Shadow on the Highway

by Deborah Swift

Smoke belched from the door. Windows cracked and shattered. The thatch of the roof caved in, showering us with glowing sparks, as the house creaked and groaned under the roar of the fire. We threw on what water we could, beat at it with brooms, but it only raged harder. The wind had caught the fire between its teeth and would not let it go.

  Nobody ever asked if I had left a candle burning, but all knew I had. Elizabeth would say things like, ‘It started in Abigail’s room,’ when people asked.

  The curtain must have blown across the flame. I imagined the edge of the fabric tickling the flame until it lapped the hem. The slow grasping of fiery fingers moving up the curtain until the whole thing was ablaze. I shuddered. Even now, the thought was enough to make me squeeze my eyes tight shut, as if that could shut out the memories and the awful hollow pain of grief.

  And Elizabeth’s bitterness and blame followed me everywhere I went.

  ‘Everything’s ruined,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We’ve nothing left. I’ll have no dowry. Who will want to marry me now?’

  As I walked back to the Manor I pondered on these dark thoughts. Of how we had to move to the tithe cottage – a place so damp and unwelcoming when we arrived that Mother wept. And we were all ill that winter. The messels raged through the row of tithe cottages. At the end of it, all the other children stood up again the same as before. But not me. For me the world had closed its mouth.

  I knew why – it was punishment for what I’d done.

  *

  When I got back to the Manor, it was full dusk and the bats were doing their flit from barn to chimney. At night in bed I wished I could turn back time and worried about how to help Mother and Ralph. That interloper Grice had not yet paid me a farthing.

  And I thought of Lady Katherine facing a future with the odious Sir Simon and his cowardly son, if they ever came back, not to mention Mr Grice. Whatever the future held for me, it could not be worse than it would be for Lady Katherine – stuck here with Mr Grice with his festering leg and bad breath. At least if the worst came to the worst, I could leave. She did not have that choice.

  I realised there was not another soul who cared for her, only us. I remembered Ralph’s animated face whenever he talked of Kate. For the first time I wished that Lady Katherine really was Kate, and that she could be a part of my family. But I did not dare break it to my mistress that Mr Grice should not be here at all, that he had been dismissed. I had not forgotten his threat with the pistol. I would have to persuade someone to help us.

  19. A Death

  The next morning I was about to go up to Lady Katherine, but Grice would not let me. Instead he told her to keep to her chambers. Rigg and Pitman were to keep her company. But when I glanced up the stairs I saw them lounging outside her door. She was trapped indoors again. Meanwhile I was to sweep the rugs in the yellow chamber and the library and polish the grates and air the rooms, for Grice was expecting a visit from Captain Wentworth.

  I dared not disobey, but scratched at the rugs with the broom until I ran with sweat. I wanted to tell my mistress about how Grice should not be here, and taking orders from him now made me resentful. It took me all morning to do the tasks I was given, and then Grice demanded that I dress his wound again and polish his specially-made boots. He gave me instructions as to my duties when Wentworth came – opening the door, fetching refreshments, serving at table.

  When I was done, I tried to get in to see my mistress again but was sent away by Pitman. Captain Wentworth arrived at about four o’clock, cantering up on his fine bay horse. Mr Grice nodded at me to fetch cakes and ale.

  ‘If it’s for Captain Wentworth, I’m not giving my food to that pig.’ Mistress Binch stood before the door waving her skinny arms and shouting like a fishwife. I shuffled from foot to foot uncertain what to do but finally I nipped past her for the jug and ale on a tray, but left the cakes on the plates.

  The men were seated in the library on two leather upholstered chairs.

  ‘There seems to be some sort of disturbance below,’ said the Captain.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Grice said.

  The Captain smiled with supercilious amusement, and I detected a flicker of discord between the two men.

  I had barely set out the tankards when the door flung open. Mistress Binch burst over the threshold, her face set for a storm.

  ‘Mistress Binch,’ Grice said, before she could speak. ‘The Captain will be staying for dinner. Lady Katherine is to –’

  ‘No.’ Mistress Binch took a deep breath so her scrawny chest puffed out like a pigeon. ‘I’m not staying another minute. I don’t know what’s come over you, but I’d rather try my luck at Lady Ann’s. At least she keeps an honest household.’ Grice was about to speak but she rode over his words. ‘Look at you! Sir Simon would flay you alive if he could see you now, doling out ale to Cromwell’s pigs.’

  ‘Get out.’ Grice had found his tongue.

  But Mistress Binch was not done. She pointed at him, her face tight with rage. ‘I know what you are. You shouldn’t even be here, eating his food and quaffing his ale. He sacked you, and with good reason. Traitors, the lot of you, to the King’s good name. I spit on you.’ And she hawked a gobbet of spit towards Grice’s boots.

  Mistress Binch was out of the door before Grice could even lift a hand. His face flushed beetroot. He yelled for his servants. Captain Wentworth suppressed a superior smile as Grice hobbled into the hall, too slow to catch her.

  I was rigid, tied to the spot. Grice would know I had read his letter. From the window I could see Mistress Binch striding determinedly down the path. A small thin figure, empty-handed, her apron ties flapping, her back stiff as a wall as if to put us behind her. She was walking away from us with no reference and not a single possession. Half of me wanted to chase after her shouting, ‘Wait for me!’ But my loyalty to Lady Katherine was stronger and I stayed put.

  Grice returned and made an attempt at humour. ‘Servants! You can never trust them, can you. Always one thing or another.’ I pressed my lips together and tried not to let his insult rankle. Grice’s face was one that was unused to smiling and it soon fell back into its disgruntled frown. ‘I’ll have her charged,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t mind on my account. Let her go,’ Wentworth said lazily. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea. Or cooks, should I say.’ He turned to me. ‘Can you cook?’

  I opened my mouth to reply but Grice said, ‘Her? No. She can’t do much. She’s deaf as a tree-trunk and twice as stupid …’ He paused and gave me a penetrating look. He came over to me and grabbed me by the chin, his cold eyes searching mine.

  ‘Can you read?’ he asked.

  I forced myself to shake my head dumbly.

  He tightened the grip on my throat, but I continued to look blankly at him. ‘Are you as stupid as you look, Abigail Chaplin?’

  I did not react. He pushed me away from him, and I bobbed a curtsey as if it pleased me.

  ‘Idiot girl,’ he said.

  Captain Wentworth glanced at me as if I were of little interest.

  ‘What are you gawping at, fetch us ale,’ Grice said to me.

  By the time I came back with the jug they were sitting talking about Lady Prescott and the gold. Captain Wentworth had big flabby lips under his ginger moustache. They were easy to read.

  ‘Shame for it all to go on mercenaries,’ Wentworth said. ‘Especially as I haven’t been paid my dues for nigh on six months.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Grice’s eyes grew sharper.

  Wentworth whispered, ‘We could split it. Half to the army, half to us.’

  I poured the ale, and Grice tapped his fingers on the table. I could see he did not trust Wentworth.

  Wentworth went on, ‘Come on, man. What’s to stop us? Nobody else knows about it. In fact, if it didn’t get there at all, who’d be the wiser?’

  I could not stay because I had served the ale and to be there longer would have looked strange. And I needed to think. I could not believe Mistress Binch had really gone.
I put my eye to the keyhole to see if I could read their conversation. When they were side-on against the window like that, it was not too hard.

  ‘Our troops are already at St Alban’s,’ Wentworth said. ‘They’re lusting for blood and to finish this war. God help any Royalist in their way.’

  ‘When will they get here?’ Grice said.

  ‘In the early hours of the morning, I guess.’

  I was uncertain I had made it out correctly and I couldn’t see more because Grice stood up, and his back came between my spyhole and Wentworth. After a few moments I crept away. But if I had got it right, Cromwell’s men were coming – they would be men intent on blood and plunder, and the mere thought turned me cold.

  *

  When I went to get milk from the churn I saw Lady Katherine’s face, pale at the window like a moth to the light. She had been sad since Ralph had rejected her. It gave me a twinge of pain to see her like that, so unlike the imperious mistress I had first met.

  I did my best in the kitchen but there was no time to cook the ingredients on the table, so I could only provide left-over potage and bread. It was a soulless, empty place without Mistress Binch. If it wasn’t for the fact I was owed more than two month’s wages, I would be tempted to leave myself. But I could not. I could not leave Lady Katherine all alone.

  Battle was drawing closer, I could feel it. There was a stillness in the air, a foreboding that made my spine shiver and the blood race widdershins round my body. And I could not leave now in any case, I had nowhere to go. Besides, despite her treatment of me, Lady Katherine had grown in my affection in a way I had not expected. God knows, I had not thought to feel any loyalty to her, but somehow I did.

  *

  While the men talked Grice instructed me to accompany Lady Katherine on an evening stroll in the grounds. Now I knew Grice was a liar, and not supposed to be in charge, he scared me. No doubt he and Wentworth were discussing strategies for the forthcoming battle against the King’s Army. I could not believe they were fighting on the same side as my father, these sour-faced men.

  Pitman watched us set off from beside the front door, with a musket by his side. There was nobody to help Lady Katherine now, I realised. They were all her enemies.

  As soon as we were clear of the house, I said, ‘You’ve got to listen! Grice is a liar and a fake. Your husband does not even know he’s here.’ I told her about the letter.

  ‘Are you sure? There’s no mistake?’ She looked as if a puff of wind might blow her over. She walked away from me past the rows of roses, sweet-scented in the evening air, looking in a daze towards the far horizon.

  When she came back, I said, ‘He threw my mother out of her cottage too, no notice or anything.’

  ‘How dare he!’ She paced up and down. ‘What shall we do? The gall of the man! But I daren’t try to get rid of him. You saw how he threatened me.’

  ‘We’ll have to pretend we don’t know. Get word to someone. Write to your husband.’ A pang of guilt. ‘I’ll make sure the letter goes, this time, I promise.’

  ‘Pitman’s staring at us, better stroll on,’ she said. ‘Act like we’re looking at the garden.’ We picked a few roses and walked over onto the lawn, heading towards the long shadow of the big oak. The sun was low in the sky by now, barely over the horizon.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Grice cheating us all this time. He’s sold the rugs from under our feet, the pewter from our table. Made me sign away the mill and the cottages, pretending it was all instructions from Sir Simon.’ She put her hand over her mouth, a thought had just come. ‘Oh my Lord. My husband and Sir Simon will kill me. They’ll think I’m to blame. What am I to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry now that I didn’t disobey Grice’s orders sooner. But I never knew –’

  ‘It’s not your fault. We must think who to tell. The Fanshawes have not much support round here, I don’t know if anyone will help us.’ She paced away from me but then turned back, her face drawn with anguish. ‘I wish I were Kate. I wish the Diggers were here with their advice. Ralph would know what to do, or Jacob.’

  ‘They won’t release him unless someone pays.’ I told her about my visit to Jacob. ‘And he’ll be so frustrated, sitting there unable to do anything. Tonight was the night he was supposed to –’

  The coach. I had a sudden intuition. The gold. It would be enough to get Ralph out.

  ‘What is it?’ My mistress had seen the thought cross my face.

  ‘The Silent Highwayman. You could hold up Lady Prescott’s coach.’

  She looked at me blankly.

  ‘Don’t you remember? Grice is talking with Captain Wentworth about it right now. They’re going to intercept her at the crossroads. Ralph had volunteered to take the gold with Wentworth, but he can’t now he’s in gaol, Grice is going instead. But what if the Silent Highwayman got there first, I mean you …’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘I made a vow not to. There’s trouble enough, and this is the King’s gold, not just a few trinkets.’

  ‘You’re right. Sorry. It’s a foolish idea. And it would be too dangerous. Wentworth was wanting Grice to help him, and then to share the spoils between them, but I fear Grice wants keep it for himself…’ I stopped. She wasn’t listening.

  ‘I think you could be right. It could work,’ she said. ‘Abi, I could go myself, fetch him out of gaol. Ralph couldn’t be angry at me any more if I did this for him,’ she said. ‘After all, it’s not just robbery is it? It’s for Parliament – to help end the fighting. Ralph wanted to stop the gold reaching the King’s Army.’

  I wished I’d never suggested it. I was filled with doubt now, because I realised Wentworth and Grice would be out there, and who knows how many other armed troops.

  But Lady Katherine was alight with enthusiasm. ‘He’d see I am on his side! It’s perfect. It must count for something with Ralph, I’m sure, if I’d helped the Parliament cause. Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But you’re a royalist.’

  ‘I’m a Digger.’

  ‘It will be too heavy for you to carry. Bits of coin and jewellery fit easily in a pocket, but that –’

  ‘I can do it, I know I can.’ She ran over to me, took hold of my hands. ‘I can hide the rest of the gold somewhere and then Ralph can go back to collect it.’ She saw I did not look convinced, and she squeezed my fingers. ‘If Ralph believed in me, he might ask the Diggers to help us, persuade Jacob’s father to arrest Grice.’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ The idea suddenly seemed outlandish, mad.

  ‘It’s worth trying.’

  ‘It would be risking your life.’

  She walked to the hedge and stared at the house, at its windows reflecting back the pink-tinged sky. ‘I have no life. Not one worth living.’ When she turned, her whole demeanour had changed. The jut of her chin told me she would not let me dissuade her. ‘At the old packhorse bridge,’ she said. ‘Before the crossroads. They’ll have to slow there because it’s so narrow. Coaches have to ford the stream.’ She talked with her hands, curving shapes in the air to show bridge and water.

  We looked at each other and my heart drummed hard in my chest.

  My mistress went quiet then, and we strolled back towards the house. I wanted to shout at her, to tell her not to go, but I knew it would be no use. She never listened to anyone once her mind was made up. As we approached Pitman gestured angrily at us to go away and walk round the garden again. We walked silently arm in arm for another fifteen minutes, as the last of the sun winked over the horizon, both of us alone with our thoughts.

  She stopped dead.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked. Something had startled her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘probably nothing. I’m jumpy as a hare.’ She let go of my arm, and relaxed. ‘Just a distant shot. Someone scaring crows, or after deer. There hasn’t been much stag-hunting on our land since my stepfather went away, that’s all.’

  I did not care about farmers and the
ir sport. ‘It’s tonight,’ I said, ‘that Lady Prescott is riding through.’

  ‘I know. I could have wished for a better night, one with no moon. Tonight there will be a harvest moon, enough to see my shadow on the highway.’

  ‘Are you sure you still want to go? Maybe there’s another way.’

  ‘We need some men on our side to help us drive out Grice. Ralph and his friends are the only men I trust. Besides, Lady Prescott is a brave soul,’ said Lady Katherine. ‘She risks her life for her King. If she can brave the highway at night, then so can I. Though I would not like to be in her place – not with Grice and Wentworth waiting like wolves in the dark. And now I must add to her troubles.’

  I did not say anything, but wondered at her courage. Lady Prescott would be armed, or probably guarded, carrying a cargo like that. My mistress might never come back. If she failed, what then? My family would be homeless, my brother would languish in gaol, and I would be without a livelihood.

  Lady Katherine took hold of my arm. Rigg was signalling that we could go back inside. Once inside the door I could smell the faint but unmistakeable tang of gunpowder. My mistress went to her room, but I lingered in the hall.

  The smell bothered me. A shot had been fired inside, I was certain. It was the noise that Lady Katherine heard. I followed my nose into the main chamber. In there, the scent was more metallic, hotter. It wasn’t just the smell of the wax candles or the wall sconces. I looked around for any sign of where the shot might have gone, but could see no marks anywhere on the wall.

  There was a slight damp smear on the floor. I crouched to look more closely. Directly above, on the wall were tiny dark spots. A spatter like the pattern on a bird’s egg. I picked up a candle and went closer. Blood.

  Someone had been shot in here, and the mess wiped from the floor.

  20. Highway Maid

  Grice and his two men passed, silhouettes in front of the window. So the blood had to be Captain Wentworth’s. I had not seen him leave. Maybe he was wounded somewhere. My head swam, but I hurried down to the kitchen, nauseous, clinging to the rope banister.