All the dear faces Page 37

  Annie and Natty were gone five days. They had walked the shortest route, dragging the sledge round the top of Bassenthwaite lake and up and over the top of High Side, bypassing Cockermouth, crossing the river Cocker and spending the night at the Beehive Inn below Deanscales. On across Dean Moor and High Moor in an almost direct line until they reached Whitehaven. They were lucky. There were many coaling ships and tramp steamers tied up in the harbour and by the end of the third day they had sold all their swills, though short of going from door to door, the besoms, in any number were not wanted. Annie was uneasy. Sally had put a worm of disquiet in her mind and the whole time she and Natty were away, she had the strongest compulsion to do everything on the run, longing to tell customers to hurry and make their minds up as they dickered between this swill or that or should it be three or half a dozen? One man on the harbour had wanted to discuss a bit of business, saying he would take as many of Annie's swills as she could get across to him. His ship called at Liverpool, Belfast, Greenock and many other ports where the colliers docked, and he was sure he could sell them for her if they could agree on a price, he said. There was no disparagement in his eyes or voice, or in those of his crew, at the sight of her strange rig-out, for these were men who had been to the far-flung outposts of the British Empire in their time, and though they eyed her long trousered legs and soft bowler hat somewhat curiously they were accustomed to seeing stranger sights than her. She was a bonny lass or would be underneath those baggy jacket and trousers and the unflattering man's hat she wore, but that was nothing to do with them. Besides, the old man she had with her was sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued and gave the impression he'd take his sturdy shepherd's crook to any man who looked sideways at him, or her.

  She and Natty had got on quite well together, she haddecided. It seemed he had taught himself to read when he had worked on the estate of some wealthy landowner just on the border between Cumberland and Scotland, in his youth. There had been broadsheets left about in the kitchen and being a resolute lad with little to say to his fellows, he had puzzled it out until he could decipher the squiggles on the paper. The Glasgow Herald had been his master's particular favourite, costing the exorbitant sum of fourpence halfpenny, and the young man Natty had grown into had become used to that one newspaper, looking out for copies wherever he went. He read everything printed in it from advertisements of cottages to let or for sale, the doings of the County Sessions, the finance accounts of the treasury, reports from the House of Lords, notices to shippers and passengers on sailing vessels and even an account of Her Majesty's Drawing Room held at St James's Palace. But anything of a political nature was bread and butter to him and he liked to discourse on it to anyone sensible enough to listen. Not many were, not of his acquaintance, but he found a ready listener in Annie Abbott.

  “That were a right sad do about Peel," he said shortly, right out of the blue on their first morning together. They were passing through the wooded area just north of Bassenthwaite Lake. The sun had ventured forth in a last effort to prolong the autumn but it was cold, sharp with the feeling of the winter to come. The oaks and alders, the willows weeping into the water were fast losing their leaves and the woodland floor was rich with a spongy layer in every shade from the palest cream to the darkest red, through which tiny saplings were reaching up to the light, thick as spring snowdrops. There was a cascade of silvered water running down the beck into the lake and propping up a drystone wall over which Natty clambered as spry as a boy was a huge and noble old yew tree. Natty's dog pattered at his heels. He had no name. His eyes never left Natty and it needed only a movement of Natty's hand or the click of his fingers, perhaps just a turn of his head and the dog knew exactly what was required of him. Annie had left Blackie and Bonnie for company with Phoebe.

  “Oh?" she answered delicately. She had heard of Peel but she had no access to newspapers and the only people she met or spoke to were not of a mind to discuss current affairs with her.

  “Aye, I reckon country'll be worse off without him." He took his pipe from his mouth, turning to look at her and seeing that she had nothing to say on the matter, clamped it between his teeth again.

  “Did tha' not know he were gone?" His tone was biting as though to say what could you expect of a woman. "Gone?"

  “Aye, dead. His 'orse threw him an' he died a few days later."

  “Poor man."

  “Aye, poor man indeed. An honest an' true man I reckon he were. An' I reckon it were due to 'im that this country's had peace for t' last two years. Revolution everywhere, but not here. Oh, no." He shook his head wisely and his dog watched anxiously lest there were some message for him in the movement. "You'll 'ave eard of t' 'Peelers'. Well, it were 'im who founded the Metropolitan Police. Prime Minister, he were for a while in '34 and again in '41. An' it were 'im who repealed the Corn Laws which put food in a lot o' folks' mouths, I can tell thi'."

  “Do you know, Mr Varty, I had not even heard of it. Do tell me more.”

  By the end of the journey Annie had been informed on many matters which concerned the welfare of the people, ranging from Chartism, which Natty heartily endorsed, to his opinion of the Prince Consort, whom Natty had not cared for at first, him being a foreigner, but who was proving an able sort of chap. Well, look at this Great Exhibition he was planning.

  “An exhibition, Mr Varty?"

  “Aye, up in London next year . . .”

  He was deep in the throes of Lord Palmerston's foreign policy, as they drew near Browhead, particularly with reference to Greece and the attack on the property ofa British subject who lived in Athens and who was demanding compensation. It appeared that Lord Palmerston supported him and ..

  Annie's instincts, which had been troubling her ever since they had left Browhead, sensed that something was wrong as she and Natty, still in full spate, came over the crest of the hill and crossed Chapel Beck. Though there was nothing obviously wrong – smoke came from the chimney and the hens pecked and squawked in the yard – there was an air of something out of kilter about the farm. A feeling of unbalance, of discord.

  She began to run, her old hat flying off and spinning away as she did so.

  *

  Bert Garnett glowered round the tap room of The Bull, his figure somewhat indistinct in the smoke from the dozens of long-stemmed pipes which were being puffed by most of its customers. His hard brown fist was clamped about a pint pot of ale, the fifth he had drunk since he had entered the inn, not more than an hour ago. He didn't so much drink the ale as tip the pot up and pour the liquid down his throat in one great draught, hardly pausing to swallow, then thumped it on the bar, calling to Will Twentyman to fill it up again. The violence of his thoughts was kept to himself but they were very evidently of an explosive nature, as demonstrated by the way he crashed the pot to the counter. There was an empty circle about him for there was not a man there who cared to even sit next to him let alone enquire what ailed him. They knew, of course, for it had got about the valley like wildfire that Natty Varty, much in demand at the busy times of the year, had left Upfell and gone to that lass of Joshua Abbott's. Working for her he was now, leaving Bert in the lurch and Bert was not at all pleased about it, as anyone in the bar could see.

  Bert smashed his pot on the counter for the sixth time and the room fell silent for a moment. Will Twentyman was a mild-mannered man but he did like a quiet house. Men didn't come here to fight. They were honest, hard-working labourers and farmers and shepherds who liked a nice peaceful pint before they ambled off to their beds and the warm back of the missus, and how long would it be before Will spoke up?

  “Summat wrong, Bert? " he asked good-naturedly enough.

  “There's nowt wrong, Will Twentyman, except wi' my pot which is empty."

  “Right Bert, but watch what tha' doin't wi' it, will tha'?" said Will as he placed the sixth foaming pint in front of his truculent customer.

  After the downing of his tenth pint, Bert staggered out of The Bull without a good night to anyone. The n
ight was dark, a great mass of clouds as malevolent as Bert himself pressing down on the towering fells and hiding any vestige of light from moon or stars. But Bert needed no light to guide him between the high stone walls of the road down from Gillthrop, fording the beck and along the track which led at the back of Browhead towards Upfell. He'd done it a hundred or more times since he'd married Sally, though Ma Mounsey had not been pleased about it, old cow.

  He could feel the dam of bitterness surge inside him as he stopped to glare at the back of Annie Abbott's farm. Bitch, bloody interfering bitch, taking the only decent labourer to be had in the district, stealing him from Bert with them tarty ways of hers, lying down, taking off her drawers, even for an old chap like Natty. But when a full-blooded chap like himself had let it be known to her that he'd be willing to accommodate her she'd turned her bloody nose up as though he was something one of his own cows had deposited and which she'd nearly stepped in. She did it for everyone but him, opened her legs and showed off that sweet bit of fluff which Bert Garnett would dearly love to get his hands on and his prick in. High and bloody mighty Macauley was sniffing round and probably getting his in an' all like the rest of them, and yet Bert Garnett wasn't given even a smile or a wink let alone a feel of her. Bitch, cow, whore . . . and not only that, she had taken the one good man everyone in the area wouldgive their eye-teeth to have working for them. And she was doing well, it was said, that flock of hers sold and new stock added and even a bloody cow and a pig in her yard. Oats and barley in her barn ready to be milled and a store of vegetables enough to feed the Queen's army. Gone to bloody Whitehaven she had, her and Natty, to sell her swills and there was his Sal sitting on her fat arse all day with nothing to do but stuff her face and could she make a swill? Could she hell! She could do nowt except produce bairns one after the other whilst that bitch in her snug farmhouse . . . By God . . . !

  The dam burst and any hold Bert Garnett might have had on good sense and sanity was swept away on the roaring tide of his obsessed rage. Reaching for a rock from the track, he moved round from the back of the farmhouse to the front, picking his way as quietly as a mouse, his feet finding, as though by instinct, the soft thick grass at the side of the track. There was no light showing anywhere since it was past nine o' clock but in the fire window beside the inglenook a faint golden orange showed where the fire, tamped down for the night, glowed warmly. He heard the two dogs begin to growl warningly from inside the house and he grinned as he threw the rock. Their growl became a frantic barking as the glass in the small mullioned window shattered and in a moment or two a light flickered in an upstairs window. It wavered behind the curtains and he waited. It appeared again moments later, moving behind the kitchen curtain as whoever held it came downstairs and the dogs continued to howl and bark but he did not move away. He stood in the shadows of the tree at the side of the house and again he watched and waited. He was not sure what for nor did he care much. He was enjoying himself. He was doing something to scare that bitch, even if she wasn't there. She'd know when she got home, that you didn't cross a man like Bert Garnett, and if you did, you only did it once.

  To his amazed delight, the door opened. He'd not expected that. Another couple of rocks would have done him. Perhaps one through each window for good measure, but the sight of the open doorway and the figure who stood there holding a bloody candle and shouting 'Who's there?' for Christ's sake, well, it was too good a chance to. miss. . .

  Wait a minute though, he didn't want to get his hands mangled or his throat taken out by one of them dogs, did he? Caution was needed here until he found out what was what. He'd no idea what he meant to do, but by God, he was enjoying this and he'd no intention of moving on home until he'd wrung every drop of pleasure and satisfaction from it.

  The dogs, which he had expected to rush out into the dark did not appear. He'd been prepared to leap over the wall and leg it up to Upfell or even up the bloody tree but the daft cow in the doorway swung her bloody candle shouting 'Who's there?' and it began to dawn on him that the dogs weren't coming out, that . . . that she must have tied them up . . . Jesus . . . she'd tied them up . . . !

  It took him two strides to reach the doorway, pushing Phoebe aside and sweeping back the door until it nearly came off its hinges and in the corner where Bonnie and Blackie were tied to the fixed settle their barking was high and frantic with hysteria.

  “What do you think you're doing, Bert Garnett?" Phoebe said, her eyes livid in her outraged face. She was not afraid, not then. She had seen who it was, when she'd peeped from her bedroom window and she could see he was drunk, the daft sod and Annie'd give him what for when she saw that broken window. Good job she'd tied the dogs up before she'd opened the door or they'd have gone for him.

  In answer to her outraged question Bert didn't really know what he was doing. He bore Annie Abbott a deep grudge and wanted nothing more than to vent his animosity and resentment on her for her treatment of him. Chucking the rock had been an impulse and if Phoebe hadn't opened the door that was probably all the damage that would have been done. But the sight of Phoebe's spotless kitchen, the reflection of fire and candle-light glowing in the deeprich polish of the oak table and the kist, the gleaming whitewashed walls touched to gold, the copper bowls filled with branches of autumnal leaves, the lovely fragrance of Phoebe's pot-pourri, and fainter, but just as pleasing, the bread she had baked that morning, all in such direct contrast to his own slovenly hearth where his wife seemed to live in stinking chaos since the death of her mother, brought the blood of madness to his head. He knew Phoebe was on her own. It was all over the parish where Annie's brat had gone, and who was paying for that, they were asking themselves, and Sally had let slip that Annie was over Whitehaven way selling her swills. Bugger the woman. She seemed to be doing better even than Bert Garnett, and living in a comfortable style if this kitchen was anything to go by. By heck, it wasn't to be borne the way some folk got on, especially them that didn't deserve it. As cosy a kitchen as he'd ever seen but by God he'd soon fix that, see if he didn't.

  “Shut tha' bloody gob, woman." His voice was high and incensed at the injustice of it all, and hers as she shrieked at him, was grating on his nerves.

  “Get out of my kitchen, tha' great daft loon," she was saying, her white nightdress flapping round her skinny ankles. Her hair, dark, long, straight as a ruler and heavy, with a shine on it in which the candle-light was tangled, fell across her shoulders and back. She confronted him, her white face glaring through it and when he struck her backhanded, she was knocked, sprawling, several feet across her own shining flags. She lay on her back, winded, dizzy, for the blow had landed at the side of her head. The room was swaying as she tried to stand but she saw his boot coming towards her. She did her best to avoid it but despite her efforts to protect herself, it struck her just below her ribs. The pain rocked her back, but again she tried to get up, which was a mistake for Bert Garnett's clenched fist caught her cheek-bone. The flesh split open and the blood poured from it and when he hit her again, and then again, his fist slipped in it. She had the good sense to stay down then, watching through the curtain of her blood-soaked hair as he systematically went about the business of destroying Annie Abbott's home.

  She was sitting on the settle, the only seat remaining since the dogs had been tied to it, when Annie burst in through the front door. For an horrific moment, Annie wondered who she was, for the person by the fire was unrecognisable. She had Phoebe's figure, her snow-white apron with the pretty butterfly cap on her well-brushed and neatly arranged hair, but the face beneath it was swollen, the skin scraped away, the eyes, both of them no more than puffy slits set in a deep purple bruise. There was a scabby cut down one cheek and her lips were split open like rotten plums. Sweet Jesus . . . Who? . . . What? . . . She'd known . . . somehow she had known . . . all the while she was in Whitehaven . . . she'd known .. .

  “Phoebe?" She could not help the questioning note in her voice. The dogs after the first nervous inclination to bark,
ran forward swirling about Annie's legs for a moment before returning to crouch defensively at Phoebe's knee as though to say this time . . . this time, they would be ready. Not even Annie to whom they were devoted, would be allowed near her, but Phoebe touched their heads briefly before turning to stare back into the fire.

  “Oh, God, Phoebe . . . sweetheart . . . who did this to you?" But of course she knew. Who else hated Annie Abbott enough to do this to the only friend Annie had? In Annie's absence he had come to the farm and beaten Phoebe's face to pulp, smashing it with his fists. She became aware then of the damage that had been done to the room. It was neat, clean, tidy but on the whitewashed walls something – what was it, for Christ's sake? – had been smeared and where there had been bowls of flowers there was nothing. The rug was gone and many of the utensils with which Phoebe had prepared and cooked their meals, and other meagre comforts she and Phoebe had made in the long winter nights. Cushions, a hodden grey shawl, even the samplers which had been brought down from the bedroom to decorate the kitchen walls. The curtains were missing and the room, though clean, wasbare, as barren as it had been on the day Annie came home. Only the heavy oak table, the kist and the settle remaining and through her rage she wanted to weep. Not only for the Phoebe who had taken the beating meant for Annie, but for the Phoebe who had painstakingly, agonisingly, by the look of her, put back together what was left, tidied and cleaned, even herself, where any other woman would have run screaming into the night looking for help. She had picked herself up and bathed herself, tidied herself and then started on the room, but then, where would she go for help? Who besides Sally would give Phoebe the time of day, let alone a helping hand when she needed it? She was Annie Abbott's friend, wasn't she?

  The figure on the settle stirred and began to mumble through her torn lips, but it was several minutes before Annie could decipher what she said.