Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (23 page)

Bel shook her head and brushed her hands across her eyes. “No, I can tell you. I can tell you she hastened her own death –”

“What?” said Nat. “She swallowed something?”

“Did you see her take some pills?” the doctor asked.

Bel gave an hysterical laugh. “She would have liked to do that the day her husband died but she knew right from wrong and refrained. No, she worked herself up into a state of excitement today. She boasted that she had run back from visiting Daniel’s grave and then she used my presence to get herself into one of her passionate outbursts. She thanked me for coming and helping her to do that. So she got her way in the end.”

Doctor Harlow nodded solemnly. “Exertion and excitement could indeed have finally snapped the thread of life. Her heart was in a fragile state. You are upset, my lady, very naturally, and I could prescribe a soothing cordial –”

“No thank you. I want nothing in life but my son back from the wars and that, I’m afraid, is beyond your prescription.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

Doctor Harlow bowed and withdrew with Nat to make the necessary arrangements. Peggy slipped back into the kitchen.

“I know it’s not the time to mention it, my lady, but what will happen to me now?”

Bel smiled at the girl’s round cherubic face. Even when solemn and worried as she was now it was all dimples.

“Well, this is still the vicarage and you are still the vicarage maid and the Reverend Nathaniel will remain the vicar for as long as he’s able to. He won’t often stay the night but he will probably keep books and papers here now and maybe write his sermons here. Who knows what a few years may bring? He and I may be coming to live here all the time if Sir Daniel marries. It would be right and proper for the baronet and his bride to live at the Hall.”

And I won’t grudge him the love of a good woman, she said in her heart. I won’t feel one pang of jealousy if I can just have him safe a mere half mile away.

“Oh my lady, is Sir Daniel betrothed then?” Peggy asked.

Bel came down with a bump from the happy picture she had just seen in her mind’s eye. “No, Peggy, he is still at sea fighting the Dutch.”

Peggy clasped her hands before her face. “Oh how exciting that must be! But oh my lady, he’ll be sad to hear about his grandmother and not able to come to her funeral. He used to come here often and when the old reverend wanted to give him books he sometimes took them to please him and then handed them to me at the door and said to put them back on the shelf because his grandfather liked those ones and would miss them. He was very thoughtful that way.”

“Was! Don’t you dare say ‘was’, girl”

“Oh I’m sorry, my lady, I didn’t mean no harm. It’s just it’s a long time since he was here.”

Bel gave her a hug to conceal the tears she felt rising again. A long time! It was certainly that.

“You’re a dear thing, Peggy. Now put clean sheets on the bed in there so she can be laid out, poor old Mother Anne. God bless her and you for your patience with her odd moods.”

“Oh thank you, my lady, and for keeping me on. When it’s all clean and tidy here and the reverend doesn’t want me will I be allowed to run to the farm and help Mother sometimes?”

“Of course you will. She is blessed in having you so near.” Bel was still fighting tears. Everything conspired to remind her of Dan’s absence.

When she and Nat walked back to the Hall together in the warm twilight she could still scarcely refrain from speaking of Daniel rather than Anne.

“I have more sympathy with your mother now than I ever did and it’s too late. Sometimes I hated her talking endlessly of her Daniel. But we were at one just now a few moments before she died. His sad fate has been eating her up. Those were just the words I used to her about Dan’s absence when I’d read her his letter.”

Nat stood still on the track and made her face him. “Bel, this must not be. You must seek a calmer spirit. The Bel I married was full of hope and joy in the midst of poverty and homelessness. Your spirits lifted mine. I was doubtful and cautious but you inspired me.”

“But I was never calm. I was always passionate. Were you not afraid I would wear you out as your wild mother did your father?”

“Yes, briefly. But then you were full of plans for our little school and I knew that as long as you had a purpose and great activity you would put all that energy to good use. And you always have.”

“Oh I can keep busy. Ursula and I will make pies and puddings and sweetmeats for the funeral and then Peggy and I will clean the vicarage out from top to bottom and I will get a plasterer to fill in all the cracks and I will dig the garden and tidy it up for winter and all the time my mind will run on Dan. What is he doing this moment? Where is he? Is he in danger? No, Nat, don’t ask me to straightjacket my thoughts for I cannot.”

She marched on fast and he had to quicken his pace to catch her up.

He grasped her arm to check her. “Can you not thank God that Daniel is not in London in the midst of the plague?”

“If I think of that I worry about poor little Eunice if Clifford and Celia have not taken her into the country with them.” She looked up at him with a wry smile. “I’m sorry, Nat. I lacked love as a child and thought I could never give it but since I found it I want it to surround me always. To give it and receive it. I could love Eunice if she would let me. If she was here I would fold her in my arms and make love bloom in her, for me, for you, for Daniel. But they are all scattered.”

“And my mother, whom you did try to love though she made it hard, has just gone from us. Will you mourn her at all?”

She stood still in the lane and embraced him. She drew his face down and kissed him. “I do already. I want her back so I can love her more than I ever did. But I will not be restored till the living one that I love is with me again. Only I will try not to weep because it distresses you and Ursula.”

“That’s my Bel,” was all he said and they walked on together with their arms twined round each other.

CHAPTER 17

Eunice had not walked two hundred yards before the enormity of what had happened struck her like a blow. Her father, to whom she had deferred all her life, was dead and she had allowed him to be carted away to a common burial ground, where there would be no memorial. she would never know which of the pits he had been thrown into, and she had spoken no prayer over him.

Crushed with guilt and sorrow she had to put out a hand to a house wall or she would have sunk to her knees. There was not a soul in sight but she could hear the shouts and singing of revellers in the distance. The world was a hostile place but she had sinned grievously and deserved punishment. Night was coming on. She might be free but she was alone and friendless.

She made herself walk on and presently the huge bulk of St Paul’s loomed ahead of her. Fearful of the danger from drunken men she decided she must find a dark corner to hide for the night. There would be shelter in the portico at the western door if it should rain and though her father had often denounced the cathedral and its worship as profane and idolatrous she felt some comfort in being close to a building dedicated to God. She climbed the steps and passed under the colonnade. Then she opened up her bundle, drew out her cloak, wrapped it round her and curled up on the paving stones close to a pillar.

The great doors were fast bolted now but she knew they would be unfastened at daybreak and swarms of people would set up their little stalls in Paul’s Walk as the nave of the cathedral was generally called. There would be water-carriers, fruit-sellers and a variety of other provision merchants as well as many booksellers. She had with her a copy of Dent’s
Plain Man’s Guide to Heaven
which she hoped to sell to buy provisions for a day or two till she could find work somewhere. Apart from her father’s big Bible which she had left by his bed and her own smaller one she had brought in her bundle it was the only book her father had allowed in the house and she had popped it in among her clothes with one mug she used herself, a small knife and spoon and a wooden plate. Now she was glad it might prove useful.

Sleep eluded her for a long time. Although she was in complete darkness she was afraid of the searchers roaming the city who might come upon her and guess she had escaped from a plague house. She could hear sometimes far off and sometimes alarmingly near the bell of a dead cart. Worst of all were her own thoughts. No one must ever know that she had walked out and left her father to the scavengers of corpses.
God
knows, she told herself, and in His great mercy He has forgiven me.

It was the world of her grandparents before whom she would stand ashamed. They would also berate her for her folly in leaving the only home she had and exposing herself to dangers on the streets. Before she fell asleep she resolved to take on a new identity. The alliterative syllables of Patience Porter came into her head, she didn’t know why, unless it was because her father always urged her to be patient.

Patience will be a different character, she decided. She will do what Father always preached, live one day at a time, doing whatever lawful task is put upon her, having no romantic longings, no dreams, no lustful thoughts of a tall, flaxen-haired god.

Why then, she wondered, as she left the cathedral behind her next morning, equipped with a small loaf, a few ounces of cheese, two apples and a bottle of ale, did she turn her feet in the direction of the river. The river meant ships and although she knew no big ships could come as far up as this she might follow the river till she came to some docks. She had no idea how far Deptford and Woolwich were but she had heard them mentioned as places for fitting out and repairing naval craft. She had not totally shed Eunice Horden and it was she who was drawn to any spot where it was just possible she might see Daniel. Patience Porter was to look for some work as a maid or shop girl where she could earn an honest living, meekly serve her master or mistress, read her Bible, think holy thoughts and never look beyond the next day.

Refreshed with a small breakfast of a mug of milk and an orange she set off walking, telling herself this was a new life and nothing in the past was ever to trouble her mind again.

It was nearly Christmas at Horden Hall and Bel with the help of Ursula, hopping up and down ladders like a happy little bird, was decorating the great hall with boughs of holly.

Adam, the groom, came from the kitchen with some letters.

Bel, almost snatching them from him, glanced swiftly through and saw nothing in Dan’s writing, but there was one from Celia. At once she imagined it was bad news of Daniel and she darted into Nat’s study and flung it on the desk before him.

“You open it. I dare not.”

Nat broke the seal and began to read, “My dear Cousins, I have to tell you sad news.” His voice faltered and Bel shrieked and clasped her head in her hands.

“No, no, no!”

He was glancing down the page. “No, it is not Dan. It is Clifford.”

“Oh.” She had sunk into a chair, white as death. “
Clifford
!” She breathed deeply. “Clifford! I care not one iota what happens to Clifford.”

Ursula was hovering anxiously at the door which she had left open. Nat beckoned her in. Neither of them had a closer friend than Ursula.

She put her arms round Bel’s neck. “My Bel is not chiming charitably but she has had a shock.”

Bel kissed her cheek. “Rebuke me all you wish but if he has gone I am only sorry for Celia.”

Nat had been reading on. “Well he has not
gone
but he has had a seizure which has left him scarcely able to speak or move. News came that Dutch warships had captured several merchant ships in which he had a large financial interest. I don’t think Celia understands how much it will affect his business. Her letter is rather rambling. They had only just returned to London believing the plague to be much declined and Clifford had been growing more and more anxious about the manager whom he had left in day to day charge. Then this news broke.” He turned the page. “Wait, there is more here. Oh, that is bad indeed. Not Dan. No, I see Dan mentioned further on. She has seen him. He had leave before this all happened and has gone back to his ship but she says he was well and cheerful.”

Bel reached her hand for the letter. “Let me see. How dare she see him well and cheerful when
I
cannot!”

But Nat drew back the letter. “No, Bel. Be satisfied that our boy is alive and well, for here
is
sad news which will grieve you. She believes both William and Eunice have been carried off by the plague.”

“Eunice too? Oh that is horrible. Ursula, I am a poor worm. I have not prayed earnestly enough. I have not imagined this plague or how consuming it has been, far away as we are from it. But, Nat, why does she say ‘she believes’? Does she not know for certain?”

“I will read what she says. ‘
A lad called Tom came to our door a few days ago when I was still all in a worry about Clifford with the doctor coming and going and the manager wanting orders and I could hardly attend to this young man. He said he was the son of the leather-worker who lived next door to our son and granddaughter. So of course I enquired how they were and he tells me his family left for the country the very day after William was laid low with the plague. They were terrified that it had got so close and indeed it was in September which was the worst time for deaths since the awful scourge began. Eunice called out to them that her father had died. To tell you the truth the boy broke down in tears then and said he had wanted his father to take her with them but he and his mother were determined she should stay in the house the prescribed time which was a month. He was quite distraught that they had left her to her fate. But now they had returned he tried to find out what had happened and questioned one of the searchers, the men who find out the plague houses and seal them up and then come back to let out the living when the time is over. The man he spoke to said he remembered coming back to that house and there was certainly no one in so he presumed all bodies had been taken away. It wasn’t he who had taken them. The crew of that dead-cart had both died of the plague themselves. So I am in a dreadful state you can believe with husband terribly ill and son and granddaughter gone and she no more than twenty years old and with her life ahead of her and as I hoped and prayed a happy marriage to your Daniel.