The Mallen Streak Page 6

  If the master’s affairs were in order such moments would continue at intervals; if he were forced through circumstances to retire to the cottage they would most certainly continue and more frequently. Whichever way things went she felt that for once she couldn’t lose. Her cloistered, nun-like days were over. She had never been cut out for celibate life. Yet her early upbringing had made it impossible for her to find bodily expression with those males who, in the hierarchy of the staff, were classed as fitting mates for a governess; such were valets and house stewards.

  She did not guide her charges towards the front door, nor yet round the corner into the courtyard to the back door, but going in the opposite direction she marshalled them round the side of the house and along the whole length of the back terrace until she entered the courtyard from the stable end. Then, opening a narrow door, she pushed the children into the passage, followed them and was in turn followed by Mary.

  Mr Tweedy, the steward, Mr Dunn, the butler, and the housekeeper, Mrs Brydon, who had all been in deep conversation, turned startled faces towards her, and such were their expressions that she was brought to a halt and enquired, ‘What has happened?’

  It was Mrs Brydon who spoke. ‘A dreadful thing, a dreadful thing, Miss Brigmore. You wouldn’t believe it; none of us can believe it. Master Dick…Master Dick attacked one of the bailiffs, the head one. He was going to shoot Waite, I mean Master Dick was, and the bailiff went to stop him. It’s all through Waite, he started the trouble. They’ve sent for the doctor. He’s bad the bailiff, very bad. He could go like that, just like that.’ She made a soundless snap with her fingers.

  It was Mr Dunn who said in a very low voice, ‘If he does, Master Dick could swing for it seeing it’s a bailiff.’

  ‘Quiet! That is enough.’ Miss Brigmore’s voice thundered over them, then she turned from them and pushed the gasping children along the passage and up the stairs, leaving Mary behind.

  Mary stood and gaped at her superiors, then she muttered, ‘Waite? What’s happened to him?’

  The steward’s voice was the voice of authority now, head of the household under the master. ‘He is packing his belongings and going this very hour…now.’

  ‘But…but Daisy; she’s on her time, they can’t…’

  ‘Peel!’ Mrs Brydon checked Mary’s further protest. ‘Enough. It’s none of your business. What is your business is to see to the nursery, and get you gone there this instant.’

  After a moment’s hesitation Mary went, but slowly, not thinking now of the Master or of Master Dick, or even of the bailiff, but of Daisy Waite and her trouble. The bairn could come any day, she was over her time; and look at the weather. She paused at a window on the first landing and looked out. Through the blur of rain she could see the family cottages, as they were called. They were allotted to those of the staff who had children yet were in indoor service. The three houses were attached to the end of the stables. As she stared the door of the middle cottage opened and a man came out and although she couldn’t identify the figure through the rain she knew it was Harry Waite, for he was lifting a box onto a flat handcart that stood outside the door.

  The handcart, which was nothing but a glorified barrow, had caused a great deal of laughter when he had arrived with his belongings on it five years ago. No-one had ever heard of a footman coming to take up a position pushing a handcart. But he had withstood the laughter, for apparently his father had made the handcart for him when he first went into service, with the words ‘When you’ve got enough luggage to cover that, lad, you’ll be all right.’ And now, thought Mary tearfully, he had more than enough luggage, he had two children and a wife ready for her bed. What would happen to them? Where would they go? She wanted to run out and say goodbye to them because Daisy was her friend. But Mrs Brydon was still in the passage, she could hear her voice.

  She went heavily up the remaining stairs shaking her head as she said to herself, ‘Eeh! The things that have happened this day; it’s like the end of the world, it is that.’

  Six

  The house was quiet. It was like the quiet that follows a hurricane; it was so peaceful that if it wasn’t for the debris no-one would believe that a storm had recently passed that way.

  The quiet hit Thomas with the force of deep resonant sound as he entered the Hall. Dunn hadn’t time these days to listen for the carriage and be there to take his hat, coat and stick, for Dunn was now doing the work of a number of men—and so as he came hurrying from the direction of the study and towards Thomas, he said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  Thomas waved his hand. He helped himself off with his coat, which he now handed to Dunn, saying, ‘Has anyone called?’

  ‘Mr Ferrier’s man brought a letter, sir; it’s in the study.’

  Thomas walked quickly across the hall and into the study. The letter was propped against a paperweight on the only clear space on his desk. He did not take up the slender hoof-handled paperknife to open it, but inserted his finger under the flap and whipped it across the top.

  He stood while reading the letter. It was short; it said: ‘Dear Thomas. You know without my saying that I sympathise deeply with you in your trouble, and if it were possible for me to help you to any great extent you know I would do so, but things are at a critical stage in the works at present. As I told you when I saw you last I’m having to close down the factory at Shields. However, if a couple of hundred would be of any use you’re very welcome, but I’m sorry I can’t rise to a thousand. Drop in any time you feel like it, you’ll always be welcome, you know that.’ It was signed simply, ‘John’.

  ‘You’ll always be welcome.’ The words came like grit through his teeth. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. He crushed the letter in his hand and, putting it on the desk, he beat it flat with his fist. After a moment he sat down in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk and drooped his head onto his chest. Armstrong, Headley, and now Ferrier, men he’d have sworn would have stood by him to the death, for they were his three best friends; moreover they were men on whom he had lavished the best of his house. Why, when John Ferrier’s eldest son, Patrick, was married he bought the pair silver to the value of more than six hundred pounds; and when their first child was born his christening mug, plate and spoon had cost something, and now here was John, his very good friend, saying he could manage a couple of hundred. It would have been better if he had done what Frank Armstrong had done and ignored his plea altogether. His appeal to Frank had been returned, saying that Mr Armstrong, his wife and daughter had gone to London, and their stay would be indefinite…And Ralph Headley? He had pushed business his way when he was a struggling nobody, he could almost say he had made him. What was more, for years he had supplemented his income with money he had lost to him in gambling. In his young days he would bet on a fly crawling up the window, and he had done just that, a hundred pounds at a time, and had paid up smiling because it was to Ralph, and Ralph needed a hand.

  And because he knew just how much he had helped Ralph he had asked him for the loan of three thousand; enough to cover Dick’s bail and to clear the servants’ wages and see him over the next few months. But what had Ralph sent? A cheque for three hundred pounds. Margaret’s wedding was going to cost something, he said, and the young devil, George, had been spending money like water. Later on perhaps, when he knew how he stood after the wedding, he’d likely be able to help him further.

  The condescension that had emanated from that particular letter, and something more, something that had come over in the refusal of his friends to stand by him in this terrible moment of his life, had hit him like a blow between the eyes and blurred for a time the knowledge that was pressing against his pride and self-esteem. But now that knowledge had forced its way into the open and could be described by one word, dislike. At one time he would have put the term ‘jealousy’ to it, but not any more. He knew now what he had really known for years: he had no friends. These men had really disliked him, as many such had disliked his fath
er before him. He was a Mallen; Turk Mallen his supposed friends called him because his misdeeds had left their mark on the heads of his fly-blows. All men whored, but the results of his whoring had a brand on them. He was Turk Mallen, ‘the man with a harem in the hills’, as one wit had said. All right, he had made cuckolds out of many men, but he had never let a friend down, nor taken a liberty with his wife, nor shied a gambling debt, and no child born of him had ever gone hungry; not to his knowledge.

  A knock came on the door and Dunn entered bearing a tray.

  ‘I thought you might like something hot, sir.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, Dunn.’ Thomas looked down into the steaming mug that held hot rum, and he sniffed and gave a wry smile as he said, ‘This must be running short by now.’

  ‘I’ve managed to secure a certain number of bottles, sir.’

  ‘Ah! Well now, that was good thinking.’ Again the wry smile. ‘They’ll be a comfort, in more ways than one.’

  Thomas sipped at the rum, then said, ‘How many of you are left?’

  Dunn moved one lip over the other before he replied, ‘Besides Mr Brown and Mr Tweedy, there is Mr Brydon and, of course, Miss Brigmore and Mary Peel.’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Yes, six, sir, indoors, but there are two still in the stables. They…they will have to remain there until…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Where is Mr Tweedy now?’

  ‘Visiting the farms, sir. As you ordered, leaving just the bare staff.’

  Thomas now looked down at the desk, his eyes sweeping over the mass of papers and bills arrayed there. Then he took another sip from the tankard before looking up at Dunn again and saying, ‘You’ll be all right, Dunn; I’ll give you a good reference. Just…just tell me when you want to go. There are a number of houses that’ll jump at you.’

  ‘There’s no hurry, sir, none whatever.’

  ‘Well, you can’t live on air, Dunn, no more than any of us. I won’t be able to pay you after this week.’

  ‘I’m fully aware of that, sir. Still, there’s no hurry. Mrs Brydon is of the same opinion; as is Mr Tweedy; and I’m sure you can rely on Mr Brown.’

  Thomas now lowered his head. Forty staff he’d employed in the house and the farms and six were quite willing to stay with him until such times as they were all turfed out. You could say it was a good percentage. Strange where one found one’s friends. He looked up at Dunn and said, ‘Thank them for me, will you? I’ll…I’ll see them personally later.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As Dunn was about to turn away he stopped and said, ‘May I enquire how Master Dick is, sir?’

  Thomas stretched his thick neck up out of his collar before saying, ‘Putting as good a face on it as he can, Dunn. I…I had hopes of being able to bail him out but—’ he tapped the crumpled letter that was lying to his hand now and said, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t succeeded.’ Strange how one could talk like this to one’s butler, and in an ordinary tone, without any command, or condescension on the one hand or false hee-hawing on the other, as one was apt to do with one’s friends.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘So am I, Dunn, so am I. By the way, where are the men?’ He did not call them bailiffs.

  ‘Two are in the library, sir, cataloguing the books, the other is up in the west wing doing the bedrooms.’

  ‘How much longer are they likely to take do you think?’

  ‘Two days, three at the most I should say, sir.’

  Thomas now narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before he said, ‘By the way, Cook went three days ago didn’t she? Who’s doing the cooking now?’

  ‘Well, sir,’—Dunn inclined his head slightly towards him—‘Mrs Brydon and myself are managing quite well, and Miss Brigmore has been of some assistance. She has seen to the children’s meals and to her own and Peel’s.’

  ‘Thank you, Dunn.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Alone once more, Thomas sat back in the chair and, stretching one hand, he pressed his first finger and thumb tightly on to his eyeballs. He had forgotten about the children because he hadn’t seen them for days, she had kept them out of his way. Funny, he thought of her as she. Why? It was much too personal a tag to attach to her prim little packet of flesh. Yet she had thawed. Yes, she had indeed. Anyway, he was glad the children had her, and that they had a home to go to, and two hundred a year between them. But could they exist on two hundred a year? Well they would have to. What did she get? He opened a drawer to the side of him and took out a long ledger and, turning the pages, he brought his finger down to the name. Brigmore…Brigmore, Anna, employed as governess from the first of September, 1844, at a salary of forty-five pounds per annum. He noted that there was no mention against this of an allowance of beer, tea or sugar.

  Forty-five pounds, that would make a big hole in the two hundred. Then there must be someone to do the work. The Peel girl, how much was she getting? He turned back the pages. Mary Peel, bonded, third kitchen maid, two pounds twelve shillings per annum, extra beer, sugar and tea allowed; promoted second kitchen maid at five pounds per annum; promoted nursery maid 1844 at twelve pounds per annum, extra beer, tea, sugar allowed.

  Well that was another twelve pounds. That would hardly leave three pounds a week to feed them all. Could it be done? He doubted it. What could one get for three pounds a week? What could four people get for three pounds a week?

  … And what are you going to do?

  It was as if someone were asking the question of him and he shook his head slowly from side to side. If it wasn’t for Dick he knew what he would do and this very night, for here he was without a penny to his name and no prospect of having one in the future. Even if the estate sold well, and the contents of the house also, he knew it would not give his creditors twenty shillings in the pound.

  But damn his creditors, damn them to hell’s flames, each and every one of them, for, almost without exception, they had overcharged him for years. Why, he asked himself now as he stared at the row of sporting prints hanging above the mantelpiece opposite to him, why hadn’t he been like others under similar circumstances and made a haul while the going was good? Even Dunn had had the foresight to look to himself and secure some bottles, and he would like to bet that there wasn’t a servant in the house but had helped himself to something. But he, what had he done? Well, what had he done? Could he, when the house was in an uproar, when his son had gone to pieces, when the place was swarming with officers of the law, deliberating whether it might be manslaughter or excusable homicide if the man were to die, and seeming to imply that the eventual penalty would be severe because the victim happened to be a lawman, could he then have gone round surreptitiously acquiring his own valuables? Yet there was not one of his so-called friends who would believe that he hadn’t done so, either before or after the bailiff incident. No-one but a fool, they would say, would let bums have it all their own way, and Turk Mallen was no fool…Yet Thomas Mallen, the Thomas Mallen he knew himself to be, was a fool and always had been.

  But now it was Dick he must think about; he must get him bailed out of there or by the time the trial came up he would be a gibbering idiot. Thank God it looked as if the man was going to survive, otherwise there would have been no question of bail. As it was, they made it stiff, a thousand pounds.

  He had never expected Dick to break as he had done. He had imagined, up till recently, there was a tough side to him or had he just hoped there was? His own father used to say, a man can be fearless when cornered by a rutting stag as long as he’s on a horse and has a gun to hand. But meet up with the stag when on his feet and empty-handed, and who do you think will run first?

  Dick had met the stag in the form of the law and he had neither gun nor horse. As he had looked on him today in that stark, bare room he had felt both pity and scorn for him, aye, yes, and a touch of loathing, because it was he, this son of his, and he alone, who had brought them all to such a pass. But for the false pride that he had m
ade turn on that bloody ingrate of a footman, everything would have been settled between him and Fanny Armstrong and no doubt at this very moment the whole Hall would have been in a frenzy of preparations for the engagement banquet, whereas he would now be lucky to have one course for a meal tonight.

  He sat with his head bowed until his thoughts touched on the children again; he must see to them, get them out of this and to the cottage, the atmosphere of the house wasn’t good for anyone any more. Slowly he reached out and rang the bell, thinking as he did so what it would be like to ring a bell and have no-one answer it—well, he would soon know, that was certain.

  It was some minutes before Dunn made his appearance and then, deferential as ever, he stood just within the door and said, ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Tell Miss Brigmore I’d like to see her for a moment…please.’ Again he felt a tightness in his collar and he ran his finger around the edge of it. That was the first time he could ever remember saying please to his butler. Sometimes he had given him a perfunctory thanks, but that was all. Had one to be destitute before becoming aware of good manners? Strange that he should learn something at this time of trial…

  When Miss Brigmore knocked on the study door she was immediately bidden to enter. After closing the door quietly behind her, she walked slowly up to the desk and looked at her master. Her look was open and held no trace of embarrassment. She was grateful to him for ending her years of virginity, her years of personal torment. She had never been able to see any virtue in chastity, and had questioned the right of a piece of paper which legalised a natural desire, a desire which, indulged in before the signing of the paper, earned for the female the title of wanton, or whore, while it was considered the natural procedure for a male, even making him into a dashing fellow, a real man, and a character. She had strong secret views on the rights of the individual—the female individual in particular, and it was only the necessity to earn her livelihood that had kept them secret, and herself untouched, this far.