All the dear faces (12 page)

A fell farm has three sections. The high ground across the summits, over two thousand feet up, where the sheep spent the summer; the 'intakes' which are big, grassy slopes fenced by drystone walls and the 'inlands', small, rich enclosures spread about the farmhouse itself where the sheep winter. And one day her sheep would cover this land. One day
!

She could see the head of the lake from where she stood. Bassenthwaite, not the most beautiful in this county
of beautiful lakes or so she had heard since she had seen only this one and Derwent Water which joined it near Keswick, but to her it was loved almost as much as she loved her child. Instinctively a part of her, as Cat was a part of her. She had known it at all seasons. The angry clouds chasing one another across its surface, the wind patterns ruffling and lifting the waters to dash them against the shore in miniature waves. Veiled in fine curls of mist, flat and mysterious, clear and motionless. Frozen and white and empty of all but sliding ducks and the odd, fearful young lad who had been 'dared' to go out on to its frozen surface. Blue as the skies which were reflected in it, surrounded by leaning slender birches, their leaves shining like golden sovereigns ready to dip into the water which lapped gently, benevolently about their feet, a fine haze of summer midges dancing on its textured expanse
.

Already over the fells to the west the dying sun was sinking to its bed, no more than a sliver of it peeping through the high misted summits. Down the valley towards the lake half a dozen wild duck were silently zig-zagging above the water and from down by Chapel Beck several dogs were barking
.

Cat had squatted to examine a tiny clump of reindeer moss growing in the shelter of the drystone wall which ran across the front of the house, separating it from the field. She was absorbed with it, studying it with the delight and amazement of a prospector who has discovered a rich vein of gold. Annie watched her, her arms resting on the Cam stone at the top of the wall. She lowered her chin to her arms to stare out across the fields to the lake and when she heard her name called she was disorientated, just as though her mother had suddenly come from the farmhouse doorway, telling her it was time for supper. It took her a long moment to return from that dreaming state into which the familiar and yet new scene had drawn her.

“
Annie? Annie Abbott, is it you?" the voice asked hesitantly and when she turned about she did not at first recognise the plump young woman who stood further down the path. She had evidently come up the farm track,
the sound of her sturdy clogs muffled by the grass which grew in its unused ruts. The track, which led up from the road, ran at the back of the farmhouse, and then on to farms further up the valley.

“
Yes . . . ?" She was as tentative as her visitor. The woman had a look about her that was familiar, bonny and round-cheeked but she was full-bosomed and wide-hipped and much older than Annie, she decided. She had a baby in her arms, as apple-cheeked as herself, and a toddler at her skirt and, Annie noticed, was very evidently near her time with a third.

“
'Tis me, Annie . . . Sally," the young woman said, a certain shyness in her, it seemed to Annie, though the Sally she had known had never been shy.

“
Sally? Sally Mounsey?" She began to smile, stepping forward in glad recognition.

“
Aye, though 'tis Sally Garnett now. Has bin these three years." She preened just as though what she had achieved was worthy of great admiration, a success evidently not granted to the girl who stood before her by the look of her ringless hand. But there was a look about her of being pulled down, of bearing a burden which sat uneasily on her despite her youth since she was the same age as Annie, an expression of weariness and vexation of spirit well known to Annie for had she not seen it in her own dead mother?

“
You never married Bert Garnett?" she exclaimed incredulously, then could have bitten her tongue for the glad and welcoming expression on Sally's face at once became truculent.

“
Well, at least I got married," she snapped, then just as suddenly the rancour left her and she sighed. Her shoulders sagged and she shifted her burden to her other hip.

“
I'm sorry, Annie, I didn't meant to . . . but aye, I did, God help me. An' all I ever get from 'im is childer, 'ard work an' a clout round t' lug every Saturday when he's the ale in 'im. Our Davy died, did tha' know? No, well, you wouldn't, then me faither, so ... it seemed sensible to marry a lad what knew farmin'. Bert moved in wi' me
an' Ma an' Mini. 'E's a hard worker but . . . well . . . I could o' done worse, I reckon."

“
Sally . . . oh, Sally, I'm so sorry about Davy, and your father, but all the same it's lovely to see you, and the children, but won't you come in and have a cup of tea. The kettle is on . . ."

“
Aye, we saw tha' smoke from t' chimney. That's why I come up. Ma said she'd spotted Mr Macauley come along track on that black devil of 'is. She thought 'e'd bin 'ere, she said. Why don't tha' go up an' find out what's what, she said. I'm not as lish as I was, bein' so near me time, but I come anyway. There's bin rumours . . ."

“
Rumours? About what? About me?"

“
Aye, that tha' was ter come 'ome. That lawyer chap that'd bin seein' ter tha' faither's place 'ad come round a time or two, lookin' in ter things, 'e said, so we reckoned tha' must be on tha' way, or someone was, an' when I saw tha' smoke . . .
”

She faltered then, her eyes going slowly to Cat who had stood up and crept close to her mother's skirts, shy and ready to hide her eyes in the presence of these strangers. Sally had not noticed her but now, as she did, her jaw dropped in slack consternation and her pale blue eyes widened. The likeness between mother and daughter was quite remarkable and when Annie put out her hand, drawing her child closer to her in loving maternal tenderness, the truth was plain.

“
This is my daughter, Catriona, Sally. She is almost three years old.
”

You could see it in Sally's eyes, the slow working out of the dates and the years between. Sally, good-natured and uncritical, generous and warm-hearted could barely add two and two together despite her three years' schooling but she knew what had happened to Annie Abbott for here was the three-year-old proof of it. Perhaps she had been wrong about the ring . . . perhaps .. .

“
Your . . . husband?" she gasped painfully, hopefully, since she liked Annie Abbott, always had done and would have been glad to renew their friendship.

“
I have none, Sally." Annie Abbott, though she could have done so, would not lie, even for Cat's sake.

“
Glory . . . oh, good glory . . ." and without another word Sally, her face as scarlet as the geraniums in her mother's window bottom, turned tail and ran like a monstrous, overburdened cow, dragging her whining toddler so fast down the track behind her, he or she, it was hard to tell its sex, almost lost its balance
.

Annie sighed deeply, sadly, then taking Cat's hand in hers led her back into the glowing warmth of her kitchen. At least she had that. A warm kitchen, and Cat. It would have been nice to have a friend though. She'd known this would happen, of course. When they heard. When they heard about Annie Abbott's disgrace, her shame, her dreadful fall from grace which had resulted in the one thing most girls would rather die than suffer, and sometimes did. A bastard child. It would be all over the valley, like the news of the hamper, by morning
.

The knock on the door five minutes later took her by surprise, as did Sally Garnett's face when she opened it.

“
Bugger 'em," was all she said, thrusting her child in before her as she moved heavily over the threshwood. "I'll 'ave that cup o' tea after all, Annie.
”

Chapter
7

The snow came just after Christmas, the first hesitant flake or two taking Annie by surprise; she could not have said why, since it was the season for it
.

She and Cat were up in the coppice wood at the back of Browhead. The term 'coppice' meant literally, 'grown for cutting and the trees there, oak, ash, birch and sycamore, beech, hazel and alder, evergreen holly, pine and yew, were the only crop which had never failed Joshua Abbott. A bad harvest of the oats and barley — known as `bigg' — which he grew, one which withered in the fields, caused great hardship since it meant that the food which would have seen them through the year had to be found elsewhere. That the fodder for the cattle who were hand fed in the cow house where they had been brought to winter was not available. The beasts, of which Joshua never had more than one, could be fed in an emergency on bracken cut from the fells, but humans needed more than bracken. It brought disaster to many a small farmer, men who had nothing to fall back on as Joshua had in his coppice wood. One acre of well-grown coppice was capable of producing 10,000 poles at every cutting. This was raw material for bark tanneries, swill baskets, grommets, hoops, charcoal and bobbins although naturally, Joshua was. not concerned with all these industries. But he could sell his poles to those who were and the crop which was not sold he and Lizzie and Annie had made into swill baskets and birch-twig besoms — somewhat like a broom — to be sold at Keswick market
.

Bark for the tanneries was cut in early summer when rising sap in the coppiced oak trees allowed the bark to be stripped off more easily. Of course this year no bark
had been peeled and it was too late now to do anything about it but next year Annie meant to contact Natty Varty who did casual work for any man who needed an extra hand and would pay him, to fell and peel the bark from the oak. As her father had taught her when she was a girl she meant to turn her hand to making swill baskets and peddle them either from door to door at the outlying and remote farmhouses on the fells, or take them to market
.

The actual felling and splitting of the coppice poles was hard and laborious but she was strong and who better than herself knew about hard labour? There were many processes through which the wood must go before she had the materials for the swill baskets which were used in many industries, farming, coal mining, charcoal burning and which went to many parts of the country, even as far as Liverpool where they were in common use on coaling steamers. A good workman could make seven baskets a day but Annie meant to work during the evenings since she would be busy on the actual farm the rest of the time. The farm she intended to build from the ashes of the one her father had worked so desperately to keep going
.

And then there were the birch-twig besoms with which Lakeland housewives swept their floors and yards. She and her mother had made hundreds of the things and if they brought in only a few pence, it all helped and she would need every resource she had to begin to build the dream she dreamed of. She had already made two dozen or so, helped by Cat, and the neat bundles were piled in the barn even now, ready for selling at Keswick market
.

There was the knitting of hosiery, the weaving of the wool and the spinning of the yarn on the loom and spinning-wheel which her mother kept in the parlour and which Annie had carefully cleaned ready for use. When she had her flock, of course! There were many crafts she could turn her hand to when the spring came but first she must earn some money to get her and Cat through the winter. If she could, she would also put something aside towards replacing the small flock of sheep her father had once owned. She had no idea what had happened to them though
Sally had spoken of debts and a bad summer harvest in the year Joshua and Lizzie had died.

“
Me an' Ma came every day ter nurse them, Annie, but by the time we got 'ere tha' faither and mother were off tha' heads an' made no sense. There was no money fer doctor but we did our best. Ma made up one of 'er infusions from the root of Wood avens. 'Tis good fer fever an' colic but it were too late, she reckoned.
”

Sally had sighed sadly, settling her swollen body as comfortably as she could in Lizzie's chair, sipping reflectively and with great enjoyment the mug of tea Annie had brewed, her feet up to the good hot fire on the hearth.

“
Yer Ma went first. Asked fer thi' times, she did. Wanted ter tell thi' summat, she kept sayin', an' Ma said she'd pass a message on, not knowin' when she'd see thi', like, but doin' 'er best ter calm 'er, but she said nowt more. She went quietly, lyin' next to tha' faither. We'd only just lifted 'er out . . . well, with yer faither still alive it didn't seem right ter leave 'er aside 'im . . . when 'e went an' all. No more than an hour atween 'em, poor souls. We did it right, Annie. A proper 'bidden' funeral they 'ad an' everyone came, even from Cockermouth where tha' Ma was born. We took it in turns ter' 'laat' with 'em, me Ma an' others from hereabouts, Mrs Gunson and Mrs Strickland an' old Ma Bibby from down Scarness way, 'er bein' a friend of tha' Ma's. They was carried on the 'corpse way', so there'll be no ill omens laid on this 'ouse, Annie. Church bell tolled, nine times fer tha' faither an' six fer tha' Ma an' we 'ad a funeral feast. Ma baked the arvel bread and gave it round. Oh, it were done right, lass, 'ave no fear o' that."

“
I must go and thank your mother, and all of them, Sally, and you, of course, for what you did. I didn't know . . .
”