Wintercombe, page 69
part #1 of Wintercombe Series
‘I think so too,’ Silence said ruefully. ‘He hasn’t said anything to me, not in so many words — but I’m sure of it, just the same. But Nat was always very perceptive — he sees things that no one else would. And like you, Mally, he is a dear true friend, and he would never give me away.’
‘So four people know, said Nick. ‘We must make sure, Mally, that it goes no further. It matters nothing to me, but for my lady it is of the utmost importance.’ He smiled at Silence, and Mally noticed that their hands were entwined. ‘For she has so much more to lose.’
‘Don’t ee fret, Captain,’ the girl said firmly. ‘I d’reckon an oyster’d be a blabbermouth aside of me. No one else will know of it.’
And Silence, suddenly aware of the depth of the abyss over which she stood, and the fragility of the bridge which supported her, hoped devoutly that she was right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?’
(Measure for Measure)
For Silence, and for Nick, those long days as August drew to an end, and September began, were an idyll, a dream of love and happiness, a fragile bubble protecting them from the world outside, from an unhappy past and the uncertain future. Sherborne was taken, Bristol besieged, and men from all over north Somerset were flocking to the army camped around it, eager after years of resentful neutrality or acquiescence to be in at the death of the Royalist cause in the West. Several young men from Norton went, hungry for action and excitement, and were given arms and duties and, hugely swelled with a sense of their own importance, marched and drilled like real soldiers. More men from Wintercombe had slipped away: the garrison now numbered less than two score, most of whom were determined to see out the war, though Nick had so far forgotten his duties as to point out to them the advantages of going home now, before the Roundheads could catch up with them. But, as one corporal reminded him, they had stuck with him so long that it was a habit very difficult to break: and he suspected that some of the more bloodthirsty hoped for another chance to slaughter the enemy.
But he had promised Silence that there would not be another siege. And that was one vow he intended to keep. He had seen the injuries his grenadoes had inflicted, and for the first time a sense of his own responsibility in the matter had pricked his conscience. The maimed survivors found themselves well-treated, pampered even, and decided that these Cavaliers at least were a decent enough lot, even if they did smoke, drink, swear and fornicate more than the Lord permitted. They had even been promised a wagon-ride back to Bath, once the harvest was in.
The most important season in the farming year was now upon them. All over Norton, farmers great and small consulted wisely with each other about the weather, studied their wheat or barley or oats, and watched everyone else like hawks, waiting for the first sign of action. Clevinger made much of the fact that he was upsides the rest, as he put it, too superior to indulge in such petty practices, but Nat saw him eyeing the Manor Farm fields, assessing their ripeness. For in a village where almost every family, save the very poorest, had their own little plot of arable to harvest, it was impossible for everyone to gather their crops in at the same time, and there was always a certain amount of devious manoeuvring by the large farmers in order to secure the best and biggest workforce without having to resort to employing day-labourers from other villages, of dubious or unknown honesty or morality, who were even more liable to get drunk, molest the women and pilfer the corn than their own servants.
But all the omens were good and Clevinger, always cautious, at last gritted his teeth, organised a workforce from certain reliable villagers and their families, and made all the preparations for beginning harvest at dawn the next day.
Wintercombe, being principally a dairy farm, did not grow very much themselves: wheat to bake their own bread, barley to brew the beer, oats and peas and beans for animal fodder. Profit from breeding cattle, horses and sheep, selling cheese and butter and wool, had been so considerable that it had been more convenient to buy what they did not grow. It had meant hardship during the winter for the soldiers, and cattle had died, but Clevinger had not been tempted to plough up pasture for a quick crop. In the long run, the cattle were far more profitable.
Almost as a joke, Silence had suggested to Nick that some of the soldiers might help with the harvest. Much to her surprise, her idea had been taken up with enthusiasm by many of them. They were mostly farmers, or the sons of farmers, and had been away from the land sufficiently long for harvest work to seem like a refreshing novelty. The consequent addition of a dozen burly young troopers to the band of labourers marching out with their sickles, called shekels hereabouts, in their hands, and the small leather containers known as plough-bottles, full of Wintercombe beer, hanging from their belts, made an incongruously mixed and faintly comical procession.
Silence, reared in the dirty, noisy confines of London, always loved harvest. Of necessity, it usually took place in warm, fine weather, and was a time at once of hard work and holiday. The men moved methodically in rows from one end of the field to the other, their bodies swaying in rhythm with the swinging of their sickles, laying the long-stalked corn beside them in neat sheaves, ready for binding. Behind came the women and girls, one to every three reapers, whose task this was, to free the cut corn of weeds and grass and poppies, and to tie each sheaf with a dozen or so stalks of straw before putting it down again, to await the time later in the day when they would be stacked in hiles of the customary ten sheaves, to dry in the sun and wind before their final journey, some days later, to the barn.
The first fields to be harvested lay on the northern slopes of Hassage Hill, several closes adjoining each other below the dark, stunted trees of the coppice, and Clevinger split the workforce into groups. Nick Hellier, to his amusement, found himself in command of one, but the sight of Rachael amongst his allotted binders gave him pause. She was looking at him hungrily, but when she saw that she had attracted his attention, she glanced away, flushing, her eyes cast down in a manner more in keeping with her age. Nick had approved of his lover’s policy in expending her stepdaughter’s energies with hard physical labours in field or dairy, but now, looking at Rachael, he wondered if it was entirely appropriate. Her arms and face had become quite brown, in a most unladylike fashion, and in her plain grey gown, rather patched and shabby, she was almost indistinguishable from the wives and daughters of village husbandmen and yeomen and labourers all around her.
Silence stood in the corner of the field, her younger children leaping about with the others, talking to Nat and Clevinger. As always when he looked at her, Nick’s heart contracted with love, and he was conscious of a wry amusement. If anyone had told him, a year ago, that he would be head-over-heels smitten with some Puritan’s plain and dowdy wife, he would have laughed incredulously. And yet here he was, helping to harvest her fields for her, utterly besotted.
Once, he had tried over and over again to analyse the hold she had on his mind, his body, his senses. Why this woman, above all others, with none of the lovely graces that usually attracted him? He had searched for a reason as if the finding of it would somehow cure him, but in vain. And now, he no longer wanted to be cured. Why attempt it, when the sickness was so utterly, gloriously delightful?
They had not been able to come together every night: his duties as a soldier, hers as a mother, had seen to that. But seven times in the past ten days they had made love, and each successive union seemed more wonderful than the last. His back was vastly improved, which was just as well, for her early shyness and hesitancy had swiftly given way to a boldness and passion that had surprised, and excited, them both. And he wondered that her mood of utter bliss, the glow of sensual satisfaction that shone in her face, did not seem to betray their secret to all the world at Wintercombe.
He had made her happier than she had ever been in her life before: he knew, because she had told him so. And because he was so closely attuned to her, because there was that feeling of kinship between them that had always been the basis of their friendship, he sensed also that she was drinking in this miracle to the full, because it was inevitably doomed to end. And, like her, he preferred not to think of that destined moment when he would be forced to ride away from Wintercombe, and leave her behind.
To make that parting easier for both of them, it was his care now, and Mally’s, to practise the utmost discretion. In public, there would be no speaking glances, no touch of hands, only the continuation of that friendly companionship that they had shared for so long. All Wintercombe, and Norton, knew of the debt she owed him, over the matter of Ridgeley: they accepted with equanimity the once curious sight of their Puritan lady and the Cavalier Captain conversing amicably together, and would have looked surprised if an ignorant outsider had suggested that a hostile relationship would have been more appropriate.
Secrecy, of course, was second nature to Silence, but she could not disguise her mood of joy, her delight in life. It was the cause of it that must for ever remain hidden. So she curbed her passion, and the glow in her senses and in her loins whenever she looked at him, knowing now the contours of his body and the sweet fiery touch of his hands, arousing her to still greater delight. She kept her secret warm within her, to unfold in the privacy of her chamber when he came to her at night. Soon, the idyll must end: but, like him, the reckless, rebellious part of her soul gloried in this passionate surrender to her fate.
All morning, the reapers worked. The early, unblemished blue of the sky was soon dappled with high, white cloud, providing brief and welcome shade for those who laboured. Rachael was no shirker: she enjoyed the chance to dissipate her tempestuous energies under the warm sun, in the friendly companionship of servants with whom somehow, she was now on equal terms. Her hands and arms were scratched and bleeding from the sharp straw, her back ached, and from the way her face felt hot and stretched it had fairly caught the sun, but she was as happy as it was possible for such a moody person to be. And Nick Hellier was working in her field — and even if he did treat her in the kindly manner he reserved for the children, she was still under his eye and in his presence, and she would not have admitted her discomfort to him under torture.
One of the other girls shouted to her, and she straightened up, remembering just in time not to put a hand to her back. So absorbed had she been in her thoughts and her work that the morning had flown by, and it was now, obviously, time for the noon-day break. Already there were people collapsing gratefully in the shade of the hedgerow and coppice further up the hill, taking thirsty swigs from their plough-bottles and munching on the generous hunks of bread and cheese that the Wintercombe kitchen had provided for every worker. There would be an hour or so, to sleep and rest, before work began again.
Rachael finished tying the sheaf and walked up the hill to join the others. Someone made a jocular comment on her sunburnt nose, to which she answered with a preoccupied grunt. It did not offend, for her ways were well-known. But when Nick Hellier told her, casually, that she had worked well and hard, her smile rivalled the sun.
It was only when she sat down beside Christian Merrifield, whose face was a riot of freckles, that she realised how tired she was. She ate her bread and cheese like all the rest, with famished enjoyment, and drank from her bottle. For once, it was the adult brew, not the small-beer with which the children had to be content. She drained it greedily and then, after a few pleasantries exchanged with Christian and another girl, lay back like them in the stubble under the hedgerow, shaded by a tall and luxuriant ash.
She had not intended to fall asleep, but she must have done so, for something woke her. The sun had shifted, and her legs were no longer in the cool shade. She lay, squinting up through her lashes and the movement of the leaves, the brightness of the light behind them. Then she heard someone walking carefully through the stubble towards the hedge. She turned her head idly to discover who was moving about unnecessarily when, probably, the entire workforce was enjoying well-earned slumber, and saw that it was Nick Hellier.
Immediately, she closed her eyes, not wishing him to see that she was awake. She heard the quiet rustle of branches, and diminishing, similar sounds, dying away into the muted birdsong of the coppice behind the hedge. Cautiously, Rachael opened her eyes and sat up.
As she had thought, everyone else was asleep, and soundly so. Several of the reapers were snoring, and one or two of the women. The loudest rumbling of all came from Dame Ursula’s servant, Ruth, who was lying with her mouth open, her unlovely skin turned a glowing scarlet by the sun. Rachael, who did not care for her, grinned. The stupid woman could expect nothing else if she only ever stepped out of doors to go to church, and to work on the harvest.
There was no sight nor sound of Nick: he had doubtless gone to relieve himself. From other fields, further down the hill, came laughter and snatches of song. They can’t have worked half so hard as us, Rachael thought scornfully, if they’re still awake. She lay down again, waiting for Nick to reappear through the hedge.
Moments passed, and it occurred to her suddenly that he had been gone a considerable time. Perhaps he was taking a cool, refreshing walk in the shade, or resting well away from everyone else. He had joined in the reaping, although his back could hardly be healed as yet, and had done as much work as any of them. But Rachael could well understand it if he wished to be alone for a while — perhaps his wounds still pained him.
The thought popped unbidden into her head, and stuck like a burr. Why not herself go for a stroll in the coppice? He had thought her asleep: he would not realise that she had seen him. If she were to meet him, casually amongst the trees and the long-dying leaves of the bluebells, it would look like a happy chance. And perhaps he would talk to her as if she were an adult, instead of a child.
Rachael got slowly and cautiously to her feet, and glanced around her. Still they all slumbered on, oblivious. Her heart pounding with pleasurable apprehension, she wriggled through the gap in the stout hawthorn hedge, and entered the cool dim light of the coppice.
In this part of it, where the soldiers had not penetrated, it was some years since the trees had last been cut, and they were growing tall and straight, shooting out from the gnarled, mutilated stumps that had been planted here for this purpose a century or more ago. Despite the warm sunlight outside, there was a smell of damp and decay in the coppice, and something very dead quite close. Rachael wrinkled her nose and moved as quietly as she could, without seeming furtive, between the ash and hazel. She had not been here before, and had little idea of how far the wood extended.
Not far, it seemed: already the light was growing, and the sun shafted between the leaves in great silver spears. Something moved in the undergrowth, and Rachael froze, her heart thumping. But it was not Nick: whatever it was, it seemed much too small, a rabbit perhaps. Even as she was scolding herself for her foolishness, the leaves parted and a little pale shape trotted out.
It was Lily. Mystified, Rachael stared at her stepmother’s dog for a moment, and then bent and snapped her fingers. Lily paused and glanced at her, her tongue lolling, her round eyes slit, her formerly immaculate coat covered in leaf-mould and burrs, and then ran on in search of her prey.
The little hound never, ever strayed far from Silence: it was a joke at Wintercombe, with much banter from Nick and Nat about her white shadow. Frowning, Rachael stared in the direction the dog had taken, hearing increasingly distant sounds of pursuit. It must be a rabbit: nothing else would take her so far from her mistress’s side.
And then, as her ears strained, Rachael heard something else. A low voice, laughter, another voice. It came from the far side of the wood. Already made uneasy by the unexpected appearance of Lily, Rachael pushed her way through the nettles, stinging herself thoroughly in the process and losing her cap on an overhanging branch, and emerged with blinding suddenness out of the coppice and into the full glare of the sunlight.
Pasture stretched out in front of her, sloping gently up to the long crown of Hassage Hill. Cattle, red-brown and contented, grazed on the skyline. Just to her left, there was a small natural depression in the ground, hidden by the folds of land from all positions save one, her own. And sitting there in the sun, kissing with a passion and urgency that raised the hairs on her flesh, were Nick Hellier, and her stepmother.
All her dreams and her illusions cruelly smashed, Rachael could only stand and stare in horror and disbelief. She must have made some sound, for the lovers in the grass looked up, their faces bemused, and saw her. At once they sprang apart, their guilt more eloquent than any words, and Rachael, her heart breaking, knew beyond doubt that this was not some idle chance encounter, but something they had often done before.
‘Rachael!’ Silence said, getting to her feet. The girl’s face, blotched red where the sun had touched it, stared at her, the blue eyes distended and aghast. She put out her hands as if to ward off something unspeakably evil, backing away into the coppice: then, unable to bear any more, she turned and fled.
In the depths of despair herself, Silence heard her blind, crashing progress growing fainter through the wood. She wanted to scream, to sob, to panic, but she could do none of those things. Why, oh why had it been Rachael, the one person who would not understand, who idolised Nick, who was so terribly vulnerable? If Tabby or Nat had seen them, it would have been unfortunate, but not a disaster. But Rachael…she trembled to think of the damage this would do to the girl’s tortuous mind.
‘Go after her,’ said Nick, in the quick incisive tones that had ordered the siege. ‘I’ll make my way back to the field, as though nothing has happened. As long as you can catch up with her before she tells someone, or does something stupid, you might be able to talk to her.’ He gave her a heartening smile which did something to strengthen her, and kissed her forehead with much love: then, he turned and ran back into the coppice. And Silence, fighting her terror, sped in the direction that Rachael had taken.
