A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  He now put his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands. And there was silence between them, and this lasted until Maggie said, ‘She liked you, John, more than liked you, and she kept on writing. Why don’t you do something about it?’

  ‘What could I do?’ he asked her quietly now.

  ‘Offer her a life here with Mam. Mam will be glad of anybody once I go, and she’ll likely find her better company.’

  ‘No, no, she wouldn’t, Maggie. Mam never took to her.’

  ‘No more than she took to the others, as you’ve just said yourself.’

  ‘This was different. Remember who she is. She’s Kate’s half-sister, she’s the daughter of the man that Mam once loved. And what did he leave her with? A great big woman like Kate, a loving woman, but, nevertheless, an outsize of a woman. And what does he bring with him, expecting Mam to be sort of guardian to her, a small sylph-like creature, so beautiful it was painful for Mam to look on her. No…Anyway, what are we talking about? My chapter’s closed, Maggie, but yours is just opening. You get yourself away with Willy, and that’ll mean Mam will be forced to have help in here. And I’ll see that I have adequate help outside. By gum! I will that.’ He got to his feet now, then stopped and looked towards the door, saying, ‘What’s that? Surely she hasn’t come back already?’

  He went quickly to the window, and Maggie followed him, and, their backs bent, they peered at Tom Briggs helping a green-coated figure down the back steps of his trap. As Maggie whispered, ‘Never!’ John said, ‘It can’t be!’ Then straightening his back, he looked at Maggie and said, ‘God Almighty! And we’ve just been—’ He motioned his hand back to the table. Then in the next moment he had sprung to the door and was out into the yard. But he didn’t rush to her, he stood still as she came towards him. Her grey eyes wide, her lips apart, she walked forward and stood gazing up at him, then said, ‘Hello, Jean.’

  ‘Why…why didn’t you say?’

  ‘I…I didn’t really know. It was on what you call, an impulse…Hello, Maggie.’ She now turned from him and extended her hands towards Maggie who had come slowly out into the yard, and Maggie, gripping them, pulled her close and held her for a moment, saying, ‘Oh, Yvonne! I am glad to see you. Come in. Come in.’ And with one hand she led her into the kitchen as if she had never been in the room before, and there she said, ‘Take your things off. Give me your bonnet. You look cold.’

  ‘It…it has been a long journey.’

  John was standing behind her now as he asked, ‘You came on your own?’

  She turned and looked up at him, saying, ‘Yes, yes. I travel all on my own, the whole way, all on my own, and people were very kind. It…it was surprising.’

  ‘I’ll get you a drink. Come on, sit down, sit down by the fire.’ Maggie was bustling.

  ‘Where do you want these put?’

  John turned to the door where Tom Briggs was standing with a case in each hand, and he said, ‘Oh, just leave them down here.’

  ‘There’s another two in the trap.’

  ‘Well…well, fetch them in.’

  When the man brought the other cases in, John walked with him out into the yard again and asked quietly, ‘How much?’ And he said, ‘Oh, she’s paid me, and rightly. She’s a free-handed miss, I’ll say that. Looks as if she’s come to stay doesn’t it?’ He glanced sideways at John, then said, ‘Your mam all right? I didn’t see her. She’s generally knocking about.’

  ‘She’s gone visiting.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Well, I’ll be off. An’ I’ll be pleased to take you to the station’—he nodded back towards the kitchen—‘when she wants to go off. But as I said, lookin’ at her baggage, it won’t be the day or the morrow. So long then.’

  ‘So long.’

  John returned to the kitchen where Maggie was saying, ‘Will I get you something to eat?’ And Yvonne answered, ‘No, thank you. I am in need of a drink only. I had a large meal in the hotel before I left Newcastle.’

  ‘When did you arrive there?’

  She looked at John, saying, ‘Last night. And this morning I did shopping. It is very nice, the shops there. They are very nice, the shops there.’ She laughed gently now, saying, ‘My English is better, yes?’

  ‘Oh, very much.’ Maggie nodded at her. ‘Yes, very much.’

  ‘I have been taking instruction from an English teacher. She taught in the lycée. Miss Marie introduce me to her.’

  Maggie looked at John, asking now, ‘Do you want a cup?’ and when he shook his head, she said, ‘I’ll…I’ll take one to Willy and Terry.’

  ‘Your mama…mother, she is in?’

  ‘No. She has gone visiting.’

  ‘Your father too?’

  ‘He is in Allendale. He should be back shortly. Look, I won’t be long.’ Maggie picked up the two cans of tea that she had just poured out and, nodding from one to the other, she hastily left the kitchen. And there they were, looking at each other.

  Again Yvonne was the first to speak. However, she did not look at him but towards the fire as she said, ‘You are not pleased to see me?’

  ‘I am. I am.’ His reply had come quick and deep, and she turned towards him, her face bright, saying, ‘I had to come, Jean. You did not write me. But you were in my mind all the time.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Did you think of me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re pleased I come?’

  When he hesitated she said quietly, ‘You are not. You are not.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am.’ He went towards her, ‘But…but it’s impossible. I mean, you’re so young. I’m…well, I’m old enough to be your father.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She made a motion with her head while she stared up into his face, then repeated, ‘Perhaps, but I do not think of you as a father. I never did imagine you as my father, not…not from the first time, I mean, when we first met, and I am unfortunate, as I once said, in looking so young. Inside I am not young. I have seen people, I mean, I know people, men especially. You are different.’

  ‘Oh, Yvonne, my dear. ‘ He caught hold of her hands. ‘We…we must talk about this thing. There is so much…so many obstacles.’

  ‘What obstacles?’

  ‘Oh my God!’ When he turned his head to the side and closed his eyes for a moment she said, ‘Why do you say mon Dieu! … my God! You are sorry I come.’

  ‘No, no.’ He was shaking her hands up and down now. ‘Believe me, Yvonne, no, no. I’m…I’m happy to see you, very happy to see you.’ His voice had sunk to a whisper. And when she said, ‘You thought of me?’ he answered, ‘Always. Always, yes.’

  ‘Then there are no obstacles, just you and me.’

  He paused now before he said slowly, ‘There are my mother and my father, they need me here.’

  ‘Well’—her face brightened—‘I stay with you here. What are obstacles? I stay with you here. I love the farm. I think of the cows too.’ She laughed now. ‘And I love Maggie, and…and I hope I will get to know my half-sister better and cause her to like me. We should like each other, half-sisters. I have no other sister.’

  He wanted to close his eyes again and say, ‘Oh, my darling,’ when Maggie, making her presence known, cried as she opened the back door, ‘I told Willy and Terry you’re here. They are very pleased. Well now, let’s get these things up to your room and get you settled in. By that time, Mam’—she paused—‘Mam will be back.’ And she did not add, ‘And if anything will, this will take her mind off me. By! Yes, I’ll say it will.’

  When John went to lift the cases, Yvonne said, ‘It is not all my luggage, it is presents. We will spend the evening dressing up.’

  ‘Dressing up?’ Maggie questioned now, and Yvonne answered, ‘Yes, dressing up. You wait and see.’

  Hal was the first to arrive home. As he dismounted from his horse, John came out of the byres and went towards him, but before he could say anything, Hal exclaimed, ‘Daylight bloody robbers! That’s what they are. They pick up the horses for pr
actically nowt, feed them free on the fells, then charge the bloody earth for them. Trainin’ they said, trainin’.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Aye, what is it?’

  ‘We’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘A visitor? Who, one of ours?’

  ‘No, not one of ours. It’s Yvonne. She’s come back.’

  ‘No! Who brought her?’

  ‘She came on her own.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Yes.’

  They had been walking towards the door when Hal stopped and, looking at John through narrowed lids, he said, ‘Well…well, for meself I’ll be quite pleased to see the lass, she was lively. But I don’t know how your mother’s gona take this. I suppose you know she didn’t cotton on to her. Natural like, everything taken into consideration, don’t you think?’

  When John didn’t answer, Hal, his voice brusque now, said, ‘Well, what did I say to you? ’Tis natural like your mother didn’t cotton on to her, everything taken into consideration.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, but suppose she didn’t come to see Mam.’

  They scrutinised each other for a moment, then Hal said quietly, ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re hinting at, lad, or perhaps I do, but I’d think twice on it. You don’t want to make yourself a laughing stock, do you?’

  At that he turned and walked into the house leaving John, gritting his teeth, to go back into the byres; and there, taking his fist, he rammed it against one of the posts, cursing to himself as he did so…

  The dusk was falling as Mary Ellen reached home. She was very little happier than when she had left it. Kate’s reaction to her news hadn’t pleased her at all, for Kate, surprisingly, had reminded her in a tactful sort of way that Willy was in much the same position as Hal had been when she married him. And also that she didn’t blame Maggie for grabbing at life. Mary Ellen was well aware that Kate was still as besotted with Ben after all these years as she had been when she married him, or before that. Kate had suggested that she knew how Maggie felt and that she had been deprived of life. When she had demanded, ‘And whose fault is that? She’s had her chances, more than any other member in the family,’ Kate’s answer was, ‘It’s her nature I suppose. She’s inclined to be contrary.’

  Contrary! Brazen was the word she would put to her now, not contrary.

  There was no-one in the yard when she drove in, and she yelled, ‘You, Willy!’ But it was Terry who appeared, saying, ‘I’ll take her, missis.’

  ‘Where’s everybody?’

  ‘The boss and Master John are inside the house, I think. Willy is mending the fences down on the east side, least he was.’ He smiled widely at her, but did not mention that she had a visitor.

  She marched into the kitchen, only to stop and gaze at the bare wooden table. It had been her rule of late to have the evening meal in the kitchen to save work, only using the dining room at the weekends, when the family visited. She looked towards the sink. There were a number of dirty teacups and mugs in there.

  She was pulling at the strings of her bonnet as she entered the hall, and she was brought to a stop by the sound of laughter coming from the direction of the sitting room, and she recognised her husband’s high above the rest.

  After pushing open the sitting-room door she was again brought to a standstill. The laughter slid from the faces turned towards her, and her eyes centred on the slip figure of the girl rising from the chair.

  ‘Well, what d’you think?’ Hal’s voice greeted her overheartily. ‘Here she is, out of the blue. Surprise like, eh?’

  ‘How do you do, madame?’ Yvonne, her face unsmiling now, was looking at the woman who was returning her look whilst John was helping his mother off with her cloak.

  Being forced to say something, Mary Ellen said, ‘Why didn’t you let us know?’

  ‘It was on the’—Yvonne paused—‘quick,’ she said and glanced towards Maggie, and Maggie, who was also on her feet and about to make for the door, said, ‘Spur of the moment.’

  ‘Yes, that is it.’ Yvonne nodded her head several times in Mary Ellen’s direction, saying now, ‘I was bragging that my English was good, but I have a long way yet to travel.’

  Mary Ellen moved to the fire and, bending down, held out her hands to the blaze, and from there she asked, ‘Your house, how is it?’

  ‘It is good. The painter men have finished. It is…attractive…comfortable. I have had some offers to sell it.’

  ‘Are you?’ Mary Ellen had turned from the fire and was chaffing her hands together now as if endeavouring to rub something off them.

  ‘Oh, no, no.’ Then Yvonne paused as if she was thinking, before adding, ‘At least, not yet. I do not know.’ Then she asked quietly, ‘May I stay for a while?’

  There was a significant pause before Mary Ellen said, ‘Yes, I suppose so, now that you’re here.’ Then abruptly she walked from them, saying, ‘I could do with a cup of tea. Everybody else seems to have had one.’

  As she left the room John was on her heels, and he caught up with her in the middle of the hall and, taking her arm, he pulled her round to face him, saying, ‘Mam, she’s travelled all the way from France on her own. You could have given her a civil greeting.’

  ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘Well, what I expected was a little understanding. Mam, she’s here, and she’s here for a while, and what I’m going to say to you now is, she could be here for a long while, or there’s an alternative.’

  She snapped her arm away from his hold, saying, ‘My God! That I should have lived to see this day. With one and another of you, my brain’s going to be turned, and small wonder. You’re mad, d’you know that? You’ll be a laughing stock, ridiculed. You won’t be able to hold your head up. Think on that afore you let your old man’s fancy free.’

  He stood where she had left him, his chin now sunk on his chest. Let your old man’s fancy free. Well, he wasn’t old. Forty wasn’t old, not for a man it wasn’t. But she was right about the ridicule. Yes, she was right about that. If only Yvonne didn’t look such a child, at first appearance at least. It would be hard for people to take in that she was nineteen, which meant in her twentieth year. But she was nineteen and she loved him, and he…well, the feeling he had for her seemed to have no name, it went past love. He adored her, not only the way she looked, but the sound of her voice, her every movement, her thoughts, the warmth of her. Yes, yes, the warmth of her, and he couldn’t do without that. Now he had felt it he couldn’t do without it. Nothing mattered here any more. Nothing mattered to him but her, and he would have her. Mother, father, farm, ridicule, the lot, nothing would stop them from coming together.

  It was turned ten o’clock when Mary Ellen and Hal went into their bedroom, and the door had hardly closed on them before Hal, in what was to him a whisper, said, ‘What’s up with you, woman? Acting like a goat with its head down. You’re not going to alter things. He’s set on her, so you might as well make up your mind to it.’

  ‘Aw you! Make up your mind to what? My son and that chit of a girl? She can’t speak our own language.’

  ‘She does pretty well, and better than most who’ve been brought up on it, I should say. If that’s all you’ve got against her…’

  ‘It isn’t. It isn’t, and you know it. And one thing I’ll tell you: I can’t understand your attitude. You know who she belongs to, and you know her relationship to Kate, and yet you…’

  ‘Aye, woman—’ He was bending towards her, thrusting his face into hers, still whispering, ‘You don’t need to stress that part of it. Aye, I know who she belongs to and I know who Kate belongs to. That’s been bored into my mind since the day I saw your stomach full of her. But that’s got nothing to do with this lass. She can’t help it. And what I’m concerned about is our John. Now I’m tellin’ you this, woman, you can come down too hard on a man where his feelings are concerned. And he’s at the wrong age to be foiled. He’s gone over the hills for the lass, you can see that, and you’ve got to accept i
t. The alternative is, he could up and go. Then where would we be? ’Cos you can’t rely on paid hands, even a fellow like Willy, as good as he is.’

  ‘Willy, as good as he is! Now I’ve got something to tell you, man. You’re going to lose Willy afore you lose John.’

  ‘Lose Willy? He’s goin’, he said?’

  ‘No, he didn’t say, but your daughter said.’

  He stepped back from her and sat on the edge of the bed, then asked quietly, ‘What are you gettin’ at?’

  ‘Just that. Our Maggie’s another one that’s gone mad in her middle years. She’s been carrying on with that fellow for weeks now.’

  ‘Our Maggie?’

  ‘Our Maggie.’

  ‘And Willy?’

  ‘And Willy.’

  ‘You’re imagining things, woman.’

  ‘All right. Then I’m imagining an’ all she’s got a bairn in her belly.’

  He sprang up from the bed now, a purple hue spreading over his whiskered cheeks, and she stood nodding at him, saying, ‘She’s been visiting him at nights for God knows how long. I caught her at it and threatened to send him packing. And she threatened me an’ all. Our Maggie threatened me.’ She pulled her lips tight inwards for a moment before adding, ‘And now she’s sick in the morning and eating cheese like an Irish navvy.’

  ‘My God! Willy.’ He dropped down on the bed again; then caused her anger to flare and rise to almost a scream as he said, ‘I’ll never get another one like him.’

  ‘Is that all you can say? They’re leavin’, both of them. And what am I left with?’

  ‘Woman, keep your voice down, this is our bedroom. Up till now it’s been private. Do you want the whole house to know what you’re thinkin’?’

  Slowly she turned from him and when her head dropped and her shoulders began to shake, he rose and put his arm about her, saying, ‘Well, let them go; there’s never been a good but there’s a better. But I can’t believe it of our Maggie. And, lass, what you’ve got to try to do is to like Yvonne, because it could be she’s going to be with us for a long time.’ As the tears rained from her eyes, her mind answered him, Never. Never.