Feathers in the Fire (2 page)

When it was over Molly had walked away with her head down, she had not cried. He had stared after her helplessly. The whole thing had come upon him so suddenly he couldn’t believe it had happened. Everybody seemed stunned, all except Geary, who showed no satisfaction in the outdated punishment he had demanded.

He had wondered at the time why Geary’s big-mouthed, slovenly wife hadn’t done something to prevent the whole business; but no, she had just stood there and watched her seventeen-year-old daughter being made a public spectacle.

When he came to look at the affair from a distance he couldn’t make it out, because Cassy Geary was the one to spew mouthfuls of abuse on anybody who laid a finger on a member of her family, even when they were all bairns together and in a straight barnyard fight . . . As his granda said, there was a smelly rat here somewhere. But where?

When he had finished his work in the byres he went out and across the yard to the harness room. There, young Mickey Geary was sitting on a high bench with his back towards the wood-panelled walls, and he was almost entirely obliterated by a saddle arched across his knees. His face was bright and cheery. What he had witnessed happening to his sister this morning had apparently left no impression on him, for he said airily, ‘Want me to come now, Davie?’

‘You finished that?’

‘All but.’

‘You’ve been some time; you started it first thing.’

‘Aye, but I’ve cleaned it bonny.’

Davie lifted the saddle away from the boy and examined it, then nodded and said, ‘It’ll do.’

‘We goin’ for the cows?’

‘Aye.’

The child slipped agilely from the bench on to the floor, where his diminutive height and thinness questioned his eight years, but for all his smallness he was a bright little fellow and a favourite with Davie, or had been up till today. Now he hated the whole job lot of Gearys.

As Mickey trotted beside him he chatted. ‘You goin’ to make up some polish the night, we’re nearly out, Davie?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Can I help you? Can I stir the wax, you said I could last time?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘When is Primrose gona calf?’

‘Soon.’

They went out of the farmyard into the road, through a gap in a drystone wall opposite, across a field and over a stile towards the steep hill they called The Ridge. The grass was slippery and Mickey measured his length once or twice, but Davie didn’t stop until the small voice suddenly said, ‘Ee bugger! I’m not ’alf hungry, me bloody belly thinks me throat’s cut.’

Another time this would have brought a smothered laugh from Davie and he would have cuffed the boy’s ear while admonishing him, but now he just admonished him sternly, saying, ‘Let the master hear you an’ that language an’ he’ll sort you out.’ Then staring down into the small round face, he asked, ‘Didn’t you have no dinner?’

‘No. Me ma never made none, she’s in a hell of a sweat. Everybody is . . . you gona marry our Molly?’

Davie’s face stretched; his whole body stretched, and before he could say anything the boy backed away a step, saying, ‘Well, I only axed, ’cos our Johnnie said you had a shy on her.’

‘Well, you can tell Johnnie to keep his mouth shut,’ he bellowed at the lad, then turned away and closed his eyes for a moment before tramping sharply on again.

On the top of the ridge he waited for the boy to catch up. From where he stood he could see a great expanse of land beyond the boundary of the farm. To the right of him were hills, young mountains some of them; showing green, and brown, with here and there great black patches, telling scars of dead lead mines. To the left the land rolled into moorland flatness on its way to Haltwhistle and the South Tyne. In front of him, eight miles as the crow flew, twelve miles by the twisting road, lay Allendale in its nest of moors.

Even in the winter he always paused at this spot to breathe in the air, it seemed purer from up here. Today, a late hot summer day, it was thin and clean and scoured his ribs as he drew it inwards, it was almost as good he considered as the air you breathed from the top of Shale Tor.

Mickey, crawling to his side on all fours, straightened himself and gasped, ‘Whew! I’m out of puff. It’s all slack. When the rain comes I bet it’ll be claggy,’ and Davie, now looking down at him, half smiled and cuffed his ear gently, and the boy laughed and ran ahead of him down the slope and into the field where the cattle were grazing.

They did not bring the cattle back the way they had come, but by a narrow track that skirted the hill and finally led across the twenty-acre field and into the farm by the back road.

But before they came to the field they had to pass along a road so narrow that the cattle walked in single file. Lowing and ambling at their own pace, their bags almost touching the ground, swinging rhythmically from side to side, they went.

More out of habit than in any effort at persuasion, Davie ambled along behind the last stragglers, crying, ‘Git up! Git up there! Move Daisy! You Bella, move! Move I say!’ and when he stopped issuing his fruitless commands, Mickey took them up, ‘Hie-up there! Hie-up there Daisy! Hie-up you Bella! Get along, Vicky, along you get.’

As Mickey’s piping went on Davie happened to glance to his right beyond a low scrub hedge where the land fell away over what was termed the shale field. It was a large strip of land, almost on the north boundary of the farm and in most parts useless because of the outcrops of rock and shale shelves protruding from the ground. Grass did grow in the far corner of the field; contrarily a couple of acres gave luscious grass; perhaps it had something to do with its proximity to the old malt house.

The malt house was in ruins; it had been a ruin when Davie’s grandfather was a boy. One section alone remained. This had been the habitation, but now the ground floor was used as a shelter for the horses in rough weather, when the mares and their foals were brought out here to grass. Halfway across the ground floor an open stairway led to a gallery, which had once, in turn, led to rooms which adjoined the malt house. But now all that remained of these was a wall of doors; the gallery itself was given over to storage of hay and bags of oats.

What had drawn his attention to the malt house was the figure running in that direction; although some distance away he recognised the slight form of Miss Jane. She was holding her skirt in both hands, and her legs were leaping over the ground; from this distance she put him in mind of a two-legged deer. He thought she was going to the mare and foal, the foal being at the pretty enticing stage of four weeks, but when he saw her pass them and make for the malt house he stopped. Mickey stopped too, and, his small face screwing up, he exclaimed, ‘Yon’s Miss Jane, an’, aw look, she’s fallin’ bad!’

When seconds passed and the form on the ground made no move to get up Davie said quickly to the boy, ‘Take them on, I’ll go down and see what’s wrong with her.’

He now hurried back down the narrow path to where the hedge was thinnest and, having pushed his way through, he ran quickly across the field; but before he had covered half the distance he saw his young mistress get to her feet and start running again, not so quickly now and slightly erratic.

When he reached the front of the house, which was paved with large flags of natural stone and was on the side facing away from the field, he paused for a moment before walking quietly to the doorless gap. The stanchion was rubbed smooth in one part by the horses’ hides; the floor inside was of stone too but the flags were smaller and covered with horses’ droppings. The atmosphere was hot and dim and the odour pungent.

He looked about him, then upwards to the railless gallery at the sound of stilled sobbing came from the hay. Quickly he ascended the open stairs to the floor above.

‘Miss Jane!’

There was no answer.

‘Miss Jane! Are you hurt? It’s me, Davie. Are you hurt?’

He walked quietly and slowly towards the hay. She was lying deep in it, and after a moment she turned on her side and looked up at him. Her face was awash with tears, her mouth was wide and her tongue jerking on each sob.

‘What is it? Have you hurt yourself?’ He dropped on to his hunkers beside her, and she closed her eyes and shook her head.

‘You fell, I saw you fall; I was takin’ the cattle in. Are you all right, Miss Jane?’

She nodded her head while she gulped.

‘You’re sure you’re not hurt?’

‘No. No, Davie.’ Her voice was a cracked whisper. Then she looked at her knees that were exposed by her rumpled skirt. One grey stocking was torn and showed scraped flesh oozing specks of blood, and as she eased the stocking off the skin she muttered, ‘I’m not crying because I fell, but because Father . . . Father whipped Molly. He whipped her, Davie . . . you saw . . . ’

He blinked his eyes and looked down and away from her, then said, ‘The master told you to go to the house. Anyway, it’s done, over, so forget about it.’

‘I can’t, Davie. I keep thinking, and just can’t believe that Father . . . ’

When she began to cry again, he said briskly, ‘Now, now. Come on, dry your eyes and come away home. The mistress will be wondering, it’s on your dinner time.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Father’s gone into Hexham; he . . . he didn’t want any dinner, nor . . . nor did Mother.’

‘Well, that doesn’t mean because they don’t eat you’ve got to starve. Come on now, Miss Jane, up with you!’

He was about to rise from his hunkers, he had his hand extended towards her, when there came to them the unmistakable sound of horse’s hooves on the stone paving. The sound in itself should not have caused any surprise for was there not a mare and her foal in the field, but this sound was of a single animal and it had a rider. When the order came for it to stop he recognised the voice. And he wasn’t alone in his recognition; Jane was staring towards the glassless window at the end of the gallery. Then she quickly turned her head towards Davie, and he was on the point of saying, ‘It’s the master,’ when a question flashed through his brain: why should the master, who was supposed to be in Hexham, which was in the opposite direction from this, be coming into the malt house?

He put his hand out and pressed Jane back into the hay with a warning to be quiet, and by moving his head just the slightest he could see, around the mound of hay and between the sacks, the figure of his master framed in the doorless aperture. He was standing with his back towards the room looking out.

The master was waiting for somebody but he was wearing his

town coat, three-quarter length, slightly flared; it had a velvet collar and was cut to his figure. His brown leather gaiters were shining like burnished copper, thanks to the elbow grease of young Mickey Geary. As the riding crop hit the leather the crack startled not only Miss Jane but also himself, and for a moment he almost lost his balance.

When a new sound broke the silence he put his fingers to his lips and warned his young mistress to silence. The sound was of light running steps. The steps turned the corner; then a small plump figure came flying straight into the arms of the waiting man.

The grim tautness of his body was broken by the smothered gasp from his side; the young mistress had moved. She was seeing what he was seeing; her mouth was dropping into a wide gape, and he knew within a second there would issue from it a cry, and then all hell would be let loose, for if he went down there God alone knew what he would do to either of them. But what was equally important, if they looked up and saw him here in the straw with the young mistress their mucky minds would be capable of putting two and two together. The young mistress was but twelve but that wouldn’t matter when some people were looking for ways to defend themselves.

His hand gripped her jaw tightly and, staring down into her eyes, he moved his head twice. Then the voice from below brought his head round, for his master was speaking and using words of passion that a man should use only in the darkness of the night, and he finished them with ‘Oh! Molly, Molly my love, forgive me. How could I! How could I! To beat your flesh like that! Oh! my sweetie, my sweetie.’

‘Aw, don’t you worry, Master, don’t you worry your head. Each stroke was like a kiss ’cos it came from you.’

The girl’s voice was as impassioned as the man’s, and Davie now tried to press Jane back into the hay so that her eyes should not witness her father’s actions, for the master had pulled down Molly Geary’s blouse and was moving his lips over her flesh like a man demented. He closed his eyes against the red flick of the tongue as it washed the weals and to the girl’s flung back head, her face filled with unholy ecstasy.

When he next looked at them the master was holding her tight, his hands were on her buttocks pressing her into him, while he talked rapidly: ‘Your father, he came last night. He didn’t come out in the open, he’s too sly for that. “I’ve asked her to name the man,” he said, “and she won’t.” Do you realise, Molly, he’s known all along?’

‘Aye, Master, I do now. But I didn’t till this mornin’ when I vomited and he came out with it, not naming you, but hinting at it. It’s money he’s after, an’ a house . . . new built, separate.’

‘He’ll get both if he’s sensible, give him to understand that. I won’t be blackmailed, but I’ll do anything, you know I will . . . ’

There were more words, too low now for Davie to hear, but they caused Molly Geary to bury her face in the master’s chest, then suddenly to fling her arms around his neck and cover his mouth with her own while her body moved on his like that of any whore on market day.

His own body was writhing with rage, and again he was only checked from jumping up and diving down the stairs by a movement from the wide-staring-eyed girl at his side. She had her own hand tightly across her mouth now, but she was no longer crying. He had always thought she had a fine pair of eyes, Miss Jane, the best feature of her face, and they would likely stand her in good stead later on if she grew up as plain as she was now. The look in her eyes had been like a picture mirroring the simplicity of her nature; now the look was gone, never, he guessed, to return. It was a known fact among them all that she worshipped the master. It was also a known fact that she was a disappointment to him for he had wanted a son; but he was never harsh with her, yet not tender, and up till now his unspoken wish had been her law. As he looked down into her face he likened the look in her eyes to that of a young fledgling being rent by a hawk.