All the dear faces

by Audrey Howard

  “You know why I'm here." Edmund had found it difficult to control himself whilst his daughter moved slowly up the stairs, whilst his son-in-law nodded courteously and the butler and parlourmaid set out the decanter and glasses, the delicious sandwiches which had so quickly appeared, and the servants had barely left the room before he began. He held the brandy glass in a trembling hand and he looked ready to throw it at Reed rather than drink what it contained.

  “I can guess." Reed did not turn round. His voice was indifferent.

  “Is that ail you have to say then?"

  “What do you want me to say?"

  “You have the bloody gall to . . . to carry on a filthy affair with some trollop of the district . . ."

  “Be careful what you say, Hamilton-Brown." Hamilton-Brown took no notice.

  “. . . carrying whatever diseases she might herself have to my daughter for I don't reckon you'll have stopped paying her the attention a man pays his wife. But as if that wasn't disgusting enough, you flaunt it about the bloody district as though it concerned no one . . ."

  “It doesn't."

  “Is that so? Well, you're wrong, you bastard. It concerns my girl and what concerns her concerns me. I'll not have it, d'you hear. I'll not have her name dragged all over Cumberland and probably Yorkshire too, since news travels fast, and I'll not have her made unhappy. I've never cared to see her weep and she's weeping now and that's your fault. It's got to stop. She's your wife and I'll have her treated with some respect . . ."

  “Oh, for God's sake, man, who do you think I am? Some sixteen-year-old boy who has been trifling with the under parlourmaid . . ."

  “You'd get a thrashing from me if you were. That's what you need, a thrashing . . ."

  “And you will give it to me?" Reed's voice was weary as he turned towards his father-in-law.

  “No, not me, Macauley, but I know several men who would be only too glad to oblige."

  “A threat, then." He smiled and Edmund Hamilton-Brown felt the hot blood of rage move in his veins.

  “Aye, a threat. If I get another of these letters from my girl about how unhappy you're making her, or soaked with her tears as the last one was, I swear I'll make you so unhappy yourself you'll be glad to stay close to your home and your wife where you belong. Not only glad but unable to do anything else. Do I make myself clear?"

  “Do you mean to say you think you can make me .. . do as you say by telling me one of your bully boys will give me a thrashing if I don't?" Reed's voice was incredulous.

  “It would be more than a thrashing, lad, but you'd still be able to perform your . . . marital duties . . .""You stupid old man."

  “Not really. I'm a wealthy man and so are you so there is little I can do to you in that direction. I realise my limitations as far as bringing you to heel where business is concerned. Besides, I want my girl to continue to live in her husband's house in the comfort she has been used to but there are other ways to make you . . . see the light, shall we say."

  “Say it by all means, you interfering swine, but if you think that the threat of receiving a beating at the hands of some thug –"

  “Not even if the one to be beaten was not yourself but someone you . . . might care for?”

  The air in the room seemed to hang, lifeless, still, unmoving and for a moment Reed Macauley was the same, his face quite blank, his eyes staring at Edmund Hamilton-Brown with complete incomprehension, then, as realisation came, his mouth opened wide in a lethal roar of rage and his eyes narrowed to menacing gleaming slits.

  “By God, you bastard. I'll kill you, d'you hear me, I'll kill you with my own bare hands if one hair of her head is harmed. D'you think I give a damn about your precious 'girl'?" His mouth twisted contemptuously and Edmund Hamilton-Brown felt his own hatred twist in his guts at the sound of it. "She's worth a hundred of your daughter, a thousand, and if she'd let me I'd bring her here and send 'my wife' back to her Papa. Oh, yes, you'd better believe it. If she'd have me I'd go and live with her at her farm and leave your precious Esmé, and all this, but she won't. She's the bravest, most honourable woman I know and I love her more than my own life. She loves me too, you bastard, though I don't suppose you know anything about that since all you seem to have experienced is the rather sickening emotion you feel for that poor child upstairs. Yes, child! She cannot even conceive like a woman. Dear God . . . Oh sweet Jesus . . . how dare you come here with your sanctimonious mouthings . . . like them all .. . they do the same, while she ... she suffers . . . grieves.

  There's not one man or woman who is worth . . . Oh God, what's the use. Get out of my house, and if you want to, take your daughter with you because she's no use to me and, perhaps more importantly, I'm no use to her. I love elsewhere, you see, and I always will.”

  Chapter29

  “It were Bert Garnett what thrashed me.”

  They were sitting, one on either side of the inglenook, Annie straightbacked and blank-faced on the settle, Phoebe in the rocker which Natty had repaired. Natty crouched by the window. He was making a new crook, carving the head of it into some design which he favoured, and his craggy face was twisted into an expression of great concentration. At his feet lay the three dogs, their muzzles on their paws, their ears pricked for the slightest sound, their bright eyes moving from one human face to another. Blackie got up for the second time in ten minutes and went to sniff at the bottom of the door which led outside and Natty stopped to watch him. The dog would just not settle, not since the bairn had gone, restless and constantly searching for her. Bonnie watched him, his eyes so doleful they seemed to say he missed her too, and the cat jumped up on Phoebe's knee, settling passively under her comforting hand. The feeling of unutterable sadness was thick in the room and it was perhaps this, this air of finality, of ending, of hopelessness which had prevailed for the past six weeks that made Phoebe break the vow she had given to Bert Garnett on the night he had beaten her and violated their home. Besides, it made no difference now, did it? His threat to kill her lambkin if she told anyone was no longer a threat, was it? What could he do to harm any of them here in this dreary room? and it might just bring Annie from the long and black apathy in which she crouched day after day, night after night, week after week. It would destroy her soon if she did not break free of it. They had their lives to lead, that was self-evident, but it seemed that Annie had been reduced to the level where she endured hers without living it. She had drawn away from the realities of sowing and planting, of lambing time which was upon them, and had it not been for the help Mr Macauley sent down, Natty would have been hard pressed to manage. Phoebe would have gone out with him, into the fields and up on the intake lands, but she was afraid to leave Annie alone for long. She worked in the dairy and about the farmyard with the hens and the pig. She moved up to the meadow with her churn and milking stool to see to 'Clover'. Again Mr Macauley helped out, ensuring that the butter and cheese and eggs went to market, with that girl he sent down, and the few shillings they earned were put in her hand by the same girl who walked across the fell with it.

  Sally Garnett came regularly, her Aggie at her enormous breast, the rest of her brood trailing behind her in a long quarrelsome line, braving Bert's displeasure and sporting the evidence of it about her sad, good-natured face. She had been pregnant again but had miscarried –thankfully, she said to Phoebe who knew nothing of such things, her tired body unable, for the sixth time in as many years, to carry its burden. She drank Annie's tea, constantly flying out to the yard to prevent Sammy from chasing the hens, the pig, the offended Dandy, his brothers and sisters, separating Jamie and Emma who, having their father's belligerent, crafty nature, fought with one another unmercifully. She addressed kind, embarrassed words to Annie who nodded politely then, without a word, would walk out of the room and through the yard and the noisy children, going up and over the slope of the hill in the direction of the burned heather where her child had died.

  “Ah'll 'ave to go after 'er, Sally," Phoebe had said, suddenly frant
ic, leaving the open-mouthed Sally to fend for herself.

  The dogs were up on the fells with Natty, checking on the ewes whose lambs would be dropping any day. When Phoebe caught up with Annie she was standing, tall, thin, gaunt in her black dress in which, for the first time, the folk about the parish of Bassenthwaite approved of her,her eyes with that awful inward-looking expression which frightened Phoebe. She herself was deep in sorrow, badly damaged by her grieving for the child she had loved, but she was appalled by the suffering of that child's mother. Annie's despair was savage at times. She turned on them, on Natty and Phoebe, when they spoke of some ordinary thing about the farm, her eyes hollow, living, breathing, but dead inside. Though it was spring now and the snows had gone, the year had plunged into a cold, wet drizzle of rain which swept across the fells and lingered in the dales whilst all the living creatures huddled beneath tree and wall and hedge to escape its misery. It was as though the world about her mourned with Annie, keeping out of sight, birds and sheep, rabbits and all the small, wild creatures which normally squeaked and rustled in the undergrowth as she passed by.

  She took to walking the fells wearing the long hooded cloak which had been her mother's, going up behind the farmhouse, turning on Phoebe with a tinge of madness in her hot-glowing eyes, sending her back, glaring, teeth bared, saying she would be alone and if Phoebe followed she would hurt her badly. She walked and climbed long, solitary miles, without, it seemed, the least purpose, or even direction, exhausting herself, punishing herself for surely Cat's horrible death must be the fault of wicked Annie Abbott? She was never alone, though she did not see Reed Macauley as he protected her, warned by a message from Phoebe, through Natty, and when she came home, her cloak so heavy with rain water she could barely stand, she would let Phoebe put her to bed where she slept like one dead.

  She turned her head now to look at Phoebe and for the first time since Cat's death there was a light of reality, of sense and understanding in her eyes. Natty held his breath. They'd known, of course they had, but now it seemed Phoebe was to confirm it. He waited to see what Annie would do.

  “What?"

  “He made me promise ah'd not tell."

  “I don't . . . understand.”

  It was the first interest she had shown in anything for six weeks.

  “'e said e'd . . . 'urt Cat if ah was to say owt." "Hurt. . .

  “Aye, but now . . . well . . .”

  There was a deep and terrible silence, so deep and terrible the dogs at once began to turn restlessly, sensing something they did not like, and Blackie whimpered. Natty stood up and very carefully leaned the half-finished crook against the table. It was dark beyond the window and the wind flung a handful of rain against it and blew a drift of smoke down the blackened chimney. The fire danced a merry jig, bright, cheerful and uncaring of the human conflict which was contained within the walls it warmed, and over it, hanging from the randle crook which was attached to the fire crane, the iron kail-pot bubbled with its burden of stew which was to be their dinner. On the square iron bakstone a row of oatcakes, baked earlier by Phoebe, were being kept warm. She would spread them with butter and some of the blackberry-and-apple jam she had made last backend, hoping to tempt Annie's laggard appetite.

  “You are telling me that it really was Bert Garnett who . . . beat you? That he threatened my child . . . that you kept quiet . . . ?"

  “I were afraid, lass, of what he would do to Cat." "You need not have bothered, it seems."

  “Annie . . . don't."

  “She is dead anyway."

  “Aye."

  “And he goes scot free?"

  “It weren't him what . . . killed 'er."

  “I know that, Phoebe, but by God, he shall be punished just the same. If I'd a gun I'd shoot him but I haven't so . . so . . ." She stood up slowly. Her face was thoughtful and she plucked at her lip. Her eyes were alive and burning in her white face and in them was her hatred, not only of life and the fate which had stolen the only thing of value she had, her child, but of Bert Garnett who had threatenedher. He would pay for what he had done to Phoebe and for the damage to their home. She felt alive, powerful, rejoicing in the hot blood which ran through her veins where, for the past six weeks sluggish ice water had flowed. She had a purpose, a reason to breathe and she gloried in it.

  Wrenching open the kitchen door before Phoebe and Natty could collect their thoughts, let alone arrange them into stopping her, she ran out into the dark. The rain flew in, patterning the stone floor and the dogs milled about apprehensively. She was across the yard before Natty and Phoebe were across the threshwood and when she came out of the cow shed she carried the horsewhip her father had used to flick in the air over the back of the horse he had once owned to pull his plough.

  The wind blew more fiercely, lashing the tree at the side of the farmhouse, and the air began to shriek with its strength. Annie was wet through in a minute and in the yard she stood, teeth bared, madness in her, fighting at her pain with anything she had to hand. At last, at last she had something to do, something which would shut out that whispering voice inside her head which asked her over and over again where Cat was and how had Annie Abbott lost her? The future was too awful to contemplate now. There was no hope, no relief, no comfort, not even from Reed whose silent presence she had been aware of on the periphery of her demented mind all the while they .. . tended to Cat. But she wanted none of him, nor his love. She wanted the lashing rain and wind to drench her soul and her crippled spirit and at the end of it she wanted to wrap her father's whip about the body of Bert Garnett, to slice into his flesh, as her pain sliced into hers. For what he had done to Phoebe. For what he had threatened to do to Cat.

  “Oh, Jesus . . . oh, sweet Jesus . . ." Phoebe babbled. "What have I done? Stop her, Natty . . . stop her . . ." but Annie would not be stopped by such an insignificant little man as Natty Varty. Strong as he was, she was stronger in her insane rage. Contemptuously she threw him aside, and Phoebe too, striding off along the track which led to Upfell. It was dark and the rain made the path slippery but she went on, the whip trailing behind her, and behind it stumbled Natty whilst in the yard Phoebe wept, sinking to her knees defeated, to the muddy cobbles. Even the gentle hand which lifted her did not startle her, nor did she seem surprised to see him there, for had he not always been there when he was most needed?

  “Which way?" he asked.

  “Upfell. She's going to kill Bert Garnett, I know she is.”

  She was in the Upfell kitchen when he got there. Natty was at her back doing his best to stop her but the old man stepped aside unhesitatingly to let the newcomer reach her. Bert Garnett had a stripe of running blood across his face where the whip had caught him and in front of him, where he had pulled her, was his terrified wife, her bodice open, the baby pressed against her huge, pendulous breast.

  “Get out of my way, Sally," Annie was saying, for even in her demented state something stopped her from aiming the devastating lash at the woman and child.

  “Annie . . . for God's sake . . . stop it . . ."

  “Get out of my house, tha' bitch . . . Ah'll have thi' in gaol for this . . . see what tha's done to me face. Tha're mad, they said tha' was off tha' head an ... "

  “Annie . . . please, Annie, the bairns . . ." for in the corner of the squalid kitchen the four children huddled and wept.

  The man put his hands on Annie's shoulders, strong, soothing, gentle, and his voice settled over her, as familiar as the sound of the beck above the farm, warm with his love. She knew at once who he was and the whip which was flicking like a snake about the floor, looking for an opening with which to get at Bert Garnett, dropped slowly, limply.

  She turned then and looked into his face.

  “Charlie . . . oh, Charlie is it really you?" She was dazed and beginning to tremble.

  “Aye, I've come to bring you home, darling. You've been a long time gone and they miss you.”

  His arms were there to hold her as she fell into them. Neither
saw the expression on Bert Garnett's face as they left, nor heard the low, vicious words he spoke, only his wife, and she didn't count.

  *

  "I read of it in the Carlisle Patriot, the day before yesterday. I came at once. It was an old newspaper, one the landlady where I lodge was going to use for kindling for my fire. I might have missed it . . ." He bent his head, his chin on his chest, as he remembered the wild shock and grief as the name Abbott had sprung out at him. He had read the account of Cat's death with disbelief, not willing to trust the newspaper, for how could the bright and lovely child of Annie Abbott be dead, but he said nothing of this to the woman who leaned in his arms on the settle. She had wept wild, passionate, relieving tears she had not been able to shed before, and he had wept with her. They held on to one another, sharing, drowning, together in their sorrow for the child who had been Catriona Abbott. Annie was like a wildly shaking vine, clinging to the support of a strong and steadfast tree. One which would never allow her to fall but would be there always with its roots sturdily buried in the solid earth. Charlie Lucas who smiled and teased his way through life like a whimsical summer breeze, like a drifting summer cloud, held her strongly, sustained her tenderly and would continue to do so for as long as she needed him. She talked to him as she had talked to no one, not even Phoebe, of that day. Of her guilt and conviction that she was to blame. She should have listened to Natty, made the line of fire shorter, more controllable. Hired more men to help them but in her obsession with money, with the need to save it, to put it back into the farm, to he successful, to show them that the woman from Browhead could be as good a farmer as any in the dales, she had sacrificed her child. Her own pride had caused Cat's death .. .