Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (8 page)

“A century ago,” her father was saying, not for the first time, “the lord and lady of the manner were expected to dine in the Great Hall with their retinue before them. We live in more private times but I expect the same dignity of bearing at our family meals that would have been exercised then as an example to the lower orders.”

Bel used to grin at this when Robert and Henrietta were younger and prone to snap at each other over trifles. Of late she had been the butt of them both whenever she opened her mouth, but neither Father nor Mother rebuked them. Mother would flourish her fan to ward off the argument with a sigh while Father warned Bel that she should listen to others until she was old enough to have opinions worth hearing. Now however she determined to keep total silence at family meals, having little appetite and only longing for them to be over.

Henrietta, a dark beauty and a younger version of their mother, upbraided her for “sulking.”

Robert remarked, “But how pleasant silence is from that quarter,” and then took no more notice of her.

She listened perfunctorily to talk between Robert and his father of the Scottish occupation. Already the storerooms in the cellar had been investigated and several cartloads of provisions taken away and no payment made as far as she knew.

“You will need to enrol again in the King’s forces to earn your bread,” she heard her father admonish Robert one day as they left the table.

“And when did the King last pay his army?” Robert countered and her father seemed to have no answer to that.

Nevertheless, though the Scots were increasingly unpopular and there was consternation at the news that Edinburgh Castle had fallen to the Covenanters, crowds were still apparently flocking to the Presbyterian preachers and Bel was commanded the next Sunday to put on a sober good dress and accompany her father to Newcastle to hear a sermon, after they had been to the village church for communion.

Robert said he would take Mass in their own little chapel as their mother and Henrietta were expecting Father Patrick to come.

When his father objected Robert said, “Sir, when you were married you allowed our Mother to make a vow to her priest that she would bring up her children in the old faith. You let it lapse with that little heathen,” pointing to Bel, “but I ought to make a show of it now and again.”

Bel knew he would almost certainly disappear into the woods and shoot rabbits but their father let it pass.

She went in the trap driven by Tom, and Mary, the housemaid, came since Nurse said she was too old to be bounced around for four miles. Her father preferred to ride beside them so conversation was difficult for which Bel was thankful.

When they reached the town they found it patrolled by Scots forces but otherwise at peace with a good proportion of the populace walking soberly to church. Leaving the groom on the quayside to mind the horses and telling Mary to follow, her father took her hand and they climbed the steps to the church.

Emboldened by this mark of kindliness Bel looked up at him and asked, “Why did you promise Mother that we would be brought up Catholics?”

Sir John frowned her into silence, shaking his head and looking about to see if anyone had heard her. As they walked into the building he hissed at her, “I have told you to curb your questions. You are always asking questions.”

She thought, how do I learn if I don’t ask questions but she said nothing, awestruck by the height of the church, its vaulted roof and stone pillars marching ahead of them. This was much grander than their squat Saxon village church where the only splendour was in the Horden family pew with its painted crest and tall sides. She was so bewildered by the vast space and the numbers of people that she didn’t at first realise that the preacher was already in the pulpit and beginning to harangue the congregation in a penetrating voice.

He spoke of sheep and goats and wise and foolish virgins and Bel could work out that his theme was entry into the kingdom of heaven which was obviously denied to Papists. But as he went on this seemed to grow more difficult for everyone, till she began to fear there would be no one in heaven at all when she got there. Was the hanged man there now, she wondered. He had been caught in the act of theft, so it seemed unlikely. Was there really a purgatory, as her mother believed? And would the poor wretch be able to convince God he was so hungry he couldn’t help it? Though she sat perfectly still with her hands clenched in her lap she was seeing the awful eye looking down at her. Suddenly her ears caught the next sentence.

“And ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

I am a murderer. I killed that man as surely as if I had gone out and shot him. I didn’t
know
but what excuse is that? I have always been bad and rebellious as Father says and that’s why I was out that evening. If I hadn’t been I wouldn’t have thrown the burning stick down and the haystack wouldn’t have caught fire and no one would have bothered about the hen that got away and the poor simpleton would have gone home to his family. So I am a murderer and I can never go to heaven.

She continued to sit absolutely still as this dreadful truth sank into her soul. She didn’t hear any more of the sermon. Her father looked at her once or twice as if astonished at her stillness and because he looked she felt tears brimming into her eyes. She had no one she could ever tell. Her eyes were shut against the tears, but one forced its way out and then another. She daren’t draw attention to them by trying to wipe them away. She felt one roll down her cheek. When another chased it, it could no longer tremble on her chin. Both fell together onto her sleeve.

Her father had seen. He rose and eased her and Mary along so that they slipped out at the side and headed for the door. She was just aware that other people had come and gone during the long sermon. She needn’t be too ashamed.

When they were outside her father said, “I am glad you were moved, Arabella. Perhaps you will try very hard from now on to be a good, obedient child. The sermon was long enough already and the horses are waiting.”

They descended the steps from the church to the quayside The river moved steadily by, a brown stinking mass of water. The ships were silently tied up for the Sunday. Tom stood there seeming mesmerised by the sight till he became aware of their presence. Then he jumped to attention, helped Bel up and Mary after her and led her father’s horse to a mounting block next to the wall. In two minutes they were on their way.

If I can never go to heaven, Bel told herself, why do I need to be good? The logic was fearful but inescapable.

Nathaniel Wilson had been seeing for the last two miles the square tower of his father’s church above the village of Darrowswick among the autumn trees. He made his legs move on though the pit of his stomach felt locked in ice. The day was without wind and balmy. Under the window of the first cottage in the village an old lady he knew well was sitting on her bench in the sunshine. There was no way to avoid her.

She held up her hands in an attitude of prayer and called out as he drew near, “Nay, tell me not you have lost your brother.” He could only nod. “Eh, the years I have sat here and watched those two fair heads come over the moor when you and he went walking and today I saw only the one. The sun picks you out miles away against the heather. My heart went down into my boots. Which one, I thought and then I made out it was not Daniel with his big loping stride. If one had to go it was well t’was he for he’d not have survived losing you, Nat.”

Nat leant on her little gate. “But how am I to tell my mother?”

“They’ll be in the church. I heard the bell but my legs is so bad I cannot walk as far now. If you slip in at the back your father will see you. He’ll finish the service, if I know Parson Wilson, and what can your mother do before the whole village?”

Nat noticed that on the bench beside her was a bowl with apple peelings, half hidden by a kerchief she had thrown over it. She saw him looking at it.

“You won’t tell I’ve been at these on a Sunday. The wee lad next door brought me a basket of bilberries and I need the apple peels to make the jam set. Parson won’t mind but your mother’s strict on such things.”

“She’s not going to mind anything when she hears my news.”

“Nay, that’s true. Was it a Scots musket bullet took the poor lad?”

Nathaniel just shook his head. How he was ever going to bring out the truth to all and sundry he had no idea. If he could only lie ... but that he couldn’t do when he looked into his father’s eyes. For now he could only say, “Thank you for your advice, Granny Woodman. I think I will just creep into the church.”

He had drunk the last of his water hours before and was dry from thirst and the dread of this moment but he wouldn’t stop at the village pump. He replaced his hat that he had been carrying to dry the sweat on his forehead and touched the brim to the old woman and walked on. No one else was about. They were all in the church and to go there now might at least prevent a myriad of different rumours from spreading. The path up to the church was steep in places and he could understand Granny Woodman not being able to struggle there. Shivering with dread as he was he broke into a fresh perspiration as he climbed with the September sun hot on his back.

The sight of the gravestones reminded him of Daniel’s physical body. Why had he not lingered to demand it back and bring it somehow by a cart all this way he had travelled? The village would never understand that. He pushed open the heavy door. It creaked as it always had and the backs of heads became faces, breaking into welcoming smiles and looking, he could tell, for the lumbering figure of Daniel to follow him in. When it didn’t and he pushed the door shut behind him the smiles faded to anxious frowns.

He laid his finger to his lips and perched on the rearmost bench. His father, he could see, was before the altar with his back to the congregation in the act of blessing the sacrament. If he had heard the door he was too engrossed to look round. He was vested which meant that someone, perhaps the Squire, had procured him some fresh robes to replace those the soldiery had torn up and burnt. They had wanted to drag the altar down to the crossing but finding it a stone block they had contented themselves with smashing the candlesticks. .

Nat’s stomach tightened when he saw his mother in their box pew, her red hair partly hidden by the loose black hood she always draped over it for church. As he looked someone nudged her from behind and pointed but she appeared to brush them aside and keep her eyes forward for the most solemn moment of the service.

Now his father was turning to exhort the congregation to draw near and partake. Nat remembered with relief that he himself could not go forward. He had not been here for the confession and was not absolved. But had his father seen him? He kept seated as the people rose. Would someone tell him? His father took the service with such solemnity that perhaps they would be restrained. Nat watched him as he passed along the first row. He could see the bald pate as he bent over each communicant and the spiritual joy on his sweet round face as he lifted his head, a sunbeam falling on it from one of the windows on the southern wall. Dear father. How good to see him again despite the horrible news he had to impart!

And then a shriek pierced the reverent silence. His mother had risen from her knees and turning had seen him before she descended the steps.The people waiting to go up parted to let her through. She came like a black whirlwind down the church and faced him, her eyes darting this way and that.

“Daniel? Where is Daniel?”

He held up both hands as if to ward her off, shaking his head, speechless. He could see that she had lost all awareness of her surroundings but he could hear his father’s voice still murmuring the words of communion to the remaining people and those who had returned to their places were too overawed by their minister’s steadfastness to stare at him and his mother. He must get her outside. He turned and pointing towards the stone porch he compelled her to follow, the heavy door creaking again as he dragged it open.

She was upon him then practically pushing him while her lips gabbled, “Tell me, tell me. He is ill? He is dead? Take me to him.”

He couldn’t help the door thudding behind them. Her eyes now scoured the paving outside, the churchyard, the path to the parsonage and the slope to the village. The emptiness left her with her mouth open and her ferocious eyes staring back into Nat’s face.

“Daniel? Where is Daniel?” She gripped him by the arms, her nails digging into his flesh through his sleeves.

“Oh Mother, Daniel has gone.”

“Dead?” she screamed.

He nodded again and she thrust him from her with such force that he staggered back against the church wall.

“It was your task to protect him,” she yelled. “What have you done with him?” She was looking about again. “Have you taken him to the house? Take me to him.”

Now he could hear the congregation repeating the Gloria. Soon they would be pouring out. His father would appear. It was cruel to leave him in the dark for even ten minutes but it was urgent to remove his mother from curious eyes.

“Come home,” he muttered to her and she started off at speed, taking the worn steps that led down to the parsonage path in great leaps, her skirts held up above her shoes. He caught her before she reached the door. The house, built for a married parson in the days of Queen Elizabeth, stood squarely across the hillside. Nat was stabbed by memories of Dan and himself rolling down the grass beyond the vegetable garden.