The Rider of the White Horse

  Chapter 3 - Elizabeth

  So Anne was back at Denton, back in the grey house under the moors where she had spent the first few unhappy months of her married life. The great house seemed curiously empty without the white-maned lion. Old Lord Fairfax had been a tyrant, but she realized now that it had been a warm tyranny. The old man had filled the place with his laughter and his thundering rages, his own abundance of life flowing into every corner; the present Lord Fairfax with his sad face had no life to spare, and the house felt half furnished without its old Master.

  But before the family had been many days in residence, the regretful emptiness of the house was swallowed up in comings and goings, the throb of preparations and the pressure of events.

  Far and wide, up and down Wharfedale as elsewhere, men had by now taken sides. Nearly all the folk of the commercial towns were for Parliament, the more conservative of the country gentlemen were for the King, while in town and country alike the more thinking folk were deeply divided. In company with most of their kind, Lord Fairfax and his son were gathering in their Nun Appleton and Wharfedale tenantry and fitting them out as best they could, for war. The thing was done on the orders of the Lord Lieutenant and officially it was known as calling out the militia; but nevertheless, what it truly amounted to was calling out one’s own tenantry. The militia was normally called for training one day a month, but that gave ample time to comfortably forget whatever had been learned before the next month came round. And all day long Thomas Fairfax and his father spent heart and soul to drill their raw levies into some idea of discipline, some kind of skill.

  ‘I wish to God I had William here!’ Thomas said, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. ‘If only I had two or three Low Country sergeants …’

  From time to time news came up the dale from the world outside. The King was still at Nottingham, and with him fourteen regiments of Foot and eighteen troops of Horse. Old Sir Jacob Astley was his Sergeant-Major-General, and Prince Rupert, his nephew, in command of the Cavalry. They heard of the Parliamentary forces; how the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court had joined themselves into Essex’s bodyguard, and the London Apprentices to a man had joined the half formed regiments of Brookes and Holles; and how the Captain of the 67th troop of Parliamentary Horse was a cousin of John Hampdens, an East Anglian Squire and a Member of Parliament, Oliver Cromwell by name. They heard that York was held for the King by the Duke of Cumberland, with Sir Thomas Glamham, a Low Country veteran, as his Lieutenant.

  So August turned to September, and the beech woods around Denton were flickering into bonfire gold, and the militia, which had abandoned the war to get the harvest in, was back to its drilling and its scythes on poles again. And on a still evening with a faint blue mist rising from the Wharfe and the last of the sunshine lying honey coloured over the high fells, Anne came out from the still-room — war might come, but that was somehow all the more reason to make the usual rowan and crab-apple jelly — to join her menfolk on the terrace. She found there not only her husband and his father, but young Captain Hotham, son of the Governor of Hull who had refused to yield up the magazine to the King, and a slim fair-haired man whom she had not seen before.

  They were leaning in a row against the stone balustrade, blue wreathes of tobacco smoke hanging in the still air above their heads, deep in the usual discussion of the latest war news, and ways and means. Four men in plain riding dress, or already in ancient buff coats. How long it seemed since she had seen men in silken doublets. They laid aside their pipes and straightened from their lounging pose as she appeared, and Tom Fairfax greeted her with his usual grave courtesy. ‘Ah, Nan, I was about to send to ask you to be kind to us and give us the pleasure of your company for a while; and behold, you come as though you knew by magic. Here is Captain Hotham, whom you know; and let me present to you one who you have not met before — Captain John Lister, who has come up from Leeds to bring us his sword.’

  The fair man was bowing before her as she gave him her hand. She liked his face under the rebellious crest of barley-coloured hair; fine-boned, lit by a pair of grey eyes as direct as a boy’s. It was a face to trust, not like Captain Hotham’s. Despite his Low Countries experience that made him a god-send to Thomas, she could never quite trust young Hotham, with his easy dare-devil swagger and loud laughter and eyes that never rested long enough in one place.

  ‘Your servant, Lady Fairfax.’

  ‘Have you been out before?’ she said with her sometimes awkward directness. ‘Did you march north with the King on his bad Scottish campaigns?’

  Captain Lister shook his head. ‘No, Lady Fairfax, but I have seen some service in the Law Countries, though none to compare with Captain Hotham’s, I fear.’

  ‘Any such experience is a deal better than none! My husband has been crying out for a few Low Countries veterans to help him make soldiers out of our Nun Appleton ploughmen and Denton shepherds.’

  A servant brought the wine that Lord Fairfax had sent for before her corning, topaz coloured sherris sack in a tall-necked flask, and Anne poured for the men and gave each his glass.

  ‘Let us drink to the new blade among us,’ Sir Thomas Fairfax said, raising his tall glass. ‘To Captain John Lister; may success hang on his sword.’

  Captain Lister flushed an almost painful crimson as the others echoed the toast. He made them a small stiff bow, and said as stiffly, ‘I thank you, Sirs. I will strive to be of service to you — and to the Cause.’

  In a little they returned to the matter that had been under discussion when Anne came out; the news that the King, screened by Rupert’s Cavalry, had marched to Shrewsbury and was gathering recruits from the Royalist western shires, and the little dark Welsh with their long knives.

  ‘And now the next march will be on London,’ young Hotham said. ‘With London in the King’s hands the war is over; and he knows it and so do we. Well, My Lord of Essex should be ready for him — unless of course the need to carry his shroud and coffin everywhere with him has slowed him up even more than usual.’

  There was a breath of not very happy laughter among them, at mention of this personal idiosyncrasy of Parliament’s senior Commander, and Lord Fairfax said in the quiet dry voice that matched his face, ‘What personally troubles me more than Essex’s coffin is the quality of his army. His own bodyguard, well enough — the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court should at least have some fibre in them; the London Apprentices are young and have some notion of how to combine, as indeed the Watch can testify. For the rest, there are good men among them, old soldiers and men used to command; but the main body are scarcely such as will stand up to the flower of the King’s Cavalry with that wild young hawk Rupert at their head!’

  ‘We can but trust in the God of Battles to strengthen the Earl of Essex’s shabby ranks,’ Thomas Fairfax said, his eyes on the high moors where the last of the sunlight faded, ‘and strive the more to be ready when our own turn comes. God knoweth how short a time we may have to spare.’

  Captain Hotham nodded, and drank, and laughed. ‘Cumberland would be content to sit snug in York until his rump took root, but Glamham is a bird of another feather. Is there any news of those new pikes yet?’

  And they were off again on the question of troops and supplies and the gathering and training of men.

  Anne lingered, forgotten, sitting on the low balustrade with her pale damask skirts spread wide about her. Listening to them, she was caught back into her childhood, to the terrace of any one of half a dozen châteaux, to the rumble of the guns before Boi le Duc, and her father and his officers talking their long, intricate half-understood soldier’s talk over their wine.

  She became aware of Christian hovering in the house doorway, and looked at her inquiringly. ‘What is it, Christian?’

  ‘My Lady, will tha’ come and tak’ a look at t’wee bairn?’

  ‘What is amiss with her?’ Anne asked quickly.

  ‘Eh, I don’t rightly know, My Lady. Maybe nout but that she’s been eating gr
een apples; but she’s flushed and mazed like and there’s that about her as I’m none so happy on.’

  A short while later both women stood in the room where the children slept. The two little figures looked very small in the mountainous bed with its embroidered damask curtains, faded to honeysuckle buff now, that had once been deeply orange as the heart of a Crown Imperial. Moll was sitting bolt upright with Bathsheba clutched to her chest, her legs stuck straight out under the embroidered coverlid, and her eyes round and dark in her little brown face. ‘Baby is not right,’ she told them accusingly. ‘Baby’s head hurts.’

  The baby was certainly not right. Her eyes were heavy and her face flushed, and she was whimpering; Elizabeth who never whimpered, who roared or was happy with no half measures between. And when Anne, quelling a swift stab of fear, bent to feel her forehead, it was burning hot. ‘No,’ she said, ‘poor Baby is not quite well.’ And as she spoke, she was untying the ribband at the neck of the little white shift, and slipping it down. There were no spots on Elizabeth’s chest or between her shoulders. She did not know whether that reassured her or made her yet more afraid.

  ‘Maybe ‘tis but sour apples. I’ve knowd our Luke just t’same when he was a bairn down to Steeton,’ Christian said.

  Anne tried to force down her own rising fear. ‘ Or it could be the sun. It has been very hot today for September, and she was playing out of doors all morning. We’ll give her some rosemary and dill water to cool her down.’ Then as Elizabeth laid hold of her hand, ‘Go to sleep, little lamb.’

  Christian fetched the remedy from the still-room and they contrived to get a dose of it into Elizabeth; and after a little while she seemed to grow drowsy and settle down. Anne tucked in the little hot hand and went round to Moll’s side of the bed. The older child had sat looking on, unmoving, unspeaking, all the while. What a strange intense little changeling creature she was — even crumpled as changelings are supposed to be. ‘You, too, Moll.’ Anne bent and pressed her back on to the pillow, and felt two skinny little arms round her neck, and knew a sudden rush of contrition because she had never given the depth of love to this dark first baby that she gave to the sunshiny second one. ‘Hushaby! Baby will be better in the morning. Go to sleep now like a good little girl.’

  But Elizabeth was not better in the morning. She had been vomiting and her eyes were very bright under the drooping lids, and Anne did not think that the child knew her.

  She sent a groom galloping into Ilkley for the surgeon, and in due course the surgeon came. Mr King was a big man with a broad Wharfedale accent, a bullet head, and enormous red hands that seemed more suited to the butcher’s trade than his own; but he was very gentle with Elizabeth. When he had finished his examination he straightened up, but did not speak.

  Anne, standing at the foot of the bed with Thomas just behind her demanded, ‘What is it, Mr King?’

  He turned his round red face towards her, and said with the utmost simplicity, ‘It is the sweating sickness.’

  She gave a little choking cry of denial; and felt Thomas’s strong hands below her shoulders, holding her. ‘No! Oh God no! Not that!’

  The surgeon was gathering up the saddle-bag containing the tools of his trade. ‘There are three cases in t’village, My Lady… T’other little lass — did they sleep together last night?’

  Anne nodded. Her lips were so dry that it was a few moments before she could speak. ‘I thought — I hoped it was no more than that she had been too long in the sun. What — shall we do to safeguard Mary?’

  ‘Give her to drink a cup of milk in which a clove of garlic has been boiled for the third part of an hour and trust in God,’ said Mr King. ‘If you will send a groom with me he can bring back the cordials and remedies. Keep the windows open and burn feverfew and rosemary in the room. I’ve no need to tell you to keep Mistress Mary and the rest of the household away.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Keep up thy heart as best tha’ may, My Lady. I’ll be back again before night.’

  When his tramping footsteps had died away, the room was silent; a stunned silence, save for the whimpering breaths of the sick child. ‘She’s so little,’ Anne said, half whispering, as though she were afraid to break that hush.

  ‘She is very strong and full of life,’ Fairfax said. ‘She is as like to live as a much older child would be.’

  ‘And as like to die,’ Anne said, staring straight before her.

  Fairfax put his arms round her and held her a moment without a word. Then he released her and made a move towards the bed; but she slipped between him and the child. ‘No!’ she cried, and the brittle sharpness of the cry tore the hush across. ‘You must not touch her. You should not touch me. Don’t you see you will carry the sweating sickness among your men out there.’

  He checked a moment and stood looking at her, and she knew that two men were fighting within him, a man whose child was sick unto death, and a man who served a Cause that he believed with all his heart and soul to be a righteous one. Then he made a little helpless gesture and turned away.

  In the long days and nights that followed, Anne knew nothing of the tide of events that flowed about her through the hush of the great house; the sound of trumpets and horses’ hooves, the news that came from the outside world, even the fact that Lord Fairfax — it seemed an unlikely choice — had been appointed to command the Parliamentary Forces in Yorkshire. Her whole universe had narrowed down to the room where Elizabeth lay. Moll, solemn and silent, had been banished to the care of the housekeeper, and night and day she and Christian were with Elizabeth, sometimes together, sometimes one lying down to snatch a little sleep while the other watched. From time to time Anne would look up and see a tall figure in an old buff coat and thigh boots that had seen service in the Low Countries and on the Scottish Border, standing in the doorway, his eyes on the child or on herself in silent questioning. She never knew how often he stood there when she did not look up at all.

  Sometimes, generally at night, the baby seemed to come back to herself, and then Anne would sing to her softly, the old, old nursery songs that she loved.

  She never knew how often Tom heard her, blind weary from his own day’s work, but sharing her watch, just outside the door.

  The smell of the baby’s rank sweat seemed all about her, as the little body wasted away and the face resting on her arm became more and more like a skull as she looked down on it. The days and nights went by — few or many she never knew, but it could not have been very many — and a night came when she sat holding the baby as usual, wrapped in a shawl. It seemed to her that Elizabeth was breathing more easily — just a little more easily — that perhaps her little wasted body was not so burning hot. Anne was very tired; so tired with her long watching that the branched sprays of woolwork peonies and clove carnations on the bed curtains seemed to sway and waver, though tonight there was no wind.

  Not knowing that she did so, she must have dozed for a few moments, Elizabeth in her arms, and the next thing she knew was the light of a candle falling full on her face, and Christian bending over her, trying to take the baby from her.

  ‘Lay the bairn down, my dear, it’s over. Dinna tha’ see it’s over?’ Christian said, and her warm tears fell on Anne’s hand.

  She looked down, bewildered, into the little face, and understood. What she held in her arms was not Elizabeth any more, not even the outer semblance of Elizabeth; only a shrivelled wax doll.

  The baby was buried among her ancestors who lay effigied in stone and alabaster on their canopied tombs. But still, though the sweating sickness did not spread, Mr King continued to come. Now it was to visit Lady Fairfax, ‘If Lady Fairfax would but give way, it would disperse the dangerous humours in her blood,’ he said to her husband; but to himself he put it more straightly, ‘Why canna’ the lass weep, like another one?’

  But Anne could not weep. All the days long she walked; up and down the long gallery, to and fro along the passages of the great house, up one staircase and down another, from the kitchen
garden to the herber, from the herber to the rose garden where a few frail pink flowers still clung to the Autumn Damask, and so back to the long gallery again, with a swift light step as though she were seeking something. She was perfectly rational: often she tried to stop herself, to sit down to table with the household, to work at her embroidery or in the still-room; but always before long she would spring up and return to that wild swift weary pacing.

  They kept Little Moll away from her in those days, and she did not ask for her. She did not want the child, any child, yet. Frances Fairfax would have come to her, but that, too, would have meant a child, since small William was not yet weaned though the next was on the way. And she had Christian.

  But even Christian could not be with her all the time, and towards dusk of a grey October day she found herself alone in the bower. She had been trying to work at her embroidery, but the stitches went glaringly awry, and the wild restlessness rose in her until it could not be denied.

  There was nobody in the long gallery, nobody to stop her as she sped down the steep circular stair to a side door giving on the garden. The storm leapt at her in greeting as she tore it open, all but wrenching it from her grasp, and the chill soft rain was all about her. She left the door wide, the storm streaming into the house, and ran for the gate in the wall giving on to the bridlepath that ran uphill through the woods.

  The light was beginning to fade as she came out on to the open moor, and she saw the clouds flying low and the rain-mist driving across the dun heather. Ahead of her the track ran on, bordered on one side by a dry stone wall whose grey held all the colours of a gull’s wing. Anne walked on blindly, instinctively making for the high places, for the moors that rose and fell like the billows of a great sea against the sky line. The storm beat about her like great wings as she climbed, and all the wild unrest within her cried out to it in kinship, finding its own expression in the turmoil of the wind.