The Branded Man Read online

  When he put his arms about her shoulders in order to comfort her he was checked when she let out a high scream.

  ‘She’s in great pain, sir.’

  He looked across the bed at Fanny Carter and said, ‘Has the doctor been?’

  ‘Not this morning, but he’s coming later, sir. He was here till late. It’s in splints.’ She pointed to where a stool had been placed in the bed to keep the clothes off the injured leg, and she added, ‘That isn’t much good, sir. She should have a wire cage.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, girl, yes. It’ll be done. But my pet…oh, my pet!’ He was stroking the wet face now. ‘The things that happen to you. What caused this? They should have let me know last night.’

  ‘No, Grandpa; no. I fell. I was running. I was frightened. I saw someone. I thought they were coming at me and I ran and fell.’

  ‘But you were right down near the river against the wall.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. And I was so frightened, Grandpa; I…I must have dreamt there was an ogre after me.’

  ‘An ogre?’

  ‘Yes, because when I recovered from bumping my head I saw this face. It was an ogre’s face. But I must have imagined it. They say I’ve got concussion. What is that, Grandpa?’

  ‘Oh, it just means you’ve got to lie quiet for a day or two. It’s caused by having a bump on the head. But you’re not bleeding.’ He ran his fingers through the back of her hair and gently stroked her scalp, then repeated, ‘No, you’re not bleeding.’

  ‘Grandpa.’

  ‘Yes, my child? Yes?’

  ‘It’s awful—the pain. I…I can’t help crying and they say it’ll make me stay in bed for a long time. I’ll die, Grandpa. I’ll die.’

  ‘No, you won’t, my dear. No, you won’t. I’ll be with you as much as I can, and this nice girl will be with you too. Won’t you, my dear?’

  Fanny hesitated for a moment before answering: she had been pleasantly shocked by being addressed as ‘my dear’ by the old master, who was known to be a tyrant. ‘I could look after her, sir; I looked after my mother for years. She had dropsy. And…and may I speak, sir?’

  ‘Yes, girl, go on.’

  ‘Well, they were talking about getting a nurse, but I could nurse her, because I nursed my mother and I was very young then and she was in bed with dropsy for a long time, and there was only me to see to her. You see, my father and the two lads were down the pit and they got killed. There was one other boy, but he died at home, and I saw to her for years before I came here, so I could nurse miss quite well, sir. Yes, I could.’

  Fanny’s tragic little story told with lightness had stopped Marie Anne’s flow of tears. She said between gasps, ‘Oh! You poor thing, Fanny. You poor thing.’

  ‘Oh no, miss’—Fanny was smiling broadly now—‘that’s all in the past, anyway. I’m glad to be where I am and—’ She glanced at the old man as if about to speak, but simply added, ‘I’ll look after you.’

  ‘There now. There now, my pet. Isn’t that good news? You not only have a nurse, you have a storyteller too, one who can compile her life’s tragedies into a story. That is an art.’

  Fanny didn’t know exactly what the old gentleman meant, but she knew it was a compliment. She smiled at him and, tactfully now, she said, ‘I’ll leave you, sir, for the present. I’ll just be in the next room. You can call me if you need me.’

  ‘I’ll do that, girl. I’ll do that. Thank you.’ He nodded, smiling towards her, and when the door had closed on her he looked down at his granddaughter and said, ‘Now there, my dear, is what I would call a non-servant; a servant who could become a good friend, when one is in need.’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa. I’ve always liked Fanny. She’s always been nice to me. But oh, Grandpa, I feel so bad now, sort of ill, and I’m frightened. They say I’ve got to be here for weeks. I’ll die. Yes, I will.’

  ‘Now, stop that. You won’t die, and when you’re able and get a bit stronger we’ll have you out on the long cane chair and pushed through the grounds. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  She made an effort to smile as she said, ‘No, Grandpa; I’d hate it. You know what I’m like when I get into the grounds; I can’t walk; I must run.’

  ‘Yes, my dear; you must run. Now why must you always run? This is when the trouble starts. You must run. Anything that happens and you don’t like it you run. Are you running away from something?’

  She thought a moment, then sniffed loudly as she said, ‘I suppose so, Grandpa. I…I run because I want to get away from people, people who don’t like me.’

  ‘Oh now, now! That’s silly…to say people don’t like you. Everybody—’

  ‘Please! Grandpa, don’t. You know and I know—well, we’ve talked about it, haven’t we?—that everybody can’t be liked by everybody, or something like that.’

  His hand was again on her hair stroking it from her brow, and he said gently, ‘Yes, you are right. I yammer on at you as if you were a silly child, and you’re not. You’re a very wise young girl. But can you tell me why you were running at that time of night as far away as the river bank and Harding’s wall?’

  She turned her gaze from him now and looked down the bed to where the bedclothes rose to a peak, and her voice was a low mutter as she said, ‘No, Grandpa.’

  ‘No? But something made you run that far. Did something make you run right down there?’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa.’ It was another whisper.

  ‘And you can’t tell me what it was? Answer me one thing. Does it concern someone in this household?’

  She hesitated before she said, ‘Yes, Grandpa.’

  He wanted to ask: a man? or a woman? But there was only one woman who would be outside at night, perhaps taking a stroll, and that would be Evelyn, and she certainly wasn’t a girl for taking strolls, not Evelyn. She would get her feet dirty. Perhaps one of the servants? But she wouldn’t be so secretive about what had happened, he was sure, if it had been just one of the servants. Could it have been Vincent? He’d had to put a stop to that young man’s horseplay many years ago, when he had detected something in it and behind it that both angered and shocked him. It could have been Vincent. But from what he understood, he’d had his friend Harry Stocksfield here last night and they had played tennis earlier in the evening, then a game of billiards. Well, there was no doubt but that he would get to the bottom of it one day, for he had been her confidant since she could crawl onto his knees, seeking love, perhaps to counteract the hate her mother bore her. He had loved her and petted her for all her young life. But why had he imagined that Veronica hated her own daughter? Perhaps that was too strong a word; ‘disliked’ would have been more fitting—at least, he hoped so. Yet dislike was a first cousin to hate. The awful thing about it was that the child must have recognised the feeling when her mother first pushed her away from her knee. He himself had witnessed it, and it hadn’t been a gentle push, but a thrust that had knocked the three-year-old child onto her bottom and made her cry.

  She was crying again now, and he took his large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and gently dried her tears; while doing so he received the answer to the question that he had imagined would take him a long time to discover. It came when he said, ‘Has Evelyn been in to see—?’ but did not manage to get out ‘you?’ before her whole body jerked and she let out a cry of pain, exclaiming loudly, ‘No! And I don’t want to see her. No!’

  ‘All right, my dear. All right. If you don’t want to see her, you won’t.’

  Ah! Evelyn. Evelyn. And out at night. Now why would she have been out at night, and what could she have done to cause this young sprite to run so fast that she went headlong into a wall? Well, well. Here was something that he would ferret out, but quietly. Yes, very quietly. Who was Evelyn seeing now? Since that business some years ago, when she was breaking her neck to be married and her mother put a stop to it, she’d had one or two men in her sights, but each had come to nothing. She had a very off-putting manner: played the grand dame too much, very like her m
other. Oh yes, a strong pattern of her mother. As was Vincent, only more so. The three of them, he would say, formed a close triangle both in personality and ambition. But what about his own son, their father? Oh, he’d had to admit a long time ago that he had bred a man full of pomp and no guts. Yet, through him, Pat had come into existence and Pat was as near himself as you could ever hope any man to be. And then there was this little sprite. The unwanted one, the changeling. She was like himself, in both the values she held and her temper. Her temper, like his own, came in spurts, reached ignition point and set the sparks flying. And her values? Well, she had shown she possessed a few of his: she liked fair play, for both animals and men. This she had shown when she horsewhipped Simon Pinner for beating one of the dogs. The dog’s sin had been to rake up a whole row of freshly set seeds and Pinner had brought a whip across its hind quarters, making it yelp. So what had she done? Run into the tack room, got another whip and, as it wouldn’t have been much use bringing it across the fellow’s legs, because he had gaiters and corduroy trousers on, she aimed for his arms where his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and he knew about it. He had complained to the house and she had been put on a meagre diet and kept in her room for three days. She had divided the staff fifty-fifty. Then there was Peter Crouch and the horse trough. The voting that time had been ninety in her favour, for Crouch was known to have a hard hand with the horses, especially when breaking one in. On this day, in the yard, she had seen him use a whip on a horse’s hindquarters and bring the animal onto its hind legs in protest. The horse had protested and neighed loudly when pulled past the horse trough and not allowed to drink, so she had yelled at the man. Unfortunately, he had turned towards her with his back towards the trough, and what was easier than to make a rush at him and topple him backwards into it? They had said in the yard that even the horse laughed, but this time it was a black mark against her and she was sent away to school. That had been when the real trouble started. How many times had she run away? And how many times had he secretly welcomed her back? He supposed that at bottom he was to blame for a lot of her unruliness, because she could always come to him and find understanding and sympathy. He said now, ‘Is it paining badly, dear?’

  ‘Awful, Grandpa. Awful. I’ve never had pains like this before, never.’

  ‘Well, that doctor should be here soon and he will give you some medicine to ease the pain. In the meantime, shall I read to you?’

  ‘No, Grandpa.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Just sit with me and hold my hand.’

  ‘I’ll do that gladly, dear. I’ll do that.’

  ‘I…I still feel sleepy. I…I might go off to sleep, mind.’

  ‘Well, that would be the best thing, my dear. I’ll hold your hand until you do go off to sleep and I’ll tell you a funny story that I read the other day. It’s about a kangaroo that lost its jump and it had a baby in its pouch, you know, like we’ve seen in the picture books. Well, the baby had to teach its mother how to jump again. Now you go to sleep and I’ll tell you how it began and how it ended.’

  And he did, and she went to sleep. All the while he was making up the story about the kangaroo learning to jump, part of his mind was asking, What would Evelyn be doing outside at that time of night? And what had she done that had frightened this child?

  Two

  Ten days later Marie Anne was sitting propped up in bed. Fanny had just removed her breakfast tray and she remarked, ‘By! You look better this morning, miss. More like your old self. Has the pain gone down?’

  ‘Yes, Fanny. Oh yes, it’s lessened. That’s as long as I don’t move my leg.’ She smiled at the girl, saying, ‘You must have got tired of my screaming, but I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘Of course not, miss. I bet I’d have beat you at screaming if I’d been in your place. Oh, I would. Oh’—she straightened the bib of her dress as the door opened—‘here’s Master Patrick.’

  ‘Good morning, Fanny.’

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘How’s the patient?’ He had purposely not looked at Marie Anne, but went on, ‘Has she been behaving herself?’

  ‘Oh yes. She’s been very good, very good indeed.’

  Pat then turned a laughing face on Marie Anne, saying, ‘What d’you think of that? Very good indeed. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anybody say you were very good indeed. Anyway, how goes it?’

  ‘Oh, I feel better, Pat. My head no longer aches and it’s stopped being muzzy, so I’m going to do some drawing today.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Fanny was going to slip up and get my diary and drawing box from the cupboard in the schoolroom.’

  ‘Will I go now, miss?’

  ‘If you would, please, Fanny.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do that.’

  When they had the room to themselves Marie Anne said excitedly, ‘Sit down a minute, Pat. Well…I mean, have you got time? I want to hear about the new ship leaving.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the new second-hand one.’

  ‘Is she going out today?’

  ‘Yes, on the three o’clock tide.’

  ‘And she’s called Annabella?’

  ‘Yes, she’s called Annabella. And between you and me she looks a picture.’

  ‘What cargo are you sending out?’

  ‘Oh, very little cargo this time. Just bales of linen and lace and stuff that she’ll drop off at the islands. It’s the live cargo she’s taking out and, I hope, she’ll bring back that is important.’

  ‘Yes’—she nodded at him—‘the guests. It must be wonderful for them.’

  ‘Well, it is as long as the ship’s at the quay. What bothers me is if they hit a storm, for three of the couples have never been to sea before. All I can say about them is poor souls, because I myself have experienced seasickness and prayed to die.’

  ‘Grandpa said it was your idea. He was very funny about it. He says it’s a cargo you haven’t got to shovel in and it pays you for giving it a rough time. Are they coming back with you? I mean, are they going to make the round voyage?’

  ‘I hope so, dear. Yes I hope that they’re all alive to do so.’ He laughed gently now as he added, ‘Oh, they’ll be well looked after. Captain Armitage is a fine man and he has two equally good officers under him, and the crew are mostly old hands and have been with our firm for many years. One of them has been made a steward and another an assistant cook-cum-waiter. It’s been great fun arranging it all.’

  ‘You like looking after the ships, don’t you, Pat?’

  ‘Yes, dear. But between you and me’—he leant close to her now—‘I should hate to have to go to sea.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. As I said, I’m always seasick; yet’—he wagged his head now—‘there’s nothing I don’t know about a ship. I seem to have spent the last seven years—and even before that during my holiday breaks from school, climbing perpendicular ladders, iron ones, mostly—checking the bilges; going over the engine room, the holds, the crew’s quarters and, of course, not forgetting the Captain’s quarters. Oh yes, one must see that the Captain’s quarters has the best chairs, the thickest carpets, and a bunk that induces sleep.’

  Marie Anne was laughing now as she said, ‘What about the sailing ships? You still have one, haven’t you? Have you been up the mast?’

  ‘Oh, that isn’t fair of you, Marie Anne, to mention the sailing ships and masts, because next you’ll be asking if I have ever been in the crow’s nest.’

  ‘Yes’—she bounced her head at him and laughed out loud—‘that’s just what I was going to ask.’

  ‘Well’—he flapped his hand impatiently at her—‘you’ve got me there.’

  ‘Not even when the ship was in harbour?’

  ‘Not even when the ship was in harbour could I have attempted that. How those youngsters hang onto those masts when they’re in rough seas, God alone knows. And I mean that when I say God alone knows, because it must be a terrible job, and there’s some
that take pride in it. Yet, I’m forgetting…good gracious I’m forgetting that Grandpa has been in the crow’s nest, and at sea too. His own father sent him to sea for three years. Hasn’t he told you about that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well, his father told him—that’s our great-grandfather—that if he wanted to make his living by ships then he should know how to sail them. However, three years was enough, but he certainly learned all right, because he doubled the business.’ He could have added here, It must be a great disappointment to him now when his own son is being carried by the old hands of the firm.

  When Fanny entered the room Marie Anne noticed she wasn’t carrying the box and asked quickly, ‘You couldn’t find it? It was on the top shelf.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, miss, I found it all right and I…I was bringing it downstairs when I met the mistress and she asked me what I had there, and I told her it was your diary and drawing-box, and she told me to take it back.’

  Pat was on his feet now. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said; ‘I’ll go and fetch it. Is it locked?’

  ‘Yes, but the key is over there.’ She pointed to the dressing table. ‘It’s…it’s in my handkerchief drawer, the little one at the top.’

  As Fanny went towards the dressing table Pat said, ‘Don’t bother, Fanny; I’ll bring it down and she can unlock it herself. Anyway,’ he turned and looked at Marie Anne, saying in a loud whisper, ‘you wouldn’t want me to read all your secrets, would you?’ And she answered in an equally loud whisper, ‘I wouldn’t mind, not in the least, not you; and I’ll tell you what: when you bring the box down I’ll open it and let you into one of my secrets; in fact, my only secret.’

  ‘You will? A secret in your box?’

  ‘Yes. And it is a secret.’

  ‘Something that you have done?’

  ‘Yes, something I have done.’

  ‘Are you proud of this something?’

  ‘Well’—she turned her head away from him—‘in a way; yes, in one way, and in another I…I feel it’s cruel.’