I want back, don’t you? Oh! Robbie.’
As the tears flowed down her face he drew her into his arms and as he patted her back he was forced to think wryly, Here I go again, comforting.
Five
It was the fifth of January; he had been gone nearly five days. Two days ago she had sent Hubbard to see how Mr Bradley was faring. He had returned saying he was in a high fever and had been delirious, and that Robert had been up with him for the two nights. This had been related to her through Peggy who had gone on to say that Hubbard had said Robert looked asleep on his feet. Now another two days had almost passed and she’d had no word.
The place seemed different without him, bare of personality. Last night she had again confronted herself, and the knowledge that she was letting herself down by even thinking the way she did had again brought forth the rejoinder: what real harm could there be in thinking because all she would ever have of him were thoughts. She would never give herself away and so who was to know what she thought?
He already did.
At this she had gone to the mirror and stared at herself as she said to it, ‘Well, he, like me, knows his place and he won’t step out of it. Should he, he knows that he would be rebuked and strongly, and he’s not the kind of man to lay himself open to that, because he has an opinion of himself and his own worth. Oh yes, that’s evident in all he does and says.’
But that was last night. During the morning she said to Millie, ‘Now I’m going into Newcastle to do some shopping. I . . . I want some material for a dress for you. Now you will be good, won’t you?’
Millie hadn’t asked if she might go with her, she had simply nodded her head while she brushed the poodle’s coat, saying, ‘Yes, of course, Aggie. And I’ll see she doesn’t do naughties on the carpet. I’ll watch her, and put the paper down.’
Agnes had said, ‘Better still, get Maggie or Ruthie to take you for a walk in the garden, so that lady can do her naughties there.’
‘Yes, yes, I will.’ Millie smiled; and then quite suddenly said,’ I have no-one to talk to, Aggie.’
‘What do you mean?’ Agnes sat down beside her on the window seat and again she asked, ‘What do you mean you have no-one to talk to?’
‘Well, not since Bradley went away, and not since the party.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’re talking to people all day. There’s Dave and Peggy and Ruthie and Betty and of course Maggie; you chat with Maggie all the time; then outside, Hubbard and Bloom always have a word for you.’
Millie looked into Agnes’ face now, but she did not speak, her large almond-shaped eyes looked filled with a deep want that Agnes recognised as being akin to the feeling that was within herself. She knew what her sister meant by having no-one to speak to, while yet talking to everyone in the house. She rose from her seat now, saying, ‘Be good.’ And on leaving the room she saw Ruthie and said, ‘I’m going into Newcastle to do some shopping. Keep an eye on Millie, please? Don’t leave her alone. I won’t be all that long gone. But run down now, will you, and tell your uncle that I want the trap.’
In the barn, Dave Waters looked at his daughter as he repeated, ‘Trap? She’s going into Newcastle? She’s never gone into Newcastle on her own in the trap afore.’
‘That’s what she said, and she’s getting ready.’
He pursed his thin lips and his short moustache seemed to bristle. ‘Go and tell Greg to get it ready,’ he said. Then he left the barn and went across the yard and into the kitchen where he found his wife alone, and he immediately began, ‘She wants the trap, she’s going into Newcastle she says to do shoppin’. She doesn’t usually take the trap by herself; she doesn’t like driving the trap. What’s up?’
‘Well, what can be up? She just wants to get out for a bit, I should think. And you’re wrong, you know, she has taken the trap out on her own a number of times.’
‘Aye, but not into the city with the traffic as it is and them motor cars flashing around. It isn’t safe, for a start.’
‘Why do you worry?’ Peggy gazed at her husband in an almost pitying way. ‘If it isn’t one thing, it’s another: it’s the house, or it’s Millie, or it’s her. Look, she’s a grown woman and she’s not like Millie, you can’t coddle her. And anyway, there’s a change come over her of late. Ever since she broke off her engagement, she’s been different.’
