Page 3 of By the Sword
The moment she had sent the letter to Sir Francis Thornton, accepting his invitation, she had regretted the decision. She had travelled little in her life, and the thought of making the long journey to Worcestershire filled her with dread. Using her sister’s confinement as an excuse, she had delayed the journey as long as she could, but Suzanne had been safely delivered of another girl, the weather had improved and the promised visit could wait no longer.
Knowing she must feign some sort of cheerfulness while she prepared herself and her son for their first meeting with the mysterious Thorntons, none of whom had been at the door togreet them on arrival, she turned back to face her son. Tom turned an anxious face up towards his mother as Ellen, who had travelled with them, dragged a brush through his obstinate locks.
‘Will they like me?’ he asked.
‘How can they not?’ Kate smiled at him and planted a kiss on his forehead.
He cringed away from her.
‘Please don’t do that, Mother,’ he protested.
She smiled with a little regret. Only a year ago her son would have covered her in kisses.
‘Come, Tom. It is time to meet this mysterious family,’ she said, opening the door to admit the elderly steward who had come to conduct the visitors to meet the residents of Seven Ways.
Their feet echoed on the polished boards of the ancient house as they followed the man. He stopped before a panelled door and knocked. Tom slipped his hand into his mother’s and Kate squeezed it as the man opened the door admitting them into a bright, cheerful parlour.
The only occupant of the room, a young woman intent upon some intricate embroidery, sat perched on the broad windowsill of the long, low window. She set it down as Kate and her son entered and rose to her feet. Tom looked up at his mother, who released his hand and dropped a dutiful curtsy.
Before she could rise, the young woman had crossed the floor and embraced her.
‘Mistress Ashley, I’m so pleased you have come.’
She released Kate, who, unbalanced by the effusive welcome, took a step backward to recover her composure. The woman turned to Tom, who bowed stiffly.
‘And you must be Thomas. I am your cousin Eleanor.’ The woman returned his bow with a low curtsey.
As she rose, she looked at Kate, a warm smile lighting the pretty, heart-shaped face.
‘Lady Eleanor Longley, but please call me Nell. We are kin after all. May I call you Katherine?’
Kate blinked. This lack of formality had caught her by surprise.
‘K…Kate,’ she stuttered.
‘Kate it is then. Now, let me look at you, Tom.’ Nell placed her hands on Tom’s shoulders and appeared to study him intently. ‘I do declare you are the image of my brother, Jonathan, at the same age. See, there behind you, Kate is a small portrait of my brothers done when Ned was about fifteen and Jonathan twelve or thirteen. I can’t recall exactly, although I do remember Jonathan got into terrible trouble for turning up late.’
Kate turned to look at a charming head and shoulders study of two boys. The older one, whom she assumed to be ‘Ned’, shared his sister’s golden hair and wide, sunny smile. The younger one, dark-haired Jonathan, glowered sulkily from the canvas. Even allowing for the sullen expression the resemblance to Tom was, as Nell had observed, striking.
‘Nell, please forgive me. I’m afraid I know nothing of my husband’s family,’ Kate said. ‘Will I have the pleasure of meeting your brothers?’
Nell’s mouth drooped. ‘Of course. I took it for granted that you would know of whom I spoke. We lost Ned at Edgehill, the first battle of the war, my father at Naseby and Jonathan…’ She waved her hand, dismissing Jonathan’s fate. ‘We are a very sad family as you will come to see. My husband, Giles, is an exile in France and our home, Longley Abbey, is sequestered for his debts. If it were not for the generosity of my grandfather, my daughter and I would be quite homeless.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. The words seemed inadequate to cover the extent of this woman’s loss. ‘You have a daughter?’
Nell smiled, ‘Ann. She’s but three years old. You will meet her later.’
‘Where’s Sir Francis?’ Tom asked, looking around the room as if he expected his great-grandfather to jump out from behind a chest.
‘Grandfather is not in the best of health, Tom, but he will join us for supper tonight. He is very much looking forward to meeting you. Now would you like to see the house? It would be my greatest pleasure to show it to you.’
Following in her guide’s wake, Kate concluded that Seven Ways had never been a grand house, but in its shabby gentility, it gave the sense of a much-loved home. The war had left physical scars: boarded windows, broken wainscoting–no doubt where axes had torn looking for hidden silver – and bare walls where once fine pictures or tapestries had hung. The furniture was ordinary, workaday stuff. Anything of value, including the better furniture, Nell told her in a matter-of-fact tone, had gone as plunder when the forces of Parliament had occupied the house at the end of the war.
‘You cannot have failed to notice, Kate,’ Nell said, her fingers twisting the gold chain around her neck, ‘that this house is but a shadow of its former self. Our family has paid dearly for loyalty to the King.’
They finished the tour in the Great Hall, which occupied the centre of the house on the first floor. A fine chimney breast carved with the Thornton coat of arms– three golden leopards’ heads on a crimson field–dominated the room and unlike the bare walls of the other rooms, a large family portrait still hung on one of the walls. Kate stood back to study it in greater detail, speculating on the identities of the stiff, formal group of people wearing the fashion of thirty years earlier.
‘All gone save for me, Mistress Ashley.’
