‘A nasty bump but nothing broken, which is more than I can say for that insensitive clod Cobham when I get my hands on him.’ Mistress Clifford waved the gawping servants from the room. ‘Out, back to your harvest supper. You too, Robert, tell the people their mistress is in no danger. She needs peace and quiet. Well, go on!’ Meekly Robert followed the servants out, leaving his wife and Letty to assist Aunt Susan.
‘Letty, soak a pad in witch-hazel for her head. Alice, find a nightgown. She will sleep here, I do not want her moved until I am sure there is no danger of brain fever.’
‘Aunt, I cannot stay, it is Alice's bedchamber.’ Henrietta could see the room clearly now in the candlelight, the blurring of her vision and the confusion in her mind both gone.
‘Letty and I will make up the spare bedchamber for Robert and myself.’ Alice was firm. ‘Your aunt is right; to move too soon would be foolish. Sir Matthew would never forgive us if anything were to happen to you while he is away.’
*
The apple-pickers were singing as they moved among the laden trees in the orchard. From where she sat in the herb garden, propped up in a pile of goose-feather pillows, Henrietta could hear them clearly, follow their progress as they gathered in the store of eating apples. It was her favourite harvest. The work was less back-breaking than bringing in the corn so all the families of the estate joined in-the men moving ladders and scaling them to reach the topmost fruit, the women filling the baskets with care so as not to bruise the crop. Children scavenged the windfalls, eating as many as they picked, tossing the damaged fruit into barrels for pressing later.
Henrietta sighed and laid her book of poetry aside. Reading was making her head ache again. Since she had been brought up by cart from the Home Farm after her fall two days since she had been confined to bed by her aunt, but this morning she had finally cajoled her way outside.
Even so, she was not permitted to dress. Instead she wore a loose robe over her nightgown, a blanket tucked round her legs as she sat in a deep armed chair, her feet on a stool. Every half hour her aunt descended with two male servants to carry her chair further into the shade in case sunlight burned her skin into an unladylike tan or fevered her brain.
The scent of warm brick and stone mingled with the aromatic pungency of herbs and flowers. Bees droned, and, unalarmed by Henrietta's still presence, a thrush was beating a snail against the corner of a stone. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of the apple pickers through the open gate, or heard the creak of wagon wheels as the driver moved it to keep abreast of the pickers and their laden baskets.
Part of her wished she was in the orchard with them, sitting under a tree, munching the crisp sweetness of an early apple. But her mind felt detached, abstracted from the familiar ritual of the fruit harvest, the day-to-day affairs of Winterbourne.
Cobham's news of the battle at Worcester had crystallised the nagging doubts that had been at the back of her mind since Matthew had described to her the realities of war. The King had the right to rule; of that she had no doubt, it was his God-given duty. But did that mean he was always right in his actions? He was only human, after all. And if men like Matthew, honest, pragmatic, intelligent men, believed the rule of Parliament represented the rule of law, must there not be some truth in it?
If only her head would not ache so, perhaps she could find out what in truth she did believe. Henrietta closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers up and down the centre of her brow as though it would help clear the confusion.
Gravel crunched under booted feet, no doubt one of the grooms sent to move her chair again. She opened her eyes, and her mouth, then froze. Matthew stood looking down at her, his face tired, his clothes covered with dust from the road. With a cry she started from the chair, forgetting the hampering blanket around her legs. Matthew caught her as she stumbled, held her for a long moment without speaking, then pressed her gently back into the chair.
‘Matthew! You are unhurt?’
‘As you see. But the same cannot be said for you.’ He dropped to the stool at her. ‘Your aunt has told me what happened, that you slipped on the cobbles of the stable-yard and hit your head. She assures me you are all but recovered, but looking at you I am not so convinced you should be out of bed. You have dark purple smudges under your eyes. Here, let me look at your head, perhaps we should call the surgeon after all.’
He went down on one knee beside her chair, tipping her gently against his shoulder while his fingers explored the now diminished lump on the back of her skull. Henrietta closed her eyes, overwhelmed to be in his arms again. He smelled of warm leather and beneath her ear his heart beat strongly, his fingers were warm and sure in her hair. The gentle examination subtly became a caress as he held her. ‘What made you fall?’ he asked.
‘Cobham.’ The hateful name broke the moment as nothing else could have. Henrietta pulled back from his embrace to look him in the face.
‘Cobham? What are you saying?’
‘I did not fall. I fainted. Your clerk took great pleasure in telling me how you had ridden out to war, that the countryside was up in arms again. In my mind I could see you wounded, dying on the battlefield in the mire and the blood…’ Her voice broke and she could not go on, turning her head away on the pillow as she fought the sudden urge to weep.
‘Damn the man!’ Matthew exploded, taking two hasty strides down the path as if to seek out his clerk and chastise him. ‘He knew I had not gone to fight. He sees everything in black and white. His religious views allow him to see no shades of grey. I am sure he did not mean to frighten you, Henrietta.’
Despite her tears Henrietta snorted in disbelief.
‘His loyalty to me makes him extreme on my behalf. And he is an old man; he served my father before me.’
‘In other words you seek to excuse him?’
‘No, but he was not solely to blame. I should not have left you as I did.’ He raked his hand through dark hair which badly needed trimming. ‘I shall be open with you, Henrietta. When the messenger came and told me of the battle I was angry. Angry that it was all starting again just when the country was recovering. And I was here, away from the centre of things, relying on rumour. Your King and all of those misguided enough to support him brought this down upon us.’
‘He is your King too,’ Henrietta protested. ‘Under God.’
‘Under God and the law, wife. His father would be King still had he acknowledged this truth and been willing to rule in peace.’
‘But perhaps this King would be willing to accept the rule of law?’ Henrietta groped through her own muddled thoughts. ‘But he was forced from his country before he could show how he would rule. Parliament will not talk with him so what other choice was before him but to fight?’
‘And the thousands of men and boys he dragged with him on to the field at Worcester? What of the widows and fatherless children this day? Do they have a choice of anything but grief and penury?’
‘In that he was wrong.’ He had wrung the admission from her. ‘Yet I cannot understand what other course he could have taken.’
‘He could have waited in exile until the time was right for negotiation.’ Matthew regarded her thoughtfully. ‘This nation cannot be leaderless for long, we need our figurehead. But not one who unleashes foreign troops on his people. He will not be easily forgiven for bringing the Scots with him, even by his closest supporters.’