‘We’ll know in the morning,’ said Jamie. ‘Sir, go to bed. You’ll be no help to Rob if you fall ill.’
His father stood. ‘Nor will you, Jamie – and I think whether we thrive here depends far more on you than upon me. Come upstairs.’
‘I’m accustomed to hard commons, sir,’ Jamie said. ‘But I’d be glad of a bed, if there is indeed room for me. Thank you.’
In the morning they set out before dawn. Early as it was, the streets of Doncaster were full of men rushing about, of horses being harnessed and guns secured on caissons. Bands of pikemen loomed out of the pre-dawn grey like trees, musketeers like walking fence-stakes. Even after they left the town they came across one band of men after another, heading south from the villages and farms where they’d been quartered to join up with the regiment for the march. George Hudson watched them pass with troubled eyes. ‘And all these never even came to the siege?’ he asked at one point.
‘Colonel Cholmley wouldn’t have us,’ Jamie replied. ‘Cromwell’s men must take Pontefract now.’
His father drew in his breath at this reminder that all the armed men they’d seen had been only one regiment, and the Army had another twenty just as big.‘’Tis a strange world to me,’ he said. ‘I am glad that you know its ways.’
The horses were exhausted after two days hard travel, but the distance they had to go was not great, and they arrived at The White Swan at about ten in the morning. It was, as Captain Drummond had said, promisingly large and comfortable-looking, a half-timbered building with a large stable. Leaving the servant to see to the horses, Jamie and his father hurried in at once.
When the innkeeper gathered who they were he beamed at them, and at once led them up the stairs. ‘I gave him the best room in the house!’ he announced proudly.
It was indeed a good room, with a window and a fireplace. Rob was sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, his shoulder bandaged with clean linen and his arm in a sling. Jenkin Simons was sitting nearby, carving something from a piece of wood. When the door opened both men looked round quickly. Rob’s face lit. ‘Father!’ he cried. ‘Jamie!’
George Hudson burst into tears. He came over to the bed, sat down, and clutched the hand Rob held out to him. ‘My dear boy,’ he whispered, ‘how do you?’
‘Ill, but mending, as you see,’ replied Rob. He looked beyond George to Jamie and said, ‘I am sorry that I could not kill that scoundrel Barker for you. They told me you were wounded because of his lies.’
‘It was but a graze,’ said Jamie. His throat was tight, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to weep, like his father, or howl with joy. ‘I would sooner endure a thousand such than lose you.’
They stayed at The White Swan for twelve days, until Rob was well enough that even George Hudson agreed he’d take no harm from the ride back to Bourne. The bullet had broken his collar-bone, and ended up just under the skin above his right shoulder-blade. The surgeon had been able to remove it easily in one piece, which had helped reduce the infection which inevitably followed. Jenkin had been able to keep Rob warm and clean, and the fever and inflammation were already gone by the time Jamie and George arrived. George was profoundly grateful to the servant, and promised him the freehold on his family’s cottage.
The innkeeper was very glad of their presence. He had suffered from the depredations of the Army – he had a thick stack of the worthless promissory tickets – and paying guests were desperately welcome, but there was more to it than that. The region was in chaos. In disbanding, Cholmley’s regiment had filled the countryside with penniless soldiers; Cromwell’s men were supposed to prevent them from turning to banditry, but had no resources to speed them on their way back to their homes. Men came to the inn two or three times a day, asking for food and frequently making threats as to what they would do if they didn’t get it. The innkeeper gave them crusts and leftovers, but liked to have Jamie or Jenkin standing at his shoulder when he did, Jamie with his sword and Jenkin with Rob’s duelling pistol.
The horses were in constant danger of being stolen. Jamie took to sleeping in the stables, a chain hung with old horse-shoes strung across the doorway; he was woken in the night three times by the sound of the barrier jangling as someone tried to creep in. He jumped up each time, drawing his sword and shouting, but was relieved that the would-be thieves simply ran off. The inn’s ostler was a timid youth with a clubfoot, and none of the other servants were much better.
Then The White Swan started to run out of foodstuffs, as the regular orders of eggs, barley and fresh meat failed to arrive. Jamie and the innkeeper were obliged to go in person to the market at Knottingley – leaving Jenkin and the pistol to guard the inn – and protect their purchases of flour and pease with drawn swords all the way back. They still ran out of meat and eggs, but at least they didn’t go hungry.
At Knottingley Jamie also went to the military authorities to complain about the missing supplies, and get letters exempting the inn from official requisitions. Cromwell himself wasn’t there; he’d been summoned south by Lord General Fairfax. He’d taken only his Life Guard with him, however, leaving the rest of his forces to tighten the sieges of Pontefract and Knottingley, and his staff were now in charge. Cromwell’s men weren’t sure whether Fairfax expected him to rein in the Army, or whether the Lord General had been compelled to issue the summons by an Army Council which expected Cromwell to lead the overthrow of Parliament.
Rob wanted news of Barker, but all they learned was what they knew already: that Barker had been cashiered, fought a duel, and fled. Cromwell’s men were much better informed when it came to the news from London: Jamie heard about the Army Council’s vote to occupy the capital only three days after it was taken. He wondered how Lucy was coping. He thought of her constantly, worrying what she’d think of his continued absence, after all his promises to come at once. He had written to her with the good news of Rob’s recovery, but he did not expect to hear anything back.
On the seventh of December, George Hudson conceded that Rob was well enough to start for home. The keeper of The White Swan was sorry to see them go, but no longer desperate to keep them. Cholmley’s men had dispersed, and the disruption in the countryside was easing. He sent them on their way with blessings, and loud prayers that God would give them fair weather.
The weather was tolerable; it was cold, overcast and windy, but mostly dry, and when it did rain or snow they were able to find shelter. They journeyed in easy stages, so as to give Rob plenty of rest, never going more than fifteen miles a day.
Jamie had been perfectly content to stay with his father and brother while he felt he was needed, but as they rode south into areas clear of the worst of the war’s disruption he became increasingly impatient. Lucy was expecting him in London. He had a great many things he wanted to say to her – and he couldn’t help remembering that it was nearly a year since she first agreed to marry him.
On the evening of the fourth day of the journey, when they reached Grantham, he suggested that he leave the others and post ahead to London ‘if you’ll lend me the horse, Father, and money for the journey.’
His father was surprised. ‘To London? Oh. Your wife.’ He frowned. ‘Will you not see your brother to his home first?’
‘Sir,’ said Jamie, ‘my brother is recovering well, and you’re but two days from Bourne even at this pace. You’ve no more need of my help, and I promised my wife I would see her in London as soon as I might. I promised it, sir, a month gone!’
George scowled; Rob laughed. ‘You’ve done your work too well, Jamie,’ he said. ‘Now Father wonders how we’ll manage without you.’
Their father flushed, and Jamie, startled, realized that it was true. George Hudson had started to rely on him, and by now depended on him to deal with all the troublesome things – Armies, wounds, discharged soldiers – with which he had no experience himself. He might not like or understand his son’s political views, but that had become almost irrelevant beside the fact that Jamie’s war record
and experience were now a real advantage to the family. He had always been a pragmatist. Nick had ridden off to fight for the King, but George Hudson had stayed home and tried not to offend his neighbours.
It was very strange. Jamie felt that he ought to be indignant, to be valued at last only because he was useful and might become his father’s heir. Instead, the simple fact of being valued, for any reason, was like a glowing fire in his heart.
‘I must see my wife, sir,’ he said defensively.
‘Very well!’ George snapped irritably. ‘Go to the wench, and fetch her to Bourne. You may have your horse, and the remount, and money to keep you. We will see you at home, I trust, next week.’
Jamie hesitated a moment, then nerved himself and said evenly, ‘Sir, even did I ride directly there and back again, it will take more than a week – and my wife has work and friends in London. For her to leave suddenly, without setting her affairs in order, would be a poor return for all their kindness. It will not be so simple as to ride in and bid her pack.’
His father glared. ‘Then come as soon as you can.’
He arrived in London three days later.
It had been strange, riding down the road on a good horse, sleeping warm and dry in comfortable inns, welcomed everywhere by people who looked at the quality of his new civilian coat and the weight of his purse, and pretended to ignore his scars. He was uncomfortable with the fact that his father had loaned him the remount – he knew it was intended to whisk Lucy away at once, and he suspected she’d be reluctant to come at all – but he was glad of the extra animal, since it let him change mounts regularly and make better time. The winter days, however, were short, the roads were foul, and he was obliged to be careful with his father’s horses. It was dark when he arrived in the City.
He stabled the horses at an inn in Smithfield. He felt unable to face going to The Whalebone, or some other place where people would know him. If he considered that reluctance it made him uneasy; had a new coat and his father’s favour made him eager to shed old acquaintance? But he did not have much space for worrying about it. He was too impatient to see Lucy; his whole being was aquiver with the knowledge that she was only a mile away, and finally he would hold her in his arms.
Common sense warned him that he should wait until morning before going to find his wife. It was night, and she and her friends would be in bed. Common sense, however, had no more power to hold him than a rope of grass. As soon as he’d finished making arrangements for the horses, he set out to claim his bride. It was only when he reached Coleman Street and realized that he wasn’t sure of the house that the doubts set in.
He did not know the Overtons well, and had been to their house only twice. He did not know how to recognize it in the dark. He was well aware, however, that they were Lucy’s dearest friends – and that awareness, which he’d never questioned, suddenly revealed to him the huge gap between his wife’s life and his own.
For a year he had been carried about England by the war, steadily losing faith in the cause for which he fought. He had walked in the shadow of death, and he wanted to escape it. The family that had rejected him now embraced him, and he wanted nothing more than to return to them, bury himself in country concerns, and forget politics.
For a year, though, his wife had been here, in the inky heart of radical London. She had started a business and seen it fail, paid and received wages, visited prisoners and signed petitions. Was she the same girl he’d married? He wasn’t the same man.
He hesitated, wondering if it might, after all, be better to return in the morning. As he stood looking hopelessly at the darkened houses, however, a party of men and women with a lantern came out of a side road and began walking toward him.
‘. . . pack of dissembling juggling knaves!’ one man exclaimed loudly. ‘God knows if they mean to hold elections at all!’
‘But if you do not go back, they will settle everything among themselves,’ a familiar voice replied.
Jamie suddenly realized who they were: it was a Thursday, and the Levellers of the City had just finished their weekly meeting at The Whalebone. Now some of them were on their way to Richard Overton’s house to smoke and argue. And that shadowy woman on the edge of the party, listening . . .
He had no idea why she noticed him standing there in the dark, let alone how she recognized him. She stopped, though, very suddenly, then began to hurry toward him.
‘Jamie?’ she called incredulously; then, ‘Jamie!’ And the next he knew she was in his arms.
He held her tightly, as though he could press her into his own flesh and weld them together into one creature. ‘Oh, my darling!’ he choked.
‘Jamie!’ said the familiar voice, and he looked up to see that the others had come over with the lantern, and his friend John Wildman was smiling at him.
Jamie reluctantly let go of his wife and shook hands with his friend, then with John Lilburne and with Richard Overton. They were all full of smiles.
‘A fine new coat!’ said Wildman, surveying him. ‘Lucy told us you’d been discharged.’
‘Aye,’ said Jamie, and cleared his throat. He did not want to talk to his friend or to any of them; he wanted to take his wife back to the Smithfield inn and straight to bed. Common civility, alas, precluded it. ‘My kin have welcomed me back, strange to say.’
‘God be praised!’ said Wildman, beaming. ‘And high time, too!’
‘What . . .’ began Lucy; she was still clinging to his arm. ‘. . . your poor brother . . .’
‘I left him and my father at Grantham,’ Jamie told her. ‘They’ll be home by now. He is much recovered, though the bone will take time to knit.’
‘He’s alive?’ she asked, her face lighting.
‘Aye. Did you not get my letter?’
‘The last I had said he was shot, and you were to go to Pontefract!’
‘Oh. Well. We went, and found him already much amended. We were obliged to stay with him for a time before he was fit to ride, or I would have been here sooner.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ cried Lucy passionately. ‘Lieutenant Barker was so bold I feared he was fleeing the hangman’s rope already!’
‘What?’ asked Jamie in confusion.
There was a sudden silence. He looked confusedly at the lamplit faces.
‘This Barker came hither to London,’ explained Richard Overton, ‘and tried to carry off Lucy to revenge himself on you. But she escaped him, and he died by the misfiring of his own pistol.’
Jamie stared. His heart seemed to pause mid-beat, then resume with a giddy hammering. ‘When was this?’ he whispered.
‘Not two weeks gone,’ said Dick solemnly.
Jamie looked at Lucy: her eyes were bright with anger. ‘You escaped hurt?’ he asked anxiously.
She gave a tight little nod. ‘I broke free of him. He tried to shoot me as I ran.’ She paused, then went on, suddenly indignant, ‘He set on me in Moorfields! When I went to buy ink! And oh, I was sure he would never have been so reckless unless he was already fleeing a death sentence!’
‘I’d wager he thought he was!’ Wildman said eagerly. ‘A man who’s felled his opponent with a pistol-shot, and knows himself disgraced and bereft of protectors, won’t linger to hear how things turned out.’ He beamed at Jamie.
‘God has heaped a double blessing on you, my friend!’ exclaimed John Lilburne. ‘Your wife’s life on top of your brother’s!’
Jamie looked again at Lucy. He imagined coming to London and discovering that she had been raped and murdered two weeks before. Her survival, on top of Rob’s, seemed suddenly too much good for an evil world. He caught her hand tightly, afraid that if he let her go she would slip away – that he would come to himself, and find that his friends had told him she was dead, and that the news had shattered his wits. ‘But you ’scaped hurt?’ he asked again.
‘He tried to reload the pistol in haste while it was hot,’ she replied. ‘The ramrod went into his head.’
‘Praise God for his righte
ous judgements!’ said Lilburne with satisfaction.
Jamie swallowed, remembering sighting along his own pistol at Naseby. He wondered if that ruinous blast had somehow paid for Barker’s death. Was it blasphemous, to imagine that bad luck could somehow earn good?
Probably it was. God gave, and God took away, and no human mind could fathom His reasons. Looking down into his wife’s fierce dark eyes, though, he thought that if the one misfiring pistol had earned the other, he’d won a bargain. ‘I thank God that you are safe!’ he exclaimed fervently.
The anger in her face softened. ‘I thank God that you are come back safe from the war!’
‘Praise be to God for his great mercies!’ said the plain, pock-faced woman – Mary Overton, he remembered, Lucy’s good friend.
‘Amen!’ said her husband. ‘Let’s not stand in the cold. There’s a warm fire in my house, and we should make use of it.’
They all trooped over to the Overtons’ house – it was the one he’d thought most likely – and into the kitchen. Candles were lit; Dick, with a sly smile, brought out a bottle of sack.
A young girl appeared in her nightdress as he was pouring it. She stopped short at the sight of Jamie. He thought that the look of dismay on her face was from his scars, until she cried to Lucy, ‘Your husband’s come!’
Lucy went to her and hugged her. ‘Aye, sweet . . .’
The girl burst into tears and flung her arms around Lucy. Lucy gave Jamie a look of apology and kissed the girl’s head.
Mary Overton came over and detached the child. ‘Come, Faith!’ she said gently. ‘You should be glad because Lucy’s husband has come home safe from the wars! Give thanks to God!’
Faith gave Jamie a murderous look. ‘You mustn’t take her off to Lincolnshire!’ she exclaimed. ‘She wants to stay here, with us!’
‘Faith!’ said Mary Overton sharply.
‘I don’t want her to go!’ cried Faith, flinging her arms around Lucy again.
‘Wicked girl!’ exclaimed Mary. ‘To make an idol of your own selfish wants! To bed with you at once!’
A Corruptible Crown Page 27
