All the dear faces Page 35

  “. . . and can hire a man to help you at 'backend'. What a charming way with words you people of the lakes have. 'Backend' and that is what it is to me. An ending, my darling Annie. I shall never forget. I shall never forget you, Charlie.”

  Phoebe crept down an hour later. Annie sat where she had left her. The letter was in her left hand and her right rested on the head of Bonnie which was in her lap. Blackie's muzzle rested across her bare feet, keeping a vigil with her as she stared, dry-eyed now, into the future which would be bleak and empty without Charlie Lucas in it.

  “Phoebe . . ."

  “Aye, love, I'm here."

  “What am I to do without him?" and Phoebe was not awfully certain of who Annie meant. Reed Macauley or Charlie Lucas?

  Annie walked to Keswick the next day and when she found no trace of Charlie there, set off along the road which ran alongside the great heights of Helvellyn by the lake of Thirlmere, down to Grasmere and Ambleside and Windermere. She stopped every man and woman she met asking them if they had seen Charlie Lucas, describing him and causing a great deal of consternation among the women since they had thought her to be a young man until she spoke. There was also a great deal of ribald comment among the men, though her white, strained face and deep staring eyes soon silenced them all. She took the dogs and her shepherd's crook and on her back was the bag of food Phoebe had packed for her but she did not eat what was in it, merely carried it because it did not occur to herto put it down. She slept wherever she happened to be, her dogs close by her, but only for an hour or two before getting to her feet and moving on.

  Three days later she was just leaving Windermere, a stunned and stumbling figure, dazed to the point where she could not decide which road to take since her choice was Kendal or Newby Bridge and Charlie might have gone by either. He was a man, strong and was more than twelve hours ahead of her. Perhaps he had taken the road to Penrith and south from there to Yorkshire. She just didn't know but she must press on and find him, she must .. .

  “Annie." She heard her name through the fog of her own exhaustion and lack of food. There was a hotel to her left and with a portion of her mind which was still capable of thought she noticed it had the strange name of `Elleray'. There was a great deal of activity in the yard. A coach was about to set out, its destination Carlisle, its roof piled high with boxes and portmanteaux, the horses which pulled it striking fretful hooves on the cobbles as they waited for the off. Ostlers and hotel servants shouted at one another and passengers who were about to embark on the long journey fussed and fumed as they changed their minds a dozen times over what they should take inside with them. There were dog-carts and riding horses, the hotel and the yard overflowing with men who seemed intent on fighting one another to get either in or out.

  “Annie," the voice was sharp and she turned about, disorientated by the clamour. The horseman who had called her name dismounted, throwing the reins to a passing ostler who, knowing a man of authority when he saw one, caught them obediently.

  “I've come to take you home, Annie," the horseman said, moving to bar her path. "Come, let me lift you up on my mare's back and ... "

  “No, no, really. I cannot. I must find Charlie." A spasm crossed the horseman's face but he did not falter. "No, my darling, he has gone."

  “No, no, he has not. He will be on the road ahead of me and I shall catch him up shortly."

  “No, Annie, he was seen boarding the train at Penrith three days ago."

  “He had no money for train fare."

  “It seems he sold . . . a watch, Annie." Reed Macauley's voice was very patient, very gentle and for the first time Annie was suddenly aware of who he was.

  “Reed . . . ?"

  “Yes, my love, I am here." He put out a hand and the people passing by were astonished to see the tall, well set-up gentleman smooth back the curling tendrils of hair which fell about the forehead of the shabbily dressed youth. "It's time to go home now. Your maid and daughter were worried about you, so I I. . ."

  “How did you know?" She was beginning to see two of him now. Two Reed Macauleys who fused together before drifting apart again. Both had concerned faces and a pair of blue eyes brilliant with what she could have sworn were tears but of course Reed Macauley would never weep. Why should he?

  “She came to my house yesterday."

  “Phoebe?"

  “Is that her name? She would speak to no one but me, she told them, and would not be moved until I came. A strong-willed lass and devoted to you. She said you would probably turn her out for interfering but nevertheless she could not let you tramp the length of the country looking for Charlie Lucas."

  “You knew him?"

  “No. About him. I made it my business to . . ." but the rest of the words went roaring away into a pale grey, fast moving shaft which gathered speed and became darker and darker until she fell into the blackness.Chapter24

  The face of the man at the door was familiar but for several moments Annie could not put a name to it. He was small and wiry, as lean as a greyhound but there was a look about him which spoke of strength and endurance despite his lack of bulk. His skin was heavily seamed and in each seam was a fine line of grey as though the soap and water he sketched over it, were thrown so hastily they did no more than whisk across the surface. He wore an old-fashioned soft-brimmed hat slung on his grizzled curls, a wide-cut shirt, breeches fastened beneath his knees, stockings with gaiters over them and a waistcoat so ancient its colour was unrecognisable. He carried a labourer's sleeveless smock made from sacking.

  “Tha' wants a man," he said briefly, his expression taciturn, his speech the same.

  “I beg your pardon." Annie eyed him from head to foot, not sure whether to laugh or slam the door in his face but his eyes were stern, steady, with an expression in them which was completely without humour.

  “Does tha' want a man or not?"

  “I can't say that I do," she answered and it was then that the man's name came to her. It was seven years or more since she had seen him and then it had been with the eyes of a child, a young girl who had looked at anyone over the age of twenty with the belief that they already had one foot in the grave. All the men of her acquaintance including her father had grey hair and weatherbeaten wrinkled faces. Some had bent backs and bowed legs for the loads they carried would have burdened a horse. This man had moved on the fringes of her child's world, an unseen part of the scenery, like the tree at the side of the house or the dog which had moved at her father's heels. He had had no home as far as she was aware, no family nor friends, moving from farm to farm, a man able to set his hand to any task, coppicing, shepherding, mending the drystone walls in which not a dab of cement was added, planting, ploughing and clipping sheep, his own master and man, for as long as any one could remember. Grey but unbent, born to toil on other men's land, industrious, a man who would labour until he fell dead at some other man's plough, free, stubbornly independent and working for reasons best known to himself, for Bert Garnett.

  “Why, it's Natty Varty," she smiled, the lovely glowing smile which no man could resist, but Natty did. A look of deep disapproval set his lips in a rigid line and his eyebrows moved fiercely over his eyes like two small animals.

  “Aye." He stood his ground, saying nothing more. He had said all that was necessary, his attitude told her, and the next move was up to her. She'd best make up her mind what it was to be, though, for he'd no time to be hanging about waiting on the word of a lass who was no better than she should be, or so he'd heard.

  “Well . . . what can I do for you, Natty?" she asked politely, still ready to smile, opening her door a little more so that if he was of a mind to, he could come inside, or not, as he pleased.

  “Nay, lass, tha' can do nowt' fer me. It's more what I can do for thi'."

  “For me, Natty? In what way?"

  “Does tha' want a man ter work for thi', or not? Speak up an let's get it settled."

  “Work for me?" Her mouth fell open in bewilderment. "Why shoul
d you work for me? And who told you to come here? I've not advertised for a labourer."

  “'Appen not, but I was told tha' needed one just the same."

  “But you work for Bert Garnett, Natty. You have done for as long as I've been back so why should you ... "

  “Before I tek up wi' thi' let's get summat straight. I'm Mr Varty to thi', an ah'll work where ah like. An' it weren't Bert Garnett who hired me but Aggie Mounsey an' she be dead. So if ah've a fancy to 'ave a change, that's my business. Ah was told tha' needed someone to help wi' tha' lambs, so I upped it an' come along.”

  Though the words were spoken with a firm resolution which defied her to argue with him – and why should she – his grim manner and plain expressionless face told a different tale. This was not to his liking, Annie could see that. It was almost time to take the sheep to market for the buying and selling of stock, a busy time on any sheep farm and good men like Natty Varty were worth their weight in gold. There was not a man at the Tup Fair who would argue with him, even if he did work for Annie Abbott. Her passage would be smoothed enormously with Natty Varty by her side and the stock she meant to buy with her small store of coins would be readily available to her. Her flock would need salving and marking, and in a few weeks the oats and barley harvested and threshed in mid-summer would be prepared for taking to the mill to be ground. Already the trees needed for the making of her swill baskets were ready for felling, a task to be carried out approximately between October and April or May. And she had still not been able to get to Whitehaven to sell the swills she and Charlie and Phoebe had already fashioned. They were piled neatly in the dairy but they could not be stored there indefinitely since, with the milk she would get from the cow she intended to buy before winter, she meant to make butter and cheese. A stall, she and Phoebe had talked it over. They would rent a stall at the fortnightly market and with Phoebe, starched and neat and eminently respectable behind it, she could sell Annie's produce which included the eggs her hens laid, butter, cheese, chickens, perhaps a swill or two and a besom brush, and steadily they would build up Annie's tiny profit. And the cow, which would be quartered for the winter in the cow shed, would need to be hand fed on the bracken which would be cut and brought down from the fell. There was some hay, of course, but that might not last the winter, particularly if it was a hard one and the sheep were brought down to the intake land. They would need hand feeding . . . Dear God, the list was endless and without Charlie .. .

  “I do need a man, Mr Varty, but I can't pay much." "I'm not asking for much."

  “Name a figure.”

  He did and it was so ridiculously low she gasped. "You can't live on that, Nat . . . Mr Varty."

  “I'll decide that. Can tha' give me a bed an' me grub?”

  There was Charlie's room above the dairy, snug and achingly tidy since he had left and Phoebe had ferociously 'bottomed' it. Bare whitewashed walls, bare scrubbed floor, a narrow bed and a press in which nothing of Charlie's had ever been stored, since he had owned only what he stood up in. His broadcloth coat rested there in the summer with his knitted jerkin and scarf and a book or two. All gone along with the engaging good humour, the impish lazy smile, the wickedly wry tongue of the man who had come into her life with the casual manner of someone who had not a serious thought in his head, not a serious bone in his body. He had worked beside her in sleet and snow and rain and storm and made light of it, giving the impression that nothing much mattered in life besides an absurd talent for laughing at it. A gift for avoiding anything which smacked of stuffiness or monotony, nevertheless, without appearing to move at any faster pace than an indolent saunter, he had done the work of three men. Without appearing to speak in any way that was not droll and teasing, he had guided her wisely, invigorated her when she was drained and weary, gladdened her heart when it was sad, encouraged and inspired her and she could not envisage a future without him in it. It was two months since he had gone and in that time there had been no word of him, no letter, nothing, and if Reed Macauley knew of his whereabouts, he was not telling Annie Abbott.

  He had brought her home that day, sleeping in the crook of his arm as she lolled before him on his black mare. On that long road from Windermere up through Ambleside and Grasmere and on to Keswick where the good folkmilling about Moot Hall and the market place fell silent, gaping at the sight of Reed Macauley with his arms about Annie Abbott. As bold as brass he was, raising his hat to those with whom he was acquainted, smiling round the expensive cigar he had clamped between his good white teeth, just as though there was nothing unusual in his behaviour. As though he and Annie Abbott were accustomed to riding together on his mare Victoria, and perhaps they were, for anything could be believed of that strumpet. Those appalling clothes she wore and would you look at her hair, her long thick plait all undone and a living mantle of russet falling across Reed Macauley's arm and half-way down the mare's belly. Sound asleep in the middle of the day and what could they deduce from that except to wonder how she had got in such a state? And him with a young wife of no more than a year at home. No children and could one wonder at it if he was . . . cavorting about the parish with Annie Abbott.

  The valley had rocked with it, adding fresh fuel to the fire in the middle of which they would have liked to burn Annie Abbott, for surely that was what she was, a witch! Annie had woken in her own bed the next day with no recollection of how she had got there and certainly none of the ride through Keswick and if the men and women she met on her occasional walk along the lake road, and in Hause, Gillthrop or Keswick averted their offended eyes when she strode by, what difference did it make to her since they had done so for the past three years? She missed Charlie. That was the foremost ache in her burdened heart and if the village women hissed at her as she went through, she scarcely noticed.

  She had not seen Reed Macauley since.

  Now, two months later, here was Natty Varty offering his invaluable services to Annie Abbott and she was immediately suspicious.

  'Mr Varty, there is nothing I would like more than to employ you, but I cannot understand why you are asking me to. What was suddenly . . ."

  “Look lass, doest tha' want me to work fer thi' or not?

  Just say yes or no. That's all that's needed. Tha' knows ah'm a good worker . . ."

  “Oh, indeed, Mr Varty, but I really find it hard to believe that you should, for no apparent reason, take it into your head that you want to work for me. Won't you come inside and we can . . ."

  “Bloody 'ell . . . beggin yer pardon . . ." since for some reason it suddenly did not seem right to swear in the face of this polite and lovely woman, even if she did wear trousers and a shirt. His eyes touched briefly on the thrust of her breasts then looked hastily away. "Ah said ah'd get this argument when . . ." He stopped suddenly, realising he had said too much, his discomfiture showing in the way his angry old mouth worked and it was then Annie began to know.

  “Someone has sent you, haven't they? Someone has asked you to come and offer yourself ... "

  “Nay, lass, tha's talkie' daft. Natty Varty pleases hissen where he works."

  “Really, then tell me this. Why are you offering yourself at half the going price a labourer would get? £8 for half a year you could demand so who is paying you the other half ?”

  Natty's eyes were flat and expressionless but he did not look away. His mouth was clamped in a thin white line of contempt and something else which Annie did her best to decipher. He was standing his ground, staring at her as though he would like nothing better than to spit at her feet, but something held him there on her doorstep and she had no idea of what it could be. Reed Macauley had sent him, of that she was sure, but not even Reed could make Natty Varty work where he didn't want to. So what hold did he have on this old man, as he had on many men in the district, that he could force him to go where he did not want to go? Suddenly she made up her mind. She lifted her head haughtily as she spoke.

  “Very well, Natty, I will employ you. You will sleep over the cow shed and
Phoebe will bring your meals to you there. But there is one thing. I am to be addressed as Miss Abbott. I give the orders and you take them and I shall pay you, I shall pay you the full rate. You can tell the person who sent you that you do not need his bribe, if that is what he has offered you and if I hear that you have disobeyed me then I shall fire you immediately. Is that clear? Have you your own dog? Ah, yes, I see you have," eyeing the quiet Border collie which lay with its nose just beneath the closed farm gate, "then I'll be obliged if you would keep it away from mine. Now perhaps you could start by bringing my sheep down to the 'inlands' so that they will be ready for market next week. Good morning to you, Natty. If you require anything, speak to Phoebe.”

  Reed Macauley rode openly across the lower slopes of Cockup Fell and down the track from Dash Beck to Browhead the following day. It was almost October and a day of damp, drifting rain, light as mist but coming to rest just as wetly on collars and cuffs from where it crept insidiously inside clothing. It dripped down boots to soak into stockings and collected on the brim of hats from where it ran in a steady trickle to cling to flesh which shivered at the touch of the oncoming winter. Slender birches drooped sadly as though they too knew well what was ahead and larches, hung about gracefully with a tapestry foliage, trembled in the shifting rain. The rowans were heavy with berries. Down by the lake at the foot of Annie's farm, trees hung over the water, clinging to the sketchiest of foothold.

  Beside the mare ran Reed's old dog, stopping now and again to lift her muzzle, sniffing the air with the practised ease of an animal well used to Lakeland conditions. The heather through which horse, rider and dog moved was a mass of tiny purple flowers, giving the appearance from far off, of a solid purple carpet.

  “She's in t' dairy, " a startled Phoebe told him and though he knew Annie must have heard the clatter of his mare's hooves on the rocky track and cobbled yard, she did not appear.

  She had her back to him, her hands busy as she stacked a pile of swills, tying them neatly into a compact bundle.