THE CHAINS OF FATE an utterly compelling and romantic historical saga (The Heron Quartet Book 2), page 24
But we had much to be thankful for, despite all our misfortune; of all the Heron family and their friends only three — my father-in-law, Sir Roger Drakelon, Edward, and Grainne’s husband Henry Sewell, Tom’s brother — had been slain. And the horror afflicting other families, of father fighting son, brother against brother, had not touched us: Francis, although in sympathy with the Parliament, had fought for the King, and it had not been for his politics that Simon had hated him. Only Lucy loved someone from the enemy’s ranks, and I had a guilty, unworthy hope that once back in Suffolk she would choose another to love from the fine young men, Gages or Harveys, at Hengrave or Ickworth, and forget Daniel Ashley. But I knew my Lucy, and I realized that, like Francis, where she gave her love it would be for ever. If Dan never came back to her, I doubted she would ever marry.
Tom Blagge was proposing toasts, to the King, Queen, Prince of Wales and all the usual subjects. I saw Jamie’s flushed, handsome face glowering at Meraud (vainly, for all her attention was still fixed on Charles’ long amusing story of his smallest sister), and John Snelling shyly, awkwardly talking to Lucy, and was conscious of a great pang of sadness. Despite everything, there was still a spirit of comradeship, of cheerfulness, of unity amongst our friends: and tomorrow we would be leaving it all, going away from Pennyfarthing Street, and the Widow’s unique, witch-like, cynical face, and the golden, snow-laden city. And though with my practical mind I looked forward to a return to Goldhayes, so beautiful and comfortable and serene, my sentimental heart yearned to stay, to greet Francis just that much earlier, and to share, as we had all shared so much, the final, useless, defiant glory of holding on until all hope had gone. And I would miss the Widow, and her dry no-nonsense comments.
But it was no good: we had to go. We stood at the doorway of the house to see our guests stumble out into the glimmering snowy darkness — a darkness not dense enough, unfortunately, to hide the entangled, whispering figures of Charles and Meraud, giving each other a more private farewell in a patch of deeper shadow not far off. It was so obvious what she was about, rejecting Jamie’s impoverished calf-love for the more assured attentions of Charles, who had lands and his Warwickshire manor-house to his name, that I could not believe how men — some men — were taken in by her. Mentally consigning the two of them, and the cheated, disappointed Jamie standing disconsolately by my side, to the furthest corners of perdition, I said my goodbyes to everyone with a growing sense of despondency. At the final moment of parting, even Charles, at last, tearing himself away from Meraud’s ivy-like embraces, I watched them all go with tears in my eyes, with an overwhelming sense of witnessing a moment, an era, walking away, never to be recaptured, and certain that some of them, at least, I would never see again.
Simon took us out of Oxford the next morning when we had bidden farewell to Nan and the Widow, with Lucy shedding her usual abundant tears. And though the rest of the journey to Suffolk has receded into my mind in an uncomfortable, uneasy blur, I remember that first morning as if it were yesterday, as we rode north towards Banbury to pick up the eastern road to Buckingham and thence to Suffolk. Despite an earlier thaw the snow still lay thick upon the ground and over the hedges and the branches of the trees; but the previous night had seen a freezing fog which outlined each bough, every twig, every dried umbrel of cow-parsley or spear of grass, every leaf of spiky holly with glittering white, so that from a distance the groups of trees, their main branches black by contrast, looked against the glorious blue sky as if they had burst overnight into silvery unseasonable flower. And the air literally sparkled, for as the sun cleared the mists and our breath hung smoking dragon-like on the frosty air, we could see the last remnants of the freezing fog like glittering silver dust, dancing in the light. And everywhere, black boughs and blazing blue sky contrasting starkly with the unutterable, unbearably brilliant whiteness of the snow, blue-shadowed, so that my eyes stung and smarted and overflowed with both the pain and the beauty of it.
I looked for Francis, in a final vain hope of seeing him riding at last towards me as in my dreams: but we reached the turning, and there was no sign. We said goodbye to Simon, and he gave us last-minute instructions for the journey, especially to Jamie and Holly who would be our protection: and as he kissed his womenfolk for the last time, told me not to fear, for he would tell Francis where I had gone, and would send him on his way with no hindrance. We left him and two of his troopers sitting their horses on the Oxford road, black and forlorn against the brilliance of the snow: and rode slowly away, in a mood of desperate gloom, towards the safety of Suffolk.
*
It took us a fortnight, though the delays were due to the weather and the conditions of the road rather than to any interference by soldiers of either side: for the snow soon thawed in earnest, rendering large portions of the way into sloughs of watery mud some feet deep, in which a man could easily drown. But we came at last to Bury, calm and untouched by war, with its wide market square bordered by the old Abbey gateway, and the Angel Inn opposite; and so to Goldhayes.
We stopped at the Home Farm first, the ancient little house where lived Grainne’s father-in-law John Sewell, who had had the day-to-day running of Goldhayes in his capable hands for many years: and finding him out, we saw instead his garrulous housekeeper, Joan. She fell weeping on our necks and especially upon Jasper, who stood bewildered and affronted as she told him at length and in broadest Suffolk how much he resembled his dear dead father and what a poor little orphan he was, and then turned her attention abruptly to the startled Henrietta, while everyone else shuffled their feet, embarrassed, in the homely kitchen I remembered so well. Then, reluctantly leaving poor Grainne and her children to Joan’s tender mercies, we set out on the last lap in the growing early dark of winter, cold and damp in the steady icy drizzle. We rounded the bend in the drive and Goldhayes lay at last before us: glowing even in the dim light, windows here and there lit up, all so dearly familiar, the copper green-capped turrets on the outer corner of each projecting wing, the stone porch with the Latin motto on the sundial, the neat box-edged flower beds in the front court already, hesitantly, sprouting spring bulbs. Once again, in a blur of tiredness, we went through the ritual of homecoming: the knock on the door, the startled maid answering it, and then the appearance of Mary, formerly Lady Heron, beautifully dressed and much plumper, to greet us with something, miraculously, more than her usual polite indifference. Beside her stood her husband, Meraud’s uncle Richard Trevelyan, looking very much the same as when we had left him nearly lour years earlier, tall and self-possessed, with blond hair and Meraud’s untrustworthy blue eves. His greeting was all that it should have been, and he was obviously very pleased to see his niece once more, but I could not rid myself of my suspicions. Nor, I suspected from the way she had peered at the condition of the park and the house, and was now eyeing the furniture in the Hall where we stood, could Lucy.
But Goldhayes itself seemed just the same: still the familiar evocative aroma of sunlight and wood polish and herbs and flowers in the dark-panelled Hall, with the beautiful Van Dyck portrait of the Heron children, painted fourteen years ago, in pride of place above the mantel. As Mary summoned her maid to organize supper and beds and the welfare of the horses, I found myself looking at those five enchanting children, charming and graceful in bright satins and wide, cool lacy collars, their natural human personalities translated by Van Dyck’s style into symbols of delightful childhood. There was Simon, thirteen and childishly grave, and Edward, a year younger, standing firm with his hand protectively on his sister’s shoulder: Lucy herself glowing as fresh on the canvas as she did in life, seven years old, and Jamie, at four still in petticoats, happily clutching a puppy. Only Francis, the blond one amongst a darkhaired family, had by his individuality defeated the artist’s brush, his ten-year-old face secretive and unforthcoming, the green-grey eyes dreaming into space. I wished I had known him then, I wished I had spent all my life with him, and I longed suddenly with a new urgency for the moment when I would see him again, and at last we would be together, indissoluble, inviolate, safe.
We supped with Mary and Richard, who listened politely to our accounts of the events which had seemed so momentous to us, and to them had surely been as distant and detached from their reality as a dream. One detail was clarified for me before we had been in the house an hour; and that was, that whatever had been their reasons for marrying, whether they had been as coldly cynical as Lucy had implied, Richard and Mary had now a real affection for each other. Mary indeed was at times almost as animated as her lively daughter, a great contrast to her former languid, uninterested manner, and the final proof of her alteration came when she urged us, before we retired for an early and much-needed sleep, just to have a look at little Hugh. Obediently and with some astonishment, we all four trooped upstairs and were led reverently into the chamber which had once belonged to Simon and Edward. A round, kindly faced girl, obviously his nurse, rose from her sewing and curtseyed: and we were shown to the cradle.
Hugh Trevelyan was eighteen months old, and as fair as both his parents. For the rest, since he was fast asleep, it was difficult to vouch, save for the obvious two eyes, nose, mouth, and two small clenched fists above the covers. ‘Is he not beautiful?’ said Mary softly, and in her voice was a maternal tenderness I had never before suspected in her. This was the woman who had cheerfully handed all her other children over to the dubious care of village wet-nurses the moment they were born, and neglected their subsequent development except where it directly touched upon her quite undeserved standing as a good mother. Now, evidently, she had discovered at last, in her mid-forties, that it was possible to feel love for one of her children.
We tiptoed out again, leaving the nurse to watch over her charge, and Mary said again, ‘Do you not think he is perfect?’
Lucy drew a long breath, glanced significantly at me, and said slowly, ‘Oh yes, he looks delightful, Mother, quite sweet … can he talk yet, and walk?’
This was the wrong thing to ask, for Mary at once launched into a list of her child’s accomplishments, his entire vocabulary (some ten words), and the longest distance yet covered unaided on his unsteady legs (half the length of the Long Gallery). After about five minutes of this, we made our excuses and retired to our several rooms — Jamie and Meraud to the chambers they had had before the war, Lucy and I, by mutual consent, to the room we had been used to share, overlooking the courtyard garden below. Going into it was like stepping back ten years in time, so little had it altered, and Lucy and I undressed with Heppy’s assistance, and climbed into bed with a warm nightcap of mulled ale, and settled down to talk.
‘I can’t believe how she’s changed,’ said Lucy, cheerfully unaware of how she had changed herself; the old, naïve Lucy would never have uttered that remark at Oxford about her mother wanting to marry Richard Trevelyan to warm her bed. ‘And that baby! I’ll swear he’s no more beautiful than ever Jasper was, and far less intelligent, even judging from what she was saying.’
‘You’re jealous,’ I told her. ‘She’s lavishing all the affection she never had for you and the others on that little brat, and you’re jealous. I would be too, in your place.’
‘I’m not jealous,’ said Lucy indignantly. She caught my sceptical eye and grinned suddenly. ‘You’re right as usual, aren’t you? I am jealous, really. I suppose as well that I resent it that they’ve stayed here all through the war, nice and cosy and comfortable, living off the fat of the land, while poor Simon is giving heart and soul to the King’s cause, and if I know Simon will end up starving in some Dutch or French garret rather than give in to them.’ She heaved a long, gusty, Lucyish sigh, and leaned back against the pillows. ‘Do you know, I was looking forward so much to coming back, I thought it would all be just the same, I was carrying a sort of picture in my mind of how it used to be when we were all so happy and carefree before the war, and it’s not the same at all, it’s all changed. I miss being at Oxford, there you were in the centre of things, you knew what was happening, and Goldhayes is such a backwater really. It isn’t the same without Simon, or Francis, or Tom, or poor old Edward — oh, I do miss Ned still, after three years and more. We used to laugh such a lot, and I don’t believe Mother and Cousin Richard have half a sense of humour between them. And I feel like a stranger here, like a guest, they don’t want us back intruding on their nice little domestic snug, we’re not welcome and it’s our home!’ she finished, her voice quivering on the verge of tears with her disappointment. I said slowly, for I had felt much the same thing myself, ‘It’s not so bad as all that. Since when has Mary ever had much time for us? At any rate there’s still Jamie, and Grainne and the children, and I should think Tom will come back soon and Francis should arrive shortly, and then it’ll be better. You’ll see.’
To my surprise, Lucy’s big blue eyes overflowed with tears. She said in a wobbly, tragic whisper, ‘You are lucky. You — you know he loves you, he’s coming home to you, and Dominic doesn’t matter. But I’ve only had one letter from Dan, ever, and that was two years ago and it wasn’t very … it was the sort of letter a brother or a friend might write, not a lover’s letter at all.’ And she burst into hopeless, flowing tears.
I had of course to comfort her, whilst trying tactfully to hint that in view of their long parting — it was now nigh on three years — it was possible that Captain Ashley’s affections had cooled. But Lucy would have none of it, preferring to believe that Dan might be slain, or hurt, or that there were other good reasons why no letters had reached her. And at last she turned round, her tear-drenched face still comely, and said miserably, ‘It’s all right for you. Francis is coming to you, but I know Dan never will, I know it!’
‘You’re not the only one in that boat,’ I said, keeping my patience. ‘Grainne is in a worse case. At least Dan has the good sense to be on the winning side!’
Lucy gave a sniffle of rather hysterical laughter, and then was quiet for a while. At last she put her arm about me and drew me close. ‘Oh, Thomazine, I’m sorry, I’ve been very tedious … Oh, how I wish Francis would come, at least he could make us laugh again.’
*
It was indeed strange to be back again at Goldhayes, and the first few weeks were extremely disconcerting, so utterly dear and familiar and unchanged were the house and its surroundings, and so altered were its inhabitants. Many of the servants had gone to the wars, others, including Mary’s gentlewoman companion, her aunt Margaret Bryant, had died — although the ancient chaplain and tutor, Dr Davis, lingered on in defiance of time and rheumatism. The same was true of the surrounding villages. Rushbrooke and Bradfield Tye still mourned those who had marched away with us nearly four years ago and never returned, though Holly Greenwood’s miraculous restoration to his mother and numerous small brothers and sisters was a nine-days’ wonder. There were new faces: the Bradfield Tye parson, Master Eldritch, had been ejected and replaced by a dour black-gowned Presbyterian to Richard Trevelyan’s taste and no one else’s, and the same thing had happened at Rushbrooke. There were others missing: Sir Thomas Jermyn had died full of years and respect, leaving a young widow, his second wife, and two small children to be provided for; and his two sons were absent, Thomas with the Prince of Wales in the West Country and Henry with the Queen in France, leaving Rushbrooke to be desolately populated with women and children, along with one or two male cousins tucked away in bachelor apartments in that huge house. Ambrose Blagge and his wife and three remaining daughters — his sons Tom, Henry and Ambrose and his stepson John Snelling all being away at the wars — still pursued a sparse, gloomy existence at Horringer: and the Gages and Herveys (with the exception of Sir William Hervey’s eldest son, John, who was also with the Prince of Wales), danced and bowled and feasted with unrepentant vigour at Ickworth and Hengrave. Soon Lucy, Meraud and I, and Jamie, were cheerfully reabsorbed into the old hectic social round of the years before the war. I, of course, being wed, was fairly safe from the attentions of the young Gages, John, Edward and Henry, but Lucy and Meraud were extravagantly courted. I liked best of that company Tom Hervey, a cheery young man my own age, and his sisters Judith, Keziah, Mary and Sue: the Gages being altogether too much like their overbearing mother to be to my taste. Lady Penelope was still organizing bowls matches and was not above seeking out prospective players herself, wherever they were and whatever they might be doing, with no regard at all for their wishes. ‘She has a finger in every pie and poor Father organized down to the last button on his doublet,’ said Tom of his stepmother ruefully. ‘But although she has Ickworth and Hengrave both running like clockwork, I do wish she wouldn’t attempt to run me likewise!’
