Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (10 page)

Bel could see out of the corner of her eye that Henrietta was twisting one of her long dark ringlets round her fingers and gazing at her reflection in the cheval glass in her own room. I haven’t even got a hand mirror in here, she thought. Why, if she is going away for good, can I not have her room? But would I want it? This is like a monastic cell, ugly and awkward like me. The smell of her scent bottles will never leave
that
place. I couldn’t bear it. She got up and strolled to the window. “I suppose,” she chuckled, “when you get to France you’ll not have to hide your priests in holes.” She had the satisfaction of seeing Henrietta turn round and stare at her. “Oh yes, I know all about the false wall in the dining-room and the boards covered up under my bed. I expect they’ll get rid of the stair and the wall down below so the good Scots who are in charge now will never suspect we were harbouring treacherous Papists here. What a relief that will be to Father! Even Robert doesn’t want anyone in the army to know he has a Catholic Mother. That’s all he cares about your precious Masses.”

While Henrietta looked as if she would boil over it struck Bel that Robert was not going to his sister’s wedding. That was a pity. Alone with Father and a new housekeeper she might find life bearable – if she could only blot out the gallows and the face and the one accusing eye. Suddenly weary of provoking her sister she flung herself on her bed and pulled the curtains round her.

Henrietta marched in and pulled back the one on that side. “You
are
a monster. I think there really is a devil in you, always has been since you were born. How glad I will be to see the last of you!” And she turned round and marched out of the room and slammed the door.

For once I can agree with Henrietta, Bel thought. I do have a devil inside me. He makes me do things that end with terrible consequences for other people, innocent people. But at least the devil can help me pay back Henrietta for years of scorn and meanness. The thought excited her and she began to plan what to do and look out for an opportunity.

They were to leave in early October and her chance came a few days before on a day when Henrietta had left the communicating door unbolted.

Seeing underwear spread out on her sister’s bed she took a pair of scissors from her drawer and turned with glee to the pile of clothes. She would like to have chopped up her stays since Henrietta was so proud of her slender waist but the buckram in these proved too solid and resistant. The chemise was easy work and that was soon in shreds on the floor, so were the stockings of Chinese silk. There was a collection of lace collars and cuffs, lying apart from the gowns, ready to be folded into a white silken bag their mother had made for them. The scissors went through bag, collars and cuffs with delightful results, scattered like snowflakes about the room on chest and writing desk and the travelling trunk already standing in the room. Bel was about to start on the oyster silk gown but hesitated since its colour would spoil the snowy effect she had unwittingly created. She was sitting on the bed eyes screwed up to see it as a room transformed by a snow storm when Henrietta walked in and shrieked with horror.

Bel threw down the scissors and jumped away from her sister’s flailing arms.

“Mother!” Henrietta was screaming, “see what the monster has done. Mother, mother!”

Father and Mother both appeared and took in the scene with increasing dismay as they realised where the flakes of white everywhere had come from.

“John! She is truly evil.” Their mother had her arms round Henrietta who was sobbing with rage.

“Oh wretched child,” Sir John cried. “How could you do such a thing? Think of the cost of replacing all those items.”

Bel could see just what she must look like to all of them, her hands clasped in front of her face, thumbs pressing on her lips to hide a grin, mischievous eyebrows raised. She longed to find some satisfaction in their discomfiture but her initial glee had shrivelled away like a withering flower. Self-loathing sprang up in its place as she saw the bewilderment in her father’s eyes. She bolted into her own room and shut the door. Keeping tight hold of the handle she put her ear to it.

“John, she’s not fit for a Christian household,” her mother said. “When I come back, I don’t want her here. Send her away to a boarding establishment for girls till she has learnt – if she ever can – to be a civilised young lady.”

“There are few such places. Are you thinking of Cranmore House in Yorkshire where Father Patrick has gone?”

“Why not? I could secure her a place there. I am only ashamed that anyone should know we have produced so fiendish a creature. Your preaching man seems to have roused the devil in her. Let us try other influences.”

“Do they not charge twenty-five pounds a year?”

“Sell her pony,” came Henrietta’s voice still choked with tears. “She must pay for all my lovely things.”

Bel shrank from the door as she heard her father step towards it. He plucked it open.

“Are you repentant yet, Arabella?”

She shook her head.

He sighed deeply and fingered the precise triangle of his beard. “I cannot have you here in your mother’s absence. There are too many trials coming upon us. I have weighty matters to deal with. You will be sent to Cranmore House in Yorkshire as soon as it can be arranged.”

“If Father Patrick is there it must be a Popish place.”

“You have been listening at doors,” cried her mother. “No, it is not Popish as you call it. Father Patrick may minister to a few girls from Catholic homes, but the place is a regular boarding school for young ladies.”

Her father silenced her with a gesture and went quietly on, “You will not see Father Patrick. You will study there and also contribute by working at whatever tasks they put you to since I will send no money with you for your own spending. The fee they charge for your keep and teaching is as much as I can afford and we will see if the sale of your pony will defray the costs of what you have here so wantonly destroyed. Meanwhile, you will be locked in your room until you are prepared to apologise to your sister. She and your mother leave in four days’ time and I wish to see a true reconciliation before they go.”

He withdrew and bolted the door. She sat on her bed till she heard him come round to the passage door and bolt that too. She saw there was water in her big pewter jug and books on her shelf. How long, she wondered, can I hold out? Would they happily let me die here? Then she began to think about going away. She had never been away anywhere before and the prospect excited her. That Father Patrick might lurk about was a pity, but she would be safe among all the other girls and teachers.

I will meet so many new people, she realised. Here I am so alone and have too long to think. There I will be far away from the gallows and I may not see the corpse any more. That would be a miracle. Would the devil leave me then? But I would still be a murderer. I can never escape from that as long as I live even if I could be very good which I can’t. So I must add lies to murder. Lies are not important. I’m sure all murderers tell lies.

She jumped up and banged on the door to her sister’s room hearing their voices still in there. “I’m ready to say sorry,” she called out.

Her father opened the door himself, beckoning her in and fixing her with that straight earnest look that she dreaded. “Truly sorry?”

“Yes, truly.” She saw no effort had been made to clear up the mess. Henrietta would feel humiliated if she had to show her maid what had happened. “I’ll pick every bit up.” She swept the top of the trunk clear with the flat of her hand.

Their mother summoned Mary to fetch a brush and shovel.

“But how am I to get new collars and cuffs?” cried Henrietta. “And dear Mother made such a beautiful silk bag to put them in. How could you do such a thing, you wicked girl? You’re jealous of my going to France, aren’t you?”

“I believe she is sorry now,” their father said. “And no doubt you are right, Henrietta, about her momentary childish fit of passion. We will see what a spell of discipline and hard work will do, Arabella. When times are peaceful again you may be allowed to visit your sister in her new home, but that will depend on your behaviour and the circumstances of the time.”

Bel just managed to hold back an exclamation that she never wanted to go to France at all. Mary handed in the brush and shovel and went away surprised that she wasn’t needed to use it herself. Bel found the little pieces of fabric flew about when she swept them but she stopped frequently to empty them into a leather bag which Henrietta wordlessly held out to her. When she thought she was finished there would be another and another pointed out with an outraged finger.

At last no more could be seen and Henrietta turned to her mother who had been watching from the bed. “I am not buying my lace in Newcastle. We must stay longer with Cousin Clifford Horden in London before we take ship for France. I must have time to choose, but what am I to wear on the journey?
She
doesn’t have anything fit for me. Her cuffs are plain linen and always dirty.”

“I shall spare you something of mine, my love.”

Bel heard the endearment. Never had her mother said that to her. And they were to stay with the London Hordens, were they? This Cousin Clifford was the father of her own intended, young William Horden. He had visited Horden Hall when she was five or six.

I put my tongue out at him, she remembered, because he called me pig-face. Henrietta knows I’m meant to marry William, but nothing to do with me is of any interest – unless I force myself on her notice with my wickedness. I won’t marry him, of course. I’m too ugly and Father won’t be able to pay the dowry the London Hordens will demand, wealthy as they are already. She thought for a moment of her brief time of loving Sam Turner. She still saw him fleetingly in church on Sundays and on some weekdays when he delivered produce from the farm at the kitchen door. But he was all bound up with the horrible night of the stack burning and she could hardly bear to look at him.

Cranmore House, whatever it was like, would be new and different. The sooner she went the better. She backed to the connecting door and said, “I am really sorry and I hope my pony will fetch enough to pay for the new things.”

Her mother and Henrietta, with raised eyebrows that expressed complete disbelief, watched her retreat.

When she was back in her room she splashed water from her jug onto her lips to wash away the taste of her apology.

The early October day was sharp and sparkling from an overnight frost as Nat fetched firewood from the shed under the parsonage eaves. He was carrying the axe and began to split the larger logs when his father came out with his finger to his lips.

“Just bring what’s ready. Your mother is sleeping still and I believe she has slept the night through for the first time since ...” He had no need to finish the sentence.

Nat piled up the basket as his father went on, “It is the writing of the letter that has calmed her. She feels action has been taken at last, but I still have misgivings on your account about making an appeal to the authorities. In their eyes you are a deserter from the army and I would rather not have drawn attention at all to what must seem to them a minor incident amidst these great matters that are afoot at York.”

Nat straightened up. “I know, Father. I understand. But there was such chaos in the army after the defeat at Newburn that I am not anxious on that account. If you had not written, Mother was threatening to borrow a horse from the Squire and ride to York herself as soon as she realised the King was there in Council. ‘The King!’ she shouted at me yesterday when you were visiting Granny Woodman. ‘I will force my way into his presence and throw myself at his feet. Justice for my boy! He will have to listen to me. I swear I will go tomorrow if your father still refuses to do anything.”

His father shook his head and drew a long sigh. “She said as much to me. To tell you the truth, Nat, she has worn me out with her pestering. At first she wanted me to write directly to Sir John Horden and I would have done that but when I consulted Lawyer Pinkerton in Easingwold he said a legal document from the Court of the North would be more likely to elicit a response from the baronet. For myself I only wish Daniel to rest in peace. All our friends here are sure of his innocence. He was not a great figure in the world’s eyes whose name must be cleared for posterity.”

“But, Father, they do think we should demand his body for burial in the graveyard and I believe the Squire would write to Sir John Horden as one baronet to another on your behalf if you asked him.”

“All in good time. First the trial and sentencing should be investigated and shown up as a sham. If that is established, we cannot be accused of pleading for a felon. We will await the outcome of my letter to Lord Strafford first.” Then he laid his hand on Nat’s arm and indicated he should set down the basket and withdraw into the woodshed. “I cannot speak of this other matter in the house.”

Nat felt something of great import was coming. His father’s eyes were no longer hooded with sorrow but bright with excitement.

“I not only wrote a letter yesterday. I received one. I have not spoken to you of this, in case it came to naught, but I have been in correspondence with a friend at Queen’s College, Cambridge.”

A thrill of joy engulfed Nat’s whole body. He looked over his raised clasped hands into his father’s eyes and saw the same delight reflected there.