Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (13 page)

“No. The mistress keeps her here out of pity. Old Urs always says she’d be a nun if it was allowed.” She laughed. “She knew she’d never marry anyway. The bonnet thing she wears is a little like a nun’s, but of course that’s to hide her dreadful looks, poor thing. She just helps out all over the place, in the kitchen or if anyone’s ill. When the weather’s fine she takes girls into the gardens to tend the vegetable beds. Did you get an awful fright when you saw her?”

“Not at all,” Bel lied defiantly. “She has such kind eyes.”

A stout lady, with grey curls and a few hairs on her chin which Bel looked at with distaste, bustled in. “I am Madame Buchon and I teach French and needlework.”

Bel just managed to stop herself from saying ‘I can speak French already, but I
loathe
needlework.’

“Let’s see your things now, Arabella Horden,” she said and plucked at the cord round her box. The other girls retreated with grins and winks. Bel decided she didn’t like them but perhaps it was because being in the company of other girls was a totally new experience. Looking at the row of beds she realised that the hours of solitude she had had at home were now over for what might be a very long time. It was good if she ceased to be plagued with nightmares about the hanging body. And then she remembered that Robert might soon be in York and the whole business could be brought to the light of day.

She sat down on her bed and helped with uninterested hands the stout teacher as she unfastened her trunk.

CHAPTER 9

November 1640

Darrowswick

All Saints’ Day

‘My dear Nathaniel,

‘Your last letter gave me great delight, bringing back my own memories of College days in your pen-pictures of the roof of the Hall and the splendid President’s Lodge, such a fine timbered building from the last century. I remember it well. I commiserate at your description of serving the Earl’s son at the high table with so many and varied dishes and then finding so little left for the sizars. I am sure if you carry the platters into the kitchens the cooks will find you more to eat if it is only bread and cheese of which I recollect there was always a plentiful supply. I do not wish you to return to the spare figure you made on your sad return from Northumberland. Much work of the brain I know gives the stomach a hearty appetite.

You ask whether I have yet received an answer to my plea to Lord Strafford and through him to the King’s Majesty. I have indeed and enclose a copy of the letter which I am afraid will distress you, but I know you would rather be told the whole truth. I have so far managed to keep it from your poor mother. She speaks of going on foot herself to see Lord Strafford if he fails to give us satisfaction. We understand he has not removed to London yet, but is resting at his Yorkshire home.’

Nat at once cast his eyes on the enclosed paper headed with great flourishes from The Court of the North.

‘To the Reverend Joseph Wilson at the Parsonage of St Wilfrid’s, Darrowswick in the County of Yorkshire.

“Sir, your petition to the Earl of Strafford is to hand and a copy has been forwarded to Sir John Horden at Horden Hall, Northumberland, for him to make representations upon it as it concerns his actions as Justice of the Peace in the case of your son Daniel Wilson on the charges of looting and rick-burning.

‘I have to inform you that Sir John Horden has responded with great promptness by sending his son in person to York to show his willingness to report fully on the matter. It appears that the felonious activities of your son occurred after he had basely deserted the English force which had been sent to confront the invading Scots army at Newburn on the Tyne.

‘Although beset with advancing enemy troops Sir John held a trial with witnesses and a jury of twelve men and gave your son full liberty to speak in his own defence. A verdict of guilty was pronounced and as Sir John was desirous of showing to the Scots army an example of firmness in the suppression of looting and ravaging of the country, the sentence of death was carried out without undue delay. This action greatly impressed the Scots commander, whose troops were already occupying the whole region, and he gave orders to his own men to behave with circumspection to the population, a commitment which has been fulfilled to the benefit and comfort of all.

‘You will appreciate that the great matter of the peace treaty which has been occupying my Lord Strafford in the King’s Council until the last week has delayed the sending of this answer to your petition till now.

‘Inquiries have however been made among the commanders of the troops stationed here in York to confirm that your son, Daniel, had served in his Majesty’s forces and his senior officer, having been traced, declared that both Daniel and his brother Nathaniel had been trained as pikemen but had been reported missing in the confusion following the skirmish at Newburn. Unfortunately many bodies from both sides of the battle were robbed by local marauders and remained unidentified. If you are aware of the fate of your son, Nathaniel, Captain Carter would be pleased to hear of it but regrets he can offer nothing of himself with certainty.

‘I trust, reverend sir, that you will accept that your petition has been dealt with in all fairness and justice and that I as clerk to the Court of the North have reported fully to my Lord Strafford and laid before him all your concerns, in proof whereof he appends his own signature to this letter.’

Nat looked with sinking heart and saw that it was indeed signed Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Had the great man been shown the whole matter? Nat doubted it but the thing was done and as far as he could see there was nothing more his father could or should attempt, especially as his own name was involved.

He went on with his father’s letter and found this was indeed his view. ‘Stay quietly at your studies and come not home at all until I deem it safe for you to do so.’

Nat desired nothing more now than to stay in Cambridge. Although he longed to see his father, he was deriving such inward joy from the expansion of his mind that he wanted no interruption to his studies. Daily life was physically uncomfortable, with the cold and wet streaking in cutting winds across the fens and overwhelming the wretched fire which was all that he and Benjamin Hutton could afford to keep in the small grate. Hunger was harder to bear, but he had made a friend in the kitchen, a boy whom he was teaching to read, and he would slip Nat a raw carrot or piece of turnip at the end of the lesson. This he would secrete to his room under his gown and chew on slowly as he read so that something lay on his stomach for a while longer.

He took up his pen to reply to his father, but what most gripped his mind was dread of how his mother would behave when she realised that the petition had been rebuffed and his father intended no further action. She had not ceased to reiterate the task she had set for himself. Her farewell wave to him when he left for Cambridge was a tapping on the window where she had scratched the words ‘Death to the Hordens.’ “You know I can never call you a man until you have avenged your brother,” were the last words she had said to him.

He laid down his pen. There was no need to write yet to his father. The cost of sending letters must be rationed out over the term and Christmas too if it was unwise to return home lest the army track him down. Am I afraid of that? Am I afraid to see my mother? He picked up a volume of Eusebius from his desk. Study of ancient texts was very comfortable, but this time the intrusive question went on pricking his mind as he read: I am a lover of peace. Does that make me at heart a coward?

When Bel had been three weeks at Cranmore House she received to her surprise a letter from Robert. So far she had had one brief letter from her father, enclosing without comment the missing ten pounds and hoping she was being very well-behaved but for Robert, lazy, cold, vindictive Robert to write ...!

‘
Greetings, little sister,
” she read, ‘
You looked somewhat woebegone the day I left you and dashed off to York, but I must tell you my business there was most successful. The clerk at the Court of the North forwarded to Father a copy of the official reply he had sent to that old parson whose son we strung up.
’

Oh no! Bel slapped the letter down on her knee as the one-eyed body came swinging into view. Why does he have to write of that? But of course she must learn the outcome for she had never lost the fear that a constable might come for her here. She made herself read the next sentence.

‘It exonerated Father completely and he was delighted with my success. The fact is, I know how to deal with these things. I would have studied for the law, but of course Father needs me on the estate which I will inherit one day. We are managing as best we can with the levies the Scots army makes upon us. The tenants are in arrears, of course, and I have to go round and stir them up. Turner never really recovered from the rick burning, though Father bought some of his cattle. The boy Sam has gone to work for a Scots captain who took a fancy to him and he sends money back to help the family. It will be a lean Christmas all round, I am afraid, but we have a pig fattening so you will not starve. Mother and Hen are living in luxury, of course, amidst mighty preparations for the wedding. We, in sad contrast, have given up our own coach. You will have to arrange to have your trunk sent by the carrier and I will come on Caesar to collect you. Pray don’t suppose I am going to make a habit of this if you go back after Christmas. On winter roads, it is not a pastime I enjoy.

Your affectionate brother,

Robert Horden.’

Bel noticed with astonishment the ‘if’ in the penultimate sentence. Is there some doubt that I will come back here? Father has paid a year’s fees. I must come back to Ursula. I don’t
like
it here, but I have no one at home I can talk to or who listens to me the way she does.

She wrote back to Robert. ‘Thank you for your letter, Robert.’ She couldn’t bring herself to write ‘Dear Robert.’ ‘If it is a great trouble to you to come for me at Christmas, perhaps I should stay here which would also save you a journey back with me. A few pupils whose parents are abroad stay during the holidays and I enjoy helping out in the kitchen. We walk to the parish church in Easingwold, our nearest small town, every Sunday and round the courtyard every day unless we have rain. So it is like being in prison but not an unpleasant prison. Neither Mother nor Henrietta have written to me, but I suppose they don’t want to remember I exist.’

She decided not to allude to Robert’s business in York. He had only been boasting about his own cleverness and she was sure some of the ten pounds of her fee money had gone to bribe the clerk. If it was all smoothed over she was glad for her father’s sake, but bury it how she might the black guilt would never go away from her.

It was hard to know what else to put in the letter since she had never written one to him in her life. She couldn’t comment on news of the Turners because Sam was linked with the ghastly event that had put an end to her childish belief that she was in love with him. What else could she write about Cranmore House? Robert would only think her proud if she wrote that because she had read all the books at home she knew much more about everything than the other girls, except in needlework where her stitches were big and her thread kept knotting. She couldn’t tell him about Ursula, who came seeking her at least once every day with her eyes bright and her comical voice exclaiming, “Here’s my lovely Bel. How are you chiming today?” It didn’t matter if girls within earshot repeated, “Lovely! Bella Horden?” in voices sharp with scorn. She was used to scorn from Robert himself about her looks. How could she explain her joy in seeing Ursula happy behind real ugliness?

She finished it off with her loving duty to her father and scrawled her name at the bottom. As she expected she received no reply and the routine of Cranmore House closed round her till a day in late November brought unexpected excitement.

A sudden snow storm had blown over the moors and drifted into the quadrangle, cancelling the usual compulsory cloister walk. Bel was sitting on her bed drawing a picture, while many of the others in the dormitory were writing an extra letter home. She looked up to see Ursula approaching.

“Come into my cell, Bel,” she chuckled. “You’ve never seen my cell, Bel, have you?”

Bel jumped up, tucked her drawing under her arm and followed her to what was indeed a cell, a bare stone room, narrower than her own chapel bedchamber at the Hall and a quarter of its length. There was a bed, one corner shelf with a crucifix and a rosary, and a chest for Ursula’s few possessions which also served as a seat.

“I have a free half hour,” Ursula said, “and who better to spend it with than my Bel.” She perched on the bed and Bel sat on the chest, their knees almost touching.

“They knocked all the nuns’ cells down but I begged them to keep one for me. Of course if any strangers are shown round, my poor dear Lord goes under my bed cover. May I see your drawing?”

Bel showed it her readily. It was of the village at home, Nether Horden, on a Midsummer Day festival. She had hoped by trying to recall a happy day there to blot out the horror of the gallows. But it had only reminded her of the indifference of the people to the dreadful structure on the hill above them. She was glad of Ursula’s interest in it as a charming scene.