All the dear faces Read online

  Well, it was no good sitting here sighing on the lack of her reputation since it would be gone soon enough as it was. Never look a gift horse in the mouth had been a favourite maxim of Polly Pearsall, and of hers in the past three years and this one was certainly welcome even if it had offended her to accept it, especially from him, though why she should feel that way was not clear to her. The fire was going nicely for, as she had suspected, there was enough peat and wood in the barn to keep a dozen fires burning. Should she go and awaken Cat before she opened the hamper? Make a celebration of it, for the poor lamb had had little enough in her young life to celebrate. Or should she take a peek herself ? It might contain tea and there was nothing she would like more in the world at this moment than to drink a cup of hot sweet tea, not with milk, of course, since there was no cow in the byre, but steaming, fragrant tea, in a dainty bone china cup, just like a lady. To have for a few minutes the illusion of ease and plenty, of warmth and leisure, as ladies did, before she tackled the daunting task of putting the house and her life in order. Her stomach was rumbling and churning in the most distracting way and yes . . . she felt curiously lightheaded, but then was it any wonder when she remembered that it was at least twenty-four hours since she had eaten, and had taken no more than a handful of icy cold water from the River Caldew as they crossed it yesterday at noon.

  “Mother?" an anxious voice questioned at the foot of the stairs. Annie turned, her warm smile ready, her arms held out and, reassured at once, the child ran into them, her bare feet making no sound on the slate floor.

  . "1 didn't know where I was, Mother," she said in her childish and yet dreadfully adult way. Contained, as she herself was contained and Annie wanted to swing her round and round, make her squeal with delight and the simple joyous fun of being three years old. "You weren't there and I didn't know where I was," she went on solemnly.

  There had been so many times in her life when Catriona Abbott had not known where she was. When she had awakened in a strange bed, a room she had never seen before, a view from a window she did not recognise. Many's the time she had gone to sleep in one place and woken up in another, her infant days and nights spent moving along the path on to which her mother's own youthful and innocent indiscretion had forced her. Rooms in which the only furniture had been a frowsy blanket, a chair and a bucket. Sometimes in a cellar with others who could afford no more than a few feet of straw-littered earthen floor on which to rest. Several times, when her mother had appeared to be well settled in some low, smoke-blackened, ancient bar-parlour, they had occupied a snug room together, alone and sheltered and allowing themselves –at least Annie did – to think that they had at last found a safe haven, but it had never lasted.

  So off they would go again, the regretful words of the landlord, or more likely his wife, ringing in their ears but wherever they went, wherever they 'ended up', never, not once, had Cat Abbott failed to find her mother beside her in the bed they shared. Though she had not known where she was, she had always known who would be beside her.

  “We're home, lambkin, that's where we are, and if there is in this basket what I think there is then you and I are going to have our first meal in our own home beside our own fire. What do you think of that, my little love?”

  The child looked into her mother's face, her own still serious, then, with a smile brightening across it like the sun shining on the still waters of the lake which she had not yet seen and which lay beyond the door, she turned in her mother's arms, perhaps for the first time in her life with the spontaneous and natural excitement of a child towards the hamper.

  “Can we open it, mother, can we?”

  They had eaten their fill of the 'one or two things' Reed Macauley's cook had 'put together' for them. Even as she unpacked them, passing each napkin-wrapped packet to the entranced child, the hand of the man who had given it to her was very obvious in the choice of much of the food. A dish of apricot soufflé, evidently meant for dinner guests expected that night and which Reed Macauley's cook would have to re-make. Roast duck, glazed and decorated with slices of orange; an enormous concoction of meringue and chocolate, rich with cream, the sight of which widened Cat's eyes to the size of saucers. Annie could just imagine him stalking through the kitchen where, in all probability, he never set foot from one year's end to the next since what was that part of his house to do with him, as long as it provided him with superbly cooked and imaginatively planned meals whenever he required them? What would he care how they came about? 'Send this and this' he would have said to the flustered and indignant cook, her feelings on the matter kept hidden from him naturally, pointing to the delicacies in her pantry, not concerned with her opinions, her labour. No matter how unsuitable nor how difficult to replace, if it took his fancy to send it, send it he would. And when it was learned where it had all gone, Annie Abbott would be the talk of the valley which would do her no good. Make all the more difficult the task she had set herself when she had learned that she was the owner of a farm and the land which went with it.

  Ah, well, that couldn't be changed now. It was no good worrying over spilled milk, as Polly used to say, and at least she and Cat would have full bellies for the next few weeks. There were other things in the hamper, sensible, durable things which could be stored away for future use, flour and salt, tea and sugar, oats for clapbread and hasty pudding, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, a saddle of dried lamb to make 'crowdy'. A smoked ham, pies of minced mutton, eggs, butter, cheese, a quart of fresh milk, a drop of which went into that first cup of tea, alas not in a bone china teacup but the pewter mug she and her family before her had used for generations. There were jars of pickles and preserves and what was evidently Reed Macauley's cook's home-made jams.

  They were children, both of them, laughing with the hysterical excitement which can soon turn to tears, the excitement of those who have been set down in wonderland and told to take whatever they fancied of the delights on display. It took all Annie's good sense and restraint, and the caution she had learned in the past four years, a caution which urged her to put something away for that rainy day which was sure to come, to stop herself and Cat from eating until they were sick.

  “No more now, sweetheart. We must put all these lovely things away in Grandmother's bread cupboard and then we shall have something to eat tomorrow, and the next day. You understand that, don't you?" and the child, accustomed to frugality and the need to think to the future, even at the age of almost three, nodded her head sagely, helping her mother to place their treasures safely away in Grandmother's bread cupboard whilst Annie explained to her about Grandmother and Grandfather who were in Heaven, wherever that might be.

  The rain had stopped and a glint of sunshine pushed through the veil of mist which had shrouded the farmhouse though the fells amongst which it was set were still hidden at their topmost peaks. It was cold, raw, with that November dankness which can insinuate itself through layer after layer of clothing, through the very flesh to the bone and even into the veins, making the blood move sluggishly. There was a great fire roaring up the chimney now but Annie felt the need to get out for half an hour, to stand in her own fields and touch the trunks of her own trees. To look about her at the acres of land which was hers. To simply breathe in the damp air which, because it moved across her farm, her land, belonged solely to Annie Abbott. To drink it in and get tipsy on it since its intoxication would be bound to go straight to her head.

  “Come on, lovely, let's wrap up warm and walk down the fields a way. Mother wants to show you your new home.”

  The child, used to instant obedience, stood up at once and allowed her mother to bundle her in her old worn shawl and put on her rough clogs.

  “Wait a minute, sweetheart, let's see if Grandmother has any stockings in her chest," and there they were, just as Lizzie Abbott had left them, newly knitted, some of them, carefully darned those that were older, far too big for the child but pulled up her thighs to her drawers they were warm and sturdy inside her footwear. A p
air for Annie, the thick, hodden-grey cloak woven from Joshua Abbott's own Herdwick sheep, no bonnet, either of them, and they were ready to step out, hand in hand on to the roughly cobbled path which led through Lizzie's bit of a garden to the rough track going between two fields to the road gate.

  Though the farmhouse was small it was sturdily built with walls three feet thick and a heavy blue slate roof which had been fashioned to defy the strong winds and driving rain, the icy cold and measureless snow which played a large part in the lives of the farmers of Cumberland. A white, roughcast exterior which was an efficient method of weatherproofing, two cylindrical chimneys, one at each end of the building for the kitchen and the parlour, and small, oak-mullioned windows for the farmers were more concerned with warmth than with a view. There were four across the front of the farmhouse at ground level and two above. The porch, designed to keep out draughts, was low, and let into the floor was an oak beam four or five inches high known as the `threshwood', securing the walls on either side of the door. Nailed to the side of the threshwood was a horseshoe, said to keep out unwelcome spirits, and a withered sprig of rowan, no doubt placed there by Lizzie Abbott twelve months ago to bring good luck to the house. Much good it had done her!

  The building was extended to the left beyond the dairy, by the cow house and stable, above which was a loft. A long, low farmhouse then, set snugly with its back to the rising fields and wooded ground of the fell. A quiet and lovely fold of the hills, remote and separate, protected from the bleak and often wild conditions which prevailed in this part of the world. To its back and surrounding it were the majestic heights of Cockup, Broad End and Skiddaw. In the summer it was a place of smooth, heathery uplands and low-lying green pastures, wild roses, raspberries ripe in the hedges, purple vetch, small grey farms. Quiet woods with trees which cast long shadows across patches of still sunlight. Paths rough with ling and little golden brown tufts of wood-rush and the spear-like hog-rush. Deep peaty dykes filled with water over which larches hung and where grew thrift, heartsease, sandwort and scented thyme. The waters of the lake cold as ice and the hot, bleached stones around it, which burned the bare sole of your foot as you stepped from it. Buttercups in the meadow, and the wind continually stirring the cotton grass.

  But it was the winter which was ahead of them where the same wind could be so strong you could lean on the gusts and not fall over. Flurries of hail whipped like gravel into your face. Great grey curtains of it sweeping violently across the shadowed fell moving the waist-high bracken to a menacing fierceness. The storm-wracked sky from which, without the slightest warning, could come a white vortex of blinding snow to bury the unwary, those who did not heed the fell's warning. Days of hard frost, brilliant sunshine, crackling snow ruts, crusted and deep, heather with icy stalks sparkling and winking. The sky, gold flecked, and whooper swans sailing over the low fields and when the sun disappeared a fine half-moon with a single star above a silent, crisply white world.

  A beautiful, treacherous, hard world. Her world and one which she intended to conquer, as her father had never done. And it was to the sloping 'inlands' which lay in front of the house and on which her father's few poor sheep had pastured, and perished, that Annie's eyes were drawn. Down across neatly walled fields to where, beyond hers, sheep were wintering, a slow moving carpet of pale grey against the lush, well-watered green pasture land. Jem Mounsey's flock whose fields lay side by side with hers. Hers which were empty now but one day, she promised herself as she stood at the door, they would be filled again with the flock, her flock which, when she had acquired them, would be brought down from the high fells each winter.

  A fell farm has three sections. The high ground across the summits, over two thousand feet up, where the sheep spent the summer; the 'intakes' which are big, grassy slopes fenced by drystone walls and the 'inlands', small, rich enclosures spread about the farmhouse itself where the sheep winter. And one day her sheep would cover this land. One day!

  She could see the head of the lake from where she stood. Bassenthwaite, not the most beautiful in this county of beautiful lakes or so she had heard since she had seen only this one and Derwent Water which joined it near Keswick, but to her it was loved almost as much as she loved her child. Instinctively a part of her, as Cat was a part of her. She had known it at all seasons. The angry clouds chasing one another across its surface, the wind patterns ruffling and lifting the waters to dash them against the shore in miniature waves. Veiled in fine curls of mist, flat and mysterious, clear and motionless. Frozen and white and empty of all but sliding ducks and the odd, fearful young lad who had been 'dared' to go out on to its frozen surface. Blue as the skies which were reflected in it, surrounded by leaning slender birches, their leaves shining like golden sovereigns ready to dip into the water which lapped gently, benevolently about their feet, a fine haze of summer midges dancing on its textured expanse.

  Already over the fells to the west the dying sun was sinking to its bed, no more than a sliver of it peeping through the high misted summits. Down the valley towards the lake half a dozen wild duck were silently zig-zagging above the water and from down by Chapel Beck several dogs were barking.

  Cat had squatted to examine a tiny clump of reindeer moss growing in the shelter of the drystone wall which ran across the front of the house, separating it from the field. She was absorbed with it, studying it with the delight and amazement of a prospector who has discovered a rich vein of gold. Annie watched her, her arms resting on the Cam stone at the top of the wall. She lowered her chin to her arms to stare out across the fields to the lake and when she heard her name called she was disorientated, just as though her mother had suddenly come from the farmhouse doorway, telling her it was time for supper. It took her a long moment to return from that dreaming state into which the familiar and yet new scene had drawn her.

  “Annie? Annie Abbott, is it you?" the voice asked hesitantly and when she turned about she did not at first recognise the plump young woman who stood further down the path. She had evidently come up the farm track, the sound of her sturdy clogs muffled by the grass which grew in its unused ruts. The track, which led up from the road, ran at the back of the farmhouse, and then on to farms further up the valley.

  “Yes . . . ?" She was as tentative as her visitor. The woman had a look about her that was familiar, bonny and round-cheeked but she was full-bosomed and wide-hipped and much older than Annie, she decided. She had a baby in her arms, as apple-cheeked as herself, and a toddler at her skirt and, Annie noticed, was very evidently near her time with a third.

  “'Tis me, Annie . . . Sally," the young woman said, a certain shyness in her, it seemed to Annie, though the Sally she had known had never been shy.

  “Sally? Sally Mounsey?" She began to smile, stepping forward in glad recognition.

  “Aye, though 'tis Sally Garnett now. Has bin these three years." She preened just as though what she had achieved was worthy of great admiration, a success evidently not granted to the girl who stood before her by the look of her ringless hand. But there was a look about her of being pulled down, of bearing a burden which sat uneasily on her despite her youth since she was the same age as Annie, an expression of weariness and vexation of spirit well known to Annie for had she not seen it in her own dead mother?

  “You never married Bert Garnett?" she exclaimed incredulously, then could have bitten her tongue for the glad and welcoming expression on Sally's face at once became truculent.

  “Well, at least I got married," she snapped, then just as suddenly the rancour left her and she sighed. Her shoulders sagged and she shifted her burden to her other hip.

  “I'm sorry, Annie, I didn't meant to . . . but aye, I did, God help me. An' all I ever get from 'im is childer, 'ard work an' a clout round t' lug every Saturday when he's the ale in 'im. Our Davy died, did tha' know? No, well, you wouldn't, then me faither, so ... it seemed sensible to marry a lad what knew farmin'. Bert moved in wi' me an' Ma an' Mini. 'E's a hard worker but . . . well . . . I cou
ld o' done worse, I reckon."

  “Sally . . . oh, Sally, I'm so sorry about Davy, and your father, but all the same it's lovely to see you, and the children, but won't you come in and have a cup of tea. The kettle is on . . ."

  “Aye, we saw tha' smoke from t' chimney. That's why I come up. Ma said she'd spotted Mr Macauley come along track on that black devil of 'is. She thought 'e'd bin 'ere, she said. Why don't tha' go up an' find out what's what, she said. I'm not as lish as I was, bein' so near me time, but I come anyway. There's bin rumours . . ."

  “Rumours? About what? About me?"

  “Aye, that tha' was ter come 'ome. That lawyer chap that'd bin seein' ter tha' faither's place 'ad come round a time or two, lookin' in ter things, 'e said, so we reckoned tha' must be on tha' way, or someone was, an' when I saw tha' smoke . . .”

  She faltered then, her eyes going slowly to Cat who had stood up and crept close to her mother's skirts, shy and ready to hide her eyes in the presence of these strangers. Sally had not noticed her but now, as she did, her jaw dropped in slack consternation and her pale blue eyes widened. The likeness between mother and daughter was quite remarkable and when Annie put out her hand, drawing her child closer to her in loving maternal tenderness, the truth was plain.