The Rebel’s Daughter (7 page)

Bayle gently detached Lady Elizabeth from
the crowd, drawing her out of Helena’s line of vision. When they
returned a moment later, she was deathly pale, her blue eyes
clouded with pain.

Helena
’s shoulders slumped, angry with
herself for even thinking of leaving her. “Mother I…”

Her mother held up a quivering hand to
silence her. “Go. It may be possible for you to travel where others
cannot. We must know what has happened to them.”

“
Mother!” Henry glared first at his mother then at Bayle.
“You cannot allow her to go!”

Mother wrapped an arm round his shoulder,
shushing him.

“
I will go with her, my lady,” Bayle said.
“We can take the heavy cart and two of the moor ponies.”

His words lifted Helena’s heart. “You
would really come with me?”

He nodded. “If we travel under
the guise of a wool merchant and his…” Helena imagined he was about
to say
daughter
, but he changed it to
niece
, “…we may be able to get past the troopers
without arousing interest.” His hand reached into the bag
where

Helena
’s journal lay in plain sight atop
her plainest gowns.

“
You
cannot take this.” He held up the brown book she had bought in
Taunton Market, its leather strings trailing like an appeal. “We’re
traveling merchants who know nothing of the rebellion.” He thrust
it at her. “This would give us away in an instant.” He strode to
the door and shouted for Lumm to pack a few things for him and meet
him in the courtyard.

Helena handed the journal to Henry, who
clasped it to his chest. “Put it somewhere safe, would you?” she
asked.

He nodded, blinking back tears. Then he
lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, whispering.
“Why cannot I come with you?”

Helena
’s glance went to her mother, though
even before she saw the rapid shake of her head and the fist she
pressed to her mouth, Helena knew she had to refuse him.

“
I cannot, Henry.” She grasped his upper
arms and held him away from her. “If the troopers assume you are a
rebel and decide to take you, I would have no means to prevent
it.”

“
What if
they should take you, Helena?” he murmured, too low for their
mother to hear. “Do you think they wouldn’t hang a
woman?”

Helena stiffened. The thought hadn’t
occurred to her. Yet she couldn’t weaken.

Bayle hoisted Helena’s bag onto his
shoulder, and barged through the muttering servants who crowded the
door. “We’ll concoct our story together on the way.” He led the way
down the stairs and out onto the sunny courtyard.

Helena
’s sweeping glance took in their mode
of travel with resignation. No fine horses and best garments for
Nathan Bayle and his young
niece
; simply two of the hardiest horses the Woulfes
owned, hitched into the traces of the provisions cart.

Helena eyed them uncertainly. “Must we
take these?” she asked dismayed. “They’re not even proper horses.
We could move faster on the bay and the chestnut.”

“
No
doubt.” Bayle offered with a cynical smile. “Or shall we take the
carriage? The one with the Woulfe crest on the door?”

His sarcasm cut into her, and a burning
flush crept up her neck, though she couldn’t help muttering that
the carriage would have been this.

Ignoring her, Bayle handed her into a seat
that sported a loosely-packed sack of hay. Helena could swear her
back already ached.

“
No
doubt it is,” Bayle said, whilst he arranged the cart and issued
orders that sent maids and grooms off in all directions. “What
would you do if a trooper tried to take them from you because they
are finer than his own?”

Helena groaned at her own stupidity, though
she offered no response. For the first time she realized that being
left with two women, a boy and a houseful of the weaker and less
able servants must have been hard on Bayle these last weeks.

He might live under their roof, but she
had no idea if he agreed with her father’s choice to join
Monmouth.

She was asking herself the same questions
about Lumm, when he caught her sideways glance and bent in a slow,
courteous half-bow, halted mid-way and winked.

Helena sighed, saved from a sharp rebuke
as the cart surged forward onto the road. Her last sight was of her
mother with both arms wrapped round Henry, who was leaning against
her as they watched from the front steps.

* * *

“
Don’t
look so terrified Mistress,” Bayle said good-naturedly as the cart
rumbled down the Honiton road. “At least the sun is out, which may
even dry out after the flash floods of these last
weeks.”

Helena smiled, her face lifted to the sun.
He was right. It felt good to be in the countryside after being
cooped up at Loxsbeare for so long, though she couldn’t help
looking toward the horizon in search of mounted
soldiers.

“
They
won’t have reached Devon this soon,” Bayle said as if reading her
thoughts. “They’ll be tied up in Somerset for a day or so
yet.”

“
I
suppose so.” She forced herself to relax, her gaze falling on the
loaded flatbed behind them. “Why so many sacks?” she
asked.

“
To
sleep on, Mistress.” Seeing her startled expression, he added,
“there are inns along the way, but we might have to keep off the
main roads.”

Her mouth formed a silent
O
, as
another thought occurred to her. “Do we have any coin for
innkeepers?”

He smiled, arching an eyebrow. “And for
horse feed, if we can find any.”

She fell silent, aware of Bayle’s
indulgent smile on her profile. How could she possibly even have
contemplated making this journey alone?

Above the steady clip-clop of the horse’s
hooves came a rustling from the hedgerows. A deer crossed in front
of the cart, its soft eyes regarding them steadily before
disappearing into the woods beyond the hedge. Helen followed the
flight of a bird over her shoulder, shielding her eyes with a hand
against the high noon sun.

Beyond shoulder-high dry-stone walls on
either side of the road, bent-backed workers sliced rhythmically
with scythes, heaped wheat stalks into piles and tied them together
heads uppermost to dry out.

“
It’s
early for the harvest,” Helena murmured.

“
Heavy
rain has flattened the corn.” Bayle nodded toward the fields off to
their left, where exhausted workmen paused to watch their progress.
“It’s back-breaking, dirty work. They are saving what they can.” He
sighed. “I anticipate a hard winter this year.”

Helena wondered if, beside reaping an
almost ruined harvest, the workers also scanned the horizon for
royal patrols.

“
Bayle?”
Helena asked when they had covered another mile. “Does the
Green Ribbon
Club
still
exist?”

He glanced briefly at her. “Not as it once
did, Mistress. Many of its most prominent members are dead, though
plenty in these parts uphold their beliefs. Why do you ask?” He
left her father’s name unspoken, but the inference was
clear.

“
Is John
Trenchard one of them?”

“
The
member of Parliament from Wolverton way?” he asked. “Aye, I believe
so. He ran a Rebel club out of the
Red Lion Inn
in Taunton.”

“
Ran?”

“
Aye. A
warrant went out for him when all this started. He was an
exclusionist. A thorn in the King’s side. I gather his Majesty
included him in the Whig Arrests.”

“
Exclusionist?”

“
Those
who tried to have King James excluded from the line of succession,
because he’s a Papist.”

“
Was my
father an Exclusionist?”

“
This
uprising wasn’t as much of a secret as some hoped,” Bayle said,
ignoring her question. “Trenchard was-is-a conspirator. He fled
abroad to avoid being arrested.”

“
He
helped purchase weapons, didn’t he?” Helena asked
slowly.

“
How did
you know that?” Bayle turned and stared at her.

“
Last
winter, Father took me to Taunton. When we reached
The Red
Lion
, Master
Trenchard was waiting for us. Father tried to tell me it was a
chance meeting, but I’m not as gullible as he supposed.” At Bayle’s
wry smile she continued. “They talked about buying muskets. It was
the ribbons that made Father angry.”

“
Ribbons?” Distracted, Bayle loosened the reins, allowing
the cart to slow a little.

Helena nodded. “Father gave me some coin
and sent me to look round Taunton Market. I bought that
leather-bound journal you insisted I leave behind. I also bought
some ribbons in a shade of emerald green that the stallholder said
would suit me. I returned to the inn and showed them to Father
before dinner.

“
What
did he say?” Bayle asked carefully.

“
It was
what Mr Trenchard said that I remember. “Green ribbons eh? How
appropriate” he said it in this loud, braying voice like a private
joke and pounded Father on the shoulder. Father was furious. He
didn’t say so, but I could see it in his face.”

“
Did
anything else happen on this journey?” Bayle asked, giving her the
impression he knew more about this man than he had
revealed.

“
When we
left the next day, Master Trenchard bowed over my hand and when I
said I hoped we would meet again, which wasn’t entirely truthful as
I didn’t much take to him.” She caught Bayle’s wry grin and
shrugged. “Anyway, he punched the air with his fist and
said,
“Most
assuredly, for we have fellows in scarlet to take off, do we not
Jonathan?”
He
didn’t even lower his voice. An expectant hush spread over the inn
yard as everyone stopped to listen.”

“
I doubt
Sir Jonathan would have been pleased about that.”

“
He
wasn’t.” Helena snorted at the memory. “He was livid. His face was
just an inch away from Master Trenchers when he snarled at him,
something like,
Hush man, you don’t know who may be
listening!
”
She
swallowed and released a long breath. “I didn’t understand what it
all meant. Not then.”

“
Does it
all make more sense now?”

She nodded. “Father had been planning this
for months, hadn’t he? All those night visitors he didn’t want us
to see. Do you know who they were?”

“
Some of
them, perhaps, though it’s best I don’t mention any
names.”

“
Suppose
the soldiers come to Loxsbeare when we are gone?”

He didn’t reply, his attention ostensibly
on guiding the horses around a hay cart blocking the
road.

“
What
will Mother and Henry do if that happens? They can’t fight the
King’s army.” Awful possibilities crowded her head, the least of
which was their being dragged away in chains. She bit her bottom
lip, hard enough to draw blood, horrified for not having considered
this eventuality before. She had left her home without a thought,
in search of her father, but the parent for whom she should have
been caring was now alone. Lumm was there…if she could trust
him.

“
Don’t
fret, Miss Helena.” Bayle took one hand from the reins and briefly
squeezed hers. “They’ll be gone by tonight, your mother and
Henry.”

“
Gone?
Gone where?”

“
To the
Ffoyles. That is the arrangement.”

“
Father
knew this would happen?” Suddenly everything fell into place.
Samuel’s visits to Loxsbeare, his private talks with Lumm, and
probably Bayle too.

“
Sir
Jonathan was always committed to the Duke of Monmouth’s cause,
never doubt that.” Bayle flicked the reins to hurry the lethargic
horses along

“
But he
thought the cause might fail?” Anger bloomed and grew inside her
chest.
If
so, how could he have left us like he did?

“
Is that
why Samuel Ffoyle didn’t go to Lyme when Monmouth landed? Because
he didn’t believe in it? Why didn’t he try to persuade Father not
to go?”

“
Master
Ffoyle is not a Monmouth man, but that doesn’t mean he could turn
your father from his own beliefs.”

She twisted in her seat to face him. “He
should have tried harder!” her anger made her unreasonable. “He
told me himself he had forbidden his sons to join the rebels. A
decision he must be grateful for now.”