The Maltese Angel Read online

  They were standing at the end of the cemetery wall, in the shade of a beech tree, and now, almost glaring at him, she said, ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘Up with me? Nothing.’

  ‘You’ve never been to church for over a month.’

  ‘Well, Daisy, if you keep count, you’ll know that, for a time before that, I hadn’t been for over a year. I have fits and starts in that way.’

  ‘And in other ways an’ all,’ she put in quickly; ‘and I say again, what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter with me,’ he snarled back at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Now, don’t you come the simpleton with me, Ward Gibson; you’re not Fred Newberry. I’ve only seen you once in a fortnight.’

  ‘Well, if you’re reckoning on time, there’s times when you’ve only seen me once in a month. And, if you recall, I’ve got a farm to see to, and I’ve only got one man to help out. Your dad has the two lads and you, and your mother, besides the hired boy.’

  As soon as he mentioned the hired boy his mind recalled the happenings at breakfast concerning their young visitor; he shelved it, the present issue being much more important, for she was saying, ‘You’ve been four times to Newcastle in the week.’

  ‘Ohoo!’ He moved his head slowly up and down, then repeated, ‘Ohoo! I’m being watched, am I? And everybody wants to know what I’m doing in Newcastle, I suppose?’

  ‘I know what you did one night. You went to The Empire.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Daisy, I went to The Empire. But what did I do on the other nights? Haven’t you found out?’

  When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘Oh, that would surprise you. It would give you and your spies something to talk about, where I went the other nights.’

  Her full-lipped mouth pouted before she said, and softly now, ‘You’re playin’ fast and loose with me, Ward, and we’re as good as engaged.’

  He gaped at her. ‘What! Engaged? What are you talking about? I’ve never even mentioned marriage to you.’

  ‘No; you’ve been crafty’—her voice was no longer soft—‘you’ve never mentioned it, but you’ve acted it. I mean, you’ve had me on a string, you’ve played about with me.’

  ‘My God! Daisy. Played about with you? I’ve danced with you at the barn dances; I’ve taken you to the Hoppings, twice, if I remember rightly, and I’ve kissed you once or twice. But God in heaven, that doesn’t signify I’ve asked you to marry me!’ Even as he said this he was wishing he was like Fred and never hurt anybody by what he said; but then he must go on and say it, and for more reasons than one. Oh yes, for more reasons than one. And now he said it: ‘I’ve never had any thoughts of marrying you, Daisy. I’ve known you since we were nippers, sat at school with you, ran the fields with you; we’ve climbed trees together. You were like one of the lads.’

  He wished he could stop talking, for he couldn’t stand the look on her face. And now he added in a subdued tone, ‘Oh, Daisy, I’m sorry. I really am. We were pals…I mean friends.’

  ‘Friends! Friends! I could have been married twice over but didn’t because of you. Do you hear? Arthur Steel wanted me, him over in Chester-le-Street. He has a farm, a big ’un, he could use yours for pigsties. He…he asked me twice.’

  His voice was very low now and soothing as he said, ‘Well, then, Daisy, he could ask you again.’

  He watched her lips move into a snarl, which issued through her clenched teeth as she hissed, ‘He’s married! You…you pig of a man! He’s married.’ She was audibly crying now, the sound coming from deep in her throat. Then gulping, she seemed to steady herself before pleading now, ‘Don’t do this to me, Ward. The lads expect it. Me dad and mum expect it; everybody expects it. They have for years while we’ve been walking out.’

  He shook his head. ‘Daisy, we’ve never been walking out, not in that sense. Listen to me.’ He now put his hand on her shoulder and drew her along the side of the cemetery wall into a narrow lane; and there he leaned towards her as he said thickly, ‘Have…have I ever tried to touch you? You know…you know what I mean. Answer me truly: have I ever?’

  ‘That makes no difference.’

  ‘But it does. I’m a man. You know all about mating; that’s farming life. If I’d had marriage in mind I would have tried something on. So there you have it. But well, I…I went elsewhere, because I wouldn’t insult you, or spoil what was between us, which was a good friendship. We could laugh together, joke together, make fun of them all…at least up till the last year or so.’

  She seemed not to have heard his last words, for she muttered, ‘You went elsewhere.’ It was a statement, not a question. Shamefaced, he looked away from her and said, ‘Aye; yes, I had to. But it was nothing. She was married. She wasn’t a whore or…or anything like that, she was…well…’

  How could he find words to explain that a chance meeting at an inn on the road to Durham with a woman who could, at a pinch, have been his mother, could not lead to anything? She must have been in her forties. But she had been nice, kind and understanding. His mother had just died, and it was as if, besides a lover, he had gained another mother. He had known her only a short time, and then she had said it must stop because her husband would soon be coming back from sea. At their parting, she had spoken words to him that he would always remember: ‘It’s been the most beautiful time in my life,’ she had said; ‘and I’ll remember it till I die. But this is the time to end it, for even the most beautiful flowers fade.’

  He had never known anyone talk as she did, and he had missed her. Even up till this last week he had wondered if he had loved her and he knew he had in a way, but the feeling was something different: it could never happen again; it had been the birth of his manhood, and you can’t be born twice, not in that way.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You! You! You heard. She’s in Newcastle, isn’t she?’

  He couldn’t answer this, not really; and so he remained silent. The next instant he sprang back in surprise and pain as her fingernails tore down each side of his face.

  Instinctively, his fist came out and, catching her on the shoulder, knocked her back against the wall. But she didn’t slide down to the ground; she just stood, pressed tight against the rough stone, her large breasts heaving, her face contorted.

  As he put one hand to his face and felt it wet, he backed from her; and at this she pulled herself from the wall, and she stood there, staring at him.

  There was no movement of any part of her body now; even her lips seemed not to part as she said, ‘I’ll have my own back on you, Ward Gibson. I swear before God I will; you and all yours. D’you hear me?’

  He made no rejoinder; but now watched as her hands slowly went to her hat and straightened it, then down to her coat to button it over her heaving breasts, before she turned slowly away to walk back along by the side of the cemetery wall.

  Now he, too, moved, but only as far as the wall; in fact, to the very spot where she had been standing; and he laid his head against it and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, gently drew it over his left cheek; then looked at it. It was covered with blood. He felt his other cheek. It was sore, but it was dry. He closed his eyes, and his body slumped.

  How long he stayed like this against the wall, he didn’t know; he only knew that for the first time in his life he was experiencing fear, for he could still see her face. He doubted if he would ever forget the look on it. He imagined it to be how a real madwoman might look.

  After pulling himself up straight, he didn’t make for the village street, but went down the narrow path that skirted the west wall of the cemetery, to lead into open pasture, then Morgan’s wood. This way would take him twice as long to reach home; but he needed time to compose himself and to think.

  Yet all he could think about throughout the whole journey was the look on her face and her threat, and the surprise, too, that the Daisy he had played with as a child, romped with during his boyhood years, teased, laughed and danced with, and ki
ssed occasionally, should have in her what now appeared to him as an evil spirit, such as you read about in the Bible but never took any notice of, or, if you did, you thought of it as a fable. But Daisy Mason represented no fable. No! No!

  ‘In the name of God!’ said Annie. ‘Where’ve you been? An’ what’s done that to your face? I thought you were at church.’

  ‘Get me a drink, Annie.’

  ‘Aye. Aye.’ Her head wagged. ‘Is it ale you want, or a drop of the hard?’

  ‘A drop of the hard.’

  She was only a minute gone from the kitchen before she returned with a glass in her hand, one third full of whisky; and after he had thrown it back without pausing she took the glass from him; then, her hand going out, she gently touched the two weals that were now covered in dried blood, and she asked quietly, ‘An animal?’

  For a moment he gazed up at her as if he were thinking. ‘Well, it was like the act of one,’ he said.

  She now stood back from him, her face screwed up in enquiry; then, as if a light were dawning on her, she muttered, ‘Not Daisy Mason?’

  ‘The very same, Annie.’

  She emitted a slow breath before commenting, the while nodding her head, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. No, I shouldn’t, because I’ve always thought of her as an untamed bitch in that great bulk of hers. But you’ve asked for it, you know.’

  ‘I’ve never asked for it, Annie.’

  ‘Oh yes, you have. There’s half a dozen lasses round about you could have taken on jaunts, but who did you take? Daisy Mason. Now that must have made her think. But tell me what’s made her think otherwise?’

  ‘I told her I wasn’t for marrying.’

  ‘What brought it about?’

  ‘Oh, she implied…No, she didn’t imply, she said right out that we were as good as engaged.’

  ‘And you said you weren’t, and then she went for you?’

  ‘There was more to it than that. I had to speak plainly. I’m sorry I had to do so, but there was nothing else for it.’

  Annie turned from him and walked towards the oven as she said, ‘Would there have been nothing else for it up till this last week?’

  He stared at her bent back as she opened the oven door and took out a large dripping tin holding a sizzling joint, and she had placed it on the end of the table before he answered, ‘Yes, Annie, it would have been the same. And what do you mean by…this last week?’

  ‘Oh, lad; you’re talking to an old woman.’ She grinned now, and then said, ‘Well, if not old, getting on, and as far as I can remember in this house, since the day you could toddle you’ve never made four journeys into Newcastle in a week, and I shouldn’t imagine it was to the Haymarket, or to your solicitor man, nor anything else like that, an’ going by the programme I found on your dressing table, I think I’ve got the answer.’ She now pushed the hot roasting-tin away from her, laid the coarse towel with which she had been holding it over the back of a chair, which she then pulled towards her and sat down on. Her knees now almost touching his, she leaned towards him, asking, ‘Is it the young lass on the front of the programme that’s caught your eye?’

  He stared back at her, his face and neck suffused red with embarrassment. ‘It isn’t just a fancy, Annie,’ he said; ‘I can’t explain it. I’m drawn there, you know, like the saying is, as if by a magnet.’

  ‘Well, lad, you know your own road best, but from what I understand and it might only be hearsay, but it’s been said over the years that those bits of lasses on the stage are of light character.’

  ‘Yes, Annie; I’ve heard all that.’

  ‘But you think this one’s different. What has she to say for herself? Is she well spoken? Is she …?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Annie; I haven’t met her.’

  ‘Oh, lad!’ She gave a chuckle now. ‘If you had told me you’d jumped off one of the Newcastle bridges because you thought you could fly, I would have said, well, these things happen to daft individuals who haven’t been well brought up and who haven’t heads on their shoulders, but not to you, never to somebody like you. Ah, Master Ward’—she put her hand out and patted his shoulder—‘it’s a sad dream. We all have ’em, you know. Women an’ all. For meself, I never thought I’d marry a man like Bill; the fellow I was goin’ to give me hand to wasn’t goin’ to do farm work. No, by gum. I was above that; I’d seen enough of it in this house, although there was nobody better as a master or mistress than your folks. But, in a way, I had taken a pattern from them and I wanted somebody better, somebody who wore a collar an’ tie when he went to work, an’ didn’t smell of cow byres or pig muck.’ Her whole body began to shake now as she went on, ‘But then something hit me. I don’t know what it is to this day; I only know if I hadn’t him, life wouldn’t be worth living; and he’s a grumpy, impatient sod at the best of times.’

  ‘Oh, Annie!’ He closed his eyes and flapped his hand towards her, saying, ‘Don’t make me laugh. Please don’t make me laugh; my face is sore; and at the moment my heart is sore, an’ all. I’ve hurt somebody deeply, and what’s more I’ve seen her character change so much that it frightened me.’

  She stared at him and, seriously now, she said, ‘She must have gone a bit wild to do that to you.’

  ‘More than a bit, Annie; I would never have believed it of her. Anyway, I must go and clean this up.’

  As he lifted his hand towards his face, she said, ‘Sit where you are. I’ll go and get some witch hazel and rose water, and wash it for you, then put the salve on. But I can see you’re goin’ to have a couple of marks there for some time. The other side’ll fade…By, she did a job on you!’ As she rose to her feet she added, ‘It’s been a funny morning all round. I got a surprise when I looked at that youngster’s back; and then there was that salt business. That was funny, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded at her. ‘Yes; yes it was funny.’

  ‘I’ll say it was. Fancy being frightened to touch salt! When I pushed it towards him, do you remember, and me saying, “Put salt on your egg now,” he almost threw the cellar across the table, and at the same time shrank back in his chair as if it was going to bite him? Most odd, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was, Annie. Yes, it was.’

  As she once again hurried from the room he recalled to mind the incident of the salt and the look on the boy’s face. It was full of fear, as it had been last night when he had first seen him. It was as if the salt had been a live snake.

  The thought of the boy’s fear recalled his own of a short while ago, because for a time he had been swamped with fear. It was a new emotion, almost as strong as the one he felt for the beautiful figure flitting from one side of the stage to the other, as light as he imagined a fairy would be; and when, at the end, turning into a bird by lifting her arms head high to expose wings of fine ribbed silk, before she was lifted and, the wings rippling like water, she flew from the stage to loud cheers and clapping from the audience, the feeling she left him with was so strong as to be painful, for she appeared more angelic than any angel his imagination had ever been able to conjure up.

  But then, Daisy had expressed a fierce hate of him such as again his imagination had never been able to conjure up. Of a sudden he felt weak and fearful with the force of both.

  Three

  It was a drizzling rain, and Annie remarked on it: ‘It’s in for the night,’ she said; ‘you’ll get sodden.’ She now raised her eyebrows, so stretching her longish features even further as she said, ‘Have you got to go in?’

  ‘Yes, Annie; I’ve got to go in. But as for asking me what I’ve got to go in for, well, I’ll tell you shortly; and I might do it with a pleasant grin on my face or, on the other hand, looking at me, you’ll know it’s better to keep your tongue quiet and not ask questions.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’

  ‘It’s like that, Annie. Yes, it’s like that.’

  ‘Well, I only hope she’s worth it.’ She was standing at the wooden sink and looking out of the kitchen window, and she exclaim
ed, ‘You won’t be goin’ this minute, you’ve got company.’

  ‘Who is it?’ He went quickly across the room to stand by her side, and when he saw John Mason step down from his trap he bit on his lower lip, and before turning away, he said quietly, ‘Show him into the sitting room, Annie.’

  ‘The sitting room?’ Her face stretched again. ‘Well, all right, I’ll do that; but he’s always come straight into the kitchen afore; all of them have. But as you say…’

  She went from him, leaving him again nipping on his lip, this time whilst waiting for Annie’s welcome: ‘Oh; good evenin’, Mr Mason. Can I have your coat; you’re a bit wet.’

  ‘Is Ward anywhere about?’

  ‘Yes; yes, he is. If you’ll just take a seat in the parlour, I’ll go fetch him for you.’

  By the silence that followed Ward could imagine the man hesitating on the invitation to go into the parlour as if he were a stranger.

  A minute or so later, on Annie’s entering the kitchen, Ward held up his hand to silence anything she might say, then walked past her across the stone-flagged hall and into the parlour.

  John Mason was standing with his back to the empty grate, and his greeting was, ‘Hello, there, Ward. Oh…oh, I see you’re ready for going on the road. Well, I won’t keep you long.’

  When Ward stood before him, the older man stared at his face, then turned his head to the side before saying softly, ‘I’m sorry she did that to you. But she was upset. Oh, yes, she was upset…What’s come over you, Ward?’

  He didn’t answer for quite some time, for what could he say to this decent man, a man he had always liked, because he was a fair man in all his dealings. Not so his two sons, at least not so Sep. He had never liked Sep; he was a big-mouth. And Pete…well, Pete didn’t talk as much, but there had always been a slyness about Pete. Yet the father and mother were the nicest couple you could meet in a day’s walk; and so, could he say to this man that he had become obsessed, because that word somehow fitted his feelings, and to a girl with whom he had never spoken and knew nothing whatever about except that she danced beautifully and was beautiful to look at, yet so fragile?