Authors: Phyllis Bentley
When I heard John's voice calling me and went down, the dinner was served and my husband and sons were standing about the table waiting, and as I came in they all turned their eyes on me and their faces fell, for they saw I had been weeping; and just for one brief bitter moment I felt that they were all Thorpes and had nothing to do with me, and that I had lost the only person I really loved. But then I felt sorry for them, smiling a little to myself because they were all so downcast, and I spoke out openly and said that I had been weeping because Uncle David had gone away, but all the same I was glad because he was going to a University, a fine place. Then Thomas asked what a University was, and I began to tell him as well as I could, and he listened very intently, without moving, his dark eyes very wide and bright, and John, though he bade the child eat his dinner while it was hot, was pleased by his interest, for he always intended that Thomas should be a University
man; and so the moment passed, and they became my dear ones again.
It was not long before a letter came for me from David, and after that we heard from him very regularly. He wrote copious and pleasant letters, full of those small particulars which bring a matter very clearly before the mental eyes. I could not understand all the terms he used, nor could John, though he always read David's letters over several times, with great care and pleasure; and sometimes we asked David for an explanation of something he had said, and when the explanations came, we found our own imagining of it had been quite mistaken. But the reality was always more interesting and beautiful than our imaginings, for everything David told us fitted into a picture of something fine and high, serene and mellow: a clear quiet river, smooth grass very green, trees wonderfully tall and straight and leafy, venerable buildings of pale grey stone set out in quadrangles, where scholars with wise old wrinkled faces paced slowly in their gowns, disputing learnedly upon some point of grammar or philosophy. Clare Hall was being rebuilt at this time, and David, dear lad, described the new fabrics to us almost stone by stone, so that I could see the stately gracious court, the fluted ceilings and fans of shallow steps, the trefoiled windows, the new bridge, gently curved, with its fourteen rounded balls of stone. I had a picture in my mind of David leaning on the parapet of this lovely bridge, musing on some high truth as he looked down into the gentle sunny stream, or up at the slender gracious airy lines of his beloved Clare. I had another picture of him standing beside the carved bookcases of which he spoke so much, holding on one hand, as scholars do, a fine old volume backed in smooth white vellum, turning the pages with loving reverent fingers. In these pictures David always wore his dreamy, lofty smile and the sun shone on him; for that he was happy in Cambridge, that he had found his place there and was in the sun, his powers daily growing as his sweet soul sucked its true nurture, there could be no doubt. All the reports we heard of him gave his scholarship the highest
praise; his letters were radiant with content and growing strength. This was a great joy, a great consolation, to me.
At that time I found myself in need of some such consolation. David's going had taken a great deal from my life, and as it chanced, that same year my two sons began to go to Bradford School. Thomas was a little above the usual entrance age, Sam below, but Thomas being slight and gentle and Sam tall and brisk made their readiness for school about the same, and it was better for them to go up and down to Bradford together, with one of our new apprentices to take care of both. At school we found they bore themselves very creditably, for they were both good boys, decent in thought and manner, truthful, honest, affectionate; Thomas loved his book, Sam had some prowess in sports and games. I felt a natural pride and satisfaction to see my sons thus ushered into the outer world and well received there, but the weaker part of my nature mourned their going. They were no longer babies, completely dependent on me for their whole being; they were boys, of whose life I was only a part, taking my place amongst tops and marbles and Aesop's Fables and Mr. Worrall. They still loved me dearly, they cried “Mother!” and ran for me whenever anything out of the ordinary occurred, good or bad, but they had their boyish secrets and reservesâI came upon them sometimes with their heads very close, talking earnestly, and then they sprang up and laughed mischievously, and bounded away without offering to tell me why they had been in such close conference. This was all very natural and proper, and I did not regret it, for I did not wish my sons to be tied to their mother's apron-strings, as I suspected John had been to Mrs. Thorpe's; but it was natural too that I should miss my dear lads' close companionship, and feel a little sadness that I was no longer their all in all, but only one person amongst others, and my love taken for granted.
Indeed at this time I was often dejected about my place at The Breck; I seemed no longer myself, Penninah, but only “Wife” and “Mother” and “Mistress,” as if my own
life were finished and I just a staid old woman in the background of other people's lives. Doubtless all women feel this to some degree at some time, and I told myself that he that loseth his life shall find it, that I lived again in my children, and so on; but it was perhaps especially difficult to conquer this feeling then because of the troublous nature of the times.
For the happiness of my married life had becomeâI will not say faded or withered, since John's love for me was still strong and steady, but a little nipped, a little chilled, beneath the continual blasts of perpetual disturbance. Few were the evenings when John and I could sit quietly by our own hearth, with our children about us, enjoying the sweet peace of family life. There was always bad news to cloud our content. Sometimes it was religious, and then we felt it our duty to remember our trouble before God in fasting and prayer; sometimes it was political, and then John paced the house with such a gloomy brow that the children hushed their play. Indeed once, John coming in with a hasty step and a black look and going straight up to the loom-chamber without a word to us, Thomas laid down his abacus and came to my chair and enquired seriously:
“What has the King done to-day, mother?”
I smiled, but was sad too; for once again I saw the shadow fall across my children's future, once again I must try to console and support my husband. And this last was not as easy as it had been. The impossibility of influencing events, the total impotence of a Little Holroyd clothier in affairs of state, fretted John intolerably; he could not bear to sit still and see things done which he knew so clearly to be wrong. He did his best in matters which came within his reach; he set on foot a petition against the schoolmaster Worrall and another against the horrid vicar, Corker; he was earnest with Bradford clothiers in discussion, he wrote letters on behalf of displaced ministers, he fasted rigorously and spent himself in prayer. But all this was not enough, not nearly enough, to satisfy his fever to be active against oppression. So he grew daily more restless, and even at times morose. It was right that he should act as he did, and I
supported him and urged him to it; but there never came any good issue to these affairs he undertook, there was only the wearisome grinding, ever renewed, of powerful oppression; and John disappointed, and I myself trying to console him and disappointed too because my consolations seemed to lack the power they had formerly held over him. I reproached myself for minding this, and tried to take some amusement in the reflection that when John's attention had been wholly on me, in the early days of our marriage, I longed for it to be diverted, while now that it was diverted, I wished it back on me again. But I could not find this very comical.
It was the continual repetition of troubles which wore so upon our spirits. Prices went up and down and up and down, according as the Scots were on the march or no; the cloth market freshened and slackened, freshened and slackened, according as the King and Strafford gave up a tax or thought of a new one. The King did not keep the promises he made to the Scots in the late treatyâ“Whoever thought he would? No Stuart ever kept his word to his own disadvantage,” growled Johnâand so we had another Scottish invasion. There was the same vehement bullying by Strafford at York again, and the same grumblings amongst the Train-Band men, and the same success of the Scots, and the same humiliation in the terms of peace; the same lack of money, and the same enforced decision of the King to call another ParliamentâI felt quite sick with exasperation at having to trace this same wretched road again, where everything bad was present just as before, only rather worse.
If I felt an irritation thus, naturally John, who had all the cares of trade on his shoulders, felt it much more, and we often found ourselves, not quarrelling, for we had too great a respect for each other to do that, but carefully restraining ourselves to a quiet speech and a sober mien while we really longed to fly out and speak our mind in burning words. This restraint grew increasingly irksome.
Thus was the happiness of our home dimmed and chilled by the national dissension.
Evidently a great many other people besides ourselves were feeling this same exasperation, for when the newly-elected Parliament met the members showed a most irritated and determined temper against the King. They appointed many Committees to enquire into abuses, from Starchamber downwards, attacked Archbishop Laud and accused Lord Strafford of high treason. Best of all, they passed a Bill saying that a Parliament must be held at least every three years and that this one should not be dismissed without its own consent.
When the King, in his extremity because of the Scots, reluctantly put his hand to this, the bells were rung in London for joy, and John, not to be outdone, decided to celebrate the Parliament's success by a bonfire. He spent much time that afternoon gathering wood, with the children helping him, and built a fine pile on the knoll at the side of The Breck, and he invited the Baumes, and some other of our Little Holroyd neighbours, to come and see it lighted as soon as it was dark. The children were greatly excited, being allowed to stay up to see it, and indeed it was a fine sight, the flames rising high, very red and leaping.
While we were all standing there admiring these flames, talking and laughing rather loudly as people do at bonfires, we heard a shouting from the other side of the beck, though we could not see anyone, the flames throwing a deep shadow in that direction. John thought he heard his name called, and he thrust a branch-end into the fire to get it alight and went towards the beck carrying it shoulder-high as a torch, and we all followed him. Sure enough there were
several men standing on the Holroyd Hall side of the beck, amongst them Mr. Ferrand.
“If you want any help, John Thorpe,” Mr. Ferrand was calling: “I'll gladly come and lend a hand with a bucket.”
“Help with a bucket?” said John, taken by surprise.
“Aye,” said Mr. Ferrand smoothly. “Your house is afire, I take it?”
His voice, and some smothered laughs from his guests, showed his mocking intention.
John coloured. “This is a bonfire for joy, Uncle Giles,” said he, very stolidly as his manner was when he was vexed or disconcerted.
“Joy?” said Mr. Ferrand, his voice sharpening.
“Aye, joy. The Parliament have got the staff out of the King's hands, and he'll never get it back again,” John told him. “We think it worth a bonfire, Uncle.”
“Thou prating traitor!” shouted Mr. Ferrand in a fury. “You'll be sorry for this one day, John Thorpe.”
“Not as sorry as His Majesty,” John called back cheerfully.
Mr. Ferrand danced with rage and shook his fist and swore at him, so that our children, who never heard anything of that kind, were shocked and frightened; but John smiled quietly to himself, and went on feeding the bonfire. I was sorry in a way that he should give such rude replies to a known supporter of the King and his own uncle, and yet I could not help feeling glad of it, for the words expressed the bitterness long pent in our hearts.
John rejoiced too, though not with a bonfire, when Lord Strafford was brought in guilty at his trial and condemned to death, but I felt doubtful; to me the case seemed conducted with too much passion and too little impartiality; moreover, I thought it clear that the King's servants only acted on orders from the King, and this pretence that he was a good and wise King, misled by evil counsellors, seemed to me quite childish. Neither John nor I, nor even Lister, thought that the King would ever sign the warrant for Strafford's execution, but in a manner most pusillanimous and unfitting
to a King, to save himself worse consequences, as he thought, he yielded his friend's life, and Strafford was executed.
Again it happened that the means taken did not secure the end, and he would have done better to keep to the right and face the consequences, for now the King's enemies despised him and his friends feared to stand by him, and the Parliament rose up and passed whatever measures they would. They abolished Starchamber, they denounced Ship-money, they forbade bowings in church and dancing on Sunday, they drew up an immense remonstrance relating all the grievances in the country and forced it on the King.
A great sigh of relief seemed to rise from The Breck at all this; Will had a sermon printed on the recent mercies, and sent us a copy; Lister sang
O give thanks unto the Lord
at the loom instead of
Be merciful unto me;
the children laughed more often and rushed about the house, John ordered a new dyeing vat and brought me from York a length of silk for a new gown.
But we were too soon in our rejoicing; the King, thus baited, was in his turn angered beyond endurance, and began again to stand his ground. He took a journey to Scotland, where by a subtle bribery of granting and withholding his favour he made a party for himself, and came back in a very haughty mood. The country felt this the more bitterly for having begun to have their way, and the differences increased daily between King and Parliament. In the autumn of that year, the common people in London made such an uproar, taking sides, that the King professed himself in danger, and kept himself surrounded by a special guard, courtiers and gentry and officers disbanded from troops abroad, which, since he would not allow the Parliament to have a guard, was very dangerous. It was just after Christmas time, as I remember, that one day, as we sat at table, Sam suddenly let out a snort of laughter, then clapped his hands over his mouth with a deprecating glance at John. His father asked him mildly where his manners were and what was wrong; Sam merely laughed again, his eyes rolling towards the doorway, where Lister stood,
receiving some instructions. Thomas at this looked over his shoulder, and he too began to smile. I was grieved, for though Lister was certainly odd enough in some of his ways and no great favourite of mine, I thought it ill-mannered to laugh at a faithful servant; so I did not turn to look at him, and as soon as I heard his footsteps die away I delivered my sons a little homily on their lack of respect and their unkindness.