Alice in Love and War (24 page)

He caught her gaze on him and she looked quickly away. Near by, his horse cropped grass with a soft tearing sound.

“Does he have a name?” she asked.

“The horse? No. I don’t give them names any more. My last two were shot under me.”

She felt the weight of sadness and danger behind this remark. “You were fighting in the north?” she asked.

“Yes, and then Oxford, and up to Naseby. But you’re as likely to be killed in a skirmish – running into an enemy patrol on the road – as in a battle. I lost a friend – a good friend – in just such an exchange of fire outside an inn. So sudden they came on us! And nothing lost or gained by it. Except a man’s life.” He began packing things away. “We’d best ride hard while we can, and stop early this evening. It may take some time to find a wet nurse. Besides, you’ll be tired. You’re not used to riding.”

Alice nodded agreement. Elen probably hadn’t taken much. The sooner they found a wet nurse the better. She lifted the baby and asked Jeremiah to help her fasten the sling in place.

He tied the knots, and paused with his hands on her shoulders. “What was her name,” he asked, “the baby’s mother?”

“Nia,” said Alice. She felt intensely aware of his hands.

He checked that the sling was secure, and said, “She had a loyal friend in you.”

Then he helped her onto the pillion and swung up in front of her. His back, in the thick hide coat, was broad and protective, like a bastion.

They stopped only once in the afternoon, to buy a London newsbook from a pedlar. Jeremiah pushed it into his snapsack to read later, and rode on, anxious to cover as many miles as possible.

That evening they were lucky to find an inn where the landlord’s wife had recently had a child. She was shocked to see how young Elen was, and travelling without mother or nurse. Alice explained to her that they were going only as far as Oxfordshire, and left Jeremiah to arrange food and beds for the night with the landlord. While they were talking, a noisy throng of soldiers came in, calling for beer and spreading themselves around, to the annoyance of other customers. Alice felt their eyes on her. She handed over the fretful baby to the woman and was glad to follow Jeremiah and the landlord, who led the way upstairs.

The landlord explained that the room was close to that of himself and his wife – “Just a step across this landing if you need to bring the baby to her in the night.” He pushed open the door to reveal a simple room with a washstand, a small table, two chairs, and only one bed. “You’ll want to eat in your chamber, I expect,” he said. “Those soldiers look like trouble. I’ll bring yours first. We have a mutton stew, and some pies and fresh bread…”

He left – and the two of them looked at the bed.

“I’m sorry,” said Jeremiah. He had reddened. “I was anxious to be settled, to get you away from the soldiers, and of course the landlord assumed…” He seemed suddenly younger, wrong-footed and unsure of himself. “I don’t know whether they have another room – or perhaps a loft, or barn; I could sleep there—”

“Captain Banks—” began Alice.

“Sergeant,” he corrected her. “But please – call me Jem.”

Jem. It sounded too familiar, especially in the intimacy of this private room. She spoke it quickly and rushed on. “Jem, I would rather you stayed here with me. I’d feel safer if we were in the same room.” She added awkwardly, “I would not have come away with you if I did not trust you.”

He looked relieved, but still concerned. “I’ll sleep on the floor—”

“No…”

“Alice – may I call you Alice? – I have my blanket and coat. I’ve slept in open fields in winter.”

“And I’ve slept in barns, surrounded by soldiers.”

He appeared shocked for a moment, then laughed.

He threw down his snapsack and took off the buff coat, and looked around. “The room will do well enough. And perhaps you are right: we may both be safer together.”

A serving woman arrived with food and drink and set it on the table for them. He regarded it gratefully. “Let’s eat.”

While they were eating, another maid brought Elen back. “Fed and winded, but she wasn’t happy, mistress says: cried a lot. They don’t like change, do they?” She regarded the two of them curiously. “Her mother died, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

After she had gone, Jeremiah said, “We had better think of a story. We are husband and wife—”

“And she is our niece – my dead sister’s child.”

“And I have permission to take the two of you to a place of safety – to your parents’ home near Oxford. Only you had better leave the talking to me. You don’t sound like an Oxfordshire girl.”

Alice rocked the baby in her arms until she fell asleep, then laid her down gently on the bed. Jeremiah watched her and said, “My sister Phoebe has a new baby. I have not seen him yet.” He smiled. “They all look much the same to me.”

“But not to their mothers! You are lucky to have a family – sisters, a mother – living.”

“Yes, I am.” She felt his concerned gaze on her. “Do you have no wish to go home? To your uncle’s farm?”

“The farm was never a home.”

She told him about her childhood in Bideford, and the shock of her removal to Dartmoor. He listened attentively, and she found she could even tell him about her uncle’s behaviour towards her. But both of them avoided the subject of Robin, and she could not bring herself to mention the baby she had lost.

His own home life had been happier than hers, his parents strict but kind. “Much Bible-reading and soul-searching,” he said. “They taught us to avoid luxury and, most of all, indolence. We worked hard. My father was a tailor. He was at work till the day he died. And he set me up with my apprenticeship.”

“Will you go back to that, when the war is over?”

“I hope so. I write to my master regularly. He understood that I wanted to join the army; said he would have joined himself if he’d been younger. We were all of us fired up for the defence of London. We helped dig the trenches around the city walls, and cheered when the trained bands defeated the Cavalier army at Turnham Green. All the apprentices were joining up.”

Elen woke and cried while they were talking, and Alice walked about the room with her, singing a Welsh lullaby she had learnt from Nia. Jeremiah reached into his pack and took out the newsbook he had bought earlier, on the road. He sat reading it, but Alice was aware that he was distracted by her – as she was by him.

When the baby had settled she put her down again and went to lean on the back of Jeremiah’s chair. “Is there news of that fight at Naseby?” she asked.

“Yes.” He looked guarded, though she could not think why. “It tells how the king’s army was utterly routed, most of his infantry taken prisoner, at least four thousand of them, and many of his horse. Ordnance too. He read out:

“…there was many of the Wagons laden with rich plunder, and others with Arms and Ammunition, about 50 loads of Muskets, Pikes, Powder, Match and Bullets, abundance of Trunks, which the Souldiers soone emptied…

“And so on.”

He went to close the page, but she caught it and said, “No! Wait! Let me see. There’s more.”

“No more—”

“There is! Let me see.”

He gave it up reluctantly. “Don’t read this, Alice. Please.”

“Why not?”

She felt more than ever determined, and read, following the print with her finger:

…which the Souldiers soone emptied, as they did the Waggons that carried the middle sort of Ammunition Whoores … full of money and rich apparell, there being at least 1500 of that tribe, the gentler sort in Coaches … and the common rabble of common vermin on foot, 500 of them at least being taken and kept within guard, until order was taken to dispose of them … many of these were Irish women, of cruel countenances, some of them were cut by our Souldiers when they tooke them…

The common rabble. Common vermin. Dispose of them
. It made them sound like rats. The scene came back to her in all its horror: the screaming women cut down around her, wives, mothers, lovers, whores – brave, hardy, defenceless women, all of them. The common vermin.

In her fury she crumpled the newsbook and threw it on the floor.

Jeremiah stood up. “Alice…”

“How dare they call them vermin?” she exploded. “They were my friends – good women, good to me. They came with the army to be with their men, to cook and care for them; to suffer with them, if need be; but not to die like that, stripped and thrown into a pit, and then – then to be counted as naught, called vermin…”

“Hush! Hush, Alice!” His arms went around her, and she realized she was shouting and tears were rolling down her face, and that Elen had woken again and begun to cry.

He pressed her face against his shoulder. “I told you not to read it.”

“Who writes these evil things?” she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt.

“A gentleman wrote this, one who supports Parliament, and who reported what happened.” He let go of her and said gently, “You’d better quieten the child. Don’t get us thrown out.”

She lifted up Elen and paced back and forth with her.

“The week before the fight,” Jeremiah said, “there was a rumour going around among our men that a thousand Irishwomen followed the king’s army, armed with long knives. I think the soldiers believed they had come upon these women and must wipe them out.”

“Some of the women
were
Irish,” said Alice. “That was no reason to kill them.”

“But you know how people feel about the Irish, how they fear them, since the massacres of the settlers over there. These old hatreds build up. Oh, I don’t seek to make excuses for them… And I hope the killers will be punished – though I fear they will not.”

Elen had stopped crying as soon as Alice picked her up and began walking with her again. Jeremiah watched them. “Will you try to find her father?” he asked.

Alice was startled. “He must surely be dead? Master Barford said the bodies lay in heaps on the field.”

“But it says there” – he indicated the crumpled pamphlet on the floor – “that most of the foot surrendered and were taken prisoner. It’s more likely that he was one of them.”

“So I might find him? What will happen to the prisoners?”

“They’ll have been taken to London and paraded through the streets. As for the future, most may be persuaded to change sides. Others will remain in prison. If you tell me his name and company, I may be able to find out for you.”

“He was in Sir John Agnew’s regiment, but I knew him only as Bryn.” Alice realized then that she was faced with a great gulf of ignorance about her Welsh friends. She had no surname for any of them. Nor could she remember ever being told the name of their village in Wales.

If Bryn is alive, she thought, he’ll get to hear about what happened to the women. How will he ever bear it?

“I should try and find him,” she said, “to tell him his daughter is alive – that he hasn’t lost everything.”

“It won’t be easy, without a name.”

Jeremiah got out his blanket and prepared to sleep on the floor, leaving the bed to Alice and the baby. She saw that his wounds were paining him, but he made no complaint. Despite having slept in barns and outhouses full of other people, Alice felt strangely shy in this small room. Jeremiah had stripped to shirt and breeches and rolled himself up in his blanket, turning away from her. She changed Elen’s wet linen, then took off her gown and stays and got into the bed in her shift with the baby beside her. She kept a small candle alight in a dish near by.

Elen woke, hungry, in the night, and Alice scooped her up quickly and carried her out onto the landing and knocked on the couple’s door. To her relief the woman came at once and took the baby from her.

“My own little one is wakeful,” she whispered. “I wasn’t asleep. Go back. I’ll bring her to you.”

But when Elen returned she would not settle. She cried and fretted, and Alice walked up and down with her, shushing and murmuring. Elen’s eyelids drooped, but as soon as Alice laid her down she began crying again.

Jeremiah woke and sat up. “Is she sick?”

“No.” Alice sank down wearily on the bed. “I think she is missing Hannah.” I should have left her with Hannah, she thought, guiltily. She’s not happy. And I don’t know who I will find for her at Copsey.

“Don’t get cold.” He took a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, and sat down next to her.

All that could be seen of the swaddled baby was a red furious face, contorted with misery. Alice jogged her. “Shh, shh…” She hoped no one was in a room near by.

“I suppose they improve as they get older,” he said.

Alice laughed and yawned at the same time. “Oh, I hope so!”

“Alice, if you can’t find her father, or you find that he is dead, what will you do? Will you give her to an orphanage, as Mistress Barford suggested?”

“No.” Alice held the baby against her heart. Elen’s cries had subsided. Her eyes closed again, and the lashes lay wet and dark on her cheeks. “No. I couldn’t do that. I’ll keep her myself.”

“People will think she is your bastard.”

Alice lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “I may not have a bastard child,” she said, “but I should have done. So if people think ill of me, they have good reason.” And she told him, then, about the child she had lost after Robin left her at Copsey.

His expression, in the guttering candlelight, was unreadable. Now, she thought, he will condemn me; for it was common knowledge that a woman could only conceive if she was willing and eager, and the thought of her that way with Robin would surely disgust him.

But Jeremiah simply said, “He was a base man, and unworthy of you.”

Twenty-four

Both
Alice and Jeremiah were tired the next morning. Elen had kept them awake much of the night, but now, as they came down to pay for their lodging and the wet-nursing, she lay deeply asleep, well fed and peaceful. The innkeeper’s wife had given Alice fresh pap for the journey, but Alice guessed Elen would not like it. The longer she sleeps now, the better, she thought.

The day was misty, with a fine drizzle that was wetter than it looked; coming from the south-west, it drove relentlessly into their faces as they rode. Alice, with the canvas tied around herself and Elen, kept her gaze on Jeremiah’s back and ignored the passing countryside. They did not talk much, for it was difficult to hear each other’s voices against the hoof beats, the creaking of the pillion and the hiss of rain.