‘You won, sir! Accept this prize.’
A coin was slapped into his hand. He made a mock bow from where he sat. ‘I thank you for it. You’re a gentleman.’
The donor’s heavy-jowled beery face came down on a level with his with a spread of scarlet jacket. ‘And you, sir, are in the army! You’ve accepted the King’s shilling!’
In spite of his drunken state, William grasped what had been said to him. With a howl of rage he hurled the coin from him and struggled to his feet. ‘You’ll play no tricks on me. I didn’t wager with you!’
‘But I reached you first with a shilling and you took it fair and square. It’s twenty years’ service for you in the King’s Colours, lad.’
‘No!’ William’s yell of fury accompanied his fist aimed at the sergeant’s face, but he was jumped on by several soldiers who had gathered in readiness. Shouting and kicking, he was half dragged and half carried out of the tavern. The sergeant, following behind, slammed the tavern door after them, leaving the whole place in dismayed silence. The landlord spoke first with a heavy sigh.
‘I tried to warn him. I had heard the army was out for new recruits and had not yet raised the number they wanted.’
‘Someone ought to let his family know,’ one customer suggested.
‘I’ll go across to Mrs Bateman myself as soon as I’ve closed up. Now, gentlemen, next orders, please.’
The hour was exceptionally late when the last of the drunken revellers departed. Deciding that nothing could be done until morning in any case, the landlord went to bed and did not knock on Hester’s door until breakfast-time.
Hester heard him out. ‘Where is William now?’ she asked in shock. It was not the time for less important questions.
‘He’d be at the armoury. Probably with other recruits, willing and otherwise, on the parade ground already.’
As soon as the landlord departed she ran as she was without cape or hat to Number 85 and hammered on the door. Joss opened it, surprised to see her at such an early hour on a Sunday morning.
‘Take your fast riding horse and go at once to James,’ she instructed as she entered. ‘William was tricked last night into taking the King’s shilling and James is the only one who could possibly help us.’
Peter, who had sighted his mother from his parlour window, came from next door. As soon as he heard what had happened he moved to the door. ‘I’ll go to the armoury now and try to see William.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Alice lent her a cape. They were overtaken by Joss at a gallop and he waved encouragement to them as he went by. When they arrived at the gates other families had gathered there, several other young men having been trapped into recruitment elsewhere the previous night. None of them was allowed admittance. In the distance on the parade ground a ragged bunch of recruits were being drilled, but whether William was among them it was impossible to tell. There was nothing to do but go home and wait.
When Joss returned, having ridden back with James to the barracks, he came on to inform them: ‘James is with the commanding officer now. We must hope for the best.’
James eventually appeared, his expression grave. ‘I have to tell you that there is nothing I or anyone else can do,’ he said to Hester and her assembled family. ‘William accepted the shilling before witnesses and without coercion, which gives the army the legal right to keep him in their ranks for a full score years.’
Hester sat stunned. Peter spoke. ‘Did you see him?’
‘I did. He is in a dreadful state of mind. All he can think about at the moment is the loss of his career as a goldsmith. Oh, and one other thing. He says he left a nag he hired from stables near Richard’s workshop tied up in the copse and will Peter see to the animal.’
‘When may I see him?’ Hester implored.
‘I’m afraid you can’t. The army gives no privileges to recruits. Your first and last chance to see him will be when he marches out of the armoury gates six weeks from now.’
Hester rose to her feet the better to withstand whatever was coming. ‘Where will the army be sending him?’
James took both her hands and cupped them together with his own, his gaze full of compassion. ‘He and his new comrades are to join a regiment being sent to the American colonies. Recent troubles there have brought about this present phase of recruitment.’
‘My poor William,’ she whispered. For the first time in his life her son was having to face up to his own foolhardiness and in the cruellest way possible. It was as if fate had saved up this special retribution to entrap him when the time was right. ‘Did he say what possessed him to come home and go straight to the tavern without a word to anyone?’
‘He said he felt a need to get drunk.’ James paused. ‘He also gave me a message for your ears alone.’
‘We’ll go into the next room,’ she said, signalling to the family not to disperse. When they were on their own she added: ‘Pray tell me what he said.’
‘In confidence, he asked that you let Sarah Thorne know what has happened.’
She was startled. ‘Sarah? He hardly knows her.’ Then suddenly there registered with her the change in him and the reason she had put on it; his presence in the tavern in a mood of exultation or despair and the secrecy that would be necessary to court a girl as closely guarded and chaperoned as Sarah Thorne, which in itself would be a challenge to him. She spoke on an unhappy sigh. ‘He appears to have forgotten how well known he is in this district and how well remembered for his pranks. By now every person in that ale-house will have spread the news of his recruitment and in every local congregation on this Sunday morning there will be those eager to pass on what they know. I would have no chance to reach Sarah before she hears from others.’
She was right in that deduction. After the Dissenters’ service held in a member’s house, Sarah overheard William’s name and what had happened to him as people talked together afterwards. She pitched forward in a dead faint and took a while to revive. Nobody suspected what had triggered off the faint except her guardians. Everybody remarked on the exceptional care they took of the girl, hurrying her home in their wagonette to cosset her there.
Hester thought about Sarah a great deal, wondering how many times she and William had been able to meet and where. Perhaps at the home of a mutual friend? Not at the Beavers, for they had moved away a while ago, Elizabeth’s mother unable to live with her memories there. For herself, she had always thought Sarah a strange and subdued girl with those dark sloe eyes that were in such contrast to her exceptionally fair hair. Surely no couple could have been more ill-suited than William and her? Hester experienced an odd qualm and was reminded of moods of foreboding she had experienced when younger and which had become mercifully less frequent in latter years. It was impossible not to be relieved that there could be no union for William with the Thorne girl. It was simply a matter of great regret that it had had to be a horrendous turn of events that parted them.
‘Oh, John,’ Hester voiced softly in her own bedchamber as she had on many previous nights since she had lost him, ‘if only you were here. I can’t talk over things to anyone else as I was able to talk to you.’
She felt herself missing him more and more. Time was doing nothing to heal and when a crisis arose her aching for him increased a thousandfold. Her loneliness was private to her, set deep within her innermost being and away from the normal face she presented to the world. Nobody understood better than she Peter’s renewed dedication to his work, for it was the only balm for those like themselves. For her there was the added consolation of every day being another step towards making John’s surname one known throughout the land.
Ann made the journey from York and arrived on the eve of William’s departure. Letticia brought Jonathan with her early next day. They were met by Peter and Joss with Alice and their children. When the time came, they set off with Hester to join other families gathering in a small crowd by the armoury gates. The Batemans spread themselves out at intervals, the better
to make personal farewells. Hester had given Peter a purse of guineas to slip into William’s hand, knowing he would have more initiative in passing it to his brother than quiet Joss if difficulties should arise. Letticia had brought William a gold watch that had been donated somewhat reluctantly by her husband. ‘He’ll only gamble it away,’ he had said. To which she replied: ‘Not if he’s learnt his lesson and I pray to God he has.’ Now, as she waited, she had given the watch over to Jonathan, who would know better how to drop it into a uniform pocket than she would.
The tall gates began to open. Pipes and drums heralded the approach of the marching men in a cheerful rhythm that had no effect on the spirits of anyone waiting except small children too young to understand what partings meant. The first shock for relatives was the anonymity of the recruits, who marched out through the gates behind the bandsmen as if six years’ instead of six weeks’ service lay behind them. Gone were any beards, moustaches or individual hairstyles. All were clean-shaven, neat about the head, cocked hats set squarely, scarlet jackets contrasting with white breeches and gaiters, muskets gleaming on left shoulders.
For a matter of moments there was silence. Scarcely a relative in the crowd had not pictured the recruit they had come to see being on the nearside to them, but now there was doubt about recognizing him wherever he was. As it happened, no recruit marched on the outside, for the army had had long experience of last-minute attempts at escape and what could happen if families went berserk and fought to regain a son, husband or father. A veteran soldier flanked every line at either end and the threat of dire punishment, combined with the solid discipline already instilled, ensured that without any undue emotional interruption recruits would keep in step, even if their heads did go one way and then the other as they in turn searched for faces they knew, some of which they would never see again.
‘There’s William!’ Ann spotted him first. He was second along from the burly corporal acting as a buffer to his line. He grinned as he picked out Ann’s wave and the jauntiness of his marching step increased as if he were determined not to have gloom dogging his departure whatever his feelings and theirs might be.
Here and there families surged forward in an attempt to get nearer their men, but the mounted sergeants in escort made their horses frisky and alarming, forcing people to draw back. William winked in acknowledgement of the wave he received from Joss and Alice and then made a comic face at their children. A few yards further on Hester came into his view. She stood with quiet dignity on the grass verge. His eyes became as serious as hers in the smile they shared, their parting acute, her courage matching his on this terrible day. It was hard for him to lose sight of her, but he was quick to raise appreciative eyebrows in fun when he saw Letticia in a new and becoming hat for the occasion. She dimpled desperately, waving a lacy handkerchief that she would probably use on her eyes as soon as he had gone past. It mattered to him that every woman in his family had given him a smile and withheld her tears amid all the noisy weeping and wailing rising up on both sides of the road. He began to look out for his two other brothers whom he knew would be there.
Peter and Jonathan had just arranged between themselves that one should create a diversion while the other slipped the money and watch to William, when there came an upheaval more dramatic than anything they could have managed. Sarah, hatless and with her hair streaming, burst through those gathered there to hurl herself at William.
‘Don’t leave me!’ she shrieked hysterically. ‘Don’t go! I love you! I can’t live without you!’
‘Sarah!’ He had hoped to see her but had thought the chances slight. Now she was clinging to him like a limpet, her arms clamped around his neck and with her face squashed to his she was wetting his cheek with her tears.
Instinctively his free arm went around her even as the corporal lunged for her. He held her just long enough for their mouths to meet in a frantic kiss before she was wrenched from him and thrown against the nearest bystanders. But it had been a signal for other women to snatch a last contact and as they rushed forward several lines were disrupted which gave Jonathan the chance to push the watch and purse of money into William’s hand.
‘Good luck, Will!’ Then he was gone.
William’s marching step had been barely interrupted. He swung on with his fellow recruits, aware of order being restored both fore and aft as shrieking women, some with babies in their arms, were torn from their menfolk. He had not seen Peter from first to last, but it was Sarah who filled his thoughts. Perhaps some of that female screaming he could hear came from her. What a time to recant her letter to him. God only knew what would happen to her when the Thornes heard what she had done today. He felt both saddened and irritated by her folly and hoped she had not seen this in his eyes. Hadn’t he brought enough trouble down on himself without her inviting comparable retribution from a home source? Did he still love her? He didn’t know. Misery and despair had wrecked his feelings since that night in the tavern. At the moment he could only accept that his senses had been inflamed again by the sight, touch, scent and taste of her during those few brief moments.
But long before they reached the Pool of London other memories came flooding back. He thought of her strange ways, the inconsistency of her behaviour, blowing hot and cold, of her teasing refusal to admit she loved him even in moments of passion and the wretched uncertainty he felt when they were apart. He had never been sure of her and now he never would be. Perhaps it was all for the best.
As the recruits marched away down Bunhill Row, bound for a waiting ship, the small crowd dispersed, many in tears. Only a few had tagged along in the wake of the marching men. Hester, about to turn homewards as the family regrouped, glanced around.
‘Where’s Peter?’
‘I think he went after Sarah Thorne when she ran off,’ Jonathan volunteered.
Hester’s face deepened in distress. ‘Why? By her behaviour she made William’s departure from home still harder for him. It’s highly likely he will be held responsible for the uproar that resulted and punished in one way or another.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, my poor William. Trouble never leaves him.’
Together the Batemans turned for home. Some distance away Peter, in pursuit of Sarah, thought he had lost her. He had been struck by her distraught face and the blind look in her eyes when she had picked herself up from where she had fallen. He had seen that same look in the eyes of animals ready to die from fright or pain. Dazedly she had stared after the departing recruits almost as if she was no longer able to comprehend what was happening, and then she had turned to push her way back through the gathering of people and leave at a run.
He had called after her, but she went on running, taking a footpath between houses that led to the fields in the opposite direction to her home. When he reached a stile there was no sign of her and he doubled back to a fork that led off through woods. He was afraid that he knew where she was heading and hoped he would be in time. Charging along he began to take off his coat and had it in his hand when he came out near the place where a stream fed a deep pond. She was already on the bridge across which farmers drove their cattle.
‘Sarah!’ he yelled to her. ‘Wait!’
He was too late. She was in her own world, neither seeing nor hearing him. She threw herself down into the water with her arms outstretched as if to embrace the thick weeds that tangled together below the surface and disappeared from his view.
He thundered on to the bridge, kicked off his shoes and plunged in after her. At first he could see nothing although the water was full of a curious green light. Weeds entwined themselves perilously about his wrists and ankles, forcing him to shake himself free. He came up for air and went down again. Then he saw what looked like silver strands mingling with the weeds and knew it was her hair. Seizing a handful, he yanked it high and she floated towards and upwards with him. They broke the surface of the water together. Gasping, he drew her with him to the pond’s bank and hauled her up on to it. She lay white and still and did not a
ppear to be breathing. Knowing from what he had read that half-drowned sailors were put across barrels, he picked her up to thump her face downwards over the fallen trunk of an ancient tree and began to pump the back of her ribs. Water trickled from her mouth and then it came with a gush. He thought she would choke, such retching emitted from her throat, but as it became a rasping for air and she began to cry he knew she was going to survive.
‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ he said reassuringly, kneeling to draw her shivering frame into his arms and hold her to him. ‘You had an accident. No harm done.’
She turned to bury her face against his shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you let me drown? I have nothing to live for.’
‘We’ll talk about that later. Now I’m going to take you home with me.’
He wrapped her in his coat and carried her. She was as limp as if still half-drowned and water continued to drip from her clothes and the gleaming snake of her long hair. Painfully he was reminded of Elizabeth, for she weighed no more in his arms and he had not held another woman since he had last held her.
By taking one of the lanes he had hoped to avoid his burden being seen and to spare Sarah more gossip than she would undoubtedly have to endure from her earlier action that morning. Unfortunately he was sighted at least twice to his knowledge by the time he entered the garden of Number 107 by the stable gate and bore her into the house. His mother and sisters came hastening forward.
‘What happened?’ Even as Hester asked she was guiding him with a touch on the elbow towards the stairs. Then, her guess confirmed, she turned to her daughters. ‘Letticia, fetch some strong, hot tea. Ann, get the maids to bring hot water for the hip-bath at once. We must act quickly or Sarah will have lung fever by morning after a dousing on such a cold day.’ She swung round on her son again. ‘The same goes for you, Peter. As soon as you’ve carried Sarah upstairs you go home and take a hot bath yourself.’
The Silver Touch Page 32
