Take Courage (30 page)

“My brother Will taught me when I was young and the times forbade him employment, and so will I teach your children, Penninah; that the lamp of learning shall not flicker out in the wind of tribulation, but be shielded in a quiet place till a better day.” He added: “Your Thomas has the makings of a scholar.”

This made me glad, and thenceforward as often as I could I sat with my needle and listened to Thomas's lessons, and rejoiced to hear him prove himself of a clear quick mind, and open to all lofty and generous sentiments. Thomas indeed was a comfort to me, in more ways than this, during that sad winter. His gracious sensitive spirit felt my hidden distress, though he did not understand it, and often he came up to me unexpectedly and threw his arms round my neck and kissed me as though he sorrowed for me.

I needed comfort. I loved David for teaching my sons, but all the same it was a grief to me. Lister crept about the house, sometimes truculent, sometimes mournful, sometimes wailing out to David: “I killed him!” which always made me shudder. John was much away—Sir Thomas, now his work here was done, having removed himself to the east parts of Yorkshire to join his father—and not much my friend, and not at all my husband, when he came home. In any case he had no time for me, being always busy with Parliament accounts and papers. Holroyd Hall was closed and empty, with all the livestock sold, Mr. Ferrand having gone away to join the Earl of Newcastle, which I was very sorry for. Yes, I thought I needed all the comfort I could get that winter, and then, as the winter turned towards our chilly northern spring, which David said was so slow and sparse compared with spring in Cambridge, a blow fell on me which made all other strokes seem light by comparison. One day David was upstairs with Lister, soothing him as usual, and Lister's harsh voice croaking texts rose and rose as usual till it reached his customary climax:

“I killed him, Mester David!”

As usual, I gave a strong shudder; and in that moment I knew for certain what I had guessed before and had tried not to believe: I was with child, and the child's father was Francis.

Before i had gathered my courage to meet this private trouble, we were plunged into a public misfortune.

King Charles's Popish Queen landed on the coast of Yorkshire, at Bridlington, and at once there began to be stirrings of treason in those parts. I could see that John was troubled and uneasy, but as I was not now in his confidence, I did not know whether this came from distress over Sir Thomas, who was ill of the stone, or from some political anxiety. Then suddenly the governor of Hull went over to the Royalists, and all the East Riding by the coast rose to join him. This was a disaster, and some said it would be the end of the Parliament's cause in the north, for Lord Fairfax's men, along the Ouse by Selby, were like to be caught between two fires and totally destroyed, unless he surrendered.

“Surrender!” exclaimed John when he heard this. “Black Tom will not let him surrender.”

Doubtless he was right, for Lord Fairfax did not surrender, but decided to retreat towards us in the West, where the people were always faithful to him. All the way from Tadcaster to Leeds, Sir Thomas had to fight a rearguard action to protect his father's army, and a terrible time he had of it. Hundreds of his men were taken prisoner, among them Sarah's husband, Denton, while poor Mr. Hodgson of Coley—whom I always liked because of his severity to Lister over refusing quarter—was so sorely wounded, shot in two places and cut in several, that he barely escaped with his life, and lay ill in Leeds for many weeks before he recovered. However, Lord Fairfax got safe to Leeds, covered
by Sir Thomas, whom the people loved more and more, for however difficult a task he was set, without much ado or fine talk—which our Yorkshire folk do not care for—he always somehow managed to get through with it, just when everyone said it was impossible. “He never knows when he's beat,” said Isaac Baume to me once, gazing on Sir Thomas from a distance admiringly, and the Parliament was lucky to have that quality in its general's son, for without it the struggle in Yorkshire would have been lost and done with, long ago.

The Parliament soldiers now therefore lay again all about us, several thousand of them, garrisoned in Leeds and Halifax and Bradford, and Sir Thomas and his officers were in and out of The Breck, as before. A thing that pleased me was that Sir Thomas took a great liking for David. He had a rare collection of manuscripts and coins, he said, which he wished David to see, and the two talked for hours together about poetry and history, both very bright-eyed and fluent with pleasure. Sir Thomas's stammer, I noticed, was decreasing; his continual commanding of troops and undertaking of important actions was bringing him to his full flowering, and he seemed more personable, and more like a great general, every time I saw him.

With the Royalists spread again over the centre of the county, there was again a scarcity of food, and I had again great difficulty in providing for all my enforced guests, so that when one day John in the gruff tone he used to me nowadays told me that Lady Fairfax and her little daughter were coming to stay with us, I almost laughed in despair at the impossible task he set me. But I said: “Yes, John,” without a murmur, for at least, I thought, I will do my duty in these matters, I will not fail him about his household even if I have failed him in faith and love. I had not told him that I was with child; I could not decide whether, while telling him, to confess all and thus make his misery certain, or leave him doubtful; and as often as I imagined myself taking either course I felt I had not the courage for it, and left the matter quite alone for the time.

So when he warned me of Lady Fairfax's coming I set to work with a will and cleaned the house from top to bottom, and made our largest spare room ready for her occupation, putting all our best furnishings and linen there, and our best pewter candlesticks, and a coverlet I had embroidered myself, the design of which, of daisies and thrushes on branches, I thought my handsomest. And I put a small bed which Sam had hitherto slept in, ready for little Moll; and I asked David to tell us in what respects our dinners and our manners might be amended, at which he smiled and said we should do well enough as we were, provided we offered the best we were capable of.

While I was busy with preparations I did not give much thought to what kind of a woman Lady Fairfax would prove, but when all was ready I began to experience some anxiety. I had known few women intimately in my life, having lost my mother so early and being provided only with brothers; there were Mrs. Thorpe and Eliza to be sure, but I was certain Lady Fairfax would not resemble them, and there was Mrs. Ferrand, but I knew that Sir Thomas was not over-fond of his wife, and I thought he would have felt an indulgent tenderness for a woman like Mrs. Ferrand. Would she perhaps be cold and stiff and very arrogant? My own pride rose up at the thought.

At last the set day came. When the time of her arrival was some hours overpast, Sam ran in to say a coach was coming up the lane. John and I hastily gathered at the door to welcome her, with Sir Thomas beside us.

The steaming horses drew up by the house, and the manservant sprang down and opened the coach-door and let down the step, and John advanced to hand out his guest, looking, poor John, somewhat anxious. Lady Fairfax took his hand and descended, but was barely out of the coach before, with an “O Tom, what roads, I never saw such roads!” she began a rapid fire of breathless complaints about our lane, in which her coach had had some difficulty. Certainly the lane was soft and sticky with the spring weather, but to listen to her you would have thought the
mud as deep as a lake and the slope a precipice. Not that her complaints were ill-natured or directed against us at The Breck; she simply ran on and on, exaggerating a little more in every sentence to make it exceed the last. Sir Thomas tried to check the volley, presenting first myself and then John to her, and uttering soothing phrases such as: “You are safe here now. All's well that ends well,” and the like; but Lady Fairfax saying without looking at us: “I am glad of your acquaintance,” and smiling rapidly, turned again to her husband and went on with her: But Tom, O Tom, the road, the mud, the hub, O Tom!

This at least gave me time to look at her, which I did very curiously. I saw a plump solid gentlewoman about the same age as myself, of a brown complexion and rather thick about the ankle, wearing a rich dress of brown watered silk, very handsome but not very becoming. She was not a beauty, and had nothing noble in her countenance, but there was an air of breeding in her features—she had a large straight nose, a full mouth, strong brows and heavy eyelids. Her eyes were a bright and changing brown, like one of her bodice buttons, her teeth large and white; her plump chin would be two in a few years' time. Her dun-coloured hair, not very abundant and rather coarse in texture, was drawn back plainly from her high round forehead—which gave her somehow a bald appearance—and then fell each side of her face into her neck, in stiff curls. A necklace of large pearls did justice to her throat, which was full and shapely. Her speech, though rather loud and hoarse, showed breeding too, having that easy assurance which seems natural to persons of high station. All this time she was talking, and the frown was gathering on her husband's forehead; at last he broke in, and said in a tone too stiff to be disregarded:

“Anne, where is Mary?”

You never saw such a change in a woman. She gave her husband a timid and deprecating look, said: “She is not very well to-day, Tom,” and at once fell silent.

And at once I pitied her, for her look told all. She doted
on her husband, who could not bring himself to care a rap for her and was constantly irritated by any proof of her inordinate affection, which she as constantly gave him.

Sir Thomas with a dark look strode to the coach and peering within carefully lifted out a bundle in a shawl, and came to me and laid it in my arms.

“This is my Moll,” he said.

I drew back the shawl.

“Oh, the poor little thing!” I exclaimed involuntarily.

The child was so slight and thin she scarcely seemed to weigh more than a year-old babe; her arms beneath the shawl were as narrow as drum-sticks, and her poor sallow little face was so pinched and drawn, her brown eyes looked as large as saucers. Her dark hair was rough and lustreless, and the skin down the side of her neck all blotched and scaly; moreover, though I hardly dared to think this, such of her little shift as I could see at her neck was truly somewhat dirty. There was a look of Sir Thomas about her all the same, something sweet and noble, and my heart went out to her. I cuddled her to me and kissed her sad little cheek and said:

“We'll soon have you looking better, lovey.”

Then I remembered that her father and mother were beside me, and looked up, startled at my own indiscretion.

I found Sir Thomas and Lady Fairfax with their eyes fixed on me in a kind of yearning look, truly very pathetic.

“She is always ailing,” breathed Lady Fairfax, in quite a different tone from the rattle she had used hitherto. “Isn't she, Tom?”

Sir Thomas frowned and was silent.

I took Lady Fairfax up to the chamber I had prepared for her; as soon as she was out of sight of her husband she grew talkative and inconsequent again, but now I was no longer afraid of her chatter. It seemed to me that this daughter of Lord de Vere and wife of Sir Thomas Fairfax was a woman troubled in her marriage even as I was, though for different reasons, and that we might well have charity each to the other. So I discounted her talk, which
was but froth, and by piecing together the objects of which she spoke, rather than what she said of them, I made shift to understand her true meaning. When she said that the chamber was a fine large one, especially since there was no press in it to take up the space, and Tom liked a large room, I knew she meant that she wished for a cupboard for her clothes but to please her husband would gladly manage without one; and when she said she was sure we should do well together, for she heard from Tom that I was very learned and she herself was very fond of learned women, I knew she meant that she despised all learning but wished she was learned for Sir Thomas's sake, and was a little jealous of me for being so but would gladly acquire the knack of it if I would teach her. A great many bundles were now brought in from the coach, and her maid unpacked them; I could not but be interested in her personal gear, her linens and silks, her gloves and jewels, and she showed me them all, explaining their price and purpose with a good deal of shrewdness. She had a dressing case of which she was especially proud, for it had been given to her by Sir Thomas at the time of their wedding; a very tasteful box it was, about the size of John's writing desk, covered with fine needlework in silk and gimp, in a pattern of white roses amongst their foliage; it had little drawers which pulled in and out, and a mirror, and some cosmetic waters and ointments, and pincushions. I could see that she doted on this almost as much as she did on Sir Thomas, for she constantly pulled it open and busied herself with its contents. She said to me: “I have often heard of your beauty, Mrs. Thorpe,” and before I could reply went on, fidgeting with her ointments: “Sir Thomas likes not cosmetics”—from which I judged that she had sought beauty by artificial means for his sake till he bade her desist, and she would have me know she could be beautiful too but for his prohibition.

All this time poor little Moll sat quiet and still as a frightened mouse, bundled on her cot, her thin legs dangling. I made an excuse and went downstairs and fetched up Thomas's christening mug full of our own milk, warm and
rich, not an hour from the cow, and gave it to her with a piece of oatcake thickly spread with our own butter. How the child ate and drank! It did one good to see her. I made up my mind I would give her a decoction of herbs that very night before she slept, to clear her skin of that scaly itching.