THE CINDER PATH (10 page)

mean you've got nothin' to go on when you don't know

their mothers or fathers, have you?"

Charlie turned from her and leant his back flat

against the wall, and putting his thumb to his mouth he bit hard on his nail. He had been in the habit

of biting his nails a lot at one time, but since

starting the school in Newcastle the habit had

slowly disappeared.

More to himself than to her now, he said., "He could cause trouble, big trouble."

"Aye . . . aye, he could; we'd . . .

we'd better keep on the right side of him."

"Yes." He turned and nodded to her; and as she stared up at him she said quietly, "You shouldn't be in this, you've got yourself mixed up in all ways with

us. Now you're up against your mother through us. I ... I don't know what to say, Charlie, how to thank you."

He pulled himself from the wall. "I don't want

any thanks."

Again they were facing each other.

"If. . . ever I can do anythin' for you, you've

only got to ask, Charlie."

Her eyes were round, mist-filled, and now she

gripped his hand and whispered urgently, "I mean it.

You understand? I mean it, anything."

"Yes, yes, Polly, thank you.

Yes, I understand." He withdrew himself from her hold, then backed two steps away from her. And he was

nodding at her again as she said, "I'll have a word with Arthur; I'll tell him."

As he went into the yard he knew she hadn't

moved away. He also knew what she was offering him

by way of thanks. He knew

too that he wanted to accept her thanks-Oh yes,

he wanted to accept her thanks-but he never would.

Why! Yes, why?

The answer came with the picture of his father taking

her mother.

It was ten minutes later when he told Arthur

of the new situation that had cropped up, and he watched him as he flopped down on an upturned bucket

in the pig-room and thumped one fist against the other as he groaned, "God Almighty! he's got me in

the hollow of his hand. If he opens his mouth I'll

go along the line ... or worse; aye, or

worse, The bloody hungry-looking workhouse

brat that he is!" Then turning his head to the side, he gazed up at Charlie as he endedj "An5

he's got you there an' all. And that ain't fair.

No. that ain't fair."

Looking back at Arthur, he

experienced a feeling of revulsion. Arthur had always

appeared to him as fearless, rugged, tough; in a way

he had hero-worshipped him for these qualities; but

now there was an abjectness about him that was distasteful.

His saying "He's got you there an' all; it ain't

fair" didn't ring with true concern, it was more of a statement, "We're all in this together." He

turned abruptly away, saying, "Don't worry

about me; only go lightly on him for your own good."

Out in the yard, with the mist almost obliterating the

house from his view, he walked towards the kitchen

door. He had said "Don't worry about me" as

if he weren't troubled by the fact that young Slater

knew of his part in the awful event; but deep inside

he was more than worried, he was fearful, for in a way

he was as much involved as was Arthur. There was such a thing termed accessory after the fact, and for his part in the affair he would be condemned more so than Arthur, for

what had he done but shield the person who had

killed his father, whereas as a dutiful son he should have brought him to justice.

The mist bathing his face was mingled with sweat now.

When he opened the kitchen door he actually

gulped audibly as he saw young Slater sitting

by the table, a mug of tea in one hand and a

large shive of bread in the other.

As the boy slithered to his feet Fanny put in

quickly, "Just giving him a bite, Mister Charlie,

just a bite."

Charlie looked from the round penetrating

gaze of Sidney Slater to Fanny, then

to Maggie who was standing behind her, a toasting fork in her hand and on which was stuck a slice of bread, and he

knew that how he reacted now with this boy would set the pattern for future time. Fumbling In his breast

pocket, he drew out the watch that his father had given him on his sixteenth birthday, and he made himself

stare at it for a moment before taking Ms eyes from it and fixing them on Slater, then saying, "It's quarter

past eleven in the morning, you have your breakfast at

eight and your dinner at one, isn't that so?"

The round eyes looking back into his had a

slightly puzzled expression, and Slater's

voice faltered slightly as he said, "Aye . .

. aye."

"Aye what?"

There was a pause in which he heard Fanny's

intake of breath.

"Aye sir ... Mister Charlie."

"Well, in future you'll stick to your

mealtimes. That understood?"

"Aye, Mister Charlie."

"Good. Well you may finish that." He waved his hand towards the mug and the bread on the table; then giving a lift of his

shoulders he walked away, up the kitchen and through the green-baized door.

It was actually seconds after the door had closed

on him that Fanny spoke. She had one cheek

cupped in the palm of her hand as she did so. "I

can't believe xst" she said. "What's come over him? He was as like the one who's gone as ever I've

seen., yet this very mornin" he stood up to the

missis and saved the Bentons." She shook her

head. "I can't believe it. I just can't believe

it."

"I can." Sidney Slater had lifted the latch

of the door, and he turned and looked over his shoulder, adding, "But don't you worry none about me, Mrs

Dimple. Don't you worry about me."

Fanny moved towards him now, saying, "Come

back, Sidney, and finish your bite." She

motioned towards the table, but he shook his head,

saying, "No, no. Ta all the same. I tell

you what though." He was actually grinning at

her now. "You give it to him, he'll likely need

it long afore I will."

When the door closed on him Fanny turned and

stared at Maggie and, her hand again cupping her cheek, she said, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. There's somethin' here I don't understand: Mister

Charlie

takin' on the guise of his father, an' Sidney there

not frightened any more. Did you see the look on that

lad's face? It was strange, it was as if he

feared neither God nor man any more. You know somethin'

Maggie? An' you might think me barmy for sayin'

this, but he looked the same as the master used to after he'd lathered one or t'other on the cinder path, like

as "if he had satisfied something inside himself.

'Twas an unholy look,"

w

HY you must have your birthday party between Christmas

and New Year the Lord only knows."

"... Not forgetting Mother and Father; they should have arranged my coming at a different time, they were very

careless about their indulging."

"Nellie! stop that kind of facetious chatter.

If Father were to hear you, he'd skelp your ears for

you."

"Yes, I suppose he would. Yet Mother

wouldn't. Strange that, isn't it?"

Nellie Chapman brought her legs up and

tucked them under her where she was squatting on the side of the bed, and putting her head on one side, she

gazed at her sister who was sitting before the mirror

turning the long strands of her hair into a plait, and

she said, "You know you are just like Father, coarse as a pig's back in one way yet finicky refined in

another."

"Don't you dare say I'm as coarse as a

pig's back!" Victoria twisted round on the

dressing-table stool, her squarish handsome face

flushed with irritation, which increased as her sister

smiled at her and undauntedly went on, "Well,

you are. You know you are, All you think about is

horses. You ride horses, you talk horses, you

swear horses. You outdid Father yesterday when you were buggering Phil for not seeing to Laddy right away. It

didn't matter about the other two horses, they could

sweat themselves to death, but Laddy must be seen to. And your language was such that it even pushed up

old Benny's eyebrowsst"

"That's a different thing, that's got nothing to do with talk about . . . birth. I mean. . . ."

Victoria now twisted the end of the plait into a

knot and was about to wind it tightly round the back of her head when her sister said, "What you mean is

cohabiting."

"Nellie Chapman, get off that bed, and get out

of my room! Go on, get out this minute!"

"All right, all right, I'll go. But that's what

the books call it, and it proves what I said about

you and Father. You know what?" She now leant her

plump body towards her tall well-proportioned

sister as she said, "I'm always amazed by this stuffy attitude of yours, I really can't understand it.

You're a hyprocrite, you know that; even the Bible can

speak plainly about it, procreation it calls it. And

it's going on around us almost twentyfour hours a day.

But here you are on the point of collapse because I

mention it. But"- she gave an exaggerated

sigh-"it's as I said, you and Father are fakes because underneath you're worse than big Billy for it, and you

know you are ..."

As Victoria swung round to the dressingtable,

her hand groping for something to throw, Nellie

sprang to the door, opened it and, bent almost double, was scrambling on to the landing when a large china powder

bowl, parting from its lid whizzed over her head and

struck the wall opposite and shattered into pieces.

"In the name of God! what's this?" Florence

Chapman took the last three stairs at a run.

Then stopping dead, she gazed from one to the other of her daughters, then at the broken china bowl that had left

a trail of pink powder across the red patterned

carpet, and now her angry gaze resting on

Victoria, she cried, "Have you gone mad? You could have knocked her out with that."

"It's a pity I didn't; I won't miss

next time if she dares to put a foot in my

room."

The bedroom door banged and Florence

turned her attention to her younger daughter. For a moment she kept her teeth together and her lips spread wide

from them while her head moved in small nods; then

she said, "And what did you do to bring this about?"

"Nothing; we were just talking."

"Talking?" Florence now rushed forward and,

grabbing Nellie by the shoulders, she pushed her along

the landing and into the end room, and there she demanded, "Out with it! It must have been something stronger than

usual for her to throw a thing like that at you, for if it had hit you it could have split your head open. Come on

now, what did you say?"

"Well, nothing really." Nellie shrugged, then grimaced before she said, "She was getting at me about my birthday party tomorrow. It was the same last year.

She said she didn't see why I couldn't make it

one do with the New Year's Eve party. But that wouldn't be my birthday party, would it?"

"No. I can see your point there; but, come on, that isn't what enraged her. What did you really say

to her to upset her like that?"

"Aw." Nellie walked down the length of the

large bedroom towards the window; then resting her

knee on the padded window-seat she looked out on to the white snow-covered

garden and beyond to where the furrowed fields lay, showing crests of straight black earth like ruled lines on

children's primers, and she muttered, "I said she took after father and they both took after big Billy."

Florence Chapman's large unlined handsome face

remained perfectly blank for a moment; then her

eyes seeming to take their direction from her mouth

stretched wide, but she spoke no word until,

having closed her mouth again and taken in a

deep breath through her dilated nostrils, she

exclaimed, "You said what!"

"Aw, Mother!" Nellie turned round and sat

down on the window-seat. "Don't look so shocked

because you know you're not. And anyway, you know what I say's true. Look how she eggs on Josh

Pringle. And she's got Archie Whitaker

slobbering. I've seen her and Archie behind ..."

"Nellie! be quiet! Now you listen to me."

Florence approached her daughter and, sitting down

beside her, she wagged her finger in her face as she went on, "Josh and Archie have merely been friends, and you know it his

just. L * * *

"I don't, Mother, I don't know it"-

Nellie's face was straight now, her tone

harsh-"because if I were to get up to some of the things that I've seen her and Archie at and I told you it was

all in friendship, by!"- she now turned her head to the side, nodding it as she did so-"I know what you'd

say Lord! don't I!"

Florence Chapman turned her face away from

her daughter for a moment and held her brow in the palm of her hand. What was she to do with this girl, this terror of a daughter, this honest individual. . .

this her beloved child, forof her two daughters she had love for only one. It was true what Nellie had

said, Victoria was very much like her father, talking one way and acting another. Not that she didn't care for

Victoria, she did, as she cared for her husband,

but she recognized the faults in both of them.