This Rough Ocean

by Ann Swinfen

  When he had gone, Anne felt as exhausted as if she had climbed a hill. She had no notion how best to proceed, but there was no one else to take charge. The household here was larger than any she had run before, and the constant lack of food caused her a great deal of worry, but one household is much like another. There was satisfaction, too, in seeing the house, so cold and desolate when they arrived, thrumming again with life as it had done in the old days, when she had spent so much time here as a child. Once again the smell of baking hung in the air, the great fires of logs warmed the rooms, and the sound of children’s laughter brightened the whole house.

  It was another matter altogether to direct the great lands of Swinfen. Not only was there the management of the home farm. The mill must be overseen, the tenants dealt with, and the rents collected. Word would certainly have spread amongst the tenants that Master Swynfen was ill. There would be some who would use this as an excuse to absent themselves on Quarter Day. And because of the last terrible year, in which renewed fighting and stormy weather had combined to afflict farmers, there would be some who simply could not pay. In the past, Richard Swynfen had always been willing to commute some of the cash payment into kind, so that his tenants could pay in chickens or sheep or hams, but if the tenants were as hard-pressed as the manor, Anne could not accept food and leave them to starve. She would have to extend credit till next Quarter Day at Midsummer. Those who failed to appear at the Hall on Lady Day would have to be visited. John’s father used to hire an agent to chase unpaid rents, such activity being beneath him as a gentleman landowner, but Anne had no idea whether anyone was still employed in this capacity. She might be obliged to ride round the tenants herself, and she shrank from the thought.

  Then, as well as directing the home farm and the mill and managing the rents, if she was to act as lord of the manor, she had other responsibilities. It was the duty of the lord to undertake some of the repairs to cottages and farms, although she was not sure exactly what her obligations would be. Thomas Pott would know, of course, but she did not want to go begging like a helpless woman to her brother-in-law.

  She picked up the Compleat Husbandrie, which she had begun to read in these last days. The early chapters were somewhat high-minded expositions of the philosophy of husbandry, interspersed with quotations from Plato’s Republic and Vergil’s Georgics. Now, however, she had reached a chapter on stock rearing. This year, she was determined to increase the flocks and herds, to make up the losses incurred during the war. There were so many things to take into account. How many cows or sheep could be grazed per acre? How much meadowland was needed for hay, to support how many animals over the winter? In Lincolnshire, she had read, they sometimes supplemented the winter feed for sheep with raw turnips. Such an idle fancy! Surely sheep would not eat turnips? Then there was the question of breeding the best animals, for it was not enough to breed simply for numbers. The ewes were already in lamb, and the cows in calf, but she must think ahead to next year. What would it cost to buy in a few prize animals to augment the herds, and could she judge them aright? Or would the farmers take advantage and cheat her? Should she buy the services of a prize bull?

  She blushed to find herself thinking such thoughts. I am become quite as coarse as any yeoman, she told herself, yet she could not rouse herself to a true sense of shame. This was not a task she would ever have sought, but now that it was thrust upon her, she meant to show that the estate should not suffer under her guardianship.

  Chickens, she thought. She could start with the chickens. A much shorter breeding cycle meant quicker returns. Besides, it was perfectly acceptable for the lady of the house to take an interest in the poultry. Already, with the increased allowance of food and the more sheltered quarters she had had Josiah build for them, the hens were laying better. Perhaps it was not too soon to select a broody hen and set her on a clutch of eggs. Her mind busy with calculations, she put her book aside, kilted up her skirts, and went out to the chicken house in search of a likely hen.

  

  Josiah hired Christopher Fletcher and Roland Heathe for general labouring, but the stranger who had come asking for work did not return that afternoon, so Anne sent Josiah to Lichfield next market day to see if he could secure the services of a shepherd. She also instructed him to call in at the posting inn to find whether any letter had arrived from John or from Samuel Gott, giving him coin enough to cover the cost of its carrying. While he was away, she supervised the boy Isaac, who was constructing a separate nesting pen for her broody hen. Being a dreamy lad, he was apt to forget what he was about. Biddy had once found him sitting in the barn with the pitchfork, gazing up at the patterns reflected off the snow on to the roof, quite forgetting to feed the cows.

  When the pen was finished to her satisfaction, Ann filled the nesting box with clean straw and laid in it two eggs she had collected, which she had been keeping warm in the bosom of her dress. The small, rusty red hen was very biddable—happy as a kitten to be held and stroked. Anne set her in the nesting box, where she turned around and then settled down with every appearance of knowing what she was about. There was corn scattered on the floor and water in an old chipped dish. Everything had been done to make the hen as comfortable as might be. Now she must fulfil her part.

  As Anne was crossing the yard towards the house, she saw a tall, angular figure making its way up the carriageway from the road. The man walked with great, loping strides, like one who is accustomed to making long journeys on foot. He had a smooth brown face, with many crinkles around his eyes from being out in all weathers. His hair had a reddish tint where it showed beneath a hat with a wide, drooping brim and what was surely a peacock’s feather tucked into the band. Otherwise his clothes were plain, except for a glimpse of something brightly coloured between the buttons of his homespun coat, which was ornamented with curiously carved horn buttons. His knapsack looked heavy. He leaned upon a shepherd’s crook as he walked, and a black and white dog followed at his heel. Anne knew at once that this must be the strange fellow Josiah had spoken of. Not only did he have the shepherd’s indispensable tools of crook and dog, he carried with him an almost palpable air of foreignness.

  The man stopped and swept off the hat with its ridiculously extravagant feather, and made her a bow equally extravagant.

  ‘Tell me now, do I have the honour to be addressing the lady of the house?’ said the stranger, in a low melodious voice. His English was perfect, but Anne understood why Josiah had described it as a strange way of speaking. The consonants were strong, especially the rolled letter r, while the vowels were sweetly drawled and the sentence rippled up and down like a phrase of song, till it lifted and flew off at the end. Anne knew she had heard something like it before, but could not place it.

  ‘Aye, I’m the lady of the house, Mistress Anne Swynfen.’

  ‘Then I’m wondering, lady, whether your man has spoken to you of me? I’m looking for work—a shepherd, as you’ll have seen for yourself—and with the lambing upon us, it’s questioning I am whether you could be doing with another pair of hands.’

  ‘What’s your name, and where are you from?’

  ‘Brendan is my name, Brendan Donovan, and I’m after walking from Chester, and before that Holyhead in Wales, so.’

  ‘You don’t sound like a Welshman.’

  ‘You’ll be wanting to know my place of birth, lady—ah, ’twas a wee place in Galway, you’ll never have heard tell of it.’

  ‘You’re an Irishman?’

  ‘At your service, lady.’

  He swept the ground again with his hat, raising quite a little whirlwind of chaff. The dog lay down with a resigned air, its nose upon its paws.

  That was where she had heard his kind of speech before, and she realised why she could not immediately place it. About two years ago, she and John had attended dinner and a musical evening at the Colemans’ house, and one of the party had been an Irish musician from Dublin, who had sung them some pretty Irish airs, but he had been a gentleman, wit
h only the merest touch of the strange accent. It was not unpleasant, nor too difficult to understand, though this stranger’s speech had something exaggerated and false about it. He did not seem quite trustworthy.

  And Ireland was a terrible place of violent massacres. In the earliest days of the war, the Irish Catholics had set upon English settlers and slaughtered men, women, and even babies. Then the Protestants had turned the tables and slaughtered the Irish in their turn. John Clotworthy had great estates in Ireland, and she had heard him speak slightingly of the peasants there. Heathen barbarians and rogues to a man, he had called them. There had been talk amongst the politicians in London that the war would never be over until Ireland had been pacified.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ she said now, ‘that my father-in-law will not allow you about the place if you are a Catholic.’

  ‘And now why should I be a Catholic?’ said the man merrily. ‘Surely, there’s many a good Protestant in Ireland.’

  Anne looked at him thoughtfully. That was not quite a straight answer. However, her need for labour on the farm was great, and if the man did prove to be capable as a shepherd, it would solve one of her problems.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will hire you for one month, and we shall see how we fare, with the chance of more work afterwards, if you prove satisfactory.’

  ‘That suits me fine, lady,’ he said, with a curious gleam in his eye, almost of amusement. ‘I’ll be shaking your hand on the agreement.’

  And to Anne’s astonishment, he seized her hand and shook it as if she were a man. She was relieved he had not spit upon his palm first, as the farmers around here were wont to do. Indeed, his hand was remarkably clean for a man who was tramping rough about the country in search of work.

  ‘You may come into the kitchen now for a bite and sup,’ she said, ‘ and when my farm steward comes back from market, he’ll show you where you may sleep and give you your duties. He expects the first lamb in the next few days.’

  ‘In that case, lady, I’ll be looking at the ewes before I take food. You’ll have them penned in the barn here?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  He was striding away from her towards the barn before she could stop him. The dog leapt instantly to its feet and padded behind, as quiet and close as a shadow. A little annoyed but amused, she followed, to find him already amongst the sheep, his crook and pack laid aside. He was crooning to the ewes in some strange words she could not understand and the ewes, who were usually restless with strangers, especially when they were so close to dropping their lambs, accepted him peacefully. He moved amongst them, running his hands over their sides, sometimes cupping his hand under a chin and lifting a ewe’s face so he could look into her eyes for all the world as if she were a person.

  ‘This one is near her time,’ he said, his fingers twined in the wool of one of the ewes. ‘We’ll be needing to separate her out from the others. Those will be spare hurdles I’m seeing, stacked up by the door. Lady that you are, now, will you be giving me a hand to set up a pen for her?’

  Anne did as she was bid, never questioning what he said, for he had an air of certainty about him. They set up the hurdles and he led the ewe into the improvised pen.

  ‘Now, if you’ll be sending someone out to me with a bucket of warm water, I’m for staying with the ewe.’

  ‘As you wish. And I’ll have them bring you some food, too.’

  Later, when the family had dined, she fed the baby. Bridget, sitting with her at her needlework, expressed again her concern that the child was still unbaptised.

  ‘She’s blessedly healthy and strong, so there are no worries on that score, but it’s long past time for it. You must surely do your godly duty by the babe, Anne.’

  ‘I’ve decided to call her Jane,’ Anne said, a defensive note in her voice, ‘after my mother, though I had hoped I could wait to decide until John and I could choose a name together.’

  ‘I’m sure John will be content with Jane,’ said Bridget. ‘It’s a family name of ours as well. But what do you intend to do about her baptism?’

  Anne stirred uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know. I feel her father should be here.’ She did not voice her real fears. If Jane was baptised without John being present, it seemed a kind of admission that he would never be coming home. When the baby was settled back in her cradle, Anne went out to the barn through a thin drizzle, to see how the new shepherd was faring with the ewe. She had changed into a finer dress before dinner, her homespun being muddied from her earlier visit to the chickens, and she now threw a cloak around her gown to keep it from the wet.

  Brendan was seated on the ground beside the ewe who was in the last stages of labour. He was stroking her head and murmuring to her. When he heard Anne’s footsteps at the barn door, he spoke without looking up.

  ‘Stop there. She’s not to be frightened, and her about to drop the lamb.’

  Anne stopped instantly and waited. She knew better than to speak or interfere. A few more minutes, and the lamb slithered into the world. Brendan was busy wiping its face, and giving it to the mother to feed, before he gathered up the bloody straw, stretched, and stepped over the hurdles with those long legs of his. Only then did he glance up and notice her. His expression was startled as he took in the sight of her in silk and lace, with a fur-trimmed cloak.

  ‘Why, my lady, I took it for the servant come back for the crocks. I would never have been speaking to you like that.’

  He eyed her with such knowing admiration that she clutched her cloak about her in consternation.

  ‘I came to see how the ewe was faring.’

  ‘All’s well with her. And none others due this while. When I’ve made sure the lamb is feeding, I’ll be coming in to the fire to warm myself.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Anne, ‘you’ve seen where the door to the kitchen is, across the yard.’

  He gave her a long, thoughtful look, and the admiration faded, to be replaced by an expression so cold and hostile that it set her heart lurching with something like fear.

  She stumbled outside again and gulped the fresh air. Perhaps she had been unwise to hire this man, knowing nothing about him. No man had looked at her in that frank manner since she had married. No servant had ever dared to look at her in that manner. There was something unsettling about Brendan Donovan, more than that penetrating look in the eye. He had an air as if he knew her, stranger that he was. And that ill-assorted mixture of . . . what almost seemed to be hatred and . . . well, lust was the only honest name for it. But the man did seem to know his work. Perhaps she was misreading him entirely. In her confusion, she was relieved to see Josiah riding up the carriageway from the Lichfield road on one of the farm horses. She remembered suddenly that he might have hired another shepherd in the town, in which case she might find herself with two. But Josiah had more weighty matters on his mind.

  ‘There’s grave news from London, mistress,’ he said, almost before his feet touched the ground.

  Anne’s hand flew to her heart.

  ‘John?’

  ‘Not the master. The king. He’s executed at Whitehall, more than a month since. The Monarchy is abolished, and the House of Lords, and Cromwell rules in the king’s place.’

  ‘Surely all the world knew this.’ The stranger was standing at the barn door watching them.

  ‘We live very isolated here,’ said Anne, not turning round. ‘No one has been into Lichfield even, these three weeks past.’

  ‘You do not seem overly grieved, lady. You’re not of the king’s party, then?’

  ‘I am not.’ She turned slowly to look at him, trying to guess from his expression which faction he followed. His face was bland, the eyes wide and guileless. ‘But I hoped it would not come to this.’ She bit back the words that almost flew from her lips: John would have managed this better, they would not have killed the king. But she knew it was safer to say nothing about John to one who might be . . . what? She did not know what, but the stranger seemed to be more than a mere wandering Irish
shepherd.

  ‘I had no luck in hiring a shepherd, mistress,’ said Josiah, eyeing the stranger somewhat pointedly.

  ‘Brendan Donovan is hired for a month, to see how he fares. He has birthed a lamb already.’

  Josiah started for the barn, leading his horse, anxious for his ewes, but Anne laid a hand on his sleeve.

  ‘Was there a letter?’

  ‘I forgot.’ Josiah felt in his pocket and brought out a sheet of paper, folded and sealed, and passed it to her. ‘And here’s the remainder of the money. I fear it’s not the letter you wanted.’

  Anne looked at the letter. It was addressed to Nan, and came from Susanna Perwick, true to her word. She sighed. There was at least some consolation in this. If one letter had come through all the perils from London, others might also. She turned her back on the men, forgetting them at once, and walked slowly back to the house, a dark oppression gripping her.

  This killing of the king changed everything. All that John had worked for was now destroyed. No longer could the country hope for a peaceful settlement. On the one hand, John had suspected Cromwell and Ireton of plotting to set up a despotism, and now it seemed that it was accomplished. And on the other, the king’s party would certainly not acknowledge defeat because of the death of Charles Stuart. The Prince of Wales lived still, and his father’s party would rally around him. Indeed, there might be many more who would find it easier to support the son, now that he was free of the liability of his arrogant and untrustworthy father. Those who had remained neutral in the past might well join the young prince, who was well liked. Certainly, many men formerly on the Parliament side would no longer support Cromwell, now that he had destroyed that very Parliament. There would be more battles, more men dead, more women raped, more children orphaned, more villages burned. She pressed her hands against her stomach, as if the pain had seized her in the very guts.

  Why was there no word of John? Would she ever see him again? Until this moment, she had pushed away from her mind the thought that he might be dead, refusing to believe in the possibility, but now she saw clearly that men who could kill God’s anointed king would not scruple to cut the throat of a man who had opposed them over and over again, for all the world to hear, in the public forum of the Commons. John’s speeches were recorded in the Commons journals, his words reported in the newspapers, his most eloquent phrases quoted at dinner tables. How could he escape their wrath?