the maltese angel (16 page)

"Why count them out?"

"Because from six o'clock onwards, they were in The Crown Head. I saw them go in me self And when I dropped in later, they were still

there.

And they were playing dominoes when I left. And it was only ten

minutes later when I came out of the bakery and saw the weird light in the sky from over here. At first, I didn't take it for a fire, but me dad did. He was just coming out of the house an' we both took to our heels .. And as for Daisy. Well, she went into Fellburn this

afternoon to stay with her cousin. Now you'll ask how I know that.

Well, she dropped into the shop. She wanted half a dozen rice dollies, because she said her cousin liked them. She was chatting to me mam for a time. So you've got to look elsewhere. Ward. And in a way I'm glad of that, 'cos you know, there's not a nicer couple than John and Gladys Mason, and they wouldn't let their lads do anything like that.

He would die of shame, would John Mason, if people thought that way.

"

It was then that Rob Newberry, who had also come back after cleaning up, put in, "You'll likely get your best lead from the lad later, because by the looks of him he must have come across whoever it was actually doing it, and they battered him. The poor lad's face is in a state, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if his head's been hurt an'

all. You've said yourself he's asleep again."

Well, if it wasn't the Masons, who was it? The family had many friends in the village. But would friends feel a bitterness as members of the family would feel; and if they did, enough to do a thing like this?

Kids might start a fire, but no kid had started this fire. This one had been paraffin fed. The quart can lying against the wall proved that. Whoever was carrying out the work must have retreated in a

hurry.

And now there was the worry of Fanny. When Annie had gone back into the house it was to find her sitting slumped on a chair near the

landing window from where she could see, if not the actual field, the smoke and the flames at their height. And she had hardly stopped

crying since, blaming herself that this had happened. And in a way it had. Yes, in a way it had. But he wouldn't change things, not for one minute. That didn't mean, though, that when he found the culprit he wouldn't throttle him with his own hands. Last night he had been

stupid enough to say those very words to her, and it had made her

worse.

He turned about and hurried quickly back towards the house. That boy must start talking.

* * * They had had to call the doctor to Carl, for he had been unable to keep awake. Doctor Patten was a young man who was now noted for looking at and listening to patients, but had little to say himself, which made the villagers wonder if he actually knew anything about medicine, for he was altogether different from Doctor Wheatley. After examining Carl he had said simply that he was badly concussed and

needed rest.

But Ward could not wait until the boy was fully rested, because he meant to go and put the matter in the hands of the justices; and

besides the evidence of the fire itself, he wanted to know from the boy what he had seen before he had been attacked.

Carl was now lying in the storeroom beyond the kitchen, because Annie had stated flatly she wasn't going to climb that ladder in order to see to him. And so his pallet bed had been brought down and a space found for it. And it was to there that Ward now made his way.

The pallet bed was headed by an old chest, against which was placed a sack full of some commodity, and two pillows; and Ward had to drop on to his hunkers in order to come face to face with the boy. As he

looked at him he gritted his teeth, for the lad could not possibly see out of his eyes. The flesh around them was purple and his nose was swollen. He did not say to him, "How are you feeling?" but, "You feeling bad?" and at this Carl muttered, "Sore."

"Oh aye, yes, you would be sore. Now listen, Carl. Try to tell me what happened."

Try to tell the master what happened? Between sleeping and waking he could still see the flames licking at the stubble, and then the great black thing springing on him. But the master wanted to know what

happened. He said slowly, "He was a big man ... very big. Cap on." He lifted a hand to his brow to indicate the peak; then muttered, "Big cap

... He had a big cap I I think."

"Didn't you see his face?"

"No. No; 'twas dark.

"Twas dark ... well, nearly."

"And you think it was a big man?"

"Oh yes. Yes ... strong. He lifted me by ..." He now patted his shoulder before saying, "Up, and crashed me against the tree."

"He didn't hit you with his fists then?"

"No. No ... just the tree ... I'm tired, master."

"All right. All right, Carl." Ward now put his hand upon the boy's head where the thick hair was standing up in tufts; then he

straightened his back. He did not, however, immediately leave the room but stood looking down on the boy's face. He had said 'a big man'; and it would need a big strong man to lift that boy up by the shoulders and bang his head against the tree, because the boy, although thin, was no lightweight, and, too, the hole of the tree was only visible above the wall. Of course, there was that low branch, but that came over at an angle. A big man. A big man. Who were the big men in the village?

The blacksmith, or his lads John and Henry? No, they were more broad than tall. But they were his friends; as were the Newberrys. Hannah Beaton wasn't; but then she had no man behind her.

The verger? Aye, there was a big man. But potbellied and bloated, and he doubted that he had lifted anything heavier than the Bible in his life.

He went through others in the village. They were all men of medium height, from the shoemaker up to Parson Tracey. But there were some big men in the Hollow. Some of those Irish Paddys could lift a

horse;

but all of them had, at some time or other during the year, done jobs for him, and they all seemed to like working for him they had told him so, more than once for when times were hard he had taken one or other of them on when he could easily have done without them. No; it had not been anyone from the Hollow.

Then who? His mind swung back to the Masons. As Fred had vouched, the brothers had been in the

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inn; and Daisy was away from the place. That left only Mr. Mason.

Well, he would just as easily blame God for setting light to his fields as he would have John Mason.

But he wasn't going to let this matter rest, for likely the same one who had caused the fire had set the trap for the cattle; and once

having started, God knew what he would do next. So he was going to the Justice.

In the kitchen he said as much to Annie; and she agreed with him,

saying, "Aye, well somebody wants bringin' to boot. Apart from the field, there's that lad's face. To my mind, somebody got a big guff when they were doing their handiwork, and thought to finish him off.

And they could have, an' all. By the way, I've had to burn his

clothes; and the bit of hair he's got left was running with them. "

"Running with what?"

"Dickies, of course. He had lain in that hovel of the Rileys, hadn't he? Well, you only need to put your nose in the door of one of those shanties and the dickies, lice and bugs come out to meet you. You'll have to buy him a new rig-out, at least coat and pants. But when

you're at it, you could throw in a couple of shirts, 'cos as he stood he had only one on his back and one off it."

"Anything else you can think of?"

"No, not at the minute, but you owe him that."

"Huh!"

He walked from her, out of the kitchen and up to the bedroom.

Fanny had the child at her breast; and he pulled a chair to the side of the bed and watched his daughter feed; and he didn't speak until Fanny, laying the child to her side, said, "What do you intend to do?"

"I told you. I'm going to the polis. Let them deal with it, because I've racked my brains and I can't think of anyone I can lay it on, not round about, anyway."

"Have you thought of the boy?"

"Yes; yes, I have; and that's why I'm doing it."

"When you mention his name they will likely question him."

"Of course."

"What if it should reach the papers, Ward, and that man from whom he ran sees it? The local papers probably get as far as Durham, and it was from some farm near there that he ran away."

"I see what you mean."

"You could change his name, and inst il into him why you're doing it.

It's for his good. And yet he once said to me that that was all he had, his name. "

"Well, what shall I say it is?"

"You could give him mine ... McQueen. Anyway, from what I understand, Annie tells me that some people think we are related, because we came on the scene at the same time." She did not smile when making this statement; and he, taking her hand, patted it as he said, "I'll say it's Carl McQueen. Sounds a good name, one he shouldn't object to."

When her eyes moistened, he said quickly, "Now stop it. You are not to cry any more. Think of her' he pointed to the child lying on the

patchwork quilt 'and remember, the more you worry the longer you will have to stay in bed."

She now brought the hand that covered hers up to her breast and,

pressing it tight, she said, almost in a whimper, "I'm afraid, not for myself, but for you. What will they do next?"

"Nothing. Nothing, my dear. Once they know it's in the hands of the polis, that will scare them. You know, in a way they are sort of proud of the village and its good name, and so they don't like intruders, and for them the polis are intruders. Probably we all have something to hide."

There was a pause before she said, "No; no, they certainly don't like intruders, not of any sort."

He could give no answer to this, but he bent forward and kissed her; then he went hastily from the room,

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thinking, Yes, she is right. They don't like intruders of any sort.

Someone was determined to make him pay for the one he had brought in.

Two days later there was a report in the Newcastle Journal It was

headed: Outrage on farmer. And the journalist went on to prove his powers of imagination in describing the blazing cornfield and the

intruder who must have been intent on killing farmer Gibson's young farmhand, Carl McQueen, who was now suffering from severe concussion and with his face utterly distorted, having been banged repeatedly against a tree trunk. And this wasn't the first time that Farmer

Gibson had been the recipient of village spite: not so long ago his cattle had been nob bled There must have been a reason for these

actions, the journalist went on; but as yet he had not been able to fathom it, as the villagers themselves were all tightlipped.

The villagers were not tight-lipped in the inns, nor in the grocery shop, the butcher's, the cobbler's, nor the baker's. Even Fred said it was a mistake to call in the polis; in the end they would have found out who it was. As for neighbouring gentry, Colonel Ramsmore had

suggested it was the outcome of a lad tampering with matches and

tobacco, having a sly smoke behind the wall. When the state of the boy's face had been pointed out to him, he had blithely come back with, Oh, that could be explained by the young fellow's climbing the tree; then slipping and falling on to the top of the stone wall. Those

copings were pretty sharp. Perhaps it was indeed Gibson's own boy who was the arsonist.

When this version was spoken by the man who was in all senses Lord of the Manor, well, said the villagers here and there, there could be something in it. And wasn't Ward Gibson's wife called McQueen before he married her? Now that was funny, wasn't it?

However, the overall version was, let them wait and see what the polis did. But those friendly towards Ward Gibson hoped that the polis

would get the fellow b Ward did, for if they didn't, then the village v definitely be in the papers; and not only the local because they

remembered what Ward had said 01 night of the fire.

As it happened, nothing emerged from the enqu and Ward soon found he had other problems to with.

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Fanny was slow in regaining her physical strength, and so it was two months later when the baby was christened Jessie Flora Gibson: Jessie, after Ward's mother, and Flora, after Mrs. Killjoy. Frank Noble had taken the service in the little chapel in the Hollow; and the children of the Hollow had waited outside to receive die christening piece. The contents of the christening piece, so named, held whatever the family could afford, be it sweetmeats, a piece of silver, or even just a

copper. It should happen that Patsy Riley had placed herself

determinedly at the head of the queue and so received the bag from Ward. And, as primed, she said, "Health an' wealth an' all things good fortune bring to it."

Present at the christening tea were, except for the actors and Mrs.

Borman, those who had sat round die table at the wedding feast. Mr.

and Mrs. Killjoy were present, and of course their family who, on dlis occasion, had been relegated to the barn under the care of Carl, and following die tea, they weren't brought back into the house to show off their tricks. There were two reasons for this: first, Mr. Killjoy was not at all well; and secondly, an unusual altercation took place at die end of die tea between Charlie Dempster and die Reverend Frank Noble.

It came about when Jane Noble happened to remark that she was glad to see Patsy Riley get the christening piece, and Charlie came back

promptly with, "Well, here's one that wasn't glad to see her get it, missis, for she's a scamp, that one, leading the others rampaging

around, picking up things they oughtn't to. Been round my back way If I'd caught her I'd have wrung her neck. She should be where her dad is at dlis minute, doing time," which caused Frank to come back at him with:

"Now, now, Charlie, be fair. Riley got into a fight, and, after all, he was just defending his own."