All the dear faces Page 25

  The answer came running down the track, flying, her small feet barely touching the ground, her long copper curls streaming out from her small head, her great golden eyes snapping in lovely excitement.

  “Mother . . . Mother . . ."

  “Cat . . . oh, my lovely Cat . . .”

  And mother and daughter ran joyfully into each other's arms.

  Chapter 17

  It was Whitsun and the ram Annie had hired was due to go back to Rosley.

  “I'll take it," Charlie offered. He looked round the table smiling, his eyes moving from Cat to Phoebe and lastly to Annie, remaining there, as they always did. "I could just manage a good day out. In fact, why don't we all go?" He sat back in his chair, grinning engagingly, his eyes gleaming like those of a schoolboy who has just suggested a wicked prank. He was twenty-five now, though he had mentioned it to no one when his birthday came in February, and the hard work he had done at Browhead had added some breadth to his shoulders. He still had on the old, threadbare coat he had worn when Annie met him in October but beneath it was a beautifully knitted long-sleeved jerkin Annie and Phoebe had created for him between them. A design of Phoebe's who had knitted the sleeves whilst Annie had done the back and front. Cat had sewn on wooden buttons which Annie had found in her mother's sewing basket.

  “Tha' cannot go about wi' nowt' on but that old coat, Mr Lucas," Phoebe had told him, horrified when he had attempted to set off up the fell on a day of biting December wind and a hoar-frost so thick his boots sank in it. Not that the boots were much better than the coat, good boots once but now badly scuffed and in need of a cobbler's hand. "See, ah'll knit thee a waistcoat with sleeves in it. Annie'll give me a hand, won't tha'? Thou shall have it on by weekend." And he did, along with a muffler, from Cat, and a pair of the thick woollen stockings Annie and Phoebe knitted whenever they had a moment to sit down.

  The room was cosy and the fire glowed red and orange in the inglenook. It was May now and the weather, though warmer, was still cold, but here in the kitchen a small sanctuary had been created in the vast, windblasted confusion of black rock, gloomy gills, fan-shaped screes and rippling streams which was Skiddaw in the winter. The weather was still inclined to be fickle, showing the face of spring on a soft and lovely morning and by noon, clouds would be chasing one another across the torn sky with a wind so strong you could lean on it. Beyond the small, oak-mullioned windows the grass in the pasture moved in flattened waves and the sound of the rushing air could be heard in the branches of the hawthorn tree to the side of the house.

  The two dogs, along with a pretty marmalade kitten which had been found wandering alone, piteously mewing behind the farmhouse, lay dozing in a tangled heap in front of the fire dogs, set to prevent the logs from rolling out of the slightly raised hearth stone. All three had coats glossy with health, contrasting sharply not only with one another, but the scrubbed slate of the flagged floor. The randle-tree fixed to a beam above the fire supported several pots not quite touching the glowing peat. In one was the 'poddish' made from oats which they were eating for breakfast and which was keeping warm for those who wanted another helping and in the other was 'crowdy' again made with oatmeal in which beef stock had been mixed. In the third was Annie's Easter-Ledge Pudding consisting of young green leaves, not unlike dock leaves, boiled with barley and mint sorrel, to be served with dried beef. It was said to have great medicinal powers, especially in the cooling of the blood.

  On the table round which they sat was a platter of 'clapbread', freshly baked that morning. It had been rolled into a ball in Phoebe's hands, then 'clapped' until it was as thin as paper, put on an iron plate and set on the fire until it was baked crisp. They drank tea, hot and sweet, but without milk since Annie could not yet afford a cow.

  She and Charlie sat in two carved oak chairs dated 1742, come, she supposed, from better days and in which she could remember her mother and father resting, but Cat and Phoebe sat side by side on a rough wooden bench. The enormous oak table, which had never been moved for the simple reason it was so heavy it could only be lifted by six strong men, was set under the window. A big jar of lavender was placed in the centre of it, filling the room with its fragrant scent. In the window bottom was a vast copper bowl planted with winter hyacinths which were still blooming.

  Annie looked doubtfully from Charlie's good-humoured face then out and beyond the window to the field of rippling grasses and the wind-driven silver waters of the lake. The flock with the new lambs had been herded up on to the fell only two days before. The ploughing had been done in March and so there would be a brief respite in the farm work, but the weather was uncertain today and Annie was not sure the walk to Rosley and back was within Cat's strength.

  “Oh, Mother, may we?" the child breathed ecstatically, jumping down from the bench and running to lean against her mother's shoulder. "May we? Phoebe says there are all sorts of wonderful things to see at a fair. Clowns and acrobats, and fat ladies and monkeys. And puppets too, aren't there Phoebe?”

  She turned her great velvety brown eyes to Phoebe who looked alarmed for she had told the child only of what she herself had spied from the corner of her downcast eyes as she was hurried by her last mistress to the Hiring Fair in Keswick a year ago. She had not meant to fill Cat's head with a longing to see them, only to entertain the little girl as they worked side by side at one of the many tasks they shared. It was not as if she had seen anything properly herself, though, if she were truthful she would dearly love to.

  “Nay, lambkin," copying Annie in her use of the endearment for she loved the child as though she was her own. "Ah didn't mean ter say that ..

  “And merry-go-rounds and . . . and . . ." Without waiting for Phoebe to finish her stumbling sentence, the little girl put her face close up to Annie's, childlike, begging to be allowed this treat which Charlie had suggested.

  Charlie smiled disarmingly. "It can do no harm, Annie, and if you are thinking of the distance we could take the sledge with a blanket in it and if Cat here gets tired she could sit on it while I pull her."

  “But the weather, Charlie. You know it can be fickle at this time of the year."

  “There are shelters, Annie. Every farm has a barn and no farmwife would refuse a child."

  “But what of the cost of a night's room?"

  “You and Cat and Phoebe could share, and I can sleep wherever I fall. A few pence, that's all.”

  Cat looked from one face to the other, as the two adults discussed it, her own luminous with her yearning to see the fascinations of which Phoebe had told her. Her hands clung around Annie's neck and her soft young mouth trembled as her breath quickened.

  “Oh, Mother, please . . . please . . .”

  At last Annie looked down into her daughter's face and her own was soft. She had been nowhere in her life, Catriona Abbott, that could be called 'a treat'. She had trudged at her mother's skirts for more than half of her baby days in weather as inhospitable as any the fells could manifest, if not quite as dangerous. Without complaint she had done it. Not for her the tantrums and whining Annie had seen in other children, like Sally Garnett's boy, for instance, who, on the few occasions he had been in her kitchen, had grizzled and clamoured for his mother's attention the whole time they had been there. Cat had nothing, no toys, none of the 'sweeties', the indulgences other parents gave to their children, and it was only this last year that she had found safe refuge, warmth, security and the growing knowledge that these, surely the right of every child, were to continue. She had known only one thing which had been a continuing, everlasting, element in her young life and that was Annie's love. It was time she had fun.

  Cat held her breath, her eyes never leaving her mother's. They were no more than six inches apart, as though the child, with her fixed stare, hoped to hypnotise her mother into acquiescence.

  Charlie and Phoebe both sighed in pleasure as Annie nodded her head, but Cat, surprisingly, did not jump for joy or cry out her gladness. She laid her cheek against Annie's breast,
burrowing herself into her mother's arms like a young chick, thankfully settling beneath the hen. She was too enraptured to speak, it seemed, her childish heart overcome with this miracle which had been allowed her. Above her head Annie's eyes met Charlie's. She smiled through her tears, her throat too full to speak.

  They might have been going to Australia, so great was the planning of this mighty expedition in which, Cat was adamant, even the marmalade kitten was to be included. They must be adequately dressed, of course, with a good supply of warmly knitted stockings and mufflers, and the jerkins, now that Phoebe had the hang of it, she made for them all. Food, stuff that would keep in case there was none to be had on the road, blankets for Cat and 'Dandy' the kitten, and a hurried visit by Phoebe to the cobbler in Hause to get their clogs resoled.

  Annie almost changed her mind on the morning they were to go. There was a pattern of clouds, low and light, the higher ones like a sheet, broken, divided, and below them were the rain clouds, ragged, uneasy and dark in the sky. The rain already seemed to hang down, a trailing rain, which did not quite reach the ground but certainly would do so as they moved higher up beyond Gillthrop towards the village of Longlands. They would not touch Uldale, of course, going on the most direct route up to Whelpo, Caldbeck, and on across Broad Moor to Rosley. There would be many travellers en route, for the Whitsun Fair was the biggest cattle market of the year.

  But the animals' way — and the unthinking humans' way — even if there are no obstacles, does not go in a straight line. Man and animal will move slowly from one point to another by much the same route, which then becomes a path. Such a path becomes a track if many use it, and so it was with the tracks and sheep trods which criss-crossed the dales and high fells of Lakeland and which they were about to take.

  “I don't like the look of the weather, Charlie," Annie said more than half a dozen times between Browhead and Longlands, only to be outnumbered by Charlie, by Phoebe and Cat, none of them knowing the menace of the fells as she did. The 'messenger' clouds which moved ponderously over their heads foretold rain soon, she said, and where were they to shelter out here in the open? It was well known that there were more wet days on the fells than dry ones and with so many people on the roads, coming from every direction towards Rosley Fairground, would there be a place for them to lay their heads?

  “Now stop it, Annie. You'll spoil it for Cat. Just see her striding out with Phoebe, the pair of them so filled with glee they might be off to stay the weekend with the Queen and her family. Look at their faces, Annie. Have you ever seen such delight? Phoebe seems no older than Cat in her excitement."

  “I know that, Charlie. I'm not disputing it but if it gets any worse up there ahead and we get caught in the open, don't blame me. And this damned tup's not helping, wanting to go every way but the one we want to take. Blackie and Bonnie are doing their best but the thing keeps butting them."

  “Let me see if I can bring him into line. He's a rogue but he's certainly given you some fine lambs so you must not malign him or his masculinity will be quite devastated.”

  Charlie grinned down at her endearingly then, taking her hand, pulled her to him. His grey eyes were warm and filled with his own almost childlike delight with this adventure he had conjured up for them. He would have had to go to Rosley anyway with the ram, but the joy of having Annie with him, almost a renewal of the days they had spent together last autumn, put a glow in them which she did not recognise. He had been so good to her, to them all over the past six months, bringing a merriment into the farmhouse which, though it had always been a snug and contented home, had never known such laughter as Charlie awoke in it.

  He produced his own kind of music, teaching Cat and Phoebe how to play on a 'comb and paper', beating the rhythm on two spoons, introducing them to simple tunes and songs which he had known from childhood. The comical, often out-of-tune noises they produced would reduce all four to the kind of laughter they had never before known. A sense of 'silliness' which is infectious and, as Charlie said, as good for you as any medicine the doctor might prescribe. They sang and laughed together whilst Annie and Phoebe knitted and when they were quiet he would read aloud to them from one of the few books it was found he had in the pocket of his broadcloth coat. Pickwick Papers by Mr Charles Dickens. Pride and Prejudice by Miss Jane Austen and Masterman Ready by Captain Frederick Marryat. Only these three, but when one was finished, another would be started and when they all three had been read, he had promised to begin all over again. Their evenings were made lively, for his blithe nature would not allow for dejection or brooding, which he often saw in Annie's face, and of course, he knew why. He had made himself a part of the family, not only in the work he did, but with his humour, his patience, his quicksilver lightheartedness and his ability to turn an ordinary, everyday event into something fascinating and therefore fun.

  She had the feeling there was some hidden meaning in what he was saying to her and his eyes still had that wicked gleam in them but she could not help but smile back, allowing him to put a comradely arm about her shoulder as they strode out along the track and across the stone bridge which forded Parkend Beck. Charlie dragged the old sledge which had done such sterling service ever since its first run to Rosley, and perched on the blankets within it was the marmalade kitten, its tail twitching in alarm. Once it had jumped off, stalking behind them haughtily as though the mode of transport was far beneath its feline dignity. But as Charlie said, knowing where its comfort lay and finding it was being left behind, it ran to catch up, jumping back thankfully.

  “What a circus we are. We only need a monkey and a parrot and we could have our own side-show at the fair," Charlie joked, his eyes sparkling into hers.

  The wind became more biting the higher they got and it was not long before Cat sought the shelter of the sledge and the blankets where, snuggling down with the kitten, they both fell asleep. The fells soared dramatically on either side of them, rising from the narrow green strips of the fertile dales on which, as they marched, they saw falcons spiralling, keeping an airborne eye on the flocks which sought the sweet herbs and grasses growing among the dark rocks. Narrow strips of order and productivity, where rowan-shaded becks ran and whitewashed farms capped with Lakeland slate nestled under craggy buttresses. Men tended sheep on a neighbouring peak, the dogs beside them silent and alert, and Annie breathed a prayer to safeguard her own new-born lambs from the scavengers which preyed on the weak and defenceless.

  Despite her misgivings about the weather, though it was cold, the wind, or so it seemed, coming straight from the plains of Siberia, the rain kept off and when night fell the farmwife who opened her door to their knock and whose husband was 'only in't back yard' she said, eyeing them suspiciously, relented when Cat smiled at her, her face beaming in the light which fell on her from the rushlight, the kitten in her arms mewing plaintively.

  “Tha' can sleep in' hay barn, Missus," she told Annie, whose strange and masculine garb was not immediately apparent in the light which fell from her doorway. "An' if tha wants some milk for t' bairn, tha's welcome to a pint or two from Buttercup. She's in t' barn now. Tha' can milk, I tek it?"

  “Oh, yes, and thank you. You are most kind." Annie smiled.

  The farmwife, somewhat taken aback by the way her caller spoke, smiled back, despite herself. They seemed a nice enough little family, taking the hired ram back to Rosley, and it cost her nothing to let them sleep in the barn. They had their own blankets, they told her, and food, they said, but they'd be glad of a pan of hot water if she could spare it and very grateful for the milk they were.

  “Aye, well then, send tha' husband ower for t' water. Tha'll be snug enough in that hay.”

  Cat and Phoebe were asleep, curled together with Blackie and Bonnie and the kitten under one of the blankets. They had all washed in the basin of hot water, one after the other, a somewhat sketchy toilet, and Charlie said they would have to put up with him looking like a brigand since there was not enough for a shave. They ate cheese an
d bread, beef pies Phoebe, who was becoming a very handy cook, had made, pickles and draughts of warm creamy milk from the obliging Buttercup. There was to be no fire, of course. The farmer, on returning from the 'back yard', had been across to make sure about that, telling them so in his blunt, taciturn way. They seemed all right but you never knew with some of these tinkers and vagrants what sort of daft things they got up to. Not that his missus would allow such through the farm gate, never mind in the barn, but the sight of the peacefully sleeping children, the watchful dogs and the quiet husband and wife reassured him.

  But it was cold. There were cracks in the door of the ancient stone-built barn and the wind whistled constantly, a low whining which bit at the flesh and tore at the ears, and there was only one blanket left.

  “You have it, Annie. I'm as warm as toast in this hay."

  “No . . . no, Charlie, I won't have it. We can make a bed of hay and then lie back to back with the blanket over us. It's going to get colder in the night, I can tell, and we must keep warm . . ."

  “I am warm."

  “No, you're not. I can see you shivering from here." "No, you can't. Look I'll lie down next to the dogs and be as right as rain.”

  She looked astonished. "For God's sake Charlie. What do you think I'm going to do to you whilst you're asleep? Seduce you? Don't be a fool. See, we'll lie with the others and you shall lie beside me and the blanket will cover us both."

  “I could share with Cat and Phoebe."

  “Dear God, man, don't be so ridiculous. Come over here and lie next to me. We shall all keep one another warm. It's the only way, Charlie." She tutted irritably and shook her head. "I don't know why I let the three of you talk me into this. It's far too cold to be sleeping out in the open . . ."