All the dear faces (41 page)

“
Confound it Annie, I can do no more. It would be a good life for you and the child. You could be the widow of. . ."

“
I would be a whore. Your whore."

“
Don't! Don't say that. I love you . . ."

“
. . . and if you stopped loving me? If it should become tedious to get on your horse and travel the ten, fifteen miles, or perhaps more, I would need to hide myself to keep your reputation untarnished, would you say 'Oh, to hell with it, I'll go another day!' Whilst I and any children we may have as a result of this 'arrangement' will sit and wait patiently until . . "

“
No, no, never. You mean more to me than . . ."

“
I would be no more to you than a mistress. Loved perhaps but condemned to a life of secrecy and deceit."

“
Dammit to hell, Annie."

“
No Reed, no! I can't do it. I just cannot do it. Already I am an outcast in this parish, but despite that I am gaining a measure of success. My flock is growing . . ."

“
Less than a hundred sheep." His voice was contemptuous, made so by his bitter disappointed love.

“
Don't sneer at me or my efforts, Reed." She was doing her best to keep her temper, but her eyes which had shown concern for his pain, had begun to glow hotly. "I've worked hard . . ."

“
There is no need for it, Annie." His voice was pleading. "Yes, there is. I want to do this, Reed. I must do it. I . . . I love you . . ."

“
Then let me . . ."

“
I love you and had you . . . well, if things had been different, I would have gladly shared your life though how the good folk of Bassenthwaite would have taken to . . ."

“
For Christ's sake, Annie, don't turn me away. Don't turn the idea down without thinking about it. What about Penrith? No one knows you there." His voice was boyish, shaking in his eagerness, and he grasped her hands, holding them between his own, then bringing them
tenderly to his mouth where he covered them with kisses whilst his vivid blue eyes held hers, the love in them as soft and tender as those of a mother gazing at an adored child. He was not a man to beg. His nature was to take whatever he wanted and if he could not take it then he was prepared to pay for it, at his price, naturally. His nature challenged hers, willing her to give in and yet he was making a decent offer to curb that arrogance in himself that demanded his own way in all things.

“
Take me seriously, my darling, for I don't give up easily. If you don't like the idea of Penrith then we could go north, or south. You see I am saying 'we'. We would go together, travel as man and wife. Make a home together. I would come back to Long Beck just as often, and for as long as it was needed, to keep the gossips away from .. . from my wife. I could run my business from wherever we went. And the farm. A factor and half a dozen good shepherds. Bloody hell, woman, do you not see what I am willing to give up for you?
”

There was a long moment of strangled silence, then, with a familiar, defensive growl, he took her by the forearms and shook her.

“
Godammit, Annie. Tell me you agree. I'm . . . I cannot stand this need I have of you. Say you'll come, say it .. say it ... " and he shook her more violently.

“
I cannot." Her voice was soft.

“
You can, you will."

“
No, Reed. I cannot."

“
Why, for Christ's sake, why?"

“
I don't know."

“
That's no bloody answer."

“
It's the only one I can give you now.
”

He threw her from him, his violence so close to the surface it was in danger of breaking through and attacking her. Blackie and Bonnie were ready to fling themselves on him, their muzzles raised warningly, and his old dog placed herself between them and her master.

“
Then there's no more to be said."

“
No.""I shan't give up.
”

Why was she so pleased to hear him say that, she wondered desolately as she watched him click his fingers to his dog and move stiffly in the direction of his mare. She wouldn't change her mind! Ever. What she had feared at their first meeting a few weeks ago had happened. He had not been satisfied with what they now had. He wanted more, as she wanted more so was it to be wondered at? She loved him so much, so much she wanted nothing more than to call his name, to open her arms and hold them out to him. To go with him wherever he wanted to take her, but she couldn't. She didn't really know why since she already had a reputation as a harlot so why not husband stealer, or even worse, but she couldn't
.

He mounted his mare and inside her, just beneath her left breast the pain was unbearable where her heart broke. He did not look back at her as he spoke.

“
I'll make arrangements for the child," he said, then with a soft murmur to his dog, put his heels to the mare's side and threw them both down a length of scree with an abandon so wild and dangerous the animal whinnied in fear
.

Annie sank to her knees and bowed her head
.

Chapter
23

Why did her body ache as though she had been stricken with some dreadful debilitating illness or as if she had been given a sound beating with a cudgel, her dazed mind wondered as she staggered down the steep hill at the back of Browhead. She seemed to hurt all over, even to the roots of her hair, which was ridiculous really, since it was her heart and soul and mind which had been badly damaged this day. It was hard to put one foot in front of the other and twice she fell as she descended Broad End. The water in Barkbeth Gill was icy cold as it crept over her clogs, when she missed her footing crossing it, and though it was high summer she shivered, the spasms rippling across her skin in cold feathers
.

There was no sign of Charlie in the old shed where once her father had worked on his `swiller's horse'. Lengths of straight-grained knot-free oak saplings leaned neatly against the wall and dozens of logs had already been quartered with the lat-axe prior to placing them in the cast-iron boiler where they would stew overnight. The three of them, Phoebe, herself and Charlie had already fashioned several dozen swills and Annie meant to make the journey to the coastal town of Whitehaven soon to sell them, for the baskets were used in the coaling of ships. Thirty pounds of coal each one could hold, hauled on the backs of the crew, basket by basket until the coal hold was full. In the lull between planting, lambing and harvest, and the sheep fairs where she hoped to sell her unwanted male lambs, they could make many more baskets, selling them wherever there was a need. She was also toying with the idea of producing charcoal from the juniper trees in her coppice wood since she could not afford to wastethe utilisation of any crop which might make her money. The gunpowder manufacturers of Westmorland and Cumberland would buy the charcoal from her, for it was a major ingredient in the making of explosives. Not that she had ever done any charcoal burning, nor even seen the process, but she could learn, she told herself, since she intended to leave no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored in her aim to make Browhead into a successful, profit-making farm
.

Phoebe was at the table, a fine mist of flour dancing and drifting in the shaft of sunlight which came through the window and fell across her. She was kneading dough, her big-knuckled hands folding it over and over on itself, then pushing her clenched fist into its centre. She had watched Mrs Holme at The Packhorse in Keswick one market-day morning whilst she waited for Annie and Mr Lucas who were moving from stall to stall buying provisions. Mrs Holme was a good-natured woman and on seeing Phoebe's interest as she peeped through the inn's kitchen window, had called to her cheerfully to `come inside'.

“
Tha's Annie Abbott's girl aren't tha?" she had asked, bearing no it seemed towards Annie who had left The Packhorse rather suddenly a couple of years ago
.

Phoebe admitted that she was and within minutes had mastered the art of breadmaking and memorised the ingredients with which it was made. Though she had found it a terrible strain, and indeed had hardly done so, to learn and retain the letters of the alphabet, Mrs Holme had only to tell her once what went into this or that dish and it was in her head for ever with no need to even write it down. She had been given a brief sketch of several of Mrs Holme's favourite recipes which Phoebe had tried out on her 'family', finding to her own amazement and their delight, that she had the makings of a decent cook. A talent for serving up the best oatcakes Annie said she had ever eaten. Her porridge was the creamiest and her tatie-pot, the tastiest, and though, as she well knew, she had no gift with words or letters or numbers as Cat did, and no interest if she was honest, she loved the creating
of some splendid dish, many out of her own imaginative brain, with which to please Annie, Mr Lucas and Cat.

“
Tha' can tekk them clogs off for I've just scrubbed them there flags, Annie Abbott," she said tartly as Annie came through the door, her eyes flickering from the dough to Annie's feet and back again. "An' them dogs can stop outside an' all." This was Phoebe's domain in the 'firehouse' as the kitchen was still often called. She had taken over not only the kitchen but the whole farmhouse to Annie's relief, scrubbing and dusting and polishing, throwing open windows and filling the place with wild flowers and her own, home-made pot-pourri, derived from the dried petals of roses and lavender and larkspur. She burnished the copper bowls and pans to a fine glow with wood ash, fed the basket of kittens which miraculously had been found one morning, mewing and suckling around the complacently purring Dandy, who had turned out to be female after all, and whenever the weather was clear there would be a line of sparklingly white bedding and undergarments pegged out on her line across the yard. She had a passion for cleanliness, not only about the farmhouse but in herself, washing, starching and ironing the aprons once worn by Lizzie Abbott and had even taken to wearing the frilled cap women of Lizzie's generation had worn. It covered her dark glossy hair completely and Annie had pondered on whether it was an unconscious defence against the eyes of men, of man who had once tried to misuse her. Her hair was her one claim to beauty.

“
Nay, what's to do?" Phoebe said on seeing Annie's face. She reached for the cloth to wipe her hands for even in the direst emergency, her mind worked to the pattern of cleanliness she had set herself. "What's happened to thi'?"

“
Nothing, Phoebe, I'm just tired."

“
Give over. Ah've seen thi' tired when tha've clipped a dozen sheep, an' tha' didn't look as bad as tha' does now. Have tha' seen a ghost?"

“
Perhaps I have. A ghost of what might have been." Annie's voice was low but she did her best to smile. Theeffort was agony but how could she tell this innocent, inexperienced girl of the torment of love, of bitter despairing love that reached, in one moment, the pinnacle of rapture only to be dashed on the hard, damaging crag of despair in the next.

“
Nay, I don't know what tha's talking about, love." "No, I don't suppose you do, Phoebe, and what's more, neither do I."

“
But where've tha' bin?" Phoebe sat down on the settle next to Annie and leaned forward to peer anxiously into her face. "Ah thought tha' was off up Broad End to tekk a look at lambs."

“
Yes, but . . . I saw more than the lambs, Phoebe. I saw my own future, and I didn't like it."

“
Nay, tha've lost me, Annie. What future's that then?" Phoebe screwed up her plain little face in an effort to understand. Her own future was so bright and rosy. She asked nothing more than to be allowed to stay here in this lovely kitchen and serve her family, Annie, Cat and Mr Lucas in exactly the way she had been doing for the past two years. She often thought she had died and gone to Heaven, really she did, remembering her life as it had been with the old missus, worked her poor fingers to the bone she had, which she didn't mind in the least since she didn't exactly sit about on her bum all day long here at Browhead. But at Browhead she was needed, respected for what she did and ... aye she would say it . . . she was loved. She and Cat thought the world of one another and as for Annie, well there was no one in the world like Annie, for she'd given life to Phoebe, and a fond affection which wrapped about her like a warm blanket in the winter.

“
It's hard to explain, Phoebe," she said now, her eyes faraway and hazed, her poor face all screwed up as though something bad hurt her somewhere. Just like it had on the day that chap . . . what was his name . . . him from Long Beck . . . had sat on the wall with her and drunk a jug of ale. They'd quarrelled. Phoebe had heard them and then he'd gone clattering off on that there horse of his and Annie had . . . had . . . And what about the time when
Annie had gone to Rosley? Before Mr Lucas had come. That there chap had ridden off with a face like thunder when Phoebe had told him where Annie was and since Mr Lucas had moved in he'd never been near. Phoebe had loved no man, and never would. No man had loved Phoebe, and never would. Phoebe was convinced of that. Just as some women are made for loving and having babies, others were not and Phoebe knew she was one of the latter. Not that she hadn't the capacity for loving in her, oh no, for didn't she love her 'family', but not for a man. But she knew it when she saw it and Annie loved him from up Long Beck and she reckoned, though it was said he was married now, that he loved Annie.