All the dear faces

by Audrey Howard

  “Oh, Charlie, what would I do without you?"

  “There is no need to wonder, sweetheart, for I have no intention of going anywhere."

  “Charlie, I lo . . ."

  “No . . . no, don't say it. Not now. Not until you mean it in the way I want you to mean it. But . . . Annie .. . don't take away my hope. You know you and I could live a good life together. To be friends, to trust one another as you and I do is a fine start. The best. The rest will come, my darling. I won't rush you, though being a man of normal needs I want nothing more than to pick you up and take you to bed . . ."

  “That would be . . ."

  “Please . . . don't say it, whatever it is. I cannot find it in me, tempting as it is, to take advantage of your .. . vulnerability." He laughed softly. "If anyone had told me, years ago, when I was a hot-blooded youth, that I would say such a thing to a woman 1 would have thought them mad.”

  She had quietened now, lying calmly in his arms, her head on his shoulder, and he spoke into her tumbled hair. His lips touched her brow, moving softly to the smooth white flesh, pleasant but undemanding.

  “But I was not in love then, Annie, and, being a male, a willing female, no matter her weakened state nor what had caused it, was fair game. I am a different man now. You have made me so. Now then . . ." he became brisk, "it's time we were in our beds . . . yes, I can even say that, Annie Abbott, though I warn you that I mean to get you into mine one day.”

  They were both smiling as he put the 'curfew' on the fire. She turned on the bottom stair to watch him as he opened the door to let out the dogs for the last time and unbidden, Reed Macauley's words, so like Charlie's in their content, came back to her.

  “I won't give up, Annie," he had said. As Charlie had just said and though she continued to smile her heart was heavy and painful, torn as it was between two men's love.

  Chapter31

  Annie was high on the fell. It was October and time for `raking' in the gimmer ewes for breeding, and swirling before her in a constantly shifting pattern were her flock. As Blackie moved away from them, coming to crouch beside her, they formed into a long grey ribbon, one behind the other, moving purposefully down towards the intakes. They went at a steady pace with no need of a push and Blackie watched them, looking out for any rebel which might be diverted by a sweeter patch of heather. The lambs were as big as their dams now, fine and sturdy. They were weaned, completely self-sufficient, and when Annie had selected those she was to keep for breeding purposes, the rest would go to the lamb fair. The Keswick Tup Fair would take place next week on the first Saturday in October and it was there she would sell her surplus stock and hire a ram for the season.

  It was the real start of the sheep farmer's year. The libido of the tups, which included the one she meant to hire next week, was at this time in the calendar mysteriously ready to be linked to any ewe which they could heave themselves on to, and every ewe must have her chance. If she was not mated she could not carry a lamb through the winter months and there would be no profit in that for Annie Abbott.

  Far below, almost out of sight, Charlie, with Bonnie a minute speck of darker colour beside him, was herding part of her flock into the walled inland pastures where they would fatten up for a week in readiness for the backend fair and, away to her left beyond Broad End and completely hidden from her, Natty was raking another dozen or so who had wandered that way. They were still on their own 'hear but in that mindless way a sheep has, a few had gone one way and a few the other. He had his dog with him, ready to take them down with the rest, and occasionally Annie could hear the faint but piercing whistle which Natty used to give it orders.

  “Steady, Blackie," she murmured as the dog, one foot raised, looked up at her questioningly, waiting for her command to take the sheep down. He knew as well as she did where they were going and how to get them there and even, she often thought, why they were going. Almost four years now since Reed had left him and Bonnie tied to her door and in that time they had proved to be friend and protector and as good as any sheepdog she had ever known. A sheep will soon learn to outwit man but will seldom challenge the prowess of a well trained dog, and all the dogs asked in return for their labour and faithfulness was a good meal once a day, a decent bed and a little kindness.

  “Off you go then," she told him and he went, streaking down the stripped grass, following at a distance the line of sheep, taking them towards Charlie down almost at the level of the lake and the safety of the pastureland.

  Annie stood, one foot resting on the grey, moss-studded rock, her knee bent, her arms folded across it as she looked out over the loveliness of the autumn lake and its surroundings. It was late afternoon. The great sheet of water was stretched at the feet of the majestic giant, the affable and friendly Skiddaw. Dark cloud shadows crawled across the water and the quiet woods dozed about it in the last bit of sunshine. The trees cast long-fingered shade and higher up the fell the land was a riot of colour, the dying bracken fronds and red-berried rowan trees, the whiteness of the bents and the faded green of the grasses. The deciduous trees each carried an umbrella of multicoloured leaves, robins sang, and the air was so clear Annie could hear the clatter of blackbirds in the hedgerows which lay along the lake road. The mountains all about her were going to sleep as night approached, giants crowding the sky from lilac to deepest purple before they began to fade into evening blue.

  The scream of a hawk brought her from her deep reverie, echoing across the fell and bringing to absolute stillness the multitude of small creatures who lived there. She turned, lifting her hand to shade her eyes, searching the deep and darkening bowl of the heavens for the hawk's presence, and as she did so her heart gave a great and sickening leap in her breast. Standing at her back and leaning on an enormous rock as tall as himself was Bert Garnett. He had his arms crossed on his chest in a pose of casual indifference. He even smoked a pipe, looking for all the world like some weatherbeaten shepherd who stops for a smoke as he watches his flock. He was looking at her and when her gaze met his, he nodded pleasantly, then with great deliberation took the pipe from his mouth and placed it carefully on a small rock beside him before walking across the grass towards her.

  She took a step backwards and almost fell as her heel caught the rock on which she had recently rested.

  “Watch tha' step, Annie," he said pleasantly. "We wouldn't want thi' ter fall an' hurt thissen, would we?”

  She became perfectly still, like the creatures in the undergrowth had as the hawk passed over, but her voice when she spoke was calm, cold and expressionless.

  “What do you want?" she asked him, her anger icy inside her, and her pain, for in some way, though her logical mind knew it was not so, Cat's death seemed to be linked in a grotesque way to this man. She supposed it was because he had threatened Cat and now Cat was dead. Was it her turn now? Was it her turn to be abused as he had abused Phoebe? Or was it just coincidence that he should be up here when she was alone? She didn't think so.

  Her alarm, which had been brought on by the sudden shock of finding him at her back and which had ebbed away when she saw who it was, began to surge again, for the expression on his face was not agreeable. Smiling, oh, yes, but overlying the smile was a patina of venom which boded ill for the one at whom it was directed. Herself. Clearly in her mind's eye she could see Phoebe's face, that battered, split, scraped mass of raw flesh in which Phoebe's eyes had been embedded, pale and unseeing in her pain and shame. Phoebe had done her best to stand up to this man but she had been no more than a thread of a girl, tossed to one side by his cruel hands. She had protested and, Annie supposed, threatened him with the law but he had merely turned Phoebe's threat on her, frightening her into silence with the weapon of intimidation, of damage to the child Phoebe had loved. To Cat.

  To Cat. Her darling Cat who was gone now and who could no longer be hurt. Not by Bert Garnett. Not by anyone. Annie had meant to punish him, not only for beating Phoebe but for using Cat to blackmail her into silence, to lash him wi
th her father's whip but Charlie had prevented it, taking her in his arms and guiding her from the kitchen at Upfell, her mind dazed and stricken with her hating grief.

  The scene played itself out again. Sally with the baby at her breast. The children seething in terrified confusion in the corner, blood, a stripe of it across Bert's face, Sally's screams, the children crying. They had come away, she and Charlie, and her mind had shut itself down, enclosing in a small portion of itself the words which had spewed from Bert's mouth and the vicious loathing in his eyes. That part of it had been buried, forgotten, and if she had been questioned on it she would have been forced to admit that she had no recollection of it.

  But now, as Bert smiled, revealing the broken state of his teeth, it was as though a curtain had been lifted, a window opened to allow her to see the picture of his face as it had been then. To hear the sound of his voice as it had been then, and the words he had spoken. Wild, violent enmity, a deadly virulence which had pledged retribution, a hatred so thick and threatening it promised to search her out to the ends of the earth and beyond. He would make her pay for this, he had screamed, she remembered it now, and for all the insults she had slung at him, at his pride, at his manhood. Her haughty contempt for Bert Garnett would not be forgotten, his foul tongue had toldher, though she had not listened then. She had not seen him since.

  “Ah said me time'd come, didn't ah, lass?" His smile deepened, becoming even more genial but at the back of his eyes some nasty thing stirred, telling her quite plainly that he was neither amused, nor genial.

  “I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, Bert Garnett, and I'd be obliged if you'd get out of my way," for somehow, in a cunning manoeuvre he had cornered her in the angle between the two tall rocks.

  “Ah haven't the faintest idea what tha's talkin' about, Bert Garnett," he mimicked, then, making her jump violently, he put out his hands and grabbed at her. At the last moment, as she cowered away, he drew back, playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse, laughing.

  “Get out of my way, Bert. If you lay one hand on me I swear I'll scream so loud I'll bring every man on the fell running up here."

  “Ah mean ter lay more'n a hand on thi', Annie Abbott. 'Tis time ah 'ad my share of what tha' pass out willy-nilly. Tha' seems ter be willin' ter open tha' legs fer any man what 'as a fancy fer it but when it comes ter poor old Bert what's done more fer thi' than most round 'ere, well 'tis `Ta-ra, Bert, see thi' termorrer,' an't bloody door shut in me face. Ah were the only one what spoke kindly ter thi' when tha' first come. Fetchin' yer ter market, tekkin' tha' swills an' besoms in me cart but was ah thanked fer it? No, not poor old Bert Garnett. All I got were a slash across t' face wi' tha' faither's 'orse-whip.”

  Bert's smile twisted suddenly, allowing to the surface the malice which had festered in him, smoulderingly at first, when he had been thwarted in his desire for Annie Abbott's favours, then in an eruption of hatred which had been dangerous, when she had snapped the whip about his face and body. He had seen her come and go, up the sheep trods to examine her lambs and ewes, riding her pony sometimes, working the fields about her farmhouse, striding out along the lake road or over the top of Skiddaw to the market in Keswick but always one of her household had been with her. She had finally discarded the black dress of mourning and wore instead a new outfit she and Phoebe had made between them. A well-fitting pair of breeches of the hodden-grey wool so popular in the district, which tapered to her ankle, flaring slightly above the knees in the fashion of riding breeches. A full-sleeved man's white cambric shirt over which she wore a sleeveless woollen waistcoat. Her jacket was loose and easy, comfortable for the many jobs she did about the farm and on her feet, a sure sign of the small prosperity she was enjoying, were a pair of stout walking boots. Her hair was braided and at its end was an enormous bunch of bright green ribbons, her only concession to her own femininity.

  “Ah've waited fer thi', Annie. Day an' bloody night ah've waited fer thi' an' now 'tis my turn."

  “Don't be ridiculous, man. You must be insane to imagine I would have anything to do with you."

  “Yer were glad enough ter 'ave summat ter do wi'm me when ah took thi' ter market . . ."

  “I was . . . yes ... I was grateful but . . ."

  “Well then, 'ow about tha' showin' me 'ow grateful? Let's settle oursen down on this bit o' grass . . ."

  “Don't be ridiculous," she said again. "Even if we had remained . . . friends, and it is doubtful we were ever that, after what you did to Phoebe you should have been put in gaol. You damn nearly killed her . . ."

  “Nay, a bit of a slap were all she got an' so will you if yer don't shurrup. Let's give over this bletherin' an' get down ter some . . ."

  “Oh, get out of my way." Her voice was filled with her contempt. She could feel the violence of her own rage begin to course through her own veins, the small flare of unease his words and manner had lit in her quenched by the memory of Phoebe and the pitiful state this man had reduced her to.

  “Go on, get away from me. You make me feel sick, you little weasel. Can you not pick on someone your own size to bully? Poor Sally gets a regular beating from you and how she stands you in her bed is a wonder to me. Andnot satisfied with knocking your wife about you had to take your fists to Phoebe. Now it seems it's to be my turn, you little rat.”

  Taking him by surprise with the suddenness of her movement, she shoved him hard, and he was so unprepared he retreated before her, going backwards down the trod where sheep had worn the grass down to the hard earth. He put up an arm to defend himself, mesmerised in that moment by her towering rage, by her wild and passionate beauty, as he had always been mesmerised by it. She pushed him again, spitting abuse, words she had heard in the yards of the inns in which she had worked, listening to herself in amazement, beginning to wonder if she was going mad, her heart banging and enormous in the small cavity of her chest. Like a drum it was, her pulse racing as common sense was driven from her by her hating rage.

  “You touch me and I'll kill you, Bert Garnett," she shrieked. She felt ten feet tall, twice as big as he was. He slipped and sat down heavily and it was then that she should have taken her opportunity and raced off down the slope but he was up again in a second, still moving backwards away from her flailing fists and the knee she was doing her best to drive into his groin.

  But he was beginning to regain his equilibrium now, dodging her blows, reaching out his own hands and when he saw his chance, grabbing her by one wrist. She tried to wrench it free, her eyes a pale savage amber in her livid face, her other fist striking him high on the side of his head but to no avail.

  “Let . . . me . . . go . . . you bastard," she panted. "You put one hand on me and I'll scream . . ."

  “Aye, so tha' said, Annie. Well, scream away 'cos there's no one ter hear thi' except bloody sheep an' rabbits. That sod Natty Varty's down Browhead by now an' tha' fancy man's on th'inlands. Theer's only thee an' me, lass, an' that's 'ow it should be so why don't tha' settle thissen down an' stop fightin'. We could 'ave a right good time. There's plenty ter go round, ah'd say. Him what lives wi' thi', an' Mr Reed Macauley, so ah 'eard, an' even owd Natty, I shouldn't wonder. Ah bet 'e's not bin missed out so 'ow about a kiss first afore we . . ."

  “Let . . . go . . . of . . . my . . . arm ... " She hissed the words through teeth which were clenched tight in revulsion but Bert had both her wrists in his hands now and though she kicked out at him with her newly booted feet the lunge she made was her undoing. She lost her balance, falling heavily on to her back and at once he was on top of her. He was big and strong and dangerous in his lust and hatred for Annie Abbott. What he wanted was here, squirming delightfully under his man's body, her every movement arousing his already aroused body to further menace. He bunched his muscular shoulders, forcing her hands high above her head, holding them both in one large fist whilst the other reached greedily for the neck of her fine cambric shirt. He knelt over her so that his knees were on either side of her writhing b
ody and though she continued to kick her legs only threshed the air behind his back and her heels drummed ineffectually on the hard ground.

  Oh God! . . . oh, dear God! . . . it was happening, just like Reed had always said it would. Even on the very first day they had met he had warned her of tinkers, travelling men who would toss her on her back, fling her skirts over her head and take what they wanted as casually as a dog mounts a bitch. But he had not thought to warn her against Bert Garnett.

  His hand pulled at the fabric of her shirt. He had no time for buttons, tearing savagely at her, his filthy nails raking her skin, drawing four lines of blood from her throat to her breasts, the beast surging in him as for a moment his mouth found hers. She turned her head away in horror and his lips moved like two wet slugs across her cheek. But whilst he kissed her he could not see what his savage hand had uncovered so he leaned back for a clearer look, putting his weight squarely across her heaving thighs.

  He began to grunt rhythmically, his body pounding at hers though as yet their flesh was not joined, nor eventouched. His pleasure filled him and he erupted swiftly and brutally at the centre of his own body as he climaxed. At once he fell forward, his panting breath hoarse and animal-like against Annie's averted cheek and for several moments he lay, winded, replete, but by no means finished with her. Not by a long chalk. He was temporarily satisfied but he meant to do it again and again, and inside her. Inside her wherever he could stick it and when it was over she could crawl back down the track and blab all she wanted to that sod she lived with because Bert Garnett would be at home by then, safe in the bosom of his family where a family man would naturally be. Her word against his, that was what it would be and who would believe a woman with her reputation against a man, a respectably married man such as himself ?