A Dinner Of Herbs (27 page)

Apparently, he’s still out on his hunt. I went along to his cottage but it’s all locked up and there was no

fire on that I could see.

He’ll drive himself mad. It’s ridiculous; the whole thing’s over and done with. He should have been

satisfied when Bannaman died, but no, he’s out for blood. That’s Hal. “

She made no answer to this, but when again he said, “Tara she answered.

“Tara

When the door closed on him it was as if a stranger had walked out.

There was silence in the room. The basket was on the table; her two mittened hands were gripping the

handle; the melting snowflakes dropping off the head shawl round her bonnet were

dropping onto them.

It was Kate, turning from the fire, who spoke.

“Sit yourself down, lass,” she said.

“You look buffered.”

Mary Ellen loosened her hands from the basket now and stretched out her fingers as if

they were

cramped; then she went round the table and sat on the crack et opposite Kate. Her hands now joined

tightly in her lap, she asked, “What’s all his news that he’s talked of?”

Kate bent down and, taking up a square of peat, she placed it behind the black pan and as she did so a

waft of smoke came down the chimney and she turned her head away, coughing. After a

moment she

remarked, “I’ll have to get a brush up there; it’s tight at the top.... About his news. His friends are

leaving Newcastle; they are going to London town. And they want to take him with them, so he came

yesterday to ask my advice.” There was an unusual bitter note in her voice as she uttered the words.

Then looking. fully at Mary Ellen, she said, “That was only a form; he’ll do what he

wants in the end.

I’ve had to come to terms, sort of face up to the fact that he’s a lad ... no, no, not a lad any more, a man

who’ll go his own road. He’ll do it quietly and without fuss if possible, but he’ll do it. He doesn’t mean

to hurt anybody so he beats about the bush. And that’s what he’s doin’ now, because,

lass, let’s face it,

he’s bound for London and all it proffers. Better instruction he says, wider outlook on art, whatever he

means by that. Up there, there are people who can draw and paint, he says. I did say to him, I’d

understood there was a lot of fine artist-like people in Newcastle. He agreed, but

apparently the Cottles

think there are better still up in the big town.”

Mary Ellen’s heart was like lead. It was as if she had just heard he had died; in fact, she was wishing

she had heard that he had died, because then she could still think of him as hers. Her voice was like a

thin whimper as she asked, “When is he going?”

“Oh’—Kate jerked her head ‘apparently not until the spring, somewhere around April,

because of what

he calls the term ending. And the Cottle man is committed somewhere with his work until then. But truth

to tell, I don’t think it is the man who has so much to do with it as the woman.”

Oh, Kate. shut up! Shut up! she only just stopped herself from shouting aloud, for Kate’s words were

like a knife being thrust into her. But then mustering what common sense she still had charge of, she

decided she was silly to have any fears about the Cottle woman: Wasn’t she old? Past

thirty.

The silence fell between them again, and during it, staring at Kate, she realized she

wasn’t the only one

who would suffer from his going.

Here was someone who had looked after him all his life, at least since he was a young

lad. And now she

was a very old woman. She didn’t know how old, because Kate would never talk about

her age, but

she was wizened like a nut and her back was bent and her fingers twisted. Had he thought that Kate

might die, should he go to London town? If he was in Newcastle there would have been

some chance of

his coming home to see her during her last days, that’s if she had any and didn’t just pop off.

But in London, which was another world away, how could he ever hope to see her again

once he left for

there? Kate was right about one thing among many others, he would always go his own

road.

As she began to recall incidents from the past she checked herself saying. Stop it. Stop it.

Everybody’s

got their own way of doin’ things, and ‘tis only because he doesn’t like to hurt people.

But he was

hurting Kate, and he was hurting her. Oh, dear Lord, how he was hurting her. If only she could get over

this feeling for him; if only she could take a scrubbing brush and scrub herself all over, then sluice herself

with a bucket of cold water, for then, when she was dried, she’d be rid of it, like when you had a rash or

the itch. But hers was an. itch that started in the core other being and she couldn’t get at it, and never

would.

She rose from the chair, took some things out of the basket and put them on the table, then said, “I’ll be

off to me da’s. I’ll call on me way back. Bye-bye.” She paused; then bending down, she kissed Kate

softly on the cheek, and Kate reached up and gripped her arm with her gnarled fingers, saying brokenly,

“Bye-bye, lass.”

The first thing her father said when she entered the room was, “Hello.

What’s the matter with your face? Has it slipped? “ Instead of retorting in her usual way she answered

him, “ Leave me alone, Da, please. I’m not feelin’ too good. “

After a pause he said, “Aye, well, there’s two of us. Nearly broke me neck the other

mornin’ on the

bloody ice outside the door. So get as much wood in as you can when you’re here the

day, ‘cos by the

look of it, we’re in for another window-sill wiper.”

As she took off her things and began to empty the basket, giving no answer to his

comments on its

contents, she wondered if there was one other person in the world besides Kate who did anything for

anybody and didn’t expect a return? He was her father, true, and she had a duty to him.

Then there

were the Davisons. She had a duty to them, too, and she certainly repaid it every hour of the day. She

paused for a moment and looked at her hands. She had pulled her mittens off and the bare ends of her

fingers looked swollen, and the rest of her hands were red and roughened and there were corns on the

mounds between her fingers. She had the inclination to cry, but then she admonished

herself: “Stop it!

Stop it!” for she knew that the condition of her hands, or the attitude of the Davisons, or her father, or

anyone else wouldn’t have mattered a fig if the one person in her life was not going to vanish from it.

She stopped for a moment in the act of reaching upwards to a shelf in the pantry. What about the

promise, or should she say the suggestion that he had voiced to Hal in the square at

Allendale? Had he

spoken like that just to show that he wasn’t ungrateful to her? And that’s all he had meant them to be,

just words, no deeper meaning? And what about the letter he had promised to write to

her?

Oh, why did she keep on; if Kate said he would go to London, he would go to London.

Kate could see

through people. She knew what they wanted even before they knew it themselves.

As if her father had picked up her thoughts, he called, “Her asking’ me to go along there on Christmas

Day. She’s as able as me to get out.”

Like a flash she called back, “Don’t be silly. Da! She can hardly crawl about.”

“That’s put on half the time. She’s as tough as cow’s hide. She’s been as old as she is now for as long

as I can remember. She’s got potions that keep her goin’, and she won’t peg out till they run out.”

She was speechless. Kate had been so good to her father and mother, and at one time he had

appreciated it. He had said she was the best and wisest woman that he had ever come

across. She

remembered he had gone to a revival once when the Evangelists were speaking in

Allendale square, and

when he came back he had said to her mother, “Twas all hell fire and brimstone, same as the rest, only

that one stoked his fire up the day with his best coal, because it was so red-hot he had women folk

faintin’. No wonder some tried to break up the meetin’. But as I remarked to Benny

Fowler on the way

back, if old Kate had been on that box, she would have had their ears spread out and their mouths agape

with her wisdom.”

And that wasn’t so long ago, well, seven years gone. But did it take seven years to change a man?

Most of them could change overnight.

She stopped before shutting the pantry door and, looking inwards at the stone-slab bed shelves, she said

to herself, “Kate says if you think of a thing first thing every morning afore you even open your eyes, it’ll

come to pass.” She had said that to her as a child when she had wished for some toy or other. Well,

she had said certain words to herself every morning now for years and what had they

brought her?

Nothing but pain. So she must change them. But what could she put in their place?

It was May. He was going to London. This was the last time she would see him.

It had been an unusually warm day. It had been a lovely spring altogether. Too dry, some people said,

for there hadn’t been a drop of rain for a fortnight and people were foolishly casting off the heavy clothes

of the winter, while the wiser ones chanted, “You’ll suffer for it. Ne’er cast a clout till May is out.”

They had been walking side by side in silence for some time. It was Kate’s suggestion, given in an aside

to him, that he should see her back to the farm. They were on the quarry path now and

she had the mad

notion to turn to him and say, “If I was to show you where a bag of gold lies, would you stay?” But her

heart knew the answer, because even if she were to claw her way into that old tunnel and show him the

bag, his answer would be, “That’s stolen money. It should go back to the firm.”

It was strange, but long, long periods could go by without her ever giving the bag a

thought, but during

these last few heart-torn weeks her mind had dwelt on’it. She could be rich. She could set up some

place on her own, only how would she explain from where she had got the money.

She’d had the idea of setting up a little cake shop in the market place at Hexham, for she was a dab

hand at cake making. But it was only an idea and vague, merely another wish that she

knew could never

come true.

He broke the silence by saying, “I’m not going to Australia, Mary Ellen, so don’t look so glum, although

I’ll never forget, if it hadn’t been for your good work on my behalf that’s exactly where I might be at this

minute.” He put his hand on her arm, and she stopped and peered up at him in the deep

twilight, and all

she said was, “Oh, Roddy.” And he, his voice tender now, said, “I... I think the world of you, Mary

Ellen, always have and always will. You must remember that. But... but....”

When he shook his head she screwed up her eyes tightly. Then swinging round from him,

she ran into

some low thicket to the side of the path, and when he came after her, calling softly,

“Mary Ellen! Mary

Ellen!

Look, don’t be silly,” she stilt kept on, until, coming to an open space, she flung herself down onto the

moss and, burying her face in her hands, she began to cry unrestrainedly.

He knelt by her side and endeavoured to raise her up. But she remained stiff and lay

there, her whole

body racked with her sobbing, and all he could say was, “Oh, Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen.”

When her crying subsided she pulled herself up and around, and as she groped at the

bottom other

petticoat to find the pocket wherein lay her handkerchief he said, “Here. Here.” And now he was

wiping her face, one hand on the back of her head, the other moving the handkerchief:

around her eyes.

“You’ve got moss on your chin.” He laughed shakily.

“It looks like a beard.” And when he rubbed at her chin, she whimpered, “Oh, Roddy,

don’t go.

Please, don’t go.”

“Now, Mary Ellen, you know I must.”

“Roddy.” Her voice was just a faint whisper.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked. | “I... I love you.”

“Oh, Mary Ellen. It’s ... it’s just because we’ve been brought up together.”

“No, no, Roddy.” She was staring into his face now, but] in the dim light, and the tears still in her eyes,

she saw it as ;

through an enchanted glass. It was beautiful, so beautiful that she could not control her hands, and when

they both went out and cupped it she was whispering again, :

“Roddy. Roddy. Will ... will you do something for me, just one thing, something ...

something to

remember you by?”

“Aye, yes, of course, Mary Ellen, anything. What is it?”

There was a long pause now as her hands slid round his shoulders, and she pressed

herself against him

before she said, “Love me.”

Although she felt his body jerk away beneath her hold she did not relinquish it, but again she pleaded,

“Just... just once, Roddy. I ... I must have something of you to remember you by. Just once. Oh,

Roddy.”

“Mary Ellen, you don’t know what you’re sayin’.”

“Yes, yes, I do, Roddy, I do, I know all about it. I know what I’m sayin’.”

“But if... if?”

“It won’t. It won’t. Nothing will happen, just... just... Oh, Roddy, Roddy. Please, love me.

Please,

love me.”

When she felt the trembling in her own body being answered in his, she lifted her face up until their lips