All the dear faces (62 page)

“
How much, Annie?" Charlie asked again, his eyes grave, his expression withdrawn. "You know you have to examine . . ."

“
I could borrow against Browhead, Charlie." Her eager face was flushed, lovely again, alive with an animation she had not known, or shown for months. It was as though she had been given a new lease on life itself, the chance to begin again, to seize hold of something worthwhile, something wonderful which she had thought would never come again.

“
Who from?"

“
Well . . . there's the bank in Keswick or . . ."

“
Or Reed Macauley.
”

The silence which followed was deep and painful and in her quiet corner, Phoebe's hands stilled on the bit of work she had in them. She never sat down without something, knitting, a sock to be darned, a tear mended, a button to be sewn on Charlie's shirt, since it went against all she had been taught from the time she had been considered old enough to ply a needle, that idle hands meant mischief. That is what they had said to her, though what mischief a frightened, blank-eyed four-year-old foundling could get up to in her hard, fourteen-hour day, had never been explained to her. She looked from one awkward face to the other, seeing the confirmation she looked for in Annie Abbott's eyes, though Annie of course denied it.

“
I said nothing about Reed Macauley, Charlie."

“
You don't have to, Annie."

“
And what does that mean?"

“
It means that . . . you . . . still think of him . . ." "Don't be ridiculous.
”

. . and that you . . . because you want Upfell so badly, you would go to him for the money. He is the only man of real wealth in these parts. He lends money to .. . to those who need a loan and feeling about you as he does, a fact he made very clear when he almost killed Bert Garnett, which I should have done and didn't, he would not hesitate to further his claim, indeed he would give you the money and you know it."

“
That's not true . . ."

“
Which part is not true, Annie?"

“
Any of it."

“
Do you deny he loves you?"

“
Charlie . . . please . . . don't . . ."

“
And by your tone I would say you still feel the same about him."

“
Charlie, I beg of you, don't do this . . ."

“
What, speak the truth or make you face it?"

“
He is nothing to do with me, Charlie. He has a wife. . ."

“
And if he had not, would I still be here?""Charlie, you know what I feel for you."

“
Indeed I do, Annie, that is what is so sad about it. I keep hanging about like some faithful old dog hoping for a kind word, a glance, a pat on the head but really it is not enough. I am making a pathetic figure of myself and . . ."

“
No, that's not true Charlie, I . "

“
Don't! don't say you love me, Annie, truly I could not bear it if you did. I don't want what you have to give me, which is what you would give to another woman, what you give to Phoebe. I'm a man with needs of my own which have been sadly neglected over the past years as I've waited patiently for you to . . . Jesus . . . to notice me. I'm not a bloody machine, I want you . . . I love you .. . for Christ's sake, can't you . . . ?
”

His face moved in a great spasm of self-loathing and he turned away, looking towards the corner in which Phoebe sat. She shrank from his glance, longing with all her heart to leave this room in which emotions flared and grew out of control but Charlie did not even see her there.

“
I hate myself for being like this, Annie. I want to beg, to plead with you to let me . . . to let me love you .. . to love me ... "

“
I do . . . Charlie, I do.
”

He turned on her savagely.

“
No, you don't, you don't. You love him and really, I cannot take much more of watching you do it." "Charlie . . ."

“
No . . . no . . . don't . . .
”

In his headlong haste to get away from her, from the possessive love she aroused in him, from the suffering she caused him, from his hatred of Reed Macauley, from the compassion, the fascination, the tenderness, the enchantment of Annie Abbott, he almost knocked her over as she stood up. Fumbling for the door catch, he jerked open the door, crashing his head on the low frame, disappearing into the dark night. They could hear him as he vaulted the wall and the distressed bleating of the sheep as they divided before him, then it was silent
.

The dogs, who had sprung to their feet, alarmed by the commotion, settled down again slowly, watching anxiously as Annie moved wearily across the room to close the door.

“
He'll be back, Phoebe, he's upset."

“
Aye, an' reason to be, I'd say."

“
Oh, Phoebe, please don't you start on me now, I can't take much more, really I can't."

“
An' neither can Charlie. For God's sake wed him or let him go.
”

Annie turned to stare in amazement at Phoebe who had resumed her patient stitching.

“
Let him go?"

“
Aye, or he'll never be right again. I know nowt about men but I do know what it's doin' to Charlie watchin' you fret after a chap what . . ."

“
I'm not fretting over any chap, Phoebe. I have had .. . sadness."

“
I'm not sayin' tha 'asnt, lass, more than most. But face the truth like Charlie said. Give Mr Macauley up. Let him make his peace with his wife 'cos he would if tha' was married to another man.
”

Annie bent her head and her breath left her on a shuddering sigh. She put her face in her cupped hands and her pain was an appalling menace in the room. It threatened to strike her to her knees from where she would never rise again, to bend her proud, strong back, to break it, to crush her. Blackie stood up hesitantly and moved across to her, pushing his muzzle against her knee and, when her hand dropped to his head, staring up at her with patient, loving eyes
.

At last she spoke again.

“
I know, Phoebe, what you say is true but . . . but I cannot marry Charlie just to keep him here, which is what I would be doing, and as for Reed . . . and his wife, that is their affair, not mine. They . . . both of them will do what they think fit, which is what I will do. Charlie .. . must make his own choices, Phoebe. I cannot say how I will feel in . . . say, six months. Last year, after Cat died, I was very close to . . . giving in ... ""Aye, I noticed. "

“
You don't miss much do you?"

“
No, an' neither did Natty. We both thought that . . ." "You and he discussed it?"

“
Why not then? We're family . . ."

“
Of course you are, Phoebe. You and Natty . . ." "And Charlie?"

“
Yes, I love Charlie, but not as he would want." She sighed deeply. "Well, I'd best go and look for him and make my peace."

“
Don't do that, Annie. It's not peace he wants. You go ter tha' bed for if I'm any judge, tha'll be off t' bank in Keswick first thing.
”

She was
.

The bank manager in Keswick knew her, as everyone in the parish of Bassenthwaite knew her by now. Who had not heard of her wild ways, her outlandish manner of dressing, her unconventional, outspoken behaviour, her notoriety with regard to Mr Reed Macauley, her capricious flouting of all the laws of decency and morality? Certainly not the bank manager in Keswick and would those who trusted their money and their investments in his honest and trustworthy hands, thank him for lending it to a woman such as her? She had certainly proved herself resourceful, turning her father's farm from failure to a small measure of success, but would it continue? And if it did not, how, he begged her to tell him, averting his eyes from her long trousered legs, the fine turn of her ankle in their highly polished boots, would she repay her debt
?

She tried to tell him but he would not be moved. She was a woman, infamous and, more to the point, a risky one
.

It was the same with Mr Hancock in Lancaster to where she took the train. Yes, he remembered her, he said kindly, looking not at what she had on for this time in desperation she wore the black mourning dress Reed's women had put on her when Cat died, but at her frail loveliness, for surely this brittle woman who looked as though she would snap like a dried twig, was not capable
of running two farms, and certainly not of repaying a substantial loan on one of them
.

A week later Upfell Farm was sold to a farmer from Lancashire. It was rumoured he had bought it for his younger son, who, having no expectations of inheriting any part of the family farm, wished to strike out on his own
.

Chapter
34

She had been shearing her sheep, her mind dazed with how she was to get through when the shearers from Long Beck came down,

“
We've come ter do tha' 'boon clip'," one said dourly, his short pipe clenched between his teeth.

“
But . . ."

“
Mr Macauley says if tha' was ter give us an argument to tell thi' tha' can coom and give us a hand next week.
”

She could not help but smile though Charlie did not, at the idea that Annie Abbott would make the smallest difference in the shearing of Reed Macauley's 2,000 ewes and gimmers, his yearlings and twinters and the fine rams he owned to keep his flock pure and strong. She could just imagine him, his eyes gleaming with sardonic humour, giving the message to this man, knowing her and her stubbornness against taking what she would see as charity. He had been at Long Beck for several weeks now, so they were told, the news brought by Maggie Singleton who could not resist her natural pride in the fine son she had borne Jake Singleton, when she came down to Browhead to show him off to Phoebe
.

Annie and Phoebe, thankfully, both of them, left the yard to the men who had brought their own shears and shearing stools, and with Charlie and a boy to heave the sheep in their direction and a couple of others to salve those shorn, the two women contented themselves with the women's age-old task of feeding the workers
.

It was Charlie, not the presence of the Long Beck men, who had inclined Annie to move indoors. She and Charlie were not easy in one another's company these days and she knew she would have to come to some decision, make
a commitment, one way or the other, either to Charlie, or to a life of loneliness, spinsterhood even, without him. He had said he would wait for ever, positive he meant it at the time, certain in his male heart and masculine pride that Annie would turn to him eventually. He may not have thought it consciously, for Charlie was not given to arrogance, but his logical mind would reason that she had no choice. She loved him, more than a friend, if less than a lover and it was pretty reasonable to assume that Reed Macauley would never be free of his pretty wife. So what other option was open to Annie Abbott? She was not fashioned for celibacy, for barrenness, for the arid life of a woman alone. She needed warmth, love, emotionally and physically, children, a woman's life in which her capacity for all these things would be fulfilled. So surely everything was tilted in Charlie's favour and soon, when her mind was at peace and the anguish of losing Cat had lessened, when her equilibrium was restored and the even tenor of their life together resumed, Charlie and Annie would be man and wife, and very well they would do together
.

But he and Annie had not bargained on her body's stubborn refusal to consider any but Reed Macauley's, nor on her wayward female heart which, now that it was released from the icy paralysis it had known for over a year, bucked and plunged and leapt with gladness at the very mention of Reed Macauley's name
.

Annie fidgeted fretfully about the kitchen that day, getting in Phoebe's way, until Phoebe began to tut-tut irritably. She had her own way of doing things, devised over the four years she had been at Browhead. This was her kitchen, her parlour, her dairy and cow shed and vegetable garden, and in them she worked tirelessly, methodically, contentedly, with no other woman to say her 'yea' or 'nay'. She knew very well that had the men not come down from Long Beck, a circumstance not at all to the liking of Charlie, who even now from the side door which stood open, she could see had a face on him like thunder, she and Annie and himself would have blundered on, day after day, in an attempt to get the flock clipped. An impossibletask for one woman since Charlie, though he had tried to shear, hadn't the knack for it. The ewe he had started on had nearly bled to death from the numerous slashes in her skin and Charlie himself, at the end of a long struggling hour, had a cut so deep in his forearm Phoebe had threatened to stitch it up for him with her own needle and thread. He and the ewe looked as though they had just come from a slaughterhouse, slicked in the blood of both of them, Charlie grim faced, the sheep the same, the atmosphere of tension so deep and dreadful Phoebe had feared he and Annie might come to blows. He felt useless, she knew, less than a man as he was forced yet again to let Annie do the work he should have been able to do, and no matter how Annie assured him it really was of no consequence and she would manage, and though it was no fault of hers, Charlie was tight-mouthed with frustration at his unhandy ways. In the old days, of course, before this awkwardness had come upon them, he would have grinned engagingly, made a joke, laughed at himself, but not today
.