A Dinner Of Herbs (49 page)

surprise, even John who was very fond of her would undoubtedly have been amused by

such a term

being applied to his big sister.

Moreover, Kate had a fine speaking voice, and she could relate a story. When anyone

heard Kate talk,

really talk, they forgot what she looked like. And this must have happened to Harry

Baker, for he had

seen Kate for years and had taken no notice of her. That was until he had called to see Hal to ask for

help: he and his folks among many had been hit by the poor crop; his farm, being not

much bigger than a

small holding and on hilly land where the grazing was poor, had yielded not even enough to pay his debts,

let alone survive another year. And it was when she herself had invited him to a meal that he had first

heard Kate talking. She was relating an incident she had heard in Hexham market that

brought them all

to laughter, and his the loudest:

she was adopting the tones of various voices engaged in argument.

She herself hadn’t taken to him very much at first, having thought he was only after a free meal, but from

the beginning she had realized that he was impressed by their way of living, for they

always ate their main

meal in the dining-room.

She didn’t know what kind of a cook his mother was, but on that first visit he had eaten twice as much

as any of hers.

As it was quite a ride to his place, yon side of Haydon Bridge, which was a good six

miles away, she

had been to his place only the once, to meet his mother and father. But that didn’t seem to prevent him

from visiting weekly, when he didn’t come on horseback but always brought his flat cart.

One day,

seeing Hal once again loading it up with hay and corn, she had said to him, “He’s not

daft, that one.”

And Hal had answered, “I know that. I know that, but me generosity isn’t stretching to him so much as

to Kate. She’s going to need quite a bit of help in that direction. And he’s no fool, he knows it’ll come

through her.”

That night in bed she had said to him, the worry deep in her voice, “Hal, you ... you don’t think that’s the

reason he’s taking her?”

And she had become more worried by his reply: “Hard to say. He’s handicapped because

his father’s a

bit shiftless and his mother not much better. I should say, by the inside of the house, Kate’s going to

have her work cut out there. But the fellow himself, well, he seems he wants to get on.

And let’s face up

to it, lass, he’s about the only chance Kate’ll have. There’s been no one in the running afore, has there?

They must all be bloody well blind, because she’s a fine lass, is Kate. None better.”

“Do you think she cares for him?”

And to this he had answered, “I was going to ask you the same question because she talks to you.”

Yes, she did talk to her, but not on the subject of her feelings for Harry Baker. Perhaps later tonight,

when she was saying good-night to her for the last time in this house, she would open up.

She looked down the table towards her daughter. She was seated to Hal’s left. Even the two sons she

had given him at one and the same time, when they had become old enough to sit at the

kitchen table in

his first little farmhouse, he hadn’t had one on each side of him, Kate had always sat next to him, and to

his left hand, for it was easier, she saw, for him to pass tit bits to her with his right. And that’s how it had

been through all the years. None of the children she had given him had supplanted Kate.

And Kate loved him in return. She couldn’t have loved her own father dearer.

There were times when she thought of Roddy Green—bank, as he was when he worked

in the smelting

mill and roamed the hills in his spare time with his slate and pencil. And her thoughts would be soft on

him then.

However, when she thought of the man that both Newcastle and London town had

produced, she

would be rilled with a bitterness, but mostly against herself for being a besotted fat-headed girl, she who

was supposed by everyone to be full of common sense, but as dear old Kate Makepeace,

her friend and

benefactor, that wise old woman had said, “Sense came from the head, trouble from the

heart.”

Was it the head or the heart that was leading Kate to the altar tomorrow? She hoped it was the heart.

Oh yes, she did, she did, because sense, although it. might make you count your chickens after they

were hatched, did little to help you while sitting on the eggs, and so, as she saw it, if the heart hadn’t led

you to the altar it was a sure thing you wouldn’t look forward to going to bed that night.

She was recalled from her twisted metaphors by a great burst of laughter and seeing Tom thumping John

on the back, causing him to splutter into his pudding, and she leant towards Gabriel who was sitting to

her left and, smiling, she asked, “What was that?” And Gabriel, wiping his eyes, said,

“They were talking

about what happened on Windy Monday, the day they were burying Maggie Oates,

remember? And

the one woman who had braved the walk to the cemetery, and the wind blew her skirts

and petticoats

over her head, and she nearly fell in the grave. And there were only two men there

besides the parson,

and he only buried her because she confessed her sins before she went. And those two

fellows had

some nerve an’ all, and brave, ‘cos if all her customers had followed her, half the county would have

been empty of men, so it was said.”

“Oh, be quiet.” Laughing, she thrust her hand out towards Gabriel, saying, “What d’you know about

it?”

“Enough, Mam, enough. I saw her once. I was only about eleven, and she smiled at me.

Didn’t she,

Hugh?” He looked up the table to his brother.

“And she patted your head, didn’t she?”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

Again there were gales of laughter.

Mary Ellen recalled Maggie Oates vividly, and the day she was buried too, because that was the day of

the hurricane in January, thirty-nine. It tore up half of the countryside and played havoc in Allendale.

And after it was all over people remembered that Maggie Oates had been buried on that

day. And some

wit in a bar had said she had gone out on a blast and not only with one devil and a gale of wind, but with

all of them she had served over the years. So the story went around, and whenever Windy Monday was

remembered so also was Maggie Oates’s funeral.

She had once likened herself to Maggie Oates, that was after she had forced Roddy

Greenbank into

giving her the child, and she admitted, even now, that it was she who had done the

running, and because

of it she had been turned out of her postal Davison’s farm, her father’s door had been locked against her,

and the only friend she had in the world had been Kate Makepeace. It was then that

certain men had

come to old Kate’s door presumably for potions and herbs for their ailments, but really to look her over

to see if she was a younger up-and-coming Maggie Oates. And, too, they had coupled her name with

Hal when there was nothing between them but their own secret thoughts, which had risen to the surface

the day he had fought through the great drifts of snow and found her in the agony of

labour and with his

own hands had then

delivered the child, and afterwards saved her life by bringing away the afterbirth.

It was on the night they were married that she thanked him for being so good to Kate.

And he had said

to her, “She was mine afore you were, for I brought her into the world, and I feel that I’m her father as

he never was.” And that feeling had continued between her daughter and her stepfather, for strangely she

was closer to him than were his own.

Hal was speaking now, and she smiled at him down the length of the table from where he was looking at

her, for he was saying, “Come on, let’s drink to our Kate and her happiness, and I wish that with all me

heart, as I know you all do. And Kate Hal looked into the brown eyes of the big young

woman sitting to

his side, and he said softly, “ Your chair may be empty the morrow but you’ll still be in all our hearts. “

“Oh! Dad.” She leant forward and kissed him on the lips, and his hand trembled and the wine spilled

from his glass, and Maggie cried, “Look out! Dad. I’ve got to get that stain out the

morrow.”

“There’s no washing the morrow.” This came from Florrie, her voice quiet, a soft smile on her face.

Then Tuesday or whatever. “

“Be quiet, tousle-head.” Hal looked down the table towards his eldest daughter; then

shifting his gaze

on to Mary Ellen, he said, “To Kate, lass, to Kate.”

They all stood up and raised their glasses and they drank while Kate’s head lowered and her lids closed

and the tears pressed from beneath them, and Maggie cried, “Oh, our Kate, don’t start to bubble. It’s

unlucky if you bubble.”

“No, no, it isn’t; it’s only unlucky if you don’t.”

They all looked towards Mary Ellen now, and she went on, “Have you ever known of a

bride who

doesn’t cry? It would be like an Irish wake without a pig on the spit and whisky in the teapot.”

“Oh! Mam.” They were all laughing again.

“The things that you come out with.”

“Well, let’s go into the sitting-room and have a singsong.” Hal was already on his feet, and he walked

down the length of the table, but before he reached Mary Ellen, his hands came to rest gently, one on the

back of each tilted chair. Then taking Mary Ellen’s arm, he led her from the room; and the family

followed, but only after each of them had made his way to the two chairs and laid his or her hands gently

on the backs. It was a ceremony that had been enacted ever since they had lost their

brother and sister,

and it was one that had caused not a little talk in those who had been guests and had

witnessed it.

It was said round about that it was a strange and unhealthy thing to do to keep the dead alive in a

dining-room. But then Hal Roystan was a very strange man, a man who had spent his

earlier working

years since he was a young lad in the smelting mill, and then, starting with the few

pounds the owners had

given him in compensation following the murder of his father while in their employ, he had built up the

most thriving farming business for miles around. Moor Vale was his fourth place in

twenty-five years,

and it was said he now lived like a lord, and had educated his children as if they were class. But be that

as it may, he was still not accepted by the real people of the county and never would be, for his wife had

had a bastard before he married her;

and she was odd, too, in her own way, for she could make up potions and pills for man

and beast that

benefited both better than any doctor’s medicine. Yet she only did it when she thought fit and for those

whom she liked; others got short shrift should they go to her door.

No, the Roystans might live like lords and copy the gentry inside the house in the way they ate and

outside in the way they rode for their horses were all good breeds, and they ran a trap, a dog cart and a

brake, besides all the farm carts, but people had long memories and, given the chance, didn’t let them

forget from where they had come.

And many prophesied that the Roystans had gone up as far as they could, and that now

the road would

be downhill. And who would be to blame but themselves for getting too big for their

boots. However, it

had to be admitted he paid more than a fair wage to his one hired man, although he

expected him to

sweat for it, as he did three of his sons who worked on the farm. The latest news was that the second

youngest one, Hugh, was going in for law. Now would you believe that? If it had been

one of the twins,

people might have understood it, because they, if you could put the word to them,

appeared more

refined, whereas the last two of the brood, Hugh and Gabriel, had been known to be

tough since they

were lads, and they were already in and out of scrapes.

They were likeable enough, but rough. Yet, here was one of them going in for law.

Hal Roystan had seen to it that each one of his family had been given the chance of an education. The

girls had gone to a dame school in Hexham, and the twins had gone to school until they were fifteen. But

the last two, they had been sent into Newcastle. It had been expected that Gabriel would go into

shipping, but no, he brings his fine education back and says he wants to work on the

farm, at least for a

time. And so Roystan had bought more land;

and it had prospered.

But it was also said around that Hal Roystan’s interest didn’t lie only in farming, he had his fingers in

other pies, and when Langley Smelting Mills were rented by the Greenwich Hospital to

Messrs.

Wilson, Lee and Company in eighteen and thirty-three, it was rumoured he had tried to

get a share in

there. Some said that tale was but a joke because his wife’s name had been Lee before he married her.

But it was no rumour that he had been after a brick works which was close to the farm he had at the

time, but had been outbidded there.

Oh, he was a deep one was Roystan. Everyone knew. But wouldn’t you have thought he