All the dear faces (39 page)

“
These bloody trousers ... " she heard him mutter and as the ice-cold roughness of the stone at her back struck her violently exposed buttocks, her reason returned, the sense and sanity and balance which, except for a moment when she was fourteen years old, had never left her.

“
NO . . . no . . ." The cry which tore from her throat soared high into the air above the crags and at once all three dogs were on their feet. Blackie and Bonnie whohad been dozing, at the same time keeping one eye on the strange animal and the other on the man who was with their mistress, growled deep in their throats, sensing the danger but not awfully sure from which direction it was to come. They began to advance on Reed who had straightened slowly as Annie struggled against him and when he turned away to lean his back on the grey rock, they confronted him threateningly, waiting for a word from Annie
.

She had turned her back on him, re-arranging her clothing, sweeping back her hair and thrusting it in a tangled mass beneath the old hat of her father's which she had found hanging on a nail in the barn.

“
Lie down Blackie, Bonnie ... " and they did so. Bess looked questioningly at Reed, then seeing nothing to threaten him, lay down beside them.

“
You don't trust me." The words which he flung at her were bitter.

“
I trust you to do what you think is right." Hers were low.

“
What does that mean, for God's sake?
”

She hesitated before she spoke, not looking at him.

“
I know you love me. I have always known. I love you. I have always known that too. I have wanted .. . this . . . I still want it . . . but not like this. Held against a wall like a . . ."

“
I did not mean to offend you with my . . . lust." He
was stiff, vibrant with anger and frustrated need. "Reed . . . try to understand. Give me time." "To do what?"

“
To . . . to think what this is to mean to us."

“
I know what it means to me, Annie. I want you. I want you to be mine. To belong to me. I did not mean to happen . . . what almost happened here . . . but when you .. allowed it ... "

“
I want it too, Reed." Her cry of love was urgent and her dogs stood up again. The sky had clouded over, brought low with the rain which threatened. The wind had freshened, sighing over the stiff grass, bending it, ruffling
the coats of the dogs. She shivered and with a low groan he pulled her to him again, sheltering her in his arms, warming her chilled body with his own.

“
My love, my love, what are we to do?
”

Chapter
22

In May, Margaret Mounsey, known to her family from being a baby as Mim, married Ben Postlethwaite and went to live with him and his widowed mother on their farm up Binsey way. A week later, her own mother, Agnes Mounsey, who had, from being a young girl, worked as hard as any woman in the parish of Bassenthwaite, dropped dead on her own kitchen floor, the scrubbing brush and bucket in her hand with which she had been about to `go over it' crashing down beside her. Even at the last she carried the implements of her labour with her and her tearful daughter, Sally Garnett had the idea that they should go in the coffin with her, to which her truculent husband replied 'that any more daft remarks like that and he'd give her a clip round't lug.'
When Annie hesitantly knocked on the door of Upfell Farm it was Bert who answered it. She had told no one she was going, not even Phoebe and certainly not Charlie, who was quartering and splitting oak logs in readiness for the first step in swill making. They would both have been horrified had they known, wanting to come with her, convinced that she would be abused, spat upon maybe, but definitely humiliated in some way, for Bert Garnett made no secret of the fact that he thought Annie Abbott should be whipped out of the parish at a cart tail, especially since she had taken up with that fancy man. Over-protective both Charlie and Phoebe were since they well knew that she was thought of as a pariah in the district and was received by no one. She was still dressed in her father's clothes for it was all she had though in her chest at home she had a guinea saved with which, when her lambs were sold at backend and she felt that tiny bit closer to 'safety',
she meant to purchase a length or two of good, coloured, woollen cloth. A rich green, or a tawny amber, perhaps a deep sapphire blue. There was a piece of hodden grey cloth she herself had woven resting in the press next to her savings and before winter she meant to make it up into a well-fitting pair of breeches and a jacket, warm and practical. But the bright woollen gown was one of the dreams she held to her amongst the many she had. In the meanwhile she continued to wear the increasingly threadbare trousers, shirt and jacket which had been Joshua Abbott's
.

It was Charlie who told her of Aggie Mounsey's death. They had seen the wedding party the week before going past at the back of Browhead. A true Cumberland wedding where each of the men rode to church on his horse or pony but when the ceremony was over, raced back to Upfell with a girl, a guest of the bride's, up behind him. It was said that the young lady who rode with the winner would be a bride herself by the year's end. There was a great to-do, guests coming and going, most in the last stages of inebriation, great gales of lunatic laughter far into the night, for Aggie Mounsey wanted her girl to go off in great style. A splendid feast, singing and dancing, the party not dispersing until Mim and Ben Postlethwaite, for that one night, were in Aggie's bed. All the guests saw them there, of course, with a great deal of coarse ribaldry, standing round the bed until she had 'thrown her stocking'. She would keep her back to them casting the stocking over her left shoulder and the girl who caught it would be the next bride. It was not quite clear whether she would beat to the altar the one who had come home first on the sweating pony
!

The man clattering by the back of the farmhouse the following week on his lanky raw-boned horse, who was the undertaker for the district, though he did not approve of Annie Abbott, nor of the chap who lived with her, could not help but shout out the electrifying news that, a week after her daughter's wedding, Aggie Mounsey would be coming this way in her coffin
.

Bert Garnett, one hand on the door latch, the other in his pocket, his mouth falling open in astonishment, looked Annie up and down, from the rich fall of her tumbled hair which was not covered, to her slim trousered legs and wooden-soled clogs. His eyes were like small rats, running across her breasts and waist and hips, narrowing to a lascivious gleam as they came to rest on the former. His loose wet lips parted in a nasty smile and he licked them coarsely, suggestively.

“
What does tha' want 'ere, Annie Abbott?" he said loudly as though to let those somewhere in the depths of the farmhouse know of his displeasure, but he continued to smile and run his eyes over her body like a farmer at the market considering a cow he might decide to buy
.

Annie gritted her teeth and held the hot, flowing tide of her temper in check. Though she had little time for Bert Garnett, despite the lifts he had given her into Keswick, she remembered what Sally had said when Annie had returned to Browhead, about how she and her mother had nursed Lizzie and Joshua when they were dying. They had done everything she herself should have done, had she been there, making sure her parents' passing was peaceful, that they were not alone and when they had gone, giving them a decent funeral. They had sat with the corpses until the 'coffining'. The coffins themselves had been carried on the 'corpse road', down past Hause and along the track to St Bridget's by the lake, but it had been the woman now dead who had seen to it all and Annie could not forget that. She might be rebuffed, probably would, by those married women who would already be 'laating' or sitting round Aggie Mounsey's body, but she could not do anything else but offer the Mounsey family, particularly Sally, whatever help or comfort she might need of Annie Abbott.

“
Can I see Sally, Bert?" Annie kept her voice low, courteous.

“
What for?" Bert grinned, knowing that no one but Annie saw the expression on his face. He was tickled pink that his mother-in-law was gone for though Mim Mounsey,
Mim Postlethwaite now, had a small share in the farm, most of it was his, well his and Sally's, but she was nowt 'a pound and would do just what he told her to do. And he enjoyed the feeling of power he now had in what Aggie Mounsey had always considered to be her farmhouse, and in the knowedge that he could keep Annie Abbott cooling her heels on his doorstep. He could do as he pleased. Ask her in or tell her to go to hell, if he had a mind
.

The thought made him magnanimous. He turned shouting over his shoulder.

“
Sal, there's someone here to see thi'."

“
Who is it, Bert?"

“
Come to t' door, an' see, tha' daft cow, but before tha' does, fetch me a jug of ale.
”

It was several minutes before Sally's face appeared in the doorway, pale and tear-streaked, her jutting belly testifying once again to Bert's 'manhood'. Annie had heard, through the half-open doorway, through which she could see nothing but a portion of Aggie Mounsey's well-scrubbed kitchen flags, Bert's indelicate fumbling with his wife's person and the several loose-lipped kisses he had bestowed on her. She knew perfectly well it was done for her benefit and Sally's whispered embarrassment as she somewhat timidly protested since Bert did not take kindly to rebuff, was clearly heard. The flesh round Sally's mouth and chin was red and chafed for Bert wore a scratchy, three-day stubble on his chin. Sally was already in the deepest black of mourning, the dress she had on, the one her mother had worn since the day her husband, Jack Mounsey, had died. Fortunately Aggie's girth had been wider than her daughter's, but still it strained dangerously across Sally's distended stomach.

“
Annie," Sally's uncertain face lit up for a moment and she was ready to reach out and draw her into the kitchen. Then her hand fell back to fiddle with her apron and she looked over her shoulder to where Bert was evidently still quaffing his ale.

“
It's all right Sally, I didn't come to . . . well, I only wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about your mother
.

You and she were kind to mine and my father, and if there's anything 1 can do for you . . .
”

Before his wife could answer, the cheery voice of Bert Garnett spoke from his comfortable chair by the fire. "There's nowt this family want from thou, Annie Abbott."

“
I'm offering nothing to you, Bert Garnett, only Sally," Annie shouted. She put out her hand and took Sally's. "Are the women here laating?"

“
Aye, they come up from t' village this morning." Sally's woe-begone face worked convulsively and sad tears slid down her plump cheeks for how was she to stand living alone with him now that her Mam was gone?

“
Don't cry, Sally. You still have Mim," for who knew better than Annie the nature of Bert Garnett. Though he had made no move on her when he had sat beside her on the cart, during the long ride from Keswick to Hause, nor on the occasions he had 'called in' at Browhead, she had known that eventually he would. It was in his gleaming, greedy eyes and falsely smiling mouth, and though it was very evident that Sally suffered his nightly fumblings, he would not be averse to the same with Annie Abbott, his attitude had plainly said.

“
Aye, but she's up near Binsey."

“
I'm only a step away, Sal. You're welcome any time, night or day." This last in a whisper.

“
Eeh, that's lovely of tha', Annie, but . . . well, that chap that's with tha'. Bert'd give me what for if I was to. . ."

“
I know, but the offer is always there. If ever you can get away . . ." meaning perhaps when Bert went to market ". . . come and have a cup of tea. Bring the children . . ."

“
There'll be five of un next month." But Sally's eyes had brightened at the thought of Annie 'only a step away', a glowing light in the long dark tunnel which yawned before her without her strong, outspoken and resolute Mam to stand between her and her bad-tempered husband.

“
I can see that." Annie's eyes went to Sally's waistline, narrowing in that gleaming golden smile which had so
fascinated Sally when they had been re-united two and a half years ago. "Now don't forget."

“
I won't Annie . .

“
What the bloody 'ell are the two of thi' whispering about?" Bert jerked the door open, almost pulling his enormously pregnant wife off her feet. As the door widened the room was revealed. At the table sat four children. Annie recognised Sammy who would be nearly five now, she thought, and Janie who had been twelve months old when last Annie had seen her. There was another little girl who must be the new baby Sally had been expecting then, Emma, Annie seemed to remember, a toddler herself now, and another boy strapped in a chair, who could be no more than nine or ten months old. Dear God .. . poor, poor Sally. In her bad moments, Annie often thought there was no woman who had more to bear than herself, but surely nothing could be worse than having to suffer the nightly advances of Bert Garnett.