Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (14 page)

“You draw well, my pretty. Are you homesick for your little village?”

“Not a bit. It was just something to draw.” She took it back and laid it on the stone floor at her feet and looked expectantly at Ursula, feeling there was a special reason for this summons.

Ursula’s deformed mouth curled into what Bel now knew was a loving smile. “Now, my sweet girl,” she began, “you and I have had many a talk together and I’ve rattled on about myself and my comical history and you’ve told me a little about your home, so I can guess why you are a lonely soul and why you find it hard to make friends. But there’s something else, isn’t there? I see a grey cloud in the air above you that’s keeping the sun off my Bel and stopping her from shining as she should.”

Bel looked up at the air above her. She certainly felt the cloud all the time but it astonished her that Ursula could
see
it. “You can’t see what’s
in
the cloud, Ursula?”

“I wish I could.”

“No you don’t.”

It was easy to contradict Ursula because taking offence was no part of her nature. She could have added, “It would give you nightmares,” but again Ursula’s contentment would not accommodate such things. Everyone seemed to know she had been a bad girl at home and that was why she was here, but Ursula always dismissed this with, “You’re not a bad girl with me.”

So, she had already resolved, I can never tell Ursula I am a murderer. She truly loves me, amazing as that is, but if she knew I am possessed with a demon that would change. No one has ever loved me before and I am not going to throw that away.

She looked into Ursula’s eyes to see how she took her abrupt reply and saw the yearning in them to reach her. No, she mustn’t be reached. Even sitting together as close as this was almost frightening. She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “There are things –”

Ursula put out a hand and just touched her knee. “You could speak to the priest.”

Bel jumped as if a snake had bitten her. “What! Father Patrick?”

“But he came here from your family. Did you never speak with him at Horden Hall?”

“No, no. Well, once.” She couldn’t lie to Ursula. “I don’t like the way he moves like a shadow. I have glimpsed him here too, hooded like a monk.”

“He has to be secret but I believe him to be wise, young as he is.”

“Some of the girls call him beautiful.”

“He has fine features indeed, but I set no store by that.” She chuckled her merry laugh and Bel, who had grown hot and uncomfortable, gave a little smile of relief.

Ursula chuckled some more. “I’m obliged to set scant store by looks, am I not? But it’s true enough that the good Lord looks inside and I think He likes what He sees in Father Patrick.”

Bel twisted her hands in her lap. “I could never – I don’t
want
to speak to him.”

“But speaking to a priest is like dropping a stone into a bottomless well.” Ursula’s lips had trouble framing ‘bottomless’ and she laughed again but Bel knew she was in earnest and when she brought out the next words it was with great emphasis on the sharp consonants. “Your cloud would be
gone
.”

“I don’t believe in priests.”

“Then talk to the Lord.”

Bel shook her head again. She had tried prayer but the demon in her lay between her and God. All the same, she was thinking, I could see Father Patrick if Ursula was there. It would break the dreadful monotony of school. I must not be wary of young men. Who do I know but Robert, whom I hate, and Sam Turner, who laughed at me that horrible day and Adam the stable boy, who loved my pony more than me and wouldn’t have cared a jot if Paddy had thrown me. She lifted her head. “Would this Patrick come dressed as an ordinary man? I might see him then.”

Ursula’s bright eyes opened wide. “
Father
Patrick.”

“He’s no father to me. And I don’t see why a young man should skulk about in long robes and a hood because he’s a priest.”

“But there are gangs about calling themselves Pym’s Men who want to be rid of all priests. I hear the news from the market men in Easingwold who bring our provisions. And today they said the Puritans in town are roused because we failed to celebrate Gunpowder Night here. They want to know why.”

“ So Patrick – if he’s here today – should dress like a man not a priest. But these fools should know that not every Catholic wants to blow up Parliament. My mother and sister didn’t and I don’t suppose this Patrick does.”

“Indeed he doesn’t. But there are folk who believe every Catholic would like to bring a French army over here or a Spanish – I’m not sure which –” Ursula chuckled at her ignorance and indeed Bel had never heard any talk in Cranmore House of the outside world, except when one girl, whose father was a lowly official in York, read out in a letter from home that the Scots army was to be paid over eight hundred pounds a day while they stayed in the north of England. Bel was fascinated and wondered whose money it was that the Treaty of York was giving away so lavishly to the enemy.

“Well,” she said, “if they think Patrick is spying for a foreign country he should do an ordinary job, like a gardener, and throw them off the scent.”

Ursula laughed again but seeing Bel was serious she said, “And would you talk to him if he came to you in doublet and breeches?”

“Oh yes. Do you mean this morning? Will I miss lessons?”

Ursula jumped up. “I will see. The Mistress always accommodates young ladies wishing to –” She hesitated and Bel knew she would have said ‘make their confession’ but that the term might have provoked a rebellion.

To herself she said, Ursula hopes I’ll unburden myself to this man but I won’t of course. Never.

“You stay here, my precious,” Ursula said at the door. “I won’t be long.”

Bel sat on, staring round the cell, clutching her arms across her chest for the cold. She could hear the wind moaning and when the light from the small window grew dim she got up and peered out. The sky had darkened and as she looked, another show shower began, one or two flakes at first drifting against the far cloister, but soon a wild flurry of them dancing in swirls about the quadrangle. She watched, delighted, until a male voice said behind her “Arabella?”

She swung round and in the doorway stood a young man in a plain dark doublet and breeches, a very white shirt free of lace or any ornament except for the exquisitely chiselled face above it set off by dark hair curling onto his shoulders.

Bel almost laughed. This was her Satanic angel.

“You wanted to see me?” His voice was soft and low.

She could see Ursula hovering behind him just outside the open door.

I am not afraid of him now, she told herself, only what can I say to him? “Ursula suggested it,” she muttered and, letting her gaze drop, she saw her drawing on the floor and picked it up as a distraction. He peered at it upside down.

“Nether Horden, is it not? A fine drawing but you have left out the hill and the gallows.”

She shivered. “Yes,” she said, in a tiny voice.

“Not in keeping with the happy scene?”

She nodded.

“And have you something you would like to speak to me about, not as a priest but as a friend of your family?”

Hot and cold went through her. The question had followed the picture too quickly. What did he know? Had things been found out and he was here to interrogate her? Report to her father about the night she was missing? She had fallen into a trap. But surely Ursula was innocent of laying it?

She just shook her head. “I’ve nothing to say.”

His low murmur persisted. “Something has been weighing you down. Have you not a burden that you would like to cast off and make a fresh start. You may speak of it and it will go no further I promise you.”

She glanced quickly up at him. His eyes were grey and probing. I don’t believe him. He is not in his vestment and stole, hiding behind a grille, so a promise means nothing.

“Arabella,” he said and she detected a steely authority in his voice as she had once before, authority coming all the way down from the Pope. But, she told herself, it shan’t touch me. “Arabella,” he said again, more gently, “your mother wrote to me. She wanted me to be in touch with you.”

Mother! Bel thought. What does
she
know of the letter Father had, or Robert’s visit to York? There was something strange here. She looked at him boldly at last and demanded, “Why?”

“Before your sister marries she would like you reconciled. Was there not a dreadful deed done,” he paused, “with
scissors
?”

Bel stared. The fearful gallows shrivelled down and became a pair of
scissors
! She couldn’t help it. She laughed aloud.

Ursula’s face immediately appeared round the door, her eyebrows exclaiming, “Is all well?”

Bel nodded and grinned at her and she disappeared.

“You laugh about it?” Patrick had now sat down on the bed and Bel tried to push back the chest to get further away but it was too heavy.

“That was nothing. I was cross. I cut up some of her clothes. They sold my pony to pay for them and sent me here.”

“But you were not sorry and Henrietta wishes to be at one with you as sisters should be before she is married.”

“I
said
I was sorry.”

“Were you?”

“Not a bit.”

“So you lied, too.”

“Yes.” She was now recklessly speaking to him face to face. As an emissary from her mother and Henrietta he had become nobody special, despite his beautiful profile. Besides, she could see him glance at her budding breasts in a way no priest should.

“I am sorry you treat the matter so lightly,” he was saying when the sound of heavy running feet echoed along the passage with girlish squeals and the Mistress’s voice exclaiming, “What means this intrusion?”

Ursula came tumbling in, scrambled past Bel and grabbed crucifix and rosary and pushed them under her bed cover. With her hands over her mouth she stared at Father Patrick and mumbled, “Pym’s Men.”

He had jumped to his feet when four men appeared outside, three carrying staves and one an axe.

“This is he,” the axe man cried. “Seize him.”

Bel saw his face was ashen. The axe blade was two inches from his cheek.

One of the other men called out in agitation, “Have a care to the child.”

Bel had leapt up, thrilling with excitement, and now she fixed the axe man with a ferocious glare. “What do you want with the drawing master, you foolish man? Can’t you see he’s giving me a lesson? Put that axe away before you do a mischief with it.” She held up her drawing just as the Mistress came panting round the corner of the passage.

The four men looked at each other and the axe man lowered the axe.

“Drawing master?”

“Madam,” Bel cried to the Mistress, “make these horrible men go away. They’re interrupting my drawing lesson.”

The Mistress’s features, all awry with terror, struggled back inside her habitual mask of composure. “How dare you break into the peace of a school for young ladies, brandishing weapons? Have you no shame?”

“We heard you harbour a Popish priest here. And where was your bonfire on Gunpowder night and your festivities for that great deliverance from the Papists?”

The axe man was still eyeing Father Patrick with deep suspicion.

The Mistress replied, “We had long prayers of thankfulness.” That was certainly true, Bel thought, very long. “But we have no wood to spare for bonfires. So get you gone.”

“Let us see if he is truly a drawing teacher,” one of the men said who had so far been silent. “Show us how you would improve the child’s work.” He made a sudden snatch at the picture from Bel’s hand and thrust it under Father Patrick’s nose. “Sit and make it better.”

Patrick sank down again onto the bed, the men crowding into the doorway so that the Mistress was blotted out of sight in the passage behind. Ursula who had been all this time trapped at the window end of the cell handed over a pencil without showing her face. The axe man lifted the axe head again so that it gleamed at Patrick’s eyelevel.

Bel saw how his hand shook as he took the pencil and his eye shifted to the blade inches away. What would he do? Why had Ursula co-operated so readily? She was exultant about her own part till now. But now it would go wrong and violence would be done right here and she would be to blame again.

But he was drawing. He had gained control of his voice too and he spoke as he worked. “To give the picture vitality there must be more light and shade.” He was addressing Bel just as if it was a lesson. “Let us make the sunlight come from here. Then this gable and the side of this tree will be in shade and shadows will be cast here and here.” A few rapid movements of the side of the pencil filled in the darks and it was true, the picture was coming to life.

Bel was back in the play-acting. “Thank you sir. I will remember that. Light and shade.” She met the eyes of the axe man with a sweet smile.