And then as she trudged back and the breeze that had come up dried the tears on her cheeks, she came to a great decision there under the cloudless skies of Essex: She was leaving. Wife or no, she would not wait for him here—if indeed he chose to return! Perhaps he had just shucked her off, intending to forget her. Her knuckles clenched white, and her expression was wild. Even if he did return, she would not take him back! Nor would he find her here!
Hawley Grange Somerset,
Christmas Eve 1684
Chapter 15
“I think the Worst Thing,” said Pamela earnestly, leaning over to pat Angel’s silky mane as she rode, “would be to get an Unfeeling Husband, don’t you? I mean someone who felt that women were like—like cattle, to be well treated but—but their opinions not considered if you know what I mean.”
“Indeed I do know what you mean,” sighed Constance, glancing down nervously as her mount slipped on an icy rut. Dev, she thought bitterly, had only pretended to consider her opinions, and then, covered by a mask of lies, he had done just what he wanted to do. As men usually did.
“Tom isn’t at all like that,” said Pamela.
Constance gave her a fond look. “Of course he isn’t,” she agreed, for she was used to conceding that Tom Thornton had all the virtues. Poor Pamela was so deep in love with him that half her conversation was about Tom.
“And I’m sure Captain Warburton isn’t,” added Pamela with a sideways look at the dark-haired girl riding beside her. “Perhaps.” Constance’s tone was noncommital. She didn’t want to think about Tony Warburton right now. Thinking about him made her heart pound and brought hot color to her face. He is all that Dev was not, she told herself. A man who walks in the light. But even he was not faithful. Neither of them were that. ,
“I don’t know why you insisted on riding over to call on the Hawley girls today.” Plaintively, Pamela cut into her thoughts. “And on Christmas Eve too, when we’ve so much to do.” She glanced down at the sprig of holly which decorated her red riding cloak, and then at the similar sprig which decorated Constance’s plum one. “Especially when you know I don’t care for the Hawleys!”
But you did until Tom Thornton paired off with Melissa.... “Why not?” said Constance reasonably. “You said yourself it’s a beautiful day and the snow on the roads is hard-packed.”
Pamela sighed. She was thinking of the snow fort she and Tom had never really finished, for Ned had flung out of the maze and Tom, riddled with curiosity as was she, had ridden away with him. She was dying to ask Tom what had happened between Ned and Constance in the maze, for Constance had been very brusque with her about it and left her curiosity unsatisfied. It would have been much more fun to have ridden over to Huntlands today on some excuse and talked to Tom!
“Besides,” added Constance, “Helena Hawley has promised to give me her recipe for tansies.” It was untrue but she dared not tell talkative Pamela that there was a meeting being held this day at Hawley Grange—a meeting carefully held under cover of Christmas Eve festivities when gatherings would pass unnoticed—of the young men who espoused the Duke of Monmouth’s cause—and she intended to be there! Her voice turned bantering. “And I intend to win Helena’s recipe away from her before you say something disastrous about Melissa’s mad pursuit of Tom that sets the whole Hawley family against us!”
Pamela chose to ignore that last dig. “Tansies!” she cried scornfully, for she prided herself on being possessed of housewifely talents. “Why, I could give you a much better recipe for tansies than Helena Hawley can! You use pure cream when you scramble the eggs, and wheat blade juice, and you must not forget the strawberry and violet leaves.”
“Or the spinach. Or the walnut tree buds. Or the salt or the nutmeg or the cinnamon!” sighed Constance, who had been listening to this same lecture all morning and could now recite it like a litany.
“You have left out the grated bread,” said Pamela stiffly. “And you must remember to sprinkle it well with sugar when you serve it.”
“I think Helena mentioned something about adding tansy.” Constance was deliberately vague.
“Walnut buds are much better,” snapped Pamela. “Helena Hawley just adds anything available to her dishes. She will probably poison her husband if she ever gets one!”
“Oh, she’ll get one,” murmured Constance, thinking of Helena’s statuesque beauty and straw-colored hair. All the Hawley sisters were fair. As she spoke, she was vainly attempting to keep her horse from stopping to graze by the roadside on some tall bunched grass that stuck up above the snow. It was a losing battle. The horse had a mind of its own and Constance was no hand on the reins.
“Really, Constance, can’t you keep that poor beast on the road?” demanded Pamela. “Why, who is that riding toward us?” she interrupted herself.
Constance peered ahead at the man who was riding toward them with his cloak whipping in the wind. “I don’t know him,” she decided.
“Neither do I. But he looks to be a gentleman. I mean, his cloak is of a fashionable length and looks to be of velvet.”
“How can you tell at this distance?” laughed Constance. !
“And he seems to be wearing a great periwig,” said Pamela as a clincher. For surely none but a gentleman would be sporting an expensive full-bottomed periwig which rose monstrously around the head and descended like a cowl about the shoulders. She giggled. “Can you imagine going to bed with a man who took off his hair and put it on a wig stand before he climbed in with you—shaved head and all?”
Constance could not. “They wear nightcaps to keep their heads warm,” she murmured, remembering the tasseled nightcap and brocaded robe in which Sir John Dacey had stalked about Claxton House. She wondered who the stranger was. He must have just come from Hawley Grange, for they were fast approaching the entrance, so overgrown that it was nearly hidden from view.
“Maybe that’s why he’s wearing it now—to keep his head warm,” giggled Pamela. “Maybe he has a perfectly good head of hair under it!”
Constance eyed the approaching stranger rather more sharply. With the riders who were galloping all across England these days carrying frenzied messages about the Cause, it was entirely possible that that wig was clapped on over a real head of hair. This fellow riding toward them could even have suffered the fate of a famous spy who had sought to dye his bright red hair a more inconspicuous color and had used a metallic dye to turn it black; instead it had given him England’s most conspicuous head of hair, for tufts of it had turned every color of the rainbow.
As they were about to pass, the rider, whom they now saw was young and dandified and had beneath his large periwig the innocent face of a cherub with slightly puffy cheeks, reined up and swept them as low a bow as being mounted would permit.
“Ladies,” he said. “I must admit me that I am lost. Could ye point out the way to Hawley Grange?”
“You have just passed the entrance,” said Constance. “ ’Tis just behind you on the left.”
The traveler looked nonplussed but his hazel eyes focused on Constance with vast approval. “I do not see how I missed it,” he muttered.
“You missed it because you were looking at us!” declared Pamela blithely. “No matter, we’ll take you there for that’s where we’re going. Are you expected?”
“Indeed I am—at least I hope so. Chesney Pell, at your service, ma’am.” He swept them both another low bow. “I am here visiting the Rawlings in Bridgwater. Cart Rawlings rode on ahead, for he was eager to see a certain young lady at Hawley Grange.”
“I am Pamela Archer and this is my father’s ward, Constance Dacey,” said Pamela, who enjoyed meeting new people even if they did wear detestable periwigs. She brought her horse up even with his as he turned around and rode beside him down a road that was barely more than a cowpath, for the Hawleys did not much believe in keeping up their roads either. The Squire often called it the “worst spot on the way to Bridgwater.”
Constance rode slightly behind, studying Che
sney Pell’s rather narrow back, with its bottle green velvet cloak that kept whipping about revealing his fashionably wide-cuffed sleeves, deep-reversed and sporting a wealth of brown braid. The cut of that sleeve was very smart. She doubted it had been made here in the West Country. Which made an interesting question: Whence had the gentleman come? And what was his purpose in seeking out Hawley Grange on this of all days? If he was a courier come to bring them a message from some other part of the country, he could not be such a good choice. Unobservant. For he had managed to miss the tall chimney stacks that rose over Hawley Grange, which were visible if one looked up above the hedgerows along the road.
Such thoughts occupied her mind as Pamela, chatting with their chance-met companion, turned her horse through the overgrown entrance. Riding single file through the encroaching underbrush that threatened to choke the driveway, they wove their way through with Pamela at the lead, and emerged at last from what was almost a solid thicket to find the great mass of Hawley Grange spread out before them. Despite the chimney stacks and windows that had been added, it still looked to be what it once had been—a monastic tithe barn where the tithes from the tenants of the far-flung church lands, be it grain or whatever, was stored.
Pamela sprang down without help and stood viewing the house as Chesney assisted Constance to alight. It had an imposing bulk, this “house of sirens” as Tom had once roguishly called it, but for her it had little charm. Very plain, built of random limestone with ashlar dressings and ten bays long, to her it was still less house than barn. The walls at the gable ends rose some forty-two feet high, and the queen-post timbering supported an enormous stone roof. But Nathaniel Hawley had scrimped on the remodeling. He had not cut enough windows, so the rooms were dark. Although the seven-foot stone bases on which rested the tall oaken posts that supported the stone roof were impressive, he had added no carving or refinements such as gave charm to Axeleigh or Huntlands—nothing but the plainest of painted pine paneling and a most unimpressive staircase that wound its way awkwardly up between partition walls. Although large reception rooms had been left at the front, the rear had been cut into numerous small rooms to suit his wife’s whims. The place was a veritable Mecca for the young folk who lived in the Valley for they loved to dance on winter evenings in the vast hall, cold and uncomfortable as it was, for its single stone fireplace did little to heat it. But life at the Hawleys was on the slipshod side, and nobody noticed if a couple disappeared from among the dancers and returned looking rumpled and happy.
For convenience’s sake, the gabled porches on either side, which had originally been constructed to admit carts, were now used as the entrances, and Pamela had to admit that in summer when the vast doors were thrown open those rooms did have an airy lightness. But whenever the weather turned cold it became a place of gloom—unless lit up by candles for a party.
The vast “cart doors,” as the Hawleys cheerfully called their converted barn entrance, were flung open even before they could reach the knocker and two of the Hawley daughters, dressed extraordinarily well for a morning at home, greeted them warmly.
They must have seen them coming down that overgrown drive, thought Pamela, casting a look upward at the small chamber above her which had once housed the grangerius, the bailiff in charge who checked and received the tithes as they were carted in by the church tenants. It was called a tallet loft and was but one of the curious features of the Hawleys’ household.
“Pamela! Constance! Do come in. And you’ll be—?” Pretty, flaxen-haired Dorothea Hawley was looking earnestly at the newcomer.
“Chesney Pell, at your service.” Another deep bow.
“Oh, yes. Father’s expecting you.” Before he could even be introduced to her sister, flaxen-haired Dorothea, just turned fifteen, was marching Chesney Pell away, to disappear down a yawning hallway into the rabbit warren of rooms where, presumably, her father was waiting.
“Pamela—and Constance. How nice to see you!” Helena Hawley, half a head taller than either girl and supporting an enormous mound of straw-colored hair, was greeting them calmly.
“I came to collect your recipe for tansies before you forgot those special ingredients you were going to tell me about,” explained Constance, hoping Helena would not look too surprised.
“Yes, I would like to hear about those special ingredients too,” said Pamela with lifted brows. “No, I think I’ll just keep my cloak about me for the moment, Helena—” as Helena moved to take it. “There’s a biting wind out there and I’m quite frozen. I’m sure Constance is too.” Her gaze was checking the Christmas decorations as she spoke—not half so pretty as those at Axeleigh but with an alarming amount of mistletoe strung about everywhere. Plainly the exuberant Hawley girls meant to have no lack of excuses for kissing their gentleman callers. And Tom Thornton would be one of those callers! Pamela simmered.
Helena Hawley, not one to be caught off guard easily, gave both her guests a vague smile and led them toward a roaring fire that did little to take the chill off the great yawning room. Behind her placid features, her wits worked as well as another’s. That remark about the tansies told her that Constance had not—thank heaven!—taken Pamela into her confidence about the meeting here today. For talkative Pamela would certainly tell the Squire and no one knew yet where he stood.
“Why don’t you go and ask Dorothea about them?” she suggested. “She’s the one who puts in the special ingredients.” She gave Constance a meaningful glance. “I’m sure you can find her.”
“Yes, I’m sure I can—I’ll be right back, Pamela.”
Left alone with her imposing hostess, Pamela thought how perfectly right Helena looked in this background. Plain and oversized. Looking about her, she could not but compare Hawley Grange’s rude interior to that of a church nave under construction. It was sparsely furnished, all the benches and cupboards—even the long refectory table—having been made by local craftsmen. For the senior Hawleys were both of a penurious frame of mind, as was reflected by the rushes that were spread over the floor in place of carpets such as Axeleigh boasted.
Nevertheless, the Hawleys were delighted with their home, which was the scene of much rude revelry, just as they were delighted with their brood of flirtatious, big-boned, deep-chested progeny.
“We’re giving our usual Twelfth Night Masque,” she told Helena politely. “I do hope all of you can come.”
If the hope was insincere, at least Helena did not notice it. She smiled benignly on her dainty guest. “Oh, we wouldn’t miss it,” she said. “Some of my sisters are already at work on their costumes.”
Melissa probably, thought Pamela. It was Melissa who always sought to outdo people!
“Where is Melissa?” she wondered.
Again Helena was vague. “I think she’s out in the kitchen just now—”
“Making tansies?” Pamela’s laughter pealed. “Constance will be furious if she’s using secret ingredients. I never saw anyone so set on learning every least little item of a recipe!”
Helena’s answering smile was rather strained. She well knew the energy of her exuberant guest and she must avoid at all costs a search of the house for the missing Constance. She hoped Constance would pass on quickly to the meeting whatever messages she had received and return—for while Axeleigh Hall with its many servants and not the slightest taint of Monmouth leanings in its owners was a convenient place for messages to be left, Pamela’s presence today was a distinct embarrassment. “What do you think I should wear to the Masque?” she asked Pamela earnestly, hoping to divert her.
Pamela was indeed diverted. “I think you should go as Juno, the Roman goddess,” she said promptly, picturing in her mind how impressive Helena would look. “Just gild a garland for your hair, tie a drapery cord around your waist and drape yourself in bed sheets!”
Helena looked a little daunted. “I thought perhaps I’d come gowned as the Old Queen and wear a wheel farthingale,” she said unhappily.
“You’ll never get through t
he door in it!” predicted Pamela, envisioning the huge reed cage that would hold out a skirt over those majestic hips. “Not unless you go in sideways and that’s hardly a dazzling entrance. And if you try to sit down your skirts will fly up and show your chemise.”
“Oh, dear,” said Helena with a helpless look at her caller. “I suppose it’s a good thing farthingales went out of style before we came along!”
“Indeed it is.” Pamela cast a look about, and seeing that there were no prying eyes in any direction, backed up to the fire and eased her skirts up. The glow of the blaze felt winningly warm on her chilled bottom. “Whatever can be taking Constance so long?” she wondered. “She’s had enough time to memorize a whole list of secret ingredients for tansies!”
Constance was not having much success in her venture. Having found Dorothea returning to join them, she had been left by the girl (who did not approve any more than her sisters did of the Cause having a female courier) before a door with the admonition, “Knock before you enter. They warned me that any who didn’t might get his head blown off.”
Constance sniffed. “They were being melodramatic,” she told Dorothea. “That fellow who came in with us, is he at the meeting?”
“Yes. He’s down from Oxford with Cart Rawlings. I just said Father was waiting for him in his study because Pamela was there.”
Study... that was a new affectation. It had been a farm office the last time she had been here. Constance guessed the Hawley girls would soon be demanding that this great barn of a place be redecorated and overrun with linen drapers and painters.
Dorothea left and Constance took a deep breath, knocked once, softly, and flung open the door. All heads turned to view her.
There were about a dozen young men in the room. They were drinking metheglin and every pair of eyes looked up alertly at her entrance. Constance readily identified them all. Tony Warburton was conspicuous by his absence, but it was well known that the gallant captain had announced contemptuously—and to the accompaniment of quickly indrawn breaths at his temerity—that he detested all of the Stuart kings and would be no party to bringing another one to the throne, whether it be James or this headstrong duke!
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