A Mother's Sacrifice (26 page)

‘He is a prisoner, my love.’

‘He is innocent. I should have been the one in court.’

‘It is over now.’ Laura sighed and added, ‘I should have welcomed him as a son.’

Quinta swallowed a strangled groan. She must be strong for her mother’s sake. But she did not swallow her words. ‘I am so angry with Farmer Bilton, and Sir William. If I had Patrick’s gun I should kill them both.’

‘Calm yourself. I do not want my daughter before the magistrate as well. Besides, Sir William did not send him to the colonies. But he was angry with Patrick for not giving up his gun. Do you know what happened to it?’

‘He must have hidden it before Sir William arrived. Farmer Bilton looked everywhere and couldn’t find it.’

‘Perhaps he hid it in the cowshed?’

‘Where? There is nowhere that cannot be searched. It must be somewhere near the house.’

‘Hush now, dear. This is a day for mourning.’

‘And I do mourn, Mother. That is why I am angry. Why cannot we join the gentlemen at the graveside?’

‘It is not a woman’s place, dear.’

‘It is our place. We are here instead of Patrick. Come along.’ Quinta pulled her mother after her and ignored the raised eyebrows of the vicar. She stood arm in arm with her mother as Sergeant Ross’s coffin was lowered into his grave.The surgeon was there, with an unknown gentleman in dark sober clothing and a tall hat who was taking the role of chief mourner. When the vicar had finished speaking, both men took a handful of soil and scattered it over the coffin. Quinta, despite her mother’s restraining tug, stepped forward to do the same. The tall gentleman gave her a formal bow and moved away.

‘Who is he, Mother?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He is a lawyer, madam,’ the surgeon replied. ‘He is arranging a headstone. Sergeant Ross left instructions with him.’

‘He was a brave man,’ Laura said.

The surgeon nodded in agreement. ‘I’m afraid his constitution had weakened over the years.’

‘You did all you could, sir,’ Laura responded.

He bowed and followed the lawyer. The sexton took up his shovel to refill the grave.

Quinta noticed tears on her mother’s cheeks. Quinta had done her weeping in the days since Patrick’s trial, but she continued to mourn. She grieved for the sergeant who had survived the muskets of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, searched for his son, found him and brought him up to be as honourable and brave as he had been. She grieved also for that son. He could not be here to mourn his father because of the lies of their jealous landlord who had used his influence with the magistrate.

She grieved also for herself; for her own loss of the sergeant and of his son. Especially, God forgive her, for the life she would not know as Patrick’s wife. For one brief night when she had known his love and had understood her mother’s dream that she should love the man who would be her husband. She would never be a wife to Patrick now and her heart was crumbling. That dream had been shattered by a summary decision of Sir William who chose not to listen to her and to believe Farmer Bilton.

The sergeant’s death, though tragic, had left bones in the churchyard and a headstone to his memory. Patrick’s loss had left no such shrine for Quinta, only a black emptiness in her heart; a void that she did not know how to fill except with tears. And so she wept with her mother as they moved away from the graveside.

‘Did you love Sergeant Ross, Mother?’

‘Oh no, my dear. No one could replace your father in my heart. But I admired him. He was wise and courageous. The Lord should not have taken him so soon.’

They walked arm in arm back to the inn. The sun was high and the town busy with trade. Life went on as normal for the rest of the world. But Quinta could not see how it would ever be normal for her again.

She was aware that her mother was slowing, leaning more heavily on her arm, and said, ‘We shall have tea at the Crown and prepare to return home. The hens have been too long without us. We shall need to hunt for their eggs.’

‘Oh, they do not lay as well if they do not see us and we do not talk to them.’

Quinta smiled. She thought it was fine weather that caused them to give more eggs for they spent more time out of doors then. She hoped that the hedge had kept them away from the garden. Hens, like young deer, did so like young green shoots to eat. ‘Have you money to pay the innkeeper for our meals, Mother?’

‘He told me it was taken care of. And he has given me coin from the sergeant for our journey home. George thought of everything. Shall we walk and save it towards the Michaelmas rent?’

‘No, Mother. You are exhausted already and there is the hill to climb at the end. We shall take the carrier as far as the village.’

‘But without Patrick we shall not be able to pay our rent again.’

Quinta had already considered that, and replied, ‘You ride in the cart with our belongings and I’ll walk beside.Then we shall save half of the fare.’

There was room enough for both of them, but without a burden to carry Quinta enjoyed the walk and she could easily keep up with the carthorse. In fact she walked by his large majestic head, murmuring encouragement as they plodded together.

When they reached the village, Laura climbed down and Quinta put her own bag inside her mother’s box, which she carried awkwardly up the track past Bilton Farm. The box became heavier and heavier, but she persevered, anxious to reach Top Field and home.

It was dusk as they rounded the brow and approached the cottage. Swarms of birds swooped across the sky, but their smallholding was unusually quiet and still. Quinta could detect no movement from their foraging hens, nor gentle clucking as they pecked and scratched the soil. When they were nearer and the smell assaulted her nostrils she understood why.

The pasture was littered with the torn and bloodied corpses of their birds, most with their heads bitten off and their dead flesh gnawed away by rats. Their feathers were scattered across the grass.

‘No!’ Quinta dropped the box and ran. She dashed from one to the next, holding a hand over her nose to staunch the stench of rotting flesh. Her hens were dead, every last one of them. The henhouse was intact but straw was scattered around the entrance and she feared the worst.The putrid odour grew worse as she hurried towards it. The fox had squeezed inside as well. Where the hens had huddled together he had snapped and snarled, killing indiscriminately for his pleasure rather than his appetite.All the eggs had been smashed as he rampaged through the nesting boxes.The sticky congealed carnage made her retch and vomit, adding to the squalor on the straw.

Her mother caught up with her as she straightened. ‘The fox has killed them all. Not one is left alive. Even our eggs are gone.’

‘Oh my dear Lord in heaven, what shall we do now?’

Quinta spat the last of the bitter bile from her mouth. This was too much. No matter what they did, how much they tried, everything went wrong for them. It was just not fair! She had left the henhouse open so they could wander in and out at will. Foxes were a danger in the colder weather, when their food was scarce, she knew. But in high summer they had plenty to eat nearer their foxholes, surely? She felt ill with grief and anger and her stomach churned with rage.

She answered her mother stiffly, from between pursed lips.

‘Can you search the hedgerow for eggs before the light goes completely? If there are any left we may be able to hatch them for chicks. I’ll gather wood for a fire.We must burn the carcasses tonight or we’ll have disease as well.’

‘Oh Quinta, you have tried so hard. I am so sorry.’

‘It’s done now, Mother. Take any eggs you find indoors. Can you manage to lift some water from the stream? I shall need to wash after this.’

Vomit threatened in Quinta’s throat with every torn, rotting, half-gnawed carcass she tossed on to her bonfire. She scrubbed at her hands in an outside bucket but could not get rid of the bloody stickiness under her nails. Laura had prepared bread and boiled bacon bought from town to eat for supper, washed down with their own ale from the pantry, but Quinta could not eat it for she could not rid her nostrils of the decaying stench. She felt ill with the exhaustion, so ate a dry bread crust, took a small tankard of ale and went upstairs to her bed. She did not sleep well in spite of her tiredness and on rising felt nauseous again. She had to dash for the door when she came downstairs to breakfast and was sick again on the grass.

‘I hope you haven’t caught the fever,’ her mother fretted as she refused to eat.

When she had not improved by the following week, Laura took her hand and said, ‘Sit down, my dear. We must talk about this.’

Quinta obeyed readily. She had not felt ill like this before and feared for the diseases that spread across the town in hot weather.

‘It’s not the cholera, is it, Mother? I drank only ale at the inn,’ she said in alarm. ‘And I ate food that was cooked fresh on the day.’

‘The innkeeper’s wife said it was cooked fresh but I am not so sure.’

‘No! Do you think I have some dreadful fever?’

‘No, my dear. I do not.’

‘What then?’

‘Tell me, my love, of your time here with Patrick. He did not stay in the cowshed all the time, did he?’

‘It hurts to think of it, Mother. He was so wonderful, and now he is gone.’

‘But tell me about
before
he was taken away by Sir William, my dear. What happened between you?’

Quinta looked down at her hands folded in her lap. She twisted her fingers restlessly. ‘We did not really like each other at first. At least I thought we did not and . . .’ She described the incident with Farmer Bilton and Patrick’s rescue from his assault on her. ‘Patrick sent him away, Mother. After that, things changed between us. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. We - we fell in love. Oh Mother, he said he loved me.’

‘And he came to your bed?’

‘He said he loved me! He wanted me to be his wife!’

‘I am not angry with you, dear. But you must tell me. Did you lie with him?’

Quinta closed her eyes as she remembered the pleasure and joy they had given to each other. She nodded silently.

Laura became agitated and looked sideways at the wall. ‘Oh dear Lord, what shall we do?’

‘Is it such a crime, Mother? I love him. He loves me and we should have been married properly in church and everything. He . . .’ Quinta gulped. ‘In the court he asked me not to give up hope. He will come back to me. He will.’

‘He will not!’ Laura twisted her fingers in her lap.

‘Do not say such things. I love him, Mother.’

‘
He will be killed!
The clerk at the court said as much.’ Laura’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He will never return.’

Quinta felt angry with her mother. Her Patrick would not be killed. He was brave and clever, as his father had been. She could not, would not let herself believe that he would die on a foreign battlefield. He had to come back for her. He just had to! She straightened her back and argued, ‘You are wrong, Mother. Patrick loves me and he will find a way for us to be together. I know he will.’

Her mother was weeping again. She was so distressed that Quinta went to kneel beside her. She took her hands and murmured, ‘It is not so bad. You and Patrick’s father gave us your blessing. I surrendered my virtue to him willingly as his promised wife. I am not ruined.’

This did not seem to reassure her mother and her weeping continued in short guttural sobs. Although Quinta was forced to acknowledge the possibility that she might never see Patrick again, she could hardly bear to even think of it, for she knew that she could never love any other man as she loved Patrick. She supposed her mother thought that she was ruined as a bride for anyone else, and sought to ease her mother’s fretting. ‘I shall be true to him for ever. I shall not look at another,’ she added softly. ‘Never.’

‘But what will you do?’ her mother uttered through her sobs.

Quinta stood up and hugged her mother’s face to her own body. Of course it mattered to her that she was no longer pure, but only if she was seeking a husband, which she was not. ‘Without Patrick, we shall have to leave here, I know. But I can work. I’ll find a position for us both.’

‘I - I cannot do much with my cough. The surgeon said—’

‘Do not fret so. I can take care of us both.’

‘No you can’t. You don’t understand.’

‘What is it, Mother? Why does my loving Patrick distress you so much?’

Her mother inhaled deeply and stemmed her strangled sobs. ‘I should not be much of a mother if I did not tell you my fear. It is your sickness, my dear.’

‘What about my sickness? Do you fear it is serious? That I have taken a putrid fever?’

‘It is not a disease. Now we are home, I see you have a different look about you. I believe that you are with child, my dear.’

‘I am with child? I cannot be. I am not married.’ But as this realisation sank home she understood why her mother was so distressed.

He mother gazed at her silently.

‘Then I am carrying Patrick’s child,’ Quinta breathed.

Patrick’s child. Although he had been taken from her so cruelly, he had left her with this gift. She had not considered this possibility when she had been taken up by the passion of their love. She had thought only of a married future with their children. But if she was with child, she was with Patrick’s child! For a few moments the room seemed to spin around her. Could this be true? Had God seen fit to reward her so?

‘Are you sure, Mother?’

‘If you are not, then time will soon prove me wrong.’

‘I have had no bleeding since . . . Well, since before that night, but it was not so long ago.’

‘Some are blessed to conceive so easily. Sadly, I was not. Though, for you, it is not such a blessing, I fear.’ The tears welled again in her mother’s eyes.