Women of Courage (129 page)

One day soon she would be found out, she knew that. Ann trembled at her own daring as she remembered the dreadful sermon old Israel Fuller had preached, at a dissenters’ meeting only last year, about the
‘promiscuous sin and palpable flirtation’
of that
‘horrid Jezebel in our very midst’
who had turned out to be poor Susannah Wilson, whom Israel had caught kissing Jonathan Hoskins in the hayfield one evening. Susannah had had to parade before the whole congregation with her hair cropped, dressed in a white sheet, to acknowledge her guilt. Ann remembered how she had trembled that day; she had not dared to speak to Susannah for months afterwards. Yet Susannah had sinned no more than Ann had this very afternoon.

At least Jonathan, the boy Susannah had been with, was a sober Puritan dissenter, not the son of a rich Tory lord like Robert Pole. Robert claimed to be no more than a high Anglican, a staunch supporter of the established church, which was all he was, so far as Ann could tell. But she knew that for the fierce Presbyterians and Baptists of her own village, there had never been much difference between an Anglican and a Papist; and none at all since the beginning of this year of 1685, when King Charles had died, and his brother James the Second, an open and avowed Catholic, had become King and Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

But what concerned young Ann Carter today was neither religion nor politics; it was rather a subtle sense of urgency, of increased seriousness below Robert’s surface gallantry, which she had noticed ever since they had met this afternoon. It was as though for him the initial period of deliciously secret, light-hearted wooing were over, and now he was determined to press her further, perhaps to seduce her in earnest.

She wondered uneasily if perhaps she had already gone too far. He was nearly five years older than her - that was part of his attraction. But it also added to the danger. She was quite alone and defenceless here. He must have known girls in London who were less strictly brought up than she was - perhaps he expected her to be the same? Yet surely he must know - even while he flattered her by trying - that any serious attempt at seduction was impossible? Or did he?

She tried to keep her voice light and easy as she spoke again, on that same plane of gentle banter which she so enjoyed with him, because it was so different from the plodding solemnity of most of the young men she knew.

“So is it your birthday today, my lord, when you can have whatever you want?”

“I don’t mean just today,” said Robert angrily. “It’s every day, every time we meet. Your everlasting country virtue! Why, in London ...”

“Yes, say it then! In London you could have had dozens of girls with less trouble. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? Well, why didn’t you? Perhaps you did?”

Robert flushed, and looked ashamed, suddenly younger than his 23 years - like a schoolboy reminded of a whipping. In the short time she had known him there had been several moments like this; when she sensed some pain beneath the surface, that he wanted her to cure. She wondered if she changed in the same way for him; sometimes she felt shy and awkward as a little girl in his presence, at other times like a mother or elder sister.

But then, if there had been older women in London, how could they have resisted him when he needed them so much? Perhaps they had not; that was the trouble now.

“You don’t understand, Annie. It was not ... like that, not exactly. A man can have a gay time with such women, true, but ...”

“Yes,
but ...?”
She raised her eyebrows, and shivered inside with guilty delight at the phrase. ‘A gay time’ indeed! What would her father or Israel Fuller say, if they heard a man speak to her like that?

“But such things are not love. The sort of woman a man meets in London, they are just for the present, for the pleasure of a moment. One says things, but everyone knows they are only a game. Annie, it’s different with you. You’re beautiful, but you don’t play these games. You’re ... you’re
real
to me, somehow. You know that poem I told you of, the one that begins

An Age in her Embraces past,

Would seem a Winter’s day.

Well, it’s pretty speech, I know, but it means something to me. Time does seem to fly in a winged chariot when we’re together, and limp in leaden boots when we’re apart. It’s as though I have a portrait - a miniature of you in my mind whereever I go. “

“Oh, Rob ... “ She had not expected this. But the earnest sincerity in the pale brown eyes and bony freckled face made her think that he really did mean it; it was not just part of the role of the sophisticated gallant he so often adopted. As she stared at him, lips parted in surprise, she felt how she had longed for him to say something like that, and how easy it would be to fall into his mood and accept his declaration of love for what it was. But she dared not; it would destroy the delicate game they were playing, which let them meet without hurting each other, without any dangerous results.

And then, what if he did not mean it? Perhaps the look of secret pain in his eyes was just part of the game he was playing with her - a trick to make her feel sorry for him. She drew her head back with a jolt, feeling herself blush as she did so.

“That ... was prettily spoken, Rob. You must have made many conquests in London, if you spoke so to your ladies there.”

As the blood coloured her cheeks, it flooded his with anger.

“How can you say that? I never spoke so to any woman before! You
are
cruel, just as I said! You lead me on and laugh at me!”

“No, Rob, I don’t laugh at you. But don’t you rather laugh at me? You ride back to your fine manor house at Shute, and your soldier friends in London, and tell them of your conquest of a country maid - your fair shepherdess who lifted her skirts for you in a sheepfield for the price of a few fine words, like those ladies of London, who are just for the pleasure of a moment! Even the words you use are not your own, but borrowed from some cavalier poet with fine clothes and waxed moustaches ...”

She stopped, the confusion of her emotions ending in a sudden storm of tears. And after the tears, remorse, stepping shyly like sunlight after rain. Robert held his tongue and waited. He had seen such bursts of temper before, though he did not understand the reasons for them. If only what she said were true, he thought, he could go and leave her now.

“The meaning was my own, Ann, even if the words were borrowed,” he said at last, quietly.

“I know, Rob, I’m sorry.”

“Then, in the Lord’s name, why do you turn against me? Do I disgust you in some way? Am I not good enough for you?”

Ann did not answer at first. She looked away from him, across the warm valley to the river, where a small merchant ship was drifting slowly down to the sea. She knew it had to end soon, so perhaps it
was
best now. The last few weeks had been a wonderful and frightening time for her. It had been wonderful to be admired and courted by a man like Robert Pole, even in secret. When she was with him she felt herself thrill and blossom into life in a way she had never known before; and his stories of London and Holland, the army and the court, and the Italian songs and music played there, had given her a glimpse of a life more varied and exciting than she could ever hope for in Colyton.

But this made it frightening too, because when she was with Robert she felt herself far away from her staunch Puritan family and upbringing. It was like a dream she sometimes had, in which she was flying, and watched the world of real life from above, going on steadily below without noticing her absence. And like a dream these few weeks had had their own time, in which an afternoon could seem eternal, in time and yet out of it altogether, at the centre of life and yet detached from it. The dream was timeless because it had no past, and no future either, like a bubble floating in air.

So Ann always knew that sooner or later she would fall, suddenly, sickeningly, down to earth, back into the stern reality of her old life. Perhaps now was the time.

She turned back to Robert, her voice calm and serious.

“No, Rob, you don’t disgust me, and yes, you are good enough for me. But I am not good enough for you.”

“I think I should be the judge of that, not you.” He laughed, and lifted her chin with his finger, pretending to scrutinise her carefully, like a horse he was thinking of buying. “And I say: a little skittish perhaps, and moody, but then I like spirit - you’ll do.”

She laughed with him, tempted to let the moment pass.

“Thank ‘ee, my lord, I’m sure. But Rob, ‘tis true, really. Don’t you ever think of it? You’re far too good for me.”

“I told you ...”

“Listen, Rob.” The pain in her voice stopped him. “I think - I do believe what you said just now, but ...”

“But you don’t feel the same.”

“No! No; ‘tis no matter how I feel, Rob. It isn’t that at all. It’s - it’s what we
are
that matters, not what we feel. And what we are is going to keep us apart.”

“What we are is Adam and maiden, man and woman. I don’t see how that should keep us apart - it never did before. Or should I pluck you an apple, first?”

He bent to kiss her again, but she gave him a brief peck on the lips, and pushed him back.

“What you are, sir, is Robert Pole, captain in Lord Oxford’s Horse, second son of Sir Courtenay Pole, Lord of Shute Manor and landlord of half this valley. And what I am is plain Ann Carter, eldest daughter of Adam Carter, cloth merchant of Colyton village. No more.”

“So? I am only Sir Courtenay’s second son, not the first. I shall never be Lord of Shute Manor - my brother will. All I shall inherit is a small house in Chelsea, enough to maintain four or five servants, and my regimental pay. There is no such great gulf as you imagine.”

“Is there not, Rob?” She paused for a moment, watching his face, to see if he knew how absurd he sounded. But he did not, and so she continued, to hurt him. “Even so, there is another difference. I ... am soon to be betrothed - to Tom Goodchild.”

“Tom Goodchild! Has
he
been with you?” Robert flushed, and stood up angrily. “Why, I’ll thrash the cur! I’ll kick him round the village with his own shoes, or stick a rapier in him, like the duke of Monmouth did to the watchman at Whetstone Park, for coming between him and a girl! I’ll ...”

“No, Rob, no! You mustn’t touch him - you shan’t go near him! You don’t mean it, do you? Promise me!”

“Betrothed! You betrothed to some poor clod of a shoemaker? A fine fool you make me look! When did this happen?”

“It hasn’t happened, Rob. I’m not betrothed. It’s just that our families have been agreed for some time - if we’re willing, that is.”

“If you’re willing! And are you?”

She looked at him sadly. His pride was hurt so much by this silly thing that was no threat to him at all. In another situation she would have been amused. In this dreamtime of the last few weeks, she had learnt much of his world, but he had learnt nothing at all of hers.

“That’s not the point, Rob. It’s a matter of who we are. Listen. You would like to - to love me as Adam loved Eve, wouldn’t you? Here, now, this afternoon?”

“That
was
my idea. At the least it would be a better way to pass the time than talking of shoemakers.”

“And, Rob, I’d rather have you for my Adam than any shoemaker. But what would happen afterwards?”

“Why, nothing. We’d ride home again and ...”

“And we’d meet again and couple again, and then one day you’d tire of your country maid, and ride back to London to tell stories of me to your regiment.”

“I wouldn’t tire of you, Annie. It’s not fair to say it.” He knelt down beside her again, his voice low and earnest; it broke her heart to disbelieve him.

“You would if I were with child.”

She paused. For once he had no answer to fill the silence.

“What would you do, Rob, if I were with child?” It was the one question Ann had to know the answer to, in the end; and there was only one magic, impossible answer that could stop her falling, hopelessly, out of her dream and down to the ordinary earth of village life.

“I would take you to London with me. You could not stay here, of course - I would set you up in a house there, with a maid of your own. I could introduce you to some women I know there, and I could show you the city. We could have a fine time.” The answer came quickly, eagerly. She was surprised at his confidence, at the fact that he had thought of the possibility at all.

It was not the answer she needed.

“Until you found someone else to marry.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she stopped him. “Rob, I should be a fallen woman - a whore, a painted harlot, abandoned in London. Fallen from grace into a sink of iniquity, as the Reverend Fuller would say. How would you feel about me when you had found a pretty little wife to be Lady Pole in your house in Chelsea; would you think of poor Ann wandering the streets of London with a brace of children, looking for a new lover because she dare not return home to be the disgrace of her family? My father and mother would die of shame! Have you thought of them at all? You have never even met them!”

“Annie, stop! What is this strange fantasy?” He was shocked, amazed at her response. He put his hand on her shoulder to calm her; she did not push it off, nor did she respond to it. It lay there uneasy, unwelcome, like the sudden silence between them.

“Annie, you are speaking of a life you do not know. I should not abandon you in London, to be a whore! London is no sink of iniquity, as your Puritan preachers say. You would not be despised for being my mistress. Life is not simple and closed there, as it is here. There are ... bad things, of course, terrible things, but there are so many ways for a man to live, and think - and for a woman, too! Why, there are many women who live openly as men’s mistresses, and are more honoured than despised for it, as they would be here. And the actresses, as I told you, are like queens almost, with a dozen men paying court to them on bended knee after each performance! Nell Gwynne, indeed, was nearer the old king than the real queen was!”