A Far Horizon

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  ‘I will be ready when the King comes for me.’

  ‘You will be a great asset to His Majesty, as you were the last time you went abroad.’

  For the first time since she entered the room she gave him a faint smile. ‘That is all I ever desired.’

  When she had gone, Edward Hyde turned back to his desk. He had one other distressing chore to complete before he went to help prepare for the Queen’s flight. Archbishop Laud had been indicted by Parliament for treason and had written asking for advice as he prepared his defense, a singular event from the proud old archbishop. His time in the Tower must have dulled the edge of his pride. A letter would have to do. Hyde stared into space, dipped his pen, stared again, but the words would not come. Finally, he wiped his dripping quill and went to help his King prepare for the perilous departure of his pregnant wife.

  UNEASY ALLIES

  What shall our nation be in bondage thus

  Unto a nation that truckles under us?

  Ring the bells backward! I am all on fire.

  Not all the buckets in a country quire

  Shall quench my fire.

  From ‘The Rebel Scot’ by Cavalier Poet, John Cleveland, in response to the presence of Scots Covenanters

  James Whittier had set aside this day for a quick turn of profit, but the day was not proving good for either profit or sport. Instead of the usual midday adventurers and ne’er-do-wells, or the occasional bored Cavalier confined within the city, the tavern was crowded with Scottish soldiers. Their enthusiasm – fueled by the cartloads of barley corn they’d brought with them and bootlegged to every publican in London who sought to avoid the newly levied English tax on Scotch whisky – made any tavern seem full to bursting.

  ‘How aboot one more wee dram, lads, to celebrate the going-to-trial of Archbishop William Laud?’

  They passed around the jug to shouts of ‘to Archbishop Laud and may the devil take his own,’ then rolled the dice and whooped and moaned when they lost.

  ‘To the Englishman who is skinning us,’ one of them shouted, winking good-naturedly at James.

  Skinning? Hardly, James thought.

  ‘To all of London’s godly souls and a pox on the Cavalier.’

  Round and around the table went the jug, from which James only pretended to sip, though he tasted enough to know it was the good stuff. Even in their cups, they were a good-natured lot, which should have augured well for James, except their drunken exuberance tempered their frugality not one whit. Two more rolls of the dice. He won again, but the pot was meager.

  ‘To the covenant.’ Each man cheered until the timbers shook. Another jug was produced. ‘To John Pym, may he rest in peace.’

  It was well enough they should drink to John Pym and the agreement he had pushed through Parliament, James thought, as he pulled in his tiny pile of earnings. Usually he let the mark win a roll or two, but this lot didn’t seem to really care. They just wanted to celebrate. With just cause. They had threatened to invade England because of Laud’s forced liturgy. But in a twist of fate that even they could not foresee, instead they had been invited in and were being paid for their invasion. And it just got better. Upon their arrival they had learned their arch-enemy William Laud was going to trial for treason.

  So soon it would be the Presbytery instead of the Church of England who meddled in Englishmen’s prayers. Parliament was already pressuring every English male above eighteen years to sign onto the Covenant or face ‘severe consequences.’ They had already posted a notice on his door, which he promptly burned. It was enough to make a devout Christian say to hell with the whole hypocritical lot of them. But James was only marginally Christian by Church of England standards, and not at all devout by godly standards. Somehow, he could not see the humble Galilean carpenter they all pretended to follow beckoning from the end of their bloody paths to power.

  ‘That’ll be enough for me today, lads,’ James said, gathering in the paltry few coins he’d won, but they were still drinking and back-slapping and scarcely noticed his leaving.

  It would only be the same story if he went to another of his favorite haunts. The Scottish exuberance was everywhere. Anyway, his heart was not in it. Maybe his luck was running out, or he was just tired. They had been working hard at the print shop and there was still more work to do on the Williams project, but he didn’t need to go home. Ben had said he wanted to design the cover, so James had left it to him. His presence would only interfere with the boy’s concentration. He’d told Ben he would be out for most of the day. God knew he needed some diversion to take him out of the malaise he was in, so he headed across London Bridge to Southwark. Moll knew how to soothe a man’s frustration.

  But not this time as it had turned out.

  As he pulled on his breeches and piled a few silver coins on her bedside table, she said, ‘James, there is no need for that. I failed. Unless you want me to try again. I have other ways,’ she teased.

  ‘No, Moll, girl. You were not the one who failed.’ He gave a rueful little laugh. ‘I think I just need a change.’

  ‘I have a new girl,’ she said, her hands gently stroking his chest as she helped him button his shirt. ‘Bella. From the Continent. All blonde loveliness. Lips like cherries. Nipples too. All natural. Very clean and very enthusiastic in her work.’

  His lips briefly brushed her fingers, as he removed her hand from his chest. ‘Tempting, but no,’ he said. ‘Not that kind of change. Something … else.’

  When he kissed her goodbye, he tried to make it a passionate kiss. Nothing. He looked at her full-figured body in frustration. A body a man could lose himself in. Most men, anyway. What was wrong with him? Maybe he was ill. Maybe he was dying. Maybe he should see the apothecary. Maybe a potion against witchcraft.

  ‘Goodbye, Lord Whittier. I hope you find whatever – or whoever – it is you are looking for,’ she said with a little half-smile.

  He made his way back across the river, ignoring the vendors and the beggars, the raucous children who roamed the streets and alleyways, screaming, playing battle, using sticks for swords as they chased wild dogs and parried and thrust and cursed each other with shouts of ‘Roundhead swine’ and ‘Cavalier fool.’ In his frustration he would have kicked whatever cur crossed his path.

  ‘Whoever it is,’ she had said. Moll was the second woman in as many weeks to suggest a ‘whoever.’ There was a ‘whoever.’ Of late, her image came to his mind at odd times and often. But he had racked his brain, trying to think of the woman’s name. He’d heard it in the guardhouse at Reading. He could see her, clutching her old-fashioned pilgrim’s bag, dark brown hair spilling around a plain cap, desperation in her wide eyes as she pleaded with the commander to give her back her pistol. The same fine pistol that belonged to the husband he knew was dead. He had heard her first name too. Before that meeting. Her husband had called her name – that name just out of reach – when he had ordered her back in the wagon at that first encounter. He could still hear the righteous outrage in her voice. God’s blood, if he could remember everything about her, from the feel of her arms around his waist on the back of a speeding horse, to the way her neck arched, curved and graceful as a swan’s when she bowed her head, why in the name of all the saints could he not remember her name? Or at least the address he gave to the coachman. Somewhere around Reading or Oxford? Hampshire, maybe?

  Useless to dwell on it. He was thinking too hard. Her name would slip into his consciousness like a thief on some day when he no longer cared or was not trying to remember. The mind worked that way. It was not the servant. It was the master.

  His boot slid in a pile of filth lying right in the middle of the street, causing him to almost lose his balance. Holy crap how he hated this stinking city. He wasn’t lying when he said he needed a change, he thought, as he scraped the mess from his boot with the side of a flat rock. And it would only get worse, no matter who won. Maybe it was time for him to go. But where to? The Continent was no different, with its endless religious
wars. He’d been thinking about the colonies since listening to Roger Williams talk about his Narragansett Bay plantation. But that was a real long shot and such a radical idea: that a group of freemen – that’s what they called themselves – could decide their own governance. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. But it seemed to be working for Williams and his family.

  Family. That was something else. Sometimes he longed for a different kind of intimacy – not the ephemeral kind that was bought with silver coins or achieved through a sudden fire in the loins and as suddenly extinguished. He had watched Ben and Patience, both as innocent as lambs he was sure. The girl was a Puritan, and the Puritans held some strange tight-arse ideas about relations between the sexes. That kind of thinking was probably what blasted John Milton’s marriage to hell. But the way Ben and Patience laughed together, argued with each other, sometimes touching hands lightly, almost shyly – something about that he envied. Maybe it was companionship he was missing. He needed to find himself a good woman and settle down. Maybe. But a good woman was hard to find.

  The sun was sinking just as he approached the door of the print shop. What a wasted, unproductive, godawful day. As he entered he noticed through the doorway of the print room that Ben was not alone. Probably with Patience Trapford. He hung his coat and hat on the hook by the door and settled onto a bench with a rag and wiped the filth from his boot heel so that he wouldn’t track it into the press room.

  ‘Master James?’ Ben said, coming toward the entry.

  James did not look up. ‘What?’

  ‘Remember I told you my stepmother was in London?’

  Whittier grunted, his mind still on his humiliation with Moll.

  ‘Well, she’s here and I would like you to meet her, if you have time. I don’t remember if I told you her name. It’s Caroline. Caroline Pendleton. I told her you wouldn’t mind if she visited me here on her days off.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said, looking around for a place to fling the dirty rag he was using before he got the dog shit on his hands. ‘You must have told me,’ he said, inspecting his boot heel. ‘I remember that name. I think. Not Caroline, but … did you say Pendleton? I thought your name was Pender.’

  Ben sounded a little sheepish. ‘Milord, I told you my real name weeks ago. I know I did because I was worried about it. I remember the conversation well.’

  James let the rag drop to the floor.

  ‘I remember the important part. We had a good talk, and I told you I understood and that some days I’d like to be somebody else too.’ Like today, he thought. He stood up. ‘Of course,’ he said, trying to sound more enthusiasm than he felt, ‘just let me wash my hands and then I would very much like to meet your stepmother.’

  Minutes later, when he entered the print room, the woman was sitting on the tall stool beside the press. He froze in recognition. She looked up at him and smiled.

  A voice in his head warned, Look away, man … she is an enchantress, a siren, a witch … a dangerous woman. But you don’t believe in witches, James. No. I don’t believe in witches.

  As he looked down into a pair of dark eyes, something inside him shifted, trapping his breath inside his chest. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he’d caught the French pox and his brain was being eaten away – that would explain a lot. But no, this woman who faced him now with a startled look on her face was real. Same face. Same slender neck. Same wide eyes as the enraged woman he’d first encountered outside Rickmansworth. Only that time they had been flashing anger at the rogue who held a pistol on her husband. Get back in the coach, Caroline.

  She was here. In his print shop. In the flesh.

  ‘My lady, I … I am very glad to see you again,’ he stammered. ‘A pleasant surprise.’

  She returned the smile. ‘And I you, my lord. A fortunate encounter. To think that fate has thrown us together twice.’

  Three times. But, thank God, she only remembered the man who had rescued her from a town under siege. Why had he not recognized her then? Or had he, deep down in his guilty soul?

  ‘Life does work in strange ways,’ she said. ‘I am embarrassed that I have not looked you up before to tell you how grateful I am for your past kindness to me; I am ashamed to confess it, but in the desperate circumstances surrounding our encounter, I quite forgot your name.’

  ‘No need for embarrassment. It happens to all of us. I am glad that you are in London and that Ben has found you. You look well.’

  Turning to her stepson, she said, ‘Ar … Ben, this is one of the kind strangers I told you about. I am sorry. I still do not remember—’

  ‘James Whittier, Lady Pendleton. And may I say I am so very glad you have been reunited with Ben and he with you. I think you need each other. And may I also say that you look … much better than when last we met.’

  She blushed and laughed. ‘I should hope so. You must have thought me a beggar.’

  ‘I thought you very courageous and really quite … lovely.’

  ‘Lady Pendleton?’ Ben asked. ‘When did that happen? And just when and where did the two of you meet?’

  ‘It is a long story, Ben,’ she said, still looking at James with something like disbelief. ‘We’ll have time for getting better acquainted later, I hope, Lord Whittier. Right now, I see through the window that darkness is falling, and I need to return home. I came today to ask Ben if he could help me fetch some things from the farm at Forest Hill. Things I could not bring with me. With your permission.’

  Forest Hill Manor. Of course. James could suddenly see the address written on the paper that he had given the coachman. He remembered thinking what a pleasant place that name evoked.

  He pretended to consider her request. ‘Ben is really busy right now, working on a very important document. Against a deadline.’ And then, summoning an expression as though the thought had just occurred, ‘But I could take you. I have business near Oxford,’ he said as he tried to make his tone casual. ‘You could show me what you need to retrieve, and we could bring it back, or ship it by river if there is too much. There are a lot of Cavalier soldiers twixt here and Oxford, and I am known at all the checkpoints.’

  She looked somewhat taken aback. It crossed his mind that he was being too forward. ‘That is very kind, Lord Whittier. But there is no hurry. Really. I have made do this long, and I do not need to impose on your generosity further.’ Then, turning to Ben, she said, ‘You are blessed that you have found employment with such a kind man.’ She glanced out the window at the fading light. ‘Now. I really must go.’

  Still giddy with having found her, he was not giving up this easily.

  ‘My lady, I insist you do not leave without one of us escorting you. We have a couple of newsboys we feed. Ben is a much better cook than I am. The boys will riot if they must eat what I cook for them again. It would be my pleasure to accompany you.’

  ‘I appreciate the gesture, Lord Whittier, but it truly is not necessary. It is only a short walk, scarcely more than a mile. I know every shortcut and close in London. As a girl I grew up navigating these streets. I will not get lost.’

  ‘Aye lass, but then thou dinna have to deal with drunken Scotsmen.’

  Her answering laugh was delightful, ‘You are a very good mimic. You could be on the stage. If London still had a stage. Very well. I accept your offer.’ She looked thoughtful and then added, her tone growing a little sharper as he helped her into her coat. ‘As we walk, perhaps you can make me understand why a respectable and compassionate man such as yourself published Mr John Milton’s scandalous document on divorce. Did Ben tell you that the wife he so despises is a friend of ours?’

  ‘He did,’ he said, opening the door. Twilight had descended in the interval since he’d returned, he noticed. Thinking on how his prospects had changed in such a short time, and not wanting to fall from her good graces, he scrambled for an explanation that she would accept. ‘But as I told Ben. We only print it. We do not endorse it. And I share Ben’s dislike of Mr Milton, as a man. As a w
riter,’ he was struggling to keep his tone more apologetic than defensive, ‘as a writer I must confess to a grudging admiration for him. I may not agree with his argument, but he states it well. It is merely an argument for the legal right to divorce for causes other than abandonment or adultery. I am sure he has already received a barrage of puritanical criticism in print. But he has a right to say it – and he did not call his wife’s name, or even put a personal frame around his argument.’

  ‘For shame.’ In the gloaming he could not see her face well but there was no mistaking the disapproval in her tone, a tone he’d heard before. Her pace quickened with indignation. ‘Do you not think how humiliated his wife would feel if she should be aware of it? Did you even read it? I mean really read it?’

  There are three of us and only one of him. The melody in her voice carried that remembered beat of indignation. He wanted to stop right there in the middle of the street and kiss her. But not bloody likely – he was blundering this badly.

  ‘Of course I read it. I am not that irresponsible. Maybe not every word, but enough to get the gist. He repeats himself a lot.’

  ‘Indeed. Well to me his argument sounded very personal.’

  He did stop then, right in the middle of the street. ‘You read it then?’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. Do you not think I can read?’

  Good God. He had only just found her, and they were already arguing.

  ‘No. It is not that at all. It is just that I would not think that sort of polemical writing would be the kind of thing that young women read. Please, I am very sorry if I have offended you. I would not …’

  In the growing dusk it was hard to read her expression, but as they turned into Gresham Street she bent her head, avoiding his gaze, ‘No. You are not at fault. I apologize for my tone. As you said, you didn’t write it. You only printed it. If not you, then someone else. I should not have let my personal disappointment spill over onto one who has proven his generosity and compassion to me and my family. We shall not speak of it again.’