The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (28 page)

‘Why, miss, don’t you go with your brother to the wood? Nat is there with him and you could take them some dinner. ‘Tis a lovely day and it will take your mind off ...’

She paused and looked at the young girl because there was, she knew, despite Mary’s happiness, a question mark in their minds.

Supposing Brent had changed his mind? Supposing the wind that had framed their love by the side of Lake Derwentwater had grown cold? His letters were like those of a schoolboy, awkward and ill-spelt; they conveyed nothing of the mysterious animal warmth that was Brent – Brent to whom she had been prepared to give herself regardless of convention, whose every glance, whose very touch thrilled her. Who had been wrenched away from her by the strict, overprotective attitude of her brother.

‘Betty, do you think he will come back?’

Mary, eyes shining, clasped her hands to her hot face. She knew he would come back. Without any question, any doubt. She only asked again to hear Betty reiterate the words.

‘Aye, Miss Mary, I am sure he will, when he knows you are eager for the wedding.’

In the end John, worried by his sister’s abstracted manner, her almost permanent air of brooding and silence had relented. He would go and see Brent; a year had almost passed. Anything might happen now that the Prince had come – and if Mary was willing to grasp even at brief happiness, why he would go at once and see what he could arrange.

Wedding ... marriage to Brent. Was such happiness possible, conceivable? That it might happen maybe in a few days, this very week. All at once her life had been changed beyond recognition. She felt she was on the brink of momentous happenings in her own life and that of their country for, if the Prince did reach London and seize the throne, who knew how it would affect her family for so long persecuted and dispossessed? And Brent, if he fought for the Prince and they won, with what honours might he and others with him not be showered by a grateful sovereign?

It never occurred to Mary Allonby on that bright day in late September 1745 when the world seemed at her feet and her long years of waiting at an end, that the Stuarts might be rebuffed and the Hanoverians remain on the throne. It never occurred to her for a single moment that things could possibly be worse than before.

Mary packed bread and goat’s cheese, apples and a flagon of ale into a basket, looked once more at her pies in the oven and ran upstairs to get her outdoor cloak, humming a song as she tripped up the stairs, two at a time.

Stewart and Nat had been hard at work since early morning. They had marked all the trees for cutting during the previous weeks, and now was the time for felling over the long winter months before the sap started to rise with the spring.

Stewart, as he worked alongside Nat Hardcastle, was happy too. He had made his preparations well. All the trees were marked and Nat could work all the winter with the help of his brother Francis the boatman. And by the spring Stewart was sure he would be riding back to Furness with maybe a new horse and a fresh suit of clothes, money in his pocket and the prospect of the Allonby fortunes being restored, after so many years of trial, by King James III. At last. Stewart was convinced, the Allonbys would be on the winning side. Why, the frenzy that had taken hold of Scotland had spread as far as the Midlands; some even said large numbers were defecting to the Jacobite cause in the south, and that those who had kept their colours hidden for so many years now displayed them openly.

John, more cautious and controlled, less swayed by passion, had pointed out that few really important Englishmen had so far declared for the Prince, in fact none that he knew. All the nobles who owed their wealth and possessions to the Hanoverian Succession stood firm by the King in London and not the one over the water.

But John was like that. He had sunk too far in gloom and a kind of stoical resignation that seemed to suggest he thought his lot had always been an unhappy one and always would be.

It had already been decided that John would not go to the war. He would remain in his important position of linkman between the borders and the north-west, sending note of the Prince’s triumphal progress to all concerned, supervising the supply of arms so admirably speeded up since Brent had unexpectedly made an alliance with their brother-in-law. That industry alone had been enough to convince John that Brent had stopped drifting and mended his ways, that he had fitted himself to marry their sister.

And it was the thought of Mary’s happiness that made Stewart sing as he and Nat chopped away that morning. To see how lightly Mary trod and how her eyes sparkled and how, overnight, the dark shadows under her eyes had vanished. Stewart had always thought his brother and aunt harsh about Brent. Nursing, as he did, a hopeless passion for Emma he knew for himself the misery of love unfulfilled. When both willing adult parties were forcibly torn asunder in such uncertain times as this, why, it had seemed wicked to him, though he had never told John so.  Never dared.  John had replaced their father in authority and was a law unto himself.

Nat was chopping at one side of the stout fir that had stood for years, Stewart at the other. When their blades almost converged, at a prearranged signal Stewart, who was broader than Nat, would push the tree while Nat stood aside and they would watch it go crashing to the undergrowth. It was a very difficult moment to judge because, if it was not done correctly, the tree could come bearing down on one or other of them.

Stewart was just about to give the signal to Nat to jump clear when he saw a movement in the undergrowth, and thinking it was his sister who had been so foolish – she who should know to keep well clear of tree felling – he called out with a curse.

‘
Mary,
remove yourself quickly from the path of the tree!’

But it was too late, maybe he had misjudged the timing and, with a crash, the tree fell, pinioning the young woman under its top branches. The noise of the tree drowned her cries, and all they saw was the still, apparently lifeless form lying on the ground.

A sob rose in Stewart’s throat as, casting aside his axe, he rushed over to where she lay; but even as he approached his step faltered. It was plain to see it was not Mary. It was a slight girl of about the same age, only dark, not so comely as Mary, a ragged gypsy-looking girl. But she breathed! As he knelt down beside her he could see that, although her face was deathly pale, her chest rose rhythmically and that her eyes fluttered and gazed about her as he bent over her. Then he saw that the branch had missed the upper part of her body and pinioned
her by
one leg only. She had had a narrow escape.

As he gazed at her, having sprinted ahead of the slower-moving Nat, he saw yet another movement in the trees and another figure running, this time calling out:

‘Nelly, Nell ....’

Stewart raised his head to see running into the clearing made by the fallen tree a woman of such remarkable beauty that his mind was momentarily taken off the poor victim who lay on the ground.

He didn’t know whether it was the sculptured classical lines of her face he noticed first, or the tall, slender but very womanly body. Her skin was of a soft olive brown, her mouth firm but full, the centre of the lower lip deeply dented, her nose long and straight and her thin black eyebrows imperiously arched. But it was the eyes set deeply into the forehead that had such an arresting quality; they were such a dark brown that the iris was almost invisible. Her lids were half lowered even though her eyes were wide open and framed by luxurious lashes that looked like a fringe. She reminded him of the classical portraits he had seen of an Italian madonna; there was a remote, haunting, vital yet intangible quality about her that made people want to stop in their tracks and stare, as Stewart did then, ignoring the girl pinioned under the tree.

But the face was only a part of this vision. Her long neck swept down to a deep full bosom which was contained in a tight fitting bodice just visible under her cloak, which fell back from her shoulders as she knelt opposite him. A small neat waist broadened into voluptuous hips, and the long shapely legs under the skirt were left to his imagination. He only then observed that she was shoeless, and had the hard calloused feet of one who lived on the road.

Her hair was black as jet and curled down over her bosom as she knelt beside the girl on the ground, and at the same time looked up at Stewart, her lustrous eyes gleaming dangerously.

‘What have you done?’

‘’Twas an accident. She ran right across our path.’

‘You should be more careful.’

‘She had no business here.’

Stewart rose to his feet dusting his hands. He was aware that he was talking to a gypsy, or someone part gypsy, because surely no lady walked on her bare feet and had such brightly coloured clothes? Yet, this was no ordinary gypsy girl, of that Stewart was sure. There was something of the aristocrat about her, an indefinable air that his sisters had, his aunt Susan and Emma Delamain had: an absolute certainty of one’s heritage regardless of one’s circumstances.

She might be poor and barefoot; but she glowed with health and an innate superiority of manner that almost made Stewart feel he was being put in his place.

‘
I’m
the owner,’ he said, ‘of this wood. People trespass here at their peril. Still, I regret ...’

‘I hope you
do
regret,’ Analee said with asperity, getting to her feet. ‘Lucky for you she lives and apparently is not badly hurt. Now get this tree off her with this fellow here instantly and let me look at her foot.’

Obediently Nat and Stewart picked up the trunk of the stout tree and, with a heaving and groaning, lifted it clear off Nelly’s leg. Analee at once took it tenderly in her hands and examined it, stroking it carefully, noting how the skin was broken but how no bones appeared to be.

‘Nelly, are you all right?’

She gazed into the pale face of the girl who had become her only friend and was relieved to see a faint smile, a nod of reassurance. ‘’Twas the shock. I think I am all right.’

Nelly tried to raise herself and Nat immediately gave her support, gently putting his broad hands under her armpits and helping her to sit upright. Then Nelly winced with pain and Analee realized this was because, in sitting up, she had moved her leg and something hurt.

‘’Tis the ankle,’ Nelly said, bending and clasping it. ‘I think I twisted it under the tree.’

Stewart was palpably relieved. What was a twisted ankle when the whole thing could so easily have ended in death? He even smiled at the girl and her bewitching companion, whose expression too had turned from severity to one of gratitude that Nelly was not hurt.

‘We are near the house,’ Stewart said. ‘She can rest there and we can bind up her ankle and tend her scratches.’

He nodded to Nat who lifted the girl in his arms as though she were thistledown. Stewart pointed the way for Analee and they followed Nat towards the house.

It was before they came within sight of the pink walls that they met Mary coming gaily towards them with a basket. It was a strange sight to see appearing from the trees – Nat with a girl in his arms, followed by Stewart and a woman who seemed to Mary, seeing her in the half-light cast by the trees, like some sort of fleet-footed wood nymph. She was so beautiful, with her flowing dark hair, her step so springy, so tall for a woman, that Mary was more puzzled, more disturbed by her than the sight of the casualty in Nat’s arms.

Analee knew that she invariably made an impact at first sight on all who met her and she was used to these reactions both on the part of women as well as men. They usually stared, or shifted their stance, or exchanged glances one with another. And then they all settled down, as most people do, and came to accept her except for the men who fell in love with her, the women who took a dislike to her or the Buckland tribe who had never welcomed her.

All she was concerned with now was Nelly’s welfare, not this curious trio – a blonde pretty girl and a handsome young man, and a fellow who was obviously the woodman.

Hearing the commotion, the barking of dogs, Betty had come into the yard to stare, and, observing the procession, promptly crossed herself, the instinctive gesture of a good God-fearing Christian when seeing a gypsy. Her first thought was to direct the gypsies to the barn, but she thought better of it when she saw the expression on Master Stewart’s face and she hurried ahead into the kitchen.

But to her surprise Stewart directed that Nat should take the girl into the drawing-room overlooking the lake and then he called for Betty to bring water and ointment and strips of clean bandage from the cupboard. In Betty’s opinion barefooted gypsies, whether beautiful or no, had no right inside a decent home, let alone the best room. She hoped Miss Mary would impress this clearly on her brother who was obviously distracted by the tall gypsy – very dark she was, so clearly a foreigner – and had temporarily lost his sense of proportion.

But of course Miss Mary wouldn’t send the gypsies to their proper place, the barn. She was much too kind-hearted and tender. Indeed she even instructed Betty to bring some food to the table because instead of a picnic in the forest they would now eat indoors. She obviously intended to share her bread with a common gypsy!

Mary followed Betty into the kitchen having already detected her mood.

‘Now, Betty, we cannot receive guests other than with hospitality, apart from the fact that it was our tree fell on her.’

‘No right to be in our wood,’ Betty grumbled as she took loaves of bread from the bin and meat from the larder, ‘Gypsies!’

‘I have naught against gypsies, why have you?’

Mary was smiling as she placed the beef on a platter from which Stewart would serve it.

‘They are thieves and rogues. They know not manners or what to do in a house; they are ill at ease in one.’

It was true, both the women had looked around them as though there was something constricting about four walls, something unfamiliar about a floor made of wood.

‘We cannot refuse them succour. Besides it is a diversion. It gives me something to think about besides what my brother is saying to Brent.’