‘Thank you very much.’
‘You’re welcome, lad, you’re welcome.’ And with this Hal too spurred his horse on. But Hugh did not join him; he stared after his father, shaking his head. He wouldn’t tell the others what his father had said; it would hurt them, because he knew it was true. Like them, he too had thought that the extra attention his father gave to Kate was to make her feel one of them all. But no, apparently it was the other way about: he had acted as he did out of love for her. He had always known his father was a man of very strong emotions. He had felt he took after him in a way; but now it could only be in a way, for he could never see himself loving a woman as his father did his mother, nor yet, as he had just confessed, the stepdaughter begot by a man who had been his one-time friend, and whom he now wished dead.
He quickened the trot but did not ride to catch up with his father. The episode was apparently closed. Life would go on as usual, except, he supposed, that Kate would become a sort of recluse and would hide herself from everyone except the family.
Three
But Hugh was wrong with regard to Kate hiding herself, and she surprised, astonished, and even shocked her family when, on the following Saturday morning, she got ready to accompany the cart into Hexham.
It wasn’t an accepted rule that any particular one or other of them should go into Hexham or Haltwhistle or Allendale on Saturdays. Sometimes Mary Ellen went, taking Florrie with her, or Maggie; sometimes Maggie and Annie went; the only rule that existed was that they never all went for one of them would have to stay behind to see to the meal.
There were no servants at Moor Vale Farm. Mary Ellen and her three daughters and Annie ran the inside of the house and the dairies, Hal and three of his sons ran the farm, with help from Terry. Both inside and out one person was always left in charge. And it was automatically assumed that Kate would be that person on this particular Saturday morning.
But no, Kate was down in the kitchen at six o’clock as was usual. It was her week for seeing to the breakfast, the frying of long thick slices of bacon together with eggs and white pudding, and they all, including Terry, sat around the kitchen table and ate at seven o’clock in the morning. John, Tom and Gabriel, as well as Hal, had been up since five. Hugh had returned to his studies in Newcastle yesterday, so there had been one less this morning for breakfast.
When the dishes were washed and the kitchen tidied and Maggie and Florrie had scrambled upstairs to get ready for the market, Kate said quietly, ‘I’ll go and get changed then.’ And at this, Mary Ellen and Annie looked at each other and at Kate as she disappeared into the hall, and Mary Ellen muttered, ‘Surely she’s not thinkin’ of goin’ in the day?’
‘It looks like it, and perhaps ’tis for the best,’ said Annie.
‘They’ll cut her to pieces with their tongues.’
‘Aye, likely,’ Annie nodded. ‘But she’s not your daughter for nothin’, she’ll put up with that and go back for more.’
Mary Ellen made no reply, the words had taken her thoughts back to when she married Hal and went into the market for the first time. Tongues had certainly tried to cut her up: hadn’t she been living with the man for months afore they got married; he was never off her doorstep. And she hadn’t had a midwife but had let him deliver her child. Now what would you think of a lass like that, and her not twenty?
‘She knows what she’s doing.’
Mary Ellen turned to Annie, saying, ‘What?’
‘I said, she knows what she’s doing, and ’tis the right thing. Why should they put shame on the woman who’s been left behind when it’s no fault of her own? Yet they do, and expect you to go and hide in the attic for the rest of your life. If I was in her place I’d do exactly as she’s goin’ to do.’
Mary Ellen nodded. Yes, that’s exactly what Annie would have done. What a pity a woman like Annie had never married. And what a greater, greater pity that her own daughter, her own dear Kate would never now marry, for no matter how brave a face one put on a situation like this, it changed you. And she knew it had already changed Kate, for in the six days since she had been humiliated she had refused to discuss the matter in any way; in fact, she had acted as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t normal. She herself had risen earlier than usual this morning and had prepared a breakfast tray to take up to her, but she had been astounded when Kate had walked into the kitchen, saying, ‘You’re up early, Mam.’
She had found it impossible to give her daughter any answer, but had watched her look down on the tray, then slowly take the things off and put them back into her place on the table…
When Kate returned to the kitchen dressed for the town, Maggie and Florrie were already there, their bonnets and capes on. Mary Ellen was out in the yard supervising the last of the loading. It was Tom’s turn to stay on the farm. John was already mounted. Terry was driving one cart and Gabriel the other, and Hal stood at the head of the brake adjusting the harness of the horse. Then turning, he looked towards the kitchen door, shouting, ‘You ready?’
The girls, in a flurry now, made for the door, but Kate did not immediately follow them. Looking at Annie, she said, ‘You don’t mind managing alone, Annie?’
‘No, lass, no.’ Annie came to her and put her arm around her shoulders and pressed her tightly for a moment, saying, ‘You know I don’t, and ’tis the right thing you’re doin’. Go on in there, look them straight in the eye an’ smile. That’ll baffle a lot of the bitches.’ And with this, she leant forward quickly and placed a shy kiss on Kate’s cheek, and Kate, turning to her, kissed her back.
Annie was almost as dear to her as was her mother, for she had nursed her and carried her about as a child; she had played with her and romped with her on the quiet, and had her to stay when she had for a time lived in Kate Makepeace’s old cottage. She loved Annie. Perhaps it was because in a way they were alike, at least in build, and almost in features too, although she would have changed her own face any day for Annie’s, even as it was now in age.
She went quickly out, and when she reached the brake Hal extended his hand towards her to help her up, but he could not resist muttering, ‘You all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m all right.’ She smiled at him, but it was a strange smile, a smile that made him uneasy…
They had no stall in the market. Hal had given it up on the last farm when he had started to sell his produce in bulk to other stallholders. And now, nearly an hour and a half later, nearing the market proper, Hal stopped the brake and helped his womenfolk down from it, saying as he held out his hand to Mary Ellen, ‘Twelve o’clock mind at the hotel. No dawdling.’
At this she smiled at him, saying pertly, ‘If we should be late you can wait.’
‘I’m not waitin’.’ He looked from one to the other. Maggie and Florrie were laughing at him, but Kate’s face was straight. And so, addressing her, he said, ‘You round them up. Do you hear? Once they get amongst ribbons and threads they tie themselves in knots.’
The girls laughed aloud now and Mary Ellen pushed him gently with one hand while with the other she took Kate’s arm. She knew it was all a play on his part; he was as worried over Kate as she was, for her attitude was more than puzzling to him. She knew that if Kate had cried and wanted to hide herself away he could have understood it, and the word he would have applied to anyone else taking up this stance would have been ‘brazen’. But her Kate could never be brazen, she had always been more of a retiring nature, yet here she was, braving the town, when the scandal was still hot on everybody’s lips.
‘Mam.’
‘Yes, dear?’
Kate disengaged herself from her mother’s arm, saying now, ‘You and the girls go and do your shopping. I’m going to the bookshop.’
‘Well, I’ll come with you.’
‘No…no thanks, dear. I’d rather go on my own. Well, I mean, there isn’t all that much time, and you know what Dad is like if he has to wait for his dinner, although,’ she added smilingly now, ‘he’ll find fault with every
item on his plate. I’ll see you there around twelve. All right?’ And she looked at the sisters standing silent and slightly open-mouthed, and then at her mother before turning from them and going through an arch and down a narrow side street to where, at the end, was Mr Ramshaw’s bookshop.
She was breathing heavily when she stopped and looked in the window of the shop. Well, now she was on her own and about to face the ladies, because this is where some of them congregated on a Saturday morning, those who wanted to appear a cut above their neighbours, especially the Watfords and the MacNultys, who sent their daughters to the dame school.
As she pushed open the door of the shop her entry stopped a customer being served.
Mrs Bitten was in the act of paying for a book which the assistant was handing to her wrapped up neatly in a little parcel, and both their hands became still and their eyes widened just the slightest. And Susan Bitten who was standing to the side of her mother, her hands in a muff, slowly brought the article up to her face as if she was going to bite on it.
‘Good morning, Mrs Knowles.’ Kate’s voice was quiet as she inclined her head towards the assistant, and it was a second or two before the reply came, ‘Good morning, Miss Roystan.’
The Bittens and the Roystans were not on visiting terms. The men could speak and haggle over cattle in the market, but that was as far as it went, for the Bittens did not socially recognise the upstart smelting-mill worker who had clawed himself up into a position where now he had one of the best farms for miles around, and was running a herd of fifty cows, the latest news of him being that he was going in for breeding. Of course, as was said, he could do this because he hadn’t to pay a staff to carry on the work, for this was done by his family, though why they should want to labour on a farm after the education he had given them was a question they all asked themselves. There was only one who was seemingly taking advantage of it, the son who was going in for law. That was another thing, one of his tribe being clever enough to take up such a profession, which up till now, as everyone knew, was the prerogative of gentlemen’s sons.
Then there was his womenfolk: dressed like ladies they were; and aping those above their station, too, so it was understood, by the way they ate in the house, dining-room meals every day in the week. Whoever heard of a farmer using his dining room except for special occasions? Some people had accepted invitations but not the Bittens, probably because, as it was widely known, the Bittens were distantly connected with Beaumont who, everyone knew, owned the lead mines and smelting mills around Allendale, and, as Mrs Bitten would bring out now and again, who was so rich that his election expenses alone in eighteen and twenty-six had come to over forty thousand pounds. She didn’t go on to state that less than two hundred pounds had been spent in the town where his money had been made which was Allendale, and where his workers lived and where many of them died an early death.
Mrs Bitten was a great source of information. She had also made herself the leader of the farming society in that part of the country. That wasn’t to say she was accepted by the real county families, except on the face of it when she and her husband, and son, and daughter, rode with the hounds. Then, as some said, even stray dogs joined in the hunt and servants were spoken to as if they were human beings. Now you couldn’t ask for more, could you?
What Mrs Bitten now said and in an undertone to the assistant, and to her daughter, was, ‘That for nerve.’ And both her daughter and the assistant nodded in agreement.
Eighteen-year-old Susan Bitten looked to where Kate was now walking slowly alongside a bookcase, and she marvelled how a woman could be left at the altar on Monday, then walk into the town on Saturday as if nothing had happened; she herself would have died. Yes, yes, indeed she would, she would have killed herself, because of the shame. No proper woman could stand the shame of such rejection. But then, Kate Roystan wasn’t a real woman, not a feminine woman, she was too big. And look at her face, more like a man’s. She could understand how the man had run away, but she could never understand how the woman had the nerve to walk abroad as if nothing had happened.
Kate opened the pages of a book and looked at the frontispiece but without seeing it. She knew exactly what was being said, as if she was standing next to them. And she knew that round the corner at the reading table she would be confronted by several pairs of eyes, because it was at this table that certain ladies met, not to discuss reading matter, but to exchange the gossip of the week, while at the same time taking on literary prestige.
She replaced the book and walked round the end of the bookcase, and there they were: Mrs Watford and her daughters Marie and Eva, Mrs MacNulty and her daughter Sheena.
It was Mrs Watford, a farmer’s wife, who after a slight gape spoke first, saying, ‘Why, Kate! Why, Kate!’ And she made to rise, then changed her mind. She couldn’t get over what she was seeing, for, only days ago she had sat in the church and waited and waited for the marriage service to begin, and only this very minute she had been relating to Mrs MacNulty all the narration that had been caused when the Reverend had come out and explained to them that no marriage was to take place. She herself had seen the bride drive off, her head almost on her knees in shame, and yet here she was as brazen as brass. She couldn’t believe it.
‘How are you, Kate?’ Her voice was high, sounding almost like a squeak.
‘Very well, Mrs Watford, very well, thank you. And you? And Marie and Eva?’ She turned to the two girls who were sitting looking at her with looks almost of stupefaction on their faces.
Mrs MacNulty now spoke, using, as Dad would laughingly say, her day-off voice which she was wont to adopt in an endeavour to cover her broad Irish accent, for the Irish round about weren’t held in any good esteem, a brawling and fighting lot, admittedly only when they were drunk, but, as Dad himself would admit, not a happier or pleasanter people you could wish to meet in their sober state. But then they weren’t very often sober, for the men would sell their wives and grannies for a drink.
‘Oh, Kate,’ she said. ‘And are you bearin’ up, me dear?’
‘Bearing up?’ Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘I haven’t been ill, Mrs MacNulty.’
‘No, no. I understand. Well, there’s nothin’ like puttin’ a brave face on it. As I always say, face trouble and it splatters…I mean, it disappears, and MacNulty always says, as long as you’ve got a back on you why face the wind.’
‘I like facing the wind, Mrs MacNulty.’ The words were quiet, the tone pleasant.
What could you do with a creature like this? Nothing. She was brazen. She wouldn’t have believed it. Mrs MacNulty glanced at her daughter Sheena and was surprised to see her smiling broadly up at the big barefaced woman. And Kate Roystan was smiling down on her. Wait till she got her outside, she’d say something to that girl, she would that. She had been worried about her of late: too ready to talk back she was, and having opinions that weren’t proper at her age, and she not yet seventeen.
‘Goodbye, Mrs MacNulty.’ Kate moved on, only to encounter three more ladies, two of whom she wasn’t acquainted with, but the third, after the usual gape, patted her arm kindly, saying in an undertone, ‘I understand. I understand.’
Kate didn’t question the lady’s understanding but picked up a book from the shelf, went to the counter and paid Mrs Knowles for it, and the assistant said not a word to her, not even thank you; then she left the shop, and deliberately now she walked back up the street and into the market.
It was there Hal came across her, and in a low tone and harshly, he said, ‘What you doin’ parading around here on your own for? What’s the matter with you, Kate? You asking for more trouble?’
‘What more trouble could I have, Dad?’
‘Aw, Kate. Don’t take it so much to heart.’
‘I’m not. I’m not. Believe me, I’m not. Not that way. I’m glad. Yes, I am.’ She nodded at him and put her hand on his arm. ‘Believe me, I’m glad it happened as it did, for I know now I wouldn’t have been able to put up with him, or his
people.’ Her fingers pressed his coat as her voice dropped and she said gently, ‘You brought me up too well, made me soft in a way. And now you have me for life; you’ve made a rod for your own back.’ She smiled gently at him, and he lowered his head, saying, ‘Aw, lass, lass. Anyway, let’s get out of this, they’re looking at us as if they’re expecting us to perform. Come on. Where are the others?’
‘Shopping as usual.’
‘I could do with a drink before me meal. Come on. Let’s get inside, it’s enough to freeze you.’
They walked now side by side, past the nodding stallholders, some of whom even stopped weighing their goods to look at Hal Roystan’s lass. The Baker fellow had left her in the lurch and gone off with a good pile of her money, it was now being said, after treating his cronies to free drinks in Allendale. But there she was putting a face on it. A bit brazen, they considered really. She could have kept low for a few weeks before showing her face; people would have had sympathy for her then. But as it was, she was making people think she was a bit of a queer fish.
In the hotel, Hal took off his coat and hat, then made for the settle by the fire. And when the waiter greeted him with, ‘Good morning, Mr Roystan. What can I get you?’ he said briefly, ‘Two hot toddies.’
‘No Dad, not for me.’
‘Two hot toddies, I said.’ Hal nodded at the man who smiled and repeated, ‘Two hot toddies. Very good, sir.’
‘You’re going to drink this so that when the gang turns up you’ll have some colour in your cheeks. You look like a corpse, girl.’
‘I feel like a corpse, Dad.’
‘Then why did you do it? I mean, show your face so early?’
A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Page 38