A Dinner Of Herbs (83 page)

He lay now looking towards the door. They were all so kind to him in this house. He

hadn’t seen the

master of it yet, but he received messages from him, which was strange, even laughable.

The only other

person he hadn’t seen was Maggie. Maggie, he understood, was in everybody’s black

books, so

Gabriel had said. Yet, in a way, he had a lot to thank Maggie for, for how other could he have got round

that irascible man if she hadn’t run home with the dire news of his true identity, and so almost causing

them both to die. In no other way would he have melted. He must ask Kate to tell Maggie that he felt no

bitterness towards her, as indeed he didn’t. But now, what would the head of the house say when he

heard the doctor’s opinion of what should happen when he was fit to travel? Would there be more

protests, more tirades? Yes, very likely, because to keep them within his orbit he had, without giving his

blessing, consented to their living in the Bannamans’ house, although, as Kate had said, they weren’t to

expect him visiting, ever; they would have to do the calling. Well, he didn’t mind that in the least as long

as he could carry out the desire in his mind to erase the evil from that place.

But now, if he were to follow doctor’s orders, Kate would be taken out of her dad’s orbit not only for

some months to come, but for many winter months of each year.

Kate coming back into the room, he said to her, “You’ve been a long time.”

“A long time?” She smiled at him.

“I said goodbye to the doctor, had a word with Annie about your dinner and told her she’s not to make

you such luscious meals, and I washed my face and hands, spoke to Mother at the top of the stairs, and

here I am.”

“It’s been nearly fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, Ben.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and he put his arms out to her, and she held him, and

he murmured into her neck, “Italy or France, the very sound of it, or perhaps

Switzerland.” Then raising

his head and looking into her eyes, he added, “How do you think he’ll take this last

blow?”

“I don’t know. Doctor told Mother what he told us; I’ll give her time to tell him and then I’ll go and face

the barrage. Yet somehow, I don’t think there’ll be much, he’s changed.... What really happened up

there? You never said.”

“There was nothing much to tell. After Biddy did her work I found him, dragged him into the hut, then

got him up to the cottage, and there we told each other what we thought in no polite

language.” He

laughed gently now as he said, “I recall, when I went to wash the blood from his face he snatched the

cloth so quickly from my hand it slapped him across the mouth. I remember I wanted to

laugh, but

thought better of it.”

“You saved his life, and nearly lost your own. And you hold no bitterness against him

although it has left

you with this?” She patted his chest.

“That’s small payment to extract for you, Kate, and for his willingness that we should be together,

because although somehow or other I would have taken you from under his nose, you

would never have

been really happy, knowing how you had hurt him, whereas now He laughed again as he

said, “ He will

really want to shoot me when he knows I’m going to take you out of the country for

months at a time. “

“I don’t think so.” She bent forward and kissed him gently. Then holding his face

between her hands

she said, “You know, I’ll never be able to understand the reason why you love me. Of all the women in

the world you could have had, and yes’—she nodded at him “ I think you could have had

any one you

chose, you’ve got to come into these backwoods and find me, and tell me that you love

me. I know it’s

a dream, and I’m going to wake up from it some day, because it can’t be true, can it? “

“No, of course it isn’t true that I love you and you love me, and that you are the only woman in the

world for me, and always will be. No, of course it isn’t true. And one day we’ll wake up and find we

were both dreaming. But until then, let’s make believe, eh?” Now he put his lips on hers and held her

close to him until there was a rattle on the sneck of the door, and they moved apart. And Mary Ellen

came in, saying, “Well, now. Making plans?”

“Yes, sort of.” Kate rose from the bed, then added, “Have you told him?” And Mary

Ellen said, “Aye.

Aye, I’ve told him.”

“How did he take it?”

“Quietly, which, in a way I’m sorry to say, hurts me, because as you know it isn’t like him to be baulked

in any way and take it quietly.

But go in and say your piece, and I’ll sit on the bed here and ask this man of yours how it is he’s come

to alter my husband so; and whether it’s for better or worse, I’m not sure, because I miss me bawling

lad. “ She smiled sadly now; then with a wave of her hand she sent Kate from the room.

But Kate didn’t make straight for her father’s room, because there, coming from the top of the landing

was Maggie. She was carrying a clean water bucket in one hand and a broom and duster

in the other,

and she cast her eyes downwards and made to pass Kate without a word, as she had done

since the day

she delivered her message in 575 the kitchen. But now Kate put out her hand and drew

her to a stop,

saying quietly, “Let’s forget about this, Maggie. Tis all over. I hold you no bitterness, and neither does

Ben. Believe that.”

Maggie’s head drooping lower now, and her voice breaking, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I

did it. And ... and I’ve gone through hell thinking he might have died.” The tears were running down her

cheeks now. Kate, putting her hand on her shoulder, said gently, “Well, he didn’t, and everything’s

turned out all right. In fact, if you hadn’t done what you did do, I doubt if Ben and I would have ever

come together, not really, at least not happily like we shall now. So there, you see, good’s come of it.”

When Maggie shook her head from side to side, Kate said, “Believe me, everything’s all right. Look,

when Mam comes out, go in and have a word with him.”

At this, Maggie ran from her, her body half bent, the pail jangling in her hand. And Kate looked after

her sadly for a moment before turning and going in to Hal.

He was propped up in bed and there was a newspaper and a magnifying glass lying on the quilt as if he

had been reading. But his hands now lay idle in front of him and he greeted her with, “If he doesn’t soon

take this damn wood off me foot, I’ll never be able to move it again.”

“I thought he was going to do something this morning?”

“Aye, he’s let me toes free, that’s about all. Have a look at them.”

She pulled back the cover from the cage and looked at his bare toes sticking out from the bandage, and

she said, “Can you move them?”

“Can I hell! He says I’ve got to practise. But I haven’t got to touch them, or anybody else, like

massage them, I’ve got to think I can move them and then move them. That’s what he

says. He’s up the

pole, that fellow.”

She covered up the cage, then sat down by the side of him, and he looked at her and said,

“Well?” And

she answered him in the same vein, saying, “Well?”

He moved restlessly for a moment, then began to pick at the threads from a square of

patchwork in the

quilt before he said, “Came as another shock, that.”

“What? That Ben has an infected lung? Or that we must spend part of the winter months

in a warm

climate if he wants to get entirely better?”

“Aye, well, both you could say. But why not go to some warm part in England?”

“There are no really warm parts in England, not in the winter.”

“Oh aye, there are. They say Devon’s warm.”

“Well, it’s a different warmth Ben needs, so doctor says, constant sun and no damp.”

“Where d’you think of going then?”

“France, Italy, perhaps Switzerland, we don’t know yet. You see it was just sprung on us today.”

“Aye, just sprung on us. An’ you say, France. You’ll go to Paris likely, eh? And call on him?”

Her eyes widened and her whole face stretched. It was the last thing she had thought of when naming

France, that she would ever go to Paris and call on her father. She said now somewhat

vehemently,

“Just like you to say that, isn’t it? No, I won’t go to Paris to see him. He means nothing to me. I’ve told

you before, but you’re so thick-headed and....”

“All right, all right. Don’t take a pattern from your mother. I only thought you might.”

“Well, I won’t.” Her voice dropped.

“I can promise you that. Dad, I won’t go near him. We won’t even go anywhere near

Paris. He took

twenty-four years to come and see me, so I’m not going to break my neck in the next six to twelve

months to go and see him. No’ she caught hold of his hand ‘never worry on that score.

You are my

father, always have been, and always will be.” She leant towards him now and he put his arms about

her, and they held each other close.

When she muttered, “I could never have been really happy without your consent, no

matter what I’d

said,” he pressed her from him and, his eyelids blinking and his nose sniffing, he said,

“Damned hazardous

way I had to go about giving it to you, hadn’t I? And when we’re on, about the house, he still intends to

set up there?”

“He would like to. Dad. He’s got this feeling that somehow there he can erase the harm his mother and

his grandfather did.”

“That’s a tall order, lass. You cannot raise the dead, or erase how they met their death.

But still, if he’s

bent on it, I’ve got no say in the matter now, have I? The only thing is, as I told you, I can’t see me

visiting you.”

“Well—’ She pulled a face at him, and rising from the bed she said, “ We’lLonly have to bring the

children every Sunday to visit you. And to make sure we don’t go back on our word, I’ll go now and

get him to sign a paper to that effect. “ She laughed aloud as she backed from the bed, and at the door

she turned and gave him a little wave. It was an action she had been wont to do as a child when, from

her mother’s arms, she had watched him ride out of the yard. And when the door closed

on her his chin

dropped on to his chest and he muttered to himself, “ Bring the children every Sunday

afternoon.

Children with Bannaman’s blood in them. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the

children even to the

third and fourth generation. “

PART FOUR. And Hatred Therewith

The cows coming across the yard made a chorus of moos, all thirty-two voices seeming

to be vying with

each other. Mary Ellen considered the sound a mixture between a wail at their having

been driven from

the pasture to a pean of praise at the imminent relief of their low-flung swinging udders.

She glanced sideways from the table where she was kneading bread in a big brown

earthenware bowl

and as her gaze fell on the man following the herd she said, “Terry’s walking worse than ever. He’ll have

to get off his feet for a time. Yet, how we’ll manage I don’t know.” Then her eyes were drawn sharply

towards her daughter who was standing near the dresser changing her apron, for she had just said, “He’ll

have to engage another hand.”

“You know your dad doesn’t like new hands about the place.”

“Then he shouldn’t go enlarging the stock, should he? We’re lucky to have what good

pasture we have

got in this area, but it’ll only feed so many.”

Maggie had her hands behind her neck adjusting the straps of the white bib, and her head was bent

forward as she ended, “And what’ll happen if Willy decides to up and go?”

Mary Ellen stared at her daughter, the one, as she put it to herself, she had never been able to fathom.

There she was, thirty-nine years old, a spinster seemingly self—chosen, for it wasn’t for the want of

chances that she hadn’t married. She couldn’t understand her. She was the best looking one in the

family yet seemed to have the sourest nature. She had been a flirt and a bit of a

flibbertigibbet right up

until she was twenty three. But from the time she had exposed Ben’s relationship to the Bannamans she

had changed. Of course, what she had done could have been the means of killing both

Ben and her

father and that must have preyed on her mind, for from then her ways had changed:

instead of setting out

to attract every man who came within yards of her, she avoided him. Under the

circumstances you

would have thought she would have been glad to have married and got away from the

house and the

unspoken censure of her father, but the reverse was the case. In fact, for months at a time she would

never leave the farm, not even to go into the market on a Saturday. That was, until she reached her

middle thirties.

She couldn’t quite pinpoint when the second change occurred in her daughter except that it was at a time

of upheaval all round. What caused it was that Gabriel, who had worked on the farm for years alongside

his brother John and was then thirty years of age, had up, without notice, and told them he was going into

Newcastle to live with Hugh and find work there in the glass factory all because he had become

interested in glass objects, such as engraved goblets and the like that were being