He sat back on his haunches and with great deliberation and with one hand, undid his trousers, bringing out his limp penis. Already it was becoming engorged again and he smiled as he stroked it for a moment before transferring his attention to her bared breasts. He took them one at a time into his hand. They were full and pink-nippled and he wished he had a third hand since he was forced to hold hers above her head which left him with only one to fondle her. Trouble was he couldn't get to that tantalising goal between her legs for the silly cow had on those daft bloody trousers. If she'd worn a skirt it would have been an easy enough job to shove it over her head. Keep her quiet an' all. 'Course, he could clip her round t' mouth, that'd do it . . .
She fought him like a tigress, doing her best to get her knee up to where it would hurt him the most, but it was his knee which was between her legs now, forcing them apart. His face loomed over hers then his mouth was at her breast . . . biting . . . Dear God . . . she was weakening . . . she could feel the waves of nausea as he relentlessly moved his mouth down her body to where the fastening at the waist of her breeches lay.
A knife of terror stabbed her again and again since he had only to cuff her across the head, stun her and in her senseless state strip her of her clothing and she would be completely defenceless. It was only her breeches and the awkwardness of getting them off that was stopping him from brutally raping her. She had only one chance. Throwing back her head so that her throat arched agonisingly, she began to scream.
Bert Garnett was displeased. He looked up, his mouth, on which there was Annie Abbott's blood, snarling like that of a crazed beast. Her voice echoed from crag to grey crag, sounding exactly like the cry of the hawk as it dives for the kill and down on the inlands Natty Varty's dog raised its head. Charlie was further down the pasture with Blackie and Bonnie. They were holding the flock for him as he opened the gate and beside them the noise of Chapel Beck as it roared over the stones in its bed, distorted the sound.
Natty Varty's dog rose to its feet and looked questioningly at its master.
“T'were only that 'awk, dog. Lie down.”
But the dog turned, looking up the fell this time. Natty watched him, puzzled, for the dog was a part of himself, an extension of his own mind and body having no thought nor sense in its head but what was put there by Natty. It gave a short 'yip' and Natty's puzzlement turned to amazement. The dog never barked, never, and certainly his behaviour was strange. An old dog, was the dog who had no name and certainly no concerns but its devotion to Natty, its liking for the fire now that they lived this soft life with Annie Abbott, and a bit of good grub. Not flighty as Annie's young dogs could be and definitely not given to fanciful shenanigans as it was doing now.
“What's up?" he asked it, moving towards the gate which led from the inlands to the yard, but before he could open it to let the elderly animal through, it leaped, leaped the wall and began to run, a streak of blurred black and white, up the field at the back of the farm, again jumping the wall and on to the open fell. It disappeared then into the browning bracken and no matter how Natty whistled, the sound piercing and shrill and clearly discernible to his old dog, it had gone as completely as It the ground had opened up and swallowed it.
“Well, I'll be buggered," Natty said, scratching his head and staring up into the heights of Ullock Pike.
“What is it, Natty?" Charlie asked from behind him and then, as though they too had lost their wits, Blackie and Bonnie lifted their fine heads, sniffed the air and without a sound, their ears flat, their bodies the same, their bellies almost touching the ground, they followed Natty's dog up the field.
“Nay . . . 'appen theer's a lamb . . . ?"
“A lamb . . . ?"
“We could've missed it. 'Appen it's trapped."
“Annie wouldn't have sent Blackie down without checking."
“Annie . . .”
They looked at one another and then without a word both men surged forward, even the old man going like the wind, springing over the wall as nimbly as his dog, following Charlie who was fifty or more years younger than he was and so could be expected to get going faster than himself.
The dog, Natty's dog, raised its voice as Charlie reached The Watches, the spill of stones which was the beginning of the Edge. It sounded frantic and though already his lungs were on fire as his breath laboured in them, Charlie forced out a hoarse cry.
“Where are you, Annie . . . for God's sake .. . where . . . ?”
The dog continued to howl high up on the fell where the heather began and in a moment the sound was taken up by two more canine voices.
“Oh, Jesus . . . oh, Jesus . . . oh, Jesus . . ." Charlie kept repeating though every breath he took and every word he spoke was agony to him. His long legs crashed through the bracken, leaping every obstacle in his path, and his coat flew out behind him like bats' wings. Sweat poured from him coming from every pore in his body, bathing him in the cold slick of fear.
“Annie ... " His voice rose to a scream as high and agonised as hers had been, the one he thought to be that of the hawk – yes, he remembered it now – and the noise the dogs made grew louder and louder though he thought he could detect a lessening in their frenzy. Jesus . . . oh sweet Jesus . . . let her be safe . . . unharmed . . . and a hundred yards behind him, his back to the breathtaking beauty of the lake and the patchwork quilt of fertile grassland which ran beside it, Natty felt the pain claw at him in the centre of his chest, exploding and extending in its fury down his left arm. It hooked him into an arch, throwing back his head, then just as violently doubling him over forwards but still he kept going.
The dogs stopped howling and the sudden silence seemed to Charlie to be as menacing as the noise. "Annie . . .”
She was sitting, her back to the grey-pitted stone, her knees drawn up to her chest, her head bowed over her folded arms. About her, huddling close in protective formation were the three dogs. Voiceless they were now, quivering with some fierce emotion, some dangerous, barely controlled menace and for a second, as Charlie came over the rise before they recognised him, all three were up again ready to tear him to pieces.
“Annie . . . God in Heaven . . . Annie . . ." He could barely speak and his chest rose and fell in agony.
She did not look at him, keeping her face buried in her arms but as he flung himself down beside her she put out a trembling hand to him. He took it between his own, his head bent in an effort to look into her face but she seemed calm, unharmed, her hair dishevelled certainly, the heavy plait unravelled but then that was not out of character for Annie. Then why had the dogs set up such a caterwauling? They had known that something was wrong, Natty's dog at first, and then Blackie and Bonnie, their fine instincts in tune with that sixth sense which knows of disaster before man.
“Annie? Darling, what is it? Look at me. What happened? The dogs took off . . .”
She began to shake then, no more than a slight trembling in her neck and shoulders which moved her head on her folded arms, but it spread slowly and steadily down to her hands which, one held by Charlie, the other clasped about her knees, quivered and jerked dementedly. It grew worse, more violent, racing through her body and into her bent legs. Her teeth chattered and she began to moan in her throat, deep, appalling, agonised.
“Annie . . . Dear Christ . . . what happened to you?”
Charlie put his arms about her drawing her to him in a passion of love but she began to struggle, pulling away from him frenziedly, fighting him, striking out at him, deep in the grip of some emotion which seemed to him to be one of loathing.
“No . . . no . . . don't . . . please . . ." she shrieked, and though Blackie and Bonnie both rose to their feet, circling the struggling couple anxiously, Natty's dog slipped quietly away, moving off down the path along which he had come.
“Annie . . . sweetheart, it's me."
“I know, Charlie, I know . . . but please . . . let me go . . “
Still she kept her face averted, her great heavy mass of hair fa
lling about her in a protecting curtain but through it, now, he could see white flesh, deep claw marks, BLOOD . . . Jesus . . . blood . . . a leopard .. . wolves . . . ! His appalled mind, though it knew very well that there was no such thing up here, grappled with images of Annie in the clutches . . . or the claws . . . fangs .. . of some wild creature .. .
“Darling . . " Putting the pictures from his mind he allowed her to pull away from him though his every male instinct shouted out to hold her close, to comfort, to protect. "Tell me what happened, Annie. Where are you hurt? Let me look . . ."
“No . . ." Her voice rose in a great cry and Blackie whimpered before coming to lean against her in sympathy. She allowed it, sinking her face into his silky fur, holding him about his neck and beginning to weep. Great wrenching cries which threatened to choke her but the dog stood rock still, his eyes sad and loving.
“Will you not come home then, Annie? Phoebe will . . ."
“Oh yes, Phoebe . . . please Charlie, get me to Phoebe." She did not turn to him but her voice changed, becoming more composed as though the thought of Phoebe strengthened her.
“Let me help you up, my lovely girl."
“No . . . no, please Charlie, I can manage."
“But . . ."
“Don't touch me, Charlie. Let me . . . please . . . take me home.”
She walked, or rather stumbled ahead of him, clutching her body in her folded arms, her hair swinging about her, hiding her face and the bloody tracks across her breast.
About half-way down the Edge they came to where Natty Varty lay dead, his faithful dog crouched beside him and her cries which had swept the fells in March for her child, rose again in a growing, maddened crescendo.
Chapter32
The constable looked sternly from the man who stalked dangerously about the warm kitchen of the farmhouse to the woman sitting quietly in the chair by the fire and the expression of distaste on his face deepened. He stood with his hand on the latch of the door as though he was ready to be off. He was a member of the brand new police force which had been raised following the County Police Act of 1839 and though even now, twelve years after the Act was passed, there were still counties without a professional police force, Cumberland was not one of them. He had come from Keswick on his sturdy bay to investigate the ridiculous charge brought by Miss Annabelle Abbott of Browhead Farm that she had been 'set upon' —the constable's words, not hers — by Mr Bertram Garnett of Upfell Farm and wished him to be arrested and taken to the County gaol to await trial. She had been alone on Ullock Pike at the time, she said, bringing down her sheep ready for the Keswick Tup Fair and it was there that the crime against her person had been committed.
Eyeing her trousers, the man's grey woollen shirt and the waistcoat she wore over it, the constable had been hard pressed not to answer to the effect that could any man be blamed for thinking that Miss Abbott was not the sort of female to whom respect should be shown, or indeed, if it had happened, though she had not mentioned the word, that rape could be done to a woman of her character!
Mr Garnett certainly did not seem to think so when the constable, apologetically, had approached him an hour or so earlier.
“Bugger me, constable, d'yer mean ter say that trollop's accusin' me of interferin' wi' 'er?" Bert's expression was bewildered, innocent, ready to be offended for really, should a man be accused of such gross indecency — or that was how it would be described if levelled at a decent woman — in front of his own wife and children? Grouped about the table they were, the children's faces given a wipe over with a sleazy cloth for the occasion, their mouths agape, their eyes round and wondering, his wife's swollen belly a handy place to perch the youngest. A respectable man with a respectable wife and what, he asked, with outrage in his voice, would he need, or want, with Annie Abbott? Mind you, she was free with her favours. Ask any man around these parts, having had an illegitimate child before she was sixteen. Take that fellow she lived with. Why didn't she marry him? Bert wanted to know and then there was him up at Long Beck. A married man with a wife any chap'd be glad to have beside him but his carryings on with the slut from Browhead had caused his wife's father to take her away before her health suffered. No better than a prostitute was Annie Abbott and it was well known you couldn't rape a prostitute, now could you, and as for himself, well, giving his enormous wife an affectionate squeeze, surely the constable could see that Bert Garnett had all he needed in his own cosy kitchen at Upfell.
The constable, embarrassed beyond measure, could only agree before getting on his bay and riding back to Browhead.
“Mr Garnett denies everything, Miss . . . er .. . Abbott, an' with no one ter bear out yer allegation, no witnesses, ah mean, then there's nothin' the law can do. Tha' needs a witness, yer see . . ."
“Miss Abbott has marks on her body which she has shown to Phoebe here."
“Aye, so yer said, but if she was attacked by a man, an' who's ter say it were a man, that doesn't mean it were Bert Garnett what done it."
“Miss Abbott swears it was Bert Garnett. Is that not enough? And the wounds to her body surely bear out . . . ?"
“Ah suppose tha've seen these wounds then, Mr .. . er . . . ?" The constable's tone was insulting.
“Lucas. " Charlie was insulted and his white face said so.
“Mr Lucas."
“No, I have not see them, naturally, but as I have just said, Miss Abbott's companion has. Tell the constable, Phoebe.”
Phoebe shrank back on the settle, the forbidding regard of the constable unnerving her. She was a servant, a foundling brought up to believe that authority was all powerful and to have seen what she had on Annie's breasts and belly was hard enough without having to describe it to this man in uniform. Charlie was nodding at her encouragingly, but when she turned to Annie, her expression desperate, asking did she really want it exposed — even in words —for all the world to ogle, Annie merely continued to stare, hands clasped in her lap, into the smouldering peat fire. And could you blame her, Phoebe agonised, for not taking a great deal of interest in the constable after what she had suffered, not only this year, at the hands of men, but going back to her childhood when her father had treated her no better than a labouring beast in the field. There was that bugger who had seduced her and left her with a child and even that small and precious gift had been ripped away from her in the cruellest way when Cat died. She had been humiliated, shamed, spat upon, reviled and yet she had held her head high, held her tongue still and got on with her life, but still they would not let her be. The men! The men who lusted after her. Not all, of course, for the goodness of Charlie Lucas's love shone from him every time he looked at her, which was most of the time, and Natty Varty's devotion had been strong, impeccable, unassailable. Poor old Natty who lay on the table in the parlour, washed, tidy, peaceful in the deep sleep of death, waiting for someone to put him in a coffin and carry him along the corpse way to St Bridget's by the lake.
And who was that to be? Phoebe wondered painfully for not one man had come forward to help, not even those from up Long Beck. Not even Mr Macauley himself.
“Speak up, Phoebe," Charlie said gently, "tell the constable about Annie's injuries," coming to squat before her, taking her hands in his but she hung her head for how could she shame Annie by describing to this stern and hostile man what was on her body? How could she say the words, the intimate words she had spoken to no one in her life, not even another woman? It was impossible, really it was, and the worst thing about it - well, not the worst for that was surely what had been done to Annie -was that when the trial was held, as Charlie was determined it would be, she would have to stand up in court and say it, not to one man but a dozen. The jury in fact, and how was she, a simple country girl who could barely read, cope with that?
“Charlie, leave her alone. Don't waste your breath, or the constable's time since it will come to nothing. I only agreed to it so that . . . well, you know why.”
And of course he did. Phoebe knew it too. Out of his min
d, he had been, off his head and ready, determined to batter his way up to the Mounsey farm and with his own bare hands slowly squeeze the life from Bert Garnett's body. No, he would not be satisfied even with that, he had snarled, for it was too quick, too merciful. He would beat him to death, methodically, slowly, until Bert lay dead and bloody at his feet. His hard fist on Bert's hard bone, shattering, breaking, blood flowing, Bert screaming, his own mind empty of all but the satisfying need to have revenge, justice for what Bert Garnett had done to his love, the darling of his heart and not only to her, but to Phoebe. Charlie Lucas, mild mannered, good-natured, easy going had lost control, his violence exploding in a great shellburst of savagery which had the three dogs cowering away from him before slinking off into the parlour where the old man lay.
Charlie had brought him down from the fell after Annie's wounds had been seen to but it had taken all her strength of mind to make him do it since he was in such a hurry to get to Upfell.
“You will leave him to lie there until it is convenient then, will you, Charlie? Until you have attended to more important matters such as the flogging you mean to give Bert Garnett?"
“There will be no flogging, Annie. There will be a killing. I mean to . . . Dear Christ . . . I mean to make him pay dearly for . . ."
“Very well, Charlie, do what you have to do but before you go to Upfell collect your belongings and take them with you for you will never come back into my house."
“Annie!" Charlie's voice was anguished and the crazed dementia which had him by the throat and which was threatening to topple him over the brink of sanity, lessened a fraction.
“I mean it, Charlie. Go and get Natty, for if you don't, Phoebe and I will."
“I won't let that bastard . . ."
“I know. I shouldn't have told you about him. I could have blamed it on a tinker or a passing drover but I was not . . . in my right mind . . . after what he'd . . . after . . . then to find Natty . . . Oh, Jesus Christ, when is it to end? First Cat . . . my fault, and now . . . again .. . my pride and stubbornness . . . he said it would happen if I continued to roam the fells alone but I took no notice."
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