The Dandelion Seed (27 page)

Most people had forgotten Father Ben, the old Jesuit priest, for he had been in hiding for so many years. He was so thin and his pale, deep set eyes seemed to stare into one’s very soul. The sweet religious fervour he created entered Marcelle’s heart and wrapped her soft and safe as a cocooned insect. With her mind now quite healed she began to look into the past with clear eyes and her memories returned. Marcelle knew that here she had a safe harbour for herself and her son, and that she would never go out of that gate again.

The old priest had, by gentle persuasion, managed to get the secrets of Marcelle’s past from her. ‘My dear,’ he said gently, ‘it is between God and yourself whether you lay claim to your son. You have made your peace with him. Now, stay, reflect on the wisdom of taking your son out of this safe place.’

Marcelle’s hazel brown eyes glowed soft and gentle. She had grown so fond of this kind, clever old priest, whose thin hands traced the Latin words on the old manuscripts, and who had taught her so much of the beauty of religion. ‘I will stay here, Father, because in this house I am so happy, and so is my son.’

‘Then God be with you.’ Father Ben made the sign of the cross and returned to his narrow hard bed in the paper-filled room where he had hidden for so many years.

In the morning they found him, his pale eyelids closed forever. He had died peacefully in his sleep, his hands were crossed clutching a rosary.

Marcelle was very sad at the loss of her friend and confidant, but was sure in her heart that he had left this sad world for a higher happy one. Death no longer held any mysteries for her.

They buried the priest secretly in consecrated ground at the back of the chapel beside the unmarked grave of Marcelle’s mother, whom he himself had buried.

Each day, Marcelle and the children made little posies and laid one on Father Ben’s grave and one on Grandmother’s.

‘But whose grandmother?’ enquired Elizabeth. ‘I have not got one. I am illegitimate, and so is Popsi.’

Marcelle smiled sweetly. ‘Well, you and Popsi shall share this grandmother with me, because she was my mother.’

Elizabeth giggled. ‘Oh, you are funny, Miss Mouse,’ she said. ‘But I do love you so.’

They would often run through the green woods down to the brook to dip their tiny feet in the clear cool rippling water. Very neat in her white hat and black dress, Marcelle sat on the bank sewing as the children played or tried fishing for minnows. Always on these outings they were accompanied by a big black-and-white hound called Prince who followed Elizabeth everywhere.

One morning in early summer they sat by the brook. Little Roger was becoming quite headstrong. He had acquired a fishing net of his own and started fishing quite independently, the dog beside him. On the opposite bank, a small fox terrier appeared and began to challenge Prince with his back erect and shrill bark. Prince rose up majestically and with loud, deep-chested growls, he seemed to be telling the little dog to be off. All this barking frightened little Roger who ran to Marcelle for comfort.

Soon the owner of the terrier, a little man with a young child on his shoulders, came running along the bank calling the dog to heel. Seeing Marcelle, he called over to her: ‘Hallo, mate, how’re you getting on?’

It had been almost a year since Marcelle had seen anyone outside Brook House and this man calling out to her now with such familiarity scared her a little. In panic, she gathered the children and amid the noise of barking dogs they hurried on up the hill towards the big house.

Chalky stood scratching his head, quite astonished. ‘Well, what do you think of that, Sam?’ He directed his conversation to the little child on his back. ‘Starving in the churchyard, she was, a year ago, and now she don’t even want to know us. You can never tell with some people.’ The little black-haired babe, so like his father and named after his grandfather, slept on.

Chalky’s son was everything to him and although the child could not yet converse with his father he was always included in whatever his father had to say. Chalky loved being a father and was keen to have more sons. ‘We will have another one soon, Katy,’ he often said. ‘Stock is as good as money, you know.’

Tall, magnificent Katy would laugh at him, when he said this, her white teeth flashing, her cheeks red and rosy. ‘We will have a girl the next time, I hope,’ she would say.

‘No, we won’t!’ Chalky would argue. ‘Sons is what I want and sons is what I’m going to get.’ As dogmatic and business-like as ever, even in the raising of a family, Chalky had plans.

He was very happy with his Katy and was glad to have married her, despite their terrible wedding day which had ended in a riot. Katy’s brothers had punched each other to a standstill and her uncles and aunts had drunk and danced until they fell. And it had taken Chalky many months of hard work to earn back the profits from the drink that Katy’s relations had consumed.

Now that Katy was mistress of her own home, she had told her family to go to hell. She worked beside Chalky and was a real partner in every way.

‘I’ve no regrets,’ Chalky often boasted. ‘I’m a happily married man.’

The inn was not such a prosperous place since the Lord of the Manor – rumoured to be ill – had moved to the town. The young gentlemen did not visit the inn so often, and Chalky did not care much for the sort of customers he got now – gipsies from the fair at Lea, stablemen from Brook House, and the villagers. The class of customers had deteriorated and this bothered Chalky somewhat.

‘I ain’t in this business for me health,’ he would tell Katy. ‘It’s money I’m after, and these poor sods ain’t got much.’

‘Well, let’s sell up and move further away,’ suggested Katy.

‘I might,’ said Chalky, ‘I’d better think about it.’

So with business being bad plus a son to take care of, Chalky’s mind was well pre-occupied. He had completely forgotten Betsy and was much less likely to remember her brother Rolly. So when Rolly walked into the bar one day, Chalky got quite an unpleasant shock.

A white autumn mist hung over the harbour as little boats went back and forth from ship to shore. Out in the deep waters, lying at anchor, were the huge four-masted schooners, their white sails flopping loosely in the soft breeze. They were resting awhile, needing the time for the barnacles to be removed and a refit to be done before returning to the endless expanse of ocean. A shaft of sunlight filtered slowly through the mist lighting up the stone harbour wall and exposing the huddled shapes of the beggars who lay there out of the stiff Atlantic breeze which always blew around the harbour. Poor hopeless wrecks, they were, most of them disabled seamen, befallen fruits of the great sea battles. Once the sea had dispensed with them, there was no livelihood for them and they remained dirty ragged limbless men begging for a mere existence.

From the deep bow window of a nearby inn, a man looked down with compassion at these men. His dark eyes were angry and there was a frown on his brow. ‘My God,’ he muttered to himself, ‘what a fate for these so valiant of British seamen! Surely no country on earth was so great, yet so morally impoverished as this?’ He reflected on the fertile colony of Virginia, on its poor but happy settlers, each man was owner of his destiny and allowed to live and think freely. He would return to that land again and leave this battered country for ever, to the deep green valley where he had made his home. A dreamy smile crossed his lips as he thought of Marcelle, his little wife. He had not seen her in years, but now he would take her and her child to this clean new world and maybe have children of his own. His sons would inherit his green valley. He stroked his little black pointed beard thoughtfully as his mind wandered over these matters.

Yes, this was our friend, Thomas Mayhew, back home in England on what was not a happy homecoming. His deep-set unfocused eyes stared out to sea. Out there in the Atlantic a ship was sailing steadily towards England and aboard was a great man, a heart-broken man who had lost his much-cherished eldest son, slain by the Spaniards. The great Sir Walter Raleigh was sailing home from a disastrous voyage to the New World, a broken, defeated man.

A silent brooding atmosphere hung over the port. It even pervaded the inn, and had affected those poor devils crouched by the wall out there. The secret was out: everyone knew that the King’s men were out there waiting for the great man to come ashore. They could see the glint of steel and hear the impatient clamp of the horses’ hooves echo through the misty air. The escort was ready to take Sir Walter back to the Tower, where he had already spent thirteen years. It was a hard and bitter fate for a man so great, but there was no gold in the hold of his ship and King James considered this to be treason.

As Thomas watched and waited for the arrival of that little ship called
Destiny
, he thought of Raleigh’s son Cary, who had been his own best friend, and of how good a master Raleigh had been to him. At least he was here to lend support to Sir Walter now.

Thomas’ face was well tanned by the sun, his body hard and virile after two years at sea. The travel had been well worth it; many Spanish prizes had been taken and there was plenty of money to share out when the crew of the privateer ship disbanded. Now all he wanted to do was to find his wife and sail away again back to Virginia far from the injustice of this English way of life.

In the room behind him, not two feet away was Rolly. In the last two years he had never been far away, sticking as closely to Thomas as his own shadow. Many a knife thrust and sword length Rolly had taken instead of his master, but it seemed that Rolly’s wounds healed very quickly and he always returned to full health, hale and hearty as ever. Thomas was eternally grateful for Rolly’s loyal protection of him and had kept him by his side.

Now Rolly stood, his long body propped against a table as his strong white teeth crunched the fine red skin of an apple. In appearance Rolly was now a very handsome fellow, and well-dressed in a black satin suit trimmed with gold braid. His tremendous feet were shod in a long pair of highly polished boots with wide tops, Spanish style, his hair bleached almost white by the tropical sun and the gold rings in his ears made him look part of the swash-buckling pirate he fancied himself to be. There was still a remote look in his eyes and often, for no reason at all, his mouth would hang open, but mentally and physically Rolly had improved immensely. The ship’s crew had known that Dour Thomas’ man was a fellow to be reckoned with in any battle. His life at this time and his only love was his master, Thomas Mayhew, who understood perfectly that just the bat of an eyelid would bring Rolly to his side, always ready and able to serve or defend. Thomas and Rolly had a great respect for each other.

It caused much amusement among the other servants that Rolly liked to dress up and would be decked out like a bird of paradise while his master had no taste for fancy clothes and was likened to a dowdy little sparrow. But they were a grand team together and their adventure had been very profitable. Life had bound them very close but now they were back in the homeland. Marcelle was uppermost in Thomas’ mind while Betsy was in Rolly’s.

Thomas turned from the window. ‘Watch for
Destiny
to come into view,’ he instructed Rolly. ‘I’ll attend to the mail.’

On the table was a large pile of correspondence, parcels and letters newly arrived from the trading company that had collected the mail during his absence. Thomas sat inspecting them, turning the papers over and over as he searched for letters from Marcelle in her neat handwriting. But there were none, only bills and pamphlets concerning all sorts of legal matters but not one letter from Marcelle. His face showed his disappointment as he picked up one big legal document and broke the seal. It contained news from his solicitors at the Inns of Court, and the legal draft of a will that contained a small legacy from a departed uncle. Thomas put this aside with little interest. He was more interested in a letter from Mr Spenser, the clerk who had been left in charge of Marcelle’s affairs while Thomas was away. He read this letter with puzzled bewilderment which showed on his face.

I have been many times to your wife’s home in Essex. The whole place is empty and dilapidated. I cannot glean any information from the villagers, as they appear to be afraid to talk. Both your wife and child have disappeared from their home. It is as if they have left the face of this earth, for I can simply find no trace of them. I am indeed sorry to be the one to have to give you this information but I do assure you I have not given up my search for them and may have better news for you on your return to England.

Blood rushed to Thomas’ head and he covered his face with his hands. In a loud voice he cried out: ‘Oh God! What has happened to her?’

Hearing the anxiety in his master’s voice, Rolly came over to his side. Now Thomas was reading the letter from Betsy, written just before her death. He had come to the postscript. In strange uneven writing, so different from the neat hand of the clerk, the words seemed to dance before his eyes: ‘I saw Marci. She was walking by the brook.’

The mystery deepened. Why should Marcelle be walking by the brook in Hackney more than ten miles from her home? Thomas began to sort out the rest of the mail with his brow puckered in puzzlement.

Rolly came to stand beside him and looked at him quizzically. ‘What is it?’ he enquired.

Thomas looked at him. ‘I have received a letter from your sister.’ He handed Rolly the sheet of paper but Rolly only grinned from ear to ear and stared at the missive in wonder. ‘You know I can’t read,’ he said. ‘And Betsy can’t write either.’