A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy)

by Catherine Cookson

  Over in the cottage Maggie was saying, ‘She brought me a beautiful dress. I…I could be married in it. It’s lovely. It’s blue silk and all ruched’—she traced her hand across her chest—‘and has a full skirt, and lovely wide sleeves. Oh, it is beautiful. And she brought John a velvet waistcoat, very, very smart. And Dad a similar one. And then’—she paused—‘there was Mam’s dress. It was green velvet, plain but beautiful. And you know, she wouldn’t put it on. She hardly thanked her for it. I felt so wild that I nearly went for her, but we haven’t opened our mouths to each other. Poor John, he’s going to have a fight on his hands. But more so I’m sorry for that lass, because if anything comes of it, and you can see how she feels about him, she’s going to have one hell of a life with my mother.’

  ‘Well, lass, we won’t be here to see it, because I think it’s nearly certain about that place.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Aye,’ he nodded, smiling widely at her, ‘and I think I could have it lock, stock and barrel, together with the hens, geese and three pigs, and one of them in litter, for eighty-five pounds. That would include the odds and ends of bits of furniture. But mind, what I saw of them, they are odds and ends, they’ve been battered by seven of a family for years. Well, the house is over two hundred years old, I think.’

  ‘Oh, Willy.’ She put her arms around him. ‘I can’t wait. I just can’t wait. It’ll be like walking into heaven.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to go through a lot of muck afore you get to the gates ’cos I was up to me ankles in it in the yard.’

  They held each other, laughing, and rocked together. Then putting his arm around her waist, he led her towards the bedroom, saying, ‘There’s no rush any more then, is there?’ And for answer, she smiled at him and pressed her head against his shoulder.

  Nine

  A fortnight had passed and everyone of the household felt that they couldn’t bear the tension enveloping them much longer. Mary Ellen pointedly never addressed Maggie, nor Maggie her. And when Mary Ellen had to answer a question put to her by Yvonne, she did so in an abrupt fashion, and nearly always avoided looking at her.

  Outside, Hal shouted most of his orders and spaced them more thickly with curses. A week previous, Willy had given him notice, saying, ‘My bond is up at Midsummer. I’ll stay on till then to see you fixed up.’ And Hal’s answer to this was, ‘I should bloody well kick your backside out of the yard at this minute, because you’re a sly, underhand snipe.’ But he was silenced when Willy came back at him, saying firmly, ‘I am neither sly, underhand, nor a snipe, Mr Roystan. I care for Maggie and she cares for me, and it’s been that way for both of us since shortly after I came on to your farm. But we did nothing about it until recently. And all I’ll say to you, Mr Roystan, is we’re both adult people and entitled to pass the rest of our lives together, just the same as you did with the missis.’ And when Hal, searching in his agitated mind for something to say, cried, ‘You know you’ll be my bloody son-in-law?’ Willy answered him, ‘These things happen. And they can be unfortunate for both sides.’ And with that he had left Hal fuming yet wishing at bottom that the fellow’s status had been other than that of a cowman, because he had his head screwed on the right way…

  This being Saturday, Willy and Maggie were accompanying him into the market. They were taking the cart in and he was going in on horseback.

  After they had gone Mary Ellen went into the dairy. She couldn’t stay in the kitchen with that lass doing her fancy cooking. Twice this week she had asked if she could bake some French dishes. The last stuff she made was a kind of stew, and the rest of them ‘oohed and aahed’ about it. But for herself it tasted of nothing but bay leaves. And the pudding that she made, fluffy stuff nothing in it, a French name she gave it, sufflay or something. And then this morning she asked if she could make some pastry. So what could she say? But the one thing she needn’t do was to watch her. The girl was getting on her nerves. She felt she couldn’t stand much more.

  She had been in the dairy over an hour. She had made up some butter and had turned the little cheeses on the slab, but now she wanted to start up a fresh cheese, and she went towards the two dishes standing on the stone bench against the far wall, and finding one empty she bit hard down on her lip. There were always two or three bowls of cream left on a Saturday to start another batch of cheese. That was Maggie’s job. She mustn’t have skimmed yesterday’s milk, likely thrown the lot to the pigs as it was. Him and her must be getting their heads together to slack off because she had noticed patches of mud lying on the bottom of the yard when she came out a while ago. Another time Willy wouldn’t have dreamed of going to the market without seeing that the yard was scrubbed clean. They’d had heavy rain for the past four days and the mud from the road was often swept in, but up till now it had never lain.

  She opened the door and stood looking out. The sky was high and a deep blue with white scudding clouds racing across it. There was a fresh wind blowing, but the sun was warmish. Spring was in the air, but this was the first time she could remember that she had never welcomed it.

  As she stood she saw John coming out of a loose box accompanied by the girl. She was like his shadow, she never left him alone for a minute. What had happened to her pastry-making? Her face tightened as she saw John open the door of the tack room and allow her to pass in.

  My God! How was she to put up with this? She knew what would be happening in there besides their making plans. And making plans they were, she was sure of that.

  Going swiftly across the yard, she went into the main cow byre, at the end of which was an old door that at one time had given access to the tack room. It had long since been barred up, because should it accidently be left open, a cow was apt to stroll in there and wreak havoc before leaving by the other door.

  Quietly now she hurried past the empty stalls. Then moving close to the door, she put her ear to the side of it.

  Their voices came low, but quite clear to her, and the first words she heard made her squirm, for her son was saying, ‘Oh, my love.’

  And this was followed by a silence in which she let her imagination run rife. Then the girl’s voice came to her, saying, ‘I have enough money, my dear, dear, Jean, to buy you three farms…All right. All right, my dear, as you tell me you can have enough money of your own, with your share, then let us go.’

  ‘Yvonne, I’ve tried to explain, I can’t.’

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  ‘Oh, my God, yes I do. There’s nothing I want more than to take your hand and run from here, on to a train, on to a boat, and…and to your home. Nothing, nothing more. But…but my parents…you see, they are old, they depend upon me.’

  ‘Your Mama, she does not like me.’

  ‘That’s only her way. She…she’s not a woman who can show her feelings.’

  ‘Oh, but yes, yes, Jean, she shows her feelings to me, I know.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, what can I do? What can I do? What can I say? Only this, I won’t press you to stay, but I don’t know how I’ll live my days without you.’

  ‘You won’t have to, my dear Jean, my loved one. If you cannot come with me, I stay with you. We will be married and I will put up with conditions for your sake. I will put up with anything for your sake, and it cannot last forever. I am young and you are young. Yes, yes, you are. You look young and in your heart you are younger, and…and I will keep you young. I promise, I will keep you young.’

  In the silence that followed, Mary Ellen slowly turned her body around and her feet dragged as if they were weighed down as she moved up the byres and out into the yard. Crossing it once again, she returned to the dairy, and there, leaning with her hands flat on the cold slab, she thrust her head from one shoulder to the other, saying aloud, ‘I can’t bear it. It shouldn’t be happening to me, not at this stage of my life. Both my daughter and my son breaking their necks to leave us. What have we done? What have I done to deserve this? I wish I was dead. I do, I do. Before this had happened to me I wish I�
��d died.’

  It was close on five o’clock when Hal returned. Not finding Mary Ellen in the kitchen, he yelled, ‘Where are you? Where are you, woman?’

  He burst into the sitting room and found she wasn’t there; he went into the office; then into the dining room; and lastly upstairs into the bedroom; and when he saw her sitting by the window, he said, ‘What’s up with you, woman? Why are you up here? And no tea set.’

  She rose to her feet, saying, ‘Oh, I thought our French visitor was seeing to that.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Forget about the French visitor. Leave the lass alone. There’s something more on me mind at this minute than her. Do you know what I saw in Hexham the day? That young swine, as drunk as a noodle, or nearly so. He could keep his feet but that’s about all he could do. And there he was, with the youngest Reilly. And that’s not all, Reilly’s lass was with him an’ all. Now she’s a known whore, that one. And what d’you think he did when he saw me? He grinned at me, then laughed as he shouted, ‘Hello there, Grandfather.’ I could have murdered him on the spot, My God! The times I’ve felt like it. If I’d been near enough to him the day, God knows what I might have done. But I’ll do for him yet. I swear I will.’

  ‘Don’t say such things, man, even if you don’t mean them. The boy’s wild, he’ll grow out of it. Anyway, it isn’t your business, it’s Ben’s and Kate’s, and they’re old enough to see to their own.’

  ‘There’s wickedness in that fellow. It’s in his face. He’s all the Bannamans put together.’

  ‘Will you stop it! Listen to me: we’ve got more things to think about than Fraser’s capers. Do you know that that one, our French visitor, is egging John on to leave and set up in France?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You heard what I said.’

  ‘How did you come by this?’

  ‘I overheard them…I purposely overheard them. I made it me business to do so. I wanted to know where we stood, and now we know.’

  ‘John wouldn’t leave here. He knows where his bread’s buttered. The place will be his when we go, ’cos the others are all set well.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, man. By all accounts, she’s got enough money to buy three farms, she said so herself. And hasn’t she a fine house in Paris?’

  ‘Did he say he was going?’ Hal’s voice was quiet.

  ‘No, he said he was staying. And she agreed to stay with him. But I’m telling you this, Hal, I can’t put up with her. Don’t you see’—her voice broke—‘I can’t put up with her.’

  ‘As I see it, she’s not hard to get on with. Can’t you try? Now that you’re going to lose Maggie, you’ll be alone. She could be a daughter to you.’

  ‘I don’t want her as a daughter, Hal. As I see it, she’s the daughter of a loose woman. Roddy Greenbank’s mistress for years. And if she had him, how many others did she have? And this one could be a chip off the old block. Frenchwomen are like that. I’ve heard about them.’

  ‘Aw, lass, lass, give over. Look, if you want our John to stay, you’ve got to pay the price, and she’s the price. We’re losing Willy, and by God! I’m going to say it even if begrudgingly, we’ll not get another like him, and I for one will miss him. And another thing I’ll say when we’re on, you’ll not get another one like Maggie, for she’s worked like two or three over the years.’

  ‘Who’s fault was that? You’ve always baulked at paying for hands inside and out.’

  ‘Well, that’s how you wanted it, didn’t you? You didn’t want any other woman flitting round your house. Well, as it seems now, you haven’t any choice. And another thing you’ve got to remember if John were to go, he’d take his share with him, and that would take a big slice out of everything. My God!’ He turned about. ‘I was a fool for putting that in writing. I should have let him wait until I was gone.’ He let out a long-drawn sigh and turned from her and went out, leaving her with her mouth agape and her hands on her hips. She had the feeling she wanted to scream, just stand and scream. He couldn’t see her side of it. It didn’t bother him how she felt about the French piece, all he was concerned about was keeping John here, and also his share of the money. He wasn’t really concerned about Maggie going, only the loss of Willy. He was a selfish beast, utterly, utterly selfish. She had given her life to him, and what had she in return?

  In her mind she was back in her early days hating the boy called Hal Roystan, wanting to hit out at him with something.

  Her actions now could have been indeed those of the young girl she once was, because going to the wardrobe, she took down the dress that Yvonne had bought for her and, taking it off its hanger, threw it on the floor and kicked it here and there. Then she sat down on the foot of the bed and, gripping the rail, she shook it as if she would wrench the whole iron support of the bed apart.

  Ten

  It promised to be a perfect spring day. By eleven o’clock the sun was warm, and the stream was rising here and there from the wet fields. The burn was running swiftly over the pebble bottom, and Yvonne stood on the bank and looked down on to it. But she didn’t seem to see it as she would have done if Jean had been by her side: then, she would have pointed out again as she had done last Sunday, the colours in the water, and laughed, and shaken his arm when he said, ‘It just looks clear to me. I might see it differently if I was coming back from a fair or a celebration, but that’s about the only time.’ And they had laughed together.

  It wasn’t often they laughed together since her return, and she wondered now if this was what life would be like if she married him…when she married him. And the farmhouse would become her home. How could she put up with his mother’s attitude towards her day after day? At one time she had hoped to love her as a mother, but now she knew that was an impossibility: the woman disliked her wholeheartedly, and did not hide her feelings on any occasion. As things were now she still had Maggie, but Maggie would soon be gone with her Willy, and what then? The thought turned her from the bank and she walked along the path following the twisting of the burn until she came to the stepping stones. She had crossed them last Sunday with Jean’s help and walked through the wood beyond, but this morning the water was almost lapping over the top of the stones, and they looked slippery.

  She was standing, undecided whether to chance getting her feet wet, or to take the bridle path that ran along the top of the bank behind her, when she heard the sound of horses’ hooves in the distance, and there, within a matter of seconds, appeared Fraser and Harry on ponies.

  Fraser pulled his animal to a skidding stop above her, and sat staring down at her for a moment, and she up at him. And when he dismounted, his brother did likewise, but Fraser passed the reins of his pony to him, saying, ‘Stay there.’ Then, walking sideways, he made his way down the steep bank until he was facing her.

  ‘Out for a stroll?’ His tone was conversational, and she answered, ‘Yes, I am what you call, taking the air.’ She smiled.

  ‘All by yourself?’

  Her smile faded slightly as she repeated his words, ‘All by myself.’

  ‘My…my Uncle John is taking a chance, isn’t he?’

  Her face puckered in enquiry, but she did not ask for an explanation, she knew by his tone that his words were meant to be offensive.

  ‘Is it true what I hear, you are going to marry him?’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘Well, well, my auntie marrying my uncle, because you are my auntie, aren’t you? Funny that, you being my auntie. You look no more than a kid.’

  ‘You are being…offensive.’

  ‘What! Me being offensive by just stating a fact? You are, aren’t you, you are my mother’s half-sister? Your dad seemed to get about a bit even when he was here.’

  ‘You are purposely rude…in…solent, and you are not drunk now, but sober, and acting like a…a…’ She searched for an English word to express herself.

  ‘Like a what? Go on, tell me what I’m acting like…Auntie.’

  She drew herself up and went to
turn round and retrace her steps, but he was standing in her way, and to get to the path behind him she would have to climb a little way up the slippery bank, and rather than risk this and fall, she made her way now towards the stepping stones, and she had her foot extended towards the first one when he grabbed her hand, saying, ‘Let me help you across.’

  ‘Please leave my hand go.’

  He mimicked her, saying, ‘Please leave my hand go. And let you fall in, Auntie? Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. Come on.’

  He was standing on the first stone himself now, and as he went to tug her forward, Harry’s voice came from the top of the bank, shouting, ‘Frag! Frag, behave. Leave her be, Frag.’

  And now he called back to his brother, ‘I’m just going to help Auntie across the stones, can’t you see?’

  Yvonne was now pulling back and, using more strength than he gave her credit for, she tugged him from the stone. But now he was holding her by both arms and looking down into her face, saying, ‘What you frightened of, that I’ll duck you?’ Suddenly his teasing tone changed, and there was a deep threat in his voice as he growled, ‘And I have a mind, you know, to do just that. Get you in the middle and duck you, cool your capers, because you’re a disturber. You know that? You’re a disturber. Anybody who looks at you can see you’re a disturber. You’ve upset my mother, and my grandmother. But not the men, oh no, not the men.’

  ‘Leave go, please. Please.’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  She turned her head and looked up the bank shouting now, ‘Harry! Harry! Go fetch Jean. Please! Please! Fetch…’