All the dear faces (73 page)

Chapter
40

The snow had been exceptionally heavy that winter, even by the standards of the Cumberland fells, falling silently, steadily, menacingly for days and nights on end until farms were buried up to their eaves, and flocks disappeared completely. A white curtain behind which the mountains hid as they were swept with great, tumultuous eddies of snow moving blindingly across perilous white slopes and crags, throwing deep drifts to lean against walls and gates and filling every gully and gill, levelling the 'slacks', the slight depression between hillocks so that they appeared to be compeletly flat and featureless
.

For two days Annie could not get even beyond the frame of her back doorway. She made a slight hollow in the solid wall of snow which stood outside it, just big enough to allow Blackie and Bonnie to creep on to the step to relieve themselves, both bewildered by the quite alarming strangeness of it, but her main concern was for her farm animals, Clover and Daisy, who were safe enough in their byre but who would be badly in need of milking, and for Royal who was stabled in the barn. Her sheep, brought down to the intakes by her and Charlie at the first sign of the dangerous-looking snow clouds at the beginning of January would have to take their chances for there was nothing she could do about them. They had been bred for generations to winter on this inhospitable high land of the north, fending for themselves as best they could and, providing Annie could get to them with the hay in her barn before too long, they would survive. Once the blizzard stopped she would dig herself out, as she knew Charlie would be doing at Upfell and they would get through somehow
.

She had plenty of provisions and a great pile of peat and logs stacked inside her kitchen door to feed the fire and so she settled herself as best her restless nature would allow to sit out the storm, taking up her knitting, doing some spinning, reading the newspapers Charlie had brought from his last trip to Keswick and, when he had read them, passed on to her
.

For what reason she did not know, it seemed there was to be a war in some far-flung corner of the world she had not even heard of before. The Russian Fleet had attacked and destroyed a Turkish Squadron at a place called Sinope, all the seamen massacred, the newspapers reported and war fever was being stirred up in London and Paris. The British and French had entered the Black Sea to protect the Turkish coasts, though why it should concern them was a mystery to Annie, she decided, before she got up from her chair by the fire to roam restlessly again, to the bedroom to peer out from the window at the wall of snow in which she was imprisoned. The trouble was she could not even see if it had stopped falling. She knew it was night time because the quality of the light which shone through the impacted snowflakes during the day was different to the way it looked now, but beyond that she could tell nothing of what was happening beyond her own front door
.

God, she wished it would let up and allow her to go about her daily round of tasks before she went mad with it. With nothing else to do she could not get Reed out of her mind. Whatever she concerned herself with, the newspapers, a frantic flurry of baking she indulged in, a positive mania of cleaning, even if it was not yet spring, she could not rid herself of the strange and yet surprisingly comforted state into which she had fallen on the day the old year had ended and the new begun
.

It had been early morning, still dark and she had not slept, nor even gone to her bed despite her own tiredness. The snow had not then begun, and she and Charlie had gone up the fell to check on the sheep, looking for signs of lameness, blindness, weakness of any sort which
might have
been brought on her pregnant ewes by the hardness of the winter
.

On the way back to Browhead, at Charlie's insistence, she had called in at Upfell to have a cup of tea with Phoebe and to admire the infant sweetness of Phoebe and Charlie's two-month-old daughter. Elizabeth, Beth for short, Phoebe had called her after asking Annie's permission, in memory of Lizzie Abbott who had, in her own way, made Phoebe's happiness possible. If it had not been for the tin box which Lizzie had guarded none of this would have happened, for Phoebe was in no doubt that without Upfell to go to she and Charlie would have been forced to move away from Browhead and the district. Could they have lived at the farm side by side in the uneasy acquiescence left by the knowledge that Charlie had once loved Annie? and deep down in the secret depths of him, hidden away from himself, still did. He cared for her, Phoebe knew it, and their baby daughter, in their life together, and was content, but the passionate love which had burned in him for so long was not easily quenched. It would smoulder for ever, unseen, like embers which burn deep beneath grey, smoking ash. Phoebe was not jealous, nor did she resent it. She was a practical woman and made the best of what she had, and in their bed at night she gave everything of herself that she had, satisfying her husband, holding him in strong, soothing arms if he should need her in his dream-filled sleep
.

The baby was a plain, no-nonsense baby, like her mother, who knew right from the start what her place in her mother's scheme of things was to be. Loved, she was, and right proudly, well cared for, none better, strong and sturdy-limbed but there was to be none of the folly such as the 'grizzling' which Sally Garnett's babies had indulged in, and certainly no misconception that her mother's full breast was immediately available to her whenever Beth Lucas felt the need of it. Meals were to be taken at meal times when her hard-working mother herself had a moment to spare from her kitchen, her vegetable plot, her dairy and pasture, and if Beth soiled her napkin then,
unless it was unpleasant enough to offend the senses, it remained where it was. Charlie it was who – as Phoebe tartly put it – spoiled her, lifting her up whenever she had the temerity to whimper, cradling her, kissing her rosy satin cheek, gazing into her unwinking baby eyes which were the only thing of him in her, a pure silvery grey, until Phoebe declared the placid child would be ruined. But there was a certain soft gleam in her own eyes as she said it and she made no protest, watching fondly as father and daughter forged the bond which she knew was so essential to Charlie Lucas
.

Annie had nursed Beth and admired her progress on that last day of 1853, sitting before Phoebe's immaculate hearth on which an enormous log fire crackled, drinking a cup of Phoebe's tea and munching a hot, buttered oatcake, a dozen of which were wrapped in a snow-white square of linen 'fer thi' supper', Phoebe said scoldingly. It was as though she was convinced that, but for her own efforts in that direction, Annie would starve herself slowly to death and so, whenever Annie called, which was most days, either on her way up to the fell or on her way back, there would always be something in a pot, or wrapped in a neat bundle, `to be warmed up' or 'put in th'oven fer later'.

“
Phoebe, you can't keep on feeding me as well as yourself and Charlie. After all I don't pay Charlie a fortune and at this rate you'll be paupers. You should be saving . . ."

“
Stuff an' nonsense! The amount you eat wouldn't feed a sparrow an' if ah can't give thi' a bite to eat now an' then 'tis a poor do. See, tek that custard tart wi' thi' . . ."

“
Phoebe, please, I can bake a custard tart."

“
When was the last time, tell me that?"

“
Well . . ."

“
Ah thought as much, so stop tha' bletherin' an' get another cup o' tea inside thi'. 'Tis a cold walk down ter Browhead.
”

She missed her. She missed them both as she brooded before her own fire at night with only her dogs for company. The room seemed to hold the images and echoes of the people with whom she had spent the last
years, those
she had loved and who had left her. Cat, sweet Cat, her bright face screwed into lines of fierce concentration as she bent over the long words in the Bible, and those in the stories of Miss Jane Austen and Mr Charles Dickens. Cat, laughing in delight as she mimicked Charlie's chanted pronunciation of French verbs. Cat, lovely, flushed with merriment as she bellowed forth the 'Cocking Song' into the lop-sided and amazed faces of her three animals. Cat, her bright face and bright smile quenched as she lay peacefully beside Natty in the lovely little churchyard by the lake
.

Natty himself, brusque, exacting, testy, stubborn, his good heart shattered in Annie's defence on that last day, but his blunt presence still here in the shepherd's crook he had carved for her, in the chairs he had methodically repaired and the samplers he had wordlessly re-framed after Bert Garnett's destruction
.

Phoebe and Charlie . . . Dear God, they were everywhere, smiling at her from the chimney corner as Charlie had done, winking and ready to share a joke, Phoebe standing with her arms up to the elbows in flour, labouring in everyone's service but her own, begging Annie to eat that there poddish, change her wet clothes, keep her mucky feet off the clean floor, get to her bed, sit herself down by the fire ..
.

She was lonely and she didn't know what to do to ease it. She had what she had always wanted, what she had set out to get for herself, but what a price she had been forced to pay for it. She had the rest of her life . . . Dear God, she was only twenty-five . . . to get through and it frightened her for she really didn't know how she was to get through this night, never mind the rest of her life, this night which was supposed to be the end of something, and the start of . . . of what? . . . a new beginning? But the beginning of . . . of what? She must go on, and of course she would, but to walk a path alone was hard and dangerous, and though Annie Abbott was brave and strong for had she not been told so by more than one man, her heart quailed at the thought of doing it alone
.

She sat on by her fire, not going upstairs to her bed, and it was cock-crow when she came to herself, her face wet with tears, her heart drowning in sadness her body aching to be held by the arms she needed more than any others in the world.

“
Reed . . ." she whispered.

“
Annie . . . ?" The answering voice had a ;question in it but it was so real she turned her head, looking quickly towards the door, the yearning etched in her fire-glowed face, but of course he wasn't there. The dogs had not even stirred and yet . . . somehow . . . somehow it was as though his presence, the warm memory of his loving eyes, his smiling, whimsical mouth, his infuriating arrogance, his long-limbed powerfully masculine body, had entered the room, enfolding her in a comforting embrace, and she fell at once into sleep, her head resting on the chair back, the tears drying on her tranquil face
.

Two weeks later the first snows began
.

*

"Dammit man, you don't mean to tell me that the bloody train can go no further than this? The line is clear as far as I can see so why should the service be stopped? I have a most important engagement in Gillthrop." For a moment an expression of such blinding joy lit up the face of the speaker the harrassed station-master to whom the words were addressed was quite taken aback. He was a very tall and high-handed gentleman and he had the station-master backed up against his own office wall in the most disconcerting way. There was water on the line beyond Clifton and the track to Penrith was closed, he had already told him. Indeed it was a miracle the Lancaster to Carlisle had got as far as this, the rain they'd had recently. And, of course, the further north you got, the colder it became and there had been blizzards of such gigantic proportions, the fells of Westmorland and Cumberland had been closed to all traffic for weeks. There was no way anyone could get through.

“
Is that so? Well, we'll see about that. Where's the nearest livery?" The arrogant gentleman's face was set inlines of stubborn challenge and he seemed ready to square his truculent jaw and stick his clenched fists into the handiest face he could find and the stationmaster did not care for it to be his.

“
Down't street towards end o' t' village. But I doubt tha'll get Fred Strong ter allow one of his nags out in such weather," for the rain had fallen in a dense and straight curtain from the leaden skies, one that could be scarcely seen through, for days on end.

“
Don't bank on it," the gentleman said, setting his jaw and narrowing his eyes before stepping out from the shelter of the station platform into the street where he instantly disappeared in the deluge which, even in these parts at the edge of the great Lakeland fells where wet days were more frequent than dry, they were beginning to talk of records and when had anyone, even old Arthur Blamire who was nearly ninety, seen weather like it
?

*

Almost overnight the temperature rose from below freezing to a mildness which was so amazing, even the dogs seemed bewildered by it, sniffing the spring-like air and pricking their ears as though waiting for the command to go and fetch the flock down for lambing.

“
No, lads," Annie laughed, watching the steady flow of melting snow cascade from about her windows in pretty, glittering bursts, followed by heavier, thundering falls as it slid down the roof and hit the ground. It was still a couple of feet deep, almost up to the window-sills but melting so rapidly it looked as though it would be gone by morning, thank God. She would be able to get up to see Phoebe and Charlie before the next lot set in for there was nothing more sure in this land of bitter winter than the certainty that there would be more blizzards before spring finally came. She and Charlie might even be able to get up to the intakes and check on the flock, perhaps fetch them down to the inlands about the farms. Four hundred sheep she had now, with those that had come with Upfell, and all the ewes were pregnant
.

She had got to the distressed cows, both of them
yielding a great deal of milk and they, and Royal, were fed and mucked out. By the time she had finished, the earth about the barn and byre could be seen through the rapidly thawing snow, but it was so soggy she sank almost to her knees as the liquid mud sucked at her boots, nearly dragging them from her feet. She could hear the sound of water thundering down the beck as the melting snows aggravated its usual blithe undersong to a deep throated roar, accompanied by the steady drip, drip of water coming from every tree and every building about her. From somewhere up the fell there was a sharp crack and she shaded her eyes to peer upwards but there was nothing to be seen
.

But the sheep must be inspected now that her farm animals were seen to, and whistling to Blackie and Bonnie she began the trudge up the track to Upfell
.

Charlie had gone on, Phoebe told her, and would see her on the intakes, he had said. He'd been up since daybreak, thankful for the early thaw, surprised by it too, for it was not like a Lakeland winter to finish so soon. Yes, they were all well and so were the animals though, like Annie's Clover and Daisy, their cows had been much afflicted by their lack of milking. And Charlie had been fretting about her up at Browhead on her own, Phoebe admitted, smiling without resentment at Annie. Now would she have a hot drink before she went . . . no? . . . oh, and by the way, Charlie had met an old friend of his the other day when he was in Keswick, just before the snow began and wanted to talk to her about the possibility of him, this old friend, taking on the job of . . . well, Phoebe supposed you would call him a travelling salesman, in the selling of Annie's swills when she got round to it. A man from Charlie's days as a Chartist, Charlie had said, very reliable and accustomed to travelling. They'd gone to school together in Yorkshire, meaning, though she did not say so, that he was a well educated gentleman and would, because of it, have the knack of talking to and presumably selling to, the men with whom Annie hoped to do business. Of course, it was up to Annie but Charlie said ... what? . . . oh,aye . . . she'd best get up to Middle Fell because those clouds above the lake looked like rain to her
.

It began an hour later and by the end of the morning they were both wet through to the skin, rain dripping from noses and hat brims, heavy persistent rain, the water and melting snow combining to form a deluge which cascaded down the fellside in an ever-increasing torrent. They had found dozens of ewes, for the rapidly thawing snow had revealed them almost at once, most sheltering wherever there was a rock or two, a dip in the ground, even a bit of taller vegetation. They were all alive, miserable, drowned-looking creatures, their swamped fleeces crusted with melting snow, but alive
.

They continued up Barkbethdale, coming to White Horse where a scatter of boulders afforded good protection and where again they found some of their flock and not only theirs but half a hundred bearing the smit mark of Reed Macauley. They were bedraggled and forlorn, all of them, but so far none seemed to have suffered any harm
.

They leaned for a moment or two to catch their breath in the shelter of the rocks, some of them as big and as tall as a farmhouse. Their faces were raw and stinging and they were both shivering violently. The dogs, their coats plastered to their lean bodies, quivered at their feet, their eyes sharp and intelligent, their noses questing for the rank odour of a buried sheep for up here patches of snow still remained.

“
It's getting colder again." Charlie had to put his mouth close to her ear to make himself heard. A squally wind had begun to blow, dashing the heavy rain at them with headlong speed, howling directly into their faces and no matter where they stood, moving round the tall stones, it seemed to seek them out. A racing slick of water was flowing across the squelchy grass and over their booted feet and on the slippery slope it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep from going with it
.

Annie could barely see Charlie though he was standing shoulder to shoulder with her, and she felt for the first time a deepening twinge of alarm. She knew this country
like her own farm kitchen and would have sworn no matter what the weather she could have found her way home. She had been out from being a small child with her father, in all weathers since Joshua Abbott would stand for no foolishness such as considering her age, her size, her gender or the state of the fells outside his farmhouse door. If he believed it was suitable to go up, up they went.

“
We'd best get back, Annie. We're doing no good huddling here," Charlie shouted. "There's no way we're going to find any more ewes in this. Those we have found seem to be in good shape so let's hope the rest will be the same.
”

As he spoke the rain became even more violent, the raindrops – if the hurtling precipitation which flung itself down on them could be described as drops – had thickened, turning to hailstones. Hailstones so big and vicious they were ready to slice at any unprotected flesh.

“
Jesus . . . !" Charlie turned into her, doing his best to lend his body in the protection of hers, the hailstones lashing at his back. He wore an oilskin, strong and supposedly weatherproof though the fierceness of the rain had found a way beneath it, and the hailstones hit it with a sound like gravel thrown on a pane of glass. His face had a streak of blood on it
.

It took them over two hours to get down, hanging on to one another, Charlie's arm strong and supportive, clinging to any rock they could get a grip on, any tussock of grass which was not already drowned by the headlong race of water which was going in the same direction as they were. They came across another huddle of sheep, though when
Blackie
and Bonnie, at her command, tried to get them on the move for they would surely drown or be swept down the fell if they stayed where they were, they refused absolutely, in their senseless terror, to get to their feet. The dogs nipped and threatened but the ewes would not be moved. Annie could hear, even above the stinging slap of the hailstones against Charlie's oilskin and the drumming of it on rock and earth, the thunderous uproar of the unchained water exploding down Chapel Beck,
Sandbeds Gill, Southerndale Beck and Barkbeth Gill, all of them emptying in storm-tossed fury into the lake at the bottom of Skiddaw.

“
I wish you would come to Upfell, Annie," Charlie managed to gasp when they reached the safety and comparative quiet of the Browhead kitchen. They could barely speak, either of them, bending forward, hands on their thighs as they gulped air into their tortured lungs. "I don't like to think of you here alone in this."

“
In what, Charlie? This will soon let up. It's a bit unusual for the snows to thaw so early . . ."

“
1 know that, but this rain after the thaw is going to make it much more ... " He had been about to say `dangerous' but she was smiling as though to reassure him that this Lakeland where she had spent most of her life could not frighten Annie Abbott. She was concerned for her flock, naturally, but when the rain stopped there would be vegetation for them to crop and they were knowing enough to come down and gather on the inlands above the farm where she would feed them the hay from her barn. Royal would drag the loaded sledge up the slope and, before it snowed again, as she knew it would, her flock would have a nourishing, life-saving meal to see them through the next few weeks.

“
I'll have to go, Annie. Phoebe will be worried."

“
I know, Charlie, and don't concern yourself about me. I have plenty to eat and enough peat and wood to last a month, though I don't expect it will be that long. And these two will keep me company," pointing to the dogs who steamed before the fire.

“
I'll come back as soon as I've let Phoebe know we're all right."

“
You'll do no such thing. You can't divide yourself between two farms, and you must put your wife and child first, Charlie. Besides, this farmhouse has stood here for hundreds of years and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Now go on, off you go, and tell Phoebe I'll be up as soon as this lot stops.
”

Reed Macauley urged on the weary mount he had persuaded the owner of the livery stable in Clifton to sell him. He would let no animal of his out in this weather, the man had told him churlishly, and only when Reed had offered to buy the beast – a somewhat ancient grey – which would then, Reed explained, keeping his sharp temper in check, belong to himself and would therefore no longer be the livery owner's responsibility, had the man parted with the sorry-looking nag
.

He had moved in an almost straight line from the village of Clifton, across low, rolling hills through the villages of Tirril, Dacre, Hutton and Wallthwaite until he hit the Penrith to Keswick road at Burns. He crossed the River Eamont, the waters almost reaching the arch of the bridge, thundering down its course in full spate, carrying on its surging torrent the flotsam and jetsam it had picked up on its mad journey. Broken branches, great swathes of torn-out vegetation, birds, small animals, boxes and chairs and planks of wood which were becoming jammed against the structure of the bridge. It was the same at the Glenaeramackin river and at Trout Beck, the water beginning to overflow and flood the surrounding fields. When he reached Keswick it was a foot deep, the Market Place filled with frightened horses, bogged-down carriages and carts, shop owners, their clothing plastered to their bodies as they tried unsuccessfully to stem the inundation as it crept over their doorsteps. Moot Hall stood like an island in the middle of it. The Derwent and the Greta were both in flood, pouring not only their swirling, swollen waters into the town but all the rubbish they had collected on their race down the high fell
.

And still the rain poured out of a low and surly sky, sweeping in a great impermeable curtain across Little Man as Reed rode out of Keswick, blotting out the high peaks of Skiddaw Forest until it seemed to Reed he was riding into the skies themselves. He had exchanged his exhausted grey for a fresh mount in Keswick, paying over more money, for though the livery owner knew him, he was reluctant to part with a good beast, especially to
hazard it
, a roan mare this time, in the elements which shrieked their furious spite on the fells.

“
Nay, Mr Macauley, tha' don't mean ter ride over ter Long Beck in this, do tha'?" for you are a fool if you do, his thunderstruck expression said.

“
I do, Archie Wilson, and what is it to you?"

“
'Tis nowt ter me, sir. What yer do is yer own business but this animal is mine." The feel of good solid cash in his hand quietened any misgivings he might have had
!

The hailstones began to hurl themselves down on him and the roan just as he reached Dodd Wood. He had decided against going up and over the top of Skiddaw when he came out of Keswick and saw the water pouring down the slopes on to the road as he inched his way beyond Mallen Dodd. If the road here was already a debris-filled swirl of water, what would it be like higher up from where it came? he asked himself. The roan was badly frightened, shying nervously at everything which brushed against her legs, flinching and rolling her eyes, difficult to handle. There was muck and mud, ripped-out heather and gorse bushes, loose scree, timber, and the bodies of many small, fellside animals bobbing madly about her and she did not like it
.

When the hailstorm began Reed was forced to dismount, moving to the roan's head, holding her with both hands, soothing her terror. She was slippery with the rain, her coat giving the appearance of having been oiled, and from her mouth great lines of spittle drooped and were whipped away in the wind. The hailstones, as big as pigeons' eggs, sliced into her flesh and with a pain-filled scream of terror she broke free of Reed's restraining hands, rearing up above him, her hooves flailing, one catching him a glancing blow on the temple.

“
Steady . . . steady, girl . . ." he tried to shout, the blood beginning to pour across his forehead and into his eye. He hung on grimly to the reins but even as he did so she turned towards the lake, escaping, as she thought, the tumult which crashed about them from the fell. He could not hold her and she went, vanishing in a moment
as though the earth, or the lake as was more likely, had swallowed her up and Reed's last thought as he sank to his knees and then on to his face was that Archie Wilson had been right after all
.