Betrayal (The Fenland Series Book 2)

by Ann Swinfen

  When they were gone, I persuaded my mother to lie down in her room during the afternoon, for she tired very easily these days. As I returned to the kitchen, Mistress Morton looked round from washing the dishes with Kitty, and gave me a nod.

  ‘Good. If Abigail rests in her own room, she will soon forget that she was ever away. Did you see how much wool she managed to spin?’

  ‘Almost as much as in the past.’

  She dried her hands on her apron.

  ‘All you can do, Mercy, is to try to make her life as much like the old days as possible. That way she will be less confused.’

  ‘I shall try, but it will not be easy, with my father and Tom both gone, and Gideon and the soldiers living here. The Leiden family as well. She might remember the soldiers being billeted here, and she has known Gideon for years, though not living with us. The Dutch family, however, are strangers to her.’

  ‘You can only do your best.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘That Griet, she’s a good woman. You’ll be glad of her.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Aye. So I shall.’

  Mistress Morton set off back to the village soon afterwards and must have met Griet and the children in the lane, for they arrived not long after she left. Kitty had gone out to the barn, to help Nehemiah at his carpentry work. She was eager for him to finish the beds so that he could make a start on rebuilding the loom. Gideon was helping as well, so I sat down at the kitchen table for a few moments and rested my head on my arms. I must have fallen asleep, for I woke only when I heard a tentative tapping on the door.

  ‘Griet, come in! And the children too. You must not knock on the door. This is your home now, until you build your own house.’

  She looked confused but pleased, and whispered something to her little girl, Margit.

  The child curtseyed. ‘I thank you, Mistress Mercy, for–’

  She stopped and looked at her mother in a panic.

  ‘For giving us a home.’

  ‘For giving us a home.’

  I smiled at her, returning the curtsey, then bent down to kiss her on her forehead.

  ‘You are very welcome to Turbary Holm, Margit.’

  I had learned that the Dutch word for ‘welcome’ sounded much like the English, so I was sure she understood me.

  Before there could be any awkwardness, Nehemiah and Gideon appeared, carrying one of the truckle beds between them.

  ‘This is for the Leiden children,’ Gideon said. ‘I will string the ropes once we have it in place. Good day to you, Mistress Leiden.’

  Griet and Margit both curtseyed, while little Maarten looked on, his thumb in his mouth.

  ‘Can you carry it up to the attic?’ I said. ‘It will be difficult up the ladder. Then when you have strung the ropes, we will come and make it up with a mattress and bedclothes.’

  ‘We could build a staircase to that top floor, you know, Mistress Mercy.’

  ‘Some day, perhaps, Nehemiah. When there is less to do. Not now.’

  He grinned and nodded. Since he had come to live on the farm, Nehemiah was for ever full of schemes. He had always been clever with his hands, weaving baskets and eel traps and hurdles, but his own small cottage had been very simple, before the drainers attacked him and burned it down.

  There was a good deal of banging from upstairs as they struggled to carry the bed up the ladder. I tried to ignore it, hoping they would not wake my mother. Instead I showed Griet what I had done in the house since she had last been here to help me.

  ‘It is so fresh and good,’ she said with a smile, ‘with the new lime wash.’

  I nodded. It was surprising what a difference it had made. There was now no lingering smell of chickens or mud or mould, only the clean scent of the lime wash. Alice and I had even laundered the curtains, which I would not usually have done in winter, for they must be dried inside before the fire, but I wanted to be rid of every trace of the musty smell.

  Fortunately, the noise did not wake my mother, not even when the second truckle bed was carried into my chamber. There was a spare palliasse in the soldiers’ room, which had been George’s, and we put this on Kitty’s bed, then filled a new one for Griet’s children. Margit enjoyed stuffing the straw into the sacking, while little Maarten enjoyed strewing it about the floor, until Griet put a firm stop to it.

  By the time we had finished making up the beds, Hans had arrived from the village and Gideon had helped Nehemiah with the evening milking.

  ‘Mistress Cox, she sends you this,’ Hans said, holding out a basket containing two large loaves of bread and a lump of butter wrapped in a cloth. ‘She says, you do not have time to make bread today.’

  ‘Thank you for bringing it, Hans. Was that young Mistress Cox?’

  ‘Ja. Young one. Not the old vrouw.’

  It was thoughtful of Alice. I had had no time to make bread, though I would set some to rise overnight.

  ‘There is enough of the pottage to make us supper, I think, now we have the bread.’ I had realised just how many mouths I now had to feed, for Hans was followed by the five soldiers. The army had promised us chits, so that we might reclaim the cost of the soldiers’ rations, but naturally nothing had come of it.

  ‘I will put a supper on a tray for my mother, Kitty, if you will take it up to her?’

  The food did not look very much when thirteen of us sat down around the kitchen table. They say that thirteen at table is unlucky, but Maarten sat on Griet’s lap, so perhaps he did not count. Gideon spoke a brief grace and we began our meal, all of us holding back, for there was barely enough to stay the pangs of hunger.

  After we had eaten and the soldiers, Kitty, and the Leidens had gone to their beds, I was sitting by the kitchen fire while Gideon shut the hens away. Nehemiah came in and stood before the fire. He had taken off his woollen cap and ran his fingers through his hair, which I noticed had gone greyer in recent months.

  ‘Mistress Mercy, food – it will be a problem, won’t ’un?’

  ‘It will, Nehemiah. It was difficult before the flood, after the soldiers were billeted here, but now–’

  ‘I think I’d best set more eel traps. And go out a-fowling. There’s only that one ham, and the hens don’t lay much in winter.’

  ‘Not at all, in their present state, I expect. Aye, you are right. And fish. There must be plenty of fish, with all this water!’

  ‘Are you going fishing, Nehemiah?’ Gideon had come in as we were speaking. ‘I may know little about farm work, but I can fish.’

  ‘Can you net wild fowl, Master Clarke?’

  ‘Nay, but I can learn.’

  I left them discussing how they might augment our food supplies, and went to bed.

  We soon fell into pattern of work at Turbary Holm. Nehemiah spent much of his time fishing and fowling. Gideon helped me with the milking. He was slow, but he was gradually improving. I nursed the hens back to health and we began to have a small supply of eggs. Kitty and Griet undertook much of the household work, cleaning and washing. Griet made bread every day, sometimes with Kitty helping her, and the three of us cooked the large meals that were required for so many. Most of the time my mother was content to sit at her spinning wheel, and later at her weaving when Nehemiah had rebuilt the loom. She still seemed lost in her own world, but to my relief she had not been violent since we had returned to the farm.

  Gideon had not forgotten his plan to seek out one of his parson friends and still thought the likeliest place to discover their whereabouts was Oxford. Once the road through to Crowthorne was clear, the Reverend Edgemont rode over some Sundays to conduct one service in our church. When we first heard he was coming, the few people still accommodated there hastily found cramped quarters in the village, so with a quick clean, the church presented an innocent appearance. I fear the Puritan minister would have considered it a just punishment for us sinners if we had all perished in the flood, instead of finding sanctuary in the church. However, we attended his grim services dutifully, all of us except Gideon, who must ke
ep out of the way.

  ‘I will hold my own private service,’ he said. ‘I shall not neglect my duty to God.’

  As the weather improved and the last of the snow disappeared, the fenlands began to come back to life. The first of the little wild flowers showed their faces amongst the grass in the hay field, and the first of the migrating birds began to appear.

  One evening, as Griet and I sat knitting by the fire and Kitty was trying out her letters on a piece of slate with fragment of chalk, Gideon looked up from the book he was reading.

  ‘It is time I made the journey to Oxford, Mercy. If I delay much longer, we shall be into the fighting season. It will be safer if I travel now.’

  I looked up in alarm. ‘How soon?’

  ‘Edy the carter arrived in the village last night. He returns to Peterborough tomorrow. I can travel with him and hire a horse there for the rest of the journey. I will not linger. Three days from here to Oxford? The same home again. A day in Oxford. I need not be gone for much above a week.’

  My heart was pounding. Perhaps it was unreasonable, but I felt this journey was dangerous. Yet I could not prevent it. How were we to marry, unless Gideon could find a fellow clergyman of our own persuasion?

  ‘You will be careful?’ It was all I would allow myself to say.

  ‘I promise,’ Gideon said.

  Hans and Nehemiah were both dozing after a hard day’s work, but Nehemiah opened his eyes at this.

  ‘I had a word with Edy at the yel-hus. He said that Piet van Slyke and his men are back. They are surveying over beyond Crowthorne. It cannot be long before they discover that we broke into their water pumps and put a stop to them.’

  I shivered. Was it all to start again?

  ‘I think,’ Gideon said slowly, ‘that you also must promise to be careful.’

  Chapter Four

  Tom

  The following days at Gray’s Inn passed in impatience and frustration. I offered to contribute to the cost of our food, but Anthony refused to accept any money from me until I knew whether I should be given employment in the library. I filled the long hours by spending half the day in the library with Master Hansen, hoping that by demonstrating that I could work swiftly and accurately I would persuade him to ask for my services permanently. He gave no hint as to whether he had applied to Pension. I believe he took some enjoyment from keeping me in suspense. The mornings were thus given up to the somewhat tedious but undemanding task of cataloguing books. It was clear to me that, with my assistance, Master Hansen no longer seemed quite so overwhelmed by the tasks as we began to made inroads at last into two of the great stacks of volumes.

  In the afternoons and early evenings, I assisted Anthony. Some of this work was clerical, the mere copying out of precedents, as I had done on the first day, but we soon began to discuss the finer points of the cases in which he was involved. I found my interest in the law awakening again. To tell the truth, I had chosen to come back to Gray’s because I could see no future for myself on the farm, and not because I wanted to become a lawyer. That ambition had perished long before. But as we talked and argued and ferreted about in Anthony’s law books, my old excitement returned.

  ‘We are holding our own moots!’ Anthony said on the evening of the second of those days, pouring us both large cups of beer. He had sent out again for food from the Peacock and the table was scattered with crumbs of pastry. ‘I must invite Henry Grantham to join us. We may establish our own inn within the Inn, to argue out our cases.’

  ‘That is who it is!’ I said.

  ‘Who what is?’

  ‘I have twice seen someone I thought I recognised, coming or going about Coney Court. Henry Grantham, of course. I remember him now.’

  ‘He is an utter barrister as I am, and has chambers in Coney Court. Top floor, with a fine view over the Walks. Expensive rooms, but he does not have piped water.’

  Anthony was justly proud of our water supply, though it sometimes failed. As we were nearer to the source of the New River scheme out in Hertfordshire, it came to us quite fresh, unlike the water further along the pipes into the City, which was sometimes tainted. It was nowhere near as fresh as the water from the well-hus at home, but for London it was remarkable. You could even drink it.

  ‘So, tomorrow you will know what Pension has decided,’ Anthony said.

  ‘Aye’

  ‘And you still do not know whether the librarian has solicited them for your services?’

  I shook my head. ‘I believe he likes to exercise his power over me by keeping silence on the subject.’

  ‘Small men are often eager to exercise power. It gives them an advantage over bigger men that they cannot enjoy physically.’

  ‘I am hardly a physical threat,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Oh, I am not so sure. I think you could land quite a blow by swinging one of those crutches of yours.’

  ‘I have been tempted, a few times, but I fear it would not win me a place in the library.’

  We both laughed. I knew he was trying to ease my worries, but they would not go away. I slept badly that night. What should I do if Pension refused to readmit me? Should I make my way home, humiliated? Or try to find some other employment? I pondered my original idea of clerking for a Cheapside merchant. I would be forced to find lodgings near my place of work, instead of living rent free here until Lady Day, for I could not walk that distance between Gray’s Inn and the City twice a day.

  I abandoned my pretence at sleep soon after the first softening of the dark of night to the grey shimmer of the winter dawn. I rose and dressed, with my usual clumsiness, then crept to the parlour as quietly as I could, so as not to wake Anthony. It was very cold, so I set about lighting a fire, which was remarkably difficult on crutches. In the end, I lowered myself on to a small joint stool close to the hearth, which made it easier to lay the fire and to tend it as it took hold, but it was awkward to raise myself on to my crutches again.

  Once the logs had begun to burn through, the room grew a little less chilly, though the inside of the window facing on the court was thickly coated with swirls and flowers of frost. I found myself ale and bread, but left the cheese, for I felt guilty about the food I was eating, despite Anthony’s assurance that I had earned it, clerking for him. The clerk he shared with two other lawyers – one of whom I had learned was Henry Grantham – would be coming tomorrow to work for Anthony. I hoped I had not deprived him of his income. Still, I supposed he was paid by the day and not by the number of sheets he managed to cover in good lawyer’s script.

  ‘Up already?’ Anthony came yawning through from his chamber, barefoot, with a long house gown of faded velvet over his night shift.

  ‘I could not sleep.’

  ‘Pension will meet at ten o’ the clock, and they usually finish by midday. You can probably expect a summons from the Treasurer this afternoon.’ He yawned again. ‘Shall you go to the library today?’

  ‘I think not. I want to be here if he sends for me. It would not do to keep him waiting.’

  ‘Nay, it would not. Though the decision will have been made by then.’

  ‘No need to tempt the Fates.’

  ‘Indeed. Why have you taken no cheese with your bread? I know it is not the breakfast of princes, but you will be hungry again in an hour.’

  ‘I do not want to consume all your stores.’

  ‘Nonsense. And besides, Mistress Gorley comes tomorrow. We have finished that apple pie, so I shall buy another, and some of her preserves. She makes some excellent pickles, a good accompaniment to sausages from the butcher who supplies the Inn. Sometimes she has fresh pasties. I always stock my cupboard on the day she comes. It does her some good, and me too.’

  ‘I wish we had had such a paragon when we were students,’ I said. ‘Either we ate expensively in Hall or we supped at one of the local taverns, where you needed plenty of beer to wash down the gristle stew and the stale bread. I think I only went once to the Peacock, when it was someone’s birthday. Probably yours.
’

  He laughed. ‘Perhaps. I cannot remember. There have been a good number of birthdays since then.’

  Anthony had a meeting about the land inheritance case that morning, where all three claimants were to be present. The Bencher handling the case for one of the claimants was trying to persuade them to arrive at some sort of compromise, so that one would inherit the land and the other two would settle for a financial compensation, but they were proving stubborn. Each of them wanted the land together with all the money. Anthony went off gloomily, certain that the entire morning would be wasted in recriminations.

  I took out paper and ink, thinking that I might write at last to Mercy. I had sent her no word during these days I had been in London and I knew she would be worried, but I wanted to be able to report my acceptance at Gray’s. I found I could not start my letter until I knew for sure which way Pension had leaned. Was I back at Gray’s, or was I not?

  To occupy myself and keep my mind from dwelling on the possibility that I might be refused, I tried to read one of Anthony’s law books, but I found I was reading the same paragraph over and over, but I could not have repeated what it had said. I heard the chapel clock strike midday, but Anthony had not returned. It seemed the three possible heirs were still bickering.

  A certain nausea in my stomach put all thought of a meal out of my head, so I merely sat, chewing my nails and throwing the occasional log on the fire, until I heard the clock strike one. How much longer would I be kept waiting?

  Then at last, around half past the hour, Anthony arrived at the same time as one of the Inn servants, bearing a note from Theodore Somers instructing me to report at once to the Treasurer’s chambers.