Take Courage (36 page)

“Are you wretched to have lost Francis, Mrs. Thorpe?” said the Earl in a strange tone.

“So wretched that I care not whether I live or die,” I said.

“But you have the child—you have Francis's child,” the Earl said quickly. “What is your name? By what name did Francis call you?”

I told him: “Penninah. In his joyous moments he called me Pen.”

“All moments were joyous with Francis Ferrand,” said the Earl. “Perhaps his child will prove the same, Penninah.”

I could not speak for tears. The Earl turned aside and paced up and down the chamber slowly. At last he halted before me, and gazed at me very earnestly, his hands behind his back.

“And it is you, you, Francis Ferrand's love and the mother of his child,” he said: “who ask me to pity Bradford?”

“I do not wish any other woman to feel such grief as I do,” I answered him.

“And what am I to say to that poor old man, his father?” muttered the Earl.

“You can tell him my secret,” I said.

The Earl looked at me, as it seemed with some admiration. “I shall not do that,” he said. “I shall never tell that. You are a brave woman, Penninah Thorpe,” he went on, “as well as a beautiful one. There is something of poetry about you, like a heroine of old times. Allow me to say without disrespect that I envy Francis. For his sake and yours I will countermand the order; Bradford shall be sacked but not put to the sword.”

“The Lord show the light of His countenance upon you, and bless you,” I said, and I stretched out my hand to him, much moved.

“Thank you, Penninah Thorpe,” said the Earl, bowing over my hand in a very courtly fashion: “Yours is one of the few blessings I shall value.”

Then he straightened himself, and sighed, and rubbed one eye with his hand, as if very tired.

“War is a weary business,” he said. “I will give the case to Lady Fairfax. You had best go back to Bradford quickly. I will write you a safe-conduct.”

He rang a little hand-bell which stood on the table, and while he waited for the servant's coming he said to me in his ordinary tone of jesting condescension:

“I am sending Lady Fairfax back to Tom to-day in a coach, properly guarded.”

“That is chivalrous—or is it the ordinary custom of war?” I said.

The Earl shrugged his shoulders, and I knew that it was not customary, but a gallant act on his part.

“I would not deprive Tom of her for worlds,” he said, laughing. “I prefer to keep Bradford.”

“Pity poor Bradford,” I reminded him softly.

The servant entered. I was standing by a panel of the wall, with my hood drawn up; I daresay my face was white enough from emotion, and I held myself stiffly. At all events the man, I believe, took me for an apparition; for he cried out and fled, crossing himself.

“What a plague is wrong with the servants in this house?” cried the Earl, stamping to the table and ringing the bell again impatiently. The bell came apart in his hand. “Oh, be hanged to it,” said he, looking at the clapper ruefully.

“That was Francis's saying,” said I, and suddenly I felt as if my heart broke in two as I stood there, and I could restrain my grief no longer. “O let me go, let me go!” I cried, and I stumbled blindly away, putting aside the Earl's hand, and fled down a little private stairway and out of the house and into the park, and cast myself down at the foot of a tree, and wept bitterly.

It was so long before the passion of my grief exhausted itself, and I then felt so weak and so averse from life, that the morning was well advanced by the time I had gathered my courage and dragged myself back to Bradford. Indeed I do not believe I should ever have returned, I should have cast myself into the beck and gladly drowned, had I not had children awaiting me and depending on me. But a mother cannot desert her children, and so at last I entered the doors of the Pack Horse and trailed my tired and heavy body upstairs.

Sam was still fast asleep, his breathing sweet and steady; but Thomas lay awake and looked but poorly. The way his sad little face brightened when he saw me almost repaid me for my return to life. He sat up in bed and held out his arms and said: “Mother!” and I sat down beside him and hugged him, and he allowed himself to be fondled without any of the manly reservations he and his brother had lately thought it proper to make on childish caresses. His cheek was flushed, his head hot and his eyes heavy, and when I asked he confessed that he had vomited. I hesitated, perplexed as to whether he was fit to walk through the hot sun as far as Little Holroyd, and the landlady coming in I put my doubt before her.

She told me I was of course very welcome to stay. But I could hear in her voice that though she tried to mean this truly she could not, and I suddenly saw that in her eyes we were now the family of a man whom the Royalists regarded as a damnable traitor, and therefore not good company when the Royalists were about to sack the town. Her next words confirmed my guess, for without looking directly at me she went on:

“'Tis said the Earl will complete the leaguer to-day, and to-morrow enter the town.”

“Then I am better out of it,” said I, and watched her face brighten.

Sighing, I woke Sam and dressed Thomas. The poor child clung to me, hardly able to stand, as I fastened his buttons, and from time to time shivered down his backbone. Sam was a trifle bad-tempered and sullen, but I did not scold him; I knew what his loyal heart was suffering over the defeat of his heroes, his father and Sir Thomas. The air of the inn was stifling to us, who were used to the fresh country breezes at The Breck, and I thought we should all feel better when we were outside the town. I called for our maid, but instead her aunt came, and told me, colouring as she spoke, that they thought it best she should not leave them during this trouble. I could not blame them, for I judged I should have acted the same by a kinswoman of my own, so I gave a bundle of necessaries to Sam, and took Thomas by the hand, and without any further word descended and set out. The girl herself, tearful and angry, stood in the doorway and cried out that it was not her doing, for her part she wished to come with me, it was a shame and not her doing; and the landlord, looking troubled, for indeed he was a very honest godly man, said all in a breath that my reckoning had been paid by Sir Thomas, the girl's wages should be returned, as soon as the country was settled she should come again to me, that he had a great respect for John Thorpe and was very sorry.

These intimations of our changed state were very disagreeable and disconcerting to me. Without much thinking about it or being over-proud of this score, I had always taken it for granted that I had a good standing in Bradford town—both the Clarksons and the Thorpes had always been well respected, if for different reasons, and of late John had been much looked up to, and his advice followed. The notion that the Thorpes of Little Holroyd could ever be anything but folk of solid substance and desirable acquaintance had never entered my head before, and now that it
was thus forced in, it gave me a strange feeling of uncertainty and fear, a kind of painful hollowness. Suddenly, as we trailed along the street in the hot sunshine, I longed for John so keenly that I could hardly forbear crying his name, and when Sam innocently chose just this moment to ask when his father would be home, I fear I answered him sharply.

As we approached the bridge I saw scarlet coats on it, and my heart beat heavily. Sure enough the soldiers stopped us. They asked my name. Taught by my new fear, I did not give it; I roughened my voice, and speaking like our Sarah, said only that we dwelled in Little Holroyd. The corporal in charge said doubtfully he would consult his officer, and when I pressed him to let us through raised his hand in an exhorting way and said:

“Now, missis! There's nowt gained by rushing!”

Since his speech showed that he was a Yorkshireman, I was terrified lest some of his troop or his officer should be men of our parts, who would know me, and I stood in an agony, when fortunately little Thomas, overcome by the delay in the hot sun, saved all for us by vomiting.

“You see the child is sick,” I said.

“Aye, poor little lad. Well, pass on then,” said the corporal, sniffing. “But see you stay in Little Holroyd when you get there.”

We moved on thankfully. When we reached the shade of the trees in the lane I asked Thomas if he would care to sit and rest, but though the poor child was pale and trembling he would not delay us, but pressed on manfully.

The Breck was empty. There was no one in the fields or the laithe or the house, no one in the kitchen or the loom-chamber. Though the day was so warm the house struck a chill on me, the air within being stale and motionless, and dust coating the furnishings. Everything was just as we had left it on Friday night—even to a pair of Sir Thomas's boots which lay cross-toed on the floor of his room, awaiting polish—save that two of our cows had been milked, and the milk stood in crocks in the kitchen. The milk had curdled in the
heat, much to the disgust of Sam, who had always a great thirst on him. I set him to fetch water for us from the beck, while I put Thomas to bed; between vomit and flux the poor lad was very uncomfortable, and I was kept busy all that day attending him. I did not judge, however, that he was very ill, for I had seen him in these upsets before when over-excited; his spirit was sensitive and seemed in too close connection, as I sometimes jestingly told him, with his stomach. Towards evening my judgment, thank God, proved accurate; the heat of his body sank and he ceased to vomit, and he smiled at me and asked for a drink of milk. By now the cows were lowing in distress, for it was past their evening milking hour; since no one had come near us all day I told Sam we should have to milk them ourselves, and set to work on it. I had never touched a cow before and made but a poor job of it, but Sam did splendidly. When we had finished and made ourselves some supper, we were so tired that the longing for sleep overcame all our other troubles; we fell into bed and slept round the clock.

It was the sound of drums which waked us. The thunderous beat went on and on while I rose and prepared oatmeal porridge and we ate it; when at last the drumming ceased there came a great clamour, screams and shouts and cries, from down over Bradford. I was so uneasy I made Thomas rise and dress, though he was scarcely fit for it, and I bolted the doors and put out the fire and drew everything away from the windows, so that the house might look as though it were empty, and I made the children sit very quiet by the hearth and I read them the story of Samuel out of the Bible. While I was just reading how the Lord called Samuel for the third time, I saw my Sam's jaw drop and his eyes grow very round, and I knew he had seen a scarlet coat down the lane, and within myself I trembled, and I prayed God to give me strength to bear this calamity and save my children.

Sure enough in a few moments there was a sudden rush of feet across our yard, and a confused shouting, and then a shaking of our door and a great banging on it. The
timbers quivered beneath the blows but did not yield. Then a scarlet coat came to the window and shouted at me. I turned my head towards him very slowly and calmly, as if I had no fear of him, and pretended not to understand what he was saying, but his face then grew crimson and grimacing with anger, and he lifted the butt of his musket and swung it through the window quarry, so that it broke and fell to the ground crackling and tinkling.

“Oppen t'door or it'll be t'worse for you!” he shouted, sticking his angry face through the opening.

“We'll burn door down if tha doesn't!” shouted one of those at the door.

“Nay, shoot bolts off; that'll be t'gainest way,” advised another.

“I am alone here with my children—we have done you no harm,” I cried.

“Oppen t'door and no harm'll happen you,” said the man at the window grimly.

I hesitated. At my silence they showered blows from their musket butts on the door, striking all in unison; the timbers still did not yield, but a nail sprang from one of the bolts.

“I will open, I will open!” I cried, terrified, and I ran across to the door. With trembling fingers I shot back the bolts; half a dozen redcoats at once rushed into the house, almost knocking me over as they passed.

“Get out o' t'road, missis, and nowt'll happen thee,” shouted the man who had broken the window, who seemed to be their Corporal. “Now, lads, oats and meal first, remember!”

A shout of derision greeted this. “There's better things here nor fodder,” said one, snatching down the candlesticks from the mantel.

“General's order is oats and meal,” insisted the Corporal obstinately. “See if there's any sacks upstairs to put 'em in—he's a clothier, so I reckon there will be.”

One soldier went up the stairs two at a time, and a cry came down to us.

“Sam! Sam!” I cried in an agony, running to the foot of the stairs.

“And who's Sam?” said the Corporal roughly, holding me back with an arm across my breast.

“My little son—younger than this one,” I explained, pointing to Thomas.

The Corporal still seemed disinclined to believe me, but the soldier just then appeared, holding Sam by the ear so tightly that the child's eyes watered with the pain.

“Let him go!” I cried in a passion. “You're hurting him—he's only a child.”

“So this is Sam. He was sitting with his mother here a two-three minutes ago,” said the Corporal suspiciously. “What didst go up there for, lovey, eh?” he demanded, bending his knees to bring his face to the level of the child's.

“I only went to fetch my brother's cloak,” said Sam crossly. “He's sick and feels cold.”

That this was a lie I knew from Thomas's face, and I guessed Sam was hiding something beneath the cloak which he clasped in his arms.

“He was sick all yesterday,” I murmured.

“Well, let it go,” said the Corporal ill-humouredly, and he jerked Sam away from the soldier by his arm and sent him spinning. “Sit thee down there, missis,” he said to me, pointing to a buffet by the hearth, “and keep thy children close and hold thy tongue, or it'll be worse for thee.”