Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (37 page)

“Ursula thought you would be thirsty.”

He took it and drank it off.

“Another?” she asked and there was a meaningful look in her eyes.

He set down the axe and grinned at her. “You heard the boy at the inn say I had had three pots of beer.” She nodded. “He was right and it was the strongest they had. Do you think I make a habit of indulgence like that?”

She spread out her hands. “I don’t know. I only know how you seemed when I woke you.”

“Yes, and I remember how I felt and I didn’t like it. I saw plenty of drunkenness on board ship and it made me wary. That day, when you came, I didn’t want to be wary. I just wanted to forget.”

“Forget what?” The way she asked it told him she really wanted to know but he couldn’t speak of Henry’s death, much less the turmoil in his own mind.

“Oh just things. Everything if you like. I’d better get on with this work.”

She looked down at the scattered strands of blackberries he had flung out behind him.

“You have cut them off at the level of the soil. They will grow again. If you tell me where there is a spade I will fetch it.”

He cocked his head on one side and looked down at her little determined figure. “You hadn’t even a blade of grass in your little lane. What do you know about brambles?”

“I remember a place in the Moorfields where Father and I sometimes walked in autumn. We picked the blackberries if they were ripe but he also preached a little sermon about them. He said if they choked up a garden you had to do more than cut them back because they would come again stronger than ever, like sin. Every scrap of root must be dug up just as we try to eradicate even the smallest temptations to sin.”

“I can imagine him saying it. Well, you may bring me a spade from the shed beyond the stables if you wish but spare me the sermon. I will do my best with the roots. This task is going to be a great one if I have to dig up every weed.” She began to trot away. “Will it not be too heavy for you? You are such a little thing. It’ll be nearly as big as you.”

She smiled over her shoulder and walked off.

What swift, light steps, he thought. I love the way she moves. He waited idle till he saw her coming back with the spade on her shoulder like a farm worker. She set it down by him and pointed to where a thick stem poked up a few inches from the earth.

He drove in the spade and upturned a wiry mass of roots. She pointed to another emergent stem.

“What a taskmaster you would be!” he chuckled and to his surprise she chuckled too.

“I was acting just the way Mrs Harrison used to do when she was pointing out specks of soot on the mantle above the fireplace.” She smiled up at him and added, “The dinner will be ready in half an hour,” and walked off again to disappear in at the kitchen door.

He wanted her back. He wanted that roguish little smile. Never had he imagined from his brief meetings with her in those old days that she could smile like that. Ah, but she had preached to him. She could never escape her father’s influence. He dug up one more bramble and then resumed his vigorous hacking with the axe.

Bel found Nat in the study. “Two things,” she said, sitting down on his desk and displacing some of his papers. “Celia has just told me Eunice has money. Somehow Clifford left her something which she can keep. I must find out how much. But the other thing is that Celia is completely without any money at all and she would like to go shopping in Newcastle.”

Nat laid down his pen and sat back in his chair. “Number two thing we already knew surely, so she can
not
go shopping in Newcastle. Number one thing. How do you propose to find out?”

“Ask Eunice of course. But think again about number two thing for a moment. Celia has never in her life wanted money. She was in tears just now as if it had only just struck her that she can do nothing for herself at all. The power to snap her fingers and servants would come running, the freedom to call for her coach and go to her dressmakers for a new silk or a collar in the best Florentine lace. None of these things can ever happen to her again. She cannot even order a little treat for supper.”

“Yes, I’m sorry for her but life is hard and she will have to get used to it. As to Eunice, do you really think you can ask her directly?”

“Yes. She is a direct sort of girl and she knows I am too. But about Celia, I was wondering. Could we possibly make her a small monthly allowance? She could have some choice then, spend it on trifles or save it up if she wants a new gown.”

“I fear it would be wasted but I suppose I could spare her a quarter of my stipend, say, a round figure of a pound a month. Now may I continue my work? That paper on Job that I sent to the Bishop, he likes it and will help me to have it published, but he has made some suggestions where I might amplify certain points.”

“Oh my darling, and I interrupted you. You work so hard in the parish for only fifty pounds a year and write learned treaties too. And what do I do?”

“Just run this vast estate for our indolent son.”

“Ah but there you are wrong, Nat. Before I came to you I spoke to Eunice and Ursula in the kitchen about the dinner and they tell me Dan is in the wood hacking a short cut to church for you.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

Bel saw him return to his paper on Job with renewed zest.

She went back to Celia in the parlour and found her slumped in her chair with her double chin on her chest. Her flabby cheeks were pale and there were still tears glistening on them. How comfortable we could be, Beth thought, if she quietly slipped away to her Maker.
He
would know how to manage her.

Celia opened her eyes and sat up.

“Oh Arabella, you startled me. Have I been asleep?”

“A few minutes. And it’s
Bel.
”

“I’ll never get used to that, it’s so abbreviated. You said you were going to speak to Nathaniel.”

“Nat. I did. He would like you to have an allowance of a pound a month.”

“Oh!” Bel could see her thinking of the jewellery she had had to sell and how impossible it would be ever to replace it on a pound a month.

“Do you realise, Celia, that we are now a household of eight persons and a pound a month is just about a quarter of a clergyman’s stipend?”

“Oh no, I never understood money. What do you pay that Ursula?”

“Nothing. She is family. She has never wanted money. If I see her dress or aprons looking shabby I buy her some material or more likely find some old curtains and she clothes herself anew.”

“You are trying to make me ashamed.”

“No truly. Ursula has been used to a different life. Nat would like you to have what I said. We can manage. Dan may even get some back pay from the navy. Apparently they are always in arrears but I dread him hearing of a new muster in the spring. Let us pray for peace, Cousin, and meanwhile be happy.”

She stooped down and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Eunice came in and said dinner was ready.

“Daniel says he is very hungry,” she added. Her smile and flushed cheeks told Bel all she wanted to know.

It was after dinner when Daniel had gone back to his work that Eunice found herself alone with Bel in the dining-room folding the linen cloth that had been used on the table.

“It will serve another meal,” Bel said, laying it on the side table.

“Cousin Arabella,” Eunice began in what sounded in her own ears as an unnecessarily portentous tone.

Bel faced her. “Bel, please. What is it?”

“I want to tell you something.”

Bel drew her to the window seat, her face alight with excitement. Oh, thought Eunice, she believes it is something about Daniel.

She broached it quickly, “If I stay here, Bel, I would like to contribute to the household expenses. Or I could take Grandmother away and find ourselves a little place in Newcastle. I might be able to teach in a school. You have been so kind to us but I’m afraid Grandmother is a trial to you.”

Bel took her hand and patted it. “Trials are good for us, but tell me how –”

“It was Grandfather. He left me an annuity of thirty pounds a year. I have never had such wealth.” It was said at last and with much relief.

Bel, who seemed to have been holding her breath, drew a long sigh and then smiled into her eyes. “My dear, it is not a great sum. Keep it for your own needs but pray, don’t think of leaving us. How would we manage without you?”

“But I have always had work to do with the poor. I taught orphans for a while before the plague drove them away. The life here – it is so happy and comfortable –”

“Ah, comfort is sinful is it not? That is the legacy your father left you.”

Eunice felt tears rising. “Do you all despise my father?”

Bel was shocked. “Despise! Never. Well, yes, I might have done when I was forced to be betrothed to him. He was so shy, so silent, so overawed by
his
father. Now I can understand how a fanatical sect could get hold of him and transform his whole view of life, turning him against all that his father stood for, the getting of wealth, the living in luxury. No, he found his voice all right and he held to his principles. I could not despise him though I might have found it hard to love him.”

“He loved my mother.”

“Do you remember your mother?”

“Oh yes, I was five when she died – and my baby brother. Father was a broken man for a while. Then he began to go to these meetings and he came to believe that we must seek hardship in this life as a test, relieve it where we can and preach repentance.”

Bel smiled. “My Nat would agree that life is a testing time which is why he is so courteous to your grandmother however much of a trial she may be. I am more impatient because I want to truly love her and sometimes it’s hard. What we are sure of is that God is infinite love – as he said in his Sunday homily.”

Eunice thought for a little. Bel was still holding her hand. “I had never been to a service with the sacrament and such short preaching. You call it a homily. There was deep matter in it but no fear. I don’t understand why my father spoke against so many things – bishops, vestments, even the sacrament. He loved me I know but he never hugged me. I see you all the time, touching, loving. You hug Ursula many times a day. You hugged me when I arrived as I have never been hugged in my life. It was a wonderful thing.”

She realised she couldn’t stop the tears now. They flowed and Bel held onto her and wept too.

At last Bel drew back her head. “No more talk of leaving us? I have an idea what you and I can do today. We will get Adam to harness up one of the horses to our old cart. It’s a ramshackle thing but it will suit our purpose. We will load it with the logs from Dan’s tree-cutting and go round the village to the poorest people.”

Eunice jumped up. “Oh yes, that would make me very happy.” She hesitated. “But I would still like to contribute –”

“Well, we will speak of that another time. You will need clothes when you come out of that gloomy black which I think you should do at Christmas. You are young and that is long enough mourning for a grandfather.” She was laughing as she said it, with an arm round Eunice’s shoulders as they walked through to the kitchen.

Bel told Ursula what they were going to do and then they passed into the stable yard to find Adam.

CHAPTER 25

Bel thought life was going along calmly with Celia till Daniel’s twenty-second birthday loomed in October. Celia exclaimed one day in the middle of dinner, “This young man here tells me he was on board ship for his last birthday. That means the baronet, Sir Daniel Wilson Horden, has never had a coming of age party. What, no ceremony for the heir of this great estate? It must be rectified at once.”

Dan mumbled into his dinner, “I don’t want a party.”

Ursula, who rarely spoke at meals with Celia there, lifted her head. She said softly with her bright eyes fixed on his face, “Will you finish your path by Christmas?
Then
you might like a party.”

He met her look and Bel saw with a stab of jealousy that a special spark of understanding passed between them. She instantly crushed down the jealousy and rejoiced.

Dan said, “When I reach the church eh?”

Ursula nodded. The deepening fan of lines at the corner of her eyes and the wide grimace of her twisted mouth showed she was smiling her broadest.

Bel realised Nat was trying to catch her eye. He was shaking his head, oblivious of the significance of what had just passed.

“I’m afraid we haven’t the funds for a party at present, Celia. I would wish to do something for the whole village at Christmas but –”

Celia clapped her hands. “At Christmas then. I have some pearls I saved from the grasping lawyers. One of those wealthy coal owners might like to give them to his wife at Christmas. If I just have enough for a new gown for Eunice you can have the rest for the party.”

She beamed round at them all, her little eyes almost disappearing behind the mounds of her cheeks.

Nat shook his head again. “We couldn’t touch that.”