All the dear faces (59 page)

The constable, embarrassed beyond measure, could only agree before getting on his bay and riding back to Browhead.

“
Mr Garnett denies everything, Miss . . . er .. . Abbott, an' with no one ter bear out yer allegation, no witnesses, ah mean, then there's nothin' the law can do. Tha' needs a witness, yer see . . ."

“
Miss Abbott has marks on her body which she has shown to Phoebe here."

“
Aye, so yer said, but if she was attacked by a man, an' who's ter say it were a man, that doesn't mean it were Bert Garnett what done it."

“
Miss Abbott swears it was Bert Garnett. Is that not enough? And the wounds to her body surely bear out . . . ?"

“
Ah suppose tha've seen these wounds then, Mr .. . er . . . ?" The constable's tone was insulting.

“
Lucas. " Charlie was insulted and his white face said so.

“
Mr Lucas."

“
No, I have not see them, naturally, but as I have just said, Miss Abbott's companion has. Tell the constable, Phoebe.
”

Phoebe shrank back on the settle, the forbidding regard of the constable unnerving her. She was a servant, a foundling brought up to believe that authority was all powerful and to have seen what she had on Annie's breasts and belly was hard enough without having to describe it to this man in uniform. Charlie was nodding at her encouragingly, but when she turned to Annie, her expression desperate, asking did she really want it exposed — even in words —for all the world to ogle, Annie merely continued to stare, hands clasped in her lap, into the smouldering peat fire. And could you blame her, Phoebe agonised, for not taking a great deal of interest in the constable after what she had suffered, not only this year, at the hands of men, but going back to her childhood when her father had treated her no better than a labouring beast in the field. There was that bugger who had seduced her and left her with a child and even that small and precious gift had been ripped away from her in the cruellest way when Cat died. She had been humiliated, shamed, spat upon, reviled and yet she had held her head high, held her tongue still and got on with her life, but still they would not let her be. The men! The men who lusted after her. Not all, of course, for the goodness of Charlie Lucas's love shone from him every time he looked at her, which was most of the time, and Natty Varty's devotion had been strong, impeccable, unassailable. Poor old Natty who lay on the table in the parlour, washed, tidy, peaceful in the deep sleep of death, waiting for someone to put him in a coffin and carry him along the corpse way to St Bridget's by the lake
.

And who was that to be? Phoebe wondered painfully for not one man had come forward to help, not even those
from up Long Beck. Not even Mr Macauley himself.

“
Speak up, Phoebe," Charlie said gently, "tell the constable about Annie's injuries," coming to squat before her, taking her hands in his but she hung her head for how could she shame Annie by describing to this stern and hostile man what was on her body? How could she say the words, the intimate words she had spoken to no one in her life, not even another woman? It was impossible, really it was, and the worst thing about it - well, not the worst for that was surely what had been done to Annie -was that when the trial was held, as Charlie was determined it would be, she would have to stand up in court and say it, not to one man but a dozen. The jury in fact, and how was she, a simple country girl who could barely read, cope with that?

“
Charlie, leave her alone. Don't waste your breath, or the constable's time since it will come to nothing. I only agreed to it so that . . . well, you know why.
”

And of course he did. Phoebe knew it too. Out of his mind, he had been, off his head and ready, determined to batter his way up to the Mounsey farm and with his own bare hands slowly squeeze the life from Bert Garnett's body. No, he would not be satisfied even with that, he had snarled, for it was too quick, too merciful. He would beat him to death, methodically, slowly, until Bert lay dead and bloody at his feet. His hard fist on Bert's hard bone, shattering, breaking, blood flowing, Bert screaming, his own mind empty of all but the satisfying need to have revenge, justice for what Bert Garnett had done to his love, the darling of his heart and not only to her, but to Phoebe. Charlie Lucas, mild mannered, good-natured, easy going had lost control, his violence exploding in a great shellburst of savagery which had the three dogs cowering away from him before slinking off into the parlour where the old man lay
.

Charlie had brought him down from the fell after Annie's wounds had been seen to but it had taken all her strength of mind to make him do it since he was in such a hurry to get to Upfell.

“
You will leave him to lie there until it is convenient then, will you, Charlie? Until you have attended to more important matters such as the flogging you mean to give Bert Garnett?"

“
There will be no flogging, Annie. There will be a killing. I mean to . . . Dear Christ . . . I mean to make him pay dearly for . . ."

“
Very well, Charlie, do what you have to do but before you go to Upfell collect your belongings and take them with you for you will never come back into my house."

“
Annie!" Charlie's voice was anguished and the crazed dementia which had him by the throat and which was threatening to topple him over the brink of sanity, lessened a fraction.

“
I mean it, Charlie. Go and get Natty, for if you don't, Phoebe and I will."

“
I won't let that bastard . . ."

“
I know. I shouldn't have told you about him. I could have blamed it on a tinker or a passing drover but I was not . . . in my right mind . . . after what he'd . . . after . . . then to find Natty . . . Oh, Jesus Christ, when is it to end? First Cat . . . my fault, and now . . . again .. . my pride and stubbornness . . . he said it would happen if I continued to roam the fells alone but I took no notice."

“
He . . . ?"

“
Yes . . . and now, because of me . . . Natty is dead . . .
”

Her weeping sorrow had been inconsolable and as Phoebe rocked her in the only arms Annie would have about her, Charlie had been half-way across the yard to Upfell and would have got there had she not leaped up, throwing Phoebe to one side and gone after him, hanging on to his arm like a limpet, even when he dragged her from her feet. It was only then, when her flesh was scraped raw on the cobblestone and her voice screamed his name, did Charlie's derangement lessen, at least enough to help Phoebe get her to her feet and back in the kitchen. And to go up on the fell to bring Natty home
.

The constable looked at them, waiting to see if one of the three had anything further to say on the matter. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman had taken some sort of a beating. There were bruises on her throat and a nasty cut on her lip where she had evidently been struck by a hard fist, but she was so bloody calm, so uncaring, just as though what had happened to her, whatever it was, was something to which she was not unaccustomed. And perhaps that was the case. This chap who lived with her, so it was said, was like a caged beast snarling about the kitchen, smacking one fist into the palm of the other, looking violent enough to flatten anyone so perhaps it was him who had set on her. Women were funny creatures where their men were concerned. And no one knew anything about him. Just came out of the blue, he did, a year or two back, and had stayed. There was talk of her and Mr Reed Macauley up at Long Beck, and of a certain amount of animosity between him and this chap here, and who was to say they had not fought over her? Perhaps she'd stepped between them and got caught in the crossfire, so to speak, though why she should pick on poor Bert Garnett to blame for it, who'd never caused a minute's bother in the district since he'd married the Mounsey girl, was a mystery.

“
Ah'll put it before my superiors," he said pompously, opening the door on the cold, blustery wind which was sweeping across the fells and ruffling the water of the lake. The weather had taken a turn for the worse overnight, the hazed autumn sunshine of the day before hidden behind racing clouds of torn grey in every shade from pale grey to pewter
.

No one answered him. At the parlour door which stood partly open, for somehow it had seemed to Phoebe that it was callous to leave poor old Natty all alone,
Blackie
and Bonnie pushed enquiring noses sensing a diminishing of the oppression which had so alarmed them. Natty's dog could be seen, his muzzle on his paws, his old eyes never leaving the still figure of his master on the table
.

For a moment the constable wavered. It was all so .. . so quiet . . . so resigned and helpless, so law-abiding, so normal. Apart from the man, who appeared to be helpless in the grip of some awful pain, some tamped down, stamped upon emotion he was forced — for some reason — to control. The room was filled with peace, warmth, comfort even. An ordinary farmhouse kitchen where the only catastrophe to mar the day would be the failure of the farmwife's bread to rise. The woman still gazed sadly into the fire, her beautiful, tragic face — and the constable admitted it was both of these — pale as alabaster, her eyes, which he knew to be of a strange transparent brown, shadowed by her long, drooping lashes. Her hair was brushed back from her brow and braided high at the back of her head, the braid wound into an enormous coil. The other one, the little, plain one, held her hand between her own, her expression one of agonising remorse, and what he thought might be shame at her own inability to protect her mistress, if that was what she was, to speak up for her, to stand up and speak for her in this dreadful affair. Women like her were afraid of such things, afraid to make a fuss. It was believed in male circles that a female should remain in her home where she would be safe from harm and temptation and that any woman foolish enough to be out alone deserved to be molested. That the local constabulary should not be troubled with such sorry episodes. That incidents such as this were best left to settle themselves. Male violence in such cases was well known but it would not become a case if women, decent women, that is, stayed where they belonged. As this woman had not!

“
Ah'll be off then," he told them briskly.

“
And that's the end of it then, is it?" the man said bitterly, turning to glare at the constable. The dogs, catching his menace, turned and faced him too since he was the intruder, their hackles rising.

“
Mr-Lucas, ah've 'eard what Miss Abbott 'ad ter say an' ah've listened ter what Mr Garnett 'ad ter say an' both say different. 'Tis 'er word against 'is and ... "

“
And of course you would be bound to take the word
of a fine, upstanding chap like that bastard who regularly beats his own wife and . . ."

“
That's nothin' ter do wi' me, sir an' wi'out a witness ter this supposed attack there's nowt' ah can do." "SUPPOSED . . . !"

“
There's no evidence ter support ... "

“
There's the evidence of the scars on Miss Abbott's ... "

“
Charlie! For God's sake leave it. What would you have me do? Strip myself naked so that the constable may see for himself what's been done to me?
”

Charlie was appalled. "Darling, of course not but. . ."

“
Then that's an end to it."

“
Is it? Is it really? Do you imagine I'm going to let Bert Garnett put his evil hands on you . . . and other things . . ." His face worked in agony as the frightful, filthy images of what Bert Garnett had done to her crowded into his fertile and imaginative mind and he turned away, his hand covering his eyes as though to block them out. "I can't allow it, Annie. I won't allow it. What sort of a man would I be if I simply went on as though it had not happened?
”

Still he kept his back to the room and the constable shifted uncomfortably, not at all used to seeing such painful emotions in a man. But then perhaps he'd be the same if it was his wife or his girl who'd been . . . Dear God, what was he thinking of ? The anguished atmosphere in the room was beginning to influence him into making judgements and convicting Bert Garnett of a crime for which there was absolutely no evidence against him. He'd best be off before his impartial concern in the matter was impaired, though of course what he thought — what did he think? — made no difference one way or the other. But she was so sad, there was no other word to describe Annie Abbott, the one they called the woman from Browhead
.

But it seemed Mr Lucas had not yet finished.

“
I only held back yesterday because you made me,Annie. Fetch Natty, you said, and I did. Go and thrash Bert Garnett and I won't allow you back in my house, you said, so I stayed. The law is on our side, you said. He will be punished by the due course of the law and though I didn't believe it since I have seen the way the ordinary man is treated by the law on my marches to the . . . well, you will know what I mean. I realise now that all you said was merely a . . . a stratagem to prevent me taking the law into my own hands, but as you can see for yourself the law of this land ... " turning to look contemptuously at the constable, ". . . does not concern itself with ... "