A Dinner Of Herbs (38 page)

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doctor, not the old doctor, but a new one who, after staring at Mary Ellen, said to her,

“Why, we have

met before haven’t we?” And from the blackness she had been swimming in, she seemed

to come to the

surface for a moment and, peering at the face hanging over her, she recognized the man who had sat to

one side of her on the top of the coach, the same that had paved her way to see Roddy.

And the strange

face kept her on the surface of the blackness for a time, until he said, “That’s it. Go to sleep. Go to

sleep.”

The young doctor straightened his back and looked at the old crone standing to his side.

She was a

weird apparition, like a skeleton hung round with old clothes. And she was as strange as was this room,

for there, along one wall, were shelves filled with bottles and jars, and bunches of herbs were hanging

from every beam in the ceiling. He had heard about people like her, country crones, but she was the first

one he had himself come across. Not so many years ago, she would have been one of

those that were

burnt. He had never seen anyone who looked so old. Yet her voice was strong and her

words sensible.

“She’s been worse, much worse. She’s over it,” she had said as a consequence of his

remarks.

Perhaps she was right, but the girl had a long way to go, she was still very ill.

When she had told him earlier what had happened at the birth, he had thought he had

better examine the

girl in case she was festering. And having done so and found the cuts clean and healthy, he had thought

he couldn’t have done a better job himself. Perhaps he mightn’t have made the incisions so big, but

nevertheless, they had evidently been done in time, and had certainly helped to save the girl’s life, as had

the removal of the afterbirth.

It was amazing the things that happened in the country. He had thought when he came

here a few

months ago that he would be bored with the sameness of the life, but hardly a day passed without

something unusual happening. Funny incidents, tragic incidents. All around he felt there was tragedy,

especially in the coughs of the men working in the lead and smelt mills and coal mines.

Some of them

would never see middle years. Yet, the poor here were different to the poor in the town, for they were

better housed. Oh, yes, indeed, especially around the mill. And they had their good plots of land with

animals and vegetables. They wouldn’t go hungry, as did so many in the cities.

One thing he was learning: most of these people were born into a set pattern of life, but those of a strong

mind and will could alter it.

And in here, in this strange room, there must have certainly been a battle of wills a few days ago, for this

girl should surely have died if a stronger will than hers hadn’t taken over. And it

belonged to that fellow

who had asked him to call. No, not asked him, demanded him. He had left him at the door here, saying

he had to go and see to his beasts but he would be back. There was one thing certain, if that man had

been responsible for the girl’s condition, she would have been married by now. What had happened to

the other man, the one who created all that fuss when there were graves opened and a rich farmer was

accused of murder?

He said to the old woman, “Where is the other young man, the one she came to see in

prison?”

The reply was brief: “Away, in London.”

“London?”

“Aye, that’s what I said, London.”

He wanted to say: Is he responsible, does he know about the child? But the look in the bleared eyes

told him he had asked enough questions, for the present at any rate. And so he left, saying he would call

the next day and bring some medicine. And the answer he was given was, “Bring some

medicine? She

has all the medicine she needs.” But he countered her words and tone with those of

authority, saying,

“Nevertheless, I shall bring her medicine, and you will see that she takes it.” And her last words to him

as he made towards the door were, “How d’you think she’s got this far?” Then she added,

“Pull the

door tight shut, there’s a wind.” When Hal returned, she told him what had transpired

with the young

doctor, and he said, “I hear he’s good and knows what he’s about. If he brings her

medicine, she’ll have

to take it. Understand, Kate?”

And Kate’s voice had the same implication in it as she had given to the young doctor.

“I’ll do as I think fit an’ best for her,” she said.

Then pointing to an animal that had followed on Hal’s heels, she said, “Whose is that?”

Hal turned, a half smile on his face as he looked down on the dog, saying, “Tis mine.”

“Since when did you have a dog?”

“Since yesterday. I bought him from an Irish tinker, He was camped out near the old

barn. He had his

horse in there and three dogs. He’d asked me the previous day if I had any turnips, so I dropped him a

few by. And there was Boyo.”

He nodded towards the dog.

“He looked at me, and if ever a dog spoke, he did.

“Take me,” he said, because, as you can see, like the tinker’s horse he had been fed on gypsies’ hay,

which, as you know, is the whip. He was the smallest of the three dogs and likely, if there was anything

going at all, he came out worst. So I did a deal, I bought him. Sixpence I paid for him. “

“You were robbed, by the look of him.”

“He’ll be all right. He’s big boned, let him get some flesh on him.

Anyway, I’ve been thinkin’ about a dog for some time: the passing gypsies are not above comin’ in and

helpin’ themselves, especially to chickens an’ hay. He’ll be all right. Won’t you, Boyo? “

He stooped

down and patted the dog’s head, and the animal pressed itself against his leg and looked up at him, then

turned and went towards the clothes basket where the baby was lying, and after sniffing two or three

times he lay down by the side of it, his head on the rim of the basket.

“Well, what d’you think about that?”

“I think he knows when he’s on a good thing. He looks a mixture.”

“He’s young, part sheepdog, part hound, I’d say. Anyway, enough.” He turned from her

and went

towards the bed and looked down on the white thin face and, softly now, he said, “Mary Ellen. Mary

Ellen.”

Slowly she opened her eyes, then blinked her lids as she tried to get him into focus. And when she did,

she lifted her hand slowly and put it out towards him, and as he gripped it, he brought his lips tight

together to stop their trembling, for the gesture was as if she had bestowed on him the gift of herself, for

never before had she put her hand out willingly to him.

As day followed day, she became stronger, but it was no thanks to the doctor’s medicine, for as soon as

he had left the room, K-ate made it her business to pour it into the swill bucket and fill the bottle up with

her own concoction, which happened to be much the same colour.

The snow slowly disappeared and by the beginning of February the earth was showing

itself again,

except higher up on the hills, and these would keep their white caps for some time yet.

The first time Mary Ellen brought her feet over the side of the bed she felt as if she was about to float

away, her body seemed so light, but her mind was clear. She sat with a hap over her legs looking down

the room to where the fire glowed and the child lay in the basket to the side of it.

“Could I have her?” she said softly to Mrs. Patterson. And Mrs. Patterson, a slight figure of a woman

with a melancholy face, said, “Aye, lass, aye, if you think you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it.”

Mrs. Patterson brought the child to her and laid it in her arms. It was not the first time she had held the

baby; but she had not then taken its weight, for it had lain across her arm on the bed; now she was

holding it, supporting it, and she looked down on to its face. Its eyes were round and looked deep blue,

but then as Kate had said, most babies’ eyes were blue to begin with, as they grew older they could turn

to black, brown, green or hazel. The cheeks were round, the mouth like an open flower, and the skin

like velvet. She was a bonny baby.

“What are you going to call her?” asked Mrs. Patterson.

“Kate.”

“Kate? Oh, well, aye, I suppose ... yes you should, ‘cos she’s brought you through, has Kate. Not

forgetting Hal. My God! no. Say what you like about him, and he’s not the easiest to get on with, takin’

man or woman, but he’s worked like a Trojan these past weeks. How he got through to

you that

mornin’, nobody knows. Must have taken him hours, half the night I think, because

nobody could move

for two days. Do you know, there were four horses lost in the drifts below the mill. And John Tollett

was found almost frozen to death. Trying to get home he was. His son found him not

twenty yards from

their door. How long he’d been lying they didn’t know. But his feet are not right yet, they’re swollen up

like balloons. Eeh! It was a dreadful time. I remember me ma sayin’ there was a like fall in 1802, or

was it three?

But anyway, it was round that time and they found Jimmy Crawford, the journeyman,

dead in a ditch.

Frozen as stiff as a seven-day corpse.

And there’s never been a fall like it since. And they say there’s more to come. “

Mary Ellen listened to Mrs. Patterson’s voice droning on. It was known all round the

village she was a

harbinger of bad news: she was happy when she was foretelling disasters. She wished she would go and

Hal would come.

Hal. There was a mist in her mind covering the past weeks, yet through it she knew he

had been there

all the time, and she knew she owed her life, not to Kate’s potions, but to him. Vaguely she could recall

the agonizing hours before the birth. But the memory that surpassed that agony was the one when his

knife went into her flesh. The mist thickened after that but Kate had cleared some of it away since, and

she knew if he hadn’t done what he did, she wouldn’t be here now.

There returned to her mind again and again the faint memory of the time she knew she

was going to die,

and his face on hers. She could not remember what he said, only the essence of it through the tone in his

voice. She knew he had begged her not to go, and the intensity of his plea had awakened something in

her that lay in the depths beyond the pain. Yet, as she became stronger, it seemed to sink deeper and

deeper to where lay another pain, and its name was Roddy.

Roddy. If she had known what she had to go through, would she have forced herself on

him, as her

honesty told her she had done? And the answer she got was, yes, because at that time she had no

knowledge of childbirth, all that mattered then was the easing other desire.

She had lain here for days now asking herself odd questions such as.

Why had God put this craving into girls who were not yet women? It was a craving that

defied

understanding or explanation. And as one grew up it became stronger, especially when it was centred on

one person. God was funny, not really sensible because He told you to be good yet put

into your being

something that made you do bad, bad, that was, unless you were married.

And then there were her mixed feelings about Hal, for her mind was presenting her with a picture of him

that she had never seen before, having never associated him with tenderness. Even during the past

months before the child came, he had been kind, but never tender, never. Then there was something

else, something she couldn’t define.

She only knew that if he stopped coming she’d miss him as much as she had missed

Roddy. And now

what she could not understand and what was troubling her for it didn’t seem reasonable, was that she

had to add the word, more, to that. It was a month before she started pottering round the kitchen again.

The doctor’s visits had ceased. He had been six times in all and each time she had

reminded herself

how strange it was that he of all people should have come doctoring in this part of the world. He was a

nice young man. She liked him. Not so Kate. Kate was rude to him. In fact, she had told him

yesterday that she could buy him at one end of the street and sell him at the other. And he had been so

nice to her: he had laughed and said he had no doubt in his mind at all that she could do just that. And

not at the end of the street, he had said, but halfway down it.

Even that hadn’t placated her. To her, the word doctor was just another name for butcher.

Apparently

one such had amputated her father’s foot when it had gangrene, and hadn’t even knocked him drunk

before doing so.

She walked to the window and looked out. The sun was shining. There was a wind

blowing. The earth

looked fresh, bare but fresh.

As she stood, she saw a figure dropping down from the slope. The dog was running round it in circles.

She smiled to herself. That dog was a funny creature. She had never seen one act like it did. There had

been dogs on the farm:

you only had to tell them to lie down, but this one, if you said lie down, it came and licked your hand.

The only time it lay down was by the child’s basket. It seemed to love the child. At least, next to its