Into the noisy mêlée stepped the elegant figure of Lady Elizabeth, an enquiring expression on her face.
Helena’s heart lurched and she turned away, murmuring under her breath Not me, please don’t let me be the one who tells her.
Bayle gently detached Lady Elizabeth from the crowd, drawing her out of Helena’s line of vision. When they returned a moment later, she was deathly pale, her blue eyes clouded with pain.
Helena’s shoulders slumped, angry with herself for even thinking of leaving her. “Mother I…”
Her mother held up a quivering hand to silence her. “Go. It may be possible for you to travel where others cannot. We must know what has happened to them.”
“Mother!” Henry glared first at his mother then at Bayle. “You cannot allow her to go!”
Mother wrapped an arm round his shoulder, shushing him.
“I will go with her, my lady,” Bayle said. “We can take the heavy cart and two of the moor ponies.”
His words lifted Helena’s heart. “You would really come with me?”
He nodded. “If we travel under the guise of a wool merchant and his…” Helena imagined he was about to say daughter, but he changed it to niece, “…we may be able to get past the troopers without arousing interest.” His hand reached into the bag where
Helena’s journal lay in plain sight atop her plainest gowns.
“You cannot take this.” He held up the brown book she had bought in Taunton Market, its leather strings trailing like an appeal. “We’re traveling merchants who know nothing of the rebellion.” He thrust it at her. “This would give us away in an instant.” He strode to the door and shouted for Lumm to pack a few things for him and meet him in the courtyard.
Helena handed the journal to Henry, who clasped it to his chest. “Put it somewhere safe, would you?” she asked.
He nodded, blinking back tears. Then he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, whispering. “Why cannot I come with you?”
Helena’s glance went to her mother, though even before she saw the rapid shake of her head and the fist she pressed to her mouth, Helena knew she had to refuse him.
“I cannot, Henry.” She grasped his upper arms and held him away from her. “If the troopers assume you are a rebel and decide to take you, I would have no means to prevent it.”
“What if they should take you, Helena?” he murmured, too low for their mother to hear. “Do you think they wouldn’t hang a woman?”
Helena stiffened. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. Yet she couldn’t weaken.
Bayle hoisted Helena’s bag onto his shoulder, and barged through the muttering servants who crowded the door. “We’ll concoct our story together on the way.” He led the way down the stairs and out onto the sunny courtyard.
Helena’s sweeping glance took in their mode of travel with resignation. No fine horses and best garments for Nathan Bayle and his young niece; simply two of the hardiest horses the Woulfes owned, hitched into the traces of the provisions cart.
Helena eyed them uncertainly. “Must we take these?” she asked dismayed. “They’re not even proper horses. We could move faster on the bay and the chestnut.”
“No doubt.” Bayle offered with a cynical smile. “Or shall we take the carriage? The one with the Woulfe crest on the door?”
His sarcasm cut into her, and a burning flush crept up her neck, though she couldn’t help muttering that the carriage would have been this.
Ignoring her, Bayle handed her into a seat that sported a loosely-packed sack of hay. Helena could swear her back already ached.
“No doubt it is,” Bayle said, whilst he arranged the cart and issued orders that sent maids and grooms off in all directions. “What would you do if a trooper tried to take them from you because they are finer than his own?”
Helena groaned at her own stupidity, though she offered no response. For the first time she realized that being left with two women, a boy and a houseful of the weaker and less able servants must have been hard on Bayle these last weeks.
He might live under their roof, but she had no idea if he agreed with her father’s choice to join Monmouth.
She was asking herself the same questions about Lumm, when he caught her sideways glance and bent in a slow, courteous half-bow, halted mid-way and winked.
Helena sighed, saved from a sharp rebuke as the cart surged forward onto the road. Her last sight was of her mother with both arms wrapped round Henry, who was leaning against her as they watched from the front steps.
* * *
“Don’t look so terrified Mistress,” Bayle said good-naturedly as the cart rumbled down the Honiton road. “At least the sun is out, which may even dry out after the flash floods of these last weeks.”
Helena smiled, her face lifted to the sun. He was right. It felt good to be in the countryside after being cooped up at Loxsbeare for so long, though she couldn’t help looking toward the horizon in search of mounted soldiers.
“They won’t have reached Devon this soon,” Bayle said as if reading her thoughts. “They’ll be tied up in Somerset for a day or so yet.”
“I suppose so.” She forced herself to relax, her gaze falling on the loaded flatbed behind them. “Why so many sacks?” she asked.
“To sleep on, Mistress.” Seeing her startled expression, he added, “there are inns along the way, but we might have to keep off the main roads.”
Her mouth formed a silent O, as another thought occurred to her. “Do we have any coin for innkeepers?”
He smiled, arching an eyebrow. “And for horse feed, if we can find any.”
She fell silent, aware of Bayle’s indulgent smile on her profile. How could she possibly even have contemplated making this journey alone?
Above the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves came a rustling from the hedgerows. A deer crossed in front of the cart, its soft eyes regarding them steadily before disappearing into the woods beyond the hedge. Helen followed the flight of a bird over her shoulder, shielding her eyes with a hand against the high noon sun.
Beyond shoulder-high dry-stone walls on either side of the road, bent-backed workers sliced rhythmically with scythes, heaped wheat stalks into piles and tied them together heads uppermost to dry out.
“It’s early for the harvest,” Helena murmured.
“Heavy rain has flattened the corn.” Bayle nodded toward the fields off to their left, where exhausted workmen paused to watch their progress. “It’s back-breaking, dirty work. They are saving what they can.” He sighed. “I anticipate a hard winter this year.”
Helena wondered if, beside reaping an almost ruined harvest, the workers also scanned the horizon for royal patrols.
“Bayle?” Helena asked when they had covered another mile. “Does the Green Ribbon Club still exist?”
He glanced briefly at her. “Not as it once did, Mistress. Many of its most prominent members are dead, though plenty in these parts uphold their beliefs. Why do you ask?” He left her father’s name unspoken, but the inference was clear.
“Is John Trenchard one of them?”
“The member of Parliament from Wolverton way?” he asked. “Aye, I believe so. He ran a Rebel club out of the Red Lion Inn in Taunton.”
“Ran?”
“Aye. A warrant went out for him when all this started. He was an exclusionist. A thorn in the King’s side. I gather his Majesty included him in the Whig Arrests.”
“Exclusionist?”
“Those who tried to have King James excluded from the line of succession, because he’s a Papist.”
“Was my father an Exclusionist?”
“This uprising wasn’t as much of a secret as some hoped,” Bayle said, ignoring her question. “Trenchard was-is-a conspirator. He fled abroad to avoid being arrested.”
“He helped purchase weapons, didn’t he?” Helena asked slowly.
“How did you know that?” Bayle turned and stared at her.
“Last winter, Father took me to Taun
ton. When we reached The Red Lion, Master Trenchard was waiting for us. Father tried to tell me it was a chance meeting, but I’m not as gullible as he supposed.” At Bayle’s wry smile she continued. “They talked about buying muskets. It was the ribbons that made Father angry.”
“Ribbons?” Distracted, Bayle loosened the reins, allowing the cart to slow a little.
Helena nodded. “Father gave me some coin and sent me to look round Taunton Market. I bought that leather-bound journal you insisted I leave behind. I also bought some ribbons in a shade of emerald green that the stallholder said would suit me. I returned to the inn and showed them to Father before dinner.
“What did he say?” Bayle asked carefully.
“It was what Mr Trenchard said that I remember. “Green ribbons eh? How appropriate” he said it in this loud, braying voice like a private joke and pounded Father on the shoulder. Father was furious. He didn’t say so, but I could see it in his face.”
“Did anything else happen on this journey?” Bayle asked, giving her the impression he knew more about this man than he had revealed.
“When we left the next day, Master Trenchard bowed over my hand and when I said I hoped we would meet again, which wasn’t entirely truthful as I didn’t much take to him.” She caught Bayle’s wry grin and shrugged. “Anyway, he punched the air with his fist and said, “Most assuredly, for we have fellows in scarlet to take off, do we not Jonathan?” He didn’t even lower his voice. An expectant hush spread over the inn yard as everyone stopped to listen.”
“I doubt Sir Jonathan would have been pleased about that.”
“He wasn’t.” Helena snorted at the memory. “He was livid. His face was just an inch away from Master Trenchers when he snarled at him, something like, Hush man, you don’t know who may be listening!” She swallowed and released a long breath. “I didn’t understand what it all meant. Not then.”
“Does it all make more sense now?”
She nodded. “Father had been planning this for months, hadn’t he? All those night visitors he didn’t want us to see. Do you know who they were?”
“Some of them, perhaps, though it’s best I don’t mention any names.”
“Suppose the soldiers come to Loxsbeare when we are gone?”
He didn’t reply, his attention ostensibly on guiding the horses around a hay cart blocking the road.
“What will Mother and Henry do if that happens? They can’t fight the King’s army.” Awful possibilities crowded her head, the least of which was their being dragged away in chains. She bit her bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, horrified for not having considered this eventuality before. She had left her home without a thought, in search of her father, but the parent for whom she should have been caring was now alone. Lumm was there…if she could trust him.
“Don’t fret, Miss Helena.” Bayle took one hand from the reins and briefly squeezed hers. “They’ll be gone by tonight, your mother and Henry.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“To the Ffoyles. That is the arrangement.”
“Father knew this would happen?” Suddenly everything fell into place. Samuel’s visits to Loxsbeare, his private talks with Lumm, and probably Bayle too.
“Sir Jonathan was always committed to the Duke of Monmouth’s cause, never doubt that.” Bayle flicked the reins to hurry the lethargic horses along
“But he thought the cause might fail?” Anger bloomed and grew inside her chest. If so, how could he have left us like he did?
“Is that why Samuel Ffoyle didn’t go to Lyme when Monmouth landed? Because he didn’t believe in it? Why didn’t he try to persuade Father not to go?”
“Master Ffoyle is not a Monmouth man, but that doesn’t mean he could turn your father from his own beliefs.”
She twisted in her seat to face him. “He should have tried harder!” her anger made her unreasonable. “He told me himself he had forbidden his sons to join the rebels. A decision he must be grateful for now.”
“Not Monmouth’s, perhaps.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “But he is Jonathan Wolfe’s man. Master Ffoyle doesn’t deserve your anger, Mistress.”
“I know.” She folded her arms tightly across her chest, as if to keep her fury inside. “Father’s the one I’m angry with, for leaving us. For making Mother so distressed she has made herself ill. For taking Aaron away from her when everyone knows he’s her darling.”
The rhythmic clop of hooves continued along the dirt road, and the birds sang in the trees above them. Bayle did not react to her bitter tirade, as if he knew she needed to say the words that she had kept pent up aloud. He simply kept the reins loose across one bent knee, his foot on the guard, and his gaze straight ahead.
“Do you think we’ll find them?” Helena asked at last, her voice small.
“Whether we do or not,” he replied slowly. “Loxsbeare Manor is no longer your home.”
“What are you saying?” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. How could this be happening?
Her great-grandfather, Julius Woulfe, had built the house for his fifteen-year-old bride when the first King Charles occupied the throne some sixty years before. In an effort to make the nervous girl’s transition to married life easier, and the prospect of her twenty-four-year-old groom less terrifying, he named their new home after the village near Tiverton, where she was born.
His son, Thomas, Helena’s grandfather, possessed a more artistic nature than his Puritan father. He had the interior white plasterwork painted with swathes of leaves and flowers that trailed up the staircase and across the tops of doorways.
“Now the Duke has been defeated, the soldiers will come, Mistress.”
The thought of soldiers trampling through her home made her grip the rough wood of the cart so hard that splinters cut into her hand.
Her rage subsided, and her breathing slowed down somewhat, as her rational side took over. Everything had changed and harping back to the past would not help them now. The thick branches above them swayed and collided in the wind, throwing off the remains of the last storm to sprinkle the cart with droplets of cool water.
Helena took a deep breath. “Then you had better stop calling me Mistress.”
Chapter 5
The sound of steady hoof-beats approaching brought Hendry’s gaze to the wrought iron gates that separated the courtyard from St David’s Hill. He leaned on his broom, grateful for a break in the hot and arduous task of sweeping the cobbles, watching as Samuel Ffoyle rode into the courtyard and summoned a groom.
The youth moved with insolent slowness until Samuel reprimanded him for being kept waiting.
The groom had come into his elevated position since the departure of the original incumbent for Monmouth’s army. However hard he tried, Henry couldn’t like Benjamin.
Henry propped his broom against the nearest wall and fell into step beside Samuel. “Is something wrong, Master Ffoyle?” he asked as they mounted the steps side by side.
“Not here,” Samuel barked, ushering him to where his mother, clothed in a cream gown from neck to toe and bathed in a shaft of light, waited in the entrance hall like a nervous wraith.
On catching sight of them, her face closed, as if in anticipation of more bad news.
Samuel bowed over her hand, though he wasted no time on preliminaries. “Lady Elizabeth. Monmouth’s army has been routed, and the king will show no mercy to known rebels. You must leave here at once.”
“My husband could return at any time, Master Ffoyle.” She withdrew her hand from his, and lifted her chin, defiant. “I cannot possibly leave.”
“Somerset is swarming with troopers.” Samuel persisted. “Devon will be too, in a day or so. My lady, if you don’t depart of your own volition, you may find yourself taking flight with only the clothes on your back.”
“We must listen to Master Ffoyle, Mother.” Henry placed a hand on her shoulder. “He would never give us bad advice.”
She stared about wildly. “Where would we go? We have no fa
mily, and no friends who aren’t part of this…?” she broke off, her true feelings about the rebellion suppressed even now, though Henry knew what she had been about to say. “Master Ffoyle will help us.” Henry took in Samuel’s calm yet determined expression, adding. “My father asked you to do this?”
Samuel nodded. “There’s no time to explain, but I promise we’ll talk later. You must pack up everything you need. Hide your valuables, or send them away with someone you trust.”
“You are the only one we can trust, Master Ffoyle.” Henry said, aware he sounded bitter, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt redundant, inadequate, with his father, uncle and brother off fighting for a cause of which he too could have been a part. Even Helena had followed her own impulses; and where was he? Caretaking an empty house occupied by a distraught woman who scorned his care.
While Henry reassured his mother, Samuel had taken command of the servants. Handing his hat and cloak to a footman, his gaze swept the lofty entrance hall as if marshalling his thoughts. “Three of my carts are on their way to take your goods to my home. Bring anything you don’t wish the King’s men to plunder or destroy to this hall, and I’ll organise the servants to begin packing.”
Plunder or destroy? The words made Hendry’s bowels cramp, but he kept silent. He must not show weakness now.
“Henry,” Samuel looked down at him from his massive height. “You and Helena must dress yourselves in simple clothes; no silks or taffetas. You must pass for local farming people and…”
“Helena is not here,” Henry interrupted, flushing. “She left for Somerset just this morning.”
Shame rushed through him at the memory of having thrown his arms around Helena and begged to go with her. He had meant it at the time. But when the watching servants had dispersed, and he was alone again with Lady Elizabeth, he realised it had been an empty wish. The thought of meeting armed soldiers eager for blood turned his stomach.
Samuel dropped his arms and stepped closer, frowning. “Somerset? Alone? Why?”
“Nathan Bayle is with her,” Mother said, as if that made it acceptable.
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