Lark Returning

by Lark Returning (retail) (epub)

  The solidly built old farmhouse that was once Clarty Hole stood in a pleasant garden full of ancient trees on the banks of the Tweed. When the carriage drew up at the front door a crowd of wildly barking dogs, large and small, rushed out followed by the figure of the limping man, their host, wearing a tight black jacket and his black and white checked trousers. The French officers warmed towards him because he was smiling in hospitable welcome. Though some of them were men of rank and good family, the gentry of Melrose had studiously avoided them. This was the first time a gentleman’s door had been opened even to Colonel Berton in friendship.

  The lady of the house did not put in an appearance and it was an all-male dinner, but no less splendid for that. The vast dining table in a cosily firelit, panelled room was covered with a thick, cream-coloured linen cloth and set with dishes of silver and fine French china painted all over with roses. A troop of curious servants carried in course after course – soup, fish, fowl, mutton, cheeses and thin-crusted pies of apple and pear. The wine too flowed freely, a fine dark claret that shimmered like purple velvet in their glasses. Even Blaize, who was the least amenable of the group, seemed mellowed by the affability of their host.

  They toasted each other; they toasted peace; and when Scott toasted the King of England he immediately followed it with a toast to Napoleon. At the mention of their emperor’s name a solemn hush fell and the men in their patched uniforms stood up and raised their glasses to their lips.

  When they sat down again Scott said, ‘Your emperor is a very remarkable man. I must admit to having a great admiration for him.’

  The colonel nodded his grey head. ‘I don’t think I ever knew a man with such a powerful intellect. Even as a lad, it was obvious he would have a great career in front of him.’

  The Shirra leaned forward in his seat, his blue eyes gleaming with interest.

  ‘We’re told so many terrible things about him. They would have us believe he’s got horns. Is it true about his temper and his lust? His enemies make him sound like the devil incarnate. They say he smells…’

  The fumes of the wine that had filled Blaize’s head cleared suddenly, reawakening his disillusionment and bitterness. He spoke up angrily. ‘That’s a lie. He takes a hot bath every day, which is more than can be said for his enemies.’

  ‘Ah, it’s our flute-playing friend,’ said Scott, smiling at Blaize. ‘With your family background I didn’t expect you to be in favour of a Revolutionary like Napoleon.’

  This was an accusation Blaize had heard before.

  ‘I’m in favour of the Revolution and so was my family. I’d follow the Emperor anywhere. It’s my greatest grief that I’m here in captivity while his armies are marching all over Europe.’

  Scott teasingly pushed the decanter towards Blaize. ‘Tell us about Napoleon, my friend. Is he made like other men? Is it true that he can satisfy ten women in a day? Is he really endowed like a bull?’

  Blaize challenged Scott, ‘So there is a reason why you brought us here – was it to pick our brains about our Emperor?’

  With that he pushed back his chair and left the room, striding past a group of gaping servants who had come rushing from the kitchen at the sound of raised voices. Without looking back he burst through the front door and disappeared into the darkness where a few flakes of snow were falling. It was bitterly cold. His memory of the journey to Abbotsford told him he should turn left to reach Melrose, but instead he deliberately turned right and strode off into the night. Blaize was making his long-dreamed-of escape, without a map, without money, without warm clothing and completely without premeditation.

  * * *

  When he had been missing for five days, Colonel Berton, who was responsible for the prisoners adhering to their promise to stay within the loosely drawn boundaries of their confinement, reported his escape to the official who came every week to pay their boarding and feeding fees and distribute money sent to individual prisoners from France via Coutts Bank.

  ‘A man has gone missing,’ said the colonel with shame in his voice. ‘I’ve reported his escape to the town’s law officers and they’re out looking for him. A reward has been posted for his return.’

  ‘He won’t get far in this weather,’ said the official, for the town square was by now almost thigh-deep with the snow which had not stopped falling since the night of Scott’s dinner party. Berton agreed and shook his head sadly, for it was his private fear that Blaize, for whom he felt sympathy in spite of his rebelliousness, was dead of exposure on the windswept hills that fringed the horizon to the south. He would never be able to find his way through them in the bitter blizzards that whirled over their heights.

  By the time another ten days had passed all the Frenchmen gave their missing comrade up for dead but one morning the snow began to melt and the sun shone again. Looking up in gratitude towards the Eildons, Jacques suddenly spied two men climbing down the slope of the nearest hill. Shading his eyes with his hand, he made out that one was a grey-haired shepherd in a home-spun cloak, carrying a tall crook – and the other was Blaize, very thin and pale but safe and, of course, unchastened. He and his captor were on good terms and when the old shepherd handed him over to the town policeman, they shook hands and parted with words of mutual respect.

  ‘There’s a reward of ten shillings for handing in this man,’ said the officer to the shepherd. ‘If you wait, I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘I dinna want your money,’ the old man replied with dignity. ‘Keep it. I brought him back because our countries are at war and it was my duty. I don’t want any money for that. He’s a good fellow, don’t be too hard on him. If I was in his shoes, I’d try to get back home too.’

  The colonel, summoned from his lodgings by Jacques, regarded Blaize with a disappointed look.

  ‘You were on parole, on your word of honour. You broke it. They could send you back to Valleyfield or even to the hulks in Woolwich and you know what that would be like. Don’t you realize how fortunate we are to be here? If people like you break our trust, it’s harder for everyone else, our confinement becomes more strict.’

  Blaize was unapologetic. ‘I’m a soldier. I want to get back to the fighting.’

  ‘And how do you intend to do that? I wouldn’t mind you trying to escape if you made a good job of it. But you bungled it, my friend. That reflects badly on us as well.’

  This barb hurt and Blaize flushed angrily. ‘I didn’t have time to plan it, I was angry at that man asking about Napoleon… I suspected his reasons. So I just walked off and the snow beat me. I hid in a hut in the hills till that old man found me.’

  Berton shook his head sadly. ‘I’ll do what I can to intercede with the authorities for you. I’ll ask them to give you another chance.’

  ‘Don’t bother, because I’ll try to get away again,’ said Blaize. ‘I have to try again.’

  ‘Don’t tell me things like that,’ replied the colonel. ‘Just make sure that if you do try again, you organize it better.’

  Berton’s intercession was successful and because the authorities did not want to have the trouble of sending and escort for Blaize through the winter blizzards, his punishment for escaping was two months’ imprisonment in the little cell in the basement of the town hall followed by another month of house arrest under the colonel’s supervision.

  Christmas passed, followed by a bitter January and then, with the coming of February, spring warmth began to creep across the barren countryside, the skies lightened and the days lengthened. But Blaize, emerging from his cell, seemed to be in the grip of a profound depression. His flute lay unplayed in his room, his food was returned half eaten, and Jacques worried about his friend.

  By early March the land was basking in soft sunshine, lambs appeared on the slopes of the three hills, buds swelled on the branches of the bare trees and the air smelt fresh and invigorating. There was the feeling of optimism that spring always brings to the people of the northern hemisphere.

  One sunny morning Jacques announ
ced to Blaize, ‘There’s a party of us going out in a waggon to build a wall for a landowner about two miles away. Put on your jacket and come with us. You won’t have to work if you don’t want to, but it’s a chance to get out into the country.’

  When there was no reply he strode across to the chair and shook Blaize by the shoulders. ‘Get up, you fool. You’re deliberately killing yourself. What good will that do for France? Get up, I won’t stop shaking you till you do.’ The body beneath his hands swung back and forward as if stuffed with straw, so the blond-bearded giant drew back his hand and struck the other man on the cheek.

  ‘You’ll get up even if I have to beat you into it,’ he shouted.

  This time there was a response. A light of anger shone in the brown eyes that looked back at him, so Jacques shook Blaize again.

  ‘Get up and fight me, get up and hit me!’ he challenged as he stuck out his fists.

  It was surprising that a man who had taken no exercise for more than three months and had eaten only scraps of food could throw such a punch. It exploded onto Jacques’ chin and knocked him out cold. When he came too, lying on the floor of the bedroom, Blaize was sponging his face with a wet cloth and actually laughing.

  ‘You went down like a pole-axed bear. How surprised you looked!’

  Rubbing his jaw, Jacques sat up. ‘You might have been a little more gentle, friend. You could have broken my jaw. But it’s all right, I’m only stunned. Come on, help me up.’

  When he was standing shakily on his feet, he shook his head slowly and then asked again, ‘Are you coming on the wall-building party?’

  Blaize, leaning against the wall, replied, ‘I wouldn’t mind getting out but I don’t want to build a wall for some landowner. I’m not a labourer.’

  Jacques’ reply was, ‘Neither am I, but I want out of this town and here’s a good opportunity. There’s ten men going and none of us are labourers. Bring the flute. You can provide the musical accompaniment while we work.’ Because he was ashamed of his surliness and for having hit his friend so hard, Blaize pocketed the flute and, shrugging on his jacket, followed Jacques out of the room.

  Jane, March 1813

  She stood stock still, trying to hide her fear, both hands suddenly rigid at the sides of her white apron and the bunch of snowdrops she had been gathering drifting to the ground. Without speaking the strangely dressed man walked out of the shadows of the coppice and came towards her, then, bending one knee, he gathered up the drifted blossoms. Her eyes were fixed on him in terror as he handed the snowdrops back to her.

  ‘We call them perce-neige, what is your name for them?’ he said in a strange accent.

  With a swallow to hide the tremor in her voice, she replied, ‘They’re snowdrops but my mother calls them Fair Maids of February… They’re a little late this year.’

  He smiled at her. ‘That’s a lovely name. They’re beautiful. I’ve never seen so many growing together, it’s like a sea of white down there under the trees.’

  Her heart had leaped into her throat when she first noticed him standing half hidden behind the cluster of young spruce trees in the corner of the wood. It was the scarlet of his jacket she saw first, then the tarnished braid that festooned his shoulders and the gleaming golden buttons on his breast.

  She wondered if she should scream for help or gather up her skirts and run away as fast as she could go. This had to be one of those French prisoners she had heard about – perhaps he had a knife, perhaps he wanted to kill or rape her. But as he smiled, her fear stilled a little and, following his pointing hand, she turned her head in the black straw hat and looked at the carpet of snowdrops spreading as far as she could see under the silver grey trunks of the beech trees. He was right, they were beautiful. Every year she thought of them as a miracle, a presage of the coming summer, a promise of sunny days and happy laughter, an assurance that the heavy labour of winter time would finish. When she walked among them she tried to place her heavy boots in the gaps between the clusters of flowers but sometimes it was impossible not to step on them, there were so many.

  ‘The monks planted them,’ she told the man in the fancy jacket with its loops of braid.

  ‘The monks? What monks? Are they still here?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ She smiled too now, feeling more confident. ‘They used to live here. Just behind this wood there’s an old abbey. I live there now with my family.’

  ‘Another abbey? Like the one in Melrose?’

  ‘Not so big. It’s half ruined really. The monks went away a long time ago.’

  He was amused that the girl had obviously been so scared at the sight of him. She was rather unusual-looking herself, like an olden times dairy maid, in a large, face-shading black hat tied down with a cotton headsquare and a yellow and black striped skirt, hitched up to show her ankles and feet in heavy boots.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  His question was sudden and unexpected and, recovering her confidence, she glared at him haughtily. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I just wondered. My name is Blaize Chardenel, I’m a Frenchman, a prisoner of war.’ His tone was bitter again.

  She gave a laugh of recogniton. ‘Oh, you’re the one that ran away. It was my uncle, my mother’s brother, who brought you back. He told us about you, he said you looked like the Prince of Darkness.’

  The coincidence amused him. ‘The old shepherd is your uncle? I liked him, he was a good man.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, he is. He said he was sorry that he had to bring you back but we’re at war, you know. He liked you too in spite of the way you look.’

  Blaize laughed. ‘That’s good. I can’t help how I look, can I?’

  She was pleased at the transformation laughter brought to his face and thought that she had never seen anyone so handsome or so striking.

  Blaize Chardenel was so tall, so elegant, so straight-shouldered. His skin was a golden colour and his glossy dark brown hair, which was almost as long as a girl’s, curled on his neck. It was his face however that arrested her most of all for it was a mobile face with strong eyebrows over intense brown eyes and a wry mouth that seemed to change its expression with every word he said. He could look sarcastic and cruel one moment, romantic and melting the next. The Prince of Darkness indeed.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked again, and she relented this time.

  ‘It’s Jane, Jane Cannon.’

  He put out a hand and touched the edge of her coarse working apron. ‘Why are you dressed like a dairy maid? Why do you wear that strange hat?’

  She flushed. ‘It’s not strange. I’m a bondager and this is a bondager’s hat.’

  His eyes showed his surprise. ‘A bondager? You mean you’re a slave?’

  She visibly bristled. ‘Don’t be silly, of course I’m not a slave. I work on the land with a team of other girls and I’m bonded – promised – to work for a year in the same place. But I’m lucky because my bond is with my father. Some of the other girls are bonded to strangers and that’s not so good.’

  He stood back and looked at her. This tall, straight, proud girl with the freckled skin was a female farm labourer but she looked very respectable as well as strong and resourceful, not a woman to be treated lightly.

  He reflected that no woman could be more different to Marie, his dark-haired, pretty little wife back home in Arles. She could not even dig a garden, far less work in a field. The girl was watching him carefully with eyes of cornflower blue that matched the spring sky, and he sensed that she was afraid of his reaction to hearing what she did for a living, so he said, ‘Forgive me, I’ve never heard of bondagers before. Why are you gathering snowdrops? Is that part of your work?’

  ‘No, of course not. I should really be feeding the sheep, they’re lambing now, but my father lets me come here to gather snowdrops for my mother. She loves them and later in the year she makes medicines out of the bulbs.’ Blaize’s interest was well wakened now.

  ‘Once again you surprise me. I’v
e never heard of snowdrops being used as medicine. What is it for?’

  ‘She gives it to people with chest complaints. It makes them stronger. The monks brought the snowdrops here from France to make their medicines and some of the old recipes have been passed down. You see, one of my father’s ancestors was the last monk to live here in the abbey – that’s why we’re called Cannon…’

  ‘Is your mother a herbalist?’

  ‘No, she’s a howdie.’

  ‘That’s another word I don’t know. What’s a howdie?’

  She looked pityingly at him. ‘You don’t know much, do you? The howdie’s a midwife and a healer. She treats people who are sick and can’t afford to go to the apothecary or the surgeon. My mother’s better than they are anyway, and people come to her from all over the countryside. I’ll have to get back to the field but I wanted to take her a bunch of snowdrops first.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ he offered and, bending down, started to gather fistfuls of the delicate flowers.

  The broken gable end of the abbey church peeped over an ancient yew with a trunk so thick that three men could not link arms round it. The stone of the ruined buildings was a soft salmon pink and where the sun glinted on the broken walls they shimmered as if dusted with silver and gold.

  He paused in surprise when they turned a corner of the path beneath the trees and were faced with the cavern of the roofless building. The only sound that broke the silence was the rapturous singing of birds in the trees.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ he said softly, as if to himself. Then he stepped forward and stood beneath the arch of the great doorway, looking up at the clusters of weather-eroded rosettes that ran round it.

  She stood quietly beside him, pleased at his reaction. ‘I love it. I was born here, you know. It always makes me wonder what it was like when the monks were here.’

  ‘It’s splendid,’ said Blaize, gesturing up to the expanse of blue sky that arched between the ruined walls. ‘In fact I think it’s probably more splendid as a ruin with the sky as its roof. Churches can sometimes be depressing places.’