The Dandelion Seed

by Lena Kennedy

  The beady eyes of the parson gleamed in appreciation as he looked at the bottle. ‘I’ll do what I can for you,’ he said. ‘Bring your stepmother into the church tonight and we will bury her tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Chalky, pumping the parson’s arm up and down like the village pump. ‘Oh, wait a minute,’ he said suddenly. ‘There’s another little favour you can do for me. I want to put the banns up for me wedding. Got to hurry it up a bit, if you knows what I mean . . .’ He gave the parson a knowing wink which nearly caused the old chap to choke. ‘And you wanna look after that cough,’ Chalky said as he went cheerily to the door.

  As soon as the door was closed, the parson sank down in the hall seat and laughed until the tears ran down his face. ‘Oh dear, what a caution,’ was all he could gasp as his servant came running to his aid.

  Chalky felt on top of the world as he hurried down the leafy path to the inn and his beautiful Katy. He looked around for the little wanderer but there was no sign of her. She must have gone on her way. But there was lovely Katy at the door to welcome him, her dark hair shining and the little bump beginning to show under the apron.

  ‘Katy, darling,’ he said gaily, ‘it’s all sealed and signed. Come on, give us a kiss.’

  Moments later they were making violent love on the little day bed in the sitting room, while Betsy lay in a coffin upstairs, stiff and white.

  ‘Things ain’t turned out so bad, after all,’ remarked Chalky as he lay back relaxing, while Katy returned to her stall.

  14

  Homecomings

  When Marcelle entered Brook House she had the wonderful sense of peace. She felt as though she had arrived home after a long absence. They entered by the south-west wing of the house, through a beautiful apple orchard where the trees formed cool archways and the heavy ripe fruit hung from the boughs. The children ran on ahead, laughing and prattling, and continued to laugh and chatter until they were all safely tucked up in bed by Mrs Powell and Marcelle.

  Now Marcelle sat facing Mrs Powell in a wide, roomy kitchen lined with huge brass pots, which accommodated a stove that took up almost the entire side of the wall. Marcelle wanted to ask about the baby. She had undressed him and had seen the large crown-shaped mole on his bottom, and there was now no doubt in her mind that he was her baby. She waited to talk about him to Mrs Powell but was very wary of laying claim to him outright. The derangement of mind she had suffered had given her the astuteness she needed for such a situation. She so wanted to talk about Roger but she could anticipate what would happen if she did. They would say she was crazy and shut her up somewhere. No, she had to remain quiet and take her time, just like the mouse the children liked to call her.

  Mrs Powell groaned as she bent to undo the bandage on her leg. Marcelle knelt down and with gentle fingers took off the dressing. Then she applied the cool balm to the ulcer on Mrs Powell’s shin.

  ‘Oh, thank you, my dear, that does feel better,’ Mrs Powell sighed with relief. ‘I ought not to be on my feet so much, but the children need me. You cannot trust the servant girls these days. Agnes and Elsie are always quarrelling.’ She put her leg up on the foot stool and sighed contentedly. ‘Oh, I am glad that this day is over.’

  ‘Are they your grandchildren?’ asked Marcelle, anxious to hear all about her baby.

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ exclaimed Mrs Powell.

  ‘Does their mother live here?’

  ‘No, love, none of them are related. They are the master’s adopted children. The eldest boy Robert is to be Sir Fulke’s heir and the lovely Elizabeth, well, that is a long story which I might tell you, if you stay long enough. But the oddest one is the baby. No one really knows where he came from. The master loves babies, so when Elizabeth Howard brought him here one dark night, the master welcomed him without hesitation and handed him over to me. I have taken care of him ever since. Ask no questions, you hear no lies – that is my motto.’

  A secret smile crossed Marcelle’s face, and Mrs Powell looked curiously at her. What a funny girl, she thought, she looked as if she were in a dream all the time.

  But Marcelle’s dream had come true. Roger was indeed her baby. Her prayers had been answered and her worried harassed brain was gradually clearing. She could see things in a more normal way at last. ‘Will you allow me to stay and work for you?’ she asked eagerly. ‘I would love to take care of the baby.’

  Mrs Powell was puzzled. She knew nothing about this girl, but she did not look or speak like a common girl and there was an air of mystery about her. The way her head twisted to one side and her voice was deep and husky also helped to make this girl unusual. Mrs Powell was not one to take chances, but she pushed aside any fears she might have had.

  Next morning, Mrs Powell dressed Marcelle in a black silk dress with a white collar and pushed her hair into a little white cap and sent her out into the little quadrangle to care for the children.

  So began Marcelle’s reign at Brook House, during the happiest and fullest days of her life. The little girl Elizabeth loved Miss Mouse and in spite of her limited vision, she took Marcelle by the hand and guided her on an extensive tour of the grand manor house, for the child knew every nook and cranny in the place. She took Marcelle along the portrait gallery to the lovely carved balcony which held a great golden organ and looked down over the carved balustrade at the black-and-white squares of the immense hall in which Queen Elizabeth had first held court and her father Henry had entertained her mother Ann Boleyn.

  Marcelle knew nothing of these great people but listened enthralled as little Elizabeth related the history of this lovely house and its previous owners.

  Behind the great organ was a door leading to a small apartment in which an old Jesuit priest had hidden for many years, since the time when Lady Cobham had lived in the manor. In these small chambers were many books. Elizabeth introduced Marcelle to Father Ben who sheltered there. He was now so thin and frail but his gnarled, twisted hands could still draw lovely pictures to amuse the children. He scrutinized Marcelle very closely and then said. ‘Your mother was a good Catholic woman.’

  Marcelle did not understand but she kept quiet, convinced that Father Ben must have mistaken her for one of the other servants. But it had been Father Ben who had buried the poor torn body of her mother whom the mob had drowned as a witch so many years before. Reaching out, he pressed into Marcelle’s hand a little gold medal of the Virgin Mary which he had found sewn into the woman’s clothing. ‘Take care,’ he whispered. ‘Do not let anyone see it.’

  Elizabeth pulled impatiently at her hand. ‘Come on, Miss Mouse, there is more to see.’

  So on they went to look at the lovely book-lined library, and then the elegant dining hall with its carved frieze and hand-painted ceiling, windows draped with blue velvet and cloth of gold, and massive walls covered by French tapestries. And on until Elizabeth had proudly shown Marcelle every little bit of her new home, and at every step they took, Marcelle felt happiness building up as she had not felt for so long.

  Marcelle had been at Brook House several months before Mrs Powell eventually presented her to the master. Sir Fulke was in his study surrounded by many books and papers and he did not look up as they entered. His head was bent and the candle highlighted the aristocratic profile of his face with the long nose and sensitive lips of the great family of Warwick. Marcelle noticed too the pain lines on his face.

  ‘Come in, Poppet,’ he called, thinking that Mrs Powell’s knock was one of his adopted children. He called them all Poppet but with Roger it had stuck and become shortened to Popsi.

  ‘It is I, sir,’ answered Mrs Powell. ‘I want to introduce our new young nurse maid to you.’

  Sir Fulke glanced at Marcelle without much interest. ‘Well, you take care of her, will you, Mrs Powell?’

  The two women curtsied and left the room.

  ‘He is always like that lately,’ grumbled Mrs Powell. ‘He is very busy writing the life story of his friend Philip Sidney, and he does too
much, what with being a Member of Parliament as well,’ she went on, defending her master’s ill manners. ‘Breastfed him as a babe, I did. Stinted my own babe to feed him.’

  Marcelle was not very interested in Mrs Powell’s grumbling. She loved it too much here with Roger and Elizabeth to care about anything else. The boy Robert had disappeared for a while, back to his school in Shrewsbury. Marcelle’s cheeks glowed rosy from the daily walks in the big park. She no longer stuttered or stammered and her voice was no longer croaky, it was just low and husky. She was happier now than she had ever been in her life. In the mornings she knelt at the secret altar with Father Ben and cleared her soul of the dark misery that had hung over her in the past. She now felt as free and as happy as a bird. The stormy events of the world outside could not disturb or even interest Marcelle. In the peaceful sanctuary of Brook House it was almost as if she had entered a convent, the only difference being that with her was her beautiful sturdy son, a privilege that no nun could ever be granted. Surrounded by beautiful grounds that extended for miles, there was never any need to go outside the gate and no one could have persuaded her to. She had left the sad world outside behind to play in this beautiful garden with the children, her little Roger and the tall Elizabeth who walked so upright without ever complaining of her disability. Each morning Marcelle and Elizabeth with Roger by Marcelle’s side would kneel and pray in the old chapel which had served many generations of great Catholic families. The tattered banners hung overhead; helmets and swords lay upon the marble tombs. The Reformation had destroyed the religious glory of England for which these knights of old had given their lives.

  Most people had forgotten Father Ben, the old Jesuit priest, for he had been in hiding for so many years. He was so thin and his pale, deep set eyes seemed to stare into one’s very soul. The sweet religious fervour he created entered Marcelle’s heart and wrapped her soft and safe as a cocooned insect. With her mind now quite healed she began to look into the past with clear eyes and her memories returned. Marcelle knew that here she had a safe harbour for herself and her son, and that she would never go out of that gate again.

  The old priest had, by gentle persuasion, managed to get the secrets of Marcelle’s past from her. ‘My dear,’ he said gently, ‘it is between God and yourself whether you lay claim to your son. You have made your peace with him. Now, stay, reflect on the wisdom of taking your son out of this safe place.’

  Marcelle’s hazel brown eyes glowed soft and gentle. She had grown so fond of this kind, clever old priest, whose thin hands traced the Latin words on the old manuscripts, and who had taught her so much of the beauty of religion. ‘I will stay here, Father, because in this house I am so happy, and so is my son.’

  ‘Then God be with you.’ Father Ben made the sign of the cross and returned to his narrow hard bed in the paper-filled room where he had hidden for so many years.

  In the morning they found him, his pale eyelids closed forever. He had died peacefully in his sleep, his hands were crossed clutching a rosary.

  Marcelle was very sad at the loss of her friend and confidant, but was sure in her heart that he had left this sad world for a higher happy one. Death no longer held any mysteries for her.

  They buried the priest secretly in consecrated ground at the back of the chapel beside the unmarked grave of Marcelle’s mother, whom he himself had buried.

  Each day, Marcelle and the children made little posies and laid one on Father Ben’s grave and one on Grandmother’s.

  ‘But whose grandmother?’ enquired Elizabeth. ‘I have not got one. I am illegitimate, and so is Popsi.’

  Marcelle smiled sweetly. ‘Well, you and Popsi shall share this grandmother with me, because she was my mother.’

  Elizabeth giggled. ‘Oh, you are funny, Miss Mouse,’ she said. ‘But I do love you so.’

  They would often run through the green woods down to the brook to dip their tiny feet in the clear cool rippling water. Very neat in her white hat and black dress, Marcelle sat on the bank sewing as the children played or tried fishing for minnows. Always on these outings they were accompanied by a big black-and-white hound called Prince who followed Elizabeth everywhere.

  One morning in early summer they sat by the brook. Little Roger was becoming quite headstrong. He had acquired a fishing net of his own and started fishing quite independently, the dog beside him. On the opposite bank, a small fox terrier appeared and began to challenge Prince with his back erect and shrill bark. Prince rose up majestically and with loud, deep-chested growls, he seemed to be telling the little dog to be off. All this barking frightened little Roger who ran to Marcelle for comfort.

  Soon the owner of the terrier, a little man with a young child on his shoulders, came running along the bank calling the dog to heel. Seeing Marcelle, he called over to her: ‘Hallo, mate, how’re you getting on?’

  It had been almost a year since Marcelle had seen anyone outside Brook House and this man calling out to her now with such familiarity scared her a little. In panic, she gathered the children and amid the noise of barking dogs they hurried on up the hill towards the big house.

  Chalky stood scratching his head, quite astonished. ‘Well, what do you think of that, Sam?’ He directed his conversation to the little child on his back. ‘Starving in the churchyard, she was, a year ago, and now she don’t even want to know us. You can never tell with some people.’ The little black-haired babe, so like his father and named after his grandfather, slept on.

  Chalky’s son was everything to him and although the child could not yet converse with his father he was always included in whatever his father had to say. Chalky loved being a father and was keen to have more sons. ‘We will have another one soon, Katy,’ he often said. ‘Stock is as good as money, you know.’

  Tall, magnificent Katy would laugh at him, when he said this, her white teeth flashing, her cheeks red and rosy. ‘We will have a girl the next time, I hope,’ she would say.

  ‘No, we won’t!’ Chalky would argue. ‘Sons is what I want and sons is what I’m going to get.’ As dogmatic and business-like as ever, even in the raising of a family, Chalky had plans.

  He was very happy with his Katy and was glad to have married her, despite their terrible wedding day which had ended in a riot. Katy’s brothers had punched each other to a standstill and her uncles and aunts had drunk and danced until they fell. And it had taken Chalky many months of hard work to earn back the profits from the drink that Katy’s relations had consumed.

  Now that Katy was mistress of her own home, she had told her family to go to hell. She worked beside Chalky and was a real partner in every way.

  ‘I’ve no regrets,’ Chalky often boasted. ‘I’m a happily married man.’

  The inn was not such a prosperous place since the Lord of the Manor – rumoured to be ill – had moved to the town. The young gentlemen did not visit the inn so often, and Chalky did not care much for the sort of customers he got now – gipsies from the fair at Lea, stablemen from Brook House, and the villagers. The class of customers had deteriorated and this bothered Chalky somewhat.

  ‘I ain’t in this business for me health,’ he would tell Katy. ‘It’s money I’m after, and these poor sods ain’t got much.’

  ‘Well, let’s sell up and move further away,’ suggested Katy.

  ‘I might,’ said Chalky, ‘I’d better think about it.’

  So with business being bad plus a son to take care of, Chalky’s mind was well pre-occupied. He had completely forgotten Betsy and was much less likely to remember her brother Rolly. So when Rolly walked into the bar one day, Chalky got quite an unpleasant shock.

  A white autumn mist hung over the harbour as little boats went back and forth from ship to shore. Out in the deep waters, lying at anchor, were the huge four-masted schooners, their white sails flopping loosely in the soft breeze. They were resting awhile, needing the time for the barnacles to be removed and a refit to be done before returning to the endless expanse of ocean. A shaft of sunligh
t filtered slowly through the mist lighting up the stone harbour wall and exposing the huddled shapes of the beggars who lay there out of the stiff Atlantic breeze which always blew around the harbour. Poor hopeless wrecks, they were, most of them disabled seamen, befallen fruits of the great sea battles. Once the sea had dispensed with them, there was no livelihood for them and they remained dirty ragged limbless men begging for a mere existence.

  From the deep bow window of a nearby inn, a man looked down with compassion at these men. His dark eyes were angry and there was a frown on his brow. ‘My God,’ he muttered to himself, ‘what a fate for these so valiant of British seamen! Surely no country on earth was so great, yet so morally impoverished as this?’ He reflected on the fertile colony of Virginia, on its poor but happy settlers, each man was owner of his destiny and allowed to live and think freely. He would return to that land again and leave this battered country for ever, to the deep green valley where he had made his home. A dreamy smile crossed his lips as he thought of Marcelle, his little wife. He had not seen her in years, but now he would take her and her child to this clean new world and maybe have children of his own. His sons would inherit his green valley. He stroked his little black pointed beard thoughtfully as his mind wandered over these matters.

  Yes, this was our friend, Thomas Mayhew, back home in England on what was not a happy homecoming. His deep-set unfocused eyes stared out to sea. Out there in the Atlantic a ship was sailing steadily towards England and aboard was a great man, a heart-broken man who had lost his much-cherished eldest son, slain by the Spaniards. The great Sir Walter Raleigh was sailing home from a disastrous voyage to the New World, a broken, defeated man.

  A silent brooding atmosphere hung over the port. It even pervaded the inn, and had affected those poor devils crouched by the wall out there. The secret was out: everyone knew that the King’s men were out there waiting for the great man to come ashore. They could see the glint of steel and hear the impatient clamp of the horses’ hooves echo through the misty air. The escort was ready to take Sir Walter back to the Tower, where he had already spent thirteen years. It was a hard and bitter fate for a man so great, but there was no gold in the hold of his ship and King James considered this to be treason.