Take Courage (31 page)

And so poor little Moll became a great comfort to me. Often in the next few months I said to myself: I am a miserable sinner, yet is my life not totally wicked, for I have restored Mary Fairfax to life and strength—though, poor child, considering the destiny life has given her, I am not sure whether it was a boon to her to save her life or no. But yes, I am sure; and she, who dotes on her husband as her mother did on hers, though with so much less reason, would be sure too, and not wish it otherwise.

It was a sight to see how that child grew while with us! John, who marked her progress with great pleasure, said to me it was just as it had been with David after our marriage. The air at The Breck was very healthful, and Thomas and Sam played long hours outside with Moll, very gently and carefully—Sam because she was his general's daughter, and Thomas from natural graciousness. I soon cleared her blood of the imperfections which caused the skin roughness, and I fed her on milk and butter and chicken of our own producing. She could surely have had all that I gave her in her own home in Wharfedale, where the air, being farther from the towns, was even sweeter, but I thought I saw that Lady Fairfax was an unskilful though well-meaning mother, her eyes being always bent upon her husband. And then they lived a somewhat roving life, Lady Fairfax disliking to be parted from Sir Thomas. With us, Moll's little face grew plump, and her arms and legs fattened, and her eyes brightened, and soon she laughed and shouted about The Breck, and like our own boys was always hungry. She was of a brown complexion, and never gained the clear rosiness of our two lads, but health gave her dark cheek a kind of rich glow which had its own beauty. She seemed so mopish when lesson-hours deprived her of our boys' company, and hung over the table watching them at work so eagerly, that
David began to teach her to read and draw pothooks. She learned fast, for she had a well-found mind, like her father. The joy Sir Thomas felt in her improvement was so great it made me want to weep and laugh together; when he took her on his knee of an evening, and stroked her short brown hair—now, I am glad to say, much glossier than on her arrival—their two faces, so much alike in shape and expression, sent out such beams of happiness that the whole house basked in them. Moll, though a good, warm-hearted, obedient child, was a trifle reserved, not very prodigal of those tokens of affection often given by children; but she loved her father dearly and loved to show it.

One consequence of her betterment in health was that the Fairfaxes continually postponed their departure; they came—Lady Fairfax and Moll, I mean—at first for a week, then stayed two, then four, and then their departure ceased to be mentioned. If I had known the length of their stay before they came, it would have seemed a hateful imposition to me; but coming upon me gradually, I found it rather more than tolerable. Lady Fairfax, though above me in station, and, to speak truly, beneath me in mind, was after all a woman; a woman young like myself, a wife like myself, like myself the mother of children; she had known unhappiness, and suffered at the hands of one she loved. There were therefore many things we had in common. We were discreet, as wives should be; we did not open our hearts to each other on the subject of our marriages ; yet without calling John and Tom by name, there were many things we could say, on the subject of husbands in general, which it eased us to say, and many times when an expressive look between us made the difference between a smile and a sore heart over some slight family jarring. I never thought of Lady Fairfax and myself as being friends, at the time, but now I think we were so. I never spoke to her of Francis, nor she to me of the time when Sir Thomas almost withdrew from their marriage contract, though perhaps, as I had heard her secret through my husband, she had heard mine through hers; but in lesser matters we were confidential; she showed
me the secrets of the cosmetics in her case and said that Lord Fairfax was very tiresome to Sir Thomas about money, while I told her my sadness about David.

In one matter I was most deeply and truly grateful to her. She had not been long with us before her woman's eye perceived my condition, and one day she made a slight reference to it in the men's presence. It was a natural reference and not at all ill-bred, for she merely reproached me for lifting a heavy crock of milk; but it was enough. I saw John start and colour. If he had taken notice of it to me, I might have confessed all to him, but he did not—doubtless he waited for me as I for him—and so the matter remained unopened between us. But at least he knew; my mind was eased of the burden of his ignorance.

It was about this time that Sarah, paying one of her many begging visits to The Breck, broke into a loud lament in the kitchen, reproaching Sir Thomas for leaving her Denton a prisoner in the hands of the Royalists.

Apprehensive that her wails might reach Sir Thomas's ears as he sat at meat I closed the door between, then began to hush her down.

“Be reasonable, Sarah. How can Sir Thomas free your husband?” I asked severely.

“He can take Royalist prisoners and exchange them,” wailed Sarah. “It isn't only me, Mrs. Thorpe; all the women in Bradford follow him about the town begging him to exchange their men. He can go and take Wakefield and make prisoners there—it's a perfect den of dragons.”

“You mean dragoons,” I said.

“It's all the same,” wailed Sarah mournfully. “Let him go and take a dragon and exchange him for my Denton, instead of sitting easy on his backside here. The work of the Lord must not be done negligently.”

“Hush, hush, Sarah!” I cried, though I could not help laughing at the mixture of her text and her homely speech.

If I had been on friendly terms with John I should doubtless have mentioned this matter to him, but as I was not, it seemed too small, and I spoke of it to no one. So I was
surprised when, a day or two before Whitsuntide, Sir Thomas, who had been sitting very silent and brooding at the dinner-table, so that none of us dare speak to him, suddenly turned to me and said with a smile:

“Tell Mrs. Denton from me that I hope she may soon have her dragon.”

I was confused; I laughed a little but knew not quite what to say, for the others were watching in silence, not understanding, and it seemed a long tale to tell in such high company. Sir Thomas went on in a quiet offhand way:

“I hope to take Wakefield next M-M-Monday morning.”

I could see that this was news to all his officers except John, for all but John began to put eager questions to him. Sir Thomas answered them jestingly, so that they did not altogether understand him; when they pressed him he became impatient, as if he expected them to know the answers beforehand. It was his habit, as we had learned by now, to be taciturn, reserved and melancholy, almost morose, at times; then suddenly he would emerge from the shadow, all life and assurance, full of wit and energy. So it was now; the next few days were a continued bustle, with Sir Thomas sparkling and active and very happy, his stammer quite in abeyance. Lady Fairfax's humour, however, did not match his; she had been subdued while he was melancholy, but now that he was cheerful she grew apprehensive. She confided to me that these dark moods always preluded some great decision in Sir Thomas, some daring action on the field of battle. He was so very cheerful now that she judged the Wakefield expedition must be particularly hazardous.

“And he's so reckless with his person, Penninah,” she mourned, shaking her head so that one of her pearl ear-rings fell to the ground: “Utterly reckless. He fights in an ecstasy. Why stir up the Royalists, in any case? Why not let sleeping dogs lie? They were not harming us.”

“Sarah would not agree with you,” I said, laughing. “She wants her dragon.”

Lady Fairfax smiled, but somewhat ruefully.

She spent the days before Whitsunday begging Sir Thomas to take her with him to Wakefield, which he naturally refused. I saw that her importunity became tiresome to him, and ventured delicately to suggest to her that Sir Thomas would be happier on the battlefield if he knew his wife and daughter safe; whereupon she cried out in a high fretting tone:

“If his daughter be safe he cares not for me!”

To this I could say nothing, for I feared it was true and I knew its bitterness.

I judged we women were like to have a dreary Whitsun, with our natural anxiety continually whipped up by Lady Fairfax's laments. However, when the time came she behaved like a woman of breeding and a soldier's daughter. True, she was dull and stiff all day, but so was I; at least she neither wept aloud nor chattered.

Well! Sir Thomas's taking of Wakefield is forgotten now, I suppose, but at the time it was a very brilliant exploit. There were more Royalists in the city by far than our men had expected, so that several times, by what the officers said, they expected Sir Thomas to retreat and abandon the enterprise. But this notion never entered Sir Thomas's head; he was set on taking Wakefield and never thought of desisting unless compelled. So, although on one occasion he was so far cut off from his men that he had to leap his horse over a high wall to escape the enemy surrounding him, he got safe off, and the enemy fled and with the threat of a piece of ordnance the streets were cleared and Wakefield was taken.

How much Lady Fairfax had to say on the subject of this adventure of the horse, well I remember! She was not without the sort of wit that raises a laugh by continual references to a subject already joked on, and the many ways she found of slyly dragging this horse's leap into the conversation at unexpected moments, made even Sir Thomas smile, while his officers laughed heartily. There was a pamphlet published, for instance, commending Sir Thomas's victories at Leeds and Wakefield, which was called, after him:
The Rider of the White Horse.

“There should be a drawing of the horse, considering a very high wall,” said Lady Fairfax in a serious tone at this, and she went on to describe the roll of the horse's eye, and the curve of its nostril, as it stretched its neck trying to see the top of the wall, in a very comical manner. There was some shrewdness in her jesting, too, for though Sir Thomas laughed, I thought it might well make him more sensible of the need to avoid danger.

John, who was, as he said himself, only a fresh-water soldier though utterly willing, was not in the forefront of the fight, and seemed by his own showing not to have been in much danger, though I noticed Sir Thomas never supported him in this statement. Sir Thomas, as he intended, took many prisoners in Wakefield, and afterwards exchanged them, so that all our men taken on the retreat from.Selby were returned to us, and Sarah had her Denton. Both Houses of Parliament, and many private persons, congratulated Sir Thomas; amongst these latter was Colonel Cromwell of the Eastern Counties. That was the first time ever I heard the name of Oliver Cromwell—the first, but not the last!

As he had not enough men to spare to garrison Wakefield, Sir Thomas returned to us in Bradford, and Lady Fairfax and I thought we might now have some time of peace—“for the horse to fatten in,” as she said slyly.

But it proved otherwise. The Earl of Newcastle, having now escorted the Queen safely out of Yorkshire to join her husband, and being vexed perhaps, as Lady Fairfax said—for she was sometimes shrewd enough in speculation when it concerned her husband's interests—determined to finish the business in Yorkshire, and marched against the Parliament forces with his whole army, some twelve thousand men.

When they heard his intention, Lord Fairfax and Sir Thomas wrote urgently off to Parliament, begging that Colonel Cromwell might be sent out of Lincolnshire to assist them, for his men had already gained a good name for steadiness (though they were not yet at that time called Ironsides) and the Colonel himself had shown much military
skill and resolution. But the Eastern Counties' men were too much pressed themselves for this to be possible, so our Yorkshiremen had to manage with themselves and a small troop from Lancashire. The Earl of Newcastle first turned against the gentry round Wakefield who had helped Sir Thomas in his assault, and then when he had reduced them began to march on Bradford. Whether he turned on Bradford rather than Leeds because Bradford was such an untenable town, or because he wished to rout Sir Thomas rather than Lord Fairfax, knowing the son much more useful to the cause than the father, I do not know; but I know that verse from Joel was applied to him, wherein it is said that the land was like Eden before him, and behind him as a barren wilderness, for he left no grain of provender anywhere he had passed, either for men or horses. Lord Fairfax and all his soldiers came over to us from Leeds to be ready for the enemy, and every well-affected man left in the district, young or old, gathered to Sir Thomas, the General of the Horse, as his title now ran. Mr. Hodgson turned up from his sick-bed, looking pale and thin but cheerful as ever, and those who by age or feebleness could not come in, such as Mr. Atkinson, poor man, who had never risen from his bed since that terrible Sunday of the siege when he was wounded, sent gifts of money to the cause, or offered loans upon the public faith.

But in truth no great supply came in either of men or money, for the West Riding, though staunch to the cause, was so wasted and exhausted and tired out with the weight of the troubles continually falling upon it during the last twelvemonth, that there was no strength left in it. The Fairfaxes having given nobly of their substance, too, had not much left to call on, and consequently there began to be a great want of pay for the soldiers, and what was worse, want of arms and powder and other ammunition.

Lord Fairfax stayed down in Bradford at the Pack Horse Inn and did not come to The Breck, but Sir Thomas was very urgent that I should be presented to him, so John took me. I was reluctant, fearing I should see some very fine
and impressive gentleman who would frighten me by his grand airs, but Lord Fairfax was not like that at all. Indeed I was something disappointed in him, for in Sir Thomas's father and the Parliament's General I expected much nobility, and saw none. Ferdinando was a smallish solid shrewd man, with abundant greying hair of a rather coarse texture, thick turned-up moustaches which he was apt to twist, and a square high-coloured face. He seemed sensible and practical enough, but had none of the lofty notions and wide visions of his son. He spoke kindly to me and in a very homely way, but not as if he knew who I was. Sir Thomas had a melancholy frown as he looked on at this, but John, standing staunchly by, did not change his expression, and I saw he cared nothing for Lord Fairfax but only for Sir Thomas. So I said but a few words about the Parliament's cause to Lord Fairfax, nothing at all about his son or grand-daughter, and then retired discreetly, and I could see Sir Thomas was relieved and John satisfied.