‘None but you?’ Was it possible that he had been so pressed for money as that?
Ferris answered, ‘I should have said, no worthy man would bite: there was one who offered, one who despised her. In the end I took her without the dowry.’
‘Why, when the other would certainly have had it?’
‘Her father disliked my butting in, and would else have concluded the thing. So I made love to his purse; it was either that, or deliver up Joanna to the other man.’
‘Was there liking between her and you?’
‘O yes.’ His voice was grown soft. ‘I had already thought of asking for her, before all this came about.’
‘But you could not be expected to give a name—’
Ferris ignored me. ‘They had her locked up. Every day I saw her staring at me from the window opposite. Once she looked at me with such misery that I opened the casement to talk to her, but she ran into the back of the room.’
‘Afraid of you.’
He nodded. ‘That cut my heart. I began to consider, whether husband rightly meant owner, or protector and friend. I had a thousand uses for the dowry, and refusing it meant the old man profited by his wickedness. But it was the only way.’
‘You must have brought contempt on yourself as a wittol,’ I whispered.
‘A wittol’s wife is his property, only a property he rents out,’ he hissed back. ‘This eternal curse of property! We own our brethren – our wives too are chattels—’
‘You would practise community of wives?’ I asked, shocked to think Ferris might be the author of that very pamphlet over which I had quarrelled with Walshe.
‘You miss my meaning entirely! This selling the girl off was – was a second rape, and no remedy for the first. Why are good people so slow to see this? Many of my friends, calling themselves Christians, urged me to stand aside and do nothing.’ He was agitated. I patted his arm and he went on, ‘It would have come right. On our wedding night she put her arms round my neck and wept. I wept also, and told her that I would never reproach her with the child. I loved her, and what the godless and the heartless said was nothing to me.’
He had turned his face aside; I heard him snuffling and struggling for breath.
‘And then,’ he forced out, ‘she died, and her father was safe. He never came to see her on her deathbed, or me afterwards. I buried her and the baby – it was a girl – sold up, left the money with my aunt, and joined the army.’
On his cheek were tears, which I wanted to dry but dared not touch. I held his hand, feeble and hopeless. I was quite unable to speak. How might a man like me comfort one like him? He had said simply that he showed mercy where he could, but excepting mere brute strength, he was beyond me in every way.
We sat together in silence as the fire burnt down and I thanked God inwardly for showing me what a Christian might be who, like the apostle Paul, considered Charity as the chiefest virtue. I vowed that if I ever had the chance I would atone to my wife and brothers, and I thought how both Izzy and Ferris, neither of them fighting men, had yet endured much to protect those they loved – but that way lay great pain for me, and I got off it. We turned in for the night and after a while I heard Ferris’s breathing light and rapid. He was perhaps with his Joanna, for he laughed once or twice in his sleep and it was such a joyous laugh as I had never heard from Ferris the soldier. Sleepless, I watched the fire. When the ardour of my prayer had cooled, I found in my breast a sneaking wish that I had stopped his talk. After such an outpouring I could never, never tell him what had passed between myself and my wife, and sooner or later he would ask.
The next day things went on as usual for the other men. Nathan prattled of politics while I suffered an agony of terror as we drew nearer and nearer to our house.
‘Courage,’ said Ferris. ‘None would recognise you.’
‘I have others to fear for. What if the news be bad?’
At last the hills parted, as in some evil vision, to discover Beaurepair. A cold hand griped my innards as I looked down upon the buildings. They were most of them well back from the road in low sheltered land, and we were able to survey them first from the side and then from the front as we skirted the walls of the park. We crossed in front of the lodge. Behind the house I could see the gate (now closed) where I had ridden out behind Zeb and Caro, with the field and wood beyond. I wondered if the gate-keeper had lost his place. There was my old chamber window, and a man, perhaps Godfrey, slowly crossing the herb garden.
Ferris looked on the house, and on me, and on the house again. ‘Did they use you well?’
‘Some of them,’ I answered. ‘The Mistress had her good side. But Sir John was a sot, and the son…’ I could not find words strong enough for the son.
‘I was never in a house like that,’ he went on, staring at it. ‘So big.’
‘Don’t the citizens have big houses in London?’
‘Here, Fat Tommy’s behind us.’
We fell out and loitered. I rubbed my sore feet to colour our idleness and Ferris kept watch for the thin soldier. It was not long before he came up, bouncing a little on his skeleton’s legs.
‘Tommy, how would you like more rations?’ said Ferris. ‘Prince Rupert here wants tidings of his friends at that house.’
I showed him the different windows and doors while Ferris kept off Nathan and the rest of the men straggled past. Tommy was quick to learn. Then we got back into the lines and together went through the story, that he was a beggar. I warned him to keep mum before Godfrey. He was to try for a talk with Isaiah Cullen, or Peter Taylor, and find out what was become of the runaway servants.
‘On no account say a man in the army sent you, unless you can talk with Isaiah alone,’ I urged. ‘Alone with him, you may give my likeness.’
‘Once we strike camp,’ he said, nodding. ‘If I can get off.’
We agreed on a day’s ration, beer included, to be paid when he brought back the intelligence. Ferris and I would try to distract attention from his departure.
‘Your luck is in,’ said Ferris to me as I pushed forward to my former place.
‘What do you mean?’ I panted.
‘We won’t stop here, or in the next village either. There’s too much daylight left and they want to get to Winchester, then to Basing-House. Cromwell’s afraid the weather will break and mire his artillery in the mud.’
‘You didn’t tell me this before.’
‘Nathan told me while you were with Tommy.’
‘Oh.’ Nathan again, chattering to Ferris about the New Jerusalem.
‘Why do you frown, Rupert?’
‘You know, I should go back, and make restitution.’
‘I said, why do you frown?’
Restitution. It had a glorious sound. I could offer myself for punishment; it was most likely only a choice of deaths, for my head might be shot off in the field. Though powerless in the matter of Caro and Zeb, I could clear Isaiah’s name. But even as I warmed myself at this vision, something gnawed at me. I pictured myself back at the house and my resolution wavered: I could be brave enough now to deliver myself up, but once there, I knew my heart would fail me. At last I saw that it came to this, that Ferris would march on with Nathan, Russ and his other friends while I faced justice alone. At this thought my courage shrivelled like a withered gourd.
We put up for the night in one of those scoured villages. The men were ill content after passing more comfortable billets, and there was much grumbling as they pulled down bales of straw and