A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Different from your Sunday ones?’

  ‘Aye.’

  She seemed to consider for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, I suppose he’s right. He knows what he’s up to, he wouldn’t want you to show up there with straw sticking from under your cap. But remember, lad, an’ more so when you meet these other folk, it isn’t what’s underneath. They say if you look a man straight in the eye you can see right through him, but don’t you believe it. Some eyes have had long practice in deceivin’, and there’s them that could smile while cuttin’ your throat.’

  She turned from him now to lift a black pan from the fire, but paused while she held the handle, adding, ‘What if they take you up there? I mean, take to your drawin’s an’ want you to go further like, a sort of trainin’. What’ll you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve thought about that. But anyway—’ He paused, so stopping his tongue from saying, ‘If a miracle should happen,’ instead, he said, ‘If anything like that came about and I had to work in Newcastle I could always be home at the weekends.’

  She brought the pan to the table now and set the sooty bottom on a flat piece of stone, and as she took off the lid she said, ‘London town, I understand, is the place for artists and suchlike. What if they sent you…?’

  She didn’t finish, because in a voice that was deep now and firm he said, ‘Never! Never, Kate. I’d never go out of Newcastle. Not a step further. No.’

  She lifted her head and looked at him. ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You seem sure of that.’

  He looked at her, the while pulling the muffler from his neck; then took off his coat, crossed the room with it, and hung it on the back of the scullery door before turning and looking at her again.

  ‘I should have told you,’ he said, ‘but there seemed nothing to tell. There still isn’t anything really, but, well, Kate, I’ve…I’ve got me eye on a lass, and even if there wasn’t you, she’d keep me here.’

  He had a half smile on his face, shy, diffident, and she answered it by saying, ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  His eyes now screwed up, he took two steps towards her, saying, ‘You can’t. Well, nobody…I…don’t even know meself. As for her…well.’ He put his head to one side now and peered at Kate. They said she was a witch, but this was impossible. He watched the look fade from her face as she said quietly. ‘Not Mary Ellen?’

  His face stretched, and when he spoke there was a note of incredulity in it. ‘Mary Ellen?’ he said. ‘Good God, Kate! No, no, never Mary Ellen. Why, she’s like a sister…’

  Her outburst cut him off. ‘Sister be damned! She’s no sister, an’ she’s had you in her eye since you first lay on that saddle there.’

  She stretched out her thin arm and pointed. ‘My God, man, you must be blind! And you’ve played up to her.’

  ‘Oh no, no, Kate. Now don’t say that. I’ve been the same to Mary Ellen as I always have. I’ve argued and fought with her; even last Sunday we had an up-an’-downer. She’s got a tongue that would clip clouts and she’s got a head on her that would fit her granny, the things she comes out with.’

  He knew a deep concern now as he stared at the old woman whom he looked upon as a mother, for he knew that she had taken him in and cared for him from when he’d had the accident. And in that first year he must have been a handful, raving half the time, apparently. Recalling those early days, there also came into his head queer pictures, jumbled up incidents that had no relation to anything he could remember. And even now, the grown man that he was, they raised a fear in him, because when he tried to think back his head would swim and he would have the most odd feeling as if he was going to tumble down, faint, like some refined lady.

  Softly now, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Kate. I never thought you…’

  She took a ladle and scooped some stew onto a plate and pushed it across the table, but he remained still, looking at her. The very fact that she had put out the meal without waiting for him to be washed told how upset she must be. He again said, ‘I’m sorry, Kate, but…but I think you are wrong with regard to how Mary Ellen feels.’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up, man! Don’t you know you’re like a disease with her? Always have been, a skin rash that she can’t get rid of an’ never will. Anyway, who’s this other miss you’ve got in your mind? Someone from round about?’

  He shook his head and it was some seconds before he said, ‘She’s not from this part. Anyway, I…well, you see, I hardly know her. We’ve only met three times.’

  ‘And you know she’s the one you want to mate with for life?’

  His chin came up, his face hardened, as did his voice as he said, ‘Yes, Kate, it’s like that. I’ve never bothered with lasses. You know I haven’t…’

  ‘No, because you’ve had Mary Ellen to fall back on.’

  ‘I’ve never fallen back on Mary Ellen, as you put it; she’s been there, like you’ve been there, one of the family. I’ve never thought of her in that way, never. But…but this other is different; as soon as I clapped eyes on her I knew.’

  Kate slowly lowered herself into a chair now and she drummed her fingers on the table as she said, ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘I…I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know her name?’

  He hung his head as if slightly ashamed. ‘No, I…I don’t know her name,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know? You mean to stand there and tell me you’ve met her three times and you don’t know what they call her?’

  ‘Aye, that’s it.’

  ‘They must have been brief meetings.’

  ‘They were. Yes, Kate, they were, just brief.’

  ‘How long have you known her?’

  ‘Nine months.’

  ‘Nine months! And you’ve only seen her three times?’

  ‘Yes; and the first twice we never spoke. Isn’t that strange now?’ He was mimicking her. ‘And I’ll tell you something else that’s strange, Kate. I saw her first through a window, sitting at a table in the tea house off the main street in Hexham, and I went in and had tea just to look at her. Now, isn’t that strange? And the second time was in the market, and I was close to her and we looked at each other, we looked at each other long. The third time was just a week ago, in Haydon Bridge, and it was there we spoke, not for long, but long enough to know that she’ll be in Newcastle the morrow.’ He didn’t mention the times he had stood outside a particular house in Hexham where he had discovered she visited.

  Kate stared at him in silence for some seconds before saying, ‘Was the drawing business just as an excuse to meet her away in Newcastle?’

  ‘No. That was all arranged a fortnight ago. You know that. This other just happened to fit in.’

  ‘And you still don’t know her name or where she’s from?’

  ‘No, I still don’t know her name. There wasn’t time to ask as we were standing in the street, and the coach came. One thing I did learn was that she comes from over Catton way, towards Old Town.’

  ‘Oh, then when you know her name we’ll know all about her, because Catton isn’t the back of beyond.’

  ‘It’s far enough away from people to mind their own business.’

  He had never spoken to her like that before and they were both aware of it. And he turned from her and went into the scullery and, taking up a pail of water, he emptied half of it into a tin dish before dragging off his shirt and singlet. And he washed himself thinking as he did so, I shouldn’t have spoken to her like that. What’s come over me? And somewhere in the back of his mind he got the answer. Love had come over him, and for the first time in his life he was finding it an overpowering emotion, and bewildering, because he had never imagined that a man could feel this way. Oh aye, want to take a woman. And he had; unknown to Kate, he’d had a go two or three times in Hexham. That’s really where his money had gone, not on his drawing paper as he had made out. But what he was feeling now was different. Not that he didn’t want to hold this perfect being
that had come into his life and to love her in a way that a man loved a woman. But there was something more that he could not as yet understand. It was, in a way, he considered, a silly feeling, because he felt that it would be a kind of sacrilege to deface her virginity, she was so beautiful. Yet no, she wasn’t beautiful, her features were too strong, too defined for beauty. But her eyes laughed, and she had a presence that one would consider only a princess or someone of high breeding could acquire. She was like someone from another world, in all ways from another world.

  And of late, this had troubled his nights. So, in order to enter her world, it was imperative that he succeed tomorrow in convincing those people in Newcastle that he was worth something more than a labourer in a smelt mill for the rest of his life.

  And Mary Ellen?…Mary Ellen in love with him? He scrubbed his face with the rough coarse towel. She was always going for him, arguing with him. Fancy being married to Mary Ellen. God in heaven! He wouldn’t know a minute’s peace. Talk about a fishwife. She would upbraid him more than any fishwife every day of his life. Marry Mary Ellen? Oh, really! Kate had got the wrong end of the stick there. Wishful thinking. It was laughable. And Mary Ellen would laugh at it too, he bet, if she knew. Anyway, he understood Lennie Davison, her master’s grandson, was sweet on her. She had said as much herself, at least hinted in that way. Lennie was just turned twenty-one, there had been a great do for his birthday a short while ago—he had been there—and she had danced with Lennie more than once in the barn that night. In fact, who hadn’t she danced with? Oh yes, she was bonny enough in a way, and sprightly. It was only her tongue that was wrong with her.

  Aw, Kate had been imagining things. Anyway, he’d bring her something back from Newcastle and make his peace with her.

  Two

  He had never paid more than four shillings for a pair of breeches and five shillings and sixpence for a coat, but here he was, dressed in clothes that had cost him twenty-three shillings, and that wasn’t taking into account the cravat or the new boots, or the cloth bag he’d had to buy to put his Sunday clothes in. He had never realised how ordinary his Sunday garb was until that tailor had spread out his range of wares. It was after he had made his choice that the man had brought out a full suit of clothing. It had been ordered by somebody who had gone away, he said. Dead, he meant, but it fitted him to a T, except that it might be just a little tight under the oxters. But he could put up with that, for he had to admit that in this rig-out he really did feel different. He likened it to a kind of armour ready-made for his meeting this afternoon. But more so, it would, he felt, impress her: she would see him differently from the tongue-tied fellow he had presented to her in the market place. Clothes like this did something for a fellow, for from the moment he had walked out of that shop in the side street he realised there was a world awaiting him which was strange and exciting.

  He took out the silver-plated case from his pocket and looked at the round watch lying in it. It was the one that Kate had taken from his father’s belt. It had lain glassless and broken for years. However, a short time ago he had had it mended, and although it now told him he had plenty of time before he should reach the Assembly Rooms, it also again created in his mind that muzziness that disturbed him when handling it and which he had experienced more than once of late.

  Twenty minutes later he was standing on the pavement opposite the Assembly Rooms in which a concert was to be held that afternoon. She had hinted, no, more than hinted, that she might be attending it. That was when he had told her last week that he was to take his drawings to show to people of importance in the city.

  He recalled that she had smiled and raised her eyebrows and repeated softly, ‘People of importance?’ From another’s lips it might have appeared that she was scoffing, but he couldn’t imagine her ever scoffing anyone, she was so different. She seemed so alive. Perhaps vital was a better word. Aye, vital. Yet what did he mean by that? He didn’t know. He only knew that he was in love for the first time, and he couldn’t see it ever fading.

  He watched the carriages draw up and the people descending and going into the concert hall. Would she arrive in a carriage? No—his head moved slightly at the thought—she wasn’t a carriage type. Not that he didn’t think of her as somebody superior, but she wasn’t a lady, not in that sense, she wasn’t prim. He could derive that from her speech. Again, not that she spoke in an ordinary voice, but she didn’t talk like the lady of the manor, as Hal would have termed it…How was he going to talk to Hal about the feeling he had for this lass? Because Hal couldn’t stand lasses. Look how he went for Mary Ellen. But then, when he came to think of it, he hadn’t done that so much of late, he seemed to have eased off her.

  Oh. Oh. There she was, crossing the road. But his heart sank; she wasn’t alone, there was another woman with her. Well, what did he expect? That she would be walking the streets of Newcastle by herself? This was the city, not Hexham.

  He saw that they were laughing together. They had their heads slightly down and their glances were slanted towards each other as they drew nearer to him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr…Er…’

  He took off his cap and nodded, first to her, then to her companion as he said, ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘This…this is my friend, Miss Freeman.’

  ‘Pleased…pleased to meet you.’

  Her friend was smiling but her lips were tight and her eyes were blinking.

  ‘Are you going to attend the concert, Mr…Mr…er?’

  ‘Greenbank. Rodney Greenbank.’

  ‘Greenbank.’ She put her head to the side as if trying to recall something. Then in a polite tone she said, ‘You are taking your drawings for inspection today, I understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded, smiling at her.

  And in the ensuing silence it seemed to him that for the first time she noticed his change of dress, because she looked him up and down before remarking, ‘’Tis a pity you cannot attend the concert.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it is. But another day. Do…do they have them every week?’

  She was about to answer when her eyes moved swiftly from him and, looking across the road, she said, ‘There is my father. We must be going. Good day, Mr Greenbank.’

  ‘Good day.’ He nodded first to one and then the other. And as he watched them cross towards the man on the opposite pavement, he exclaimed to himself in a start of surprise, Why, that’s Mr Bannaman. Good God! Her father, Mr Bannaman? God Almighty! This would set up complications. What would Kate say? Because she hated the very name of Bannaman. Wasn’t he the man who had got her son sent away, supposedly helping him? He had never got to the bottom of that story. He had heard of the smuggling of spirits and things, but you didn’t skip the country for that. But Bannaman!

  Still, what had happened was all in the past, years gone. Odd, but he had been determined he would ask her her name just before they should part today, but now that he knew it, it made him uneasy.

  He hadn’t seen the man for some years. When he was younger, he had come across him and his woodman gathering young fir trees from the thicket above the quarry, and he had only twice seen him in Hexham in later years. But then he himself rarely got into Hexham early on a Saturday ’cos of his shifts, which was why he hadn’t come across her either, he supposed. But one thing was clear now: she was the daughter of a farmer, but what was also clear, of no small farmer.

  He watched her father talking to her, then press her and her friend towards the hall, but not before he had stopped and looked across the road at him, a hard scrutinising look.

  What would happen when he found out that he was a smelter? He was wise enough to know that smelters, like pitmen, weren’t rated worthy of farmers’ daughters. But let him wait, he wouldn’t be a smelter much longer. He straightened his shoulders and walked away, but as he did so he wasn’t unaware that the man had not yet entered the hall but was standing at the door looking towards him.

  He went up the steps bordered by iron railings, and knocked on t
he plain mahogany door. It was opened by an equally plain-looking maid. After allowing him in, she said, ‘What be your name, sir?’ And when he told her, she went to a door across the small hall and, opening it, she said, ‘Mr Rodney Green…bank.’ She split his name as if it were two words.

  All eight men in the room turned and looked towards him; then one of them stepped forward with outstretched hand, saying, ‘I’m Mr MacPherson. How do you do?’ Then he looked at the two bags that Roddy had laid down on the carpet before extending his own and, with a broad smile on his face, he said, ‘Don’t tell me both of those are full of drawings.’

  ‘Oh, no, no.’ Roddy said, smiling self-consciously; then stooping, he lifted a flat case from the cloth bag, muttering as he did so, ‘I’ve…I’ve been shopping. ’Tisn’t often I’m in the city.’

  ‘Well, come along, and bring the important parcel with you.’ And Mr MacPherson now led him towards the other men, adding, ‘It’s a pity Mr Mulcaster couldn’t be here this afternoon. But some of us have got to work.’ He laughed now, and the other men joined in.

  ‘Now this is Mr Richardson…and Mr Parker.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you.’ On and on it went until the names merely buzzed through his head. The introductions finished, he undid the string round the case and slowly lifted one large drawing after another and placed them on the long table. Some he turned about so that the men on the opposite side could see them. And then he stood back listening to the low exchanges.