All the dear faces (61 page)

The winter drew to its end and in April spring flowers began to appear. There were morning mists which rolled away to reveal purple mountain saxifrage among the damp mountain rocks and the exquisite beauty of the early purpleorchids which shyly raised their heads among the trees. Blue moor-grass studded the dry limestone rocks. Hellebore and bitter vetch poked their heads through last year's vegetation and in the hedgerows, purple bush-vetch, sweet woodruff, red lungwort and water-avens suddenly burgeoned, all the life-giving plants from which Aggie Mounsey had once prepared potions to ease the living and comfort the dying
.

At Upfell Bert Garnett shuffled about the yard on the makeshift crutch someone had fashioned for him, his face quite blank, his eyes slow moving, his mind indifferent to the gradual disintegration of his farm. His flock, most of which had survived the winter, thanks to his brother-in-law Ben Postlethwaite, had been brought down from the high fell, and at the right time, Ben had put the tup he owned to the ewes. Upfell's inland pastures were lush and fertile, the Mounsey ewes thrived but when their lambs were dropped Bert was unaware of it
.

Annie was alone in the front pasture when Sally came. Charlie was planting the oats and bigg and in the cow barn Phoebe was fondly contemplating the new addition to Annie's livestock, the calf born to Clover a fortnight ago. Clover was Phoebe's pride and joy, a handsome blackand-white Friesian, serviced by Reed Macauley's bull last year when it was walked over by Jake. Singleton, and when put to the task, had obliged right willingly. It had been a part of the unspoken support Reed had ordered his men to give Annie after Cat had died, and about which Annie had been unaware. From March until the end of May when Charlie returned, and with him Annie's senses, small services had been performed by Jake and Maggie, and the calf, a heifer and, in Phoebe's loving opinion, as pretty as a picture, was the result of one of them. Of course, the calf drank all her mother's milk, that with which Phoebe had made her cheese and butter, but when she was weaned, which Phoebe meant to do when the calf was five weeks old, she told Annie importantly, for she was a strong little devil, Phoebe's butter- and cheese-making would resume. Flaked maize and bruised oats mixed with
her own mother's skimmed milk was what Phoebe meant to give the calf, clean water and good hay and next month when the weather turned warmer she could be turned out in the field with her mother
.

The lambing was done with, timed to coincide with the new growth of grass, and they had all three worked for a solid month from six in the morning until after dark, lambs coming in an ever-increasing number, those born in the first week marked up and ready for the fell. Taking them up there no more than a score at a time and aided by the two dogs, Annie had found the task immensely satisfying as she watched her growing flock, past the first dangers of infancy, leap enthusiastically towards the new grass and bracken of their first summer. This was her fourth spring since she and Charlie had brought her ewes from Rosley and now, from that dozen, she had over a hundred, a sturdy flock of Herdwicks which, this year, God willing, would yield almost twice that number
.

Sally's voice was hesitant at her back, and she started, for she had been deep in contemplation of her growing success.
Blackie
and Bonnie were down the field, gently urging some recalcitrant mothers and babies towards the gate which led to the open fell, and Annie had been sitting on the wall, watching as they worked. She scarcely needed to give the dogs commands now as they moved instinctively and in complete unison at their work.

“
Hello, Annie," Sally said, and when Annie turned sharply, Sally stepped back as though she would not have been surprised had Annie struck her.

“
Sally! I was . . . day-dreaming and did not hear you." Annie threw her legs over the wall and jumped down as light and free in her neat breeches and knitted jerkin as a lad of twelve. Her hair was severely braided away from her face and she looked very different from the golden, graceful woman, her hair in a magnificent tawny tumble down her straight back, who had captured Reed Macauley's wilful heart almost five years ago. Still as beautiful but in a neutral way, cool, detached, tempered. Gone was the vital spark burning within her, the radiancewhich had shimmered in her golden eyes. Remaining was a sculptured perfection of lovely bone and flesh, unwarmed by emotion. She was slender, almost but not quite thin and the wary caution with which she now viewed the world was very apparent in the way she turned to Sally.

“
Sorry, Annie, I didn't mean to disturb thee."

“
Not at all Sally, I'm pleased to see you."

“
Really," Sally was clearly amazed and Annie smiled. "Really. Come inside and have a cup of tea, Phoebe and
Charlie are not about so you and I can have a chat." "Eeh Annie tha's a good lass. I thought . . . well, after
what 'appened last year that . . . well . . .
”

Annie stopped and turned again to Sally, taking her chapped, none too clean hands in hers. Her face was serious but gentle.

“
Look Sal, you mustn't blame yourself for what .. . what he did to me. I don't blame you and neither does Phoebe. We know what sort of a . . . well, he's your husband and . . . whatever he has done I suppose you would stick by him but . . ."

“
Nay, lass, if he were in his right mind my life'd be hell but he's different now and I can't help but be sorry for him."

“
Well, I'm afraid I don't feel the same, Sally." Annie's voice was cold, hard and she dropped Sally's hand, turning away, but Sally put it on her arm again, forcing her to stop.

“
I know that, lass, God, don't I know it. I were never wi'out a black eye and a bairn under me pinny but that beatin' he got changed all that. Senseless he is now and crippled and if it weren't for what Mr Macauley sends down . .
”

Annie became utterly still. They had entered the kitchen. The fire blazed, the flames reflecting on all the dozens of polished surfaces Phoebe vigorously burnished each day, dancing in golden shadows on the white walls. There were bowls and jugs of spring flowers on every window bottom and in front of the fire on the rag-rug Phoebe had made especially for him, Natty's dog raised
his head and thumped his tail a couple of times before resuming the doze in which he spent his old days. Dandy, the marmalade cat, was curled companionably at his back, sharing his rug, and a couple of kittens from her last litter chased a feather which had somehow got into Phoebe's clean kitchen. The kettle spluttered pleasingly, the kail pot bubbled with a tasty stew and on the 'bakstone' oatcakes, baked that morning, were kept warm for their meal. There was a feeling of comfortable plenty, of ease and modest prosperity and Sally looked about her, not with envy, though it did remind her of how her mother's kitchen had been, years ago, but with admiration. She had always known Annie Abbott was a girl of forbearance and iron resolve. Well, she'd had to be with a faither like Joshua Abbott but she'd gone further than Sally had ever thought she could
.

. looks a treat in here, Annie, an' it's clear tha's worked 'ard and done well for thissen . . ." she was saying.

“
What did you say?" Annie's hand had been reaching for the teapot on the ledge above the fire but it fell limply to her side as she turned to look at Sally.

“
I said it were a treat in 'ere, lass, especially as tha' ... "

“
No, before that.
”

Sally looked puzzled. "Before what?"

“
About . . . Reed Macauley."

“
What about him?"

“
You said he was sending . . ."

“
Oh, aye, 'tis true. That yardman of 'is comes down every week wi' summat in a basket. Enough to feed us all on account o' Bert not being right yet. 'Tis a mystery, really it is, for the Macauleys weren't right well known for their charity. Old Mrs Macauley wouldn't spit on yer if you was on fire. Cut a currant in 'alf, her cook used ter say an' now there's her lad sendin' great baskets o' grub down to Upfell. Don't like ter think o' the children wi'out a bite to eat, I suppose, an' often enough there's a few bob screwed in a bit of paper. Just until Bert gets on 'isfeet, that Jake Singleton said, that's what Mr Macauley told him ter tell me . . .
”

So he was at it again. Dispensing largesse to those in need and who more deserving of it than poor Sally Garnett whose husband Reed Macauley had crippled and from what Sally said, scrambled his brains to the extent he could no longer function as a farmer, as a man. His leg and arm broken, it was said, and his face smashed to pulp but those would mend, Annie had thought, but it seemed no part of Bert Garnett was mending, especially his mind. And so Reed . . . Reed ..
.

Her heart moved painfully in her breast and a great longing to see him swept over her in such terrifying waves she had to turn away from Sally, only preventing herself from swaying dangerously close to the fire by leaning on the shelf. All these months she had shut him out, her mind closing like a trap every time a vagrant thought had eluded the tight rein she had on herself, and tried to enter it. All these months when she and Charlie might have . . . what? . . . perhaps become lovers? . . . married? . . . given comfort and love and true friendship to one another .. . to have known a certain pleasure in one another's arms . . . he had been there . . . always . . . lurking just out of sight and sound . . . hidden behind a rippling curtain of mist . . . unseen but there, preventing it, preventing her from becoming a real woman again. At first it had been Bert Garnett, a spectre of male violence, of male dominance, of the cruel, degrading, disgusting things he had done to her which had made her shrink away from Charlie's masculinity, but later, she had admitted it to herself, that had become the excuse she used to keep Charlie at arm's length. She loved Charlie so much, his hurt had been hers. He was the dearest man in the world to her, but he was not Reed. She loved Reed as a man. She wanted Reed as a woman wants her man and the simple, unvarnished truth was that her body could not contemplate the merging of itself with any but Reed Macauley's. She did not even know where he was. Presumably he came back to Long Beck to give orders to his servants and, it seemed, to
dispense charity to Sally and her family. Perhaps he lived elsewhere with his wife, how was she to know, and more to the point, did it really matter? He had a wife whether he lived with her or not . . . Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus, but she loved him, longed to see him, to see that ironic smile . . . aah, don't . . . she could not bear to remember .. . the shape of his lips . . . on hers . . . his hands brown, hard . . . gentle on her body . . . it was killing her, this agony of feeling she didn't want, this love she didn't want. She was afraid of it, afraid of loving, not just Reed but anyone. It was so much easier to be detached, to be unaroused by anything more exciting than a healthy lamb, a fine crop of early potatoes, a warm fire to drowse by. Friendship, such as she and Phoebe had, demanding nothing, but not love, not love for when love went, when loss came, the pain was unendurable. She could not endure it, not any more . . . she must stop before Sally .. .
”

. . . so 'tis like havin' seven bairns with Bert as he is, you knew I'd another lass, didn't you? . . . No! . . . oh, aye, just after Bert fell ill. Kitty she's called but she'll be the last, thank God, what with Bert shamblin' about the place half-witted. Don't want me anymore, poor sod, or can't, an' I've to think of the bairns, haven't I? 'Tis a snug little cottage up by Binsey an' I'll be near our Mim and 'er two. Ben's mother died last backend so it all worked out right well. Ben wanted the farm hisself but it's too far for im ter come over an' work it, what with 'is own and he can't afford to pay anyone, an' then o' course wi' Mim to 'elp me, well, we can 'elp each other, bein' so close .. . anyway, I said to Bert . . . well, I still talk to him, Annie, even if he don't answer . . . I said ter Bert, Annie's doin' that well, 'appen she'll be interested, so I come over ter give thi' first refusal.
”

Sally was sitting at her ease in the chair which had been Joshua Abbott's and for a moment Annie could feel his presence in this kitchen, on this farm where he had struggled and laboured for almost fifty years as a boy and as a man and had never in all that time known true success. Blight and murrain had swept through his crops and hissheep with devastating regularity, and yet each time he had patiently, often with great bitterness, heaved himself upright and carried on. Now, or so it seemed to her stunned brain, Sally was asking her, her, Joshua Abbott's daughter, if she cared to buy Upfell Farm. Upfell and its splendid acres of rich inland pastures, its intakes and woodland, its snug farmhouse, all lying neatly beside her own land, twice the size of hers and if . . . dear God in Heaven . . . if she could do it . . . perhaps a loan . . . the bank . . . Mr ... what was his name? . . . the lawyer in Lancaster . . . she would have a farm, not as big as Reed's, but bigger than most . . . a flock of hundreds .. . cattle . . . it was just too much to take in .. .

“
Shall I mek tea?" Sally said sympathetically as Annie fell back on the settle.

“
How much money have you got?" were Charlie's first words when she told him, and her fine and ecstatic rapture ebbed away. She felt a surge of resentment, a distinct need to stand up and stamp about in high dudgeon for how dare he spoil her lovely dream, the rainbow-coloured, star-dazzled, brilliantly glowing dream she had dwelled in ever since Sally had ambled off up the path towards Upfell. But of course the question must be answered, considered first, and answered. She certainly did not have enough to buy a farm, let alone the livestock on it but if she could get a loan . . . perhaps using Browhead as . . . what was the word? . . . collateral . . . ?