‘It wouldn’t have been any good, Kate. He doesn’t love me and never will. I could see it in his face.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense. Men change. From one season to another, men change, even the best of them. By the way, have you seen Hal?’
She hesitated. ‘Not the day,’ she answered.
‘When did you see him last?’
‘Well, last evening.’
‘Well, he hasn’t been here, and it must be the first Sunday he hasn’t shown up. And it’s troublin’ his nibs, because he’s gone out to look for him. Although he grumbles about him tackin’ on to him so much, he’s worried now because he’s missed a day.’
She went towards the fire and, taking up a poker, she stirred the centre of the fire into a dull blaze as she said, ‘I wonder how he’ll take to Roddy leavin’ for good, ’cos that’s what he’s gona do, you know.’ She turned her head and looked towards Mary Ellen. ‘One way or another, he’s leavin’ us, lass, and we’ve got to face it. To me, it’ll be like losin’ a dear son, me second. To you, it’s the man you’ve loved all your life. And for that I’m sorry, lass. And for Hal, what’s it gona be like for him? One never knows how that lad feels and I doubt if one ever will, because he’s got a strength there that outweighs the three of us. ’Tis a pity he can’t put it to some use, because there’s good in him. Aye, there’s good in him.’ She nodded her head and turned again to the fire and began moving the peat gently around the flame as she added softly, ‘’Tis a pity you’ll never be able to see it.’
Five
He was late getting into Hexham. He had missed the carrier, but Bob Allen, the blacksmith, had given him and Hal a lift. It was now just on four o’clock. He hadn’t found Hal last Sunday, and so it wasn’t until the first shift on the Monday morning that he met with him. And when Hal offered no excuse for his absence on the Sunday, he had made up his mind not to ask him, telling himself that it was probably for the best: perhaps he would have a little time to himself in future and not have one or the other trailing after him. Yet some part of his mind was piqued that his mate hadn’t offered a reason for his non-appearance: over the years, it had become an understood thing that they spend their Sundays together.
But today as they came off the shift, he could not help but ask, ‘Coming into town the day?’ And Hal’s unenthusiastic answer, ‘May as well,’ put things on a level footing again.
Bob Allen’s last words to them were, ‘Mind, I’ll be leaving for back around half past six. If you’re not in the market place here, I go. Mind, I’m tellin’ you.’ And he had smiled broadly at them.
It was Roddy who answered, ‘I’ll be here…we’ll be here; I’m not up to trekking across the hills the night. So long.’
‘So long then,’ said Bob, and drove his cart away across the market and down the main street to the fields beyond where the pony could munch in the care of a ha’penny lad until he returned.
In the market place, Roddy, looking at Hal, said in a somewhat shamefaced way, ‘I’ll see you in about half an hour then, or perhaps a little later. I’ll meet you back here.’ He pointed to the fruit stall and was somewhat taken aback when Hal answered, ‘But I mayn’t be ready to be back in half an hour or so, as you say.’
‘Well then, if you’re not here I’ll wait for you. How’s that?’
‘Fair enough.’
They stared at each other for a moment longer before Roddy turned away.
Crossing the market place he made for the archway that was set in the high wall opposite the Abbey. Once through the archway, he hurried now down an incline until he came to a pair of iron gates, and taking up his stand at the other side of the narrow road and in the shelter of some shrubs he waited.
It seemed to be her habit now and again to visit someone in the house beyond the gates and she usually left around half past four or thereabouts. That she was Bannaman’s daughter he no longer saw as an obstacle, if he ever had. He knew what he intended to do: he would tell her of his prospects, and ask her to wait. He had not for a moment considered what her feelings might be towards him; if his mind had enquired along those lines, it was to reason that no-one could love as he loved her and the feeling not be returned.
But when the clock in the Abbey struck five he made up his mind that he had missed her and he told himself he didn’t know how he was going to get through another week without catching a glimpse of her; it was as if he had inhaled some strange potion mixed up by Kate, for he couldn’t get the girl’s face out of his mind. Yet she was no girl, she was a woman, a handsome attractive woman, and she had smiled on him, and her eyes had spoken to him…
He felt his heart actually jerk against his ribs when the gate opened, and there she was. As if he had been shot from from the bushes he was at her side, and no doubt he startled her, for she stammered as she said, ‘Mr…Mr…Greenbank, please!’ And she pulled her arm from his grasp.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, miss. It was just that I…I thought you had gone, an’ it was sort of impulse that caused me to make such haste.’ He watched her draw herself upwards. Now she was walking up the bank to the market place and he was keeping his step in line with hers, talking all the time. ‘I…I had to see you. Do you understand? What is your first name? I keep giving you names.’
She paused for a moment and there was no laughter in her eyes or warmth in her voice as she said, ‘My name doesn’t matter. And no, I don’t understand what you want of me. Because I have allowed you to speak to me on two occasions I think you are taking advantage of the situation, Mr Greenbank.’
He was utterly taken aback. Nevertheless, he still persisted, he felt he had to. ‘Taking advantage?’ he repeated. ‘I understood you were interested in the fact that I was going into Newcastle to present my drawings to a company of gentlemen. I…I just wanted you to know the result, or at least what happened.’
‘I’m well acquainted with what happened, Mr Greenbank. My father is in a position to know Mr Mulcaster at the mill; you are, I understand, a workman there, a smelter, and might be given the opportunity to further the talent you have in drawing. My father…’
They were nearing the arch now that led into the market proper and he pulled her to a halt by again gripping her arm and swinging her round to face him, saying now, ‘This is not you, this is not the young lady who has spoken to me afore. It’s your father, isn’t it? He has forbidden you to speak to me, that’s it, isn’t it? I’m below your station, that’s what he says, isn’t it? But let me tell you, I won’t always be a smelter. Oh no. Oh no.’
‘Leave go of my arm, please.’
‘I will when I’m ready. You’ve got to listen to me. Do you hear? Look, tell me, please’—his voice dropped to a pleading note—‘what is your Christian name?’
‘Mary!’ The name came loud and clear, but not from her, and he turned to see Mr Bannaman standing in the shadow of the arch. Then the man was towering over him with a look on his face that could only be described as black rage, and his voice was coming hissing through his teeth like steam from an escaped pipe: ‘Don’t you dare lay hands on my daughter! You approach her again, come within a mile of her, and I’ll see you skinned alive.’ The words, although hissed, were so quietly spoken that even a passer-by couldn’t have heard them. But they evoked an answering rage in Roddy, and in his turn it was so deep that it blocked out words; and yet it brought into focus that odd feeling he experienced at those times when his memory tried to drag itself back to his early years. Staring into the man’s eyes there came a dizziness in his head, and he wasn’t aware at first of the man walking from him, taking his daughter with him. Not until they were passing through the arch did he seem to come to himself, and then he sprang forward and yelled, ‘I’ll see her when I like. You can’t frighten me, nor her.’
‘Don’t be such a fool!’ He turned to the side to see Hal within an arm’s length from him, and he glared at him as he went on, ‘So that’s the piece. You must be up the pole. Apart from bein’ Bannaman’s daughter, if
all tales are true she’s had more through her than the stamp mill. Why, her engagement to Mr Jimmy Leader from Newcastle was broken off last year, and why? ’Cos she was found with one of her horse-riding mates up in the stables. It was common knowledge, and you, you idiot, would have heard if you hadn’t your head so far up in the air…’
He got no further before Roddy’s fist caught him between the eyes and sent him reeling, and he hit the wall. And he stayed there for some seconds before, with shake of his head, he sprang on his lifelong friend and the man, you could say, he loved.
Immediately a small crowd gathered around them.
‘Now would you believe that?’ one man was saying. ‘I know those two, like twins they are.’
‘Must be drunk,’ another said. ‘It often happens that way. God! They are goin’ at it.’
Then part of the crowd had to disperse to let a high-stepping horse and a trap pass round them. And from his seat Dan Bannaman looked down on the squirming figures on the ground. And his bearded face quivered before he brought his whip so viciously around the horse’s flank that it reared before it sprang forward, and for most of the long drive to his home, he kept the animal moving at a trot.
When he eventually arrived in the courtyard adjoining his farm he threw the reins to his daughter, barking, ‘See to it!’ Then he made for his woodman’s cottage, and there, calling Pat Feeler out, he spoke rapidly to him, finishing with, ‘If you want to save your neck as well as mine, move, because I saw it in his face. It could happen any minute, it nearly did then. Get Vesper and Prince out, they’re fresh. Those two might return separately or both together. If they come by the Allendale cart it’ll be around eight o’clock. Move, man! Don’t stand there like a petrified rabbit.’
God! To think it’s come to this after all this time. And all through that blasted bitch. By God! I’ll horsewhip her, that’s if I live to get the chance. The last words he spoke to himself for Pat Feeler was already running towards the stables as if being pursued by the devil himself.
At the crossroads, Roddy and Hal slid down from the back of the blacksmith’s cart, and they both swayed slightly and came in contact with each other for the first time since they had taken their seats. The long twilight was dropping into dark and hid the fact that both their faces were bruised, Hal’s showing discoloration that was spreading to both his eyes and Roddy’s a cut and swollen lower lip that was still oozing blood.
They had to take the same road as far as the mine where Roddy would turn off to go to Kate’s, leaving Hal to go on towards his cottage.
Roddy strode ahead, his anger still burning in him but mixed now with a great sense of humiliation. It had been bad enough, the confrontation with Bannaman, but the brawl in the market place would forever stamp him as a lout. Yet he had been the first to raise his hand. And rightly so, he told himself. To say things like that about her. For two pins he’d turn and start on him again. Only for the fact that he would have had to take the long track back from Hexham on foot had got him onto the blacksmith’s cart when he saw Hal already sitting there.
He stopped dead in his tracks as Hal’s voice came to him now, saying in a tone between a mutter and a growl, ‘I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry!’ He turned on him. ‘You say you’re sorry after taking somebody’s character away like that, and in the open for all to hear?’
‘Nobody heard me; it was just for your ears.’
‘Well, I heard you and I think you’re a bloody swine. Do you hear? A bloody swine.’
‘Aye, well, you can think what you like, but I know what I know, and I’ll say this, you’re a blasted fool and…All right! All right! You start anything—’ He held up his hand more from instinct than to combat any movement he had seen Roddy making as he went on, rapidly now, ‘You start anything again and I’ll finish it this time, as I could have finished you back there in the market. Oh aye, I could. Oh aye, I could.’
‘You finish me?’
‘Aye, me finish you. I could have kneed you or battered your face, but I let you off. Aye, I did, I let you off.’
‘You let me off? You’re all talk, all blow.’
‘Huh! That’s funny, when I’m mostly blamed for not openin’ me mouth. But you know inside your head what I’m sayin’ is true. Anyway, I say again, I’m sorry it happened.’
There was silence between them; then Roddy swung round and marched on, and Hal kept in step just a stride behind him.
It happened just as they were approaching the path that would have separated their ways. For a moment each thought that the other had attacked him, until the next blows came out of the blackness and they both gasped and fell to their knees, and when they were struck for the third time they tumbled and lay side by side, both on their backs, their heads lolling towards each other.
‘Go on in and sit down, Kate.’
‘I won’t sit down, and I won’t go in. What are you sayin’? I don’t believe you.’ Kate held up the lantern and peered at the two black faces staring at her, and the pitmen exchanged glances before one said, ‘’Tis true, Kate, ’tis true. We’re sorry to say but ’tis true. Come.’ He reached out and took the lamp from her while the other man pressed her gently backwards into the cottage where he again said, ‘Sit you down.’
The first pitman put the lantern on the table as he said, ‘We were comin’ off the shift, an’ that was the road we usually take an’ we nearly stumbled over them. I thought it was a trunk that had fallen across the way, and then we saw them. It’s as I said, Kate, they had been fightin’ and one has a knife in his ribs and they are both…well, they’re not pretty sights. They must have pummelled each other almost to the end before they finished it.’
‘He’s…he’s not…Roddy’s not?’
‘We don’t know, Kate,’ the other man said a little comfortingly. ‘Hal Roystan had a knife in him but he was still breathin’, but we don’t know so much about Roddy.’
‘Where…where are they now?’ The words jerked from her trembling lips.
‘Where we found them, Kate. We…we covered them up, but ’tis a serious business and one of our mates went for the doctor and one for Mr Wardle, the bailiff. We thought he’d know what to do, because I’m afraid, Kate, it looks like a case for the justice, besides which, as me mate here said, if we move that knife the wrong way it might do more harm than good.’
Kate now pulled herself to her feet, saying, ‘Take me to them.’
‘No, no, Kate. The night’s sharp, you’ll get your death.’
‘I’m expectin’ that, so it won’t matter how it comes. Just take me up there.’
The men exchanged glances; then one of them said, ‘Well, wrap up, wrap up well, because it could be a long night for you. Likely they’ll take them down to the doctor’s room at the mill. Then where they go from there only God knows. I’ve come across many strange things in me time, but those two were like brothers, closer than many, and yet one has got to go and kill the other. ’Tis somethin’ so unexpected it’s affected us all. We’ve known them since they were lads. Good workers, both of them, both in the mine and at the mill, so we hear, and yours highly respected. We all know you’ve looked after him like a son.’
Kate turned her dazed eyes on the men and she repeated, as if to herself, ‘Aye, I’ve looked after him like a son.’ Then she added, ‘And that’s what he’s been to me. Yes, that’s what he’s been to me.’
Six
The man leaning over the iron bed said, ‘Four days now. If he lasts the day, he’ll make it, if not, he’ll go.’ And his companion, from the other side of the bed, said, ‘Well, aye, he’ll go in any case, once he recovers enough to move him to Newcastle or Durham. Durham it’ll be likely, if the other bloke snuffs it.’
‘T’other one’s in better shape than this. His was only a stab and a few bruises, but he must have battered this ’un silly afore he got the knife stuck in him. But how this one managed that in the state he was in, God knows. He’s muttering a
gain, the same as afore, callin’ for his da. It’s a bad sign. They always want their folks when they’re just on goin’.’
‘Is the old ’un still outside?’
‘No. A fellow on a farm cart came and took her an’ the young lass back about an hour gone. Well, I’m off duty now, he’s all yours. Funny—’ He looked down on the bruised and swollen face and, shaking his head, said, ‘I wonder if he ever thought when he started that fight last Saturday night in the market he’d finish up back here.’
‘Seems to me,’ said the other man, ‘that for him it ended up over at Langley. By! They must have gone at it. Well, I’m away. See you in the mornin’.’
The man walked from the room, leaving the other man to draw up a chair towards a small table which, except for the iron bed, was the only other article of furniture in the room. And after making himself as comfortable as he could in the chair, he lifted his feet and rested them on the edge of the table. Then taking a clay pipe and a pouch from his pocket, he took from the pouch a plug of tobacco which he shredded and packed into the pipe, and bending sideways, he picked up a stick from the hearth and, stretching out, stuck it into the small fire to the side of him. When it caught alight, he brought it to his pipe, sucked on the stem, then threw the stick back into the grate. And now leaning his head back against the high back of the chair, he sat staring at the prone figure on the bed.
A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Page 12