All the dear faces (44 page)

“
Look lass, doest tha' want me to work fer thi' or not
?

Just say yes or no. That's all that's needed. Tha' knows ah'm a good worker . . ."

“
Oh, indeed, Mr Varty, but I really find it hard to believe that you should, for no apparent reason, take it into your head that you want to work for me. Won't you come inside and we can . . ."

“
Bloody 'ell . . . beggin yer pardon . . ." since for some reason it suddenly did not seem right to swear in the face of this polite and lovely woman, even if she did wear trousers and a shirt. His eyes touched briefly on the thrust of her breasts then looked hastily away. "Ah said ah'd get this argument when . . ." He stopped suddenly, realising he had said too much, his discomfiture showing in the way his angry old mouth worked and it was then Annie began to know.

“
Someone has sent you, haven't they? Someone has asked you to come and offer yourself ... "

“
Nay, lass, tha's talkie' daft. Natty Varty pleases hissen where he works."

“
Really, then tell me this. Why are you offering yourself at half the going price a labourer would get? £8 for half a year you could demand so who is paying you the other half ?
”

Natty's eyes were flat and expressionless but he did not look away. His mouth was clamped in a thin white line of contempt and something else which Annie did her best to decipher. He was standing his ground, staring at her as though he would like nothing better than to spit at her feet, but something held him there on her doorstep and she had no idea of what it could be. Reed Macauley had sent him, of that she was sure, but not even Reed could make Natty Varty work where he didn't want to. So what hold did he have on this old man, as he had on many men in the district, that he could force him to go where he did not want to go? Suddenly she made up her mind. She lifted her head haughtily as she spoke.

“
Very well, Natty, I will employ you. You will sleep over the cow shed and Phoebe will bring your meals to you there. But there is one thing. I am to be addressed as
Miss Abbott. I give the orders and you take them and I shall pay you, I shall pay you the full rate. You can tell the person who sent you that you do not need his bribe, if that is what he has offered you and if I hear that you have disobeyed me then I shall fire you immediately. Is that clear? Have you your own dog? Ah, yes, I see you have," eyeing the quiet Border collie which lay with its nose just beneath the closed farm gate, "then I'll be obliged if you would keep it away from mine. Now perhaps you could start by bringing my sheep down to the 'inlands' so that they will be ready for market next week. Good morning to you, Natty. If you require anything, speak to Phoebe.
”

Reed Macauley rode openly across the lower slopes of Cockup Fell and down the track from Dash Beck to Browhead the following day. It was almost October and a day of damp, drifting rain, light as mist but coming to rest just as wetly on collars and cuffs from where it crept insidiously inside clothing. It dripped down boots to soak into stockings and collected on the brim of hats from where it ran in a steady trickle to cling to flesh which shivered at the touch of the oncoming winter. Slender birches drooped sadly as though they too knew well what was ahead and larches, hung about gracefully with a tapestry foliage, trembled in the shifting rain. The rowans were heavy with berries. Down by the lake at the foot of Annie's farm, trees hung over the water, clinging to the sketchiest of foothold
.

Beside the mare ran Reed's old dog, stopping now and again to lift her muzzle, sniffing the air with the practised ease of an animal well used to Lakeland conditions. The heather through which horse, rider and dog moved was a mass of tiny purple flowers, giving the appearance from far off, of a solid purple carpet.

“
She's in t' dairy, " a startled Phoebe told him and though he knew Annie must have heard the clatter of his mare's hooves on the rocky track and cobbled yard, she did not appear
.

She had her back to him, her hands busy as she stacked a pile of swills, tying them neatly into a compact bundle
.

Just outside the door of the dairy, standing in the rain, was the sledge, the one which had seen such service over the past years and on it, again tied neatly in two tight-fitting rows, were more swills.

“
I take it you're tramping off somewhere with that sledge I see outside," were the first furious words he spoke
.

She did not turn. "Yes, I'm hoping to sell them at Whitehaven." Her voice was low
.

He jerked about violently, the determination he had steeled upon himself to remain calm no matter what passed between them, exploding at once in his fear for her. "Bloody hell, woman! Whitehaven? Do you know how far that is . . . !"

“
Yes . . ."

“
. . . and you intend walking over twenty miles there and the same back dragging that damned sledge . . ." "Yes . . ."

“
. . . and October no more than a week or so off . . ."

“
Leave me alone, Reed. Let me get on with my life.""
.

.. and God knows who tramping from the ships which dock there. Irishmen on the look-out for work or anything else they can find along the way which could include you. Do you realise . . . ?"

“
Yes . . . "". .
.

". . .that any one of them could . . ."". .
.

Yes . . . So you have said a number of times."

“
Jesus Christ, Annie, don't do this to me. Don't put yourself in danger. Let me help you. I'll find someone to buy your bloody baskets."

“
Like you found Natty Varty?
”

Her voice was quiet and her head was bent low as she gripped the edge of the stone slab on which, in better times, bowls of milk were left to stand for 'three meals' before the cream was carefully removed. The knuckles of her hands were white with the fierceness of her grip.

“
You know I only did it to help you. That's all I want to do, is help you. To make your life easier. 1 can't bear to see you working yourself into the bloody ground, gettingthinner every time I see you. That fellow helped you and though it tore me apart to know he was living under your roof I told myself that he was at least taking some of the load off your back. Now he's gone . . ."

“
Because of you."

“
Because of me?" The bewilderment in his voice was genuine and at last she turned to look at him. She wore an apron of her mother's, an enormous thing which covered her from neck to knee. One worn for dairy work where cleanliness was essential, laundered and ironed by Phoebe to a crisp and pristine whiteness. Her hair was neatly plaited, wound about her head like a weighty crown, tipping it back so that she gave the appearance of a proud young queen. She was pale, no colour in her face but in contrast, her eyes were a deep and glowing tawny brown. Warm, filled with that velvet textured softness which betrayed the depth of her love for him. It couldn't be hidden, had she wanted to hide it. Everything he did was with her welfare in mind. From that first day when he had carted down that enormous hamper to this last when he had sent — somehow — Natty Varty to labour for her, he had done his best, what she would allow, to make her life easier and if sometimes it had further damaged her reputation he had done it with the best intentions. She was aware that the last time, after what Phoebe had told her about it and the ride through Keswick, he had irretrievably damaged his own
.

But he must be made to see that it would not do. He must be made to see that he could not keep on rescuing her from the results of her own mistakes. That, and the truth must be faced by him. She did not need him now. She was glad of Natty Varty and grateful that Reed had somehow made him leave Bert Garnett and come to her, but she would manage on her own from now on. She had a tiny cache of savings, pennies put by, one by laborious one, since she had sold her first lambs, her besoms and swills, and she meant to see it grow again with this year's profits. She and Phoebe and Cat lived off the land, except for the milk which, when her husband looked the other
way, Sally Garnett left hidden by the farm gate of Upfell Farm. Annie stocked up on tea and flour when she was in Keswick but apart from that they were self-sufficient. They ate mutton, dried over the fire, from the sheep she and Charlie had killed, and they managed. She did not need Reed Macauley
.

Only with her body, her anguished heart cried. Only with her woman's body which even now surged joyously beneath her enormous apron, beneath her father's shirt and baggy, much patched breeches, towards Reed Macauley. Her heart hammered until she was sure he could see the movement of it beneath the bib of the apron. The glow in the pit of her belly spread a filament of need up towards her breasts and her nipples instantly hardened. Her breath was trapped in her throat and she parted her lips to allow it to escape and inside her she felt the whimpers begin, whimpers which would become a moan if she could not get a firm grip on herself
.

She saw the answering need in him. He groaned in despair, moving almost reluctantly towards her. They met in the centre of the dairy and when their arms rose to one another, holding, holding on desperately, clinging lest they fall, she could hear the tremble in his voice as he spoke into her hair.

“
Sweet Jesus . . . Sweet Christ. What are we to do? I love you . . . starve for you . . . think of you all the time. I can't work . . . sleep . . . my mind is full of you. I'm dazed with it . . . with the pain ... I'm not a man for fanciful things . . . I want a woman I take her . . . but you are buried so deep in me I can see nobody, nothing .. . your face . . .
”

He was hurting her, crushing her, the bones in her back and her ribs, his own body a taut, shuddering length of bone and muscle. She lifted her head from his chest where his heart was pounding so hard it deafened her and his lips flattened against hers with such force she felt her teeth break the skin inside her mouth. His gentled then, parting hers, so sweet and soft she knew that this time . . . this was the time . . . here, here in the dairy, wherever hecould lay her . . . on the stone bench . . . the floor .. . she would allow him to take her . . . allow. . . she would glory in it . . .

“
Where does tha' want to put them besoms?" The voice which came at them through the bright and rapturous aureole of their love was grim and in it, even those few words, was the realisation that had told its owner exactly why he had been fetched here by Reed Macauley. So that was the way the wind blew, was it, and though it was nowt to do with him what folk did, that didn't mean to say that he had to like it, nor would he put up with it. Reed Macauley had promised him a cottage right up on the edge of the fell, away from other folk, where Natty could live out his days as he pleased. Work a bit, he would, when he felt like it, or stop in his own place, when he felt like it. His dog beside him, a few hens, do a bit of rabbiting, fishing, for though Natty would admit it to no one the truth was he was nearer eighty than seventy and he couldn't quite do the things he had been doing since he was a lad. Stop with her for a bit, Mr Macauley had said, and when he wanted it there would be the cottage waiting for him up beyond Tarn Nevin. But he'd be buggered if he'd be used as a convenience whilst these two fornicated under his bloody nose
.

They whirled to face him, both for a moment looking foolish, guilty, flushed with something Natty had long forgotten. Her eyes were the loveliest, deepest brown, like the ale he drank at The Bull in Gillthrop which was a strange thing to come into his mind, but Natty liked his ale and admired its colour.

“
An' I'll be off now so tha' can get back to tha' fun an' . .
“

He saw Reed Macauley's face turn the colour of the beetroot he himself had only the day before yesterday been digging up a mile away at Upfell and Reed Macauley's roar of rage could be heard on the same farm, Natty was sure. And he would have knocked Natty to the ground, Natty was sure of that too, if she hadn't put a hand on his arm. At once, mysteriously, since Reed Macauley was
known for a man of violence if crossed, he became quiet.

“
What d'you mean, Natty? You'll be off where?"

“
Back where I come from." His contemptuous eyes, his curling lip told her exactly what he thought of a woman like her but she did not falter or look ashamed.

“
To Upfell?"

“
Aye," and he shouldered the axe he carried with which he had been about to go up to the coppice to do a bit of
felling. “Why?"

“
Ah work for decent folk, allus have done," and all the while Reed Macauley stood patiently by and Natty was astonished that this woman, with a light touch on his arm, could keep him from hurling Natty Varty to the ground and stamping on him for his effrontery.

“
You must do as you think best, Mr Varty, of course, but I would be most obliged if you could find it within your power to stay with me for a while. I need you, you see."

“
Ah knows that, lass, but ah don't need thee, or him an' his cottage," which was not true of course, and as though to emphasise it, the 'rheumatics' with which he was increasingly plagued, tweaked at his shoulder painfully.