A Dinner Of Herbs (101 page)

hold and he was knocked staggering back by a blow from his grandfather’s forearm. He

stood panting

now watching the girl clinging to Hal and sobbing loudly, until Hal’s voice yelled at him,

“You young

bugger you! I’ll flay you alive for this.”

On hearing his grandfather’s rough voice, the mist of his young passion was swept away and he cried

back at him, “You try it on and see who’ll come off best,” at which Hal ground his teeth and, turning his

head, shouted up the bank, “Harry! Come down here and take this lass back home.”

“Yes, Grandfather. Yes, Grandfather.” The boy hooked the reins of the ponies to the

stump of a tree;

then as he came down the bank, Fraser yelled at him, “He’s not your grandfather. He’s no relation to

you or me. He’s nothing, nothing but an old money-grabbing bully. Your grandfather was her father.”

He thrust out his finger in Yvonne’s direction.

“This one’s nothing to us. Never was, and never will be.

So-’ He now leant forward and glared his hatred at Hal as he ended, “So Mr. Roystan,

don’t you come

the heavy hand with me.”

For a moment, Hal became still, and, seemingly gently, he pushed Yvonne from him

towards Harry.

Then he took two slow steps forward before he jumped. The action could have been that

of a young

athletic man, and such was the force behind it that it bore both himself and Fraser to the ground and into

the edge of the water. The boy was strong and was the first to recover from the impact, and he used his

feet and his fists on the older man. Kicking and punching, he tried to free himself from Hal’s grip, but

Hal’s superior weight rolled them over and further into the water. And now he was on top of the boy

with his hands gripping his throat. And what happened next caused Yvonne to scream

before she turned

her face away and clutched at Harry who was standing frozen with terror as he watched

the man, whom

he had always called grandfather, shake his brother up and down, then finally bring his head crashing

onto the steppingstone.

There was no sound of a struggle coming from the water. Harry stared towards his

brother who lay

sprawled out, his head to the side: then he watched his grandfather crawl on to the bank, turn on to his

back and grab at his chest; then he too lay still.

The boy didn’t move. It was as if he had become rivetted to the spot.

It was Yvonne who turned and looked at the two prostrate figures, and she whimpered,

“Oh mon Dieu!

Mon Dieu! Oh, mon Dieu!” Then, pushing Harry, she gasped, “Fetch them, someone,

fetch, quick!”

And at this he seemed to come alive and, scram bing up the bank, he mounted a pony and galloped

away.

Yvonne remained where she was for a full minute before she moved towards the old man.

She did not

kneel by him, but, standing, she looked down on him. His eyes were open, and his chest was heaving.

Then she looked towards the boy. The water covering the stone was running in rivulets of red, but his

face showed ashen white against his black hair. She did not attempt to go near him, in fact, she couldn’t.

There was a great weakness coming over her and as she stood there she prayed to die so she could blot

the sight from her mind; and it appeared her prayer was answered, for she fainted.

The men coming out of chapel, some miners taking their well-earned rest on a Sunday

morning, the

farmers and the hands from two farms, all gathered at the spot. Some carried the body of the dead boy

back to his parents’ home, and others carried the live, but paralysed, body of the man known as his

grandfather back to the farm. And the whole countryside was agog, for the boy’s brother had become

hysterical and blurted out what had actually

happened, repeating it and repeating it until the doctor had calmed him down with

laudanum.

It was Thursday. There had been incessant comings and goings up till today but today the house was

quiet, for today the boy was being buried.

Monday had brought Hugh and Gabriel from Newcastle. They had stayed until this

morning.

Meanwhile Hugh had dealt with the constables and the police inspector who had come to

deal with the

case of a man who had killed a boy known as his grandson. But as Hugh and the doctor

pointed out to

them, the man was totally paralysed, being now utterly deprived of speech and

movement; the only sign

that he was still alive was that he breathed and that his eyes remained open, although they did not focus.

Tom had come but not his wife. Charles and Florrie had come, but they had not stayed

for there was

nothing they could do, at least not in this house. At Kate’s it was different, they were needed there, for as

Florrie said, Kate and Ben were utterly distracted.

There had been visits from neighbours who were more acquaintances than friends and

whose purpose in

calling was not so much to offer sympathy as to satisfy their curiosity. But today, the only ones in the

house were its normal inhabitants. Mary Ellen spent most of her time in the bedroom;

Maggie ran the

house as usual and saw to Yvonne, who was still in some state of shock, being weighed

down by a great

sense of guilt at having brought about this tragedy.

One thing was in the minds of four of them this morning, particularly in that of Mary

Ellen, and it was

that they were burying the boy this day.

She was sitting by the side of the bed she and Hal had shared for the past forty-odd years.

She had

washed him as she had done each day since they had laid him down. She had changed the

soiled draw

sheet a task that had to be seen to two or three times in the day. She had combed his hair and laid his

hands on top of the counterpane. And now she talked to him, which was also part of the pattern she had

set herself.

“There,” she said, ‘do you feel comfortable? That’s better. “

She leant over and stroked a grey wisp from his forehead, then she added, “I’ll shave you this

afternoon. No ... I won’t get John to do it’—it was as if he had spoken to her “ I’ll do it myself. “

“Hal.” She raised herself on the chair and bent over him until she was looking into his wide eyes, and,

her voice soft and quivering now, she said, “Do you think you could give me a sign, blink or something, if

you understand what I’m sayin’? Could you try? Try, lad, try.”

She waited for a response, and when none came she sat back in the chair, then went on

talking, her

voice low, the words tumbling over each other now: “I want you to know I don’t blame

you. I don’t

blame you for what happened. It was her. She must have encouraged the lad, and

nobody’s blaming

you.” Oh what a lie she knew that to be.

“You did what anyone else would do, it was an accident. Don’t blame yourself.

And you’ll soon be better, you will. You will. “ That was another lie, he’d never be

better. The doctor

said yesterday he could go tomorrow or not till next month, or even next year. She prayed it would be

next year for she couldn’t bear to lose him, he was her life, he had given her so much, all he had

promised her on that day so far gone in the past: a family, a big house and servants.... No he hadn’t given

her the last, she’d never had servants, she’d had to work from dawn till dusk all her days.

There had

been Annie, but Annie wasn’t a servant.

And yet her family had all been servants in one way or another. But they hadn’t minded .

or had they?

She didn’t know, not really. There was one thing certain, for

as long as Hal lived she would be a servant to him. Oh, and gladly.

She turned her head towards the door. She thought she heard voices, loud voices. Yes,

there they

were. It was Maggie’s voice and someone else’s. She had just got to her feet when the

door burst open

and there stood, Ben. Beside him were Kate and Maggie. She rushed at him, crying, “No!

Ben. No!

Get out.”

With a slow movement of his arm he thrust her aside, and she stumbled back against the wardrobe, her

hand across her mouth, and watched him go to the foot of the bed and stare down at the inert figure,

crying as he did so, “You did it, didn’t you? You did it at last. You’ve been waiting to do it for years.

You wanted to kill me. You always been sorry you didn’t, but now you’ve purged

yourself of your

hate. You’ve killed someone with Bannaman blood in him, and you meant to do it. For

years you’ve

been leading up to it, just waiting your opportunity. As the boy said, you were nothing to him. And ...

and do you hear?

you’re nothing to my wife either. Do you hear that? “

“Leave be! Get out!” Mary Ellen was gripping his arm now, but he took no notice of her.

It wasn’t

until Kate said, quietly, “Come away, Ben, come away, it’s finished, entirely.” Only then did he wrench

his agonized staring gaze from the man in the bed.

When they were out on the landing Mary Ellen, pulling the door behind her, caught hold of Kate’s arm,

saying, “Wait a minute, lass.” And at this Kate paused and let Ben go on, and, looking at her mother,

she said, “Well, what is it?” And Mary Ellen muttered brokenly, “You could have

stopped this, you

know. You could have stopped this.”

“I didn’t want to stop it, Mam. He had a right to come and say what he did, and I agree with him. It’s

ended, finished, finally finished.

That man in there, who was supposed to love me, and I once thought I loved him, but I

daren’t put a

voice to the feeling I now have for him, he killed my son, battered him to death. And

what might prove

to be even worse he could make me lose my second son in a more agonizing way, for

he’s almost turned

his brain. A boy who had a most promising future. “ She swallowed deeply, then said

quietly, “ He’s

ruined our family. And from now on, as Ben said, he’s nothing to me.

And I’ll say this, Mam, I’ll never darken these doors again. “

“Kate! Kate! Leave be.”

Kate now turned and looked at Maggie, and, her voice still quiet, she said, “Yes, I’ll leave be, Maggie,

just one last word and to you. Get out, you’ve been a slave long enough.” And with this she went down

the stairs.

Maggie now turned to where her mother was leaning against the wall, her hand held over her eyes, and

she said, gently, “Come and sit down.” At this Mary Ellen shook her head and, turning

blindly, stumbled

back into the bed room and closed the door.

Maggie stood for a second looking at the closed door, then nodding to herself, she

repeated Kate’s

words. Yes, she would get out, but she couldn’t go straightaway. As she had said to Willy last night,

they would have to stay for a little while till things settled down and Yvonne got into the swing of things.

But God help that girl, for only He could.

Slowly she turned and went down the stairs, asking herself now what she meant by

settled down, and

the answer she got was, when her father died. She felt no sorrow at the thought. She had never cared

for him because he had never cared for her. It had always been Kate, Kate. Now Kate

spurned him,

and justifiably, for had he not killed her son? But then he’d had to take revenge on a Bannaman to give

purpose to his life, for as far back as she could remember she had been aware of the hate in him. And

yet it had only risen to the surface when Kate met Ben, and she herself had disclosed his identity. So in a

way she wasn’t guiltless. But hadn’t she always been aware of this? Oh yes, and it had soured her life.

Well, enough was enough, from now on her life would be sweet. Once she got away from

this house she

would, in a way, be born again. Along with her child, she would be born again.

They talked about young Fraser Hamilton’s funeral for weeks. There hadn’t been

anything like it seen

around the countryside, some said, since the old duke had died years ago.

When the cortege had left the house it had been joined on the road by men from every

walk of life: Men

from the mine, men from the smelt mills. Farmers and dignitaries from Allendale,

Haydon Bridge, Bardon

Mill, Haltwhistle and Hexham waited in their coaches at the crossroads; and no one

raised his eyebrows

when the cortege was joined by the two Reiliy men and the four Smith brothers from

Allendale. And

when an old drover and his son, cleaned up for the occasion, joined them at the cemetery gates, folks

said: There you are. He was liked by high and low. Of course he was a bit wild, but aren’t all lads at

that age? But there was no bad in him. In fact, recalling his pranks of early years only went to make him

more lovable. Yes, of course he was brought home drunk, but that was devilment on the

Smith lads, the youngster would never have done it on his own. And he was settling

down to work on

the farm.

So the consensus of opinion was, it was a damn shame his life had been cut off as it had.

And look what

it had done to his father and mother.

Broke them up completely. And there wasn’t a more respected man round about than his

father.

Although he was an American, who still retained his Southern drawl, he had settled into the local ways