The Dandelion Seed (32 page)

Quickly she ran to wake Elizabeth, who got out of bed protesting all the time. ‘Whatever is the matter, Miss Mouse?’ she asked fretfully. ‘It is only Bonfire Night – it is always noisy out there.’

But Marcelle was sure that there were people in the grounds, and so was Prince, who was dashing up and down the corridors barking furiously. She picked up the sleeping Roger in her arms and they all ran to shelter in Father Ben’s old room behind the altar. The noise in the grounds got louder. Distinct cries could be heard as the crowd chanted slogans and yelled for Father Ben, the Jesuit priest, to show himself.

The three fugitives sat on the steps of a small alcove. The room was still littered with Father Ben’s old manuscripts. Marcelle shuddered as she listened to the howling of the mob, and she felt almost responsible, as though she were to blame for her wicked ways. Turning to the statue of St Augustine, which stood in the niche in the wall, she prayed fervently.

Roger did not seem very upset by being turned out of bed and now he returned to sleep rolled up in his blanket on the floor. Elizabeth, however, sat beside Marcelle and shivered, pulling the white silk bed cover tightly around her. ‘You are becoming alarmed unduly, Miss Mouse,’ she remonstrated with Marcelle. ‘Let us return to our beds. It is cold in here.’

Marcelle’s face was white and her eyes wide open with terror as she placed a finger to her lips. ‘Hush dear, or they will hear us. Remain perfectly quiet, and they will not find us in this room. Father Ben – God rest his soul – hid here for many years.’

‘As you wish, Miss Mouse,’ Elizabeth replied sulkily, and hunching up her coverlet, closed her eyes.

Marcelle listened, as tense as a wild animal, to the noises outside. Suddenly she heard a splintering noise and a terrible yelp from Prince. A hand had broken a window in the corridor and Prince had pounced at it, tearing the flesh with his great jaws. Another man came to the window and threw a lighted torch into Prince’s face causing the dog to retire with a loud yelp of pain. He backed away but then stood there by the window snarling and snapping so loudly that the men changed their minds about climbing in.

Outside by the window were Holkin and Jenkins. Their idea had been to sneak into the house while the rest of the crowd danced wildly on the lawn, and loot the house. Now Jenkins was holding his bleeding arm and Holkin, whose clothes were ripped and chest was badly mauled, stood over him.

‘I told yer not to try and get in by yerself,’ he snarled at the tinker who had thrown a lighted torch at Prince. The fire had set a carpet alight and now the corridor was beginning to fill with acrid smoke. Prince quivered and whined loudly.

‘There’s gold candlesticks on that altar,’ growled the fallen Holkin at his partner. ‘Won’t get a chance for that sort of thing once they all get in.’

The tinker re-emerged from out of the shadows with another lighted torch. ‘Here,’ he called to Holkin in a cracked voice. ‘Come round the corner, I’ll show yer where we can smoke the bastards out. Once we get the old boy and give him to the crowd, we can have a good rake about. There’s plenty of good stuff inside.’

The people in the crowd on the lawns were screaming more wildly than ever. They had lighted a pile of brushwood, and now cavorted around it. The tall thin figure of the crazy preacher in the centre called down hell fire on the Papists.

The two men crept around the old grey walls until they came to the tower. The gold cross on the top shone brightly in the light of the fire as though the power of good showed up against all this evil.

‘That’s it,’ whispered the tinker. ‘That’s where the old devil hangs out.’

‘How do we get up there?’ asked Holkin.

‘We don’t. I’ll smoke the old swine out. Give us a lift up.’

He climbed on Holkin’s wide shoulders, and through little vent near the top of the tower, he pushed the lighted torch and quickly slid down again.

‘Come on!’ he shouted as he ran round to the front door. ‘That will roast him out.’

Marcelle was sitting still with the children beside her when the blazing torch descended upon them, landing on the table where the dry parchments lay. They all went up in a sheet of flames.

Grabbing Roger in her arms and pulling Elizabeth behind her, Marcelle ran in utter terror from the room which quickly became wreathed in flames. She almost flew down the smoke-filled corridor to where the howls of Prince the faithful hound, could be heard through the thick smoke.

Different sounds were now coming from the crowd as they scattered in panic. Thomas Mayhew and Rolly rode in among them at the gallop and using their swords. The old boys from the cottages arrived and prodded and poked the mob with sharp hay forks, rakes, sickles and anything available. The crowd was dispersed in minutes.

Holkin had managed to break the locks on the heavy front door and he was just pushing it open, when Thomas’ sword came slashing down by his face and cut off an ear. Holkin fell to the ground screaming in pain.

Meanwhile Rolly disposed of the tinker and tried to dash into the house but was forced back by the smoke and flames.

‘Oh my God!’ cried Thomas. ‘The whole place is ablaze!’

Trapped in the burning corridor, Prince howled loudly to catch Thomas’ attention. With Rolly close on his heels, Thomas ran to a side window. Suddenly the smoke-blackened, terror-stricken face of Marcelle appeared, and in her arms lay a crying kicking little bundle. ‘Take my son,’ she sobbed. ‘Take care of my son.’

‘Marcelle! Oh my dear!’ Thomas took the crying child and handed him to Rolly. Then he leaped into the burning building to rescue his long-lost wife.

Piercing screams came from Elizabeth behind her. The girl had run to her beloved Prince, who was howling in pain.

Marcelle screamed too. ‘Elizabeth! Come back!’ She turned and ran after her with Thomas calling behind them.

There can be no fate more terrible than to be trapped in a burning building but Marcelle thought only of little blind Elizabeth running frantically into the thick black smoke to find her dog. Prince’s howls ceased and a great pile of blazing wood crashed down into the corridor.

Thomas was frantic. With bare hands, and his clothes alight, he tore at the burning timbers, but could find no trace of anyone. Others had joined him, including Chalky and Rolly, who had handed Roger to Katy.

All through the night they searched, and by the time dawn broke, there was little left of the house but smouldering timbers. It was then that they found them. One of the men from the cottages was Ralph, who had been an old retainer at Brook House. He remembered the priest’s hole and its secondary niche high up in the gables which was used in times of danger, and it was there that they found Marcelle and the lovely little Elizabeth. Death had given them the peace they never had found on this earth. Their hands were clasped together and in between their hands was a little gold medal that had belonged to Marcelle’s mother. They had been suffocated by the dense smoke.

The two delicate bodies were laid out in what had been the great hall, where Henry VIII had once held court. They all knelt to pray, Thomas and Ralph side by side. Deep sobs racked old Ralph’s thin body for he had loved Elizabeth and was the only one who knew the secret of her birth.

Thomas felt too numb to cry. He could not believe what had happened. Then a strange coldness came over him and a soft hand pulled at his sleeve. In his ear he heard a voice whisper: ‘Go now, and take my son from danger.’ Thomas passed his hand over his eyes. Leaning forward, he wiped the soot from Marcelle’s white lips, thinking for a moment that by some miracle she was still alive. But now, her small thin face was set in a mask of death but there seemed to be a soft secret smile on her lips. Then it came again, this tug at his sleeve and Marcelle’s voice more urgent this time: ‘My son! Save my son!’

Thomas stood up quickly. Voices buzzed around him.

‘There was another child,’ he heard a voice say. ‘A little boy. He must have perished in the flames.’

With a quick sign for Rolly to follow him, Thomas strode quickly away. Marcelle was not dead; she lived on in her son. Thomas had to get him to safety.

Katy was waiting for him at the inn, her dark eyes wet with tears. Roger was tucked up in bed beside her own babe and for once in his life Chalky was silent. He sat beside the two babes as they cuddled up together, with tears running down his blackened face.

‘Will you not rest awhile?’ Katy asked Thomas anxiously.

But Thomas shook his head. ‘No! We ride before the dawn. Wrap the child well and pack food for him. We have a long journey ahead of us.’

Katy stared in wonder at this unemotional man whose wife had just died a terrible death.

Upstairs Rolly packed their belongings, and huge tears rolled down his cheeks.

Thomas’ eyes were sad but dry as he said goodbye to Katy and Chalky. ‘One favour I ask of you both,’ he said, placing a heavy purse on the table. ‘This is for your kindness and assistance, but I must ask only one more favour of you – that you forget I was ever here. And forget the child too. I cannot explain, but it is for my son’s well-being I must beg an oath of secrecy from you both.’

‘Anything you say, sir,’ Chalky assured him. ‘You are a fine gentleman and I’ll never doubt your word. No one’s ever going to get anything out of me or Katy.’

‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart,’ replied Thomas. ‘We will ride before daybreak.’

Back at Brook House, the sad villagers still searched the ruins for a body of a child, a strange little boy who had come into the family as the great Henry Howard had died, and disappeared when their youngest member Elizabeth left the world. It was a mystery they were to discuss for generations – about the lovely child who was here when the great comet hung over the town.

Epilogue

The little ship battled on, its white sails blowing in the wind as it braved the Atlantic gales. Suddenly the hoarse welcome cry of the sailor aloft was heard: ‘Land Ahoy!’

The murmur of voices came from the hot sun-baked decks as the weary travellers spotted that wonderful haven, the New World. Those on board gathered around to pray to give thanks to their God and to their wonderful captain who had piloted them through thousands of miles of treacherous seas, past the dangers from Spaniards who prowled the waters protecting their new colonies from the hoards of pilgrims sailing from England and the horrors of persecution. The little party knelt and prayed together – the men soberly dressed and the women in plain dresses with bonnets and shawls.

High up in the wheelhouse the captain read aloud from a heavy bible.

Thomas Mayhew was looking much older. His dark beard was long and thick. Beside him stood his sturdy young son Roger, and behind him, his loyal servant, Rolly. Quite near to them, stood a young woman whose face was terribly disfigured, with a sightless eye and pock-marked face. In spite of her scars, a sweet calm serenity glowed from her face as she gazed upon her charge. It was Wanda, who had travelled to the New World with Thomas to take care of Roger. She held a little girl by the hand.

‘Hush, Virginia,’ she whispered. ‘Be a good girl. We must listen while our captain prays for a safe landing.’

‘I want to get my flowers,’ declared the child.

‘Be still, Virginia,’ ordered her mother, the tall Elizabeth Washington. Her husband, George Washington, was the First Officer on board ship and they were going to join her family who had settled three years earlier in the new colony of Virginia. Her first-born, now nearly three, had been named after England’s first Colony and now, after a year of travelling, the New World was in sight. They had reached their journey’s end.

The strange and beautiful shore came nearer. Multi-coloured birds flew about the ship’s masts and as they drew nearer to the shore and sailed inland, tropical plants of glorious colours aroused the interest of the pilgrims.

Virginia was clinging desperately to a withered bunch of dandelions that had gone to seed. ‘They are for my auntie,’ she told little Roger Mayhew who was staring at them in wonder. ‘I have brought them from England for her.’

‘But they are dead,’ he lisped pointing at the silken fluffy seeds. ‘Look,’ he said, blowing on them. ‘They will sail away.’

As the dandelion seeds rose up in the air and sailed towards the shore, Virginia wept. ‘You are a naughty boy,’ she told Roger.

Roger’s blue eyes followed the seeds as they floated to the shore. ‘Look!’ he cried. ‘They will grow again, Virginia!’

About the author

Lena Kennedy lived all her life in the East End of London and wrote with great energy about the people and times she knew there. She was 67 before her first novel,
Maggie
, was accepted for publication. Since then her bestselling novels have shown her to be among the finest and best loved of contemporary novelists. Lena Kennedy died in 1986.

Also by Lena Kennedy

Maggie

Autumn Alley

Nelly Kelly

Lizzie

Lady Penelope

Susan

Lily, My Lovely

Down Our Street

Eve’s Apples

The Inn on the Marsh

Owen Oliver

Kate of Clyve Shore