The Highwayman's Footsteps

by Nicola Morgan

  And she was a girl. That was the other very strong reason.

  I could not comprehend her argument. She seemed to think that if I walked then it must be because I thought her weaker and more delicate. Well, she was correct: that was indeed what I was thinking, although I was struggling to continue thinking so in the face of her spirit. I had been taught to believe that the fairer sex is the weaker sex. The fact that I had seen women, serving women, carry burdens that would have felled me, and that I had seen their sturdy muscles as they scrubbed floors or beat rugs or kneaded dough in the kitchens, did not stop me thinking that in essence women are fragile.

  For certain, she had held me at gunpoint, but was that not merely because she had a gun and had taken me by surprise? Yes, she had insisted on holding a pair of pistols when we thought the redcoats were about to breach our refuge, but was that not merely because she would have been more afraid without the pistols in her hand? Surely it was so?

  Besides, even if I had to admit that she had an uncommon strength, it was still not proper for me to ride while she walked. Only if she had been my servant could I have done so. And she was not.

  However, I won the argument by persisting until she snapped in exasperation. “You had better walk fast, as I shall be setting a good pace. I trust you have sufficient strength.” And she threw the side-saddle onto Merlin’s back with an angry heave, trying to prevent me from seeing how much it hurt her injury.

  I omitted to mention: Bess was not dressed in man’s attire now. She wore a good dress, with the skirt of some fine, dark blue, woollen material, very full, tightly belted, and the top part of the same material but with wide lace cuffs, all covered by a short dark cape, allowing her arms to move freely. I noticed her leather gloves and riding boots, polished to a shine and well-made, even moderately expensive once. Her face was clean – though certainly with the signs of illness etched in the dark circles beneath her eyes – and her hair brushed and twisted neatly into some clever arrangement mostly hidden by her wide hat, tied beneath her chin with a dark blue sash to prevent it blowing away in the wind.

  I felt ragged by comparison. And out of place. You would have thought me to be her servant. And when, after some three hours of her purposeful speed, stopping only once to rest and water the horse, or to pay the toll at a turnpike, we could see Scarborough in the distance, with the castle to the left and the shimmering German Ocean in front of us, I understood that that was exactly what she planned.

  Just outside the town walls, Bess stopped the horse. We were beside an inn, graced by a hanging picture of an enormously muscled bull. Surely she was not going within? It would not be proper. Or safe. She would be thought a loose woman. There were a number of persons about, all making towards Scarborough, though none seemed to give us more than a slight glance. Nevertheless, I was worried amongst these crowds; I could not say why – only that, since my recent escapes, too many strangers made me wary. I found my heart beating faster, though I knew there was no good reason. Surely no one might recognize me here?

  I simply did not know what was going to happen, or what Bess was doing. Could we not just buy what we needed from the town, then go to the horse market, or wherever Bess planned to buy a horse, and return to safety?

  “Bess,” I said urgently. “You are not…”

  “Come with me,” she said, kicking Merlin to a trot so that I was obliged to run to keep pace. We went through the courtyard to the back, where she slipped gracefully from her saddle and passed the reins to me without looking. If she was still in some pain, she did not show it. “Wait for me here,” she said, with irksome authority. It did not seem to occur to her that I would not do exactly as she said. How dare she treat me so?

  But she was already striding across the yard towards the back door, holding her skirts high. The door was slightly open, and I could hear loud voices from within. I could even see blurred figures through the thick glass windows, men with heads thrown back and laughing. As she came to the door, she stopped, turned, shot me a smile, before turning sharply away and walking to a door further along, a small closed door.

  She was teasing me. She had never intended to go into the main part of the inn. She knew exactly what I had been thinking. When would I learn to hold my thoughts inside me? Would I ever be as sure as Bess? I was torn between vexation and admiration. Envy was what I truly felt, if I were honest.

  I watched her knock on the door. A few moments later, it opened, and a woman, short and stout and somewhat elderly, came out. With a cry of surprise, she embraced Bess. I could not hear what was said. Bess must have mentioned me because the woman cast her eyes in my direction, and seemed to examine me before nodding. Bess disappeared through the door with the woman, without so much as a wave or even a glance.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I stood in the cold. I was hungry. My legs and feet hurt and I ached to sit down. But I would not sit on the ground. It would not be right.

  Instead, I stood and my anger grew.

  So, a servant was I to Bess? I need not stand for it. I could leave as soon as I wanted. Could I not? If she was determined to make me feel inferior, then I did not have to bear it. Not from a girl. Not from someone who was more lowly born than I. I was William de Lacey, son of…

  But I was not, was I? Not any more. I had put that behind me. And did I regret it? No, not for one moment did I regret leaving behind my father’s expectations and his sneering disdain. I had decided to embark upon a new life, a life of unaccustomed choices, and to prove my worth. To myself, even if my father were not there to know.

  So, I could not – would not – leave Bess, however much I might be irked by her manner and the way she made me feel weak. Not yet, at least. Because, whether I liked it or not, my life had more certainty and more reward if I stayed with her. I had shelter and company. Surely she, too, would find some advantage in my presence? I could ride as well as she could. I could cut logs, learn to help with the many things she must need to do to look after a cottage by herself. Surely she needed human company as much as I did?

  I would have to show her that I was not merely some spoilt, wealthy boy who knew nothing of the real world.

  I had to admit, too, that her life, her story, interested me. She was from a different world, and if that was the world I had found myself in, then I wished to know more of it. Had I not been taught to think, to seek after wisdom, as Socrates did? Socrates took nothing for granted, questioned everything.

  But Socrates did not have a god. And I did. Of course, I would not doubt God. But God had made this girl and her world too. If God made everything, then it was my duty to try to understand His world, not only the small part which I knew.

  I would have to cast off my father and my old life. It was not enough to leave the comforts of my home. I must leave his influence behind, start afresh and open my eyes to the world. A different world from the one I knew.

  A world where a girl could seem to know more than I and to be as strong. A world where right and wrong were not as clear as I had surmised. A world where suffering was raw and real. A world where fair and foul merged into fog, a fog in which I would either fall or find a light to guide me through.

  Therefore, would I put my trust in God – as my Bible classes had taught me. God would provide and He would surely look more kindly on me if I strove to discover what was right.

  I would find my own way to true honour.

  All this I thought as I waited for Bess to come out of the tavern. And even if there were any traces of my earlier annoyance, her smile, when she came through the door again, soon put paid to them.

  “Help me mount,” she said as she took the reins from me. I knew it to be impossible to mount a side-saddle without help, if there were no mounting-block. I did nothing. She waited but not once did she look at me. “Help me, Will,” she said again.

  Still I kept my silence.

  “If you please,” she said. Grinning inwardly, I placed my hands into position and she stepped onto them, p
ushing down harder than she needed, perhaps, and I hefted her into the saddle. She looked at me, knowing very well what was in my mind, and said, politely enough but with that slight smile, “I thank you, kind sir.”

  It was enough: I had made myself clear and perhaps she would now behave with greater civility.

  “I have good news,” she said, as we departed from the inn yard.

  “I do not suppose you have any food?” I said. My stomach was painfully empty, and glimpsing those men eating and drinking in the inn had only increased my hunger.

  “The news I have will bring food to last till next winter!” she exclaimed. Her eyes shone with an excitement I had not seen in her. All weakness from her illness seemed to have vanished, although she was still pale and her lips were dry.

  I could not but admire her resilience. My sisters would stay in a fragile state for weeks after recovering from the mildest ague. One of them, Eliza, would have a fainting fit if a small pain passed through her head. And when Caroline, the youngest, had been stung by a wasp, she had screamed until she had fainted too; a doctor had been called, who had pronounced her so prostrated that she must remain in her bed for at least a week; but this had not been enough for Caroline, who had declared that she would surely die if she were required to rise from it before a month was up. As for Annabelle and her behaviour at the mere sight of a spot of blood…

  Bess continued. “I was meeting with an acquaintance. A friend of my father’s. He can no longer ride but he helps me. He gives me information. He had some news for me today. There will be a rich purse for us if his intelligence is correct. I will tell you more later but first, you need a horse. And my friend was able to help me there too. Follow me.”

  We set off towards the town again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Passing over the old moat, now little more than a dried-up riverbed, we came through the town walls under the New Brough Barr, pausing to let a carriage pass before us. I could smell the sea, see and hear the gulls twisting and turning overhead. It was as though I was aware of the world, and its dwellers, for the first time. They did not look at me – I was as nothing to them – but they were everything to me, as I began to see the world in all its strange detail.

  But Bess did not leave me much time for deep thoughts. I must keep pace with her. She knew what she was about and I did not. I must keep my wits about me.

  Soon, we came to the centre of the town, after walking through the busy marketplace. This was a Thursday and persons of all descriptions traded their products, spreading onto the cobbles and gutters. The noise of rumbling wheels and the screams of gulls and the singsong calls of the criers merged into one, along with the smells of fish and horses and coffee and something burnt. A sudden meaty warmth rolled from a chop house as we passed, and noise surged as a door opened and two men stumbled out arm-in-arm.

  When I heard and then saw a carriage swing past, saw the gleaming silver on the harnesses of the high-trotting horses, and when I glimpsed the feathers fluttering inside, the fur-trimmed cloaks and thick woollen blankets over the knees of the occupants, I thought how far away seemed their world already. Briefly, I wondered who they were.

  Did they wonder about us? Did they know anything about the world beneath their feet? For my part, I had not known, and little enough did I know now, but at least I could see that it was there.

  As we hurried along in the cold, I noticed the crowded buildings, the ancient timbers tottering in ramshackle fashion amongst the newer and more gracious façades. We passed men and women shouting their wares: cherry jams and treacle, damson cheese and muscle-plum cheese, codlin jelly, macaroons, ratafias and cracknels, pistachios, hot salop, kegs of brandy, sheep’s tongues, neats’ tongues, pullets, peafowl, ducks and turkeys. Old women sold hot eel pies at a roadside stove; a woman roasted lobster claws and smashed them open for customers to pry out the sweet meat; I saw serving-girls buying saffron cakes for their mistresses, French loaves, muffins and other breads I recognized from home, my earlier home. We passed a man carrying a pole over his shoulder, strung with dangling hams, pigs’ ears and sausage links, and I could only imagine the aroma of them as they sizzled over the fire at Bess’s cottage.

  I kept my hand over my pocket, guarding my purse. Who knew what villains and pickpockets might be waiting to slip their fingers inside?

  My earlier fears of being recognized had gone: Scarborough was very many miles from my birthplace, and no one would know me. Besides, although Scarborough was fashionable, my parents and their acquaintances would no more be seen there in February than they would have eaten their meals with the servants. The wintry weather would discourage such a journey, and it was my mother’s considered opinion that only the height of summer was fitting for exposure to the cold spa waters, and then only with great care and modesty. As for the sea, she had always had a horror of the bathing machines that women used to preserve their modesty, ever since hearing that an acquaintance of hers had had an unfortunate but unspecified accident in one.

  In addition, my father was contemptuous of the modern fashion for spa resorts, believing them to be the playground of those who aspired to higher rank but who would never achieve it simply by spending their money on fashion and frippery. “These people of the middling sort cannot disguise their lack of breeding by silks and satins,” he would sneer, sipping a large glass of port wine with the Lord Lieutenant of the county and discussing which fine young gentlemen should be promoted to higher rank in their militia.

  No one of my acquaintance would be in Scarborough. I had nothing to fear on that score.

  As for the soldiers who had pursued me, and the militia whose job it was to apprehend me after I had stolen the purse, I was now certain that they had moved on to more interesting quarry. Thinking on all this, breathing in the sights and sounds and smells, I enjoyed being merely one amongst many. I believed that I would not be noticed.

  Imagine, then, my shock when I saw someone whom I, myself, recognized. I stopped, slipping behind a man selling thrushes, dozens of them, tied by their feet and hanging dead from a stick, their little beady eyes still bright. My heart thumping, my eyes narrowed, my mind spinning, I looked more closely. There was no mistake. It was the woman who had been selling her jams and preserves, the one who treacherously gave me away to the redcoats, naming me for a deserter, keener to claim her reward than to protect the honesty of her soul. Now she had set out her wares on a small cart at the end of the market street. My hatred returned, burning my throat. I wanted to spit out the taste in my mouth.

  Bess had noticed my hesitation and she pulled Merlin to a halt. “Will?” she was saying, sharply. “What are you doing?”

  I hurried to her, keeping my face away from the woman’s gaze in case perchance she should look up. “I have just seen … I have just seen a person who almost caused my death.” My voice was calm, but inside me anger burned. The crone had wished me dead, knowing and caring nothing about me, thinking only of her own reward.

  “Where is he?” said Bess, straining her eyes in the direction we had come.

  “She,” I said. “She is selling wares at the corner of the square. She is knitting – do you see? Hunched, wearing a black shawl?” Bess looked, catching sight of the woman easily from her position on Merlin.

  “I shall remember her,” she said. “And now, let us proceed. I have a plan for that old woman, but she can wait.”

  I knew the old woman had not seen me, perhaps would not recognize me, but still I felt a shiver crawl down my neck as I remembered that day. That horse! How close I had come to death. I hated her and her careless attempt to have me shot for desertion.

  We moved briskly on, taking a turning to the left, followed by one to the right and perhaps another to the left – I do not recollect clearly, except that we were moving towards the castle. It was clear to me that Bess knew where we were going. If she were not going to tell me, I would not ask.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  We came to a street less crowded.
All the houses were older in this place, for the most part with the black beams of much earlier times, and some upper storeys perched on top like drunken old men. No grand façades rose here. Bess was examining each house, searching for whichever one she had been instructed to come to. She stopped at a building with the sign of an anvil hanging from a leaning post. A smithy.

  “This is the place,” she said, and I followed her through an archway to the back.

  Over the normal stench of a town, of people and their detritus piled in the gutters, and the dry, salty scent of the sea, I could smell, suddenly, the wonderful aroma of horse. I could even hear a gentle whinnying, the soft harrumph of contented animal. As we came round the corner, I saw a row of stable doors, with three horses’ heads peering over. Would one of these soon be mine? The feeling of excitement brushed aside my earlier unease at seeing the gap-toothed old woman.

  Once more, Bess slid down from Merlin’s back and tied his reins to a hook in the wall. We walked towards the forge, where we could hear the clanging of hammer on iron. A thin man of perhaps thirty years bent his long body over his anvil, red-faced and shining. He was, I am sure, the tallest man I had ever seen so close. With a wide arc of his arm, he swung his hammer, holding the horseshoe between tongs in his other hand. We watched the sparks fly for some moments before he saw us.

  He looked up, stopped what he was doing, wondering perhaps why a neatly-dressed young woman and a more crudely attired young man were standing at the entrance of his forge. He turned back to his anvil and brought the hammer down once more with an enormous clang.