“Wait here, mistress,” said my trooper, and he very kindly up-ended a buffet full of coats and breast-plates, so that they all slid off to the ground with a fearful clangour, and gave me the buffet to sit on. A group in shirt-sleeves who were gaming on the floor near by looked round and shouted at him for doing so, and seeing me seemed inclined to bandy jokes with me, but the trooper, who spoke in a kind of drawling way so that I hardly understood what he said—I suppose he came from a far-off part of England—bade them mind their manners, for I was maid to Lady Fairfax. I trembled lest there should be some lad from the neighbourhood there who would know me, but God was with me, and I was not recognised. The trooper knocked at a door nearby and opened it, and a great burst of noise, shouts and laughter, came out, and a smell of wine, and I could see that the room was crowded with captains, lolling in their chairs, some with their scarlet coats off, drinking and taking their ease. I shrank back into my corner, for I was much more afraid of the officers than of the men, ordinary common folk seeming to me usually kindly unless especially provoked.
“Well, moon-face, what dost thou want so early in the morning?” called one of these captains.
At once all the officers fell to singing: So early in the morning, before the break of day, beating time on the table with their tankards.
“There is some woman here, maid to Lady Fairfax, with a case!” shouted my trooper through the din, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in my direction.
“What? I can’t hear a word of thy discourse, moon-face,” shouted the officer. “Peace, friends, peace! Or we shall have the Earl thumping on his floor again and sending down a request that we moderate our noise.”
This somewhat sobered them, and the din subsided enough for the man to be heard when he repeated:
“There is a woman here, says she is maid to Lady Fairfax, come with a case.”
“Oho! A woman!” exclaimed the officer. “Is she worth looking at, moon-face?”
“Aye, sir, she is quite an eye-full,” replied the trooper, laughing: “But I judge she is not the kind to care for glances from the gentry.”
“Give me my coat,” said the officer with decision, and he stretched out his hand for it.
But luckily for me the other officers joked with him and would not let him have it, passing it down from hand to hand and throwing it across the table, and I in sheer fright gathered all my strength and made an attempt upon my enterprise. I slipped behind the soldier and ran up the stairs unseen. Upstairs I found various branching passages lined with panelled wood, all looking alike and very confusing,, but I strove to judge which room would be above the one where the officers were carousing, and the hand of the Lord guided me, and I saw a servant come out of a door bearing a scarlet coat very much laced, and when he had passed by, I shrinking into an alcove the while, I stepped out and pushed on the door and it opened and I entered the chamber, and so I found myself where I sought to be, namely in the presence of the Earl of Newcastle.
I knew it was he who sat there in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a long pipe and reading from a book of Latin poetry, for he was in truth a very fine gentleman. He had an abundance of light brown hair, not golden like my love’s, but still fair and silky enough, and very much curled artificially, dressed low over his forehead and curling thickly in his neck. He had a handsome, aquiline, dissipated face, with very bright hazel eyes which wore a look of condescending amusement, and a curling brown moustache and beard, very smooth and neatly trimmed. At first sight he appeared quite a young man, not much older than Francis, but when I looked again I saw the lines across his forehead and the pouches beneath his eyes and a few threads of grey in his hair, and I judged him to be in middle life, between forty-five and fifty probably. His shirt was of the whitest linen, with the finest and handsomest lace at the wrists that I had ever seen.
I threw back my hood.
“My lord,” said I.
He started and turned to me, and at once that look came on his face which a sensual man wears when a personable woman appears to show him special favour. When one loves the man who wears it, one perhaps loves the look; otherwise, to a modest woman it is very hateful. The Earl rose to his feet, wearing that look and smiling, and he made me a very low bow, mocking me, and said:
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, madam?”
“I have business with you, my lord,” I said, “concerning the^town of Bradford.”
At this his face changed; he frowned and became the commander.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I am Penninah Thorpe, wife to John Thorpe of Little Holroyd,” I told him.
He frowned again. “I have heard of your husband, mistress,” he said. “He is a pestilential Puritan, a purveyor of faction, the follower of Fairfax and the core of the defence of Bradford. If he were here I would shoot him out of hand as a most damnable traitor to His Majesty.”
“I have no fear for my husband,” I said coldly. “He is a man well able to take care of himself.”
“How came you here?” demanded the Earl.
“I brought this case to Lady Fairfax,” I said, showing it.
At this the Earl smiled a little. “Well, I am grateful to you for that at least, Mrs. Thorpe,” said he: “For I have heard enough of that case this night to last me a lifetime. Lay it here.”
He motioned with his hand towards the table where he had been sitting; it was covered with books and papers, and at one side lay a viol.
“And now, good-day, madam,” said the Earl curtly. “You shall be rewarded for bringing the case.”
“Rewarded!” I exclaimed, stepping back, an angry colour in my face. “I want no reward, my lord. I used the case as a means of access to your lordship.”
“Well, tell your errand,” said the Earl impatiently. “Tell your errand quickly.”
“I am sorry to keep you from Vergil, my lord,” said I, glancing at his book: “But I will not do so for long. I hear you have ordered that, for Captain Ferrand’s sake, no quarter shall be given to Bradford. I have come to ask you to pity Bradford and revoke the order.”
“I have given the order and will not revoke it,” said the Earl, speaking quickly, with a hard decision. “Captain Ferrand was cruelly murdered. Bradford gave him no quarter—it shall have what it gave. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, Mrs. Thorpe—as a Puritan doubtless you know your Bible.”
“But you are exacting a hundredfold repayment,” I told him quietly.
“The whole population of Bradford is not worth Francis Ferrand’s little finger,” cried the angry Earl. “He was a bright spirit, quick and loving; there was a kind of glory about him, he gave forth air and fire. I ever likened him in my mind to Shakespeare’s Mercutio—but as a Puritan you are doubtless not a playgoer, mistress. That is his viol,” he said, his voice changing as he pointed to the instrument on the table.
“Do you suppose we in Bradford do not grieve for Francis?” I said steadily. “He was my husband’s cousin. We knew him when young; we all loved him. He was killed in error, out of ignorance not cruelty, and Bradford mourned his death.”
“That is a parcel of words for children,” said the Earl impatiently. “Bradford mourned for him! Indeed! I tell you,” he said, his voice quite breaking: “I loved that boy as a son.”
“I loved him as the father of the child in my womb,” said I.
There was a silence. The Earl stared at me, amazed.
“Mean you to tell me,” he began diffidently; then, reading the truth in my face, he gave a hard laugh and twisted his moustache and said: “It seems your husband is not so well able to look after himself as you say, mistress!”
I stood and supported the insult, which in truth I deserved. After a while I found my voice.
“I love Francis Ferrand,” I said. “I have always loved him since I was a child, and when I am an old woman I shall still love him. I saw him killed. But why let his death breed further desolation? To burn and slay in Bradford will not restore h
im to life, but only make others equally wretched with you and me. Pity poor Bradford!”
“Are you wretched to have lost Francis, Mrs. Thorpe?” said the Earl in a strange tone.
“So wretched that I care not whether I live or die,” I said.
“But you have the child—you have Francis’s child,” the Earl said quickly. “What is your name? By what name did Francis call you?”
I told him: “Penninah. In his joyous moments he called me Pen.”
“All moments were joyous with Francis Ferrand,” said the Earl. “Perhaps his child will prove the same, Penninah.”
I could not speak for tears. The Earl turned aside and paced up and down the chamber slowly. At last he halted before me, and gazed at me very earnestly, his hands behind his back.
“And it is you, you, Francis Ferrand’s love and the mother of his child,” he said: “who ask me to pity Bradford?”
“I do not wish any other woman to feel such grief as I do,” I answered him.
“And what am I to say to that poor old man, his father?” muttered the Earl.
“You can tell him my secret,” I said.
The Earl looked at me, as it seemed with some admiration. “I shall not do that,” he said. “I shall never tell that. You are a brave woman, Penninah Thorpe,” he went on, “as well as a beautiful one. There is something of poetry about you, like a heroine of old times. Allow me to say without disrespect that I envy Francis. For his sake and yours I will countermand the order; Bradford shall be sacked but not put to the sword.”
“The Lord show the light of His countenance upon you, and bless you,” I said, and I stretched out my hand to him, much moved.
“Thank you, Penninah Thorpe,” said the Earl, bowing over my hand in a very courtly fashion: “Yours is one of the few blessings I shall value.”
Then he straightened himself, and sighed, and rubbed one eye with his hand, as if very tired.
“War is a weary business,” he said. “I will give the case to Lady Fairfax. You had best go back to Bradford quickly. I will write you a safe-conduct.”
He rang a little hand-bell which stood on the table, and while he waited for the servant’s coming he said to me in his ordinary tone of jesting condescension:
“I am sending Lady Fairfax back to Tom to-day in a coach, properly guarded.”
“That is chivalrous—or is it the ordinary custom of war?” I said.
The Earl shrugged his shoulders, and I knew that it was not customary, but a gallant act on his part.
“I would not deprive Tom of her for worlds,” he said, laughing. “I prefer to keep Bradford.”
“Pity poor Bradford,” I reminded him softly.
The servant entered. I was standing by a panel of the wall, with my hood drawn up; I daresay my face was white enough from emotion, and I held myself stiffly. At all events the man, I believe, took me for an apparition; for he cried out and fled, crossing himself.
“What a plague is wrong with the servants in this house?” cried the Earl, stamping to the table and ringing the bell again impatiently. The bell came apart in his hand. “Oh, be hanged to it,” said he, looking at the clapper ruefully.
“That was Francis’s saying,” said I, and suddenly I felt as if my heart broke in two as I stood there, and I could restrain my grief no longer. “O let me go, let me go!” I cried, and I stumbled blindly away, putting aside the Earl’s hand, and fled down a little private stairway and out of the house and into the park, and cast myself down at the foot of a tree, and wept bitterly.
7
I AM ALONE
It was so long before the passion of my grief exhausted itself, and I then felt so weak and so averse from life, that the morning was well advanced by the time I had gathered my courage and dragged myself back to Bradford. Indeed I do not believe I should ever have returned, I should have cast myself into the beck and gladly drowned, had I not had children awaiting me and depending on me. But a mother cannot desert her children, and so at last I entered the doors of the Pack Horse and trailed my tired and heavy body upstairs.
Sam was still fast asleep, his breathing sweet and steady; but Thomas lay awake and looked but poorly. The way his sad little face brightened when he saw me almost repaid me for my return to life. He sat up in bed and held out his arms and said: “Mother!” and I sat down beside him and hugged him, and he allowed himself to be fondled without any of the manly reservations he and his brother had lately thought it proper to make on childish caresses. His cheek was flushed, his head hot and his eyes heavy, and when I asked he confessed that he had vomited. I hesitated, perplexed as to whether he was fit to walk through the hot sun as far as Little Holroyd, and the landlady coming in I put my doubt before her.
She told me I was of course very welcome to stay. But I could hear in her voice that though she tried to mean this truly she could not, and I suddenly saw that in her eyes we were now the family of a man whom the Royalists regarded as a damnable traitor, and therefore not good company when the Royalists were about to sack the town. Her next words confirmed my guess, for without looking directly at me she went on:
“’Tis said the Earl will complete the leaguer to-day, and to-morrow enter the town.”
“Then I am better out of it,” said I, and watched her face brighten.
Sighing, I woke Sam and dressed Thomas. The poor child clung to me, hardly able to stand, as I fastened his buttons, and from time to time shivered down his backbone. Sam was a trifle bad-tempered and sullen, but I did not scold him; I knew what his loyal heart was suffering over the defeat of his heroes, his father and Sir Thomas. The air of the inn was stifling to us, who were used to the fresh country breezes at The Breck, and I thought we should all feel better when we were outside the town. I called for our maid, but instead her aunt came, and told me, colouring as she spoke, that they thought it best she should not leave them during this trouble. I could not blame them, for I judged I should have acted the same by a kinswoman of my own, so I gave a bundle of necessaries to Sam, and took Thomas by the hand, and without any further word descended and set out. The girl herself, tearful and angry, stood in the doorway and cried out that it was not her doing, for her part she wished to come with me, it was a shame and not her doing; and the landlord, looking troubled, for indeed he was a very honest godly man, said all in a breath that my reckoning had been paid by Sir Thomas, the girl’s wages should be returned, as soon as the country was settled she should come again to me, that he had a great respect for John Thorpe and was very sorry.
These intimations of our changed state were very disagreeable and disconcerting to me. Without much thinking about it or being over-proud of this score, I had always taken it for granted that I had a good standing in Bradford town—both the Clarksons and the Thorpes had always been well respected, if for different reasons, and of late John had been much looked up to, and his advice followed. The notion that the Thorpes of Little Holroyd could ever be anything but folk of solid substance and desirable acquaintance had never entered my head before, and now that it was thus forced in, it gave me a strange feeling of uncertainty and fear, a kind of painful hollowness. Suddenly, as we trailed along the street in the hot sunshine, I longed for John so keenly that I could hardly forbear crying his name, and when Sam innocently chose just this moment to ask when his father would be home, I fear I answered him sharply.
As we approached the bridge I saw scarlet coats on it, and my heart beat heavily. Sure enough the soldiers stopped us. They asked my name. Taught by my new fear, I did not give it; I roughened my voice, and speaking like our Sarah, said only that we dwelled in Little Holroyd. The corporal in charge said doubtfully he would consult his officer, and when I pressed him to let us through raised his hand in an exhorting way and said:
“Now, missis! There’s nowt gained by rushing!”
Since his speech showed that he was a Yorkshireman, I was terrified lest some of his troop or his officer should be men of our parts, who would know me, and I stood in an
agony, when fortunately little Thomas, overcome by the delay in the hot sun, saved all for us by vomiting.
“You see the child is sick,” I said.
“Aye, poor little lad. Well, pass on then,” said the corporal, sniffing. “But see you stay in Little Holroyd when you get there.”
We moved on thankfully. When we reached the shade of the trees in the lane I asked Thomas if he would care to sit and rest, but though the poor child was pale and trembling he would not delay us, but pressed on manfully.
The Breck was empty. There was no one in the fields or the laithe or the house, no one in the kitchen or the loom-chamber. Though the day was so warm the house struck a chill on me, the air within being stale and motionless, and dust coating the furnishings. Everything was just as we had left it on Friday night—even to a pair of Sir Thomas’s boots which lay cross-toed on the floor of his room, awaiting polish—save that two of our cows had been milked, and the milk stood in crocks in the kitchen. The milk had curdled in the heat, much to the disgust of Sam, who had always a great thirst on him. I set him to fetch water for us from the beck, while I put Thomas to bed; between vomit and flux the poor lad was very uncomfortable, and I was kept busy all that day attending him. I did not judge, however, that he was very ill, for I had seen him in these upsets before when over-excited; his spirit was sensitive and seemed in too close connection, as I sometimes jestingly told him, with his stomach. Towards evening my judgment, thank God, proved accurate; the heat of his body sank and he ceased to vomit, and he smiled at me and asked for a drink of milk. By now the cows were lowing in distress, for it was past their evening milking hour; since no one had come near us all day I told Sam we should have to milk them ourselves, and set to work on it. I had never touched a cow before and made but a poor job of it, but Sam did splendidly. When we had finished and made ourselves some supper, we were so tired that the longing for sleep overcame all our other troubles; we fell into bed and slept round the clock.
Take Courage Page 28
