They were eager to ride out in their new clothes and they took their ponies into the field close to the house where they were accustomed to ride round and round. Jasper was always in attendance and I liked to watch them.
How smart they looked in their new jackets and how excited they were as always to mount their ponies. I watched them trotting round the field and then breaking into a canter.
Jasper was never very far away. He was teaching them to jump. He sat straightbacked on old Brewster, who was grey and had a dour look to match Jasper’s own.
How glad I was of Jasper that morning because for some reason Edwin’s pony decided to bolt. I felt my heart stop and then start to pound away at such a rate that it seemed as though it would choke me.
Time slowed down and minutes seemed to pass, though it could only be seconds while I saw the pony bolting for the hedge and Edwin, who had somehow slipped off his back, managing to cling round his neck. I expected him to fall at any moment.
Oh, God, I thought. He is going to be killed. I am going to lose my son as I lost my husband.
I ran, ineffectually, I knew, for the child would be thrown before I could possibly reach him.
But Jasper was there. He had halted the pony, had leaped to the ground and was disengaging Edwin from the pony’s neck and had him in his arms.
I was panting, feeling lighthearted with relief, wanting to promise Jasper anything he asked, for nothing could repay him for what he did.
“’Tis all right, mistress,” he said.
Edwin was laughing. I thanked God for the sound of that laughter. Then he was concerned, for he had seen my face. What it looked like I could not imagine. I was clearly white and shaken.
Edwin said: “It’s all right, Mama. I haven’t hurt my coat. My cap though …”
It was on the ground where it had dropped off his head. Jasper put him down and he immediately retrieved it.
He looked a little distressed. “It’s a bit dirty, Mama. Never mind. Sally will clean it.”
I felt I wanted to burst into tears … with relief … with thankfulness. I felt a wave of hysteria. My darling was safe. I felt as though I had died a thousand deaths while I watched him and he thought I was worried about his cap!
I wanted to pick him up and hug him, to tell him he must never risk his life again.
Jasper was scolding: “You should never have let him go like that. He’s got to know you’re the master. After all I taught you!”
“I know, Jasper, but I couldn’t hold him.”
“No such word as couldn’t, Master Edwin. Up on his back.”
I started to protest but Jasper pretended not to hear me.
“Now off you go. Let him out. Full gallop now.”
Jasper looked at me.
“Only way, mistress. Do you want him so he’ll never mount a horse again?” He looked at me pityingly, for he could see how shaken I was. “They know no fear, mistress. That’s why they have to learn when they’re young. He didn’t know what happened then. Just as well.”
“Jasper, take care of him.”
“Aye, mistress. I’ll make a horseman of him yet.”
That incident made us friends in some odd way. I noticed Jasper looking at me now and then. Of course he despised my fancy gowns, the trappings of the Devil, he would call them. But he respected my love for my child and he knew that I had made him the guardian of Edwin and he liked that.
One day when I was in the stables there alone with him, he came and stood before me rather awkwardly.
“Mistress,” he said, “I’d like a word. Have wanted it these many days.”
“What is it, Jasper?” I asked.
“’Tis about your husband, mistress. He were shot over here … not far from this spot.”
I nodded.
“I want you to know it were none of my doing.”
“Jasper,” I said, “he came here into danger. He was posing as a stranger. I should never have come with him. It was through me that he was betrayed.”
“That were so, mistress. You showed your true nature and it were not that of a woman who serves God as she should, and I told those who should know and one came to see. But nothing had been done then. ’Twere not because of that that he were shot. Mistress, I want you to know that not I nor any of my friends fired the shot that killed Master Edwin.”
“Do you know who?”
He turned away. “I want only to say it were not my doing.”
“So it was nothing to do with his being … the enemy.”
“It were not done by us, mistress. That’s all I can say. ’Twouldn’t have been for us to kill him. We’d have took him for questioning but not to kill.”
“You know who did it, Jasper?”
“’Tis not for me to say, mistress. But I don’t want you to think I was the one who had anything to do with the killing of that boy’s father.”
“I believe you, Jasper,” I said, and I did.
News was coming in from the neighbouring towns. It appeared that a very virulent form of bubonic plague had broken out in the slums of St. Giles’s and so fierce was it that it was fast spreading through the capital and beyond. People were collapsing in the streets and were left there to die because none dared go near them.
We were very worried because Lord Eversleigh was there with Carleton and Uncle Toby and we had had no news from them.
Each day we heard horrific tales. No one who could get out of the capital stayed. The Court had left and an order of council had been issued that stringent measures must be taken to deal with it.
Lady Eversleigh was frantic with anxiety.
“Why don’t they come back?” she demanded. “They would never be so foolish as to stay there. What can it mean …?”
“Not all of them,” she went on frantically. “It couldn’t happen to all of them. Have we gone through those years of exile just to come back to this?”
Charlotte and I shared her anxiety. I realized how fond I was of my father-in-law and his brother, but somewhat to my surprise it was Carleton who kept coming into my mind. I kept picturing him, writhing on a bed of pain, his face and body disfigured by hideous sores, and fervently I wished that he were here and I could nurse him. That seemed crazy, but I told myself I felt this because I should have enjoyed having him in a position which I was sure he would find humiliating—shorn of his dignity, at my mercy. What a strange thought to have at such a time, but Carleton did arouse emotions in me which I had not suspected I possessed. And with them came a certain elation, because however mysterious their absence might be, something within me told me that Carleton would be all right. Nothing would ever get the better of him—not even the plague.
Then when I was with my mother-in-law and Charlotte I wondered how I could have thought so much of Carleton to the exclusion of my father-in-law and Uncle Toby who had both become dear to me.
Each day we waited for news of them. There was none, but we did hear how the plague was spreading, and that, even as far from London as we were, we must take precautions and be very careful of strangers travelling from afar.
Everyone was talking of the plague. There were such epidemics two or three times in every century, but there had been nothing to compare with this since the Black Death. I thought of what I had seen of London—those evil-smelling gutters in the back streets where rats foraged among the rubbish left on the cobbles, and all the time I was thinking of Carleton lying on his bed, needing care.
And what of Lord Eversleigh and Uncle Toby? They were not so young. They would be less able to fight the terrible disease.