i 69ef9ff463a71164

by

catherine cookson

This is an early work by Catherine Cookson, who has never written a novel with a more challenging theme. It is absorbing and very moving and written with impassion and a sense of real concern for the issues it involves.

ISBN 0552137162

Recommended Price Only tGSTinc. 9 "780552"137164 Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock and the place of her birth provides the background she so vividly creates in many of her novels.

Although acclaimed as a regional writer her novel THE ROUND TOWER won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 her readership spreads throughout the world. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and Corgi alone has sold almost 40,000,000 copies of her novels, including those written under the name of Catherine Marchant.

Mrs. Cookson was born the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings where she met and married a local grammar school master. At the age of forty she began writing with great success about the lives of the working class people of the North-East with whom she had grown up, including her intriguing autobiography, OUR KATE. Her many best selling novels have established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists.

Mrs. Cookson now lives in Northumberland.

OTHER BOOKS BY CATHERINE COOK SON

NOVELS Kate Hannigan The Fifteen Streets Colour Blind Maggie Rowan Rooney The Menagerie Slinky Jane Fanny McBride Fenwick Houses The Garment The Blind Miller Hannah Massey The Long Corridor The Unbaited Trap Katie Mulholland The Round Tower The Nice Bloke The Glass Virgin The Invitation The Dwelling Place Feathers in the Fire Pure as the Lily The Mallen Streak The Mallen Girl The Mallen Litter The Invisible Cord The Gambling Man Miss Martha Mary Crawford The Tide of Life The Slow Awakening The Iron Facade The Girl The Cinder Path The Man Who Cried Tiny Trotter Tiny Trotter Wed Tiny Trotter Widowed The Whip Hamilton The Black Velvet Gown Goodbye Hamilton A Dinner of Herbs Harold The Moth Bill Bailey The Parson's Daughter Bill Bailey's Lot The Cultured Handmaiden Bill Bailey's Daughter The Harrogate Secret The Black Candle The Wingless Bird The Gillyvors

THE MARY ANN STORIES

A Grand Man Life and Mary Ann The Lord and Mary Ann Marriage and Mary Ann The Devil and Mary Ann Mary Ann's Angels Love and Mary Ann Mary Ann and Bill

FOR CHILDREN

Matty Doolin Mrs. Flannagan's Trumpet Joe and the Gladiator Go Tell It To Mrs. Golightly The Nipper Lanky Jones Blue Baccy Nancy Nuttall and the Mongrel Our John Willie

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Our Kate Catherine Cookson Country Let Me Make Myself Plain WRITING AS CATHERINE MAR CHANT

House of Men Heritage of Folly The Fen Tiger

CORGI BOOKS

THE GARMENT A CORGI BOOK 0 552 13716 2

Originally published in Great Britain by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd.

PRINTING HISTORY

Macdonald edition published 1967 Corgi edition published 1990 Corgi edition reissued 1991

Copyright Catherine Cookson 1967

The right of Catherine Cookson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Conditions of sale 1. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

2. This book is sold subject to the Standard Conditions of Sale of Net Books and may not be re-sold in the UK below the net price fixed by the publishers for the book.

This book is set in lOpt Plan tin by Chippendale Type. " Otiey, West Yorkshire.

Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers Ltd. " 61-63

Uxbridge Road, Baling, London W5 5SA, in Australia by Transworld Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd." 15-23 Helles Avenue, Moorebank, NSW

2170, and in New Zealand by Transworld Publishers (N.

Z.

) Ltd. " Cnr.

Moselle and Waipareira Avenues, Henderson, Auckland.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd. " Reading, Berks.

As she stared at the black, frost-patterned panes of glass the voice that had been whispering at her became loud in her head.

"Put it out," it demanded.

"Go on, put it out." And her eyes flashed to the light above the dressing-table to the left of her, then to the switch at the side of the window, and she imagined that her whole body, arms, legs, head, and even her bowels, rushed forward to the central point that was the little brass knob when all she did was lift her arm slowly and, after hesitating for a fraction of a second, switch out the light. As it snapped the clear outlines of the room from her gaze she closed her eyes, waiting for the panic to rise in her, but it only fluttered, a stationary flutter, for through her lids she could feel the soft-toned radiance of the four wall lights.

The fluttering took wings.

"Now these," commanded the voice.

But that would mean walking the whole length of the room from the window to the door where the wall switches were. She couldn't do it it would be all right going, but it would be the coming back . in the dark.

Before the thought had dissolved in her mind she was walking towards the bedroom door, and as she put her finger on the first of the two switches she fixed her eyes on the floor. After the click her eyes did a swift hopping movement around the room, and then she felt slightly dizzy. All was merged now in a soft green glow. It was like looking through water. The white bedroom suite was no longer white but a delicate shade of blue; the bed, with its quilted coverlet, floated like a pale gold oblong box gently back and forth over a sea bottom, for the mustard carpet had taken on the appearance of moving sand; the rose curtains on the long window at the far side of the dressing-table looked almost blue, even black where they touched the carpet. But those on the french window facing her seemed to retain their own hue and were the only things in the room recognisable in this unfamiliar light. Her body began to play tricks with her again. It was dry now and hard, knobbly hard and aggressive.

Each particle of her was thrusting out, pushing, grabbing at the air to pull her towards the window. With a slight movement of her finger the last two wall lights disappeared and for a brain-screeching moment she stood in total darkness.

Although every artery in her body was clawing its way to deliverance and the window, she herself moved slowly, and when she reached it she put her two hands flat against the shivering glass, then, with only a slight intake of breath, she opened the glass doors and moved one step out on to the balcony.

She was out in the night, standing without light in the night. How long was it since she had looked at the night like this? She couldn't remember, she didn't want to remember. Her breathing became deeper, slower, steadier, it was as if she was emerging into the world, coming out of the womb, being born again, and all that had gone before was the experience of a past existence. As the air went deeper into her lungs she wanted to shout with the joy of relief, but she stifled it by clamping her lips with her fist. No more shouting of any kind, no more yells corkscrewing through her head, it was all over and done with.

She had been born again. The only difference was, she would not have to wait for years before becoming aware of her surroundings, she already knew where she was. Of course she had always known where she was. No matter how bad she had been, she had always known where she was. At least in the daylight.

But this was night, blackness around her, below and above her, but strangely no longer in her. She was facing the night and defying it.

There were no stars. It was a black night, she could not have picked a blacker with which to test her quivering courage, and she was suspended high up in the night and was no longer afraid . well, only a little.

Sit down and look around, she said to herself, then answered. It's too cold. But again she was obeying her courage and her hand was already on the wrought-iron chair that took up a third of the balcony.

When she sat down she put her hands between her knees and pressed them close. It was a childish action and she couldn't remember having done it for years, not since she was a girl and had first come to this house, as a bride. The darkness of the sky seemed to thin itself out as she sat, and she saw against it a deeper darkness made by the pattern of the trees, some of which bordered the drive to the main road. The drive was to the left of her. Slightly to the right of her there was a break in the pattern, which had been made only recently when she had had the old beech cut down. There had been trouble about that. They couldn't understand it. Nor could she have expected them to, only she knew why she had had the beech cut down. Yet she mustn't be too sure of that.

This thought brought a tinge of fear again.

In the day-time she could see, through the gap made by the beech, the fells, each rise, mould, hill and crag all known to her so well that even now she could see their shapes through the darkness. Apart from the cottage that stood out there, in the far distance, to the right, there was nothing at all, nothing for miles but the fells.

But to the left of her, beyond the drive and down the hill, lay the village. Five minutes' walk from the gate lay the village . lay the world. All the physical substance of the world was in the village.

All the types in the world were in the village. There was James Buckmaster, butcher and greengrocer, small and thin, very thin for a butcher, not hearty and brawny. But why should butchers be hearty and brawny? They, like everyone else, lived double lives. Perhaps he felt hearty and brawny inside. Then Mr. Brooke, who dealt in groceries and drapery and had part of his shop for chemist accessories and photography. Mr. Brooke had a head for business. He delivered his groceries as far as ten miles away, and he was a sides man of the church, and his wife didn't speak to the women who went into the towns to supplement their larder, yet what was a wife for but to support her husband? Ironic laughter began to rise in her on this thought and she suppressed it hurriedly and turned her mind to the residents of the village again.

Although there were no street lamps in the village it would not be dark, for Mr. Barker of the Stag always saw to it that there were two lights at least burning outside the bar. Mr. Barker was a nice man, a kind man. They said he wouldn't last very long, for he was drowning himself in his own beer. He had a very large stomach, but also he had a very large smile, so perhaps the smile would keep him afloat even when the beer threatened to drown him. Again there was laughter rising in her, but it had a touch of merriness about it this time.

Then Miss Shawcross, Kate Shawcross as she was called, the post mistress Why was it that there was always a post mistress in a village, seldom a postmaster.

She hadn't thought of it before, but she didn't want to think of Kate Shawcross, and her thoughts swung away to Peggy Mather, which wasn't really very far, for Peggy lived with Miss Shawcross she was her niece.

She was also cook-general at Willow Lea, and at this moment was down below in the kitchen preparing dinner, a Christmas Eve dinner, a family dinner, she pushed her mind deliberately away from Peggy Mather, for there had returned to her body a slight trembling, she began comforting herself. This time tomorrow she Would be able to think of Peggy Mather and lots of things that she hadn't dared allow herself to dwell on, for this time tomorrow she would know whether she was to be free or not.

Don't look at it in that way. She chided herself for her thinking.

And, now in spite of her efforts, her imnd wandered back to Kate Shawcross and the post office and the matter of lighting. Kate Shawcross had never kept a light outside her shop to help the travellers through i^g village. Even the light inside the shop was a dim one and she put that out at closing time. Yet she was supposed to be a good woman. Going on the interpretation mat she taught Sunday school and dressed the altar and had for years subscribed handsomely to this and that church fund, she was a good woman all right. Yet some people were not fooled by the interpretation, they knew why Kate Shawcross had been so liberal. Mr. Blenkinsop, the verger, had put it very neatly one day when he said that her goodness wasn't so much because she loved God as God made man. That had been very neatly put, very neat. After his wife died Mr. Blenkinsop had wanted to marry Kate Shawcross; they said it was because she was a warm woman, having come into a considerable sum from an uncle in Canada, a man she had never clapped eyes on. They also said that Kate was indignant at the proposal. So Mr. Blenkinsop had his reasons for being nasty and they were to do with . God made man.

Again there was a quirk of laughter in her, but this time it was not relieving laughter, for it was weighted and held in placa by bitterness. The laughter subsiding, the bitterness rose. It came up through her body like a square weight and when it had reached her throat and lodged there she admonished it harshly, saying. Enough, enough. No more of that, either.

She raised her head and looked towards the village again. In the far distance, right at yon side, there was a faint glow straining up into the darkness. That, she knew, would be the reflection of Dr. Cooper's lights. He had a light hanging over his front gate and another always burning in the surgery, and the surgery curtains were never drawn.

When all the other lights in the village were out, even those at the Stag, Dr. Cooper's front light remained on. He was a light in a dark world, was David Cooper. Everybody didn't think so; his ways were too advanced for the diehards. But to her he was alike a mother and father confessor.

The word confessor caused her mind to shy again, and she lifted her gaze in the darkness over' the village, and immediately her eye was caught by what looked like a falling star, so high was it in the blackness. But she knew it was no star, it was the headlights of a car and they had thrust themselves into the blackness through the gate of Toole's farm which clung to the side of Roeback Fell. James Toole would be coming down to the Stag. They said he came to the Stag every evening to get away from his wife, who was also his cousin, for Adelaide Toole was a bitter woman. Well, small wonder with what she had lost.