Alice in Love and War (23 page)

He was on his feet again, limping towards her.

“Oh!” she cried, exasperated.

“I want to see! That’s the Clipston road, isn’t it? So Naseby must be over there, to the right…”

“You’re not thinking of leaving? Not yet?” She spoke lightly, for of course she had no reason to hold him back. She had always known he would leave, that both of them would go their different ways. But now, suddenly, it was upon them, and she realized how afraid she was of the long, lonely journey she herself must soon make. For the moment, the two of them were together in a place where both their lives seemed suspended in time. She was not yet prepared for change.

But he was restless.

“I must leave as soon as I can.” He gazed out, drinking in the long view like a caged bird on the brink of freedom.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. I’ll need to find my regiment.”

Alice looked again at the bloodstained bandage. “You’ll travel nowhere yet,” she said. “
Please
sit down.”

“Bring the stool, then. I’ll sit here. The air won’t hurt me.”

Alice wasn’t sure about that, but she brought the stool and he sat obediently.

“How big is this village?” he asked.

“Middling.”

“Do they get newsbooks here, from London?”

“I don’t know.”

Alice had not been out much, no further than the yard and garden or field edge, helping Hannah around the forge. The nightmares still troubled her, and since she had found shelter here she had become afraid to venture out. And yet, she thought, I must prepare myself for leaving. The Barfords will have no need of me here once this man is on his feet and his wounds healed.

“I’ll ask Master Barford,” she said. “Most likely the inn has them, or the parsonage.”

Later, in the kitchen, Hannah asked, “How is he?”

“Up and bothersome and asking for newsbooks.”

“Oh! He’s on the mend, then.”

“Yes. But, Hannah, he’s moving about, and that thigh wound is bleeding again.”

They looked at it in the afternoon.

The place where the pistol ball had entered was an ugly, purplish area, surrounded by dark red bruising. There was a trickle of fresh blood, but it was slowing now that he lay still.

“There’s no pus,” said Hannah. “That’s good.”

The two of them discussed what to do. Wash it? Smear on comfrey ointment? Try to stitch it? Send to Harborough for a doctor?

“No,” said their patient. “None of those. Let it be. It will heal of itself.”

Alice guessed he was right. “But only if you rest,” she said.

She and Hannah re-bandaged the wound in clean linen, and then attended to the shoulder injury. Alice looked at his exposed shoulder and upper arm, and remembered the weight of that arm on her own shoulder when he had limped across the room. She caught his eye and immediately glanced away. She wondered what he thought of her. She had shocked him with her revelation about how she came to be here. He treated her with the same courtesy as before and always seemed glad of her company – but a godly young man of his sort must surely despise her now?

“We’ll move him out of that sickroom,” said Hannah.

Jeremiah was now allowed to spend his days in the kitchen, on condition that he did not attempt to walk about too much. He sat by the fireside, writing letters, or reading his Bible, or studying the pocketbook of maps that he had shown to Alice. He told them he had bought the book earlier that year, and he seemed very taken with it. Hannah trimmed his beard for him, and lent him a clean shirt of her husband’s while they washed both of his. He ate with the family, and grew stronger, “and a better colour”, Hannah said approvingly.

She found some old, softened linen and gave it to Alice to make gowns for Elen, ready for the time when she was no longer in swaddling bands. “You could start freeing her arms already,” she said.

She helped Alice to cut out simple shapes for the garments, and Alice sewed with fine small stitches. It was the kind of work she enjoyed, and she was especially happy to be doing it for Elen since she could not give the baby a mother’s milk.

“When I’ve finished the gowns,” she told Hannah, “I must leave you.” The armies were gone, and Jeremiah would soon be on his way. “It’s summer,” she said. “There won’t be a better time to travel.”

“You’ll take Elen?”

“Of course!”

“You’ll have to find wet nurses along the road, and another when you reach that house near Oxford. You know, Alice, I fear for the little one. I’ve spoken to my husband about this, and he’s agreed that if you can pay me the money in advance you could leave her with me until she’s weaned. Come back for her next year if you want to keep her; or, if you don’t, we could take her to the orphanage at Northampton. What do you think?”

“No!” Alice’s response was immediate. “No, not the orphanage. Thank you, I am grateful, but…”

She remembered kneeling beside Nia’s body, holding the baby and promising, “I’ll keep her and take care of her.” She
couldn’t
leave her. And yet, she asked herself, wouldn’t it be more caring to leave Elen here? But it was a long way to Copsey, and there was no knowing what might prevent her from returning, or prevent Hannah from looking after the baby. Elen could end up in the orphanage in spite of everything.

Above all, there was Alice’s instinctive feeling.

“I can’t bear to be parted from her!” she said. “I can’t do it!” And tears sprang to her eyes.

“There now,” said Hannah, “no need to cry. You must do as you will. And I can help you. I’ll show you how to make pap for her, in case you can’t find a wet nurse. You steep barley bread in water and then boil it in milk. It makes an excellent substitute. You can take some with you and perhaps make more along the way.”

Alice began to feel calmer. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d be glad to learn.”

Jeremiah Banks had been writing while this exchange took place. He said nothing at the time, but later, when Hannah had taken Prudence out to help her feed the hens, he said, “Mistress Alice, I must leave soon, like you. We could travel together. I could accompany you as far as Weston Hall and then go on from there to find my regiment. What do you think?”

Alice felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from her. She had been so afraid of travelling alone. The baby’s welfare – her very survival – was an immense responsibility, and she knew she would need to travel as quickly as possible, and to ask for help and accept rides from people who might not be trustworthy. She feared the many soldiers and ruffians now at large on the roads; the assumptions that would be made about her as a lone woman; the risks of robbery and rape. Jeremiah’s presence would protect her from all that. And to go with him, to stay with him a little longer, to have more time with him… That, too, she realized, was what she wanted.

But… “Is Weston Hall on your way?” she asked.

“I think so. The word is that the army is heading west now, to relieve Taunton.”

“But I fear I will be a burden to you – slow you down.”

“It is no matter to me. I’d be more worried to think of you alone on the roads.”

“But Elen—”

“Elen comes too.”

“But—”

“No more buts!” he exclaimed. “I have a horse. I’ll see if I can hire one for you. Can you ride?”

“Only a market horse – an old, steady creature.”

“I’ll find you a placid one. It will save many hours if we ride, and that will be safer for the baby. We could be there in three days. So, will you travel with me?”

She looked at him, met his concerned, serious gaze. “Yes. I will. Thank you.”

The quietness of her response belied her feelings. She wanted to go with him, and it was not only because she was afraid of travelling alone. He was going out of his way for her, and it was a generous gesture – so generous that she wondered if he too had mixed motives; if, in spite of everything, he might be as reluctant to part as she was.

Twenty-three

“If
I go anywhere these days,” the widow said, “I go astride, like a man.” She laughed, showing gappy teeth.

She had brought out the pillion, covered in dirt and cobwebs, from the back of a shed: a wooden frame with a padded leather seat, and a footrest hanging from one side. She brushed grit and mouse droppings from the seat. “It’ll clean up, good as new.”

And it would be cheaper and easier than hiring a second horse, Alice knew. Horses were hard to come by, with the armies needing a constant supply; and Jeremiah Banks, hearing that a neighbour in Sibbertoft had a pillion she might sell, had taken Alice to see it. Alice had never ridden pillion before, though she had seen wives travelling that way with their husbands.

Jeremiah looked it over. “It’ll fix on securely,” he said. “And if you carry the child in a sling…”

The widow winked at Alice. “Oh, you’ll be safe enough, lass, as long as you grab on tight to your man!”

Alice avoided meeting Jeremiah’s eye. She knew the woman must have her own ideas about their relationship: the Parliamentarian dragoon and the leaguer whore from the king’s defeated army. Even though she had scarcely stepped out of doors since her arrival, gossip about her would have been all around the village, and no one would have had much good to say of her. Well, she needn’t care; she’d be away from here for ever tomorrow morning.

Jeremiah paid three shillings for the pillion. Alice wanted to say, “I’ll pay,” but thought he might be offended. She had paid Hannah for the wet-nursing; and Jeremiah, his injuries healed, had paid the couple for their care of him and his horse. Everything was settled now for the journey. Hannah had helped Alice construct a sling for Elen out of strong unbleached linen so that the baby could be carried close to her body while they were riding. She had also found her a piece of oiled canvas to put over herself and Elen if it rained.

Next morning, when all was ready, Jeremiah and Alice both thanked the Barfords for their care. Alice felt sad parting from Hannah, who had been so kind and generous to her. They hugged each other, and Hannah said, “God go with you, and the child.”

Then Jeremiah mounted his horse, and Master Barford helped Alice up into the pillion seat behind him. The pillion was awkward, for she had to sit as if on a side saddle with her legs twisted away from her body. She clung tightly, as the old woman had advised, to Jeremiah’s buff coat, the baby pressed between them – Alice having decided that despite this inconvenience she would prefer to have Elen where she could see her, rather than on her back.

They took the road to Naseby, which meant passing the place where the women had been killed. Alice had walked out there the evening before, to the field where she had once felt she could never bear to go again. She had knelt on the trampled ground and prayed for the souls of Nia, Bronwen and Rhian, and all the women who had died there. Now she was glad to be riding quickly past and on, across the battlefield, to the village of Naseby, and beyond.

Elen had been grizzling when they left the forge, but the jogging movement of the horse and her closeness to Alice soothed her, and she soon fell asleep. Jeremiah called back, “Are you comfortable there?” and Alice said, “Yes,” though she was not. But no travel was ever comfortable, and riding was better than most, and quicker. Gradually Alice settled into the rhythm, and watched the countryside in all its midsummer sweetness unfold on either side. She did not know where they were, and was gladder than ever that she was travelling with someone who did, and need not be constantly asking the way and begging lifts from strangers.

The day was a Thursday, and in several of the villages they passed through it was market day. The roads were busy with country people: farmers’ wives on horseback with panniers of goods, carters driving wagons, a few lone travellers walking. Sometimes there were groups of soldiers from one side or the other. Jeremiah told Alice that some of those from the New Model Army were probably rounding up deserters. There would be thousands of deserters after such a victory, he said, laden with loot from the king’s wagons. He had no wish to encounter even his own people on this journey, and if he caught sight of them in time he turned his horse aside down a lane to avoid confrontation.

But on one occasion they could not avoid being stopped by a Parliamentarian patrol. Jeremiah told them he had been wounded at Naseby and had since been given leave to take his wife and child to her parents’ home near Oxford before rejoining his regiment.

After they had gone he laughed in relief, and said, “God forgive me for lying! But I must have done it well. I was afraid they’d ask to see my pass.”

“Are you absent without permission?”

“I was left for dead, so need no permission! But it’s always dangerous to be on the roads alone. I could be hanged as a spy or a deserter before they finish questioning me.”

At midday he brought them to a meadow at the edge of a little wood. A stream flowed through it, and there was a fallen log on which they could sit and eat. He helped Alice down and led the horse to the stream to drink. Alice untied the sling and laid Elen on the canvas rain cover. Freed of her burden, she stood and stretched.

Jeremiah smiled at her. “How do you feel?”

“Bent sideways! But I don’t complain,” she added hastily. “Do your wounds trouble you?”

“Not much.”

Alice sat down with the baby. Under Hannah’s direction she had made pap for the journey, and now she tried to persuade Elen to suck it from the pewter bottle. Elen cried. She didn’t like the bottle, and instead Alice dipped her finger in the stuff and let the baby suck from that. It wasn’t much, but she hoped it might keep her contented until they could find another wet nurse.

When she had finished, and laid the child down, Jeremiah came and sat beside her and they ate the bread and cheese Hannah had packed for them. It was a pleasant place they had found, the meadow full of clover and buttercups, the stream glinting with sparkles of sunlight. Alice glanced sidelong at Jeremiah, at his profile, his hands, the line of fair stubble along his jaw. She found herself wanting to reach out and take his hand. In the sickroom at Sibbertoft she had touched him often, and without shame, and had been so close to him for so long that she had felt as if she knew him. But he had been in her power then; now he was free.