Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (33 page)

“Have you and the Reverend forbidden him to rejoin his ship?”

“We didn’t need to. His Captain sent him a short letter telling him to recover fully. There was no likelihood anyway of a fresh muster soon. I said ‘Thank God for that’ and Dan just nodded. He knows how we long for this peace treaty that’s talked about. I thought he did too. Didn’t you hear him say when you came running out to the coach to greet him that it was a joy to see you and Horden again. I hoped then that he had had enough of the navy.”

“He did, bless his heart.” Urusla set the dough to rise near the fire. “Well, if it is not a cloud hovering over him like yours all those years then it’s inside him. He has made the passage from boy to man but somewhere he’s taken a wrong turning.” She wiped her floury hands on her apron and beamed at Bel.

“He has indeed but how do we get him back again?”

Daniel sauntered into the room from the stable-yard carrying a bundle of letters. “Anything to eat, Ursula?”

“What’s wrong with Nana Sula?” She cocked her twisted little face at him, her eyes twinkling.

“A bit childish now I suppose.” He held out two letters to Bel. “The post-boy just gave me these. The rest are for Father.”

“I always give postie a mug of ale,” Ursula said going to the back door. “Has he gone?”

“Yes, I scolded him for waiting till he had a bundle to bring. I told him they might be important.”

Ursula gave him a sad look but said nothing.

“This is from France,” Bel said, perching on a stool and opening the seal. “Well, well, my sister is to become a grandmother. Madeline is to present her count with an heir. Poor Diana is still husbandless, she tells me. I think I detect a note of reproach.” She looked up. “Where are you going with that?”

Ursula had handed Daniel a plate with two slices of ham, the heel of the old loaf and a hunk of cheese. He was heading out of the kitchen with it.

“To eat it somewhere quiet.”

“You are not taking it to your bedchamber to scatter crumbs there. Sit and eat it here and be pleasant.”

He shrugged his shoulders and took another stool and began to eat.

Bel went on telling Ursula what was in the letter. “The old Count Rombeau is in failing health. Henrietta will become a comtesse when he goes, that will please her. She will outrank our mother.” She turned to the other letter. “This is Cousin Celia’s hand.”

“Why not read it to yourself?” Daniel said. “Why should Ursula be interested?”

Bel held in her anger with difficulty. She glanced down the letter. “Well, this
does
concern Ursula because Celia is coming to stay so a room will have to be prepared for her and another for her lady’s maid. She doesn’t say how long – goodness me! I think she means for ever.”

“What about Clifford?” Dan asked.

That was something. A spark of interest. “Clifford sadly had another seizure and is dead. It seems that great fire we had news of in London has destroyed his warehouses and the shock was too much. Why, this letter is more than two weeks old! She speaks of setting off soon. She could be here any day. Well, she must have Henrietta’s old room and the maid can sleep in the old chapel. We could reopen the connecting door between. That is a task you could do, Dan. Adam has enough to do without little things like that.”

“I might take myself away somewhere. I can’t abide Cousin Celia. She never leaves me in peace.”

Bel slapped the letter. “I am no admirer of Cousin Celia myself but apparently she is ruined – or so she says. I know she is devious and manipulating but she must be desperate to want to travel up here and leave her London home to the creditors. So I have to believe she is truly in trouble. I must show compassion. I have been homeless too, when the Scots army walked in here and threw us out at half an hour’s notice. Ursula remembers that only too well.”

Ursula nodded. “The great snow was just melting and we were plunging through slush.” Bel saw how she was sending beams of hopeful love at Dan from her bright eyes. “But we were together and the Lord brought us safe to your father. And you, my Daniel, wouldn’t be here at all if that hadn’t happened. Be glad then to overflow with love to this cousin. If you think badly of her now you can be sure both she and you will be all the better for a strong dose of love.”

Daniel had been eating quickly to clear his plate. Now he got up abruptly and pushed the empty plate at Ursula. Bel could have sworn he was choking with tears. He left the room in a hurry.

Bel went round the table and hugged Ursula. “I do believe you pierced that hard crust he has grown. God bless you, my guardian angel.”

Ursula chuckled. “Funny sort of angel. But I believe the dough is also growing and we don’t want a hard crust on
that
yet. I’ll give it another knead in a minute and then I’ll come and prepare for our visitors.”

Bel was longing to get out in the fields on this lovely autumn day but she must turn her mind to the very sparse linen cupboard. They had just enough to replenish the beds they were using. Would she have to ride into Newcastle and order new sheets? However confidently she had spoken to Daniel she was dismayed at the prospect of Celia and her lady’s maid in her house for an indefinite stay. Dan was right, she thought. She will be all over us, mealtimes, outings, village occasions. She will want to improve our lives, make us join the best of Newcastle society, spend money we haven’t got. And if she drives Dan away I will never forgive her.

She got up reluctantly.

“I’d leave him be for a little while,” Ursula said. “He won’t run away.”

Bel nodded. Nat would be back soon and he would bring his calm, rational mind to bear on the strange news.

Eunice helped Celia into the stage-coach at the newly appointed staging inn at Aldgate, the fire having burnt out the traditional post for north-bound journeys. She was still uneasy in her mind that they were setting off without a reply from Horden Hall that they were welcome. If it hadn’t been for her annuity money which gave her some independence of action she would not have agreed to go so soon. At least if Cousins Nathaniel and Arabella were from home and Daniel returned to his ship she could surely rent some small place for herself and her grandmother in Newcastle. Apart from her brief sojourn in Woolwich she had never been outside London and it was impossible to picture a remote northern town or the countryside about it. The adventure would have excited her as a new experience but it was so tangled in her joy and dread at the thought of seeing Daniel that she hardly knew what she was feeling as she climbed into the stage-coach after her grandmother.

Celia at least was calmer than she had been the last three weeks. Now that they had left the Strand behind them she could no longer witness the stripping of her luxurious home where she had complacently enjoyed wealth and comfort for so many years. She had seen the boxes of her treasured goods taken away to pay the many debts to tradesmen and to the merchants who had had dealings with the business. The house itself would now be sold and the lawyer had not let her expect anything left once the remaining debts were cleared.

As they departed that morning she looked up at the house with the initials over the door. The walnuts were ripe on the tree.

“Someone in days to come will wonder whose initials those were,” she moaned softly.

Eunice guided her towards the hackney that had been summoned to take them to the staging inn. “Try to look forward, Grandmamma.”

Robert and Suzy, the only servants who had stayed to the end to clean the house, the stable, the coach house and the terrace, carried out their bags.

“Now don’t you worry about us, Ma’am,” Suzy said seeing Celia’s tears. “When Robert and I are wed we’ll have one of the two-storey houses that are to be built for the lesser sort. We’ve been to see the pictures of them and they are to be in brick or stone. The King himself says there are to be no more houses all of wood, so I’ll not be frightened of fire again.”

Eunice couldn’t help seeing again the picture of the old fortune-teller’s house collapsing on top of her. It had frequently haunted her sleep in fearful dreams. Sometimes she was herself the victim and woke in a sweat as the burning timbers engulfed her. She was only glad that apparently she didn’t scream out. Neither Grandmother nor the servants had ever heard anything.

Now at last as the stage began to roll forward Celia smiled and turning to Eunice whispered, “You remember the last time I came to that dreadful little house where your father imprisoned you so long? Did I not say to you then ‘your day of happiness will come?’ Well, we are embarked on the quest for it now and I verily believe it will be there awaiting us at the end of this journey.”

She leant back and folded her arms across her bosom and shut her eyes with the confident smile still on her face. Very soon, despite the jolting she was fast asleep.

Eunice was thankful. She wanted no more talk on those lines. She longed for sleep herself. Every day she had been at Celia’s beck and call and she was quite worn out. The lawyer had said they could pack what was reasonable of their personal belongings but jewellery of any kind must be set aside to be valued. Celia told Eunice to wrap a pearl necklace in some linen handkerchiefs and when she objected Celia flew into a rage. “It’s my wretched son speaking through you. These people are robbing us. Are we not to save something from their plundering?” Eunice was sure she packed it herself later. She was only thankful that she herself had so little.

Between the sorting out and packing up she had made herself a bodice and skirt from some yards of black drape Celia had found at the bottom of a linen chest. “I think it was hung about the house when Clifford’s sister died, but you must have it for your mourning dress. If it makes two and a little cape you will do very well.”

Eunice had only time to stitch one outfit before Celia sickened at the sight of strange men assessing her house and goods and suddenly announced that they would set off as soon as their places could be reserved in the coach. Wearing the new black dress Eunice had studied herself in the only mirror left in the house. She decided black made her look horribly pale. If only she had a higher colour and flaxen hair like Daniel’s she might not look so drab. She had allowed her hair to grow longer but refused to put curl papers in. She didn’t scrape it back the way her father had insisted so it hung limply about her face and no amount of brushing saved it from its mousy dullness.

Well, they were on their way and Daniel might be at the end of the journey. She leant back too in the coach and shut her eyes and was glad that she did not see the burning old lady but Daniel’s image as he had stood before her chamber door, arms outspread like her guardian angel.

Daniel set himself to walk to the village forgetting that he would certainly meet his father on the way back from reading the morning office. He had angrily brushed aside the tears that Ursula’s little speech had provoked. At least she hadn’t mentioned God. What sort of a God was it that sent plague and fire to carry off innocents like Eunice? It was harder to blame God for Henry’s death. God hadn’t ordered the English and the Dutch to go to war.

But where was God, he had asked himself in the long convalescence from his fever, where was God when I stood on the deck with Henry beside me and a cannon ball carried off his head. Inches away, I was left alive. Life – death. It happened in the fraction of a second. What is life then that it can vanish in a moment? His eyes stared up at me but he had gone. Where? Nothingness? He was not particularly devout. He was not thoughtful. He lived in the moment. He laughed readily. Things happened. He responded much as he was expected to do. He was cheerful, friendly. He enjoyed his food and drink. He loved his parents. When I asked him if he wanted a girl of his own, to marry and have a family he laughed and said ‘Oh yes. I daresay it will all happen.’ He would never
make
things happen. And then one moment he was speaking to me and the next he was dead. Just like that. So what did his life mean? Why was he given life to have it snatched away? Do any of us have lives that mean anything at all?

Why am I walking along this particular grassy track that I know so well? Why am I alive? They tell me I was near death when my very minor wound went bad on me? If I’d died would I have gone somewhere and seen Henry, laughing, with his head back on his body? Would there have been the Wilson grandparents and Eunice and William? Now Clifford’s joined them all. That great mass of the dead?

“Why, Dan, it’s good to see you out walking.” His father stopped in front of him. “Are you heading for the farm or the village? Perhaps you wanted to talk to Sam Turner about the harvest.”

“Oh.” He stood still. “I was just walking. Cousin Celia is coming to live with us. I suppose I was walking to get away from the news. Some letters came. Madeline is with child and Diana can’t get a husband. I think I’m meant to feel sorry for her.”

“Well! You feel something about Cousin Celia. You don’t want her to visit. I’m surprised she would come all this way. Is Clifford better then? I take it she wouldn’t come alone.”

“Oh he’s died and she’s destitute. It’s no visit. It’s what I said. She’s coming to live with us.” He looked down into his father’s eyes for a moment and saw only surprise and concern. “I suppose you’ll put up with it.”

“Nay, Daniel, I hope I’ll do better than that. If it is as you say we will welcome her and show her every kindness. But I must see her letter and learn a little more of this. You say your mother has heard from France too?”