Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (42 page)

She flung her arms round her. “Oh my Urs, you are the first to know. I saw him once before and he has written to me the most marvellous letters.”

“Ah yes, the letters.”

“But I couldn’t tell you then. I didn’t know. I had to tell him things first. You shall hear everything. Oh, absolutely everything.”

Nat held out his hand to Ursula. “Bel tells me you are her very, very special friend. I hope you will be mine too.”

“Of course I will.” Ursula’s twinkling eyes were alive with joy now. “And I can tell you something, my Bel. Your cloud has gone.”

“Oh, it has, it has. There will always be a sad thing, but it will not overshadow me as it did.”

“Well, what are we to tell the wife here? Do we keep this room tonight? It has no beds but we can sleep on the bedding we brought. She has already asked Tom if he can work here. The young men enlisted. There is a room above her stables for him.”

“But you should all come to the vicarage,” Nat said.

“A Horden sleep there?” Bel cried. “Not yet. Think of your poor mother. Will you tell them we are betrothed?”

He smiled. “I think that too is a not yet. If Ursula will also make it her secret I think it would be wise.” He was trying hard not to look at the clothes line and Bel wanted to laugh aloud. “I had better go,” he said. “But I hate to think of your discomfort ...”

“Nay, we were worse on the journey,” Ursula laughed

Bel saw him off at the inn door and coming back inside, drew Ursula to her and they curled up on the bedcovers and talked the rest of the evening.

The winter day had closed in as Nat walked back and the chill darkness checked the exuberance of the last few hours. Without Bel’s bubbling warmth and excitement he dropped into a pit of doubt and gloom. What had he done? He had committed himself to a penniless girl whose wildness reminded him chillingly of the marriage of his father and mother. I am like my father, quiet, cautious, not very adventurous and Bel is swift, impulsive, passionate. Their love was strong at first but mother tired of father’s preference for a peaceful life. Can I ever match Bel’s vitality? I do love her, I want her body as I have never wanted a woman before and I am overwhelmed by her rich, wonderful personality. But is this the dutiful, steadfast clergy wife my father always urged me to seek?

The question brought sharply back to him the disappointment he had felt earlier that day. They had been to see Sir Bertram Lauder about a living which was in his patronage and been told that everything had changed. A Presbyterian minister had been sent who had signed the Covenant for the abolition of Bishops and the changes to the Book of Common Prayer which Nat himself felt quite unable to do. His vision of a quiet country parish was fading. Was there any chance of a teaching position in a school or would that too be hedged about with requirements and conditions? Bel would certainly support him in that, but her enthusiasm would either bring success or provoke opposition.

As he walked, guided a little by the streaks of snow under the hedgerows and his long familiarity with the way, he marvelled at the speed with which events had overtaken him and emotions overridden his judgement. I cannot go back now, he thought, and my heart won’t let me. I told Bel I would not tell my parents ... but, Father? I have never kept things from him. He knew of my letter-writing and the yearning I felt to see my Spring-maiden again. He is so full of love himself. He will accept her joyfully, though he will wonder at the speed of developments. But Mother? Her son marrying a Horden! Bel called herself my brother’s killer, though I think her sense of guilt is now dissipated – her cloud – but I fear it will be more than my mother could ever stomach.

He was about halfway home when he heard a shout behind him and looking round saw a woman carrying a lantern hurrying after him. It was their servant Jenny returning from her visit to her sister at one of the neighbouring farms.

“I thought it was you,” she cried. “I had not meant to stay till after dark but she kept begging me not to leave her. She has had three orphans thrust upon her by the parish today and I was to tell them a story or they would not go to bed.”

“She has menfolk there. She is not alone. Mother will scold you for staying late.”

“I know she will, but the men were all out checking every gate and barn door. There are that many thieves and looters about.”

“And why does she have to take three orphans when she is ill herself?”

“There are so many now within the parish that they have nowhere to house them and they are being put about anywhere that has room. They are to work, however young, and the parish allows a few pence each a week out of the poor rate for their feeding.”

“I will tell my father. I don’t think he has heard of this.” Nat was already thinking; the care of orphans! Is that not a good work to which I could devote myself? I would need premises. Would the Parish pay me for the work? Would Sir Bertram lend me money, to make a start?

This, when he reached home with Jenny, was the first subject of conversation. His father was weary of his mother’s questions about Nat and Bel. Why had he written letters to a Horden? How long had they known each other? What did it all mean? She had now fallen asleep in her chair and his father was happy to discuss Nat’s idea. Cranmore House was mentioned and Nat resolved to go there next day and find out its condition and how it was being used.

Of course he called first at the inn in Easingwold. Bel and Ursula had been up early after a draughty night on the floor of the small back room. When he told them where he was going they were eager to accompany him and if Tom could not be spared from the inn they would take the horse and cart themselves.

Bel had been writing a letter to her mother by the light of the one candle the inn wife had supplied her and she arranged to send it by the carrier before they set off. “I have not told her about you yet but she has to know where I am and what has happened to our home. I have warned her not to plead for us to Parliament. As a Catholic she would do more harm than good. She can write back to this inn while we are in the neighbourhood.”

Nat was impressed with her grasp of affairs. In the cheerful brightness of the newly risen sun he was full of eager hope. For all her bad night Bel looked radiant and Ursula, evidently fully appraised of the situation, was a bubbly fountain of joy.

Less than an hour later they were standing in the kitchen of Cranmore House where Ursula had spent many years tending the ovens and helping to cook for a school full of children. “Why, nothing has changed in three years,” she cried, “except for the dirt.”

Showing them round was the landowner, Edward Manners, a short, stout man who had bought the place after its closure as a school. He had rented it to a farmer who had brought his family to live in a small part of it and use some of the rest for storage and livestock but he couldn’t keep up the payment when his cattle had been taken by the King’s forces. He had returned to his poor farmhouse to eke out a living as best he could and the place was now empty. This told Nat that Edward Manners was a hard man. He had heard of him as having made a fortune through the wool trade and he whispered this to Bel as they walked about.

“A place for orphans?” Manners said. “I never heard of such a thing. There’s no money in that. If the parish pay for the children’s keep, where is the profit?”

“Profit, sir?” cried Bel. “You are too noble to seek such a thing. The place will be called The Edward Manners School and your goodness will go down in history. I am a baronet’s daughter, robbed of my inheritance, but I am prepared to roll up my sleeves and sweep the straw and dung from the dormitories for the sake of orphans who like me have had homes and families taken from them by war. I think no shame in that, and I know you too will be proud to have your buildings put to worthy use.”

Mr Manners’ plump cheeks reddened and he threw out his stubby arms in an expansive gesture. “Indeed I am happy to see a good work here at – shall we say – a kindly rent but who is to pay for the furnishings, a warden and all the servants to run such a place, the upkeep, the coals, the laundry. The expense is endless.”

Nat intervened. “I have a good friend in Sir Bertram Lauder who has offered to invest money in any enterprise I undertake.” He looked at Bel. “Perhaps it should be the Bertram Lauder School.” He was learning fast.

“I wager my bank balance is bigger than Sir Bertram’s, for all he claims a baronetcy. I could have bought one if they were still offering them for money, but I am a modest man. What would you need to make a start? Of course I want a sober married couple to take charge.”

“We will be married soon and we are certainly sober,” said Bel. “What is more we are young and energetic and possess as you see a horse and cart which will be most useful in removing the good manure for you to spread on your fields round about. How much then can you let us have? Five hundred pounds?”

He gasped, then drew a breath and said quickly, “At eight per cent.”

“Six,” said Bel.

Nat stared at her in amazement. With her strong square jaw she looked twenty-seven not seventeen. He had indeed found himself an amazing woman. With a work like this to do, he told himself, Bel will never weary. Such a work would have absorbed my poor mother’s soaring spirit too and I believe Mother will accept her when she knows her well. She may even learn to love her. What a joy that would be if love could bury vengeance for ever!

“Six!” said Mr Manners. “You will pauper me. We will go to my lawyer and get it drawn up. The Edward Manners School. I will have a signboard made.”

CHAPTER 21

January 1644 – October 1647

Anne Wilson put Bel through a long inquisition before she could endure the idea of her son’s marriage to a Horden. She wanted not only all her history but finally whether she was a faithful member of the Church of England. Nat who was present feared Bel’s honesty would jeopardise the outcome but she said simply, “I have attended our parish church since infancy, but I tell you, Mistress Wilson, that when you said I was an innocent child a cloud vanished and for the first time in my life I knew for sure God was up there.”

There was a tense silence. “With that word,” said Ann Wilson, “you have given me a reason to go on living. You may marry them, Joseph. I am satisfied.”

After the wedding, attended by the villagers who had witnessed their very public courtship, Bel and Ursula moved into the parsonage. Much work was needed on the old nunnery buildings but as the Parish approved of the project, vagrants and the unemployed were sent to clean the place and whitewash the walls. Nat and Bel visited the homes of the wealthy and begged old furniture which the motley crew repaired and restored. Help was also enlisted from any orphan over ten years of age who hoped to come to The Edward Manners School.

The expensively wrought signboard was the first complete item to appear and Mr Manners himself came frequently to see how his five hundred pounds was being spent. The years of thrift that Bel had practised at Horden Hall made her wary of buying anything new. She kept accounts of every penny and against his inclination he had to be impressed.

“We will open in April,” he declared, “and I will invite all the local dignitaries and send the children among them with begging bowls.”

Despite the fighting raging up and down the country, the school opened and Ursula crowed happily that it was just like old times cooking for ravenous young appetites.

In July the war came the closest it had been when a battle was fought at Marston Moor. As news filtered in that the King’s army had been defeated, Bel could only moan to Nat, “How many more orphans on both sides?” By this time she knew she would be adding one more infant to their numbers but she refused to rest.

In October shortly before the birth of Daniel John Wilson, Newcastle was assaulted and taken by the Scots army.

“Are you not glad,” Bel said to Ursula “that I wouldn’t stay there?”

It seemed miraculous that the conflict was passing them by until they heard that Parliament, having expelled all members who refused to sign the Covenant, was widening the requirement to lawyers, doctors, parsons, schoolmasters, anyone in fact of note and influence in the community.

“I cannot vote for the extirpation of prelacy in the Church of England,” cried Joseph Wilson. “Let those who wish for change have it but why should we be trampled on and kept from our established ways? Anne, we will be turned out of our home. Can you bear that?”

“We have borne worse, Joseph. Bel can bring her cart and we will take our marriage bed to Cranmore House. There are still spare rooms there. We will work for our bread and board. Bel needs our help.”

“Anne, you are a marvel. You are the strong pillar in our old age.”

“I always wanted change and adventure and when I was young there was none to be had. Now it is to be thrust upon us.”

The removal took place and Bel found her mother-in-law had a wonderful way with the younger children. This was a great joy.

“But will not Nat be barred?” Parson Wilson asked her.

“He has not received the demand yet and we are hoping they will pass us by. Our dear landlord has signed. He will always follow the power in the land. If the King wins he will become a staunch Royalist again.”

But that summer the King was defeated at Naseby and his cause was lost. It was still a year before he gave himself into the hands of the Scots and baby Daniel was toddling about the corridors of Cranmore House.