‘I am seeking my man, sir,’ the woman whinged. ‘I remember your name. It was Colm!’
McFeeley gently told her, ‘You have to be strong, Lucy. They have put your man to death!’
Lucy Yates gave a sob and tears formed in her eyes. Yet to McFeeley it seemed that she was simply reacting to a sense of loss that wasn’t really focused on her husband.
Pulling on McFeeley’s hands, she pleaded, ‘Come into the bushes with me please, Colm, I needs to be comforted.’
The prospect turned McFeeley’s stomach. Yet he remembered what she once was, and could possibly become again, and he knew that, in her present delicate state of mind, he had a tremendous responsibility not to totally destroy her with a rejection.
‘You do want me again, Colm?’
‘I do,’ he lied. ‘It is time that worries me. I have to meet a gentleman at the manor.’
‘Then go,’ she urged with a pleased smile. ‘I just wanted to know that you could still love me. Go, Colm, and I will wait for you on this very spot.’
‘I will come back,’ McFeeley promised.
After being treated to the luxury of tubs filled with hot water, McFeeley and Piper had been given civilian clothes that, though not a perfect fit, made them feel good. Lord Stawell had told them of how Lady Sarah had secured their reprieve and release, but when McFeeley had tried to thank her she had blushed prettily and reminded him that he had saved her life more than once. She had explained that neither she nor Lord Stawell could be seen to be taking sides, so he and Piper would have to make their own way to London on foot the next day. Rachel had puzzled McFeeley by keeping to the background.
Rachel did not put in an appearance when Piper and he were ready to leave the next morning. Sarah stood facing him on the lawn in front of the manor. He was sad as the time for them to part, most probably forever, came nearer.
‘I trust, Lieutenant,’ she said in her melodious voice, not able to bring herself to use his first name, ‘that you will have no difficulty in rejoining your regiment when you reach London.’
‘It shouldn’t be too difficult. I’m hoping that I will be able to keep Jonathan Piper with me.’
Sarah smiled wistfully. ‘He is a good man. So unlikely a theatre-goer. Rachel was—’
As if having broken some rule by mentioning the name of her companion, Lady Sarah didn’t complete her sentence. As a diversion she did a little caress of the round stone head of a cherub that was testing the water of a carved birdbath with his toe.
Placing a hand on the cherub, McFeeley said, ‘This little fellow is lucky, having no cares.’
‘Don’t envy him, Lieutenant. Being without cares means that he is also without the delights that feelings can bring,’ she replied, blushing while providing him with enough of a lead to be bold.
‘What of us and our feelings, Sarah?’
Looking away, out across the lawn to the dark-green perimeter hedges, she spoke reflectively. ‘We would have to be made of stone where our feelings for each other are concerned, Colm. Our destinies were decided long before we met. Perhaps it would be different otherwise.’
‘When everything has settled down, I could come to you,’ he suggested.
Reaching out she patted his hand consolingly. This was the only physical skin against skin contact ever between them, and they were both unsettled by it. With a forlorn shake of her head, she told him, ‘There would be too many invisible and insuperable barriers. The chains of birth, heritage, family and marriage bind me.’
‘So what do we do?’ he asked as Lord Stawell came out of the manor, beckoning to them.
Moving slowly away, she said, ‘Each night take your first look at the moon and think of me, for I will be seeing the same moon and thinking of you. That way we shall always be together.’
At the last moment a bashful Rachel had emerged to bid them well in a barely audible voice. They were only a few hundred yards away from Stawell Manor when McFeeley’s name was called from a group of trees set back from the bank of the river.
‘Lieutenant McFeeley!’ the male voice called again.
Cautious, due to the fact that they were unarmed, McFeeley called, ‘Show yourself!’
‘It is I, John Whiting, the Quaker.’ An unkempt Whiting stepped from the trees.
McFeeley walked out to meet him and they shook hands. ‘How did you know where to find me, John?’
‘I was told where you were, Colm, by the lady who is waiting for you down by the bridge.’
What Whiting said brought Lucy Yates painfully back into McFeeley’s mind. He was twisted by guilt at the realization that she had waited on the river-bank for him throughout a night in which he had lain in an unbelievably comfortable bed at the manor.
‘Is she still there now?’ he asked, hoping for an answer that he was aware he wouldn’t get.
‘She is,’ Whiting nodded, his eyes revealing that he had assessed the situation regarding the woman. He changed the subject. ‘Would you step into the trees with me, Colm?’
With Piper at his side McFeeley followed the Quaker. They were only a little way into the copse when they saw a woman, standing with her back against the wide girth of an ancient tree. An astonished McFeeley found himself looking at Lady Henrietta, who was smiling at him.
‘Hello, Colm!’ she said, as if he had left her just a few minutes ago in Taunton.
‘You have heard of the fate of James Scott, Colm?’ said Whiting.
McFeeley shook his head. ‘I have heard nothing, John.’
‘He was taken in the New Forest together with Lord Grey of Werke,’ the Quaker said sadly.
‘But now they are both in the Tower,’ McFeeley was confident that he had it right.
‘James is,’ Henrietta said. ‘In his wisdom, the king has released my husband. I want to go to London with you, Colm.’
‘It is too long a trek for a woman, Henrietta. We have no horses,’ McFeeley said emphatically. ‘Surely you only have to wait, Henrietta, and Lord Grey will come to collect you.’
‘It is not my husband that has me head for London,’ Henrietta replied.
Looking at Whiting, McFeeley asked, ‘How do you regard this, John?’
‘I beg of you to take Lady Henrietta with you, Colm,’ was Whiting’s unexpected reply.
McFeeley was of a mind that John Whiting would see it all differently if he learned that Henrietta was pregnant. Yet this theory was destroyed when Henrietta said, ‘As you know, Colm, I am carrying James Scott’s child, which will prove favourable when I get to London.’
Whiting was nodding his head in agreement, staggering McFeeley further when he urged, ‘You can see what a service you will be doing, Colm. Her plea to the king to spare His Grace will be made powerful by the fact that she is bearing the Duke of Monmouth’s unborn child.’
Overruled and outnumbered, McFeeley warned Henrietta, ‘It will be tough going.’
‘I know,’ she replied with a sweet and courageous smile.
‘Will you be coming with us, John?’ McFeeley asked.
‘No, my friend. My fiancée awaits me back at Taunton, but my prayers will be with all three of you on every step of your pilgrimage,’ Whiting told him.
‘Then we will move out now so that we can cover many miles between now and twilight,’ McFeeley said. Then, lowering his voice to speak to the Quaker, he said, ‘Would you do something for me, John?’
‘You don’t need to ask, my friend. What is it?’
‘When we have gone,’ McFeeley said, ‘will you go back down to the woman at the bridge? Her name is Lucy Yates, and I would ask you to take her back to her home at Axminster.’
John Whiting smiled. ‘It will hardly put me out of my way, Colm. I will go to fetch her now.’
‘There is no need. I am here!’
Lucy Yates stepped out from behind a tree and came forward. She had washed and tidied herself since McFeeley had left her, and was very much her old, attractive self.
‘Lucy,’ McFeeley said, recov
ering swiftly from his surprise, ‘this is John Whiting, who will see that you get home safely.’
‘It is most kind of you, sir.’ Lucy Yates smiled at Whiting, but then became serious as she turned to McFeeley. ‘I am not going home, but to London with you.’
‘You are not thinking straight,’ McFeeley pointed out. ‘Your boy will be waiting at home.’
‘My son ran off to sea the day you came to my place,’ she told McFeeley, ‘and as for a home, I no longer have one.’
‘Then what will you do in London, madam?’ Whiting inquired.
‘I shall find work, sir. I am an able-bodied woman. But that is for the future. Today, tomorrow and the days that follow, sir, this lady,’ Lucy Yates pointed at Henrietta, ‘needs me to take care of her along the way.’
‘I would welcome that. Thank you, Lucy,’ a relieved Henrietta said.
Both McFeeley and Piper saw the situation more realistically, and trouble manifested itself insidiously that night as soon as they halted just outside of the town of Wimborne. McFeeley had chosen a small hollow with care. There were two grassy areas separated by a screen of bramble bushes that gave the women and himself and Piper some privacy. Before splitting up into this male/female arrangement for the night, they sat together eating the cold food that Piper had been carrying since leaving Stawell Manor, and drinking sparkling water from a stream.
Lucy kept very close to McFeeley, taking advantage of every move she made to press some part of her body against his. He was aware that Henrietta was observing this, a trace of amusement on her lovely face, and it embarrassed him.
‘It would be charitable of you to take that woman tonight, Colm,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want you myself, but Lucy’s need is much greater than mine.’
‘I will be lying over there,’ McFeeley said, pointing to where Piper was bedding down. ‘We must concentrate on reaching the city, Henrietta, and nothing will divert me from that aim.’
‘Listen to me, Colm, listen to me!’ Henrietta said animatedly. ‘I am not crazy, but all of my life I have been subjected to things that I do not understand. I have learned that I ignore my feelings at my peril. At this very moment I am convinced that you must lie with that woman tonight! Promise me that you will.’
Making his nod a signal of reluctant acquiescence, McFeeley was about to leave when Henrietta’s whisper reached him. ‘Sometime, Colm, maybe within the next hour, perhaps far into the future, you will learn why I have asked you to do this. The answer always appears sooner or later. Take her to where I can’t hear, Colm. I can be incredibly jealous!’
Lucy came straight to him as he walked away from Henrietta, pushing her body against his. Slipping an arm around a waist that had been thickened by having borne a child and hard physical work, he guided her towards a clump of bushes down by the stream.
As he always did, McFeeley had woken at daybreak. Lucy Yates was in his arms. Awaking her he disentangled himself; he wanted to get them moving off without delay. They had eaten breakfast on the move and within half an hour were entering the New Forest, a place that held many dangers, even in times of peace.
Thirteen
THEY HAD BEEN moving for about an hour between the trees, entranced by the colours of autumn, the undergrowth stroking them wetly as they passed through it, when the shout came in startling unexpectedness from somewhere among the trees.
‘Halt there! Halt I say!’
The two women and Piper looked to McFeeley for an indication as to what they should do. He gestured for them to stop. Whoever had shouted the command could not be argued with, as McFeeley and Piper were unarmed. If this was a band of robbers they had unfortunately come across, then they had nothing worth taking. The voice shouted once more.
‘Who do you say you are? Are you Monmouth rebels running?’
‘We are not. We are but peaceful pilgrims,’ McFeeley called back through the trees.
‘I am Colonel Penruddock,’ the disembodied voice shouted. ‘Stand absolutely still until my men have checked you out.’
‘The local militia,’ McFeeley said to Piper in a low voice. ‘Just stay calm and quiet. Once they’ve taken a look at us I reckon they will allow us to go on our way.’
Having reached up to the branch of a tree with her left hand, Lucy Yates relieved the tiredness of her body by letting her arm take her weight. She was giving McFeeley a smile to assure him that she wasn’t worried by what was happening, when the branch she was swinging on gave way. It snapped with an alarmingly loud crack that brought a practically instantaneous bark of a musket from within the trees. With a gurgling noise, Lucy slumped to the leafy floor of the forest.
Beating away the undergrowth, McFeeley and Henrietta bent to take a look at the stricken Lucy. A bullet had passed through her throat to almost sever her head from her body. There was no doubt: Lucy Yates was dead!
‘Here is the answer, Colm,’ a shocked Henrietta said quietly.
For a moment he looked at the torn, bloody flesh and the lifeless body. Could this really be the same body that had writhed in his arms in the throes of a great passion just a few short hours ago? For a moment he resented the pressure Henrietta had placed upon him to make love to the woman, but then he was glad that she had. Henrietta had received some kind of message and it had been a reliable one. Lucy had died free of any strong desires tying her to the world of the living.
Coming to his senses, McFeeley yelled, ‘Run!’
All three of them sprinted, crashing through the thick undergrowth, bashing and scratching themselves against the trees as they went. Shouts came from behind, but decreased in volume as they put distance between themselves and the pursuing militia. They made good time and had covered a lot of ground, so that when a breathless Henrietta was doubled over by a pain in her side, McFeeley called a brief halt.
‘We have no reason to run,’ Henrietta gasped as she regained her breath. ‘It is them who are in the wrong for killing poor Lucy.’
‘Which is why we are running,’ Piper explained.
‘I don’t understand!’ Henrietta plucked a wide-bladed leaf and wiped perspiration from her neck with it.
‘Accidentally or otherwise,’ McFeeley told her, ‘the militia has killed a woman. They cannot leave us alive to testify against them.’
‘We’d better get moving, sir,’ Piper advised as the sounds of movement through the trees came to them.
Running once more, they kept going by McFeeley and Piper each linking an arm with one of Henrietta’s and half carrying her along. It meant having to zigzag to find a wide passageway through the undergrowth, but it was the speediest way to get along.
They later came to a wooden fence with long, colourful flowers stretching up above it. ‘There must be a house at the other side,’ McFeeley whispered as they huddled against the fence.
‘The first place the militia will look, sir,’ Piper suggested as they slid along the fence and came to a high wooden gate.
‘Maybe no; we’ve nothing to lose,’ McFeeley replied, reasoning that the local colonel would not wish to antagonize the people he lived among.
Reaching up, he lifted a latch and the gate swung inwards. All three went through, finding themselves in a spacious garden and closing the gate behind them. Ahead of them was the rear of a house. It was a picturesque cottage with a coating of creeping ivy forming a dark green background for the flowers growing against the walls. There was a malt house on their left, and McFeeley hesitated over going to it because if the colonel and his men did come into the garden, they would head straight for it themselves.
‘Look!’
It was Henrietta who had breathed the word, and McFeeley looked at her and then on to where an old lady had come to the door at the rear of the house. Shielding her eyes against a sun that was now low in the sky, she peered in their direction.
‘She’s seen us, sir,’ Piper was saying, but then the old woman was waving an arm at them furiously, urging them to come to her.
‘Did you serve with His Grace the Duke of Monmouth?’ she asked, and they all knew that it was wise to agree that this was so.
‘And is it that bounder Colonel Penruddock that’s after you?’
‘It is, madam,’ McFeeley replied. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Aye, I know him. He’s a pig of a man who is a magistrate hereabouts. Now, come on the three of you – there is not time to waste!’
For all her frailty the old woman was extremely active. Leading them towards the malt house she opened the door and they saw that it was disused and full of rubbish. Tugging fiercely at the rubbish with her twisted old hands, she cleared a space and beckoned them inside.
‘Go in and lie flat,’ she told them, holding Henrietta back as she went to go into the building, ‘Not you, dearie.’
When McFeeley and Piper had done as the old woman had told them, she piled the rubbish she had removed back on top of them, then closed the door and hurried off, taking Henrietta by the arm.
‘You are with child, dearie!’ the old lady said as she and Henrietta went into the house.
‘How on earth can you tell?’ an astonished Henrietta asked, looking down at her still flat stomach.
‘You don’t miss much when you’ve been in the world as long as I have, dearie,’ the old lady chuckled. ‘Is one of them with you your man?’
This time it was Henrietta’s turn to smile, ‘No.’
‘But there is something between you and the older man,’ the old lady insisted. ‘As I said, dearie, I don’t miss anything.’
‘You’re right, we do mean something to each other,’ Henrietta confessed, ‘but he is not the father. The child I carry is that of the Duke of Monmouth.’
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