The men from the newspapers had been after Hal too, but he wasn’t as easy to get to as Roddy, for he was away scouring the hills and fells. So determined was he to find Patrick Feeler, he had even borrowed a horse, for nothing had been seen or heard of the man since he had escaped from the farm on the morning Mr Bannaman had been taken with a seizure. And with regard to him, everybody said it was just as well fate had dealt him that blow; if not, it would have been the rope for him. But as it was, he could neither speak nor move, and his end was expected any time.
And there were always sightseers, besides the newspapermen hanging about the farm as if waiting for this to happen.
The latest rumour was that the mill owners were going to compensate Hal for the loss of his father. However true that was, Mary Ellen didn’t know, and she wouldn’t know until she reached Kate’s. And no matter how her father would go on about her being late, she was going to Kate’s first, not just to hear about Hal, rather she was more anxious to hear the result of Roddy’s visit to Newcastle to those new friends of his, the painter people. Three of them had come out all this way to see him, and Kate hadn’t been pleased, for she had said to her on the quiet, ‘They treated him as if he were family, and talked about his future. They even spoke about it to the newspapermen.’
For the past three weeks Mary Ellen had not walked along the track which would have taken her past the quarry, but had gone the longer way, keeping to the road, because she had been afraid to go past the scene where the body had been found. Today, however, she did not hesitate, for the immediacy of her desire to know about Roddy overcoming her fears, she stepped out onto the ride and wove her way over the torn ground circumventing the holes and piles of earth and uprooted trees that seemed never-ending.
People had stopped coming to the quarry to gape; in fact, she saw no-one except a solitary figure. He was standing still and looking down at the earth, and she wasn’t surprised when, drawing nearer, she saw that it was Hal; nor did he seem surprised to see her, for on her approach, he turned his head towards her and said quietly, ‘Hello, there.’ And she answered as quietly, ‘Hello, Hal.’ She felt kindly towards him these days.
He looked at the ground again, saying in the same quiet tone as before, ‘I’m going to have a stone put there.’
‘But…but I thought he…I mean your father, is in the cemetery now.’
‘Aye, yes, he is; but nevertheless I’m puttin’ a stone there and I’m going to put one word on it…injustice.’
She stared at him, her eyes wide, and when he turned and looked at her he muttered thickly, ‘They should have known he wouldn’t have done anything like that. That firm was his life; he lived for nothing else, except me. As I remember, he was as proud of it as if he owned it. And anyway, what was two hundred and seventy guineas compared with the sums he had carried afore that? He used to talk to me, you know’—he nodded at her now—‘about the skills he used to dodge the footpads. And the footpads, he always said, were more dangerous than the highwaymen, because they would let you off with your life, but not the pads. No’—his voice rose—‘not the pads, like Bannaman and Feeler. And if he’d carried a gun like he should have done he’d likely to be here the day, but he relied on his head to outwit them.’
She continued to stare at him in silence wondering, as she watched the muscles of his face working, how strange it was that the name of footpad could be applied to Bannaman. But that’s what he had been in his early days, as the evidence showed when the customs and the constables searched the place. A store of all kinds of things had been found in a secret place going off the cellar. ’Twas said it was a tunnel like an air shaft and went right under the house.
More to break the black concentration on his face than anything else, she asked, ‘Have they found Feeler yet?’
He shook his head a little before saying, ‘Not yet, but they will…or I will, because he’s here, hereabouts.’ And he looked around as if expecting to see the man emerge from one of the heaps of rubble and twisted undergrowth. ‘I can smell him. A rat like him would be afraid to run far, thinking everybody would recognise him. And too he must know that his closest friend, if he had one, would turn him in on sight, ‘cos it says on the notices that have gone out, anybody harbouring him is likely to be the same or such. No, he’s hiding hereabouts.’ And he nodded twice before turning away; and she moved off with him.
They walked in silence for some time, until she stumbled, when he put his hand out and steadied her, saying, ‘You shouldn’t come along this way, it isn’t healthy.’
‘It’s a short cut, and I’m late. What I mean is, later than usual. Mistress kept me back.’
Again there was silence between them, but at the roadway he stopped and said, ‘I’m not goin’ in, in fact I’ve just recently left there. But I’d better warn you, there’s bad news. Well’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘that’s how you’ll view it.’
‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’
‘He’s leavin’.’
‘What! Roddy? He’s not fit.’
‘Oh, he’s fit enough now.’
‘Where’s he goin’?’
His lower jaw worked from side to side before he said, ‘Newcastle, for a start. His brand-new friends came during the week with what they call a career mapped out for him: lodgings at Newcastle, his dues paid for art lessons, an’ then what?’ Again he shrugged his shoulders. ‘London town, the world?’ His tone changed and now there was real bitterness in it as he said, ‘They talk so big, act like gods, an’ he laps it up. It’s a chance in a lifetime, he says. He doesn’t give a damn about leavin’ Kate or’—he poked his face towards her—‘you.’ Then he added bitterly, ‘As for me…well, I may never have existed; I might have lain with me da all these years an’ just come on the scene now. I’ll tell you this, Mary Ellen, one of the two things I’ve ever craved for in me life was to have me da’s name cleared.’ He did not go on to mention the other thing, but said, ‘I tell you this, though, I wish to God he had never got his memory back, because he’s changed he is.’
After he had stopped speaking they continued to stare at each other. This news had caused her whole being to ache with the loss that was to come, yet so intense were this man’s feelings that she could forget her own for a moment and say, ‘He thinks the world of you, Hal, always has, you know that, at least you should. He’s…he’s pushed me off time and again to go with you, walkin’, fishin’.’
‘No, Mary Ellen, I pushed you off to go with him, and you know that’s true. In our young days we are fools, eaten up with wants and fancies that have no place in real life…real livin’. It’s that that’s got to be faced, Mary Ellen, life. Once you’ve turned the twenty mark it’s life you’ve got to face. You think you’re a man when you start work at ten or so, and your thinking has taken on a surety when sixteen or seventeen, but nothing prepares you for the blows to come, an’ I don’t mean punches to the body, but things that happen to your thinkin’. You hate deeper and you love deeper and you learn that all the will in the world of mind and body won’t bring about the things that you want. As I see it, Mary Ellen, life is a parcel tied up with twine. Some folks never have the guts to undo the twine, so they live in the parcel in which they were born to the day they die. Others have the parcel opened for them an’ in it there’s the contents of their life ahead. Like it or not, they’re stuck with it. That’s happened to me and Roddy. As for you, Mary Ellen, you haven’t opened your parcel yet. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not talkin’ through me hat, and if you don’t know what I’m gettin’ at now you will someday. Anyway, let’s hope.’ And with that, he inclined his head towards her in farewell, then turned abruptly and walked away.
She herself did not walk on; all the hurry seemed to have left her. She stood gazing after him. He was a queer individual, he really was, the way he talked, like a preacher. No, no, she contradicted her thinking; there was no preacher about him, for what he said went deeper than the preacher’s talking. All that
business about life being a parcel, well, she supposed there was something in it, but she felt sure that very few people looked at it like that. He had said she hadn’t opened her parcel of life yet. What could he mean by that?
Except perhaps, that when she did she would be hurt. Well, she couldn’t feel more hurt than she did at this minute.
She turned now and took the path leading to Kate’s. She had somehow felt that what she had done for Roddy would make him feel differently about her. In fact, she felt sure he did feel differently about her. On the three occasions she had seen him since he had come home he had been nice to her, more than nice, and talked openly to her. He had even, in a roundabout way, remarked on his feelings for that girl, the Bannamans’ girl, or woman, as she was. His words referring to her had been stilted: ‘Must have gone through a mad phase to let me feelings rampage as they did,’ he had said. ‘Anyway, it’s over, thank God. Never again. Some lessons are hard to learn, but I’ve learnt.’ Well, if that wasn’t sayin’ plainly he no longer thought about the woman, she hadn’t been hearing aright.
But now, what did it matter? He would go. Oh God! She couldn’t bear the loss of him. His going would drain the blood from her heart, from her whole body. What would life be like if she wasn’t to see him on a Sunday? She knew what it would be like, just days of toil and listening to the chattering voice of her mistress going on and on, jumping from one thing to another, hardly stopping to take a breath it would seem from she came down to the kitchen in the morning at six o’clock: expecting everything to be ready for the breakfast, the fat pork laid in strips, with the white pudding next to them, and the thick slices of greased bread ready for the frying pan. And she would talk as she fingered each portion, then turn and examine the hearth to see if it had been bath-bricked properly. Oh yes, that would be her life.
There would be no need to open the parcel: she knew the routine that would be in it; it would be the same as it had been every morning since she had gone into the farm at ten years old and for the first time in her life had been roused from her bed in the attic at five o’clock in the morning, and on the stroke of nine had been pressed up to it again by the little woman. And so it had gone on, for never ever had she been allowed to remain in the kitchen after that hour at night with the menfolk. Her mistress went to bed at nine, so she must too.
And this was to be her life ahead. Even if she were to marry Lennie, which she wouldn’t, the pattern would remain the same, except it would be he who would push her upstairs at nine o’clock in the evening. She shuddered at the thought and protested almost verbally, never, never, because if she couldn’t have Roddy, then she’d remain alone and her nights would go on being filled with her imaginings, imagining what it would be like to be held close to him without the barrier of her frock, her petticoat, her habit shirt and her corsets. Her thoughts at night were wicked. She was well aware of that, but she didn’t care.
Her attendances at church, travelling there with Mrs Davison, were limited to festival days because as her mistress said, neither of them could be spared more often: God’s work had to be done in the kitchen and the dairy and the byres, and He understood that even if parson didn’t. Anyway, it was enough that Lennie should represent the family by calling in at Hexham Abbey should he be in the town.
One Sunday, after a visit to the House of God, she had caused consternation in the kitchen by asking a simple question of how long people were likely to last in the sizzling heat of hell, seeing that bacon could be kizzened up within a few minutes if the fire was hot enough…
When she pushed open the cottage door the scene that had become the usual over the past Sundays was not that which met her today: Roddy was not sitting in the big chair to the side of the fire with his feet on a cracket, and Kate was not seated at the table sorting out her herbs or pouring muddy-looking liquid from a jug into little bottles. She was sitting on a cracket, but her back was pressed against the stonework of the fireplace as she watched Roddy, at one end of the table, packing drawings into a folder, while on the floor to the side of the table stood a cloth travelling bag, full and strapped.
She became still, and they both looked towards her. It was Kate who spoke first. ‘Hello, girl,’ she said. The words were usual but not the tone of the voice which trembled slightly.
‘Hello, Mary Ellen.’ Roddy’s voice, too, was different.
She didn’t answer him with, ‘Hello, Roddy,’ but as if she were unaware of his imminent departure she said, ‘What’s all this?’
He spread his hands slowly over the table, saying sheepishly, ‘I’m…I’m going to school.’
‘School?’ She had moved up the room and was standing opposite Kate now, and it was Kate who answered. Nodding her head, she said, ‘Aye, school. We all have to live and learn.’
‘What kind of school?’ She had turned to face Roddy, and he, his colour rising, hesitated before he said, ‘Well, ’tis not like a real school I suppose, ’tis learning about drawing and things.’
‘But you can draw.’ Her voice was stiff.
‘Aye, so I thought, until I saw other people’s work; now I know, well, I haven’t even started yet. ’Tis amazing what people do, you know,’ he said nodding at her.
‘Aye, yes, ’tis amazing.’ Her tone was tart and her inference clear. And he came back at her angrily now, saying, ‘Well, what would you have me do? Sit on me backside here, a burden on Kate?’
‘Don’t you say that, lad. You’ve never been a burden on me and never would, and you know it.’
‘Well, I’m not fit for the mill any more, so what would I have done, Kate?’ He had placed his two hands on the table and was leaning across towards them now. ‘I’ve had the guts knocked out of me: I couldn’t do a day’s manual work to save me life, well, at least, not at present. Here’—he now patted the cardboard folder—’I’m being given a chance I never even dreamed of. It’s one in a lifetime. And anyway’—he straightened his back and was now addressing Mary Ellen—‘you would think I was set for the other end of the Earth. I’m only goin’ into Newcastle. I’ll be back every other weekend at least. I’ll ride up on the Friday night an’ go back on the Sunday. I’ll really have more weekend time here than if I was in the mill. So what’s all the fuss about?’
‘Who’s making the fuss?’ She reared up now, her head wagging. ‘Only you. Your conscience is prickin’ you because you’re goin’. And let me tell you somethin’: if what has happened hadn’t happened, you would have still gone. I know you, I know you. You would have still gone.’ And with this last statement she bent down and grabbed up the basket and, her face twisted and looking towards Kate, she said, ‘I’ll call on me way back when the room’s clear.’ And almost at a run, she went out.
Pulling herself to her feet, while steadying herself with the back of the chair, Kate looked at Roddy, saying sharply now, ‘Go on after her and make your peace.’
‘But…but what have I said?’
‘No matter what you’ve said, you’ve said too much. Go on. Do this for me.’
Reluctantly it would seem, he went out, buttoning up his coat as he did so. He could see her in the distance hurrying, her head down, and he called to her.
When she didn’t stop, he didn’t attempt to run for he knew he wasn’t up to running; but again he called, ‘Mary Ellen! Mary Ellen! Hold your hand a minute. Please. Please.’ And he watched her steps slow, then draw to a halt, and he was panting as he came abreast of her, saying, ‘You’re the devil’s own imp. You’ll never change. Now why did you have to go off the handle like that?’ He looked down on her bent head.
The rim of her bonnet was covering her face and he put his hand on her shoulder, saying, ‘Don’t let’s part in this way, Mary Ellen. You trouble me because I owe you so much. I’ll never forget you’re the only one besides Kate who put a finger out to help me, and if it hadn’t been for you, God knows where I would have been at this minute, so I’m grateful to you, deep in me heart I’m grateful to you.’
Her head
slowly came up. Her expression had changed, her eyes were moist, her lips were trembling, as was her voice as she said, ‘I’m sorry, Roddy, but the place won’t be the same when you’re gone. You’ve always been there, sort of like a…’ She would not say like a brother. ‘I’ve never bothered with anybody else, only you. You know I haven’t. I’ll…I’ll miss you.’
He bent his face closer to hers now, saying softly, ‘But you only come home on a Sunday, Mary Ellen, and I’ll be here when you come, at least, as I said, every other weekend. An’ look, I’ll tell you what. It won’t be long until the fair and the in-between hirings, so you ask your missis for a Saturday off and I’ll take you along. How’s that?’
She smiled gently now. When a lad took a lass to a fair it signified something, it was a start to stronger ties to some. She said softly, ‘Aye, I’ll do that now. I’ll give her plenty of notice. I’ve never had a whole Saturday off.’
‘When is it? Three weeks or a month’s time?’
‘A month.’
‘Well that’s a promise.’ He straightened up and nodded at her. ‘Anyway, like as not, I’ll be sittin’ in Kate’s corner seven days from now as if I’ve never been away. And I’ll have a lot to tell you. All right, Mary Ellen?’
She nodded at him brightly now, saying, ‘All right, Roddy, and I hope everything goes well for you. Are they nice people where you’re stayin’?’
‘Oh, aye, very nice. I have a room at the top of the house. It’s a big attic and I can work there, and I have me bed and everything. And it overlooks the river. It’s…it’s a new world. What I mean is, to see the mass of shipping going up and down. And the people. You wonder where they all come from. ’Tis another world out there you know, Mary Ellen.’ He spread his arm wide. ‘We don’t know we’re alive really here.’
A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Page 17