Take Courage

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Never! Never!” he shouted, swelling and bristling in his chair. “I have done no wrong and will crave no pardon. Me ask pardon of a set of pestilential Roundheads! You must be mad!”

  I left the matter for that time, but returned to it again often, so that it became a regular dispute between us in the next few months. I was determined he should compound, and pay his fine, and then live at peace, for I could not endure to think of the old man having his whole estate taken from him, and being imprisoned perhaps, as a persistent delinquent; I felt too that till all Royalists had thus compounded, we should have no true peace and comfort in the land. But Giles was as strongly determined against composition. “I have committed no error, and so cannot be convinced of it,” he argued stoutly. “I have fought for the right, and no man living shall make me say otherwise.” And again: “I will not crawl in the dust for any Parliament.” At last one day, in a fury, his flaccid cheeks purple and quivering, he struck his fist on the table and shouted at me:

  “Never open this subject to me again, Penninah!”

  “It shall be as you please, Uncle Giles,” I said quietly. “But I could not stand by and see you ruined, without trying to save you.”

  There was a pause; I went on rolling out the oatcake I was baking.

  “And what does it matter if I am ruined?” muttered Mr. Ferrand suddenly in a low wailing tone. “It harms no one but myself. I have no son to inherit from me, no son, no son, no son.”

  I felt such a rush of pity, and perhaps some other strange emotion, to my heart that for a moment my eyes dimmed and my hands paused and fumbled. When I could raise my head and look again, I saw that tears stood on his quivering cheeks. His eyes sought mine, very mournfully; by one of those strange truancies of the flesh, which betrays us to acts the will disapproves, I glanced involuntarily towards the open kitchen door, where Chris, his hair tossing, singing at the top of his voice, could be seen galloping round outside astride his whip, making pretence it was a horse. Mr. Ferrand gave a sudden start; his eyes rounded, his mouth gaped, his old face whitened.

  “Penninah!” he whispered with a look of awe. “Penninah! The lad is Frank’s!”

  The blood rushed to my face, and the thoughts flew through my mind. Was it a terrible temptation, or a means of grace, thus to admit my sin? What an inexpressible relief, to share the weight of my secret with another person! But John? Old people were apt to babble. Would not such a confession betray John for the second time? I had to take a decision on the instant; I gasped, then cried out hoarsely:

  “No. No!”

  Giles sighed and turned away, dropping his chin again on his limp folded hands. In the silence that followed, Chris’s voice came to us very clearly.

  The next day Giles did not come to The Breck, nor the next, nor the next. I tormented myself much guessing reasons for his absence, and at last sent Chris up to the Hall to ask how Mr. Ferrand did and whether he was ill. Chris came back with his bright face somewhat fallen, to say that the Hall was closed, neither Mr. Ferrand nor old Ralph was there. This troubled me greatly, but there was nothing I could do.

  It was two months before we saw old Giles again. He sidled in at last one morning and made for his nook by the hearth, looking older and shabbier but somehow less beaten than before.

  “Signed your composition yet, Mr. Ferrand?” shouted my irrepressible Sam, meeting him in the doorway.

  “Sam!” I said, speaking with real anger: “I forbid you to mention that word to Mr. Ferrand again.”

  “Oh, there is no need to trouble yourself,” said Mr. Ferrand with a sniff, shuffling to the fire. “I compounded for my estate in London last Tuesday morning.”

  For a moment I was dumbfounded. Then Mr. Ferrand looked up at me like a naughty child; he laughed gleefully, and there was a gleam of triumph in his faded eye.

  “Well—your composition is your own affair, Mr. Ferrand and nothing to do with any of us here,” I said in a loud firm tone, meeting his glance very strongly.

  “Aye—it is my own affair, Penninah. Do not trouble yourself,” chuckled Mr. Ferrand. “Nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.”

  He went on chuckling and tee-heeing to himself in his shrill old tones; Sam in the doorway framed the word “Daft!” to me soundlessly with his lips before he disappeared.

  “Do not trouble yourself, Penninah,” said Mr. Ferrand in a quiet serious tone when Sam had gone: “My composition is, as you say, entirely my own affair.”

  We left the matter thus, nor did he ever speak again, either to me or to any other living person, as I judge, of Chris’s parentage. But I wondered greatly. I wondered many years before I knew.

  12

  A MEDAL IS STRUCK

  It was the first Monday in April, 1647—how well do I remember that day! Thomas was at his book with Mr. Blazet in Bradford, Sam at Isaac Baume’s place helping him to wall a gap, Chris playing down by the beck or up at the Hall, I know not, and I myself busy with the house and the dinner. It was the forenoon, very bright and warm and windy, with gentle showers of rain; the grass green, the beck full, the birds all singing; a very sweet and fresh spring day. I was in the kitchen, baking bread; I had just finished the first kneading, and put the dough in the big bowl to rise by the fire, and spread a towel over it to keep it warm, when there came a heavy knocking on the front door.

  This nowadays always caused me to start and tremble, for so many things that happened to me had begun with such a knocking—Francis, and the sack—that I feared it. While I was alone in the house I kept the front door barred; I chided myself now for my foolishness, and went to open it. I drew back the bolts with reluctant fingers, and set it wide to prove to myself that I was not afraid.

  A strange man stood there. He was a Parliament officer, in a buff-coat which had seen very hard wear, with many things slung on straps about his shoulders, after the manner of fighting men. He was very strong-looking and sturdy, with dark hair growing a little thin on the top of his head; a wound-scar crossed his temple, there were deep lines of fatigue on his haggard face. He bore himself as a man of great experience, who had seen much and endured much and come through it all safe only by his own persistent effort. He looked at me in silence, from fine dark eyes full of weariness and a kind of sorrow; and then I knew who he was. I cried out:

  “Husband! John!”

  His face changed, he opened his arms to me and I fell on his breast and wept bitterly. All through the hard times, of the siege and the sack and the bitter winter which followed, whatever my private griefs I had never wept in another’s presence, never let the children see me discomposed; it was my part to seem strong and assured and let them lean on me, and tenaciously I had striven to play it. But now, in the circle of my husband’s strong arms, I wept and wept and could not cease from weeping. He murmured:

  “Penninah! Nay, Penninah!”

  And he led me to the settle, and we sank down upon it together, my head on his shoulder and my arms about his neck, and he held me close and stroked my hair and kissed my wet cheek, and we mingled our tears, and all our griefs against each other were washed away.

  After a time, as it chanced, Chris ran past the window, and came in at the back door and peeped in, looking for me, for I often gave him a piece in his hand to eat, in the middle of the morning. He stood at the door, quite awestruck at seeing me in the arms of a strange man, weeping.

  “It is Christopher,” I whispered, and I buried my face in John’s shoulder and trembled.

  “I know,” said John. “I know.” He beckoned Chris to him—who came at first timidly, but afterwards skipping, for he had no fear in his heart and loved everyone—and he picked up the child and kissed him gravely, and put back his rich gold hair from his forehead and looked at him, and then set him down gently and bade him run and play, as I was busy. When Chris had gone, after a moment: “He is very like,” said John. “Well, I will love him for both your sakes.”

  By this he meant, I saw, for my sake and Francis’s, for after all h
e had loved Francis in his youth very dearly, and at this I wept again, clinging to him closely and burying my face in his shoulder. I tried to say: “Forgive! Forgive!” but I do not truly know whether I succeeded, for it is not an easy word for a proud woman to say, and moreover, even in my abasement I could not swear that I repented totally of my sin, for I loved little Christopher as my own soul and could not dream of life without him. Yet I grieved from the depths of my heart that I had wounded John and betrayed him, and perhaps I managed to convey this to his mind, because he began, stumbling and uncertainly, to utter words which I did not at first see the tenor of, but which presently I understood to be self-accusation.

  “I was over-eager to wed thee, Penninah,” he murmured, and again: “I took thee too promply at thy word. Thou wast but a child, and with thy father lying dead and thy soft heart broken.…”

  I saw at last that he had come to blame himself for marrying me so swiftly after my quarrel with Francis. But this great generosity I could not allow, for at the time of our marriage I was completely turned towards John and away from Francis; I acted knowing my mind and of my own free will. I could not speak the name of Francis to him, for I felt that John was still John, there was still the deep reserve in him and he would not be able to endure to have it broken. So I could exclaim only to his self-accusings:

  “No! No!” with great vehemence. “No! It was not so!” I told him again, shaking my head very emphatically.

  John’s face seemed to brighten at this; turning aside from me he said in a stiff tone, speaking very carefully:

  “What is done is done—it is past and God knows we have paid for it. Let us put it away and lead a new life together in peace.”

  I guessed he had made up these words in his mind as he came along, or perhaps had spent many months in torment framing them. I laid my hand in his, and I said:

  “Let it be so, John, with all my heart.”

  He turned to me, and we kissed very strongly, and from that time onwards we were truly husband and wife.

  After a while, when our hearts had calmed a little and the first storm of my weeping had died down, I rose and began to minister to John, taking off his musket and powder horn and his buff-coat, and lighting a fire in the houseplace, which we had not had for long enough, and setting food and drink before him. I saw him looking about at his house—for it was his house, I remembered—with a bewildered air; I was so used to its bareness that I had forgotten it, but now I saw it through his eyes, and grieved for such a poor welcome to his home-coming. While he ate I told him about the sack of The Breck, and about all our labours and sufferings since; I saw the dark colour rise slowly to his cheek, and knew he reproached himself for having sent nothing for our support all these long four years. But he had had no notion of the harsh road we were travelling, any more than I had known of his sufferings from fever and hunger, cold and danger. To distract him from this shame he felt, I told him of two or three small repairs about the house which needed attention; he turned to his tools at once and put them right, working with so much more skill and strength than little Sam that it was a joy to watch him. I held a candle for him, just as I used when we were children together. He made no effusive speeches of affection to me, nor offered many caresses, yet I saw he was happy—he hummed a psalm, softly, below his breath, and his face already looked less strained and haggard. He chopped wood and drew water, too, though amazed that I had none to do it for me; the difference between a man’s strength and a woman’s, the difference between being the strongest person in the house and being regarded as a woman who ought not to do heavy work, was very pleasurably made clear to me. I felt as if, after struggling for years through a storm of rain and wind, I had reached a warm snug room and lay on a soft mattress. I said as much to John, who gave his old grim smile.

  “I have never been likened to a feather bed before,” said he. When I denied this meaning, he said with a laugh: “Nay—a change is not unpleasant.”

  Then the boys came home from their work, and fell upon him with cries of joy and thankfulness. John looked them up and down, and turned them about, and stroked their heads, smiling all the while and marvelling how they had grown. I own I felt some pride in them; they were fine well-grown lads, healthy in colour, happy in look, and when I reflected that they had been fed and clothed for four years without John’s aid, I could not imagine how I had achieved it. Then Sam brought down Sir Thomas’s boots to show his father, which John handled very gently and lovingly, I thought, although he smiled; and then Sam would have him go up to the loom-chamber, and we told him the story of the one rough sack of wool which was all Isaac Baume had left in the house, and how our looms had escaped destruction; and then we all went out to the laithe, and we told him the story of the stolen cows—it was strange to see his horse in the stable; we had not seen a horse at The Breck for nearly four years. Then we went to the patch of oats, and Sam wished his father to admire how straightly they were sown, and we told him how we had scooped up the meal from the lane with our hands, and had cooked it in the holed pan which was all the soldiers had left us. He exclaimed in amazement, looking from one to the other of us and marvelling. It seemed to me that all this concerned Sam, and though Thomas was the least jealous of any lad I ever met, still I did not wish him to be overshadowed by his brother. So as we climbed the slope up to The Breck, John and I arm in arm and the children running round us, I said:

  “Thomas has kept his Latin, and begun Greek and Hebrew too.”

  “Then he can read this inscription for me,” said John, smiling; and he put his fingers in an inner pocket and drew out a fine gold coin, and held it out in the palm of his hand.

  The children crowded close to see, and Chris turned and held out his arms to me, which meant that he wanted to be lifted, and I took him up in the crook of my arm, and we all bent to John’s hand. The coin, I saw now, was not a coin but a medal, with a ring at the head by which to suspend it, and a blue ribbon.

  “Read it, Thomas,” I urged him.

  “Across the centre field, it says M E R U I S T I,” said Thomas in his clear high voice. “Which means: Thou hast deserved well. Round the rim, the legend is: P O S T H A C M E L I O R A, which means: after this, better things—or better times, perhaps.”

  “Who gave it you, Father?” asked Sam, awestruck.

  “My General,” said John. He turned the medal over; there was a bust engraved of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with the legend: T H O. F A I R F A X. M I L E S. M I L I T. P A R L. D U X. G E N.

  “Thomas Fairfax, miles, militum parliamentanorum dux generalis,” read Thomas. “Thomas Fairfax, soldier, lord general of the parliamentary soldiers. Or it might be militum parliamenti, of the parliament’s soldiers.”

  “It is very well,” approved John, laying his hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

  “Tell us all your adventures in battles, Father!” cried Sam, turning a somersault on the grass. Chris struggled down from my arms and tried to copy him, rolling over very earnestly to himself, but very comically to us, so that we all laughed together.

  “Why, son Sam,” said John pleasantly, when we were all sitting together round the fire: “I confess I know not where to begin about my General’s battles.”

  “Begin with Marston Moor,” suggested Thomas, and Sam nodded eagerly and pressed up to his father.

  We sat listening, enthralled, till it was far past the boys’ bed-time, and little Chris was long since asleep on my lap. “It is time for bed, lads,” I urged once or twice, but they cried: “No, no, Mother! Not yet! Not to-night!” and I had not the heart to command them.

  At last John said: “I will show you one more thing, and then it must be bed-time,” and Thomas and Sam reluctantly agreed, and John undid one of his packs, and brought out a piece of parchment. “Read it, Thomas,” he said.

  “Sir Thomas Fairfax, Knight,” read Thomas very proudly: “Commander-in-Chief of all the Land-Forces under the pay of the Parliament, within the Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, and in the
Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, in order to the security and peace of the Kingdom, reducing of Ireland, and disbanding such as shall be thought fit by both Houses.”

  Sam clapped his hands and jumped in his chair for excitement.

  “I do hereby acknowledge,” continued Thomas, ‘‘that Mr. John Thorpe hath deservedly received a medal from the Parliament and City of London, in remembrance of his faithful Service under my command in the year 1645. The signature,” concluded Thomas: “is T. Fairfax.”

  “There will be another for me for 1647, coming presently,” said John.

  “Why does it say the Parliament and City of London gave you the medal, Father?” asked Sam.

  “They had the medal struck, and paid for the gold,” explained John, “but my General said who were to receive the medals. Now, lads, to bed with you!”

  Their heads were buzzing so with battles and medals and certificates that they went off in silence, their eyes quite dazed; John took their faces between his hands and kissed them very tenderly, and bent and did the like with Chris as he lay fast asleep in my arms.

  While I was busy with Chris upstairs, I heard John moving about below, looking out at the weather, barring the door, and performing all such last small duties as householders use at night, which I had perforce done myself these last four years; it was very comfortable to hear him. When I came down, he was sitting by the fire, gazing into its embers thoughtfully; the look of peace on his tired face showed me what it meant to him to be here, quiet and at ease by his own fireside, and I was moved by it. I picked up the gold medal which lay on the table, and turned it over, examining it, and John came and stood behind me and looked over my shoulder.

  “Meruisti—thou hast deserved well, husband,” I said to him: “Canst now take an honourable leisure.”

  “Thou too, Penninah,” said John gruffly. “Thou hast been the pillar of this house these past four years; now I will ease the burden from thy shoulder.”