A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

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A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Page 21

by Catherine Cookson


  She swung round now and she knew that her eyes were blazing, and her lips were squared back from her teeth as she ground out, ‘Roddy Greenbank, you go to London and to hell. To hell! Do you hear?’

  And on this she swung round from him, knowing that she had silenced him, even stunned him. And she went blindly on her way, for once again the tears were streaming down her face and she had to keep one hand in front of her to push against the branches bordering the side of the path, because at times she staggered like someone drunk.

  Fourteen

  Mrs Davison was worried about her maid. For weeks now she hadn’t been herself. It was all because that big lump of a smelter had gone off to London. Well, she thanked God for that. He was now out of the way and time altered everything, as she knew only too well, for didn’t God send it to alter the seasons: nothing but time could melt the hard frozen earth and make the ground fertile for planting and bring forth the shoots, and nothing but time could lead to the harvest and the gathering in. Yes, time altered everything; so she believed it would alter Mary Ellen’s outlook towards her grandson. Apart from providing Lennie with a wife to hand, because he wasn’t of the nature to go searching, she could see before her in the young girl a lifetime of help, for she was as strong as a dray horse and as willing. Oh, just a little more time to make Lennie a little more pushing and everything would go as she had planned it in her mind for this long while.

  Then one morning Mrs Davison began to worry still more. What was the matter with the girl? She looked as peaked as a hen with the croup, and she wasn’t as perky as she had been. Not that she neglected her work in any way, no, but there was something not right with her. And these last two or three days she had been running back and forward to the midden. Well, what could you expect when she was eating green apples. Thinking to give her a change the other day, she had sent her into the orchard to pick up the windfalls. And when she herself, wanting a breath of air, had strolled down there, she saw her picking with one hand and stuffing herself with the other. ‘What’s wrong with you, girl?’ she had said. ‘They’ll give you the gripe, eating green apples. Don’t you get enough food that you must eat green apples?’

  And all the reply she was given was, ‘I like green apples.’ Now that was odd.

  The little woman sat down on the settle near the fire. When had Mary Ellen expressed the wish for green apples before? If there wasn’t enough sugar in the apple pies, she had screwed up her face.

  As a light penetrated her mind and illuminated a thought, she bobbed up from the seat and squealed aloud, ‘No! No! It can’t be. No! No! Never!’

  Now she looked about her kitchen, which had a place for everything and everything in its place, as if she were searching for an answer. But then, in a way, she had already got it; and she asked of the delph rack, ‘What was the time he left? Early May, wasn’t it?’ And when the delph rack appeared to answer she nodded at it. Then counting on her fingers, she said, ‘Early May to early June one, to early July two, to early August three, early September four…’ She stopped and stared at her hand. Then gazing up at the ceiling, she said, ‘Holy God!’ before bringing her gaze down to the delph rack again and denying her thoughts by slapping her thighs and crying, ‘No, no! ’Tis the apples and the belly-ache.’ And lifting her gaze once more to the ceiling, she concentrated it on three hams hanging there. They were dangling from the beam above the open fireplace where they would be tinged by the smoke before being cut into at Christmas. And the middle ham seemed to sway and say, Go and ask her. And she said aloud, ‘Where is she?’ In the cowshed helping to muck. Aye. Hadn’t she purposely sent her over there to give Lennie a hand? She knew herself that there was nothing like the smell of warm cows and the running of milk from swollen teats to put one’s mind in the right frame for courting.

  Her small body seemed to stot out of the room and across the yard, and there she was standing at the open byre door, calling now in a voice that seemed larger than herself ‘You! Mary Ellen!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’ Mary Ellen, wielding a large bass brush, was sweeping the cow dung from the far end of the byre.

  ‘Put that down and come with me.’

  Mary Ellen hesitated for a moment. She turned her head and glanced at Lennie who was looking at her from where he was untethering a cow from its stall, and his look said, What’s got into Gran?

  Of a sudden Mary Ellen knew what had got into Gran. This was the moment for which she had been waiting, for some weeks now, and she wondered it hadn’t come sooner. It must have been the green apples that had given the game away. But if it hadn’t been them her stomach would have answered her mistress’ question in a very short while, because, being well into the fourth month it was rising.

  She went down the byre and rubbed her hands on a coarse towel that was hanging from a nail, before crossing the yard and going into the kitchen. She knew what her mistress would say, she knew what they would all say. But she felt she knew the outcome of it: they would take her on if she would marry Lennie. And she had decided that’s what she would do, because there was no other way out, and he was a good fellow, was Lennie. That she would have to put up with his piousness for the rest of her life would be trying, and also pay his grandmother with her labour until one of them died. But as she saw it, it was the lesser of two evils; what kind of a life would she have if she went back to her father? And anyway, who would keep her and her child? In some way or another she would have to work. But where? And who would take her on? Except a poor farmer, who would work her as he would an old and decrepit horse, getting the last ounce out of it.

  So she wasn’t too afraid when she stood before her mistress and saw that the little woman was finding difficulty in speaking; in fact, when she did open her mouth she stammered, ‘Ma…Ma…Mary El…El…Ellen, I…I want to ask you something, but if I’m wrong, I beg your pardon. But if I’m right. Oh, say I’m not right, Mary Ellen.’

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re right.’

  ‘Oh! Oh, my lord!’

  Mary Ellen watched the little woman push her hands up both sides of her round face until her stubby fingers were lost under her starched cap. Then her fat body bending forward, she seemed to do a dance step, for she hopped completely round the large table before she stopped, and now banging her double fists onto it, she cried, ‘You mean to stand there, Mary Ellen, and tell me that you have—’ She swallowed as if unable to voice her thoughts; then she actually said the words, ‘fallen with a bairn!’

  Mary Ellen stood with her eyes downcast, and now she nodded her head slowly as she muttered, ‘I’m…I’m sorry if it’s upsetting you, ma’am.’

  ‘Upsettin’ me!’ Now the voice was almost a scream. ‘You say you’re sorry at upsettin’ me! You don’t say you’re sorry for your wickedness with that scoundrel who’s gone off to London. Oh! And to think you’ve been working in this house all these months and covering up your sin.’

  ‘I don’t look on it as a sin, ma’am.’

  The quietness of her maid’s tone seemed to infuriate the woman and now she screamed, ‘Wait until Mr Davison hears of this. He won’t believe his ears.’ And she now rushed to the door and, her voice still pitched high, she yelled across the yard, ‘Mr Davison! Mr Davison! Come here this minute.’

  Instead of her husband, her son Archie and her grandson appeared in the yard, saying, ‘What is it?’ And she yelled at her son, ‘Get your father! Get your father here this minute.’

  A few seconds later it wasn’t only her husband who came into the kitchen, but also her son and grandson, and all in a rush, her husband demanding, ‘What is it? Chimney caught ablaze?’

  Then he became silent, and the three men looked to where Mary Ellen was standing at the end of the table, her head bowed, her hands gripping the edge. Then their attention was turned on the mistress of the house as, her tone lower now but grim, she said, ‘Prepare yourself for a shock. This one’—she thumbed towards Mary Ellen—‘has …’ It appeared again that she couldn�
�t voice the condition that her maid was in, and it was her son who said, ‘Aye, she’s gona have a bairn.’

  Both his father and his son seemed to jump at once with the horrifying thought that flashed through their minds, but Archie quickly dispelled it, saying, ‘No, my God! No! ’Tisn’t me. Mary Ellen can tell you that. An’ who it was an’ all. But I noticed, like the cows when they drop, Mary Ellen’s had her fancies. Apples it was in her case.’ He turned and looked kindly on her, and she gazed back at him in gratitude, until her master spoke.

  ‘Well, I’ve had longer experience with cows than you, our Archie,’ he said, ‘but I never noticed. Now that I know, I’m amazed. I am that.’ His voice rose. ‘I’m amazed, Mary Ellen. Do you hear me? I’m amazed. And after your mistress has been so good to you all these years you could go and do this on her.’

  It struck Mary Ellen at the moment that it was being implied that she had become laden with a child just to spite her mistress. How silly some people could be. She wished they would hurry up and get round to it. She glanced towards Lennie. He was looking at her through narrowed eyes and there was an expression on his face that she had never seen before. She couldn’t put the word disdain to it, but she said to herself in something of surprise, He’s not for me. And at this she became worried; then comforted herself with, He’ll do what his granny tells him, and his father an’ all, and his father thinks not too badly of me, I can see that.

  Then her idea of the future in this house was shattered with her mistress’ next words. ‘You’ll go, girl,’ she said. ‘You’ll get out of this house, for we are respectable people. Always have been and, as long as I’m here, always will be. I’ll give you to the weekend until I can find somebody else to take your place, and many will jump at it. Oh aye, they will, and call me a fool for pamperin’ you all these years. To think—’ Now her lips trembled and tears came into her eyes as she looked at her husband and said, ‘To think this is how I’ve been repaid. What do you say to my decision, Mr Davison?’

  He paused only a moment before he said quietly, ‘’Tis right. ’Tis right.’

  ‘Oh, Dad.’ His son Archie turned to him, saying now, ‘I wouldn’t jump at it like that. She’s made a mistake, aye, but she’s not the first one, and she won’t be the last.’

  Again the family were looking at him with suspicion, and his mother now attacked him in much the same voice as she had used on her servant, crying, ‘You stand there, me own flesh and blood, and defend her, and go against what I say, what I want? This house is clean and is not going to be besmirched with the likes of her. What she can do now is follow the man who has filled her belly, and get him to see to her, because ’twas him, wasn’t it? Open your mouth, girl. ’Twas him, wasn’t it?’

  Mary Ellen stared at the little woman, then at the three men, and having got over the shock that she was to be thrown out, her old spirit revived and she said, ‘Who’s given me the bairn is my business, missis, and I won’t stay till the weekend, until you get fixed again. If I’m to go, I’ll go now this very day, this very minute. And I’ll tell you something afore I go. Aye, you’ve been kind to me, but I’ve repaid you for it, not twice over or three times, but a hundred times, because you’ve worked me like a slave. Inside and outside you’ve worked me like a slave from the day I came into your shelter. One thing more I’ll say.’ Now she turned from the gaping, dumbfounded woman to her son and what she said was, ‘Thank you, Mr Archie, for having the heart to stick up for me. I’ll always remember you for that. But as for you, master’—she had now turned her attention to the grizzly-haired man—‘being so shocked at the way I am, you haven’t been above letting your hand stray over the years, have you?’

  On the sight of her master’s scarlet face and her mistress being on the point of a swoon, she turned about and marched up the kitchen and to her garret room. And there she whipped her Sunday clothes from the peg on the back of the door and threw them onto the pallet bed. Then going to the chest of drawers that stood in the corner, she pulled the top one open and took out her petticoats and stockings and three white handkerchiefs. After she had bundled them all into the patchwork spread on top of the bed, which was her own and had been given her by her mother, she tore off her starched bonnet and flung it onto the floor, and threw after it her coarse apron before sitting down on a wooden stool and pulling off the heavy boots that had belonged to Lennie when he was younger. Then she pulled on her own boots and buttoned them with trembling fingers, and when she was ready to go she stood for a moment looking round the room that had afforded her the only privacy she had known in what seemed long years going back to her childhood.

  When she reached the kitchen she saw her mistress sitting on the settle being comforted by her son, and she flung the bundle on the table, undid the knots and said, ‘You’d better examine these, missis, to see that I haven’t taken anything that doesn’t belong to me.’

  ‘’Tis all right. ’Tis all right, Mary Ellen.’ It was Archie’s voice, still kind.

  She knotted the bundle again; then, looking at him, she said, ‘I won’t forget your kindness, Mr Archie.’ And on that she turned about and went out.

  Lennie was standing in the middle of the yard. She expected him to say some word to her, but he didn’t. He just stared at her with the same expression, and before she reached the gate, she was aware that his father had come out of the house and was speaking to him in harsh tones, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. Then as she went to open the gate she heard the quick steps behind her and for a moment she thought it was Lennie, but turned to see his father. She had never been very fond of Mr Archie. He was a bit rough in his speech and came out with things that brought the colour to your face, but now he looked at her in the most kindly fashion as he said, ‘’Tis sorry I am, Mary Ellen, and I’ll tell you this afore you go and it may be of some comfort for you to know that everybody doesn’t think the worst of you, and it’s just this: if things were different, if it was me own farm, I’d marry you the morrow.’

  She bowed her head and could not restrain the tears that ran down her cheeks; then looking up at him again, she said, ‘I’ll always remember that, Mr Archie, and thanks, thanks very much.’

  He opened the gate for her and she went through and down the road towards her father’s house, where she knew she’d have to spend the rest of her life.

  But here another surprise awaited her.

  Bill Lee was amazed at the sight of her carrying her bundle and in her Sunday clothes. He was at the fire, about to lift some baked potatoes from the ashes, and he tossed one from hand to hand before hurrying to the table and dropping it there; then staring at her, he said, ‘What’s this?’

  She placed her bundle on the floor, pulled off her hat, and sat down in a chair near the table, at the same time indicating another chair to the side of him and saying, ‘I think you’d better sit down, Da.’

  He sat down, his brows puckered, his mouth slightly open, waiting for her news.

  ‘I’ve been given the sack.’

  ‘You’ve been given the…You mean from the Davisons’?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘In the name of God, why?’

  She looked to the side as if searching for a respite, but then her eyes on him again, she said, ‘I’d better give it to you straight. I’m with bairn.’

  She watched all the creases smooth out from his face as it stretched; she watched his mouth, that at one time she had thought kind because it rarely spoke badly of anyone, clamp shut; she saw the shape of it disappear as he sucked in his lips; she watched his hands come out and catch hold of the side of the table as he pulled himself upwards. Then he was leaning towards her, saying, ‘You mean to sit there and tell me that you’re…?’ He gulped, unable to go on.

  She stared, unblinking, back at him, saying softly, ‘Aye, I do. That’s how it is.’

  He said again, ‘You mean to say?’

  He straightened up. He seemed to have no trouble now with his breathing for it did not st
op the flow of his words, as it usually did, as he cried at her, ‘You bloody brazen young bitch, you! You sit there as cool as they come an’ tell me that you’ve been with a…God Almighty! I never thought to see the day. It’s him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter who it is.’ She was on her feet too, now, her face and her body stiff. ‘That’s how I am. It’s done, it can’t be undone. Anyway you’ll have someone to run an’ fetch an’ carry for you an’ do your biddin’ now in return for a shelter.’

  ‘Ooh!…No!’ The first word was long-drawn out. ‘Oh no you don’t, miss. If you think you’re comin’ here and flauntin’ the result of your running the moors, you’re mistaken. Bloody well mistaken. The only thing I’m surprised at now, when I come to think on it, is it didn’t happen afore, for you’ve trailed him for as far back as I can remember. An’ now he’s skittered off to London, an’ you’re left with your belly full, an’ now you’re lookin’ for some place to spill it out. But it won’t be here, lass. Oh, no. I’ve always held me head up high; respectability’s been me second name, as was me father’s and his father’s afore him. And the wives they took were clean women, as was your mother. And now you.’ He turned his head to the side and seemed to be resting his chin on his shoulder as he said, ‘Thank God she’s not here to witness this. I never wished her dead afore but I’m glad she’s gone now.’

  There was utter astonishment in her voice as she muttered, ‘You mean…you mean you won’t let me? I…I can’t stay here?’

  Looking back at her and his eyes now blazing with anger, he cried, ‘So right you are! So right you are! Now you can take up your bundle and get out of that door an’ make your way an’ get him to pay for his pleasure, because bedamned! here’s one who’s not going to stand in for him.’ He made a sound like a groan, then went on, ‘Having you about me for the rest of me days, knowing what you did, and a brat, a bastard crawling about me house? No, no, never! Not in my house, the place I built up for your mother an’ me. Never. Never…So get you going. Yes, I know where you’ll make for, an’ no doubt she’ll welcome you with open arms.’

 

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