A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘You don’t know, you’ve never given yourself a chance. Anyway, come on, let’s get that mouthful of gruel and be on our way, because I want to get to bed sometime afore midnight.’

  ‘I can go by myself.’

  ‘You’re not goin’ by yourself, because what would you do when you got there, go and sleep in the barn until the morrow mornin’?’…

  It was just a half-hour later when they left the cottage. The air was sharp and the moon bright, and they walked briskly, yet it was another good hour before Willy pulled the bell to the side of the door at Rooklands Farm. Fraser had wanted to go in by the kitchen way, but Willy had said, ‘And let the cook and maids know you are here afore your mother?’

  When the door was opened, a maid stood there, the lamp held high in her hand, and she peered through the light for a moment at the two dark figures; then she let out a thin high squeal, crying, ‘Eeh! Master Fraser.’ And the boy, pushing past her, mimicked her: ‘Eeh! Annie Pollock.’

  It was as if his voice had thrust open two doors, one at each side of the hall, for Kate came hurrying from the dining room, and the open drawing-room door showed Ben standing stiff and straight staring towards his son.

  Kate said no word to the boy, but, going to him, she put her hand on his shoulder and steered him towards his father, while at the same time turning her head to Willy saying, ‘Come along in, Willy.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be on my way, Mrs Hamilton.’

  ‘Please.’ The word was a plea, and so, cap in hand, he followed her and the boy, and as Ben drew himself back to allow them to pass he said to Willy in a voice that was almost a growl, ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘I didn’t. He found me,’ said Willy, and in a lower tone added, ‘He’s all right. Tired, I think. He slept out all night. He wasn’t with the drovers.’

  They both now moved up the long room to where the boy was slumped into a big leather chair, and Willy was surprised but enlightened at what next took place, for Ben, confronting his son, demanded, ‘Get on your feet. You’ve been told before about sitting when your mother is standing.’ The boy hesitated for a moment, staring up into the thin white face above him until Kate, her hand again on his shoulder, pressed him back into the seat, and she herself sat down next to him, saying, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right. It isn’t the time for courtesies.’

  ‘Every time is a time for courtesies. What is schooling for?’

  ‘Yes, Father, what is schooling for?’ The boy was sitting straight in the chair now, his dark features showing a look of venom as he cried, ‘It’s for cropping your head. Giving you dirty razors.’ He dug his finger into his chin. ‘Stripping you naked, then putting you into your suit and thrusting you into a dead cold room for twenty-four hours. But you’ve got your suit on, so if a visitor should happen to see you being taken in or out, you’re dressed. And it’s also for a piece of leather with slit end which catches you across the back of the knees. Oh, you’re protected by trousers, but it still makes you jump. It’s for…’

  ‘That’s enough. You must have deserved it.’

  ‘I didn’t deserve it, no more than the other fellows there. And for your information, Father, I’m not the only one that has run away. Two have done it this month, but their parents came and told the headmaster what they thought of him. But have my parents gone to see a headmaster, no matter what I’ve said? This is the third place you’ve put me in and each one worse than the other. Anything to get rid of me.’

  ‘Oh, Fraser, Fraser, don’t say that. You know it isn’t true.’

  He turned his furious gaze on his mother now, saying, ‘’Tis true. From I can first remember anything I remember that, being got rid of, left behind, time you went jaunting to France…Switzerland.’

  ‘That was necessary for your father’s health, Fraser, and you know it.’

  ‘I don’t know it. I only know I saw more of Mrs Proctor and the maids than I ever did of you.’

  ‘It was necessary.’ Her voice low now, patient sounding. ‘I couldn’t have taken you with me…’

  ‘No, no.’ He sprang to his feet. ‘You couldn’t have taken me with you, but you took Rose, didn’t you?’

  ‘She was a girl and delicate. The air did her good.’

  ‘And dear Harry?’ He was now looking at his father and he repeated, ‘Dear Harry who, as you said, Father, has never given you a day’s worry since he was born, was he delicate too? He’s as strong as a bull. He was four when you first took him abroad and there was no sign of any disease on him then, or…’

  ‘Be quiet boy!’ The word disease seemed to have prodded Ben into life, for now he took two quick steps towards his son, crying, ‘Another word and I’ll take the horsewhip to you myself.’

  ‘Ben! Ben!’ Kate was standing between them. ‘Look, don’t get excited, please, please.’ She turned her back on her son and gripped her husband by the arms, pressing him away and into a chair, where he was seized with a bout of coughing that racked his whole body.

  When Kate ran to a side table and picked up a small silver tray on which was a bottle and a spoon, the boy got to his feet. His expression hadn’t altered; the paroxysm of his father’s coughing hadn’t touched him at all. He looked towards Willy, and Willy with a slight motion of his head upwards indicated that he should leave the room. And this he did, but not quietly, for as the door banged behind him Kate, replacing the spoon on the tray, turned sharply and looked towards it. Then sighing, she let her gaze rest on Willy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Willy. Sit down, will you, and have something to drink before you go?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Mrs Hamilton, I’ll be on me way.’

  She cast a glance at Ben who was now leaning back in his chair, his breath coming in short painful jerks. Then turning back to Willy, she said, ‘Do they know at home that he’s back?’

  ‘No, but I’ll tell them.’

  He turned and made for the door. And she walked with him. In the hall he stopped and, looking at her, said, ‘He’s had a pretty rough time at that school, I should say, Mrs Hamilton, from the bits he’s let drop. It wasn’t so much education that was pushed into them there, but fear. If I may speak, I wouldn’t think about forcing him back, or to any other school. I…I think he wants to work. He’s ready for it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, Willy, you’re right. But—’ Kate clasped her hands tightly now between her large breasts, and she looked towards the staircase as she said, ‘His father wanted to see him get on in the world, go to a university, take up science or law, he…he had great ideas for him.’ Then bringing her gaze back on Willy, she ended, ‘It was unfortunate we had to leave him when he was young, but you see, he…he was so boisterous. From he was a tiny baby he was so boisterous. He took up all one’s time, and…and I hadn’t that time to give him.’

  ‘That’s all right. He’s…he’s not a bad boy, you know.’

  ‘No?’ There seemed to be a question in the syllable; then more firmly she added, ‘No, of course he isn’t, but he’s got the sort of wanderlust on him. He doesn’t take after either his father or me. I don’t know who he takes after.’ She smiled wanly, and he turned from her, saying, ‘Goodnight, Mrs Hamilton,’ and she answered, ‘Goodnight, Willy, and thank you again.’

  Out on the open road he repeated to himself, ‘I don’t know who he takes after.’ That was a damn silly thing to say, because, if he’d heard it once since he had been connected with this family, he must have heard it a couple of dozen times from outsiders every time the boy went missing: ‘He’s a true Bannaman, that one, following in his great-grandfather’s footsteps.’ And the story of Dan Bannaman and his daughter, and the little fellow who hanged himself, which had become folklore around these parts, would once again be related.

  Aye, it was silly for her to wonder who her son took after when his father was part Bannaman.

  Two

  Mary Ellen stared at the man and the girl sitting opposite to her. After an hour and a half in their company she was st
ill finding it difficult to say anything. She had been surprised at the change in her childhood playmate when he had last come upon the scene seventeen years ago. But that change was nothing to what the intervening years had wrought on him. He was a little younger than Hal, just under two years, yet he could have been ten or twenty years older. His flesh at all points seemed to be pressing against his well cut clothes. His face was ruddy, the jowls heavy. There was no hair on the front of his head and the fringe covering the back and sides was pure white. In her mind, even till as late as this morning, she had seen a tall man, broad shoulders and straight. The breadth was still there, but the height was cut by the stoop of his shoulders.

  Then this girl, this child, or whatever she was, who was his daughter, he said, she had never seen anyone like her, never in her life before. She was like someone you would see in a picture book. At a guess, she was a little over five feet, with form so slight as to be non-existent. Her fashionable dull-red velvet coat and skirt did not suggest it was covering a body, however slight. And then the face…yes, it was the face that was the most amazing. The eyes were large and grey, and they had, she was discovering, the habit of staring at you without blinking while her expression changed from one moment to the next. When John had said one sentence in French, the only one he remembered from his school days, the light in her eyes had been impish as she had answered him. And when the girl herself spoke in her mixed-up English, the light would turn to merriment and would be accompanied by her laughter, which was more like a gurgle. It was only when she looked at her father that the light changed to a sober hue. And she noticed that when he spoke she gave him all her attention. But it was the girl’s face as a whole that was startling: like her body, it was small; the skin she could only liken to a piece of alabaster. And then the hair. What colour was her hair? Lemon-coloured, pale lemon-coloured, and it wasn’t dressed like that of a fashionable young lady, which she evidently was, it was hanging loose, held only by a ribbon which was tied in a bow.

  She was speaking now to Maggie who, like herself, had up till now seemed to be tongue-tied.

  ‘Your cows make butter? I mean, you make…I mean you milk…Oh Papa—’ She swung round at her father and spoke in rapid French, and he, looking at Maggie and smiling, said, ‘What Yvonne is trying to say is, do you milk the cows and make the butter yourself?’ And Maggie, also laughing now, said softly, ‘Yes, I make the butter and milk the cows, at least some of them. John here’—she indicated John with her outspread hand—‘he too helps with the milking.’

  ‘I have not yet been on a form.’

  Again there was laughter from Maggie and John; and now her father, looking at her, said, ‘Farm not form…and I haven’t before been on a farm, or, this is my first time on a farm. Comprends-tu?’

  ‘Oui.’ There was more laughter. Then Hal, who all the while had been sitting to the side of Mary Ellen and, like her, had had little to say, spoke to John, saying, ‘Why don’t you take the miss round the farm. And you, Maggie, show her how to make butter.’

  There was a slight pause before John and Maggie rose to their feet. They both realised they were being told to go and the reason why. Up till now the time had been taken up with the eating of light refreshments and small talk. But whatever the reason for this man’s visit, it wasn’t to indulge in small talk. And apparently their father, as usual, was anxious to get to the bottom of something he didn’t understand. And, from the snatches of conversation at the breakfast table this morning, he certainly didn’t understand the reason for his one-time friend’s visit at this late stage in their lives.

  When John tentatively held out his hand as he would do to a child, the girl sprang up and caught it. Then, her strange face alight, she turned and looked up at his father, saying, ‘Like Marie Antoinette, I go to learn milk.’

  ‘To be a milkmaid.’

  ‘Ah, oui.’ She nodded towards him, then allowed John to lead her from the room laughing.

  Left to themselves now, Roddy Greenbank looked first at Mary Ellen, then at Hal, and his body slumped further into the big armchair before he said, ‘I know you are wondering what all this is about, and why the hell he’s got to put in an appearance after all these years of apparent neglect, not even having any interest in his own daughter. Oh, I know what you’re both thinking. Well, my answer is simple. I haven’t long to go, a week, a month, three at the most.’ He made a sound like a mirthless laugh now as he added, ‘Perhaps one of old Kate’s potions might have helped. I’ve thought about her a lot of late.’

  In the pause that followed, Mary Ellen and Hal glanced at each other, then looked at him again as he said, ‘My purpose in coming is to ask a great favour of you. And Hal, I know what your response will be immediately. Of all the bloody nerve, you’ll say. And I can understand that perfectly. As for you, Mary Ellen, your reaction could be the same as Hal’s, only put in a different way. It could be: You’ve got a nerve, Roddy Greenbank. By God, you have. Well, I don’t know about a nerve, but a man does things out of desperation. I’ve searched my mind, going over all the so-called friends I’ve made in the past years. The only couple I could have trusted, besides yourselves, died last year within a month of each other. Well, I’ll come to the point…Will you take her under your care when I’m gone?’

  He watched their faces. Simultaneously their jaws dropped and their eyes widened. He watched Hal’s tongue move within the gap as if it was coiling round a word, suppressing it. He watched Mary Ellen put her hand up to her head and mutter, ‘You…you must be jokin’.’ And he made no reply to this, he just sat staring at them.

  And Mary Ellen stared back at him. She knew it had been an inane reply to make, you must be joking, but how could she voice the words that were running round in her mind: the audacity, the bare-faced audacity, of all the damned impudence to turn up here after all this time. She jerked her head to the side as Hal spoke. His voice a rumble, he was saying, ‘A girl like that would never fit in here. You must know that. She smacks of the town. And there’s bound to be some of your high-up friends who would give her a home.’

  Roddy pulled himself upwards in the chair now and, his hands gripping the arms, he leant forward towards Hal, saying grimly, ‘Yes, they would come forward in their dozens, literally dozens, to give her a home, and she would be as safe with them as a virgin, which she is, in a brothel. There’s a world out there, Hal, or up there as you yourself might put it, among the class that you know nothing of. Respectability is like thick cream on the top, but there’s a pail full of whey beneath it and it’s rank. I know that nobody can teach you anything about life in the country, but there’s another kind of life, Hal, a different kind of life.’

  ‘Your wife, where is she?’

  He turned and looked at Mary Ellen, saying simply, ‘Dead these five years.’

  ‘What about her people? They would surely take her?’

  Roddy wetted his full lips. ‘She wasn’t my wife, Mary Ellen, my wife had no use for children. I had…I had a mistress. She was Yvonne’s mother. She brought her up until she was seven and I sent her to a convent school.’

  ‘Did you marry her after, the mother?’ It seemed an odd question to ask, yet she wanted to know. And when he answered flatly, ‘No, of course not,’ she thought: You wouldn’t. No, you wouldn’t.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s dead too. She died three years ago. From then I brought Yvonne to live with me.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Mary Ellen waited for his answer. She saw him look down towards his knees before saying, ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘She looks younger.’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded at her. ‘That’s the trouble. Her whole appearance is deceptive. But she’s not young in her mind. She’s very bright, clever, accomplished in many ways. Except’—he forced a smile to his face—‘in English. We speak mostly in our own language over there.’

  She noticed that he referred to French as his own language. ‘Does she still go to school?’

  Again h
e hesitated, then said, ‘No, no, she…she left some time ago. Well?’ He looked from one to the other. And they looked at each other and both shook their heads, and it was Mary Ellen who spoke, saying, ‘It’s no good. I’m sorry, Roddy. As Hal here says, she’s of the town. You should see that. And what’s for a girl like that here? We have no social life, except among the family, and there’d be no men around here, among those we know, who would be suitable for the likes of her.’

  ‘She likes ordinary people and she doesn’t care for the town. We had a cottage in the country and she was never happier than when she was there, and she’s adaptable. And although she knows her own mind and would stand up for herself, she…she would be eaten alive if I were to leave her in Paris. There’s many ways a girl like her can be ruined. You don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Life here—’ He now looked from one end of the room to the other, his expression encompassing the whole area as if they were on another planet, before he looked fully at Hal now, saying quietly. ‘We thought we knew life when we were lads, we thought we knew it all because we had witnessed murder, but I’ve learned since that even murder can be clean compared to some things.’

  Hal rose abruptly now as also did his voice as he said, ‘Well, there must be a lot of uncivilised and filthy buggers among your friends, that’s all I can say, if there’s not one of them she can go to.’

  Roddy’s voice remained low in reply as he said, ‘I’ve told you, Hal, there are dozens and dozens I could let her go to and who would take her gladly, but men are men, even the best of them, and she’s made that way she has an effect on people, especially on women, wives in particular. They see her as a menace.’

  ‘Already, at her age?’

  He nodded towards Mary Ellen, repeating her words, ‘Already at her age. Yes, already. Yet, she’s of the most loving and kind nature you would ever come across.’