The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 11

  She entered the cottage by the back door as usual and she hadn’t had time to put on the table the coarse apron she used for kneeling in before she heard her name being called: ‘That you, Emma?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bowman.’

  He met her at the kitchen door, saying, ‘I’ve news for you.’

  ‘Yes I know, you sold another picture.’ She grinned at him.

  ‘Oh!’ He always did a funny thing with his mouth when he said, ‘Oh!’ like that. He pushed it out almost like a pig’s snout and it always made her want to laugh. But she wasn’t feeling inclined to laugh this morning, not very much anyway.

  ‘Did you come upon them?’

  ‘The parson, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, the parson and Miss Christabel Braintree. My God!’ He turned from her and walked into the room saying, ‘She’s as much fitted for a parson’s wife as…as…’ She watched the back of his head moving as he searched unsuccessfully for words to explain the antonym of a parson’s wife. He turned to her again, saying, ‘Far better if he took Miss Wilkinson. She might be a few years older but she’s got some sense in her head; and she knows how to stretch a penny. But that one will need a servant to dress her. He’s mad…mad.’ He was shaking his head again. ‘And he hasn’t been courting her six months. Met her of all places at his brother’s funeral. That’s four deaths in that family in as many years. He used to be the second youngest, now he’s the second eldest. But that’s where he met her.’ He looked down at her, saying slowly now, ‘I don’t know what’s come over him these last few months; he’s even questioning his religion. Now I’m allowed to question his religion, and any religion, but he’s in it up to the neck. And now the transubstantiation is bothering him. Well, not exactly bothering him but he’s taking it to pieces, if you know what I mean…And you don’t know, do you?’ He poked his chin out at her. ‘Oh, Emma, what a pity it is you’ve got to grow up; and you’re doing that at a gallop. Do you know that?’

  She answered him solemnly, saying, ‘I know I’m getting too big for me clothes.’

  ‘Huh!’ He let out his bellow of a laugh as he said, ‘As long as you don’t get too big for your boots.’ Then appraising her, he said, ‘I’ve been thinking. My next of you is going to depict you as a young lady, a sixteen-year-old. I’ll drape your top.’ His hand went out towards her now but it didn’t touch her, it made waving movements around her shoulders as he said, ‘White silk with a rose or two just there.’ His finger was pointing to the nape of her neck. ‘Not too much flesh showing, your hair loose.’ He now went to whip off her cap and she gave a startling squeal as the pin in the back tore at her hair.

  All contrition now, his hands were on her head and he was repeating, ‘Oh! Emma. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m an unthinking brute. Did I hurt you? Oh! Emma, my dear.’

  ‘It’s all right, I…I’ve got to pin it.’

  ‘Of course, of course. Oh, I’m sorry.’ He was nodding at her now. But then his thoughts jumping to the posing of her again, he added, ‘No, no; your hair must be piled up high, not loose, not loose…’

  ‘Are you havin’ the rabbit stewed the day, or do you want it roasted?’ She watched his head suddenly droop forward onto his chest then jerk back on his shoulders, and again he was laughing and talking to the ceiling, saying, ‘Do I want my rabbit stewed today, or do I want it roasted? Come down to earth, Ralph Bowman. Come down to earth.’ Then he lowered his gaze and now said quite seriously, ‘I think I’d like it roasted, Emma. Then get through your chores as quickly as possible, I want to make a sketch of you. And by the way…here—’ He turned towards the window under which was a small table with a drawer in it and, pulling this open, he took out a sovereign and a shilling. Going to her, he lifted one of her hands and placed the sovereign in it, saying, ‘For your secret hoard;’ and then putting the shilling into her other hand said, ‘Hoodwink money for your granny.’

  She smiled at him. ‘And it is hoodwinkin’ her, Mr Bowman, and I feel awful.’

  ‘But she takes the shilling, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, if she knew you got a sovereign she’d take that too. And Emma—’ He now took a step towards her and, bending until his face was on a level with hers, he said, ‘Some day you’re going to need money, perhaps to take a journey to fly away, and this I know, anything anyone wants to do is always made easier by money. How much have you got in your hoard now?’

  ‘I’ve got thirteen sovereigns. This will be fourteen. It’s a fortune. I…I really wouldn’t know what to do with it, not all that money. And I know me granny at times would…’

  ‘No! Emma. No! That was a bargain between us, wasn’t it? You don’t tell your granny what you’re getting for sitting for my pictures. Your granny is taken care of, she’s not left without an odd shilling, but she spends it, and that’s her business how she spends it.’

  She knew how her granny used her extra money, she used it for buying liquor on the quiet. The rum-running still went on, but she had no idea now where they stored it, but she gathered from Billy it was difficult to come by and that the price had gone up. She only knew that what they bought came through the blacksmith and the verger. She also knew that the knowledge that the verger was in on the game made the parson angry. He could make allowances for the others but not for the verger. He had called the man a smarmy hypocrite when talking to Mr Bowman, and she had been surprised that the parson could not only sound angry but look angry; always when he talked to her his voice was kind, even when he was reprimanding her for not reading as much as she should. With regard to this, he didn’t seem to understand that she had only late night-time to read and she got very tired and all she wanted to do was climb the ladder and roll onto the pallet. Sometimes she was so tired she didn’t take her clothes off, and once or twice she had been too tired to eat the evening meal and had fallen asleep. But missing a meal didn’t worry her because it was usually just wishy-washy stew which she often had to force herself to eat. The only meal she liked was the rough porridge in the mornings. Eaten with fresh milk this filled you up for hours. If there was any over she would have it later when it was cold and almost solid. There was always plenty of porridge because her granny could help herself in the mornings, though for the other meals, the missis doled them out. But the twice a week down here at the cottage she had nice food because there was always leftovers. Mr Bowman didn’t seem to eat much, likely because he stuffed himself between meals with cheese and bread and beer: there was always a big platter in the paint room holding a loaf and a big collop of cheese, and one of the Stoddart lads from the village trudged up every day with beer from the inn. It was Willy who was doing it at present, and it was a long way for a little lad. But still he got a penny a week and that wasn’t to be sniffed at. Georgie had done it afore him, and Bill afore that, but they were both working five miles away in Birtley now. One in the Brine Spring from where they got the salt, and the other was down the pit; and neither of them was ten yet.

  He had gone into the paint room and she had returned to the kitchen but his voice reached her clear, saying, ‘I had a visit from Madam Yorkless yesterday. Smooth as butter she was. Wanted to know if I was still comfortable and if I was satisfied with your service. I answered both in the affirmative. She surprised me by saying she had an interest in pictures. Now would you believe that? Our Mistress Yorkless turning to the arts! She was breaking her neck to get into this room, and I had a strong desire to break her neck. Can’t stand the woman; she’s like an elongated snail.’

  As his voice went on and on Emma smiled to herself: he could talk for half an hour on end and not expect an answer. She liked to hear him talk; although he jumped from one thing to the other she always seemed to learn something fresh every time she came down here. She didn’t do much talking herself, simply answered his questions.

  At first she had been in the habit of jabbering to him about the doings on the farm, but one day, having told him what the usual routine of her day was, he had beco
me angry. And later that week her granny had gone for her and told her to keep her mouth shut about what she had to do because the painter, being the kind of man he was, wouldn’t be above telling the missis what he thought of her expecting a child to work twelve to fourteen hours a day. And so now, she mostly just listened.

  She had skinned and prepared the rabbit. She didn’t mind handling the rabbits when they were dead because then they couldn’t feel any more; and when she took the skin outside and laid it on a bench ready for scraping, salting, and stretching, she paused a moment and looked away across the fields. It was a beautiful day; she wished she could turn about now and walk and walk right down to the river, or perhaps just to the burn and through Openwood, just walk. And as she stared over the wide countryside there rose in her a feeling, like a compelling urge, to get away, to go on until she came to a village, a different village like Birtley—funny, she had never been to Birtley—then onwards, through Chester-le-Street to the city of Durham. She knew all their names, she had learned them from a map in a book that the parson had loaned her. Durham seemed the end of the world one way, but t’other way was the even greater city of Newcastle, and it was surrounded by villages, with names like Gosforth, Jesmond, and Lemington. She liked the sound of the names; she had a different picture in her mind for each one.

  Billy had told her about the towns that bordered the river right down the south side to a place called Shields from where the sea opened out and covered a great expanse of the earth. Billy said it was a wonderful sight and, one of these days, he said, he would take her down on a Sunday river trip.

  She didn’t hold much to Billy’s promises because he never seemed to have any money, for whatever he had he spent at the inn in the village. And when he couldn’t go to the inn he was very testy. Often on these occasions she had given him the penny that her granny gave her back when she handed her the shilling she had received for sitting for the picture.

  It was at times like this when the urge came upon her that she thought of the travellers and wondered what had happened to them. A big fair, she knew, came to Newcastle every year, and there were little ones an’ all in between; but she knew none of them would be Mr Travers’ company, for each fair had what it called its circuit, and there was always trouble if anyone crossed into another man’s. She could remember vaguely a big disturbance when a troupe from a foreign country had set up on one of Mr Travers’ sites.

  Sighing deeply, she turned to the bench and the rabbit skin and, taking up a hammer and a few tacks, she nailed it to a board.

  A short while ago she had thought it was a beautiful day, and it being so she should feel nice, but she didn’t feel nice: she didn’t like this rushing, churning, urging inside of her, it made her discontented. And then there was the parson: he was going to be married and she knew she wasn’t going to like his wife.

  It wasn’t a nice day. Even though she was down here with the painter, it wasn’t a nice day.

  The restlessness of the day had crept into the night. She was sitting with her knees drawn up under her on the pallet, looking out through the open hatch. The full moon was low in the sky and hazy; there was a feeling of storm in the air, and when it came it would likely be heavy for they’d had no rain for the past three weeks.

  She was still in her day clothes except for her boots and stockings; it was no use lying down for she knew she wouldn’t sleep, her mind was too active, and strangely she didn’t want to go out.

  What did she want?

  She looked at the words in her mind as if they had been spoken by someone else and she bowed her head because she knew the answer but felt too shy to voice it, even to herself. And even if she had voiced it she wouldn’t have been able to say that she wanted company, someone of her own age or thereabouts to walk with, someone like Barney. She liked Barney, if she liked any of them, yet she kept telling herself he was still the son of the mister and missis and neither of them was nice, so how could he really be nice. And yet he was; he was nice to her. And last Christmas he had slipped her a handkerchief. And she still had it; she hadn’t used it, it was in the box on the floor in the corner over there. It was the first present she had received since she left the company, the first from those on the farm. She had four books, though, which were all her own and which the parson had given her.

  What’s to become of me? There was the voice in her head again.

  But there was no answer in her mind, except that some part of her refuted the idea that she would spend the rest of her life on this farm.

  The haze had left the moon now and the land looked bright and beautiful, almost like daylight…Bright enough to practise the knives.

  No sooner had the thought come to her than she twisted around on the pallet and crawled two paces on her knees over the wooden floor and, reaching out, picked up a pair of rope sandals. These were what her granny had made for her. Her granny was good with the rope; she could make mats and things. The sandals had a thick sole of plaited rope, with a band to hold the toes and a large one to go over the ankle. Two pieces of rope were attached to the heel. These came round the ankle and held the sole in place. They were light on the feet and she often wore them at night like slippers.

  Having put on the sandals, she now picked up the middle whip of the three that were lying on top of the box at the floor of her bed. Then on her knees again, she reached to where the knife belt lay rolled up and, extracting two knives from it, she stuck them in two roughly made rabbit-skin sheaths and pushed them down the band of her skirt. Lastly, she pulled her black hooded cloak from a nail in a beam and, putting it on, she poked her head slowly through the hatch, looking first to right then the left. Because the moon was low this side of the cottage was in deep shadow and she knew she could be unobserved while going down the ladder; but once away from the cottage she would be in open ground until she reached the wall. She guessed it was close on twelve o’clock and in consequence there was very little likelihood of any occupant of the farm being awake, with the exception perhaps of Dan, for they all had to rise at five o’clock.

  And she had no fear now of meeting up with the rum-runners, for since the business in the graveyard they had taken another route. But she was wary of meeting a poacher or a tramp: sometimes a road tramp passing through made off with a chicken.

  Having reached the wall she bent low and hugged it until, the field dropping into a hollow, she was lost to the cottage and the farm buildings as a whole.

  She stopped now and drew in a long breath of the cooling night air. It was wonderful to be out again. It must be all of nine months since she last took a midnight walk. That had been in the autumn. The air had been crisp and there was a wind that had caused the clouds to race across the moon. And she had raced too. Like a wild March hare she had run hither and thither over the bottom field. And then she had lain on the earth and laughed to herself. But after that night she had questioned whether it was a normal thing to do and if there was something wild in her that should be restrained? Because if anyone had seen her they would have surely thought she was mad.

  But she didn’t feel mad tonight, in fact she was feeling sad.

  She came to the burn, but didn’t go down to it and put her feet in the water: her body urge was for some form of activity; not the sort that would make her run wild like a hare again, yet one that demanded action, excitement, yes excitement, something different to break the monotony of her days and nights. At this moment she even hoped she would come across a string of the rum-runners again.

  The moon had misted over once more and she would have to wait until it was clear before she started throwing.

  Her step slowed before she entered the wood: she was questioning herself again, asking if this wasn’t as mad a thing to do as what had happened on the autumn night last year; in fact, in a way more mad, throwing daggers at an oak tree in the moonlight. What if her granny got to know?

  This question raised a slight titter inside of her. She could even hear her granny crying, ‘They’l
l have you locked up, girl. They’ll have you locked up.’ And yes, they did lock people up for doing odd things: if you were considered abnormal they tied you up and put you in the madhouse with chains round your ankles.

  The thought brought her to a stop within the deep shadow of the wood. Eeh! she’d better go back. She had been mad to come out anyway; if she came across a tramp even her whip wouldn’t save her because some of the tramping men were hefty. They weren’t really tramps, just hungry men who couldn’t get work. And they were known to come this road on their way to the city. Well, not exactly this road, not through the wood, they travelled by the coach road or the bridle path.

  But anyway, if she went back now without doing anything she’d just feel the same and might as well have never come out, and as she had got this far she would have one or two throws. There was no harm in it. And what was more, she liked throwing the knives even better than practising with the whip. You needed more skill throwing the knives.

  There was an open space around the big oak and in the spring it was covered with the remaining acorns that lay on the winter leaves that had been mulched into a carpet by the feet of the wood animals as they emptied the acorns. But now, at the height of summer, the ground round the oak was almost bare and the great trunk of the oak was clean except where it was shadowed by some stunted holly and brush that grew between its roots. These caused a shadow over the lower part of the trunk but where she would aim for was now lit by the low full moon.

  As she came off the narrow path and rounded a bank of low scrub she put her hand under her cloak and withdrew a knife from its sheath. Then taking up a similar stance to that which she had seen her father assume so often, she half closed her eyes, lifted her arm, bent her wrist back, and let the knife go.