All the dear faces (32 page)

Annie was dressed as she had been for the past six or seven months, in the jacket, trousers and gaiters her father had once worn. She had carefully plaited her hair and Charlie had helped her to stuff it beneath her hat which was then jammed down on her head almost to her ears. She could barely see from beneath its brim, but it at least hid much of her female features. If anyone thought it strange, or even noticed in the vast crowd, that two men, herself and Charlie, held hands, there was too much commotion to dwell on it. The ram had been returned to the farmer who had hired it to them. Charlie pulled the sledge at his heels and in its nest of blankets the kitten cowered, its mews of astonishment unheard in the hubbub. Annie was creased and crumpled from sleeping in her clothes, as was Charlie, but he looked decidedly worse for wear than she did, since he had almost two days' stubble on his chin. He never wore a hat as he did not own one and his hair hung over his collar and ears in a wild, uncombed tangle. They looked slightly disreputable, she was well aware, but what did that matter since there was no one she cared about here to see it.

“
Phoebe, Cat, don't get too far ahead," Annie called out, her voice lost in the strident tumult. They did not hear it but the man coming towards her did and when he stopped dead where he stood, the beautifully dressed young lady on his arm almost fell over. Charlie had not noticed them, walking on ahead of Annie, their hands still clasped and for a moment the two couples, Charlie Lucas and Annie Abbott, Reed Macauley and his beautiful young wife, became entangled in wild, appalling confusion
.

No one spoke. Charlie's eyes ran swiftly over the couple, particularly the man, and his hand tightened on Annie's, drawing her protectively to him. Reed Macauley instinctively steadied his wife, who was looking quite astonished that two such ruffians should have been allowed to impede the way of a lady like herself and her husband, who, or so she thought, should have had them instantly arrested. Such strange young men too. One attractive in a rough sort of way, the other . . . well . . . how could
you describe him? She certainly could not, averting her eyes, for they seemed to he holding hands.

“
Reed," she squeaked, as her husband of three months turned violently and began to run with her across the uneven ground towards their carriage, and when she was able to see the look on his face, it so frightened her she was glad to cower back in her seat and head off towards Carlisle and the luxurious hotel in which they were staying.

Chapter
18

The weather broke as Annie had foretold it would as they made their way back across Broad Moor and down the track which would lead them to Caldbeck. Across the fells a procession of dark clouds whipped, angry and boiling, moving on at first, one after the other from the North towards Skiddaw. But just as though there was no more space to accommodate them beyond the heights of Caldbeck Fells they piled up on one another, low and glowering. A torrent of rain fell suddenly, shaking loose from the greyness and moving in a heavy curtain through which it was barely possible to see. It fell relentlessly, drifting in a cold, steady stream before them, and the noise it made was a constant, rhythmic thrumming against the grey rocks and sodden ground. Great blinding sheets, lifting and shifting, parting now and then to reveal the rough tussocky grass, the water-logged track which was dangerous with stretches of slippery stones
.

Annie had removed her hat as they left Rosley since its weight on her head was more than she could bear, she muttered, tossing it into the sledge beside the startled kitten. Charlie watched her anxiously as they slithered down the track and though it took all of his strength and attention to keep the sledge upright, he could not help but be fascinated by the way the rain fell on her bare head. As it touched the darkened russet of her hair, a mass of tiny curls sprang upon her forehead. Droplets of moisture slipped to the end of each wet tendril, falling on to her brow. They touched the arch of her eyebrow, running smoothly to hang upon the ends of her lashes. She blinked to clear them and they dropped to her cheeks and ran to her parted lips where she licked them away, her pink
tongue moving in an unknowingly sensual gesture which lit a small but growing flame in the pit of Charlie's belly
.

She was not aware of it, of course, nor of the rain, the cold and searching wind which accompanied it; the violent lightning flashes splitting the dark clouds on the high peaks, nor the thunder which roared and cracked amongst the crags. She was not aware of her child who had been huddled by Charlie and Phoebe beneath the rapidly soaking blankets beside the kitten, nor of Charlie and Phoebe themselves. Her pace lengthened and quickened as she endeavoured to get away from the pain which the sight of Reed Macauley and his new young wife had gouged into her, and Charlie Lucas's heart despaired for her, and for himself
.

She had been quite devastated by the encounter, her face ashen, her eyes wide and senseless as though she had seen some ghastly apparition which had taken her mind. He had felt the tremble in her hand at first, a quivering of her fingers as they clung to his, then, as the spasm took her, moving to her arm, her shoulder, her neck, her whole body, until even her teeth chattered and she shook as though she had been attacked by the ague.

“
Take me away, Charlie," she had managed to say between her clenched teeth, her hands, both of them now, clinging to him as though his lean, strong frame, his male strength, his caring, cheerful endurance was all she had to keep her upright.

“
Hang on to me, sweeting." She did not question his immediate understanding. Why should she? She knew nothing of his true feelings, only seeing the smile he smiled, the device that he used to hide what was inside him. A complex man who protected his heart and emotions beneath the layers of flippant geniality he had wrapped about himself ever since he had met Annie Abbott
.

They reached the farm where they had stayed the night before but it was still daylight and the farmwife, at first surprised but not displeased to see them for they had been no trouble, got a good look at Annie and the men's clothing she wore. Her eyes, flinty as the rock which rose behind
the farm, moved from Annie's white demented face and her tangled hair which was plastered to her skull and down her back, to the jacket she wore and the long shape of her trousered legs. The jacket was open for what did Annie Abbott care about anything at that precise and agonising moment, and the rain had sculpted her shirt to her breasts, the nipples of which stood out like cherries.

“
May we shelter in your barn again, madam?" Charlie said in his scrupulously polite and engaging way, doing his best to signal to Annie to close her jacket. Indeed he had tried to persuade her to wait at the gate, knowing full well what the reaction of the farmwife would be. "My wife and . . . and child are so very wet and the weather shows no sign of abating, does it? We would not trouble you . . ."

“
Indeed, tha won't 'cos tha's not stoppin' an' if tha's husband to . . . to . . . that . . . woman tha' should be ashamed to let her be seen by decent folk dressed like that."

“
Madam, really, does it matter? The child is soaked to the skin . . ."

“
That's nowt ter do wi me."

“
But you allowed us to stay here last night and we are the same family . . ."

“
Nay, tha's not. Ah thought tha' was a respectable family, tekkin' t'tup back to t' fair, but ah can see ah was wrong. Ah want no . . . vagabonds in my barn so tha'd best be on tha' way."

“
We are not vagabonds, madam. Annie ... my wife .. . and myself have a farm near Gillthrop . ."

“
Then tha'd best be on tha way to it for tha've a long walk."

“
Please, madam . . .
”

The farmwife did not like to be called 'madam', nor did she like to be hoodwinked, which she considered she had been. The woman on her doorstep who looked as though she'd seen an apparition, was a different one to the pleasantly smiling person of the night before. She had no right to be bothering honest, virtuous folk with her flagrant disregard of the proper way for a woman to dress, and
she'd have no truck with her, nor any of them. She kept her eyes firmly from the bedraggled figure of the child, who was doing her best to shelter from the downpour beneath the blanket on the cart, lest she weaken.

“
Be off," she said, "or ah'll call my husband.
”

They went, moving slowly along the farm track until they got to the gate, turning left towards Caldbeck and the long, wet road to home. At every farm they tried up to and beyond Caldbeck, they got the same answer from the stiffly disapproving women who came to the door, eyeing the strange figure of Charlie's 'wife' and it was not until, nearly dark, they came to a derelict hut, used for what purpose Charlie could not imagine, in a dip beside the track, that they found some kind of shelter. The wind still howled in their faces and the rain pelted down in a heavy swaying veil and when they got inside they were so wet they might have all been hauled from a nearby tarn. No one spoke. Charlie handed out what was left of their food, even the ravenous and pathetically unkempt kitten condescending to a morsel of Phoebe's two-day-old beef pie. Annie refused everything, even the rain water the others drank, then lay down where she was told on a scrap of relatively dry ground, Phoebe and Charlie on the outside, the silent child and her equally silent mother in the middle. Phoebe knew, of course, what had happened without being told for she had seen the retreating back of Reed Macauley and the young lady he dragged on his arm. She had not questioned Charlie's abrupt statement that they were to return home at once though Cat had cried broken-heartedly. She could not understand why this miraculous outing should be curtailed when it had scarcely begun, she wept, though not in those exact words, and for the first time in her young life she turned on her mother and beat at Annie's trouser leg in angry disappointment. She might have been no more than a troublesome fly for all the notice Annie took of her
.

The fire was out when they got home and it was an hour before any warmth crept into the cold kitchen from the one Charlie kindled.

“
Take them both upstairs, Phoebe," he said to the young serving girl, who was half dead with cold herself, but the only one on whom he could rely. "Strip them both and rub them down then put them in dry clothes and bring them here to the fire. I'm sorry Phoebe, to put this on your shoulders but . . . well, I cannot do it, for obvious reasons, so I will see to the fire. Wrap them both up well in blankets or anything else you can lay your hands on and then do the same for yourself. The fire will be going by then."

“
What about thissen, Mr Lucas?" Phoebe answered through teeth which were held rigidly in her locked jaw.

“
I'll be all right, lass, I'm used to it. Now off you go. See poppet . . ." to the dreadfully quiet child, ". . . go with Phoebe." He sighed, "I think you'll have to carry her, Phoebe." He turned to Annie: "Annie . . . darling . . ." —the endearment slipped out unnoticed, certainly by Annie — ". . . go with Phoebe . . ." and when Annie simply stood there, dazed and mindless with cold and despair, "You go up Phoebe . . . I'll bring her". And somehow, together, Phoebe and Charlie pulled the little family together, got them warm, including themselves, wrapped about in quilts and blankets before the steadily leaping fire on which Charlie had heaped half a dozen stout logs. Tea was made, and porridge, though again Annie refused both. The dogs steamed at their feet and the kitten lay on the hearth almost in the heart of the fire, licking himself angrily, his haughty expression saying quite plainly that he would never forgive them, any of them, for what he had suffered
.

Annie sat where they had put her on the settle beside the fire. The quilt Phoebe had draped about her slipped from her shoulders revealing the long flannel nightgown that had been her mother's. Modest it was, high necked and long sleeved, but Lizzie Abbott had been shorter than her daughter and Annie's bare feet and ankles stuck out from beneath the hem, white and fragile, strangely defenceless. She had gained some colour. It touched her cheeks, high on the bone, and her eyes which stared into the fire were brighter though still unseeing.

“
I'll tek little 'un up, Mr Lucas," Phoebe said quietly, "and I reckon her an' me'll share a bed tonight. I want to keep me eye on her though I don't think she's tekken much 'arm. She et that porridge ... " She eyed Annie anxiously but Charlie put out his hand to touch her arm affectionately. He was in Joshua's nightshirt, and had a coarse grey blanket which had once served Joshua's horse, about his shoulders. His feet were bare, like Annie's, and they tingled painfully as the warmth returned.

“
I'll get her up, Phoebe. You're exhausted so off you go. Can you manage Cat? Right then sleep well, and Phoebe, thank you."

“
Ah need no thanks, Mr Lucas. And Annie . . . well, she's not . . . she's down now but she'll be right as ninepence when . . . well . . . tomorrow, or the next day. She's 'ad a shock so . . ."

“
I realise that, Phoebe, but you know she'll be all right with me.
”

Phoebe did. She had no idea what Mr Lucas had in mind for Annie but whatever it was she prayed it would bring her from the shocked desolation, the desert of emptiness into which the sight of Reed Macauley and his beautiful young wife had toppled her. A lovely man was Mr Lucas and if he . . . meant to . . . be with Annie, well, Phoebe went no further than that for it was none of her business. Only if it hurt Annie did it become Phoebe's business, and Mr Lucas wouldn't harm a hair on Annie's head
.