Miss Mary Martha Crawford (32 page)

Now, together with her dressing case, all her belongings were arrayed around her, and as she looked down into the half-filled trunk she

realized how little she possessed of anything.

Her plans were made. Tomorrow morning she would go by carrier cart

into Hexham and there find accommodation. She thought she might call on Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong;

they were kindly folk and she would need to be with kindly folk for a little time until she got her bearings. They had, she knew, a spare

room, for it had been arranged that Mildred should stay there over

night if the weather towards the end of the year were to become too

inclement for her to travel by the carrier cart.

Once she was settled she'd send a cab to collect her belongings and

that would be the end of it. Or the beginning. But of what? The

question had the power to create fear of the future, but she challenged it with: whatever the future held, whatever subservient position she was forced to take in order to make a livelihood it could not be more humiliating than would be her existence in this house under a new

mistress . a school mistress. That was the worst part of it. The

house to be turned into a boarding school, the rooms turned into

dormitories, and classrooms. And they'd want all the rooms wouldn't

they? This, her own room, would be considered an unnecessary luxury, and she would be relegated to the attic again the picture was so vivid that she banged down the lid of the trunk to shut it out.

There came another knock on the door and she turned her head sharply towards it and cried, "Go away!" "Tis me. Miss Martha Mary."

She drew in a long breath, then went to the door and

withdrew the bolt, and she looked down on Peg, and Peg looked up at

her, and she knew from the sadness expressed on the small girl's face that there was nothing that had transpired between herself and Roland that Peg wasn't aware of, "What is it. Peg?"

' "Tis the doctor, he's called." She strained her neck upwards as she whispered, "What'll I say to him?"

"The doctor?" She wasn't expecting him. His last visit was only three days ago. But perhaps he had come with some news concerning Nancy.

Well, whatever he had to say about Nancy it didn't interest her any

more. Nancy was Roland's concern. She was finished, finished with

everything, all of them.

"Where is he?"

"I... I put him in the study. I... I said you had a splittin' head and had gone to lie down but I'd tell you. What'll I say to him?"

Martha, looking over Peg's head, thought for a moment, then said, "Tell him I'll be down directly."

"Aye, yes, I will, I will, Miss Martha Mary."

Peg watched the bedroom door being closed before she turned and

scampered across the landing and down the stairs and straight to the study again, and there without ceremony she opened the door and, still scurrying, went up the room and stood close to Harry, and looking up into his face, she hissed, "I'd better tell you, doctor, afore she comes down. There's been trouble, in fact the divil's fagarties here the day. She's leavin'. She's been up in the attic and got her trunk, an' she's leavin', Miss Martha Mary's leavin'."

"Leaving? What do you mean, leaving?"

She now stood on her tiptoes, strained her neck upwards and whispered,

"Tis Master Roland. He came home the day. She sent for him 'cos of Miss Nancy, but he hit her with a bombshell, he told her he was gona be married an' his lass is coming in two days' time. She's a schoolmarm or some- thin' like that. They're going to turn the house into a

school.... Did you ever hear owl like it?"

Harry, his eyes narrowed, his face puckered, bent down

now towards her and asked soitly, You're sure 01 this, regi "Sure as I'm lookin' at you, doctor. I was beyond the door an' I've got ears

like cuddy's lugs, an' I heard every word. There was hell to pay in

there. Never heard Miss Martha Mary go on like it afore. An' I won't stay if she goes, I won't. I'm tellin' you, I won't. She's been me

mistress all this time and a good 'un at that, not like others.

I'll go along of 'er, I will. I'll go along of 'er. "

"Ssh! someone's coming. Go on." He pushed her.

Peg reached the study door as Martha entered, and Martha looking on to the lowered head guessed immediately that Peg had been talking, and her suspicions were confirmed when she looked at Harry, for never had she seen his face as she was seeing it now.

When he put his hand on her arm and said, "Sit down," she gulped before answering, "I'm ... I'm all right."

"You're not all right. You don't look all right. Sit down." He pressed her on to the couch, then seated himself, not close to her, yet not at any great distance.

"Peg's just given me the gist of something that I can't believe," he said quietly.

"She ... she says you're leaving the house."

Tes. Yes, I'm leaving. " She was staring towards the empty fireplace that was hidden by a hand-worked screen.

"And Peg will likely have told you why."

"She says your brother is going to be married."

"Yes, he's going to be married."

He paused for a moment before saying.

"It must have come as a shock to you. After all you were providing for him to go to university."

"Yes, yes." She nodded slowly, still staring straight ahead.

"Did ... did you never consider that he would some day marry?"

When she turned her head slowly now and looked at him there was a look in her eyes that hurt him, and he glimpsed how deeply she had been

humiliated in her own sight.

"No, doctor, no, I didn't. But I see now I have been blind, selfishly blind, perhaps because I did not wish it to happen.

1 his was my home; 1. I have been in charge of it tor such a long

time, at least it has seemed a long time to me, that I imagined--' She drooped her head now as she ended-- "At least I must have hoped that I would always be in charge of it."

"You wouldn't consider staying on and seeing what she's ...? No, no."

He shook his head.

"I can see that would be too much to ask of you."

"Yes, yes it would." She raised her eyes to his now as she said, "I'm glad that you agree with me in this at least, doctor."

"You may not believe it, but I have agreed with you on many things, though my manner unfortunately may not have conveyed this to you. I

am, as you will have gathered, of a very quick temper--' he smiled

tentatively now 'but... yes, yes, I do agree with you wholeheartedly that under the circumstances your position would be quite untenable.

But may I ask what you intend to do when you leave? "

"Find lodgings first. I may go to Mr. Armstrong's, then ... then seek a position."

"As what?"

She did hot answer him immediately but stared back into his eyes while her lower jaw wobbled slightly from side to side.

"As a housekeeper."

"A housekeeper?" He made a small obeisance with his head.

"Yes; a housekeeper."

"Oh."

Again they were looking at each other in silence, and he had the most frightening and overwhelming desire to thrust out his hands, grab hers and say, "Gome and be my housekeeper."

During the still seconds that followed the madness subsided, but did not entirely fade away for now he hitched himself nearer to her on the couch and was actually calling her by her name.

"Martha Mary," he said, "I'm going to call you by your name because everybody else seems to do that, and it will

smooth the ground between us, for this is a time I think when you

should look upon me as a friend and not as an . an opponent. "

Her eyes seemed to be getting wider, her face seemed to be stretching at all points. She knew that in a moment she would break down. He had called her by her name, and it didn't sound silly, or matronish, or

biblical. He had, in some way, made it sound a pleasant name. He was being kind to her; she had never imagined he could be so kind, at least not to her. She was going to cry.

He had taken her hands; in spite of himself he had taken hold of her hands.

"Don't upset yourself, try not to cry." Yet even as he gave her this advice he knew he should be saying, "Let go, cry your fill, howl out your anguish," for he knew she was actually suffering anguish.

Years ago when he first came into practice one of his patients was a refined gentlewoman dying in utter poverty, and in this moment he

recalled the substance of her words, as he had done on many other

occasions: "Nearly everyone has sympathy for the pain they can see,"

she had said; 'the children in the mines, the factory workers, those on the land, they all elicit sympathy from thinking people. I have always worked to help the poor, and when I say to them I understand their

plight they always answer, "You'll never know what misery is like, miss." But there is a misery of the mind, doctor, a misery of the spirit that the poor fortunately know nothing about, because you have to have a certain amount of education before you are introduced to the torture chambers of the mind, wherein the membranes, sensitized by your early environment, sharpen the agony of living. "

The misery of the spirit that the poor know nothing of. It was quite true. The poor were inured to misery from their birth, and they seemed to withstand misfortune with a stoicism because it was untouched by the torture of the mind.

He looked down on to the hands held within his and felt the. movement of her thumb unconsciously scratching at his knuckle, which was a sure sign of the tension within her, the tension that would eventually, and not so very far ahead,

snap her nerves into a mental illness. And so he shook the hands up

and down vigorously, saying, "It may all be for the best. One never knows at the time why these things happen, but looking back you see

they are for the best. And don't ever feel you're alone, do you hear me?"

She nodded slowly but was unable to answer him.

"Oh!" He now nipped at his lower lip.

"Miss Sophie. What's going to happen to her?"

She swallowed deeply.

"I don't know. It ... it is his responsibility."

"He may put her in a home."

"No, no," she shook her head, 'that would cost money. "

He gave a small laugh, saying, "Yes, you're right, it would cost money." He rose to his feet and walked up and down the hearth-rug twice before saying abruptly, "Your sister?"

Her voice sounded calm now as she answered, "That, too, is his

responsibility, and ... and I know only too well, in fact I think I

have known all along that in the end she will do what she wants to

do."

"She has already done it."

She looked startled for a moment, her own misery forgotten.

"How... how do you know?"

"I met them just a short while back returning from Newcastle. They had been married by licence. They must have left very early this

morning."

She looked now towards the window and the falling rain, and after a

moment said, "Yes, she left very early this morning. So 'tis done then?"

"Yes, 'tis done, and ... and I don't think anything can undo it. No effort that your brother can make...."

"I don't think he'll make any effort in that direction, he is not one for making efforts. No." She sighed now a deep slow sigh, and looked up at him.

"He will say he has cut her off, he will use that term."

Her head nodded as if in agreement with her statement.

"And if he meets her in the town he'll pass her as if he doesn't know her, as my father would have done. Roland is a hypocrite, as my father was too."

He could say nothing to this, only continue to look at her

and think that it was a damn shame, in fact it was a bloody shame, and that was swearing to it, that a girl like this should have lost her

youth slaving after such a worthless family. And they were all

worthless, from the father down to the pretty one who had married the drover today. They were worthless and selfish. It was always the one who did the most in a family, worked the hardest, shouldered the

responsibility who in the end was handed the dirty end of the stick.

And there was no doubt that she had got the dirty end of the stick

today. Only one thing surprised him, that she should be leaving the

old aunt without apparently showing any qualms as to what might happen to her, for he had noticed that there was a bond between them. Still, who could blame her? Not he, definitely not he. In a way, let him

face it, he was glad it was happening. Oh yes, it was like watching

her being released from prison, seeing her coming up out of a dungeon, a dungeon of petty class values and prejudices; seeing her going out into the world would be like watching someone having their fetters

hacked off them and released into clear open air for the first time

since birth.

He watched her now rise to her feet and walk to the window and,

standing with her back to him, say, "I ... I don't wish you to be sorry for me, doctor."

"Oh!" He, too, was at the window now.

"Oh, I'm not at all sorry for you, at least not because you have been forced to make a stand and are going out into the world. No. But at

the same time I am sorry that you have been treated in such a fashion, for as I see it you have given your young life to the family, and

almost ..." He only checked himself in time from saying 'lost your entire youth'. But that wouldn't have been true. She was still young, in fact, he had never seen her looking so young. It was as if in

throwing off the responsibility of the house she had thrown off surplus years with it. When he first saw her he had imagined her to be

anything up to twenty-six. Now she looked a vulnerable girl of

seventeen or eighteen.

"When are you leaving?"

"First thing in the morning." She turned from the window.

"You say you're going to the Armstrongs' ?"