Wintercombe by Pamela Belle

Author:Pamela Belle [Belle, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2016-07-03T22:00:00+00:00

PART III

SO EARLY IN THE SPRING

(April – May, 1645)

Chapter Fifteen

‘The food of love’

(Twelfth Night)

‘I tell you, Lady St. Barbe, it is a most burdensome imposition — it will cause terrible hardship in the village, terrible!’

The vicar, Master Willis, godly and immaculate in his best Sunday black, drew a quivering, indignant breath. Silence, seeing that if allowed he would run on in similar vein for some time, hastened to put her word in. ‘Please do not distress yourself, Master Willis. I shall do all I can to dissuade Captain Hellier. He is certainly a more approachable, well-disposed man than the Lieutenant-Colonel.’

‘That spawn of Antichrist!’ said Parson Willis, for once forthright. ‘And when will he be in command again? That will be an evil day!’

‘I don’t know,’ said Silence. ‘He seemed to be recovering, but he suffered another attack of fever last week, and it has left him still confined to his bed.’

‘Mistress Rachael should have had better aim,’ said Willis petulantly. ‘It can be no sin to slay a man so steeped in wickedness and vice of the worst kind — the world would be well rid of him.’

‘Rachael was very distressed by her action,’ Silence reminded him. Willis shrugged. ‘Ah, the child has a new and tender conscience…only natural in one so young. How does she now? Does she pine for her poor, noble brother?’

It took Silence some seconds to realise that Sam was meant by this. She said quickly, ‘Yes, yes, though she has accepted it bravely, as have all the children.’

Rachael’s rather loud laugh echoed through the churchyard at that moment. Silence, looking past the vicar’s shoulder, saw her stepdaughter in a cheerful gaggle of other girls: Eleanor Flower, the three Baylie daughters, Kitty, Moll and Bess, Susannah Parsons and a clutch of young female Tovies. Master Willis, turning, looked at once disapproving and wistful: of the nine children born to himself and his wife Anne, only Nan, and Thomas, who was the same age as William, remained alive. Every time Silence beheld the grey, defeated figure of Mistress Willis, the misery in her face and her hopeless, desperate love for her two remaining children, she was moved to thank God wholeheartedly for the strident good health of her own brood.

The churchyard was crowded with villagers, glad of this chance to talk and gossip after the service. The south-easterly sun shone through the branches of the tall elms that lined the wall dividing it from Church Meadow, a large field at present affording good grazing for one of the Manor Farm’s considerable herds of cattle. This was the first Sunday after Easter, the thirteenth of April, and the vagaries of the weather had ensured that previous sabbaths were uniformly wet and windy, making the churchyard an unpleasant place to linger. Today was different: the sun warmed Silence’s black gown, there were daffodils everywhere, and this morning, riding past the mill, they had all heard the cuckoo, harbinger of spring.

Tabby had immediately piped up in song, a tune that

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