The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (6 page)

Analee suddenly lashed out with her knee, catching him full in the crotch and Brewster, roaring with pain, released her and nearly fell to the ground. Analee felt a hand on her arm and she was being dragged through the throng to the cover of the darkened tents. She was still panting and gasping as she leaned against the side of a van. Her mouth and her breast ached and the front of her dress was torn. She wiped her mouth on her arm and gently kneaded her bruised breast.

‘Is he thy husband?’

In the dark she could see little, but she knew from the outline of the body made familiar by the rapture of their dancing that her saviour was Randal.

‘My husband!
God forbid. Nay, I lodge with his family.’

‘But the way he took you! I thought he had a right.’

‘He would have the right. Tell me Randal do you have a tent here where I can hide’?’

‘Nay, I sleep rough with my brothers and sister. They are the musicians, I the dancer. We pass from camp to camp, town to town, making a little money here and there.’

‘Oh.’

Analee felt downcast; her hopes had been high; but here, on reflection, was an opportunity, of a kind, to take to the road again. ‘May I come with thee?’

‘With us?’ Randal’s expression went from doubt to pleasure. ‘You want to be with us?’

‘I have to get away from him.’

‘Then he is your husband.’

‘No, he is
not
I
tell you! I promise we are not wed; but he does desire me and after tonight I think he will have me, his passions inflamed by the dance and drink. I am not safe.’

‘Then come with us. We can leave at first light. We have a cart and some belongings, for my brother cannot walk. He is a cripple.’

‘Aye, I saw it. I am sorry. I too have belongings. Look, after everyone has gone to sleep I will creep back and collect them, then I can join you at once. Brewster will be too addled by ale to stir before the sun is well up.’

‘Away then. I’ll take thee to our cart.’

‘You are sure your brothers and sister won’t mind?’

‘Nay. My sister will be glad of company, and to have another dancer – why, we could do a good turn.’

Analee laughed suddenly, delighted by the prospect. To be on the road again, but not on her own, was an attractive proposition for one who had grown used to company, who needed friends to ease her solitude.

‘Quick, show me where your cart is. I think the dancers are growing tired.’

‘Oh, it will be an hour or two yet. Come.’

Stumbling through the dark after Randal, Analee wondered how she could say goodbye to Nelly, the one member of the Driver family for whom she had formed any affection. There was something about the forsaken, forlorn girl that moved her deeply. She would miss Nelly and she knew Nelly would miss her.

After a while, on the very outskirts of the camp, they came to a solitary cart with a roof of sorts and a horse standing nearby. Analee looked back and saw that the dancers were indeed thinning and beyond them she could see the outline of Brewster’s tents.

‘I will go now while there are still fires burning and I can find my way,’ she whispered. ‘Do not leave without me.’

‘Never fear. Take care. Shall I come with thee?’

‘No, no.’

Analee sped away in the darkness, careful to keep to the periphery of the camp. Sometimes her face loomed up in the light of the camp fires and she was recognized as the inspired dancer. People called out to her and wished her well. Then the music stopped and the remaining dancers came straggling back to their tents. Analee imagined the musicians packing up, their surprise at learning she would soon join them.

When she neared Brewster’s tents she crept on her knees, keeping below the level of firelight. It was as she thought. Alan was stamping on the embers and there was no one else to be seen. It was unusual for the Driver family to be up much after sunset. Soon there were just a few embers glowing and Alan disappeared through the flap of the men’s tent to join his father and brothers. Analee waited until all was still and then she silently entered the women’s tent.

Inside it was pitch dark. Margaret was lightly snoring as she sometimes did and this gave Analee her bearings to the far corner where she shared a palliasse with Nelly. She stepped gently over the bodies of Jane and little Agnes and then got on her knees, her hands feeling in front of her for her small bundle of things which she always kept ready, as though permanently poised for flight.

Suddenly a hand clasped hers and she nearly cried out with fright but stifled the sound.

‘Analee! Is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank God. Father is very angry with you.’

‘I know.’

‘He says he will horsewhip you in the morn and that you won’t be able to sit down for days.’

‘Did he say why?’

Nelly was silent. ‘No, but I can guess. We can all guess; we saw him go after you in the dance.’

‘Well he’ll not horsewhip me or see me again. Nelly, I’m going to leave. I have come for my things and to say goodbye to you.’

‘Oh, Analee,’ the frail hand clasped her arm again and Analee heard her weeping softly.

‘Nelly, I can’t stay, don’t you see? You know what your father is like. He’ll ...’

‘Aye, you must go. I know what he is like; what he wants.’

Nelly’s sobs were quieter and she took Analee’s hand and drew it down on to her body so that it rested on her belly. Startled by the action Analee let her hand trace the roundness of Nelly’s belly which she found swollen and hard. It did not yield as she pressed it.

‘Nelly! Are you with child?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s
what ails thee! Why did I never notice?’

‘I am not too far gone; it is easy to conceal.’

Suddenly an awful thought struck Analee and then she knew the reason for Nelly’s action in placing her hand on her swollen belly. ‘It is ... oh Nelly!’

‘Aye, my father. He has been doing it regularly since I became a maid. My only care is that he will soon start on Jane.’

‘Oh, Nelly. How you must hate him!’

‘Well, it is not unusual you know among country folk such as us, or so I understand. My Mother hates it, but what can she do? He used to lie with her in the tent, but then he started beating her until she could take no more. Now he catches us when he can, and others. Oh, I knew he wanted you Analee, all along.’

Although Analee was a gypsy girl and knew that fathers did impregnate their daughters, and sometimes sons their Mothers, she still thought it a disgusting unnatural custom. To think of the foul Brewster having carnal relations with this sweet, fragile girl filled her with nausea.

‘How can I help you, Nelly?’

‘You can do nothing. I can see how it is with you and you have more spirit than me, Analee, more courage. I feel my life is over in a way. I care for no one and nothing. I cared for you though. You have been my friend. Oh, I wish I could come with you!’

‘Then
come
!’

‘No, I dare not. I have not the strength to travel by road and he will kill me. He will find me and kill me, I know that. Maybe we shall meet again – I hope so. I wish I knew more about you now; that we’d talked more. Somehow I didn’t think you would be going so soon ... I should have known.’

Analee leaned towards Nelly in the dark and kissed her cheek. She felt such love and pity for the poor girl that she would have taken her with her; but on the other hand she knew Nelly was right. Brewster, enraged, would find her and when he did he would probably do what she said – kill her.

‘Nelly. I know we shall see each other again. I am travelling with the musicians. Yes! The man I danced with, Randal, those are his brothers and sister. So I shall make a living dancing after all. We shall meet again, Nelly, I’m sure of it.’

She kissed her and pressed the thin hand. Then she crept stealthily from the tent, all the possessions she had in the world wrapped in a small bundle.

And by the time dawn lit the slumbering camp the dancers were on the road.

3

‘Go forth, oh Christian soul, from this world ...’

A single candle burning by the bedside of the dying man cast upon the stone walls the sepulchral shadows of those who were gathered around his bedside.

Sir Francis Delamain, so long near death, had suffered a fatal seizure and the life slowly ebbed from his body as the priest uttered the majestic words urging the Christian soul on its long voyage from this life. It was a solemn group that surrounded the bedside of old Delamain, a solemn and divided group. There were those who thought he should be ushered from the world by a priest of the old religion – Brent thought so, and his Mother, Susan, thought so. She was a member of the Allonby family, staunch Catholics, who had been steadily dispossessed of their lands and titles over the years for their faith. His young sister Emma thought so too as she fearfully gazed at her grandfather whose face and closed eyes already looked like an image carved from a tombstone.

But the heir, George Delamain, who stood some distance from the body of his family as though to emphasize his separateness from them, listened with satisfaction to the awesome words delivered in good strong English and not the devilish Latin tongue of popery. The eldest Delamain had always been on the side of the establishment, and George was no exception. The eldest Delamain had sided with King Henry against the Pope; with Queen Elizabeth against Mary Stuart, and with Cromwell against the Royalists, then when the tide turned, welcomed Charles II back to the throne. Delamain loyalty doubled about again when James II was sent into exile and the Prince of Orange and his wife Mary, James’ daughter, were invited to take the throne of England. It had supported the Hanoverian Succession in 1714 and had helped fight against the Pretender, Prince James, in 1715.

And so the Delamain lands and properties flourished while the Allonby family, always on the side of opposition, had lost power and worldly wealth.

‘In the name of angels and archangels ...’

Brent was aware of George standing apart – his proud firm stance proclaiming that he was within a heartbeat of being the head of the Delamain family. George seemed already to have assumed the mantle of authority and responsibility bequeathed to him by his dying grandfather as though, in parting, the old man had assured the line of continuity by the survival of his eldest grandson. Had Guy Delamain been here in his place, Brent thought, how very different things would have been.

Brent had no recollection of his handsome, brave father who had died when he was seven, worn out by illness, misery and poverty – the lot of an exile. But the stories told by his Mother built a vivid picture in his mind; stories which enthralled Brent and Emma and Tom, but to which George always turned a deaf ear, stepping aside, determined not to listen, in order to preserve his own fixed idea of his father as an outlaw.

From a very early age George had shown himself in every way to be a complete member of the Delamain establishment. He had abhorred the memory of his father, disliked his Mother, despised his brothers, tolerated his only sister and developed a firm – no one could tell if it was sincere or not – affection for his grandfather.

Now George was to come into his own – the inheritance for which he had striven for so long; the vast possessions and great acres of the Delamain estate.

‘In the name of Seraphim and Cherubim ...’

The candle nearly died, then the flame leapt in the air, blown to gigantic proportions by the keen wind which whistled through a door gently opened and quietly shut. The shadows on the wall rose and shrank with the flame and then they were joined by a fifth shadow which stood by the door as the family turned to see who had entered.

‘Tom!’ Brent could scarcely keep his voice to a whisper and, leaving his Mother and sister, went rapidly to his brother’s side. Tom smiled in greeting, but put a finger to his lips and listened attentively, or appeared to, his head bowed in silent prayer as the voice of the clergyman droned on.

The old man’s hands which had occasionally plucked the coverlet of his bed were now still, his face waxen, his cheeks sunk. His pulse had stopped, nothing stirred. Long before the exhortation was finished Sir Francis Delamain had joined that company to which he had been called. He was dead.

When the voice ceased no one spoke, cried or uttered a word. If anyone grieved for the old man they did not show it; not even George showed it. He stood staring at the dead countenance and then as the minister removed his stole and closed his book, George, Sir George, turned to him and bowed. Only Tom remained, with lowered head, his lips still moving. Tom in his own way, in the Latin of the old faith, was bidding the soul of Sir Francis Delamain prepare itself for its meeting with its maker.

George opened the door and announced to the servants assembled outside that his grandfather was dead. They bowed or curtseyed, acknowledging his succession, and then they entered one by one and stood or knelt by the master few had loved but whom they had served for so many years. One or two of the women, overcome by the solemnity of the occasion, even wept.

Tom raised his head, inclined it again in the direction of his grandfather and then went up to his Mother and kissed her. She embraced him, leaning her head for a moment on his shoulder and then she groped for his hand and allowed him to lead her from the chamber. Brent and Emma followed while George remained until the last of the servants had paid their respects.

When the last one left George closed the door and went up to his grandfather’s bed. He gazed for a long time at the immobile body, his face showing, by the spasms that passed over it, more expression than for many hours.

In so far as he was capable of the finer emotions that uplift the human spirit George had loved the old man. They had been two of a kind – unimaginative, unemotional, thrifty, hardworking, respectful towards lawful authority. Both cherished a long-held goal; the aggrandizement of the Delamain estates, the glory and enhancement of the name Delamain.

The old man had spent too much time in Cumberland, not enough circulating in the court and business circles in London. George Delamain intended to make good this omission – he would work doubly hard, at home and at court. He was determined that before many years were out the King would ennoble his family with a barony and to this end he would spend any amount of money, devote any amount of time. George meant to establish a great baronial family, a power not only in the county but in the land.