Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (21 page)

Robert got up, running his hands through his black locks which he was wearing longer than ever now in defiance of Puritan fashions. “That’s settled, then.” He gave her a wide grin which almost split his narrow face. “So all I need to do to help,” he added as he went to the door, “is tell young Will that you are an untameable wild beast and he certainly wouldn’t be happy with you.”

She smiled wanly as he left the room. Did she
want
this reputation? Had there always been a devil in her urging her to be rebellious? How was it that Ursula’s presence kept him at bay? Ursula was there when I defied those three that were certainly the devil’s men. But I was angry then and if I had had a pistol in my hand I would have shot them all. So I would have been a worse murderer than ever and she wouldn’t have loved me any more. But now I have lost her for always and I have no way to find goodness and peace. Where is it to be found? It can’t be right for me to marry William and yet that is just what my father expects of a meek, dutiful girl.

A fresh passion of tears overwhelmed her again. “I need you, Urs. I need you.”

It was late afternoon the next day when she heard the sound of hooves and the crunching of wheels on the gravelled drive. She peeped from her narrow pointed window and saw the fine equipage pass the equestrian statue of the first baronet and a man’s hat poke out to admire it. Tom and Adam came hurrying to take charge of the horses and Father himself emerged from the front door below to greet his guests.

He had told her to put on her best dress, without reflecting that she had never been into Newcastle since she had come back and had had no new clothes for a year. It was Nurse who had emptied Henrietta’s closet of the old or outgrown gowns she had left behind and who helped Bel to find petticoats and bodices and over-skirts that could be altered to fit her enlarging breasts and increased height. For this meeting, Bel had insisted on the plainest gown of blue with no decoration but a fine white stripe. Nurse said she must soften it with the best of Henrietta’s collars and cuffs that had escaped Bel’s scissors because they were not good enough for France. They were however of the finest Italian needle lace and “all the mending won’t show,” Nurse declared, “because I did it myself. But why will you have a blue gown when you have green eyes?”

“Just to show how contrary I am,” Bel said and Nurse lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

“We’ll do your hair nicely at least.”

It had been cut only once at Cranmore House when it had finally grown out of Bel’s own hacking it about, so it was now long and thick and Nurse twined it up onto her head with clasps and ribbons and let a few dark ringlets fall each side of her face.

“Eh, now ,you could look seventeen,” she said, holding up a glass.

“Oh, dear,” Bel said, gazing at herself in surprise. “I don’t look nearly ugly enough.” She was secretly excited to see that what Patrick had said seemed to be coming true. Her too solid, square-chinned face had fined down to show the strong bone-structure under a skin that, without any art, looked flawless.

“Nay, you look quite a picture,” Nurse said.

And now the moment had come. Three figures had emerged from the coach: a tall father, a small round mother and a slender son only an inch shorter than his father.

Bel was dismayed to find that her heart was thumping as she ran downstairs. What do I care for any of them? she reminded herself.

They were already inside the wide hall to which the front door gave direct access and Mary was bobbing in a snowy apron and collecting the travelling cloaks. Though it was still September there was a raw gale blowing and all that they were saying to Father was about the bitter northern weather and the trials of the journey. A fire was blazing in the wide hearth and they quickly congregated round it before they noticed Bel’s presence.

“My daughter, Arabella,” Father said and Bel curtseyed with her eyes fixed only on William. She saw at once that this disconcerted him. He had the narrow Horden face, like Robert, but his cropped hair was a neutral brown and his eyes not nearly so dark and sharp. Altogether he made little impression on her, so she looked at the father whose hair was greying like her father’s, but cut straight all round just below the ears. He was also clean-shaven. They look like Puritans, she thought. Father won’t care for that. The mother was a very different breed, not in dress, because that was dark and plain, but in shape and height. Bel found herself looking down on her and saw plump cheeks dominating the small eyes, nose and mouth which seemed crowded together in the centre of the hummocky face.

She smiled and held out her hand but Bel sensed wariness rather than warmth. “You have certainly improved with the years, my dear,” she said which seemed to Bel a dubious opening compliment.

Her father requested that she should show them their rooms so she went ahead up the stairs and led them first to Henrietta’s room. “This is for you,” ushering in Clifford and Celia Horden.

The lady looked around and went at once to the connecting door. “And my boudoir in here?” Finding it fastened she looked round in surprise.

“It has been closed up. My room is next door.”

“Is there only one room for us both? One bed?”

“It’s a large bed,” Bel said. She couldn’t help smiling. It was a splendid four-poster and curtains that had never been hung before had been brought out of storage.

“It will do very well,” Clifford Horden said curtly. “Where is William to go?”

“This way, the other side of the stairs. The first room is my Father’s and then Robert’s. We thought it would be less lonely if William had Robert’s company.”

Robert, she noticed, had now followed them up and he took William by the arm in a very free and easy way. “We’ll keep each other warm but take note I prefer the right hand side. The footman will bring your things up. He’s just helping your man lift them down.”

Footman? thought Bel. We have no footman.

And then to her astonishment who should come up the stairs, dressed in the old Horden livery which had not been worn in the house for years, but Sam Turner. He gave her a brief grin and with the visitors’ servant carried the travelling trunks into the appropriate rooms. In her amazement she couldn’t help also a pang of yearning. He was so much more a man than William. His cheerful rosy face under his chestnut curls and his open straight, confident look were just as she remembered them from their game by the stream. That he had disappointed her later was all mixed up with the horrible sight of the hanged man, which still came back to her as sharply as ever in nightmares or suddenly in her waking thoughts as it did now.

Telling the visitors that a meal would be served in the dining-room off the hall below in half an hour she ran down after Sam. “What are you doing here in our livery?” she challenged him as he headed for the kitchen where she could see Nurse pouring mugs of ale for the Hordens’ men.

“Helping you north-country Hordens show off to your southern cousins.”

“But the last I heard you were serving a Scots officer.”

“And so I was but you must have noticed that most of the Scots have returned to Scotland. I came back to the farm and Sir John has borrowed me for as long as your visitors stay. He knew I had learnt how to wait at gentlemen’s tables, but if you fix up your marriage quickly, Bel, I’ll get back to the harvesting where I’m needed.”

“Well,” she said, “I too want to get rid of the visitors as soon as possible. I’m not ready to wed for a long time.”

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her the comical look she remembered from their brief journey in his cart. He was laughing at her again.

She bit her lip and thought, I told him to call me Bel because I never wanted to be the young lady from the Hall, but now I am no longer a little girl and he is a footman!

She hung back at the kitchen door as he went in with his eyes on the third mug of ale Nurse had poured, but then he turned to murmur to her, “Tell you the truth I feel a fool in this rig, but you look like a princess.” He gave her a little bow and she fled from the room when she caught Nurse’s disapproving look at seeing her there.

He’s still teasing me, she thought happily, but if Cousin William should turn out like Sam, I might find my resolution a little harder to keep.

Fortunately over the next week William showed no such signs. He was uncomfortably shy, which made her the more bold in asking him questions about himself and his work in his father’s business. He only grew more nervous and monosyllabic. At mealtimes she was conscious of Sam’s amusement, though he remained impeccably formal. Once she was also conscious of glances passing between him and Mary. Had they an understanding? A stab of jealousy infuriated her and she renewed her questioning of William with an impatient, “Why won’t you tell me what you do, Cousin, when you go to work in the morning?”

“I have to learn all aspects of the business,” he mumbled, head down.

His father came to his rescue by explaining that his business was buying and selling. What they bought and what they sold depended on the markets and Clifford Horden by his own account had a very good eye for where to make a profit.

Celia Horden defended her son more volubly.

“You have to understand, Arabella, that William is too modest to boast of all he has done. He has been down at the docks to see the loading and unloading. He has worked in the warehouses. He has been round the markets to see what is selling well. He has studied the trade routes to find the safest and speediest ways to the farthest countries on the globe. He knows the worst places for pirates and he can estimate risks and how to cover them. At present he is working directly under his father’s eye in the office, learning all about keeping the ledgers. You can have no conception of the complexity of the work. Every load, every package is recorded and can be traced from first order to safe delivery. He is mastering it all.” She smiled fondly at her son. “Such a clever boy!”

“That’s very interesting,” Bel said, “but I wanted him to tell me himself.”

Sometimes her father frowned at her to stop talking so that he could himself question Clifford about the political situation and how unrest and rioting in London affected business and the ordinary lives of law-abiding citizens.

Clifford made light of his own delays in coming north and seemed to assume Sir John was anxious on Bel’s account. “Your daughter will be safer in London than any other part of the kingdom. What is important at present is to be in good favour with the Parliament. I have close friends there. I know Mr Pym personally, the leader of the House. I have done him little favours. Parliament is now the power in the land.”

Bel hoped this kind of talk might make her father disillusioned with the idea of allying their families.

“I like not the way he speaks of the King,” she heard him mutter to Robert that evening after their guests had retired for the night. “You heard him. He said the King must bow to Parliament in everything and Parliament cannot be dissolved without its own consent.”

Robert snorted. “They are a bunch of Puritans. Have nothing to do with them.”

“And yet it would secure our lands if there was wealth like theirs behind them.” He turned to Bel when he noticed she was still in the parlour.“What say you, child? You can object to nothing in young William, can you?”

“I object to him because he
is
nothing.”

Robert laughed. “Ay, that is William in a nutshell.”

Sir John stroked his beard and frowned. “Nay, he is in awe of his father, who is his master too. Take Nurse with you tomorrow, Bella, and walk with him about the grounds and he will be more forthcoming.”

“I walked with him this afternoon on my own and told him he was too young to think of marriage yet and I would not in any case be right for him. He seemed to agree; if I could make any sense of his mumblings.”

“Oh Bella, you thwart me at every turn. You are so bold in your talk and to go about with a young man unchaperoned! He is rightly frightened of you.”

“And so he should be,” Robert laughed. “Can you imagine any man willingly taking on our Bella? If she’s a dragon now, what will she be in ten year’s time? I have told you, sir, that I am making good progress with my own marriage prospects and I am sure there is as much wealth behind my girl as this merchant has.”

“You have been telling me this for many months, Robert, and still her family have not resumed negotiations. I fear it will all come to nothing and the only hope lies with our cousins.” He passed his hand across his eyes. “I must to bed. I am weary and I can only pray that we can bring things to a resolution tomorrow. They are anxious to return to London as soon as possible. Arabella, why will you not see that a meek, quiet, sober and hardworking husband is just what you should have? You will be the strong partner, the support, the driving force. I do not see you as extravagant so if in due course he can set you up in your own home and defer to you in household management, I believe you will make wise decisions and not waste his substance.” He went out then without giving her time to reply and she watched how slowly he climbed the stairs.

Robert grabbed her arm. “Listen, I tell William every night that you are a young vixen and had to be sent away to school because of your tantrums. He’s terrified of you.”

“But he will do as his father tells him because his whole life depends on pleasing him. No, I can see I will be the one to take all the blame for it coming to nought.”