All the dear faces Page 16

  She directed a smile so falsely brilliant at Bert Garnett his mouth flew open. He did not see the falseness, only the wide mouth, the perfect teeth, the glittering eyes, the breathless — he did not use the word feverish — way she spoke. He saw Mr Macauley as well, but not being a man of perception or indeed of any deep thought, he observed nothing strange in the wealthy farmer's presence in Annie Abbott's field. Perhaps he wanted to buy her farm since eventually she would have to sell, everyone knew that and he only wished he himself had the ready cash to make her an offer right now. It was a damn good farm lying neat as you please right next to his. A bit neglected but that could soon be put right. Why Reed Macauley should want it was a mystery since he had acres and to spare of his own but that was not Bert Garnett's concern. An insensitive man who saw nothing but what his own eyes looked at, and at the moment that was Annie Abbott's flashing white ankles and glowing brown eyes. A man shrewd and thrifty, his plain craggy features which were framed by a wisping beard, revealing these characteristics. He was known to be level headed in his working life but there were not many men whose clear sight would not be clouded by the spirited loveliness and warmth of Annie Abbott.

  Reed Macauley vaulted the wall and reached blindly for the reins of his mare who was cropping placidly at the sweet new grass by Annie's wall. His dog stood up, moving her plumed tail in greeting, then sensing something not quite right in her master, pushed her cold nose into his hand. He touched her head gently and murmured to her and as though the dog had calmed something ferocious in him, he turned to Annie. His eyes were a cold, pale and distant blue and his mouth was hard, cruel.

  “I will bid you good day then, Miss Abbott," he said, the words sounding more like an insult than a farewell. "I had not realised you had made such good . . . friends .. . hereabouts. But I wish you well of them." The last word a sneer which, though it meant nothing to Bert Garnett, was clearly a slur on Annie Abbott. She flushed, then turned to Bert, again giving him her glorious smile and, as she had meant it to, bringing bile to Reed Macauley's mouth.

  “Oh indeed, Mr Macauley. Bert has been most helpful to me since we renewed our acquaintance a month or two back. We knew one another as children. His wife and I are old friends and our families were . . . were close.”

  Bert preened and moved nearer to Annie, his shoulder almost touching hers and Reed's hand jerked at the reins of his mount. The mare moved her head fretfully, not accustomed to rough handling, and he turned at once to soothe her and in that moment as he looked away, Annie Abbott's love for him, since what else could it be, she asked herself despairingly, was in her eyes and on her face for anyone, even Bert Garnett to see. He did not see it.

  His grace and vigour and style were very evident as Reed mounted his mare. He was a gentleman from good sound stock, going back to the days before the reign of James I, when his forebears had supplied military service and equipment to their King; a man of wealth and position, sitting easily in the saddle, handsome, oh yes he was that, for she loved him now, and unconcerned with lesser men like Bert Garnett and women like herself. The lounging charm he showed suddenly, since what were they to him, his manner said, was light and whimsical and beneath the polish his education had given him whatever he might be feeling was well hidden. He was in control, of himself and of the situation and he tipped his hat quite genially to them both.

  “I'm glad to hear it, Miss Abbott. And does your wife approve of your . . . er . . . friendship with her friend, Mr Garnett?" turning his controlled smile at Bert. "It is always handy to have one's wife's . . . permission, is it not?”

  Turning his mare, calling to Bess, though she did not need it, he moved off up the dale in the direction of Long Beck five miles away. Bert Garnett, not at all sure what Reed Macauley had meant, was quite put out by Annie's sudden silence and lack of interest. He had pictured them sitting together on the wall, shoulder to shoulder, him with a tankard of the ale she had brewed recently, in his hand. They would chat and laugh and perhaps, if he could sweet-talk her, or even, being a masculine, firm sort of a chap, persuade her to a cuddle, perhaps a kiss or two and a stroke of her soft breasts which, it seemed to him, she flaunted on his behalf. Nice and polite she'd been to him when, on the quiet, of course, he'd called at her farm on some pretext or other, and always glad of a lift when he went to market. He was very discreet, or at least he had been until today, only slipping down the track to her back door when his wife and his mother and sister-in-law were busy elsewhere, but it seemed to him Annie gave him no reason to believe he was anything but welcome. Lonely she'd be, and glad of a chat with a friendly chap like himself. And she'd be short of summat else, he'd be bound, a lusty woman like her, and him only too glad to supply it. It would give him a great deal of pleasure to dip his hand down the front of her bodice and hold those lovely dumplings cupped in his hand whilst his fingers tweaked her nipples into an even more pointed firmness than they already were. She might even allow him to run his hand up those white legs, along the satin smoothness of her thighs to the joining where the damp, dark, sweet-smelling bush of her womanhood lay and when .. .

  His day-dream was cruelly shattered when, with a voice as flat and cool as the lake on a still winter's day, Annie moved imperiously across the bit of garden at the front of the house and went inside. Holding the door she turned for a moment.

  “I'll see you tomorrow, Bert," then closed it in his face.

  Chapter 11

  The twice-yearly Hiring Fairs held at Whitsuntide and Martinmas were eagerly looked forward to by the folk of Lakeland, for they were regarded as a holiday and a respite from the drudgery of the labours they performed on their farms all the year round. There was no deliverance for them on any other day of the week since even Sunday brought the same round of chores which must be done, but on these two occasions everyone who could be spared had their day out. There were fairs at Cockermouth, Kendal, Penrith, Ulverston, Egremont, Appleby and Ravenglass but no matter where they were held, it was an excuse for revelries. There was even a regatta on Lake Windermere in which schooners took part in sailing events and there were rowing matches, running, leaping and wrestling matches and, as the poster advertised, a variety of other amusements finishing with a ball at the Salutation Inn at Ambleside.

  But the serious business of hiring servants and farm hands, those who were not 'stopping on' for another six months and therefore had gathered to find a new place, must first be got through. A straw stuck in a hat or from the corner of the mouth indicated that a labourer was for hire and when the deal was struck between master and man, a handshake was all that was needed to seal the bargain. The hired man or woman received a shilling as 'axles', or earnest money, as a token of their hiring. A man could get between £8 and £10 for his six months with board and lodgings included, and a woman might expect between £6 and £7. No references were asked for or offered, master taking man, and vice versa, on looks alone.

  Though Annie had been expecting the increased excitement and burgeoning crowds of men and women, children, dogs, horses and all the paraphernalia of this lively day, the impact as the cart, with a truculent Bert Garnett at the reins, turned into Market Place, hit her like a blow. Yesterday still clung to her like drifting cobwebs which, no matter how she strived to dislodge them, held her fast, numbing her mind and blunting her senses so that she could hardly think. The worst thing she could ever imagine happening to her, had happened, and she was twined round with her love for Reed Macauley, and would she ever be free of it? Could she function in spite of it? The heaving sea of people crammed between the market stalls only brought her fresh misery for she had to get through today and this evening, smiling and cheerfully fobbing off the often crude jokes and repartee which her customers imagined she was more than willing to enjoy. Grit her teeth and smile, tactfully remove eager hands from the different parts of her body they remorselessly attached themselves to whilst the inner being that was Annie Abbott cringed, rebelling against this humiliation which she was forced to endure. Some
times looking at the sly admiration and . . . yes, lust, she supposed it to be, in Bert Garnett's pale, washed out eyes, she was tempted to tell him to take himself and his 'helping hand' as he described it, to the devil. She knew what he wanted in repayment for the lifts to Keswick, the vague offers of future 'boon-ploughing' and perhaps other farming activities at which he hinted. Sally didn't know he had been a time or two to Browhead and Annie didn't tell her since one day Bert Garnett might indeed be of some aid to her. She couldn't afford to insult him but she dreaded the time, which was bound to come, when he would get up the courage to tell her what was on his lascivious mind.

  “I'll wait for thi' by 't corner," he said shortly. He had scarcely noticed her silence, the pale, lethargic lack of her usually bright spirits. He was too concerned with his own needs and his own offended spirits, for was he not a man of some importance in the parish of Bassenthwaite and did he not deserve more respect than the curt dismissal he had received yesterday from this woman? Laughed and joked with him for two months she had, leading him on, as he saw it, and him helping her out whenever he could — without his wife knowing naturally, for he was not a complete fool — and she'd done no more than shut the bloody door in his face and what had Macauley been doing there, answer him that? Well, child or no child, giving Cat a surly glance, he'd have more than a cool dismissal from , Annie Abbott this night.

  The market place and all the streets leading off it were jammed from building to building with a wide variety of entertainments. There was wrestling, slack-wire balancing performing bears and monkeys, sad and hopeless and , frightened. There were freaks such as the pig-faced lady and the hairiest man anyone had ever seen, like a monkey himself he was, coming from Morocco wherever that was, and where, the open-mouthed folk of Cumberland decided, all men must be like him, poor sods. Travelling 'doctors' sold elixirs and cures guaranteed to arouse the liver of the most sluggish gentleman; tooth pullers who always placed their booths close to the 'oom-pah-pah' of the customary brass band, since it would not do for the public, those with aching teeth to be got rid of, to hear the cries of distress from those who went before them. There was even a bull-baiting going on further along the passage which ran to the back of The Packhorse, a terrible tearing and rending as the bull, tethered on a short rope to the wall was set upon by dogs. Spectators stood around in their dozens or perched on the roofs of buildings about the passage, while the dogs roved freely round and beneath the exhausted bull, biting and nipping where they could. It was illegal of course, but the local constable, promised a fine cut of the beef when the animal was slaughtered, looked the other way. After all, it was a well-known fact that baiting the bull improved the quality of the meat.

  Those who were for hire stood in patient rows, men and women apart, and moving amongst them already, for the best and strongest went first, were the masters, stopping here and there to speak to one or the other.

  Annie gave them no more than an indifferent glance before entering The Packhorse, Cat beside her. She put the child in a corner of the already overheated kitchen, kissed her and told her to be a good girl and to do exactly as Mrs Holme, the landlord's wife, told her, and tying her crisp white apron about her waist, prepared herself for her long twelve hours on her feet.

  She got through it. She knew she would, of course, for no matter what the state of her heart, poor weak thing that it was, her back was strong and tireless. Somehow she parried the jokes and the teasing and the greedy hands. She smiled when they demanded it, pocketing their tips and telling herself that every farthing was putting her nearer to the end of all this, to the beginning of that good, hard-working free life she planned for her and Cat. She had enough already to buy several ewes at seven and sixpence each, and by October and tup time, she hoped to have the necessary cash to hire a ram of good quality to put to them and begin the birth of her flock. She and Cat were eating well. There was always plenty of leftovers from the kitchen of the inn. Their vegetables were doing well, and the herbs she had planted, and she had even managed, with a little bit of flattery and a great deal of the smiling and dimpling which men loved, to purchase a few hens and a cock cheap from a stallholder, which had happily taken to pecking round her yard and barn. She worked hard all day, digging and hoeing, tending to her tiny crop of oats and bigg, praying for good weather, weaving swill baskets and making birch besoms. Her coppice needed attention. She arid Cat went up to the peat moss to dig for peat, dragging it laboriously downhill on the sledge to be stacked in the yard. They lived off the land, except for the milk which Sally surreptitiously left twice a week for her in a can hidden beneath a tilted piece of slate in the wall by her gate. The couple of pints not missed by her mother or her husband since it was Sally's job to milk the cows. Annie meant to have her own cow one day and with her spare milk, make butter and cheese to be sold at the market, but it was enough at the moment that she was hanging on, getting there by slow painstaking, backbreaking inches. It was all very fragile of course. Just let one tiny thing go wrong and the whole meshed process of her life would topple and fall. An illness, on her part, or Cat's, which would prevent her going to The Packhorse, an accident, her crops to fail, her vegetables to rot, too much rain, too little rain and she would be finished. She needed the gods to continue smiling on her for another six months, just until she had her ewes, her ram, her oats and barley in and safely put away in her mother's oak kist. Please God . . . Oh, please God .. .

  The market place was deserted of all but the serious drunkards. There were vague shifting shadows against the walls which Annie knew were the whores who did good business when the inns closed. There was a shouted quarrel at the corner of the square and several men leaned drunkenly against one another as they watched in befuddled interest. She could see Bert's cart and his loose-limbed outline slumped on the seat and from somewhere to her right, where the men and women had stood waiting to be hired that morning — twelve hours ago and, God's teeth, her legs and back ached as though it was twenty-four — there was the sound of someone whimpering. Nothing to do with her, she told herself, hefting the sleeping form of Cat close against her shoulder. It was probably some prostitute who had performed her task and then been diddled by her customer, or a woman grieving the loss of her wages gone on gin, but the sound was haunting, that of someone in deep trouble, or fear.

  Dear God, she didn't want to go and find out, really she didn't. She had enough with her own weariness and the need to get her child safe home in her bed and besides which she had nearly three bob jingling in her deep skirt pocket, the tips she had earned on top of her wages which she would get at the week's end. All she wanted was to fall into bed herself and sleep the clock round. She had slipped out for half an hour at supper-time, given permission to go by Mrs Holme, the landlady, who was always pleased with the way Annie Abbott worked, 'going at it' as she liked things to be 'gone at', as she herself went at them, which was like a demon. She worked hard, did Mrs Holme, and she admired it in others and besides being pert and pretty, which drew the customers, Annie was good-natured, hard-working and conscientious.

  “O'course, dearie, you slip out for a breath of fresh air and tek littl'un wi' thi'," and Annie had gone to the stall-holder who had sold all her besoms and swills and after giving the woman her commission, had almost another pound, eighteen shillings to be exact, to put beside the tips and the rest of her small savings hidden in the tin box under the sconce in the kitchen. She had not done too well with the stockings since at this time of the year they were not an item women wanted, besides which most knitted their own, but she'd save them until autumn and try again.

  A good day, a very good day and the last thing she wanted was to be distracted by some other woman's troubles. Anyway, the noise had stopped now so she'd best get back to Bert who, having seen her come from the inn, was beginning to show signs of impatience as she dilly-dallied by the doorway.

  “Now stop that, yer daft little bugger," a man's voice said hoarsely, followed by a thud, then nothing again. Silen
ce. A small sound of something moving just out of range of the light which fell from the doorway of The Packhorse, scuffling perhaps and a grunt or two but nothing more. For some reason though, the hairs on the back of Annie's neck rose and a peculiar dread trickled down her back. It was nothing, she told herself. And if it was, it was nothing to do with her, but some primeval female instinct would not allow her to turn away and walk towards Bert who had now jumped down from his cart and was beckoning to her with every sign of vexed irritability.

  She turned away from him slowly, trying to pierce the shadows at the side of the inn, but the darkness was complete. There was an enormous waterbutt put there by some optimistic soul who had hoped, one presumed, to collect rainwater and whether it was full or empty Annie neither knew nor cared as she peeped round its wide girth.

  She could see nothing at first, then, as her eyes became used to the deeper darkness there, she became aware of movement, a shifting and twitching which meant nothing to her at that moment. There was someone there, she could make that out. Huddled against the wall and in the corner where the butt touched it, a man and woman wrestling, deep in the throes of fornication, Annie thought disgustedly, the woman's skirt well up about her waist, the man's trousers well down below his knees. There began the most awful guttural panting and the man's white buttocks gleamed in the dark corner, obscene and graceless, but as Annie had already told herself, nothing to do with her. She supposed the whores who plied their trade in the grey areas about the town must ply it somewhere and here was as good a place as any since it was dark and afforded some privacy. But suddenly the words she had heard a moment before came back to her.