Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (3 page)

In the pause of conversation while they were settling themselves and a maid was carrying in a tray Daniel heard his mother say, looking around the company, “But where is William, my one time suitor? Was he afraid to meet me after all this time?”

She addressed Clifford Horden. Daniel studied him for the first time and saw a grey, grim-faced man with close set-eyes and thin cheeks, the antithesis of the florid genial figure Daniel expected in a highly successful London merchant. At the question the man’s teeth clenched and a jerk of his head dismissed the maid.

“William is unable to be with us, Arabella,” came the answer from tight lips.

Daniel took a quick glance at Eunice who had been placed beside him. He sensed her embarrassment though she made no movement. There is some secret about her father that shames her.

He realised the French girls were tittering and looking at their mother and grandmother with knowing eyes. He had sorted the older women out by now. Aunt Henrietta
was
beautiful, with the same shaped face as her daughters but just that difference in the proportion of her features that made her lovely to look at. Her mother too, Lady Maria Horden, had been a beauty, but was heavily wrinkled now. It was she of the deep, censorious voice who felt compelled to speak.

“Arabella,” she said, addressing his mother, “you are the same bold girl you always were. If you must know it is our presence here that has disposed Cousin William to stay away. He has embraced Puritanism in its most extreme form and we Roman she-devils would contaminate him. We are grateful to Cousin Clifford and Cousin Celia that they are happy to accommodate us until we come back with you to Horden Hall.”

Yet the rabid Puritan has allowed his daughter to be here, Daniel thought. Is that because he wants her to meet and captivate
me
? She will do no captivating while she sits as still as a frightened bird.

There were the new fangled forks laid as well as knives so Daniel supposed they were not meant to use fingers. He glanced at Eunice to see how she – an experienced Londoner – managed. She seemed unaware of him as she concentrated on eating quickly but delicately with tiny mouthfuls. Now he couldn’t help watching her. She was so small and slight. Almost sallow in complexion she was no English rose but there was something appealing in the way her face tapered to a tiny chin and her hair, mouse-brown, was drawn tightly back from it. He felt an uncomfortable urge to stroke her neck where a bone made a small protuberance above the white collar of her dress.

I suppose I’m sorry for her, he was thinking, having to sit by her cousins with their shining ringlets and flouncing petticoats. And I was told her mother died a while ago and now I know her father has become a little mad. She has only her grandparents – Clifford who is a grumpy old man and Celia – he looked at her – a round doughy-faced woman, frumpish beside the French ladies.

He dragged his eyes away and attacked the food himself. When the fork became too slow and awkward to keep pace with his appetite he resorted to his fingers. His mother was doing the same although
her
stately mother was frowning down her nose.

Cousin Celia was urging them all to try everything, carving extra slices of venison as soon as she saw an empty plate. It seemed to Daniel that the old history of his mother and her son was unimportant to her now. All she wanted was to show off their wealth and be a cheery hostess, but she was not a presence in the room in the way that the French grandmother was.

The conversation turned, with no cooling of the atmosphere, to the day’s events. Daniel kept quiet about his own part till his mother looked across at him and said, “Our Dan had a special wave and smile from his majesty all to himself.”

The French girls laughed at his blushes and the one in blue, whom he now believed was the elder, Madeline, exclaimed, “How could the King miss him? He is a beanpole and with that light hair he would stand out from the crowd.”

“Perchance he can present us at court then,” squealed Diana in the pink.

They both dissolved into giggles. Eunice did not even look up.

There was talk too of Horden Hall. Old Lady Maria began asking after places and people that she remembered. She was still upright and strong of voice and Daniel found it strange to picture her as the mistress of the Hall so many years ago, the wife of his grandfather who had died before his parents were married.

“Ah, my dear Arabella,” she said, “you can have no idea how much I wanted your father to come with me to France and see his dear Henrietta married. I pined for him when I knew he was ill and my heart bled for you when he died and you were left alone facing so much hardship in the horrible war.”

Daniel studied his mother’s face. She had told him how her mother had always loved her sister Henrietta more than her. But she answered readily enough.

“I was not bereft long for when the Scots seized the Hall to billet their officers I went to seek the man who loved me.” She beamed across the table at his father.

Daniel saw he had flushed up but that was nothing new. Bel Horden would tell all and sundry that their marriage had been one of passionate love from the moment they had set eyes on each other.

I cannot imagine, he reflected, ever falling in love like that. These three girls now. I could go home to Northumberland tomorrow with no desire to see any of them again. I detest Madeline and Diana already and Eunice has spoken not one word to me during the meal. True I have not spoken to her but I will make myself say something before the day is out.

His chance came when it was proposed that they should walk out on the terrace after dinner, the June afternoon being so warm.

Screwing up his courage he elbowed the slight figure into a corner and demanded, “If you have a voice, Cousin Eunice, let me hear it.”

She lifted her eyes to his for one searching second. There was emotion there – alarm, confusion, wariness – all three? He couldn’t tell, but next moment she had turned her gaze on the river with apparent indifference.

He grabbed at her hand. “What ails you? What have they all been saying about me? I don’t care for the lot of them. Believe me I never wanted to travel all this way from Northumberland to meet a brood of French relations. They are coming to stay for I know not how long at Horden Hall after this. I could have waited.”

She lifted her thin shoulders and addressed the river. “You saw the King.”

“Ay, indeed, I saw the King.” He burned with pride, recalling the smile and wave for himself alone.

Then he realised she had spoken. He must keep this alive but why would she not turn and look at him?

“Have
you
ever seen the King?”

“How could I? He only reached London today.”

“Of course.” He was a fool. “But now that he is in his capital you will have many chances.”

“I have been taught that he is a fiend like his father.” She let the words drop out as if they were no more than a comment on the weather.

He was aghast. But this was her Puritan father speaking. “You have been
taught
? What say you yourself?”

She began to brush past him and when he would have held her arm she shook off his hand.

“Who am I to speak about anything?”

He caught the words as she moved away and re-entered the house.

He was peeved and intrigued but when he would have followed her he was engulfed by the French girls.

“Cousin Daniel! Come, tell us about this wild border land where you live. We long to see it. Do you have
formidable
Scots warriors descending the hills to steal your cattle? Have you a moat and a drawbridge and armed troops to defend yourselves?”

Daniel shook his head. “No, we have a groom and two housemaids and my old nurse Ursula but she is one of the family. Horden Hall is an ordinary house. It’s on a flat plain north of Newcastle. If we see any Scots they are Presbyterian preachers who I wager will creep home now we have a King again.”

The girls burst into a gale of giggles. “Is he not droll?”

“He has never been to court.”

“The plain north-countryman!”

“Oh if we could show him Paris!”

Madeline, who was taller than her sister, tried to copy her grandmother’s stately posture and the way she flourished her fan. She fluttered it now and protested that in Paris they would never stand out in the afternoon sun like this.

Diana, the more exuberant, giggled without restraint.

“
He
will take no harm. He is as brown as a peasant.”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “Go in then and talk to your cousin Eunice.”

The girls pulled grotesque faces. “
C’est impossible
! She say nothing.
Pas un mot
! Are they all like her, the English girls? What say you,
mon cousin
?”

Daniel shrugged again. “I know no girls. I have been at the Grammar School in Newcastle and my father intends me for Cambridge University. I never meet girls.”

“
Oh la la, le pauvre home
! But you have society – the Hordens are titled people. This place – Newcastle – it is a big city? There are balls? Theatres?”

Daniel gave a snort of a laugh. “We have a title and no money. And Newcastle is a small town – though it’s the biggest in the north. And don’t you know we have been allowed no dancing or play-going for many years under the Lord Protector?”

“But now your theatres will reopen and your Assembly Rooms.”

“We have no such places. I’ve been told travelling players came to the town in days gone by. Maybe they will again. But at Horden we are a country place. Once there was dancing round the Maypole on the village green till the Puritans stopped it.”

They looked at each other. Diana was open-mouthed. “What will we
do
there?” she asked her sister.

Madeline again made much play with her fan. “Indeed, we should stay in London. This Horden Hall is so far away and if we could ever get there it will be so quiet.”

“But
Maman
wishes to see her birthplace.”

Daniel beamed at them both.

“Aunt Henrietta and our grandmother could come home with us and you could stay here with Cousin Clifford and Cousin Celia and help to liven up Eunice.”

Madeline clasped her hands in mock reproach. “Oh you dreadful boy. You do not
wish
us to visit you.”

“But you say you want to stay in London. If you don’t care for Eunice
she
could visit us instead. She has no fear of being too quiet.” At least, he was thinking, I am curious about
her
. Of these two I already know all I want to know.

The deep voice of the French grandmother broke in on their talk. “What is the argument,
mes enfants
?”

“Eh, it is Daniel,” cried Diana, winking at him. “He loves Eunice and wants nothing to do with us.”

Daniel felt his cheeks flame up as his grandmother cocked her head and squinted up at him.

“Ah,” she tapped his hand with her folded fan, “I believe you have your mother’s mischievous spirit. She always spoke her mind in season and out of season. What have you been saying now that has caused offence to these young ladies?”

“Nothing, on my word, Madam, but answer their questions.”

“And you tell them you love that mouse Eunice when you have scarce spoken two words with her! Is there some prior
arrangement
– from your cradles?”

Daniel looked desperately past her to see if Clifford or Celia or his mother or father were within earshot to come to his rescue and deny this. No, they were on the lower terrace above the river. He looked back at the French girls who were giggling behind their fans at his discomfiture.

He had had enough of their little games. “I never spoke one word about loving anybody. I certainly have no
arrangement
with Eunice as you put it, Madam, and as for
loving
her the idea is preposterous.”

The old lady turned her frown on the girls and Madeline blurted out, “
Mais vraiment
, he said he wanted her at Horden Hall rather than us.” As she said it Daniel saw something that sickened him. The little pointed face of Eunice had peeped around the door from the dining room and looked straight at him. When she met his eyes she vanished again.

What had she heard? Oh how he longed to be back at home and free of all his new relations! He might even have given up the King’s gracious wave to escape these entanglements with females.

He looked back at the dragon that was his grandmother and the evil pixies that were his cousins. He was sure none of them had noticed Eunice’s brief appearance.

Copying his mother’s straight talking he addressed Madeline, “You made it plain enough you don’t want to come to Northumberland. Why not admit it?”