Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (40 page)

“Eh, Bel, I think you dream. There will still be rich folk but they would want an elegant school all fitted out and many teachers.”

“You could teach cookery and needlework.”

Ursula laughed then, her cackle drawing stares from the passing infantry. “No fine folk would let me near their children. Besides I do plain stitching not lacework and embroidery. No, my Bel, I will get the lowest tasks and you may find a school that would take you in to teach the youngest ones, but we don’t have to go a great long way to Yorkshire to do it.”

“That’s where we are going.” Having made up her mind Bel wanted to be there – now. The intervening miles at the slow pace of Tom’s driving or Juniper’s walking made her want to jump down and run.I am going to answer to Nat Wilson, to him and no one else. Oh to have him sitting beside me now so I could pour out the whole tale to him. “Will Juniper go no faster, Tom?” she called out.

They were three nights on the way, the last spent in a stable loft with Juniper snuffling below. Many inns were full with homeless people. There were tales of houses seized or burnt to the ground, farms where not a beast was left as unpaid soldiers foraged for the next meal. Bel was almost ashamed that they were still alive and that her home might be there for her to return to one day.

On the third morning they all rose with straw in their hair and stuck about their clothes. Tom moaned that his old bones ached and he never wanted to wake up again.

“I will drive,” Bel said. “You must rest.” She gave the innkeeper a brooch. “It is worth more than we owe you for our food and stabling for the horse but I have no money to spare.”

“No one will buy this trinket off me.”

“They will after the war.”

“Ay, and when will that be? Folks expect food and drink today.”

Ursula turned back her bonnet and gave him a quizzical look.

“Aw, get ye out o’ here wi yon hag,” he shouted, grabbing the brooch.

Once more they were on the way. This time Bel reckoned they were not more than ten miles from Easingwold. The discomforts of the journey, the horrid nights in unchanged clothes, the anxiety when they were stopped and questioned, had all served to lower her initial excitement at her great decision, but now it was back. It worried her that she had not after all been able to write and say they were coming. Her writing materials were all bound up in her bundle and there had been no space at night to open it up. The second night she and Ursula shared a bed with two orphaned children and she was afraid their nimble fingers would delve into her treasures before she could stop them. A carrier had called briefly for a pint of ale but would not wait for her to unpack and write a note. Now it was not worth writing as they could be there soon.

There! She tried to picture Darrowswick. Nat had written that it straggled along a lane, no duck-pond or village green, the lane ending in a short climb to the church. The parsonage was just over the crest, down to the right of the church but with country views from all the upper windows. Would he be there? How could she possibly explain herself to his parents?

She didn’t regret her impetuous decision but its madness grew with every step of the reluctant Juniper.

They reached Easingwold at dinner time and Bel said they must stop and refresh themselves and if possible change their clothes.

“We are refugees from the Scots,” she explained at the small inn.

The innkeeper’s wife, hearing Bel speak in an educated voice, though looking and smelling like a tramp, said she could put a room at her disposal for a few hours. Ursula’s cap was limp and grubby but she kept her face hidden and the woman accepted her as Bel’s lady’s maid with hardly a glance.Tom was allowed to go to the inn kitchen for a bite when Juniper had been fed and watered. So when Bel was alone with Ursula in a small, fairly clean back room with their bundles from the cart carried in by a serving-man and a bowl of water brought in she heaved a sigh of relief.

“Oh Urs, quick now, let us get as clean and respectable as we can.”

“But, my Bel, who are we to impress? We passed the turning that would have taken us to Cranmore House. I thought you wanted to take a look at it.”

“The people we are going to visit may know who has it now.”

“Come now, what people are these?”

“Oh Urs, I know I have been hasty and I can’t think where this will lead but I had to come here. They are not expecting us. They may not be at home, but it is a parsonage two miles away. Someone, I hope, is there who knows of my existence.” As she spoke she was undoing her bundle and shaking out a clean gown and petticoat, corset, chemise and stockings.

“A someone who has been writing you letters?”

Bel looked up to see Ursula’s eyes very bright and the fan of smiling lines at the corners deeply etched. She could only gaze back at them and nod her head.

“Then I think, my pretty one, that if it is only two miles on a quiet country lane, you might wish to go alone. I can stay and wash our clothes if the wife makes no objection. If she does, I will offer to wash anything in the inn she wants doing.”

“Oh, Urs, you might get stained sheets and ...”

Ursula held up her hand. “Do you wish to go alone?”

Bel paused in her undressing. She had met Nat alone once. If she did manage to speak of her great sin, perhaps she would be able to tell Ursula too, but the speaking with Nat Wilson must be face to face alone first. The thought of a two mile solitary walk was suddenly bliss after the cramped days and suffocating nights. She could try somehow to control her wild emotions, prepare herself for a fearful ordeal.

“Yes, Ursula. I’ll go alone. You and Tom stay here.”

“Tell me the name of the place, so we may seek you if you don’t return.”

“Darrowswick.”

Ursula tried to repeat it but it was more than she could manage coherently.

Bel wrote it down.

“I will be praying, my Bel, till I see you again.”

Bel nodded. She was now so intent on her mission that she could not speak. She brushed the dust of the road from her hair, washed and dressed and silently handed her pouch to Ursula. Five minutes later she was walking out of Easingwold market square on the road which the innkeeper’s wife had pointed out to her.

CHAPTER 20

The day was cold and there were the remains of the great snow on the fields for most of England had suffered from it. Bel was wearing her clogs and picking her way round puddles so she kept her clean stockings dry. Concentrating on this and the pleasure of motion held at bay her dread of the moment of arrival. She noted the colour of the dead grass emerging from the snow by the side of the lane. She saw an old nest in the hedgerow. She saw that the sky was a pure winter blue and that the shadow of a tree on the snow was another blue, so different. And then she saw some low cottages up ahead and the lane straggling between them and winding up a hill to a squat church with a tower and just to the right behind it she could see the chimney pots of a house. It was all real.

She stood still and stared. What am I doing? Why have I come here? How can I possibly do this thing? But it had to be. There was no going back. If it wrecks my life what is my life? There has to be a climax or a turning point or a great earthquake. I set myself to face it and the moment has come.

She broke into a run, almost scampering through the village. A man mending a field gate, shouted after her, “There’s no one after thee.” She didn’t even look at him.

The start of the hill slowed her and she thought, I mustn’t come panting and dishevelled. Now it was not dread she felt but a bursting longing to look on that young man again, just to see his eyes light up as they had when he found her waiting for him in the church. I can savour that but not for long. I have to tell him quickly, for I’ll be a living lie until it’s told.

She stopped and looked at the church. The door was shut but the two steps to it had been swept and also the path she now saw diverging to the right down to the house. Her heart was thumping as she started down it and then she saw that sitting in the front window was a woman with flowing grey hair streaked with red and an eagle face, all points, devouring her with fearsome eyes. It must be his mother.

She smiled at the face but there was no change in expression. The house had bow windows so the eyes followed her as she approached and when she stood at the front door. Not knowing whether the woman could move or whether the servant Jenny was in the house Bel lifted the knocker. Before she could let it fall the woman got up with a brusque gesture and presently the door was opened.

She was tall and as angular in body as she was in face. “What do you want? Who are you?” The voice was harsh.

“I have come to see Nathaniel Wilson.” Bel said it with little hope now. Nat was not here, that seemed plain enough.

“He knows no young women,” his mother snapped and seemed about to shut the door.

“He will know
me
.”

“Why? What’s your name?”

“Bel Horden.”

“Horden!” The eyes became flames. “Horden!” A skinny arm shot out and pulled Bel inside. “Are they not all dead, the Hordens?”

“Not this one.” She was being hustled into the room where the woman had been sitting. It was a shabby but comfortable parlour.

She was dragged towards the lowest window pane at the far right corner. “He thinks I have forgiven them but see. I cursed them and they are dead.”

Bel read, roughly scratched, “Death to the Hordens.” She felt a strange trembling deep inside at seeing the name here so far from home. Is this woman a witch? Did
she
kill Robert and Father? Had I nothing to do with their deaths? Oh why have I come and where is Nat?

“Where is Nat?” she said aloud.

“Nat? You call him Nat? And you say you are a Horden. Why have you come here? Did you know Robert Horden and Sir John?”

“My brother and father.”

“Ah! You have come for vengeance because I cursed them.”

“No, oh, no.” Bel pulled her arm from her grasp. “Pray, Mistress Wilson, believe me, it is just the opposite.” She had no idea if it was possible to get through to this woman. Nat had said his mother was better in her mind than she had been but the visit of a stranger who claimed knowledge of her son and then revealed she was part of a hated family seemed to have deranged her again. “I came to make confession. I was the most to blame for Daniel’s death.” There! She had blurted it out. It was to have been revealed secretly to Nat alone, but the words were spoken.

“You? How is that possible?”

“Look, may we not sit down quietly and talk of this. I hoped to tell Nat ...” For the first time she saw a fierce-looking meat knife lying on a small table next to the chair the old lady had been sitting in. Her eyes too followed Bel’s.

“Ah yes, when the men are out and I am alone I keep a weapon by me. These days there are bands of robbers roaming the country. But maybe I was meant to have it handy.” She picked it up. “The Lord knew vengeance was stalking me in the guise of a young woman.”

“No, truly.” Hope and joy were restored. Nat was only out, presumably with his father. I can keep her talking perhaps till they come back. She has forgotten already that I said I came to confess. I don’t want to tell the tale now and have her tell Nat but if I can just make her understand ... Bel gestured to the chair and moved towards the sofa herself. “We can talk. I meant no harm in coming here.”

The woman leapt towards her brandishing the knife. “No Horden sits down in my house. You named my Daniel. What did you say of his death?”

Bel felt a tremor of real physical fear. How young I was and brazen when I was faced with an axe! This woman is mad and could use the knife. A torrent of thoughts rushed through her mind. Is she an instrument of God’s justice? Have I not always wanted to be punished? I should let her do it but I want to see Nat first. Oh. how I long to see him!

“I am so sorry,” she began, spreading out her arms to show she would offer no resistance. “I am the Horden who is the most guilty of Daniel’s death.”

The woman lifted the knife and Bel dropped to her knees. As she did so she saw under the raised arm two figures descending the path outside. Oh joy, it is Nat and his father. The mother sensed what she had seen. She swung round, the knife still waving aloft. The men burst into a run and were through the still open front door and into the room before either woman moved.

“Bel!” shouted Nat. “Mother! What are you doing?”

She was still holding the knife. “She says she killed Daniel.”

“No, no, no. Give me that.” The father grabbed her arms from behind and the knife fell to the floor.

Bel, crouched at their feet, broke into sobs. “It’s true. I could have saved him. I fired the stack. I was the fat boy. Oh Nat, let her kill me and then it’s done with.”

They lifted her up. She was shaking. It was all wrong. The quiet talk to him alone, the heartfelt sorrow, the purging of guilt was now impossible. As always she had spoilt everything by her impetuosity. Nat had kicked the knife under the sofa and was holding her. His father was soothing his wife and sitting her back in her chair, speaking calm words. But Bel was in Nat’s arms and nothing had ever been more wonderful.