A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Read online

  However, it was nine months later before he got his first trip on a merchant boat for although he wanted the sea he didn’t want to join the navy after having listened to what happened to press-ganged men, by which time he had married the daughter of the little house in which he was lodging. Now, more than eight years had passed, and during this time he had been only three times ashore in this country, when the time between trips had, on two occasions, been but a matter of days, not weeks, and a man who has been without a woman for years at a stretch does not waste time in longing to tramp the fells of his childhood. So this was the first time he had been this far since the day he left the place. But this trip was different. By God, yes, it was different.

  ‘Da.’

  His thinking was brought back to the present and he looked down on the reason for his return, and absentmindedly he said, ‘Aye?’

  ‘How far is it to the old woman’s house?’

  ‘You mustn’t call her the old woman. Her name is Mrs Makepeace.’

  ‘But you call her old Kate.’

  ‘What I can do an’ you can do are two different things. Now, you ask how far it is. Well, after we cut up here to the mills it won’t be all that far.’

  In a matter of minutes they came to the first mill, then crossed a rough road and an open space and there ahead of them stood a great group of stone buildings, some with chimneys, some that looked like offices and stables, and all around there was activity with men and horses, and, filling the air, a clamour of voices and rumbling of carts and the clanking of harness.

  When his father pulled at his arm, apparently intending to bypass all this, the boy said, ‘Aren’t you going to show me the mill, Da, like you said?’

  ‘That’ll be another day. Come, the stink is enough; we must skirt it.’ And he held out his hand to help the boy over the iron tracks running into the distance, then past some scattered cottages, through a thicket and on to a path running by a stream, where the boy exclaimed, ‘Oh, Da, look! It’s bonny, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, lad, it is bonny. It always was bonny. Beyond the mill there’s a rill and a canny little waterfall. You’ll see it some day, but now time’s getting on, and it’s shorter this way.’ He pointed uphill. ‘And so let’s put our best foot forward, eh?’

  By the time they reached the top of the long slope the boy’s step was dragging and he looked with a sort of longing to where in the distance stood a group of houses and he said, ‘Is that where she, the old…I mean, Mrs Makepeace lives?’

  ‘No, no. That’s Langley Top. You’ll see that an’ all, come another day. But now, here!’ He lowered himself onto his hunkers, saying, ‘Get up.’ And the boy climbed onto his father’s shoulders.

  Some way past the houses he stopped and turned to look down the valley, only to stare at a stretch of water just below, and he muttered, ‘Why! I can’t believe me eyes. They talked of it, but now they’ve actually done it.’ And he walked forward again to get a better view of the water, and looking down from one end of it to the other, he muttered, ‘Must come from Stublick, and goes out down to the mill through that culvert.’ He nodded. Then humping the boy further up on his back, he stepped back onto the track again, only to stop abruptly and straighten his back so quickly that the boy had to cling on tightly to his neck. ‘Good lord! That must be the flue.’ He pointed to what looked like a stone-built chimney lying on the ground and his eyes followed its length back towards the smelting mill. ‘That’s what it is. The wall was no good. This must take the gases away. No wonder the trees and grass look fresher.’

  ‘Will I get down now, Da? Am I too heavy?’

  ‘No, lad, you’re like a feather.’

  But his son wasn’t like a feather: his son was thin but, like himself, he was big-boned and bones weighed heavy. But he enjoyed the feel of him clinging to his back, for the aloneness went out of his body at the proximity of his own flesh. Strange, how lonely he had felt these last few days. In all those months at sea, in all those years at sea there had been periods of loneliness that almost made a man run amuck. Yet it was a different kind of loneliness from what he was experiencing now because then he had known he had a wife on shore waiting for him, and a son too. Well, he still had the son, but not for long.

  They had now entered woodland again and because of the low branches crossing the hardly discernible path, the man stooped and let the boy slide from his back, saying as he did so, ‘Another half mile and we’ll be there.’

  ‘Is this the wood you told me about, Da?’

  ‘Aye, this is the wood above the quarry.’

  ‘What’s a quarry like, Da?’

  ‘You’ll see it in just a tick through a break in the trees. It’s just a big hole. Here we come to the first opening. There, look, but don’t go too near the edge, it crumbles away.’ He himself stepped nearer the edge and looked over, saying as he did so, ‘Yes, there’s been some landslides since I last ripped me backside sliding down there.’

  ‘You used to slide down there, Da?’

  ‘As a lad, aye. It was a Sunday game. An’ we used to make little caves to hide in. It was a grand place to play in. Now you can scarcely see the bottom of it for brushwood. Come, let’s be going.’

  They continued their way, leaving the quarry behind them. At one point Peter Greenbank stopped and, looking down at the track, remarked, ‘Well, it’s still used. In fact, by the look of it, more so than in my day.’

  The track led to a roadway, beyond which the land dropped into a small green valley, and there, sunk, as if in the bottom of it, was a cottage. It was square, having a small window at each side of a door, and underneath deep eaves another window that glinted brightly in the afternoon sun. The cottage was situated in what looked like an overgrown garden, and to the side ran a small burn that was little wider than a drain in parts.

  ‘Is that it, Da, Mrs…Mrs Makepeace’s house?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, and it’s the one thing about here that hasn’t changed with the years. But I hope we find…’ But he did not finish the thought in his mind which said, Old Kate still surviving there.

  How old was she when he left? Well, nearing sixty he would say. But no-one knew her real age, for unlike other women, as she was in all ways, she refused to wear a bonnet or a cape such as denoted age.

  They went rapidly down the slope to where the land levelled out, then through a gate and up a rough uneven stone path and to the front door, which Peter had noted was closed when he had stood surveying the cottage from the hill, but was now open. Yet there seemed to be no-one about, and so he put out his hand and, leaning forward, knocked twice on the weathered oak, and waited before poking his head forward and calling, ‘Anybody at home by the name of Mrs Kate Makepeace?’

  Still there was no answer. But when he heard a door close, he spoke again, calling, ‘Hello, there!’

  From out of the deep shadow at the far end of the room stepped a woman. She was of medium height with a thickset figure. She wore a skirt and a blouse of blue cotton, which was open low at the neck showing the skin at the top of her drooping breasts as having the same dried wrinkled appearance as that on her face. Her hair was thin and drawn tightly back over her scalp. It wasn’t white, not even grey, but was as dark as the shadow from which she had stepped. And now, her eyes moving into slits, she peered towards the two figures standing in the doorway and her mouth dropped open into a gape and then closed again before she said, ‘In the name of God!’ And Peter answered, ‘Aye, and He be blest that I find you well.’

  ‘Peter Greenbank.’

  ‘The same, Kate, the same.’

  She looked down. ‘What’s this? Your boy?’

  ‘Aye, my boy, my son, six months off being eight.’

  ‘Well, well. I knew it was a strange day, when I rose this mornin’. I knew it was a strange day, and it wasn’t the heat. Come in, come in; what are you standin’ there for? Surprises never surprise me, but this is different. I…I thought you must be dead; I’d heard no word of you. That yo
u were married, aye, but that was a long time ago. Newcastle is a long way off and South Shields further. She was from there, the rumour said.’

  ‘Aye, she was from there.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  He bowed his head and sat down on the stiff wooden chair by the side of the open hearth in which a fire blazed, and this a very hot day, before he said, ‘I hope she’s with those she believed in, her people, if not the angels.’

  After a pause, the old woman said, ‘God rest her soul…When?’

  ‘Oh, six months gone.’

  ‘Six months! And the laddie?’

  ‘Left to God and good neighbours, and from what I saw of some of them, not so good. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, that’s why you’re here. Ah well, whatever’s brought you I’m pleased to see you, Peter. I never thought though to see you again, for the sea’s a treacherous mistress. But away with thoughts and down to the needs of the belly. Have you eaten?’

  ‘We had a decent bite in Hexham, but that’s some hours ago, and a nibble in Haydon Bridge, but it’s a drink we’re both needin’, I think.’ He glanced at his son and added, ‘Eh?’ And the boy said, ‘Yes, Da.’

  ‘Hip drink. He’d like my hip syrup.’

  ‘He couldn’t but help.’

  ‘And you? I have a herb beer an’ a ginger, but better still, a sloe wine. I keep that for best like, for an occasion, and I haven’t had an occasion for a long, long time, so why not now? Sloe wine it’ll be, Peter.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed, I can’t wait.’

  She smiled, a skin-stretching smile; then her head lowering, she passed her glance over the boy before turning away and shambling up the room, which was much bigger than could be gauged from outside.

  When she disappeared through a far door the boy looked up at his father, and he, pulling a face, whispered, ‘There now, that’s Mrs Makepeace. What d’you think?’

  ‘She’s’—the boy hesitated—‘all right…nice I think, but…but…’

  Peter’s head came lower, until his eyes were looking into the boy’s, and they were merry as he added, ‘Frightening, gives you a gliff.’ And to this the boy responded immediately, grinning now, saying, ‘Aye, Da, a gliff.’

  ‘She’s a good woman, wise and brave.’ Peter’s face was straight now, and the boy, sensing something behind the words, let the grin slide away and he nodded his head as if he understood.

  Within a minute the old woman was back in the room carrying a mug in each hand, one smaller than the other, and it was the latter that she handed to Peter, saying, ‘A little of that, I tell you, will go a long way. It was put down well afore you left.’

  ‘Then it should have a kick in it.’

  ‘Aye, it has. It’ll measure that of an unbroken pit pony any day, I can promise you.’

  The father and the son now sipped at their mugs. Then the boy, blinking, looked up at the strange woman and, smiling, said, ‘’Tis nice.’

  ‘Yes, ’tis nice,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve never heard different about that. And what d’you think?’ She looked at Peter, and he, drawing a deep breath, said on a laugh, ‘If I’d a drop of this when my fingers were stuck to the rails with ice, I’d have been free in a flash. ’Tis mighty powerful and almost as clear as water.’

  ‘Well now’– she sat down opposite to them—‘tell me what’s happened you this many a day, then I will get you something to eat. You’re stayin’, I hope?’ There was a sharp enquiry in her voice, and he said, ‘Overnight, and perhaps for a day, if you’ll have us.’

  ‘As short as that?’

  He glanced at the boy, then said, ‘For me anyway. I want a crack with you, Kate.’ Again his eyes slanted towards the boy, and she nodded and said, ‘Aye, well, aye, but go on.’

  ‘Well, what is there to tell? Sweat and hard tack and’—he gritted his teeth for a moment—‘cruelty, the like you never saw of.’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen a bit, you know that.’

  ‘Aye, I do. But this kind was different in some way, Kate: men reduced to janglin’ pieces of raw flesh. Oh.’ He screwed up his eyes tight and jerked his head.

  ‘Then why do you stay?’ she said.

  ‘Can’t tell really, Kate.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think about takin’ up here again?’

  ‘In the pit or the mill? No! No, never again. There’s one thing you get on the sea if nothing else, fresh air, at least when you’re up top, an’ light. Two things I should have said. But…but life will be a little different from now on; I’ve left the old tub an’ next week I’m joinin’ a ship that does the Norwegian run. She’ll only have another two or so to do afore the storms and the ice shuts up the sea, and then for the winter I’ll get a job on shore. In any case I’ve enough on me to see me through those months, work or no work; I’ve been sparing over the years with meself. So what I’ve come for, Kate’—he cast a glance towards the boy—‘is this one here. You see, when I got back to me house, which was a decent enough place when I left, three rooms it had and away from the waterfront…but not far enough for the swabs to move in, once he was left on his own. A neighbour took care of him. That’s how she put it. She moved her squad in, and he was running wild with them, hardly a rag to his back, an’ lice-ridden. You never saw the like. I’ve never used me boot in me life afore. They won’t come near that door for a time. It’s me own house, you know, I own it. Well, through Betsy. It was there I went to lodge with her mother after I left here. Her father had been captain of a coaster and buyin’ the house had been the result of his labours. It’s worth one hundred and twenty pounds, if a penny, that’s when I get it cleaned up, and then I’ll sell it or let it out for rent. It’ll be according to what the solicitor man advises me, ’cos the deeds are with him. I saw him yesterday. Have you ever been in front of a lawyer, Kate? Stiff they are. He was polite enough, but stiff. But that’s the way of ’em. Anyway, I told him I was comin’ out here to you and gave him the address of the cottage.’

  ‘What if I’d been dead?’

  ‘Huh! Well, Kate, I thought of that, but then I thought, well there’s Bill Lee, he’ll surely still be there, for he was just married when I left. And with his mother still in Allendale, he wouldn’t want to move. And her, I mean Jane coming from Haydon Bridge, well, you know what families are when they think you are going to shift away. Anyway, I counted on that and I left Bill’s cottage name with him an’ all. But is he still there?’

  ‘Oh yes, aye, he’s still there. An’ he’s made a fine job of that shanty. Built on two rooms he has and a stable for the pony. And that not alone, he’s been granted four stints.’

  ‘Four stints!’

  ‘Aye. Oh, there’s been lots of changes since you left, you wouldn’t believe. You remember some of the types that worked alongside of you in the smelting mills? Aye, and the mine. Drunks, almost to a man. Well, that place called the Greenwich Hospital got an idea into their heads that would cut out on their drinkin’, which drinkin’ made them late for their work and their heads buzzing so much they weren’t up to it when they got there. And so, what did they do? My, you wouldn’t believe, they’ve built them fine cottages and allotted each of them so many stints, and with each stint they are allowed to keep a cow and chickens or a few pigs or sheep an’ such like, according you know to the size.’

  ‘Well, well! That Greenwich Hospital lot have a head on their shoulders. I knew it when I was workin’ there, the things they did. Mr Fawcett represented them then. He was the mill bailiff, a straight man, honest, as honest as anyone in a high position can be. Is he still there?’

  ‘Oh, William Fawcett is still there; but Mulcaster seems to be the man now, so I understand, and Mr Wardle bailiff to the mine. But tell me, I’ve never been able to get it into this stupid head of mine, is this hospital a real place for the sick or what?’

  ‘No, no, Kate, it’s a kind of…well, I’m not sure, but it’s like a concern, a company, like a shipping company I should imagine or a coal owner, but bigger, a
ye, oh bigger, because they buy up estates. ’Twas they who bought up the whole Barony of Langley from one end to the other, you know. No, no, they are not that kind of a hospital, but what they really are I couldn’t put me finger on except as to what I’ve said.’

  During all this talk the boy had sat gazing at them while sipping at his drink. Then after he had placed the mug down onto the floor to the side of him, he leant his head against the high wooden back of the chair and went peacefully to sleep.

  They both became aware of this at the same time and they looked at him a moment or so before Kate said, ‘He’s a bonny enough lad; takes after you when you were that age. What was his mother like? Has he any of her features?’

  ‘She was a good lass, a bit on the religious side, but open, like, with it, not narrow. Took after her father in that way. And she was pure.’

  ‘Huh!’ Kate gave a wheezy laugh. ‘Pure. You would go after a pure one, wouldn’t you? Did you ever think of Nell Feeler?’

  ‘No, no, I never did.’

  ‘Well, I thought it was as much to get rid of her as your hankerin’ for the sea that took you off.’

  ‘Maybe, but there were t’other things, you know.’

  They looked at each other hard before she said softly, ‘Aye, I know.’ Then as if desiring to change the subject, she said, ‘I don’t think she ever forgave you…Nell. She had a bairn after.’