All the dear faces Page 39

  Her husband was also splendidly dressed, like her in grey, but his was a charcoal grey, immaculate and expensive with a watered silk lavender waistcoat beneath his coat. A swallow-tailed coat from which a snowy white stock cascaded. His trousers were tight, well fitted, showing off his splendid calf and strapped under his instep. He carried a tall grey top hat. His face was grim, looking neither to left nor right as he had followed his wife's wide skirt up the central aisle but during the parson's sermon had there been anyone – bar the parson – in front to see, they might have noticed he closed his eyes several times and his face clamped itself into what might have been pain.

  “We shall go to church this morning, Reed," Esmé Macauley had announced after breakfast. "Do not think I intend to skulk at home, hiding my face as though I had something of which to be ashamed during this . . . difficult time. I can do nothing to stop you acting as you are doing, causing gossip of the most unsavoury sort, but I can show society that I have nothing to hide."

  “You have nothing to hide, Esmé, and I have done nothing of which I am ashamed."

  “Really, then may I ask you why you are taking so much interest in the daughter of a woman who, or so I have been told, has a reputation for being ... "

  “Yes, Esmé?" Reed's voice was dangerously quiet. "She is not married, Reed, and has a daughter. Surely that is all that need be said.”

  Esmé Macauley was not quite twenty years old. She had been ready to love her handsome husband though she had scarcely known him on the day they were married. He was wealthy and influential, not quite of the gentry, but then neither was she for her father's father had been a weaver and her father was of that new class, the millocracy, those coming to power and wealth in this new industrial age. She had been gently reared and her governess had instilled in her all that a lady should know. It was, she had hinted, quite acceptable for a man to have a mistress providing he was discreet and if she was honest, Esmé had not concerned herself when it came to her notice that Reed was no exception. She had not cared for his rough embrace and the indignities to which he subjected her, but she wanted a child so she must, to get one, perform herwifely duties, she had thought. There was no child and it mystified and distressed her, though she spoke of it to no one and certainly not to her husband. So what was she to make of his interest in the bastard called Catriona Abbott?

  She had asked him since she did not want her own position in society to be jeopardised. She tried to be reasonable, calm, remembering the teachings of her governess that a lady never, never showed emotion, but she had her household to consider, her friends, most of whom came from Yorkshire, Cheshire, Leicestershire since she found the wives and daughters of the local society somewhat parochial.

  “I have no interest in her other than to give her a decent education."

  “But why? Why should you concern yourself with this child in particular, who is, after all, from the lower orders?”

  Reed clamped his teeth about the fragrant cigar he was smoking and on his face came that scowling expression she had come to know so well and which, in the past, before she had learned to control herself, had made her cry. His eyebrows dipped ferociously over his eyes which had in them the blue chill which made his wife shiver, for she was an affectionate, placid girl who had known, and needed, nothing but kindness. She wanted Reed to be as her father had been. Exactly. Indulgent, fond, generous, not this truculent, grim-mouthed, pugnaciously jawed stranger who was always polite, who shared her bed most nights, at least for half an hour, and who often looked through her as though she were made of glass.

  “This child from the 'lower orders', as you so quaintly put it, is bright, exceedingly so. She even knows a little Greek and Latin. Can you imagine that . . . ?" smiling in a way Esmé had never seen.

  Esmé couldn't, since she herself scarcely knew how to add one figure to another and as for languages or dates of battles, they would just not stay inside her head, no matter how hard Miss Humphries, her governess, had tried to put them there.". . .

  she can read the Bible from cover to cover and speaks some French and is proficient in mathematics arid she is no more than five or six years old."

  “But who has taught her? Not her mother, surely." "Some chap who . . . lived with them." His face closed up tight as a clam but his wife failed to notice.

  “The mother's lover?”

  Reed struck the mantle shelf so hard with the flat of his hand several ornaments which stood on it jumped half an inch into the air, and so did Esmé.

  “No, he was not, dammit." He glared at her so fiercely she shrank away from him but nevertheless she would not give up.

  “How do you know that, Reed?"

  “Because I do, confound it. She is not a liar and when she told me that they were not lovers I believed her.”

  He had told her all she wanted to know. She was not clever, not it seemed like the woman's child was clever, but it did not take a great intellect to see the anger, the longing, the frustration which ravaged her husband, though once again his face had become smooth, closed up, his eyes expressionless.

  “You and she discussed it then?" She lifted her lovely head and her upbringing and the practical Yorkshire common sense she had inherited from her father was evident in her smooth young face. She had to be a fool not to understand and inexperienced though she was, Esmé was no fool.

  “For God's sake, Esmé, what sort of a question is that?"

  “A simple one, I would have thought. You and she have talked of the child and her education, it seems, and from what you tell me, of other things, I am . . . I think I am entitled, as your wife, to know what she means to you?"

  “She is . . . a neighbouring farmer . . . she fell on hard times and .. ."

  “You helped her out.”

  Reed's face took on the menacing hue and expression those with whom he did business would have recognised. He was not a man to be questioned on his actions, whatever they might be, and he was certainly not going to explain to this child, even if she was his wife, the undercurrents which eddied about his relationship with Cat Abbott's mother. He had known from the first that his carriage at the gate of Browhead, with Cat Abbott in it as they drove on the road to Grasmere, and as it drove back, his coachman at the reins, again with Cat Abbott in it, would not pass by unnoticed. His name had been linked in a vague, unformed way with Annie Abbott's for some time, but the presence of Charlie Lucas had silenced the whispers. Now they were becoming a full-throated roar and he found that he did not care any more. He was sorry if they should hurt his wife since she was no more than a child herself. A child to whom he had done a great mischief, but his obsession with Annie Abbott was running out of control and he could not seem to harness it. He wanted to cosset her, hold her, protect her, wrap her in luxury and hide her deep and safe in the love which filled his heart, but she wouldn't let him and so he must do it through the child.

  “This has nothing to do with our marriage, Esmé . . ."

  “It has if you are to . . . to flaunt yourself with . . .”

  His roar could be heard in the kitchens and the servants froze in terror. The little skivvy who was carrying a stack of pans she had just scoured, squeaked and dropped them with a deafening clatter and the butler Esmé Macauley had employed a year ago tut-tutted angrily.

  “That is enough, Esmé. I will not be told how to conduct my life. Not by you, nor anyone. You are my wife and will remain so for as long as I live, but what I do outside this house is my own concern. You have my name and my protection. No one will ever harm you or insult you, in my presence or out of it." He twisted the massive gold and onyx ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand, then turned and walked toward the window, putting as much distance as he could between himself and his pretty young wife in case his snarling anger should become unleashed. He took another cigar from the gold case in his pocket, then returned to the fire to light it, inhaling deeply before he leaned down towards her. She shrank away.

  His lips hardly moved
as he spoke and his eyes were . slivers of blue ice between his thickly lashed lids. He was in command of himself now after that curious defencelessness.

  “But you will obey me, my girl, and you will do it with that certain style you have which marks you for a lady. You will do as you have done for the past eighteen months. What you have done well. You will look after my house and my guests. Nothing will change. I will not change it. I will go to church with you. I will be here at our table and in your bed since I want a child. I don't know why we have not had one for you must admit I do my best to oblige. I am well aware that you find the . . . procedure distasteful and when you conceive I shall bother you no longer.”

  Her face became crimson at his coarse reference to what went on in their bed, then it drained away to leave her white and trembling, for she was afraid of this violence in her husband, wondering frantically on the emotion which had caused it.

  “There is nothing more to say. Whatever you may hear about . . . the child you are to disregard it. Contrary to popular belief she is not mine and I will not have her discussed, or her mother in my house. Is that clear? Very well, put on your hat and we will go to church."

  “Yes, Reed," she said, and went to fetch her bonnet.

  Chapter27

  They did not see Cat from the beginning of January when the snow began until the end of February when it thawed. They saw no one, spending the winter months cut off from the rest of the world by the deep snow. She and Natty had, at the first onset of the bad weather, brought down the flock to the intakes so that if it became necessary they could be hand fed with the hay cut from the meadow grass in the summer. The cow, christened 'Clover' by Cat was housed in the cow shed, cared for by Natty in the nature of feeding, watering, mucking out and bedding. Phoebe milked her daily, and she was justifiably proud of her dairy work. The actual dairy was intensely cold, set on the north-facing wall of the farmhouse as it was, even at the height of the summer. There was a boiler, a stone floor with a slight slope for drainage, and the walls were lined with a great many stone shelves. It was all spotlessly clean, the pails and crocks scoured meticulously for it would not do to find one of Clover's hairs in the butter or for the cheese to become too soft. There were no second chances in a dairy.

  “That butter's a long time comin'" " was a timeless lament from Phoebe, just as though she was heartily sick of the task and for two pins would give it all up, but Annie knew she relished it, tickled to death with the produce of her own labour. The upright butter churn in which a long 'plunger' was 'dashed' up and down was in use twice a week. There was a box churn which was for when only a small quantity of butter was to be made, and when the churned butter was ready Phoebe 'worked' it with her own cold, bare hands to remove the excess buttermilk. She had cream setting dishes made of the wood from the sycamore tree, a butter board, a hand-carved butter stamp, a butter barrel, again made of sycamore which did not taint the flavour of the milk, and in which the butter was stored. She heated her cheese-making milk in a copper cheese kettle before adding the rennet and after the numerous and complex processes through which it went, the cheese was put in the 'press' where it would remain for weeks or sometimes months before it was ripe for eating. Phoebe chafed at the bad weather which kept them from the market place in Keswick. The eggs which were not eaten by herself, Natty and Annie were pickled in vinegar and pepper. The butter and cheese was wrapped in a constantly changed wet cloth kept in hay and ice, brought from wherever it formed, and stored in the barn to keep it fresh. On the first day they were able to get to the market place, drawing the produce on the sledge, Phoebe was overwhelmed by the profit that was made. "Sixpence three farthings for each pound of cheese an' all from nowt really," she said, discounting her hard labour and refusing absolutely to accept the few pence Annie would have given her to spend.

  “Nay, lass, buy summat for't bairn. 'Appen she'll be 'ome at weekend," and she was, receiving a rapturous welcome from everyone, even Natty who poked a finger in her cheek and told her she looked 'right sprightly'.

  During the winter months Annie worked on her diary, not as one might suppose a record of her social activities but of her farm, and the past three years she had spent on it. Begun at Charlie's suggestion, week by week she had put down each meticulous detail of every moment of her busy day, from early sowing and planting, weeding, hoeing, feeding the land to the day it was all harvested, stored, threshed, milled and the land ploughed ready for the cycle to begin again. Each animal she possessed, marked with her own mark, was recorded and its progress noted, ewes, lambs, hoggs, gimmers, twinters and the wethers, the castrated males she was fattening for sale. When she had bought them, and from whom, and the quality and price she got for her fleeces. All the hundredsof details of which her farming year was made up. Her tiny profits after she had deducted what she was forced to buy in the way of provisions, those they could not themselves grow or produce.

  She and Natty spent hard days, sometimes until dark, prodding long sticks into snow drifts the height of the stone walls they faced, their dogs helping them, looking for the 'daft buggers', as Natty called them, sheep which continued to wander off up on to high ground. They were all found, with the sharp nose of Natty's dog who was more experienced than Blackie and Bonnie, digging furiously until the wanderer was released from a snowy grave.

  As they worked they could see far below, the stone of the farmhouse standing grey against the surrounding whiteness. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney and inside Annie knew Phoebe would have a hot and nourishing meal waiting for them, 'neaps and tatties' or 'crowdy'. It was still on this day but the skies were heavy with fresh snow waiting to fling itself down on those who were careless in their regard for the weather signs. They had fed the ewes with their daily ration of a pound of hay, those that had been `tupped' in November and were already heavy with their lambs.

  Natty worked alone when he repaired the gaps in the drystone walls on her 'inlands'. It was a never-ending task. Deep snow drifts piled against the walls and alternating frost and thaw inevitably caused gaps. The gap must be pulled right down to the base and rebuilt. The job, long and exhausting, could only be done when spare time was available. Natty tidied the barn and the cow shed and spread the fields, when the snow allowed it, with manure. To earn a bob or two and at the right time of the year, it was his custom to help the keeper of a local landowner's estate by acting as a 'beater' during the grouse-shooting season, and, for a lark, and to see if she could do it without being spotted, Annie joined him. She was inevitably noticed since she was by now a familiar figure in her threadbare jacket and breeches, her gaiters and wooden-soled clogs. She wore her heavy woollen jerkin beneath the jacket and a long muffler wound about her neck. Her soft felt hat, the brim turned down, was pulled well over her forehead but when the keeper, a man called Abel Greenwood bade her a dour "Morning, lass", she was quite astonished, not that she should have been recognised but that she should have been spoken to. More amazing still was the nod Jackie Ingham, a neighbouring cottager, aimed in her direction and the gruff "tekk the drag, lass" from another, Willy North. As she said later to an equally astonished Phoebe, you could have knocked her down with a feather. "Are they beginning to accept me, Phoebe, at last?" she asked.

  “ 'Appen the men, chuck, but it'll tekk time wit wimmin.”

  Sometimes Annie felt that Phoebe was the older of the two of them. She was cheerful again now, her old self after the beating from the 'stranger' but she had an old head on young shoulders, careful and prudent without Annie's inclination towards humour. She took her position as 'housekeeper' very seriously. She was neat and exacting, brusque with Natty if he should bring muck in on to her clean kitchen floor. Big-hearted and generous, she was nevertheless always conscious of the precarious state of their world and was never careless or carefree in the way she approached each day.

  At the end of March, a Friday, the burning of the heather began. There was a light wind blowing, the heather was tinder-dry, the air crisp and clean a
nd below where Annie and Natty stood they could see more than one dale spread out before them. The heather was to be burned in strips so that the sheep and grouse who were to benefit from it could pass easily through it, seeking out the various stages of regrowth which were the reason for burning it. The breeze must be at a man's back. A handful of bracken was set alight, transferred to the dry heather and from there carried along the desired line.

  Phoebe was 'pegging out' a line of snow-white, billowing undergarments, those which her lambkin had worn and brought home from school. Though the day was nearly over there was a good 'drying wind' and an hour or twowould see this little lot ready for ironing. The child had begged to go up and find her mother, wanting her to see her painting but Phoebe had said no, wait in the yard, she'd not be long and here, eat this oatcake she'd made while she waited. Her satchel was still on the step and guarding it were Blackie and Bonnie for they were not allowed on the fell when the burning was in process. Natty's dog, in canine years as old as her master, had found a sliver of sun in which she dozed but suddenly, though nothing untoward had happened, at least that Phoebe had noticed, all three sprang to their feet, their hackles rising and to her horror, Blackie and Bonnie lifted their heads and howled.

  Dear sweet Lord! The clothes peg she held in her mouth fell to the ground and instinctively she looked around for the child.