Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  We argued incessantly. He put the case for the Jacobites with fervour. I laughed at him and shocked him by telling him I simply did not care which King was on the throne. I only wanted people around me to live happily without fighting or getting angry because others had different views.

  I would have found it easy, I think, to have persuaded him to let me escape. I could have asked to see the horses and mounted one and ridden away; I could have got the key of the attic from him. But I would not. I could not let him betray his uncle’s trust. There was something essentially honourable about Dickon.

  He brought his mastiff to show me. The dog was called Chevalier after the would-be King. He took a fancy to me and this was an added bond between us. The little maid who had brought up the water for me on the first day knew how it was with Dickon and me. She was a romantic at heart, and, I believe, thought it charming to see the love springing up between us. I began to get special delicacies brought up from the kitchens—and I wanted this episode to go on and on. It seemed more than three days I spent in the attic. It was like a dream. Dickon felt it too—so he told me afterwards.

  We were avid to know everything about each other. The smallest detail seemed of the utmost importance. This was the strangest and most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me.

  It was on the fourth day that he came to me and I knew that something was wrong from the moment he stepped into the attic. He was paler than usual and his hair was ruffled. He had a habit, I knew, of running his hand through it when he was disturbed.

  I went swiftly to him and put my hands on his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever touched him. His reaction was immediate. He put his arms about me and held me close to him. He did not speak for a few moments and I did not ask him to. I was savouring the wonder of being close to him.

  At length he broke away from me and then I saw how frightened he was. He said: ‘You must get away from here. They are coming back. They are only a few miles away. One of the men reached here in advance with the news. There has been a disaster at Preston. Most of the Highlanders have surrendered; the rest are in retreat. My uncle will be back soon… and I fear he will kill you.’

  This was bringing me back to reality. I should have known that my idyll could not last. Dickon had changed. He was remembering, too.

  He looked at me very seriously. ‘You must not stay here,’ he said. ‘You must get away.’

  ‘We shall have to say goodbye,’ I murmured.

  He turned his head aside and nodded. A terrible desolation came over me. ‘I should never see you again,’ I said.

  ‘No… no… That must not be.’ Then he held me against him and kissed me. He said: ‘Clarissa!’ and went on saying my name over and over again.

  Suddenly he was alert. ‘There is no time to lose,’ he said. ‘You must get out of here.’

  ‘You… will let me go?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Your uncle…’

  ‘If they find you here they might kill you.’

  ‘But they will know you have let me escape.’

  ‘I will make some excuse…’ he muttered. ‘Come… now. They could be here at any moment. You will have to be careful. Follow me… quietly.’

  He shut the door behind us, carefully locking it. I followed him down the steps and through the gallery. He went ahead, beckoning to me when the way was clear. We reached the hall safely and went out to the stables. Quickly he saddled a horse.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You will have need of this. Get to York. There send a message to your family. Perhaps your uncle is still there. There is a coach that goes to London from York. It starts from the Black Swan in Coney Street every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It takes four days, providing there are no mishaps. Perhaps you could take that. I don’t think they will follow you south. They will have to go to Scotland and join the men there.’

  ‘Oh, Dickon,’ I said. ‘You have done this for me. I shall never forget…’

  I was not generally given to tears, but they were in my eyes then. I saw, too, that he was also trying to suppress his emotion.

  ‘It will be dangerous on the roads,’ he said. ‘A girl alone

  Then he began to saddle another of the horses.

  I said: ‘Dickon… what?’

  ‘I am coming with you. How can I let you go alone?’

  We came out into the frosty morning air.

  ‘Oh Dickon,’ I said. ‘You must not. Think what you are doing…’

  ‘There is no time for talking,’ he said. ‘Ride… gallop… We must get away from here as fast as we can.’

  I knew I was in danger. I believed that they would be capable of killing me if they returned and found me there. There was indeed no time for delay. They were in retreat and would want to set out for Scotland immediately. They would not want to waste time with me and on the other hand they would not want to let me go free. Yes, I was in acute danger. But I knew I had never been so happy in my life.

  Our horses’ hoofs rang out on the frosty road, and it was exhilarating riding along beside Dickon. The countryside seemed more beautiful even than in the spring. The black lacy pattern of branches against the sky, the grey tassels of the hazel which shivered in the breeze, the jasmine round a cottage door which was beginning to show shoots of yellow—they all enchanted me. I heard the song of the skylark which was soaring over the fields, followed by the wild cry of the mistle thrush. It was strange that I should notice such details at such a time. It was perhaps because Damaris had made me aware of the wonders of nature.

  In any case I was happy. I refused to look beyond the moment. Dickon and I had escaped together; and he had rescued me—at what cost to himself I could only guess.

  In the early afternoon he called a halt. ‘We must refresh not only ourselves but the horses,’ he said. We went into an inn which I saw was called the Red Cow according to the sign which creaked over the door.

  ‘We are brother and sister,’ he told me, ‘if any should ask your business. We live at Thorley Manor. No one will ever question that for as far as I know there is no Thorley Manor. We are visiting our uncle in York. Our grooms with the saddle-bags are going on ahead. Our name is Thorley and you are Clara. I am Jack.’

  I nodded. The adventure was growing more and more exciting with every passing moment.

  With an air of authority Dickon ordered that our horses should be fed and watered. Then we went into the inn. I am sure I had never known such a happy hour as I spent in that inn parlour. The fire in the great fireplace was warm and comforting and the innkeeper’s wife brought us bowls of pease soup and hot barley bread with bacon and cheese; there were two large tankards of ale to go with it, and never had food tasted so good, even in my needy days in Paris. Paradise was an inn parlour in the Red Cow on the road to York, and I never wanted to leave it.

  I regarded Dickon with eyes from which adoration must have shone out. We were both of us so happy to be together, and we did not want to look ahead to what this impulsive action might bring. To him it could mean disaster. He had betrayed his uncle who was his guardian; he had betrayed the Jacobite cause, and he had done it for me.

  In the parlour there was a grandfather clock noisily ticking away the minutes. It was a constant reminder of the passing of time. I wished I could stop it.

  I said: ‘I should like to stay here like this for the rest of my life.’

  ‘So should I,’ said Dickon.

  We were silent, contemplating such bliss.

  ‘We shall have to go soon,’ Dickon went on at length. ‘We really should not have stayed so long.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll come after us?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. They will have to go north… to the army there. The invasion of England will come later.’

  ‘And you, Dickon?’

  ‘I shall have to be there with them.’

  ‘Let’s stay here for a while.’

  He shook his head but he made no attempt to get up. I gazed at the flames in the
grate, making fairy-tale pictures of castles and riders—all beautiful, enchanted like this inn parlour.

  I suddenly noticed that the sky had darkened and that a few light snowflakes were floating down past the window. I said nothing, for I knew if I did Dickon would say we must leave at once.

  The innkeeper’s wife came in; she was plump, red-faced and smiling and wore a white mobcap on her untidy hair.

  ‘Wind’s getting up,’ she said. ‘Coming from the North. “The north wind do blow, and we shall have snow,” so they say. You two got far to go?’

  ‘To York,’ said Dickon.

  ‘Why, bless my soul. You’ll never make that before dark. You’d be caught in the snow if you try to get there today.’

  Dickon went to the window. The snow was now falling fast. He turned to me in dismay.

  I said: ‘Perhaps we could stay here for the night. Could we pay?’

  Dickon nodded.

  ‘Why, bless you,’ said the host’s wife, ‘I reckon your father would see to that. Live about here, do you?’

  Thorley Manor,’ Dickon told her boldly.

  ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of it. Have you come far?’

  ‘Some twenty miles.’

  ‘That accounts for it. Now, Master Thorley, if you can pay me on the spot I’ll find room for you; No question of that.’

  ‘My sister and I will consider what is best to be done,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you’d better consider fast, young gentleman, for I hear horses coming into the yard. There’ll be others looking for a night’s lodging on a night like this is going to be.’

  When she had gone we looked fearfully at each other. Who were the new arrivals? What if, discovering our disappearance, Sir Thomas Frenshaw had sent someone after us to bring us back—or perhaps come himself?

  I stretched out my hand and Dickon took it and held it comfortingly.

  ‘You should not have come with me,’ I said. ‘You could have let me escape and told them it was no fault of yours.’

  ‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘I had to come with you. How would you have fared alone?’

  We stood still looking at each other and in that moment of danger we knew without doubt that we loved, and that life would be empty for each of us without the other.

  Our fears were momentarily lulled for the arrivals were a party of travellers who in view of the sudden change in the weather had decided they could not continue with their journey but would spend the night in the Red Cow.

  They came into the parlour noisily and boisterously, invading our privacy and dispersing as they did so that wonderful intimacy I had shared with Dickon. We sat side by side on a settle in a corner of the room while the three men and three women occupied the table and were served with hot pease soup.

  The women looked at us with curiosity and gave us friendly smiles. We were ready when they began to ask questions and we told them that we were a brother and sister who were going to York and that our grooms with the saddle-bags were following us.

  ‘Two young ’uns like you on the road,’ cried the eldest of the women. ‘My patience! I wouldn’t like one of mine to be travelling like that.’

  ‘My brother has a strong arm,’ I said.

  ‘And proud of him you are, I can see. Well, we’re going to York. Best ride along with us, eh, Harry?’ She appealed to none of the men.

  The man addressed as Harry surveyed us genially and nodded, ‘Safety in numbers,’ he said with a wink.

  The innkeeper’s wife came bustling in. ‘Eee,’ she said. ‘Be wanting to stay the night, then?’

  ‘Reckon there’s no help for it, Missus.’

  ‘Inn’s full,’ she answered. She looked at us all and scratched her head, pushing the mobcap back to do so and then carefully replacing it. ‘What I’ll have to do is give you pallets in the gallery. We call it Makeshift Gallery.’ She tittered. ‘Nights like this you often gets more than you’ve beds for.’

  The woman who had spoken to us said that reckon they’d be glad to have a roof over their heads on a night like this was going to be.

  The innkeeper’s wife looked at us. ‘These two young ’uns will be in the gallery too. It’s all we can offer.’

  My heart sank. I could see that these hearty, well-meaning travellers had broken into our magic. We were members of a party now—no longer alone.

  ‘It could have been worse,’ Dickon whispered to me. ‘It could have been my uncle to take us back to… who knows what.’

  All during the late afternoon the snow fell so that there was a blanket of it on the roads and the window-sills were covered. Our companions did not mind in the least. It was an amusing adventure to them. The woman came over to us and asked questions. What about our poor mother? She would be worried about us, wouldn’t she? But she would be thinking we were with the grooms. Had we been a bit wicked? Had we lost them a-purpose?

  I thought it was best that they should think we had, and tried to look arch and coy.

  ‘Wicked… wicked…’ said the youngest of the women, shaking her finger at us. And we came from Thorley Manor, did we? Gentry, eh? Well, she could see that. It didn’t need no sign like to tell her. We’d got gentry written all over us… the both of us. Never mind, they would look after us. Mercy had it that they too were on the road to York. We should go along with them. There were some rough characters on the road. They’d think nothing of slitting your throat for the price of a goblet of ale. Never mind: Luck was with us. We’d fallen in with the Macksons and the Freelys, who were in the business of wool. Partners they were, and travelling to York with their families all for the purpose of selling wool.

  They were kindly; they meant well; and we could not help liking them.

  They sang. Their raucous voices filled the inn parlour and the innkeeper and his wife came in from time to time to supply their needs. There would be sucking-pig for supper that night, we were told almost conspiratorially, and there were cries of approval and one of the men shouted: ‘And plenty of stuffing, Missus.’

  ‘Ee, I’ll see to that,’ answered the innkeeper’s wife.

  The snow continued to fall; the candles guttered and the company sang. The youngest of the men had a good voice.

  ‘You gentlemen of England,’ he rendered,

  ‘Who live at home at ease

  Full little do you think upon

  The danger of the seas…’

  And they all joined in at the end of each verse:

  ‘When the stormy winds do blow… o… o… o… o

  When the stormy winds do blow.’

  And one of the women sang; ‘The Frog he would a-Wooing Ride.’ I knew that whenever after I heard that song I should be back in that inn parlour with the fire blazing and the snow falling fast outside.

  The sucking-pig arrived in due course and we were all one merry party with the other travellers who were staying at the Red Cow. The men talked about the troubles.

  ‘They say the Pretender’s on his way… may even have landed by now.’

  ‘He should stay where he is. Don’t he know when he’s not wanted?’

  I caught Dickon’s hand and pressed it warningly for I was afraid he might betray himself. The company would not be very pleased to have a Jacobite among them.

  They came down as far as Preston,’ said one of the travellers. ‘We was ready for him. Routed they was… the Highlanders of Scotland. What are they up to coming into our country? Up to no good, that’s what.’

  ‘We soon sent ’em packing.’

  ‘You don’t think there’ll be war?’ asked one of the women: ‘We don’t want none of that. I remember hearing my granddad tell me what it was like when there was war in the country.’

  ‘There’s been war only a little while back,’ said one of them.

  ‘Oh, that wasn’t here. Don’t call that a war. I mean war… when they’re fighting here… on English soil… Englishman against Englishman so your friend today is your enemy tomorrow… and who’s to know what’s what. That’s wh
at I mean. We don’t want none of that.’

  ‘There’s not going to be none of that. The Jacks is beat before they start. Come on, Bess, give us a song.’

  So they sang and Dickon and I sat listening and at last we all retired to the gallery and lay down on our pallets. Dickon and I were very close to each other. We held hands, but did not speak for fear of waking the others. There was no need for words. I lay there thinking of the enormity of what he had done for me. He had set aside his loyalty to his uncle, his entire belief in the righteousness of his cause; and he had done this for love of me. I did not know how I could ever repay him.

  I lay sleepless, and I know he did too. During the night the rain started to fall, and in the morning it had washed the snow away.

  We were up early and ready to leave. We set off in the company of our fellow travellers and just as dusk was beginning to descend we saw the towers of the Minster and the ancient walls of the city.

  ‘Your friends are here?’ said the wool merchant to Dickon.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I thank you for allowing us to ride with you.’

  ‘Eee, nothing to that, lad. Twas only decent. Two young ’uns like you shouldn’t take journeys alone. Where be going?’

  ‘To the Mayor’s house,’ said Dickon. I caught my breath. I had told him that when we were in York my uncle, Lance Clavering and I had stayed at the Mayor’s house.

  The party was impressed.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you they was gentry?’ whispered the oldest of the women.

  We came through Goodramgate up to the Shambles and there we said goodbye to our companions. I had come along this road before so I knew the way to the Mayor’s house. There it stood, an imposing residence, apart from the small houses of the narrow streets.

  As we approached my heart leaped, for Lance Clavering was walking out of the house. He stopped in amazement and stared.

  ‘Clarissa!’ he cried. I had forgotten how handsome he was. He looked quite magnificent in his embroidered coat, the cuffs of which were decorated with mauves and blues of the most delicate shading. His cravat was a mass of frills; and his pale blue stockings were rolled above the knee, which I learned was the latest fashion; on his high-heeled, shining black shoes buckles glittered. He swept off his three-cornered hat and bowed low.