Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  Pain racked her at the thought that it might be true, though what she had done had been no sin, surely, the way it had turned out? Or was she deceiving herself again; to think that a thing was no sin because it was done in love?

  Once, desperate for help and understanding, she had tried to explain to Tom, unravelling the tangle of her thoughts and doubts before him, but he had only tightened the knot, seizing hard on the one strand he understood, that of sin and guilt, so that in the end she got up angrily and walked on, weeping and wishing she had not spoken. There was no connection in thought between them, and for long miles she walked in front or dragged deliberately behind him, making the spiritual distance physical as well.

  If only she had sought out Robert that morning in Dorchester, and found out which convict train her father was supposed to be marching in before they left the town! Then she would have seen at once that it was not her father, and ... John Spragg would have died instead. But she could not save them all, not even Robert could do that.

  Yet perhaps she should have pressed him harder, begged him to to save John Spragg too, then this would not have happened. She wondered when she would see Rob again, and what she would say - at least he would listen, perhaps understand. When she told her mother ... she did not like to think of that.

  They came to the great imposing gates of Shute House - two massive stone towers with a battlemented archway between, and the great house with the church behind. She thought how absurd it had been to dream of marriage with a son - even a second son - of such a mansion. A liveried groom glared at them contemptuously as he led two horses past, their coats smooth and glossy as satin. She dared to ask a woman in the garden of one of the cottages outside if master Robert was at home and heard that he was not. The woman stared after her curiously as she trailed away, and Ann wondered what she would have done if the answer had been different.

  But he had said he would try not to come west with Judge Jeffreys. He did not want to see the results of the royal victory.

  The road wound past Shute down into a valley, and then up onto the side of Mount Hill, where they had a clear view over a stream to the little town of Colyton. It nestled peacefully at the bottom of the wide, saucer-shaped valley where a web of little streams met, to join up as the Coly and meet the Axe further down. She felt how strange it was to know every detail of a place after so many towns of which she had had only vague, fleeting impressions. She wondered at the smoke that seemed to be rising from a fire in the market-place. Surely it must be from a chimney, but it was not. There was no chimney just there, behind the church, except the ones she could see.

  In the little lantern tower above the church, a bell began to toll.

  “What is it, Tom?”

  “How should I know? ‘Tis not likely to be a church service, anyhow, in the middle of Wednesday.”

  A devil clutched at Ann’s throat, making it hard for her to breathe as she hurried, half-running and half-walking, down the hill towards the town. Once she slipped and fell in a rut, bruising her knee and tearing her dress. Flies came out of the heavy air, to suck the sweat from her face. The air seemed full of evil little devils who were trying to keep her out of the town when she should perhaps have been there hours before. Yet she did not know what she feared.

  There were no children playing by the bridge, and the fulling mills by the river seemed empty, which in itself was strange. Tom and Ann hurried up Dolphin Street past the row of cottages and the brewery, also deserted. There was a buzz of angry voices further ahead. They came round a corner into the wide market place and saw the high wooden scaffold in the middle of it.

  There was no-one hanging on the scaffold. A strong detachment of dragoons was having difficulty holding back the grim, fascinated crowd around it. An officer stood on the platform, anxiously watching the crowd, and a burly man in shirtsleeves was making some adjustment to the noose. In front of the scaffold, on the ground, two great cauldrons were slung over open fires.

  Ann knew what would be in the cauldrons. She had seen the preparations in Dorchester. Boiling salted water in one, to cook the heads and quartered bodies of the victims, and tar in the other, to preserve them before they were exhibited on posts around the town. There was a pile of dry straw and faggots too, to burn the entrails with.

  A man saw Ann and Tom, and nudged his neighbour, who looked around, startled, and then told her neighbour, and so on until suddenly half the crowd were staring at them. Martha Goodchild ran forward to greet them, hands outstretched, the accustomed neatness of her white hood and apron contrasting oddly with the anguished distraction on her face.

  “Tom! Ann! Ann, my dear, you shouldn’t come now, you shouldn’t be here today!”

  The grip of fear tightened on Ann’s throat, so that it was hard for her to speak.

  “Why? What’s happening?”

  “‘Tis your father, dear, your poor father’s to be hanged up there!”

  “My father? No, my father’s dead, Mrs Goodchild! Dead! Dead in Dorchester!” The whisper with which she began rose to a scream of denial. Martha Goodchild stared, then took her gently by the arm as one would with a lunatic.

  “No, dear. He’s in prison in the cottage by the courthouse now. You must go see him, before it be too late! The judge be about to try Will Clegg there now!”

  Gently, she led Ann up out of the market place, talking as she went.

  “They brought ‘un back to the town yesterday afternoon, poor lamb, all bound as he was, and a-calling him John Spragg for that they they got ‘em mixed up. And then they been a-building this dreadful scaffold yer and these fires all night and morning, and now the judge be here and your poor mother beside herself with grief and worry, poor dear ... “

  “By the courthouse, you say? He’s still there?”

  The shock that had at first stunned her suddenly released a wild burst of desperate energy. She left Mrs Goodchild and ran down Queen Street like a mad thing, sending dogs and chickens scattering aside, and had the door of the little cottage half open before the sentry outside realised what was happening and stopped her.

  “Here! You can’t go in there!”

  “Let me go! My father’s inside! I must see my father!”

  She tugged furiously to get away, so that they both half fell into a room where two more dragoons were sitting, and a tall blond officer was standing with his back to the fireplace.

  “What the devil? Get outside, man, you can’t bring your trollops in here!”

  Ann thought vaguely that she recognised him from somewhere. But despite his harsh words the officer looked amused.

  “She just burst in ... “

  “My father! Where is my father? I must see him!”

  Ann tore herself free from the uncertain soldier, and faced the officer angrily.

  “How should I know ...?” he began nonchalantly, but she cut him off.

  “Adam Carter! My father - he’s a prisoner here! Where is he?”

  “There’s no Adam Carter, is there?” The officer turned to the sergeant. “Not unless he’s ... “

  “You call him John Spragg! That’s why he’s here! You’ve got the wrong man!”

  Light dawned on the sergeant. “That’s the bugger upstairs. The one that’s to be hanged. You can’t see him now.”

  “I must see him! Where is he?” She turned towards the stair door and the sergeant reached out his hand from the table and grabbed her roughly by the wrist.

  “You can’t see him, I said!”

  “Oh come now, sergeant, show a little mercy. He is her father after all.” The officer eased his back away from the wall by the fireplace and held out his hand to the sergeant for the keys. “I’ll take her up.”

  The sergeant reluctantly put the keys in his hand. “Yes, sir. But she’ll have to be away from him afore we takes him out.”

  “I do realise that, sergeant, thank you.”

  Ann could not bear how slowly the man climbed the stairs. For years afterwards, she could see the sh
ape of his boots, the dust and the scuffmarks where the spurs did not quite fit. At the top he put the key into the lock and then stopped, drew his pistol and cocked it.

  “Can’t be too careful,” he said. “By the way, didn’t I see you near Bath somewhere? With Robert Pole?”

  “Please, let me in. I must see him now!”

  He shrugged and turned the key.

  “You won’t have long. They’ll be coming for him soon.” She pushed past him into the room.

  Adam was standing quite still in the middle of the room, ready to go out. She thought how small he looked - a little old man. He did not seem to see her as she came in; he seemed withdrawn to some place deep inside himself, where nothing external could touch him. Ann seized him impulsively by both arms, and he awoke slowly out of his trance, trembling as he did so.

  “Ann? Ann! It is you?”

  “Yes. Oh father, what have you done? Why are you here? I thought you were dead - John Spragg said you were dead!”

  “You have seen John? He’s safe? They’ve not hanged him?”

  “Oh yes, father, he’s quite safe, he’s to be transported. But why did you do it? Do you despise me so much?”

  “Despise you, my dear? What are you saying? Annie, why should I despise you?”

  “Because ... because of what I did to save your life, when I went to Robert Pole. I only did it for you, father, for love of you, and anyway …”

  “You sold yourself to Robert Pole?”

  “Yes. No. Father, I only asked him, in the end, that’s all he wanted. He said he’d save you for nothing, for love of me, because I asked him. And when I lay with him ‘twas only for love.” She felt her soul was laid bare before him, shivering in the cold. But he did not understand.

  “What are you saying, Ann? You did lie with this man, or not?”

  “I did, father, but it was not to save your life, as Tom says, and you think. I did not need to do it for that. He would have saved you if I had only asked him, and done nothing more!”

  Adam looked at her carefully, and she thought how much more grey his hair was than it used to be, and how thin the solemn, weatherworn face and slight body were. He had stopped trembling, but he somehow seemed more finely poised than usual, as though he were at once aware of everything around him and of some deep spring of life within himself, so that as those brown eyes watched her she felt he saw her as completely as he ever would.

  “And you thought I had chosen to die because I despised you?”

  Ann nodded dumbly, and back in his eyes she saw through the film of her own tears a darkening, a glimmer of pain or fear. Quite stiffly and slowly as though they hurt, he put his thin arms out to hold her.

  “Annie, my dear child, the only person in the whole of God’s earth that I have any right to despise is myself. I’ve learned that.”

  “No ... “

  “Listen, my dear. I don’t have much time now, and I couldn’t tell your mother last night nor this morning neither; I’ve hurt her too bad, poor soul, and she’s too burnt up with pain and vain hopes of saving me to hearken to a word I say. But you’re here now so I’ll tell you, who I never thought to see again. Maybe ‘twill put your poor mind at rest.”

  He tensed as there was a shout from downstairs, but then it was followed by loud laughter, and he went on, speaking a little faster, yet still carefully.

  “The first part is, lest I don’t have time to finish, that I don’t scorn nor despise you for anything you’ve done ever. You’re my own daughter, Ann, the first one of the whole brood; all I feel for you is love.”

  “But ... John Spragg said ... “

  “Never you mind nothing he said. What I said to him was plain foolishness, no more - any stupid thing that came into my head to get him to save his skin and go for transportation instead of me. Listen to me, Ann - if you’d lain with that Devils’ Judge himself to save my life, ‘twould have been all the more reason to accept a gift so dearly bought, and not to spurn it.”

  “Then why did you spurn it, father? Why are you here when John Spragg should be?”

  “I’m here because of Pride, I see that now. You know … do you remember that night, Ann, when your mother tried to persuade me not to go to war? You came down and sat with us in the kitchen at home - remember?”

  “I remember. The night Simon was hurt.”

  “That’s it. Well, when I said I’d go then ‘twas not really because of the religion, or the love of the good old cause and the Duke of Monmouth. ‘Twas anger at what had happened to Simon, and shame too, because I was in mortal fear of going and I thought folk would scorn me if I did not. There was another war before, but you’re too young to remember that. Anyway, this time I went, and I was afraid - most terribly afraid, Ann, and thought of running home more than once. You maybe saw that, I don’t know ...”

  “But that’s nothing to feel shame for, father! Everyone must have felt fear, surely?”

  “Aye, surely they did!” said Adam fiercely. “But they wouldn’t admit to it, none of ‘em, because Israel Fuller said the Lord would give His chosen people courage, and so if a man was afraid, he wasn’t one of the chosen. ‘Tis a lie, Ann, never forget it! There’s many as say they’re chosen who’m afraid, like our great Pharisee Fuller himself, as you saw! But I believed it, you see, and so I had only my pride to bear me up. Pride that I would not run, no more than they did, nor let any man see the shame of fear in my soul. And I didn’t neither, you saw that! I didn’t take the pardon when I could, nor did I run from the battle as some did, even that John Spragg whom they think they’re to hang today!”

  Adam smiled, and a bitter triumph glowed briefly in his face, and then went out.

  “And there you see my pride, my dear. For ‘twas so hard for me at first to face all the horrors of war, that when I found at last that I could do it, without even being one of God’s chosen - for I knew I was not - then I felt I was not worthy of anyone’s respect, not even my own, unless I always took the stony path. And the Devil led me on to take that path, whereever it might lead, and I felt better doing it. So I became a foolish martyr to nothing better than my own pride, and never thought, till yesterday, of the hurt it might do to others, and the little it was gaining me.”

  His voice died away to a whisper, as though he had no more to say.

  “You chose to die because you were afraid to lose people’s respect?”

  “And my own. I did not respect myself really, for the life I lived.”

  “But why, father? Everyone respects you - in the village, in the family. You’re one of the best respected men I know.”

  “But I didn’t deserve that respect. I knew myself better ...”

  And he would perhaps have told her the secret then, that no-one knew except he and his long-dead brother, but the hubbub outside joined that downstairs, and he knew he had no time. Ann stood between him and the door.

  “They shan’t take you, father! They can’t - you’re the wrong man!”

  “Ann, dear, do you think that’ll stop this judge? That’s what your mother’s gone to say, but do you think for one moment he’ll listen? I chose to die - it was proud and wilful of me but I must face it now!”

  He tried to go past her but she stood in his way.

  “I shan’t let them touch you! They shall kill me first!”

  “No!” He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to him, his dark eyes burning into her. “Listen to me, Annie. ‘Tis hard enough for me to face, don’t make it any harder by standing in the way. I don’t want to see no-one hurt but me!” He heard footsteps on the stairs and crushed her tightly to him, his thin arms like hoops of steel across her back. “Oh Ann, I do love you, my dear. Never forget it! Tell your mother I do love you all ... now let me go!”

  The key turned in the lock and the officer came in with the sergeant and another man.

  “Right, Spragg or Carter, whoever you are - that’s it. Your time has come. Your friend Clegg’s waiting downstairs to go with you.”

&
nbsp; Adam pushed Ann firmly aside and stepped forward.

  “Bind his arms.”

  “There’s no need for that. I shan’t run.”

  “‘Tis the rule. You’re to be bound on a hurdle, man. Turn around.” The sergeant pushed him roughly round and dragged his arms behind him. Adam saw his daughter watching from the corner, her eyes very big in her pale face, her hands clenched stiffly at her sides so as not to grab him from them, and he thought how much she was still like the little girl who had come in to him with nightmares in the dark. He tried to smile.

  “Don’t come, my dear. I don’t want you to see it.”

  “I love you, father!”

  And then when he was gone she suddenly remembered who the officer was - Cornet Smythe, who had brought a message to Robert once - and she followed him all along the street, pleading with him openly to let her father live because of Robert Pole, Robert Pole who was the officer’s friend and who had promised her he should not die! Until at last he pushed her contemptuously aside as other men had pushed aside her mother and the wife of William Clegg.

  She went to watch, despite what Adam had said, and what she saw remained with her all her life, as the King had intended it should. There is little dignity in a death like that, either for those who die or those who watch, and none at all for those who do the killing.

  52

  “I JUST want to be let alone!”

  “Then where is the help in that to me?” Mary Carter glared at her daughter across the great table in the kitchen, while little Oliver, Sarah and Rachel watched fearfully. Ann stood by the door, her old brown cloak over one shoulder. She no longer noticed how tired her mother was, how her shoulders were bowed, or the lines in the face under the newly-white hair. Or rather, she felt these things only as an unbearable oppression, a reproach upon herself.