All the dear faces (69 page)

“
You're right, Phoebe. But . . . I love him you see and I only want to give him . . . a reason to . . . go on . . ." "Tha' can do that wi'out . . ."

“
Building up his hope that one day I might . . . ?" "Aye, love, unless tha' mean ter . . . settle wi' 'im . ." Phoebe let the sentence delicately trail away.

“
No . . . there will never be anyone but . . ."

“
Right, then." Phoebe was all bustle and briskness. "I'll stay wi' 'im for a couple of hours whilst tha' sleep an' then tha' can tek tha turn. He'll need some lookin' after, will Mr Lucas. So go thi' an' tidy up downstairs first an' if ah give thi' a shout, come runnin' cos when 'e comes to himself he'll be a bit of a 'andful."

Chapter
37

It was a week before Charlie 'came to himself' and in that time Annie and Phoebe took it in turns to nurse him, one of them constantly at his bedside. For six days he tossed and muttered and sweated in fever, knowing neither of them in his delirium, hallucinating about his childhood, calling Phoebe 'Mama' and urging all men to speak up for their rights. 'One man, one vote,' he ranted, fixing a stern eye on Phoebe, who patiently covered his naked body, not at all embarrassed by the tasks she must perform for him, only disconcerted when he whispered far into the night of his love for Annie, and what he would do to her in his bed. He burned in the sweat which poured from him, then was consumed in a fierce dry flame which stripped his skeleton of every ounce of fat upon it, layer after layer. Dying, Phoebe was convinced of it, parched, but unable to drink without vomiting, his body so weakened by the cheap gin he had drunk for the past eight weeks, and by the slow starvation he had subjected himself to, that she despaired of his recovery. She said nothing of this to Annie. They cleaned him again and again, scrubbing his fouled sheets, dribbling patient teaspoon after teaspoon of fresh milk or water into his mouth, exulting when he kept it down, agonising when he vomited it up again. He looked like a corpse ready for burial, his unique individuality burned away from him so that he might have been any sixty-year-old stranger they had taken in. The carefree, easy-going young man who had not yet reached his thirtieth year was gone and in his place was a human being without identity
.

Annie was snatching an hour's sleep in the room next to his when he opened his eyes, eyes which had awareness in them for the first time since he had been brought back
to them. Phoebe did not see it at first. The room was soft with rushlight, the curtains drawn against the keen December wind and the squally rain which lashed across the lake. They had brought the rocker upstairs and she moved it rhythmically, her feet flat on the floor her head resting on its tall back. He had been quiet for a couple of hours, seeming to sleep, and she had relaxed, almost asleep herself. His voice brought her to instant wakefulness.

“
Phoebe . . ." No more than a whispered croak, but she was out of the chair and kneeling beside him, her hand on his brow, smoothing back his lank hair, her pale blue eyes shining into his with all the love she had successfully hidden, even from herself, flowing over him, ready to nurture and sustain him with every breath she drew, with her own steadfast heart, her own life if necessary.

“
Aye, 'tis me, Mr Lucas." Her breath fanned his gaunt cheek as she leaned closer, afraid if she did not keep a tight hold on his return to lucidity, he might slip from her grasp again.

“
When are . . . you going . . . to call me Charlie?" he asked in a faint semblance of the wry humour which was the essence of him.

“
Eeh never mind that, tha' silly beggar. Tell me how tha' feel? Are tha' hungry? Can ah get thi' a drink? Ah've fresh milk keepin' cool in t' kitchen, or 'appen tha'd fancy a sip o'broth?" For whilst he was in his right mind she meant to stuff something in him before he drifted away again. He was nothing but bones, his flesh loose and empty of the strong sinew and muscle which once filled his frame. "Are tha' warm enough lad or do tha' . . . ?" She had been about to ask him if he needed to perform one of the bodily functions she herself had cleaned lovingly and without offence from him over the past week but now that he was himself again, she found the subject awkward.

“
Nothing, Phoebe . . . only . . ."

“
What?" Her eyes were soft, the expression in them as revealing to Charlie Lucas, even now in his weakened state, as though she had told him in so many words of herfeelings. "What does tha' want? Tha've only t' say." He had wanted to ask for Annie, but with Phoebe's face so close to his, its plain intensity deepening almost to beauty in her love, he could not, at that moment, bring himself to speak her name.

“
How . . . ?"

“
How did tha' get here?
”

He nodded, his store of strength too meagre for much more.

“
Jake Singleton found thi' in Penrith. Tha' was . . ." "Drunk?"

“
Aye." Phoebe looked stern for a moment for she did not hold with strong drink, at least not with those who imbibed too freely, then her expression returned to the innocent, unrecognised love she was ready to devote to him. Not in the way a woman in love devotes herself to the man she loves for Phoebe would not have the presumption to consider herself as such a woman. She would nurse him, care for his damaged mind and body, work herself to a standstill in bringing him back to health, but it would not occur to her to even consider the hope of having her love returned. She had made up her mind long ago that she would remain as she was, nourishing those she loved, creating tranquillity and order in which to do it, devoting her life and strength and health so that those she cherished might know happiness. In this way she was made whole, fulfilled, satisfied. Mr Lucas had loved Annie for years. That was a fact, a truth, and to consider anything else was foolhardy, or would have been if it had occurred to her to consider it.

“
But tha' was ill with a fever an' all. 'Tis bin a week now an' tha's had nowt to eat." Her anxious face begged him to consider, "so won't tha' try an take a drop of summat? Tha' always liked my broth, Mr Lucas, an it'll tek no more than a minute to fetch thi' some."

“
Wait . . ."

“
Yes, what is it?"

“
Are you . . . alone?
”

Phoebe looked astonished. What sort of a question was
that? Then comprehension dawned and she smiled, putting a work-roughened hand to his bearded cheek. It seemed somehow to find its way there all on its own, but it didn't matter, did it, since she was only checking to see if any vestige of his fever remained, wasn't she? Her hand was gentle as she smoothed the silky texture of his beard which she herself had washed only that evening. Of course, her mind reasoned, eight weeks ago he had thought Annie was . . . well, that she and him from up Long Beck were .. . well, honestly, she didn't know herself what Reed Macauley and Annie had had in their minds eight weeks ago, but whatever it was, it had come to nothing, but not before sending Mr Lucas off, half out of his mind, she supposed, driving him to the state he now was in. And naturally, him being in Penrith and drunk for most of the time, no doubt, he had no idea of the state of affairs here at Browhead.

“
Annie's asleep in her bed. We've taken turn an' turn about lookin' after thi'." She sighed rapturously into his face, her breath sweet, evidently well pleased with the way things had turned out.

“
Annie's . . . nursed me?"

“
Aye, but see, won't tha' let me fetch tha' broth?
”

Charlie Lucas sighed painfully and turned his head on the pillow, looking towards the childish paintings which still adorned the walls of what had been Cat's room. Nothing had changed. Phoebe was the same. Plumper now than the scrawny child she had been when Annie brought her home from Keswick, nearly five years ago, so he supposed she would be eighteen or nineteen years old. Her cheeks had become almost rosy but she was still plain and wholesome, like fresh new bread and as she had always been, ready to give her life in great bounteous plenty to those she loved
.

And Annie. What was her condition? Was she still in that state of indecision into which her love for Reed Macauley had plunged her? She had been Reed Macauley's mistress in the weeks before Charlie had fled from her, he had been agonisingly aware of it. He had fled from hislove for her, his passion, his urgent need of her, from the tumult of loving her so uselessly. It had been destroying him. He had been positive that she was about to tell him something of great importance regarding her relationship with Macauley, some development which Charlie had known quite definitely he could not bear to hear about, and yet she was still here at Browhead. Everything was, apparently, just as it had been then, so what had happened? Strangely, he found he could not really care a great deal. It was probably due to his weakened state, brought about by the past eight weeks of which he could remember very little. It was as though it had all happened a long, long time ago. He had suffered for love, he supposed in those weeks, pouring the cheap raw gin down his throat to alleviate his suffering, labouring at the most menial of tasks to earn the few pence to pay for it. He had not eaten a great deal, nor cared much about his condition
.

And now what was to happen? These two women, both of whom loved him, would return him, he supposed, to his normal good health and then . . . ? Well, what did it matter? He was empty of all but a great need for peace, stillness, quiet, pared down to the bone, not only by the last weeks and the fever which had consumed him, but by the passion of life which he really did not think he cared to suffer again. He found that even the thought of the woman in the bed on the other side of the wall caused him no emotion beyond a flicker of surprise at the absence of it
.

There was a flurry of white flannel wrapped about by a hodden-grey shawl, a swirl of tumbled hair, a drift of the lavender she kept in the chest beside the bed and there she was, Annie Abbott. He watched her come towards him, warm, beautiful, her skin as smooth and unlined as white alabaster, the weight of her hair drawing her head into that proud and haughty defiance which had incensed the outraged community of Bassenthwaite parish, its colour glowing in the light from the rush like the rich pelt of a fox, her eyes deepening to a warm chocolate brown in the soft shadows
.

How lovely she is and how afflicted, he thought, amazed at his own lack of feeling, then she bent over him, her cool hands at his face, her smile radiant, her fragrance all around him. He waited for a tense moment for his own affliction to begin. For his heart to leap, his pulse to race, his breath to become ragged, but nothing happened. He was happy to see her, as he had been happy to see Phoebe, but her nearness did not unduly distress his male susceptibilities, as Phoebe's hadn't.

“
The bad penny ... " he smiled ruefully ". . . always turns up . . " He could barely speak, he was so weary. "Charlie . . . dear, dear Charlie."

“
In . . . the . . . flesh . . ." and his eyes drooped.

“
What about that broth . . ." he heard Phoebe say in an aggrieved voice, then the mist of healing sleep drifted over him as sweetly and gently as a spring shower
.

He spent three weeks in Cat's narrow bed before Phoebe would allow him to set a foot out of it, lying under the warm blankets .she piled on him, drowsing against the nest of pillows she arranged at his back, eating the food she shovelled into his mouth. First there were eggs beaten up in milk. Bread soaked in hot milk to put a lining on his sadly malfunctioning stomach, then egg custards until she was satisfied he could keep it down and was ready to progress to thick vegetable soup, to 'crowdy' and neaps and taties, to rich mutton stew and all the good and nourishing meals she was determined to get inside him. Apple cake and clapbread, `poddish' with cream, oatcake with butter, cheese, minced mutton pies and all produced by her own clever hands.

“
See, open tha' mouth," she would command him, "or I'll hold thy nose until tha does," and when he obeyed, resignedly, she would feed him as though he was a finicky child who knew no better.

“
Here's some broth for thi'," she would say, clumping into his room, disturbing the peace and quiet he dwelled in. "Ah got some shin of beef when I was in Keswick yesterday an' it's bin simmerin' for six hours so get it in thi'. "

“
Phoebe, it's no more than an hour since you poured that egg and milk down me," he would protest, but it made no difference, she would stand over him until it was all gone, then off she would go, telling him to have a good rest as though he was capable of doing anything else
.

But the day came when, with Annie on one side and Phoebe on the other, he was able to swing his legs out of the bed, thin white sticks, the sight of which made him snort with laughter much to Phoebe's annoyance, since she had seen them a lot thinner than that, she said, and had it not been for her good food, they still would be!

“
No doubt, Phoebe, but you must admit they are foolish things and the question is, will they be able to get me downstairs?"

“
You're not going to attempt the stairs are you Charlie?" Annie asked anxiously. She had his right arm across her shoulders and her left was at his back. She had not been involved as much as Phoebe with his nursing, making the excuse that she had tasks to do about the farm, which was true. The real reason, of course, was her reluctance to undermine in any way, his slow recovery by placing herself too much in his company. Might not his love for her stand in the way of his progress? she had reasoned; wound his already wounded heart and body, chafe and rankle so that his healing would be slow? Phoebe was patient and cheerful, a good cook, an uncomplaining nurse, tireless and untroubled by the complexity of emotion which gnawed at Annie Abbott and Charlie Lucas. Annie had done her share of the washing of bed linen and the nightshirts Phoebe had `run up' from the length of flannel she purchased in Keswick market. She had done many of the manual tasks in the dairy whilst Phoebe tended to Charlie but with the best will in the world Phoebe could not be expected to get Charlie up on his feet without some help from herself.