by Anna Jacobs
‘Is it that man again?’ she asked Hannah, for no one else would discuss it with her.
‘So most folk believe.’
‘I had hoped . . . ’ Sarah let the words trail away.
‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ quoted Hannah.
‘What can we do?’
‘You can do nothing, mistress.’ Hannah nodded towards the swelling belly. ‘Your business is to have a healthy child, so leave the worrying to the menfolk.’
But Sarah couldn’t do that. Worries began to creep into her mind, and she couldn’t forget that someone had shot at Will on the way to market. It hadn’t happened again, so maybe it had been an accident - but maybe it hadn’t.
The first disaster wasn’t recognised as anything other than bad luck. One of the village hayricks caught fire and burned to the ground, causing a shortage of valuable feed. The men worked quickly to stop the fire spreading and managed to save the other stacks. No one thought it more than an unlucky chance.
Until the second incident.
One evening Mistress Bell heard a noise and went into the shop to find two men throwing flour across the floor, then adding her chunks of sugar and trampling them underfoot. They only laughed when she screeched at them to stop, then continued to destroy her goods and livelihood methodically.
Without thinking she rushed across the room to stop them. One of them grabbed her, pushing her to the other, who pushed her back again with a laugh. The first one then began to feel her breasts and though she tried to beat him off her, he was much bigger and stronger and she could do nothing.
‘Been a long time,’ he said to the other with a grin and lifted her skirts.
Her screaming brought her children running and the other man brandished a knife at them. ‘Keep back, or I’ll slit your throats. Stay there, you!’
The first man made short work of raping her, clouting her hard across the side of the head when she tried to scratch his face. He got up afterwards to button his breeches and grin at his friend. ‘Want a turn?’
‘I would but one of them children’s just run off. Better get going before someone comes. We’ve done the job now, anyway.’
The neighbour was already at the door, but the man with the knife threatened him and he backed away. The two strangers then ran across the green and shortly afterwards came the sound of horses galloping away.
The neighbour’s wife went in to see what was wrong and found Mistress Bell, huddled in a tight ball on the floor, her clothes in disarray, sobbing in a whimpering, desolate way that tore at your heart strings, ’deed it did.
Everyone was shocked to the core. Such a thing had never been heard of before in their little community.
The men were never caught or even seen in the district again, but people locked their doors carefully at night from then onwards.
The younger Bell children had nightmares for a long time, and the slightest sound after dark would make them freeze in their places and send the colour from their cheeks. Mistress Bell became a ghost of her old self, too, paler, thinner and jumping at sudden noises.
Even young Ned lost his cheerful grin and took on a grim look, his expression too old and wary for a lad of his age. He began to do some investigating on his own account. Thad had always considered Ned Bell a very smart lad. Now he proved himself to be much smarter than Sewell and his men realised, for they continued to discuss their plans and options without checking the stables for eavesdroppers.
Ned took his findings to Thad, who rewarded him by allowing him to join a small determined group, formed mostly of Waste dwellers, whose existence was unknown to most of the other villagers.
‘We intend to keep an eye on Sewell and his henchmen,’ Thad explained.
‘I can help,’ Ned said eagerly, ‘find things out.’
Thad set his huge lumpy hands on the lad’s narrow shoulders. ‘You have to be careful about this - more careful than you’ve ever been in your life before. If they catch you spying, they might kill you - and what would your mother do then?’
Ned’s mouth fell open.
‘What’s more,’ Thad went on, driving his point home remorselessly, ‘If they did catch you, they’d know we was after them. So that’s another reason for you to be careful.’ He shook the lad, gently and repeated, ‘Don’t - take - any - risks.’
‘I won’t, Thad.’
‘In fact, don’t do anything without asking me first.’
‘No, Thad. But we are going to stop them, aren’t we?’
‘Oh, yes. And you can be part of it if you follow orders.’
Ned went home, saying nothing to his mother, but his heart swelled with pride that an important person like Thad Honeyfield should trust him like this.
When he grew up, he wanted to be just like Thad.
* * * *
Sewell demonstrated great indignation after the attack on Nancy Bell. He stopped Sam Poulter one day on the green to harangue him about doing his duty as village constable, and he even approached Will publicly after church one Sunday.
‘I know we’ve had our differences, Pursley, but we must unite against this lawlessness that has crept into the district.’
‘We definitely need to drive it out again,’ Will agreed in an expressionless tone.
‘And if there’s ever anything I can do to help in that, I’m ready to set aside my personal feelings for the common good.’
‘Yes.’ But Will ignored the outstretched hand and whisked his wife away before Sewell could summon his own wife to join them.
‘What did he mean by that?’ Sarah whispered as they walked away.
‘He’s trying to fool folk about who’s behind it all. Ha! As if we don’t know what he’s trying to do, which is terrorise folk till they daren’t say him nay.’ Will sat and fumed all the way to the edge of their land, then got off the trap abruptly at the new gatehouse. ‘I need to have a word with Ted. I won’t be long. You can drive back, can’t you?’
‘Of course I can. The baby doesn’t make me incapable of doing normal tasks.’ But she was talking to herself. He had already moved away, a frown on his face.
His needing to talk to Ted so soon after the encounter with Sewell only added to her worries.
Since everyone in the village had overheard what Sewell said, it was discussed in every cottage and most of all at the inn for the next few days. Some said the man had shown a few proper feelings, for once. Others scoffed at them for being credulous. Foxes didn’t turn into kittens overnight, did they? No more could Sewell turn into an honest citizen!
He hadn’t offered any help to Nancy Bell, had he? Not like Squire had. Bought her some new stock, Squire had, and fitted strong new bolts to her doors with his own hands.
As for the small group of secret observers, they kept their thoughts to themselves, but not one of them doubted that Sewell was behind the troubles. It was just a question of how best they could catch him out.
* * * *
Thad was the next to suffer, less than a week after he had refused point-blank to obey a command to address Sewell as Squire.
‘You’ll be glad to change your mind one day,’ said Sewell, swishing his riding crop viciously through the air.
‘That I won’t! Bedhams are Squires round here, and allus will be.’
‘Bedhams! There are no Bedhams any more.’
‘Lawyers don’t seem to think so, nor Lord Tarnly, neither. An’ if that Hugh of yours takes one step inside my smithy, he’ll find himself sitting in the horse trough.’ Thad flexed his muscles and Hugh stepped back hastily.
‘I ent afeared of him,’ Thad went on, speaking in an over-amiable tone of voice, ‘Nor of that other one as is tryin’ to sneak round the side of me, neither.’ He raised his voice to shout, ‘Michael! Here, boy!’
His eldest son, a budding young giant of fourteen, came out of the smithy carrying a hammer. ‘Yes, Dad?’
‘Just see to it that Izzy don’t come too close to the smithy, will ’ee, boy? Eve
n when he brings horses to be shod, he’s to stay outside.’
‘Yes, Dad.’ Michael hefted his hammer in his hand, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. ‘Can I hit him if he comes too near, Dad? Can I?’
‘Yes. But see you hit him hard, so he don’t try to clout you back.’
Michael hefted the hammer again and looked hungrily at Izzy, who began to edge away.
Sewell signalled to his men to remount. ‘That’s the last of my business you’ll see!’ he growled.
But it was Thad who had the last word. ‘Ent seen much of your business, anyway. You let that clumperton over in Sawbury do most of your smithing work. Thass why that mare of yours be limping - an’ it’ll only get worse. Too tight fitted, that back shoe is.’
* * * *
Less than a week later the smithy caught fire one night. Fortunately, Thad’s dog woke everyone by howling loudly. As soon as he smelled the smoke, Thad raced downstairs to find out what was going on and what he saw made him bellow, ‘Fire! Fire!’
This brought the other villagers rushing to help.
A chain of them filled buckets at the duck pond, while Thad and his son raked away the burning thatch so that fire couldn’t spread to the house. The flames were soon under control, but not before Thad had suffered some loss and damage, not only to the smithy but to the part of the cottage which abutted it.
When the fire was out, Thad stood looking at his half-ruined smithy. ‘That were no accident,’ he said to the friends who stood around him, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘I ent a careless man, an’ I tell ’ee that it were no accident!’
‘Makes you wonder about that there rick, don’t it?’ said his neighbour, wiping the sweat off his smutty forehead.
‘Ah. It do indeed.’
Another of the cottagers had slouched over to join them. ‘We’d all best be more careful from now on, I reckon.’
‘Very careful,’ agreed Thad. ‘An’ since the Lord helps those who help themselves, we’d best make shift to take action ourselves. We can’t delay too long if this sort of thing is going to happen. Eh, that Sewell hev got me fair roiled up now, an’ I don’t roil up easy.’
‘Thad!’
He turned to look at his wife, Meg, whose face was grimy with smoke, through which paler lines showed the tracks of her tears. ‘What if she’d got hurt, or dealt with like poor Nancy?’ he said softly to the man next to him. ‘Or what if it’d been one of the childer hurt. It don’t bear thinkin’ of!’
Meg came up to him and put her hand in his. ‘If the fire’s all out, Thad love, we might as well get some sleep.’
‘You get some sleep, my dear. I’ll just stay up an’ keep watch tonight, case there’s any embers still alight.’
She swung round to face him. ‘Thad, you won’t do anything - well, silly, will you?’
‘No. I won’t do nothin’ silly. I won’t do nothin’ tonight ’cept keep a watch on the house, I promise. You get yourself off to bed, now.’
Nate Pinkly, who worked for Sewell, came over to join them and Thad whispered ‘Shhh!’ to his wife as he turned to greet Nate.
‘Thass a bad business, Thad,’ Nate muttered.
‘Ah. We’ll all have to be more careful next time, won’t we?’
Thad pushed his wife towards the house, and she went with a reluctant glance over her shoulder. Nate wasn’t popular in the village, for he had been one of the first to work for Sewell and to call him ‘Squire’.
‘Thanks for your help,’ Thad added, for Nate had at least formed one of the chain passing buckets from the duck pond. Well, there’d have been trouble for any villager who didn’t play their part in trying to avert such disasters.
‘Least I could do. But how’d it all start?’
Thad studied Nate’s face. Either the man was a better liar than anyone had ever suspected, or he wasn’t involved in this. ‘Musta been a spark.’ Thad’s face was as guileless as a child’s. ‘Happens sometimes, don’t it?’
‘Ah. An’ you hev to leave that fire o’ yours banked up of a night, don’t you? Can’t be too careful wi’ fires. Good thing the cottage roof didn’t go up, eh? Thatch burns quick.’ Nate yawned hugely. ‘Well, I’d better get some sleep. Sewell d’keep a body on the hop all day long.’
Thad nodded and waited till Nate was out of earshot. ‘I’ll draw a jug of my new cider come evening and we’ll hold a little meeting in my house,’ Thad said, his voice a quiet rumble that carried only to his friends’ ears. ‘Don’t let anyone see you comin’ here. We don’t want word gettin’ back to Sewell that we’re meetin’ secretly, do we?’
They nodded and melted away into the darkness. Only when he was alone with the half-ruined smithy did Thad allow his emotions to show on his face. His eyes suspiciously bright, he stared at the charred tool handles and the collapsed wall.
‘They won’t stop me! Nor I won’t never call him Squire,’ he muttered. ‘An’ I’ll make ’em regret this one day, or my name’s not Thad Honeyfield.’
Unlike most of the villagers, he had some savings, though he bitterly resented having to dip into them. When Sewell rode through the village the next day, unable to resist the opportunity to gloat, Thad ignored his remarks completely, simply turning his back and continuing to work on rebuilding the wall.
Michael, labouring next to his father, didn’t turn away. He stood and stared back at the trio of men on horseback. He knew who held a grudge against his father.
A few of the other men in the village drifted over to stand near the smithy, their hostility as plain as Michael’s. In the end, Sewell rode off with his men, laughing loudly.
* * * *
Within the month, everything in the smithy was fully operative again, and only a few scorch marks were left to bear witness to the fire. The two seed-drills on which Thad had been working for Will were completely ruined, but there was still time enough to build others before sowing came round. Will not only provided more wood for this, but also lent a hand himself to put the new ones together.
‘You watch out for yourself, Thad,’ he warned.
‘Ah. There’s a few of us keepin’ our eyes open here now at nights, takin’ it in turns, like. You’d better see you do the same up at the Manor, Squire. Need a bit o’ proof, though, afore we can stop’n properly, don’t we?’
‘Yes. But I can’t see him giving it us, can you?’
‘Mebbe not. But we might persuade him to show his hand if we set about it right.’
‘Don’t leave me out of this.’
‘Ah.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Well, we ent ready to act yet, so you tend to your business an’ leave us to see what we can work out.’
* * * *
After that, people eyed the few strangers who passed through the village warily. Men who had never even had locks on their doors bought themselves stout bolts or made wooden drop bars, and began to keep a careful watch on their homes. It were all dangy peculiar, and they misliked it. Their fathers hadn’t had to have bolts on the doors, had they? And they shouldn’t have to, neither! Their anger, slow to fuel, began to smoulder hotly beneath their stolid exteriors.
Will was particularly vigilant out at Broadhurst, even going so far as to patrol the grounds occasionally at night, and the Haplins certainly didn’t skimp their new duties. But they found nothing at all suspicious at the Manor. The latest rash of incidents seemed to be confined to the village.
Then Sewell also suffered, to everyone’s amazement. It seemed someone had tried to break into his stables one night, and had damaged the lock. Fortunately one of the grooms had disturbed the thief and he’d run off.
This incident made some of the less astute villagers wonder if their suspicions had been correct, but it left others unmoved.
Thad’s lip curled scornfully when Nate eagerly poured out the tale of the supposed break-in one evening in The Golden Fleece.
‘Much damage done, then?’ Thad asked.
‘Well, no.’
‘
Didn’t think there would be.’
‘Well, coachman sleeps over the stables an’ he heard a noise. Him an’ the groom chased ’em away,’ Nate confided.
‘Ah. So nothin’ was touched?’
‘Well, the lock was broke. Saw it myself, I did. Tore off the door frame, it was. Must’ve been horse thieves or gipsies, they reckon.’
‘Must it?’ Thad’s expression was bland.
‘Well, who else would break into the stables?’
‘Who else, indeed?’
But there had been no sign of gipsies in the district, and if there were any horse thieves, they’d go after Lord Tarnly’s prime stock, not the heavy-footed brutes Sewell favoured simply because they were showy.
As village constable, Sam Poulter got another haranguing from Sewell as a result of this, which made him very resentful, for what did they expect one man to do on his own? He couldn’t patrol the village every night, could he, as well as do his own work by day?
‘You find yourselves another constable,’ he yelled at the village elders when they too complained. ‘I’ve had enough of the job, for ’tis a hard one, that it is, bein’ called out at night and who knows what besides! I’ve done my best and if it ent good enough, you elect someone else and be done with it. If you can find’n.’
It took quite a while and several pots of cider, before the elders were able soothe Sam down again. This they did very zealously, because being constable was a thankless task at the best of times and no one else wanted the job, thank you very much! However, it was decided that Bart Potter should be elected as assistant constable, in case there was more trouble than one man could handle.
Sam, secretly delighted to have an assistant to order round, for it was Prue who ran things at The Golden Fleece, condescended to give the job another try.
Thad watched these ineffectual preparations with a curl of his lips, but kept his own counsel. Bart Potter and Sam Poulter were no match for young Ned Bell in cunning, let alone Sewell.
Perhaps as a result of the increased vigilance, an attempt to break into The Golden Fleece one night, after its occupants were all in bed, was easily foiled by Prue Poulter, who was a light sleeper. Her shrieks were loud enough to wake everyone in the group of houses bordering the green, and two men were spotted and chased.
