The Cultured Handmaiden, page 28
‘Yes. Yes it has, so don’t overdo it. I’ll see you this evening if not before. Take care.’
‘Aye. Aye, I will. The boss’ll see to that.’ He motioned towards the closed door, and John looked towards it, before going out. The Boss he had called her: no, no. He was letting his imagination and, yes, his jealousy run wild.
As he made for the lift, its doors opened and Noreen Power came out. She stopped, uncertainly, and when she stammered. ‘M…Miss Brownlow sent for me,’ his only reply was to point to the door next to the main office, and she said, ‘Oh yes, there. Thank you.’
After tapping on the door of the outer office and being told to enter, Noreen was confronted by a smiling Jinny, and immediately she cried, ‘Eeh I’m glad to see you back, Jinny. Eeh! I am. And you wouldn’t believe what’s going on downstairs. It’s like you had dropped a bomb down there. She couldn’t believe it…Miss Cadwell. We thought she was going to pass out; she has the jitters, she really has. What do you want me to do? I’m not too good at French; you know I’m not.’
‘There’s nothing very much as yet, Noreen,’ Jinny said quietly now. ‘I just want you to sort out these letters, you know like you do downstairs, filing the firms together in their date order and transferring the salient points of each on to the index cards. Then when you’re finished they can all be sent into Mr Waitland’s office. They’re mostly bills and orders and such, covering the last six months.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that, Jinny. I’d…I’d like to work up here. He’s still a terror though, isn’t he?’ She jerked her head backwards. Then pulling a small face, she smiled, adding, ‘I shouldn’t say that, should I? Not to you, anyway, because then you’ve always been able to manage him. Do you mind if I ask if it’s right what they’re saying?’
There was a pause before Jinny said stiffly, ‘And what are they saying?’
‘Oh, just that you’re going to marry him.’
Seven
‘We’re back, Dorry.’
Jinny had entered the hall, and as Dorry came hurrying towards her she added with an attempt at lightness, ‘I hope Cissie is preparing a dinner fit for a conquering hero.’
But Dorry made no reply; she looked past Jinny to the drawing room. And when Jinny followed her gaze she saw Florence standing in the doorway, and even over the distance the hostility was evident.
‘Why wasn’t I informed that my father had recovered?’ Florence demanded as she moved towards Jinny.
It was almost in the same vein that Jinny replied, ‘You had better ask him that, Mrs Brook.’ And turning now, she waited as Willie pushed the chair up the ramp and over the threshold and into the hall.
As soon as Bob saw his daughter he greeted her: ‘Well, hello there, stranger. What brings you to Fellburn in this weather? I thought you and your lot were still away on that pricey-sounding world cruise or whatever.’
‘We flew back from Venice yesterday and stayed at one of the Heathrow hotels overnight, but as we were right by the airport I thought I’d take a quick flight up here to surprise you and find out what was going on. Why wasn’t I…I informed of…of your recovery?’
‘Well now, Florence, you’ve hardly been all that accessible of late, have you? Anyway, it’s a long story and at the moment I’m rather tired and I think I’ll have me bite to eat upstairs. By the way, Willie—’ He turned his head and looked back and up into Willie’s face, saying, ‘It was a good idea of John’s, don’t you think, about a lift in that corner?’
‘Yes, boss, a very good idea.’
‘I’ll get some estimates and we’ll get to work on it. Make a note of that, Jinny, estimates for lift…pronto.’ Then looking at his daughter again, he said in an offhand manner, ‘You come alone?’
‘Yes, I came alone. Ronnie went straight home with the children.’
‘How long do you mean to stay?’
‘Would you like me to go on to Devonshire tonight?’ Her tone was icy.
‘Now, now, Florence, I was just thinking that…well, you’d be here on your own during the day because I’m a working man once again. And you must be wanting to see how things are down there after being away so long.’
He watched her suck at her lips before she asked, ‘Where is John?’
‘When I last saw him he was learning the business on the shop floor, finding out how to lift a three hundredweight steel rod without breaking his fingernails.’ As he gave a small laugh at his own weak joke and indicated by a movement of his head that he wanted Willie to lift him from the chair, Florence said, ‘And our Glen?’
‘Get me upstairs, Willie,’ Bob said quietly. And when the big fellow lifted him up and laid him partly over his shoulder as he would have done a child, before mounting the stairs, Jinny turned away because that was a sight she couldn’t bear to watch; such dependence deprived the man not only of his bombast but also, in a way, of all dignity.
It was a full minute before Jinny turned towards the stairs again, and as she did so Florence almost thrust herself in front of her, saying, ‘As you seem to have taken on yourself the running of the house, will you tell me what has happened to Glen?’
Jinny drew in her chin and pressed her head back as if to remove herself further from the face that was confronting her before she said, ‘He’s back in hospital under strict surveillance.’
‘What! What do you mean? Who’s doing was this?’
‘The authorities.’
‘The authorities? What are you talking about?’
‘Your brother, Mrs Brook, attacked me. He wasn’t accountable for his actions, but nevertheless he attacked me.’
‘Glen? Glen attacked you? Glen wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘The Glen you knew mightn’t have hurt a fly, but the Glen he has become would; he would even have gone as far as to kill me if he hadn’t been stopped in time.’
They stared at each other in hostility for almost a full minute; then Florence, her full lips pressing one against the other, almost spat out the words, ‘I suppose you’ll tell me now that it was a bedroom scene.’
‘Yes, it was just that.’
‘Then all I can say, miss, is that you encouraged him. Deranged or otherwise, you must have encouraged him. You’re that type. You’ve worked on my father; it’s evident to us all. It wouldn’t surprise me what you get up to next, but I’ll put a spoke in your wheel, I’ll get the family together.’
Jinny put out her hand and slowly pressed the woman aside as she said, ‘Do that, Mrs Brook, do that;’ then with shaking legs she mounted the stairs and when she entered her room she dropped down onto the bed fully dressed as she was and lay as one exhausted. It had certainly been a day, a day and a half. She had been shocked by Noreen Power’s remark, and then this, going to get the family together to prevent her…from doing what? Marrying their father?
Slowly she sat up on the bed and, staring ahead, she nodded as if at the reflection of herself as she said, ‘Well then, why not give credence to the lie’; nobody else wanted her. Oh yes, there was Michael. He was persistent, but she had no real feeling for Michael, and the one for whom she had any real feeling only wanted her on the cheap. But Bob. What feelings had she for her boss? Oh, she liked him; her feelings for him were deep. Was it love? Well, she had learned of late there were all kinds of love, and in spite of his disability Bob Henderson was still a man. Oh, yes, very much so. She had been handmaiden to him for some time now and he would always need a handmaiden. Well, let her be practical. Oh God, yes, let her be practical for once. If she was she could become mistress of this house, and what was more she would be a rich woman with her finger deep in the pie of Henderson and Garbrook.
The decision almost made, she rose from the bed, but it was as she unbuttoned her coat a voice said, ‘And you’ll have a stepson and you’ll have to work with him, and there will be times when you’ll see him day after day. What price then the compensation for being the handmaiden?’
It was early evening when Bob said, ‘I think I’ll go to bed, Willie. It’s been a day and a half.’
‘It has that, sir, and you’ve done splendidly. My! You set that place alight this morning. I went into the canteen; you should have heard them. You’d think there’d been a revolution and the president was back.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, sir. I’m afraid Mr Waitland wasn’t very popular in himself. As for the new systems he was devising, well I think a strike would have been the end result. Apparently, he wasn’t approachable. As I heard one fellow put it, one mouthful from you solved more problems than all the typewritten notices coming down from the top floor.’
‘Well, that’s nice to know. It’s always nice to know you’re wanted, Willie. And by the way, you’ll still be wanted. I’ve been thinking about it, this business of you and me, how you’re going to fill your time in when I’m at the office, so I thought that after you’d got me dusted and powdered and to the office in the mornings, what about you running a first-aid room at the works? They run off to the infirmary with scratches. There’s a first-aid box with bits and pieces. But seriously, some of those fellows get nasty gashes in their hands from the rods, so how about you working out a few hours a day there, either morning or afternoon or spread around, taking your free time in between, then every other night seeing me home. John’lI take over when you’re off duty like, that’s if he’s not abroad. Which means the sooner we get that lift installed the better, and Jinny on to driving lessons. Anyway, how does the idea strike you?’
‘Strikes me very well, sir. Just leave it to me and Mr John; we’ll fix it up between us.’
‘Aw, well, that’s settled. Now get these bloody pants off me.’ He laughed as he added now, ‘I’ve been so used to a bare pelt for months that I feel all trussed up in…’
The door being thrust open cut off his words as Florence entered, and now her father bawled at her, ‘What the hell do you mean coming in like that. Can’t you see I’m practically naked? Here, give me that cover.’ He grabbed at the quilt that was lying over the foot of the bed and put it over his bare limp legs; then he glared at Florence where she stood in the middle of the room glaring back at him, and now he bawled, ‘Answer me! What do you bloody well mean, stalking in like that? Even when your mother was alive you never did anything like…’
‘When my mother was alive things were different.’
He paused before he nodded, and, his voice quieter now, he said, ‘Aye. Yes, of course when your mother was alive things were different.’
‘But her place has been taken downstairs; in fact, all over the house, as far as I can gather.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘That one, your so-called secretary, she was sitting in Mother’s place at the dining table.’
Bob lowered his head, closed his eyes, drew his lower lip tight between his teeth, then muttered, ‘Girl, your mother is dead. I’ve had to batter that into my brain for months now, she won’t come back. Things have altered. As for Jinny taking her seat downstairs, she wasn’t to know where your mother always sat.’
‘She knew all right. She’s taken command.’
‘Aye, well, let me tell you, if that’s the case I’m glad of it, because there’s been nobody else come forward, rushed like to look after me or the house.’
‘I offered…we offered.’
‘Aye, on your own terms, that I promote that lump of a husband of yours from a fruit shop into my factory. Not on the bottom floor. Oh no, but the top one. Well, I wasn’t having it not for any price. So I’ve been damned glad of Jinny, and always will be. She’s got more brains in her little finger, let me tell you, than you or your three sisters put together can account for, although I say it as shouldn’t…’
‘Oh yes, yes, I’m sure she has. Oh, yes, I know that. We four are dim. We haven’t got enough sense to be wily, crafty, cunning…’
Bob’s arm was extended to its length, its index finger stabbing out towards her, when the door opened again and John entered. His face looking almost as angry as his sister’s and ignoring his father, he addressed her straight away, saying, ‘One of these days somebody’s going to belt you right across the mouth.’
‘Well, it certainly won’t be you…or her.’
‘Don’t you be too sure. If I’d been her I’d have knocked you on your back.’
‘What’s this? What’s this now?’
John turned and, looking at his father, he said, ‘She went for Jinny as if she was some low slut you had brought in from the streets; in fact, she almost said as much.’
‘I did nothing of the kind. I merely told her to get out of my mother’s chair, that she wasn’t mistress of this house…not yet anyway.’ She now glanced at her father, and the room became still for a moment, no-one speaking, for his head was wagging slowly now, and, his words keeping in time with his nodding, he said, ‘So you said she wasn’t yet mistress of the house?’
This elicited no response from Florence, and he went on, ‘Well, now, Florence, you’ve opened up a question that’s been in me mind for some time. I’ve always believed in paying people the right wage for the right labour, and Jinny’s laboured well for me for months now, and at times she’s kept me from losing me reason, and I’ve wondered how I could repay her. This morning when I was in the office, it came to me that I could put her on the board. Aye, I thought, that’s what I’ll do, eventually I’ll put her on the board. But I knew that wasn’t enough, I knew I wanted to do something more, not only in the way of repaying her but of satisfying meself, some want in me.’
‘You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t!’ The words were spurted from Florence’s lips in a spray of saliva. ‘You…you wouldn’t dare put her in mother’s place.’
‘Don’t you say to me, lass, what I would dare to or what I wouldn’t dare to. I’ve always gone on me own bloody way and I’ll do it in this. Only one thing you’re right about: I wouldn’t put her in your mother’s place; nobody can fill your mother’s place. I know that, and Jinny knows that; but, as I said, I’ve to realise the dead are dead, an’ if I’ve got to go on living I’ve got to have some kind of companionship. I’m made that way. Man or woman.’ He now flashed an angry glance at John; and he held the look as he saw that his son’s face looked distorted, it was as if he had witnessed something utterly abhorrent; his eyes were mere slits, seemingly lost in their sockets; his lips had squared away from his teeth; and his cheeks that the winter climate always reddened were now devoid of colour. His face looked grey and, of a sudden, old. He was about to say, ‘And what’s the matter with you? Don’t you approve?’ but he told himself that would be hitting below the belt. Of course he wouldn’t approve. What he wanted to say in this moment was, ‘Don’t look at me like that, lad. Please don’t look at me like that. You don’t understand me. I doubt if you ever will.’ But his thoughts were interrupted by Florence’s crying, ‘I’m going home and I’ll never enter these doors again as long as she’s here.’
‘Well, that’s entirely up to you, lass,’ he called after her as she hurried towards the door, ‘but I’d better warn you: if it lies with me, she’s going to be here for a long, long time. An’ tell that to your Ronnie. But I don’t suppose it will make any difference to him, because he would bow his knee to a trollop if he thought he could get his foot in here.’
When the door banged he hunched his shoulders against the shudder for a moment and, looking at Willie who had been standing well back in the room, he said, ‘Leave us for a minute, will you, Willie?’
When the door had closed on Willie, Bob did not immediately speak, nor did he look at John, but, his hands making nervous movements, he smoothed the quilt that was covering his legs before he said, ‘Now it’s your turn to spit it out, else you’ll burst. You look like thunder. You don’t hold with the idea, do you?’
‘You can’t do it.’
Strangely enough Bob did not bawl his reply to this: his voice was slow and level as he said, ‘I can, lad, I can. It’s up to her.’ He watched John’s Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat before he could bring out, ‘She’ll take you out of pity.’
‘Oh, aye. Well, that could be, but there’s worse things than pity. They say it’s akin to love, an’ she’s very easy to love. And apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that way.’ He paused a moment before he added, ‘There’s a big handsome Romeo. I hear from Willie he called again the other day. She happened to be out. He’s tenacious. I’ll have to look slippy, won’t I? But lad, come and sit down, I want to have a talk with you.’
‘The hell you do. You’ve said enough.’
As Bob watched his son stalk out of the room he bowed his head to his chest and gritted his teeth; then he rubbed his hand firmly round his face and pressed his fingers against his eyeballs before straightening his shoulders and reaching out and pressing the bell to the side of him.
When Willie opened the door, he was stayed from entering by Bob saying, ‘Tell Jinny I’d like a word with her, will you?’
‘Now? You wouldn’t like me to help you to bed first?’
‘No. I’d like to see her now.’
It was almost five minutes later when she entered the room. Her face looked white and drawn. She held herself stiffly. Another time he would have greeted her with, ‘Hello, what’s up with you? On your high horse?’ But tonight he simply beckoned her forward with a lift of his hand, then said quietly, ‘Pull up a chair.’
She did as he bade her, and when she placed the chair opposite to him he said, ‘Bring it round the side here, I want to hold your hand.’ These words were accompanied with a little wry smile, but they did not affect her expression, and when she sat down by his side and he had taken her hand in both of his, he said, ‘No beating about the bush. I know the gist of what happened downstairs. Now I’m going to put a question to you, it’s one of these “if” questions, without…well, how can I put it, real meaning, sort of pushed in between something else, if you follow. Is parenthesis the right word? Or is it hypothetical? I don’t know. But you see’—he squeezed her hand—‘I know some big words an’ all. That surprises you, doesn’t it?’ Still she didn’t respond to his mood, and so he went on, ‘Well, the question I want to push in, which isn’t really a question mind, is this. If…if I was to ask you to marry me, would you do it? Mind, I’m not asking you, I’m just putting it to you like, you understand? If I was to ask you to marry me, would you do it?’
