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"Leave the table!"

They stared at each other, their hate rising like a mist between them.

"You heard what I said."

Slowly she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet, and before she turned away her lips moved into a sneering smile and she asked him,

"What do you think you're going to do with me?"

He did not answer for a moment but glared at her, and he had the urge, almost overpowering, as it had been once before, to strike her.

"Kindly leave the room."

He watched her turn and walk slowly down the room, her back as straight as a ramrod, her head held high; and when the door closed on her he put his hand up and covered his eyes.

Isabelle walked across the hall and up the stairs; she looked neither to right nor left. She walked across the landing and to her room. It was her old room but no longer dull and gloomy; the curtains were green, the carpet was green; the wallpaper was a pleasing grey and the bed draperies a soft pink.

Four years ago the room would have delighted her; today she didn't see it, for her body and spirit were still in the stone house that was filled with God and hate, she hating both her uncle and her aunt, her aunt hating her because her husband desired her but unwilling to let her go because the money that she represented made all the difference between genteel starvation and ordinary living. Her uncle wouldn't let her go because he couldn't bear to think of life without her; it was only her threat to expose him to his hard, puritanical parishioners that forced him to ask her father to bring her away. And now she asked herself the question she had asked him a few minutes earlier. What would he do with her? A season in London in the hope that some man would marry her? It would be a brave man who would marry her, she knew that, for the wild animal in her was now reflected in her face and manners. Given scope and ordinary living over the past four years it might have become tamed, but that house on that island had chained it up, and it was common knowledge that if you wanted to make a dog ferocious you put it on a short chain.

But she was back. She would have to remake her life somehow; she would have to try to live like a civilized person. She went to the window and opened it. The garden was beautiful, the park was more open; they must have cleared it. She would ride again. What would it be like to feel a horse beneath her once more? That might bring a sensation of pleasure.

All of a sudden her head was jerked upwards as a child's laugh floated down from a window somewhere above. The sound brought her to face the room again. There was that to contend with too. dive's son, the reason why she had been banished.

When her father told her that he had taken the child she had looked at him in amazement and although she was curious to know why he had done this she would not ask him. But she thought it was the last thing on earth she would have expected him to do, take under his wing dive's bastard, the result of that mad drunken episode.

When a tap came on her door she said curtly, "Come inlAnd there entered a young servant girl who dipped her knee and said hesitantly, " Mrs.

Hat- ton sent me, Ma'am .

M .

Miss. She says to maid you until one comes. "

To maid her! She'd had to maid herself since the day she left this house almost four years ago, even wash her own underwear. She was on the point of saying, "I don't need your assistance" ; but no, she'd take from life everything she could get from now on. It was her right, and she would wallow in it. She walked to the dressing table and, sitting on the stool, she looked at the girl through the mirror and said, "I wish my hair to be brushed."

"Yes, Miss. And Miss, I have to say that tea will be served in the drawing room at half-past five...."

Her hair piled high on her head, her gown changed, she went out of the room and across the landing, and at the top of the stairs she met the child with his nurse. Her whole body stiffened as he ran towards her and caught hold of her skirt and, looking up at her, cried, "Are you my Auntie? Nannie says you are my Auntie. Are you?"

She stared down at the child, then her eyes flickered towards the nurse, who was watching with a tentative smile on her face, and she knew that whatever answer she gave to the child would be news below stairs within minutes. She would one day be mistress of this house--the thought had returned to her mind as if it had not lain dormant for four years--she must set the pattern for that day, no matter how she felt inside; and so her answer was, "Yes, I am your Aunt Isabelle."

"Oh!" When the child's hand was thrust into hers and she was forced to walk downstairs with him, her whole being revolted against the feel of the small warm fingers. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and, smiling up at her, said, "Elizabeth hasn't got an auntie, she's got a mama but she hasn't got an auntie." He was drawing her on again in the direction of the drawing room, still chattering.

"My mama is in heaven with the angels. Grandpapa showed me the place.

It's in the gallery."

His mama in heaven with the angels! The figure of the girl rose before her as it had done many times during the past years. When her hate of everything and everyone dragged her down into the depths of despair it was then she would see the girl, not as she had last seen her lying on the ground but as on the day she had first struggled with her on the drive. His mama in heaven. She wished her in hell, and she would never cease to wish her there because it was this girl, and she alone, who was the cause of all that had befallen her. After tea they went into the park, her father, the child and herself, and a small part of her was ironically amused that her father couldn't hide his surprise, even amazement that the child had taken to her.

The clearance of the place was more evident as she walked across the park. Never before had she seen the actual bricks of the wall that surrounded the north boundary. She imagined that their destination was the North Lodge, but as she entered the drive her father said, "We don't go any further."

She walked a few steps before she turned and looked questioningly at him, and he said, "It ... it is too enclosed; it is better that he should keep to the open. "

She stared at him. Had someone tried to snatch the child?

He gave no explanation, for he could not say that at the end of the drive were the North Lodge gates and that one day the mother might look through them and, seeing her son, cause a disturbance.

Isabelle watched her father walk away, the child dancing before him.

There was a rustle in the undergrowth to the left of her, which made her turn her head. It was just such a noise on that far-off day that had caused her to poke her stick into the brushwood. She guessed that she was practically standing on the spot where it had happened. One day she would come here and she would set light to this tangle. She'd clear the whole place, the wood too, and she'd build the wall higher and put glass on the top of it. She heard the movement again. If she'd had a stick she would have thrashed at the bramble with it; as it was, she took her shoe and gave one ineffectual kick at it, then slowly walked away and followed her father.

In four years the dwelling had altered, and Cissie thought it was odd that the smaller her family grew the bigger the dwelling became. On the right side of the room, fronting the cave entrance, another room had been built. It was a small room but had a wooden floor where flour and oats, barley and potatoes could be stored in safety. On the other side of the room a larger building had been erected. This was called the wood house, for the walls were always kept lined with chopped wood.

It was different from the other two rooms in that its doorway was much larger and its middle was always kept clear, a clear enough space in which to turn a horse.

She had only four children at home now: Nellie who was five, Annie six, Charlotte who was nine, and Sarah ten. Joe was working at the mill with William, Jimmy was still in the wheelwright's shop, and two years previously she had taken Mary from the tender mercies of the Misses Trenchard and had got her and Bella set on in the kitchen of a big house on the outskirts of Newcastle, and was hoping to get Charlotte, too, established there soon. Sarah she demurred about sending out, for Sarah was pea ky having a cough all the time, and tiring easily.

The money that she received from those who were working she spent mainly on their clothes, and with the five sovereigns a month she saw that the others were well fed and clothed. Moreover, there had been added to the house bed linen, new pots and pans, and mats for the floor. Even so, she did not spend the full amount, and a shilling or so often found its way back to the hamlet, to the Taggart family.

But her new prosperity didn't enhance her in the eyes of the people in the hamlet. Only a few days after the child had gone, a woman, walking past the dwelling with a bundle of wood on her back, had called out to no one in particular, "I'd be hard pushed if I had to sell me hairn to eat. I thought whorin' paid well."

It had been almost a month after Miller Watson died before Matthew came to see her. He did not come in the cart but riding on a horse, and not bareback either. He was the miller now and the saddle was the outward sign of his prosperity, although Miller Watson had always used a trap.

The day was bitter and the children were crowded round the fire, and Cissie sat with them and she didn't open her mouth to him.

But the next night, when the children were abed and it was almost on eight o'clock and she was about to go and join them because the candle was almost down to the saucer--even in her present affluence she wouldn't allow herself more than one candle a night-she heard the neighing of the horse outside, and she stiffened as she waited for his knock on the door, and a full minute elapsed before she opened it.

Then he had walked past her and gone straight to the fire, and when she had walked towards him because he was standing near where her seat was, he said in a whisper, "I've got to talk to you, Cissie." And when she didn't answer, he ground out low, "Look at me, 'cos I'm near mad."

And when she looked at him she saw that he could be right, for the flesh seemed to have dropped from him and his face looked craggy and thin.

"Cissie!" He caught hold of her hands, and she let them lie in his as he said, "I've got to see you now and then. That's all, just to see you, talk with you, sit with you, like this." He suddenly sat down in the chair and went to pull her on to his knee, but at this she resisted and, tugging her hands from him, she whispered hoarsely, "No, no! I've had enough. Don't you know I've had enough! I can't stand no more."

Then bending down towards him" her face within inches of his, she hissed, " Sit with you, you say? Aye, sit with you. And you know what they're sayin' about me? I'm a whore. Sit with you, you say? Aye, and have another baim. If that happened I would do me self in. Do you hear? I would do me self in. "

"Cissie!" He had shaken his head at her.

"Listen to me." He pulled himself to his feet and, gripping her shoulders, stared down into her face before he went on, "I love you, Cissie. With every beat of me heart I love you, an' I wouldn't bring you no harm. God

Almighty! there's nobody knows more than me that you've had double your share for your years. Cissie, believe me, lass, I'd never bring you harm. But . but I just want to be near you now and again, to sort of help me meet the days, just talk to you, touch you, just your hand, it'll be enough. If I can't, then God knows what I'll do because back there I feel desperate. It's worse now, since the old man's gone.

She's fightin' for the trousers and I feel like murder, aye, like murder. "

As she looked into his eyes she became weak with fear for him.

He saw her weakening and he persisted, "Just now and again, Cissie, when things get too bad. I won't make it regular, no set pattern."

And when she bowed her head on to her chest, he bent forward and kissed her hair, then said, "I'll go now, else the horse will be frozen.

Thanks, lass. "

She had not lifted her face undl he was gone, and then she bolted the door and leaned against it, and another hunger was born in her. He had said there would be no set pattern and he had kept to this.

Sometimes she didn't see him for two or three weeks and never, after that night when he unburdened himself to her, did he speak of his wife, and only once did he mention his changed circumstances. It was as he sat in the trap on the road below the dwelling; he was well put on in knee breeches and gaiters and a long cord velvet jacket. She had looked up at him and said, "You're going into Shields?" And he had replied with a nourish of his whip, "Not Shields, Cissie, Newcastle.

I'm goin' to a meeting of the millers and visit me bank, then on to the Groat Market and pick up some books. " Bending down low towards her, he had ended, " I'm a man of consequence, Cissie, a rich man. Now fancy that. " There was both laughter and bitterness in his face, and he had held her eyes before whipping the horse into a gallop. As she watched him drive away e she had thought that he had not only retained his own trousers but had stepped firmly into the miller's.... It was during the second year of his prosperity that he suggested she build a room on either side of the dwelling; and he had sent Jimmy over to help her for a full week; then he and Walters had come and put the roofs on and the floor in the storehouse.

It was shortly after this that Rose Watson came across the fells for the first time.

It was a day of high rough wind, a drying day, and Cissie was in the wood room possing the clothes in a new tub and with a new poss stick that Matthew had had made for her, when the opening was blocked by the figure of a big woman. She was wearing a brown cloak and a black bonnet and her hair was blown across her face. Gissie's heart leaped upward when she saw who the visitor was; and for a moment she thought something had happened to Matthew. She stood drying her hands on her apron while staring at the woman and the woman at her. Then Rose Watson took in a long breath, lifted her head, and looked round the mean habitation before bringing her eyes back to Cissie and saying, "So this is it?"