Reckless Angel

by Jane Feather

  “Are you not going to sleep?” she murmured against his mouth as he bent to kiss her. “’Tis lonely under this blanket.”

  “Soon, but I must make plan with Tom for the morrow,” he replied.

  She was deep in sleep when he finally came to lie down beside her, drawing her back into his embrace as he curled his body protectively around hers, feeling the fragility of that diminutive figure. Would she have the strength to face what lay ahead? It was a question he had asked himself many times, and he still did not know the answer. But it was a question they must each ask about themselves now that the end had begun.

  Cromwell’s response to the crowning of King Charles at Scone had been to overrun the Scottish lowlands and advance to Perth, threatening to cut off the royal army at Stirling from its source of supplies. Royalists from all over Europe had been landing in secret throughout the spring and summer, making their way to join the king. Daniel had waited until news had come that the king, at the head of his army, had crossed the Scottish border, entered England, and was marching south. On the morrow, Daniel and Will would journey to meet them. And their wives and children, the born and the unborn, must make shift for themselves until it was finally over.

  Such thoughts kept him wakeful through the tail end of the night, and dawn brought him quietly to his feet, gently disengaging himself from his sleeping wife. He went outside, breathing deeply of English air edged with the salt tang of the sea. This was his country, and whatever happened he knew that he could not continue to live in exile. He would fight once more for his king, and if he lived he would return to his home, whether the land bowed beneath the yoke of the Puritan or raised its head in acknowledgment of its sovereign.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He turned at the sound of Harry’s voice. She came over to him, brushing her hair away from her face, knuckling the sleep from her eyes. “Solemn thoughts?”

  “Aye.” He put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her against him. “How d’ye feel this morning?”

  “Well,” she replied. “Only a little queasy.”

  “’Twill pass,” he said. “Nan was always sick for the first months, then it passed.”

  “Aye, I daresay.” She shrugged slightly. “’Tis just a nuisance at present when I would feel at my best.”

  “You will be at Glebe Park by this evening,” he said. “Then you may take your ease and recover your strength.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Daniel felt the first familiar prickle of unease. “Henrietta, I have told you exactly what you are to do, have I not?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Would you please repeat what I have said?” he asked carefully. “Just so that I may be certain you have fully understood.”

  “I am to go to Glebe Park with Julia and the girls. Julie will be brought to bed there within the next two weeks. I am to ask Frances for assistance in this and all things. On your way to join the king, Will will visit his parents and inform Mistress Osbert of his marriage and the coming child. She will, of course, make her way to Glebe Park as fast as she is able. The girls and I are to remain at Glebe Park, where news will reach us as to the outcome of the venture.” She recited her lesson faultlessly, her voice flat.

  “Exactly so,” Daniel said. “And you are not to deviate from those instructions in the slightest. Is that perfectly understood?”

  “Perfectly,” she replied in the same tone. “Had we better not waken the children? The sooner we are on our way, I think, the better.”

  He could only agree with her, but that prickle of unease would not go away. She was composed and cheerful as they packed up their belongings again and loaded the cart.

  “Y’are certain you know which road to take?” Daniel asked anxiously as he stood by the dray. Julie and Will were nowhere to be seen, presumably making their farewells in private. The children were already seated in the cart, their faces serious, eyes a little fearful. They were both well aware of the gravity of this parting, and the momentous events that were to take place. Tom, who was to go with Will and Sir Daniel, was adjusting the harness of the nearside cart horse.

  “I take the road to Ashford, and then to Headcorn,” Henrietta told him calmly. “’Tis local lanes from there.” Suddenly, she smiled and it was the old mischievous Harry smile. “D’ye doubt me, Daniel? There’s advantages to being a ramshackle creature, you know. We may be unscrupulous and impulsive, but we are not daunted by adventures.”

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her, lingering long on her mouth, inhaling deeply of the scent of her skin, feeling the curve of cheek and chin under his fingers. When would he do this again? But he would not permit the question…could not permit the question.

  He drew back at last and stood looking down at her, losing himself in the liquid velvet of her eyes. “I love you, my elf,” he whispered. She did not reply, but he could read her own affirmation shining in her eyes. His hands slipped from her face, down to her shoulders, down to her waist. Then, with resolution, he lifted her into the cart.

  “You will take proper care of yourself and our child that you bear,” he said, putting the reins into her hands.

  “I will take care of them all,” she said. “Do not doubt me.”

  “I do not.” He turned from her to his children, who were now tearful and strained and clung to him, so that he had to put them from him, swallowing his own tears as he tried to make some teasing comment in his usual style. He failed miserably.

  Will, his freckles standing out against the deathly pallor of his face, helped the weeping Julia into the dray. “Look after her, Harry,” he enjoined. “I cannot bear—”

  “I will look after her,” his friend said, leaning down to touch his face. “You look after yourself.” Then, without a further word or a backward glance, she twitched the reins, clicked at the horses, and took them away down the lane.

  Daniel stood watching until the dray had turned the far corner. His little Harry was shouldering a tremendous burden of responsibility, and he had had no choice but to lay it upon her. And she had accepted it without a murmur. The loving child who was always falling in and out of trouble in her efforts to improve matters for those she loved seemed to have disappeared under the burden, and he was filled with a great sense of loss.

  It was mid-afternoon when Henrietta turned the dray between the stone gateposts of Glebe Park. She remembered her first arrival here, the children squealing with joy at their father’s return from the war…would there be another such return? But she would not permit the question…could not permit it.

  “Nearly home,” she said cheerfully to Nan, who had clambered up onto the driving seat beside her.

  “There’s no smoke,” Lizzie said, peering down the driveway to where the house stood, glowing under the August sun. “There’s always a fire in the kitchen.”

  Henrietta felt the first chill of apprehension. Something was amiss. She could feel it in the air, could see it in the signs of neglect, the weeds choking the driveway, the unruly box hedges. Before they left for The Hague, Daniel’s house and estate had been in good order, restored to its prewar neatness and productivity. In the two and a half years of their absence, the hand on the reins had obviously been lamentably slack. Just where was Master Herald?

  She pulled in the cart at the front door and jumped down, the children scrambling after her. She turned to assist Julie while the girls ran to the front door and began hammering on the great brass knocker. The door opened to reveal a startled woman, with straggly gray hair escaping from a dirty cap and a grimy apron over an equally grubby petticoat.

  “’Tis old Jenny,” Henrietta muttered. “She’s been pensioned off these three years.” She strode over to the door. “Where is Susan Yates?”

  “Eh…madam…but she’s gone to tend her sister as is sick,” the woman said, backing away from this small but commanding figure.

  “Then who else is here?” Henrietta marched past the woman into the hall and looked ar
ound in dismay at the thick coating of dust everywhere, the dullness of the oak paneling, the mud on the flagged floor. Whatever would Daniel say to see his beloved home in this state of neglect?

  “There’s only me and old Jake, m’lady,” the crone mumbled. “There’s been no call to ’ave anyone else ’ere with the family all gone and no knowin’ if’n they’d ever be back.”

  It was very clear to Henrietta what had happened. Revenues from the estate were plentiful enough to ensure its smooth running and pay the wages of the staff Daniel had left, but in the master’s absence the mice had definitely gone out to play.

  “Where is Master Herald?” she snapped. The bailiff was ultimately responsible, since he was Daniel’s agent and representative in his absence.

  Lizzie, Nan, and Julia were staring in amazement at this extraordinary Henrietta, who had started on a tour of the house, her voice rising with angry disgust, her brown eyes snapping furiously. On being informed that the bailiff had been laid up with the gout these last six weeks, she turned to Lizzie and Nan.

  “Go to Master Herald’s house this instant, inform him that we are back, and tell him to come up to the house straightway.”

  “But I wanted to—”

  “Do as I say!” Henrietta interrupted Lizzie’s protestation, and the children with a gasp ran off to do her bidding.

  Julie sank down wearily on the window seat. “I beg pardon, Harry. I would help if I could. Perhaps if I rest a little first.”

  “You shall have your bed,” Henrietta said firmly. She turned to the now mumbling crone. “Fetch some people to help you get this place in order. I do not mind how many or who, but I want the kitchen fires lit, the beds made, the floors scrubbed, and the furniture polished by nightfall.”

  “Lord, Harry,” Julie said in awe when the old woman had hurried off, muttering. “Y’are a veritable terror. I would never have believed it possible.”

  “I’ll not have Daniel robbed,” she declared. “Come upstairs and we’ll see which bedchamber you would prefer. There’s a very pretty one overlooking the orchard.”

  When Master Herald arrived, limping and leaning heavily on a cane, he was confronted by a diminutive fury who barely gave him time for excuses. Like everyone else on the estate, he had known Lady Drummond as no more than a child, unversed in the arts of housekeeping, treated by her husband rather in the manner of an indulgent guardian. This Lady Drummond bore little relation to that other. She calmed down sufficiently, however, to listen to his excuses of ill health, which had prevented his keeping a close eye on the estate.

  “Well, if ye cannot perform the task yourself, Master Herald, then we must find someone who can,” she said briskly. “I would do it myself, but I do not intend to be—” She stopped abruptly. Perhaps now was not a good moment to explain that she would not be remaining at Glebe Park.

  The bailiff said that he thought he would be able to resume his duties now that the family was returned and then hobbled off, leaving Henrietta to turn her attention to the condition of the kitchen, the empty pantry closet, and the absence of the cook.

  When Frances Ellicot arrived three days later, she found the lady of the house energetically berating the dairyman for permitting the cows to get into the field-mustard pasture, a heavily pregnant young woman sitting sewing with Frances’s nieces in the parlor, and a general aura of industry about the house.

  Lady Ellicot looked tired and sad, but she embraced her sister-in-law warmly. “Henrietta, my dear, I could not believe you were back when the lad came with the message.”

  “I was wondering if aught was amiss with ye, Frances,” Henrietta said directly, certain that if James and Frances had been in good health and spirits matters would not have been permitted to deteriorate as they had done on the Drummond estate.

  Frances sighed, even as she bent to embrace the girls, jumping insistently at her skirt. “James has been sick unto death with quartaine agues, and I miscarried of a child two months past.” Her eyes went longingly toward Julia, who stood waiting quietly.

  Henrietta made the introduction even as she realized that she would have to revise her plans in some measure. Frances and James were in no condition to take charge of Lizzie and Nan as she had intended, so she must find an alternative solution.

  “Daniel has gone to the king?” Frances asked, although she guessed the answer.

  “Aye, and Will, Julia’s husband,” Henrietta told her calmly. “When Julie is delivered, I will join them myself.”

  Frances looked astonished, and Julia dropped her needle. “But Sir Daniel said you were to stay here, Harry.”

  “Yes, but I cannot,” she replied in the same calm tone.

  “But…but y’are with child,” Julia said. “Ye cannot go to the wars like ye did before.”

  “Y’are with child?” Frances asked.

  Henrietta nodded. “Four months. But ’tis no great inconvenience at present, and will not hamper me.” She went to the door. “Take your ease, Frances. I will bring refreshment. Lizzie and Nan, you may come with me and carry goblets and the apple tart Cook made this morning.”

  Frances took off her cloak and sat down. “What an extraordinary transformation,” she said, shaking her head. “Ye’ve known Henrietta for long, Mistress Osbert?”

  Julia explained as much of the past as she felt able. “’Tis very hard to stop Harry when she has her mind set,” she said at the end. “Only Sir Daniel seems able to do that…and then—”

  “And then not very often,” Frances finished for her.

  “Well, if he knows what she is intending, he can,” Julia offered. “But when he does not…” She shrugged.

  Frances frowned and offered no dispute. “I was very much afraid matters would have gone awry with the house and the estate in the last months, since my husband has been unable to oversee things. But I see ’twas not the case.”

  “Oh, indeed, it was!” Julia exclaimed. “But Harry has hardly slept the last few days. She was most ferocious with the bailiff and the housekeeper, and she found the cook and made him come back. She says she will not permit people to steal from Sir Daniel.”

  Frances absorbed this and wished she could see her brother with his wife. Had that deep fondness become something else? Henrietta was certainly not the ingenuous, bristly yet appealing child she had been. And there was no question but that Daniel’s daughters accepted their stepmother’s authority, for all that the ease of their relationship bespoke a sisterly authority rather than parental.

  However, Frances did feel that she owed her brother at least an attempt to influence his wife on this wild scheme she had settled upon. “Henrietta, I do think that you should reconsider,” she began, once a goblet of warm sack had been placed in her hands. “Daniel has told you to stay here, and ’tis not seemly for a wife to defy her husband. Besides, ’tis utter craziness to go in search of the army.”

  Henrietta shook her head and sliced the apple tart. “Nay, ’tis no craziness, Frances. ’Tis something I must do. If Daniel is in danger, then I must be with him whatever he would say.”

  It was such a simple statement, one that Daniel Drummond would hear and understand with a groan of resignation. Frances was silent for a minute, then she shook her head in defeat. “Ye’ll not take the girls?”

  “Of course not. I shall settle them in London, at the inn with Dorcas. She will care for them as well as any could.”

  “I would offer, but—”

  “I understand, Frances.” Henrietta laid a hand over the older woman’s. “I would not ask it of you, and this will do as well.”

  “We’re to go to London!” Lizzie shrieked. “We’ve never been to London.”

  “Nay, because your father does not consider it a suitable place for children,” Frances said, looking at Daniel’s wife.

  Henrietta shrugged. “These are not gentle times and one must do what one must.”

  Frances left soon after, convinced that Daniel had a wife who would do exactly as she felt she must, and
no amount of persuasion or remonstrance would change her mind. In the present circumstances, perhaps no one had the right to persuade or remonstrate. If Daniel survived the closing battle of this civil war, he would deal with her defiant impulse as he saw fit, and if he did not survive, then it mattered little.

  In the early hours of the next morning, Henrietta was wakened by an unearthly shriek. She shot up in the big bed, where she now slept alone. Her heart pounded as she blinked, bemused and disoriented. Then she realized what it must be. Swiftly, she pulled on her nightgown as she swung out of bed. The shriek came again as she opened the door, and she ran down the corridor to Julia’s chamber.

  “I cannot help it,” Julia gasped. “’Tis worse pain than you could ever imagine, Harry.”

  Henrietta ran to the bed, taking Julie’s hand, holding it fast. “How long has it been like this?”

  “Hours,” Julia answered, groaning. “I did not wish to wake anyone until it was necessary. But now—” She cried out again, gripping Harry’s hand until it went numb. “I am afeared, Harry.”

  Henrietta thought rapidly. She had some idea of the birthing process. Her stepmother had dutifully presented her lord with offspring on an annual basis and it was impossible for a curious and intelligent child not to pick up a deal of information. But she had never assisted at a delivery…and Will’s mother was supposed to have arrived before Julia was brought to bed. Why did the best-laid plans always go awry?

  She removed her hand gently from Julia’s grip. “I will send someone for the midwife in the village, Julie.”

  “Don’t go!” Julia grabbed her again, her face contorted. “I think ’tis coming…don’t leave me, Harry!”

  Henrietta swallowed hard, controlled her rising panic, and pulled aside the bedclothes. This baby was going to be born with or without her inexpert help; it would be best if it were with.

  Julie cried out again and the veins stood out on her neck with the supreme effort she was making to obey the dictates of her body. Henrietta murmured encouragement and reassurance and watched in awe as a round dark head pushed its way into the world. Instinctively, she bent to help this new person in its elemental struggle, and Will and Julia’s son slipped forth into her hands.