Alice in Love and War (29 page)

“Money doesn’t matter,” said Alice. “Not as long as we are together, even if it’s in one room.”

He turned to her eagerly. “Would you marry me before I go? Not wait till I return? We need only find witnesses—”

Alice stopped still, and stared at him. It had not occurred to her until then that he meant to go home without her. She had no intention of letting him leave her here again, married or unmarried.

“Jem,” she said, “let’s marry at once, and go together. Please. I can’t bear to be left waiting again.”

“Oh, love!” He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her and held her close. “That’s what
I
wanted too, but it seemed wrong to ask it of you; not to have a home to take you to—”

“We have both lived on the road, and I have seen husbands and wives set up their shelters at night and take them down in the morning, and cook on a campfire…”

“It won’t be as bad as that,” he said, smiling. “Though if we have nowhere to go I promise I’ll build you a shack on the common.”

She laughed. “How long do you plan to stay in Copsey?”

“Only as long as need be: to marry, to bring Elen away from the wet nurse, for you to finish your term of service with Lady Weston.”

“It
is
finished. I am free to leave – and I think she expects it.”

Lady Weston did expect Alice to leave. However, she made it clear that a hasty marriage would not have her approval. Marriage, in her view, should always take place in church, with banns published for three Sundays beforehand. But Alice knew that Jem did not hold with church weddings; and Christian said that with people so displaced and thrown together by the war, there must be many such simple ceremonies taking place.

They were married two days later at the Edgintons’ house, in a private ceremony without clergy. Jane and Richard Edginton were there, and Christian and Bess. Alice and Jeremiah had arranged to fetch Elen from the Edgintons’ the morning after the wedding and begin their long cross-country journey to Hertfordshire; but their wedding night would be spent in Copsey, at the White Hart Inn.

Alice wore a yellow gown that had once been Lady Cecily’s. It was cut rather low in the neck for an artisan’s wife, but she wore it over a modest shift. She had slept with pieces of rag tied in her hair to curl it, and in the morning Bess had arranged the hair so that little ringlets showed prettily around the edge of her cap. She and Christian and Bess walked down to the Edgintons’ house, which was full of the smell of baking bread and buns. Jane had made a large cherry pie, dusted with sugar, for the occasion, and it stood waiting on a plate. The jug of spiced wine carried by Bess was placed next to it. The children, including Elen, were minded by a neighbour’s girl while Alice and Jem, along with Christian, Bessy, Richard and Jane, went into the quiet back room.

In that small homely space Jem took both Alice’s hands in a firm grasp, and said, “I declare before God and these witnesses that I take you, Alice Newcombe, to be my lawful wedded wife, and promise to be a faithful and loving husband until death shall part us.”

She repeated the vow, stumbling a little over the words, and all the time looking into his eyes, thinking, I’ll always remember this day. And she felt sure that she would never regret it.

Jem, who liked to have things preserved on paper, had written out their declaration and added the names of the witnesses: Jane Edginton, Richard Edginton, Christian Aubrey and Elizabeth Akers. They all signed it afterwards, Jane and Bess both marking it with a cross.

And then they drank spiced wine and ate cherry pie and all wished one another health and happiness. Alice had already said farewell to Lady Weston and had received her pay and the lady’s blessing. Now she had to part with Christian, and that was hard. Although Alice was a servant and Christian a gentlewoman, they had worked together, shared knowledge and discoveries, and become friends. Alice curtseyed to Christian, but Christian exclaimed, “Oh, Alice! I wish you good fortune!” and kissed her. Bessy, quite overcome by the occasion, sobbed as she hugged Alice goodbye.

The landlord of the White Hart had left them linen towels and a scented wash-ball. On the table was a flagon of wine and two glasses, fruit, bread and cold meat. The casement was open, and mild summer air flowed into the room. Alice looked out. It was not yet dusk, but already a few stars showed in the greenish sky and a full moon hung pale above the treetops.

Jem came and stood behind her and kissed the back of her neck. “Are you hungry, love?”

“No.” She smiled and turned round into his arms. “Let’s eat later.”

They were both shy at first, for they had not spent much time together, though they had come to know each other through their letters. Alice was afraid of seeming too forward, but she need not have feared, for nothing she did displeased him. They lay and kissed and caressed one another, and Alice traced with her hand and then with her lips the cruel lines of his scars on shoulder and thigh. When they made love she felt not only passionate but also safe and certain in a way she had never felt with Robin. They slept, and woke, and made love again, and the food lay untouched on the table, and outside the night turned dark and silver.

1649

Epilogue

Alice
had tied holly and mistletoe to a ring of bent twigs and was winding a strand of ivy around them. It was scarcely a kissing bough, for it was far too small, and she would not hang it over their threshold now that the celebration of Christmas was forbidden by Act of Parliament. This kissing knot, as she thought of it, would hang at the top of the stairs, and would be for the family alone: herself, and Jem, and their children: Elen, Daniel and the new baby, Hannah. There would also be sweetmeats for the children, and a festive pudding.

Alice knew Jem would not object to these small rituals, and guessed that many neighbours might do the same. With the banning of its celebration in churches, Christmas had vanished from the calendar, and many people felt the lack at this dark time of year, with spring far off. Soon after last Christmas, on a cold January day, King Charles had been executed in London. A huge crowd had attended his beheading, and it was reported that as the executioner held aloft the severed head a vast sighing groan rose up from the people, and several fainted. Jem said that many who supported Parliament were unhappy at the killing of the king.

But at least it did seem that the wars were finally over. After the fall of Oxford in 1646, they had enjoyed only a year and a half of uncertain peace: a peace full of Royalist plots and uprisings and much dissent among those in power, in Parliament and in the army. There had been a mutiny less than two miles away, at Ware, and Jem and Alice, visiting Phoebe there, had seen Cromwell’s forces out on the roads, and heard the shots when the ringleaders were executed.

Jem did not get involved in the debates and arguments that shook the army, and neither did he join up when war broke out again. He had become milder in his opinions. Like many of their friends and neighbours he had begun to resent the growing power of the army in the affairs of Parliament.

Alice was glad to have him safe at home with her and the children. He had his own carpenter’s workshop now, on the edge of Hartham Common. The house was attached to the workshop, and Alice had space in the attic for drying herbs. She gathered herbs on the common and in Waterford marshes, and experimented and made simple remedies in the kitchen, and wrote up her findings in the book Jem had given her. The neighbours soon got to know of her skills, and came for advice, though she made sure only to offer homely remedies, and only to her friends. There was an apothecary practising in Hertford and she had no wish to antagonize him.

As Alice fastened the ivy around the ring of twigs, Elen watched intently. She would want to make one herself; she was four and a half now, and copied everything Alice did. But the ring would be too difficult for her.

“You could help me make dumplings to go in the pottage,” Alice suggested. “Dadda will come in for his dinner soon. Are your hands clean?”

Elen held up her hands for inspection. They were small and square, with short fingers – quite different from Alice’s or from anyone’s in Jem’s family. Elen was short for her age, and sturdy, with curling dark chestnut hair. She caught at Alice’s heart, for she looked more like Nia every day.

Jem had tried several times over the years to trace Elen’s father. Most of the Royalist infantry were in prison, and he asked after the names Alice had given him: Bryn, Edryd, Gethin. None of them, it seemed, were uncommon names among the Welsh soldiers. But at last came a message from a man named Edryd, who told of two friends, Bryn and Gethin, who had been killed at Naseby. Alice guessed that this was the closest they would ever come to being sure that Bryn was dead.

“So you see, love, he will not come for her,” Jem said.

He knew it had been a fear of Alice’s that she might lose Elen to Bryn, if he was found. Alice was sad that Bryn had died, but his death meant that Elen was truly hers and Jem’s, as the child believed herself to be. One day, Alice thought, if she asks why she does not look like either of us, or questions me about the Welsh songs I sing, I’ll tell her who her real parents were and what became of them, how they were good, honest, loving people who vanished from the earth like the dust under the generals’ boots. I’ll tell her who she is, and where she comes from – but not now.

Daniel, Alice’s own firstborn child, was two years old, slim and fair. He was trundling around the room with a wooden dog on wheels made by his father. Hannah lay in her cradle near the hearth, sleeping through everything.

When Jem came in, dusty from the workshop, Elen ran to him and said, “We made a kissing knot and dumplings!”

He lifted and swung her up. “Did you, my wench? And shall we eat them together for dinner?”

Elen giggled. “Not the kissing knot! Silly Dadda!”

Alice held up the knot and Jem kissed Elen under it, and then Alice, and then put Elen down and scooped up Daniel; and they all laughed, and went to eat their midday dinner.

Later, when the December dusk was closing in, and Jem had gone back to the workshop and the children were quiet, Alice lit rushlights and began placing them around the room. Jem had teased her about her Christmastide greenery and the festive pudding she had made.

“A pudding in defiance of Parliament!” he had joked.

But both of them were concerned about the leaders he had once had so much faith in, and uneasy about what the future held.

“There are zealots in the army,” he said, “and they wield too much power. We have too many new laws.”

And yet all over the country, Alice thought, people like us are healing rifts and making peace with their neighbours; and all these small kindnesses are at work in the world.

She lit the last taper and set it on the windowsill – the one that overlooked the common. The light bloomed and shone out, challenging the dark.

About the Author

Ann Turnbull was brought up in Bexleyheath, London, but now lives in Shropshire. She has always loved reading and knew from the age of ten that she wanted to be a writer. Her numerous books for young readers include
Pigeon Summer; Deep Water; Room for a Stranger; No Friend of Mine; No Shame, No Fear
, which was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Children’s Book Award and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize; and
Forged in the Fire
.

Of
Alice in Love and War
, Ann says, “I’ve been fascinated by the English Civil War ever since I read
The Children of the New Forest
as a child. It was a time of enormous upheaval and confusion that caused people to move around. For many, like Alice, it changed their lives forever. I wanted to explore how these great events felt at the time to ordinary people caught up in the thick of them.”

Find out more about Ann Turnbull and her books by visiting her website at
www.annturnbull.com

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