Ella's War

by Lynne Francis

  Hours passed in the carriage, inhospitable on this winter’s day with just a blanket supplied by the coachman to keep her warm. It became apparent very early on that there would be no more passengers. The luxury of such privacy was lost on Ella; nor did she reflect on why Mr Ward might have gone to such an expense, nor why the carriage was conveying her home rather than to prison. Her thoughts were bound to another treadmill, one which took her ceaselessly over the events of the past few days and stopped at the prospect of what lay ahead, without her being able to form any resolution as to the future or reach any understanding about the past. Her thoughts reached the end of their path, the projected arrival at her mother’s front door in Nortonstall, and then returned her right back to the start of the process, which saw her reliving Mr Ward’s accusation in the library. No matter how many times her thoughts undertook the journey, she was neither more nor less angry, or upset, or embarrassed. She was numb, as impervious to the relentless repetition of her thoughts as she was to the cold of the coach, and the increasingly inclement weather outside. As the landscape grew bleaker in the fading light, thoughts as to whether or not she would be prevented from reaching her destination by the falling snow or, indeed, the snow banked high on either side of the roadway, didn’t trouble Ella. When they stopped, she had to be urged from the coach by the driver, eager himself for the warmth of the inn and a plate of food beside a warm fire before the journey recommenced. Ella sat as silent in the corner of the inn as she had in the carriage, and it was only the repeated anxious enquiries as to her wellbeing by the landlady that persuaded her to take some soup and bread, if only to prevent further attention being drawn to herself.

  Finally, when the horses clattered into the familiar streets of Nortonstall, Ella roused herself from her reverie. She was stiff from the time spent sitting in the same spot as the coach jolted over rough roads and the heavy blanket hadn’t prevented her teeth from starting to chatter from the cold. Yet on reaching Nortonstall it was as if she was finally galvanised into action. With some difficulty, she caught the driver’s attention, requesting to be set down near the bridge in the centre of town. He was doubtful.

  ‘I have orders to see you to your door, miss.’

  ‘The road from here is steep, and no doubt icy. Your horses are tired and may not get through.’ She was amazed to hear the strength of her own voice after what seemed like hours, if not days, of mostly solitary company. How easily the lie rolled off her tongue! She doubted there would be any difficulty in reaching the house, but she did not want her mother disturbed by her arrival, the unusual sound of horses after dark no doubt bringing neighbours to windows and setting tongues wagging. Ella wanted to slink home like a cat in the night, to lick her wounds in the privacy of home before she could face venturing out with a story at the ready to satisfy the curious.

  The coach driver, more than happy to avoid undertaking a journey that might in any way prove challenging, and eager to be on his way before the weather took a turn for the worse, needed little persuasion.

  Ella stood for a moment in the dark street, watching the lamp at the back of the coach until it was just a faint glimmer in the darkness. She sniffed the air, the clean bitter chill of it striking her nostrils along with the scent of wood smoke and the tang of the green dampness of the river. On top of it was a familiar smell that seemed to roll in from the distant, invisible moors high on the surrounding hills no doubt freshly overlaid with snow. For the first time in days, Ella smiled. She felt the tension in her shoulders relax. Suddenly, being home with her family seemed like a much better prospect than it had done throughout the journey, and the preceding days.

  As Ella stood on the doorstep and knocked at the door, before pushing it open and startling Sarah, who had been deep in thought by the fire, it felt like she had been away for far too long.

  ‘Ella!’ It had taken Sarah a few moments to gather her wits and work out who was standing in her sitting room. ‘You’re home for a visit! You should have let me know you were coming! I would have…’ Sarah tailed off, not quite sure what she would have done but overcome with happiness all the same. Beth, who had been napping, peeped out wide-eyed from behind her skirts.

  ‘Yes, home for a visit.’ Ella felt her smile, so newly formed, develop into a beam. There would be no need for explanations beyond that for this evening. And there was so much catching up to be done.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  By the time that Thomas, Annie and Beattie came through the door, heavily muffled against the cold, the room was filled with the aroma of the stew that was gently bubbling on the range which seemed to take up most of the tiny kitchen. The small scale of the house had unsettled Ella at first. Without realising it, she had grown accustomed to the grand rooms of Grange House. The high ceilings, fireplaces and windows now seemed vast in comparison to this tiny space. Ella found herself wondering how they were all going to fit in the house overnight; Thomas and Annie in particular had grown so tall since she had last seen them. Now aged eighteen, Thomas had become a man while sixteen-year-old Annie had blossomed into a young woman. The thought was but a fleeting one, for the excitement her appearance had caused was infectious and soon everyone was talking nineteen-to-the-dozen, questions and answers flying between Ella and her siblings.

  ‘Why are you here?’ ‘How long can you stay?’ ‘Will you listen to me sing?’ ‘How big you have grown!’ No one seemed to pause long enough to take in the answer they had been given and eventually Sarah could bear the cacophony no longer. She clapped her hands over her ears.

  ‘Stop!’ The chatter died. ‘Let’s eat. And let’s try to talk to each other nicely while we do. No, you sit down, Ella. Thomas and Annie, set up the table. Beattie, fetch the spoons and a knife for the bread. Beth, you sit over by the fire with Ella until we’re ready.’

  And with that the table was set up, almost filling the tiny sitting room, leaving just enough space around it for chairs and stools. Beth, who had shown no sign of wanting to be parted from Ella since she had arrived, sat on Ella’s knee, leaning her head back to rest it under Ella’s chin, and observed the proceedings solemnly, sucking her thumb. Ella could tell she was tired, and thought she must be falling asleep in the warmth of the fire until she removed her thumb and tipped her head back to look up at Ella’s face.

  ‘Are you my mummy’s sister too?’

  Sarah heard, and glanced apologetically at Ella.

  ‘She’s been asking a good deal about Alice. Trying to understand where her mummy is and where she fits into the family. Because you’ve been away, I’ve been trying to talk about you as well as about Alice. I think she links the two of you together.’

  Ella suddenly felt an acute sense of Alice’s loss. How different might the evening’s gathering have been if Alice were still alive? If she hadn’t died in prison before she could even be tried, languishing sick and alone and denied all access to her family, her baby. If the clock could be turned back, maybe the mill would still be open and maybe Alice would be working there too, with Ella. They would still have been living in Northwaite, at Lane End Cottage, with their garden and fields all around, not squeezed into this tiny house in Nortonstall with nothing but a yard to speak of. And there would have been two lots of full-time wages, not just the one… Ella drew in her breath. Not even just the one now…

  Sarah glanced sharply at her.

  ‘Come and eat. I expect you’ve had nothing since morning. If I’d known you’d be here I would have made something special. Instead, it’s just our usual weekday stew.’

  Once Ella was wedged in amongst the others around the table, the talk turned to the New Year. Ella felt a pang. She was sure there would be celebrations at Grange House. A party perhaps? She’d never felt less like celebrating in her life, although spending this evening with her much-missed family was going some way to making up for the loss of her Christmas to incarceration.

  The evening sped by in a whirl of chatter and catching up on news. Bedtime was long past when Sar
ah finally lifted a sleeping Beth off the armchair and carried her up the steep staircase, hidden behind a door next to the fireplace.

  ‘The rest of you can be getting yourselves ready, too,’ Sarah warned. ‘Ella, you can take my bed and I’ll make up a bed down here.’

  But Ella wouldn’t hear of it. She could see how worn Sarah looked, and she herself was more than ready for sleep. The events of the last few days had taken it out of her.

  As she gazed into the glow of the fire’s embers, eyelids drooping, feeling very cosy under the quilt that her mother had insisted she should have from the bed, she reflected that it was perhaps no bad thing she was home for a bit. Sarah looked in need of a break, and the one good thing about Ella’s enforced return was that she was going to be able to provide that respite.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Several days passed before Sarah brought herself to broach a subject that had been bothering her.

  ‘Ella, it’s lovely to have you here and I know that Beth, for one, won’t want to see you go. But aren’t you needed back in York by now?’

  Ella stalled, playing for time. ‘No, I’m not expected back yet.’

  Sarah, hands deep in flour as she prepared pastry for the pie intended to eke out their few remaining vegetables, persisted.

  ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there? You would never be allowed so much time off.’

  Ella had blocked out all thoughts as to how she would explain her dismissal to Sarah. Now there seemed to be no option but to tell the truth.

  ‘I’ve been dismissed.’

  ‘Ella!’ Sarah pulled her hands from the mixing bowl and wiped them on her apron. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? What happened? It wasn’t… the master?’ She sat down suddenly on the kitchen chair.

  Ella was uncomprehending for a moment. ‘You mean Mr Ward? No.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘No, not that.’ She sighed. ‘I was foolish. I helped his daughter with an… enterprise. It went wrong somehow. I got the blame.’

  ‘Oh, Ella. What enterprise do you mean? Whatever happened?’

  Ella took a deep breath and explained: how she thought she might make a friend of Grace at first, then the unforeseen coincidence of Grace’s friendship with Esther Weatherall, the sister of Richard. How Grace had made the connection between Ella, her family, the tragedy at the mill and the Weatheralls, and used her knowledge as leverage to persuade Ella to make her a love potion.

  ‘Love potion!’ Sarah interrupted. ‘Whatever do you know of the making of love potions?’

  ‘It was an idle boast.’ Ella was penitent. ‘I pretended to know more of herbalism than I do. Grace seized on the idea of making this potion and wouldn’t be dissuaded.’

  Sarah was angry now. ‘It goes against everything that the practice of herbalism represents. Whatever were you thinking of, Ella?’ Pink in the face, her mother was pacing the floor, shaking her head every so often as Ella spoke.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me. But truly, it was harmless. Just water, crushed liquorice root for colour, vanilla extract, a bit of sugar, some oil of cloves…’ Ella tailed off. ‘Yet, somehow it made the object of Grace’s affections very ill. I don’t know why.’

  Sarah looked grave. ‘Do you know the nature of his illness?’

  ‘He was poisoned by it – near death, I believe. He was only a young man.’ Ella looked stricken. She’d had plenty of time to consider the consequences of her actions, and she found them truly horrifying.

  ‘Ella, remedies are not to be trifled with by someone with no knowledge of them. They have powerful properties. Liquorice root can cause a rapid heartbeat in those who are over-susceptible to it. It sounds as though your mistress may have overdone the dosage. But I don’t know whether it could cause someone to die…’

  Ella had only half taken this in. Her thoughts raced on. ‘The worst of it is, it means… no wages. How are we to support ourselves? I know that Thomas and Annie are apprenticed but they barely bring in a wage between them. Now that you know the truth, I will try to find other work. I fear, though, that with two jobs lost and no reference to be had, I will not be a good prospect as an employee.’

  Sarah and Ella considered the situation for a few minutes in silence, then Sarah returned to her pastry preparation, changing the subject to give her time to think.

  ‘Will you chop the vegetables for me?’ she asked. ‘We will need to add more, though. If you take Beth and go up Pinfold Lane until you reach the field, I think you might find there are turnips to be had there.’

  Ella was glad to escape out into the winter sunshine and Beth, too, was delighted. She clutched Ella’s hand and chattered all the way along the lane, past the row of cottages where a couple of women were sweeping their front steps. They stopped to smile at Beth, and wish Ella a ‘good morning’ as they passed by. Ella knew that if she looked back, they would be leaning on their brooms, watching her curiously, questioning each other.

  ‘Isn’t that Sarah’s youngest? Who’s that with her?’

  ‘Looks like Ella. The eldest now, isn’t she? Thought she had gone to York to work. Wonder what she’s doing back here?’

  Any unpleasant thoughts were banished on reaching the field. Despite the stripped brown earth and bare hedgerows, Ella could picture it exactly as it would be in spring, the hedges clothed in green and the ground sprouting the first crops. She had roamed these fields once and had a sudden wish to do so again, to lose herself in the folds of the valleys and forget all about York and what had happened there.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Beth looked expectantly up at Ella, who realised she had been standing at the gate, lost in thought, while the pale winter sun had slipped behind gathering clouds. Beth was shivering.

  ‘Vegetables. Maybe the farmer left some behind when they ploughed the field. We’re going to search the field edges. Here, I’ll help you climb over.’

  Ella was over the gate in a flash, then turned to lift Beth as she teetered near the top. The hunt for food soon turned into a game, and Beth warmed up again from running backwards and forwards. After half an hour, the sky threatened rain so Ella announced it was time to go home. The basket held but three turnips, wizened and blackened from their time overwintering at the edge of the field.

  They trudged back, heads down against the wind, which had a bitter edge to it.

  ‘More snow on the way, I think,’ said Sarah as Ella, with numb fingers, peeled and chopped their finds to add to the pie. And nothing more was said that day about York, money or finding work for Ella.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘We’re moving.’ Sarah announced it flatly over their evening meal, one night at the end of January.

  ‘Moving?’ Ella was startled. The others said nothing.

  ‘The rent here is too high. I’ve found somewhere that costs less but has more space, including a garden. I can grow plants to start making remedies again. People have been asking me for them.’ Sarah looked more animated than Ella had seen her all the time she had been at home.

  ‘But where?’ Ella felt guilty. She should have found work, no matter how menial, so that Sarah hadn’t been forced into this position.

  ‘It’s over Luddenden way. I know it’s further out, but I’ll be able to come to market and sell my remedies there. And there’s others travel to school and work in Nortonstall from there.’ Sarah turned to Thomas, Annie and Beattie. ‘So you’ll have company on the walk.’

  Their despondent faces said it all, but the privations of the last few years had taught them well. Ella’s sense of guilt only increased. She had let them all down.

  Within the week, their meagre belongings were loaded onto a cart for the journey of just a few miles. Ella was thankful that the weather was kind: cold, but bright. The family’s mood was low enough without the added cruelty of their possessions being soaked. Only Sarah’s mood was buoyant. She chatted cheerfully to neighbours who came out, full of curiosity, to wish them well. Ella kept her head down, conscious of a sense of shame share
d by all the children except for Beth, who was too young to fully understand what was going on.

  ‘I’ll be in the market within the month,’ Ella heard Sarah say. ‘I’ll see you then.’ And they were away, not one of them looking back as the cart took the road out of town, travelling straight for two or three miles before climbing up into the hills.

  ‘There’s a track over the top, back to Nortonstall.’ Sarah pointed it out to her family. ‘You’ll be able to take that as a short cut rather than use the road. And here we are.’

  The cart stopped outside a cottage fronting one of the only two roads in the village. Sarah had the heavy door key in her pocket and Annie, Beattie and Beth, suddenly excited, ran in to explore while Thomas, befitting his greater age, strolled in after them.

  Ella lingered outside. There was a stream rushing below in a deep cutting that divided the village and a squat, strongly built church sat where the bank levelled out. It was peaceful, surrounded by hillsides and woods waiting to cast off their winter shroud. She felt her shoulders release. Perhaps this would be a good move? They could all make a fresh start here, even if it was but five miles from Nortonstall. Her reverie was disturbed as all the children burst back out through the door.

  ‘Come and see! We have a garden!’ This from Beattie.

  ‘I have a room! And so do you!’ from Thomas.

  ‘There are hens next door,’ from Annie.

  ‘There’s a hedge!’ cried Beth, not to be outdone. The others stared at her, then started to laugh. Ella gave them a warning look.

  ‘A hedge? Then we shall have nests to watch in the spring. Come and show me.’ And she slipped her hand into Beth’s and ushered everyone back inside to share their discoveries, leaving the carter to unload their boxes unhindered.