A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  The goat was making for its hut, which was its home and from which its master had dragged it a short while ago. It was used to the man who fed it, and milked it, and talked to it, but even he she butted whenever the occasion presented itself. Her irritation mounted when, reaching the gate that led into the bottom of the field where the hut was situated, she found it barred, and so it was natural that she should turn on the figure that was looming out of the snow and to lower her head and charge it.

  Ben stood in the middle of the little room and looked about him. He knew it was the last time he would see it. The fire had smouldered low, but there was a pile of logs to the side of it. There was some food left in the cupboard and blankets on the single wooden platform bed. The door he would leave unlocked just in case some helpless traveller should be stranded this way. That was how he had found the place when he was stranded, although it wasn’t as comfortable then as it was now.

  He had put his books and papers into a canvas bag, and these he had slung across his shoulder, leaving his arms free to catch that dratted goat. He knew where it would have made for, but it wouldn’t be able to get in for he had locked the gate. He had become fond of Biddy. She had supplied him with milk and acted as an audience to his mutterings many a time. But going on last year’s experience he knew that if the weather kept like this the hills would become inaccessible, and without food or water she could easily die.

  After his visitor had departed he had sat at the table and his anger had been equal to that of the man he had hoped to make his father-in-law. Of one thing he was certain, and that was Hal Roystan meant every word he had said and was capable of taking a gun to him. Well, that being so, he would have to show him that he, too, equally meant every word he said. And if he were to find it impossible to spirit Kate away from the house, then he would call in the law. The English always put themselves over as being a people that liked fair play. So, he would ask the law to come to his aid. But with or without it, he meant to have Kate. He had at times wondered why she had come to mean so much to him, and had asked himself if one of the reasons was that she was connected with the family that had suffered at his mother’s and his grandfather’s hands; and, too, if it was a form of erasing inherited guilt. But the answer was always no: whomsoever Kate had belonged to it would have been the same, for there was a deep affinity between them; she warmed him; she made him feel whole; besides which she was intelligent and humorous.

  He planned in his mind now to go to the house and await her coming, and if she didn’t appear within the next two or three days he would then enlist the help of Charles. If this failed, then he would let the law take over.

  He went out and closed the door behind him, pressing the sneck down hard. He did not, however, make his way towards the track but along by the side of the cottage and towards the gate that led into the field, it being a short cut to the hut. In parts the snow came up to the top of his gaiters and got deeper as the field sloped steeply downwards.

  Making his way to the gate that he had closed only an hour or so before, he was surprised to see that Biddy wasn’t on the other side of it waiting impatiently to be let into her home.

  Having forced the gate open, he peered along by the wall and made out the small dark form of her standing there. Ploughing now towards her, he again felt surprise when she didn’t come at him head down with annoyance. And then a yard or so from her he came to a dead stop and stared in open-mouthed amazement at a boot sticking up out of the snow, and another near it but turned inwards. He bent down quickly and saw the form half-buried in a drift. The head was clear but pressed against the wall and was blood-covered.

  ‘Oh God!’ Throwing the bag of books from his shoulders, he bent down and, putting his arm around the still form, dragged it out of the shallow ditch and onto the comparatively firmer ground of the track. The head was bare and he could see the cut on the temple. The blood had congealed on it and had stained the grey hair around the ear and brow.

  In the name of God, what was he to do? Was he dead? No, no; the chest was heaving. He’d have to get him into shelter. But where? The goat’s hut? Even his nose wrinkled at the thought, but better that than out here until he could get help.

  He got behind Hal now and eased up his shoulders by putting his own arms under Hal’s oxters, and began to drag him towards the gate, the goat slowly following of its own accord now.

  It was as he pulled him sideways through the small aperture the gate afforded that Hal let out a cry that was something between a groan and a scream. Ben stopped and, laying him down, bent over him, saying, ‘What is it? Where are you hurt?’

  But there was no answer. The eyes were closed. The face was as it was before.

  He was gasping hard himself when, at last, he pulled the limp form into the small, smelling, dark, straw-covered hut, and when he had him stretched out he slumped down for a moment to recover his own breath, only to lift his head sharply as Biddy made her appearance in the open door. And now he cried, ‘Get away! Stay there!’ Then turning his attention to the man who had, just a short while ago, threatened to kill him, he asked himself what he was to do now. One thing was certain, he couldn’t stay here; they’d both freeze to death. He’d have to bring him round in some way or another. This in his mind, he began to slap gently the rough prickly cheek, saying, ‘Mr Roystan, come along. Mr Roystan.’

  When he had almost given up hope of this having any effect, Hal groaned, a long deep groan; then his lids slowly opening, he looked up to the wooden roof not five feet above his head, and he muttered something unintelligible before his eyes took in the face to the side of him. His mouth fell open; then he gasped, ‘Bloody goat!’

  Ben looked from him to where the goat was still standing at the open door; then he almost wanted to laugh as Hal’s voice came again, saying, ‘Butted…me.’

  The goat had butted him into the ditch. But it was no laughing matter; if he hadn’t come down that way, the great Mr Roystan could have died in the snow. His thoughts were cynical at the moment as they suggested that that would have been a solution.

  ‘Are you in pain? Can you sit up?’ he asked, attempting to put his arm around the older man’s shoulders. But Hal shrank from his touch and made a sound like an angry animal; then in attempting to rise he let out another long groan that touched on a yell, and after gasping for a moment, he muttered, ‘Me…me leg’s broke.’

  Instantly now, Ben unbuttoned Hal’s long coat. The corduroy breeches below showed no distortion, but the top boot on his right foot was lying at an angle, and when he touched it, and only gently, Hal again cried out.

  ‘Your ankle’s broken.’

  ‘Me ankle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not me leg?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody goat!’

  ‘How does your head feel?’

  ‘I don’t know. Thick.’ His voice was a mutter now, and he closed his eyes. ‘I’m spinnin’ a bit,’ he said. Opening his eyes again and looking up into Ben’s face he added, ‘What you goin’ to do with me? Leave me here? It would be a way out, wouldn’t it? Eh?’

  ‘Don’t talk stupid.’ Ben’s tone held disdain.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. I’ve got to get you up to the cottage.’ And he could not help but add, ‘Get you fit enough again to use that gun.’

  ‘Aye, well’—the head moved slowly—‘don’t think this changes anything. I mean what I said. There’s nothin’ altered.’

  ‘As you say, there’s nothing altered.’

  Hal now lowered his lids. His head was spinning; he felt rotten, real bad. He forced himself to look up again, saying now, ‘You could get down the hills, get help.’

  ‘Not until I get you up out of this. It will take a couple of hours before help comes; you would be stiff by then.’

  Aye, he was right, he would be at that.

  He shivered visibly now and Ben said flatly, ‘Are you feeling cold?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘W
ell, we’d better try and make a move.’

  Hal made no protest when Ben buttoned up his coat again. But when his body was racked with a fit of coughing and he shivered now from head to foot, and Ben took off his own greatcoat and put it around him, he clumsily thrust it aside, muttering between gasps, ‘I…I don’t…want…that.’

  Ben said nothing, but he kept the coat tight around Hal’s shoulders for some minutes. Then when the shivering did not ease he said roughly, ‘Now look here. You’ve got to make an effort and get onto your feet…or foot. It isn’t all that far to the cottage. The worst part is the incline just outside the door here.’

  Hal stared up through the murky light into the thin face and into eyes that looked black and hard, and he thought: Make an effort, he said. Who did he think he was talking to? He’d show him.

  As he pulled himself up into a sitting position his head spun, then his body seemed ripped apart by a flame of pain. He would have lain down quickly again but the fellow’s knee was pressed between his shoulders, and now he felt his arms go around him, pushing him upwards.

  God Almighty! He couldn’t bear this. He was back in the loft again. His bones were snapping; the ropes were cutting into his flesh; the gag was stopping his breathing. And it was all through one of the hated Bannamans. Them buggers. Them evil buggers.

  ‘Now hop. Grip my shoulder. Bend your back until we get through the door. There, that’s it. We’re in the open. Come on, come on. You can’t lie down here.’

  The fellow was yelling at him. By God! Nobody was going to yell at him, especially that bloke.

  ‘Look, just hop. Put all your weight on me and hop.’

  The voice sounded to Hal now as if it were coming from a great distance, like an echo over the hills. He saw the white field before him, the rise that the fellow had talked about. It got higher and higher, and when he had hopped three times it came on him and felled him to the ground.

  Oh my God! Ben drew in a long icy draught of air. This was a situation. How was he to get him up that slope? Drag him as he had done before? But that had been on the level. He certainly couldn’t carry him. He was a dead weight to drag, but drag was the only thing he could do.

  It took a full fifteen minutes to inch him up the slope. Time and again, he slipped and found himself flat on his back, his legs to each side of Hal’s shoulders as if they were on a sleigh.

  He did not know how long it was before he finally dragged the unconscious body through the gate and towards the door of the cottage. And when at last he managed to pull Hal into the room he fell down beside him and lay exhausted for some time.

  Slowly rising to his feet now, he again put his frozen arms underneath the still form and pulled it towards the mat in front of the fireplace. Then taking the bellows that he had never expected to handle again, he blew up the dying embers, put on more wood, filled a pan of water from a bucket and placed it in the heart of the fire. Only then did he kneel down beside Hal and, patting his cheek again, say, ‘Come on. Come on. You’re all right now.’ But when there was no response, he unbuttoned his topcoat and gently eased it off him. Then taking the blankets from the bed, he covered him up; and lastly he placed a pillow under his head. It was as he did this that Hal groaned and slowly opened his eyes. Then a fit of coughing dragged him into consciousness and, turning his head, he looked to where the fire was now blazing and he sighed and muttered something. And Ben, bending over him, said, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘They’ve come…help?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ His eyes opened wider. ‘How…did…I get…here?’

  ‘On the back of the goat, of course.’ Ben’s voice was cynical, and Hal, looking up at him, thought, Oh no, not that. Not to have to be thankful to him for anything. Anyway, he couldn’t have got him up that slope on his own—he remembered the slope—but he was here. God Almighty! Things were taking a turn that he didn’t want, and he was going to have nothing to do with it. Nothing was altered.

  It was some minutes later when Ben, holding a hot drink in front of Hal, said, ‘Can you sit up to drink this?’ and he answered, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tea.’

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Yes, tea. I’ve lived quite a civilised life up here.’

  As Hal went to raise himself on his elbow, his head swam again, and the movement of his leg caused him to hold his breath and to grit his teeth. And when Ben said, ‘I should look at the foot,’ he made no protest, but, taking the mug, he drank the scalding liquid, then lay back again.

  Gently now Ben undid the gaiter, then as gently as he could he pulled out the laces of the boot. But it was when, gripping the upper shin bone tightly with one hand, he went to ease the boot off the foot with his other hand that Hal let out a long scream and his hands clawed up handfuls of the mat to each side of him.

  The boot off, Ben looked down in dismay at the point of bone piercing the stocking. Then glancing to where Hal was lying, his eyes screwed tightly shut, he added, ‘It’s a bad break.’

  ‘What you intend doin’?’

  What did he intend doing? Well, yes, what did he intend doing? The only thing he could do was to go down and get help, but that would have to wait until he thawed out himself, for he, too, was now shivering. The room, in spite of the fire blazing, appeared cold. But he wasn’t afraid of catching cold; he couldn’t remember having a real bad cold in his life.

  He looked at his watch. It was half past one. The light would be gone by four o’clock, and with all the candle lanterns in the country it would be madness for any rescue party to attempt the hills after dark. That left only two and a half hours at the most to get down and get back. It couldn’t be done. In ordinary weather, yes, but not under these conditions. Anyway, there was still hope that quite shortly someone would appear on the hills, because surely the boys would have come out by now, thinking perhaps that their father had met up with him and likely had carried out his threat and had killed him without the aid of a gun.

  ‘Are you going down?’

  ‘I…I don’t think it’s any use. They wouldn’t get back up here before dark. It looks as if we might have to make a night of it.’

  ‘She’ll be worried. Mary Ellen.’

  ‘She’ll not be the only one.’

  Before he could answer, Hal was overcome by a fit of shivering, and Ben asked, ‘Are you still cold?’

  His teeth chattering, Hal nodded; then after a moment he asked, ‘Don’t have a drop of the hard, whisky or anything?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I finished it off last night. Will you have another cup of tea?’

  ‘Aye, aye.’

  ‘How’s the pain?’

  ‘Bearable, as long as I don’t move…Why don’t you make an effort and go down? I’ll be all right. And they…they’re used to the hills, they’ll make it.’

  ‘Yes, they might make it up, but never down, not carrying you, not in this. It’s coming down thicker than ever.’

  There followed a silence until Hal said, ‘What if we’re snowed up here for days? It’s happened afore. We could starve to death then.’

  ‘Not quite. There’s some stale bread in the cupboard, and dried herring, and the end of a smoked ham, and I could always manage to bring Biddy up. She mightn’t be a pleasant housemate, but her milk would be welcome.’

  There followed another silence, then Hal, his voice almost inaudible now, said, ‘Life’s funny, the tricks it plays on you. You know, if I’d had me gun with me earlier on, I likely would have shot you.’

  ‘I have no doubt of it.’

  ‘You’re a cool customer, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t see myself in that light, anything but.’

  ‘’Tis pity you are who you are, because I won’t change me mind about you. Don’t think this’ll make any difference. Don’t get that into your head.’

  ‘No, I won’t get that into my head. I know how you feel about the whole situation, but I would like you to know how I feel about it too. Under the circumstances
of this morning, there was no hope that you would ever listen to me, but now you’ve got no other choice, and I mean to tell you my side of it.’

  ‘’Twill be a waste of time.’

  ‘I’ll chance that.’

  Before he drew up a chair, Ben went to the bed and took the remaining rug from it and put it round his own shoulders. He felt cold to the marrow and he was finding it an effort to stop his own teeth from chattering. But now, sitting close to the hearth, he looked into the fire before he said, ‘You don’t know what hate is. Comparing your feeling for the Bannamans with mine for my mother is like comparing plaster with a slab of granite.’

  And slowly now, his eyes directed towards the burning and mushing wood, he told Hal of his life, as he had Kate. And he ended with the words, ‘The only excuse I have for her is that she was insane.’

  It was some time before Hal spoke; then quietly he said, ‘Aye, she was. But what you’ve got to remember, lad, is that you’re part of her.’

  Ben turned and looked at the man lying prone to his side and, his voice low, he said, ‘I’m well aware of that, always have been, but I’m also aware that I’m my father’s son, and he was one of the best men alive, as was my grandfather. And I can also say my grandmother, her mother, is a good woman. She knew nothing of what her daughter had done until her son told her. My uncle was a partner in the barn affair, as my grandmother called it when she related the story to me, but, as she said, he was a weak man and easily led. He had inherited none of his father’s strength and little of his evil; it was my mother who became a replica of the man who killed your father. You, I may say, carry the scars of the Bannamans in your mind; I carry them both physically and mentally, for like a slave I bear the marks of a whip on my back, and not a simple horsewhip, but a thonged one. So there you are, that’s my side of it.’

  The light was fading. Ben rose stiffly to his feet and, taking the tallow candle from out of a brass candlestick on the narrow shelf of the mantelpiece, he lit it at the fire. Then replacing it in the stick, he took it to the table and as he stood for a moment staring at it, Hal said, ‘Well, I’m sorry for you, lad, but you see, in me mind, you’re still her son. Good, bad or indifferent, you’re still her son. And although I mightn’t take a gun to you in the future, I’ll still do everything in me power to stop you and Kate coming together, because I couldn’t bear the thought. Funny, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of her going to anybody that had any connections with a Bannaman. You won’t understand that.’