Miss Mary Martha Crawford (17 page)

He pressed his lips tightly together, then allowed himself to smile, and bending forward until their faces were not more than a few inches from each other, he whispered, "Because she has such a good advocate I'll forgive her."

Now she was smiling back at him, her face slowly stretching until her mouth was wide as she said, "Thank you."

"How old are you?" he asked abruptly,

"Seventeen."

"Seventeen." He shook his head.

"That's a great age." Again they were smiling at each other.

Nancy now turned sharply from him towards the head of the steps,

saying, "I'll go and tell Nick to bring your trap.... It's a nice horse you've got. I ... I love horses." She was looking at him over her shoulder and before he could protest about her going out into the

bitter wind without a coat she was gone, and he watched her running

over the drive towards the courtyard, her wide skirt held up at the

front with both hands, her hair flying out behind her. And as he

looked at her he thought, That's youth, that's how it should be, alive, winging, its feet scarcely touching the ground, its heart soaring

upwards in search of life.

He stood for a moment at the top of the steps until she disappeared

from his view, then as he was about to descend them he was startled by a loud cry that swung him around.

He looked back into the hall, and there racing down the stairs was the other sister and she was yelling, "Martha Mary! Martha Mary! Gome!...

Gome!"

He saw the girl hesitate at the bottom of the steps, look towards him, then turn her gaze from one side to the other, and as she did so Dilly emerged from the kitchen, her movement swift now for all her bulk and swollen legs, saying, "Stop your bawlin' this minute! What is it?"

There was a muttered conversation between them at the bottom of the

stairs, then the girl turned about and ran up them again while the old woman followed more slowly.

It was a queer household this, a very queer household. He'd had entry into all kinds of homes already in his career but with the exception of one other this was the oddest he had come across in that there seemed to be a deep undercurrent immersing them all. He saw the girl Nancy

coming towards him now leading the horse and trap with Fred at her

side. Immediately he noted something different about Fred; he wasn't his bouncing self, he was walking with his tail between his legs.

"What do they call her?" Nancy was stroking the horse's

"9 neck and he said, " Bessie," while at the same time bending down to Fred and asking, " What is it? " The dog looked up at him, gave a small whine, then jumped up into the trap, but when he went to sit down he yelped. It was only a slight sound but it made Harry lift him to

his feet and run his hand around his hind quarters. When the dog

flinched he separated the hair and said, " Oh, this is the trouble, is it?

You've caught yourself on a wire or something. That was a silly thing to do, wasn't it? Sit yourself down there for a minute. " He now went to his bag which he had put on the seat of the trap and, opening it, took out a bottle and a swab and when he applied the lotion to the

puncture in the dog's hind quarters it jerked its head round, and Harry said, " Yes, it smarts. Well, you shouldn't do such silly things. "

He looked at Nancy now who was standing at the back of the trap and

said, " He's caught himself on something. "

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"He won't die." He smiled at her and once again she smiled back at him, saying now, "One of our horses is called Belle, sounds almost the same as Bessie, doesn't it?" Then looking upwards she exclaimed loudly, L'! was about to say I hope you get back before it snows but you won't, look, it's starting

"Ah yes, it is." He looked up at the first thinly spaced flakes and added briskly, "And so must I. Well, good-bye. I may see you tomorrow, but by the look of it I may not." Then bending down to her from the seat, he said, "Help with the little one, won't you? She'll need a lot of attention for a long time."

"Yes, yes, I will." Her face was bright as she gazed up at him, and when he raised his whip to her in salute she lifted her hand in return, then stood watching him as he drove at a brisk place along the drive.

He wasn't terrible, not really. There was something nice about him,

well not exactly nice, but something different, although, of course, he had upset Martha Mary. And, of course, she had to admit he had

frightened herself almost to death, because she had never met anyone like him before. He wasn't a bit like a doctor. Doctors to her mind

were smooth, elegant gentlemen, who always spoke softly as they held your wrist. At least, that's what she had read, and that's how Doctor Pippin acted. But this doctor, he looked like . well, what did he

look like? like a working man, although he didn't sound like one.

Well, not quite. And he had strange ideas. Well, they seemed strange to them, but he wasn't a bit like a doctor.

As she made for the steps again she looked up into the sky. She didn't care if it snowed for a week, two weeks, three weeks, because William had gone yesterday. He had gone to France for further studies and he wouldn't be back until the end of the term. Oh, William, William. Her heart beat out his name with every step she took. Then she brought her ecstatic thinking to a pause, and told herself she mustn't wish it to snow for days because then the doctor wouldn't be able to get

through.

Poor Peg, and poor Martha Mary too.

After closing the front door she stood with her back to it and looked across the darkening hall towards the study. So many things were

worrying Martha Mary and not least was the matter of money. She had

cut down on the oil lamps in the usual way there would have been one lit in the hall now and on the fires too; and she had told Dilly they could have pastry only once a week, and that for Saturday supper.

Mild red said it was mean and there couldn't possibly be the need to take such steps; but Martha Mary wasn't mean else she wouldn't have

sent word to Peg's grannie who herself was bedridden that she would

still pay Peg's wages whilst she was ill. No, Martha Mary wasn't mean, only very worried.

The house was very quiet at the moment. She stood quite still

listening, and in the silence she heard the stair-boards creak. They creaked when you walked on them and when you didn't walk on them, it was part of the character of the house. She'd miss the house when she left. If she left it? Of course, she would leave it, because at their last meeting when William had kissed her and held her so close he had whispered words to her that had made her weak, even faint with their implication and she knew it would be only a s-mmc-g i a i matter of

time, fourteen months' time before they would be married, for when he came of age he could do what he liked, marry whom he liked. And he

liked her, he loved her. And oh . oh, she worshipped him. She always had, she couldn't remember an hour since the day they had first met

when she was but twelve years old that he hadn't been in her

thoughts.

There were times she felt guilty about her secret, their secret, for he, too, had admitted he felt guilty, but had made her solemnly promise that she would never mention their association to anyone until he gave her leave because, as he said, his mother would understand, but his

father would need persuading.

She knew that everyone in the house would be surprised when she

eventually told them that she was affianced to Wil liam, but there was someone who would be angry, and that someone was Mildred because she knew that Mildred had the idea in the back of her mind that she had

only to be invited to a ball at the Hall and there she would meet Wil liam or someone like him, and he would fall in love with her and carry her away from this house, for Mildred, strangely, didn't love the

house. She didn't blame Mildred for her dreams, she only felt sorry

that Mildred's dream could not come true like her own.

She had told William about Mildred's disappointment in not being, in previous years, asked to the ball, and he had laughed, he had laughed so heartily that the tears had run down his cheeks. Somehow she hadn't liked that.

A loud cry from above broke her reverie and as she bounded towards the stairs she exclaimed, "Oh! Aunt Sophie," but on the way up she told herself that in future she must act with more decorum, run less and

walk more, and she must practise the piano, and do her embroidery,

because as William's wife she must become accomplished. However, she did not at this moment take her own advice, but kept on running,

because that scream from Aunt Sophie meant she was having one of her turns, and a bad one at that.

the snow lay for eight days blocking the roads and hampering the

trains; extra men were engaged to clear the streets within the town, but work as they might they couldn't keep them clear for long. Then a thaw came and the river rose and the town was alerted against

flooding.

So it was fifteen days later when Harry again set out for The

Habitation. His greatcoat collar was turned up over his ears; he was wearing leather gaiters round his trousers, and gloves on his hands, and it was as he went to pick up his bag from the dispensary table that John Pippin turned from replacing a stone jar on a shelf and said

flatly, "Go kindly with young Martha Mary."

"Go kindly you say!" he raised his eyebrows and stretched his face at the old man 'after what I told you the other night? "

"Yes, and also because of what I told you the other night. That girl is carrying more than her share, and has done for years. Besides being buried alive in that place, she's been made to stretch everything to its limit in order that her dear papa could pay, and apparently through the teeth, for his sporting. Alfred Paine didn't mention any names, I don't think he knew himself who it was, but, as I said, Crawford's

apparent visits to the uncle, who had been dead for years, was a cover up for some woman he was keeping. That girl's had one or two shocks of late, so no matter what her attitude, hold the reins tight on that

temper of yours."

"Temper!"

"Aye. That's what I said." John Pippin looked at Harry over the top of a pair of crooked rimless glasses.

"Temper! You've never seen me in a temper."

"No; but I've seen you having the devil of a job to control it." He was at the door before retorting, "I'm making no promises, and I'm afraid it'll take more than what you've told me to stir my sympathy for Miss Martha Mary Crawford should she get on her high horse again."

And he bobbed his head twice towards the old man who was looking at him with slanted gaze, not unmixed with amusement, then went out. But he had hardly reached the front door before the voice of his superior hit him, crying, "If the little maid is dead you won't forget to admit it was one of your newfangled ideas with regards treatment for burns,

scalds, and the rest, that aided her departure, will you?" He didn't bang the door but closed it quietly, almost softly, meaning it to

convey that he was in no way upset by the remark. Yet as his journey continued along the slush-strewn road and the wind lashed his face and caused Fred to curl close up to him, he wondered, and not a little

without apprehension, what he would find when he entered that quaint dwelling. What he did find almost delighted him. If it were possible he would have taken Peg Thornycroft in his arms and run with her back to Hexham, up Beaumont Street and into Oakdean House and cried,

"There!

how's that for newfangled modem treatment? "

"Well! well!" He bent down and looked into Peg's face.

"This is splendid, eh? How are you feeling?"

"Oh, not too bad, doctor."

Tain? "

"Aye, still a bit, mostly in me hands, though I don't feel I've got any on."

"Well, you certainly have, and they're healing. Look at that new skin."

"Some of it's hard, doctor, like cracklin'."

"Pork crackling?"

"Aye. " She gave a weak laugh.

"Ah." He put his hand on her forehead now and stroked her hair back.

We'll soon have you up and about. "

"I'll be. all right, doctor? I'll be able to walk?"

"Of course you will."

"I'm stiff."

"Well, you're bound to be stiff, you've been lying there how many days?" He turned now and looked at the tall figure standing in the exact place where he had seen her last. It was as if she had never

moved from the bottom of that couch.

But when she didn't supply him with the number of days he looked down at Peg again and said, "Well, let me feel that heart of yours.... Ah!

that's better, tapping away like a good drum. Now--' he put his hands on his knees and asked of her 'what are we going to do with you? "

"I don't know, doctor, I only feel I should be up an' about an'

doin'."

"Huh! up and about and doing? It'll be some time before you're up and about and doing, me girl."

"It's ... it's too much for Miss Martha Mary." She now looked towards the foot of the couch.

"She's ... she's never off her feet."

"Well' he didn't turn his eyes from Peg as he said, 'good nurses are always on their feet. What I want you to do is to be a good girl and lie still, and eat because you must get strong again." Although he felt it was hitting below the belt he could not resist adding, "But when you are strong again there'll be no more iron kettle lifting, will there?"

As he poked his chin towards her, she said, "Oh, it wasn't the kettle, doctor; I was used to the kettle, it wasn't the kettle."

"It wasn't the kettle?" His brows gathered into a deep furrow.

"But you were scalded by the kettle, child, when you tried to lift it?"

"Oh, I had lifted it, I have the knack of liftin' it. It was Nick stickin' his finger ..." She lowered her eyes now and ended, "Nippin'