A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Read online

  ‘Aye. Aye, Kate. But we’ll have to have help; we can’t move that lot ourselves.’

  The other man spoke now, saying, ‘The shift’ll be spread out, they’ll all be home by now.’

  ‘There’s the top ’un and the pullers.’

  ‘Aye. But let’s get the boy back first.’ And turning to Kate, he said, ‘We’ll get him. If he’s there, we’ll get him.’ Then looking at his mate again, he said, ‘You get back and rake them up, Joe. I’ll take the wee ’un along.’

  The sun was directly overhead when they carried Peter into the cottage. Bill Lee was one of the four men holding the canvas and his face was almost as ashen as that of the corpse, for although Peter’s head was split open at the back, his face was as clean as if it had just been scrubbed with sea water.

  After the men had left, voicing their sympathy with low mutters, there remained only Bill Lee and his wife Jane; and Bill, looking down on the man who although only four years older than himself had been both his mate and mentor as a boy, he muttered, ‘I’m shaken. I’m real shaken. To think that this could have happened on his way to see us. And you…you say he wanted us to take the boy, Kate?’ He glanced to where the boy, who also looked dead, was lying on a hap on the wooden saddle.

  ‘Aye. Aye, he did; but that was only after I felt I was too old to see to him. But now somehow…well, we’ll see. If the boy survives, we’ll see.’

  ‘Aye, Kate, aye. But you know we’d be ready. Wouldn’t we, Jane?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Kate, we would be ready to take him any time.’

  Again Kate said, ‘We’ll see, we’ll see.’ Then she added, ‘I expect Mr Mulcaster will be along directly, for the quarry, too, comes under him. They should have railed it off years ago. I’ve said that again and again, ’cos afore the enclosure the cows and the sheep went down there regular. But this is the first time it’s taken human life. And likely, it won’t be the last, the way it’s droppin’.’

  ‘They’ll bring the justice in it, too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Yes, probably. Anyway, I want to get him cleaned up afore they come.’

  ‘Will I help you, Kate?’

  ‘No, lass, I can see to this meself. I would rather. Somehow—’ She paused and looked at the earth-stained figure; then her voice low, she said, ‘’tis as if he were me son.’

  The young couple remained silent for a time; then Bill said, ‘We’ll away then. But we’ll be back in a short while.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded, but didn’t look towards them, and they went out, closing the door quietly after them.

  She had stripped and washed Peter and covered him with a white sheet, and now she took all his clothes, with the exception of his belt, including his outer coat, and put them in the stone wash-house attached to the back of the cottage. She had taken the folder from his coat in which he kept his seafaring papers together with a silver chain on which was hung a wooden heart, the latter polished so much with handling that it was as smooth as glass; also a watch in a metal case, but the watch was broken. Back in the kitchen, she sat on the foot of the saddle and opened one of the two pockets in the belt and took out a small chamois leather bag. Tipping its contents onto her hand, there spilled over a small heap of sovereigns. Three had dropped on to the hap covering the boy, and these she picked up last, counting twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

  Twenty-three golden sovereigns. ‘My! My! He must have saved and saved,’ she was muttering aloud.

  In the other pocket of the belt was a quantity of silver amounting to three pounds. Now—she nodded to herself as she looked down on the hoard—were she to hand this over with the rest of his clothes to the authorities, what would happen to it? Would the boy get it if he survived? Likely a little of what was left when it went through them courts and lawyer men…Well, they wouldn’t get their hands on it. This was rightly the boy’s. Yet—she looked around the room as if her decision had been questioned—they would know he’d have something in his wallet, wouldn’t they? So she’d leave two sovereigns, which was a good amount, and a pound’s worth of silver, the rest she would keep for the boy, should he survive. And if he didn’t? Well, then it would be hers. Some day her own son might return—who knew?—and would be glad of twenty-one golden sovereigns and two pounds’ worth of silver, for she herself would not touch a penny of it.

  Going now to the fireplace, to the side opposite the round bread oven, she put her hand upwards as if into the chimney and, gripping a stone, she gently moved it backwards and forwards before pulling it out.

  The encrusted soot on it was proof that it was some long time since it had been removed. Now, putting her hand into a space which was larger than the stone she had extracted, she tipped up the handful of sovereigns and silver, then replaced the stone and, as of old practice, she rubbed her hands round its edges, spreading the disturbed soot so as not to show a definite line should anyone hold a candle to this wall.

  Now shaking the soot from her hand and sleeve, she went once again into the wash-house and cleaned herself.

  Returning to the kitchen, she bent over the boy. He had not moved or made any sign of life since the pitmen had lain him down there. Although her herbs were a cure for most things, they had to be drunk or chewed, and so, with some reluctance, she had followed the advice of Bill Lee and he had passed on the word to the carter going into Haydon Bridge to tell the doctor there that he was wanted this end, and soon.

  She washed the boy’s body, as she had washed the father’s, and put ointment on his bruises. Although his face had been covered with blood there was no open wound on him to signify that he had bled, which was another strange thing. She was still troubled by one of her feelings, different from the premonition of last night, but nevertheless strong, which caused her to ask herself why there should have been such a distance between where the boy was hanging and where his father was found, all of twenty-five feet. Surely they would have been walking together hand in hand. Even if they hadn’t and the boy had been running ahead, one or the other would have been warned by the fall. And, too, there was the fact that the obvious fall in the top of the quarry measured only about five paces. One of the pitmen had pointed this out and his explanation was, the full force had taken the father with it, and the boy had tumbled to the side. But she couldn’t see it like that, the distance was too great. Though what other explanation was there? She didn’t know, only that she had this strange feeling in her. Yet again, if there had been evil deeds, and most evil deeds meant robbery, they would not have left him with his belt; most people knew what a sailor carried in his belt, little or much…She was troubled.

  The boy stirred and she quickly took his hand and said softly, ‘There now. There now.’ She felt his brow. It was hot and sweating as if he were in a fever. Well, exposed to the night air like that he would be in a fever, and if she could get some medicine down him she would soon cure that. He groaned and opened his eyes and stared at her, then closed them again and seemed to sleep.

  The boy slept on and off for three days. On the third day, whilst awake, he looked at the men lifting a box from the table and carrying it away, but he showed no interest. This was caused, the doctor said, by something called concussion—it meant that it would take time for him to come round—and he had told Kate that none of her potions would quicken his recovery. She was just to let him lie quiet, and feed him milk and eggs, beaten up raw for preference, for the white of the egg would help tone his muscles and get him on his feet quicker.

  She had never heard that before, but nevertheless she did it, beating up the raw eggs and spooning it into the boy.

  Two things happened on the fourth day: the boy sat up, and Kate realised with a kind of horror that he had forgotten his past life.

  When he had sat straight up for the first time and looked about the room, she had said, ‘There, there, me laddie, you’re feeling better.’ And his lips had moved a number of times before he said, ‘What?’ then ‘Where?’ And she answered softly, ‘Well now, yo
u remember me, Kate? That’s what your da called me, but he made you call me Mrs Makepeace, you remember?’ He made a slight movement with his head and his eyes blinked hard before he again looked round the room. And then she asked quietly. ‘Don’t you remember what happened when the quarry edge gave way and you fell?’

  ‘Fell?’ he repeated. Again the slight shake of his head.

  Then straightening her back, Kate pulled her chin into her wrinkled neck and, narrowing her eyes, she said, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Name?’ He looked down onto the quilt. Then his fingers moving slowly to a loose thread, he pulled at it before lifting his eyes to hers once again, and his mouth fell agape.

  ‘Your name’s Roddy.’

  ‘Roddy? I don’t know.’

  Very softly now she said, ‘Don’t you remember your da?’ His eyelids flickered. It was as if he was trying hard to recall something. Then he said, ‘No.’ And his face puckered as if he was about to cry.

  Patting him soothingly she hastened to reassure him. ‘There now. There now,’ she said. ‘It’ll come back. It’s because you bumped your head.’ She stroked his dark hair. ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It’ll all come back to you as you get stronger.’

  She wondered for a moment whether, if she told him that his father was dead, the shock would revive his memory. But that might do more harm than good. Far better leave things as they were and to nature; nature cured all, given the time…

  It was later in the day when the doctor called and shocked her still further. Standing outside the cottage, he said, ‘He might never recover his memory. There are such cases. In his fall he must have hit himself on a vulnerable part of the head; it causes what we call amnesia.’

  ‘What?’ Kate said.

  ‘Amnesia,’ he repeated. ‘It’s a kind of forgetfulness. It could cure itself tomorrow, or never. It’s a thing like that.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Kate had replied.

  And the doctor, being a man who, like herself, had doubts about the Almighty, had answered jokingly, ‘Dear, indeed! The prices He causes one to pay at times.’

  He was an odd customer that doctor, but not unlikeable. No, not unlikeable.

  But she couldn’t say the same thing about her next visitor, for if she hated anybody in this world, it was Dan Bannaman.

  Dan Bannaman was in his forty-fifth year. He was tall and handsome in a rugged kind of way. He was a farmer who had prospered in all years. When other farmers were suffering from drought, or floods, the sun seemed to shine on Dan Bannaman, for his herds grew and his house got larger. And his nine-year-old daughter was being educated like a lady, and his only son, who was eight years old, was boarded out at one of the fancy schools in Hexham. Everything had seemed to fall into Dan Bannaman’s lap since he’d come as a young boy in his teens to his Uncle John, who was then running Rooklands Farm.

  John Bannaman had been liked and respected, although everybody knew that he spent more time hunting and drinking than he did on his farm. And when he died childless and left his one thousand acres of land, mostly poor stuff being on the hills, he also left innumerable debts to be settled by his nephew Dan. Yet, from the time Dan Bannaman came into possession of the estate he seemed to have, as it was said around, the touch, for he not only married Rosalie Fountain, who came of good family, but whereas most farmers took on the occasional buying and selling of horses for the mines and mills, he did so in a big way. It was thought that the dowry Rosalie Fountain had brought with her must have been scraped together by her family, for although they were of good class they weren’t wealthy by any means. But a dowry she must have brought.

  There were three people, four at the most, who knew that Dan Bannaman’s rise to prosperity didn’t originate from his wife’s dowry. There had been six at one time in the know, but one was now dead, another was in America.

  Kate held the door in her hand and stared at the man, and when he smiled at her and said, ‘Well, hello, Kate. Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ she said flatly, ‘No, no, I am not.’

  The smile slid from his face. ‘That’s a pity then, Kate,’ he said. To this she answered, ‘You can’t frighten me, not any more.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, Kate.’

  ‘Aye, I would that.’

  ‘I have friends over there.’

  ‘You might have, or you might not have, but America’s a very big place, and he’s moved on.’

  ‘How do you know that? You have no way of telling.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ A thought came into her head; she said, ‘We had a visit from a sailor, poor man, who died underneath the quarry fall the other night. Perhaps you heard of it?’

  ‘Aye, I heard of it. ‘ His tone was stiff.

  ‘Well, you might remember him, his name was Peter Greenbank. He was a lad who was born and bred here and worked here until about ten years or so ago. Well, since then, he’s travelled the world, and America was one of his spots, and he brought me news, news I’ve been waiting to hear for a long time.’ She made herself smile a grim smile. ‘So it’s my turn now to say, be careful, Mr Bannaman, be careful, for where it might take a lifetime to track down my son, it would take only an hour or so for the justice to come out from Newcastle.’

  They stared at each other for a matter of seconds before he said, ‘And what about your own skin, Kate? Harbouring’s an offence.’

  ‘Oh, I’m past caring about that. Me time’s almost on me; it wouldn’t matter. But you, you’re in your prime. With your fine house and your great farm and your standing in the county, oh, Mr Bannaman, you have a lot to lose, both you and your henchmen. And I’m warnin’ you now, don’t try anything on me like you did on Les Carter…’

  ‘I had nothing to do with Les Carter.’ His voice was grim. ‘You know who was to blame there.’

  ‘Your word, that’s all, your word. An’ I’ve had me doubts about that this many a year.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for me, your lad would have swung.’

  ‘So you say, but I think different, and so did Pat. Anyway, I’ll tell you this: I’ve left word that if I die in any other place but in me bed, then they’ll have reason to question a couple of men. I’ve left this word in two places and they’re both in sealed letters, sort of wills. My Pat, as you know, could read an’ write. He was no thick-skinned smelter, or yet a drink-sodden lead or coal miner, he was a young fellow with brains. An’ you used them, an’ played on them. But one thing he did afore he got away was to tell me what to do just in case, and I did it. So, Mr Bannaman, I’m just tellin’ you.’

  Dan Bannaman looked down at the ground now and, shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘You don’t give me credit for one decent thing, do you, Kate?’

  ‘I speak as I find and I see nothin’ in you to give you credit for. I even suspect your every step you take, so I ask what you are doin’ round here miles away from your mansion?’

  ‘Something very suspicious, Kate, I’ve brought my man to gather young saplings of pine and fir. I’m starting a plantation, I’ve got permission from James Mulcaster. So what devilry can you pick out of that? Eh?’

  ‘Firs and pine? Why have you to come this far? They’re thin enough this end. They’re just startin’ to grow up on the top.’

  ‘Thin, you say; they’re choking each other up there. They’ll grow like spindles if they’re left as they are. You with your plant wisdom, Kate, I would have thought you realised that these things have to be thinned out. Trees are like human beings, herd them together and they grow like weeds, crooked, spiderly. Give them air and light and they expand.’

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes, saying, ‘Wise talk doesn’t come smoothly from your tongue, Dan Bannaman. Stick to that you know best, it’s recognisable, covert threats an’ such.’

  A noise from inside the room now turned Kate’s head towards the saddle to where the boy was sitting on the edge of it, swaying slightly, and at this she left loose of the door, calling, ‘Keep still, boy, I’ll be with you in a min
ute.’

  ‘Is that the little fellow who fell down the quarry?’

  She turned and caught hold of the door again, but it was wide now for he had pushed it open and he was looking towards the boy who was looking towards him. They stared at each other for fully a minute while Kate looked from one to the other, and when the boy stumbled to his feet Kate hurried forward and led him to a chair.

  After a moment, while still looking at the boy, Dan Bannaman said, ‘Is he badly hurt?’

  ‘Bruises mostly.’

  ‘Poor little fellow.’ He had advanced into the room and was now standing within a couple of feet looking down on the child and he said softly, ‘Hello there. ‘ And the boy looked up into the clean-shaven face but he did not speak or show any other sign but a vague blankness. And Bannaman, now turning to Kate, said, ‘Can’t he speak?’

  ‘Yes, but the doctor says he’s—’ some portion of her mind was asking her why she was hesitating to tell him what the doctor had said, but she had to go on and finish what she had begun and so ended, ‘he’s lost his memory for a time, but…but it could come back. That’s what the doctor said, it could come back.’

  ‘Poor mite. And his father dead.’

  ‘Yes, his father dead.’

  ‘I was talking to Mr Mulcaster about the quarry. I think they’ll do something at last. It’s been crumbling away for years to my knowledge.’

  ‘It shouldn’t trouble you, it’s not on your doorstep.’

  ‘Oh, Kate, give me credit for a little human feeling, will you?’ He now looked at the boy again, the while speaking to her, saying, ‘What’s going to become of him?’

  ‘I’m keeping him.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. He has no-one else as far as I know.’

  ‘Well, well, at your age, taking on a child. Well, I suppose he could do worse than be brought up in your care. But…but I tell you what.’ And now he wagged his finger at her. ‘Don’t say, what’s behind it? Do you hear? But if you want to give the lad a start…How old is he?’