The Mallen Girl Read online

  ‘She would never get that far. And anyway she’d have to cross the river.’

  There are stepping stones and bridges.’

  ‘She would never find them; it was near dark they tell me.’

  ‘Then she’s in the river.’

  ‘If she were in the river at this end they would have found her by now. In the South Tyne it might be different, there’s pools there she could be lost in, but not this end.’

  ‘Yes, this end too, Dan, there are…’

  ‘Stop it! For God’s sake, stop it, Brigie! I’m amazed at you giving in like this.’ He held his hand to his head for a moment. ‘Did they look in the pits…I mean the lead mines?’

  ‘I don’t know. They would most surely do so. But she wouldn’t go that way, she would never go that way again, not in that direction, no, she would never go in that direction. He said he never wanted to see her as…’

  ‘Brigie’—his voice was gentle now—‘you must rest, you must go to bed for at least a few hours. Look, I’m…I’m going out. I can’t do much until daylight but nevertheless I’m going out, but only if you’ll promise me you’ll go to bed.’

  She lay back in the chair again and stared up at him and said quietly, ‘It’s strange how the Waites have been Jonahs of the Mallens. It was Jim’s father, Harry Waite, who was the means of Thomas’ downfall. If he hadn’t been overheard slating the young master, Thomas wouldn’t have been made bankrupt, he wouldn’t have had to spend his last days in this house and…and Barbara would never have been born. Now Jim Waite has killed Barbara.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Brigie.’ He turned round and shouted, ‘Mary! Mary!’ and when Mary came scurrying into the room, he said, ‘Brigie’s going to bed for a few hours.’

  Miss Brigmore shook her head. ‘I’ll…I’ll rest here; I’ll sleep here.’

  ‘Then if you do, I’ll stay here too, I won’t go out.’

  They stared at each other. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll go presently.’

  ‘You’ll go now. Go up with her, Mary.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will, I will that. There’ll be another one on our hands if she doesn’t.’

  ‘And I’ll stay here until you come back and tell me she’s in bed.’

  Miss Brigmore got slowly to her feet. She looked at Dan but did not speak further, nor did she sway as she walked down the room, but her step was like that of a mechanical figure.

  It was almost ten minutes later when Mary came into the sitting room again, and she said, ‘Well, she’s in bed, but I can’t promise she’ll sleep.’

  ‘She’ll sleep once she’s lying down.’

  ‘Aw, Mr Dan, isn’t it awful? Did you ever hear of anything like it? You know there’s something in old wives’ tales, by! there is, an’ it’s been proved again. They’ve always said the Mallens are fated to bring death an’ disaster an’ this last business is proving it, for what Miss doesn’t know is that that poor lass, Sarah, is handicapped for life.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ben Taggert told me on his way back the night; he dropped in for a minute to see if they’d found her, and as he said, it’d be God’s blessing if she’s stiff when they do, for if not she’ll have to answer for her last act. He said they’d taken young Sarah’s leg off; when they got her to the hospital they couldn’t do anything, broken and splintered all over it was, and the flesh torn from the bone as if a wild animal had ravished her. “It’s a black day for them over there,” he said, “for she was a bonny lass.” And she was, she was the star that shone in Waite’s house she was. Harry Waite’s niece she was, but they looked on her as a daughter, and Jim Waite worshipped her, he did. He was more like a father to her than a cousin. Ben said you’d have thought a plague had hit the farm and it’s understandable, isn’t it, a lass like that, bonny, to be left with one leg…Aw! Miss Barbara. But I’m not at all surprised, Mr Dan, not at all surprised; she was a wilful child and a wilful young woman. It’s all to do with Mr Michael, you know. Unnatural her feelings for him because between you and me’—she stooped toward him—‘it could never have come to anything, being just once removed from half-brother and sister, ’twasn’t natural, was it? Her whole life’s been twisted. Aye, the things I’ve seen in my time, and in this very house. It was me who found her mother after the master had done his work on her, and it was me who laid him out when he shot himself. Aye, aye, I tell you. And then some folks say it’s the back of beyond here and nothin’ happens…Where you going, Mr Dan?’

  ‘I’m going to see if I can find her, Mary.’

  ‘But you might go and get yourself lost Mr Dan and it’s a bitter night, there’s a frost formin’, it’s not safe for the horse. We don’t want any more trouble.’

  ‘I don’t think you need worry about me, or the horse, Mary.’

  She followed him to the door and as he opened it she said quietly, ‘’Twould be better, Mr Dan, if you made up your mind, like her, that she’s gone. Tonight’s bad, but last night was worse. It would have finished a bear off if it had to lie out in it.’

  ‘We can but see, Mary.’

  There was no more said and he went around by the side of the house, across the yard to the old stable where he had left the horse in shelter, and, mounting it, he rode out into the blackness.

  Yet he had only gone a few yards from the cottage when he stopped and asked himself which way should he go? Before him was the road over the hills, but to the left of him was a narrow bridle path that eventually came to an old tollgate. There were two paths beyond the gate, and both led into the foothills. There were caves up there and an isolated stripped lead mine which he remembered exploring years ago; he also recalled to mind an old house of some kind.

  He turned the horse on to the overgrown bridle path and as he went on he had at times to bring his feet forward to prevent himself being whipped out of the saddle by the entangling branches. Twice the animal stopped and refused to go on, until he used his heels on its haunches. When it stopped for a third time he saw in the faint gleam from the lantern that they had reached the turnpike gate.

  Dismounting stiffly, for he was already cold, he thought of Mary’s words: ‘It would finish a bear off if he had to lie out in it.’ And he knew it would for there would be little chance of her surviving a night on the open hills in cold such as this.

  Pushing the broken gate to one side, he led the horse through; then mounting again, he took the path to the right. Half a mile on he came on the remnants of the house, shrunken now compared with his memories of it. Dismounting once more, he led the horse into the questionable shelter of the ruined barn, and after tying it to a stanchion and covering it with a blanket from the back of the saddle he took the lantern and went to move away from it when the animal neighed loudly as if in fear. He went back and patted it and said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right; I won’t be long.’

  He could see nothing beyond the radius of the lantern light, but he knew that there were a number of small hills clustered closely together around this part.

  When he attempted to climb up the side of the first slope he came to he slipped and fell onto his knees and only just saved the lantern from being extinguished.

  When he pulled himself to his feet he stood muttering aloud. This was stupid, bloody stupid! What did he expect to find here? But within a minute he was climbing again and, still slipping and sliding, he reached the top of the slope. And now he did what later he considered an odd thing, for, putting the lantern down, he cupped his hands over his mouth and called into the night, ‘Barbara! Barbara!’

  There was a scurrying to the right of him as if an animal had been startled; then a small, thin scream from somewhere down below which indicated that an animal not startled enough was meeting its end.

  He now looked at the lantern; it was running out, he must get down or he, too, would be lost in a very short time. Without the light he’d never find his way back.

  The horse neighed again as he went toward it, but it was the soun
d of welcome now, and as soon as he untied the reins from the post it made an effort to be off before he could mount.

  When he came out onto the road near the cottage he saw that the house itself was in darkness, which he took to mean that Brigie was asleep, so he rode on to the Hall.

  There was no sign of life in the house except faint gleams coming from side windows. He went into the stable yard, and here too everything was quiet. He had the desire to bawl and wake them up, but instead he unsaddled the horse, gave it a brief rub-down, put it into its stall and saw it had food, then returned to the house.

  The front door was unlocked and the lobby was lit with only one candelabrum, as was the hall; all the other lights had been extinguished. Again he had the desire to bawl until his reason told him that they were the sensible ones, they had gone to bed in order to meet the day, and he must do the same.

  He did not undress, except to take off his two outer coats and his boots; then, lying on top of the bed with just the eiderdown over him, he lay staring at the ceiling.

  The wind had come up and was buffeting the gable, but so stout were the walls and so strong the frames that supported the windows that the flame of the single candle burned straight and steady, its edge unruffled.

  Perhaps she wasn’t out there; perhaps she had found shelter somewhere; perhaps she had got as far as the town…What! In the dark, and in her state of mind? All things taken into consideration, it was more likely to be as Brigie said. NO. NO. He turned over in the bed and buried his face in the pillows. If that were so, his own life would have been senseless. For her to be dead and him never to have told her that he loved her. Risking her laughing in his face, he should have told her. There would have been some point, some meaning to all the years of make-believe if he had given them a climax and come out in the open and said ‘Barbara, I’ve been in love with you all my life, well, at least from the first time I saw you standing in the nursery with Brigie, so cocky, so sure of yourself, the little Madam. You spoke and acted like no-one I’d ever seen before, and because I was small, hardly any bigger than you then, you treated me as so much dirt on your shoes, and you became for me then an aim in life, something to conquer; and all I conquered were my feelings and the power to hide them from you by covering them with quips and sarcasm and teasing.’

  He screwed his face into the pillow and muttered brokenly now, ‘Oh, Barbara, Barbara, don’t die, don’t be dead. If you had married Michael I would have gone away. In any case I would have gone away, but I would have still had you there in my mind, beautiful, yet maimed by your affliction; tortured by it; but if you had been blind too it would not have mattered to me. Oh, how many times have I wanted to say that to you, to take your hands and look into your eyes and say, ‘Blind and deaf I would still love you. But not dumb. I would have to hear your voice, cracking and breaking on the words, pitching them to unnatural heights. Yes, I’d always have to hear your voice. Don’t be dead, Barbara, don’t be dead. For God’s sake! Don’t be dead.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir; I…I didn’t know you’d got back. They said you were out so I brought the warming pan up for the bed.’

  The girl stood at the bottom of the bed holding out the pan toward him, and he pulled himself up and muttered, ‘What time is it?’

  ‘About half six, sir.’

  ‘Six, six o’clock?’ He threw the cover back and swung his feet on to the floor, saying to the girl as he did so, ‘Bring me some hot water, will you, and a pot of coffee? Bring the water first; leave the coffee downstairs.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Will…will I put the pan in the bed?’

  ‘No, no, take it away. Oh, by the way.’ He checked her as she was going out of the door. ‘Send word to the stables to have The Colonel saddled for me right away…’

  The clock above the stables struck seven as he crossed the yard. Knowles, the stable boy, sleep still in his eyes, met him almost at the stable door leading the horse. ‘Mornin’, sir,’ he said. ‘Snifter, ain’t it! I’ve put the blanket on the back like you like it.’

  ‘Thanks, Knowles. By the way, have…have you heard anything more?’

  ‘No, sir. I was out meself with Mr Steele till right late on; the Morgans’ men had coupled up with them from over Catton; they had the dogs out an’ all but they couldn’t make much headway in the dark, though we all had lights. The constables from Hexham are goin’ to start again soon’s it’s daylight; they said they would give it another day but it’s a poor lookout.’

  Shut up, boy! Shut up, boy! his mind yelled at the boy while he said, ‘I’m going in the direction of Studdon and over to Sinderhope; I’ll make my way to Blanchland Moor. Should any of the men come, tell them that I’ve gone in that direction. It’s no use us going over the same ground. And bring me Bess.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Aye, sir, I’ll tell them…But Bess, sir, she ain’t got no nose, never had, an’ she’s gettin’ on.’

  ‘You may be right, Knowles, but nevertheless I’ll take her.’

  ‘As you say, sir.’

  The morning light was lifting rapidly and it appeared at first sight that there had been a light fall of snow, so white was the ground with frost. In the fields the grass was banded together in stiff contorted tufts and where the cattle hadn’t trod each blade stood up individually encased in white rime.

  The air cut a way down his throat and seared his gullet until he coughed it out again in steam. He put the horse into a trot, and before he reached the cottage he mounted the bank to the fells and went over the burn and crossed a sloping field and eventually came to the tollgate by this shorter route.

  He did not immediately dismount from his horse but sat looking around him as he asked himself why he had come back here. If she had intended to run away she would have run away much further than this. He was wasting his time. And what did he expect Bess to do here with the ground like iron? He looked down at her. It was right what young Knowles had said, she hadn’t a good nose on her and she was getting on. She looked up at him and wagged her tail and he nodded as if they were exchanging words; then he went through the broken gate and took the patch that led to the ruined farmhouse.

  Having tethered the horse, he left the clearing and immediately scrambled upwards, wondering as he did so how he had avoided breaking his neck in the dark last night. Stopping at one point he called the dog to him, and then looked about him. The light was playing tricks with the valley bottoms; the green and brown of the land were moulded into gigantic waves that flowed to the foot of the far hills, whose peaks were now being teased and rolled about by low clouds; not one yard of this land remained the same for an hour at a time. He remembered vaguely standing on this spot before; it was a natural plateau. He turned his eyes away from the valley and up toward the next hill. Somewhere around here there was the old lead mine; you had to round a butte to come to it. He remembered once likening it to a huge scab on delicate skin. Yet who would call any part of the earth hereabouts delicate?

  It was years since he had been here; and then he hadn’t been alone. He had been young, they’d all been young, and had scampered over these hills shouting to one another, John, Katie, Constance, Barbara, and he. His legs were short and so he was last, and they had laughed at him because he slid down the slope and the rough scree had torn at the back of his legs and made him bleed; the girls had been full of contrition.

  How many years ago was that? He couldn’t remember. But would she have remembered and come up here and gone into the dark hole? He could see them now, all of them, standing within the bricked arch of the mine, pushing each other, urging each other to go forward; then John bringing their play to an abrupt end, saying, ‘We must get back, Brigie will be wondering,’ and he had thought, John’s afraid; he’s just said that because he’s afraid to go inside.

  ‘Come, Bess. Come.’ He now hurried forward, urging the dog with him, over another hill and another, slipping and sliding, until there was the butte facing him. It stood alone, cut off from its rock fellows, as if isolat
ed by its ugliness.

  His feet giving way with every other step he went crabwise down the hill; then with laboured breathing he climbed halfway up the steep side of the butte until he reached a narrow rough path no wider than a goat track. Following this, he came round to the other side, and right opposite him was the entrance to the lead mine.

  The hillside, like the butte, was scarred but softened here and there with patches of brush and greenery and bracken singed to winter brown.

  Not more than a matter of minutes later he was standing in front of the opening, but it looked so much smaller than he remembered it, in fact he wondered if it was the right one, for he guessed there were other such mines and he had but to search the hills to find them. But now as he stood in front of this one he was experiencing a strange feeling, it was as if it were yesterday when he had been here with the others; seeing that he’d only ever been here that once why should he choose to come here rather than any other place?

  In his waking hours last night his mind had led him round and round these hills; yet when he rose this morning he had thought of taking the opposite direction, that was until he was out on the road; then it had seemed that his horse, not he, had taken the initiative.

  Now, as all those years ago, like John, he was afraid to enter, afraid to go into the darkness. Bess was sniffing at the ground. He saw her nose go down to a small pool of water some way inside, and when her paw rippled the surface he was surprised that it was not frozen; the minute waves were crested with dull streaks of colour as on oil.

  When Bess disappeared from view he called her sharply, saying, ‘Here! Here, Bess! Bess!’ He could see some way ahead, perhaps for a distance of four to five yards, but Bess had gone beyond the light. He heard her snuffling and called again, ‘Bess! Bess!’ He did not know how far the workings went into the hillside, and there could be passages or drops. He yelled again, ‘Here! Bess! Here!’ and she came scrambling back into view. Then coming to his feet, she sat on her haunches, looked up at him and barked twice, and he bent down to her and asked, ‘What is it?’ and she turned from him and ran into the darkness again, and once again he heard her snuffling.