Alice in Love and War Read online

  Robin appeared and said, “Alice! Come – there’s food!” and led her into the inn’s parlour, which was full of a great stinking press of men in sodden clothing. They squeezed between bodies until they came near the fire. It was piled with logs that blazed and spat sparks and drew out the smell of wet wool. There was nowhere to sit, so they stood close together, scorched on one side by the fire, and chilled on the other whenever the door opened and more people came in. The innkeeper and several servants were handing out beer.

  Robin passed Alice a tankard. “Here, drink some of this. It’ll warm you.”

  She obeyed, but almost at once began to feel light-headed. She was relieved when the food arrived: army rations of bread and cheese – and some meat too, for those who were quick. Robin was quick. He managed to grab a leg of mutton, hot and fatty, and they shared it between them. They ate ravenously, stuffing food into their mouths, hardly bothering to chew.

  When her hunger was eased, Alice asked, “What’s happening? What were they shouting about out there?”

  “Too many of us for the billets,” said Robin. “Some of us – and all the officers – were to go up the road to Weston Hall, but it seems there’s sickness there; so they’ve split the company, moved some on to another place.” He wiped his greasy mouth with the back of his hand. “Quartermaster doesn’t like it. Small groups are more at risk from the enemy. But there’s naught to be done. And you’re lucky: I got us a space here, at the inn, in the attics.”

  But he didn’t seem eager to go up, as he usually would be. He lit his pipe, and they stayed in the parlour, surrounded by damp, steaming clothes, slopped beer and loud drunken voices until Alice was so weary she could no longer stand, but sagged against him. Even then he merely searched out a stool for her, and continued to stand and puff at his pipe and occasionally frown or stare into the distance. Alice felt unable to reach him.

  At last the parlour began to empty. Most of the men were billeted in surrounding cottages and farms, and went out.

  “I need to rest – to sleep,” Alice pleaded.

  Robin nodded then, knocked out his pipe on the fireplace and – almost reluctantly, she felt – led her up two flights of narrow stairs to the attics. There were others sleeping there, but Robin had found them a space in a little side room where they could be alone. It was warm from the rising heat of the fire downstairs, and with their layered blankets and outer clothes over them they were cosy enough.

  “This is good,” she said, snuggling close to him. “You always find good places for us.”

  She knew it was because of his way with women – even busy innkeepers’ wives, or frosty women like her aunt.

  He kissed her forehead. “Yes. You’ll be safe here.”

  “I’ll be safe?” She searched his eyes in the darkness, suddenly afraid, as she’d been at Tor Farm when he said the army was moving on.

  He rolled away from her and lay on his back. “I’m going home, Alice. I’ve been given leave—”

  “Home?” Her breath came short. “When?”

  “Tomorrow. I meant to tell—”

  “But – when will you be back?”

  There was a silence – and she knew. She knew he would be there for the entire winter and would not return until the army was on the move again. But he said, awkwardly, “Weeks. Several weeks,” and added, “it’s an advantage for the army if men go home. No billets or provisions needed. And my family – I haven’t seen them this long time…”

  “Can’t I come with you?” she asked in a small voice. “Robin? Can’t I meet them? You said—” Her voice broke. “You said you loved me. I thought…”

  He turned towards her and held her close. “I’ll come and visit you, I promise. There are army carriers going to and from Oxford all the time, delivering supplies. It’s no distance, sweet. I’ll come and see you.”

  “But I don’t know anyone here!”

  Her voice was a wail, and he shushed her as someone snarled a curse from the adjoining room.

  “You’ll do well enough. Make yourself useful to the goodwife. She’ll look out for you, keep you safe. I spoke to her earlier.”

  It’s all planned, she thought. He’s been planning this awhile, and never told me. Why won’t he take me to his home? And where is his home? He had never told her the name of the place where he lived, only that it was near Oxford.

  She said, “Robin, you can’t leave me. I’m with child by you.”

  She felt him stiffen. “Are you sure? You don’t look… You must be mistaken?”

  “No. I’m sure.” Why should he think it so unlikely, she thought bitterly, given what they’d been doing? “We should go to Oxford together,” she said. “We ought to be married.”

  “Oxford’s no place for you, sweet. They’ve got plague there. Had it since the summer.”

  “Well, here, then. We could be married here.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I must go home first—”

  “Why can’t we be married first? Why can’t I come with you?” Her voice rose, and he hushed her again.

  “I’ll see what can be done. But don’t fear, love. I’ll come back soon, soon as I can.”

  “It won’t be long? Promise me?”

  “Of course.”

  She wanted to believe him. And when he began to kiss and cuddle her, his touch was so gentle, and the smell and feel of him so familiar, that she thought he must love her; it must be true. And yet she lay awake for hours afterwards, thinking, and worrying, and wishing she had Nia to turn to for advice. She suspected that Robin was also awake, but he gave no sign. Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll insist he gives me an address to send to if I should need him. I’ll make him write it in my father’s book. The decision comforted her, and at last she fell asleep.

  When she woke, he was gone.

  For a moment, she thought he had simply stepped outside, to the privy. Then she saw a small leather bag lying on the blanket beside her, and a folded piece of paper.

  “Robin!”

  She sprang up and opened the door, but the main attic room was full of huddled, snoring bodies. She picked her way between them and peered out of the grimy window. It was early morning, still dark. A stable boy was walking across the yard with a lantern, and a maid leaned on her broom and chatted with him. There was no sign of Robin.

  She returned to her bed. She knew what the bag would contain. She unfolded the note. His handwriting was like a child’s, unpractised; but the words were clear enough.

  Sweetheart, don’t be sad. I’ll come when I can. The money is for your needs.

  Your loving Robin Hillier

  No mention of marriage. No address, not even the name of his village. Only I’ll come when I can. She picked up the bag and tipped its contents onto the bed, surprised at how much was there: several months’ pay, she reckoned, and perhaps coin looted from the rebels at Lostwithiel.

  She began to cry, stifling the sound of her tears in the blanket. The money should have given her some comfort, but it didn’t. It made her feel like a whore.

  Ten

  “Got you in pod, has he? Moved on?”

  Alice winced at the maidservant’s accuracy. How could the girl know? She didn’t, of course; she was guessing. Alice held her head high and ignored the questions.

  The two maidservants goaded her every hour, every day. Sib and Nell, they were called: Sib a stringy-haired blonde with a weasel face; Nell heavy and spiteful, given to lying in wait to trip or pinch her victim. Alice had to share the tiny attic room with them: the same room she had shared with Robin that first night here at the King’s Arms in Copsey. They had resented her from the start, it seemed; or perhaps they simply enjoyed having a friendless newcomer to torment. Alice, in exchange for work, had been granted free board and lodging and a payment to be made when the army left. The arrangement suited the innkeeper and his wife, the place being so much busier with the army quartered in the village.

  “He’s moved on,” Sib repeated, taunting her. “Got another
girl.”

  Nell sniggered. “He can move on top of me any time he likes.”

  “Fight you for him!”

  They laughed and jostled each other.

  Oh, Robin! Alice thought. Why don’t you come? Why have you left me here?

  It was more than three weeks now. Every day she watched for the army carrier. A constant flow of traffic came through the village: the mail, the brewers, pedlars, carriers, coaches. The Oxford army supplied bread to all its regiments billeted around Faringdon, Wallingford and Kidlington. Other army suppliers also came from Oxford; and often she saw soldiers alighting or catching a ride into the city. Copsey was five miles out of Faringdon, off the Oxford road. It would not be a long or difficult journey, even if he lived on the far side of Oxford. Why didn’t he come?

  She thought of many reasons, most of them alarming. He was dead – but no, she dreaded even to think that, for fear of making it true. He was injured, ill. His mother was ill, or some other of his family. He’d been attacked and robbed. He’d found another girl.

  Another girl. Sib or Nell would have had him, given a chance. Anyone would. And yet… He wouldn’t even glance at the likes of Sib or Nell. And he’d given her money; he’d settled her here; he knew she was with child and had promised to come back. He was always so loving and careful towards her. He could not be tired of her. She would not believe it.

  The army provisions carrier was here now, the wagon wheels clattering over the cobbles of the inn yard. She flung a shawl around her shoulders and ran outside, hearing behind her the maidservants’ mocking laughter.

  A party of dragoons guarded the wagon. One of them gave her the eye as he dismounted, and she looked quickly away. She hated being so unprotected in this male wartime world. Without Robin she was prey to any man.

  She stepped cautiously across the icy cobbles and approached the driver, an older man with a slouch hat, a pipe between his teeth and flamboyant side whiskers.

  “Do you know Robin Hillier? A corporal of foot? He’s staying with his parents near Oxford.”

  But the man could tell her nothing. In desperation she asked, “Do you deliver all around Faringdon?”

  “I do.”

  “I want to find my friend, a Welsh girl, a soldier’s wife. Do you know where the Welsh foot are billeted?”

  He shrugged. “There are Welsh in all the quarters around here. Could be any of them.” He reeled off a list of place names that meant nothing to her. None, it seemed, were less than five or six miles away, across marshy country, in winter.

  “Thank you.”

  She retreated indoors, away from the cold wind.

  There was always plenty of work to do. The innkeeper’s wife, Mistress Tyrrell, set her to sweeping the upper chambers. The other two were scouring pots, cackling together in the scullery. Alice was glad to get away from them, and went upstairs and swept her way down from the attics, sneezing as the dust flew. At the top of the stairs above the parlour she sneezed harder than before and felt a sudden wetness between her legs.

  She stood still, aware of her breath, her heartbeat. Could this be…? There was no one about. She caught up her skirts, put a hand there and drew it away. Blood. Bright red.

  So she was not with child. That was her first thought, and with it came a wash of relief and then, perversely, disappointment. And yet … it had been so long. It was October when they were in Salisbury and she had first thought her courses were about to come. How many weeks ago was that? Eight? Nine? Ten? Today was the eighteenth of December. She knew because Master Tyrrell had an almanac downstairs, like the one they’d used at Tor Farm.

  I must be with child, she thought. I must be nearly three months gone. And now I’m bleeding. She began to tremble with fright. She propped the broom against the wall and ran up to the attics and rummaged in her pack for rags. Robin’s heavy purse, in a pocket under her gown, bumped against her hip. She wished she could hide the money somewhere else, but feared Sib and Nell would find it. She had padded the coins with cloth to prevent them from jingling. Her father’s book was hidden too, pushed down inside the front of her stays. She’d made the mistake, once, of picking up the latest newsbook that lay on a table in the parlour. One of the regular customers would occasionally read aloud from these to the assembled company. But that day Alice had read alone, in silence, following the words with a finger.

  Sib had jeered, “Look at her! We have a scholar among us!”

  And Alice knew she had distanced herself even further from those two. They would have no mercy on her book if they found it. “Bum fodder!” they’d crow, and rip out the pages to use in the privy.

  They would have no mercy on her, either, if they knew she might be about to miscarry. As she tied the rags in place she noticed several dried blood spots on her shift; and she became aware, now, of a low backache that she realized had been with her for most of the day.

  I should rest, she thought. But that would mean admitting she was with child, and she had been pushing that revelation away into the future, thinking – hoping – that Robin would come and remove her from this place before she needed to tell.

  Should she tell Mistress Tyrrell now? The woman was not unkind, but she was brusque, busy, unapproachable. A girl who needed to rest was no good to her. And if she did tell Mistress Tyrrell, it wouldn’t be long before Sib and Nell knew.

  She’d do better to keep quiet, keep her shift on, not be seen washing it, hope … what?

  “He’s moved on.” Perhaps it would better if she miscarried. No, she thought. No. She clung to her dream of a baby, a husband, a new life as Robin’s wife.

  “Alice! Have you gone to ground, wench?” Mistress Tyrrell’s voice rose up from the foot of the stairs.

  Alice hurried down, seized the broom and began banging it busily around the skirting boards.

  Next morning, on waking, she felt a dragging ache in her hips and back. She got up and dressed quickly, hiding her stained shift under her skirt while the other two maids were still half asleep. She went about her work, cleaning, scouring pots, fetching and carrying. She bled again, and the ache was worse. Once, in the afternoon, she felt a cramp that took her breath away. She had to put down her kitchen knife and press with both hands on the table till it passed. Fortunately no one noticed, and when nothing more happened she relaxed a little, and continued her work. Later, she took out a pail of warm mash to the hens, flinching at the shock of cold air as she opened the kitchen door. The wind was from the north and had flecks of snow in it. She saw that the water in the horse trough was covered in a film of ice.

  “You can take a walk to the glover’s for me before it gets dark,” Mistress Tyrrell said. She showed Alice a pair of well-worn leather gloves, split at the seams, the thumb coming away on the right-hand glove. “See what can be done. And call in at the butcher’s – Crockford’s, not Loosley’s – and tell Master Crockford I’d like a dozen more of those pies he sent last week, to be delivered on Saturday.”

  Alice took the gloves, put on her red cloak and a hood, and went out. The King’s Arms was at the edge of the village, the glover’s and butcher’s a five-minute walk away along a road lined with cottages and shops. The cold wind stung her eyes as she set off.

  She had not gone more than a few yards when a cramp made her double over. She looked around. People scurried by, heads down against the wind, unaware of her. She walked on, but almost at once the pain came again, and she felt a gush of blood.

  Not here, she thought in panic. It can’t happen here, in the street. The shops ahead were busy with customers going in and out. She imagined collapsing there, on someone’s doorstep; the shame of it; the news reaching the inn.

  She had to find somewhere private. A road went off to her left – a deserted road that led past a paddock into woodland. Those woods, she knew, belonged to Weston Hall, the place where the officers had expected to stay. Between the trees, which were now almost leafless, she could see its tall, decorated chimneys.

  The house w
as some way off, and already dusk was gathering in the shady places under the trees. She turned aside onto the road and hurried, hunched over, afraid that at any moment events would overwhelm her.

  When she reached the woods, she plunged in among the trees and bushes without waiting to look for a path. The cramps were coming regularly now, and the urge to hide was powerful.

  Even here the wind bit like a blade. She dropped to her knees beside a tree in the shelter of a holly bush. A pain came like a band of iron tightening around her back and belly, and she cried out and squatted, bundling her clothes out of the way.

  The pain gripped her again, and now she pushed and felt something pass, something substantial; and she knew this was the child, hers and Robin’s, and she had lost it. Warm blood flowed. Another pain came, followed by more loss. And then her body relaxed. It was over. She waited a few moments, then tried to stand, but at once black specks gathered in front of her eyes, and she sank down again. She felt weak and nauseous, and extraordinarily tired. I’ll rest a bit, she decided. When she tried to move away, to a cleaner place, the faintness came again, so she simply leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes.

  Eleven

  Sounds roused her: barking, and then snuffling, breathing; wet muzzles pushing against her legs and face. Dogs! Three or four of them. They were all around her. Alice yelped in fright; and at the same moment, a female voice called out, “Keeper! Jewel! Here, here!” And she looked up and saw the dogs running towards a woman who had emerged on horseback from a woodland path, accompanied by a young groom.

  “Thank the Lord!” said the woman. “I feared you were a corpse!”

  Alice remained crouching and lowered her gaze, overcome with shame at being found in such a condition. She heard the woman draw nearer, and saw, on the snowy ground in front of her, a pair of feet in high-sided brown leather shoes and the hem of a dark skirt brushing them. The shoes and skirt – polished leather and soft heavy wool – told her that this was no servant, but a woman of quality, perhaps one of the gentry who owned the house. Was she trespassing, she wondered? Trembling, she raised her eyes.