A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No. No, please, Ben. Wait here. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.’

  He now lifted the scarf from her shoulders and, putting it over her bonnet, he tied it under her chin; then with an almost rough movement, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the lips before pressing her out of the door and across the yard to the stable in which the horse was tethered.

  When she was mounted, she put out her hand to him and quietly she said, ‘Do you pray at all?’ And he pursed his lips before he answered, ‘It isn’t a habit of mine.’ And to this she said, ‘Well, I think now would be a good time to adopt the habit. Goodbye, my love.’

  He kissed her hand and answered, ‘Goodbye, my Kate.’

  Out on the road, she did not gallop her horse towards home, but trotted it gently. The snow was coming down thickly now, and when she passed three miners coming from their shift, one of them hailed her with, ‘Looks as if we’re in for another blanket, miss.’ And she nodded at him and rode on, for she found that she was unable to speak, her throat was so tight with unshed tears, while her mind was crying, ‘Oh, dear God, make him understand,’ while at the same time knowing that if God Himself should appear before him and put Ben’s case to him, he still wouldn’t understand why she had deceived him, or forgive Ben for being who he was.

  She had just entered the yard when John came out of the kitchen doorway. It was as if he had been awaiting her arrival. And as he made his way towards her, he called to Terry, ‘Come and take him, will you?’

  As he helped her down from the horse, he said quietly, ‘Kate. Kate.’ And she, standing still for a moment, looked at him and said, ‘Oh, John. You don’t condemn me, do you?’

  ‘Aw, lass, no.’ He gripped her arm. ‘The past is past. It happened in another lifetime, but would you be able to get him to understand that?’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘What!’ Her eyes sprang wide.

  ‘His cough was bad again and Mam gave him a dose and he fell asleep in the big chair. He’s still there.’

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The rest of us got the full blast. She couldn’t wait. She’s a bitch, you know, our Maggie. She’s a bitch. Always has been, from the day she was born. It’s jealousy. But God, she’s stirred up a right hornet’s nest the day.’

  ‘Where are they all?’

  ‘In the kitchen. Mam’s kept her there. It should happen that she’d called us in for a mug of tea and there we were, Tom and me standing at the table, and Mam and Annie baking, and Florrie had just come into the room when in she burst…Maggie. Honest to God! I’ve never seen fury like it. It could match Dad’s any day. Oh, she’s a damn little bitch that. Come on. Come away in, lass. You’re getting wet.’

  As they kicked the snow from their boots and shook it from their clothes at the kitchen door, John said in a low voice, ‘I’ll tell you one thing, not that it will be much comfort to you, Tom and me like him, and Gabriel an’ all, and we think he’s right for you.’

  ‘Thanks John, thanks.’ She drew in a long breath now and, putting out her hand, opened the kitchen door and went inside.

  Mary Ellen and Annie were sitting one each side of the table. Florrie was lighting the candles and Maggie was sitting on the settle and, except for her hat, she was still in her outdoor clothes. At the sight of Kate, she rose to her feet, but Mary Ellen and Annie remained seated. No-one spoke until Tom, coming out of the scullery, said quietly, ‘Hello, Kate.’ And she turned and looked at him but didn’t answer. When she spoke, it was to her mother. Standing at the end of the table she said quietly, ‘Well, now you know.’

  ‘Lass! Lass! ’Tis true then?’ Mary Ellen’s voice was a mere whisper, and Kate replied, ‘Yes, ’tis true. Although I don’t know exactly what my dear kind sister has told you.’

  ‘And don’t call me your dear sister. I’m not your full sister. I wouldn’t own you…’

  Now as if a bombshell had exploded in the kitchen Mary Ellen sprang up and rounded on her daughter, hissing at her, ‘Shut up, you! You mischief-making little slut, you!’

  ‘Slut. You call me a slut when she’s been roaming the hills with that thing! And…and whatever I am, I’m not a bastard.’

  The blow from Mary Ellen’s hand knocked Maggie backwards and she fell onto the settle, crying out as she did so, and before either Tom or John could reach their mother, Mary Ellen had again raised her hand and had brought it across Maggie’s face once more before they managed to pull her away, Tom crying, ‘Mam! Mam! What’s come over you?’

  When, in front of the fireplace, Mary Ellen had shrugged them off, she stood gasping for a moment before she cried, ‘Something that should have come over me long ago. She’s been asking for it. I’ve never in me life seen anybody bring bad news quicker, and with such glee. And to call Kate that name. There’s different meanings to that word and, my lady, let me tell you this’—she was now thrusting her finger towards Maggie who was crying loudly while holding her face—‘if anyone’s a bastard in this house, it’s you.’

  So engrossed had they been they hadn’t become aware that the door from the hall had opened and there stood Hal, his face screwed up as if he couldn’t believe his ears. And now they all turned their attention on him, with the exception of Maggie who, still holding her head, was rocking herself.

  Moving slowly forward, he looked down on Maggie for a moment before casting his glance around his family. Then addressing Mary Ellen, he said, ‘What’s this? What’s this now?’

  Mary Ellen half turned from him, her hand held to her brow, muttering, ‘I…I had to chastise her.’

  ‘By calling her a bastard?’ His voice came from deep in his throat. ‘Come on. What’s this? I’ve never heard that word spoken in this house afore.’

  When no-one answered, his manner changing and his voice rising to a yell, he demanded, ‘Speak out one of you. What is this? I’ll get to know in the end.’ He now went towards Maggie who, her head against the back of the settle, was bobbing as if on wires, and he cried at her, ‘What have you done, girl? What have you done to cause this narration?’ As she did not speak, he turned around and his gaze came to rest on Kate. She had not removed her riding clothes, not even her scarf from her bonnet, and he looked her over before saying, ‘Well?’

  As Kate went to speak, Mary Ellen came to his side, saying quickly, ‘Maggie cheeked Kate, that was all. She cheeked her, uncalled for. Yes, uncalled for.’

  He turned and stared into Mary Ellen’s face but said nothing. Then looking at Kate again, he repeated the word ‘Well?’

  Kate now looked Hal steadily in the eyes as she said, ‘Maggie had news concerning Ben and me which she thought you should all know, particularly you.’

  When she paused, he said, ‘Aye. Well let’s hear it.’

  Kate bowed her head before lifting it again, and once more looking him straight in the face she said, ‘Before I give you my news, I want you to know that…that I love him very much, and therefore what I have done was to ease you pain, for I would not have you troubled for the world.’

  ‘Get on with it, lass.’ His voice was low.

  And so she said, ‘Ben is…is not whom he appears to be, not just Benedict Hamilton, he…he is the son of—’ Now she could not look him in the face and her head drooped before she managed to mutter, ‘Mary Bannaman.’

  As they all steeled themselves for his great burst of anger and his voice roaring through the house, they were amazed when he turned and, looking from one to the other, he nodded at them before going to the table and sitting down in the chair that Mary Ellen had vacated. Then putting out his hand, he moved aside a rolling pin and a tin pastry shaper, and where they had been he laid his hand flat and his fingers tapped the floured board before he said and in a quiet tone, ‘I knew it. Right from the beginning I knew there was something, but I couldn’t put me finger on it. But I knew it.’ He turned his head now and looked up at Mary Ellen. ‘Something about him. Not his voice, no. It w
as the way he stood. And his eyes. Aye, his eyes, those big black-looking eyes.’ Now he switched his gaze to Kate and lifted his hand from the board and moved it up and down as if weighing something in the palm before he said, ‘It was that that got your dad when he first saw her, those eyes.’ His hand flat on the table again, he looked at it and, more to himself, he muttered, ‘’Twas funny, but all along I knew, deep inside there was a warnin’.’

  ‘Dad.’ He turned his gaze back to Kate and, his voice changing now but still not harsh or loud, he asked, ‘How long have you known this?’

  ‘From the time he b…b…bought the house.’

  ‘And you kept mum knowing how I felt?’

  ‘Only because I…I didn’t want you to be hurt.’

  ‘Didn’t want me to be hurt?’ He was on his feet, and now his manner was recognisable to all of them, for his voice was deafening and his face ablaze with fury. It was as if the feeling had been injected into him like a knife into the rump of a horse. And very like that animal now, he reared. His two arms going above his head, his fist clenched, he cried, ‘Didn’t want me to be hurt? Knowing what he did to me and mine and your grandfather an’ all?’

  Although Kate had taken a step backwards, she now stood her ground and her voice was loud as she answered him, ‘He’s done nothing to you. If you want to know he went through as much suffering at her hands as you did. Aye, and more, because it was prolonged, it went on for years. If you’d only listened to him as I have.’

  ‘Listen to him? Listen, lass, if I as much as set eyes on him, I won’t be able to keep my hands off him. He’s come in this house an’ sat at my table, he’s brought evil back into me life…’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that!’ She was crying at him now, her whole body trembling. ‘If there is any evil, it isn’t in him, it’s what you’ve fostered all over the years.’

  The effect of her words on Hal brought Mary Ellen in between them, and now turning her back on Kate, she pleaded with him, saying, ‘She’s upset, she’s upset. Try to understand. Let’s go in the other room and talk this…’

  Without looking at her he thrust her aside, but not roughly. His gaze on Kate once more, he said, ‘Fostered evil, have I? The feeling that I’ve borne you all these years is evil, is it? That one—’ He thumbed towards the settle where Maggie sat, her sobs having subsided, her eyes wide and in them a fear of the consequences of her action, and he said, ‘That one was right to be jealous. They were all right to be jealous. Everyone your mother has borne through me had a right to be jealous because you, in a way, were me first-born. I brought you into the world. I saved both you and your mother from dying. I loved you as I’ve never loved any of me own. Why? I’ve asked meself that hundreds of times, why, when I didn’t spawn you. And now you stand there and tell me I’m full of evil.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Now the tears were running down her cheeks. ‘Not like that, you know I didn’t. You’re twisting my words. I meant that you harboured the evil that was done to you. I don’t deny that. Ben doesn’t deny that. He’s tried to erase it from his mind, that’s why he came over here. He knew nothing about it until his grandmother told him. ’Twas the happiest day of his life when his mother died. ’Twas. ’Twas. If you’d only listen.’

  ‘Shut up, Kate.’

  She bowed her head deeply on her chest, and now John went to her and put his arm around her shoulders, but when he attempted to lead her to a chair she remained stiff, and she almost sprang from his hold when Hal, turning from her, sat down by the table again and said with finality, ‘Well, that’s that. You’ll not marry him.’

  ‘I will. I will. Oh, yes, I will.’

  He was on his feet again, growling from deep in his chest, ‘By God! You won’t, unless you do it over my dead body.’

  ‘Well’—her head was up, her shoulders back—‘I will say this to you, Dad, and I mean it every word: whether you are dead or alive, I will marry Ben.’

  They all gaped at her as she went on, ‘He is for me and I for him. We have known it from the beginning. If I don’t have him, then life won’t matter to me. For years I have been aware of my size and my plainness. You yourself brought it more to the fore than anyone else when you arranged my marriage with Harry Baker. But now I have found a man, a very, very presentable man, a highly intelligent man, and a gentleman to boot, who does not think I’m a big awkward lump, nor that I’m as plain as a pikestaff, as has been said. And so he is my future, my life. Where he goes, I’ll be there too, even if it is to America.’

  They were all speechless, and for a moment there hung over the kitchen a silence in which the only sound was the fire crackling and an occasional plup from the kettle on the hob as it spurted its boiling water onto the hot ash.

  It was Hal who made the first move. Turning to the table he leant his two hands on the edge of it and, bending over, he said three words that caused Mary Ellen’s body to shake: ‘We shall see,’ sounded so simple. But it wasn’t the words, it was the tone in which they were said that was so ominous. She had heard that tone before many years ago, but it sounded as if it had been yesterday. It was the tone that preceded the fight. He could bawl and shout, or he could speak quietly, but when he used that tone, it meant trouble. She went to him, saying, ‘Hal.’ But again he pressed her aside, and now he went from them all, up the kitchen and through the door at the far end.

  But the door had hardly closed on him when once again she turned on Maggie, crying at her now under her breath, ‘You! You see what you’ve done? Do you see what you’ve done?’

  ‘Let up, Mam.’ Tom was at her side. ‘She knows what she’s done, and she’s sorry, and she’ll be sorry for a long time. Won’t you, Maggie?’ He looked down on his sister, and she bent her head and no-one could see the reaction of his words on her face.

  And now Kate spoke again. She had taken off her scarf and bonnet and they hung limply from her hand as she looked at Mary Ellen and said, ‘It would have come out in any case. ’Tis better in the open, no matter what the consequences. I don’t think I could have lived with it, knowing we were deceiving him.’

  As she made to walk away, Annie spoke for the first time, saying, ‘The past should be allowed to bury the past. What happened was a lifetime ago, yet at the same time I can say he has a side, for I can still see his twisted body when they brought him home. A thing that is not easily pushed into the back of your mind. You’ve got a trial afore you, lass, and although you say you’ve already made up your mind, who knows but time and thinking could change it.’

  Kate had turned towards Annie, and she now said, ‘Don’t lay any stock on that, Annie. Come tomorrow, I’m going to him, married or not.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ The words were a mere murmur from Mary Ellen, but they all heard them. Then their attention was turned from Kate as she went from the kitchen, to Florrie who, of a sudden, let out a cry then, turning to the wall, buried her face in the crook of her arm, and as her two brothers went to comfort her, Mary Ellen stood with her hands tightly pressed against the nape of her neck and her eyes directed onto the bowed head of Maggie. But she wasn’t at this moment thinking of Maggie alone, she was thinking of them all for she knew in a way this was the end of the closeness of the family, a closeness she had imagined would go on till the day she died.

  Fourteen

  Kate awoke to a white snow-muffled world. The room was icy cold. She lit the bedside candle; then pulling on a dressing gown, she went to the window. There, to her dismay, she saw that the snow was banked up on the windowsill against the bottom pane. And when rubbing an upper pane, she could see it was still coming down thick and heavy, she thought, anxiously, if I don’t get along there early the road will be blocked, if it’s not already.

  She had spent most of last evening packing her belongings. She had not gone down to the evening meal, and when Mary Ellen had brought her some food up on a tray, she thanked her but said she wasn’t hungry. And Mary Ellen, sitting down on the edge of the bed, had looked sadly at her and sa
id, ‘Aw, lass, for this to happen.’ And she had answered simply, ‘I can’t help it, Mam.’

  ‘No, no. I understand that.’ Mary Ellen had said. ‘Your head’s not much good when your heart is touched. Yes, yes, I understand that, lass. But for you to pick on someone like him. Why, if you had taken up with a savage Red Indian, he would have put up with it. But a Bannaman, never! Never! Never in this world, because it’s still with him. He still has nightmares about it. He wakes up struggling and gasping and muttering as if the gag was still in his mouth. Many’s the night I’ve had to get up and wipe the sweat from his body. I’ve even had to change the sheets, so damp were they. No, lass, he would have stomached you havin’ anybody but a Bannaman.’

  Even when she tried to tell her how Ben had suffered at the hands of his own mother, it had seemed to make little impression. And even when they had held each other closely before Mary Ellen left the room, Kate knew that her mother was as hurt by her action as was Hal, though her hurt lacked his furious anger and bitterness.

  She looked at the clock. It was half past seven. She had overslept. Her time for rising was six o’clock and no-one had come to waken her, which bore a significance all its own: already she was outside the family. She looked around the room which had been her own for years. She would miss this. Even if she slept in a finer one in the future, she would still miss this room.