Spirit of the Highway

by Deborah Swift

  ‘I’ll find you, Chaplin,’ Copthorne hurled the words at me, ‘when this is over, I’ll find you and make sure you’re planted so deep in this earth no-one will know where to look for you.’

  I stuck one finger up at him. ‘Go tup yourself!’ He was a madman; I’d seen enough of him to know he’d lost his wits.

  ‘Copthorne!’ The equerry called again. Ahead, the young King was looking over his shoulder with disapproval.

  Copthorne’s face twisted into a tight knot. Reluctantly, he vaulted astride the horse and kicked it forward. I watched him go, wondering why he should have taken it upon himself to make such a personal vendetta of this war.

  The rumble from the square warned of the approach of the Parliament cavalry. I turned. They were galloping towards the gate to cut off the Royal party’s escape. We let out a cheer of jubilation, but it was short-lived. At the last minute a ramshackle cart pulled by two huge oxen trundled out of the side street.

  It had all been planned, that much was obvious. Our cavalry could not pass, and the driver of the cart skittered away, head down, into one of the nearby houses. Meanwhile I watched in frustration as the retreating Royalists and their whippersnapper of a king jostled their way down the side street towards St Martins Gate.

  Just before they clattered out, Copthorne swivelled on his horse. His eyes met mine in a savage smile. ‘For God and the King!’ he yelled. But it was a threat, not a call to arms.

  4 - THE TAVERN

  The tavern was cramped and the floor swilling with beer despite its layer of straw. Cutch and I sat near the door to take advantage of the draught. The day was hot and airless, and we stank of sweat and the hollow depression that hung in our heads. So many dead at Worcester. Too many to bury. Father still rotting where he fell. We were given leave and ordered to march home to await more instruction, but we all knew it was over. England was on its knees with fighting, too many men had seen too much. Halfway home, and even now none of it seemed real.

  We’d been sent on our way with the words of Preacher Peters in our ears – stirring words which told us Worcester was ‘where England’s sorrows began, and where they were happily ended.’ Happily. What a jest. Preacher Peters had obviously been nowhere near any battlefield. Nine years to the day, he said it was, in that very spot, that the fighting had begun. A picture arose of my father, ruffling my hair, showing me how to cast a line for a fish, before all this started. I mourned them both, despite myself; the boy and the father who were lost. Though truth be told, I had lost my father to the liquor bottle even before the war.

  On the table next to us an old soldier turned to me, waved a pamphlet under my nose, ‘All this bloody fighting, and what do they want? They want their old England back, that’s what.’

  ‘That can’t be true,’ Cutch said.

  ‘’Tis too. They want it back how it was before. Back to the “Good Old Days”. It was all a waste of time. Nothing will ever change. No wonder I want to get bloody drunk.’ He stood unsteadily, and staggered out of the door, leaving us to ourselves.

  Cutch passed me the jug of ale and I poured a fresh tankard. Cutch was pale and exhausted, his cheekbones making stark hollows above sunken cheeks. The fire of battle had gone from his eyes. He rested his skinny arms on the table and hung his head.

  ‘If it’s really over,’ I said, ‘what will you do?’ I’d got used to him, to his company.

  ‘Don’t know. I’ve forgotten everything I used to know about the wheelwright’s trade. Wouldn’t know a spoke-shave from a stick, now. But I’m pretty handy with the old surgeon’s blade, so I guess set up somewhere as a barber-surgeon.’

  ‘Have you no family?’

  ‘Never did have. Parents both dead of the plague when I turned twelve.’

  ‘Must have been hard, that.’

  He brushed away my comment. ‘Nah. But it was a relief to join up. I was sick of being pushed from pillar to post. Started as a messenger boy. Been with the army ever since.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Wiltshire. But the army’s my family now. Reckoned I should try it, as there was no-one to fret over me. Best thing I ever did. Kept me busy, see. Those who have kin have it hardest in war, I reckon. Anyway, what about you?’

  I trailed a fingertip in a pool of beer on the table. ‘Can’t wait to get home. Back to Markyate and the estate. Everywhere I go I see land falling to thistle and weed. It pains me. With Father dead, I’ll take on his portion. Grow crops, a few cows, pigs. Barter a bit. I’ve got friends who want to work together, in a community, a new way of working. But first there’s my mother and my little brother, see. With Father gone, they’ll need a man to take care of everything, and I’m going to do a better job than he ever did.’

  ‘Just one brother?’

  ‘No, three sisters as well, God help me. Martha’s only five. But the other two have left home. There’s Elizabeth – she lives in at the apothecary, and Abigail. She’s done well – she’s a lady’s maid at the big house – Markyate Manor. In fact I have hopes I’ll be able to persuade the lady of the manor to let me have land from the estate for our community.’

  ‘That’s if she gets to keep her land and isn’t deported to be a slave in the Indies.’

  I paused, my tankard halfway to my mouth. ‘They won’t deport women, will they?’

  ‘Want to bet? ‘Bout time the aristocracy got a taste of hard work, don’t you think?’

  ‘Lady Fanshawe’s only seventeen. And she’s not … she’s not like the usual lady of the manor.’ I felt my face flush with heat.

  ‘No.’ Cutch stared. ‘You don’t mean …?’

  The familiar ache opened in my chest. I swallowed, looked away.

  Seeing my reaction, he shook his head. ‘You stupid bugger. Don’t let the sergeant find out you’ve been hob-nobbing with the enemy, he’ll wring your stupid neck. Did your Father know?’

  ‘He knew all right. But it’s not how you think. Kate’s a —’

  ‘Kate!’ He thumped his fist on the table, guffawed. ‘Holy God on High, you’re even dafter than I thought. Don’t waste your time, Ralph. She’ll be a pauper like the rest of us soon enough, if Cromwell gets his way.’

  ‘That’s just it, she won’t care. Money means nothing to her.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Amazing what a pretty face can do. Sounds to me like you’ve had the wool pulled over you good and proper.’ He took another swig of ale. ‘She’ll never agree to it, a crop of Roundheads roaming all over her land.’

  ‘I thought that at first too. But you’re wrong. She’s all for change and a better future for all. We met through the Diggers.’

  Now Cutch’s eyes did widen. ‘That bunch of madmen? Winstanley’s lot? I thought they’d been well and truly flattened.’

  ‘We nearly were. We tried to build our houses on the common land, just outside the village. Equal shares in everything, just like Winstanley preached. There’s nothing left now but stones.’ I shook my head. ‘They beat us off. Folk were scared of us, I reckon.’

  I told him how Abigail had brought Kate to the Diggers meetings in disguise, and how we’d fallen for each other. Once I started to speak, it was as if I’d unlocked a culvert – it all gushed out. I told him everything, right up to how I’d rescued Kate from my drunken father and the Parliamentary Army when they billeted themselves on Markyate Manor.

  ‘You really think she’d turn her estate to the common good?’

  ‘It’s complicated. She’s heard us all talk at our Digger’s meetings — the evils of privately-owned property, of how the land is our God-given right and shouldn’t be kept from us by power-hungry lords. And she agrees. But she’s married to Thomas Fanshawe. He’ll have plans for that land too. His uncle, Sir Simon Fanshawe, wanted him to sell it, use the proceeds to fund the King’s Army. But I’m not sure how things will stand now.’

  ‘She’s married?’ He hit his hand to his head. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’

  ‘He’s abroad,’ I said, �
�hiding from the likes of us.’ Just the thought of his existence made me want to kick something.

  ‘I’d like to meet this Kate,’ he said softly. ‘If what you’re telling me is true, she sounds like no bleeding aristocrat I’ve ever known.’

  ‘Come with me then. If you’ve nowhere else you need to go.’

  ‘Is that an invitation?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He grinned, clapped me on the back. ‘Well I guess someone needs to keep you safe from the attentions of this lady of the manor.’

  5 - THE HOMECOMING

  When we rode up to the Manor I was expecting to see the harvest left to rot, but the fields were full of men and women raking and turning hay. I slowed my horse.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Cutch reined in beside me.

  ‘Her husband could be back. I don’t like the look of it.’

  We trotted on slowly until a burly man with a rough, straggly beard and a wide puritan collar stood in the middle of the lane. We had no choice but to stop.

  ‘Can I help you?’ His tone was surly.

  ‘I’m here to see Lady Katherine Fanshawe. I’m Ralph Chaplin, one of the tenants. I’m home from the fighting. That’s my land over there.’ I pointed to where two men were hoeing Father’s plot.

  ‘Is that right?’ He made no attempt to move.

  ‘What’s going on with all these men?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re having a May ball. What’s it look like? Heard tell in the village they needed some help with the harvest,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ I asked. Cutch winced at my manner.

  ‘You’re looking at him.’ He planted his feet even more firmly in my horse’s path. ‘Mallinson the Constable asked me to come. Said all the menfolk were away fighting and her ladyship had made no provision to look to the herd, or to fix the horses.’ He said ‘her ladyship’ with scorn.

  I bristled. ‘Well, Lady Katherine won’t need your help now I’m back,’ I said, kicking my horse forward, but the man still did not move and I was forced to rein back again.

  He smiled. ‘Going to do all the harvesting yourselves, are you?’ He glanced derisively at Cutch. ‘I’ll call them off your plot, but there’s men and women in the village need work, and I’ll not shift them until I get the say-so from Constable Mallinson.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘We’re under his orders. We’ve agreed to muck out the horses, and the corn in the lower meadow needs cutting today if it’s not to spoil. Lady Katherine’s like all the rest of the gentry — she’s got no real idea about the land, doesn’t know chaff from —’

  ‘Ralph!’

  The stranger bit off his words, bowed his head. Kate flew down the drive towards me.

  I threw myself down from my horse, but did not want to embrace her before that man. Her face had turned pink as a plum, her eyes shone with unshed tears.

  ‘I saw your horses from the window. Thank God,’ she said. ‘We feared the worst.’ She came straight to me, pressed herself into my arms.

  I could not resist her, I squeezed her tight to my chest, touched my mouth to her soft copper hair.

  In that brief second I caught the other man’s eyes, like a bird of prey fixed on a rabbit, but immediately they clouded over into an expression of neutrality. Hurriedly, I released Kate, looked over to where Cutch scraped his boot back and forth on the ground. I shouldn’t have kissed her in public.

  ‘This is Cutch, Cuthbert Briggs, he was in my regiment,’ I said. Cutch removed his hat, bowed, tried not to stare at her.

  ‘Welcome,’ Kate said, ‘any friend of Ralph is a friend of mine.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, God’s work won’t wait,’ the man who’d greeted us said dourly. He gave a barely perceptible nod and stalked away.

  As soon as he was out of earshot I asked, ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Jack Downall, one of the men from the village,’ Kate said.

  So I had a name for the insolent brute at last. ‘Whose idea was it for him to bring all these men?’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’ She was defensive. ‘Jacob’s father sent him. Abigail was keen that we should keep good relations with the Mallinsons. And anyway, It’s kind of Mr Downall to offer his help.’

  ‘But why wasn’t he fighting? What’s he after?’

  She looked puzzled, wary. ‘After? Nothing. Abi and I can’t run this whole estate by ourselves. And until my husband puts another man in charge —’

  ‘But he’s not here,’ I said. I didn’t even want to think about him. ‘Anyway, you don’t need to employ anyone anymore. I can deal with it, now I’m back.’

  ‘It’s a big house,’ Kate gestured towards the red-brick towers and lofty windows of the manor. ‘Jacob’s father’s only trying to help. He knows Abi and I couldn’t manage the heavy work of the harvest on our own, and when you went to war we’d no idea if … we’d no idea when you were coming back —’

  ‘Shall I take the horses up to the yard and tether them?’ Cutch seemed anxious to be on the move. Kate pointed out the stables, and Cutch led our hired horses away.

  ‘I’m surprised you wanted to put another unknown man in charge so soon,’ I said, still grouching. ‘Remember Grice.’

  ‘As if I could forget.’ Kate twisted her hands together. She looked flustered, her cheeks had coloured up with two spots of red. ‘Sooner or later I would have had to employ someone. Why not Downall? He wants the work, and he could be just the luck we need.’

  The sun beat down on my head, sweat gathered on my brow. I could not tell her I was disappointed, that I’d hoped it would be me helping her with the Manor, sorting out the manpower, running it the Diggers’ way, with fair shares for all.

  I wiped my damp forehead, tried to stay calm, but my voice came out sulkier than I’d intended. ‘I don’t want any man here telling us what to do. Besides, he’s brought half the village up here. They’ll all be gawping around the estate, poking their noses into our business. We’ll have no privacy. And we know nothing about any of them, they could be thieves, or ruffians!’

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘What’s there to steal?’ she said, throwing up her hands. ‘The Roundheads took everything. And the Constable sent him, don’t forget. Jacob’s father.’

  ‘We could have managed.’

  ‘How? The only thing we have that’s worth anything is the land and the beasts. And they must be worked.’ Kate pressed her lips together in a stubborn frown.

  I knew she talked sense. Markyate Manor was an empty shell. It had been over-run by the Roundhead rebels on their way south. They had ripped out everything that wasn’t tied down, and when I left for Worcester, Abigail and Kate were still scrubbing it clean. And I knew it would take a lot longer to scrub the soldiers’ unwelcome presence from Kate’s mind. The memory of my father’s attempt to ravish her made me catch my breath, but I quashed it. He was dead. No point thinking of him.

  Kate’s eyes burned with righteous unshed tears. ‘I thought you’d approve. Abigail said you’d want us to do it. “Ralph can’t bear waste,” that’s what she said. And all those families will go hungry if we don’t harvest the corn for flour.’ She drew herself up tall, ‘It’s my responsibility, as the lady of the manor, don’t you understand?’

  Lady of the Manor. How I hated that label. It stood for everything I loathed. It did not feel like it belonged to my Kate, the Kate with the zeal for change and a new world of free and equal men.

  All I wanted to do was hold her tight, but somehow I couldn’t reach for her, not now there was disagreement between us. The familiar chasm was opening in my heart; Kate folded her arms defiantly across her chest as if to shut me out. My homecoming was going wrong already.

  I swallowed, tried to rescue the situation. ‘You’re right. Abigail wouldn’t want us falling out with Jacob’s father; that much is certain. She’s sweet on Jacob, I know. And I suppose it can do no harm to give Downall a trial.’

  No harm. But I didn’t know then how conv
oluted life is, how one thing falls into another, like a single stone cast into a pond.

  We walked slowly up the drive. I was embarrassed at my blood-spattered clothing, my bruised face. They were things I could do nothing about, but being next to Kate in her white muslin neckerchief and her blue sprigged summer gown, I felt dirty and unkempt, and more like a farmer’s son than ever. The knot of fear that I wasn’t quite adequate, that I was below her station, silenced my conversation.

  I followed her up the road feeling like a servant. But the sight of her small feet in their dainty kidskin shoes on the rough stones of the drive filled me with a sudden rush of pain. I wanted to hold her feet in my hands, kiss each white toe. But I said nothing, she must already be thinking me boorish and rude.

  When we reached the yard she pulled open the door to the kitchen. ‘Come within,’ she said.

  She drew a chair out at the scrubbed wooden table, and I threw off my bags and weapons.

  We stood a moment, both awkward, unable to say what we really wanted. ‘Are you alright?’ I managed. My eyes searched hers.

  ‘The better for seeing you.’ She smiled, and it was like a spatter of sunshine. ‘But you missed Abi, she’s gone to the market to fetch more yeast for brewing and baking.’

  ‘How is she?’ I was anxious for news of my sister.

  ‘Same old Abigail. Sharp as a tack and stubborn as a mule. But Lord, how she works. I could not manage without her.’ Her green eyes caught me with their arresting light.

  I rubbed my index finger along the edge of the table, searching for the words. ‘Father’s dead. I’ll have to break it to her.’

  ‘Oh, Ralph. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. He treated you foully. But I’m dreading giving Abigail the news, she loved him mightily. And I’ll have to tell my mother, too. Heaven alone knows how she’ll take it.’

  We sat at the table whilst I told Kate what had happened to Father. I skirted the detail, because I couldn’t speak of it, the words choked me. I tried to tell her without emotion, but my eyes betrayed me. A tear sneaked out from somewhere. Annoyed, I brushed it away, glad Cutch could not see. He’d had the good sense to leave the pair of us alone.