by Anna Jacobs
When Dr Shadderby had finished, he tried again to make them see sense and allow him to bleed his patient. ‘I still think . . . ’
‘No!’ Will’s voice was a mere thread of sound. ‘I’ll not - be bled.’
‘Then on your own head be it! Remember, if anything goes wrong, that you flew in the face of my considered professional advice and that . . ’
‘Ah,’ said Jessie, cutting him short, ‘we’ll remember. Now do you stop goin’ on about that and take a look at my daughter-in-law. I reckon she needs to be got to bed herself. Shocks aren’t good for women in her condition.’
With which the doctor could not but agree. In fact, he thought Mistress Bedham was looking very pale.
‘Has she been well lately?’ he asked Jessie as if Sarah could not reply herself.
‘Well - now I come to think of it, she has been looking a bit tired the past day or two.’
‘Hmm. She must go to bed and rest, then.’
Ted and Joe were summoned from the kitchen to carry Will upstairs, which made him groan again, and Sarah was persuaded to go and sleep in Jessie’s room.
‘But I’m his wife. I want to watch over him.’
‘Do as we say, Sarah,’ said Jessie. ‘You’ve the child to think of now.’
But she couldn’t be persuaded to lie down until she had seen him safely to bed.
When the two invalids had been settled, Hannah was left to keep watch over Will, and Jessie took Dr Shadderby downstairs. ‘Do you think you should stay till morning? It’s very raw outside and I’m just a bit worried about Sarah. It isn’t like her to go to pieces like this. I can’t help worrying about the baby.’
‘Yes, I will stay. And if Mr Bedham has taken a turn for the worse in the morning, I shall bleed him, whatever any of you say.’ Besides, the doctor wasn’t fond of riding alone along dark country lanes, with the frost gleaming black in the wheel ruts and an icy wind cutting through one’s clothing and taking one’s breath away.
‘A glass of brandy, perhaps?’ she offered. ‘And a bowl of soup. I have some good broth in the kitchen.’
‘I thank you, yes. Brandy is a sovereign preventive on chill nights. And a bowl of soup would be most welcome too. Nothing like hot soup for warming a man up without taxing his digestive processes.’
The doctor was always full of breakteeth words, she thought as she made her way to the kitchen, but she’d be glad to have him around, nonetheless.
* * * *
At the hall, Sewell didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry. The men had been paid off and Hugh, who had led them to the place of ambush, reported that he had certainly wounded Will Pursley. However, no one could be sure whether he was dead, thanks to those damned Haplins turning up just then.
‘If he doesn’t die this time, we shall have to try again,’ said Sewell, who had been imbibing rather freely of rum, a low habit which his wife deplored, but which at least put him in a better mood. ‘Have the men left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hire some others next time. Those two weren’t up to the work.’
‘He’s a good fighter, Pursley,’ Hugh commented thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got to give him that. I couldn’t believe how he struggled, and I didn’t dare intervene in case he recognised me.’
‘Hire four of ’em next time and hang the expense. I want rid of the fellow.’
And there they left the matter till morning should bring them the latest gossip.
* * * *
In the middle of the night, Jessie, lying fully clothed in the bed beside Sarah, woke up suddenly. By the light of a flickering candle, she saw that Sarah was doubled up and heard her gasping in pain. She rushed to rouse the doctor, but he could do nothing, and an hour later, Sarah lost the baby.
Afterwards, as Sarah lay sobbing on the bed, beyond comfort for the moment, Hannah tiptoed in to say that Will was awake and wanted to see his mother.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked, before she was even through the door.
Jessie hesitated.
‘For God’s sake, tell me? I’m not deaf - I can hear Sarah sobbing. Is it - is it . . . ‘
‘I’m sorry, son. We did all we could, but she’s lost the baby.’
He struggled to sit up. ‘I must go to her.’
‘You shall not! You’ll start your shoulder bleeding again. And besides - there’s nothing you can do now.’
‘I can comfort her.’
‘No one can do that now. It - it would have been a boy, too.’
‘Then I can share her grief. I’ll not be stopped, mother. Either you help me, or I’ll damned well crawl there, but I’ll not be kept from her.’
In the end, Ted was summoned from downstairs, where he was scaring away intruders by snoring loudly on the settle, and he helped Will in to see Sarah.
‘Now go away and leave us be!’ Will ordered everyone.
‘Will . . ’
‘Leave us, mother, please!’
An hour later, he allowed them to carry him back to his own bed and Sarah agreed to take some laudanum to put her to sleep, though it was more to set Will’s mind at rest than because she wanted it.
When he had been settled comfortably again, Will feigned sleep so they would leave him in peace, but he lay awake for most of the night, his face grim and bitter. It was time to put an end to this trouble, by fair means or foul. They wouldn’t wait for something else to happen, they would find a way to force Sewell to show his hand.
Sarah had made him promise that he wouldn’t put his life in danger again, that he would take care of himself, for she couldn’t bear to lose him as well as the child. Well, he would be careful, and he would stay inside the law if he could, but if he couldn’t, he’d work outside it, as his enemy was doing. He’d find some way to put a stop to Sewell’s depredations. They’d waited too long already, put up with too much bullying and villainy. You needed to fight fire with fire.
And now his infant son was dead because of Sewell.
Once he himself was recovered, he would plan a trap . . . If only his head didn’t ache so, he’d start thinking it all out now. But that would have to wait . . wait till he felt more . .
* * * *
Mrs Sewell knew better than to leave her bedchamber when the news was brought that Will Pursley had survived the attack. She couldn’t help feeling glad about that, for she still had nightmares about her part in her husband’s villainies, and no matter what he threatened her with, she wasn’t going to forge any more documents for him. She’d kill herself first. Or maybe he’d kill her.
What she really wanted - and most desperately - was to talk to Parson about it all, to confess what she had done and ask how she could earn forgiveness. She read her Bible assiduously, but it didn’t seem to show her what to do.
If she could only get her son and daughter away from her husband, maybe she could still do something about their characters, for their father hadn’t given them any moral guidance and they were both more callous about others than she liked. But she could see no hope of that.
She begged Matthew to let the three of them go and stay in Bath for a while, to take the waters, and he refused point-blank, laughing at the mere idea.
‘You’ll stay here where I can keep an eye on you - all of you. We’ll send for Dorothy to come back from Bristol. She’s done no good there that I can see, and has attracted no men of substance. I’m going to have to buy her a husband - and for that we’ll need a gentleman who is down on his luck. I’ll buy Edward a wife, too, but it must be someone the gentry can’t ignore.’
She didn’t know where Matthew got this obsession about becoming part of the gentry. They’d had a comfortable house in Bristol and she’d been as happy as was possible married to a man like that, for he’d been out and about most of the day. Here in the country, she had him descending on her at any hour of the day or night, and could never sit easy, even in her own parlour.
Dear Lord, she prayed every night, deliver me from this man, even if death is the only way
out for me.
* * * *
After he recovered, Will made no more fuss when people called him Squire. He gave his commands in a new, sharper way. Some folk commented on his increasing resemblance to his father’s cousin, the clever one of the family, who had left to go and seek his fortune in London. The man had never come back to Dorset again, though he’d sent his mother money regular till she died, so he must have been doing well. Will was still polite enough to everyone, but somehow, he was no longer one of the villagers; he really was the Squire now.
The only one with whom he was still on friendly terms was Thad Honeyfield, who was awed by no man. The two of them consulted regularly about the new equipment Thad was making for him.
Even Sewell noticed that Pursley was beginning to ape the gentleman. ‘Pity you aren’t a better shot, Hugh,’ he snarled one day, ‘then we’d be spared his damned posturings. You’d better practice before you try again.’
Nate, who had been mucking out the stables, gasped and cast a frightened glance out of the doorway, but to his enormous relief they hadn’t noticed him. He kept still and quiet until they’d walked away. If they thought he’d overheard, who knew what they’d do to him?
It took him two days’ wrestling with his conscience before he took his tale to Thad Blacksmith. And it was the fact that Will Pursley had helped him once when he’d been in trouble that tipped the scales. He crept over to the smithy just as Thad was locking up for the night and spilled his news, with many a look over his shoulder.
‘Ah,’ said Thad, patting him on the back. ‘You’ve done very well coming to me, Nate, very well indeed.’
‘I can’t - can’t help you in any other way, Thad, so please don’t ask me. I still need to earn my family’s bread, and Sewell is still my master.’
‘You’ve done what you can, though, and we’ll not forget that.’
Chapter 16
February was cold, even worse than usual. The freezing weather had everyone in the village shivering and sneezing, and beasts lowing miserably in their shelters. It wasn’t until the end of the month that Will recovered his health and strength fully, and not only did the scar still burn red across his shoulder, but another scar burned on his soul - the loss of his son.
He thought often of Sarah’s soft words of love, overheard when she thought him unconscious, and he treasured them in his heart, but would not, he felt, be worthy of her love, worthy to tell her how much he loved her in return, until he had avenged his son’s death and made the world safe for his wife to bear another child.
He and Sarah couldn’t discuss the loss of their son in words, but he showed her every tenderness he could think of, and treasured those he received from her. The way she nursed him with many small loving acts had, he was sure, made him recover more quickly. They would look at one another sometimes and smile slightly. They never said anything at those times, but it meant a great deal to him - and to her as well, he knew.
For her part, Sarah continued with her life because what else could you do when disaster struck? How much her life had changed! she often thought. Was it really only a year since her mother had died, and she’d had to bear her grief alone? Well, she wasn’t alone in this grief, at least.
She felt better in the daytime, because she could keep herself busy, but at night in bed, she couldn’t always hold the tide of sorrow back. Then Will would hold her in his arms, stroke her hair and wipe away her tears. Without this comfort, she didn’t think she’d have been able to continue.
She did her best to immerse herself once again in the restoration of her home, but it was no longer enough and the chair seat cover she was embroidering in the evenings sometimes lay still in her lap for hours. She no longer tried to drive herself beyond her strength. Will had said they would have other children, but an icy fear lay within her that they might not be able to. At her age, you could never be sure you would even quicken again, let alone carry a baby to full term.
And all the time, Sewell strutted around the village as if he owned it, unpunished for the harm he had done to them, free still to harm others. He swept her a bow if they ever met, but she didn’t deign to recognise his existence. His presence in the district, she often felt, was one of the things which prevented her from recovering her spirits totally. What if he attacked Will again? That fear lay like an icy stone in her heart every minute of her waking hours, yes and sometimes cast a shadow over her dreams.
* * * *
The group of plotters was slowly gathering its ideas together. They were slow-thinking, these men, used to taking their time, waiting for wind and weather - but once set upon a path of action, they would follow it through, whatever it cost them. And they were set firmly as rocks in their purpose now.
Their lack of immediate action was deliberate, to fool Sewell into a false sense of security. And it succeeded. Clods and dolts, he called them, when he talked to his men, too stupid to look after themselves, just asking to be taken advantage of by someone who had his wits about him.
Nate overheard several such diatribes and duly reported them to Thad.
Thad nodded, told him he was a good lad, and sent him back with an encouragement to use his ears, but take no risks.
Sewell’s family suffered his scorn and his iron hand as much as the villagers who worked for him.
‘Can you not be kinder to the villagers?’ his wife begged one day, having nerved herself up to make some gesture when he’d thrown a family out of its home.
‘Fool of a woman. What do you know about anything? You haven’t even the wit to do what you’re best suited for to help me, so, since thinking is clearly beyond you, keep your ideas to yourself. I treat these clods as they deserve. This is my village and its folk shall run meekly at my heel, as suits their station in life – or move elsewhere.
Her trembling lips and tear-filled eyes suddenly annoyed him so much that he shoved her violently away from him, sending her tumbling to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. And he laughed as he watched her scramble to her feet and back away from him, her eyes wide with terror.
Sewell’s daughter was also warned to mind her manners and her tongue. She had become too pert in her ways. No wonder he was having trouble finding her a suitable husband.
‘I hope you’ll not find me an old one, then,’ she declared, ‘for I’ll not marry someone who revolts me.’ Her best friend had just been forced into this and she shuddered to think what Frances whispered about the fumblings of an elderly husband.
He leaned across and pinched her ear hard, forcing her to stand on tiptoe. ‘An I give you to a boss-eyed mule, miss, you’ll marry him.’ He threw her to the floor as well.
Dorothy crept up to her mother’s room to nurse her bruises. ‘What’s got into Father lately?’ she whispered. ‘Has he run mad?’
‘I think so,’ Rosemary Sewell whispered back, one eye on the door. ‘But don’t speak so loudly. The servants tell him all they hear. And perhaps he’ll find you a handsome young man - though kindness is more important than good looks, as I know to my cost.’
‘Good looks?’
‘Aye. Your father was handsome enough when I first met him. He quite won me over, but I have lived to rue the day I met him.’ She touched her daughter’s hair timidly, for they hadn’t been close before. ‘The marriage has given me you and your brother, at least. That’s my only consolation or happiness in life.’
Dorothy gave her a sudden convulsive hug.
Edward also sought his mother’s company and comfort. He, who loathed the country, had been set to learning how to run an estate, ready for the time when he should inherit. The satins and silks he delighted in were forbidden and sombre, hard-wearing country clothes commanded for him from the tailor in Sawbury. Day after day, throughout that bitter winter, he was sent out to accompany the harsh-tempered bailiff whose views on dealing with those who worked for him exactly coincided with his master’s.
Edward was there to learn the duties, but he also learned to hate h
is tutor almost as much as his father, and to pity those who worked at Marsh Bottom. His skin became chapped, he developed a continuous sniffle and the miseries of his daily existence drove even his weak spirit near to rebellion - but not quite near enough to stand against the juggernaut will of his father.
Sewell embarked upon the further embellishment of his estate. It became his main obsession, that and how to get rid of the Bedhams. Trees were felled, vistas opened up, exotic shrubs ordered from London. And two families, whose cottages were an unsightly lump on the newly-cleared horizon, were evicted with only a day’s notice.
Will, who could still remember the pain of losing his own home, allowed the families to stay in one of his barns until they could find something more permanent. He ignored Sewell’s gibes after church about being too soft for his own good, though it took all his strength of will to walk past the arrogant figure, with its jutting belly, for Sewell had put on a lot of unhealthy flesh in the past year. But Will kept his mouth closed, because the time was drawing near for action.
* * * *
One day at the beginning of April, Ted Haplin strolled into the village and had a quiet word with Thad Honeyfield. As a result, Thad slipped up the icy lane to the Manor after dark, when all sensible folk were in their beds, cursing the darkness and the mud that sent him measuring his length once or twice.
Will was waiting for him in the library, with Ted and Joe in attendance. That night he had had sharp words with Sarah for the first time since the shooting because he refused to tell her exactly what he was planning. Better she be angry with him than dead.
He let Thad in through the old estate office door at the back of the house. ‘Come and warm yourself by the fire, lad. No one saw you?’
‘No, Squire.’
‘Make sure they don’t see you going back, either!’ He grinned. ‘And try not to play in the mud.’
Thad grinned back and brushed at the muddy stains on his clothing, but it was a futile effort.
