All the dear faces Page 24

  The silence in the room was unparalleled. From the kitchen at the back of the bar a woman's voice squeaked in tuneless song and there was a great clatter of pans. A boy's voice shouted that he'd fetch some more eggs from the run and the woman stopped her caterwauling to tell him to look lively. In contrast the quiet in the bar was appalling as those who had not seen the hat fall but who had been nudged by those who had, turned to stare in absolute silence at the woman who had miraculously appeared in their midst.

  The landlord did not know what to do. He simply stood there, his jaw sagging, his brain paralysed, and when it came to life again, he still did not know what to do. No crime had been committed, as far as he was aware. Was it illegal for a woman to dress as a man? He didn't know. And what about the chap with her? They had spent the night together but again, that was not against the law, was it? Still, he didn't like it and now, as his reasoning and his power of speech returned, he was about to tell her so.

  “What's goin' on 'ere?" he asked truculently, and every man's eye, as it had done in Keswick Market, turned to Annie Abbott, and as she had done then, she felt something die of shame inside her. Dear God . . . oh, dear sweet God, was she never to be allowed to draw her life together, to make the most of it, what she had? To better her life, and Cat's? She had been forced to this subterfuge by men such as these who would not countenance doing business with a woman, striking a deal with someone of the opposite sex. They were entrenched in the ways they had always known, the moralistic, male notion that a woman's place was in the kitchen and the marriage bed and by God, that was where she would stay. None of these men who gaped at her knew Annie Abbott. None of them knew she had an illegitimate child but still she could feel their hostility and their salacious thoughts were very evident in their expressions.

  Charlie stood up on the opposite side of the table. He walked casually across the room, stooping to pick up her hat, brushing it down with his sleeve and handing it to her as if it was a task he did every day of the week.

  “Put on your hat, my dear, and let us go and look at those sheep we promised ourselves.”

  She did as she was told, shoving it on to the back of her head and from it her hair flowed and rippled down her back. Her beauty was stunning, unique, indescribable, and there was not a man there, thunderstruck and silent, who dared to speak a word in disapproval. Not that she would have cared if one had. She was looking for no one's approval any more. Let them think what they liked, the damn lot of them. She was doing her very best. The best that Annie Abbott could do, and if it was not to their liking, or indeed to anyone's liking, then they could go to the devil. She approved of herself. She thought she was pretty damn smart and that was all that mattered. She'd get there. She would.

  She stood up, her hat set at a devil-may-care angle on her shining hair. She lifted her chin, shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her father's baggy old trousers, thrust foward her breasts and swaggered to the door, followed by Charlie Lucas. His eyes were narrowed in smiling admiration.

  “Right, Charlie," she said for all to hear, "let's go and see what's on offer.”

  *

  Reed could hear them singing before they were in sight. Two voices, one male and one female and he knew at once that the female was Annie.

  He had spent the night at The Flying Fox in Caldbeck, setting off at early light on the road which led through Rotten Row and up the gentle hill, just under a thousand feet high, which led across Broad Moor to Rosley. He had been on the road for no more than an hour, the summit of the hill just ahead of him when the words of the song rose in the crisp autumn air and at once the memory of when he had last heard them came to him. She had been singing them then.

  “Come all of you Cockers far and near . . .”

  He reached the top of the slope as they came towards him.

  There were about two dozen ewes, twinters, his experienced eye automatically told him, and one fine ram. Two dogs were working them, Merles, both of them, and though they were young and eager, they were obeying the whistles and commands of the tall young man who strode at their heels. The inborn herding instinct which all good sheepdogs have, showed in the way they kept up with the galloping sheep and, at a word from the youth, shot ahead, one to each flank, to slow the small flock down when it would have gone careering down the rough track.

  “Come by, Blackie," and "Away to me, Bonnie," and Backie kept to the left, Bonnie to the right. "Steady .. . steady," and the two dogs moved the flock along at a reasonable pace.

  There was another man who, though he kept up with the flock, gave the appearance of strolling. His hands were in his trouser pockets. His good broadcloth coat was open and pushed back and the wind ruffled his brown curly hair. He and the first youth continued their song, their heads thrown back in unison, their young throats arched, and the empty hills seemed to echo with the sound of their song.

  It was Annie who saw him first and at once her throat closed up. The sheep continued to trot towards him and the dogs ran silently from side to side at the back of them. Annie stopped dead on the track and the man with her, who had walked on a couple of steps, turned, surprised.

  “What is it, Annie?" Reed heard him say, his voice educated, cultured even, with none of the flat, long-drawn-out vowels of the Northerner. He turned then to stare where Annie did and Charlie Lucas and Reed Macauley looked into one another's faces for the first time.

  The sheep had reached Reed's tall mare, parting like the waters of a stream round a rock, and the dogs, with no voice to guide them, continued at a growing speed down the slope. The track to Rotten Row and Caldbeck branched to the left just beyond Reed's mare but, as Annie stood, silently rooted to the bit of stony path on which she had stopped at the sight of him, the sheep overshot it and the dogs followed. They were doing what Annie had trained them to do, herding what was in their care but with no commands from her, the band of animals would soon be out of control.

  “You'd best speak to your dogs, Annie Abbott," he said, and though his voice was mild, his eyes were colder than a blue winter sky and there was a thin white line, livid and very noticeable about his mouth.

  Still she stood. She had plaited her hair as she and Charlie began the drive down the fell from Rosley, though she had worn it carelessly tied with its ribbon and spilling down her back as she and Charlie had bartered for the sheep she wanted. She had been disagreeably aware that had it not been for Charlie's presence, she would have been as unsuccessful as she had been at Keswick. They did not want to do business with her. Her 'femaleness' got in their way. They could not tear their gaze away from her shining eyes, the soft flush of excitement on her creamy skin, the rippling amazement of her hair across her shoulders and back and the very evident fullness of her breast as she strode, straight-backed, among the pens. How could they make a sale and a profit, if their shrewd minds were plagued with her beauty? And so they would have turned their backs on her as they had at Keswick, but she let Charlie bid for her and it seemed they had no objection to that. He was a man, after all. She showed him the sheep she wanted and, keeping an eye on her as she nodded or shook her head, he bought them for her.

  There are crags, bracken and bogs on the fells and the Herdwicks she chose were the only breed of sheep to do well there. The strain had proved itself for centuries where she came from. They were small, wiry and agile as goats. They had deep, round bodies and rough white faces. They were thick-boned, sweet-fleshed with a massed fleece which was hard to shear, but they could survive in the harshness of Lakeland winters. The ram she had hired had fine curling horns, creamy white in colour, springing from the back of his head, and in May, after he had serviced her flock, she was to return him to his owner at Rosley Whitsuntide Fair.

  She found her voice at last, tearing her eyes away from Reed Macauley's terrible anger.

  “Come on, Blackie, come on, Bonnie," she called and with a flurry of excited nippings which, with the part of her mind not concerned with Reed Macauley, she made a mental note to train
from them, they turned the flock and began to drive them back towards her. It took several long minutes to quieten sheep and dogs alike, but eventually the dogs lay on the grass, their noses on their paws, their eyes first on the flock, then on Annie, the sheep cropping placidly. The ram was already doing his best to mount a willing ewe and again the farmer in her made note of it, thinking hysterically that her flock would have grown by a couple of lambs before she got them back to Browhead.

  Charlie moved to stand beside her and though he still lounged in that casual way he had, he was clearly ready to protect her, should it be necessary, from the black-browed horseman who seemed about to spring from his mare and attack her. He said nothing.

  “What d'you want, Reed?" she asked quietly enough. "I came to bring you home." He could barely speak through his gritted teeth.

  “Don't be ridiculous." Her voice was low and, it seemed to Charlie, had a deep sadness in it.

  “It is you who are ridiculous, Annie. Or rather foolhardy. I don't know who this ... this . . . gentleman is beside you and I don't care. There will be time for that later. If you would be good enough to climb up behind me, I will take you home where you belong.”

  She laughed, a short sharp bark and put her hand to her brow as though in deep perplexity. She looked down at her clogged feet which had tramped so far in the last two weeks then up again at him. She saw the terrible fear in his eyes. She saw the wildness, the anger and the love, the deep and tearing love in him for her and her voice was gentle.

  “Go home, Reed. I am in no danger. Charlie here . . " smiling at the man beside her, ". . . is a friend . . ."

  “When did you meet?" The words tore out of him, the sound like the ripping of calico.

  “When? Why, yesterday. Was it only yesterday, Charlie?" smiling again.

  “Yesterday! You develop your friendships very easily, Annie Abbott, and very quickly too. This time yesterday you had not met and today you are the best of friends. Is that it?"

  “Why . . . yes, that is it, Reed. It just so happens . . ." "I have no wish to know what happened so if you will bid your friend goodbye, we will be on our way." "Now look here . . ."

  “No! You look here, Annie. I am tired of hearing your name mentioned wherever I go, usually in connection with some damn fool escapade that no sane person, man or woman, would be involved with. You trip lightly here and there, dressed in . . . in . . ." He could barely speak, so great was his emotion, ". . . whatever that outfit you have on is . . . with no thought nor care for your own safety or reputation, men about you like flies to syrup . . . look at you . . . Dear sweet Christ, have you any idea what . . . what men would do to you if they found you alone up here . . ."

  “I am not alone . . ."

  “You have been. That is if you only made the acquaintance of . . . of this jackanapes yesterday. Or are you being honest with me? Have the two of you been tramping the fells together for the past two weeks? I thought Bert Garnett was your ... "

  "Stop it, Reed . . . stop it!"

  “. . . but I can see any man will suit . . ."

  “I'd be obliged if you'd get down from that horse and apologise to Miss Abbott, and failing that perhaps you would care to remove your coat and insult me instead of a lady who cannot, at least with her fists, defend herself.”

  Charlie stepped forward, placing himself in front of Annie, gently urging her away, but her two dogs, sensing danger, stood up and at once the flock began to eddy this way and that, one or two heading back up the track in the direction from which they had come. The confusion grew. Blackie was clearly of the opinion that his loyalty lay with his mistress and began to growl threateningly, not quite sure which man should be his target, whilst Bonnie moved to circle the remaining flock, at the same time casting anxious glances at those who had escaped him. He did not know what to do, and he yelped for an order.

  “Dear God, will you stop it, both of you, Charlie, please, it's all right. Mr Macauley and I are . . . we know one another and he seems to have the idea that . . . Reed .. . please . . . go home . . . go home to your . . . your fiancée . . . oh, yes . . . I know of her and . . . your . . . What I do is my own affair . . . oh, please . . . dear God! . . . I cannot . . . I cannot bear it ... " Her eyes were deep and burning in her white face and both Reed and Charlie were frozen by the anguish in her. Charlie, sensing that there was more between these two than he had at first been aware, stood awkwardly to one side. Inside him was a need that grew with every moment since he had met her, to go to her, to put his arms about her, as a friend if that was all she needed, to comfort, protect, shield her from the black and savage anger of the big man on the horse.

  Before Charlie could move, Reed leaped from his mare, moving swiftly towards Annie, but she put up both her hands, palms towards him, holding him away from her with the gesture. Her mouth worked and her eyes glared and she shook her head violently.

  “No . . . don't come near me. Not now, and not ever. Go home to your bride, to your life and leave me to lead mine. What I do does not concern you and what you do can have no interest to me. I don't know where you got the idea that you have the right to . . . to interfere in what I do. I don't need you, nor your protection . . ."

  “You ate my food, took my dogs . . ." His tender concern for her which had replaced his anger, melted away again and he stepped back as though in loathing.

  “Take them . . . take them back with you . . ."

  “They are of no use to me, Annie Abbott."

  “Then go and don't come near my farm again."

  "Believe me . . ."

  “I wish I could, I wish I could," she moaned.

  She turned to Charlie her eyes entreating him to .. . to do what? He did not know but, instinctively he moved to her side and when she turned her face into his shoulder, his arm rose to hold her to him.

  Reed Macauley's face closed, tight as a clam, grim and ugly with his hatred of them both. His eyes were terrible, a glazed and icy blue in which there was nothing now of what he felt for Annie Abbott. Only hatred, venom, a cruel and savage wish to hurt in any way he could. To hurt as he was hurting, to tear at flesh and heart and mind, as his flesh and heart and mind tore into agonising shreds.

  His breath gasped from between his thinned lips.

  “So that is the way of it, is it, Annie Abbott? Not only Bert Garnett and whoever came before him, there is another man with his hand up your skirts now. What they said about you is true then, and I was fool enough to believe that you were . . . innocent. My God, I've wasted my sympathy, I see. They were right and I was wrong. Well, whoever you are . . ." turning his violence on Charlie ". . . I wish you luck of her since you will need it.. .”

  He was provoked beyond the state where he knew what he was saying, making no sense, his virulence spilling out of him in a tidal wave and Charlie had a moment's sympathy for him since to love as Reed Macauley loved Annie Abbott was surely not an emotion any man would care to be burdened with. And the trembling violence of the woman in his arms told him she felt the same.

  “I should take my leave if I were you," he said calmly to the wildly shaking figure of the man. "Get on your horse and go. There is nothing for you here.”

  It was as though the quiet words had poured a soporific over Reed Macauley's inflamed brain, soothing, or freezing it, into numbness, so that for the moment the pain went, allowing him to think, to reason. She was standing in the arms of another man so what did that mean? In Yorkshire Esmé Hamilton-Brown wore Reed Macauley's ring, so what did that mean? Only one thing, of course. His brain moved sluggishly along the track and he knew that he must go, go home. Go to his bride-to-be and put her, her, this one, out of his mind. "There is nothing for you here," the stranger had said, and it was true. There never had been, so. . .

  He climbed on to his mare, weary and old, or so he felt and without looking at her, knowing she did not look at him, he put the mare to a quiet canter down the track.

  *

  They got back to Browhead three days later
. Without the diversions she had made on her journey out to Rosley, to sell her besom brushes, her swills and her stockings, she and Charlie, her small flock, herded more efficiently by Blackie and Bonnie now, moved almost in a straight line from Caldbeck, skirting the high Caldbeck Fells, moving along Parkend Beck, through Longlands and dropping down into Gillthrop on the third day. They had slept in barns, keeping clear of farms, Charlie buying the necessary food from farmers' wives with Annie staying out of sight. They no longer sang. They strode out together side by side, speaking occasionally but only when it was needed. Charlie realised that Annie was in active pain, deeply grieving for Reed Macauley. That her lively and dashing spirit was struggling to survive the slashing words he had aimed, deliberately and accurately, at her heart. She ate when he handed her food. She spoke to her dogs and watched her flock but the brave excitement had gone from her and he was saddened by it. She did not question him, nor ask him where he was going when they reached Browhead. He was gentle with her and she appeared to be grateful. He knew nothing of what was waiting for her at the end of her journey and he did not ask. He watched her as she slept and when she woke he was on his own bit of straw in his own corner of the barn.

  The people of Gillthrop came out of their cottages to stare at Annie Abbott as she tramped behind her bleating flock of ewes and the prancing rams Her dogs were in full control and there was no need for her, or the man she was with, to give them anything but the occasional low word.

  She took off her hat as she strode through the village and shook out her curtain of hair, allowing it to cascade down her back. Her legs in her father's breeches were long and supple and the men and women gawped, openmouthed, silent and forbidding. She began to smile then, turning to Charlie to draw him into some delight she felt. She took his arm, and taking a cue from her, he strutted by her side, bowing from left to right as though it was a royal procession he and Annie were in. This is what it's about, he remembered thinking. This is what she is doing. Showing them and Reed Macauley that Annie Abbott is a person worthy of respect and admiration for she is surviving when she should be going under. But why? Why does she need . . . ?