A Dinner Of Herbs (28 page)

were an inch apart. Then when she pressed hers to his she felt his body go rigid. But this did not deter

her. And when they fell onto their sides they lay still, still and trembling.

“Mary Ellen! Mary Ellen! No, no. It ... it mustn’t happen. Oh, Mary Ellen.” As he

repeated her name

his hands began to move over her, and immediately the agitation inside her ceased and

she lay perfectly

still.

The daylight vanished. A night animal ran past them and gave an eerie squeaking cry at finding an

obstacle in its path.

Roddy was the first to sit up, but he did not straighten himself: his body doubled, he held his head in his

hands, muttering unintelligibly;

whereas Mary Ellen all the while lay limp and relaxed, staring upwards to where in the far far distance a

small star was appearing in the sky.

So this was it? This ecstasy that was nearly all pain; this transient thing that had changed, not only her

body, but her mind, for her worrying had stopped. It was as if she had never known worry and would

never know it again, for now she had an antidote against it in the knowledge that she was holding Roddy

to her for evermore: if she never saw him again he would be hers.

It was at the moment she was thinking, no matter what happened in her life again it

wouldn’t affect her,

that Roddy’s voice penetrated her euphoria and the sound told her he was speaking

through his clenched

teeth.

‘ You shouldn ‘t have done it, Mary Ellen. “

She felt him move then saw the dark outline of him rise to his feet.

And she knew he was fumbling with his clothes. She hadn’t bothered about hers; she

hadn’t even been

aware of their disarray; but now her hands were quickly thrusting her skirt and petticoat into place. And

she raised herself on her elbow as his voice came at her again, saying, “You shouldn’t have made me,

Mary Ellen. That’s you, you must have all you want.”

The euphoria slid away from her like a cloak falling from a greased body. She pulled

herself to her feet

now and muttered, “Roddy. Roddy.”

“You know what you’ve done, Mary Ellen? You know what you’ve done?”

“Yes, Roddy, yes. I know what I’ve done.”

“My God! What if there’s consequences?”

She paused before answering. Previously she had thought of the consequences and it

hadn’t mattered,

for deep down in her she had imagined that if there were consequences he would

shoulder the

responsibility, and they would be married, and perhaps she would go to Newcastle to live there with

him. And she would have learned to pass herself among his fine friends, because she was quick to learn

anything. But now as she listened to him, for he was still talking, another change was taking place in her

mind and body. Her body had gone numb as if it hadn’t experienced any sensation at all either of pain or

pleasure. As to her mind, she was trying her best not to recognize what it was telling her, that this man

who was talking at her was the real Roddy, not the one she had fostered in her mind all these years, for

he was repeating in several different ways that it was she who was selfish, it was she who must always

have everything she wanted and if she didn’t get it she flared out with her tongue. And now look at what

she had done, the hole she had put him in. He finished by saying, “Oh! God.”

She stood peering up at him. What had she done? She had forced him to love her. But

what she had

experienced, was that love?

She could just see the outline of his face. It wasn’t as she had imagined it just now, she was seeing him

as Kate saw him. Kate loved him, but she wasn’t deluded by her love, as she herself had been. She

remembered something that Kate had said last week. She hadn’t fully understood it then but she did

now. When she herself had been going on about him not visiting and the weather fine,

Kate had said, “A

slack string on a fiddle alters the whole tune. It’s like human beings. We all have slack strings,

weaknesses, selfish traits.”

Well, now she recognized his slack string: he was selfish;

in a big way he was selfish. He had been upbraiding her, and behind his words there was a suggestion

that she had acted like a loose woman.

He was saying now, “I’m surprised, Mary Ellen, I am, but I’m not without blame me self

“Thank you, Roddy.”

“Oh, don’t come back like that with your sarcastic clips. You know it would never have happened if...”

Something snapped within her head and she was shouting at him now, “Yes, yes, I

know.”

Quickly he thrust out his hand as if to put it over her mouth, at the same time hissing,

“My God! Do you

know what you’re doin’? Anybody could hear you on the path above.”

“Well, I don’t mind. I would have thought you wanted everybody to know that I’m a bad

woman,

because that’s what you think, isn’t it, I’m bad?”

“Don’t be daft, no such thing. Silly, yes. And out to have your own way as always....”

“Roddy.” Her voice was now low and deep as if coming up from the pain-filled depth

within her and

with a tone of quiet recrimination in it as she said, “Think again. What have I had with regards to me own

way, ever? I was subject to me da; and from then I’ve been subject to me mistress, and all the Davisons

for that matter. Now it’s my turn, Roddy, to say this, the one big mistake I’ve made, and I can say it

now, is to think that you were different from what you are. And deep within me I’m sad as sad that I’ve

found it out. Newcastle didn’t change you, and not even your fine friends did, ‘cos

you’ve always been

like that. Looking back, I’ve had the name of trailing you since we were baims. And I

did. But just

think, there were times when I didn’t, and what happened? You came after me. Not many

times. But

when I went off somewhere on me own, there you were, demandin’ why I hadn’t turned

up. You liked

to be trailed, Roddy. It was the same with Hal. Hal trailed you. Hal thought the sun shone out of you,

and now you couldn’t care a tinker’s curse about Hal or what effect your leavin’ has on him. Not that

that worries me because it’s been only too plain to everybody that Hal and me spark off each other like

tinder off flint. And I know this much an’ all:

you’ve altered since you got your memory back. As you said, you’ve become your real

self. But the

one afore that was pretty much the same. So I can say to you now, Roddy, go on your

way, and don’t

let your conscience trouble you. Just keep tellin’ ‘yourself that all that happened was my fault. “ <, As

she turned about and almost stumbled over a fallen branch, he muttered, “ Look, Mary

Ellen. Look. “

She did not turn to him, but groped her way back to the path. He followed her. And there she turned

to him and said very gently, “Goodbye. And don’t come any further I know me way. I

should do.”

“Mary Ellen, please, look. Don’t let us part like this.”

She swung round now and she knew that his eyes were blazing, and her lips were squared back from

her teeth as she ground out, “Roddy Greenbank, you go to London and ;

to hell. To hell! Do you hear? “

And on this she swung round from him, knowing that 192 ;

she had silenced him, even stunned him. And she went blindly on her way, for once again the tears were

streaming down her face and she had to keep one hand in front of her to push against the branches

bordering the side of the path, because at times she staggered like someone drunk.

Mrs. Davison was worried about her maid. For weeks now she hadn’t been herself. It was all because

that big lump of a smelter had gone off to London. Well, she thanked God for that. He

was now out of

the way and time altered everything, as she knew only too well, for didn’t God send it to alter the

seasons: nothing but time could melt the hard frozen earth and make the ground fertile for planting and

bring forth the shoots, and nothing but time could lead to the harvest and the gathering in.

Yes, time

altered every thing; so she believed it would alter Mary Ellen’s outlook towards her

grandson. Apart

from providing Lennie with a wife to hand, because he wasn’t of the nature to go

searching, she could

see before her in the young girl a lifetime of help, for she was as strong as a dray horse and as willing.

Oh, just a little more time to make Lennie a little more pushing and everything would go as she had

planned it in her mind for this long while.

Then one morning Mrs. Davison began to worry still more. What was the matter with the

girl? She

looked as, peaked as a hen with the croup, and she wasn’t as perky as she had been. Not that she

neglected her work in any way, no, but there was something not right with her. And

these:

last two or three days she had been running back and forward to the midden. Well, what could you

expect when;

she was eating green apples. Thinking to give her a change;

the other day, she had sent her into the orchard to pick up’ the windfalls. And when she herself, wanting

a breath of^ air, had strolled down there, she saw her picking with one:;

hand and stuffing herself with the other.

“What’s wrong;

with you, girl? “ she had said.

“They’ll give you the gripe,:

194 i eating green apples. Don’t you get enough food that you must eat green apples? “

And all the reply she was given was, “I like green apples.” Now that was odd.

The little woman sat down on the settle near the fire. When had Mary Ellen expressed the wish for

green apples before? If there wasn’t enough sugar in the apple pies, she had screwed up ther face.

As a light penetrated her mind and illuminated a thought, she bobbed up from the seat

and squealed

aloud, “No! No! It can’t be. No! No!

Neverf Now she looked about her kitchen, which had a place for everything and

everything in its place,

as if she were searching for an answer. But then, in a way, she had already got it; and she asked of the

delph rack, “What was the time he left? Early May, wasn’t it?” And when the delph rack appeared to

answer she nodded at it. Then counting on her fingers, she said, “Early May to early June one, to early

July two, to early August three, early September four ...” She stopped and stared at her hand. Then

gazing up at the ceiling, she said, “Holy God!”

before bringing her gaze down to the delph rack again and denying her thoughts by

slapping her thighs

and crying, “No, no!

“Tis the apples and the belly-ache.” And lifting her gaze once more to the ceiling, she concentrated it on

three hams hanging there. They were dangling from the beam above the open fire place

where they

would be tinged by the smoke before being cut into at Christmas. And the middle ham

seemed to sway

and say, Go and ask her. And she said aloud, “Where is she?” In the cow shed helping to muck. Aye.

Hadn’t she purposely sent her over there to give Lennie a hand? She knew herself that

there was nothing

like the smell of warm cows and the running of milk from swollen teats to put one’s mind in the right

frame for courting.

Her small body seemed to stot out of the room and across the yard, and there she was

standing at the

open byre door, calling now in a voice that seemed larger than herself, “You! Mary

Ellen.”

“Yes, ma’am?” Mary Ellen, wielding a large bass brush, was sweeping the cow dung

from the far end

of the byre.

“Put that down and come with me.”

Mary Ellen hesitated for a moment. She turned her head and glanced at Lennie who was

looking at her

from where he was un tethering a cow from its stall, and his look said, What’s got into Gran?

Of a sudden Mary Ellen knew what had got into Gran. This was the moment for which

she had been

waiting, for some weeks now, and she wondered it hadn’t come sooner. It must have been the green

apples that had given the game away. But if it hadn’t been them her stomach would have answered her

mistress’s question in a very short while, because, being well into the fourth month it was rising.

She went down the byre and rubbed her hands on a coarse towel that was hanging from a

nail, before

crossing the yard and going into the kitchen. She knew what her mistress would say, she knew what they

would all say. But she felt she knew the outcome of it: they would take her on if she

would marry

Lennie. And she had decided that’s what she would do, because there was no other way

out, and he

was a good fellow, was Lennie. That she would have to put up with his piousness for the rest other life

would be trying, and also pay his grandmother with her labour until | one of them died.

But as she saw it,

it was the lesser of two I evils; what kind of a life would she have if she went back to her father? And

anyway, who would keep her and her child?

In some way or another she would have to work. But where? And who would take her

on? Except a

poor farmer, who would work her as he would an old and decrepit horse, getting the last ounce out of it.

So she wasn’t too afraid when she stood before the| mistress and saw that the little

woman was finding

difficulty |l in speaking; in fact, when she did open her mouth shea stammered, “Ma ...