The Mallen Streak Page 4

  He looked at the man again and forced a conciliatory note into his voice as he said, ‘Yes, I understand. And you will be boarded and well, for as long as there is food…and,’—he gave a weak laugh—‘I should say the stocks are pretty ample. But one thing I would ask of you and that is to delay the taking of your inventory until later in the day when, I hope I’m right in saying, there will be no need for it.’

  He turned now to the mantelpiece and took down the envelope again and, opening it, he read for some minutes before he said, ‘I understand a sum of thirty thousand would assuage the Bank for the moment. Well, it is more than possible I shall be able to give you a note to this effect before this afternoon…Will you comply, gentlemen?’

  The three men looked at one another. It wasn’t every day that their business settled them in a house like this where they might remain for two to three weeks. It was just as well to keep on the right side of those who were providing the victuals, and—who knew?—there might be some extra pickings. The place was breaking down with finery: the china and trinkets in those cabinets lining the far wall looked as if they might be worth a mint in themselves. And then there were the pictures in this one room alone. Yet, would all the stuff in the house and the estate itself clear him? They said he was up to the neck and over. He had mortgaged, and re-mortgaged, for years past now, and that wasn’t counting the money owing the trades folk. Why, they said, only three years ago he had carpeted and curtained the place out afresh. Ten thousand it had cost him. Well, it should have cost him that if he had paid for it. Three thousand the firm had got and that, they understood, was all. The only tradesman who hadn’t put in a claim apparently was the coal supplier, but then he got his coal straight from Armstrong’s pit. Would it be from Armstrong he was hoping to get the loan? It would have to be some butty who would stump up thirty thousand by this afternoon.

  The tall man nodded now before he said, ‘Very well, sir. But there’s one thing: you’d better tell them, the servants, who we are; we want to be treated with respect, not like dirt, ’cos we have a job to do. An’ tell them an’ all not to try to lift anything; it’s a punishable offence to lift anything, prison it is for lifting anything.’

  Thomas’ face had regained its colour for temper was now boiling in him, so much so that he was unable to speak. He made a motion with his head; then turning to the bell rope at the side of the fireplace he pulled it twice.

  When Ord entered the room Thomas looked at him and swallowed deeply before saying, ‘Take these men to the kitchen, see that they are fed. They…they are to be treated with courtesy. They will remain there, in those quarters, until this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ord looked at the men and the men looked at him, then they all went out.

  After staring at the closed door for some seconds, Thomas gazed slowly round the room as if he had found himself in a strange place. What was really happening was that now, on the point of losing his home, he was recognising its full splendour for the first time. His eyes finally came to rest on the portrait over the mantelpiece. It was not a portrait of his father but of his grandfather, the man who had built this house. It had been painted while he was in the prime of his life; his hair was still black and the streak flowed like molten silver from the crown of his head down to his left temple. The face below it was a good face, and yet they said it was with him the ill luck had started; yet it was with him also that the Mallen fortunes had flourished, because although they could trace their family back to the sixteenth century it was only in the Industrial Revolution that the Mallens had come up from among the ordinary merchants.

  Through wool, and various other activities, Wigmore Mallen had amassed a fortune. He’d had four sons and each one he provided with an education that could only be purchased with money. One of them gave him cause for great pride for he was sent to Oxford and became a scholar. But not one of his sons died in his bed, all had violent deaths.

  Thomas’ own father had been shot while deer-stalking in Scotland. It was an accident they said. No-one could tell how the accident had really happened. The shot could have come from any one of the dozen guests out that day, or any one of the keepers. Thomas had often wondered how he himself would die. At times he had been a little afraid but now, having passed the fifty mark and having lived vitally every day of his life since he was sixteen, the final incident that would end his existence no longer troubled him. But what was troubling him at this moment, and greatly, was that the end, when it came, might be so undignified as to take place in drastically reduced circumstances and without causing much concern among those who mattered. Such was his make-up that this thought was foremost in his mind, for being a Mallen he must not only be a man of consequence, but be seen to be such. Even the fact that he had confessed to his son that he was weary of the struggle did not alter the fact that he had no desire to end the struggle in penury.

  He laid his head on his arm on the mantelshelf and ground out through clenched teeth, ‘Damn and blast everything to hell’s flames!’ He lifted his head and his eyes focused on the massive gilt frame of the picture. What would become of them if Frank didn’t give a hand? Frank Armstrong he knew to be a close man, a canny man. He had clawed himself up from nothing, and had thrust aside his class on the way. He had kicked many a good man down, pressed faces in the mud, and stood on shoulders here and there, all to get where he was today. Frank, he knew, had a heart as soft as the stones he charged his miners for, should they send any up from the depths in their skips of coal. Oh, he had no illusions about his friend. But there was one crack in Frank’s stony heart, and it wasn’t made by his wife, but by his daughter. Frank would do anything to get Fanny settled, happily settled. Fanny had flown high and fallen a number of times. Now she had pinned her sights on Dick and her father would be willing to pay a good price to secure for her, if not happiness, then respectability. But would he go as far as thirty thousand now and the same again when the knot was tied? He doubted it. And yet he just might, for he had an eye on this house and would be tempted to go to the limit in order to see his daughter mistress of it.

  He straightened up, adjusted his cravat, sniffed loudly, ran his hand over his thick grey hair, then went out of the drawing room in search of Frank Armstrong.

  Four

  By dinner time everyone in the house, with the exception of the guests, knew that the bums were in. Even the children in the nursery knew the bums were in. They had heard Mary talking to Miss Brigmore in a way they had never heard Mary talk before, nor had they witnessed such reaction from Miss Brigmore, because Miss Brigmore could only repeat, ‘Oh no! Oh no!’ to everything that Mary said.

  Earlier, Barbara had been unable to look at Miss Brigmore, at least not at her face, for her eyes were drawn to her bust, now tightly covered. There were ten buttons on her bodice, all close together like iron locks defending her bosom against attack, but Barbara could see past the locks and through the taffeta bodice to the bare flesh as she had seen it last night.

  Miss Brigmore had asked her if she wasn’t well and she had just shaken her head; Connie had asked if she wasn’t well, and Mary had asked her if she wasn’t well. Then of a sudden they had forgotten about her for Mary came rushing up the stairs and did the most unheard-of thing, she took Miss Brigmore by the hand and almost pulled her out of the schoolroom and into the day nursery.

  She and Connie had tiptoed to the door and listened. ‘It’s the bums, miss,’ Mary had said, and Miss Brigmore had repeated, ‘The bums?’

  ‘Yes, duns. You know, miss, duns, bailiffs. They’re in the kitchen, they’re stayin’ put until s’afternoon; then they’ll start tabbing everything in the house. It’s the end, it’s the end, miss. What’s goin’ to happen? What about the bairns?’

  ‘Be quiet! Be quiet, Mary.’ Miss Brigmore often told Mary to be quiet, but she rarely used her name; and now when she did it wasn’t like a reprimand, because she added, ‘Go more slowly; tell me what’s happened. Has…the master seen them?�
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  ‘Oh yes, miss, yes, miss. An’ they’re all nearly frantic in the kitchen. It means the end. They’ll all get the push, miss. But what about the bairns? An’ where’ll we all go? They say he owes a fortune, the master, thousands, tens of thousands. All the stuff in the house and the farms won’t pay for it, that’s what they say. Eeh! And the money that’s been spent, like water it’s been spent…’

  ‘Be quiet, Mary!’

  In the silence that followed, the children stood looking at each other, their eyes stretched, their mouths wide, until Mary’s voice came to them again, saying, ‘Will they be able to take the bairns’ cottage, miss?’

  ‘The cottage? Oh no, no. Well, I don’t think they can touch that. It was left to the children, together with the legacy. They can’t touch that. No, they can’t touch that.’

  There was another silence before Miss Brigmore asked, ‘The master, how does he appear?’

  ‘Putting a face on it, they say, miss.’

  There was a movement in the next room and Barbara and Constance scrambled to the window seat and sat down. But when no-one came in Constance whispered, ‘What does it mean, Barbie?’

  ‘I…I don’t rightly know except we may have to leave here.’

  ‘Will we go and live in our cottage?’

  ‘I…don’t know.’

  ‘I’d like to live in our cottage, it’s nice.’

  Barbara looked out of the window. The view from this side of the house took in the kitchen gardens and the orchards and the big farm. The cottage lay beyond the big farm on the other side of the road, nearly a mile along it, and situated, almost like the Hall, with its front to the moors and hills and its back to a beautiful dale. It had eight rooms, a loft and a little courtyard, which was bordered by a barn, two loose boxes, and a number of outhouses, and the whole stood in one acre of land.

  The cottage had been the home of Gladys Armorer who had been a second cousin to the children’s mother. She had objected strongly to Thomas Mallen being given charge of the children for, as she said, she wouldn’t trust him to rear a pig correctly; and she would have fought him for their guardianship had it not been she was crippled with arthritis. Yet up to a year ago when she died she had shown little interest in the children themselves, never remembering their birthdays, and only twice inviting them to take tea with her.

  So it came as something of a surprise when she left to them her house and her small fortune, in trust, a hundred pounds a year to be allotted to each during their lifetime, with further stipulations which took into account their marriages, also their deaths.

  The house stood today as when Gladys Armorer had left it, plainly but comfortably furnished. Two servants from the Hall were sent down now and again to air and clean it, and a gardener to see to the ground.

  Gladys Armorer had not made Thomas Mallen a trustee, for despite his evident wealth she still had no faith in him, but had left the business in the hands of a Newcastle solicitor, which, as things had turned out, was just as well.

  ‘Barbie!’ Constance was shaking Barbara’s arm now. ‘But wouldn’t you really like to live in the cottage? I’d love to live there, just you and Mary and Uncle and Cook, and…and Waite, I like Waite.’

  ‘It’s a very small cottage. There are only eight rooms, it would only house three people at the most, well perhaps four.’

  ‘Yes.’ Constance nodded her head sagely as if to say, ‘You’re quite right.’

  It was at this point that Miss Brigmore and Mary came into the room. They came in like friends might, and Mary, after looking at the children, lowered her head and bit on her lip and began to cry, then turned hastily about and ran from the room.

  Miss Brigmore now went to the table and began moving the books about as if she were dealing out cards. ‘Come along, children, come along,’ she said gently. And they came to the table, and Barbara looked fully at Miss Brigmore for the first time that day and was most surprised to see that she actually had tears in her eyes.

  The gallery of the Hall had always caused controversial comment, some saying it was in Italian style, some saying it was after the French. The knowledgeable ones stated it was a hideous mixture of neither. But Thomas always had the last word on the period the gallery represented, saying it was pure pretentious Mallen, for he knew that, even among his best friends, not only the gallery, but the whole Hall was considered too pretentious by far.

  The gallery was the place Dick Mallen chose in which to propose marriage to Fanny Armstrong. However distasteful the union with her might appear to him, and the thought of it brought his stomach muscles tensing, he knew that life was a game that had to be played, and with a certain amount of panache, and he needed all the help he could get at the moment, so he picked on the romantic atmosphere prevalent in the gallery.

  He opened the arched doorway into the long green and gold room and, bowing slightly, waited for her to pass; then together they walked slowly down the broad strip of red carpet that was laid on the mosaic floor.

  There were six windows along each side of the gallery and each had at its base a deep cushioned window seat wide enough to seat two comfortably. The walls between the windows were papered or rather clothed with an embossed green velvet covering, and each afforded room for two large gilt-framed pictures placed one above the other. In the centre of the gallery ceiling was a great star, and from it gold rays extended in all directions.

  It was in the middle of the gallery that Fanny Armstrong stopped, and after looking to where two servants were entering by the far door, she turned her small green eyes to the side where another was in the act of opening or closing a window and she said, ‘Is anything amiss?’

  ‘Amiss? What do you mean?’

  ‘I seem to detect an uneasiness in the house…in the servants. When I came out of my room a short while ago two maids had their heads together and they scurried away on sight of me as if in alarm.’

  He swallowed deeply before he said, ‘You’re imagining things.’

  ‘I may be,’—she was walking on again—‘but I also have a keen perception for the unusual; for the out of pattern, and when servants step out of pattern…well! Servants are barometers you know!’ She smiled coyly at him now, but he didn’t look at her, he was looking ahead as he said, ‘Fanny, I would like to ask you something.’

  ‘You would? Well, I’m listening.’ Again the coy glance.

  He still kept his eyes from her face as he went on, ‘What I have to ask you needs a time and a place. This is the place I had chosen, but the time, because of the,’—he paused now and smiled weakly at her as he repeated her words—‘scurry of the servants is inappropriate. Do you think you could brave the weather with me?’

  Her coyness was replaced now by an amused, cynical look which made him uneasy. He knew well enough that once married to her life would become a battle of wills; for underneath her skittish exterior was a woman who would have her own way, and if thwarted all hell would be let loose.

  ‘Why so ceremonious all of a sudden?’ She was looking at him full in the face. ‘If I could follow the dogs and your father through slush and mud for hours then I can risk the slightly inclement weather of today, don’t you think?’ She made a slight moue with her lips.

  ‘Good! We’ll go to the summer house then.’ With well-simulated eagerness he caught hold of her hand and drew it through his arm. ‘We’ll go down the back way; I’ll get you a cloak from the gunroom.’ There was a conspiratorial note in his voice now.

  Like two children in step they ran through the door that a servant held open for them; and then across a landing towards a green-baized door, and so into a passage where to the right the stairs led up to the nursery and to the left down to the gunroom.

  The gunroom was at the end of a long wide passage, from which doors led to the housekeeper’s sitting room and the upper staff dining room, the servants’ hall, the butler’s pantry; also the door to the cellars, and, at the extreme end, the door to the kitchen.

  At the fo
ot of the stairs a maid was kneeling on the flagstone passage with a wooden bucket by her side, and the expanse of stone from wall to wall in front of her was covered in soapy suds.

  It was as Dick held out his hand to Fanny, with exaggerated courtesy, in order to assist her to jump prettily over the wet flags while she, with skirts slightly raised, was coyly desisting, that the voice from the butler’s pantry came clearly into the corridor, saying, ‘I’m sorry for the master, but not for that young skit. Now he’ll have to do some graft and know what it is to earn his livin’, but he won’t have the guts for that. By! It’s made me stomach sick these last few days to see the carry-on here, the Delavals of Seaton Sluice were nothin’ to it. It was them he was trying to ape with his practical jokes, and show off afore his London friends. The Delavals might have been mad with their pranks but at bottom they were class, not a get-up like him.’

  The girl had risen from her knees, her face showing fear, but when furtively she made to go towards the open door Dick Mallen’s hand gripped her arm fiercely and held her back. Fanny was still standing at the far side of the soapy patch and he had apparently forgotten her presence for the moment, for his infuriated gaze was fixed on the open door a little to the side of him. The voice coming from there was saying now, ‘Those three in the kitchen, bums or bailiffs, call them what you like, they won’t wait any longer than s’afternoon, an’ they must have had their palms well greased to wait that long. But the old man thinks that by then the young upstart’ll have popped the question, ’cos old Armstrong won’t stump up any other way. And oh, by God! I hope he gets her. By God! I do, I hope he does, for she’ll sort his canister for him, will Miss Fanny Armstrong, if I know anything. Mr Brown tells me that the old man had to kick his arse this morning to get him up to scratch, ’cos he played up like hell. She was all right for a roll in the feather tick, but marriage…no. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, not when the bums are in, and it means the end of Master Big Head Dick if she doesn’t…’