All the dear faces (6 page)

“
We need a 'and in bar, Poll," Seth roared one night when, two coaches having come in at the same time, every passenger on board wanting a hot meal or a hot toddy, or both and at once, the place was in uproar. It was February by then, cold and damp and with no hint of spring about it which surely should be just round the corner in this Midland county.

“
Well, Hesper can't manage it. She's busy with them
pies an' I'm up to me eyes with the goose. It'll 'ave ter be Annie.
”

She was an instant success. Her lovely face became flushed and lively and she found her brief training as an actress, and as a `hander out' of handbills, and the repartee which was part of the job, had bestowed on her a saucy tongue to which the customers responded, demanding more drinks than they would normally have, just to be served by the pretty barmaid. She was quick and light on her feet, watching for Seth's signals on where she was needed and the tips she received which she was ready to hand over to him, were hers to keep, he told her, his huge grin telling her how well she had done
.

She brought in custom. She learned to be bold without being vulgar. How to smile and tease without being coarse. How to give the impression that each man was her especial favourite while at the same time allowing no liberties to be taken with her person. Which was fine and perfectly acceptable to Polly until she discovered it was her Seth who was the worst culprit, doing his best to urge the red-faced and vehemently protesting Annie into the larder, his hand already up her skirt
.

Polly said nothing then, being a wise woman, merely making an unnecessary clatter to warn them of her approach. She and Seth had a thriving business and she wanted no bad blood between them. He was an old fool, but that was all. A man, like the rest of them, who could not resist a pretty face but she was not about to jeopardise her marriage, her livelihood, her future, over a temporary flush of youthful lust which had come over her Seth
.

Catriona Abbott was six months old when Polly Pearsall told Annie, regretfully, that she would have to go. It was June, the day fine and bright, the honeysuckle which climbed up the wall at the side of the inn melting into pink and cream, its sweet fragrance as heady as wine. Yellow irises bloomed in the little stream which warbled through the inn's back garden, threaded with the yellow and orange flowers of mimulus. Linnets were nesting under the eaves and above the sound of the stream their twittering could
clearly be heard. The washing Annie was pegging out snapped in the breeze and Annie sniffed at its good clean smell, then sighed in content
.

She turned in amazement when Polly spoke at her back. "Leave? But why? What have I done?"

“
Nothin', me duck. You've bin a good, 'ard-workin' lass an' it's not your fault you've been blessed wi' that bonny face of yours, nor the shape of yer. I say 'blessed', but perhaps 'cursed' would be a better word. There's Hesper who's as plain as a plank an 'as no trouble gettin' or keepin' a job when she's not 'alf the worker you are. Willin', aye, but she's not got your . . . your way o' doin' things. All of a muddle she be wi'out me ter tell 'er what ter do, but you . .

“
Then why, Mrs Pearsall, why?" Annie's voice was rich with passion at the injustice of it but deep down where her female instincts matched those of Polly Pearsall, there was a growing understanding.

“
I think yer know why, duck." Polly's voice was sad and beneath her steady gaze Annie's face became flooded with colour. She hung her head and tears brimmed to her eyes.

“
It wasn't me, Mrs Pearsall. It wasn't my fault. D'you think I want an old man like . . ." like that fat pig who is your husband, the unfinished sentence said, but Polly finished it for her.

“
Like my Seth, is that what you were goin' ter say? Well, 'e's not much ter look at, I'll give yer that, but 'e's a good man really an' . . . 'e's mine, Annie. I'm fond of 'im, see, an' 'e is of me .. ."

“
Then why doesn't he leave me alone?" Annie's head lifted defiantly and her eyes flashed in golden brilliance. Damnation, but this lass has got troubles ahead of her, Polly had time to think. Wherever she goes it will be the same. Men after her like dogs chasing a bitch on heat and though she doesn't ask for it, not in so many words, the very way she walks, swinging her hips and twitching that little bum of hers, lifting them fine breasts, turning her head to smile, it drives them on until all they can think of
is getting their hands on it all. Since the child her figure had ripened. Motherhood – and the good food she ate –had put flesh on her, a rich, creamy flesh and all in the right places, curving her breast and hip but the hard work she did kept her waist small and neat. Her hair grew and flourished, burnished with good health to the deepest copper, unconfined in its glory even when she plaited it where it fell in a swinging rope to her buttocks. She was happy, poor little bugger, and it showed in the vivid and startling loveliness of her eager smile and they were all mesmerised by it. Like my Seth, the old sod
.

For a moment her female pride and jealousy for someone younger and prettier than herself took a hold of her and she wanted to smack the silly little cow in the face and tell her to 'hop it' and ply her wares elsewhere but her own sense of fairness returned.

“
'E's only a man, Annie, like them all. 'E's right fond o' me an' we rub along right well. So you see, duck, you'll 'ave ter go. An' I'd be obliged if yer'd pack yer things an' leave right now. I don't want yer sayin' owt ter Seth or Hesper. They're both busy so it'd be best. I'll tell 'em you just upped an' took off. Try over Gretton way. There's a lot of inns on that road. 'Tis a busy one an' 'appen you'll get summat. Eeh, Annie, I'm right sorry this 'appened, me duck. I've got proper attached to that babby . . . an' ter you.
”

She had gone within the hour, speaking to no one, stunned and speechless, her few belongings – Lizzie Abbott's wedding-dress which she kept scrupulously mended and cleaned, and the baby's change of clothing –in a wicker basket Polly gave her. There was food, enough for a couple of days and the few shillings she had earned. It would keep her going until she reached Gretton. Catriona was carried on her hip, held with a length of clean grey cloth tied over Annie's shoulder. She clung there like a small animal, her thumb in her mouth, her enormous golden brown eyes gazing solemnly at Polly who was as close to tears as she had been in years
.

It was the same wherever she went and she was never,
in all her travels, to find a place so good nor a woman so kind as Polly Pearsall.

“
That babby just won't do, me duck. It'll be a nuisance what with the stink of it ...
“

The stink of it, her sweet smelling, dewy fresh little daughter who was bathed every day and changed the very moment she soiled her napkin.

“
. . . an' then there's the noise. I can't 'ave it near my guests ..
The noise! That soft gurgling of laughter she and Catriona shared, the nuzzling contented sounds as she settled at Annie's breast
.

.. an' there's no doubt you'd be neglecting yer work runnin' up an' downstairs to it every five minutes, wouldn't yer?"

“
No, ma'am, I wouldn't. She's a very good baby, really she is. A quieter baby never breathed. She sleeps a lot and I could feed her when I'm eating my meals. I would never neglect my duties ... "

“
Where did yer learn ter speak like that, me duck? Yer not from these parts, are yer?"

“
No, Cumberland."

“
Well I never. I'd no idea they spoke so posh up there." "Would you have a job for me then? Anything .. . scrubbing, bar work . . . ?"

“
Well .. ."

“
I would work for very little."

“
Well . . .
”

For the next two years it was the same, working wherever and whenever she could, mostly in the bar-parlours of country inns where folk were kinder than those in the bigger towns. She brought trade with her lovely face and lively tongue but she also brought trouble since there was not a man who drank the pint of ale she put in his hand who did not want her as well, and not a few were willing to fight over it, with each other or with her when she would not allow what they often considered to be part of her duties. Time and again she was asked to move on, she and her child who had learned to be good and quiet in
the attic rooms which were allotted them and where Annie was forced to leave her for hours on end. Catriona was to learn that she must wait patiently for her mother's return. That she must not stamp about or shout as other children were allowed to do but must play with the rag dolly Annie had made for her out of scraps of material, sitting quite still in the middle of the straw pallet. She dozed and crawled, then crept on her little faltering legs into a walk and when Annie came up, there she would be, the light from Annie's candle falling on her lovely, blinking eyes, her eager, expectant face, the riot of her soft, bright curls, so like her mother's.

“
See what mother's brought for her good girl tonight," Annie would say, popping broken custard tart into her child's mouth, morsels of the daintiest food scraps she could find left over from the dining room and all the while praying that the landlady of the inn at Brigstock or Desborough, at Clipston, Naseby, Rothwell, wherever it was she had tramped to in the hope of finding work, would not blame her for the black eye Jim Sorrell had given to Harry Appleton in the yard as they fought one another ferociously over who had more right to Annie Abbott's favours
.

She was in Market Harborough when she saw the newspaper. She had worked for the past week in the kitchen of The Plough in the Market Square, scrubbing, peeling potatoes by the bushel, cleaning vegetables, washing and drying the mountain of dirty crockery and glasses which came from the dining room and bar-parlour by the hour. She wore a bodice and skirt she had bought from a market stall, grey, much mended, too big in order to hide her shapely figure, and round her head she had bound a length of colourless cotton. An enormous apron made of sacking enveloped her from neck to ankle and up in the roof in a space too tiny even to be called an attic, her daughter lay apathetically on a grubby palliasse. She was almost three years old and the life she and Annie had been forced into was slowly reducing her from a placid but bright and contented infant who could, because she slept for a good deal
of the day, accept her restricted life, into a dull, spiritless little ghost who scarcely turned her head when Annie crept into the room, the cupboard in which they slept. Annie despaired over her, rocking her in passionately tender arms, whispering into the dazed little face until the child responded, telling her tales about her own childhood which now, in contrast to her daughter's, seemed rosy indeed
.

But it could not go on for ever. The little girl was growing, a baby no longer. She needed companionship, the outside world, people, animals, beauty, stimulation. When she had an hour Annie would take her into the market place, telling her what the objects were on the stalls, ordinary, everyday things which were a wonder to the child who stared for hours on end at four blank walls. Annie carried her out of the town and into the countryside which surrounded it, letting her wander in the woodland, watching her absorption with a simple cowslip, a scurrying beetle, the cows in the fields and for a brief moment her child would come alive. They would run, hand in hand, and Annie would shout out loud but Catriona would put her hand to her mouth, her eyes enormous in her pinched face as she looked about her as though, even here, she must make no noise
.

The newspaper was the Lancaster Herald and was dated several weeks ago, evidently left there by some traveller from the North. It lay discarded beneath a table in the snug bar, the floor of which Annie was about to scrub. It was thick and would make a good pad on which to kneel, she decided and then later, if she could pinch a good candle stub, she would read it in the privacy of her room. Who knew what great events might be taking place in the world of which she was completely ignorant
.

Catriona was asleep, her face pale in the flickering light from the candle, her hair in a lifeless tangle on the stained pillow. She had eaten half a pork pie, some cold potato and a spoonful of cabbage, obedient as always, but vague and ready, worryingly so, to go back to the heavy sleep Annie had wakened her from
.

Annie watched over her for half an hour, anguished by
the little girl's docility, then, sighing, she picked up the newspaper
.

She turned the pages lethargically. What did she care if there was to be a revolution in Paris as seemed likely? Or even if it was happening in the county of Leicestershire from where, no matter how she tried, there was no escaping the drudgery and hopelessness of her life? She was about to throw the newspaper down and climb into the bed with Catriona when her own name sprang out at her from the words which were printed there. The shock of it sluiced over her like a deluge of icy water and she gasped, her breath catching painfully in her throat. Her brain became numb and her hands shook and for several moments she could not focus her eyes nor even keep the newspaper still
.