All the dear faces Read online

  “Take your time, darling." She had sat down beside her and gently taken her hand. From the doorway Natty watched quietly, saying nothing but knowing, as she did, who had done this. "It was Bert Garnett, wasn't it? How did he get in? Surely the dogs . . . what happened? .. . No, take your time, your poor, poor face . . . Oh, Phoebe . . . don't fret, we'll make him pay. Natty will fetch the constable . . . we'll see that he's put away ... "

  “No . . ."

  “What . . ."

  “Not him .. .

  Annie bent her head, for surely her ears were mistaken. Phoebe seemed to be telling her that it was not Bert Garnett who had attacked her, wrecked every room in the farmhouse – for Annie had seen Natty run up the stairs and come down again shaking his head – which was ridiculous, for who else . . . who . . . ?

  “Phoebe darling, look at me . . . I know, I'm sorry, love . . . it is just . . . it must be agony to move" – and yet she had cleaned the whole place . . . "but we must know the truth. If Bert Garnett did this . . ."

  “No . . . stranger ... "

  “A stranger? A stranger came in here, just off the fell and ransacked the place? You let someone in that you didn't know . . . ?" Annie shook her head in disbelief but Phoebe remained passive, turning her face away to stare through the slits of puffed flesh into the fire and nothing that Annie or even Natty could say would make her change her story.

  “No, " she mumbled through her painfully cut lips. The man had not hurt her in the way bad men hurt a defenceless woman. He had smashed his way in .. .

  “But the door was not broken, Phoebe.”

  . . . and hit her when she had protested .. .

  “There's nothing stolen, Phoebe, so why should he ... ?" for everything that was missing was found, battered, torn, wrecked almost beyond repairing but safe in the barn where Phoebe had painstakingly put it.

  . . . No, she didn't know who it was . . . no, it was not Bert Garnett and no matter what Annie said or did, Phoebe would not change her story and at Upfell Farm Bert Garnett smiled to himself.Chapter26

  The school in which Catriona Abbott was enrolled, though her mother had not been inside it, naturally, was devoted to the nourishment and education of the minds of those girls and young ladies whose parents wished them to be proficient in more than how to sew a sampler, speak a word or two of French, paint a watercolour or strike a chord on the piano. Its enlightened headteacher and the owner of the school, Miss Amy Mossop, was the daughter of a clergyman, now dead. He had given his only child a sound grounding in Greek, French, Latin, the arts, geography, history, literature and mathematics, all the subjects he himself had been taught as a boy and, having no son, only this one clever girl child, to whom to pass on his knowledge, he had done so along with a house set in three acres of garden in Grasmere and a small annual income. By then Miss Mossop was a spinster of some twenty-eight years, plain, sensible and not at all prepared to sit on her hands for the rest of her life. She did not care for the idea of marriage, had the possibility been open to her, and her hundred pounds a year was barely enough for herself to live on, let alone keep the large old house and the servants needed to maintain it and the gardens.

  It became the `Mossop Academy for Young Ladies' in 1839, though many of the neighbouring gentry and those able to afford the fees asked themselves why they should trust their girls to Amy Mossop? It was, they found after all, easier than going to the trouble of finding a governess. It was also very convenient to board a sometimes .. . well . . . an awkward child knowing she would be brought up exactly as she would at home. The dormitories were bright and cheerful, the dining hall well appointed and the gardens, where girls were encouraged to grow their own flowers, were private and safe.

  Catriona Abbott was one of those 'awkward' children, intelligent, there was no doubt of that, but very shy, simply dressed in the plainest of hodden grey when she arrived in the carriage of Mr Reed Macauley who told Miss Mossop that the child's mother, who was a distant relative of his, wished her daughter to be educated to the highest standard. Her mother was unable to bring her, he informed Miss Mossop crisply, due to family circumstances, but she wished the child to be sent home every Friday afternoon. His carriage would fetch her, weather permitting, returning her at eight thirty sharp each Monday morning. The uniform of the school, ah yes, he agreed with Miss Mossop that young ladies should dress identically and he would see to it this very week.

  Naturally, she did not voice her suspicions but Miss Mossop took it that Catriona Abbott, though she looked nothing like him, was Mr Macauley's daughter, the outcome of some misalliance outside marriage, she supposed. It did not concern her. Catriona was not the first, nor would be the last little indiscretion of the gentry, even the aristocracy, who found their way to her tolerant and fair-minded gates.

  Annie had insisted that she provide her child's outfit for the school. Reed had told her about the scholarship which was to be awarded to a promising scholar, in this case her own Cat, marvelling that her child was so clever that Miss Mossop had chosen to give it to her. It included her tuition and board from Monday to Friday, Reed had told her straight-faced, but not her clothes which he would be willing to pay for but she would not hear of it.

  The length of hodden-grey wool, the one she had woven and put by to make a new outfit for herself for the coming winter, had provided Cat's well-fitting, well-made dress and jacket. The egg and butter money, her new black boots. Phoebe had knitted her stockings and the crisp white cotton lace-trimmed drawers, petticoat and chemise had come from Lizzy Abbott's beautiful bedsheet, the oneher mother had made with her own hands including the lace. They had wept, she and Phoebe with their arms about one another when Reed had taken Cat away, his carriage standing for all the world to see on the road at the bottom of the track which led up to Browhead. Like a little princess, she had looked, although try as they might, they could not contrive a bonnet for her, smiling, flushed, excited at the thought of going to a real school. At the last moment she had run back to hide her face in Annie's waist, clutching at her with frightened arms. She was not too sure she wanted to go off with Mr Macauley who was very stern and how was she to bear losing Blackie and Bonnie and Dandy and the flock of kittens which pranced about the yard? She had never been parted from her mother and Browhead was the only home she had known.

  Annie had knelt to look into her face, unaware of the man who stood to watch them, his heart wrenched and torn with his love for her, that love written plain on his face and in the deep blue sadness of his eyes. He was doing this for her, the only thing she would allow him to do and even now she thought it was all free. If she could have taken Cat to Miss Mossop's school herself, she would have done so, but how could she shame her child by going to this wonderful place, where Cat was to learn all that she had never learned, looking like a vagrant, clean and darned and patched, but a vagrant none the less. But Reed would take her and his carriage would call for her each weekend and so she would swallow her pride and her deep aversion to accepting Reed's help on this one thing for the sake of her child.

  “Darling, this is to be a great day for you and me, you know that, don't you?" she whispered into Cat's weeping face. "You are a brave and clever girl, lambkin, and such bravery and cleverness cannot be wasted. Think of what you will be able to tell Phoebe and me, to teach us when you come home at the weekend, and then there is the farm. When it is as big as Mr Macauley's it will need a clever, well-educated brain to look after it and that is what you will have. And you will be home on Friday. We will have a little party to celebrate. Would you like that, sweetheart?" and Reed Macauley had to turn away from the glowing maternal loveliness in Annie Abbott's face. God help him if she found out it was himself who was paying the fees and for the uniform which Cat would wear for five days of the week. She was so proud that she, Annie Abbott was doing this for her daughter with help from no one. That she and Cat between them, since it was Cat's cleverness that won the scholarship, had clawed their way up from their precarious beginnings to
become a woman with a small but increasingly successful farm, and a child with a promising academic future ahead of her. He could not take it away from her, her belief that it was all hers and Cat's doing. It could prove to be tricky, making sure that Annie Abbott's daughter had everything that every other pupil in the school had without arousing Annie's suspicions, but he just hoped her lack of knowledge about an establishment such as Miss Mossop's would allow her to believe that it was all free.

  The first weekend she came home, her legs flailing like small windmills up the track from the road and from where Reed Macauley's carriage was just drawing away, Annie was half-way down to meet her, her face alight with her radiant smile, her arms opened wide to catch her. The child flew into them and they strained together for a rapturous moment then Annie whirled her round and round, both of them laughing and half crying at the same time. About them circled the barking ecstatic dogs and, sidling indolently behind, backside swaying, tail up and curling gracefully from side to side, came Dandy. The kittens from Dandy's third — or was it fourth — litter scrambled and danced at her rear and for five excited minutes there was happy pandemonium.

  “Darling, darling . . . we've missed you so . . ." "I know, Mother . . . but the school is . . ."

  “What . . . What . . . ?"

  “Oh, it's splendid, Mother. Already I have learned something called 'geometry' and Miss Mossop was mostgratified, that's what she said, to know that I already had some Greek and Latin, so I explained about Charlie and she said he must be a clever gentleman and I said that he had gone to Yorkshire . . ."

  “Oh, sweetheart . . ." but by now Cat was rolling on the rough grass with the animals, all vying with one another to be first at her.

  “Cat . . ."

  “Blackie . . . Bonnie . . . Oh, Dandy. I've only been gone a week . . ."

  “Cat . . ."

  “. . . and just wait until I show you what I painted for Phoebe . . ."

  “. . . Cat . . ."

  “I knew she would like it because she loves flowers so." "Cat, darling . . ."

  “Where is she, Mother? . . . Where is Pheobe? I must show her . . ."

  “Cat, come here to Mother, lambkin."

  “But I must show Phoebe . . ."

  “I know, sweetheart, but . . . well . . ."

  “What is it, Mother? Where's Phoebe?"

  “She's at home, darling . . ."

  “Well then . . ." and the child turned, ready to scamper up the rocky track to where she knew Phoebe would be waiting, probably with one of Cat's favourites like Fig Sue or blackcurrant tart. In fact she was surprised that Phoebe wasn't here with mother and Blackie and Bonnie and Dandy, with Cat's family, for that was what they were, all those who lived under Browhead's roof.

  “Cat, come here."

  “Mother, I must . . ."

  “CAT, come to Mother, darling. Before we go up to the house I must tell you that Phoebe is not very well.”

  The child stood instantly still and the satchel she held, a present from Mr Macauley, which she meant to show, in all its glory to Mother and Phoebe and of course, the animals, fell limply at the end of her arm, dragging on the grass. Blackie sniffed at it, interestedly, and so did Bonnie, absorbing its curious scent.

  “Not well, Mother? What's wrong with her?"

  “She . . . had a fall, lambkin, and hurt her face and . . ." How to describe to a child of almost six the strange and silent state of a young woman, for that was what Phoebe was now, who a week ago had been their cheerful, outspoken, faithful, hard-working Phoebe. Phoebe, whose face had lit up like the sun coming over the top of Great Calva whenever Annie or Cat came into the room. Phoebe, who now, when she was not scrubbing dementedly at the walls, or bare floor of the farmhouse, sat staring into the fire in the inglenook. Her face was less swollen but it was black and purple, green and yellow with the fading bruises. Scabs had formed where her flesh had split on her cheek and lips but it was not these that worried Annie but her deep and unnatural silence, her absolute refusal to talk about the event of a few days ago, and her absolute denial that the man who had attacked her and devastated their home was Bert Garnett. Natty had set to and with his usual dexterity had repaired chairs and kitchen utensils, even replacing the samplers in their frames and hanging them on the wall. He had gathered a great bunch of grasses and fading ling, placing them awkwardly in the battered copper bowl Phoebe had loved, so that their home had begun to look as it had before it had been treated with such violence. Bed linen which had been torn and sullied with the nasty waste of the attacker's body had been washed and could be repaired and the oatmeal and barley spilled from the kist in which they were stored had been gathered up and replaced. The child would not notice now any great difference in her home, only in Phoebe.

  “She's not been at all well since she . . . she fell and hurt her face, so I want you to be especially gentle with her. Her poor face it is . . . well . . . it is dreadfully bruised, sweetheart and cut, so . . . you are a good, kind girl and I know you will not mean to upset her so . . . don't let her know you are . . .""I will show her the picture I painted for her, Mother."

  “Of course, darling, that will make her feel better. She will be so pleased and happy to see you. I'm sure she will begin to mend at once.”

  The little girl was hesitant at first, not at all accustomed to seeing Phoebe sitting down, doing nothing but stare at the crackling logs in the fire. She moved across the kitchen to place herself in Phoebe's direct line of vision since it seemed Phoebe was not going to turn her head to look at her and her eyes widened as she looked at Phoebe's ravaged face.

  “Phoebe, it's me, Cat," she said, then, hesitation gone, she clambered on to Phoebe's lap and hugged her carefully, gently, before placing a butterfly kiss on Phoebe's bruised cheek. "There," she said cheerfully. "All better now," just as Phoebe and Annie had said a hundred times to her, and Phoebe stirred and without conscious thought her arms went round the child.

  “Oh, Phoebe, I've missed you so much, really I have, but I've so much to tell you and show you. I've painted the loveliest picture for you. They're chrys . . . chrys the mums . . . well, Miss Mossop has them in her study .. . yes, a study, it's called, and she sits there at a big desk and she said I could paint them. I told her about you and me being friends and she said of course I could bring my paints . . .”

  Her voice went on and on, describing the wonders, the marvels which had been revealed to her during the past few days. Her eyes never left Phoebe's face, but they did not see Phoebe's scars, only the shining expression of love and amazed interest which had come to Phoebe's eyes. She would repeat it all again and again for her mother, for Blackie and Bonnie and Dandy, but it was as though at this precise moment, she knew with that curious wisdom which is bestowed on the very young, that this was for Phoebe since Phoebe had need of it.

  . . the food is not as nice as yours, Phoebe, so I'm looking forward to a blackcurrant tart . . ."

  “and tha' shall 'ave it for tha' tea, sweeting, as soon as I've heated the oven . . ."

  “. . and I tore the lace on my new drawers when Alice . . . she's my new friend . . ."

  “. . . Alice . . . that's a pretty name and I'll mend that tear as soon as ah've a minute . . .”

  . . so I'll get my satchel . . . yes, isn't it lovely. . . Mr Macauley said I should need it . . .”

  . . . by heck, that's grand . . . grand . . . and kind of Mr Macauley . . .”

  . . isn't it, but wait until you've seen your painting. Mr Macauley said he would frame it for you . . . there . . . now what d'you think, Phoebe, aren't the colours lovely . . ."

  “Eeh, lovey . . . lovey ... "

  “Now you mustn't cry, Phoebe . . . your face is not so bad. . ."

  “Eeh . . . lovey . . . lovey . . . Phoebe's missed thi' . . "

  “I know ... "

  “. . . and I've never had such a lovely picture, an' all me own, an' all . . .”

  Beside the doorway Annie turned away. She lifted her forearm a
nd leaned it on the wall. Placing her face in it she wept the tears of gladness, for Cat's return, for Phoebe's return and for the deep enduring love Reed Macauley gave her.

  *

  The little church of St Bridget's which stood in splendid isolation on the shores of Lake Bassenthwaite was generally full each Sunday but on the one following Cat Abbott's return from her grand school at Grasmere, every pew was jammed to capacity and several of its parishioners were forced to stand at the back. The church was very old, no one was sure just how old, since it was rebuilt in the reign of King Richard I. The register was begun in the sixteenth century and the font bowl was dated back to 1300 and in it, thirty-three years ago, Reed Macauley had been christened. There were many graves in the churchyard bearing the name of Macauley, including those of Reed Macauley's mother and father, and several containing his infant brothers and sisters.

  The church was reached by a long track leading from the road between Hause and Keswick, down which, to reach St Bridget's, those with no carriage must tramp in all weathers, but today it was sunny and crisp, November, the sky the loveliest winter blue with not a cloud in sight. There was a stretch of woodland between the road and the church but round the actual building and the walled churchyard was a lush green pasture on which sheep grazed, and beyond it was the lake, its gently ruffled surface silver and the palest grey blue. Beyond the lake rose the browning fells, on and on into the distance as far as the eye could see.

  Reed Macauley sat straightbacked beside his lovely young bride. Eighteen months they had been married and still no children and not likely to be if the rumours which were whispered in every drawing room and on every street corner in Keswick were true. And Mrs Macauley so elegant and fine looking, a perfect lady in her dove-grey velvet two-piece outfit, the skirt so wide after the narrow angle of the last decade, those who were already seated were quite amazed that the church aisle could take it. Her jacket bodice was shaped to her tiny waist and flared out below it with a basque extended over her hips. It was close-fitting to her long white neck and edged with a small white lace collar. The buttons which ran from neck to waist were of mother-of-pearl. Her bonnet, also of dove-grey velvet, was tiny, slipping far back on her proudly held head to reveal the astonishing golden glint of her hair. She wore pearls in her ears, neat white gloves and extremely high-heeled dove-grey kid boots. She looked quite magnificent, aloof, unconcerned with anything other than the long and tedious sermon to which she listened intently, her cloudy blue eyes never wavering from the rector's face.