The Rebel’s Daughter (15 page)

You were there?” She dropped her hands
from his coat and backed away when he nodded.

Blindly she clutched the bedpost to keep
from crumpling to the floor; her grip so hard, the carvings cut
into her hand, though the pain kept her from fainting, while
Samuel’s voice came to her as if from far away.

Her mind could barely take in
what he was saying, though w
hen he recounted the part about her mother’s
sapphire necklace, she thumped a clenched fist against the bedrail.
“Why didn’t you do something? Where were Lumm, and Henry?” A
dreadful thought slammed into her. “Dear God, Henry! Where is he?
Did the soldiers hurt him? Is he alive?”

“
Henry is distraught, but he is quite well.
He is here, waiting to see you.”

Relief surged in her chest to hear her
brother was alive, only to be replaced by a red mist that appeared
before her eyes. “Father did this to us,” she spat. “He left us all
alone at the militia’s mercy, and for what?” She paced the room,
ignoring the pounding in her temples. “Uncle Edmund too; with his
obsessive hatred of Catholics. Aaron blindly followed Monmouth’s
men simply to impress Father.” All her pent-up emotions of the last
few days flooded out until, spent, she sank down on the bed. “And
now Mother has been taken from me too.”

Samuel reached for her arm to help her
stand up. “They had to follow their consciences, my dear. Your
father truly believed he was doing right.”

She recoiled from his touch. “I care
nothing for who rules the country! Kings, bishops or cloth workers,
it doesn’t matter. I want my home, and my life back as it
was.”

Meghan appeared at the doorway, her
handsome face dulled by pity. She touched Samuel’s shoulder and
mouthed something Helena didn’t hear. He nodded and with his head
down, retreated from the room.

Helena curled herself into the covers on
the unmade bed, her knees drawn into her chest, the coverlet
gripped beneath her chin. “It was because I didn’t bring Aaron
back,” she whispered. “Mother’s dead, because I couldn’t do the one
thing she wanted. And now I never can.”

Her eyes burned, her face becoming sticky
from tears and mucus as she wailed like a child. “She could have
waited for me,” she cried, knowing her words made no
sense.

Her storm of emotion abated slowly, while
Meghan’s strong arms massaged her shoulders and stroked her hair,
whispering endearments that leached through Helena’s skin and into
her heart.

Helena
she was too exhausted to cry any
more, and her sobs turned to hiccoughing and moans. Susannah
appeared, a bowl and damp linen cloth in hand. She sat on the side
of the bed, and bathed Helena’s face, alleviating the heat and
removing the stickiness from her skin. At last, Helena she grew
calmer, and pulled away from Susannah’s touch, avoiding Meghan’s
knowing gaze. “Where is Henry? I want to see Henry.”

Her brother must have been waiting outside
in the hall, for as the women withdrew, Henry dashed past them,
halting self-consciously in front of her. He looked so young, in a
pair of too-large breeches he must have borrowed from one of the
Ffoyle boys, his hair all tangled and his eyes red from crying. He
held his hands away from his sides, and then dropped them again in
a gesture of helplessness, his bottom lip quivering.

Helena opened her arms and he threw himself
into her embrace.

“
I would
have killed him had I a weapon,” he said between muffled gasps, his
chin pressed into her shoulder. “Samuel would have too, but Lumm
said the men would have shot us.” He pulled back an arm’s length
and stared into her eyes. “Ellie, Mama did not even have the
Passing Bell.”

“
I
know.” She nodded, her hands sliding to either side of his face,
her gaze shifting to the bandage wrapped round his forehead.
“You’re injured?”

“
It
doesn’t hurt much anymore.”

“
I
shouldn’t have left her.” Helena gently stroked the white cloth
round his head. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

He straightened, his hands grasped her
shoulders so tightly, she winced; his gaze locked with hers, no
longer distraught, but determined. “I couldn’t save Mother, any
more than you could have saved Uncle Ned.”

“
Oh
Henry, I didn’t mean…it’s just…” Weariness and misery overcame her.
She would have been every bit as helpless when the soldiers came.
Henry was no more responsible than Samuel, or Tobias. The troopers
killed Mother, despite Samuel’s insistence that it was an
accident.

She wrapped both arms round him. “I must
go and apologize to Master Ffoyle.”

“
He’ll
understand.” Henry blew his nose nosily on the kerchief she handed
him. “Those troopers could have killed me, you know, had Samuel not
been there.”

“
I
realize that.” Shame heated her face as she recalled her outburst
earlier. “Let’s go and find him.”

Chapter 9

Daylight faded as the Ffoyle
carriage rolled through Exeter
city’s the West Gate and up Fore Street. Turning
left at the top, they rolled into Mary Arches Lane, halting outside
the church. The windows of the square tower glowered above them
like blackened eyes.

Helena climbed down from the carriage and
approached the door, her hand clasped firmly in
Hendry’s.

Somehow, the news had spread, and the road
outside was lined with curious onlookers, some of whom Helena
recognised. Her gaze flicked over their faces; the Blandens were
not there. Before they reached the church door, a clutter of hooves
thundered into the street, and all eyes turned to stare at a troop
of soldiers who halted in the road.

Helena fought to calm her rapid breathing,
but the Troopers did not dismount, watching with surly expressions
as the party milled around the parvis.

“
I don’t
recognise any of them,” Henry whispered. “They weren’t the ones who
came to the house.”

Helena narrowed her eyes. “Let them do as
they please, they cannot hurt us anymore.” She shoved Henry before
her through the church door, where the musty air made Helena cough,
the sound echoing into the cavernous roof.

The tiny congregation consisted of Samuel
and Meghan, with their four eldest children, as well as Henry, Lumm
and Nathan Bayle, all seated in the front pews of the nearly empty
church.

Helena
’s confident tone of earlier had been
sheer bravado. She spent the ceremony darting furtive glances at
the door, half-expecting the soldiers to burst in and stop the
proceedings.

Master Triske appeared equally unsettled,
as he hastened through the service, not once saying her Uncle’s
name aloud. He referred to him only as “our brother”.

It struck Helena as a sad thing to be
committed to one’s grave without a name. Her gaze remained fixed on
the two coffins that lay side by side on makeshift biers in front
of the altar. How was it possible that her dynamic uncle and her
tall, beautiful mother be contained in such small wooden
boxes?

Six slow
tolls of the Passing Bell sounded, to
signify the death of a woman, followed by one ring for each year of
her age. Edmund Woulfe went to his final rest in
silence.

“
Mother
has had the Passing Bell, Henry,” Helena whispered to the silent
figure at her side.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the floor,
and at intervals swiped a hand across his eyes.

When the service ended, the churchwarden
helped Bayle, Samuel and the elder Ffoyle boys carry the coffins
inside the vault below the altar. When they emerged, the iron door
clanged shut, the hollow sound resonating in Helena’s head. She
stumbled from the gloomy building into the summer night, blinking
back tears.

Master Triske caught up with her outside
the church, his face a grey blur in the low light. “I trust you
won’t neglect your devotions, my dear. It is times such as these,
that your faith is tested. Even in your sorrow, you must not fail
your Savior.”

Helena fixed him with a contemptuous
stare, then stepped closer until her gaze locked with his. “Take
your platitudes and expend them on someone who wants to hear them.
God has taken more from me than you could ever imagine. I have not
failed Him; He has failed me.”

The minister stepped back, his eyes
widening at the affront, his mouth opening and closing
soundlessly.

Samuel started to offer apologies, but the
Minister waved the Master of Clothworkers away and fled back to the
vestry, his gown flapping.

Helena watched him go, taking the last
vestiges of her resentment with him. The vengeful grief that had
twisted her insides all day reduced to no more than a quiet
sadness.

Mother and Uncle Ned were both safe now;
nothing could ever hurt them again.

“
The
soldiers have gone,” she whispered, though Susannah must have heard
her, as she muttered, “Thank the Lord” at her shoulder.

Helena tilted her head back as pinpoints
of light appeared in the deep blue canopy of sky above her. An owl
hooted from a tree in the deserted Bartholemew Street, where a lone
carriage horse whickered in impatience.

She linked her arm through Susannah’s as
they made their way back to the carriage. ““When my time comes,”
Helena said. “I think I should like to be buried by
moonlight.”

“
There
is no moon,” Henry muttered flatly from behind them.

* * *

During the coming days, troopers came to the
village and searched houses, questioned villagers, bullied women,
and struck out at young boys and old men alike for imagined
insolence.

Helena watched fearfully from an upstairs
window as uniformed men hovered by the gate to the farm. Had
someone told the Magistrate she and Henry had sought refuge with
the Ffoyles? If so, would they have to face punishment for
protecting the family of a known rebel.

She jumped at the clack of the door latch,
releasing a pent-up breath at the sight of Rebekah’s smiling face.
“Mother asks if you’ll come and join us in the kitchen.”

“
Yes, of
course. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Rebekah
’s head disappeared and Helena
checked the road for soldiers again, relieved to see they appeared
to have left. She picked up her piece of sewing to examine with a
critical eye. Her work wasn’t anywhere as skilled as Meghan’s, but
in her efforts to be useful and not simply an idle guest, Helena
had insisted she give the task a try.

On her way to the kitchen, she hoped Deb
would forgive her for the sub-standard garment when the time
came.

“
Wherever the Duke is now, he stands little
chance of being king,” Helena heard Bayle say as she entered the
room. He looked up and their gazes met for a long second before he
turned away. The combined guilt of her mother’s death still hung
between them like a specter neither could face. When Bayle was told
about her mother’s death, he had shut himself in the stable for two
days, refusing to speak to anyone.

Helena had tried to approach him, but he
must have guessed her intentions, and whenever she entered a room
where she was told he would be, he always made an excuse to
leave.

“
A
Captain Morton stopped by yesterday,” Samuel said. “He thinks any
rebels who managed to get this far will have gone to ground by now.
The militia will be disbanded soon.”

“
Thank
the Lord for that,” Meghan muttered. “No more gibbets on the
roads.”

Helena flinched as an image of corpses
twisting slowly from a tree in Weston Zoyland floated back into her
head.

“
Would you fetch some ale, Chloe?” Susannah
instructed, handing pewter cups around the table.

“
I’m a
lady’s maid, not a scullery girl,” Chloe snapped, throwing Helena a
pleading look.

“
This is
a working farm,” Susannah scoffed. “There are no ladies here.” The
cup she set before Chloe landed with a thump. “I’ll get the milk,
as our visitor seems too proud to soil her hands.” Susannah sniffed
as she left the room.

“
Do as
she asks, Chloe,” Helena said, pretending not to see the maid’s
sullen expression face as she complied, her limp somewhat more
exaggerated as she moved away.

Helena might lack the confidence to stand
up for Chloe, but knew exactly how she felt. Helena didn’t belong
here, either. But then where did she belong? For the first time in
her life, she had no idea what would happen to her tomorrow. Or the
next day.

She and Henry couldn’t stay with
the Ffoyles indefinitely. But what were they meant to do until her
father and Aaron returned?
If they returned
.

Meghan reached across the space between
them and, wordlessly, pressed Helena’s hand before rising from her
chair with a sharp clap of her hands. “Girls, come and help me lay
the table for supper.”