Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (27 page)

“You lapped up my praises like a little dog,” Her tone was wheedling now.

“I was gratified by your interest. No more than that. I am sorry if it meant more than friendly courtesy. No ...” as she made to jump on him.

He turned and plunged through the bed as she tried to grab his bare foot. Leaping off at the other side he ran to the door. She was almost as quick in running round the bed. He had unlocked the door and was pulling it open when she reached up her hand and scratched her nails down his cheek. Her lovely face was distorted with rage, reminding him agonisingly of his mother. “I will go, you beast. And I hope you never have a second’s pleasure with a woman in your life.” She dragged the door behind her with what sounded to him an echoing bang and he heard her footsteps running away down the passage.

He locked the door and put his hand to his cheek where he could feel blood trickling down. He had hardly begun to bathe the place at his silver basin when a different knock came and Edward’s voice called softly, “Nat!”

Holding a handkerchief to the place he opened the door though how he was to explain the rumpus he couldn’t imagine.

That proved unnecessary. “Oh Nat, she didn’t, did she? I’m so very sorry,” was Edward’s greeting. “It’s hard to know what to do because I made a fool of myself once butting in. The fellow said I spoilt his pleasure.”

“Merciful heaven! Does this happen often?”

“Usually they are older. I thought you would be safe. She’s quite old – twenty-six. I’m afraid she misses her late husband. He was a dashing cavalry officer and I suppose ... but you understand.”

He sat down on the end of the bed and looked sadly at Nat. “She’s quite a problem, because he was a terrible spendthrift and she’s been left with debts. Father would love to get her married off, to anyone steady. She’s already cost him one dowry and I suppose he’d have to find another. Well, she certainly took a fancy to you.”

Nat held up his hand in a stop gesture. “No thank you, Edward. Much as it would delight me to be your brother that would be too high a price.”

“There’s Penelope of course but they’re fishing for an Earl’s son for her, who would bring a good marriage settlement.”

“Whereas I would bring nothing. No, Edward, I never aspired to marry into the nobility and I will certainly not marry at all until I can take a wife home to a cosy parsonage. And I’m afraid at present I have a low opinion of the stability of womankind.” He refrained from saying it but he was disappointed too with the whole family, including Edward himself. All he wanted now was to get into bed and, if possible, sleep.

Edward sat on, musing, “Will there be any parsonages left for you and me with the country taken over by these ranting Presbyterian preachers? When my father said it was the church for me, he promised a well-endowed parish where the vicar was quite a figure in the community. Mother hoped I could get one of the fashionable London churches. But now ...” He looked mournfully at Nat.

Nat wanted to pick him up and shake him, shake off the family and have his fellow-student back. Instead he shrugged and yawned. “Let us not be anxious; the morrow will take care of itself.” He said it lightly but the thought of meeting Hermione on the morrow sickened him. He looked at his handkerchief. “If I have stopped bleeding, I’d like to get into bed but I must not stain this beautiful silk cover.”

“I’m truly sorry. Father and mother don’t know about Herm’s little ... what? ... escapades, so we’ll think up an excuse for your scratch.
She
will probably not speak to you again till we go back to Cambridge.”

“Perhaps I should go sooner.”

“I must show you London first, whatever Father says. But we’ll go soon. My tutor expects me to have read that new commentary on Aristotle by Thomas Hobbes. There are too many distractions here.”

Nat gave a wry smile. “There certainly are.”

For the next few days all was well as Nat and Edward breakfasted early and none of the ladies appeared then. Lord Branford said that if the young men walked or took Hackney coaches rather than the Branford carriage, they might be safe to look about a little. In the evenings Hermione simply ignored him and pretending a headache refused to play cards. As no one else was eager, Nat made it his business to learn as much as he could of what was going on in Parliament from Lord Branford.

“The King has agreed to replace that brute at the Tower,” he told him. “I think he has been frightened into making concessions so Pym’s men in the Commons see their chance to oust the Bishops.”

Nat said that he and Edward had seen several attacks on coaches believed to be carrying Bishops to the House.

“Yes indeed,” his Lordship said, “which means that many of the Lords Spiritual dare not venture to take their places. The Archbishop is getting up a protest. He says if they are not able to sit in the Lords, any law passed without them will be invalid. We can’t have that. It’s an interference in the powers of both Houses and I wager Pym will rouse the Commons to a fury.”

It was December 30th, the day after this conversation, that Edward took Nat to see St Paul’s with its sprawling market stalls, beggars and rogues operating around its walls. The filth and clamour appalled Nat. He longed for a quiet evening reading in his room, but when they returned they found Lord Branford had more startling news.

“Pym called for the impeachment of all the Bishops who signed the protest and when he had got the Commons to pass this it came to us.
I
couldn’t bring myself to assent to that but there were enough – and not just Pym supporters – who felt the protest had gone too far and they endorsed the impeachment. What shocked many though was that the twelve bishops were arrested immediately and where do you think they are now? In the Tower. Never was such a business conducted so fast.”

“Why are all the bells being rung?” Edward asked. They could be heard plainly within the house.

“It’s the apprentices,” his father growled, “expressing their joy. They were starting bonfires in the streets too, as I came home.”

Lady Branford exclaimed, “Bishops in the Tower! Surely we must think again about putting Edward into the Church. It is becoming as dangerous as the army is for our poor Henry. With Nathaniel to help Edward with his studies, he could stay in Cambridge and become a great figure at the University. I believe the Deans of the Colleges live very comfortably.”

Lord Branford’s sneer at this showed Nat plainly what his Lordship thought of his wife’s opinions. “You will find,” he said, not glancing at her but addressing them all, “that appointments to high places will soon be made directly by Parliament.”

The next day Edward asked Nat if he still wanted to see the sights in spite of the unrest. Rather to his own surprise, Nat was keen to go out. It was not enough to hear the news at second-hand from Lord Branford.

The nearer they walked towards Westminster the greater became the feeling of tension. They could see officers exercising the Trained Bands and some excited onlookers said the King had ordered the Lord Mayor to use them to put down rioters. Others equally vehemently said Mr Pym demanded them to guard Parliament.

“I wouldn’t like to be the Lord Mayor,” Edward said. “Shall we get off the streets and go on the river?”

He led Nat down a set of steps to one of the many landing stages where wherries could be hired. The boatman, seeing Edward pull out an expensive looking purse, charged what Nat thought an exorbitant fee, but once they were on the water he could only marvel at the buildings crowded along the waterfront, at the amazing sight of London Bridge covered with houses and shops, and the Thames itself creeping sluggishly to the sea while across its brown slimy surface hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes scuttled like beetles or clove their imperious way. The immensity of London’s business stunned both his mind and his senses.

“I wouldn’t have missed that for anything,” he told Edward when they were set down at another set of steps and found their way home by a different route. “My eyes are exhausted with looking.”

Edward laughed, pleased, and promised to show him more every day, but on January 3rd they heard on the streets, before Lord Branford could bring the news home to them, that the Attorney General on the orders of the King had accused five Members of the Commons including Pym himself of High Treason.

“The King will have his revenge for the Bishops,” a costermonger commented.

“If he sends armed men to Parliament there will be war.” A tailor with a needle threaded through the sleeve of his coat had come to the door of his workshop. There was something familiar about his small wiry figure and elfish features under cropped black hair that puzzled Nat till he saw below his signboard the painted name, Saul Hutton.

He pulled Edward quickly past. “I think that’s Ben Hutton’s father.”

“Should we not stop and greet him.”

“Have sense, man. If Ben is about, he will start yelling that we are King’s men.”

“By heaven, you’re right.” Edward nearly broke into a run but Nat grabbed his arm.

“Hurrying draws attention.”

Already he felt that Edward’s hat with his long curly hair emerging onto the furred collar of his cloak was attracting unwelcome glances. Nat kept his own distinctive flaxen hair short enough to be mostly hidden by his very plain black hat.

They made their way onto a broader thoroughfare where they saw another of the Trained Bands drawn up. At least that was authority of a kind. And so little by little they reached the Branfords’ house in safety.

But next day they were too curious about what would happen to stay in and against Lady Branford’s advice they set out again, Edward at Nat’s suggestion wearing much plainer clothes. Lord Branford had already told them that the King had published the articles of treason against the members and there was a tremendous air of excitement and expectancy in the streets.

Nothing happened in the morning and they bought some pies from a pastry cook and mugs of ale to stave off hunger.

In the afternoon they were walking down Whitehall when they began to hear shouts of, “The King, the King is coming.”

Hemmed in by crowds surging from all sides, Nat and Edward could do nothing but wait as rumours flew about that the King was bringing an army to arrest Pym and his friends. Presently the chattering hushed and a sound between a groan and a roar swept through the mass. A gap opened in the road and looking up, they saw the King himself on horseback and behind him a large body of armed guards.

Nat drew in his breath. It was the first time he had seen the King. How imperious he looked, how resolute. The crowd fell silent as he rode by but shouts soon broke out.

“To the Parliament.”

“Save Parliament!”

Edward kept his hand on his sword hilt under his cloak, more to conceal it than be ready to use it. With their backs against the building behind them, they didn’t try to move as the more vociferous of the crowd were randomly hurling sticks and stones after the soldiers.

“We’ll hear soon enough what happens,” Nat said, thrilled at being so close to events. This was history happening before his eyes.

A butcher in an apron, clutching a meat cleaver, struggled past to get back to his shop before thieves stripped his hooks of poultry and rabbits. A stink of blood, sweat and horse manure assailed Nat’s nostrils. His ears rang with the clamour of a thousand voices. It is not two years, he reflected, since the days of country ramblings with Dan and quiet study with Father! I knew few people, I knew nothing of the teeming world beyond a few square miles of Yorkshire. I am years older. I am running to catch up with life and hardly getting my breath. He shared a grin with Edward as their eyes met and then suddenly there came a great roar of cheering passing from street to street.

“What is it? What’s happened?” neighbour demanded of neighbour.

The cry came. “The birds have flown.”

This was amplified in the next few minutes with the news that the five members of Parliament had slipped away by river, forewarned of the King’s coming.

“That’ll teach His Majesty,” an apprentice boy yelled, “bringing soldiers onto our streets!”

This seemed to be the general feeling of the crowd and Nat could sense the proud and independent spirit of the capital which left him an outsider. Londoners would guard their streets, their Parliament, even from the King, perhaps especially now from the King. The quiet, devout, loyal country in which he had believed for most of his life was being rent in two. He should feel utterly grieved, as his father would be, and yet he was stirred and exhilarated by all this new experience and, thankfully, not in the least afraid.

Edward grabbed his arm and whispered, “I can see a way through. Let’s get home and tell them what’s gone on.”

Lady Branford was relieved to see them. News had already flown round London like wildfire while they were struggling through the excited but generally happy crowds. Nat noticed how her ladyship’s demeanour had changed since his first meeting with her. Until her husband was safely home and the doors shut and barred, she was a frightened woman.

Lord Branford had plenty to say when he did arrive and Nat was eager to hear his assessment of the situation. “Their escape,” he said, his chins and heavy cheeks quivering with emotion, “is a disaster for the King.” He paused and looked round at the whole assembled family, shaking his head and seeming to revel in his own gloom. “But that he should have attempted it at all has done the real damage. He has horribly inflamed the Commons. ‘Privilege, privilege’ they have been shouting. Armed men at the very doors of the House! That was the grossest affront. They will never forgive that.”