The Branded Man Read online

  Just a cold. Did one take to bed with a broken heart? Because that’s what happened when a lover deserted you. At least, the stories all said this; and she, too, could believe it. Oh yes, she could believe it. She felt a wave of remorse sweep over her. She shouldn’t have said the things she had to her, she shouldn’t have struck her because she must have loved him very much. You didn’t do the things she had done that night if you didn’t love somebody very much. Yet, immediately, there sprang to her mind the voices coming out of the chimney piece, accompanied by the sounds of struggle and fighting. Once upon a time she had imagined you had only to be married to somebody to love them, to love them for ever. She was silly. Many of her thoughts were silly. There was a part of her so childish that she disliked it, the while still clinging to it.

  For the first time in her life her thoughts went out tenderly towards her sister, yet she knew she would never be able to put them into words that would bring Evelyn any comfort; even if she were to try, she would be rebuffed. Oh yes. Evelyn would always hate her for having witnessed her degradation.

  She wished the weeks would fly until she could walk again and go to London, for she knew that no matter what she met with there, it could only be better than the life she led in this house. Her only regret was that she would have to leave her grandpa and Pat. Oh, she would miss them, miss them both. Yet Pat did sometimes go to London, and perhaps he’d be able to see her. It was a hope, anyway. Of course, there were always letters: she could write every day to her grandfather…well, not every day but every week. Oh yes, every week.

  London. London. The very name was becoming like a star in the enclosed world of her bedroom.

  Her thoughts were about to drop her into sleep when in her half state she suddenly saw a face hanging over her. The moon seemed to be shining on it and it was frightening. It was black with an eye in it. Then the next minute, she recalled, an ordinary face had taken its place, a kind face, and the voice that went with it was kind: ‘You’ll be all right. You’ll be all right.’ One of them had been the branded man. She had heard about him. He didn’t go into the village. She remembered her grandpa saying they were ignorant clodhoppers and that the man was a sculptor and was accepted in London, and that his work was beautiful. She had a vague memory of him saying the man had been brought up by monks or someone, or something, and that his cottage had been left to him by a relative.

  Every now and again she would be startled by the vision of the changing face; in fact, she had come to believe there must have been two people there that night, the branded man and another.

  But what did it matter? That was all in the past; London was looming up. And on this thought, sleep finally overcame her.

  PART TWO

  One

  To Marie Anne, it was as though she had been living in the train for years. She was made tired by the rhythm of the wheels ever turning, ever grinding, and by the not infrequent waves of sooty smoke that enveloped her should she open the window.

  She was seated in a first-class carriage and she’d had this to herself as far as York.

  The guard, to whom Pat had talked quite a lot, had assured him that he would take care of her. And he had been as good as his word: twice he had brought her a cup of tea and a biscuit, and when at York an elderly couple had entered the compartment, he had been quick to explain to them that she was in his care. They, too, had been very pleasant and showed interest in the fact that she was going to London to take up a musical career. However, for most of the journey she had lain back in her corner of the carriage with closed eyes and had mentally gone over the parting with her grandpa. She had cried, and in his eyes, too, there had been tears which had spilled down his lined cheeks, and these had caused him to hold her close and to comfort her, assuring her that if she did not like it up there, she was to return home, no matter what anyone said. But in the meantime she should not worry about him because, on Pat’s suggestion, he was going to return to his old apartments in The Manor, for they said he was in need of a little care now and then—Maggie Makepeace was getting on. But nevertheless he meant to keep The Little Manor aired with Maggie and Barney and Katie still in place there. So she hadn’t to worry about returning, if she should want to.

  She knew that he had had words with her mother, telling her that she herself should accompany her daughter to London and see her settled into this new life. It was also unfortunate that Pat was unable to leave the business. Some trouble had erupted among the crew, which included a number of lascars, and neither her father nor Vincent was capable of handling such an affair.

  So, on 19 October 1899, Marie Anne was assisted from the carriage onto the gaslit platform of King’s Cross station and into the mêlée of passengers. The guard, carrying out his instructions to the letter, led her to the barrier, and there held up a board on which was chalked in large letters: Miss Sarah Foggerty.

  This brought a movement on the other side of the iron gate, and what appeared to be a woman in her early thirties thrust herself forward, saying, ‘I am Miss Foggerty.’

  And to this the guard said, ‘Well, here is your charge, Miss Foggerty; and she’s been a very, very good girl.’

  After glancing at the woman who was now standing by her side, Marie Anne held out her hand to the guard, saying, ‘Thank you very much, mister guard. You have been very kind. I shall write and tell my grandfather.’

  ‘Oh, that would be kind indeed of you, miss. It’s been a pleasure to look after you. Good day to you now. Good day.’

  She was walking through the crowded station now beside this strange woman, at whom she had, as yet, not looked fully. Nor was she able to see her plainly until they were standing under a street lamp on the pavement outside, when Sarah Foggerty, bending her thin shape towards her, said, ‘Everything will be very strange at first, me dear. But I hope you’ll get used to it. Were you sick in the train?’

  ‘No. No, I wasn’t sick. But I…I feel very tired. It was a long journey, and…and my first.’

  ‘Well, we will soon be home. Oh, here’s the porter with your cases. You only have two of them?’

  ‘Yes, only two.’

  After the porter had lifted the cases from his barrow he looked meaningfully at the woman and she, after a moment, fumbled in her pocket, brought out a purse and, picking out a copper, she handed it to him, at which he stared, then turned away without saying a word.

  As if undecided, Sarah Foggerty stood looking down at the two cases before she said, ‘Yes, we’ll take a cab. We’ll take a cab.’

  Into the first available cab she ushered Marie Anne with her hand on her bottom and a gentle push; then, one after the other, she hoisted the cases along the floor, before calling to the cabbie, ‘Seventeen Blake Terrace, please.’ Then after lifting herself up the high step, she pulled the door closed before flopping down beside Marie Anne, and saying enigmatically, ‘There, that’s it; no horse-bus today.’

  Marie Anne smiled wanly at this plain-faced and cheaply dressed but, obviously, very competent woman. As yet, she knew little about her, only that she appeared kind and had a nice lilting voice. And when, more enigmatically still, she said, ‘From now on, dear, take no notice of what I say, only of what I do. No doubt this’ll puzzle you, but as it says in the Bible, all things will be made clear to you in time.’

  A moment or so after the cab stopped, the cabbie pulled open the door, and having taken the cases from Miss Foggerty’s hands, he helped first her, then Marie Anne to step down onto the street.

  ‘How much is that I owe you?’ Sarah Foggerty asked.

  ‘One and a penny, miss.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Marie Anne watched the woman take from her purse, first, a silver shilling and a penny, then another penny, and pause before laying this beside the fare. And when the cabbie, looking at it, said, ‘Well, thank you, miss, for small mercies; I’ve always been glad of small mercies,’ she replied, ‘So have I. So have I. Good day to you. Come along, dear.’ She now lifted up the two cases and wa
lked towards an iron gate which she thrust open with a flick of her buttoned boot, then walked up the short path to an unpretentious front door; and here, nodding towards the wall, she said, ‘Ring that bell there, dear.’

  Marie Anne did as she was bidden, and after a minute or so the door was pulled open by a maid, who said, ‘Here you are then, miss.’ And for answer Sarah Foggerty replied, ‘Yes, Clara, here we are, in the flesh.’

  She dropped the two cases down, then turned to Marie Anne, saying, ‘This here is Clara Emery, our one and only—’ there was a pause before she added, ‘maid.’ Then, her voice changing to a low whisper, she leant towards the girl, saying, ‘Where is she…the missis?’

  The answer, too, came in a whisper: ‘In the sitting room, waiting. But she’s only been down a little while.’

  As if she had momentarily forgotten the new member of the household, Sarah Foggerty turned to Marie Anne while still addressing the maid, saying, ‘This is Miss Marie Anne Lawson, the mistress’ new ward,’ and the little maid bobbed her knee as she said, ‘Welcome, miss.’

  All Marie Anne could say at this moment was, ‘Thank you,’ for the new word ‘ward’ was probing her mind. So that’s what she was to be, a ward. What exactly was a ward? She would have to find out.

  She was slightly startled when Miss Foggerty stopped her as she went to take off her hat, saying, ‘Don’t take it off, nor your coat; she’ll likely want to see you in the whole. Come, let’s get it over.’

  They had been standing in a narrow hall, more like a long passage, Marie Anne thought. At the end of it was a flight of stairs, but she seemed to be viewing it through a mist, for the place was what she would have termed not exactly dark but dusky.

  After first knocking on the sitting room door, Sarah Foggerty pushed it open with one hand while drawing Marie Anne into the room with the other, and immediately Marie Anne saw that this room was much lighter, yet still devoid of colour. Everything looked as if it was made of heavy dark wood, but there was a long window at the far end through which she glimpsed a bit of green beyond. Between the window and herself sat a woman in a straight-backed chair. She had grey hair pulled tightly back from her round plump face, and she was dressed in unrelieved black.

  The woman did not speak until Marie Anne was standing in front of her, and then only after scrutinising her closely through narrowed lids. ‘You’ve got here then,’ she said. ‘You are much bigger than I thought you would be. How old are you now?’

  ‘I was fifteen on the second of August, ma’am.’

  ‘I am your aunt. Address me as such, girl.’

  Marie Anne had wondered about this woman being her aunt, when, in fact, she was only her mother’s half-sister, and definitely much older than her mother. Her face wasn’t wrinkled, but it was old-looking and tight-skinned. Yes, it was what she would call a tight face. She heard herself obediently saying, ‘Yes, Aunt.’

  ‘You know why you’re here, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt. To take up a musical career.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope so. We all have to earn a living.’

  When Marie Anne heard Miss Foggerty cough she was about to turn and look at her, when her aunt said, ‘I’d better warn you. There’s no space for your flights of fancy here: if you start running it’ll be into the street and under a horse’s hooves before you know where you are, or taken up by the police. You understand?’

  Yes. Yes, she understood but she said no word, and when Sarah Foggerty coughed again, her mistress turned to her, saying, ‘Take her up and tell her the rules.’ Then bringing her gaze back to Marie Anne, she added, ‘And rules have to be adhered to in this house. You understand?’

  Again Marie Anne understood only too well about two things: that she didn’t like this woman, and she didn’t like this house.

  When Sarah Foggerty’s hand came on her elbow it had to give her a slight tug before she turned away; then, after they had entered the hall and Sarah Foggerty was about to close the door, Martha Culmill’s voice, louder now, came at them, calling, ‘Foggerty!’

  Sarah Foggerty stepped back into the room, and at the same time Marie Anne went further into the hall, but still within earshot of what was being said, to hear her aunt say, ‘You came by cab. Why not the horse-bus?’

  ‘We had missed it, ma’am, and we would have had another hour to wait.’

  ‘What did he charge…the cabbie?’

  ‘One and threepence, ma’am.’

  Marie Anne’s eyes widened. He had charged only one and a penny.

  Her aunt’s voice came again, saying. ‘One and threepence! They never charge more than a shilling. You didn’t tip him?’

  ‘Of course not, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, let there be no more cabs.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  Sarah Foggerty closed the door of the sitting room, then turned and looked at Marie Anne; and Marie Anne stared back at her, her active mind summing up the means by which this woman had managed to tip the porter a penny and the cabbie a similar sum. She was quick to admire Sarah’s ingenuity, and so she smiled at the woman. And as Sarah smiled back she nodded her head once as if acknowledging her co-operation, before she turned and marched briskly to where the cases still stood near the doorway.

  Picking up one she pointed to the other, saying, ‘You take that one, miss. Share and share alike.’

  The stairs were unusually wide but the landing upstairs was narrow, like the hall, with four doors going off it. It was the furthest one that Sarah Foggerty pushed open to show a small bedroom holding a single bed, a wash-hand stand, a wardrobe, and a single wooden chair. Dropping the case onto the bed, Sarah Foggerty stated, ‘The only good thing about this room is it looks onto the garden, but I must tell you there’s no manner or means whereby you can get out of this window or slide down the drainpipe; it’s too far down.’

  It was now that, with open mouth, Marie Anne stared at Miss Foggerty, and Sarah Foggerty smiled widely while nodding at her as she said, ‘Oh, I know all about you and your capers, oh, every one of them, because it’s this way: I have to read her letters to her; I have to read everything to her. She can’t see print but she can see everything else. Oh aye, yes. There’s something happening to her eyes; the doctor says it’s age. So there’s nothing for it but she’s got to have me read her letters out and oh, girl! I could’ve split me sides many a time, for you were meself over again when I was young back there, running like a hare across the moor. My running got me somewhere an’ all: sent over to England here, and into place. But I had been to the penny school, and I was fortunate, and I was quick to learn. But you, where’s it landed you? In this dull house, it has; and this you’ve noticed already, I can see by your face; and you haven’t taken to her, have you? Well, who would? But anyway, you’ve got two choices: you either put up with it and do some laughing behind her back, or you skedaddle back home, where, by the sound of it, you would be as welcome as an Orangeman in the Falls Road, if you get what I mean. To my mind, girl,’ Sarah was bending towards Marie Anne, who was now seated on the end of the bed, ‘And I’m going to say it, and I’m sure it won’t alter your opinion very much, but I think your mother’s a hard nut.’

  That Marie Anne was bewildered was evident, but it was a kind of revealing bewilderment, for it was telling her that she not only liked this woman, but also that she would make a friend of her. She was very like Maggie Makepeace, except that Maggie wasn’t Irish. Impulsively, she put out her hands and gripped those of the plain-faced little woman, and almost tearfully, she said, ‘Thank you for being so kind to me. I’m…I’m glad I’m with you.’

  It was some seconds before Sarah Foggerty answered, when she said, ‘Well, that’s nice to know, miss, and they’ll be relieved in the kitchen an’ all. I can speak for Agnes and Clara. You met her, little Clara, and Agnes is the cook. Cook-general, she’s called. We’re all generals here. I’m general night nurse, day nurse, secretary, and for what? I come cheap. I’m known as her companion, but I’m no lady
born and bred, as you might have guessed, but the ladies who applied for the job wanted twice as much as she was willing to pay, so she picked me, sale price, goods not returnable. That’s it, smile, girl. You’re a bonny piece, but unusually so: your eyes are too big for your body, I would say, but when you smile you come into your own. Well now, as she said, to rules.

  ‘Cook and Clara get up at half-past six, although it’s supposed to be six. I rise at seven. I have to, as I sleep next door to her. You’ll get up at half-past seven. Breakfast is at eight. It’s usually porridge. Twice a week we have bacon…streaky, and once a week we have an egg. At twelve o’clock we have midday dinner, whatever cook can devise out of the cheeseparing orders from above. Five o’clock we have tea; bread and butter, jam, plum and apple mostly. Once a week, Cook is allowed to bake a cake, which we have at the weekend. A cup of cocoa at eight. And that’s the menu. At least, as is written down on orders from above.’ She now raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘I have the job of weighing all ingredients, and’—again she was leaning towards Marie Anne—‘you wouldn’t believe it, miss, how wrong those scales are at times; so you needn’t worry, there’ll be a bit of cake out of the secret tin whenever you feel like it, and should you feel hungry at any time, cold sausage on buttered toast is a good filling.’

  ‘Oh! Miss Foggerty.’ Marie Anne had her fingers across her lips now. She had a great desire to laugh, but she also knew this might turn into hysterical crying, because she was still very churned up inside.

  ‘Call me Sarah. I’d like that.’