A Mother's Sacrifice (10 page)

‘Mother needs to rest now, even if you don’t,’ Quinta said to him as they approached the sergeant. Father and son were already deep in conversation.

‘Sergeant Ross!’ Laura said as she settled beside him on the wall.‘You won’t believe what has happened to me in the marketplace! I was set upon by a ruffian who stole my purse and tried to steal my daughter, too. A kind gentleman saw him off, thank goodness.’

‘Where were you, Patrick?’ his father asked.

‘Mrs Haig and her daughter were ahead of me,’ he explained. ‘I didn’t know - it was all over by the time I caught up with them.’

‘Yes. We left town early after that,’ Laura added.

‘Did you get your purse back?’ the sergeant asked.

‘I did.’

‘With all its contents?’

‘We lost some of our takings, sir,’ Quinta answered.

‘Give Mrs Haig what’s left from the kindling, son.’

‘All of it?’

The sergeant nodded emphatically.

‘But we agreed to split it, Father. You need—’

‘Do as I say.’

Silently Mr Ross handed over the coins.

‘Will you have enough now, ma’am?’

‘Just about. Thank you, sir. I can only repay in kind, I’m afraid.’

‘Eggs from your hens and vegetables from your garden will suffice.’

‘We shall not be with you much longer, ma’am,’ Mr Ross added firmly. ‘Shall we, Father?’

The sergeant shrugged wordlessly.

Quinta was anxious to be rid of the responsibility of carrying the money and asked,‘Mother, shall you take the rent to Farmer Bilton now?’

‘Yes, my dear, in a few minutes.’

‘Your mother is tired, Miss Quinta,’ the sergeant said. ‘Can you not walk across the field for her?’

‘Not on her own!’Laura protested. ‘She’s not going to Bilton Farm on her own!’

The sergeant responded, ‘Of course not, ma’am. Patrick will go with her and we shall rest while they are gone.’

‘Oh, would you, my dear? I am quite exhausted.’

Quinta took the pouch and set off briskly. She wanted to get this over quickly: to pay Farmer Bilton his rent and tell him not to bother her any more. Mr Ross soon caught up with her and fell silently into step.

 

The sergeant found a bank of dry grass that faced the setting sun and covered it with an empty sack. He leaned heavily on his crutch and held out his hand. ‘Take a nap, if you wish, Mrs Haig.’

‘Thank you, sir, but be assured I shall not sleep, not after the incident in town.’ However, she took hold of his roughened hand and lowered herself awkwardly to the ground.

‘You’ll be quite safe. I shall look out for you.’

‘You are a gentleman, Sergeant Ross. I have not been to market in a while and it has taken its toll on my strength.’ She lay back and closed her eyes, grateful for the springy turf beneath her aching back.

‘It has been a long day for us all,’ the sergeant replied. ‘But the sun’s rays over the distant hills lift the spirits. It was the memory of evenings like this that kept me going through the worst of my injuries.’

‘There were others as well as your leg?’

‘Oh yes indeed. My scars are healed. But my leg is a constant reminder that I almost died. And there were times when I wished I had.’

‘Oh, surely not?’

‘I pulled through eventually, and the war was over and my - my sweetheart had been taken home along with her father’s regiment. My battle injuries had been judged fatal and they had left me to die in a French monastery.’

‘How dreadful for you.’

‘I don’t remember most of it. But when I did show signs of recovery, I was nursed like a newborn until my strength returned. And then I was angry.’

‘Angry? But you had lived!’

‘The army had been my life for so many years and I was too crippled to be a soldier.’

‘Had you not had enough of fighting?’

‘It had had enough of me. That was the hardest medicine to take. But I had time to think. It was a whole year before I was well enough to travel to England. I had two ambitions: to find my lost sweetheart and to marry her.’

‘Did you succeed?’

‘Not quite.’

She must have found another, Laura thought, believing him to be dead, and said sympathetically, wondering where Patrick’s mother was, ‘You have a son to be proud of, sir.’

‘It took me years to find him and then it was not a happy reunion,’ he said dourly. He gazed across the rolling hills at distant red rays lighting up the evening clouds and stayed silent for a long time. Finally he went on: ‘Her father was an officer. She did not tell him that I wished to wed her, or that we had been lovers on the eve of the battle. As her parents danced at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball she consented to become my wife and we could no longer resist the love we had for each other. Nor did we wish to. After the victory at Waterloo, he told her I was dead and took her back to Ireland to marry one of their own, one of their Irish gentry.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

It was such an inadequate thing to say, but he seemed to appreciate it and answered, ‘So am I. She was with child. My child. My son.’

‘Your Patrick? Then you found her eventually?’

‘It was eight years before I knew he existed and another two before I tracked him down in Ireland.When her parents discovered she was with child, they had her locked away in a convent. No one would tell me where she was, or even acknowledge the existence of a child. When I did find her, I could not get near to her.The local militia would have shot me. But my army pay served me well. It loosened a few tongues and I found out what had happened to my son.’

‘And?’

‘He had been farmed out to some poor Irish crofters who treated him like an animal. He was half starved and I was so horrified when I saw the squalor he was living in, I cried. He was ten years old! I told him I was his father and whether he believed it or not he came away with me without a backward glance.’

‘Anyone can tell you are father and son just by looking at you.’

‘Patrick did not know that. He had never seen himself in a glass. I got him out of there and across the Irish Sea as fast as I could and we have been together ever since. I had money and learning from my soldiering. I taught him all I knew as we travelled and he grew tall and strong.When my knee failed, Patrick supported me. He worked and he learned more from his masters.We were five years on a farm in the North Riding, but I always hankered to come back to the South Riding, to come home.’

‘It is no longer the pleasant place of your childhood memories, sir. Smoke and dirt scar it. There is more sin. You heard what happened to me and there was an earlier incident with my Quinta in the marketplace today. I’m not letting her go there ever again,’ she finished.

‘These manufacturing towns grow more like London every year. The King and his followers set such a bad example. Do you know how many offspring he has sired? And not one of them with his lawful wife!’

‘The rich must be the same all over. I know. I was a servant at the Hall before I married.’

Sergeant Ross ran his gnarled hands through his iron-grey hair. ‘You know, Mrs Haig, she is a pretty one to be sure, that girl of yours.You should get her wed before any serious trouble befalls her. Has no one offered for her yet?’

‘That’s not your business, sir,’ she answered sharply.

‘Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to interfere. I was thinking of her safety, that’s all. And yours. It’s a tough life for any woman without a man to take care of her.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that.’ Laura was angry because he was right. She did not want her child to lose her innocence yet, but Quinta was a grown woman now and Laura had noticed herself the glances she attracted from gentlemen. She was ready for marriage; if only there was a handsome young suitor to wed her instead of grimy old Farmer Bilton. The sergeant did not respond, so Laura added, ‘You are right, sir. She has had an offer, but he is not suitable. He did not love her, neither did she love him.’

‘The gentry have never let that get in the way of a good match. If there is respect and consideration, love will come later.’

‘You did not choose that path, Sergeant Ross,’ Laura pointed out.

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Me neither.’

‘But my son suffered. So did I.’

‘I didn’t. I had a devoted husband and I wish my daughter to have the same.’

‘I sincerely hope she does,’ he replied before falling silent.

Chapter 8

‘Who’s there? Show yourselves. I have a shotgun and I’ll use it if I have to.’

She heard the voice from the rear of the farmhouse. As she approached Bilton Farm, Quinta’s stomach was already rumbling with hunger and the smell of roasting mutton in the air made her feel even weaker.

‘It’s me, Farmer Bilton. It’s Quinta Haig with your rent.’

Mr Ross had walked in silence for most of the way. She rounded the corner of the building to where the kitchen sash window had been thrown wide open and a rickety wooden table stood on rough ground by the duck pond. The table was covered with the remains of what appeared to have been a substantial meal and Quinta eyed the leftovers enviously. Hens were pecking at the grass around the table legs and four geese began screaming and cackling at them as soon as they arrived. Mr Ross shooed them away. He did it so easily and naturally that Quinta thought he must have been brought up on a farm.

There were five around the table. Farmer Bilton, Seth his bent old farmhand and three ill-dressed dirty individuals that, Quinta guessed, were farm labourers who slept in the barn. Three oil lamps lit up their faces in a ghoulish way. They were all the worse for ale or cider.

‘I’ll just take the money over to him,’ she whispered, hitching up her skirt to reach her purse.

Mr Ross put a hand on her arm. ‘Stay here. Give me the rent money and I’ll put it on the table for you.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I think I do. Look at them!’

Reluctantly, Quinta handed over her leather pouch.

‘I have your rent, sir,’ he said loudly, ‘from Mrs Haig.’

Farmer Bilton put down his metal tankard. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Ross, sir.’

The farmer twisted in his carver chair and looked him over carefully. When he spoke his speech was slurred. ‘Oh aye, I see you now, one of the travellers; you and the crippled old man. Poachers an’ all, I’ll wager. I’ve heard a gun go off on the moor. I’ll have the constable on to you if I catch you on my land. Where’s the maid, then? Where’s the maid from Top Field?’

‘Do you mean me, sir?’ Quinta came forward.

‘Stay where you are, miss.’ Mr Ross placed himself squarely between her and Farmer Bilton.

‘Get out of the way, you upstart!’

‘No, sir, I shall not. You are in no fit state to greet a lady.’

‘And who do you think you are to pass comment on me?’ Farmer Bilton demanded.

‘I have told you, sir.’

‘A traveller? Ross, you say? Scots? Irish? A navvy, I’ll be bound.’

‘My father was soldier, sir.’

‘Aye, an’ we all know where they come from. Workhouses and prisons. Scum of the earth!’

‘He was a gamekeeper’s lad here in the Riding, sir.’

But Noah Bilton wasn’t interested. He stretched awkwardly in his chair. ‘Where’s the maid, I said? Bring her round to where I can see her.’ He held out a wavering arm in Quinta’s direction.

‘Stay where you are, miss,’ Mr Ross urged. He dropped the pouch of coins on the table and added, ‘You have your rent, sir. Good night.’

But as he walked away there was a crash and the rattling of knives and dishes as Farmer Bilton brought his tankard down heavily on to the wooden table.

‘
You dare to defy me when you are on my land! I said bring the maid to me now!
’ he yelled.

‘Don’t fret, Mr Ross,’ Quinta said urgently. ‘I’ll just say good night to him and then we’ll leave.’ She nipped past him before he could stop her and stood in front of Farmer Bilton, wondering how she could have been so stupid as to think she might become his wife. He was a boorish, drunken oaf. Mother was right. Who would be desperate enough to wed him?

‘You’ll find it’s all there, sir.’

He loosened the lacing and tipped the coins on to the table, counting them slowly before letting out a harsh grunt.

‘And I shall find work during the harvest so you will have your Michaelmas rent, too, when it is due.’

‘It’s not right,’ he growled. ‘You working on other folks’ land while mine lies fallow. I want a man at Top Field, tilling my land. I will have it back, I say. I will!’

‘Please don’t turn us out, sir.’

Farmer Bilton must have picked up her beseeching tone because he went quiet for a minute and looked steadily at her. ‘Your mother knows what to do about that, my lass. And so do you.’

Quinta looked down at her feet. She hadn’t totally understood what was going on when he offered for her. But she did now. Her mother had been so right about him. He did not care for her. He wished only to use her as he did his breeding stock. He was a horrible man.

‘Are you hungry, lass?’

Quinta eyed the remnants of the meal: the leg of mutton, dish of peas and a crusty cottage loaf probably from the Hall kitchen, a bowl of stewed gooseberries and pitcher of cream from his dairy. It was so thick that the drips around the side were congealing before they could slide to the table. There was cheese, too, and flagons of ale and cider. She was unable to stop her mouth watering and she swallowed; twice. ‘No, sir,’ she lied, ‘and I have to get home before nightfall.’

‘You’ve plenty of time, then. It’s Midsummer. Look at this.’ He picked up a horn-handled carving knife with shreds of meat and juices smeared across its blade, leaned forward and hacked a chunk off the cooling joint. He speared the meat with the knife point and thrust it at her. ‘Take it. Best in the Riding.’ When she remained still he moved the morsel nearer to her face. ‘
Eat it
,’ he ordered.