All the dear faces Page 36

  Just outside the door of the dairy, standing in the rain, was the sledge, the one which had seen such service over the past years and on it, again tied neatly in two tight-fitting rows, were more swills.

  “I take it you're tramping off somewhere with that sledge I see outside," were the first furious words he spoke.

  She did not turn. "Yes, I'm hoping to sell them at Whitehaven." Her voice was low.

  He jerked about violently, the determination he had steeled upon himself to remain calm no matter what passed between them, exploding at once in his fear for her. "Bloody hell, woman! Whitehaven? Do you know how far that is . . . !"

  “Yes . . ."

  “. . . and you intend walking over twenty miles there and the same back dragging that damned sledge . . ." "Yes . . ."

  “. . . and October no more than a week or so off . . ."

  “Leave me alone, Reed. Let me get on with my life."".

  .. and God knows who tramping from the ships which dock there. Irishmen on the look-out for work or anything else they can find along the way which could include you. Do you realise . . . ?"

  “Yes . . . "". . .

  ". . .that any one of them could . . ."". . .

  Yes . . . So you have said a number of times."

  “Jesus Christ, Annie, don't do this to me. Don't put yourself in danger. Let me help you. I'll find someone to buy your bloody baskets."

  “Like you found Natty Varty?”

  Her voice was quiet and her head was bent low as she gripped the edge of the stone slab on which, in better times, bowls of milk were left to stand for 'three meals' before the cream was carefully removed. The knuckles of her hands were white with the fierceness of her grip.

  “You know I only did it to help you. That's all I want to do, is help you. To make your life easier. 1 can't bear to see you working yourself into the bloody ground, gettingthinner every time I see you. That fellow helped you and though it tore me apart to know he was living under your roof I told myself that he was at least taking some of the load off your back. Now he's gone . . ."

  “Because of you."

  “Because of me?" The bewilderment in his voice was genuine and at last she turned to look at him. She wore an apron of her mother's, an enormous thing which covered her from neck to knee. One worn for dairy work where cleanliness was essential, laundered and ironed by Phoebe to a crisp and pristine whiteness. Her hair was neatly plaited, wound about her head like a weighty crown, tipping it back so that she gave the appearance of a proud young queen. She was pale, no colour in her face but in contrast, her eyes were a deep and glowing tawny brown. Warm, filled with that velvet textured softness which betrayed the depth of her love for him. It couldn't be hidden, had she wanted to hide it. Everything he did was with her welfare in mind. From that first day when he had carted down that enormous hamper to this last when he had sent — somehow — Natty Varty to labour for her, he had done his best, what she would allow, to make her life easier and if sometimes it had further damaged her reputation he had done it with the best intentions. She was aware that the last time, after what Phoebe had told her about it and the ride through Keswick, he had irretrievably damaged his own.

  But he must be made to see that it would not do. He must be made to see that he could not keep on rescuing her from the results of her own mistakes. That, and the truth must be faced by him. She did not need him now. She was glad of Natty Varty and grateful that Reed had somehow made him leave Bert Garnett and come to her, but she would manage on her own from now on. She had a tiny cache of savings, pennies put by, one by laborious one, since she had sold her first lambs, her besoms and swills, and she meant to see it grow again with this year's profits. She and Phoebe and Cat lived off the land, except for the milk which, when her husband looked the other way, Sally Garnett left hidden by the farm gate of Upfell Farm. Annie stocked up on tea and flour when she was in Keswick but apart from that they were self-sufficient. They ate mutton, dried over the fire, from the sheep she and Charlie had killed, and they managed. She did not need Reed Macauley.

  Only with her body, her anguished heart cried. Only with her woman's body which even now surged joyously beneath her enormous apron, beneath her father's shirt and baggy, much patched breeches, towards Reed Macauley. Her heart hammered until she was sure he could see the movement of it beneath the bib of the apron. The glow in the pit of her belly spread a filament of need up towards her breasts and her nipples instantly hardened. Her breath was trapped in her throat and she parted her lips to allow it to escape and inside her she felt the whimpers begin, whimpers which would become a moan if she could not get a firm grip on herself.

  She saw the answering need in him. He groaned in despair, moving almost reluctantly towards her. They met in the centre of the dairy and when their arms rose to one another, holding, holding on desperately, clinging lest they fall, she could hear the tremble in his voice as he spoke into her hair.

  “Sweet Jesus . . . Sweet Christ. What are we to do? I love you . . . starve for you . . . think of you all the time. I can't work . . . sleep . . . my mind is full of you. I'm dazed with it . . . with the pain ... I'm not a man for fanciful things . . . I want a woman I take her . . . but you are buried so deep in me I can see nobody, nothing .. . your face . . .”

  He was hurting her, crushing her, the bones in her back and her ribs, his own body a taut, shuddering length of bone and muscle. She lifted her head from his chest where his heart was pounding so hard it deafened her and his lips flattened against hers with such force she felt her teeth break the skin inside her mouth. His gentled then, parting hers, so sweet and soft she knew that this time . . . this was the time . . . here, here in the dairy, wherever hecould lay her . . . on the stone bench . . . the floor .. . she would allow him to take her . . . allow. . . she would glory in it . . .

  “Where does tha' want to put them besoms?" The voice which came at them through the bright and rapturous aureole of their love was grim and in it, even those few words, was the realisation that had told its owner exactly why he had been fetched here by Reed Macauley. So that was the way the wind blew, was it, and though it was nowt to do with him what folk did, that didn't mean to say that he had to like it, nor would he put up with it. Reed Macauley had promised him a cottage right up on the edge of the fell, away from other folk, where Natty could live out his days as he pleased. Work a bit, he would, when he felt like it, or stop in his own place, when he felt like it. His dog beside him, a few hens, do a bit of rabbiting, fishing, for though Natty would admit it to no one the truth was he was nearer eighty than seventy and he couldn't quite do the things he had been doing since he was a lad. Stop with her for a bit, Mr Macauley had said, and when he wanted it there would be the cottage waiting for him up beyond Tarn Nevin. But he'd be buggered if he'd be used as a convenience whilst these two fornicated under his bloody nose.

  They whirled to face him, both for a moment looking foolish, guilty, flushed with something Natty had long forgotten. Her eyes were the loveliest, deepest brown, like the ale he drank at The Bull in Gillthrop which was a strange thing to come into his mind, but Natty liked his ale and admired its colour.

  “An' I'll be off now so tha' can get back to tha' fun an' . . “

  He saw Reed Macauley's face turn the colour of the beetroot he himself had only the day before yesterday been digging up a mile away at Upfell and Reed Macauley's roar of rage could be heard on the same farm, Natty was sure. And he would have knocked Natty to the ground, Natty was sure of that too, if she hadn't put a hand on his arm. At once, mysteriously, since Reed Macauley was known for a man of violence if crossed, he became quiet.

  “What d'you mean, Natty? You'll be off where?"

  “Back where I come from." His contemptuous eyes, his curling lip told her exactly what he thought of a woman like her but she did not falter or look ashamed.

  “To Upfell?"

  “Aye," and he shouldered the axe he carried with which he had been about to go up to the coppice to
do a bit of felling. “Why?"

  “Ah work for decent folk, allus have done," and all the while Reed Macauley stood patiently by and Natty was astonished that this woman, with a light touch on his arm, could keep him from hurling Natty Varty to the ground and stamping on him for his effrontery.

  “You must do as you think best, Mr Varty, of course, but I would be most obliged if you could find it within your power to stay with me for a while. I need you, you see."

  “Ah knows that, lass, but ah don't need thee, or him an' his cottage," which was not true of course, and as though to emphasise it, the 'rheumatics' with which he was increasingly plagued, tweaked at his shoulder painfully.

  “I see, so that's what was promised you?" and still Reed Macauley stood like he was some grey dove perched on her hand.

  “Aye, but I reckon ah've bin tricked an' ah don't like that."

  “In what way have you been tricked?"

  “Well . . ." Well he couldn't say really, if he was honest, especially with them great big brown eyes of hers looking at him as though what he had to say was of the greatest concern to her, and suddenly, he knew it was. She was concerned. It really mattered to her that Natty Varty was an honest man, with ethics which said he'd have no truck with a chap who carried on an adulterous relationship with a woman . . . well . . . like her. He'd known her all her life, ever since Joshua Abbott had lost that last lad of his and he'd realised, Joshua that is, that this little lass was all that he was going to have. No wonder she dressedherself in her father's clothes since the old man had used her like a lad since she was five or six. Worked her hard he had, but she'd always been sweet-tempered. Joshua'd not broken her, and what he'd taught her had stood her in good stead, but when Natty looked back to that day when it got round the valley that Josh Abbott's lass had gone off with some chap from a travelling company, he distinctly remembered thinking at the time, "and is it any wonder?”

  Now she was back, looking at him with the desperate entreaty he had once seen in the eyes of a young doe he had cornered up on Great Calva. There had been a fawn at her back, no more than a couple of hours old, and she wouldn't leave it, but her eyes, almost human, had looked like this woman's did! It was then, for the first time in his life, he changed his mind.

  “Won't you reconsider, Mr Varty? Mr Macauley and ."

  “Nay . . ." His anger flared. ". . . I want to know nowt about that. 'Tis nowt to do with me so . . ."

  “I was only going to say that ... "

  “Ah don't want ter know what tha' was going ter say so if tha'll tell me where tha' wants these besoms put I'll be off up to't coppice to see what wants felling."

  “Of course, Mr Varty. Leave the besoms by the sledge and I'll pack them later. I'm to be off to Whitehaven."

  “Aye, so I heard. Ah'll come with thi'. There's a tobacconist over there that sells tobacco I like . . ."

  “Oh no, Mr Varty, I can get it for you."

  “No, tha' can't. Tha'd only get wrong sort. Women knows nowt about tobacco."

  “That's true, Mr Varty."

  “An' tha' can call me Natty, Annie.”

  They both had a strong tendency towards hysteria, Annie and Reed, a great bubbling laughter which welled up inside them so that they turned to one another, clinging together, not in passion, but with the merriment, the foolish absurdity which comes when a great strain has ended. They were not laughing at Natty, though his paradoxical change of direction, the sudden reversal of his antipathy towards her was comical in the extreme. It was his last words that amused Annie and it was relief that made Reed lean against her whilst great gales of laughter shook them both.

  “I don't know how I kept my hands from the old fool." "No, he's not that, Reed, but what was it do you think, that made him change his mind?”

  He put her from him. Not far, no more than six inches but enough to look down into her shining eyes.

  “Don't you know?" The turmoil of their bodies had subsided now and there was peace and a quality of honesty between them. "Don't you know what you have? You are beautiful Annie Abbott, but rarer than that is your absolute unawareness of your beauty. And not only your face is beautiful but so is your heart and soul. It shines through and when men look at it, men who recognise it, as I do, as Charlie Lucas did . . . oh yes, my darling, I realise now why he left . . . and as even an old man like Natty Varty does, there is nothing we would not do for you. Dear God, if only you would let me do it. Which brings me to the purpose of my visit. Do you still want that girl of yours to go to school? Ah, I see you do, well you can give me a glass of ale and sit beside me on the wall while we discuss it.Chapter25

  The day before they were to set off for Whitehaven, the last day in September it was, Sally Garnett came running down the track from Upfell, her youngest in her arms, her face crimson, her pale brown hair in a tangle about her head and her plump figure, never given a chance to right itself between pregnancies, wobbling all over the place like a sackful of blown up balloons.

  “I can't stop, I've left Sammy in charge of little 'uns but he's only five himself and Alfie's a real handful. This is Aggie, I called her after me main."

  “Come in, Sally, oh, do come in and have some tea. Phoebe's in the dairy. We have a cow now, you know, and she says the place needs a good scrubbing out every day, just as though she hasn't done it once already today, and Cat's at school . . . Oh, yes, didn't you know? Oh, please come in and drink a cup of tea with me and let me tell you all about it. Here, let me take Aggie while you get your breath," and though the baby stank like a ferret, making Annie turn her head and think sadly of Aggie Mounsey and her passion for cleanliness, she took her from Sally's arms and tried to propel Sally into Phoebe's shining kitchen.

  “Oh no, I dassunt, Annie. He'd kill me. He'd kill me if he knew I was even speaking to yer. He's in a fearful temper . . ." and now, as Annie got a good look at her, she could see what Bert's fearful temper had done to his wife's eye. It was set in a deep purple socket and her cheek-bone seemed to stand out in a peak from the rest of her face.

  “Sally, come in. He's obviously away from Upfell or you wouldn't be here . . ."

  “

  “Aye, market in Keswick . . ." Sally was getting her breath back now and she eyed the interior of the kitchen and the offer of a drink of tea with some longing.

  “Well then, he won't be back before dark . . ."

  “Ah knows that, but ah dassunt, Annie." Sally's terror of Bert's fearful temper evidently could not be convinced that even the distance between Browhead and Keswick Market would hide her from his wrath. "Ah've just come to tell thi' that he's livid about Natty Varty. Oh, Annie, I'm that frightened he'll do summat bad to thee, or to tha' farm or even that lass of yourn. He don't care how he goes about it, but he's right set on doing thi' a mischief. That's how I got this," fingering her swollen face. "I said no more than pr'aps he'd best be careful an' he landed me one that . . . well, tha' can see for thissen. He reckons tha' coaxed Natty away wi' . . . well, I'm too ashamed to tell thee what he said, an' Natty an' all . . . an old man! Bert . . . well, he knows about thee and him from up Long Beck. I'm sorry, lass . . ." putting a contrite hand on Annie's arm, watching as the soft creamy blush and the bright glow brought about by her own arrival at Browhead slipped away from her friend's face. "He says that any man what . . . Oh, Annie, lass, he reckons tha'll lie down for any man, an' it were then when he said that, that I spoke up and he clouted me."

  “Oh Sally, I'm so sorry, for you and for myself. Dear God, I've been with one man in my life, no more, and then I was a child, fourteen, ignorant, in love or so I thought. He said we were to be married . . . and for that one mistake I am to suffer this. Seven years, Sally and still they turn on me . . ."

  “Aye, love, ah know. Everyone's talking about yer an' that's all they'll do, but not Bert. He'll hurt thi', Annie. Can thi' not ask . . . ?" she tossed her head awkwardly in the direction of Long Beck and Reed Macauley. "Will he not protect thi'?"

  “Sally, there is nothi
ng between me and Reed Macauley, nothing." Annie's words came through gritted teeth.

  “He'd like there to be though, wouldn't he, lass?" Sally spoke with a sad wisdom and Annie sighed.

  “Oh yes, Sal, he'd like there to be."

  “Buggers, the lot of 'em."

  “Oh, Sally, why won't they let me get on . . . ?"

  “I don't know lass, but I'd best get back. God knows what them lot's up to. But tha'll be careful, won't tha'. Watch out for Bert."

  “I'm to go to Whitehaven tomorrow with Natty." "Eeeh, whatever for?"

  “To sell my swills to the coaling ships. There's a good market there. I've sold them here and there, one or two at a time, but I reckon I could get rid of the lot in one go."

  “An' tha's leaving thi' lass on er own with only that girl with her?”

  Annie's face lit up for a moment.

  “No, that's what I wanted to tell you. Cat's gone over to . . "

  “Tha'd best tell em to lock t' door."

  “Bert wouldn't hurt Phoebe, Sally. He's no quarrel with her and Cat's gone to . . “

  But Sally was sidling away, unconcerned now with anything but her agitated need to get back to Upfell and her children. She had tied Alfie and Emma to the legs of the heavy kitchen table but she wouldn't put it past her Sammy to have released them, and God only knew what devilment or danger the four of them had got up to. Dear Lord, but she missed her mam. She wouldn't have this shiner if her main had still been alive. He wouldn't have dared lift a finger to her, not with Aggie Mounsey at his back, the rotten sod, but he'd been that incensed when Natty Varty had left, not saying where he was off to since Natty Varty was not one for blurting his business to anyone. Natty had not been settled ever since her mam died, Sally knew that. And when Bert had found out where Natty had gone, well, she and the children had cowered in the barn for more than two hours until he'd slammed out of the kitchen and set off in the direction of The Bull. He'd abused her something awful when he got back, no doubt putting her in the family way again, and that was when he blacked her eye. Oh, God . . . Mam .. .