Betsy had decided to turn down her chance to go to the fair in case she saw Daniel. She was still his wife and he would have the power to sell her. All her instincts told her he would not do this, but the image of his grim face as she had glimpsed him through the window holding the straw halter was strong.
There was also the prospect of bumping into Richard Choicely again and when he found out who she was working for he would think it strange, especially as she had run from him when he spoke to her about Daniel at the last fair.
When Marie told her that her friend Rosa had called and would be at the fair, she knew that she would go after all. In the short while she had known Rosa and Bill she had grown fond of them both and Rosa understood her as few others did. It would be good to be with them again for a few hours. She was afraid to hope too much that Daniel would be there, and if he was and she saw him she could not bear to think what she would do. She found herself longing for a glimpse of his beloved face, yearning to feel his hands caressing her again, yet she knew she would not approach him for fear of the consequences. It was hard to push the memories of Redwood Farm away, when she missed it all so very much, but whenever the memories threatened to overwhelm her she forced herself to picture in her mind the hated straw halter and Daniel taking it from the hook on the day she returned from trying to trace the boy called Zac. She had proved she could survive on her own and today she would be with her friends in their caravan most of the time so the danger of bumping into either Daniel or Richard Choicely was not great.
Betsy, Marie and one of the gardener’s lads travelled to the fair in the cart driven by the under-gardener. The lad was cheeky with the two of them at first, happy to be on a fun day off, and Marie enjoyed his attention. Betsy was glad about this because she thought they might go off together and leave her free. Marie chatted excitedly for most of the journey and responded to the young boy’s flirting while Betsy smiled in response but was quiet and thoughtful.
At least she had no need to look for work this time and could simply enjoy seeing Rosa and Bill again. She recalled to herself the first time she met them, at the fair where, if she had stayed at Redwood Farm, Daniel was going to sell her, and she shivered. He had been to that one. She remembered how she had lost her employment there because she ran off to avoid him seeing her. The pain she felt now seemed to flow all over her body. The ache in her heart reached new heights of sharpness as the cart bumped along the track. Soon they would be at the fair and she admitted to herself how much she longed to have a glimpse of him.
‘Cheer up, Betsy. It’s going to be such fun.’ Betsy turned sharply as Marie poked her side and laughed. ‘You look as if you’re off to a fun’ral ’stead of a fair. Put a smile on with your clothes, my gran always says. Come on, there’s lots to do and see and we can all stick together.’
‘I’m meeting my friends, you remember, the lady who brought the message,’ she said.
‘Oh yes, ’course I do. Well …’ Marie turned her head to one side and looked at the gardener’s boy and Betsy breathed a happy sigh because she had been afraid that Marie would want to stay with her as there were only the two maids on the trip today. She was glad now that the gardening-lad was with them. It was clear she would have no bother there and on her return Marie would have lots to tell the girls she shared a room with.
When she left them, with instructions from the under-gardener about the time they all had to be back at the stable-yard, she walked purposefully past the stalls and amusements, intent only on reaching the edge of the field where Rosa and Bill’s caravan would be.
At the end of their first working stint Rosa and Bill wandered round as usual, pausing to look at stalls which interested them before returning to the caravan to see if Betsy had arrived. She was sitting on the grass at the side and she and Rosa fell into each other’s arms.
‘Come inside, oh, it is good to see you again.’ Rosa said, ‘how did you get here?’
‘In the cart with Marie, one of the other maids, the one who started at Clover Court same time as me, the gardener’s boy and the under-gardener.’
‘It seems a good place where you are,’ Bill said.
‘It is but I’m going to move on soon if I can.’
‘Why?’ Rosa handed her a cool drink made from berries and herbs, and offered a plate of home-baked cakes.
Betsy took one and smiled her thanks. ‘Because Lily, the daughter of the people I work for, is getting wed in the spring and I shall have to serve upstairs for the wedding and for some of the parties they are holding in the weeks before. The man she is marrying will recognize me, Rosa, and he will tell Daniel where I am.’
‘Isn’t that what you want, Betsy?’ Rosa’s voice was softly persuasive.
She could not pretend to Rosa.
‘More than anything else, but I can’t go back. He will try to bring me to market.’ Two bright spots of colour flushed her cheeks as an image of Daniel with the straw halter in his hand flashed yet again into her mind. Her eyes bright with unshed tears she said, ‘I won’t risk it. You don’t know how strong Daniel is over some things.’
They left her there when they returned to work, promising to go round the stalls with her when they finished their next session. ‘It is so good to see you again,’ Rosa said. ‘How long can you stay?’
‘All day. We left food for the family, and cook and two of the maids are going to be there. The rest of us will do it tomorrow when they come in.’
Less than ten minutes later, as they neared the cattle-market, they saw Daniel. Rosa went up to him and impulsively clasped his hand.
‘It’s Daniel Forrester, isn’t it?’ she said quickly. ‘If you’re looking for Betsy we left her in our caravan a short while ago.’ She ignored Bill’s warning look and went on, ‘We are over at the far end where it’s quiet. We’ll show you if you like.’
Hardly daring to believe what she had said about Betsy he eagerly went with them.
Betsy sat for a few moments listening to the sounds of the fair in the distance. In her head she could hear Rosa’s words about going back to Daniel. She would risk the humiliation of being turned away, she thought, because I walked out and I’ll understand if he doesn’t want me back, but much worse was the possibility of being sold again. No. Never. She couldn’t do that. It went against everything she had worked for, everything they had both worked for.
Reaching into the neckline of her dress she caressed the gold locket that Daniel had bought her. It was her most precious possession and she derived a deal of comfort from feeling it close to her skin.
She heard the sound of horses and looking towards the woods glimpsed the animals being tethered to a tree. Before she could scramble to her feet and get inside two rough-looking men appeared on the grassy patch by the side of the van. Unshaven and dishevelled, she could smell the ale on their breath as they pulled her up. One plunged his hand into the neck of her dress, ripping it open to reveal the locket, the other grabbed her hands shouting, ‘Leave the bauble for now, we’ll have her first, come on.’
As she struggled and tried to run towards the crowded fair, one of them slapped her hard across the face and spun her round towards the other, who did the same. Reeling from the blows and with her hands tightly gripped on either side of her, she was forced the opposite way into the woods.
She screamed and tried to drop to the ground so that she could crawl away but the two of them had her in such a strong grip that it was impossible. They dragged her along, but with the noise of the fair behind her, her screaming had no effect and they were getting further from the crowds with every second. Terrified, Betsy was panting with fear when suddenly they dived into a clump of trees.
If only one let go and she could aim a kick there was still a chance she could outrun them back to the fair. They were very drunk, so she might yet outwit them.
They all stumbled over a couple on the ground whose bodies were writhing and rolling together in agonized ecstasy, and with a loud oath one of the men fell on
top of them. The other, still dragging Betsy with him, ran on. In vain she tried to wrestle her hand from his, she felt drunk with the fumes coming from his mouth as he cursed and swore and dragged her further into the wood.
As she screamed he put his free hand over her mouth and she bit into it as hard and deeply as she could manage. Blood poured from the wound as he danced around in agony but his good hand stayed imprisoning hers. Frantically she tried to free it but his hold was stronger than hers. Once again she did as she had done to Tom Shooter in the larder; she aimed a kick that forced her assailant to release her hand. Suddenly he was doubled up with pain and she was free.
She raced back through the wood towards the fair and straight into the arms of the other villain who had picked himself up and was heading towards her. For a moment or so they fought but he soon overpowered her and began ripping the clothes from her back even as he threw her, screaming, on to the ground, flinging himself heavily on top of her.
When Rosa, Bill and Daniel reached the van and saw the signs of a scuffle on the grass Bill said, ‘The woods, you’d better stay here Rosa,’ but she was already moving towards the trees where the horses were tethered.
Richard, walking over to the stable-yard where his horse was, spotted Daniel with two other people whom he did not know. He had completed his business at the fair and walked round the perimeter to reach the yard to avoid some of the crowds in the centre. At that moment screams rang out from within the woods. Daniel and his friends raced through the trees and without thought for anything except someone in trouble, he followed them.
As Rosa, Bill, Daniel and, a short distance behind, Richard, rushed through the woods towards the sound, Betsy’s assailant was fighting what seemed to him like a madwoman.
The other villain caught them up but before he could join in and help subdue the fiery Betsy who was flailing out with arms and legs, Richard, Daniel, Bill and Rosa burst through the trees. With four against them the two men soon ran off towards the horses, leapt on their backs and went thundering back through the woods and towards the fair.
Meanwhile Agnes, who had found and had been shadowing Richard Choicely for a while, saw him disappear through the trees behind the caravan. She panted along in his wake. It was now or never. She would make him listen and believe her and the future would be secure, no more scraping and bowing. She was sure he would listen when she threatened to tell his fiancée and her family about the child his brother had sired and how the Choicely family had treated her. Especially when she revealed that this offshoot was even now working for them. Oh yes, the revenge would be sweet for her.
She couldn’t keep up with him, then she too heard the screams and stood still for a few moments to get her breath. The riders, galloping wildly back through the woods ploughed straight into her.
The accident at the fair which left Aunt Agnes dead shocked them all. None would have wished that kind of death on her, although Richard did see the justice of it more than most. An eye for an eye, he thought. He vowed to himself never to tell Betsy the truth about his brother’s death. It would do no harm to let her believe it was a real accident and not murder. The only person still alive now who knew the absolute truth was himself and he would take the secret to his grave.
The knowledge that Betsy had been working at Clover Court surprised both Richard and Daniel.
‘Although,’ Richard said to her much later when Agnes’s body had been taken away and they were all sitting in Rosa and Bill’s caravan, ‘the person I saw near the stables that night looked familiar, I did not know it was you. For a moment I thought it was the ghost of my mother and wondered whether I had perhaps imbibed a little unwisely.’
Some time later, their arms wrapped round each other, Betsy and Daniel walked to the stable-yard and climbed into their farm-cart to return home. Before they left Richard Choicely said he was going to Clover Court from the fair and he would explain what had happened and why she would not be returning.
‘Later,’ he said, ‘we must talk properly because you are part of my family, Betsy and,’ he turned to Daniel, ‘you also because she is your wife.’
‘There is nothing I need,’ Betsy said to him, her eyes shining and smiling in spite of the tragedy of a few hours ago. ‘I only wanted to find the truth.’
Sir Richard bade them all farewell. ‘Nevertheless, keep in touch,’ he said.
Once clear of the fair Daniel reined in the cart and they kissed. ‘My love,’ he whispered tenderly, ‘let’s go home.’
An hour later, back at Redwood Farm Daniel stabled the horse then came into the room where she was making a fuss of Dumbo.
‘Betsy, my dearest,’ he whispered, taking her in his arms, ‘I love you so.’
‘And I love you, Daniel. I’ll never leave you again. I was only half a person without you, my love.’
Suddenly he released her from his embrace. ‘Wait, there’s something I have to do, my darling, something I should have done a long time ago.’ He took the straw halter from its hook in the kitchen, threw it into the grate and set light to it. As it crackled and burned he drew her once more into his arms, while the circlet of straw hissed and sparked before crumbling into ashes.
By the Same Author
Tin Hats and Gas Masks
Copyright
© Joan M. Moules 2007
First published in Great Britain 2007
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0531 8 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0532 5 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0533 2(pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 8276 7 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Joan M. Moules to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The Straw Halter Page 19