A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘’Tisn’t your money.’

  ‘’Tis my money.’ He was standing over her now. ‘Every rotten sovereign of it is my money: I starved as a lad; I was hounded; Kate here was my only friend; some of them would have lynched me at that time, because they had to wait for their pay till another assignment was sent through. I tell you, I’ve earned every penny of that two hundred and twenty-one sovereigns. No, Mary Ellen, that money is gona get me out of that hell-hole. I’m no longer goin’ to be a smelter.’ Now he thumbed his chest as he added, ‘Already I can feel a tightening here; it’s been worse since I got the knife in me ribs. Oh, no, no, it’s not gona get me; I’ve had enough. There’s a little farm I’ve got me eye on. I think I’ve had me eye on it for years. Like one does on seeing a mirage down the pit: if something drops on your head an’ you’re not completely knocked out, you see things. Twice it happened to me as a lad and twice I saw the same thing, a great open sky with a house in the middle of it. Well, there’s open land enough there and a little well-built house in the middle of it. And the old Douglas couple are on their last legs. It hasn’t come up on the market yet, an’ of course it’s rented, but the way things are at the moment on the land, I don’t think there’ll be many after it when they go…’

  ‘But lad,’ Kate interrupted his flow, ‘won’t they wonder where you got the money?’

  ‘No, Kate, no. I’m a wily one at bottom. I’ve thought everything out and it’s fitted in beautifully. Remember when I had to go to the company to be compensated, you remember? You were the only one I told what I got, twenty-one pounds, two shillings, equal to me da’s full year’s pay. And you would have thought they were giving me silver nuggets from a year’s lead draining. Well, when I got back, as you can imagine, there was a lot of the men chippin’ me. No-one asks you outright, you know, Kate, just hints, and so I hinted back and helped them with their guessing. In the end they were guessing into hundreds and I’ve let them go on guessing. I must have been forearmed in a way.’

  ‘But the company’ll know what they gave you, lad, and that that amount wouldn’t set you up on your feet and stock a farm.’

  ‘I’m away ahead of you, Kate, I’m away ahead of you. I’ve got it all worked out. I have always saved up and with the help of the seven pounds that old Abel left me, and not having a wife’—he slanted his eyes towards Mary Ellen—‘nor chick nor child on the side to support, I can go to the bank an’ say, “There’s forty pounds; I want to rent a farm. Would you let me have a loan to add to it to buy stock?” And they will. They will. And they’ll charge me interest, they always do, but within two years, I’ll have supposedly made enough profit—whether I do or not—to pay them back. And within another two years me stock will have improved and from then on I’ll gallop ahead, much as Bannaman did on stolen money. Funny, isn’t it, Kate? Funny.’

  ‘You think you’re clever, don’t you?’ The whispered hiss came from the area of the fireplace, and immediately he rounded on Mary Ellen, crying, ‘Aye, I do, cleverer than the next, because I use me head, not like some bloody fools.’ He was glaring at her now. Then as if there had been no talk about hanging, or money, or farms, he demanded, ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No, and he’s not going to.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Oh, we’ll see about that.’

  She sprang from the seat and actually gripped his hand in both of hers, pleading with him now, ‘Hal. Oh, please, please. No, I don’t want that. You mustn’t. Oh, don’t don’t, Hal. I’ve…I’ve never asked anything of you ’cos we’re’—she gulped—‘well, do this for me, will you? Don’t, don’t tell him.’

  As he looked at her face in the lamplight the expression on his own softened, and he said in a more moderate tone, ‘What if somebody else tells him?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a slim chance.’ They both turned and glanced at Kate, and she nodded as she added, ‘All those hundreds of miles away. Do as she asks. ’Tis better so. There’s no happiness comes out of a trap whether it’s on man or beast.’

  He turned away from them both, muttering now, ‘He should be made to face it, not leave her on her own like this.’

  ‘She’s not on her own, Hal. She has me…and she has you, hasn’t she?’

  His head jerked, and he looked at her hard before emitting a mirthless ‘Huh!’ Then turning slowly, he looked at Mary Ellen again and said, ‘She would rather have the devil on her side than me. Isn’t that so, Mary Ellen?’

  She didn’t answer, but her lips quivered and moved over each other. Her head sank onto her chest; then she slid from the chair onto the rug and took up the hook and began scraping the nuts towards the end of the hearth. But when one that had been in the flames burst its shell and shot out with a crack onto the mat beside her, Hal laughed and said, ‘That’s her answer, Kate, isn’t it Mary Ellen? The nut’s spoken for her. She would rather be shot than have me on her side…So be it.’

  Sixteen

  The winter started hard. The light of the day was short and the darkness of night long. For the first few weeks, lying on the attic bed, sleep would evade her, but now the heaviness of her body and the work of the day began to tell, and she soon had no trouble in falling asleep.

  There was no more rising at five o’clock. She climbed down the ladder at seven, stirred up the fire, heated up one of Kate’s winter concoctions and took a mug full of it to the bed for her, and a smaller portion for herself.

  Kate was very rarely asleep, and so she would sit on the edge of the bed but would say nothing until Kate had drained her mug. Then she would enquire how she felt and after would listen to her planning out the day for them both, saying perhaps, ‘’Tis Sunday, so Will Campbell will be here afore his clothes are on like as not. Now his potion is the groundsel. You know, you learned last week its two different uses: if it’s boiled with ale and vinegar and a drop of honey in it, it’ll bring up the vomit in the case of children havin’ chewed the wrong berries an’ poisoned their stomachs; but the leaves now, as you will remember, boiled in a drop of water…or wine, parsnip or tatey I usually have plenty of, but the fruit ones I’m sparin’ of. I’ve told Will for a long time that he wouldn’t have such a sour stomach if he went straight home on a Saturday an’ didn’t sit in the inn swilling; his innards are not made for what he puts into them.’

  Or perhaps she would say, ‘’Tis Friday. Jane Stubbs will be passing on her way to Haydon Bridge for her flour and grains and such. Now she’ll want the same as usual, colewort. I’ve never seen such a family for carbuncles. As I’ve told her afore, it’s too much fat. They have three stints and are overrun with pigs. They live on pork the lot of them, an’ fat’s got to erupt somewhere, and it does, mostly on one end or the other, the neck or the backside.’

  The first time Kate talked of Jane Stubbs and the carbuncles, she laughed and said, ‘But by! She’s gona get a shock when she next puts her nose in that door. A penny? I’ll say. Oh no, Jane, a penny’s no good. If you want this salve that’ll draw nails out of the walls, an’ takes me a full day to gather and make, it’s threepence you’ll have to pay in the future. I’ve got to live.’

  And so it would go on.

  When the prices for the potions and salves went up, Kate’s clientele thinned to a mere trickle. But that didn’t disturb her. They’ll be back, she would say; they’ll be back. And she was right. For now with the winter on them and people coughing and sneezing and pains in backs and arms increasing, never a day went by but that there was somebody at the door. And one notable Saturday they had as many as ten visitors and their takings for the one day were four and threepence. As Kate said, she had never made as much as that in a week as far as she could remember.

  During Mary Ellen’s first weeks in the house the number of male customers seemed to increase, and eventually led to Hal’s coming to blows with one of them. This upset Mary Ellen but brought only a cynical comment from Kate.

  This particular young fellow was a well-known patron of Maggie Oates, and Hal, coming on him standing in th
e kitchen grinning, asked him what he was after.

  ‘Same as you, a potion,’ the young fellow had replied. ‘Aye well,’ Hal had answered, ‘you’re a mile or so out for the potion you’re after.’ And the fellow, on a laugh, said, ‘Aye well, that be as it may; I mightn’t have to travel so far in the future.’

  In a lightning jump Hal had him by the collar and through the door and into the garden. And just as quickly the implication of the man’s words struck Mary Ellen and made her turn and climb the ladder and hide herself under the eaves.

  ‘Come down here this minute, girl!’ Kate yelled. ‘You’ll have to put up with worse than that afore you’re much older.’ And when she had descended the ladder and stood, her head bowed before Kate, the old woman had put her hand kindly on her shoulder saying, ‘We won’t be troubled with that kind again; Hal’s put a stop to it. But he’ll likely have to stand the racket for doing so.’

  And this further implication was not lost on Mary Ellen, who couldn’t bear to look at Hal when he returned to the room with a split lip and said on a shaky laugh, ‘Can I have a potion for a busted mouth, Mrs Makepeace?’

  But now it was December and the child was seven months heavy within her. She was carrying high and her whole appearance had altered; she no longer looked a young girl, but a woman. Her prettiness had vanished, her face at times appeared plain; and there was always a sadness in the back of her eyes, which even her laughter didn’t dispel. What was more, as her time approached, she felt less well. The chores of the day became much harder to get through, although all the heavy ones had been taken from her, because Hal now came at least two or three times a week and chopped wood and dug peat and brought in whatever they needed from the town.

  Hal’s life had altered out of all proportion even to his dreams. He hadn’t got the Douglas’ plot, but had rented, through the courtesy of his employer, Barley Moor Farm. It was situated two miles to the west of Kate’s cottage. It had eighteen acres of land and four stints.

  Attached to the land was a brick and tile works, and he had been very tempted to rent this too. But the rent would have been forty-eight pounds and four pence a year, and had he succumbed to the desire to take it on it would undoubtedly have caused comment, not only among the neighbours but more so in the firm. However, he kept the idea in the back of his mind, and was happy, more than happy to be a tenant in a house that had a parlour, a kitchen with a stone-flagged cupboard and two real bedrooms up above. Outside was a cow byre that would hold seven head of cattle with a fine hayloft, a piggery, and a coalhouse; and lastly a privy. There was also a vegetable garden.

  The furniture he had brought from Abel Hamilton’s cottage was scanty, but he had added to it over the past months by attending house sales. Moreover, he had three cows in the byre, a pony in the stable, a pig lying with litter, a dozen hens, and four ducks. At times, as he made his way in the evening to Kate’s cottage he would strut over the moor, so good did he feel. But always on approaching the cottage he would put on the cloak of casualness, and when relating his progress to Kate’s willing ears, he’d be offhand: Oh yes, things were going fine, slowly, but fine. Well, wasn’t the milk in the can proof that his cows weren’t dry?

  So altered was his life that often he found it difficult to recall that it had ever been otherwise; except when he looked across to the hill rising above Carts Bog, beyond which was Bannaman’s farm. That house seemed to stand out as the only connection with the years behind him.

  Both Kate and Mary Ellen showed no surprise when the door was pushed open early on a Tuesday morning and he came in as usual carrying something. He put the lidded can of milk on the table; then dropping a sack onto the stone floor, he said, ‘Them’s turnips. Farmer Gordon kindly dropped me in a load yesterday. Oh, the goodness of people.’ There was a mocking tone in his voice now. ‘He only wanted a couple of days’ work out of me in payment, put over nicely of course. Neighbourly help, he called it, neighbourly help. I could have bought the load for a shilling. Anyway, what d’you want in the town, I’m on me way? There’s a sale on and I’m goin’ after a young bull.’

  ‘Bull?’ Mary Ellen and Kate exclaimed simultaneously.

  ‘Aye, a bull. You know, a bull.’ He demonstrated as if he were charging, and they both laughed and Kate said, ‘All right, all right. You’ve explained what a bull is.’ Then she added. ‘What d’you think we need, Mary Ellen?’

  And Mary Ellen, looking at Hal, said, ‘We’ve got a stock of flour and sugar, but I think we should add to it just in case. And if you should come across a bit of live yeast, I’d be grateful. And a bit of barley to make some white puddin’.’

  ‘Do you want anything fancy for Christmas?’ His voice sounded quiet; and Kate came back, laughing: ‘Aye, get me a new pair of legs, will you?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he nodded seriously at her; ‘what size? Had I better measure them?’ And he made to lift her skirt.

  ‘Go on with you!’ She flapped her hand at him.

  Mary Ellen now said, ‘You can get me some wool if you wouldn’t mind going for it?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind going for it. I told them last time I’d taken up knittin’.’

  Again they were laughing; and Kate said, ‘I’ve known stranger things. Why, there’s Ben Holt—he works in the mines at Allenheads—they tell me he sews. Aye, and better than most women, smocking and the like, and makes banners with silk threads. So you needn’t be ashamed to tell them you’re knittin’, lad. And you might make a name for yourself by it, quicker than at farmin’.’

  ‘Now, what d’you mean by that? I’m not doin’ badly, although I say it meself.’

  ‘No, no, you’re not. I’ll give you that. What you killin’ for Christmas, a pig?’

  ‘Aye, a pig.’ He pulled his coat round him, then buttoning up the top button tight under his chin, he asked casually, ‘Any news?’

  Neither Kate nor Mary Ellen answered, and he turned for the door, saying, ‘Well, there’s still plenty of time, I suppose. Be seeing you.’

  It was some seconds after the door had closed on him that Kate said, ‘It doesn’t mean that if we’ve had no word that he isn’t comin’; he could just pop in the door any time next week.’

  Mary Ellen rolled up her sleeves, at the same time kicking a felt pad towards the bucket of steaming water, then knelt on the pad, saying, ‘I’ve told you, Kate, but you won’t believe me, that I hope he doesn’t come. I…I don’t want to see him. Not like this, Kate, not like this. I’m not goin’ to hold this over him now or ever. Funny.’ She knelt back on her heel, hands on the rim of the bucket, and she looked into the distance as she went on, ‘I would have sold me soul, as the sayin’ goes, to get him to marry me afore this happened, and the possibility of him asking me seemed to be forever wavering between us. But now, if he asked me, well, I wouldn’t do it…marry him, ’cos then it would be like a gun at his head and forever after.’

  ‘You would change your tune if he asked you. And ask you he will when he sees the pickle he left you in, or its result.’

  ‘You think I’m that weak, Kate?’

  ‘No, lass, I don’t think you’re weak at all, far from it, but strength of will has no chance against the business the heart gets up to. And if you’re that strong, you can ask your heart what it feels, and how it’ll feel when you clap eyes on him. And I know what the answer’ll be. So get on with the floor, lass.’

  And Mary Ellen got on with the floor; and while she scrubbed at the stone slabs, she thought, She’s right. How many times of late had she imagined him walking through the door there, then coming to a dead stop at the sight of her, knowing without a fraction of a doubt that he was the cause of this great ugly bulge in her body. But she did not think of the life under the bulge as ugly; her thoughts for it were tender, full of longing to see it, to hold it.

  When Kate gave a slight groan, she stopped her scrubbing and looked up; then drying her hands quickly on her coarse apron, she rose and went to the old woman who had now seated h
erself in the chair to the side of the fire, and bending over she said, ‘That pain again?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Will I give you the usual…marjoram?’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so. No; I tell you what, I’ll have a drop of groundsel.’

  ‘Groundsel? But I thought that was for making you vomit after poison and stuff?’

  ‘Aye, it does; but a wee drop is good for stomach pain, especially the choler. Bring the jar.’

  After Kate had poured herself out a small potion from the jar and had drunk it, she grimaced and said, ‘Well, if that doesn’t work, nothing will.’

  Then she went on. ‘Hand me me tin from the box.’

  Mary Ellen dutifully brought the tin from a large black box that stood under the shelves that held the bottles and jars and, when Kate opened it, Mary Ellen looked down on what looked like the thin slivers of sweets that could be bought in the candy shop in the market. And she said just that: ‘They look like candy sweets, Kate.’

  ‘Aye, but with a difference. Eat a fistful of these and you’d be as merry as a monk after a fast. There’s great comfort in this rosemary sugar, and we’ll have some come Christmas. I made these at the beginning of the year for a special occasion. Tell you the truth’—she looked away and across the room—‘it was when I had that feelin’ on me that I told you of that my lad would walk in the door. Still’—she smiled now—‘we’ll leave some just in case. Oh, there are lots of things in the big box you’ve got to learn, Mary Ellen. But then you haven’t done too badly. No, not at all. And they’re beginning to respect you, the men, I can see that.’