THE CINDER PATH (11 page)

Especially did she recognize those in her

husband. But going on the premise that no one was

perfect, she had for years condoned all his little sharp practices, and the last thing she would have ever thought of doing was to point out his faults to him. But not so

Nellie. Nellie was sackcloth on the skin of

both her father and her sister, although strangely that wasn't her intention,

Nellie's intention, she knew, was just to present

her idea of things and people as they

appeared to her. Ever since she had passed the lisping

stage she had gone to great pains to express herself

fully on all manner of subjects. Having been

placed in the most embarrassing situations by their

daughter's frankness when in company she and her

husband had learned it was wiser to keep their opinions of their neighbours to themselves, at least until they were in the privacy of their bedroom.

That her daughter had of late learned a

little discretion, at least with regard to outsiders, was very small comfort, for hardly a day went past but she

irritated her father or infuriated her sister, while

at the same time, Florence had to admit

guiltily, affording herself not a little amusement. And the funny thing about it all was that Nellie's verbal

attacks always held more than a smattering of truth,

as in her latest statement that her husband and daughter took after the bull, for, as in her father, so there was raging in Victoria deep physical passion, which

could only be really assuaged by marriage. ... At

least she kept hoping so.

She was in a way worried about Victoria. She

wished this business between young Charlie MacFell and

her could be settled.

Her father was bent on it,, had been for years, and

Victoria herself didn't seem all that averse.

But what about Charlie?

He was an odd fellow was Charlie, not like a

farmer at all; took after his mother really. . . .

Yet no; that woman was a silly bitch if ever there

was one, stacking the house with her fancy furniture

and dressing like a girl half her age. That place

would soon go to rack and ruin if it wasn't for young

Betty, She should have been the man, should

Betty. Yes, she should have been the man; there was

too much of the woman in Charlie. Not that he wasn't

manly. In his own fleshless longboned way he was

an attractive young fellow. But gutless. Aye,

that was the word, gutless.

Charlie needed someone strong, someone to guide him;

and Victoria would be the right one in the right place

there. It was a pity he was two years younger than her, it made things a little more difficult. But it was a

difficulty that must be overcome if she wanted

life with Hal to be bearable.

Her husband had a bee in his bonnet about merging

the lands. If the positions of the farm had been altered and most of their land had been freehold, like Moor

Burn was, then Hal might have taken a different

view of the

marriage. Oh yes, he undoubtedly would have.

It was funny how land got hold of men. Her

husband, almost twenty years her senior, was turned

sixty. In the order of things he hadn't all that time

to enjoy the acquisition of more land, yet she knew it

wasn't only of himself he was thinking but of his grandchildren.

He wanted grandchildren, male grandchildren, in whom he could live on, walk in their steps as it were over the land,

following the seasons from spring dawns to the

mist-shrouded setting suns of winter. Men like her

husband wanted to perpetuate themselves for ever. It was when they saw no prospect of this happening they would

tend to make life pretty uncomfortable, to say the

least, for those around them.

For herself, she didn't like to live uncomfortably:

she enjoyed good food, good wine, she liked a soft

bed and a warm house; she liked to dress well, according to her station, and have enough spare cash over from the housekeeping and dairy not to have to beg for coppers.

She had a good life, an enjoyable life, and she

wanted this to go on, so she turned to her daughter now and, her voice low and harsh, she said, "That was a nasty crude thing to say; but we'll forget about it and we'll talk of tomorrow and your party. Now you want your party to go off well, don't you, Nellie?"

Nellie stared back at her mother but made no

reply, and Florence, straightening her broad

shoulders, drew in a deep breath and went on,

"Well, it's going to be up to you, because if you get your father's back up-and Victoria's-this will be your

final birthday party. Now I mean that, Nellie.

There'll be a lot of people here tomorrow, not only your friends but your father's and mine . , . and Victoria's, and

I want us all to enjoy ourselves."

"As it's my party why can't I have just my friends?"

"Well, one reason that should be evident to you is that your friends have all got to be driven here, and you can't leave their parents or their brothers standing on the

doorstep . , . now can you?"

They looked at each other for a moment before

Nellie said, "I suppose Betty won't be

able to ride over by herself, Charlie will have to bring her?"

"Yes, Nellie." Florence's words' were

weighty now. "Charlie will be bringing Betty . . .

and her mother."

"Oh, that'll be nice, if not for Charlie, for

Dad I mean."

"Nellie!" Florence now ground her teeth.

"There are times when I could skelp you hard."

"For speaking the truth, Mother? It's under

everybody's nose."

Nellie now rose sharply from the windowseat and,

making for the door, she said, "Poor Charlie;

she'll eat him alive. He won't know which horse

has kicked him by the time she's finished with him. It's like throwing a Christian to the lions."

Before she had time to turn the knob of the door her

mother had her by the shoulders again and, swinging her about, she hissed at her, "Nellie Chapman! now

I'm warning you, you say one word to spoil things for

Victoria tomorrow and I'll never forgive you."

Nellie gazed back at her mother, sighed a

deep sigh and said, "All right. All right, keep

your hair on. But you can't stop me feeling sorry

for Charlie."

On the landing Nellie paused a moment and looked

towards Polly Benton who was on

her knees sweeping up the powder from the carpet and there passed between them an exchange of glances expressing

mutual understanding.

TCP 5

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birthday party was going with a swng, it had been going with a swing for the past three hours. The guests had sat down at five o'clock to a high tea and it was well

past six before they rose from the table. In the

sitting-room they chatted and talked for a time and teased Nellie the while she, as usual, gave back more

than she received. Then Florence was persuaded to sit

at the piano, and from then the party got under way. They danced the polka; they waltzed; they jigged; there were enough couples to form three sets of lancers, and sufficient

of the old ones present to clap and applaud

from their seats which had been pushed against the wall in order to clear the floor.

By ten o'clock a deal of wine and spirits had been

imbibed and the quantity was beginning to tell on some of the guests, as was evident when the sound of their hoots and laughter reached the kitchen.

Lindy Morton, piling the plates of sandwiches

and mince pies on to the tray that

Polly was holding, giggled as she said, ""It's like New Year's Eve afore its time in there, isn't

it? By! they're goin" at it an' by the look of

him the master's nearly blotto, an' the missis

isn't far off either. An' your Charlie's knockin'

it back an' all."

"Don't call him my Charlie, Lindy;

I've told you that afore."

"Well, you're always talkin' about Mm."

"Not in that way. And if the missis heard you,

what do you think she'd say?"

"Aw, she'd just laugh, Well, she would about

somebody in your position havin' a shine on someone like Mister Charlie. All right! All right! Look,

you'll upset the tray . . . I'm sorry; I was

only havin' you on."

"Well, don't have me on about that."

Polly bounced her head at her work-mate; then

swinging abruptly about she went up the kitchen and,

turning her back to the door, thrust at it with her

buttocks, then edged herself around it and into the broad passage. Using the same procedure with the door at

the far end of the passage, she emerged into the hall and although, while crossing it, she kept her eyes

averted from where Miss Betty was sitting on the

bottom stair by the side of Robin Wetherby, she

did note that they

both had their heads down and that their shoulders were shaking with laughter, and she remarked to herself that Miss

Betty must have had a drop an' all if she was

letting herself go on a laugh.

She ignored a second couple standing against the

wall in the passage bordering the side of the

staircase. They weren't so close together but their

shoulders were resting against the panelling as they gazed at each other and this conveyed to her a sense of intimacy, as close as if they had been in each other's arms.

At first she couldn't make her way into the

sitting-room because there was a jig in process.

Miss Victoria was doing a kind of highland fling

opposite Mr Whitaker. They were twirling and

hooting to the beat of the clapping, which was almost

drowning the music of the piano.

Her arms were breaking with the weight of the tray, but she moved her head back and forward between the shoulders in front of her to get a better view, and as she stared

wideeyed at the two dancing figures, her thoughts

ran along the same lines as Nellie's had done

yesterday: She's like a wild horse, she'll

trample him to death.

Her eyes left the dancers now and searched the room,

as much as she could see of it; and then she saw him in the corner of her vision. She could see only his head and

his hands; he was laughing and was clapping as loudly as the rest.

There was a final great whoop of sound; the dancing

stopped and the clapping faded away; but she had

to repeat a number of times, "Excuse me.

Excuse me, please," before those in the doorway

parted to allow her through to the table that had been cleared at the end of the room.

As she put the full plates on the table and

picked up the empty ones, the laughter and voices

beat down on her and she said to herself, "It isn't fair; it's Miss Nellie's birthday party but

they're making it more like a rowdy New Year's do."

This was the third Christmas she had been

here, having taken up the post almost immediately after her father had died, but in all the parties they had had she had never seen so much drink flowing as there was tonight; nor so much-she hesitated on the word-jollification. And

anyway, it wasn't like a jollification; well, not

a jollification People of the Chapmans' standard were

known to indulge in, it was more approaching something she imagined one would see in the Wayfarers' Inn on the

high road, where the drovers got together after a big

market and things went on, so she had heard, that would sizzle your eyebrows.

As she stretched over to retrieve an empty

plate, she glanced to where Mrs MacFell was

sitting, and she gave a small shake of her head.

She got worse as she got older. Dressed

to kill. Her frock would have suited someone half her

age. They said she was on the lookout for a man.

Well, if nothing else, her getup would make her

fall between two stools, for to a young man she would

look like mutton dressed up as lamb, while to a

farmer who wanted a working wife she'd look like a

giddy-headed goat. Mr Chapman said that she had

gone back twenty years to when she first came to the

farm as a young scatterbrained lass, and that was what

she was acting like now. Her head was back,

her mouth was wide open and her hands were flapping at

Farmer Kelly.

As she wended her way out of the room, Polly's

eyes again searched for Charlie. She must have a word with him, she must; but the only hope she'd have of

waylaying him would

be when he went to the men's closet outside. And so

from now on she'd keep on the watch because surely

they'd want nothing more to eat, not for a while anyway; she'd carried four tray-loads of food in there in

the past half hour.

She had heard the boss say that you could drink your

fill to over-flowing as long as you ate with it, and he was certainly seeing that everybody did that the night. The stuff he had hauled up from the cellar was nobody's

business; he had even brought up bottles that were

twenty years old, the ones he usually bragged about.

She paused for a moment between the doors. It

wasn't like a birthday party at all, it was as if

he was celebrating something . . . aye, or hoping

to celebrate something. She turned about on a gasp

as a hand caught her arm.

"Hello there, Polly."

"Oh!" She now took in a short, sharp breath,

smiled, then said again, "Oh! , . .

hello, Charlie."