A Dinner Of Herbs (16 page)

hurried now down an incline until he came to a pair of iron gates, and taking up his stand at the other side

of the narrow road and in the shelter of some shrubs he waited.

It seemed to be her habit now and again to visit someone in the house beyond the gates and she usually

left around half-past four or thereabouts. That she was Bannaman’s daughter he no longer saw as an

obstacle, if he ever had. He knew what he intended to do: he would tell her of his

prospects, and ask her

to wait. He had not for a moment considered what her feelings might be towards him; if his mind had

enquired along those lines, it was to reason that no one could love as he loved her and the feeling not be

returned.

But when the clock in the Abbey struck five he made up his mind that he had missed her and told himself

he didn’t know how he was going to get through another week without catching a

glimpse other; it was

as if he had inhaled some strange potion mixed up by Kate, for he couldn’t get the girl’s face out of his

mind. Yet she was no girl, she was a woman, a handsome attractive woman, and she had

smiled on him,

and her eyes had spoken to him. He felt his heart actually jerk against his ribs when the gate opened and

there she was. As if he had been shot from the bushes he was at her side, and no doubt he startled her,

for she stammered as she said, “Mr.... Mr.... Greenbank, please’ And she pulled her arm from his grasp.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, miss. It was just that I ... I thought you had gone, an’ it was sort of impulse

that caused me to make such haste.” He watched her draw herself upwards. Now she was

walking up

the bank to the market place and he was keeping his step in line with hers, talking all the time.

“I ... I had to see you. Do you understand? What is your first name? I keep giving you names.”

She paused for a moment and there was no laughter in her eyes or warmth in her voice as she said, “My

name doesn’t matter. And no, I don’t understand what you want of me. Because I have

allowed you to

speak to me on two occasions I think you are taking advantage of the situation, Mr.

Greenbank.”

He was utterly taken aback. Nevertheless, he still persisted, he felt he had to. Taking advantage? “ he

repeated.

“I understood you were interested in the fact that I was going into Newcastle to present my drawings to

a company of gentlemen. I... I just wanted you to know the result or at least what

happened.”

“I’m well acquainted with what happened, Mr. Green—bank. My father is in a position to know Mr.

Mulcaster at the mill; you are, I understand, a workman there, a smelter, and might be given the

opportunity to further the talent you have in drawing. My father....”

They were nearing the arch now that led into the market proper and he pulled her to a halt by again

gripping her arm and swinging her round to face him, saying now, “This is not you, this is not the young

lady who has spoken to me afore. It’s your father, isn’t it? He has forbidden you to speak to me, that’s

it, isn’t it? I’m below your station, that’s what he says, isn’t it? But let me tell you, I won’t always be a

smelter. Oh no. Oh no.”

“Leave go of my arm, please.”

“I will when I’m ready. You’ve got to listen to me. Do you hear? Look, tell me please’—

his voice

dropped to a pleading note ‘what is your Christian name?”

“Mary!” The name came loud and clear, but not from her, and he turned to see Mr.

Bannaman standing

in the shadow of the arch. Then the man was towering over him with a look on his face

that could only

be described as black rage, and his voice was coming hissing through his teeth like steam from an

escaped pipe:

“Don’t you dare lay hands on my daughter! You approach her again, come within a mile

of her, and I’ll

see you skinned alive.” The words, although hissed, were so quietly spoken that even a passerby

couldn’t hear them. But they evoked an answering rage in Roddy, and in his turn it was so deep that it

blocked out words; and yet it brought into focus that odd feeling he experienced at those times when his

memory tried to drag itself back to his early years. Staring into the man’s eyes there came a dizziness in

his head, and he wasn’t aware at first of the man walking from him, taking his daughter with him. Not

until they were passing through the arch did he seem to come to himself, and then he

sprang forward and

yelled, “I’ll see her when I like. You can’t frighten me, nor her.”

“Don’t be such a fool!” He turned to the side to see Hal within an arm’s length from him, and he glared

at him as he went on, “So that’s the piece. You must be up the pole. Apart from being’

Bannaman’s

daughter, if all tales are true, she’s had more through her than the stamp mill. Why, her engagement to

Mr. Jimmy Leader from Newcastle was broken off last year, and why? ‘cos she was

found with one of

her horse-riding mates up in the stables. It was common knowledge, and you, you idiot, would have

heard it if you hadn’t your head so far up in the air....”

He got no further before Roddy’s fist caught him between the eyes and sent him reeling, and he hit the

wall. And he stayed there for some seconds before, with shake of his head, he sprang on his lifelong

friend and the man, you could say, he loved.

Immediately a small crowd gathered around them.

“Now would you believe that?” one man was saying.

“I know those two, like twins they are.”

“Must be drunk,” another said.

“It often happens that way. God! they are goin’ at it.”

Then part of the crowd had to disperse to let a high—stepping horse and a trap pass round them. And

from his seat Clan Bannaman looked down on the squirming figures on the ground. And

his bearded

face quivered before he brought his whip so viciously around the horse’s flank that it reared before it

sprang forward, and for most of the long drive to his home, he kept the animal moving at a trot.

When he eventually arrived in the courtyard adjoining his farm he threw the reins to his daughter,

barking, “See to it!” Then he made for his woodman’s cottage, and there, calling Pat

Feeler out, he

spoke rapidly to him, finishing with, Tfyou want to save your neck as well as mine,

move, because I saw

it in his face. It could happen any minute, it nearly did then. Get Vesper and Prince out, they’re fresh.

Those two might return separately or both together. If they come by the Allendale cart it’ll be around

eight o’clock. Move man! Don’t stand there like a petrified rabbit. “

God! to think it’s come to this after all this time. And all through that blasted bitch. By God! I’ll

horsewhip her, that’s if I live to get the chance. The last words he spoke to himself for Pat Feeler was

already running towards the stables as if being pursued by the devil himself.

At the crossroads, Roddy and Hal slid down from the back of the blacksmith’s cart, and they both

swayed slightly and came in contact with each other for the first time since they had

taken their seats.

The long twilight was dropping into dark and hid the fact that both their faces were

bruised, Hal’s

showing discoloration that was spreading to both his eyes and Roddy’s cut and swollen

lower lip that

was still oozing blood.

They had to take the same road as far as the mine where Roddy would turn off to go to

Kate’s, leaving

Hal to go on towards his cottage.

Roddy strode ahead, his anger still burning in him but mixed now with a great sense of humiliation. It

had been bad enough, the confrontation with Bannaman, but the brawl in the market

place would forever

stamp him as a lout. Yet he had been the first to raise his hand. And rightly so, he told himself. To say

things like that about her. For two pins he’d turn and start on him again. Only the fact that he would

have had to take the long track back from Hexham on foot had got him onto the carrier’s cart when he

saw Hal already sitting there.

He stopped dead in his tracks as Hal’s voice came to him now, saying in a tone between a mutter and a

growl, “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry!” He turned on him.

“You say you’re sorry after taking somebody’s character away like that, and in the open for all to hear?”

“Nobody heard me; it was just for your ears.”

“Well, I heard you and I think you’re a bloody swine. Do you hear? A bloody swine.”

“Aye, well, you can think what you like, but I know what I know, and I’ll say this, you’re a blasted fool

and ... All right! All right! You start anything He held up his hand more from instinct than to combat any

movement he had seen Roddy making as he went on, rapidly now, “ You start anything

again and I’ll

finish it this time, as I could have finished you back there in the market. Oh aye, I could.

Oh aye, I

could. “

“You finish me?”

“Aye, me finish you. I could have kneed you or battered your face, but I let you off. Aye, I did, I let

you off.”

“You let me off? You’re all talk, all blow.”

“Huh! That’s funny, when I’m mostly blamed for not openin’ me mouth.

But you know inside your head what I’m sayin’ is true. Anyway, I say again, I’m sorry it happened. “

There was silence between them; then Roddy swung round and marched on, and Hal kept

in step just a

stride behind him.

It happened just as they were approaching the path that would have separated their ways.

For a

moment each thought that the other had attacked him, until the next blows came out of

the blackness and

they both gasped and fell to their knees, and when they were struck for the third time they tumbled and

lay side by side, both on their backs, their heads lolling towards each other.

“Go on in and sit down, Kate,” “I won’t sit down, and I won’t go in. What are you

sayin’? I don’t

believe you.” Kate held up the lantern and peered at the two black faces staring at her, and the pit men

exchanged glances before one said, “Tis true, Kate, ‘tis true. We’re sorry to say but ‘tis true.

Come. “ He reached out and took the lamp from her while the other man pressed her

gently backwards

into the cottage where he again said, “ Sit you down. “

The first pitman put the lantern on the table as he said, “We were comin’ off the shift, an’

that was the

road we usually take an’ we nearly stumbled over them. I thought it was a trunk that had fallen across

the way, and then we saw them. It’s as I said, Kate, they had been fightin’ and one has a knife in his ribs

and they are both ... well, they’re not pretty sights. They must have pummelled each other almost to the

end before they finished it.”

“He’s... he’s not... Roddy’s not?”

“We don’t know, Kate,” the other man said a little comfortingly.

“Hal Roystan had a knife in him but he was still breathin’, but we don’t know so much

about Roddy.”

“Where ... where are they now?” The words jerked from her trembling lips.

“Where we found them, Kate. We ... we covered them up, but ‘tis a serious business and one of our

mates went for the doctor and one for Mr. Wardle, the bailiff. We thought he’d know

what to do,

because, I’m afraid, Kate, it looks like a case for the justice, besides which as me mate here said, if we

move that knife the wrong way it might do more harm than good.”

Kate now pulled herself to her feet, saying, “Take me to them.”

“No, no, Kate. The night’s sharp, you’ll get your death.”

Ill “I’m expectin’ that, so it won’t matter how it comes. Just take me up there.”

The men exchanged glances; then one of them said, “Well, wrap up, wrap up well,

because it could be a

long night for you. Likely, they’ll take them down to the doctor’s room at the mill. Then where they go

from there only God knows. I’ve come across many strange things in me time, but those

two were like

brothers, closer than many, and yet one has got to go and kill the other.

“Tis something’ so unexpected it’s affected us all. We’ve known them since they were

lads. Good

workers, both of them, both in the mine and at the mill, so we hear, and yours highly

respected. We all

know you’ve looked after him like a son.”

Kate turned her dazed eyes on the men and she repeated, as if to herself, “Aye, I’ve

looked after him

like a son.” Then she added, “And that’s what he’s been to me. Yes, that’s what he’s been to me.”

The man leaning over’ the iron bed said, “Four days now. If he lasts the day, he’ll make it, if not, he’ll

go.” And his companion, from the other side of the bed, said, “Well, aye, he’ll go in any case, once he

recovers enough to move him to Newcastle or Durham. Durham it’ll be likely, if the

other bloke snuffs

it,” “T’other one’s in better shape than this. His was only a stab and a few bruises, but he must have

battered this ‘un silly afore he got the knife stuck in him. But how this one managed that in the state he

was in, God knows. He’s muttering again, the same as afore, callin’ for his da. It’s a bad sign. They

always want their folks when they’re just on goin’.”

“Is the old ‘un still outside?”

“No. A fellow on a farm cart came and took her an’ the young lass back about an hour

gone. Well,

I’m off duty now, he’s all yours. Funny—’ He looked down on the bruised and swollen