Parthena's Promise (2 page)

Chapter 2

Thena had kept running until she was beyond the town and climbing the steep lane that led onto the moor road. Once atop she knew what she was looking for: an ancient milestone. This was the place where she would find the open moor trods to the village in the next dale. She had to keep moving because the cold bit into her skin, but the stars and the moon lit her way clearly enough. She knew the path well from her childhood, it would take her an hour, maybe a little more, but if she hurried she would be there before the night froze over and she perished. Thena had helped the sisters move their produce from the gardens at the school to the abbey. There, she and the sisters and a few other of the girls in their care would rest and spend the night before heading back the next day to the school where they would tend the gardens, mend and make things for the nuns to sell on again and sustain the work they did. In between she was taught basic lessons. Her education had been unusual at the Abbey School, but she had learned so many useful skills that she did not care. Her father had taken a very different view of things when she had told him what she had learnt to do, when she finally was allowed home in the summer. He decided a more refined finishing school was required; and so she was moved away. Thena had pined for her days outdoors, helping the nuns and being at one with the country.

After taking Mr Fender’s coin purse she had collected her bag from its hiding place behind the stable and made her immediate escape, momentarily stopping to pour the coins onto her hand and discovered how large the debt was that she would need to repay him. Thena was shocked. She expected no more than a few shillings, not crowns. She had gasped. You could be hanged or transported for less – a lot less. With renewed urgency in her stride she had headed straight for the trods. Thena knew it was daring or foolish to risk the path across the moors. What if the stone had been reused and moved? However, being caught was not an option she could consider.

She increased her pace as she left the village, realising she could be hunted by the hounds unless she could just disappear, lose her trail and find a way of using the money to leave the area quickly. Then as she walked she quelled the panic inside her by planning how she would take up a respectable position, perhaps start her own small enterprise to recapture her previous position in life. She was on open moorland and prayed that the rains, wind or frost did not set in. She had to keep moving at speed to stay warm, control her fear and make this crossing the quickest she had ever done it, praying with all her heart as she went, for a child’s memory can play the adult’s false. Now, though, as she faced the open expanse her immediate need was to keep herself warm. Taking out her pelisse from her bag she put it on and wrapped her shawl over the top of her bonnet and her shoulders for extra protection against the night air. With now gloved hands Thena carried her bag and continued along the stone pathway that ancient monks, long since dead, had used centuries before her.

She hummed songs, recited poems and texts from the Bible, anything to keep her mind and body from numbing. The irony of doing so was not lost on her as she had broken one commandment – that of not stealing – which she never would have thought possible. Now she swore she would repay the money and never have to break another one. If God helped sinners, then she was one, but her cousin had been one first. He had lied to her and sent her on a wild goose chase in order to rid himself of the obligation of providing her a home. She would see justice done.

If her father was looking down on his errant daughter now, what would he think of her? She chose to be called a thief rather than becoming a whore! Why was she in these desperate straits anyway? Because he had not seen fit to trust a female with her own money settled upon her and so had allowed her cousin, Bertram, to squander it at will and send her halfway up the country to take a governess’s position that did not even exist! Thank God in heaven, Thena thought, that she had been initially educated at a school in the same area, or she would have been totally lost.

Thena’s anger slowly began to simmer. Her inner warmth was now generated by emotions, her cousin’s betrayal and the need to regain what the law would not acknowledge was hers. How? She sighed, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. She would have to be patient to achieve any form of justice, but first she needed to survive and that meant having money. She only hoped that Mr Fender did not realise what she had done and instead blamed the man who had jostled them as the fight broke out. He would not be able to identify who the culprit was because he had been watching the fight and was pushed by the crowd. She hadn’t meant to become a thief, but what was better – to steal to survive or to let men...? No! She was worth more than that. It was not to be considered. Was that what cousin Bertram had hoped would happen to her?

For a solitary moment when Mr Fender had fallen against her, she was lost in the warmth of his coat and realised how near she was to slipping deeper into his embrace, because she had even thought of hugging him longer: the touch of another human, one who was being kind and seemingly caring of her appealed. Yes, for a split second she had considered doing the unthinkable and offering herself up like some form of sacrifice, but she had seen his valuable fob watch and remembered the life she had enjoyed before her father had died, only a year since. Thena could never hope to recapture it, not as a young woman from a good family, but she could find money if she made it herself. She had an enterprising spirit and had seen how the nuns made things to create funds to sustain the abbey – she could do that and train young girls also. If she threw herself at the first decent man she found in the street, what would become of her after the next…? So she would rather become a thief, just once, just to make a new start. She had taken his coin, but left his wallet, fob watch and chain, looking upon the purse as a loan if she promised to repay him. He was Mr Jerome Fender; she’d find him once things were sorted out and repay him – she would, she promised – she was desperate.

She stopped for a fleeting moment and stared at the stars. “I will return what I have stolen and find justice! I promise, and Parthena does not break her word!” Then as her body shivered she continued again at speed. So long as she kept to the flagstone pathway, then she would find her way back to the abbey and they would give her shelter for a small gift that she could now offer them. But if she ventured off this ancient path she would be lost in the bog and no one would ever find her, and then Mr Fender would never be reunited with his money.

Chapter 3

Jerome rose early and saddled his horse. He had a clear head, unlike most of the occupants of the inn from the night before. They were either bruised, still drunk or recovering from their exertions. A few broken stools had been thrown into the street, the evidence of the night’s brawl. Before he left he had scouted the town for the young woman – the faerie of the night. The blacksmith was up early and working so Jerome had asked him about her, describing her as best he could – surprised that he had to withhold details, like the colour of her eyes and the curve of her lips. “Aye, I’d seen her in the street yesterday, then last evening, looking a sight anxious about something. She’d seemed somewhat flustered, but I don’t know no more.”

He hammered a piece of metal on his anvil and then paused, mallet raised. “She’d asked about a house. It had been sold on and the people she was looking up were long gone. So I suggested that she go to the mill and ask for work there. I thought they might take her on, but as I said, I saw her last evening looking edgy like, so perhaps she struck out there too.” He smashed the hammer down then turned around and forced the metal into the flames using his other hand to work the bellows. The man was now engrossed in his business and Jerome had no wish to come between him and his task.

So the mill would be the first place Jerome would ask to seek any information about his faerie of the night, who had turned out to be more of a wanton witch. If he could discover her identity and where she came from then he would be able to trace her easily enough. Perhaps there was a desperate tale behind her actions, like so many people had to tell, but that was no excuse to thieve from someone who would have offered her at least a warm meal and a bed for the night. He rode out the two miles to the watermill. This one querned no flour; it had weaving machines in it. Cotton was no longer a cottage industry in the area, where flax was spun and woven into lengths of cloth by families in their homes. The manufactories were doing remarkably well at replacing them by providing vast quantities of cloth in one place. This was the future of the industry and it was one that had a harsh reality to it for the men, women and children who worked there as the human cogs of this new process driven by noisy machines. People praised the new manufactories as places of vast progress and profit, or saw them as fodder for a revolution to the cotton industry – hated for the demise of the local traditions and employment. Many people leaving their homes to work long hard hours in such a noisy place lost their community and the sense of belonging that went with it. Still, it was a lot better than the workhouse, he supposed.

He rode to the edge of the town and took a road that led to where the river flowed quite fast as it descended through the village. It was not the biggest mill he had ever seen, but as he approached he could already hear the clattering of machinery, see the smoke from the chimney and watch as bales were placed onto long low boats to carry the goods into town where they would be transported by wagons to the River Ouse and on to York.

All was busy as he entered between the ornate iron gates where the name Beckton Cotton Mill was written out proclaiming proudly what it was. Jerome tethered his horse’s reins to a hook outside what looked to be the main offices. A sturdy man was busy at his employment as Jerome approached his desk. The room was sparse of furniture beyond his own counter and the many files and drawers that surrounded him on three walls.

“What can I do for you, sir?” the man behind the counting desk asked as he stared at Jerome through his monocle.

Jerome smiled. He had no wish to antagonise the chap, as he needed information and had no real reason he could give as to why he was there and had not summoned the constable if he made her crime known. “I am trying to find the young woman who came here yesterday seeking work.”

The portly man looked at him and removed the glass. “We had three young women arrive yesterday and two the day before. These are hard times, sir. Which one is it you seek?”

Jerome described her as best he could without trying to sound as if he was infatuated by her eyes, her innocent demeanour and her thieving hands. “Slight of build, wearing a shawl, bonnet and about five feet in height. She has striking eyes.” The last comment surprised him; it slipped out. Had she bewitched him? Why he should have remembered such a thing when he was describing a cut-purse he did not know. Although, to be fair, she was hardly a cut-purse in the sense of what you’d find in the Seven Dials of London. No, she was an opportunist and a little minx. However, if he brought her before a magistrate her sentence would be the same as the most hardened thief. He was not ready to cast her to the wolves before finding her himself and have her give at least half a decent reason as to what she was about.

“Aye, sir, there was a pretty little thing came here yesterday in a bit of a flummox. Claimed that she had expected to be a governess for a respectable family, but that correspondence had been delayed and she had missed their departure, or some such tale. For a family in one of them big new houses in town. I’ll admit she spun her words well enough to be credible and knew how to talk fine, but what use is a governess in a mill where graft is menial and hours long? They’d laugh at her as she tripped over every stray bobbin. I could offer her nothing other than my condolences and good wishes for another position to turn up, and so she left.” He shrugged and replaced his monocle.

“Did she give you her name, or where she was staying?” Jerome hoped to at least learn that much.

The man sighed. “I am not sure of it. Why do you wish to know?” He looked at him curiously. “If you look for this woman how is it you do not know who it is that you seek?”

Jerome did not know why he had not called her a thief and have her hounded by the law, other than perhaps it was a matter of personal pride. He would hunt her down himself. Then she would pay him back in coin and labour until she learnt her lesson. If there was to be a trial, he would present her before it himself, if he thought she was deserving of a harsher punishment. But for now he just wanted to find her, and teach her a lesson that she would not forget. She must learn that she cannot just cut and run. If she had tried to steal from many a gentleman of his acquaintance no mercy would have been shown, but an example set. He had hunted Napoleon’s Voltigeurs, so how difficult could it be to catch one slip of a woman on the run?

“I am trying to help her, but first I need to find her.” He stared at the man. It was not a lie, for he had every intention of showing her the error of her ways and in so doing he would help her to be a better person. He almost smiled, but remembering the money she had taken from him without him even realising it, kept any humour from his lips. Had she not felt the wallet in his pocket? If she had taken that he would have raised the hunting hounds himself from their kennels and set them on her. The coin purse was a big enough loss as it had sufficient to keep her off the streets for months. Still he had been mesmerised by those eyes, lost in his thoughts of finding a soul mate – a true love, lulled in the moment. Deluded by the notion and distracted by the street fight, he had not even felt the weight of his purse lifted from his pocket.

The man’s voice brought him out of his momentary anger. Realising how much he could have lost had made finding her more crucial, rather than less. “Munro… Miss Munro. That is all I know of her. I am a busy man, sir, and she has to find her own way in life as we all do. Good day, sir.” His head turned back down as his focus returned to the letter he had been writing. Then he looked up suddenly as if a thought had just struck him. “A word of advice, sir… If you don’t mind my being so bold?”

“Go on.” Jerome stopped in half turn as he was about to walk away, intrigued at what advice this man could offer him.

“There are many tales of heartbreak waiting to be heard, and each begging for help, but if you help one, word gets around and then how are you going to help them all? Believe me; walk on by, especially from the ones with striking eyes. They act like lures to decent folk. Wenches will always find themselves a warm bed. Worry more for the men who cannot find work after risking their lives fighting Boney abroad.” He nodded and then continued working.

Jerome did not bother to respond. He had a name, Miss Thena Munro, and knew her description, but nothing else. How then to catch his elusive, light-fingered faerie?

The town had a road leading east to Gorebeck, the old market town where the crossroads met to the north, south, the coast to the east, or this village where he now was, or further west, which would lead across the Yorkshire Dales to the Pennines. He rode to the junction and stopped for a moment. She could not take wings and fly. The moors were treacherous and no doubt impassable unless you were a sheep or a shepherd, so she would have to take to the road. Instinct told him to head for Gorebeck. It was nearer and from there she could pay her way on a coach. If he didn’t catch up with her on the road, if she had boarded a coach, he’d have her because his horse could go faster than any dragging such a burden behind them. Jerome breathed in the morning air and smiled. The hunt had begun, his senses had not let him down so far, they had saved his life many times, but the difference this time was that he had all the time in the world to find a faerie thief and with no Voltigeurs hunting him.

*

Daylight broke as Thena made her way down the track from the moors towards the abbey at the southern edge of the town. It nestled amongst a small woodland, sheltered from the wind and on three sides by high ground leading to the moor above. You could easily pass by and not even know the place existed, which was most likely how it had survived when so many others in the region, like Rievaulx, Whitby and Byland, lay in ruins.

Exhausted, she almost stumbled through the gates into the well-tended gardens that supplied the nuns with what they needed and also the excess to sell. Nothing seemed to have changed in the twelve years since she was last there. Hoping on hope that Mother Ursula still ruled the order, Thena made her way to the large wooden door, lifted the heavy knocker and announced her presence. It seemed an age before someone came, but when they did, the door that she had not realised she had been leaning on gave way and Thena made her entrance. The nun screamed as Thena fell at her feet. So embarrassed, Thena tried to apologise, but her world spun and she blacked out. Thena had arrived and with the feeling of safety came the realisation that she had spent her last piece of energy.