Take Courage

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Chris will never make a clothier, John,” I said once, in a quiet sensible tone, as if it were one of our own lads we were discussing.

  “I know—I know,” said John. “But what will he make?”

  “Why, a soldier or a sailor, surely,” I said.

  “In that tyrant’s forces?” said John hotly, with a frown.

  “Besides, there is no getting a commission, and if a commission were got there is no promotion for any man nowadays save one with fanatical Independent views, a Cromwell’s man. But it’s time the lad was put to something,” fretted John, “that’s certain. Or he will fall into bad ways.”

  He did not add: “like his father,” but I knew what was in his mind, and indeed it was not very easy to reassure him, for Chris seemed to have very little feeling for religion. As a child he had been religious enough; I had taught him just as I taught my other sons, joining his little hands together in prayer by his bedside when he was yet a babe, explaining the commandments to him and telling him the good old Bible stories, and he listened earnestly enough; but now there was such a confusion in religion, there were so many congregations of so many different kinds, all hating and persecuting each other, that in a way I do not wonder that when Chris looked at religious people with his clear eyes he found them wanting. He accompanied us to church, naturally, but never seemed eager to go there, and he would not begin to take the Lord’s Supper, though he was now of a proper age. John was much grieved at this, and bade me press him; he simply said: “I do not wish it, Mother,” and when I urged him again, laughed and said teasingly: “I am not in a proper state of grace,” and pulled my hair loose over my ears and kissed me, and bounded off.

  Not that my Chris was bad in any sense; nay, he had a heart of gold. He never lied, or cheated, or sought his own advantage, or was rude or unkind; everyone loved him, even Mr. Watkin the schoolmaster, who shook his head over Chris’s smudged exercises and said it was useless to think of sending him to the University. John was disappointed, for he wanted to do better by Chris than had been done by Francis, yet relieved too in these bad times not to need to find the money for it. I had an idea at one time that Chris would have done very well at a University, if he had been allowed to take up studies of a different kind, for indeed he read avidly, though not such books as we were wont to have at The Breck. God knows where he got the books he read—I found old playbooks and chapbooks stuffed in his pockets, and he had a volume by Sir Walter Raleigh, and another of Hakluyt’s Voyages, which he greatly prized. Perhaps he might have been one of those University wits David had told me of, who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory, and in the early days of Charles I. But all such wits were gone now, only serious theological studies seemed to be allowed.

  At one time Chris took a great desire to go to London. I was so glad to find him eager on any plan of work that, though I felt part of me would die if Chris were to leave me, I urged this course on John.

  “But what will he do there?” objected John.

  “He can be apprenticed to some merchant—our Sam has done well enough for himself there,” said I.

  “Aye, but our Sam had a trade at his finger-tips,” said my husband. “If Chris goes, knowing naught of trade or figuring, there will be no value in him, he will be just a common drudge. Let him not think of going unless he be pretty expert in arithmetic,” said John, fretting: “Or he will be beaten and knocked and made a blockhead and a drudge.” Seeing the distress his words caused me, he added gently: “I only wish to do what is right by the lad, Penninah, you know that.”

  “Perhaps his place is on the land,” I said.

  “There is no livelihood to be got nowadays from the land,” replied John gloomily.

  Indeed in the unsettled condition of the country there seemed no opening anywhere, and Chris was the one of my lads to suffer for it. Thomas and Sam were born before the war, Abraham afterwards; Thomas and Sam had our cause to fight for, and thought tribulation worth enduring for it, by the time Abraham reached manhood there had come a peace on the land; it was Chris, born in the war-time yet too young to understand it, his childhood not properly protected, his youth uncertain, it was Chris who lacked a place in the world and a cause to direct him thither.

  I remember the first time it came to me that it was not only worldly prospects which were blank for Chris, there was a spiritual lack for him in the Protectorate as well. He had seemed moody the last few days—it was about the time John refused to let him go to London—and so when he was very late coming in from school I grew first vexed, and then very uneasy and finally alarmed. It was a wild autumn evening; the wind was blowing very furiously round our house, tossing the yellowing trees down by the beck and wailing and roaring in the chimneys. Then it began to rain very heavily, and I was distressed to think of Chris being out in such weather; I went often to the door and stood it wide to listen for him, but he came not. John and Abraham were both sitting by the fire; Abraham was making a drawing of a spinning-wheel with wool on it and a hand holding the wool, very delicate and accurate, so that I marvelled at it, and John, with his right leg stretched out before him on a buffet—for he was apt to be lame in that leg now in wet weather, like his father—looked over his shoulder and explained the spinning of the fibres as the child drew them. Their faces were very peaceful and happy, and as I turned back to them I thought how steady and at ease they looked: Abraham small and fine, with his high forehead and long dark lashes and bright dark eyes and his delicate fingers moving a pair of compasses which Sam had sent him from London, John strong and solid beside him. The Thorpes were the steadiness and ease of my life, I thought, and the Ferrands the torment and the joy; but if I were called on again to choose between them, which should I choose, ah, which? I need them both, I thought, shutting out the wild night and returning to the fire; I need them both.

  It was not long after this that we heard Chris’s clear tuneful whistle round the corner of the house, and the lad came lightly in. He was hatless and without a cloak, and consequently drenched; his thick hair was sleeked to his head with wet and his clothes clung to his body, but there was a very bright light in his eyes, and his fine lips were smiling joyously. When John saw him he sighed and sat up, putting his foot down from the buffet.

  “Where have you been, Francis?” he asked in a stern tone.

  “My name’s not Francis,” returned Chris impatiently, making for the kitchen to take off his boots.

  A dark colour came into John’s cheek. “I crave your pardon, Chris,” he said. “Where have you been since school?”

  “On the moors,” said Chris, not looking at him.

  “You should not stay out so late without giving us warning,” John told him gravely. “Your mother has been very anxious for you, Chris.”

  Chris turned his bright head so quickly that the drops flew from it. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be anxious so soon.”

  “You must learn to think,” said John drily. “Take off your wet clothes and go to bed.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Chris meekly, though with a sigh.

  At supper time Abraham asked if he should take food and drink up to his brother, and the maid was equally anxious to perform this task; I reserved it, however, to myself, and when we had finished carried up some supper, and sat beside Chris while he ate.

  “Who was with you on the moors, Chris?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” said Chris, carving his meat very vigorously.

  “Why did you go, then?” said I.

  “Oh, well—I don’t know—there was a heap of wind up there,” said Chris, his eyes glowing very brightly.

  “Have you studied your lesson for to-morrow, Chris?” I asked.

  Chris’s face fell. “No. I forgot,” he said.

  “Chris,” I said, “it is time you put yourself to some work, lad. You are too old now to hang about home and school.”

  Chris nodded with his mouth full.

  “What wou
ld you like to do?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Chris, rolling his eyes at me in mockery.

  “There must be some one thing you like to do,” I said.

  “I like horses and dogs and riding about and things that are dangerous,” said Chris. “I want to go away from Bradford.”

  “Why?” I said, turning to snuff the candle so that he should not see how he had hurt me.

  “It’s so tedious here, Mother,” said Chris. “Nothing but cloth and sermons and old men talking about the war.”

  “Chris!” I reproached him.

  “Well, ’tis so,” contended Chris. “Why they fought at all I cannot see, for they all seem to have lost by it. The war is long past now in any case, so why talk of battles?”

  “Chris,” said I, putting aside these disturbing insults for the moment: “Whom wouldst like to resemble, love, when thou art a man?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chris thoughtfully, biting into an apple.

  “Thy father?” I said timidly, meaning John.

  Chris shook his head.

  “Mr. Ferrand?” I suggested.

  “No!” said Chris.

  “Lord Fairfax?”

  “No. He’s beaten—they’re all beaten,” said Chris disgustedly. “There isn’t one has got his way.”

  “Oliver Cromwell, then?” said I.

  “What, fat old Noll? I thank you, no,” said Chris. “They’re all so tedious, Mother.”

  I sighed and rose to go away. It was but too true; in this age—its politics so confused, its principles so broken, all that was noblest in it huddled in a tame defeat—there was nothing to catch the bright fancy of a boy; no clear course to steer, no heroic figure to follow. There was no man for Chris to admire as Thomas had admired David and Sam admired Lord Fairfax.

  “Hi! Mother!” called Chris.

  “What is it, son?” said I, returning and stooping tenderly over him.

  “That was a very small apple,” said Chris, shaking his head in pretended solemnity.

  “I suppose that means you want another,” said I.

  “Even so, Mother,” said Chris, giving me a swift warm hug.

  I went down and found Abraham laying aside his pens ready to go to bed, so I gave him an apple for himself and one for Chris, to take up with him.

  When he had gone and all was quiet and I took out my needlework and sat beside John, I saw that he was looking very gloomy. I tried to distract him with a word or two about Abraham, but he gave me short answers. Then he seemed to repent of this, and broke out suddenly:

  “In what have I failed the boy?” Seeing I did not understand him: “In what have I failed Chris?” he repeated in explanation.

  “Failed Chris?” I exclaimed. “Thou hast not failed him.”

  “Aye, but I have,” said John. “Why does the boy go wandering over the moors at night? I did not understand Francis, and I do not understand Chris. I have failed him in some way.”

  He seemed so perplexed and distressed that I was fain to say I did not understand Chris either. But this was not quite true. I remembered the days when I first came as a bride to The Breck, and how heavy and dull and narrow life had seemed there to me then. In those days, what would I not have given to be able to rush out alone to the wind, to the wild hillside, as Chris did! But God had given my life direction and purpose, had moulded my wildness of heart into a strong intention; now, in these confused and distracted times, there seemed no general purpose for Chris to turn to. I spoke of this to John, and he understood what I meant to say and saw some light in it, and we talked of the sinful divisions among the godly, very soberly and sadly.

  One sign of this strange confusion of beliefs and parties was the marriage of Lord Fairfax’s daughter, which had taken place about that time. (It made me feel old indeed, to think of little Moll Fairfax, whom I had fed and tended, now being grown enough to wed.) That her husband should be the Duke of Buckingham seemed very strange to me. He was a great nobleman, no doubt, and no doubt a handsome and attractive man, but that Black Tom’s daughter should marry such a Royalist, the son too of that abominable Duke whose exactions had begun the troubles which led to the Civil War—that I could not contemplate calmly. A few years ago such a match would have been impossible; that Lord Fairfax consented to it was a measure of the distance Cromwell’s tyrannies had driven moderate folk. Yes, as John and I sat together that night, talking of Chris and the Protectorate and Moll Fairfax’s husband, we both agreed that some sad judgment was surely near at hand for England.

  4

  A SHIP SAILS

  This was a year for weddings; there was Moll Fairfax’s marriage, and our Sam’s—no, that came the following year; but there was that other match, very unexpected by me, though looking back now I see he always had a fancy for the girl.

  One afternoon when John returned from some of his steward’s business I looked out as he rode up, and saw he had another man beside him; a long thin body of somewhat awkward carriage, but well clad in sober merchant’s style, and riding a nag of good shape, well fed. I heard John’s voice calling me next moment, and left Chris, on whose doublet I was sewing a button, bidding him cut the ends of the thread himself as I went downstairs. I was growing a little heavier in those days and did not fly up and down as I used when I was nimbler on my feet, so by the time I reached my guest he and John were standing on the hearth together. He is an ugly but well-meaning man, I thought, observing with what an air of serious interest he was regarding Abraham, who was already showing him a drawing. He had coarse short hair of a salt-and-pepper colour, and a flat frog-like face.

  “This is an old friend of ours, Penninah,” said John. I knew by his voice that he did not quite mean what he said, and I looked at the stranger more shrewdly.

  “You do not know me, Mistress,” said he in a somewhat mournful tone: “I am become a stranger to my brethren.”

  “Ah, heavens! Can it be Joseph Lister?” I cried.

  Lister smiled. “The very same, Mrs. Thorpe,” said he.

  “Why—Lister,” I stammered, for in truth I did not know how to greet him: “It is long since we saw you. You have done well for yourself, it seems.”

  “Aye, the Lord hath prospered my way,” said Lister. “I have been much about the country since I departed from The Breck.”

  “He has been in London, and seen our Sam,” put in John.

  “Oh, I have spent several years in London,” said Lister condescendingly. “And after, I was steward for a gentleman in Durham. But the preaching there has of late become so clouded and confused, I am come home again to Yorkshire to hear sermons with some meat in them.”

  “Well, Lister,” said I in an easy gracious tone, for I was vexed a little by his smug carriage: “For the sake of old times I forgive you for deserting us in a time of trouble, and make you heartily welcome to The Breck.”

  “Deserting you in a time of trouble!” exclaimed Lister, taken aback. “Did I not get the hay in for you?”

  “Why,” I began, but broke off, for I saw Lister’s eyes fix suddenly in a wide stare at something beyond my head. I turned, and there was Chris, leaning against the angle of the stairs, dangling the scissors in his hand. I had never seen him look so tall, so handsome, or so like his father.

  “I brought your scissors,” he murmured, disconcerted a little by Lister’s silent stare.

  Lister’s face was as white as tallow. I saw what a strange conjunction it was of the four of us: Lister, and John, and Francis’s son, and me. And the boy there was so ignorant of it all, and thought our lives at The Breck so tedious and dull! My heart melted.

  “This is my third son, Christopher,” said I. “Chris, this is Joseph Lister.”

  Chris came forward with his frank smile and his easy manner, and gave Lister his hand—he had been trained, I take some pride to say it, after a better prescription than his father, and was always courteous, especially to those who were older or poorer or some way weaker than he.

  “I
have heard much of you from my brother Sam,” he said.

  Lister dropped his hand as if it were fire, but could not take his eyes from the lad.

  “He hath your voice of velvet, Mistress,” said he.

  “Well—you will stay and dine with us, will you not, Lister?” I went on hurriedly. “And what trade do you intend to drive in Bradford? Shall you be a steward again, or return to cloth?”

  “I thought to be a merchant,” muttered Lister, in a voice so changed from his former complacency that I felt bound to try to cheer him.

  “I am sure far-seeing merchants are much needed in these hard times,” I said.

  John was relieved that this awkward meeting had passed off without open flame, and as we all sat down together he became more at ease with Lister, and they fell to talking of old times. I could see Chris’s look of tedium at all this, courteously veiled, and Abraham listening with a puzzled air, as children do to talk of times long past, and I had a strange sense of how life rolled on, how a moment ago I was a child listening to my elders at The Breck, and now I was an elder with children listening to me, and all my life had gone like a flash between.