THE CINDER PATH (14 page)

harlot you! We didn't do anything, nothing. We

don't jump at it like you, we can wait 'cos . .

. 'cos we're going to be married, Charlie'n me,

we're going to be married. He asked me. You

did, didn't you, Charlie?"

He was standing straight now. Marry Nellie?

He had asked Nellie to marry him? Nonsense!

Oh God! his head was thumping. Somewhere in the dream,

right back, he could recall somebody talking about

marrying Nellie; but he wasn't going to marry

Nellie; he didn't want to marry Nellie.

"Is ... is this true?" Hal Chapman, his

body swaying, thrust his beer-red face gleaming

with sweat in front of Charlie's. left-brace

lB'you hear me? Is it true?"

"What . . . what's true?"'1

"You silly bugger!" Hal Chapman now let

loose of his younger daughter and, gripping Charlie by the shoulders, shook him, saying, "You're so bloody

drunk you don't know if you asked her to marry you or

not, an1 likely put a seal on the

bargain?"

"Yes, I suppose I am bloody drunk."

Charlie laughed weakly now.

"Did you or did you not, lad?" Another shake.

"What?" Oh Lord! Lord! his head.

"Ask Nellie here to marry you?"

Charlie turned his hammer-beating head and looked

towards Nellie. Her face swam away from her

body; it moved round In a circle until it

merged into Victoria's. The comedy of the situation

became too much for him, and he laughed, a great

bellow of a laugh, the way he hadn't laughed for

years, perhaps not since the morning of the day when his father had died. Then he heard someone who wasn't at

all like himself shouting, "Yes, yes; is anything

wrong in that?"

Hal Chapman allowed a silence of seconds

Library

to elapse before enveloping Charlie in his embrace.

What did it matter which one of them he had chosen.

After all it made no difference did it? The land would

be joined and that was all that mattered. He now stepped back from Charlie and slapped him heartily in the

chest with the back of his hand, then let out

another roar of laughter as the tall figure tumbled

once again into the straw. But that over, he turned to where his elder daughter was pulling herself upwards from the hay and, taking her arm, he gripped it and, keeping his

eyes averted from her distorted features, led her to the top of the ladder, and there he growled at her, "Put a face on it. Put a face on it."

As she wrenched herself from her father's hold,

Victoria looked to where Charlie was leaning on his

elbows in the straw, his head back and his mouth still

emitting laughter; and from him her gaze swept to her

sister and their eyes shot hate of each other with the

deadliness of bullets.

Hal Chapman, following his daughter down the

ladder, shouted the news to the waiting guests below, who were all men, and who, after a moment of surprised

silence, cheered and waved their hands up towards

the loft where Nellie, now kneeling by Charlie's

side, was looking woefully at him and repeating,

"I'm sorry, Charlie, I'm sorry," while

he comforted her by saying, "It's all right, Nellie.

It's all right."

But what was all right, he wasn't quite sure; he

wasn't sure of anything except that he was still

tickled to death about something; what he

didn't know, because he was so tired he wanted

to sleep. Oh, he just wanted to sleep . . . and not

wake up again . . . Was that so ... not wanting

to wake up again? There must be something wrong. He

turned on to his side and laid his head on his hand

and actually dropped off to sleep again.

TCP 6

H

E was brought up from the depths of sleep to the

awareness of an ear-splitting voice calling his name.

"Charlie! Charlie!"

He groaned, went to shake his head, then

swiftly put his hands up to it to still the agonizing

pain.

"Charlie! Charlie! wake up."

The light sent arrows of agony through his

eyeballs.

"Come on, sit up and drink this."

Two hands helped to drag him into a sitting

position. The cup pressed against his lips burned

them, and he jerked his hand backwards and the hot

liquid spilt over his chin, bringing him fully

awake.

"Oh God! God Almighty! where am I?"

He squinted into Nellie's face.

"What's up?"

"Drink that coffee. Go on, drink it."

He gulped at the liquid, and when the cup was

emptied and she went to pour another from the pewter jug he stopped her with a quivering, tentative motion of his hand; then

shutting his eyes, he lowered his head as he asked

quietly, "What happened?" "You got drunk.

We both got drunk." "Both of us?" He

squinted at her again. "Yes; don't you

remember?" He went to shake his head, then hunched his shoulders against the movement as he answered, "Can't remember a thing. God! I'm cold."

He looked about him. The winter sun was streaking

through the cracks in the barn timbers, watery yet

painful to his eyes. He tried to recall what he

should remember, but his mind took him no further than

the dairy and Polly's face. Polly was going

to marry Ginger. Or was she? No, she wasn't; he

was going to put a stop to it. . . . "We're engaged to be married." He consciously stopped his head from jerking around. He did not even turn his face

towards her when he said, "What did you say,

Nellie?"

"I said we're engaged to be married."

Now he did look at her, but slowly, and he

repeated, "We're engaged to be married? Huh!"

Even his smile increased the agony in his head.

"What do you mean, Nellie, engaged to be married?

Huh!"

"Apparently we plighted our troth." Her tongue came well past her teeth and lips as she dragged

out the last word.

Again he said "Huh!" but now he laughed. With his two hands holding his head he laughed as he said,

"We must have been stinking."

"We were."

"How did we get like that?"

She twisted round on the straw now and picked up

the empty brandy bottle and held it out towards him,

and when he took it from her and read the label he

whistled, then said, "We went thought that, a full bottle?"

"Apparently." Her voice held a slightly

sad note now.

"And the best brandy . . . my! my! that must have cost something."

"Not as much as you think. It's all smuggled

stuff, Father's got friends. I think somehow I told

you. Anyway, if he'd had to pay the real

price for it I suppose he'd have considered it

worth while, as it got us engaged."

"Your-was He turned on to his knees now and

steadied himself by gripping at a bale of straw and his mouth opened twice before he muttered, "Your . . .

your father knows?"

"Yes; they all know."

"Aw, Nellie, No! No!" Now he

actually did shake his head, and vigorously.

"Is it so terrible?"

She was kneeling opposite him and he raised his

head and stared at her. No . . . no, he

supposed, looked at calmly, it wasn't so

terrible "cos she was a very appealing girl was

Nellie. But he had no feeling for her,, not in that

way. Good Lord! no, never in that way, not

Nellie. She had just left school, she was still a

young girl somehow. If he had thought about marrying into the Chapmans", and he had thought about it, it was

Victoria his mind had dwelt on; in fact he

could tell himself he had been coached over the years

to think of Victoria as a wife. And now her name

escaped from him, "Vicky!" he said.

"Yes, what about Vicky?"

"Nellie . . . well, you know."

"What do I know?" Her words came clipped,

cold.

"Aw, don't be silly, Nellie. What

happened last night must have been a prank, we ...

we were drunk. You said yourself."

She stared hard at him for a number of seconds

before rising to her feet and saying in the same tone as before, "I'd better go and

tell them then, her in particular . . . put her out

of her misery. Then they'll have to send the bellman

round all the villages, telling people they got the name wrong."

He was standing now, and he repeated, "All the

villages?"

"Yes, all the villages, where the Hodgsons,

the Pringles, the Fosters, the Charltons, the

Whitakers, and Uncle torn Cobley an' all

live."

"Oh my God!" He held his brow with his hand,

and now his voice low, almost a whisper, he said to her,

"Don't be mad at me, Nellie; it would never have

happened if we hadn't got drunk, you know that."

"No, it wouldn't." She was thrusting her face up to his now. "You're right there, Charlie. But I'll tell you this much, there'll come a time when

you'll wish you'd stuck to your drunken proposal.

I'm no prophet but I know that much."

"Nellie! Nellie!" He watched her going

down the steep ladder, and again he called,

"Nellie! Nellie!"

When she reached the bottom she stopped and looked

up at him and when he said, "I'm sorry, I'm so

sorry, Nellie," she answered back, her

voice soft now, "Yes, I know,

Charlie; but it's nothing to what you will be, and I'll be sorry for you then."

She had reached the open doors when he called

again, "Nellie!"

When she turned to face him he asked, "My mother

and Betty, are they still here?"

"No; the Pringles dropped them off on their way

back." Now the old tart note was in her voice

again as she ended, "Your mother couldn't get away quick enough, Betty an' all. I think they wanted

to lock the doors so I wouldn't get in. Whoever you

take back there, Charlie, you're going to have a fight

on your hands." She shook her head slowly, then

jerked her chin upwards before turning and disappearing into the yard.

God Almighty! He lowered himself down

onto the scattered straw. Trust him to make a

hash of things. Proposing to Nellie! How in the name

of God had that come about? And she had wanted to keep

him to it. Yes-he nodded quietly to himself-she had.

And now he had Hal Chapman to face. But worse

than that, there was Victoria. What must she have felt

when she heard the news. Perhaps she, too, was too

drunk to take it in; but no, it would take a lot

of the hard stuff to deprive Victoria of her

senses. More than once he had

noticed that she was like her father in that way, she could carry her liquor, it only made her jolly.

He must go down, tidy himself up, try to explain

away the whole silly affair, and then he must get

home and face his mother, and her wrath. Nellie was

right in what she had said: whoever he took back to the house he'd have a fight on his hands because his mother was certainly mistress in that house and she intended to go on being so. He had given into her over the years because not having done so would have made his life sheer hell

on earth. While he played the master during those first months after his father had died she countermanded every order he gave, and the confusion in the house had been

chaotic.

Why did things never go smoothly for him?

What was it in his nature that made him the object of

ridicule? After three years of managing the farm

he still, to put it plainly, had no bloody horse

sense. If left to himself he would have bought animals

out of pity for their leanness. When in company with other farmers he didn't talk farming; he didn't

slosh himself with drink on market days; nor did he

inveigle himself with the right people who would drop a case of brandy along with the

fodder every now and again. In a way, he knew he was still considered as his father's son, an outsider. That the farm had not gone downhill since his father died wasn't

any credit to himself, it was Arnold and Fred who

kept the standard high, and kept Sidney Slater

up to scratch. Yes, and Arthur too, for Arthur's

fear had undermined his promising ability.

And now this latest farce. He'd be a laughing

stock; they'd say he'd had to get blind drunk in

order to propose marriage to a lass and then when he

was sobered up he couldn't go through with it.

What was wrong with him anyway? Was he a

weakling?

No, no. He denied this strongly inside himself.

He was just a square peg in a round hole, and he

had been rammed into it by sympathy for the

Bentons.

Polly! There was Polly. He became alert.

She couldn't marry Slater; he couldn't let that

happen. He must get home and talk to Arthur.

Something must be done.

He went down the ladder, but not as steadily as

Nellie had done, and when he was on the floor of the

barn he dusted himself down, picking the straw from his suit and out

of his hair. And he was busy with this when a shadow

filled the opening. He turned to see Victoria

standing there.

Victoria, looking silently at Charlie,

wondered, and not for the first time, what it was she saw in him that attracted her. It wasn't his long, lean

thinness, nor his grey passionless eyes, nor his mop

of fair hair that he wore over-long. So what was