All the dear faces

by Audrey Howard

  “But tha' was ill with a fever an' all. 'Tis bin a week now an' tha's had nowt to eat." Her anxious face begged him to consider, "so won't tha' try an take a drop of summat? Tha' always liked my broth, Mr Lucas, an it'll tek no more than a minute to fetch thi' some."

  “Wait . . ."

  “Yes, what is it?"

  “Are you . . . alone?”

  Phoebe looked astonished. What sort of a question was that? Then comprehension dawned and she smiled, putting a work-roughened hand to his bearded cheek. It seemed somehow to find its way there all on its own, but it didn't matter, did it, since she was only checking to see if any vestige of his fever remained, wasn't she? Her hand was gentle as she smoothed the silky texture of his beard which she herself had washed only that evening. Of course, her mind reasoned, eight weeks ago he had thought Annie was . . . well, that she and him from up Long Beck were .. . well, honestly, she didn't know herself what Reed Macauley and Annie had had in their minds eight weeks ago, but whatever it was, it had come to nothing, but not before sending Mr Lucas off, half out of his mind, she supposed, driving him to the state he now was in. And naturally, him being in Penrith and drunk for most of the time, no doubt, he had no idea of the state of affairs here at Browhead.

  “Annie's asleep in her bed. We've taken turn an' turn about lookin' after thi'." She sighed rapturously into his face, her breath sweet, evidently well pleased with the way things had turned out.

  “Annie's . . . nursed me?"

  “Aye, but see, won't tha' let me fetch tha' broth?”

  Charlie Lucas sighed painfully and turned his head on the pillow, looking towards the childish paintings which still adorned the walls of what had been Cat's room. Nothing had changed. Phoebe was the same. Plumper now than the scrawny child she had been when Annie brought her home from Keswick, nearly five years ago, so he supposed she would be eighteen or nineteen years old. Her cheeks had become almost rosy but she was still plain and wholesome, like fresh new bread and as she had always been, ready to give her life in great bounteous plenty to those she loved.

  And Annie. What was her condition? Was she still in that state of indecision into which her love for Reed Macauley had plunged her? She had been Reed Macauley's mistress in the weeks before Charlie had fled from her, he had been agonisingly aware of it. He had fled from hislove for her, his passion, his urgent need of her, from the tumult of loving her so uselessly. It had been destroying him. He had been positive that she was about to tell him something of great importance regarding her relationship with Macauley, some development which Charlie had known quite definitely he could not bear to hear about, and yet she was still here at Browhead. Everything was, apparently, just as it had been then, so what had happened? Strangely, he found he could not really care a great deal. It was probably due to his weakened state, brought about by the past eight weeks of which he could remember very little. It was as though it had all happened a long, long time ago. He had suffered for love, he supposed in those weeks, pouring the cheap raw gin down his throat to alleviate his suffering, labouring at the most menial of tasks to earn the few pence to pay for it. He had not eaten a great deal, nor cared much about his condition.

  And now what was to happen? These two women, both of whom loved him, would return him, he supposed, to his normal good health and then . . . ? Well, what did it matter? He was empty of all but a great need for peace, stillness, quiet, pared down to the bone, not only by the last weeks and the fever which had consumed him, but by the passion of life which he really did not think he cared to suffer again. He found that even the thought of the woman in the bed on the other side of the wall caused him no emotion beyond a flicker of surprise at the absence of it.

  There was a flurry of white flannel wrapped about by a hodden-grey shawl, a swirl of tumbled hair, a drift of the lavender she kept in the chest beside the bed and there she was, Annie Abbott. He watched her come towards him, warm, beautiful, her skin as smooth and unlined as white alabaster, the weight of her hair drawing her head into that proud and haughty defiance which had incensed the outraged community of Bassenthwaite parish, its colour glowing in the light from the rush like the rich pelt of a fox, her eyes deepening to a warm chocolate brown in the soft shadows.

  How lovely she is and how afflicted, he thought, amazed at his own lack of feeling, then she bent over him, her cool hands at his face, her smile radiant, her fragrance all around him. He waited for a tense moment for his own affliction to begin. For his heart to leap, his pulse to race, his breath to become ragged, but nothing happened. He was happy to see her, as he had been happy to see Phoebe, but her nearness did not unduly distress his male susceptibilities, as Phoebe's hadn't.

  “The bad penny ... " he smiled ruefully ". . . always turns up . . " He could barely speak, he was so weary. "Charlie . . . dear, dear Charlie."

  “In . . . the . . . flesh . . ." and his eyes drooped.

  “What about that broth . . ." he heard Phoebe say in an aggrieved voice, then the mist of healing sleep drifted over him as sweetly and gently as a spring shower.

  He spent three weeks in Cat's narrow bed before Phoebe would allow him to set a foot out of it, lying under the warm blankets .she piled on him, drowsing against the nest of pillows she arranged at his back, eating the food she shovelled into his mouth. First there were eggs beaten up in milk. Bread soaked in hot milk to put a lining on his sadly malfunctioning stomach, then egg custards until she was satisfied he could keep it down and was ready to progress to thick vegetable soup, to 'crowdy' and neaps and taties, to rich mutton stew and all the good and nourishing meals she was determined to get inside him. Apple cake and clapbread, `poddish' with cream, oatcake with butter, cheese, minced mutton pies and all produced by her own clever hands.

  “See, open tha' mouth," she would command him, "or I'll hold thy nose until tha does," and when he obeyed, resignedly, she would feed him as though he was a finicky child who knew no better.

  “Here's some broth for thi'," she would say, clumping into his room, disturbing the peace and quiet he dwelled in. "Ah got some shin of beef when I was in Keswick yesterday an' it's bin simmerin' for six hours so get it in thi'. "

  “Phoebe, it's no more than an hour since you poured that egg and milk down me," he would protest, but it made no difference, she would stand over him until it was all gone, then off she would go, telling him to have a good rest as though he was capable of doing anything else.

  But the day came when, with Annie on one side and Phoebe on the other, he was able to swing his legs out of the bed, thin white sticks, the sight of which made him snort with laughter much to Phoebe's annoyance, since she had seen them a lot thinner than that, she said, and had it not been for her good food, they still would be!

  “No doubt, Phoebe, but you must admit they are foolish things and the question is, will they be able to get me downstairs?"

  “You're not going to attempt the stairs are you Charlie?" Annie asked anxiously. She had his right arm across her shoulders and her left was at his back. She had not been involved as much as Phoebe with his nursing, making the excuse that she had tasks to do about the farm, which was true. The real reason, of course, was her reluctance to undermine in any way, his slow recovery by placing herself too much in his company. Might not his love for her stand in the way of his progress? she had reasoned; wound his already wounded heart and body, chafe and rankle so that his healing would be slow? Phoebe was patient and cheerful, a good cook, an uncomplaining nurse, tireless and untroubled by the complexity of emotion which gnawed at Annie Abbott and Charlie Lucas. Annie had done her share of the washing of bed linen and the nightshirts Phoebe had `run up' from the length of flannel she purchased in Keswick market. She had done many of the manual tasks in the dairy whilst Phoebe tended to Charlie but with the best will in the world Phoebe could not be expected to get Charlie up on his feet without some help from herself.

  “Why not? I feel almost myself again now and a sight of something other than these four walls wil
l do me good.”

  Annie was not so sure. She had noticed Charlie's tendency to gaze into the far distance across Bassenthwaite Lake, his eyes unfocused and . . . well, not blank, exactly but . . . not the same as they once had been. Calm, cool, his smile was now, not the warm and wonderful thing which had invited all about him to share his laughter. He had an air of weary acceptance, no, it was not even that, it was . . . an emptiness which, though she supposed it stopped all pain, was not really the essence of the merry and audacious man she had loved so well. But then he had been ill, she comforted herself, and really did she want back again, that urgent, vitally alive desire Charlie had once felt for her? He had wanted to love her and be loved by her. He had seen no one but her and had needed her to look at no one but him, but now he was smiling down at Phoebe with affectionate regard and could she be anything but glad that he seemed . . . content?

  He grew stronger each day, getting out of his bed, sitting by the window, creeping downstairs where he was greeted ecstatically by the dogs when they were not out on the fell with Annie. The snows came on the last day of the year and for five weeks they were shut up together, going no further than the cow byre, the dairy, the barn, only Annie moving heavily through the drifts, up to the inlands where her flock, which numbered nearly 150 now and would, in the spring, be doubled, were gathered. There was plenty of hay in the barn, and with Royal to pull the sledge up the track she had laboriously cleared, she was able to get it to the flock. The thought of what she would do in April when the lambs were dropped was a constant worry to her, but by then perhaps Charlie would be himself again and able to help her in the checking of them and their dams. That is if he was still here. She had no idea what he meant to do when he was completely recovered and not wishing to appear as though she was prying into his affairs, or giving him the idea that perhaps it was time he moved on, she had not pressed him. Dear God, it was hard, not for her alone, since she was frozen for ever in her gnawing love for Reed Macauley, but for her and Charlie since she did not want to drag up the past by referring in any way to how it had once been.

  Have you come to terms with it now Charlie? Have youaccepted that I don't love you as you wanted me to? Do you in fact love me at all, or has it all been burned out of you by its own fierce heat? Are you content? Can we live side by side in friendly companionship, you and I? Work together as once we did, or are you merely gathering your strength in readiness to move on? Am I to hire a man to help me? Not just with the lambing as I know I must do, but a shepherd to watch my, flock?

  She could not ask such questions of him.

  The thaw set in at the end of February and the sound of the icy streams which carried the melting snow down to the lake was loud and musical. No sooner did it seem spring was on its way than winter returned, not snow this time, but a hard, cruel frost. Bright sunshine which had no warmth it in but cast itself over the sparkling hoar-frost until it hurt the eyes to look at it. It crackled beneath the feet, every ridge in the track, every furrow in the fields, every blade of grass stiff and white and crackling. The tussocks of heather up on the fell sparked and winked. The sky was blue and gold, flecked with dusty grey clouds which looked like gunbursts. The sunshine glinted on Phoebe's clean windows, burnishing them to gold, and whooper swans sailed low over the fields. At night there was a fine half-moon in the cold blue sky with a single star beside it shining on a crisp, white, silent world.

  Maggie Singleton came over the fell from Long Beck in March, the first time she had been able to manage the walk since the snows first came. She had her boy on her hip, eighteen-month-old Jonty, and another one on the way, she confided smilingly to Phoebe who had willingly put aside her spring cleaning to gossip with this woman who, surprisingly, wanted to be her friend. No, Maggie went on disconsolately, Mr Macauley had not put her and Jake in to run Upfell farm, and what a sad waste it was to see that snug little farmhouse going to rack and ruin. All the livestock had been fetched up to Long Beck, the flock put with Mr Macauley's, since it seemed Mr Macauley could not spare Dobby Hawkins to run up and down the fell to see to them, he had said before he went away.

  “Is he not here then?" Phoebe asked. They were alone, she and Maggie, Annie up on the inlands checking on her flock, Mr Lucas in the barn trying his hand at the swills, just making sure he could still make one, he had said. He was nearly himself again now, tall and lean and sinewy, handsome too, with his eyes so pale and cool, and his thin face regaining its amber hue. Quieter than Phoebe remembered, but content enough, she thought, and seemingly well settled back at Browhead. He and Annie were at peace with one another, none of the tension remaining which had once strained the very walls of the farmhouse.

  “No, he went off with himself as soon as the snow began. I'm off to Keswick he says to Will, who is head shepherd, so mind tha' looks after the flock. My bank manager knows where I am if anything is needed. Will tha' be stayin' in Keswick, Maister, Will ses. No, ses Mr Macauley, I'm to go further than that, an' he got that funny look on his face, sort of far away as though, despite still being there, he'd gone some distance from where he started and didn't quite know where he was."

  “An' what's the news of . . . Mrs Macauley? Is she to come home then?" Phoebe's voice was diffident since she did not really care for prying into other folks affairs but this concerned Annie who was her friend, at least it might do, and it was best to be prepared for any eventuality.

  Just outside the door where she had bent down to remove her stout boots, Annie froze to stillness. It was not that she wanted to eavesdrop, or even wanted to know what Reed was doing, and certainly she did not want the sound of Esmé Macauley's name in her ears, it was simply that the paralysis which had gripped her at the mention of his name would not allow her to move.

  “Nay, I couldn't say, Phoebe. Poor soul, what is she to do? But then she should never have left him, should she, no matter what . . . well . . ." Maggie stopped speaking, suddenly aware that she was treading on thin ice, for had not the cause, or so it had seemed at the time, of Mrs Macauley's departure, been Annie Abbott in whose home she now sat?

  The boy who had been playing quietly with two pewter mugs and some smooth pebbles from the beck, putting them solemnly from one to the other, suddenly began to bang them on the stone floor, his childish delight with the noise he made bringing both women to their feet.

  “I'd best be off, Phoebe," Maggie said, swooping him in her loving arms and kissing his cheek soundly; in the ensuing farewells it seemed quite natural for Annie to step inside, smiling as she did now, no sign of the pain which, though it nagged her constantly like a bad tooth, had flared in raw agony at the sound of Reed Macauley's name.

  “Eeh Miss Abbott, tha's lookin' grand," Maggie said kindly, though Annie looked nothing of the sort.

  “And so do you, Maggie. Your son has grown tall and handsome, and will you not call me Annie, please?”

  Maggie bobbed her head in pleasure, wondering for the umpteenth time why folk in the parish of Bassenthwaite hated this woman so much.

  “Well, thank you, Annie, ah will. Ah hope tha' don't mind me comin' to see Phoebe."

  “This is Phoebe's home, Maggie. She may invite whoever she pleases. And I'm glad to see you. I will not forget your kindness when . . ." She put out a tentative hand to the boy, her face working, and when he beamed at her, she smiled, then turning, moved up the stairs.

  “Goodbye, Maggie," she called over her shoulder, "come again soon," and they could both hear the painful tears in her voice.

  The letter was delivered in May. The lambing was over and on Annie Abbott's inlands, her intakes and further up the fell where the first-born had been shepherded, her flock of almost three hundred hoggs, gimmers and wethers and their dams drifted contentedly across the new tufted grass. The ploughing had been done, the plough pulled by the patient strength of Royal and guided by the equally patient and quiet strength of Charlie Lucas. Clover and Daisy, her calf, had been put out to pasture and in her fields Annie watched the tiny new star
t of her crops, oats and rye and barley, which had been sown a month ago.

  She had even bought a cart from the blacksmith whose forge lay just outside Hause. She had taken Royal to be shoed and had seen it, somewhat knocked about, but when she and the blacksmith had agreed a price and he had made a few repairs, Royal had pulled it up the track with herself at the reins, feeling as proud as Her Majesty Queen Victoria, she had said, grinning at the admiring Phoebe.

  During the winter months, from the materials she had bought at 'backend', she had cut out and made a gown for herself, and Phoebe had done the same, sewing side by side in the light of the sieves and when Charlie had gone to his bed, trying them on, fitting one another with a pleasure which was the deeper because of the uniqueness of it. It was the first brand new dress either of them had ever owned. Phoebe's was a deep lavender blue which enhanced the colour of her eyes and contrasted becomingly with the dark brown sheen of her hair.

  “Leave off that silly cap, Phoebe, " Annie had told her, and surprisingly Phoebe had not argued "You're .. . pretty, Phoebe," she added, meaning it, though it was not strictly true for Phoebe would never be other than plain, fresh and sound, with the bloom of good health about her, but never pretty.

  Her own gown was of wool in a tawny shade somewhere between russet and gold. It was almost the same colour as her hair, full-skirted with a well-fitted bodice down which a long line of pearl buttons ran from neck to waist. She had tied a sash of tawny velvet about her waist, an indulgence she had allowed herself, another being the pair of high-heeled, high-sided black kid boots, wondering at the time whether she would ever wear them. She had made a deep fringed shawl from the same material as her gown and with her hair twisted into an enormous shining knot at the back of her head, the height and weight of which lengthened her white neck, she looked quite, quite superb.