Shadow on the Highway

by Deborah Swift

  When I arrived she was feeding William with some potage. He was on her knee and she was pushing the food into his mouth with the horn spoon. William looked sickly as usual. He’d never been a strong baby and was always ailing for something. Martha was knitting by the hearth and barely looked up to greet me, she was absorbed in the task as only a six year old can be, with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

  When I asked her about Ralph she said, ‘It will be harder for me with him away. I’ll miss him.’

  I realised she had already accepted his departure. ‘Perhaps he won’t go,’ I said.

  ‘He must do his duty. But it will mean I must pay for someone to get in the harvest if I want it done. And it has to be done. Unless I give the Fanshawes their portion, they can put me out and get a better tenant.’

  ‘They wouldn’t do that.’

  She shook her head. ‘They put out old Seth Armstrong when he couldn’t till the land any more. Don’t you remember? Their man, Grice, came and put his furniture out on the step. He had to go to his son. It was so sad. He’d been here twenty years.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ I said, ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t.’ I didn’t know how, but I knew my mother was not going to be left without a roof over her head again. I dared not tell her anything about Lady Katherine and Ralph.

  ‘How are you getting along with Lady Katherine?’

  I jumped. She must have read my thoughts.

  ‘Well enough,’ I said.

  Mother frowned and said, ‘Are you sure?’

  I nodded. I could not trust myself to speak. She drew me over to her arms and embraced me, but I pushed her away, angry at having to keep so much bottled inside. Soon after, I made my excuses to leave. I saw in her eyes I’d made her sad, but I couldn’t help it. Everything seemed to be going wrong.

  When I got home I tussled it all in my mind. No use to ask Ralph to be sensible, to forget about the Diggers and help mother with the harvest. Not now he was sweet on my mistress. But now there was my mother and father leaning on him to join the army too. What would he choose? The Diggers were bad enough, but they were harmless. I wanted to slap him, tell him to stay away from Father and Cromwell’s men. If he followed Father to the wars, he might get himself killed.

  *

  The next day Lady Katherine gave Mistress Binch the day off because Mr Grice and his men were going out to meet somebody called Wentworth, and would be out all day. Mr Grice had given my mistress some Bible tracts to copy, but I knew his absence meant my mistress would be insistent on us going to the Common.

  The day before I’d come across Grice in the library, surrounded by more deeds and papers. I remembered him forging Sir Simon’s name and it made me uneasy. Should I tell my mistress? We were awkward and distant with each other now and it was hard to talk.

  When I got to the stable yard Pepper was saddled up along with Blaze, Lady Katherine’s finer-boned horse. A stable boy offered to help her up, but Lady Katherine ignored him and swung up into the saddle easily. She was dressed in her green riding habit, but I guessed what was in the carpet bag she carried on her arm. She slung this onto the pommel and we set off. What would happen? Would Kate decide to stay there with the Diggers? I couldn’t imagine it. Perhaps her enthusiasm for them was all talk. I worried about my position at the Manor. Without Lady Katherine, Grice would sack me in an instant.

  The weather was warm and sultry. Dark purple clouds hung in the sky. Out of sight of the house Lady Katherine changed into the maid’s skirts and thrust her cloak and other clothes under a hedge. Once Lady Katherine was gone, and Kate was in her place she kept trying to catch my eye to speak to me but I would not give her chance.

  On the bridleway she hung back so I had to go first and show the way. As soon as we arrived, a crowd gathered around us to look at Kate’s horse.

  ‘Where did you get him?’ Jacob asked.

  I waited with satisfaction at her discomfort. ‘He belongs to Lady Katherine,’ Kate said. ‘But she doesn’t go out any more, so she’ll never know.’

  ‘You mean you just took him without asking?’ Jacob’s face was full of doubt.

  Kate patted Blaze on the neck. ‘I couldn’t bear to see him cooped up every day in the stable. He needed the exercise, poor lad.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. It’s a shame to think of an animal like that lying idle,’ Jacob agreed. ‘Lady Katherine should be glad he’s having a run out. Though I can understand you being afraid to ask her, Abi says she’s wild as a cat.’

  I did not dare look at her as Jacob took the horses away to tether them with the others, calling, ‘In that central clearing – that’s where we’ll need the fire.’

  I looked around but could not see Ralph. Keen to impress Jacob, I searched around for some stones and lugged the first two and laid them down, before Kate realised what I was doing and came to help. It amused me to see her pick up the rocks and put them next to mine as if they were eggs she was lifting from a nest. They were heavy though and she was soon panting, sweat darkening under the sleeves of her bodice. When we had enough stones I started to dig a pit, but then an idea struck me and I handed Kate the spade. ‘You wanted to be a digger. Well, the fire pit needs digging.’ Ralph would soon see she would be hopeless in their community.

  ‘How deep?’ She picked up the spade and tried to jam it into the earth but it rebounded. We had had so little rain in the last month.

  ‘Two handspans, maybe.’

  I went to gather kindling and when I came back I saw that she was struggling to make an impression on the dry stony soil. I watched her rub her back and then press down with her foot on the top of the blade to try to force it down. Her boots were scuffed and dusty. I smiled to myself and went back to the copse for more wood.

  When I got back it was to see Ralph and Jacob digging the pit and Kate standing to one side admiringly. Furious, I dropped the wood down and said to her, ‘If you’ve nothing to do, go and fetch more wood.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, and with a sideways look at Ralph and Jacob she hurried away.

  Ralph drew me to one side and rounded on me, his eyes ablaze. ‘Who do you think you are, doing the easy work and leaving poor Kate struggling all by herself? We’re all in this together and a bit of courtesy to your fellow Diggers costs nothing. Our community stands by our good will to one another. If you can’t be peaceable with Kate, then you need to think whether you want to be here at all.’

  ‘But she –’

  ‘I’m seeing another side to you, Abigail, and it’s not one I like. Jealousy makes people ugly. Now finish the hearth and for heaven’s sake try to treat everyone fair.’ He glared at me and strode off.

  The injustice of it burned in my chest. Jacob stood up from digging and walked away without even looking at me. The thought that he must think ill of me made me want to cry. But I wouldn’t let anyone see. I thumped the rocks down around the pit, ignored Kate when she came to help. But I had to admit, she did try, she heaved boulders and split wood, and by the end of it her hands were just as filthy as mine.

  Kate tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. ‘I’m sorry. I saw you arguing with Ralph. I didn’t ask them to help,’ she said, squatting next to me as we built up the fire, ‘he just took the spade out of my hands.’

  ‘You are deceiving him.’ I was almost in tears. ‘I don’t like to see you do that to someone I care for.’

  ‘What makes you think I don’t care for him?’

  I searched her face and a red flush bloomed on her cheeks in response. I threw down the last sticks. That was all I needed, I saw then that I was too late to stop it, that they were drawn to each other despite the fact they were oil and water, never destined to mix.

  Jacob was watching us, so I braced my shoulders and began to shred dry tinder for the fire. The men had built up the dwelling places with wattle and daub and thatched the roofs with bracken before we had the cauldron on the fire to make a stew, but in the distance a forked flas
h lit up the sky and the first big drops of rain began to fall. I could feel the tingling sensation that always came before a storm. We ignored it, and Kate stirred the pot.

  A flicker of white cloth in the trees. I stopped what I was doing to look. A crowd of men was approaching, two on horseback, more on foot. They carried scythes and halberds. My spine prickled. ‘Ralph!’ I called. ‘Jacob!’

  Our men came to the clearing and waited as the delegation approached. I recognised John Soper and his loathsome son Ned, Francis Quill the taverner, and a few others. They already had the look of men about to fight, their chins thrust forward, hands gripped into fists or round their weapons.

  ‘Cover your face,’ I hissed to Kate, seeing her standing like a mooncalf. She pulled her shawl over her head and mouth.

  Jacob took hold of my arm.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Get back to the highway. Quick. We’ll meet you at the crossroads.’

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll not be chased away by a few farmers.’

  Jacob ignored her. ‘You’ll be safer. We’ll fetch you back later. Now go.’ He hauled me by the sleeve and gave me a shove in the direction of the road. I glanced over my shoulder to see that the crowd of men had surrounded our little band of brothers. An angry conversation was in progress and the men pranced on their feet as if waiting for something to begin.

  With sickening clarity I saw the moment when Ralph launched his fist at John Soper and the red spurt of blood as it connected, and the two groups blundered into one fighting mass.

  The other women of our party fled down the hill towards us.

  ‘Run, Kate!’ Susan hurried past and pulled my mistress forward. I hitched up my skirts and spurted after her, and to my relief Kate followed us.

  But my relief was short-lived. When we emerged from the trees at the crossroads, a large group of hostile-looking women was waiting for us. I skidded to a stop.

  They were not women I knew.

  One of them picked up a stone. ‘Diggers out!’ The chant was crystal clear.

  The sky filled with the dark stings of flying sticks and stones. A rock glanced my cheek. Kate doubled over to protect her head with her hands.

  Susan tried to run again. ‘No!’ Kate grabbed her and shouted into her terrified face. ‘Don’t run. We’re Diggers remember. Stand together.’

  We clasped together then, in a huddle, under the rain of more stones and clods of dry earth. From the corner of my eyes I saw the silhouettes of Mr Grice and his men. They were talking and gesticulating. Mistress Binch was pointing up the hill. So she had told Grice about the meetings in the barn after all. I was about to warn Kate when a clod of stony earth hit me in the face and blinded me.

  I panicked, suddenly plunged into darkness and silence.

  A pair of hands took me by the shoulders. Kate. She clung on to my waist to stop me running. I blinked, still half-blinded, rubbed my face. Just in time, for the village men were streaming towards us, leaping and yelling something in jubilation. The women who had thrown stones opened their mouths too like braying donkeys.

  A scatter of missiles thudded down around us before they took the road in a great crowd, congratulating each other, the men with blood-stained fists, full of jesting and bravado. We watched them disappear around the corner in the direction of Wheathamstead. Mr Grice and Mistress Binch were gone along with them. I hoped to heaven they had not recognised us.

  In their wake we stood shivering, the rain pelting down on us, tending our grazes as best we could. One of the women was feeling faint as she had been hit on the temple by a stone. We huddled together but nobody came.

  ‘I’m going to see what’s happened.’ I set off up the hill, and Kate followed in my wake. We were all subdued, fearful of what we would find when we reached the clearing.

  Nothing of the men’s hard work remained. The houses were flattened, the fire scattered, our food wasted. But we were relieved to see the men still standing, bedraggled from the rain. Ralph squeezed a bloodied kerchief to a gash on his forehead.

  At the sight of us, limping and clutching our cuts and grazes, Ralph hurried over and took Kate by the arm.

  Kate told him about the women.

  He was angry with himself. ‘We should never have let you go alone. I shouldn’t have asked you to come. Are you hurt?’

  Kate shook her head and looked about her at the broken houses. ‘It’s ruined. Look at it.’

  ‘Never mind that. Next time we will keep you women folk away until it is established.’

  Jacob came over. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘It looks like you came off the worst,’ I said, for one of his eyes was almost closed and his hands were cut and bruised.

  He tried to smile, but it obviously hurt.

  ‘They’ll not stop us,’ Ralph said. ‘Right is on our side. How far down do they own this land?’ He grabbed up a handful of wet earth, showed it round in front of us. ‘To here? Or further down to where our spades reach? Does a mole recognise these boundaries? No, he can go where he wishes on God’s land. Are we less than a mole? We who are made in God’s likeness? No. We will persevere.’

  Ralph looked round expectantly, expecting a cheer, but the men’s faces were doubtful.

  ‘Come on, men!’

  I felt almost sorry for him.

  ‘We women will be with you Ralph, in spirit, if not in body.’ Kate’s face shone. ‘And I for one I would stand by your side, if you’d only let me.’

  The women clapped and whooped and then the men looked a little more convinced. Ralph’s next shout, ‘Never say die!’ was greeted with the cheer he wanted. I saw him look to Kate and beam.

  I had to grip tight to my apron and press my lips together to remind myself that she wasn’t Kate, the zealous digger, but Lady Katherine, wife to Sir Thomas Fanshawe. Her servant, Mistress Binch, had incited Soper and his men to destroy what Ralph had built. But there was no doubt Kate meant her words, and it brought a cold chill to my heart.

  How could my mistress be so foolish? Love between her and Ralph would be a disaster.

  12. Letters and Lies

  That night I sent up a fervent prayer that the Fanshawe men would return soon, and that my mistress would behave as a proper wife should and never see Ralph again. Lord help us, if word got out that my mistress had been on the common. Sir Simon would beat her senseless.

  Our bruises were hard to explain away. Lady Katherine told Grice she had grazed her hands falling off her horse and that it had kicked me when I went to catch it. I could see he did not quite believe her, but could find no other explanation for the cuts on her hands or my bruised cheek. We were both forbidden to leave the house, or to ride unless he accompanied us, and his servants were to prevent us if we tried to go out. In one way it was a relief, to know my mistress was safe indoors.

  Grice busied himself close to Lady Katherine in the main chamber, poring over property deeds and an inventory of goods. Every so often he would ask my mistress rudely what had been spent on vinegar for the polishing, or how much bran the horses ate. His presence meant Lady Katherine and I could have no conversation, and the day was airless. The room grew stuffy and still, except for my mistress’s quill moving over the parchment as she copied tracts from the Bible or stitched her sampler.

  I saw a thought pass over her face, and she paused with her needle poised over the embroidery. ‘Can Ralph read?’ she mouthed.

  I nodded, already wary.

  She smiled thoughtfully, and got out a clean parchment.

  Later, Mr Grice fetched maps of the county, and spent a long time tracing the boundaries with his finger and showing Pitman and Rigg routes to Worcester. I feared he was planning the movement of troops and horses for the King’s Army, and I immediately regretted the promise I made my father to let him know of any Royalist plans. When I had finished dusting the furniture and rubbing the windows I was dismissed.

  When I went up again to repair the fire. Mr Grice and his men
had their backs to us and Lady Katherine thrust a neatly-folded letter into my hand.

  ‘For Ralph,’ she mouthed.

  I was reluctant, and tried to push it away, but Mr Grice turned round, sensing some disturbance and I stuffed the parchment hastily into my skirt waistband.

  As I cleaned the rest of the upstairs windows, the letter was like a brand burning my stomach. I toyed with the idea of breaking the seal to see what was in it. But it was one thing giving Mr Grice letters from my mistress to Sir Simon or Thomas Fanshawe, but another handing over something meant for my brother. I’d never do that. I slammed the window shut and picked up my pail.

  I was beginning to think it might be a good idea after all if my father could persuade Ralph to join the New Model Army. Then this business with my mistress would stop. But that daft Susan had told Ralph how brave Kate was – that she’d made us all stand up for our rights against the mob of village women. So far from putting Ralph off, the fighting had bonded him to Kate even more. And Kate was just as moon-faced over Ralph.

  *

  At ten bells Mr Grice came and summoned me to his chamber as usual.

  ‘Today’s correspondence from Lady Katherine,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  I shook my head and acted stupid on purpose because I did not want to tell him about Ralph or the letter.

  ‘She was writing a letter earlier, I saw her.’ Mr Grice gestured to his servant and Pitman took hold of me by the neck with one hand, pinioning me to the wall. I could scarcely breathe, Pitman’s fleshy hand pressed against my neck, my pulse throbbed against his thumb. Mr Grice moved in, so his face was so close I could see the sweat on his nose. Instinctively I tried to flinch away, but his eyes bored into mine, as if he knew I was withholding something.

  ‘If she receives any more letters from her husband I want to know. And hers to him are to come straight to me. Do you understand?’

  I choked out, ‘She gave me no letters.’ Pitman tightened his hold so I gasped and struggled.