Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (39 page)

She stared open-mouthed at Ursula and Mary. “What are we to do?”

“I’d like to run home.” Mary was almost panting to be off. “They may be in the village turning my mother out of our cottage.”

“Of course, go, Mary. I suppose refugees will be pouring into Newcastle.”

Tom came in with a sack over his shoulder. “Mistress Bella, they’re putting men in my quarters already. I’ve brought what I could.”

“Oh Tom, Mary is going to the village. You must go with her to take care of your sister.”

“Nay I cannot leave you. My sister has her man and though he’s older than I am, he’s not helpless. They’ll surely not harm two old crocks like them. Where are you heading?”

“Newcastle I suppose, if we must.” Bel’s anger was still at boiling point but Ursula had already run up the stairs and was soon down again with a bag of bedding wrapped around her few possessions.

“Run up, Bel,” she said. “I’ll provision us before the soldiers get to the larder.” And off she ran to the kitchen.

Bel was ashamed. Ursula has done this before, she reminded herself, pushed from pillar to post all her life. It truly is going to happen. Half an hour, he said!

She picked up her skirts and dashing to her room, threw off her slippers and slid her feet into a pair of leather-covered clogs suitable for the slushy snow. Then she ripped the covers off her bed, laid them out and threw into them shoes, some changes of clothes, shawls, a few books, writing materials, hair-brush and precious soap. Then she fastened the ends together and found the whole thing was almost too cumbersome to carry. Perhaps they would find carts going into the town. At least the table behind the screen in the great hall was empty. They had sold all they had stored there.

But now she must see what money there was in the house. She picked some ribbons from among her remaining clothes and extracted a key from under her pillow. Bouncing her giant bag down the stairs she ran into her father’s office and unlocked the drawer in his desk. She took his pocket book which contained Clifford’s letter and other important papers and his leather pouch of money. This had a brass ring for a belt and she tied some of the ribbons together and slotted them through it. There was no time to undress and insert it beneath her corset. She could hear men already trampling about the hall. She lifted her skirts and sat down on the upright chair and pushed the ribbon and pouch up her front, wedged the pouch over her left hip and wiggled one ribbon end round her back so she could tie the ends securely at her waist. Pulling down her skirts she looked aghast at the shelves of ledgers containing the estate’s yearly records. How could she leave them but how could she carry them?

She opened the door and looked into the hall. Knapsacks were already standing about the walls with groups of officers keeping an eye on them. Their captain, as she presumed he was, came up to her.

“You are ready to go? Here is your pass. We are about to allocate quarters.”

“And you, I suppose, will operate from here.” She didn’t try to keep the fury out of her voice. “Look at this room. There are centuries of history here. Do you propose to destroy it? My family have lived here for countless generations. Everything here is precious to me ...”

“My dear young lady,” he broke in, “save your breath. The war will not last for ever. Your surviving men-folk will return and carry on their good work.”

“There are no men left,” she shouted at him. “This place is mine. I will come back and if you have touched anything here I will have your head.” She stamped her foot and marched past him.

“By the Lord, Ma’am, I wish you were in my army,” he chuckled.

Finding Tom and Ursula at the open great doors she dragged her bundle across the wooden floor and joined them.

“Nay, that’s too big,” Tom said.

The Captain came up and shouted to two infantrymen outside, “Escort these people. When you see enemy patrols ahead hand them over and return with all speed.”

And so two brawny Scots shouldered the women’s bundles and plunged out into deep melting snow. The little party followed, feet soon soaked despite their clogs. Bel turned at the iron gates and looked back. The snow had slid off the old baronet as he flourished his sword towards the Hall in defiance of the invaders now swarming about it. When would she see it again? She was walking into a blank future.

Ursula turned her comical grin towards her. “Wayfarers again,” she said, “but the Lord is with us.”

“Never mind the Lord,” said Bel, struggling to smile back. “I’ve got you.”

They soon joined the track from the village and followed it to the high road into Newcastle. Here there were people on foot and in carts heading for the town.

Where are we all to go, Bel wondered. If the town is to be under siege there will be too many mouths to feed. I don’t want to be in an overcrowded place enclosed with walls and an army surrounding it. They will take command of the river and close the bridge. What will I do there? I mustn’t be beholden to the Johnsons again.

“Ursula,” she said, “we will be suffocated in Newcastle. Let us try to get right through and head south. If the Scots are held up besieging Newcastle, they will not be in Durham County. I’d rather take my chance in the open country.”

“Whatever you say, my pretty.”

There was the sound of hooves and wheels behind them and a familiar cart drew up alongside. Sam Turner in his civilian clothes was driving and in the cart among a pile of possessions were Mary and her mother.

“Get up and be quick,” he shouted, reaching down to Bel. “What are you doing with an enemy escort?”

“They have kindly carried our bundles.”

Bel scrambled up, then Ursula and Tom.

The Scotsmen threw the bundles in after them, saluted and turned and ran. They were in no danger. If Sam had a pistol under his doublet it was not visible.

He clicked up his horse at once and drove on.

“I hoped we’d overtake you,” Mary said. “Sam wouldn’t hear of mother and me staying in the village. We have a cousin in town we can stay with and Sam got leave to fetch us if he didn’t wear his uniform. He’s part of the garrison there now.”

“I have no one in Newcastle,” Bel said. “I don’t want to stay there.” She wriggled among the luggage to Sam’s side. “Will we be able to cross the bridge and get out of the town?”

“I couldn’t take you that far. I must sell the horse and cart in town. My father said if I brought it back the Scots would seize it. He’d rather have the money for it.”

Bel made a lightning decision. “
I
will buy it. Tom can drive and we’ll travel in comfort if they’ll let us through.”

“Why should they not? Fewer mouths to feed in the town. What will you give me?”

Bel beckoned to Ursula who came crawling towards her. “Urs, you must creep up my skirts and untie the ribbon and give me my pouch.”

Ursula never hesitated. They were not overlooked by other travellers as the baggage was all round them and they were in a valley between. Bel didn’t mind Mary and her mother seeing what they were doing. In fact she grinned back at them as Ursula wriggled inside and her skirt billowed up and down. Out came Ursula with the pouch and Bel counted four gold sovereigns.

“Will that do?”

“It’s more than I’d get in the town, I reckon.”

“Take it. And Mary,” she turned round and held out to her a few silver pieces. “You haven’t had your wages and that should cover three weeks or more.”

What was in the pouch was all the money she had in the world and she had no idea how long it would last if they had to put up at inns or find an empty cottage to rent. The future was an unwritten page, but it pleased her to be generous. Mary could find work in the town or she might even decide to marry Sam now and share his soldier’s pay. Either way she would be glad of a little extra. Bel saw Mary’s mother hiding the silver away and nodding her thanks at her.

And then they were at the gate in the town wall and had questions to answer about the friends or families they hoped to stay with.

“We are going on,” Bel said. And then to her astonishment she found herself adding, “I have friends in Yorkshire who will accommodate us.”

They were waved through and Ursula looked at her in surprise and Tom said, “That’s a mighty long way away.”

Sam Turner said, “Oh, ay, you were sent to school in Yorkshire, were you not? Well, I wish you good fortune and I shall hand the reins to you, Tom, when I have delivered Mary and her mother to their cousin.”

This was accomplished in a narrow back street just wide enough for the horse and cart. When all their possessions were unloaded, Bel placed the remaining bundles so that she and Ursula could rest their backs against them and be quite comfortable.

Sam was to walk back to his quarters within the town. Bel watched as he kissed Mary goodbye at the cousin’s door. I fancied him once, she thought. He’s a decent ordinary, shallow sort of lad but
I
know one that has a Cambridge degree. Everything that was racing through her mind now had taken her completely by surprise. She needed to close her eyes and slow her thoughts and see where they were leading her. This she would do as soon as they were heading south out of Newcastle.

First, Sam directed Tom how to get back to the road that would lead him to the bridge. He stroked the horse’s mane. “He’s called Juniper, God knows why, and he’s not as old as you, Tom, but he’s not young, so don’t overwork him.” Then he waved them off and disappeared in the other direction.

Tom was mumbling to himself that he’d never thought to go so far from home and Bel suspected he was hoping to be forbidden to leave the town, but when they reached the bridge they were questioned briefly and then hurried across as there were horsemen approaching from the other side to get into the town before the Scots came. Foot soldiers and townspeople were everywhere working on reinforcing the walls with earthworks and Bel was delighted to leave the place behind. Maybe it would hold out. Maybe it would be relieved by Royalist forces from the south, but either way she wanted to be moving. As soon as they were clear of Gateshead she leant back on her bedding bundle and closed her eyes.

“I am going to take a nap, Ursula.”

It was evil to lie to Ursula but absolutely necessary because the mad, galloping idea in her mind was that they would go to Darrowswick and she had to understand how she had dared to think of such a thing.

What struck me, she told herself, was that everyone had someone to go to who loves them and I hadn’t. But I have. Nathaniel Wilson loves me. I know he does. I know he would be glad to see me. And I to see him. Only I can’t because I can never see him unless I tell him the truth. Do I tell him? Tell him that I am the fat boy who burned the rick for which his Daniel died. Has the moment come? Is that the place to which I am being driven?

Then, she thought,
this
calamity is not of my doing. Many evil things have happened where I am the source but this is not one of them. Unless it’s a punishment. But who is punishing me if there is no God? Is it something within me? My cloud? Maybe I can never be free of it but perhaps this calamity has come to make me try. And then there is the overriding thought that Nat cannot write to me if he knows not where I am. So
I
must go to
him
. From our first stopping place I will write to him that I am coming. She was tense now with excitement.

“Look here, young mistress,” cried Tom.

Her eyes flew open and she realised their cart was coming to a halt on the brow of a hill because ahead was not a small troop of soldiers but a whole army moving north, horsemen, gun-carriages, ammunition wagons, and lines of infantry winding through the valley below.

Tom turned round to say, “That’s his carriage. I see the coat of arms. And that must be his lordship himself on his horse. Eh, that I should live to see this!”

“Who?” said Bel, shading her eyes from the low sun.

“Why, the Marquis of Newcastle. He’s taking his forces to relieve the town. Will I not turn back when they’ve passed and follow them?”

“No, we are going on. If he is going north there cannot be any fighting with Parliament troops to keep him here. We are heading for Yorkshire.”

Tom shook his head from side to side. Taking orders from a chit of a lass, he seemed to be thinking, was an unwise proceeding.

“You’ve been planning, Bel,” Ursula said, “not sleeping. What are we going to do in Yorkshire? Were you thinking any of your old teachers would take us in? The Mistress went home to Lincolnshire, Madame Bouchon went back to France ...”

Bel shook her head. “No, but I do wonder what became of Cranmore House? It might be a roof to shelter us if we have nowhere to sleep. It was near Easingwold.”

Ursula nodded. “That was where we walked to the Parish Church, about three miles. It took the girls all but an hour. I couldn’t stay to see what happened to the old nunnery. I had to get to my Bel, but I know they left the chapel ablaze, said it must be purified by fire. I expect the dormitories are billets for the Parliament men now.”

“We have to eat, Urs. If we found an abandoned house I could take pupils. Would anyone still want their children taught or have the means to pay for it?”