The Devil and Mary Ann Read online

  ‘Come on then.’

  They went out of the vestry together, and after genuflecting side by side to the main altar they went up the aisle, Mary Ann keeping her eyes strictly turned from the altar of St Anthony where the women were. But when at the church door she looked up for the last time on her true friend the tears welled again.

  Bending to her, the priest took her kiss on his cheek, and when, with her arms about his thin neck, she cried, ‘Father! Oh, Father!’ he answered somewhat thickly, ‘There, there. Go on now, and may God bless you and take care of you.’

  With a push that was almost rough he thrust her away and quickly re-entered the church, and she was left with her world, for the moment, desolate.

  The sun was shining with dazzling brightness on the wet pavement and made her eyes blink, and she stood sniffing and at a loss, considering the next step in the order of goodbyes. It was nearly twelve o’clock by the big clock in Harry Siddon’s, the watchmaker. Should she stay at the corner of Dee Street and wait for Agnes and Cissy, or go right to the school gates? Her self-esteem at a very low ebb and crying out urgently for support immediately suggested the school gate, but also told her she’d have to run! So with no more debating she ran, and just reached the main gate as the bell rang.

  Almost, it would seem, as if shot from both sides of the building there came two racing, widening streams of screaming children. Not being part of either, the noise to her seemed terrific, and it brought with it a feeling that puzzled her, for she could not recognise that she was envious of their rights of the moment for lung expansion.

  The sight of her checked fragments of the avalanche, and they came to her side, crying ‘Hallo, Mary Ann.’

  ‘Hallo, Mary Ann.’

  ‘Eeh, Mary Ann! Hallo.’

  ‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to say goodbye to Agnes and Cissy.’

  ‘Cissy’s off bad, she’s got the mumps, and Agnes brought a note yesterday ’cos she’s not comin’ the day, she’s goin’ with her ma to Durham. Eeh! You do look nice, Mary Ann…doesn’t she?’

  The chorus of ‘Eehs!’ applied a little salve to the acute feeling of disappointment at not seeing her friends for the last time, or, to be more correct, that they were not having the pleasure of seeing her dressed in her splendour, nor the opportunity of pouring their ever-ready admiration over her head.

  ‘When you goin’, Mary Ann?’

  ‘The morrer.’

  ‘Are you going in a train?’

  ‘Yes, and in a car.’ She had brightened visibly; the pain of partings was forgotten; there was nothing but the present, for she had an audience. ‘Mr Lord…he’s coming for us at eight o’clock and takin’ me ma and da and our Michael and me to Newcastle. Me ma’s going with me all the way, and I’ve got dozens of boxes of clothes…cases, all new. And me name’s on everything, full length—Mary Ann Shaughnessy.’

  ‘It would be, Milady Bug.’

  Mary Ann swung round, new clothes and prestige forgotten. There, standing not a foot from her and not apparently impressed in the slightest by her splendours, stood Sarah Flannagan.

  They glared at each other, Mary Ann having to thrust her head back to keep her eyes fixed on the taller girl. This was the old battleground.

  ‘What do you want round here, anyway…showing off as usual?…“I’m going in a big car!”’ Sarah gave an impression of Mary Ann, which drew a titter from the fickle spectators. ‘And you’ll come back, likely as not, in the Black Maria…or the muck cart.’

  Mary Ann’s chin was out; her lips were out; and her eyes were popping. ‘You!…You’re jealous…that’s what you are.’

  ‘Huh! Listen to her. Jealous! What have I got to be jealous of? An upstart? For that’s all you are. Me ma says you’re nothing but an upstart. And what’s more, my da hadn’t to be doled out with a job to keep him quiet. Me ma says if old Lord hadn’t given your da the job on the farm, he would have had to fork out thousands and thousands for his lost hand. He’s made a fool of him, and everybody knows it’s only charity your da’s on.’

  ‘You!…How dare you! Oh!’ Mary Ann was lost for words. ‘You! You and your ma!’ she managed to splutter. ‘You and your ma, there’s a pair of you. And you’ll end up in hell for the lies you tell. As for your da, he’s so henpecked he can’t wipe his nose afore he gets permission.’

  This last eloquent thrust was remembered from a little eavesdropping; it was a statement her father had laughingly made to her mother. Now it penetrated Sarah’s superior guard, causing her fury to erupt. And this brought her even nearer to Mary Ann. Whereupon, Mary Ann, having no known supporter, retreated just the slightest, but not ignobly, for she brought to her face a tantalising sneer that seemed to make Sarah swell.

  ‘You, you to talk about anybody…you’ve got some nerve with a da like yours, you have. A big drunken, fightin’ no-good, and it’s only a few weeks back that you had to come right up to our street and fetch him, and him singing with the street out…Your da!’ Sarah’s scorn was searing, ‘Ten a penny.’

  The financial significance of the last remark subtly reduced Mike’s standard, socially, morally and physically, to the lowest denomination. It was an insult not to be borne…it had to be repudiated right away. Mary Ann needed words, fighting words, words of scorn and fire. They were all there, milling around inside of her but finding an outlet impossible owing to the barrier of indignation blocking their path somewhere in the region of her upper ribs. But there were no impeding thoughts standing in the way of her right hand, and guided by, of course, nothing but right it raised itself and contacted Sarah’s face full on with a resounding slap.

  Sarah choked and gasped, and the ‘eehs’ that filled the air told Mary Ann, if the pain in her hand had not done so that that was a whopper. But Sarah’s swift retaliation cut short the glow of conquest, all that Mary Ann was aware of in the next moment was that her head was ringing and that she was falling backward. Preservation of her new clothes forbade this indignity, and she told herself frantically that whatever she did she mustn’t fall, so she reeled on her heels into the roadway, her arms waving in an endeavour to regain her balance. And she might have done so but for a shining puddle of water. It was just a small puddle, but one seeming to possess impish and magnetic qualities, for it drew her small buttocks towards it, and as they made contact with the muddy water, it flew away in sprays, that is, all that did not fall back on her.

  Tears of fright and mortification ran from her eyes. Her one-time audience were now laughing their heads off, and Sarah’s voice came to her, as if from a distance, crying, ‘Look at who’s going to be a lady! I’m going to a posh school, I am, I’m going to be a lady. Lady Muck of Clarty Hall!’

  Suddenly there was a scurrying of feet, and as Mary Ann turned herself tearfully over she saw them racing away in all directions. And when she was erect once more she was standing alone except for Miss Johnson, who was facing her from the gate.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  Miss Johnson slowly advanced to the edge of the pavement, then vented her spleen on the child she had never liked.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if your glowing prospects have altered you much,’ she said. ‘Get yourself away home. I am sure your mother will be pleased to see you.’

  Turning slowly about, Mary Ann walked somewhat drunkenly away. She hated Miss Johnson, she did. And eeh, her clothes! Eeh! Her ma would go mad. Eeh! What was the back like? Look at the front of her coat…and her hands and her cuffs. Eeh! What was she to do?…And all through her. At this moment she prayed through her feelings forever; catastrophe, calamity, disaster and mortification to fall on that—that…! She could find no words as a fitting pseudonym for the hated name of Sarah Flannagan.

  Her legs, without any directions from her, took her towards the bus stop, where, a bus arriving at the same moment, she was on it before her mind cried at her, ‘You should have gone back to Mrs McBride, she would have cleaned you up.’

  The co
nductor stood over her, grinning, and his heartening remark, ‘By! Your ma’s goin’ to be pleased to see you,’ seemed to endorse that of her teacher and suggested to her again that she should get off and go back to her friend, who had on many occasions cleaned her up. But a deadness had descended on her, the result mostly of a morning that had not gone at all according to plan. It had been such a morning which her mother would have referred to as…something having got into it.

  Father Owen’s discourse on the Devil coming back to her mind, caused her head to move impatiently, a sure sign of her inward disbelief. According to him the Devil took up only half of Sarah Flannagan. Her critical faculty told her with authority that there were some things even a priest didn’t know. But what was she to do now? These were her going-away clothes, she just couldn’t go home like this.

  They were leaving the town, and it was the sight of the first tree that connected her harassed thoughts with Mr Lord’s house. He’d be out, at the farm, or in Newcastle or some place, and there’d only be old Ben in. Old Ben wasn’t bad; in fact, he had been nice to her lately…well, not nice exactly but not awful, like on her first visit when he tried to throw her out of the house. She would go to him and ask him to clean her up.

  The conductor’s grin followed her when she alighted, but with as much defiant dignity as she could muster she ignored him and the departing bus, and, crossing the deserted road, made for the great open iron gates.

  This position of the gates, even after some months, had failed to make them look at ease, for the burden of twenty years of locks and chains needed some throwing off, even by gates, and by their forbidding aspect it would seem that they did not thank their liberator as she ran past them and up the drive.

  She hadn’t even reached the turn of the drive before she heard the hum of the car. Unmistakably Mr Lord’s car, and if she had been able to think of anything it would have been that Father Owen was right after all—the Devil was certainly out this morning. Wildly she looked towards the hedges on each side of her, but, not being a ferret she saw there was no escape that way; she was trapped by the last person on earth she wished to meet at this moment. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t…the last time she’d had a row with Sarah Flannagan he had to come on the scene, and she had a feeling that Mr Lord got one up on her da when she was in this kind of a mess.

  In another second they were face to face; Mr Lord, with narrowed eyes beneath his white, bristling brows, was looking through the windscreen at her. Standing as if struck, in the middle of the drive she returned his scrutiny.

  After suffering a long survey by Mr Lord, during which he uttered no command of ‘Come here!’ she walked slowly to the side of the car and, not with head bent in contrition, but with her chin lifted to his scowling countenance, she muttered, ‘I fell down.’

  ‘You fell down?’ The voice held neither anger nor pity, but what it did hold confirmed her earlier feelings.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t suppose this could be the result of another fight, could it?’

  She remained silent, and he went on, ‘And what are you doing here? Now’—he raised his finger—‘don’t tell me you’ve called to see how I am.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’ Her chin jerked.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was going to ask Ben—Mr Ben to clean me up.’

  ‘You were, were you! Well, Mr Ben has something better to do…your mother will see to that. Get in.’

  Dodging under his arm that held open the door, she climbed onto the seat. The door crashed closed, making her jump as it always did, and Mr Lord, without looking at her and in the process of starting up the car, exclaimed, ‘I’m right, I imagine, when I think that you are wearing your new clothes, those in which you are to travel tomorrow?’

  There was no need to answer this, and she sat upright on the edge of the seat, her eyes saddened by the unfair trials of the morning, but her pursed lips showing the spirit that still defied them.

  The car leapt over the road, and almost, it would seem, within seconds the fields of the farm came into view, and with them retribution of some sort came nearer…Mean, he was…that’s what he was…mean. He could have let her go to Mr Ben, he could. She hated him…Eeh, no, she didn’t! Well, he could have—

  Her thoughts were checked by the car being turned up a side lane and brought to a stop. This, for the first time during the drive, brought her head round to him, and she looked up at the forbidding profile of ‘the Lord’ as she thought of him. Only once before had he stopped the car like this, and that was when he told her he would give her da the farm manager’s job if she would promise to go away to school and not let on that he had asked her. Perhaps he was going to say it didn’t matter and she needn’t go. No. Hope of such wholesale reprieve fled on the thought of ‘don’t be daft’, for he would, she felt, send her away to this school if she were dying. She had a swift mental picture of being carried on a stretcher to the train and being received at the convent by rows and rows of sympathetic nuns. Yet hope was never really dead in her, and it rose with its false voice and suggested that he might be going to say that she could go some place nearer, where she could come back at the weekends and see her da.

  The car ceased its throbbing, and she watched him lean back, draw in a long breath, then let it out again, and as he did so he turned his head and looked at her. And then he smiled, just a little bit, with his mouth.

  Quickly she responded to his mood. He could be nice…she liked him, she did. She would like to make him laugh. But at the moment she didn’t feel like laughing.

  ‘Tomorrow morning there will be no time to talk, Mary Ann.’ His voice was kind, and he was looking at her as if he didn’t mind the mess she was in…but, still, he was talking about tomorrow morning. ‘Now, child, listen to me.’ He had taken her hands into his long bony ones. ‘Now listen to what I’m saying. Tomorrow you begin a new life. From tomorrow you have the opportunity to become—well—’ his shoulders moved; his moustache was pressed outwards and he released one hand and spread his fingers wide, and they seemed to encompass the world—‘you can be anything you want to be, Mary Ann. Do you understand?’

  Her eyes were fixed on his, and her head moved once.

  ‘Anything. You must forget about—about all this.’ He waved his hand around the car, but the indication took in the farm and all it held.

  The light in her eyes faded somewhat, and he was quick to add, ‘Until the holidays; they’ll soon come round. And you must learn. Apply yourself to your lessons—think of nothing else but learning when you are there. And if you play your part at school, I’ll play my part here. You understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Yes, she understood the implications, and the knowledge of her understanding pressed like a weight on her heart.

  ‘You have a head on your shoulders, Mary Ann.’ He nodded slowly at her. ‘You are older than your years…you can lap up knowledge quickly if you have the mind. Pay attention…above all things, pay attention to your English, then languages will follow as easily as—’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I will know of your progress from your letters…You will write to me?’

  This last was not put as an order, but as a request, and she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll write to you.’

  After one look that took her in from her muddied hat to her shoes, he turned back to the wheel, and his next words tugged at and brought to the surface the affection she had for him. ‘You’ll write…but you won’t think of me until you have to do that irksome duty; you’ll forget me.’

  Now she could respond, for below the brusqueness of his voice lay the buried loneliness that she had discovered on their first meeting. This was the part of him that she liked…loved. This was the part of him she used all her efforts to make laugh. All the benefits she and the family had received from his hands rushed before her, and she knew that but for him they would still be in Mulhattans’ Hall…perhaps not even there, but some place worse.

  She was kneeling on the seat now, clos
e to his side, his bony, blue-veined hands gripped by her two small ones. ‘No, I won’t. I won’t forget you ever, I won’t! And I’ll try to learn for you, I will.’ She nearly added, ‘If you’ll see to me da.’ But wisdom forbade this and prompted a more soothing balm to the old man’s feelings, so swiftly she reached up, and, with her arms about his neck, she planted a kiss on the close-shaved wrinkled cheek. His eyes, now a few inches from hers, appeared pale and misty as they enveloped her, and with his hands cupping her small elfin face, he said, ‘Don’t fail me, Mary Ann, will you?’

  This softly spoken demand brought a damper to this nice part of the proceedings, and, after a somewhat doubtful sounding ‘No,’ she slid down to the seat. The car started and they were out on the main road again; then before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ they had turned into the lane which led to the farm, swept past the cottages where only a few weeks ago she had lived, right through the mud that the cattle made in the dip and into the actual farmyard.

  Her eyes darted up at him. Why hadn’t he put her off at their door? She’d only have to walk back. Then the sight of Mike, coming out of the cow byres at that moment gave her the reason. Yet again she couldn’t fully explain it, she only knew that he wanted her da to see her all messed up. Oh, he was mean, he was!

  Mike came swiftly towards the car, his eyes darting from one to the other, and he greeted Mr Lord before he could alight. ‘Morning, sir. Anything wrong?’

  It was evident that Mike was surprised to see his master.

  ‘No; nothing particularly.’ Mr Lord eased himself out of the car. ‘When I phoned you to say I wouldn’t be over until tomorrow morning, with this meeting coming up, I didn’t know I was going to run into…this.’ He inclined his head slowly back into the car; then added, ‘Come on, get out.’ His voice certainly held no tone of endearment now, conveying only that Mary Ann and all her works were a source of annoyance to him.