the maltese angel (49 page)

But anyway, I was telling you' she shook her head 'when I opened the coal-house door I couldn't believe my eyes. You've never seen our

coal-house, have you? It's enormous, like a small room, and there .

there was a hill going up from it and all beautiful big lumps of coal, what they call roundies here. And another thing of course we've had to store it in here: we daren't leave it in the kitchen cupboard but look at that! " She pulled open the doors of a large Dutch press, and there on one shelf was an array of tea, sugar, butter, bacon, and some eggs.

On another shelf was an array of tins, some of jam, others of bully beef.

"Isn't that marvelous! The only thing is the butter won't keep. But that doesn't really matter because your aunt is always kind in sending me both butter and cheese. But wasn't that sweet of those men? And you know something? When they brought the stuff in, it was late last night, they said, " This, ma'am, is with the quartermaster's

compliments. " Nancy had let them in, and when she saw all that stuff and heard what they said, she answered, " Like Jimmy McGregor, it is. "

And at that, one of the soldiers burst out laughing and pushed her, and she pushed him back. My dear, I've never seen such goings-on in this house. I couldn't help but laugh."

She paused now as she closed the door and said, "It's good to laugh at times, isn't it, Janie?"

"Yes, Lady Lydia, I think so, too. But the only ones at the farm who seem to laugh are the men, and mostly the Irishmen. McNabb he's a

Scot, you know he rarely laughs but he says funny things. And you can laugh at

them, although he never really laughs. Yet Mike you know. Patsy's

father says the most comforting things at times. Some of them may be a bit mixed up. I remember the other day he said to Patsy: "God helps those who helps themselves," but then added, "And God help those who are caught helping themselves; it'll be three months' hard labour." It was funny, wasn't it? The Irish people talk very mixed up. But other people's talk is nearly always about war, don't you think? "

"Yes, I suppose so, dear. But, come and sit down." She drew her towards the fire, and when they were seated, she said, "A lot of warm things happened to me yesterday. There was the coal, and all that

food, but most of all there were those words that a soldier spoke to me. He was just a private, and during the weeks they've been here I've noticed him once or twice looking at me as I walked across to the

greenhouses. In fact, it was he who, when the unit first came here, said he was sorry that the vinery had been stripped the way it had, before the fruit was really ripe. I was so angry at the time I didn't take much notice of him. But then yesterday he made a point of coming to me and asking me if he could have a word. And he started with, "

We'll be leaving here tomorrow, ma'am, and there's something I want to say to you, and it's just this. " And he went on to say that he was, as he put it, dead nuts against conchies. At least when the war had first started, he was. To him they were simply just a lot of

cowards.

But after he had joined up, or was enlisted, or, as he put it, was pulled in, and himself now saw how men of conscience were treated, with the lowest type of work being put on them, he had had to change his opinion. He was now seeing for himself. And having recently heard

from the village that my son was a conscientious objector, he felt that he wanted to say to me--' Here she stopped and, taking out her

handkerchief, she wiped her mouth hard with it before going on, "He wanted to say to me I should be proud of my son."

Whenjanie caught hold of her hand and in a breaking voice said,

"You've always been proud of him, and I have, too. I ... I wish he had been my father," Lady Lydia leaned forward to touch her, saying, "Oh, my dear." Then she was holding the sobbing body to her and comforting her: "There, there. And I can tell you something, my dear, he looks upon you as if he were your father. He feels he has a responsibility towards you. If he'd had a daughter he'd have wished for one just like you. There, there now. Dry your eyes; here comes Nancy with some

tea.

You can hear her feet a mile off. And oh dear me, she's had to be on them such a lot since cook left. But, of course, cook was getting very old. It was the soldiers in her kitchen that she couldn't put up

with.

But Nancy doesn't seem to mind. " She now took her handkerchief and dried Janie's eyes, saying in a whisper, " She gets very skittish with them. They tease her and she loves it. Poor Nancy. But why do I say poor Nancy? She could have been married years ago but she didn't want it. She's of a happy and contented nature. All she wants is to look after me. Don't you think that's wonderful? I should be so thankful, and I am. Oh, I am. Every day I'm thankful for her. And for you,

dear.

Oh yes, and for you. Ah, here it is. "

The far door of the room was now opened by a bump from Nancy's buttocks and she came in carrying a laden tray, saying, "Oh, ma'am, we've got a lot 'ere; I feel as if I want to run after the others and bring 'em back. The sergeant's as snotty as a polis. Wanted to know how many hours I was allowed in the kitchen, and I told him it was more a case of how many hours I was going to allow him in my kitchen."

She now put the tray down none too gently on a side table, adding, "The officer came in. He wasn't too bad, but young, ma'am, just out of the cradle. How he'll ever give orders to that lot beats me. But there, it's them pips on the shoulders that does it. Will I pour out,

ma'am?"

"No, Nancy; Janie will do it. Thank you."

Nancy approached Janie now and, bending down towards her, she

whispered, "Did you see our gold-store?" She jerked her head back towards the cupboard, and Tanie whispered back, "Yes, and I won't split."

"You'd better not, you'd better not, 'cos I'd cut off your retreat."

And with this she went out, leaving them both smiling now, and Lady Lydia saying, "What she means by that last bit I don't know. But look'

she was pointing to the tray 'she's managed to make some scones and a fruit tart. Come on, let us tuck in. You pour the tea and I'll cut up the tart and butter the scones."

It was an hour later when Janie left the Hall. It was then spitting rain mixed with sleet, but before she was half-way to the farm she was enveloped in a downpour of hailstones. They slotted off her hood and stung her face, causing her to slow her running. But she was still running when she reached the farm gates. She bent forward, and through the hail she thought she saw Patsy going into the dairy, and so,

keeping to the shelter of the buildings, she was making for it when someone stepped out of the harness-room, and she bounced into the

figure, only to bounce back again and stare up, gasping, into the face of her grandfather. She was standing in such a position that she was blocking his way forward, and when the voice growled at her, "Out of my way you!" she screamed at him, "I hate you! Do you hear? I hate you!

You're cruel! ugly, horrible! I wish you were dead. Dead!

She did not know that the arm going round her was Patsy's, but she knew it was Patsy's voice, louder than her own had been, that was crying,

"Don't you dare hit her!" And then it seemed they were both sent flying into the air as his forearm hit her shoulder, while at the same time Patsy was lifted off her feet.

For the next minute or so all Janie seemed to be aware of was the

shouting, everyone shouting in the yard. And then, as someone picked her up from the ground another voice shouted, "You'd better get Carl, Patsy's dead out."

Janie was also aware now of Jessie being on the scene and of her

saying, "What happened? What happened?" and a voice answering, "All I know is he knocked them flying. And the slush didn't help."

"Father?"

And the reply in the Scottish accent was curt: "Who else? Now, who else?"

Her head had cleared by the time they reached the cottage; and now Jessie was plying her with questions. And when, for the third time, she said, "Look, tell me what happened," she shouted back at her, "I couldn't see through the hailstones and I bumped into him. He lifted his hand to strike me."

"He would not do that, child."

"He did! He did! It was not to push me away. I know the difference.

I am not a baby or a child. No, I am not a child. Auntie Jessie. And I tell you again I am not a child and I know what he meant to do. And so did Patsy, and with his whole forearm. And ... and I told him what I thought."

"You ... you mean you went at him?"

"Yes, I went at him. I told him he was cruel and ugly and a beast. And you can close your eyes like that, Auntie Jessie, but he is. He is.

He always has been to me. He's never wanted to own me and I don't want to own him. Do you know something?" She now stood up and her voice rose to almost a high scream now:

"I would rather have had one of those other men who made me than him for a .."

When the hand came across her face and stung her, while knocking her backwards, they both became silent. And when Janie now began to cry, Jessie made no move towards her; instead, turning about, she went

towards the door and grabbed up the coat that she had thrown off as she entered.

There was no-one to be seen when she reached the yard, but seeing Rob emerge from the door into the kitchen, she called to him, "Where is Patsy?"

And he answered, "On her bed, miss; and Mr. Carl is sending me for the doctor."

"Has she not come round?"

"She's come round all right, miss, but ... but she's hurt her back."

Straightaway, she hurried to Patsy's room, and there, bending over her, asked, "Where are you hurt, Patsy?"

"I'm ... I'm not sure, miss. At the present moment I feel I'm hurt all over," and she tried to smile;

but then said, "The bottom of me back pains, the more so when I move me legs."

"You can move your legs?"

"Yes. Yes, thank God, I can move me legs."

Jessie raised her eyes to where Carl was standing at the foot of the bed, and when he said, "Your father will be the death of all of us before he finishes, miss," the bitter note in his voice being such as she had never heard him use before, she turned from him and looked again at Patsy, and asked, "How ... how did it happen?"

"Well, as far as I could see, miss, I had just stepped out from the dairy when I heard her screaming at him. He must have been coming out of the tack-room and she dunched into him. He was about to raise his hand to her and I just got to her in time; at least I thought I was in time to pull her away when his arm knocked us both flying. He really meant to swipe her; Oh yes, he did. But it caught us both. If she had got the full force of it and hit the ground with her head instead of me hitting it first with me backside, her brains would have been knocked out. Because it was no light blow, oh no, not with the forearm. And the force of it! It was like a chop."

"Oh, Patsy, Patsy, where's it going to end?"

"You tell me, miss, just you tell me. But what you've got to face up to, miss, is Janie's no longer a child. She's thirteen years old and an old thirteen at that, and it's this place that's put the age on her.

She's never had a child's life. So you shouldn't blame her because her mind thinks beyond her age. And let me

tell you something, she's not afraid of him, not when she could scream at him, "I wish you were dead!" "She said that ... ? No. No."

"Oh yes, yes, and more than that, judging by the bits I caught before we were sent flying. Anyway, we must get down to brass tacks, mustn't we, miss? Because I can't get up for a while. As I said, I can move me legs but the pain's hellish when I do that. Anyway, it's about time there was some help in this house again. It was cut off needlessly after Miss Angela went. So, for the time being, if you don't want to have it on your own hands, you should get McNabb's wife in again. She was quite good and she's clean."

"Yes. Yes, Patsy. I'll do that."

She nodded now at Carl, then went out; and he, going to the bed and sitting on its side, bent over Patsy and said, "I've wished it many a time, dear, and not more than I do at this minute, that we had up and left when we had first made up our minds. Even with the circumstances as they were. I could have said to hell with the bribes of a half

share. What life have you had here? Working morning, noon and

night.

And now this, knocked flat on your back, and we don't know yet what damage has been done. Backs are funny things. I feel like going to him this minute and giving him, not a piece of my mind, but the whole bloody lot of it. I no longer feel, as I did years ago, that I owe him my life. He's had more than the best part of it. "

When her hand came on his cheek, she said, "As long as I've got you, I'll consider me life all right. And I've given you very little in return for what you've given me. Now, now' she tapped his cheek

smartly 'don't start. I know, I know what you're going to say: as long as you have me you're all right. Well, for once I'm going to make me self believe it and you can believe it when I say, as long as I have you I'm more than all right. And now, you know what I want?"

"No, dear, no."

"A cup of strong tea with four spoonfuls of sugar in it. Really strong, thick enough to keep a knife standing up in it, and helped with a wee drop of the hard."

He smiled, and when he bent and kissed her, she said, "You know something? You're too bonny for your own good."

Now he pushed her face to one side, at the same time clicking his

tongue, then left her.

But when she was alone the smile went from her face and she bit tightly on her lip. Her back felt bad; the pain was gripping her waist. She hoped to God there was nothing wrong and she'd be able to get on her feet in a day or so . The doctor's verdict was that she might have cracked a bone at the bottom of her spine: she must lie still for at least two weeks, by which time she would likely be able to get on to her feet again.

Later, not for the first time in his career, Philip Patten had to admit to himself that his diagnosis had been wrong. It was to be many months before Patsy could get on her feet, and then it was with much effort and a great deal of pain and only with the help of crutches.