A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Page 7

  ‘And they use naughty words.’

  She again looked towards Hal but ignored his remark. She knew, though, she had been silly to ask because it wasn’t so long ago that she was given a skelping on her backside for going down to the mill.

  She had protested strongly to her father that she’d only gone to meet him, but he had told her time and again he didn’t want to be met. Yet she had noticed other children not only meeting their fathers but working in the slag. She often wondered why her da insisted on her being different; there was no fun in being different. Even when they went to the barn dance he wouldn’t let her romp with all the others. Her ma would have, but then her ma didn’t have the final say in such matters. All her ma would say at such times was, ‘Behave yourself or you’ll have his brows as black as drawn slag,’ whatever she meant. She had never seen drawn slag, she only knew it was something that came out of the kilns in the mill. She didn’t like the mill and somehow she knew her father didn’t either. One day she had dared to say to him, ‘Why don’t you work on a farm, Da?’ And he had answered her in a strange way, ‘Do you like to eat meat every Sunday?’ he had said.

  ‘Yes,’ she had answered.

  ‘And you like to have boots on your feet an’ not clogs?’ he had said, and again she had answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you like a new frock come Easter?’ he had said.

  ‘Yes, Da, yes. I love a new frock come Easter.’

  And then he had said, ‘Well, all that takes money, more money than I would get workin’ on a farm. But remember this, never crave for too much money, just enough to bring a little comfort to the inside and outside of your body, because with money often comes misery and a discontent with your lot. Learn to be satisfied with being well shod and well fed and a good bed and a hap over you to keep out the winter winds.’

  Her da was a funny man. That wasn’t the right word, but she knew what it meant inside her head.

  When they had finished their drinks, the two boys made for the door, and there Roddy turned and, looking towards her, said ‘I’ll be comin’ over to your place the night. Your da’s promised to tell me a thing or two because on the morrow’s shift I go in on the floor.’ Then turning more fully to look at her, he said, ‘An’ you start up Davison’s, don’t you?’ She nodded, and he returned her nod with a smile before swinging round and running down the path to join his friend.

  Mary Ellen stood in the doorway watching the two figures, one tall and straight, the other hardly coming up to his shoulder, but whose body seemed to be of twice the thickness, and she wondered if there would ever be a time again when she would have Roddy to herself; they had been together such a lot before he had gone to work at the mill.

  ‘So you start work the morrow?’

  She turned to Kate and half-heartedly she replied, ‘Yes. And…and I don’t know whether I’m gona like it or not.’

  ‘Well, hinny, you can’t stay tied to your mother’s apron strings forever.’

  She took no umbrage at this because she knew she had been lucky to be at home all this time and not sent out tatey picking, or stone picking, or scarecrowing. She said now, ‘I’m gona miss poppin’ in.’

  ‘Huh!’ Kate laughed. ‘You won’t be away forever. You’re lucky, so your ma tells me, a half day every Sunday and a whole day once a month. My! It’s usually a half day a month for them in service, leastwise in the big houses, and the half day starting in the middle of the afternoon an’ all in many cases.’

  ‘Did you ever go into service, Kate?’

  ‘No, I never did, lass, not in that way. I was free. I worked in me father’s carpenter’s shop until I was sixteen. Then it was burnt down and that finished him. I married Davey who had been apprenticed there and just out of his time, and with him and me mother I came here to this cottage, where she herself had been born and had left to get married, and here I’ve been ever since.’

  ‘Did your mother know about herbs and things?’

  ‘Yes, and her mother, and her mother afore her. Which reminds me, higtaper will be out about now. You know the kind; you’ll find it along the ditch yon side of the wood.’

  ‘Why do you always call longwort “higtaper”, Kate?’

  ‘Because I’ve always known it as higtaper. There’s a male and a female, but as you know I prefer the female. An’ you know what it’s like, don’t you? Well, you should so, you’ve picked it long enough.’

  ‘Well sometimes I get them mixed up ’cos they’re nearly alike except one’s white and one’s yellow.’

  ‘So—’ Kate laughed a deep throaty laugh that denied her years as she went on, ‘Likely God made the female plant white to denote purity, although, as I often say, His eyesight must have been affected now and then. But anyway He made it for the lungs, especially those in cattle that get choked up. And when you’re on, if you should happen to come across a cowslip…but they’re mostly over now. Still, here and there they persevere, and there’s a dank place, you know, near the ride. I wouldn’t tell you to go near it if it had been raining of late, but it should be dried up now, or nearly so. Still, there might be parts soggy enough to grow a cowslip. I wish I could get up there meself but me legs are refusing to obey orders these days and I can only keep to the flats. There now, take this basket and, as I always tell you, don’t pass any deadnettle. If you come back by Peter Stubbs’ cottage you’ll most likely come across a heap of it because if ever there was a lazy beggar in this world, it’s him lettin’ his ground go rank. Still, I shouldn’t grumble about that, for he’s given me the best supply of deadnettles from round about for many a year. It’s a good job he’s a good mill worker or else he would have been put out a time ago.’

  Mary Ellen, taking up the basket, grinned now as she said, ‘Oh, I’ll collect the deadnettle for you if nothin’ else, ’cos I love those sweets you make with the flowers, and me da loves the potion.’

  ‘He’s not the only one. But I can tell you something for nothing, Mary Ellen, anybody who wants that this winter is gona pay for it. I’m givin’ no more away, except to your ma and da of course. The neck of some people walking miles to ask me for a pick-me-up, and the most they leave’ll be a penny, when the sugar syrup costs twice as much. Oh, away with you and let’s stop yammerin’ or else you’ll never get back home in time for supper. And then what’ll happen? Your da will be along here goin’ for me, demanding to know why I’ve kept you.’

  ‘He’d never go for you, Kate. No, he wouldn’t. And he knows I’m all right when I’m here. Anyway’—she sighed—‘’tis me last day.’

  ‘Last day indeed! Go on, get yourself away. You talk like an ancient; your head’s too old for your body. Always has been, miss. Go on with you.’ She shooed her out of the room as she did the chickens, wafting her apron at her, and Mary Ellen, joining in the charade, made cackling sounds as she ran down the garden and through the gate and into the field.

  But her step had slowed to a walk before she reached the place where the ride divided, one twisting track rising towards the quarry, the other also going steeply uphill but skirting the wood that had thickened in all ways during the past five years; not only had the saplings grown but the brushwood had taken over densely in parts.

  Knowing that she would take the bottom road back by Stubbs’ cottage in order to gather the deadnettle, she decided to look at the bog first to see if there were any late cowslips still there. She dismissed the thought that her father had forbidden her to go near the bog ever again since that time she fell in and was stuck up to her knees. It was a good job, he had said as he lathered her ears, that she had stayed near the edge, for a foot further in she would likely have been sucked under. This had happened when she was seven years old. But at times he would still warn her, ‘If you are going up the ride, madam, keep clear of the bog.’ But that was whenever they’d had a wet summer. This summer had been scorching hot; the streams had dried up; even the dam down at Langley was well below its bank.

  She now pushed her way through som
e low shrub, stepped over a fallen branch, then came onto a rough pathway that had at one time bordered the ride, and there to the left of her was the dried-up bog, the whole of which was not more than twelve feet across. What vegetation grew about it was now shrivelled up; the mud was cracked in parts and to some depth, showing crevices inches across and the whole expanse of mud had dropped to almost a foot below the rim, and in one glance she saw that there was no possibility of any cowslips being found there. But what did draw her attention was something that looked like a handle sticking out of a crevice in the mud just below where she was standing.

  Being of a curious nature, she responded by immediately kneeling down on the hard crusty earth and, bending over, she touched the half circle. It felt hard like wood. In the ordinary way she would have taken it for a fallen branch, except that part of it was showing black where the dried mud had dropped from it and around this black part was a ring of brass or steel or some metal. Gripping the handle now, she went to pull it up because she guessed there was something attached to it. What, her mind didn’t say, only told her there was something below the mud.

  Forgetting for the moment she was still in her Sunday clothes, she lay flat on the bank now and, extending her two hands and taking a firm grip on the handle, she endeavoured to move it backwards and forwards, with the pleasing result that the dried mud at each side gave way and there came to her ears a small sucking sound. Her efforts now became really vigorous, and when more of the dried mud fell away and exposed the thing that the handle was attached to, she stopped and gazed down in amazement at the top of a bag. Immediately, she recognised the type of bag because it was the same shape as the one old Doctor Cranwell carried when he went to the mine or the mill when there was an accident.

  Frantically now, her grip tight on the handle, she again resumed a rocking motion. Of a sudden there was a sound like a cork leaving a bottle and her elbows gave way and her face almost hit the edge of the bank, and there at the end of her extended arms she saw she was holding what she imagined to be an exact replica of the doctor’s bag, except perhaps it might be a little bigger.

  Having pulled it onto the bank, she noticed that the bottom of the bag was covered with wet mud, and she thought, it must be still soggy underneath and you could still get stuck; me da was right. But what was in this bag?

  She got to her feet, but when she went to lift it she found it was almost too heavy for her, being still caked with mud, she imagined, and so, picking up some dried grass from nearby and a piece of wood, she proceeded to scrape the bag as clean as she could.

  Her efforts showed that it was a leather bag which had become as hard as iron with being in the mud. She also saw that it had a lock going through the flap on one side of it. There was no key in the lock, so she couldn’t find out what was inside. But there was something inside it and it was movable because when she pushed the bag onto its side she heard that something move, and when, with an effort, she turned it completely upside down, whatever was inside fell to the top which was now the bottom of the bag.

  Still kneeling, she stared down at it as if waiting for some directions. At one point she thought, I’ll go and tell Kate. But Kate couldn’t come up here. And then, she couldn’t go and tell her da because no matter what was in the bag he would skin her alive for having disobeyed him, especially for her daring to come near the bog, even if it was dried up. But of course he was right, it was never dried up at the bottom, as the bag had proved. And another thing, she was still in her Sunday clothes.

  As she continued to stare at it her eyes narrowed as she imagined she saw a letter on the side of the bag. To prove whether it was imagination or not she spat two or three times on the spot, then rubbed it with some more dried grass, and her efforts proved that it wasn’t her imagination because she was looking at the letter ‘B’. Further spitting and further rubbing disclosed another three letters to make up the word, ‘Bank’. And now as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes and a door opened in her mind, she saw her father standing in the kitchen after he had returned from a visit to Hexham market and he was saying to her mother, ‘That Hal will do someone a damage one of these days, for if I hadn’t pulled him free, it would be him that would have got the damage the day, for he was tackling three of ’em. Apparently they had jibed at him about his father stealing the payroll and likely now living in luxury in a foreign country on the money. I brought him back on the cart with me and dropped him off near the road. And you know something, he’s a strange lad, for he was about to walk away when he turned and, looking at me, he said in a voice like an old man instead of a lad, “My dad never did that, he wouldn’t.”’

  She looked down at the bag, and now there was no doubt in her mind as to what was in the bag. But what would she do with it? Money always caused trouble. Her da was always saying that, money always caused trouble. If Roddy was here he would know what to do with it. But then, if Roddy was here, Hal would be with him, and if Hal got his hands on this bag she knew exactly what would happen: he wouldn’t take it to the authorities like her da or Roddy might, for he would think it was his ’cos his da had suffered for it no matter where he was across the world, ’cos he had gone across the world. She had heard the tale so often about his horse having been found far away in Newcastle, which could only mean he had gone on a ship. Yet, why hadn’t he taken the bag with him?

  Her mind gave her no answer, except to ask what was she going to do with it. Throw it back into the mud? No, no. That idea was immediately rejected. Anyway it wouldn’t sink now; and what was more she hadn’t much time. Whatever she was going to do with it she must do it straight away because she had to gather the herbs and then get home afore her da got back.

  There was that hole on the other side of the quarry that she had discovered when she was blaeberrying last year. By, she had got a gliff that day. The blaeberry bushes were thick there and she had scrambled up a mound to get to the big berries, and her scrambling must have loosened something because she had suddenly to hang on and then the earth had given way beneath her. She didn’t fall far, but her feet seemed to be entangled with large stones like in the quarry. Presently, she realised she had fallen into a kind of tunnel, and it wasn’t a natural place, for it had been stone built. Perhaps, she thought, it was one of the tunnels the men had been making to take the gas from the smelt mill and hadn’t gone on with it. Anyway, it was dry inside and she sat in the opening until she got her breath back and then she climbed up onto the bank and was surprised that she had really only slid a short distance because when her feet had given way she had imagined she had fallen from heaven.

  So that was it. She could stick the bag in there for the time being until she could think what to do with it. But could she carry it?

  Slinging the basket onto her shoulder, first she stood up, then bent and gripped the bag with both hands and found that yes, holding it like that, she could carry it. It was hard like a piece of wood. But she hadn’t taken more than two or three steps when she asked herself what would happen if she met someone.

  Well, she needn’t meet anybody for she knew her way through the thicket and from where she was now it would only take her a few minutes to be at the end of the quarry…

  Long before she reached the sloping bank where the blaeberries grew, she was panting. The way seemed longer than she had imagined. When she at last stopped she dropped the bag onto the ground, then took the basket from her shoulder and pushed it into the bushes. She took up the bag again and foraged forwards for the tunnel.

  The bushes had grown amazingly and it was only her feet that told her she had reached the entrance, because now there was a bush hanging over it and as she bent down a twig caught her bonnet and pulled the straps tight around her chin and she whimpered aloud, ‘Oh, dear me. Oh, dear me.’

  Pushing the bush aside, she crawled into the aperture, the bag behind her. She had to blink a number of times to accustom herself to the dim light coming through the bush. Kneeling down, she crawled some little distanc
e until she could see no further, and there she left the bag, but not before she had patted it and then asked herself why she had done so.

  Outside and having retrieved her basket, she vigorously dusted her dress down, saying the while, ‘Eeh! It’s a good job it’s a fawny colour so the marks don’t show.’ This done, she made her way back to the wood and towards the field where she would find longwort, all the time wondering to whom she could talk about the money. Kate seemed the safest person. But yet again a door opened in her mind and she recalled an incident that had happened a long, long time ago when she was small. She had seen a man in the wood picking herbs and she had talked to him because she liked talking to people, and when she told Kate about the man, Kate had looked at her and said, ‘Which man goes round here picking herbs? Did you know him?’ And she had answered, ‘No, but he was a little man with a funny hand.’ And at this point Kate had become quite excited and she had put her shawl on and gone out, and had told her to go home. Later, Kate told her to look out for the man and to tell her when she saw him. But she hadn’t seen him again.

  Now why should she think of that? She didn’t know, but somehow it prevented her from choosing Kate as the recipient of her secret. The only one she could really tell was Roddy, and she must get him by himself sometime tonight, and then she would know what to do with the bag.

  Meanwhile Roddy and Hal were sitting on a bank above the smelt mill. Being Sunday, there was little activity around the works.

  Hal, sitting slightly behind and to the left of Roddy, had watched him in silence for some time before he said, ‘Why do you always keep drawing the outside?’

  ‘To get the feel.’

  ‘The feel of what?’

  The boy stopped drawing, straightened his back and looked down on the huddle of buildings. It was some seconds before he answered. ‘I don’t rightly know, except when I get the chance to do inside I’ll be able to fit things in better.’