As the words are spoken there comes a knock on the door. Matt’s face appears. His expression mirrors the conflict in John’s.
“Sir Daniel, I thought you’d want to know. Luke has been to the town and there’s word going around that the Jacobite force that reached Preston has surrendered and the Earl of Derwentwater is taken prisoner.”
John buries his head in his hands.
“O’course there’s still the Earl of Mar’s force in Scotland,” Matt says by way of comfort.
“But the other is where you would have been, John,” Deborah points out. “Thank God for Father’s wisdom in extracting a promise from you.”
“Thank you, Matt.” Sir Daniel dismisses Matt with a wave of his hand.
Lady Branford looks round the table with her bright smile. “Does anyone else have a sense of déjàvu? Have I used the right expression, Fred?”
“Quite correct, dear mother.” It is the first word he has spoken since the subject came up. He has been thinking though, thinking that Sir Daniel would have liked to keep Deborah to manage Horden Hall if he himself had not whisked her away to Hertfordshire where she has spent seven years bearing him two sons and a daughter and helping him to put the affairs of Castle Branford in fine order.
He looks at her, sitting tall, her flaxen hair still untinged by grey, her blue-green eyes alert. As a mother she is passionate for her children but now, past forty, has accepted she will have no more. At the least naughtiness she can be very firm. Edward and Daniel, close together in age, are highly competitive and Frederick often wonders how to keep the peace between them. He can usually succeed by warning them that he will tell their mother they have been quarrelling again. Then he makes them, at six and five, shake hands and vow friendship. Three-year-old Bella is beginning to assert herself too. She is clever and eager to do all that the boys are doing but she is not, Deborah assures him, unusually tall.
Her own height has been the talk of the court.
“Have you seen the Countess of Branford?” “She makes the poor little earl into a dwarf.” “But what a presence she has, how she carries herself!” “And they say there isn’t a university man who can surpass her in learning.”
“Ay,” says one wag, “If Branford had passed her over it would have been the height of folly.”
She is rising now the speech-making is over. “If you’ll excuse me, Father, I’ll see that the children are not being too much for Suzette.” They have brought with them the one maid to help with the children and act as lady’s maid and two men, Peter and Joseph to man the carriage. Frederick knows that his mother-in-law heartily approves the small retinue.
Now his sister-in-law, Ruth, round with her own first child, rises too. “Let me come, Deb. Simon told me to learn everything I could from you about children since his business keeps him in York today.”
The sisters leave the room together.
John and Jeanetta excuse themselves too, John pausing at the door to address his father. “What will you say if the Earl of Mar wins a great victory in Scotland?”
Sir Daniel just shakes his head. He can’t believe it will happen.
Next day they hear that the Duke of Argyll, heading the government forces has defeated Mar at Sherrifmuir. Although James is still to land in Scotland and be proclaimed at Scone, it is in fact the death-knell of the uprising. Lacking support he escapes back to France and the cold bleak winter that follows sees him banished from St Germain to Avignon.
The same cruel weather at Horden Hall keeps the Branford family from returning to Hertfordshire. They celebrate Christmas quietly, conscious of Bel’s empty place.
Frederick has left the faithful Will Smyth in charge at the castle. He stubbornly refuses to retire and has reluctantly become reconciled to a new style of master and mistress. He finds the place very empty without them and when the snowdrops are all over the lawn and he hears the rattle of the carriage wheels on the drive he is a happy man again.
“My lord, my lady,” he exclaims, “it is good to see you safe home. We have had a narrow escape from a civil war. Was Master John Horden persuaded not to join the uprising, my lord?”
“Indeed. That is all past history, Will.”
“I am glad to hear it, my lord. Hordens and Branfords in harmony. How that would have rejoiced the old earl’s heart!”
He pays less attention to the dowager countess who is always laughing at him but to Edward, who bears the old earl’s name and who is to be brought up aware of his inheritance, he is deferential to a fault.
“And how has my young lord enjoyed his journey?”
The boy, brown-haired with the round Branford face and slightly protruding ears, grins at him. “Mamma tried to teach me a game called chess but I didn’t understand it so I threw up the board and the bits all fell about.”
“I will retrieve them for you, my lord.”
“No, Will. Edward will find every piece himself nowbefore the carriage is put away.”
Deborah looms over the small figure and he knows he will have no supper until he does.
As they walk inside, Frederick says, “I think, Deb, he is a little young for chess.”
Deborah smiles ruefully. She is not going to find a prodigy among her children or one of exceptional height. Perhaps, she thinks, it will be just as well. If they turn out like their father I will be very satisfied.
She looks about at the gardens she has created and sees the winter has been kinder here than at Horden. Good, she thinks, I am home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRUE PHILLIPSON was born and reared in
Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England. Prue enjoyed writing historical novels from an early age. She trained as a teacher, taught full time for four years and was a freelance writer during this time. She took a correspondence course in creative writing and honed her craft.
She is married and has reared five children. Her current occupation is writing articles, short stories and novels.
Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall Page 30
