Miss Mary Martha Crawford (2 page)

flooded the bedrooms, and there remained the water mark around the

walls as evidence to show it. Martha had her doubts about the

authenticity of the mark. It was, she thought, more likely that left by the removal of a chair rail during redecoration some years ago. To her distress she found that as she got older she doubted more and more the tales she heard about the house and those who had occupied it, and at moments like now she hoped that she wasn't turning bitter, that age wasn't going to sour her or touch her mind as it had done Aunt

Sophie's. Loneliness and despair and rejected love could do terrible things to one. Aunt Sophie was a living witness.

She raised her eyes now towards the ceiling. Up there in a room above this one her Aunt Sophie spent her life in phantasy. Yet not all of

it, for there could be days which lengthened into weeks, sometimes as many as three, when she would be as rational as herself, and so sweet, and so understanding of all the problems of the house. But there were other times. Oh dear, dear, yes, there were other times when it wasn't

'the turns' that worried her so much as. the other business. It was

known that Aunt Sophie had had turns dating from a day when her father had driven her from their farm near Allendale Town into Hexham.

She was dressed in bridal white, and he had hired a coach for the

occasion. And there at the church she waited, but in vain, for her

groom. At first it was thought that his trap had broken down; his was a long journey for his farm was miles away across the river towards

Bellingham. But he could have walked the distance in three hours, and that was the time she had insisted on waiting.

Martha had been told that Aunt Sophie hadn't fainted, like some young women would have under similar circumstances, but had walked steadily from the church. The only sign of her distress had been that she

didn't speak. It was said they couldn't get a word out of her for two weeks; and then the first sound she made was of laughter, gay laughter, which reached such a crescendo that it exploded in a paroxysm of

weeping, which then took the place of her silence, and went on

intermittently for days.

Grandfather Crawford had driven through a storm to the farm all those miles away, only to learn that the groom had the previous night run off to sea. The old farmer said his youngest son, being but twenty, found at the end he couldn't face marrying a woman three years older than

himself. It was kinder than saying he couldn't face life with a woman who was subject to . turns.

Someone on the Crawford farm, her mother had said, must have told the young man about Aunt Sophie's turns, even though in those early days the spasms were very light.

It never occurred to Martha to question why her mother, coming from a prosperous business family with some standing in Hexham, should have married into the Crawford family. Circumstances having made her her

own mistress, she had been in a position to choose for herself; and

Martha could not imagine anyone resisting her father's persuasive

manner for long. Equally, she could not now imagine that he himself

had come from ordinary farming stock, for he had the tastes of a

gentleman. True it was that he took very little interest in literature or world affairs, but such was his disposition she could see how easily he would fit into any class of society. He was very adaptable and had a keen wit and natural charm. Yet there were times when she could wish that he was less charming and more. Again she was sitting bolt

upright, but now on the edge of the chair.

Here she was wasting her time thinking when she

'5 should be acting. There were two buttons needed on the cuff of his shirt; there were also some loose threads to be sewn into the edge of his cravat. What was more, she should be in the kitchen supervising

the meal. She must watch Peg with those potatoes; the peelings that

she had been taking off of late must have been almost a quarter of an inch thick. She didn't mind her taking home the pods of the peas when in season or the turnip tops and such-like, but they themselves had

hardly enough potatoes left to see them through January. But it was

fifteen minutes later when she lifted the linen into her arms yet once again, went out of the room down the passage, across the hall and up the stairs.

It was as she reached the landing that she heard Nancy's laughter

mingled with that of Peg Thomycroft, and when she entered her father's, room there they were kneeling on the mat in front of the fire, one on each side of the hip bath pushing a paper boat back and forth between them.

"Nancy!"

The name, if not the tone, brought them both to' their feet, and Nancy continued to laugh, but Peg, her thin wiry form seeming lost in the

ill-fitting print dress and coarse apron, scurried across the room with her head bent like a goat about to ram a wall. Yet her attitude

suggested neither fear nor fright, but rather impish glee. The room to themselves now, Martha looked at Nancy with a pained expression, and Nancy, tossing her head, said, "Aw, Martha Mary... aw, it was just a bit of fun."

Martha turned away, silent now, and, going to the big mahogany

wardrobe, she opened the doors and arranged her father's linen on the shelves; all except one shirt, a cravat, a pair of long linings, and a vest. These she now took to the fireplace and hung carefully over a

folding rack that was standing to the side of it. When she turned

again, Nancy was no longer in the room.

A bit of fun. A bit of carry-on, as Peg would have put it. There was a time when she herself had been fourteen and Peg only eight and

already being harshly instructed into the

ropes of a maid of all work by Dilly, when she too had enjoyed having a bit of carry-on with her.

She had been boarded at Miss Threadgill's boarding school in Hexham

since she was nine, coming home only at the week-end; and although she was being versed in the ways of a young lady and Miss Threadgill had laid great stress on the divisions of class, she had always treated

little Peg Thomycroft with kindness because she felt sorry for her

being so small and having to scurry here and there all over the house, carrying heavy buckets of water, and of coal; but most of all she

pitied her for having to put up with Mildred's tantrums. Mildred had indulged in tantrums since she was a small baby. Then besides Mildred, there was Roland.

Roland was a year younger than herself and was a tease. When as a

young girl she used to think it was fortunate that Roland was at home only for the holidays, it wasn't of Peg alone she was thinking, but of them all, for Roland loved practical joking and they all suffered from his idea of fun. Besides, the house never seemed the same when her

brother was home for he demanded attention, and got it, and he had the habit of strutting about like a lord of the manor.

She stood now looking around the room. Everything was in order. She

had put an extra blanket on the four-poster bed; there were fresh

candles in the candelabra at the head of it; her father's slippers were by his chair, his house gown was lying across the oak chest at the foot of the bed; the towels were rolled up and lying on the safe side of the high brass open-work fender that surrounded the hearth; there were only the curtains to be drawn, and this she would do when they had brought up the hot water.

She stooped now and picked the paper boat from the cold water in the bottom of the bath, and she put it on her hand and looked at it.

Paper boat, Paper boat, Sail me away to paradise.

Paper boat, Paper boat, I'll pay you one penny, I'll pay you twice For a night of delight In paradise.

This was one of the rhymes that Aunt Sophie would quote when she was about to start . the other business. It wasn't quite nice, it wasn't nice at all; in fact, the implications made one hot. Where Aunt Sophie got all the sayings and rhymes from, she just didn't know. She did

sometimes read books it was true, but they were those she herself

selected for her, books that would be unlikely to disturb her mental state or excite her in any way. It would seem that Aunt Sophie must

have made up most of the rhymes and queer sayings in her head, and they were the result of her disturbed state.

She crushed the wet piece of paper in her hand and threw it into the fire; then after one last look around the room she went out, across the landing, down two steps, round the corner, and so to the room that was situated above her father's study.

Today the door was unlocked and she went straight in and looked towards the window where her Aunt Sophie sat. Sophie did not turn towards her, not even to move her head and glance to see who had entered the room, yet she spoke to her by name. She had this uncanny habit of

recognizing people by their walk.

"It's snowing, Martha Mary," she said.

"Yes, Aunt Sophie." Martha went and stood close to her aunt and with a tender movement slid her arm around her shoulders, asking as she did so, "Are you warm enough? There's a chill coming from the window."

"Oh, I'm warm enough, Martha Mary. Oh yes, I'm warm enough; I'm all warm inside." She now turned her face up to Martha's. All her

features were in repose, and because her mouth was closed she had the look of a child; yet if she were to open it a huge gap would be

revealed where all her top teeth were missing, and the movement of her upper lip would push her skin into myriads of small wrinkles, which

made her appear like a woman of seventy instead of thirty- eight. Her hair, that had once been corn-coloured and thick, was now streaked with grey and hung in two plaits down her back. She was fully dressed.

It could be said she was more than fully dressed for she was wearing at least three top skirts over four flannel petticoats, the upper skirt bulging so far out from her hips as to shorten its length and show the other two underneath, besides which she had on a striped shirt waist with an old-fashioned silk be fringed one covering it;

above this a woollen shawl, and at the back of her head, stuck between the two plaits, was a large fan-shaped bone comb studded with

brilliants.

"I've been thinking, Martha Mary."

"What have you been thinking. Aunt Sophie?"

"Well--' she now nodded her head slowly up at her niece " I've been thinking that your father should do something about you. "

"Father do something about me!"

"Yes, yes, that's what I've been thinking, he should do something about you. You haven't got a beau and you're nearly thirty."

"No, no, I'm not." Martha was laughing gently now.

"I'm still only nineteen.

Aunt Sophie; I won't be twenty until January the first next year.

1880. "

"January the first, 1880." Sophie nodded to herself now.

"Yes, yes, of course. I was a little out; I'm sorry. You'll be

nineteen ... no, twenty. There I go again. It worries me when I get

things muddled."

Martha now took hold of the thin hands and drew her up from the wooden window seat, saying, "Come on over to the fire, you're cold."

"Yes, yes, I am cold; I didn't think I was but I am. I'm sometimes very cold inside, Martha Mary. And sometimes I'm very sad inside. Then at other times--' she gave a small laugh now 'at other times I feel

very happy, gay. I wish we could have a, dance sometimes, I mean when I feel very happy, like we had in the barn. We used to have dances in the barn. Father used to say, " Come on, John, get out your i9 fiddle, we'll have a dance. " I'm always very happy when I think about

dancing."

Yes, Martha shook her head, Aunt Sophie was always very happy when she thought about dancing. And yet these were the times she herself most dreaded, when Aunt Sophie felt very happy.

"There now," she said as she settled her before the fire, 'you'll feel warmer. " Then she added.

"We are expecting Father at any time."

"Has he been away?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Martha bent down until her face was on a level with Sophie's.

"Don't you remember? He went to Newcastle to visit Great-Uncle

James."

"Did he? Oh yes, yes. But I thought that was last month."

"Yes, he did go last month, but he goes every month, some times twice a month."

"You know that's a very odd thing, Martha Mary, but I thought Uncle James was dead."

"Uncle James dead! No, no; he's very old, but he's not dead." She only just stopped herself from adding, "I wish he were," for deep within her she had longed, for the last three years, for her father to come back from Newcastle and say that Great-Uncle James had finally

sunk completely away. She could remember as far back as ten years ago her father going to Newcastle because Uncle James was sinking, but he had never completely sunk.

She had only seen her Great-Uncle James once. She was quite a small

child and accompanied her parents in the trap on the never-ending

journey to the city. It was a very warm day, she recalled, and she had swelled inside her many petticoats white serge dress and coat and big straw hat.

Uncle James was in bed. He had no hair on his head but he had a beard and his cheeks were red and he must have looked far from sinking

because she remembered him laughing and joking With her mother. He had been very fond of her mother for she was then his only living relative.

But since her death he had transferred his affection to her father.

She did not feel wicked in hoping that Great-Uncle James would finally sink, never to rise again, for although she knew very little about the business side of her father's affairs she was well aware that they had deteriorated considerably since her mother died, and there was now a great need of money which the death of Great-Uncle James would in some way alleviate.

It was frightening to realize that their livelihood now depended solely on the little bookshop and the chandler's store in Hexham, because