Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (15 page)

The men looked at each other. “Where is the priest then?” said one.

“They will have a secret room,” said another.

“Shall we search now?” said the third.

They turned to the axe man but his mouth had dropped open in horror and he was staring at Ursula who had lifted her face and pushed back her bonnet. “Don’t you put the evil eye on me, you hag,” he cried.

“And don’t you bring axes into god-fearing folks’ homes,” she cried. “If you had taken life would not the Lord have required it of you at the day of judgment?”

He turned, growling, “Let’s get out of here.” There was a frantic struggle in the narrow doorway as they all tried to escape together and then they were pounding away past the Mistress, their boots ringing on the stone floor.

“I’ll just see them off,” Ursula said quietly, pulling her bonnet flaps round her face again.

“And bolt the outer door,” the Mistress cried, her voice shrill with relief. “Jane Wyndham was sweeping snow as a punishment for hiding pastries on her book shelf That’s when they broke in.”

She came back to the door of Ursula’s cell and looked from Bel to Father Patrick and back again. For once she seemed lost for words.

He said, “What can I say to this quick-thinking young lady? I believe she saved me from a horrible death.” He had laid an arm across Bel’s shoulders.

She wriggled it off, not caring for the feel of it there. “You were quick to scold me for lies before, but you didn’t mind
that
one.”

The Mistress clasped her hands together. “Oh Arabella, pert as always. But indeed you were bold to some effect there. If you can ever learn that there is a right time also for humility, you will become a great character one day. But we will not let your words remain lies. Father, I appoint you drawing master to Cranmore House, beginning today at nine in the morning, which I believe is some three hours ago.”

Bel looked up at her and grinned just as Ursula came scuttling back.

“They ran away with their tails between their legs. Eh, Father, what think you of my precious Bel?”

“Arabella has the courage of a lion.” He was looking her up and down with genuine admiration. Bel’s flesh tingled as if he had stroked her.

“We will not use the word Father any more, Ursula, if you please,” the Mistress said. “Master Dawson is our drawing teacher.”

Ursula peered up at him and clapped her hands. “Eh, now that is a wonderful thing, for it’s what you wanted to be before the Lord called you to something higher. Your mother told me that.”

“Indeed. I travelled abroad and studied some of the great masters. But now, should I ... do I dare to spend more time here, putting you all in danger, Madam?” He was looking at the Mistress and Bel thought he had gone pale and trembling again at the thought of the mangled corpse he might so easily have become only a few minutes ago.

“If you were to disappear now,” the Mistress said with great emphasis, “we might indeed be under suspicion. Ursula, I shall have to address the pupils before dangerous rumours fly about. Will you see they are all called to the refectory now, though the dinner hour has not quite arrived? Arabella, you will accompany me and Fa – Master Dawson, you also.” She sailed forth with one hand on Bel’s shoulder, propelling her along.

Bel was experiencing the strangest thoughts. She had pictured this young man hacked about with an axe but here he was beside her, whole and untouched, because of
her
. Have I dispelled my black cloud? Is it possible that saving this life has made up for the one I took away? I am about to be publicly commended, a thing that never happened to me in my life. Can it wipe out the guilt of my unrelated sin? But when they reached the refectory the Mistress just waved her to her own class and she found nothing was to be said at all about her part in the incident.

The Mistress chose her words with extreme care. “Young ladies, you will be aware of a disturbing incident just now. Not one of you was ever for a moment in danger and there is no need for any of you to report this outside these walls. You would only alarm your families, who were unable to see that it was all dealt with in a few moments and was entirely due to a misunderstanding. Some men acting on a false report believed some wrongdoer had taken refuge here. As soon as they realised their mistake, they left. Stand forth Jane Wyndham.” A damp-looking girl stood up. “You will complete your punishment of clearing snow for fifteen minutes
within the courtyard,
not outside the front door, but you do not need to do it until the present fall has ceased.” She glanced at the pointed windows where moving whiteness was all that could be seen. “No pupil is to keep food among her books. It is a disgusting habit. You may sit, Jane. And now I wish to introduce to you Master Dawson, who is here to give drawing lessons. He will take the lowest class for an hour after dinner today. You may stand and welcome him.”

The girls rose as one. “Welcome, Master Dawson.”

As they sat down again Bel sensed the buzz of talk bursting to break through the disciplined silence. Eyes darted, lips twitched. No one has been fooled for a second, she thought, but I have lost my eulogy of praise and now that the exhilaration of the moment has passed, I feel a little sick and I can’t look at Master Dawson without seeing his beautiful face cleft through with that shining blade. It didn’t happen. He’s standing there alive and well and only looking embarrassed. But that horrible strangulation
did
happen. One minute there was a big, healthy young man and the next he was a ghastly dangling corpse and then the crows came ... Oh, it has become more real than ever. It should have been prevented, as today’s killing was, but it happened. I was the cause of it and I was the only one who could have stopped it. What was the use of my cleverness just now when that is still for ever hanging over me? She wanted to weep into her dinner when it came.

At mealtimes the girls were allowed to talk quietly. Today the whispers were like a swarm of wasps about Bel’s ears. Those at her table hissed questions at her.

“You were
there,
Bella, weren’t you?”

“What happened?”

“Why are you sitting on your drawing?”

“Did Father P want to see it?”

“Is he really going to take us for drawing?”

“The men wanted to seize him, didn’t they?”

“Why won’t you tell us?”

At last Bel rounded on them. “I only went to see Ursula’s room. It seems strange men break into people’s houses these days for very little reason. They went out again and that was that.”

The girls tut-tutted with frustration till one said, “Never mind, we’ll find it all out from Ursula.”

They did soon enough but Bel knew that her obstinacy and aloofness left them torn between fear and admiration. Some said she was a witch and only someone as hideous as Ursula, who must have been cursed at birth, could find delight in her.

In bed that night she found herself reliving the excitement of staring the axe man in the face. I didn’t do it for Patrick Dawson. I did it because I was angry with the men and their silly weapons. I had no fear for myself. Maybe my devil makes me bold. If I am damned already what else is there to fear?

She waited to see if the new drawing master would try to speak to her alone again but her presence seemed to trouble him and he would only glance at her work and murmur, “Very good, Arabella,” and pass on. He owes me too much, she reflected, or I remind him of how close that axe was to his precious face. And then she would remember the constant hovering of her own cloud, which touched not her present existence but her eternal life and she would cease to feel sorry for him.

CHAPTER 10

One chill morning later in November Nathaniel was crossing the quad with other students when a pamphleteer who had come in off the street accosted him to buy his news-sheet. Nathaniel shook his head but Ben Hutton who was more prodigal of his meagre funds bought one.

“Ah, ha,” he cried, standing still to read it, “Lord Strafford has no sooner arrived in London from Yorkshire and taken his seat in the Lords than he has been impeached by the leader of the Commons, John Pym. He is in custody now.”

Nathaniel, drawing his threadbare gown round him against the cold, peered over his shoulder. It was not so long since he had received his father’s letter. So ends any hope of further appeals in that direction, he thought. How easily these days the great can fall from grace!

Ben grinned at him as he read on. “It seems there are moves afoot too, to abolish the courts that give the people direct access to the King, even the Star Chamber Court. Now is that not right and fair? The law rests not in the King alone but in the King through Parliament.”

“You are in a minority here, Hutton,” another student cried. “Queens’ stands for the King.”

Some cheers went up and Nathaniel sensed that the noblemen’s sons in particular were dismayed at the news about Lord Strafford. Although the Earl was not popular in the country, they were shocked that things should have come to such a pass for the King’s favourite. Nathaniel, who appreciated more and more as he had grown from boy to man the wisdom of his father’s gentle tolerance in the face of his mother’s fanaticism, struggled to understand what was happening to his country. Why were these gulfs opening up between factions? Of course, if the Earl had intended to quell the invading Scots and their puritanical sympathisers in England with an army from Ireland, he must answer for it, but his impeachment was only one of the divisive topics that had begun to infiltrate even this aloof centre of ancient learning.

There were a few Roman Catholics in College with their own tutors, although the law actually banned them from both Universities but they kept themselves apart and the other students didn’t find their presence a threat. Since the crushing of the gunpowder plot, Roman Catholics were lying low and now it was the Bishops and ceremonies of the Church of England that were arousing extreme loathing even among intelligent young students. To find here the same attitudes as those of the rabble who had ransacked his poor father’s church was a shock.

After morning lectures when they next met up in their room, Nathaniel tried to share his plea for tolerance with Benjamin, but he only became more aggressive. No doubt he was spouting the views of his father, who was a tailor and had, according to Benjamin, joined one of the London mobs that had hurled eggs at the coach of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Nat exclaimed, “Would our Lord have done such a thing?”

To which Benjamin retorted, “Did He not call the Pharisees a generation of vipers? Did He not overthrow the tables of the money changers? He exhorted his followers to worship in spirit and in truth. Everything that comes in the way of that must be eradicated. Bishops in their fine robes, idolatrous images in churches, stained glass that distracts the eyes from the preacher; sweep them all away.”

“Nay,” Nat protested, “let us all live peaceably together. Has not this country had enough of religious strife in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth? We have settled into a largely Protestant nation. Surely to God we are not going to split again.”

“And we will not when both church and state have been purged of the trappings of power. The Scots Covenant is one step on the way, but the goal is the humbling of all Archbishops, Bishops, Kings and nobles and the proclamation of the equality of all men under God. Only then will there be peace and contentment throughout the land.”

Nat leapt up from his desk and faced the boy. “You are spouting the seditious rubbish you have heard from the pulpits of some of the preachers that followed the Scots commissioner to London. I have read of them ...”

“Ay,” jeered Benjamin, “and they were heard by thousands when the churches were nearly empty.”

Nat considered the boy. He had all the self-assurance of the Londoner who believed life began and ended in the capital. What he had said might be true. Nat had heard his father remark on the strength of the Puritans in London, but to speak against the King himself, however obliquely, surely that amounted to treason.

“Ben,” he said gently, “you and I have to share this small room. Can we agree to keep our opinions to ourselves on contentious matters?”

“Ha! You’re afraid my arguments are too strong for you. Well, you’ll see. If it comes to war, you’ll be on the losing side.”

“War! Do you mean
civil
war?”

The more Nat studied the boy’s cheeky white face under his close-cropped black hair, his slight frame and jaunty assertive air, the more he yearned for Daniel’s height and breadth and untidy flaxen thatch above his round rosy face and smiling eyes always ready to signal acquiescence. The gentle giant had gone, to be replaced by this pernicious goblin. Is this my trial? Is this a punishment my mother has cursed upon me for not avenging Daniel?

He turned and sat down at his desk as Benjamin gabbled, “Why not civil war? The King will not listen to his people. In the end a fight may be inevitable.”

Nat half turned his head. “Have you no studies to do? You told me your father wants you to take your degree and enter Parliament. How will you do that if you don’t attend to your books?”