Alice in Love and War (27 page)

Christian touched her arm. “Go to the still room, Alice. I must take these letters upstairs to Lady Weston.”

Alone in that quiet place, Alice untied the string on the package, broke the wax seal, and opened it. Inside the paper, wrapped in news-sheets, was a small book, bound in soft brown leather, very pleasing to handle. The pages were blank. It was a notebook or journal. A book for me to write in, she thought; and she stroked its cover.

Two pages of writing accompanied it. She unfolded the letter, and glanced quickly at the last page, which ended:
Your faithful friend, Jeremiah Banks
. The date at the top was August, but this had been crossed out and replaced with a September date. Clearly the letter had been written over several weeks, and then had taken many more weeks to reach Weston Hall.

He wrote:

Alice
,

Forgive me for this long delay in writing to you. Never believe it was because I had forgotten you. Indeed, I think of you constantly and pray for this campaign to be over so that I may see you again and we may come to know one another better
.

I had trouble at first to find my regiment, for all is confusion here in the west and there was danger of being taken prisoner by the enemy, but I was reunited with them some weeks ago. My comrades, who had thought me dead at Naseby, were overjoyed to see me, though I was grieved to hear that one of the men who carried me to safety was killed soon after. The fighting here is fierce. We have taken Bridgwater and Bath. Bridgwater was a sorry business – half the town left in flames from our cannon before they would surrender. Where we are now, I don’t know, only that we marched a weary way to get here and are mired in dirt
.

Here there was a break, and she realized he had been interrupted and then come back to the letter much later. He wrote now of being camped outside Bristol, during the siege, and of the alarm caused by the capture of his regiment’s colonel in a raid. But in the main his letter was to tell her that he thought of her often, and hoped all was well at Weston.

I have some fear for you in that malignant (your friends would say loyal) house, for I believe the king faces certain defeat. We are all assured that we do God’s work, that a better government will come of this, and that we will bring it about with God’s help. It seems there will be no winter halt to this campaign. We press on to the end, which surely cannot be long. Meantime, I send you this small gift. I wish I could say I had bought it for you, for I would willingly have done so; but the truth is I found it in the ruins of a shop that had been ransacked, and thought of you and the book you lost. Perhaps you can use this to make a herbal of your own
.

Alice loved the book. She was still examining it when Christian returned, and could not resist showing it to her, even though she had not meant to talk about Jem.

“It is to make a herbal, to replace my father’s book that was lost,” she said, adding awkwardly, “a friend sent it.”

“The same friend who brought you here?” asked Christian, with a smile. “The Roundhead?”

“He’s no
Roundhead
!” said Alice. “He wears his hair quite long.”

“Whatever the length of his hair, he knows well enough what gift will please you.”

“Did you guess?” asked Alice. “When we arrived together? Did everyone guess?”

“I’m sure they did. It was in your eyes – the way you looked at each other.”

Alice sighed. “I have been determined not to talk about him. Not to think about him. In case he never wrote, never came back. And now of course I’m happy, but – oh, I’m so afraid for him! It’s weeks since he sent this. Anything might have happened since.” She turned in appeal to Christian. “You must all think of me as a traitor, consorting with your enemy. Lady Weston must think that.”

“Nobody thinks it,” said Christian. “Of course there is no love for Cromwell and Fairfax here, but as for your soldier: we are all English men and women, Alice. This war will end, and we shall learn to live together again.” She smiled. “Do you have paper to write to your friend?”

“No. But I can buy some.”

“Do that. And write.”

Twenty-six

Before
she began her letter, Alice wrote on the first page of the leather-bound book:

Alice Newcombe
Her Book

She would make a collection of her own herbal preparations, she decided; and collect the recipes of others; and she would write down her observations on the properties of various plants, and the effect on them of the phases of the moon and the movements of the stars and planets, as her father had done. She did not start writing at once, but took time to consider how best the book should be laid out. The blank pages held a promise of pleasure to come.

But she did not delay writing to Jem, though she found it difficult because she had never composed a letter before, only brief notes of remedies or descriptions of plants. She copied his style of address, beginning simply:
Jeremiah, I thank you for your gift. Nothing could have pleased me more
. She assured him she was safe at Weston Hall, but did not mention the family’s troubles and left him to imagine how distraught they were at the progress of the war. She wrote:

Elen has been baptized. I think you will not approve of infant baptism, but Lady Weston was pressing in the matter, and I confess I was happy to see Elen brought before God. Jane Edginton, the baker’s wife, is wet nurse, and has Elen to live with her in the village. I visit often and see that the child is thriving. I love her as my daughter now, yet almost fear to do so in case Bryn should be found and come to claim her
.

Mistress Christian and I worked hard in the garden through the summer. We have fruit preserved and beans salted and laid in crocks and new supplies of herbs in the still room
.

She paused. This is women’s talk, she thought; he doesn’t want to hear this. She continued:

We read the newsbooks here and try to follow the course of the campaign. You say there will be no winter halt to the fighting, so I can only pray for this war to be over soon
.

And she ended with what was most in her mind:

It will seem a long winter if you do not come
.

Afterwards, she read her letter through. It sounded somewhat stiff, she thought, not like her own voice, not quite as she had meant it to sound. But it
looked
well; she was proud of the neat, careful handwriting her father had taught her. She signed the letter exactly as Jem had:
Your faithful friend
, followed by her name; then folded and sealed it.

And then she waited. The waiting was almost harder to bear now that she had heard from him once and knew he would write again. All through late November and December she scanned the newsbooks in hopes of discovering where he might be; but, with winter closing in, there was little news. She busied herself with work: not only in the still room, but in the kitchen and dairy and around the house, dusting and sweeping, running errands for the ladies, helping the nursemaid with the little boys.

At last, a few days before Christmas, came another letter. She opened it eagerly, expecting a response to hers, but it soon became clear that he had not yet received it. He sounded anxious. Had his parcel reached her? Was she safe, and in good health? And he asked:
I hope you were not offended by anything I said in my letter?’

Alice, distressed that he should even consider that possibility, wrote back quickly, without considering her words:

Oh, Jem, how can you even think that I would be offended? You must know how much I long to hear from you. Every time I see Christian carrying letters I silently wish, Let there be one for me! Let me hear again from Jem! I think of you every moment of the day, and pray for your safety. My letter and thanks are on their way to you, perhaps have reached you already. Forgive these hasty words; I make ready for Walt to take this to the carrier. There will be no more letters taken before Christmas
…

It was a sad, reduced Christmas they had, after last year’s. Lady Grace had accepted an invitation from her sister to visit, which their mother thought might cheer her, so Grace had gathered up her children and their nursemaid and gone to Buckinghamshire. The yule log burned in the hearth, but there was little festive food, and the kissing bough was reduced to a posy of ivy and mistletoe over the main door. One who passed under it in the week between Christmas and Twelfth Night was Sir Walter Clare, the elderly neighbour who had been at last year’s feast.

“He comes courting me,” Christian told Alice.

“But he’s old!” exclaimed Alice. “Oh, I’m sorry—”

Christian laughed. “He is not so
very
old, and I am nearing thirty. He is a kind man, well thought of; a widower twice over, with grown-up children.” It was clear that Christian did not love Sir Walter, but…

“Will you have him, then?” Alice asked.

“I think I may. Lady Weston wishes it.”

“But won’t she miss you? You run the household now; you do so much for her.”

“She will, but you see, Alice, since I came of age it has been her duty to find me a husband, to see me settled, and I have thwarted her plans several times. Lady Weston is always mindful of her duty and careful of the welfare of everyone in this house. It would please her greatly to see me married.”

Alice, thinking of Robin, and Jem, asked, “Did you never fall in love?”

“Yes, I did once, or thought I did, when I was much younger. He was eager to marry me, but I was unsure. He was energetic, ambitious; a diplomat, who was often abroad. We would have spent our lives travelling, setting up home for a year or two in cities all over Europe. I like to be in one place that is familiar to me. So I hesitated…”

“And he died in the war?”

“Oh, no! Nothing so sad! And it was before the war. No, he married someone else.”

“But
that’s
sad – for you.”

“It was my own doing. And perhaps for the best. Sir Walter offers me a quiet home, a garden, a still room of my own, anything I want.”

But I’d want love, Alice thought. She yearned to hear again from Jem.

Throughout January there were no letters in or out. Weston Hall was cut off by deep snow, and Lady Grace and her children were obliged to remain in Buckinghamshire. The cold was intense. Ice froze on the windowpanes, and snow was banked up outside so high it was a struggle each morning to open the kitchen door. Bess would trudge out and smash the ice on the well, and later she would feed the chickens huddled with fluffed-up feathers in the hen house. The dogs lay by the fire, and the cats insinuated themselves in front of them, so close to the flames that sparks singed their fur. Lady Weston and her maid sat sewing with little portable heaters full of hot coals tucked under their long skirts.

Alice could not even get to the village to see Elen. She worried that the baby might take cold, or succumb to a fever. She knew that little children could fall ill and be gone in a matter of days. Each night she prayed to God to keep Elen safe. By day she worked with Christian or with Mistress Florey, making herself indispensable in every aspect of the running of the house.

“Her Ladyship’ll miss you, when your Roundhead comes for you,” said Bess.

The two of them were in the woodshed, tossing kindling into the big, two-handled basket.

So Bess knows, thought Alice. She didn’t mind. Bessy was a simple, good-natured girl who would understand, and not think of Jeremiah as an enemy.

“Don’t call him Roundhead,” she begged. “His name is Jem.”

Bess smiled. “Jem? I like that name. I liked the look of him. A proper man, he is, Mistress Florey says.”

“Oh!” So they were all talking about her.

“Tell you something else,” confided Bess. Her breath hung in a cloud on the cold air and her dark hair sparkled with melting snow. “He’s a letter-writing man, that one, isn’t he? And you’re clever. You can write, and read the newsbooks, like he does. So I think he’s right for you; he’s the one.”

Alice wanted to hug her; but she only said, “Yes. I think so too.”

The snow thawed, and at last Alice was able to walk to the Edgintons’ house in the village.

Jane opened the door, and behind her came Elen, crawling towards them and squealing with excitement. She was wearing a little gown that Alice recognized as one she herself had made at Sibbertoft, and she looked rosy and well. A tide of relief surged through Alice. She scooped up the child into her arms.

“Oh, I’ve missed you, sweeting – and feared for you!” she exclaimed. She looked around the room, which was full of children – the youngest, Mary, pulling herself up with the aid of a table leg; the other two squabbling over a toy. “They are all well?”

Jane nodded. “As you see! I thank God no illness has struck this winter. Only Kate has a cough that tickles at night and frets her.”

“I’ll bring you a syrup for it.”

Alice felt happy, full of hope. And two weeks later came the long-awaited news that the carrier from Faringdon was on his way, with mail. She met him at the King’s Arms with a letter for Jem that she had been writing at intervals since Christmas: more journal than letter, telling him of her day-to-day life and that she had begun writing up some of her remedies in the book he had given her, and that she hoped soon to show it to him. In return, the carrier handed her a bundle of letters for Weston Hall. She hurried back, anxious to help Christian sort them.

There were two for her.

“Two!” she exclaimed, snatching them up.

And Christian laughed and said, “Go and read them. Go! Now!”

Alice went out to the stables – unused these days except for Amor – found an empty stall, and snuggled down in the hay to read. She felt a glow spread through her as she saw how the first one began:

Dear love, Alice
,