All the dear faces Read online

  “Life's not fair." The girl's voice was soft, sad almost, for who knew better than she how unjust life was to some, how kind to others, but that was something else again and at the moment she was doing her best to lift this beloved friend from the depths of her despair.

  It was not like Annie to give way like this and Phoebe knew that when she'd had a good cry and a good shout at the world in general and the farmers who had turned their backs on her in particular, she'd be her old self again, well, almost. A hard and bitter blow had fallen on her and that sort always left its mark, left the victim slightly weakened, but if Phoebe had anything to do with it, Annie'd get what she wanted in the end. Annie had taken it very bad, the refusal of the farmers to sell her their sheep, worse really than Phoebe had expected, for there were other fairs, farther a field, where Annie wasn't known and where sheep might be bought. But Annie had dragged herself about as though she had come to the end of the road and met head-on a wall over which there was no climbing. It was strange really, for on the way home from the fair at Keswick Phoebe had seen the grim clamping of Annie's mouth, the resolute jut to her jaw and the gleam in her eye which meant, as Phoebe well knew by now, that her benefactor and friend had made up her mind to something. Phoebe had gloated as she watched her, knowing that Annie had a plan to put right what had happened that day at the market. They had gone to their beds silently, but, Phoebe had been positive, with hope still about them. It had been several days later when Annie had suddenly broken down and given in to what looked like despair, crying and rocking as though the blow at Keswick had only just fallen.

  “Nay," Phoebe said, "it's not like thi' ter give up so easy. I've not known thi' long, but tha've never struck me as bein' someone as'd lay down an' whine just 'cos a few daft buggers . . ."

  “Oh Phoebe, I know, I know. Those daft buggers as you call them are not worth shedding a tear over, but sometimes something happens, on top of all the other misfortunes, which just seems to . . . well . . ."

  “What sorta things, Annie?"

  “Oh, I don't know, things you don't quite expect. They creep up on you from behind, and even though you're half expecting them, indeed you know very well they're bound to happen, they take you by surprise and . . . knock the breath from you.”

  Phoebe hadn't the slightest idea what Annie was talking about and the expression on her plain little face said so. She was a practical girl who understood the mischievous tricks life played on you, the calamities which you could see and feel, just like the one that had befallen them, yes them, since Annie's troubles were her troubles now, but all this business about things creeping up on you, behind your back, seemed a bit nonsensical to her. What sort of things? Did Annie mean like that Bert Garnett who was always skulking along the path from Upfell Farm and down to Browhead? Hanging about when his wife and mother-in-law thought him, she supposed, to be away on farm business, slipping into Annie's kitchen after dark on some pretext or other. His eyes were like those of a weasel fixed on Annie's breasts and he licked his lips as a cat might, which is about to lap at a saucer of cream. Oh aye, he was the sort who'd creep up behind your back, he was, but Phoebe was surprised that it should upset Annie who was quite capable of giving him a lug round t'earhole if he so much as laid a finger on her.

  They stood at the gate, Cat and Phoebe, waving and waving to her as she trudged up the lane in the direction of Gillthrop. The heavy sledge creaked along behind her. The rope they had hitched to it already bit into her tender shoulders beneath the old shirt and jacket which had been her father's. The dogs kept close to her side, looking back as she did, until they had turned the curve of the lane and Cat and Phoebe were out of sight.

  “Well lads," she said to them, settling her father's hat more firmly on her head, for it would not do if her hair fell about her shoulders, "let's get going." She hitched up the trousers making sure the braces on them were secure, for the waist was too big for her. They felt strange, but the freedom in walking was marvellous. No wonder men wore them, denying the privilege to their womenfolk, she thought, as she strode through the village of Gillthrop. Women who stood in their doorways stared at her, aware that they had seen the tall youth somewhere but not awfully sure where it could have been.

  She took the road straight ahead to Uldale, squaring her shoulders beneath the chafing rope with which she dragged the sledge, the ache there infinitely less than the one in her heart which had begun when she had heard of Reed Macauley's impending marriage.

  Chapter 15

  It was the man from Long Beck, the farm up by Dash Beck, who knocked at the door, and Phoebe opened it knowing they had nothing to fear from him.

  “Where is she?" he demanded to know abruptly, almost before the door was ajar, ready to push it wider and stick his foot in it, just as though he expected it to be shut in his face. He peered over Phoebe's shoulder, his frown forbidding but in his eyes was that look Phoebe had seen in them when last he was here.

  “The mistress is not 'ere at the moment," she said politely, as Annie had taught her. Phoebe was not to say where she was or how long she would be, Annie had said. On no account was Phoebe to let any caller know that Annie would be away overnight, in fact Phoebe was to act as though Annie was no further away than the coppice wood, or up on the peat moor digging for peat.

  “Can I give 'er a message?" Phoebe continued, her face expressionless, empty of all but her need to be courteous but at the same time close the door in the visitor's face since the biting wind was nipping smartly in through the open door.

  “Where is she?" the man said again, only his barely controlled awareness of the need for restraint on the doorstep of another's home keeping him from pushing past the stiff figure of the young girl and into Annie's kitchen.

  “She's out just now," Phoebe shifted not an inch.

  “But where, for God's sake? Is she up on the fell?" he asked, turning to stare up into the high distance of Great Cockup. He shaded his eyes with a gloved hand against the bright, cold autumn sun, then turned again to look down the sloping fields towards the lake as though Annie might suddenly appear. The afternoon sun cast long shadows as it settled behind the stand of trees by the waterside. Tall Scotch pines, dense and darkly green, and all about them and about the lake, on its far side and blazing up the fells to where it met the grey craggy rocks, was the golden glory of the drying bracken. Gold and yellow and orange melting down to the blue and purple waters of the lake where the colours mingled, rippling out from the shore in moving beauty. On the very tops of the tallest fells there was the first faint dusting of winter snow.

  “Nay, I couldn't say," Phoebe answered politely, "but she'll not be long.”

  It was a mistake and as the words left her mouth, Phoebe knew it.

  “Then I'll wait," the man said at once and before Phoebe could test her puny strength against his, he had pushed open the door and was inside. The dog at his feet was told brusquely to wait, and the door, taken from Phoebe's hand, was closed upon the animal.

  Reed Macauley looked about him, ready for the affronted voice of Annie Abbott to come at him demanding to know what he was doing in her kitchen since he had not believed what the girl had told him. She was in the house somewhere he had decided, keeping her distance, unwilling to confront him, to listen to him, no matter what he had to say to her.

  And what had he to say to her? he asked himself, as he had done ever since he had ordered his mare to be saddled and had set off in the direction of Browhead. They were nothing to one another, he and Annie Abbott. They had never, in the twelve months he had known her, touched one another, never kissed or clasped hands. They had known no physical contact, had exchanged no promises, no vows, nor even words which might be construed as loving, and yet he loved her. She loved him. He knew it and so did she and he was, in the spring, to marry another woman. So why was he here? To do what? To say what? He did not know, he only knew that the compulsion to come, now that Esmé and her parents had returned to Yorkshire, going before the winter snows
locked them in, had been unassailable. Of course, he had heard of her misadventure in Keswick — who in these parts had not —and he meant to put it right if he could do so without upsetting that proud and rebellious spirit of hers. He'd give her the damned sheep if she'd let him, and if not, sell them to her at the lowest price he was able, if she would let him. That was the trouble. She was so damned high and mighty, she was likely to take offence and tell him to go to the devil, taking his sheep with him, even if he offered her the pick of his flock. But he couldn't let her go on like this, being humiliated and treated contemptuously by everyone in the district, sneered and jeered at, working her fingers and her proud back right down to the bone in her determination to be successful. Jesus, he had the power, the wealth, the influence to put a stop to it right now for there were not many in the parish of Bassenthwaite who did not owe a favour to Reed Macauley, and it would take but a word from him to set her on her feet and on the path she wanted to go. Of course, if he did that he would also give her the power she needed to snap her fingers at him when all he wanted, all he had ever wanted was to have her dependent on him, soft, loving, submissive, waiting, sighing for Reed Macauley. He wanted to look after her, not give her the means to look after herself. Even if he married . . . when he married Esmé, he and Annie could . . . many men had an .. . arrangement to which their wives made no objection. It was, at least amongst the upper classes, quite normal for a man to have a mistress, providing he was discreet and did not fling it in the faces of those with whom he was acquainted. Ezra Hodgson and Ben Pearson both kept a cosy nest with a pretty bird in it, Ezra in Penrith and Ben in Rosthwaite, far enough away not to offend the sensibilities of their wives, but near enough to ride over when they had a fancy for . . . well, what men with good, sensible, but unresponsive wives, needed.

  His eyes roamed the room as he waited for her to appear, noticing the shining, fragrant cleanliness of the homely kitchen. So had his mother's looked years ago when he was a boy and the Macauleys, though well set up farmers, had not had the wealth, nor the need for the luxurious living he now enjoyed. His mother had worked in her kitchen, directing her maids in the making of soap and candles, bread and all the good food she had stuffed into his father and himself. A true farmwife, who thought nothing of spinning and weaving the cloth for their clothes, in between her many other household chores. Now, his wife had no need to do more than adorn his drawing room when her callers came, sit at his table and make small talk when his guests dined, make herself available in his bed when he needed her, and produce his children which a well-trained nurse and governess, or tutor, would bring up for her. Not for her this gleaming, glowing, well-polished comfort, the good smells of nourishing food which she had cooked in her nostrils, and the sight of her children about the kitchen table, busy on their primers, as Annie's child was, dogs sprawled by the fire and . . . dogs . . . where were the dogs? . . . The dogs were not here so where in hell had Annie got to where she needed her dogs with her? She had no sheep so why had she . . . ? Where had she . . . ? Where was she . . . ? The two girls round the table . . . reading apparently . . . two places set with plates and cutlery . . . not three . . . two . . . so where the devil . . . ?

  “Where is she?" he said for the third time.

  *

  She had reached Caldbeck within the week. Though as the crow flies it was no more than ten or so miles from Gillthrop, the roads were winding and tortuous, simply no more than rutted tracks in some parts, high and treacherous, and she had made many detours as she moved from farm to farm, village to village, cottage to cottage, in the selling of her besoms, her swill baskets and her long woollen stockings. Though most of the farm women made their own, her goods had sold well in the villages and the small towns of Uldale and Caldbeck. Women there did not have the materials to make such things themselves, relying on pedlars to bring them to the door or the market stalls at fair time. The stallholders at the fairs in the cycle of trading had bought the goods they sold from the farm women and, of course, wishing to make a profit for their trouble, had put a penny or two on the price, and the tall, good-looking young man with the soft voice was welcome with his cheaper and better-quality goods. She had spent three days in Uldale, moving with her sledge to every house in every narrow street, the dogs one on either side of her. Blackie and Bonnie were uneasy, quick to alarm, should something they did not care for threaten their mistress. They were not accustomed to people, to other dogs, to cats, horses, carts and carriages and every one seemed to them a menace with which they must deal. It took Annie's sharp commands to keep them from lunging at all and sundry. The men who passed her by, though they could not have said why, stared at her, curious and strangely ill at ease with the young man who had the graceful gait of a female which sat awkwardly on his tall, long-legged frame.

  She had pulled the sledge, lighter now and easier on her chafed shoulders, through Longlands, Greenhead, Branthwaite and Fellside, going up and up, higher into the rolling peaklands towards Caldbeck Fell, where she could have taken a short cut over the tops had she not wished to go on to Parkend, Whelpo and Caldbeck itself. It was in Caldbeck she knew she would find, as she had done in Uldale, many customers for her wares. She had spent the nights in tiny inns, taking the cheapest room, alone of course, since to sleep in a double or triple, sharing with other men, though cheaper, would have caused no end of trouble; she smiled to herself as the thought came to her.

  It was getting colder. The days were shortening and soon the last fortnightly cattle market would be held at Rosley, which was her destination. She had already gone past files of slow-moving cattle, and some sheep, winding their way along the passes and the fellsides, some on their journeys to new pastures and some to the cattle fair.

  Whitsuntide was the time of the largest fair at Rosley Hill when travellers with their beasts came from all points of the compass to sell their goods and their animals. Rosley was on the main drove road from Scotland to the north of England and it attracted thousands of men, and women too. Its influence reached across the Solway and into Annan and Dumfries, mile after mile of gentle greenery and lush enclosures which housed the cattle and other animals as they made their way there from the Solway Plain and beyond. To the east of Rosley was the grazing ground of High Hesket, which meant that the market was set in exactly the right place to meet the needs of man and beast. Foot passengers from Carlisle and Penrith as well as Scotland found the going easy. Travelling people such as the young actor who had seduced fourteen-yearold Annie Abbott were drawn there. Pot-selling women came balancing enormous baskets of pots on their heads, the basket resting on a weather-bleached hat braided with ribbon. They wore long gaudy gowns with a blue flannel petticoat showing at the front. They smoked a short pipe for they cared nought for any man's opinion and usually had a horde of youngsters about them who carried baskets on their hips. There were carriers and collectors of news, since it was hard to come by up on the rolling fells of Hesket Forest and Westward. There were men dealing in rags and skins, women who told fortunes, vagrants and Irishmen in increasing numbers who came from Ireland into Whitehaven on coal vessels, making their way to wherever there was a promise of work, and beneath it all was a vague and shifting underworld of organised gangs of thieves and pickpockets, waiting to pounce on the unwary.

  But there were none of these about as Annie Abbott approached The Drover's Rest two weeks after she had left Gillthrop. It was too late in the year for the 'fair' people, those who came to beg and entertain at the great Whitsuntide Fair. There were about her the last of the men selling what remained of their cattle and sheep and none took any interest in the tall youth who pulled an old and empty sledge and at whose heels two silent dogs trailed. Except one!

  He was leaning against the inn wall, a pint pot of ale in his fist, one heel resting on the stones behind him, one hand deep in the pocket of his narrow corduroy trousers. He was tall, young and lean and straight as an arrow. No bulk about him, but a taut whipcord strength which seemed to promise tough
ness. He had brown, curly hair and grey, cat-like eyes set in a clever face. His mouth had a humorous twist to it, as it dipped into the ale and his grey eyes were watchful, everywhere at once, keen and alert as though he was not only guarding his back but planning his route ahead.

  His eyes stopped moving as they came to rest on the figure of the tall young man and a puzzled, deliberating expression narrowed them in his brown face. He watched as the youth moved gracefully across the inn yard, a sledge at his back, his stride as long as any man's, his shoulders slightly hunched, his head set somewhat awkwardly on his shoulders, just as though he was doing his best to hide something.

  But what? He was a perfectly ordinary young man, tall and slim and very shabby, but then so were many of the travellers who entered and left the inn. It was a working man's inn, cheap and clean, where dozens of drovers stayed as they took their masters' cattle and sheep, to and from the fair. He studied the young man as he leaned to put a slim hand on each of the heads of the dogs and they both lay down next to the exceedingly fragile-looking sledge. He went inside and the man leaning on the wall drifted after him. He did not know why.

  “Have you a room?" he heard the youth say in a low voice to the innkeeper.

  “We 'ave that, lad, at least a bed if that's any good to thi'."

  “I'd like a room to myself, if you please." The landlord looked surprised.

  “Nay, lad, this is t'last fair an' I'm pulled out wi' drovers. Tha's lucky to get thi' a bed to thissen, which tha'll have, I promise thi', but not a room. See, there's only one other in't room an' that's this chap behind thi'. He'll not mind sharing, will tha', sir?”

  Charlie Lucas smiled infectiously, raising his pint pot in the direction of the landlord, before turning to look into the softest, most incredibly beautiful pair of brown eyes he had ever seen on any human being, let alone another male, and it was then, as the strange imperceptive feeling of disquiet became stronger, that he began to realise.