Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (12 page)

Grandmother Wilson was at the vicarage window as he rode up. It was a straggling Elizabethan house much added to for clergymen with large families and the old couple lived in only a few rooms of it.

“Daniel!” she cried when he dismounted and flung the reins over the gate post. She drew him inside. “Ah how my heart lifts to say that name. I wish you could have met your Uncle Daniel, my sweet boy. I will never get over his cruel death as long as I live and if my Joseph dies I will have no will left to live at all. But come in and see him.”

Daniel stooped his head at the low parlour door. Grandfather was reclining on the couch with a rug over his knees though the evening was fine. His skin was parchment-coloured and loose over the bones of his face. Daniel thought he had aged years in their absence.

He took his hand and perched on the edge of the couch beside him.

“Well, you have seen the world, my boy.” The voice was weary. “And you have met some fine company I am sure, your dear mother’s family whom you never saw before. And they are come back with you, grand French nobility. Your father wonders how they are to be entertained, especially the young ladies who have never seen England before, and in so remote a part as this.”

Daniel smiled and pressed the thin flaccid hand.

“Oh I believe they will ride and we may hire a coach and take them about a little – to see the coast at Tynemouth perhaps.”

Joseph Wilson looked concerned. “Will your father not get into debt with such expenses as well as the cost of feeding his guests?”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders. Debts came and went with the quality of the harvests and the ability of the tenant farmers to pay their rents.

His grandmother sat on a high-backed chair, hunched like a bird of prey; the most prominent feature was her nose poking out amidst her halo of wild grey hair, still streaked with red.

She broke in, her tone sharp and sarcastic. “Your grandfather is thinking that nothing must put at risk your going up to Cambridge. Dear old Queens’ – his college and Nathaniel’s.”

Joseph regarded her wistfully. “Although your grandmother is eager to help in the village children’s schooling she is no lover of long hours of study for young men. But it would break my heart and your father’s if we failed to give you the wonderful chance we had to breathe the air of learning and meet with the best minds of the age. But I have been trying to put by a little of my stipend every year – we live very simply –”

Anne Wilson started up from her corner. “Nay, Joseph, promise nothing. If you are ill what have we to pay a physician and if you die, God forbid, I have no roof over my head.”

Daniel squirmed at the turn the conversation had taken. “Father wouldn’t take a penny from you, sir. I can work. He told me how he was a sizar at first and served wealthy students when he first went up to Queens’.” The time was not ripe to say he had other ambitions than Cambridge. “Truly, dear Grandfather, I only long to see you well. I will come often but you look tired now and perhaps I should go.”

His grandmother laid a hand on his arm. “Nay stay, my Daniel, eh, how I love to say that name! Have a sup of small beer. It’s all we have but I have made a cordial for your grandfather of honey and suffused herbs. You may try that after your long travels.”

Daniel had the small beer and was asked about the journey and his French relations and managed to make them both laugh over his account of their mishaps.

“Well if they wish to make our acquaintance in a little while,” said Anne Wilson, “they can come here, for your grandfather’s not fit to walk further than the church. I know I must endure to meet the wife of Sir John Horden who found my boy guilty when he was as innocent as a babe. It’s even harder to forgive her for the way her son Robert hounded him to the gallows.” She was working herself into a frenzy and now raised her clenched fists. “Robert Horden murdered my boy as sure as if he’d done it with his own hands and am I to have her under my roof?”

“Hush, hush,” cried Joseph. “God punished him when he fell from his horse. It will be hard for her too coming back here where husband and son were buried and she far away.”

“That was her fault for being a Papist. At least they will not be coming to a service here.”

Daniel tried to turn the conversation. “They
are
Papists but I know not that they heard a Mass while they were in London.”

“The Catholics may come a little into the open now.” Joseph’s voice sounded stronger since he had drunk his cordial. “I have heard that the new King wants toleration for all. He is right. Let every man worship according to his own lights, say I. The dear people here are not worried whether I wear a vestment or not and they told no snooping Parliament men when I read from the Prayer Book one Sunday during those harsh years. Now I believe both priests and bishops will come back in and our Nat can take the orders for which he was always intended. Is that your inclination too, Daniel?”

Daniel stood up with a nervous laugh. “I can’t say I have felt a calling that way, Grandfather, but of course I’m not quite sixteen yet.”

“Ay, you are such a towering lad it is hard to remember how young you are. Well, God bless you. I dare say there will be a good supper at the Hall if you go now.”

There was a good supper though they had dined well at an inn in Durham at noon. His aunt insisted they broke open the case of wine and they were as merry as the silence of Lady Horden and the tensions between the girls would allow.

Ursula did not sit with them and Bel told Daniel afterwards she had positively refused.

“There will be time enough for the four of us to be a family again when they are gone. That was what she said. I couldn’t press her for she was quite determined.”

Daniel escaped the card game that was afterwards proposed by Madeline and went into the kitchen to sit with Nana Sula and tell her much that he hadn’t mentioned to his grandparents about the London Hordens.

“You speak with compassion about that poor girl, Eunice. Are you a little in love with her or is it that sweet Diana? She’s quite a beauty.”

“No, goodness me, Nana Sula. Everyone talks about being in love but I have no thoughts that way. Do not you add to the clamour! To be honest –” he leant close to her and whispered, “What I really want to do is join the navy but say nothing of that yet. Father and Mother assume I am going to Cambridge.”

She put her head on one side and a cackle came from her twisted mouth.

“My boy wants adventure. I can understand that.”

As always her bright eyes with their laughter-lines radiating were full of a love that he knew was without conditions or reservations of any kind.

He went happily to bed in the narrow room that looked out of its pointed window onto the statue of Sir Ralph triumphantly brandishing his sword.

“You old villain,” he said to him, half aloud, before he turned in. “They may say you’re no great work of art, but seeing you riding to battle inspires me more than Cousin Clifford’s ledgers or father’s or grandfather’s hours of study. I know not how things will turn out but thank God the northern night is cooler than London.”

He had no sooner curled his long body between the sheets than he was fast asleep.

Eunice Horden sat with a sheet of paper in front of her and her mind in turmoil. It was a week since her cousins had set off for the north but she could not banish Daniel from her thoughts. Her father had been quiet and happy, since penning his letter.

Would I, she asked herself, find peace in my heart if I wrote a letter, not to Cousin Daniel – that would be quite improper – but to his mother, apologising for my foolish outburst which quite spoilt their visit and caused her son obvious distress. Cousin Arabella was a warm happy person. I can’t forget how she took my hands and wanted to be friendly. I was cold and unresponsive, I was so shocked to see them at our wretched door, all smiles, and he so tall and his eyes so tender . . . Yes, I must write. I behaved very badly.

If I had written before they left London, she reasoned, they would all have been talking of it in the coach. Now I can take time over it and write carefully and address it to Horden Hall. They may be at home now. Cousin Arabella may then receive it amongst other letters and read it in seclusion. What she tells her son of its contents I can leave to her. I think she is an honourable woman and she will at least pass on to him that I am sorry.

But is it wrong to write at all? Is it indulging a feeling I should not be feeling? The flesh wars against the spirit, as the Bible tells us. Is this a fleshly desire? Yet Father has always said that repenting for wrong-doing should be followed by reparation if it can be done. His letter was all he could do to put right the unjust things he had said. I too should put right what I said. God has given me this hour or more when Father has gone forth to pray before the Tower for an old Leveller mewed up there. He will be a long time. I can write the letter and entrust it to Tom to take to the post house.

She took up the pen with a prayer on her lips. Dear Lord, if I am doing wrong let this letter be lost on its way.

But how to word it?

She wrote,
‘To Mistress Arabella Wilson Horden of Horden Hall in the County of Northumberland.’
That part was simple enough. She remembered her father explaining to her that Arabella was not called plain Mistress Wilson after her husband’s name. “I fear there was pride,” he said. “The name Horden belongs to the baronetcy and her son must come in as – I believe – the fifth baronet of the Horden dynasty. They put Wilson before it for form’s sake.”

But now how to continue?

‘Pray forgive my presumption in writing to you, dear Cousin Arabella, but I have been uneasy in my mind since your visit to our humble dwelling.’

That should be ‘in my heart’ but therein is danger. That is the flesh.

‘I spoke rashly and hastily then and for that I am truly sorry. At my grandfather’s house your son rightly expressed to others that the word ‘love’ should not have been mentioned at all. We had scarcely become acquainted. I was very wrong to listen to that conversation. Later when he witnessed my distress at my father’s arrival I know he meant only kindness so I grieve that he should have become the object of my father’s anger both at my grandfather’s and during your visit.

‘Pray convey to your son my deep regret that my thoughtless words produced that further wrath on my father’s part for which I know he has already apologised in a letter to your husband. Troubled as I have been, I believe I am right to add my own apology.’

Oh how to explain her tone of voice when she had repeated Daniel’s words? Was it not plainly the cry of one deeply hurt? That could not be explained away. He had understood it then and wanted to comfort her but she had not let him. Terrified of her father and of her own feelings she had told him to go. Nothing she wrote now could wipe that out. Of course he would have put it all behind him in the excitement of the journey home and the company of the French cousins. Away from London it was inevitable that he would grow much closer to them.

She laid down the pen and buried her face in her hands. This was a foolish letter. She was needlessly exposing herself to him.

She read through what she had written. No, it must go but just as it was. It was enough. She had said she was sorry.

She took up the pen and added only,
‘I pray that you have reached home safely in the care of the good Lord and I wish every blessing in life to you and your family.

Pray forgive your affectionate but unworthy cousin,

Eunice Horden.’

Sealing it up, she ran next door and finding Tom Fletcher writing out an exercise her father had given him, she said, “The mail coach goes out today. Run with this to the post house. You will have time to finish your work before my father returns. Here is the money for the letter and a penny for you.”

The boy loved her and would have done an errand for nothing. He beamed up at her and ran off without a word.

It was only as she walked slowly back inside that she knew she would not be telling her father what she had done and so it must be wrong to have done it. If he counts the sheets of paper he will know one has gone and I will have to lie about it. Oh the Lord, what have I done? She dropped onto her knees before the cold hearth.

I have obeyed my heart. I could not let that strange episode with my beautiful cousin end where it did. The taste of it was bitter. That is all that prompted me. Oh I love him. I believe he has a tender loving heart but it is not directed to me in the way of the love of a man to a woman as mine is to him. There! I have acknowledged it to myself at last. I love him. Perhaps his mother will think more kindly of me if she ever receives my letter. She must have hated me before for causing him a moment’s grief. Will she show it to him? Oh how will it make him feel?

Please, Lord, let them forgive me as I begged her.

She must be active before her father came back. She dusted and swept their little home in every corner. She fetched kindling and made up a little fire to cook some fish he had brought from Billingsgate the evening before. She heard Tom come back. He would finish his work and not mention his errand. He was a boy of deep thoughts but very few words.