Flood (The Fenland Series Book 1)

by Ann Swinfen

  Nehemiah looked wildly round at us.

  ‘He said the adventurers had won the case and sent Isaac to be held prisoner in Lincoln Castle, until he pays a fine.’

  ‘A fine?’ Tom said slowly. ‘What fine?’

  Nehemiah swallowed.

  ‘Five hundred pounds.’

  My mother cried out and fell senseless to the ground.

  Chapter Five

  My mother had been carried to bed, where she recovered her wits, but lay sobbing, Hannah sitting beside her and patting her hand from time to time. Hannah was the least disturbed of us, for she had no real notion of money. Five hundred shillings or five hundred pounds – neither made any sense to a woman who all her life had counted in pennies.

  I came downstairs again to the kitchen, still too stunned myself to make sense of Nehemiah’s news.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, coming through the door and confronting Tom and Nehemiah who stood by the dying fire, their hands hanging helpless. Kitty crouched on a stool in the corner, as unable to comprehend five hundred pounds as Hannah, but as sensitive as Jasper to the atmosphere of fear. The dog sat beside her and she ran his ears through her fingers again and again.

  Neither Tom not Nehemiah answered me, so I threw a new log on the fire, sending a fountain of sparks up the chimney and turned to face them.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said again. ‘Father has committed no crime. He went to court to seek justice, to gain a judgement in our favour. How can the judge fine him? Fine him . . .’ I gulped, then whispered, as if whispering could somehow make the words vanish, ‘Fine him five hundred pounds? For what?’

  Nehemiah was turning his sodden hat around and around in his hands. ‘I don’t rightly understand, Mercy. But I remember, before the War, there was men had fines and taxes laid on them by the courts. They had two weeks to pay, but the money was more than they earned in three years. Couldn’t pay.’

  ‘What happened?’ Tom gripped the back of Father’s chair as though he needed its support to keep himself on his feet.

  ‘All their stock was rounded up and taken away. Their household goods too. You wouldn’t remember, it must be twenty years ago or more, at the time of the first enclosures, when they stripped old Jeremy Freeman of everything. His wife was gone by then, and he had but the one son who wasn’t right in the head.’

  I shivered. Had I heard of old Jeremy before?

  Nehemiah sighed and sank down on the bench.

  ‘He smothered his son where he lay asleep, then walked out into the Fen. We never found sight nor sign of him. The Fen took him. They hadn’t left even a slab of peat for his fire or a crust of bread for his dinner. Nothing in his house. Nothing.’

  Tears were running down Kitty’s face, but she didn’t utter a sound. I knelt down beside her and put my arms around her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Kitty. We’ll find a way through this.’

  Tom gave me a bleak look. ‘It would take ten years at the very least for us to pay off this fine. If we sold everything, stock, house, farm, all our possessions, we could not possibly pay it. I think that is what they are reckoning on. And perhaps the remembrance of our grandfather, who never lived to pay good coin for his misdeeds, perhaps that went into the scales as well.’

  I turned to Nehemiah. ‘Was there a term set for payment?’

  ‘It must be paid in full by the fifteenth of August.’

  There were tears running down my face now and I dashed them away angrily.

  ‘Tom, what can we do?’

  For once, he had no answer.

  ‘There was such a crush in the court,’ Nehemiah said, ‘and men shouting that it was a disgrace and we fenlanders would not stand for it, that the officers drove us out.’ He glanced across at his coat. ‘They were rough and my coat was torn.’

  ‘At least others supported Father,’ Tom said.

  ‘But what can poor men do against such men as these? That London judge, he’d made his decision before ever he came to Lincoln, I’ll wager. They say it was Cromwell himself sent him.’

  ‘Traitor,’ I muttered.

  ‘As we came away, they were saying that the constables, the sheriff’s officers, will impound some of your stock as surety. And if Isaac is to eat in prison, you must send him food, or coin to buy it from the gaolers.’

  Suddenly sharp into my mind came that image of my grandfather, huddled in the filth of Cambridge Castle. Now my father was come to a like fate, not for rioting but for seeking justice under the law.

  ‘The stock,’ I said, ‘if they take our stock, how shall we survive?’ I sprang to my feet. ‘There is something we can do. Before they come, we must hide some of the stock.’ I looked wildly round the kitchen. ‘And food. We must hide our flour and cheeses and ale.’

  ‘Mercy is right.’ Nehemiah nodded. ‘Hide what you can.’

  ‘The draught oxen,’ I said, ‘and Blaze. Some of the sheep. One of the pigs.’

  Tom stared at me. ‘How can we hide the oxen? You are dreaming, Mercy.’

  ‘We’ll ask our friends. Rafe and Toby and Jack – surely they would be ready to say some of our animals are theirs?’

  ‘It might be worth trying,’ he said slowly. ‘We cannot hide much or the constables would become suspicious, but we might be able to save some.’

  ‘We must start now,’ I said. ‘Kitty, you and I will move sacks of flour and barley and oats into the hay loft. It hid Tom before. It can hide food now.’

  ‘Rats,’ said Nehemiah.

  ‘We must risk rats. Some of our preserves too. And there are a few of the dried apples. Nehemiah, can you roll two of the ale casks out to the woodstore and hide them amongst the logs?’

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s dark,’ Tom objected.

  ‘What if they were to come tomorrow? We must be ready.’ I was seized with a kind of madness. ‘Tom, you must go into the village now and put our plan to the others.’

  ‘It’s late.’ He gestured at the dark square of the window.

  I balled my fists and shook them at him.

  ‘We must!’ I was almost shrieking now and to silence me, for I do not think he shared my urgent panic, he lit a candle lantern and set out for the village. Nehemiah began rolling casks across the yard while Kitty and I hauled the heavy sacks between us to the barn and, panting and straining, up the ladder to the hay loft. We carried on until the first shower of rain turned to a heavy downpour and I dared not risk damage to our stores.

  It was past midnight when Tom returned. I had sent Kitty to bed, and Hannah too, when I saw that Mother had fallen asleep at last, her face blotched and reddened with weeping. Nehemiah and I sat either side of the fire which had dwindled down to embers, for I did not think it worth making up. Nehemiah’s chin was sunk on his chest and he snored gently through an open mouth. My own eyes kept falling shut but I was determined to sit up until Tom came home. My fear and horror at what had been done to my father had set light to a great anger in me.

  The draught from the door brought me fully awake as Tom came in, blowing out his candle lantern and thrusting the bolt across the door. Usually we do not bolt our doors, but since the drainers had come, everyone took care to secure their homes.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  He prised off his wet boots and I saw that his toe poked through one of his knitted stockings.

  ‘They are willing to help us. Toby will mark a dozen of our sheep as his tomorrow. Jack will take Blaze into his barn, and the largest of the pigs. I have sold the draught oxen to Rafe.’

  ‘Sold them!’ I was horrified.

  ‘They will work for the whole village, as they have always done. If we ever recover from paying this fine, Rafe will sell them back to us. In the meantime, I have the value of them in coin to put toward the fine.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty-five guineas. More than they are worth. It is generous of Rafe. He has been saving to build a house of his own for Alice and the baby, but they both agreed our need was g
reater.’

  I felt hot tears spring up in my eyes again, but however generous, twenty-five guineas would make little impression on five hundred pounds.

  ‘Somehow we must get more coin. Is there aught else we can sell?’

  ‘Eels.’

  Nehemiah had woken.

  ‘You must keep your eel money.’ Tom was firm.

  ‘And where would I go if you are turned out of the farm? We must help each other.’

  We were all too exhausted to debate further that night and made our way to bed, but I lay awake, tense with worry, until a blackbird outside my window began to welcome the dawn, then fell into a restless sleep.

  Tom and I shared the morning milking and then counted over the cheeses in the dairy. We had decided that we could sell half of them, though it would leave us short when winter came.

  ‘If they take our cows, we shall have no milk, no butter and no cheese,’ I said. ‘We never thought of hiding the cows.’

  ‘That would take some doing. Even if we tried to pass off some of our cows as belonging to one of our neighbours, come milking time they would give us away by coming home to their own barn.’

  He was right. I could see no way out of the dilemma, but I was determined to find a way to save at least one of the cows. I helped Tom load half our cheeses onto a handcart so he could wheel it to the Sawyers’ dairy. Each time Nehemiah took his eels to market, Tom would go with him, to sell cheese and take provisions for Father.

  The officers from the Lincoln court did not come that day, as I had feared, and when I wasn’t busy about my daily work or caring for my mother, I contrived to conceal a few more provisions in the hay loft, including several cheeses, but I had still not come up with a plan to save the cows. In the afternoon I carried four of my best laying hens in a basket to Alice.

  She took both my hands in hers and kissed me. There were tears in her eyes. ‘That it should come to this. Your father! How can they do such a thing?’

  I shook my head. ‘It seems they can do what they please. Was not the War fought to overthrow the tyranny of a king? It seems tyranny still stalks the land.’

  Alice put my hens in a pen next to her own but separated from them by an osier hurdle, for if you put strange hens together they will fight as fiercely as cocks until they grow familiar.

  ‘I will keep your eggs aside. Send Kitty every evening and I’ll give them to her.’

  I nodded, but could not speak. Perhaps with the kindness of friends we might survive.

  ‘Come, sit with me a little before you go home. I’ve been baking.’

  We went into the Coxes’ kitchen, where Alice’s mother-in-law, seated at her spinning wheel, gave me a nod. She was an austere woman, who rarely smiled and I felt a stab of guilt that Alice and Rafe’s escape to a home of their own would be delayed many months because they had helped us. Despite windows and door standing open for air, the kitchen was hot and rich with the smell of baking. A rack of griddle cakes stood cooling on the table, beside a large slab cake stuffed with raisins, which Alice must have baked in the bread oven by the hearth, after the loaves were done. She patted the side of the cake.

  ‘Cool enough to cut. Will you take some, Mother Cox?’

  ‘Not between meals.’ The woman’s mouth turned down with disapproval.

  Alice reached down two plates from the dresser and winked at me. ‘We’ll take these outside. Mercy, will you carry them?’

  She followed me with two cups of small ale and we seated ourselves on a bench Rafe had built around an apple tree at the edge of the orchard.

  ‘Very good.’ I washed down a large bite of cake with a deep gulp of ale. ‘Does she not approve of your baking, Mistress Cox?’

  Alice laughed. ‘Oh, she is ready enough to eat it when my back is turned. By tomorrow, the cake will be mysteriously smaller. She does not approve of me.’

  She patted her stomach.

  ‘Her first grandchild is coming sooner than she quite likes.’

  ‘Are you well? Should you be standing in the heat, baking?’

  ‘Hearty as a horse,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Now.’ She patted my hand. ‘What is to be done about all this?’

  ‘I am frightened, Alice. The sheriff’s men can take what they will. Even turn us out of the farm. We could lose everything. All for going to law.’ I could not keep my voice steady and I felt my eyes blurring over. ‘My father thought that going to law was the safe, the peaceful, decent thing to do. And look how it has turned out.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Rafe’s father has endless stories of like treatment back before the War.’

  ‘So has Nehemiah.’

  ‘And they can really seize your property? Is there no way to appeal?’

  ‘There may be. Tom has written to one of his friends at Grey’s Inn, but it would take months, even years, to go through the courts. In the meantime we may be turned out to beg our bread.’

  ‘You know it will not come to that. We – all your neighbours – will take you in, just as you took in Hannah and Nehemiah.’

  ‘We cannot let you. Everyone has suffered, with the War and the years of bad harvests. No one has anything to spare.’

  Besides, I thought, we have our pride.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I said slowly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If Tom and Mother and Nehemiah can manage the farm without me, I thought I could hire myself out.’

  ‘Hire out!’ Her mouth fell open. ‘You, the daughter of the biggest yeoman farmer in the neighbourhood! Wasn’t one of your grandmothers a Dillingworth?’

  ‘A great-grandmother. It was the Dillingworths I thought of.’

  ‘You would work for them?’ She looked horrified.

  ‘I can cook. Or sew. I can read. Keep accounts. Besides . . .’

  ‘Besides?’

  ‘If Sir John had kept his promise and brought his lawyer from London to help us, my father would never have gone alone to take his case to court in Lincoln. I think Sir John is much to blame for this. He persuaded my father that the law would protect him. It is as much his fault as anyone’s that we are come to this.’

  ‘That may be a reason for seeking their help, but to hire yourself out as a servant to them . . .’

  ‘I must swallow my pride. Anything I earn can go towards the fine. And it will mean one less mouth to feed at home.’

  ‘I do understand, Mercy. But is there no other way?’

  ‘I cannot see one. I will discuss it with Tom, then go to the Dillingworths some time in the next few days.’

  I stood up, brushing the crumbs from my skirt. ‘Thank you, Alice, and thank you for taking in my hens. Send word to me the minute you feel the child coming.’

  ‘I will.’

  She stood and put her arms around me. The smell of her baking still lingered in her hair and clothes, a comfortable smell of home and safety. I kissed her, picked up my basket and walked briskly away.

  I did discuss my plan with Tom that evening, and he objected strongly, not on the grounds of his own continuing physical weakness but because it would shame us all if I became a servant to the Dillingworths.

  ‘You cannot do this, Mercy.’

  ‘I must. There will be a little money, and my board. We must contrive everything we can. And if I am there, in the Dillingworths’ household,’ I added cunningly, ‘I may be able to persuade Sir John to act to help Father.’

  I saw that this last argument was beginning to sway him.

  ‘In any case, there may be no position for me. It will do no harm to ask.’

  When Gideon heard of my plan, he was also opposed to it.

  ‘Sir John may be our lord of the manor, and I know nothing against either him or his lady, save that they hold themselves a little too grandly, but there have been, well . . .’ he looked troubled. ‘There have been rumours about the son.’

  I saw that it cost him a good deal to say this, but that he wanted to warn me.

  ‘I have heard the rumours,’ I said, slicing bread vig
orously. He had agreed, reluctantly, to sup with us, but had insisted in exchange that we accept a side of bacon in return. ‘I am not likely to have aught to do with the son.’

  The rumours were plain enough. A girl from the next parish, Crowthorne, where the Saints lived, had worked as a kitchen maid at the manor. When it was discovered that she was with child, Lady Dillingworth had turned her out. Back in the village, she was shunned by her family and neighbours. The last we heard, she had set off for Lynn, hoping to find work, but nothing more had been heard of her. The general belief was that Edmund Dillingworth was the father of the child, but that would not have stayed Lady Dillingworth’s hand. It was always the girl who must bear the guilt as well as carry the child.

  ‘Be careful, Mercy,’ Gideon said, reaching out and laying his hand on mine where it held the loaf steady. ‘I do not like this plan of yours. Even if the Dillingworths offer you employment, it can do you no good. You will be humiliated. And how much can you earn toward the fine?’

  I set my face stubbornly and drew my hand away.

  ‘At least there will be one less to feed out of our stores,’ I said. ‘I do not see what else I can do to help.’

  I thought I heard him whisper, ‘Stay with us’, but perhaps I was mistaken.

  The next day I donned a clean gown of modest homespun and a plain apron without embroidery. I had washed my hair, which was not wise, for it was springy with curls and kept trying to escape from my cap. I set out for the manor house just after dawn, because the summer sun was turning fierce and I did not want to arrive hot and draggled.

  The manor was ancient at its heart: a long central hall house perhaps two or three hundred years old, with wings added to east and west in the last century, making the shape of a wide letter H. More recently, a pillared portico had been added in the centre, incongruously framing the original doorway. Ivy climbed up the flint and brick infill between the timber framework and through the ivy leaves on the two wings dozens of panes of glass mirrored the sunlight. The central, older section had once had shuttered windows – not glass. Back in those old times even the Dillingworths had not had glass. But in Sir John’s father’s time these windows too had been glazed. The whole building glittered and seemed to peer down at me in contempt.