Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (9 page)

Daniel shrank before him. Although he was taller than William he felt the man grow in stature as he grew in fierceness. Feeble protests that Eunice had overheard something spoken and nothing at all had happened died on his lips. He had never encountered anyone like this. He saw his father lay a hand on William’s arm.

“Pray calm yourself, Cousin. I know of nothing that passed between these two young people –”

William shook off his arm and turned his dark brows on him.

“Ay, you indeed know nothing. No, no one knows but these two and God above. And I feel the presence of the Father of Lies more strongly than I do the Lord at this moment.”

Bel intervened at his other side with a half-suppressed laugh. “William, you are at risk of being ridiculous. I preferred you when you were seventeen and had nothing to say for yourself.”

“Ha! Ridicule I am well used to. It touches me not at all.
You
have not changed. You had nothing of the meekness of womanhood then and have learnt none since. If I am not to be told the truth by your boy here I would wish you to leave this house. But if he has had his evil way with my girl then I call down heaven’s curses upon his head.”

Bel started to say, “Oh come, Nat, Dan, let us leave this mad house,” when the door above opened and Eunice stood in the doorway.

“Father!” Her voice was shrill, “You shall curse no one. Why will you not believe that nothing happened? Oh go all of you! You have nothing to do with us. You can never be a part of our lives. Tell my grandmother so.” She made desperate shooing motions with her arms.

Daniel took a step towards the foot of the little stair. His head was on a level with the worn slippers he saw peeping below her dress.

“Please believe me – I never meant –”

William grabbed his arms from behind and propelled him towards the door.

“She has told you to go. Your presence is unwelcome.”

“Yes go,” she pleaded. “I should never have opened my lips. Just go.”

She disappeared inside and closed the door again.

Daniel looked in utter frustration from his father to his mother and then defiantly at William.

“I hope, sir, you have abandoned your wild and horrible imaginings. Do you believe now that we are both innocent? You will not cruelly interrogate your daughter when we are gone?”

William stared him down with eyes like ice and turned to Nathaniel. “You, sir, will tell your son that he comes between father and daughter at peril of his soul. Remove him, I pray. He has his mother’s fiery spirit. You, I think, are a peaceable man but peace must sometimes give way before righteous anger and the search for truth. I bid you good-day.”

He had now opened the door and there seemed nothing they could do but leave.

Bel however could not resist a word. “You make rods for your own back, Cousin William, but please spare that poor little child. I knew what it was to have a cloud overshadow my youth. It might have broken me down altogether but for the love of this man.” She tucked her arm through Nat’s. “Do not break your daughter’s spirit, William, because you tragically lost the wife you loved.”

William’s face contorted with anger and Bel propelled them both away, grabbing Daniel’s arm with her other hand. He glanced back once to see William’s black-clad figure with thunderous face and hand upraised as if in cursing before he turned into the house and shut the door.

They were round the corner into the adjoining lane when Daniel pulled his mother to a stop and burst into a flood of weeping on her shoulder.

“How can we leave her to him?” he choked out. “He is truly mad.”

People were stopping in the street and looking at them.

“Is he ill?” A woman coming from a candlestick-maker’s with a basket of candles stopped to ask.

Daniel brushed his hand over his eyes and shook his head, shame-faced. They hurried on together until they came out onto Cheapside.

Nathaniel said then, “No, I do not believe William is mad. He looks upon the bringing up of his one daughter alone as a terrible responsibility. He is a sad, lost man without his wife and has thrown himself into this enforced poverty as a kind of penance. But for that unfortunate letter from his mother he was prepared to welcome us with courtesy though he sees any young man’s presence as a threat.”

Bel concurred readily with that. “Indeed he was eying Dan with suspicion from the moment he saw us. I sensed him stiffen when Dan went to help her with their wretched curtain. And I know you’ll say I was too flippant with him, Nat, and made things worse. I’m afraid I can’t tolerate fanatics. They are too free with the Lord’s name. I believe God’s in His heaven and we can only struggle on here below and do the best we can.”

Daniel considered this as he sniffed away his tears of anger and frustration.

“But, Mother, we didn’t do our best. He wanted the truth and I was never allowed to tell him exactly how those stupid words she quoted came about. And now she’ll think – well, I don’t know what she’ll think.”

“And do you mind so much what she thinks?” His mother was grinning up at him. “Do I sense my boy is a little in love after all?”

Daniel stamped his foot. “No I am not. I don’t know what being in love means. I don’t want to know. All I’ve learnt since we came down here is that women are trouble. We’ve seen London now and I’m ready to go home. I only wish those Rombeau girls were not coming with us.” He hunched his shoulders and plodded on, fearing that his parents were exchanging amused glances. The visit had been a disaster and he wished with all his heart it had never happened.

CHAPTER 8

Eunice was allowed the indulgence of sobbing on her bed for a mere five minutes. They were tears of fury at herself. Why had she shouted out those hurtful words? They had hurt her when they were spoken not because she cared for Daniel at that stage but because they confirmed what she knew too well that she was an object no one would ever care about. Then had come the vision of him at the door of her room and she had believed for a moment that he
did
care. It was a wondrous moment but could never have any consequences for her. His next words, his pursuing her down the stairs, his speaking up in the hallway were drops of balm to her soul even though she had had to rebuff them. Why then, on hearing the contents of her grandmother’s letter, had she so stupidly shouted out his earlier remark which she was not supposed to have heard?

The idea of loving me, she told herself,
was
preposterous, he did say it, but of course it was. I had been rude to him. I have never learnt how to speak to people, much less a young man. Did he and his parents really only come to say goodbye? Did they guess what Grandmother wrote? But he doesn’t wish it. He has no thought of marriage. They are all sorry for me, that is the beginning and end of it. But they will go away and forget me. Father will for ever be the ogre guarding me and why should they brave an ogre when Daniel Horden is a young man who could have anyone he chose?

She heard her father praying from the moment the door had been shut on the visitors and five minutes later he summoned her down.

She knew there would be more interrogation. She wiped her eyes and descended the stairs. Every word of every speaker in that house of sin as he called it would be drawn out of her. So she had better tell it all and let him make of it what he would. Her own replies too would be laid bare and he would probe what was behind them. “You said you were my possession?” he would repeat. “Why? You are my beloved daughter. That is why you are guarded as the greatest treasure I have.”

She stood before him and let the questioning begin and it all unfolded exactly as she had foreseen up to those very words. After that his one commendation was for her rebuff to Daniel spoken in his mother’s hallway, words which he had heard with his own ears.

Now her father surprised her by standing up abruptly and pacing about the room. Then he stopped in front of the table as she sat still, wondering if it was all over. He clasped his hands in an attitude of prayer and gazed at her with great intensity.

“I see I have done those three some wrong. It is true that Arabella speaks in haste without thought and her son likewise though his youth excuses him somewhat. But I see now that my wrath was misplaced. The young man spoke the words you so imprudently quoted back to him in a moment of impatience at the folly of others, and you, listening as you should not have been, overheard them. No good ever comes from eavesdropping and now you have caused me to sin. I spoke in anger not knowing all the truth. I must do penance but first I must confess my sin to them and beg pardon. I must write them a letter. That is a hard thing. You know why it is hard? Because of pride. It is pride that must be overcome. And it is doubly hard because of the young man’s sin.”

She looked up at him startled. “But he didn’t –”

“True. Perchance he was foiled by circumstance. Only God can know his heart. I meant the sin of tempting you to disobey me.”

She gave the tiniest shrug of her shoulders. That was a kindly impulse, she was thinking, not a sin.

He struck his fists on the table. “Do you not see, Eunice, how one wrong leads to another? Your listening at doors was wrong and telling half the truth was wrong. Both have led me into the sin of anger which leaves me grieved and humbled.”

She glanced up again. It had to be said. “I am truly sorry, Father.”

“Very well. But I fear that your feelings have been stirred by this young man or why did you call out those words in his presence and in that tone of voice?”

“I don’t care about him. I wanted you to know he didn’t care about me. You might have thought he did from what he said in Grandfather’s hall. Father, you don’t always understand other people. You thought his parents were lying just now when they said they were not privy to what Grandmother wrote. But I am sure they weren’t.”

“I believe that now. And you may be right that I do not always understand other people. Many times I do not wish to. But I do know my mother. I believe she hatches her own little plots and plans and that is why she invited you at the time of their visit. But none of that excuses the partial truths you told me the day I brought you home. When I question you on any matter you must recall every detail that you can. I wish all my words and actions to be based upon a knowledge of the whole truth. This is where I failed today and allowed the sin of anger to rise up in me. Do you understand the gravity of that?”

She wanted to scream, “Be silent. Leave the thing alone now.” She murmured softly, “I do. Here is paper.” She pushed the writing materials over to him. “When you have written we can forget all about it.”

He paused as he drew the paper towards him. His brows met in one line. “Not
forget
, child. Learn. From every sorry happening like this learn a new lesson. I too must learn – learn to seek the truth with diligence before making a judgment.”

He sat down, trimmed a pen with his knife and began to write unhesitatingly.

She got up to fulfil her morning task of cleaning their little window and wiping from every surface the soot that daily seeped in from the baker’s chimneys.

My father is the most meticulous man in the world, she told herself with every stroke of the cloth. He enrages me, but he doesn’t spare himself. He tries himself as much as me. If he does not lash himself physically he does spiritually. Perhaps he is perfect in the sight of God and I am wild and wayward because I can neither control my thoughts or my utterances.

She washed out her cloth in the bucket by the fireplace and taking it up she paused by the door till her father raised his head.

“May I go for fresh water?” He nodded.

She went out and emptied the bucket into the runnel and walked up the street to the conduit fountain. When she came back he had folded and sealed his letter.

“It is written to Cousin Nathaniel but I have put in also a brief note to your grandmother.”

Eunice waited to see if he would disclose what he had said but he just went to the door and called Tom Fletcher, the leather-worker’s boy.

“Run there and deliver this to the direction written down. When you return you shall have an orange from this bowl and I will give you your writing lesson.”

The boy grinned and ran.

Eunice looked after him and wondered if the letter would for ever close the door on that episode.

Nathaniel received the letter when they returned that afternoon from a visit to St James’ Park. Taking Bel and Dan with him he walked out of the dining room door onto the terrace. The French party were resting their tired feet in the drawing room above, Clifford had gone to his office and Celia was giving orders to the cook.

“We have some leisure at last from endless company and we will see what that poor man has written. I little expected to hear another word from him.”

They sat down on the sun-warmed stone bench and the river glided below.

Nat glanced at the opening sentence and then looked up in surprise.

“Well, it is an apology! Hear what he says. ‘
Cousin Nathaniel, I repent my late anger. I abhor myself in dust and ashes. I did not wait patiently for the whole truth to be laid before me. Now I believe I have received it from my daughter’s lips and I wish to retract what I spoke in haste. I do not now believe that your son took sinful advantage of my daughter. What he might have done if he had had opportunity of course only he and the Lord know’ –”