Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (26 page)

Two days later the Hordens departed at an early hour in the morning. Her father who had come down in a bed-gown to wish them ‘God Speed’, said, “I will to my bed again, Bella, but I have secured your future. God be praised. I can sleep now.”

When he had gone upstairs Bel stood in the centre of the great hall and looked about her. “All this is mine. I am free. Nurse has said she will go back to her cottage and resume her retirement. Sam will go back to the farm for good and take Mary soon. Old Tom will stay on in the room above the stable and do the heavy work and he will only have Father’s horse to groom when Caesar is sold. Adam wants to join the King’s army. So Ursula and I will be left to look after Father. I shall go and see what is growing in the kitchen garden. With only Nurse’s pension and Tom’s wage to pay surely we can live well enough. Yes, I am free.”

She was dancing all over the hall when she suddenly stood still and asked herself if the black cloud had gone. Deliberately she let herself look at the picture in her head, the huge hanging body, the distorted face, the one eye. No, it was there with the guilt that she had never confessed. I fired the stack and he died.

Strangely Robert’s death, so recent, was not as sharp a pain. I hit Caesar and Robert broke his neck. But people saw it and though they know I did it they are saying only that I am a wild, impulsive child.

I will always have my cloud. I am for ever a murderer and can never inherit the Kingdom of God but I can eat and drink and be merry here as long as I have Ursula.

And she went into the kitchen to find her.

CHAPTER 14

Christmas 1641

Nathaniel, overwhelmed by the sights and smells and above all the noise of London, could hardly believe the change when the Branfords’s liveried footman admitted Edward and himself into a spacious hallway and closed the heavy door behind them. There was sudden quiet, order, cleanliness and polish. Straight ahead was a gleaming oak staircase, intricately carved and with finials of heraldic beasts staring down their leonine noses at him. He found his travelling cloak silently removed and Edward ushering him towards the stairs, a little shyly as if Nat’s speechlessness made him unsure of the impression his home was making on his visitor.

They walked up past several huge portraits of Elizabethan Branfords to the first landing, from which several panelled doors led off.

“They’ve given you this one, Nat, next to mine. I hope it’ll do.”

Nat saw furniture such as he had never seen before, an ornamented hanging cupboard in which his short cloak, one spare doublet, two pairs of breeches and three very plain linen shirts would look miserably insignificant, and an inlaid chest of drawers which he couldn’t possibly fill with his few stockings, collars and cuffs, but it was the bed that dominated the room. It was at least eight feet high to the canopy and almost as long, every inch of its four posts and top carved with flowers and scrolls. The curtains were of crimson velvet ending in tassels of gold cord and the coverlet was of white silk with a gold and crimson embroidered border. He fought down an urge to echo Ben Hutton’s levelling philosophy. ‘We should be all the same, no high, no low, no rich, no poor.’

“It’s magnificent, Edward,” was all he murmured.

“Oh well, I’m pleased. But I apologise for the lack of welcome. You’ll meet the family at supper, except Henry of course, who is in the army. Father is at the Lords and I suppose my mother and sisters are visiting a neighbour. They weren’t sure when we would arrive, but for once we made good time on the road from Cambridge. We don’t stand on ceremony very much. I hope you don’t mind.”

Nat didn’t mind at all but the mention of sisters filled him with apprehension. Young ladies were a total mystery to him. He had heard Edward speak of an older sister who had been married to a cavalry officer, killed in the very battle of Newburn on Tyne that he had avoided. She might be out of mourning, but still very subdued. Hot and embarrassed at his own guilt, he would scarcely be able to look at her. The other sister was Edward’s twin, so would be coming up to her seventeenth birthday, a terrifying age. Nat had never spoken of Daniel to anyone at the University. How could he fend off inquiries as to his fate? But knowing Edward was also a twin had further endeared him to him. Meeting a charming female Edward would be another matter altogether. He expected to be horribly tongue-tied.

“I’ll knock you up when it’s time,” Edward said, peering into the silver gilt basin and ewer set out on a marble-topped table. He tested the water with his fingers. “That’s right. It’s warm. I’m in the next room if you want anything.”

When he’d gone Nat perched on a chair and gazed up at the plaster ceiling, more intricate patterns, cherubs, flowers and birds. What am I doing here? he wondered. I should be at home in the room Dan and I shared all our childhood. I should be supporting my poor father and trying to pacify Mother.

When Edward at last knocked and said, “Thank goodness, it’s feeding time,” he had reached a spurious state of indifference to the family he was about to meet.

This was gone within the first five minutes. No one could be indifferent to Lord Branford, large and florid and apparently in a state of simmering anger. His lady made less impact although she was also large. Her manner was friendly but casual; just another friend of Edward she seemed to be thinking as she gave him her well-beringed, flabby fingers. But the girls, introduced as Hermione and Penelope, made Nat lower his eyes in embarrassment. Both wore very low bodices, though a flimsy piece of lace offered partial concealment. Both had shining fair-hair in dazzling ringlets and wide blue eyes. At first he was confused as to which was the older but he soon found that Hermione, far from being a sad widow, was flamboyantly beautiful and brimming with confident charm while Penelope had small, plain features and the resemblance to Edward was slight. She was quiet and Nat thought she looked sulky. Perhaps it was because her sister instantly took charge of him.

Hermione sat herself next to him and though her father was obviously bursting to describe his day in the House of Lords she wanted to know Nat’s impressions of London, how did he like Cambridge, where was his home and was he as brilliant a scholar as Edward kept telling them?

All this was very flattering and helped to dispel some of his nervousness, as she appeared genuinely interested in his answers. But he was aware that Lord Branford wanted him and Edward to listen to what he had to say and at last he managed to cock an ear in his direction.

“I am sure, sir,” Lord Branford addressed him directly, “that you are a King’s man.” Nat nodded with enthusiasm. “But I have to tell you his majesty has done a very foolish thing.” Nat moderated his expression. “He has appointed to the Lieutenancy of the Tower a man that is a brute and utterly intolerable to the Commons and many in the Lords. Who is advising the King I ask myself? Anyone could do better than those he has about him.”

“You, my dear, would be perfect,” Lady Branford said in a tone that suggested she had said such things regularly throughout their marriage but with little conviction.

“And then there are the Bishops. There is a move to put them out of the Lords altogether. The King can’t protect them if he has lost the people’s trust. There are apprentices in the streets shouting, ‘Down with the Bishops’ and ‘No Popery.’ It’s such a turmoil that the Commons are not going to recess for the usual twelve days of Christmas. They will be back in two or three and I daresay we in the Lords will have to do the same to counter some of their excesses, but none of us will stand this new appointment to the Tower. He must go.” He sighed deeply. “Apart from church, I would advise you all to stay indoors till things are quieter. I fear you have left a peaceful Cambridge, young man, for a turbulent capital.”

“We have known turbulence even in remote Yorkshire, my Lord,” Nat ventured to say and he recounted the episode of the Puritans and their petition in Easingwold. He was delighted with Hermione’s reaction.

“You stood against three of them and refused to sign! Oh the bravery of it. Now, Father, do we not need men of such principle in high places today? You are for ever bemoaning the corruption both at Court and in Parliament.”

Nathaniel, embarrassed now, felt his cheeks grow hot.

Lord Branford permitted himself a smile in his direction and said, “I think our young friend will at least wish to graduate before he is elevated to high places. And we can but wait and see, all of us, the outcome of these struggles. At least the King has made a measured reply to the so-called Grand Remonstrance that Parliament had the effrontery to put before him. We will hope moderation prevails when sittings resume. But I am doubtful, very doubtful.” He shook his heavy-jowelled head, as if gloom and frustration had again set in.

Cards were produced in the evening and the four young people were expected to sit down and play. Hermione insisted on partnering Nat who had never played cards in his life.

“We only gamble with buttons,” Hermione said. “But it’s fun to pretend it’s real.”

Nat supposed that couldn’t be sinful and concentrated on learning the rules of the game, which he did so quickly that Henrietta screamed out to her mother, sitting on the sofa with her embroidery, “Oh, it is as Edward said; his brain is as sharp as a needle.”

Nat attributed this to his moderation over the freely flowing wine. Unused to that as he was to cards, he kept covering the glass with his hand when the footman came to refill it. He was glad he had because the others became merry and careless and soon a pile of buttons had accumulated in front of him to which Hermione had contributed very little.

“How thoroughly we have trounced them,” Hermione cried and Penelope looked more sulky than ever.

When they were all tired the servants carried candles and warming pans to the bedrooms and goodnights were wished all round.

Hermione laid a hand on his arm. “You are by far the most interesting of Edward’s friends. Very strong-minded I can see, fearless and self-controlled. I think you quite frighten me.” She gave him her most ravishing smile and vanished to her own room.

This was so unlike Nat’s own image of himself that he lay long awake thinking of her full lips and startling blue eyes with their air of surprise and delight turned constantly on him.

On Christmas Day they walked to church in the next street, the Branfords all wearing dark cloaks over their rich clothes, though Nat thought their large feathered hats rather gave away their status. He saw several coaches pelted with horse manure and rotten fruit, but they were not molested.

Afterwards an enormous Christmas dinner was served, which would have fed the whole of Darrowswick for a week. Then there was music. Hermione sang and played on the virginals. Edward and Penelope sang a duet and when Nat was called upon to perform, he played them a medley of carols on his recorder.

“A humble instrument but mine own,” he grinned feeling more at ease than he had imagined possible on so brief an acquaintance.

“I’ll wager you have a better instrument than that,” Hermione whispered to him, “hidden away.”

He felt himself flush and turned away his face. Surely she couldn’t mean what he thought she meant!

For the rest of the day he tried to keep his distance from her, but they had not long been retired for the night when he heard a tapping at his door. It must be Edward or a servant come to see if he had all he wanted. Taking his candle he opened the door a crack. She had pushed it open and whisked inside before he could stop her. She turned and locked it and stood with her back to it, smiling at him. She was in her nightgown.

“This is what you have been wanting, Nathaniel Wilson. Very cunning the way you kept apart from me these last hours, to throw them all off the scent.”

Nat, dismayed and horrified, set down his candle and retreated several paces, but where could he run? “Madam, I assure you,” he began. “It would be ill repayment for Lord and Lady Branford’s hospitality if I had ever had such a thought ...”

“Oh we can take all that as said. They’ll never know and you can have no fear. I have come prepared,” and she drew from her sleeve what looked like a tube made from an animal’s skin.

Nat could only guess its purpose as his horror at her behaviour deepened.

His expression made her manner change. “Oh I do believe you are a total innocent. How charming! From the remote wilds of Yorkshire without an idea what goes on in high places, even at court. Goes on discreetly of course. Charles’ court is not like his father’s or so I am told. Nevertheless, we all have human nature.”

She sidled closer and he retreated again. If he could lure her to the other side of the bed he might leap through it and unlock the door. He had already drawn back the curtains. It would be painfully embarrassing but he might escape to Edward’s room and say he had had a nightmare. Surely she would slink away then. But first he would be plain with her. And once again he was drawing on courage he didn’t know he possessed. He held his hands in a stop gesture and said as sternly as he could, “You speak of human nature, Madam, but that is the very thing we are to keep under. You commended me for my self-control. So pray leave my room.”

“Self-control fiddlesticks. You are desperate to find out how good it is. And with me it is. I can tell you.”

There was certainly a temptation to find that out but he had vowed chastity till he should marry and the idea of performing with this woman for whom he had begun to feel a deep loathing was abhorrent to him. Beautiful she might be in an abandoned way with her golden hair falling about her shoulders, but she made him think of the sirens of Greek mythology and how Odysseus had escaped them.