Abbeyford Inheritance

by Margaret Dickinson

  At last the fight was over when one of the cocks lay, a bleeding mass of feathers, upon the ground. The other could hardly be said to strut proudly, for it staggered around hardly able to stand either.

  Squire Trent nodded with satisfaction. “ There, I told you that one would win. Wish I’d had a sovereign on it. Good fight, wasn’t it?”

  Adelina shuddered. “I suppose so, if you like that sort of thing.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I thought you liked a bit of sport. You joined the Hunt.”

  She grimaced. “I joined the Hunt for the riding and the social gathering. I can’t say I relish the kill very much.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sorry I brought you then,” he said huffily.

  “I’m glad to have seen it,” Adelina tried to placate him. “Thank you for bringing me. I heard tell George Washington used to enjoy the sport.”

  “Really?” the squire said, somewhat mollified.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Wait until they’ve all gone before we leave or we’ll risk being seen.”

  But the village men showed no sign of dispersing. In fact, the atmosphere became quieter, more serious, as if, the sport over for the day, they now had business to discuss. They talked amongst themselves for some five minutes whilst Squire Trent grumbled. “Whatever are they playing at? Why don’t they get off home? They don’t usually dally once the fight’s done. Can’t understand it …”

  At that moment his whispered mutterings were cut short by the arrival through the broken, stone archway of another man. Squire Trent’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged in surprise. Adelina, tired of watching through the peephole, was now sitting with her back against the wall just waiting until her companion should give the word that all was clear for them to leave. She saw the strange expression upon his face and sat upright again.

  “What is it?” she hissed.

  He put his forefinger to his lips and Adelina was surprised to see that his hand trembled. Mystified and intrigued she twisted round to see the cause. She almost cried out as she recognised the man who had just come into the ruins and now stood on a low wall some three feet high so that he could address the other men and be clearly seen and heard by them.

  “Evan,” Adelina whispered hoarsely. “It’s Evan Smithson!”

  Squire Trent nodded soberly. “I wonder where the devil he’s sprung from again?”

  A shadowy incident, just out of reach of her conscious mind, seemed to flicker across Adelina’s memory, as if she ought to know and yet she could just not remember …

  Evan was speaking now. Squire Trent and Adelina bent forward, their faces close together, to listen. There was something ominous about this meeting of the village men, and both were anxious to learn what it was.

  “My friends,” Evan was shouting, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of grand eloquence. “ I have come here today to show you that I am alive. I left Abbeyford – vowing never to return. But, my friends, I kept thinking of you all under the whip of that tyrant, Wallis Trent. So I came back.” He grinned. “ I have been back several months!” And Adelina knew instinctively that Evan Smithson had been behind the mysterious happenings against the Trents. “You all know I have reason enough to hate him and his kind,” he was saying. “And so have you, if you think on’t.”

  He prodded his forefinger towards the men. A low murmuring ran amongst them. “He doesn’t care if you work yourselves into an early grave, or if you’ve a roof over your head or enough food in your bellies, or whether your children run barefoot and shiver in winter and die of starvation.”

  The murmurings grew louder.

  “Does he put more money in your pocket, my friends? He’s lining his own whilst you starve. Does his family live on a diet of rye bread, potatoes and skim-milk? No, his son will eat meat every day, if he wants. When did your children last eat meat?”

  “We share a pig now and again,” someone muttered, but Evan, if he heard, ignored the remark.

  “And so, my fellow peasants, I say it is time for revolution. It is time we stood up for our rights as human beings instead of being slaves to the gentry. The whole country wants Parliamentary reform. We want the Corn Law abolished.”

  The cries of assent rang through the crumbling walls, and Adelina and Guy Trent exchanged a look of deep anxiety. Only one voice tried to bring a note of sanity. “Aye, but Trents is cattle-farmers. This ’ere Corn Law won’t mek no difference to us.” But he was quickly silenced.

  Evan’s tirade was relentless. “ Last week I went to a meeting near Manchester – at Peterloo – only about twenty miles from here. A peaceful meeting it was, of farm labourers from hereabouts and men from the cotton mills too. It wasn’t intended to be a riot or a rebellion. Men took their families, their wives and little children – even babes in arms. But what did the magistrates do? They called out the yeomanry, who charged amongst the people, killin’ and maiming. I tell you, my friends, if you could ’ave seen the sight afterwards – the field was littered like a battlefield. Men wounded and dying, women trampled by the horses, children orphaned in the space of a few seconds, crying pitifully. It was a massacre, a bloody massacre!”

  The angry resentment and hatred was now written upon every face. The murmurings grew to a cry for revenge.

  Evan held up his hand and the noise abated. In a lower, more conspiratorial voice, he said, “ But our grievances are closer to home than with Parliament, aren’t they, my friends? We will meet on the village green on Saturday next and go to the Manor to ask for, no, to demand a better wage and better conditions. The Trents sit up there in their grand Manor living off the fruits of your labours whilst you live out your dismal lives with scarcely enough to eat in your tumble-down cottages – which he owns.”

  “What if he wun’t do aught?”

  “Then we’ll have to get a little nasty, wun’t us?” Evan’s face twisted into such an expression of bitter hatred that Adelina shuddered, remembering all too clearly how, once, she had seen that same expression on Evan’s face – at very close proximity!

  “What d’you mean?”

  Evan shrugged. “We’ll burn his stacks, his barn, even his fine house, an’ see how he likes being poor!”

  “No, no, it’s too much.”

  “No – we munna do harm.”

  “He deserves it – he dunna care for us.”

  “Evan’s right. After all – he should know.”

  The remarks flew furiously amongst the men, only a few rising clearly to Adelina’s ears above the general babble.

  Evan caught and held on to the last remark.

  “Yes, I should know. For am I not a Trent by birth? But you all know what that drunken old sot did? Left an innocent village girl to live a life of shame just because he had to marry one of his own class. An’ the older ones among you will remember me grandpa – how he was sent to gaol for summat he didna do, an’ how he died there!”

  Adelina saw Squire Trent’s face turn a deathly grey colour and a soft moan escaped his lips. “Oh, Sarah, Sarah! What have we done? Is it not enough how we have suffered all these years apart?”

  Adelina was moved to take his hand and hold it comfortingly. She was hearing proof from his own lips that Squire Trent had really loved Sarah. What pain Evan’s actions must be causing him, for, after all, he was his son!

  At last the meeting broke up and the men sneaked away out of the ruins back towards Abbeyford. Evan Smithson disappeared in the opposite direction. Not until everyone had been gone for some minutes did Guy Trent and Adelina dare to move their cramped limbs and leave their hiding-place.

  The hillside was deserted as they hurried across the open space to the wood.

  “Whatever shall we do?” Adelina panted as she took little running steps in her haste to escape from the scene she had just witnessed. The horrors of the cock-fight were completely obliterated by the mutinous meeting which had followed.

  “We – must tell Wallis.”

  “Yes, yes, of
course, we must tell Wallis,” she agreed, but added, “but what will he do?”

  “What are you going to do?” Adelina repeated her question to Wallis some time later as she and Squire Trent stood facing him across the smooth leather-top of the desk in his study. They had recounted the full story of the scene they had witnessed. Between them they were able to repeat what had been said almost word for word. She bit her lip, waiting apprehensively for his reply.

  “I shall follow the good example of the Manchester magistrates and call out the yeomanry.”

  “Oh, no, Wallis. You can’t possibly do that – not against your own people.”

  Wallis, a fearsome frown upon his face, leaned towards her threateningly. “My people? You dare to call them my people after what they have done to me these last months. It started with the sheep and, every week since something has been destroyed or stolen, or animals injured. My people! Pah!” He thumped one fist against the palm of his other hand. “Adelina, you will not interfere. You hear me?”

  Adelina stared at him in disbelief. Was she really married to this cold, heartless man who would call out the soldiers against his own workers?

  She turned away sick at heart.

  For two days Adelina worried and fretted over what she could do to prevent the tragedy which was sure to occur.

  There was a stillness in the air, an oppressiveness, as if everyone and everything were waiting – waiting for the storm of hatred and revenge and arrogance to unleash itself. She feared for the safety of the children. Jamie Trent and her own daughter. If the rioters meant what they said – then the whole Trent family was in danger.

  On the Friday, Adelina could bear the suspense no longer. When she knew Wallis was out, she gave orders for the carriage to be made ready and brought to the side entrance. Hastily she thrust some garments for the children and herself into a portmanteau and instructed Jane to do likewise. “You’ll be staying at Abbeyford Grange for a few nights. I’m sure Lord Royston won’t mind.”

  “Aren’t you coming, ma’am?”

  “I’m taking you there, but – I don’t know yet.”

  Once the children were safe, Adelina told herself, perhaps she would be able to think more rationally.

  She did not tell anyone else in the household what she was doing – Wallis would be angry enough when he found out.

  As the carriage passed through, the village, the strangely silent street made Adelina’s nerves tremble with dread. When they arrived at Abbeyford Grange, Adelina sent Jane with the children to find the housekeeper while she went in search of Lord Royston.

  She flew through the hallway and into the drawing-room.

  “Grandfather,” she cried, “Grandfather …” Then she stopped

  in surprise as she saw that her grandfather had a visitor.

  The world seemed to rock beneath her feet as she breathed his

  name. “Francis! Oh, Francis!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Earl of Lynwood had turned at the sound of her voice. For a moment, across the room, their eyes met and held. She read the longing in his gaze and for a moment all the love in her heart was in her eyes for him to see. There was a flash of exultation, of love, in his. She stood before him, a woman, beautiful, yet with the maturity and serenity and kindliness that Life’s harsh experiences had taught her. In her lovely face was the strength of a fine character.

  How could he have ever thought she was like Caroline, who, though equally lovely, had been selfish and ruthless?

  The pain of his final loss of Adelina on her marriage to Wallis Trent and the realisation that it had been his own blind stupidity which had forced her to take such a disastrous step, had finally – once and for all – obliterated his boyish memories.

  Ironically, when at last Lynwood realised that it was Adelina he loved for herself alone, it was too late for she was the wife of Wallis Trent!

  Lord Royston broke the spell. “ What ever is the matter, my child?”

  “Oh – I – yes. Grandfather – it’s Wallis. He’s going to – to call out the yeomanry. The villagers – they’re planning to march to the Manor and he – he intends to quell what he thinks will be a riot with the use of soldiers.”

  Lord Royston and Lynwood exchanged anxious glances.

  “This is serious, my lord,” Lynwood said earnestly.

  Lord Royston nodded, his old eyes full of concern. He thumped his stick on the floor. “The stupid, arrogant fool! What does he think he’s playing at? And how’s he managed to call them out? He’s not a magistrate, is he?”

  “No,” Lynwood answered soberly. “But you are!”

  “Well, I haven’t given any such order.”

  “No, I realise that. But Trent wields power and influence, often in your name.”

  “Does he indeed? The scoundrel!”

  Lynwood glanced at Adelina as if to see what effect her grandfather’s words had upon her. She moved forward and said softly, “Grandfather, it’s the villagers I’m afraid for. They’re angry and bitter and resentful, roused by Evan Smithson.”

  “Who?”

  “Evan Smithson. Guy Trent’s – illegitimate son.”

  Adelina glanced at Lynwood. They were both remembering Evan, the abbey ruins and Lynwood’s fight with him – and the reason for it.

  “Good lord! So he’s at the bottom of this, is he?” Lord Royston murmured, knowing nothing of their memories.

  Swiftly, Adelina told them of the scene Squire Trent and she had witnessed at the abbey ruins. “ We told Wallis, thinking he’d be able to handle the situation, but instead all he would say is that they deserve all they get and he’ll put an end to it once and for all.”

  She sat down heavily and dropped her head into her hands. “There will be such bloodshed and suffering. I don’t know how he can be so – so cruel. I can’t bear it!”

  She felt Lynwood’s hand upon her shoulder. “ I’ll see what I can do. But it’s late now, I doubt I’ll be in time.”

  Adelina lifted her tear-streaked face and covered his hand with her own. “Oh, Francis, thank you.”

  Swiftly he bent and kissed her, their lips clinging desperately, hungrily, for a moment and then he turned and hurried from the room.

  Adelina and her grandfather looked at each other sadly. “Oh, Grandfather – what have I done?” she said heavily, not expecting him to answer. Then briskly she roused herself. She could not let herself wallow in the self-pity the sight of Francis had aroused in her. There was no time now for indulging in thoughts of what might have been.

  “I hope you don’t mind – I’ve brought the children here to stay for a few days.”

  “Of course not, my dear. And you must stay here too.”

  “No,” Adelina said quietly. “I must go back. There may be something I can do, even now, to prevent it.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go,” Lord Royston said, then he sighed. “But in some ways you’re too much like your mother to take notice of me – but not in every way, my dear, dear girl.”

  Adelina bent and kissed his bald head. “Dear Grandfather,” she murmured and then hurried away.

  She mounted Zeus, which she had brought for her return, and left Abbeyford Grange.

  As she entered the hall at the Manor, Wallis was waiting for her. He grasped her arm in a vice-like grip, and half dragged her into his study. Slamming the door behind him, he turned upon her. “Where is my son? What have you done with him?”

  Courageously, Adelina squared her shoulders and faced him. “ I have taken both children, and Jane, to Abbeyford Grange. They will be safe there.”

  “Then you will fetch them back at once,” he said, his teeth clenched, his eyes bright with anger.

  “Not until the danger is over.”

  Menacingly, he said. “ Do you think, madam, that I cannot protect my own son? You will fetch him back— now!”

  “I – will – not,” Adelina said meeting his almost maniacal wrath with an outward show of fearlessness.

  Wa
llis raised his right arm and with the back of his hand dealt her a stinging blow across the face. She fell against a chair, knocking it over as she tumbled to the floor. He stood over her, powerful, arrogant and utterly ruthless. Roughly, he grasped her arm and pulled her to her feet, almost dislocating her shoulder. Adelina cried out in pain.

  At that moment the door opened and his father came in. He stopped in amazement. “ What the devil …? Wallis, have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “Get out,” Wallis snarled. But as he turned momentarily towards his father he relaxed his grip upon Adelina. All her instincts for survival, which had saved her so often in the waterfront taverns, rose to the surface. Twisting away, she pushed past Squire Trent and ran through the hall. She heard Wallis shout, was dimly aware of a scuffle as the older man attempted to stop Wallis following her. Out of the front door and down the steps. Zeus was being led away by a stable-boy.

  “Wait, wait!” Adelina cried, desperately afraid her shaking legs would not carry her. Wallis was at the door as she reached her horse. The boy took one look at his angry master, bent quickly and cupped his hands.

  “Here, missus, quick!”

  Gratefully, Adelina put her foot into his hands and hoisted herself on to the horse. She grasped the reins and as Wallis ran towards them, she kicked at Zeus. As she galloped away out of reach she turned back to see Wallis attacking the stable-lad, venting his frustration on the innocent boy.

  Adelina galloped down the lane, through the village and up to Abbeyford Grange.

  It was only when she knew she was safe, that the fear and terror overwhelmed her. “I can never go back to him,” she whispered to herself. “ Never!”

  Saturday dawned, and, as if to match the ominous situation, the weather was sultry. Black clouds hung over the village and yet there was no rain. Thunder rumbled in the far distance and the air was breathless.

  Adelina worried the hours away, watching from the long windows in the library at the Grange. As it began to grow dusk, she could see, far below, lighted torches moving towards the village green, until there seemed to be a pool of flickering light in the centre of the village.