The Highwayman's Footsteps

by Nicola Morgan

  Our journey was slow. Bess rode, slumped exhausted in the saddle, the reins slack against Merlin’s neck. I, meanwhile, walked slowly, leading Sapphire as she limped.

  The wind had blown the clouds away and the sun shone, weakly but with a welcome warmth. The snow was melting more rapidly now. Once, we stopped for water at a stream, letting both horses drink and splashing our own faces in silence. A small patch of crocuses quivered in a sheltered hollow. I saw Bess notice them, hesitate, but then say nothing.

  On an impulse, meaning nothing except an act of kindness after what we had endured, I stooped to pick one, and handed it towards her. At first, she hesitated for so long that I thought she would not take it. Then she reached her hand towards me and took it, smiling her thanks. Somehow, I thought she knew all that I meant by it: an act of friendship and understanding. I did not know then that it meant something more to her.

  We walked on, and at last we came once more to Bess’s cottage. This time, tired as we were, we were cautious before entering. We checked for signs of intrusion, but there was nothing. The broken and scattered items were a painful reminder of the redcoats, and Bess’s shoulders tightened when she saw them again. She began pushing things aside roughly, trying to hide them. Though she said nothing, I observed the way her lips narrowed and she clenched her jaw.

  I thought that such anger would not help her. Her home had been sullied and I did not like to see her distress.

  “I need hot water, Bess. For a poultice for Sapphire’s leg.”

  She nodded and set about relighting the fire and carrying water to it. In the stable, I fed and watered the horses, spreading clean straw for them. Their warm breathing and their trust were a comfort to me. I rubbed them both down and found my own pleasure in such simple acts. When Bess brought the hot water, she sat and watched me as I mixed it with bran and placed the mash onto a fresh cloth, binding the warmth round and round Sapphire’s swollen fetlock, tucking the edge in firmly. Sapphire would mend, but not quickly. I did not like to think how long it would be until she might be fit again.

  “You have a good way with horses,” said Bess.

  She wore her proper attire now, I saw. I said nothing, but worked quietly, pleased with her remark. I found rugs hanging up and threw them over both animals, fastening the buckle beneath them. They would be warm enough and now needed time to recover after their efforts.

  We left the stable, closing the door firmly, and walked across the yard to the cottage. Inside, the fire blazed. Together we began to pick things up, to put them in their rightful places, to sweep up broken pottery.

  “We should eat,” said Bess. I had no stomach for food, but she was right. With the door closed and the oil lamps burning even though it was daylight outside, we sat and ate and drank, talking little. We did not speak of Henry Parish. I know I could not and I wager Bess felt the same. We kept our thoughts inside. There would be a time to talk of him later.

  After a while, as the fire crackled and the cottage became thick with applewood-smoke and ale and the steam from damp clothes, Bess curled her feet beneath her in the fireside chair, tucking her skirts around her. Staring into the fire, recent illness still etched beneath her eyes, she spoke. “Tell me your story. Who you are. How do you come to be here?”

  My story seemed so far away, part of a different world. At first I did not know how to begin. I could find no words.

  “You were running away when I met you. Why?”

  Only Bess would be so direct in her questions. But that was something I was beginning to respect. Why not be direct? Life is not long enough for winding journeys if there is a shorter way. Though there were some things I would keep back.

  “I was running from home. Then I was running from the militia, because I had stolen a purse.”

  “And where is your home? What is your family name?”

  “I wish to forget them both.”

  Her face seemed annoyed at this. “Well, no doubt they would mean little to me, ignorant girl that I am.”

  “I am sorry. They are of no interest. And it is perhaps better you do not know.”

  “You think the redcoats might beat your secrets from me?” Her eyes met mine, challenging.

  “They are cruel. They might do worse than beat you. But besides that, I wish to forget my family name and this is my home.”

  “If I choose for you to stay!”

  “If I choose to stay,” I retorted.

  For a moment, petulance twisted her lips, but then her face changed. “I am sorry,” she said. “I am tired and you are right: I do not need to know your name. It would make no difference to know who you are. But tell me, please, why were you running from home? A rich boy, in a comfortable home, I dare say – why should he run away?”

  “I seem to remember your father did not stay at home long either.”

  “That’s true. And I told you my father’s reasons. Are you going to tell me yours?” If her words seemed harsh, yet her face was soft as she said them.

  “I ran away because my father and my brother insulted me. They called me a coward. Many times.”

  “So you ran away! To prove you were not a coward!” Her eyes were laughing.

  I blushed. “I ran away because I would not be insulted further. What would you have had me do? Nothing?” I was silent for a while, thinking, before I spoke again. “No, you are right. It was a cowardly act. I should have stood firm. If I was there now, I would stand and be a man.”

  She seemed about to say something, but when she did not, I continued. “My father is a cruel man. My brother is like him. They take pleasure in the weakness of others. My sisters and my mother did not mind being seen as weak, but then they are women and…”

  “Why should women not mind being seen as weak? Are all women weak? Have you seen what women in the country bear? Did not your father have strong servants, women who could lift three of you and fling you high into the air and doubtless catch you before you fell and grazed your knee?”

  I saw what I had done. “Yes, but I did not mean that. I mean that high-born, gentle ladies have a weak disposition, whereas…”

  “Whereas? Whereas those who find themselves of lower status, as I do…?” She did not need to finish her sentence.

  But I would not allow myself to be flustered, to be browbeaten by her. “I was telling my story. I was telling you what it is like in the life I was born into. I’ve left that life now, a life where ladies are delicate, and men are sometimes cruel, but brave and chivalrous and seem happy if they die for a king they have never met, in a land they do not care about. But there are good men too. Not everyone of my birth is cruel and arrogant. You do not know everything. Besides,” I continued, “you cannot rightly make a claim to virtue when you spend your nights in robbery.”

  Bess opened her mouth to retort, but was silent.

  I continued. “I left my family because I could not bear to be treated as I was. I left in anger and fear and shame. Perhaps I should not have done, perhaps I should have stayed, but I am glad I left. Shall I tell you more? You asked to hear my story.”

  She nodded. So I continued. “I told you that my brother is cruel like my father. His name is Alexander and he is five years older than I. I know not why he hates me. Perhaps he hates weakness, as does my father. And I know that I am – was – indeed weak compared with him. With my friends I could be strong, but with him and my father… Somehow they took my strength. Alexander excels at everything. Five years older than I, he could always beat me, whatever we did. And he took pleasure in it. So I was frightened of him, ever since I can remember. He once held my head under water until my senses left me. I think if it had not been for a servant finding me, I would have died. And I knew that he would do it again if he willed.

  “Perhaps a year ago, he noticed that I could ride as well as he, and from then he hated me more. I think he never forgave me for beating him once when he challenged me to a race on horseback. I may have been weaker than him in other ways, but on a horse I wa
s his match. That evening, someone fed my horse – a beautiful mare, Serenade – with deadly nightshade, and she died. I know that it was he. But I could do nothing.

  “Then, two weeks before I left, I heard cries from the stable. No one else was nearby – it was Sunday and the family was at church. I was in bed with an ague and I heard the cries from my window. I went down to the stable and I found my brother with a serving girl. He was supposed to be away at university but he had come back for some reason which I do not recall. The girl was crying. There was blood on her mouth where he had hit her. Her dress was torn from her shoulder, the bodice ripped. And when I walked in, he had one hand around her throat and the other on her skirts.

  “But the look on his face was worst of all. There was madness in him, I think. He let the girl go and she ran away crying. My brother drew his sword and walked towards me. I thought he would kill me so I turned and ran. I could not look at him.”

  “Did you tell anyone?” asked Bess.

  “I did not know whom to tell,” I replied. “I knew my father would not believe me, nor my mother. I tried to speak to the girl, but she avoided me. She was ashamed of what I had seen. But I knew it was not her fault and I wanted her to know that. I even tried to speak to my brother. I told him that if he went near the girl again I would tell our father. He laughed. He told me I was too young to know about such things, that I would never be a man, that I was no better than our sisters, that he was not afraid of me and that he would do exactly what he wished because he was the heir. And the worst thing was that he was right in every way.”

  I took a mouthful of ale before continuing. Bess was silent. There was nothing in my story to make me proud, to make her admire me. My brother was right. I was weak and a coward. I had done nothing to help that girl or to stand for what was right.

  “A few days after this, my father called me into the library. My brother stood there, sneering at me as I entered.”

  I did not furnish Bess with the details but I can picture him now, standing with his back to the fire, one arm along the mantelpiece, his chest puffed out, one small foot resting on the fender. My brother had strangely small feet. He was, indeed, smaller than an average man – I was taller, despite being younger. I recollect my father not looking up as I entered. There was something in his voice that day as he bade me good morning. And in the way he played with a silver knife on the table. I had never liked his hands. White they were, and somewhat flattened at the tips, and soft. He was sitting in his usual chair. His pigtail was newly coiffed – I could detect the apple scent of pomade – and his sideburns were fluffy. His white stockings fitted, as usual, with never a wrinkle, the black buttons in a straight line down the side of his thick calves. My buttons would never remain straight, and how often he berated me for that!

  I continued now. “I do not recall how the conversation began, and the details are unimportant. But what my father had to say made my heart beat hard and my mouth go dry. It concerned the serving girl. Rebecca was her name. My father said that it had come to his attention – and at this point it was impossible not to notice the smirk on my brother’s face – that I had been making myself a nuisance to her. There had been complaints, he said. Other servants had been talking, though the girl herself denied it. ‘I do not expect you to confess it,’ said my father when I began to protest. ‘You are a mere child and know nothing of such matters. But it has been suggested to me that it is time you began your career in my militia. I have arranged for you to take a commission. You shall be an officer. This will make a man of you, if anything ever will.’ My heart sank. I had known this would happen one day. I tried to refuse, but the more I did so the more my father and brother sneered, and the more it sounded like cowardice. Perhaps it was: I confess that the idea of fighting, perhaps of dying, was horrible. I can say that now.

  “But there was something else I did not like about his militia. I did not like the way he ruled it. I did not like the way he cared nothing for anyone who did not love it as he did. I think now that his militia was more important to him than life itself, and that anyone who got in its way was as nothing. I thought my refusal to join looked simply like cowardice – I now think that he took it as an insult. And anyone who insulted his militia deserved nothing better than death. I cannot prove that, but it is my belief.”

  I would not tell Bess everything they said to me. I would not tell her how my father said that I was no son of his if I would not stand and fight for my King, and how he told me that my mother often wept from disappointment at my cowardice. That was when he told me it would have been better if I had been born a girl. At least he had one son, he said, to carry on his line and produce strong heirs.

  I did not know what to say. Inside I felt anger, but I would not show it. It would not have been respectful, nor would it have improved my lot. And I was afraid. For these reasons, I must keep my fury in. I stood and took their sneers in silence. Without doubt, they took that for cowardice too.

  Afterwards, my brother followed me out of the room as I bowed obediently to my father. Servants were outside, so we said nothing, but once we were out of sight, he pulled me into a doorway and grinned up at me. “Do you wish me to help you?” he asked. I knew not what he meant, so I said nothing. “Do you?” he repeated, in his nasty voice, squeezed from the back of his throat. When I still said nothing, he continued. “I could speak for you, should I choose to. Perhaps I might tell my father that it would be better to wait until you are older, stronger. I could do that for you.” I did not understand, though I knew there was a trick. A fleck of spittle sat on his bottom lip and he did not wipe it away. His face was so close to mine that I could see the minute veins in the whites of his pale eyes, see each ginger hair in his moustache, each pale freckle on his nose, a patch of red under one eye; I could smell his pomade, too, almost disguising his nasty warm breath.

  I did not tell Bess those details, only what happened next.

  “Afterwards, my brother challenged me to fight him with swords,” I said. “He said that if I won he would put in a good word for me with my father and make him delay my commission in the militia. But I knew my brother too well. Had he not killed my first horse? Had he not nearly killed me once before? I was skilled with a sword, but not as strong as he: I knew he would try to kill me in the fight, and that, if by some chance he did not, he would not keep his promise. And besides, nothing I did would change my father’s contempt for me. The thought of my mother’s disappointed face and my sisters’ silly laughter was too much. I decided to leave, to run away. It is something I had thought of before, dreamt of sometimes, but this time I knew I would do it. A few days later, I did so. And that is how I came to be here. That is my story.”

  “I do not know if you were a coward before. But you are not now. You were right to leave.”

  I looked at her, startled. “I feel like a coward. I could not have done what … what Henry did.”

  Her face clouded over. “Who knows what we might do when faced with such a choice, but I know that neither of us was a coward today.”

  I considered this. And I believe she was right. I had not been a coward. Perhaps nothing is as bad as the contemplating of it. And now, even with the shocking death of Henry Parish, the sorrow and the injustice, perhaps I could look forward. Perhaps we could bear what had happened. Perhaps that was bravery.

  One other thing I knew: if my father could say that he wished I was not his son then he had his wish. I was no longer his son.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The following morning, the sky was clean, swept by a fresh southerly breeze, warmed by a strengthening sun. The snow had all but disappeared, except for shaded patches beneath trees and in hollows where the sun could not reach. Bess and I busied ourselves with tasks around the cottage, and with the horses. Sapphire’s foot showed no improvement, but I replaced her poultice with a fresh one and let her rest.

  We did not speak of Henry Parish, though occasionally I saw Bess stop what she was doing, her eyes
drifting away, and I wondered if her thoughts rested with what had happened the day before.

  But perhaps not, because I soon found that there was something else on her mind.

  I came in from the yard carrying two buckets of water. I had thought to heat some so that Bess could bathe, if she wished to. And if she did not, then I did. But when I came in, her back was turned to me and before I could speak I saw that she held in her hands the crocus I had given her the day before. It had wilted, and she was touching it gently with her finger.

  I was confused, thinking at first that she would not wish me to see her. What did she think as she touched the flower so? Did she understand more by it than I had meant? I felt myself blush. She had not heard me come in. Very quietly I crept backwards towards the door. But she heard me and turned round.

  “It requires water,” I said, for anything to say.

  “It is my favourite flower,” she said. “The crocus. You know not what it means to me.”

  Now I blushed further. “I did not mean… I mean…” but she cut short my flustered words with her smile.

  “No,” she said. “I do not mean that. I mean that you did not know that tomorrow is the anniversary of my parents’ death and then I pick crocuses. I go to a place I know, near here, a place that my father loved, where they grow above a waterfall. I pick them and drop them down the waterfall and watch them disappear. Will you come with me?”

  I was learning to know and respect her directness further. She did not tangle her words with webs of deceit and confusion. So, if she said she did not mean any attachment because I had given her a flower, then she did not mean it. And for that I was relieved.

  “I would be honoured,” I said. “If you are certain.”

  “I am certain. Besides, being a woman, I am weak, and may need your assistance. Unless, of course, since I am of lower birth, I may be less than delicate?”

  I smiled at her. We understood each other now.

  Life at that moment seemed as good to me as I can ever recall it. We occupied the remains of the day making use of the clear weather, repairing parts of the thatched roof, cutting wood for the fire, caring for the injury to Sapphire’s fetlock, and cleaning out the stable. The warmth from the sun seeped into the earth and began to dry up the damp chill of winter. New light bathed the hillsides.