The Moth, page 8
This had amused him, lanes lined with lads. At the most you might see a couple leaning on a farm gate here and there, but on this day his aunt had said, ‘You may go with Robert if he’ll take you.’
So what could he do but come clean and say that he had made arrangements to meet Nancy Parkin.
Well, well, that had caused their eyebrows to meet up with their hairlines. How long had it been going on, his aunt had asked in a tone of voice similar to that his mother might have used.
A few weeks, he had answered, reducing the time from months, because Nancy wasn’t for having it known, seeing that she had been walking out with a fellow from Birtley who, she said, could be serious about her. He was quite aware that she hoped that this statement would elicit one from him that he too was serious about her. But it hadn’t. He liked her. She was a jolly lass, good to look at . . . and to hold, but as for marrying her . . . Well now, marriage was a lifetime policy you had to take on, and like a policy you had to pay for it unto death. And from what he had seen of the lives of many a couple who had taken out such a policy he knew it wasn’t for him, the bickering, the nagging, even the blows. Oh aye, the blows. Never a Saturday passed in Upper Foxglove Road but there were blows. And they didn’t always start with the man; some women were like tigresses when they got going. No; marriage was a serious business and he wasn’t going to gallop into it. Something would have to stir him and he doubted if he’d find that something in Nancy Parkin.
He had wanted to laugh when his aunt’s face had become prim as she said, ‘She’s fast, is Nancy, fast.’ And he retorted, ‘Aye; well, I’ll have to look out then, won’t I, Auntie? ’Cos as me dad always said, fast women and slow horses get you nowhere.’
Carrie had sniggered, and at this her mother had turned on her. He had never before seen his aunt lose her temper. She was usually a gentle-spoken woman, but she had cried at her daughter, ‘Don’t be silly, girl! And you’ll bide in today. At least until this afternoon when your father and I will walk you out.’
Poor Carrie. He felt sorry for her. She was sixteen now and the sap was definitely running freely in her. There was going to be a tough time ahead for Carrie.
Anyway, he had his own day planned with Nancy. First he meant them to take the train into High Shields and saunter down to the sands. He had a longing to look at the river again, especially where it opened out into the sea. There was no better sight than to watch a ship slowly making its way between the piers and into the perilous waters beyond the bar.
If he was true to himself he must admit that although he enjoyed his present quarters much better than he had done his home in Jarrow he missed the river and the chatter of his workmates, the arguments while they had their baits sitting on timbers above the oily water and listening to the ideas that came out of some men’s heads, old men, many of whom even now could neither read nor write, yet who thought and thought deeply.
There was a great difference he had found between the thinking of a townman and that of a countryman. Take his uncle for instance. Even without his religious bias he would have been a narrow-minded man. And there was Tim Yarrow. Tim was about the same age as his uncle and he rarely had anything to say, but when he did talk it was mostly about what happened in the hamlet when he was young when it had been three times the size before the fire had burned down a row of cottages. And even now he spoke of Lamesley as if it was a town instead of a village.
Ah well. He bent down and looked in the mirror and straightened his tie. There was one thing about it, his reflection told him, the country air was doing him good. His skin was clear, as were his eyes, and he had put on a little flesh. He’d have to watch that, he didn’t want to become pot-bellied.
He patted his pocket. He had his money, and a clean handkerchief, and his new overcoat on. He felt smart, and he should do; the coat had cost him quite a bit.
Well, now he was ready. He had to meet Nancy on the Lamesley road, just above the fork. He looked at his watch. It was time he was making a sprint, she didn’t like being kept waiting . . .
Five minutes later he approached the fork and saw Nancy Parkin standing in the shelter of some shrubs. As he neared her he laughed and called out, ‘I’m not late. Now I’m not late, so put the gun down.’
But she did not laugh in return. Looking at him with a straight face, she said, ‘I . . . I can’t come. Our Mary Ellen says Harry’s comin’ over. He’s . . . he’s heard about you, and he’s mad.’
‘Oh, is he? Well, I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘What are you gona do about it?’
His face was straight now as he asked quietly, ‘What do you mean, Nancy? What am I going to do about it?’
‘Well—’ She turned her head to the side and wagged it before answering, ‘Ma says I’ve got to find out if you’re serious.’
‘Oh, come on. Come on, Nancy. We’ve only known each other a matter of weeks.’
She turned on him now, her voice raised. ‘Weeks! You can’t count, ’twas November when we first went out.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded at her slowly now and, his voice cool, he said, ‘But how many times have we been out since that? Not every week, not every other week. Six to eight times in all, I should say. Does that qualify for going serious? Look’ – his eyes narrowed at her now and his jaw tightened – ‘the best thing you can do, Nancy, is to go back and tell your mother to get you married off to this Harry if she’s in such a hurry to get rid of you.’
‘Oh you! Rob Bradley. You just play on a girl’s feelings, that’s all you do. You’ve led me on.’
‘Well, if I’ve led you on, apparently I’m not the only one. Harry’s been doing his share an’ all.’
‘Oh, you think you’re funny, don’t you?’’
‘No, I don’t think I’m funny.’ His face was straight. ‘But I look at things clearly. And I can tell you and your mother this right away, I’m not being pushed into anything, so I’ll say goodbye, Nancy. You go back now, and hurry because Harry’ll be waiting for you. And you can tell him you’re all his.’ And on this he turned on his heel and left her.
But almost immediately her voice seemed to hit him in the back of the neck as she bawled as loud as any drunken trollop on a Saturday night in Jarrow, ‘You’re a bloody upstart, that’s what you are. Everybody says it. You should never have come to the hamlet. You don’t belong among us, act as if you are somebody. And who are you anyway? . . . A bloody towny. I hate you. Do you hear? I hate you, you rotten bugger!’
He was half a mile further along the road before he stopped and, leaning over a farm gate, looked to where some lambs were leaping in play. There were about a dozen of them on a low mound and they were actually playing ‘King of the Castle’. Another time the sight would have warmed him and he would have laughed aloud, but now he was angry, not so much at the fact that he had lost the company of Nancy because he wouldn’t commit himself, but at the things she had yelled at him as he left her, calling him an upstart, saying that he didn’t belong among them.
Presently he brought his elbows off the gate and gripped the top of it as he said to himself, ‘I’m no upstart. Just because you like to dress decent and don’t swill your drink, you’re an upstart.’
Of a sudden the anger seeped from him and he gave a short laugh. Well, well, him an upstart. What was an upstart, anyway? What was the meaning of it? Somebody who got above themselves, rose in the world and forgot their beginnings, looked down on them. So an upstart was somebody who was getting on in the world. You couldn’t then put the term upstart to the penniless or to a beggar. No, when he came to think of it, an upstart was a kind of compliment. Well, well, so that’s what he was, an upstart. So be it, he’d be an upstart. From now on that’s what he’d be, an upstart.
He turned from the gate and walked briskly down the road in the direction of the station. He was out for the day and he was going to enjoy himself. He was a bloody upstart and a rotten bugger. Aye, by! Come to think of it, that wouldn’t be the first time she had used that language, but up till now she had appeared so polite, so pi. Eeh, women! It just showed you, didn’t it?
But he didn’t enjoy himself, at least not to the extent he had imagined he would. The river was quiet, dead. He should have expected that at a holiday time. He saw no ship passing out between the piers. Mile End Road seemed to be lined with children, all making their way down to the sands. Many of them he knew would have tramped from Jarrow and Hebburn. They all looked bright-eyed and eager, but by tonight their feet would be dragging and tears would be streaking many faces as they made their way home. He had seen it so often. ‘We’re going to the sands the morrow, I’ve got threepence. We’re going to the sands the morrow.’ Some went even on a penny, and some on nothing. Other times he had been happy to see the bairns going to the sands, but today they looked like a gigantic swarm of hungry children, hungry for a little pleasure. Somehow it troubled him, pained him.
He went into a café and had an indifferent meal, telling himself he’d eaten better in Lockhart’s working men’s café in Jarrow.
By four o’clock in the afternoon he was in Newcastle. He liked walking round the city. The buildings were fine and you could see them on a day like this, for it was like a Sunday. But it wouldn’t be so on the Town Moor. He didn’t go to the moor, telling himself that you couldn’t enjoy a fair on your own.
It was six o’clock when he alighted from the train at Lamesley, went up the bank and through the village, but didn’t take the road that would lead to the hamlet. He wasn’t going indoors yet awhile, for his uncle would likely question him as to what depths of depravity he had sunk to in the big city. He skirted it by taking the field path that brought him out on the road to The Bull. He liked The Bull and Billy and Mary Taggart who ran it. When he arrived it was to find the taproom quite crowded, and after exchanging greetings with Billy Taggart and ordering his half-pint, he took his stand at the corner of the bar. There was no chance of getting a seat, not in this taproom. He had once made the mistake of sitting on a vacant seat at the end of the settle, but Billy Taggart’s wink and a lift of his chin had brought him to the bar counter, to be told in a whisper that that was Dob Holler’s seat and that he’d be in any minute. He was amused sometimes at the hierarchy that prevailed in this room. Hierarchy, his dictionary told him, was a division among the angels. Well, there were certainly no angels among this lot, but the division was as pronounced.
A tall thin middle-aged man came to the counter and stood beside him while saying to the barman, ‘Same again, Billy.’
‘Same again, it is,’ said Mr Taggart.
The man put his tuppence on the counter for the half-pint and Mr Taggart picked it up, and he rattled it in his hand as he looked at his customer before saying, ‘Don’t look very happy the night, Arthur. What’s it now?’
‘What it always is, Billy. The new bugger scarpered the day.’
‘Never! You mean the one that took over from Jimmy?’
‘No; we’ve had two since him. This one said the work was too heavy. Six till six was his time and not a minute after. Of course—’ The man now took a drink from his mug, then replaced it on the counter before saying slowly, ‘Tell you the truth, I cannot blame them. Three of us to do the work of ten. It’s impossible; takes me all me time to keep the vegetables going. Some of the greenhouses are dropping to bits. It’s a disgrace. Eeh! When I think of it, we used to have bunches of grapes as big as turnips. And Greg, he’s at it from morning till night; but the horses take up most of his time.’
‘How many have you got now?’
‘Three, but there’ll soon only be two, Prince won’t be able to pull his weight much longer. Well, he’s past twenty. He should be put out to grass, but I’m afraid’ – he pursed his lips – ‘knowing the master, he’ll be for the market.’
‘Things that tight?’
‘Aye, and getting tighter I should say. It’s been a strange house since the mistress died. You don’t know what’s going to happen next.’
‘How’s the young miss?’
‘Oh, she’s all right.’ The man smiled gently now. ‘Still flitting, can’t keep her out of the wood. But she’s all right.’
The young miss still flitting. The man must be from Foreshaw Park, and the young miss was the one who was known round about as Thorman’s Moth. And, by aye! She’d looked like a moth that night all right. He’d taken a long time to get over that experience, weird it was. He had passed that way often since but had never ventured beyond the broken railings. But he must admit, he had looked for a glimpse of her. In a way, she had been beautiful, and strange. And her sister? There was no resemblance between them. One looked all softness and light and the other prim starchiness, definitely the Lady of the Manor or the elder daughter as he now knew she was. Well, by the sound of it, she hadn’t much to be uppish about, for apparently they were on their beam ends.
His attention was brought back to the man who was saying, ‘He’s been drinking like a fish, at least he does when he’s at home. But sometimes he’s away for days. They say he’s got rooms in Newcastle, and’ – his voice dropped – ‘from what I can gather he’s never lonely there. The one I’m sorry for is Miss Agnes. She’s got the lot on her shoulders. It’ll be a good thing for her when she’s married and she goes off. Although what’s going to happen then, God alone knows. I don’t know what they’ll do with the young ’un, although I do know the master’s all for having her put away. From what I gather from the kitchen, there’s hell to pay atween Miss Agnes and him at times. Still, we’ll have to wait and see.’ He finished his drink, then said, ‘I’ll be off then, Billy. Be seeing you.’
‘Aye, be seeing you, Arthur. Take care.’
Billy Taggart now wiped the counter around Robert’s tankard before saying, ‘Sad business, that.’
‘Does he work at Foreshaw Park?’
‘That’s it, Foreshaw Park. If ever a place has galloped downhill that has. They used to have the smartest team of horses round about. With this one’s grandfather, I mean the present owner’s grandfather, money was spent like water then. But mind, he was a man who worked for it, he was a businessman. He had good shares in two or three of the coal mines around, not counting a chain factory and a candle factory an’ all. Oh, he had his fingers in all kinds of pies. But the trouble was, he spoiled his son, the present one’s father, so the story goes. And this one’s been on the downgrade since he finished school, and long afore, if all tales are true. He was saved by marrying his wife. But then her dad went bust. You can see it’s a tale of bad management right through and it wouldn’t surprise me to see them all out of there in a year or two. I’ll tell you one thing, he’s badly liked around here, very few have a good word for him. Oh’ – he moved his head slowly – ‘’tis amazing how the mighty can be brought down. Still, I have very little pity for them. It’ll do them good to see how the other half live. Are you having another?’
‘No thanks, Billy, not the night.’ Then leaning forward he grinned at Billy Taggart while whispering, ‘I don’t want me breath to knock him over.’ The barman put his head back and let out a high laugh and said, ‘I’d like to see that. Aye, I’d like to see that, old holy Joe being floored. Well, goodnight to you.’
‘And to you.’
The twilight was deepening when he left the inn, and he had decided to take the roundabout road back to the hamlet because this way he wouldn’t have to pass Nancy’s door.
He had just looked at the signpost which pointed the way to Tanfield when he heard a giggle coming from behind the hedge that bordered the road. It made him pause in his step. He imagined that it was Carrie he was hearing for she giggled like that. But he told himself that there must be lots of lasses who giggled like Carrie, and whoever it was behind the hedge it certainly wouldn’t be Carrie, although he bet she wished it was.
He was only a hundred yards from the gateway that led into the carpenter’s yard when he saw a figure running towards him, and long before it reached him he recognised his aunt.
Alice Bradley was gasping for breath as she came up to him, and her voice was a gabble as she asked, ‘Have you seen anything of Carrie?’
‘Carrie? No.’
‘Oh, dear Lord! Dear Lord!’ As she turned now and looked from side to side he caught hold of her arm, saying, ‘What’s happened? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s . . . it’s Carrie. She went out after dinner and hasn’t been seen since. You know she wanted to go out walking with Gladys, well I let her, unknownst to Mr Bradley, but . . . but Gladys went to her aunt’s in Gateshead on Saturday for the weekend. She was lying. My . . . my Carrie was lying. And Mr Bradley is beside himself. You haven’t seen her?’
‘No. No, Aunty.’
‘Oh dear! Oh dear! He’s demented. If she doesn’t come back he’ll go off his head.’ She became still now and, looking into his face, she said, ‘His life revolves around her. He thinks or cares for no-one else, no-one.’
There was a sound of tears in her voice and he said soothingly, ‘He thinks of you, Aunty. He’s very fond of you.’
‘No, no. You don’t know anything, Robert. You don’t. You don’t.’ Her head was moving wildly now from shoulder to shoulder. ‘He thinks the sun shines out of her. She’s just got to laugh and he’s happy.’
Just got to laugh. He recalled the giggling sound behind the hedge but dismissed it with a No, no! Then came back at himself with a Yes. Why yes. She was ripe for it, wasn’t she? Had been for some time now. Good God!
