Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall (15 page)

“I
will
go to Cambridge, sir. And oh, thanks be to God, there are no girls there.”

CHAPTER 12

The Hordens of the Hall did not have to hire a coach to take their guests to Tynemouth or anywhere else. The French party made one visit to Newcastle with Ursula to show them where a Mass could be heard. Lady Horden said they should not commit themselves to the dangers of travel without absolution first. But after that, much to Daniel’s relief, the visit was to end as soon as arrangements could be made for the journey back. Diana refused to speak another word to him while Madeline became quite confidential.

“Di would never have waited three years for you. She hoped to steal a march on me, that’s all. But I will marry when we return to France. There is a nobleman only awaiting a settlement. He has large estates and dozens of servants. I could never have stomached this shabby old place and I wager Di would have regretted it after a month or two. You needn’t fear that you have broken her heart!”

This was some reassurance but it was an uncomfortable time till they could wave them away. Lady Horden spent an hour in the village visiting her husband’s and son’s tomb and taking leave of Joseph and Anne Wilson. Daniel who escorted her knew both his grandmothers were glad to part.

“I will not be returning,” Lady Horden told him on the walk back. “I needed to come but this was never a happy place for me. It is well that our families are not to be more closely linked. You are like your mother and I never felt comfortable with her though she was my youngest child. Madeline and Diana are silly girls but I can manage them as their grandmother. I am happier in France. There everyone knows their place and what is correct. In England there has been a loosening of society. I find it unsettling.”

“Yes Grandmother,” was all he could say but of the four women to whom he bade farewell he had to admire her straight-backed dignity most of all. His aunt allowed herself tears when she embraced his mother.

“Oh Arabella, it has all been unfortunate and I so hoped we would be united as sisters as never before.”

Bel kissed her warmly. She was of too loving a nature not to respond to tears, but when the hired coach drove away she gave a skip of glee and turned back into the house with her arms round Nat and Dan.

“Well, my men, I think we are well out of that.”

Ursula who had been bobbing in the background said, “Now, my Bel, be not uncharitable. There is good in them all. They attended Mass most devoutly and the priest blessed them for their journey.”

Bel flung her arms round her. “Urs, you will make excuses for the devil on Judgment Day. Oh what a joy to have you back at mealtimes! I wondered why I could not digest my food so well. But you do right to chide me. I will heartily love my mother and sister and nieces from now on. I will write affectionate letters when they are back in France. Indeed, if I could do embroidery I would start at once on a pretty cushion for Madeline’s wedding present.”

Their laughter rang about the great hall. It was good to be on their own again.

The rest of the summer was overshadowed by Joseph’s illness and Daniel’s preparations for Cambridge. Although he had repudiated the idea of holy orders Daniel found his grandfather still seemed to assume that was the only possible outcome of a Cambridge degree.

Weak and husky of voice Joseph said the same thing on all Daniel’s visits. “I seem not to have many books to give you, my boy. Of course I passed them on to your dear father when he went up to Queen’s. The few Greek texts and works of theology on that shelf there I do dip into from time to time. They are a comfort though I may not need them much longer. You shall have them when I am gone. Your grandmother would light the fire with them.”

“I will want no fires,” she snapped. “I’ll follow you as quick as I can.”

They were not happy visits for Daniel. On his return he would say to his father, “Grandfather is
still
convinced I am to take holy orders. If I must go to university surely I am not obliged to do that?”

One day his mother was present in the study and intervened.

“Our Dan is not for the church and he was never a Greek scholar like you, Nat, though you did your best to force some into him. But why do you think I am dreading his going away? Not for his beautiful presence about the place of course, nor for his cheery nature, nor for his popularity with everyone about us, oh no, for none of these things.” She was clasping her arms round Dan as she spoke. “No, I am facing the fearful prospect of having to do all the estate accounts by myself.”

Dan kissed the top of her head. “Oh Mother, you are very good with figures.”

“And your young brain is twice as fast.” Still holding onto him she looked at Nat. “Have I not heard that they study mathematics at Cambridge and strange new sciences about the properties of light, air, water and such? You brought some paper from Newcastle where I read this and that the King himself is mighty interested in such things.”

Dan looked eagerly at his father. “Perhaps I could make some great invention that would come to the King’s ears. Oh sir, let me pursue that path, I beg you.”

Nat put on a very solemn face and began to shake his head. Seeing Bel about to burst out he laughed. “I think that is the first time in this boy’s life that he has shown true enthusiasm for learning of any sort. Daniel, if you will work in that field I will give you my blessing.”

Bel transferred her hug to Nat.

Now at last Dan began to look forward to a new phase of life. It would be strange to stand on his own feet and be part of a competitive world of men but he was eager for the chance. He joyfully unpacked all the books his father had given him and rode into Newcastle to see the library at Trinity House on the quayside where there were the latest papers on astronomy and the mathematics of navigation and some reports of studies on the refraction of light. He made copious notes and came back with his head bursting with ideas for experiments.

Nat meanwhile had made inquiries and found that Trinity College might be a more appropriate alma mater for such studies than Queens’. He wrote to his former college friend Lord Branford to see if he knew anyone with influence who might get him entered for Trinity.

The earl wrote back and said his son Henry was entered for Trinity to study mathematics and the physical sciences and he would be delighted to see that Daniel was accepted too. He hoped they would be good friends as he and Nat had been. All this was very comfortable for Nat and Dan but as the day of his departure approached Bel became unusually quiet and tense.

It was his last day at home, his travelling chest was packed and roped and Daniel was checking the closet in his bedchamber to see that the breeches and doublets he had left behind were really not fit to take. He was closing the door when he noticed at his feet a crumpled paper. He picked it up and found it was the letter from Eunice Horden to his mother. He remembered that when she had left the room ‘to do battle with her sister’ the letter had been lying on his father’s desk. His mother had jestingly called it a love letter and he had picked it up and slipped it in his sleeve. It must have fallen out when he hung up his doublet. He had thought of it occasionally since but not finding it had decided his mother had retrieved it. It had been addressed to her and his mind had been too full of other things for him to want to question her about it.

Now he read it again. Love letter? Surely not?

Bel appeared that moment at his open door to see that all was ready.

“What have you there?”

He held it out. “This. You think she wanted you to show it to me?”

“Why, it’s Eunice’s letter! I thought I had lost it. Oh certainly she did.”

“You called it a love letter. Why?”

“Well, she cannot let you go. She is clinging to that brief time she saw you. Poor girl, she has few excitements in her life. It was the tiny gesture of a limpet to see if it could keep hold of a rock.”

“Oh. Well, I have cast off one limpet. This is not the time for another.”

“No indeed.” His mother sat down on the bed and he knew she was trying to laugh to stop tears coming. “I am your strongest limpet – holding on for sixteen years and tomorrow I must let go. Write as often as you can. Keep a journal and send me pages.”

She got up and left him quickly.

When he was alone again Daniel smoothed out the crumpled letter and slipped it into his Bible. It hurt him to think that little Eunice had cast it forth and never even known if it had reached its destination. There would be several staging inns on his journey and what more natural than to pass the evening writing to Cousin Celia to tell her he was on his way to Cambridge. She had whispered to him as they took their leave, “You are just the boy I wish I had had. Clifford came down hard on William, pushing him into the business, and he went meekly in at first but of course turned against it in the end. You knew your mind from the beginning and spoke up boldly.”

He could insert into the letter to Cousin Celia a message to Eunice.

Next day the parting he dreaded was brief but painful.

“I cannot come to the staging inn in Newcastle,” his mother said. “I would have to stand about in the inn yard and every minute of loading up and arguing who goes where would seem an hour. Adam will take you and your luggage on the farm cart. I will give you one hug and then I will run indoors. Your father can wave till you turn out of the gates but I would be running after you and begging you not to go.”

She kept her word but he was painfully certain that her tears were bursting out before she had disappeared into the house. Ursula and his father did wave till he saw them only as tiny figures against the solid bulk of the Hall. Great-great-grandfather Sir Ralph was perpetually waving his sword. The top of his head and the tip of his sword were the last things Daniel saw as the morning sun caught them. He gulped with excitement and a little apprehension, but Adam saw him and his luggage safely onto the stage and that at least was managed for him and his journey was underway.

Not at all sure of himself the first night he eschewed the company of the other passengers round the inn fire and, after requesting a candle and writing materials, he retreated to the chamber he was to share with a taciturn lawyer and sat down at a small table.

That was the simple part, assembling what he needed. After that it was hard labour. The need for writing letters had seldom occurred to him. When he had stated that he was going to Cambridge and what he was to study he wondered what else he could say. Then he remembered that Celia had played hostess again to the French relations before they took passage to France and had no doubt heard their version of his unseemly dallying with Diana.

‘I am afraid that I caused offence to my Aunt Henrietta,
” he wrote,
“who thought I had paid too much attention to Diana. The truth is I want to achieve something in the world before I think of marriage. I intend to study hard and make a name for myself before I devote myself to my duties at Horden and I do not think either of my French cousins would wish to be mistress there. It would not be the life of luxury and high society to which they are accustomed.’

That was surely enough before he came to the real purpose of his letter.

‘And now, honoured cousin, I would beg you to do something for me. When you see your granddaughter, Eunice, pray tell her that my mother received her letter and thanks her for it but thought it wiser not to reply directly in case her father was angry with her for having written. He is your son but I know you feel he has not always pleased you in the way he deals with his daughter. I feel great sympathy for her as her life is very restricted. I have had every advantage that loving parents could give me but even I have felt hemmed in sometimes and unable to enjoy the freedom to pursue my own ambitions. So if you can convey to her that we all wish her well and appreciate the thoughts that led her to write to my mother I would be most grateful.

‘Pray greet Cousin Clifford from me and tell him I was honoured by his invitation to come into his business, although I felt obliged to decline, and believe me, I remain your humble cousin,

Daniel Wilson Horden.’

He read it through and felt he had phrased it very well. Sealing it up and leaving it with the innkeeper to be handed to the mail coach next day he put every thought from his mind but the excitement of being on the threshold of a new life. He did not however throw away Eunice’s letter but kept it folded in his Bible. If he did not read that as often as he had promised his father he was no different from most of his fellow students when he was finally installed at Cambridge.

Eunice was surprised to receive a visit from her grandmother in person. Little notes came occasionally which she always felt obliged to show her father but mostly they said no more than that she and grandfather were well and hoped the same of her and her father. She informed them of the departure of the French cousins and pointed out that now they were alone they would be happy to see her and her father any time at their house in the Strand. William always told her to ignore the letters.

“They would take you away from me if they could and teach you to think that wealth and luxury are the things most to be desired in this life.”