The Oak Apple

Book 4: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1630: after long years of peace the reign of Charles I brings brutal civil war to England.

The clash between King and Parliament is echoed at Morland Place when Richard brings home a Puritan bride while his brother, Kit, joins Prince Rupert and the Royalist cavalry, leaving their father Edmund desperately trying to steer a middle course between the fighting factions.

As the war grinds on, bitterness and disillusion replace the early fervour, and the schisms between husband and wife, father and son, grow deeper. Edmund struggles grimly through it all in an attempt to keep the Morland fortune intact, but he is thwarted by the estrangement between his sons and then alienated from his beloved wife, Mary.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 416

Sample

During the night the wind changed direction, and the rain, which seemed to have been going on for ever, stopped at last. The
absence of its sound woke Ambrose early to a world of dripping peace and brilliantly refracted sunshine overlaid with birdsong,
and he climbed out of bed and pushed open the casement window high up under the eaves of the Hare and Heather to look out.
The sky had a limpid, new-washed look, the air sparkled as if polished by the sun, and the morning smelled so good he knelt
there to say his morning prayers, to which he added a plea for the harvest, that it might yet be saved. He prayed aloud, as
he had been taught as a child, but quietly so as not to disturb his brother Will and sister-in-law Ayla who were still asleep
in the big bed on the other side of the room. His prayers finished, he crossed himself, rose, dressed, and went quietly down
to the yard to wash.


Ambrose liked to rise early, and though he was a sociable man he was always sorry if he had to share the first hour of the
day with anyone. He liked to begin his day in peaceful communion with his soul, and leisure and quiet were in short supply
for a man who ran the most popular inn on the Great South Road. His simple toilet finished, he let the dogs off their chains,
fed the chickens, let the pigeons out and then sat down on the bench at the front of the inn and stretched out his long legs
into the sunshine.


The limewashed wall at his back was already warm where the sun had been on it; not that there was much bare wall to be seen,
what with the news-sheets, play-bills, and ballad-sheets that were displayed there, not to mention public notices, advertisements
and religious tracts. Above his head the inn-sign creaked gently on its hinges as a pair of fantailed pigeons landed on it with a whirr and rattle of wings; at
his feet an old red-brown hen had followed him and was delicately picking off the grains of meal that had caught on his breeches,
croodling happily to him the while. Soon the gates of the city would open, travellers would begin to fill the road, and the
sleepers in the inn would waken; but for the moment the world was his.


All his life had been lived in and around inns: in fact, he had been born in one, The Three Feathers in the village of Fulham,
near London. His mother had been the innkeeper’s daughter, his father Will Shawe the great actor. Later his father had revealed
himself to be William Morland, had turned composer and taken them back to the family seat, Morland Place, so that he could
concentrate on his great work, his Missa Solemnis. All William Morland’s great music had been written at Morland Place, but Ambrose and his brother Will had never been entirely
comfortable there, and it had not been long before they had taken themselves off to run the Hare and Heather Inn two miles
away.


All that had been a long time ago. It was now 1630, and Ambrose was fifty-six, an old man, gaunt and grey. It would have been
poor advertisement for an innkeeper to be thin as he was, had it not been that the Hare’s eightpenny ordinary was famed from
Holgate to Rufforth, and Will and Ayla were stout enough for three, while their sons Willey and Massey were a credit to the
kitchens. Ambrose had never married, though there had been plenty of girls who would have taken him gladly had he asked; but
somehow he had never got round to asking. He had not been lonely, though: he had had Mary Esther.


When Ambrose and Will had first bought the inn there had been a third partner with them: Gabriel Chapham, who had married
their sister Mary. Gabriel was a bold, handsome, merry, wicked man, who had a saving weakness for Mary. Their marriage had
been blessed by one child, a daughter whom they had called Mary after her mother and for the Blessed Virgin, and Esther to distinguish her from the other
Marys in the family. Ambrose had stood as godfather to the child, and when Gabriel and Mary had both been carried off within
days of each other by the plague in 1612, Ambrose had taken responsibility for the six-year-old girl and had brought her up
as a daughter.


‘Though no father,’ he sometimes said, ‘ever took such tender care as I did, or was so well rewarded.’ Even just thinking
about her made him smile. His thoughts were pleasant, the sun was warm on his legs, the sounds of hen and doves were soothing,
and his grey head began to nod gently. He didn’t fall asleep – he was sure he hadn’t fallen asleep, but someone was laughing,
and as he murmured ‘Yes, yes, I heard every word you said,’ he discovered that his eyes were inexplicably closed.


‘But I didn’t say anything,’ Mary Esther laughed, ‘You must have been dreaming.’

‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said sternly, struggling to his feet.

‘Of course not,’ she agreed demurely. ‘But your thoughts were so absorbing that you did not hear us ride up. I have stood
here quite five minutes watching you. You kept so still your old broody hen has nested under your knees – look!’


Ambrose glanced down, and the red-brown hen’s bright eye blinked up at him from the dusty hollow she had scraped for herself
under the bench. He smiled, put his hands on his niece’s shoulders, and bent to kiss her cheek.


‘Deep thoughts are a privilege of old age,’ he said. ‘God bless you, my darling. And God’s day to you, Leah,’ he added to
the serving woman who, mounted on a pony, was holding the reins of Mary Esther’s chestnut mare a little way off. ‘What brings
you here, and so early?’


‘The sun, of course,’ said Mary Esther. ‘I couldn’t bear to waste any of it, so I dragged poor Leah from her repose so that
I could take a ride before a thousand people begin clamouring for my attention. Look at the sky – did you ever see such a colour! Will it last, do you think? Edmund has been
so worried about the harvest, and another of the ewes has the foot-rot, and there’s been fever again in Aksham –’


‘I have heard,’ Ambrose said sternly, ‘how you have been visiting the sick down by the bogs. You must be careful, child. It
is so unhealthy there.’


‘But I must do what I can,’ Mary Esther protested, ‘and my fever-drink has proved so valuable to them.’

‘You can send it with a servant,’ Ambrose said. ‘You must not take such risks, especially with two small daughters dependent
on you. Henrietta not a year old, and Anne only four – what would they do if their mother were to be carried off by fever?’


Mary Esther looked troubled. ‘But Uncle ’Brose, I can’t ask a servant to take a risk I am not willing to take myself.’ She
spoke gently, unwilling to seem to preach to her elder, and then added, smiling, ‘Besides, you see how healthy I am, how strong.
Illness never troubles me.’


‘Aye, I see, you rosy, bonny thing. Well, I know I cannot turn you from your duty, and God forbid I should. Only take care,
won’t you, my bird? You are all the world to me.’


‘I will,’ she promised. ‘And you must too. How are you, how is your shoulder? Did you use the salve I sent over?’

‘I did, child, and it eased it a little, but the best salve is this sunshine. I only get the pains when the air is damp, and
it has been such a damp summer.’


‘It is a good salve,’ Mary Esther said. ‘It has willow-bark extract in it. The recipe came from great-grandmother’s book –
oh, and that reminds me! You remember that we could not find the Duke of York’s Missal? Well, Edmund woke me up in the middle
of last night to tell me he had suddenly remembered where it was.’ She paused for effect, and Ambrose made a suitable face.
‘He put it in the secret compartment in the Lady Chapel before we left Morland Place,’ she said, ‘and then he completely forgot it because all the other treasures came with us in boxes. He was so relieved,
Uncle ‘Brose, you can’t imagine. I think he values that old missal more than anything else.’


‘It has been in the family a long time,’ Ambrose said.

‘Yes, and he does care so greatly about the family name and history and that sort of thing. That’s why he gets so cross with
Richard – “You are a Morland,” he says,’ she imitated her husband’s voice – ‘ “and you must behave like a Morland”.’


Ambrose shook his head. ‘I’m rather afraid Richard does,’ he said, ‘but not like the particular Morland Edmund wants him to
copy. Your husband likes to forget there have been wild characters in the family as well as good.’


‘I try talking to Richard, but he pays no heed to me, and I’m only his stepmother. I’m hoping he’ll come home before Edmund
hears that he was out all last night. I’ve no idea where he was, but Clement told me his bed wasn’t slept in. Clement was up
even before me. Do you know, I don’t think he ever goes to bed. I think he’s afraid someone might steal his job while he sleeps.
I say to him, “Considering that your father and grandfather before you”–’


‘He was here last night,’ Ambrose interrupted. Mary Esther’s smooth brow wrinkled in astonishment.

‘Clement?’

‘No, Richard. In fact he still is – sleeping it off.’ He gestured with his head towards the taproom. Mary Esther was dismayed.

‘He was here? Drunk? Oh Uncle, how could you? Why didn’t you send him home? How could you let him get drunk when you know
perfectly well – and Edmund worries so – and he’s only fifteen – it’s so bad for him.’


‘My darling,’ Ambrose protested gently, ‘he was drunk when he arrived here. I could have sent him away, but he wouldn’t have
gone home, you must know that. He would only have gone somewhere else, and that would have been worse. At least here I could keep an eye on him, curb the worst of his excesses. Would you sooner he drank with strangers?’


‘I’m sorry,’ she said meekly. ‘you’re right. But, oh Uncle–!’

‘I know, chuck. But you mustn’t take it to heart so. It’s Edmund’s business, not yours, and he must be firmer with the boy.
Besides, many men have led wild lives in their youth, and made decent men after it. Your own father, for instance.’


Mary Esther smiled. ‘I don’t believe a tenth part of the stories you tell about my father. You only do it to vex me.’

‘You’ve had precious little in your life to vex you, my bird. You ought to be glad of the change.’

‘Up until Edmund deckled to rebuild Morland Place, I would have agreed with you,’ she said. ‘But since we moved out to Twelvetrees
I’ve had a lifetime’s vexing to strengthen my character. If I have to live in that dreadful old house another year I shall
be fit for Bedlam.’


‘How are the builders getting on?’

She pulled a face. ‘They blame the weather,’ she said concisely. ‘Pray God they work faster now that the sun’s shining, and
get done before winter sets in. It’s impossible to keep Twelvetrees warm – imagine, Uncle, no chimneys, nothing but braziers,
and draughts everywhere, and the great hall filled with smoke all the time, and the servants always missing. Trying to run
a household that’s divided between three houses is impossible. I never know where anyone is, and I send messages to Shawes
that should go to Micklelith, and my head goes round like a maypole. If it weren’t for Clement I couldn’t manage at all.’


Ambrose smiled at the idea of Mary Esther being in a muddle: as well as her father’s good looks she had inherited her mother’s
level-headedness and memory for detail, and since becoming Edmund Morland’s second wife at the age of eighteen she had managed
the reins of the great household as easily as she managed the reins of her horse.


‘Well it will all be worth it when it’s done,’ Ambrose said comfortingly.

‘I suppose so. But if it had been my choice I would not have troubled to do so much to an old house – I’d have pulled it down
and built a new one. But Edmund could not bear to think of abandoning Morland Place, so he must patch and put and make and
mend, at great inconvenience to everyone. He won’t even have the moat filled – but there, I say too much, I am disloyal. Now,
Uncle, I had better go or I shall be missed. Shall you shake up Richard, and I’ll take him back with me? I have so much to
do – and I left Dog shut in one of the outhouses, and if I leave him too long he will break the door down.’


‘Ah, I was wondering where he was,’ Ambrose said. Mary Esther was rarely seen without her enormous grey wolfhound, Dog, who
was as big as a bull-calf, one of the special Morland breed, and devoted to her. He was also perpetually in trouble, always
stumbling into danger and hurting himself. ‘What has he done this time?’


‘A cut paw,’ his mistress said. ‘He did it on an old, half-buried ploughshare, but it won’t heal and I’m trying to make him
rest it just until it knits. The only way I can stop him following me is to shut him in somewhere, and even that stops him
only for a while. So I had best get back. ’


‘I’ll go and get your stepson. And don’t let it be so long before your next visit, chuck. Now the rain has stopped you’ll
have no excuse for neglecting me.’


For answer Mary Esther put her arms round him, and he held her soft little body against him in a long hug, and, releasing
her, kissed the crown of her head.


‘Bless you, my darling,’ he said, and went quickly indoors. Mary Esther watched him go. One corner of her mouth turned up
more than the other when she smiled, and it made her look very young.


*

Mary Esther could not have hoped that Richard’s absence would go unnoticed more fervently than Richard himself: he hated having
to face his father. His tutor, the family chaplain, Father Michael Moyes, was a hot-tempered Frenchman, and when Richard was
younger he had beaten him as hard and as frequently as he now beat Richard’s younger brothers. He did not beat Richard nowadays,
though his temper hung by just as frail a thread, and he raged at Richard for his wrongdoings in broken English and with a
range of multilingual oaths that Richard could only admire; but Richard would sooner have been beaten raw by Father Moyes
in his worst temper than have to face his father’s cold contemptuous rage.


Richard had always found his father daunting. Firstly, he was so tall, so classically, coldly handsome with his silver-fair
hair and Grecian profile that he made Richard by comparison feel small and plain and dull. And then his father had been brought
up so strictly and laid so much emphasis on virtue, godliness and the Morland name that he scarcely seemed human. As a child
Richard had always sought comfort from his mother, who adored, petted and spoiled him. Alice Keebles had been chosen to wed
Edmund Morland for her family and fortune; the marriage had been determined by the parents of the couple and their consent
had not been sought or required. She was not the person who could have won Edmund’s heart, being uneducated, shy and rather
silly, and so he had done his duty by her and no more; and she, finding her husband as terrifying and inaccessible as her
son was later to do, had lavished her affections on that son until she died in childbirth when Richard was six.


For three years there was no-one to mitigate the sternness of his father, and Richard took to a secretive life of slipping
away and lying about it, of playing off one relative against another and of bribing the servants to cover for him. By the
time Edmund married Mary Esther, relations between him and his father were bad beyond her mending, even had Richard not regarded the usurper of his mother’s place with jealous hostility.
Richard’s most blameless pleasure came from the companionship of his brother Christopher, always known as Kit, who was a year
younger, and he had looked forward to the time when they might be sent off to school together. But two years ago Kit had been
sent to Winchester alone, while Richard remained at home, to learn to be master of Morland Place. Richard had decided for
himself that Kit had been sent away to punish him, Richard, and his last hope of escaping the troubles he had designed for
himself was gone. Since then he had discovered the joys of ale-houses and inns and the oblivion of drunkenness. The odd thing
was that when he was drinking in the company of his boon companions he could never remember how awful it was to be sober and
have to face his father.


As they rode homewards Richard and Mary Esther studied each other covertly. It gave neither of them the gratification it should.
Mary Esther felt exasperation as she observed how Richard slouched in the saddle, his shoulders hunched unbecomingly. He had
not the good looks of his father, certainly, though he could have been attractive enough had he taken a little trouble; but
his face was puckered in a scowl, his clothes were unkempt and greasy, his hair hung over his shoulders in matted, draggled
locks that were so dirty it was impossible to tell what colour they might be underneath.


And his behaviour matched his appearance: he had never been good at his lessons, though Father Moyes asserted often enough
that he was not stupid, only unwilling, and now he had deserted the schoolroom for a series of disreputable escapades that
could only end in trouble. Something would have to be done about the boy. If only Edmund had sent him to school at the same
time as Kit. She sighed, and her mare turned back an ear and quickened her pace, thinking the sigh was for her.


Richard’s feelings about Mary Esther were less charitable. She was a pretty enough sight to gratify anyone, riding gracefully
sidesaddle on the pretty chestnut, Psyche, who had been bred on the estate and reared by hand so that she almost read her
mistress’s thoughts. Mary Esther was small, neat and quick as her mother had been, but while her mother had been plain, she
had inherited her father’s vivid good looks, his luxuriant dark hair and bright dark eyes. Her hair was parted smoothly on
top, and bunched into thick ringlets that framed her face under her feathered hat; her dress was of a dark grey silk which
held just a hint of blue to complement the brightness of her complexion; her graceful shoulders were covered with a lace cape
whose white was not more creamy than the skin beneath it.


But best of all was the expression of her face, bright, benign and happy. Leah, who had been with her since she was a child,
had often said that Mary Esther could not see another human face without smiling. But Richard saw none of this. He saw the
woman who had usurped his mother’s place, the woman for whom his father had betrayed his beloved mother’s memory, who had
his father’s ear and poured poison into it, who had persuaded his father to send Kit away and keep Richard home. He feared
his father, but could not hate him, and he needed someone to blame; the fact that everyone else loved Mary Esther made it
easier for him.


They were going up the track towards Twelvetrees now, and there were people around. Mary Esther wondered about the chances
of getting Richard in unseen.


‘Richard,’ she began, but he cut her off.

‘I expected you to come spying after me, but I’m surprised that Ambrose gave me away. I thought he was a good friend. I suppose
it was stupid of me.’


‘Very stupid,’ she said.

‘Considering he’s your uncle. So now you can take me in to Father and enjoy seeing me in trouble.’

‘I don’t enjoy it,’ Mary Esther said, but without hope of convincing him. ‘As to spying on you, I had no idea you were there.
But if you drink in the family inn you can hardly be said to be trying to avoid notice: I suppose that is in your favour.
Richard why can’t you just behave yourself? It would be so much easier, for you and for everyone else. Do you like upsetting
your father? Do you enjoy putting thorns in Our Blessed Lord’s crown?’


‘Oh yes, bring religion into it,’ Richard muttered gracelessly. Everything he did was made so much of, not just against the
family and his father but against religion too; punishment was always weighted with penance. He had spent hours on his knees. ‘I
can hardly draw breath without finding it’s a sin.’


Mary Esther sighed anxiously. ‘Richard, you make things so hard for yourself. Well, we’ll see if we can’t slip you in this
time without being seen. As long as Clement is out of sight –’


‘What matter?’ Richard said perversely. ‘You’ll tell my Father sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.’ And with that
he spurred his horse into a gallop, and charged straight at the house giving hunting cries at the top of his voice, to make
sure he was discovered.


‘Lieu in, lieu in, lieu-lieu-lieu. Hike à Richard, Hike!’

Mary Esther followed on more sedately; Leah came alongside her and they exchanged a glance of exasperated pity.

‘What can I do, Leah?’ Mary Esther sighed.

‘Naught, Madam. ’At young lad will come to grief, which Heaven forfend, but there’s naught anybody can do if he’ll not help
himself. Eh, Madam,’ she added suddenly as a strange noise reached them from the direction of the house, ‘hark at that blessed
dog!’


The strange penetrating howls rose louder and louder as they hurried towards the house. An outside servant came running to
take their horses as they came into the yard, and as he helped Mary Esther dismount on the mounting block he cried,


‘Eh, Madam, it’s glad we are you’re back. T’dog’s been at howling fit to kill this hour sin’, and t’maister’s runnin’ mad.
He broke out of shed you put ’im in, and we couldn’t keep ’im in but by shuttin’ ’im in cellar, and he’s rampaged about and
broke three dozen eggs and Lord knows what else besides –’


‘Oh my poor Dog,’ Mary Esther cried, hurrying towards the door to the rescue. But with Edmund already roused she had small
chance now of keeping Richard out of trouble, and it was even more likely that he would blame her for it.


The house reverberated all day with the quarrel between Edmund and his son. Everyone was subdued, and servants and dogs made
themselves inconspicuous for fear of attracting sympathetic rebuke. Privacy was hard enough to come by at Morland Place, harder
still here at Twelvetrees with so many people crowded into a small and antiquated house, so it was not until after the second
Mass of the day that Mary Esther was able to invite her husband by a look and a nod of the head to join her in a walk in the
orchard. Once outside, Mary Esther tucked her hand through her husband’s arm and strolled with him up and down the alleys
between the fruiting pearmains. Dog came up on her other side, butted his rough head up under her free hand, and limped along
beside her. Reunited with her, he was going to make sure she did not get away again.


‘Well, Madam?’ Edmund asked at last, looking down gravely into her sunny face. That he did not smile was no sign of displeasure.
He was a man to whom smiles and emotional outbursts did not come easily, who had been bred to do his duty and did it, without
ever having expected pleasure, or happiness beyond the happiness of duty faithfully carried out. He had married his first
wife out of obedience to his parents’ wishes when he was not quite sixteen, and though his parents had loved each other dearly he had
not associated love and marriage in his mind. His own feelings for Mary Esther had therefore surprised him when at the age
of twenty-six, a grave and solemn widower, he had fallen in love with her, with her bright, merry, open-hearted disposition.
It had taken him a long time to get round to asking her to marry him, and he had found himself for the first time unsure of
the outcome. He had felt there was no reason why she should accept him, and he found himself unable to face the thought of
rejection.


But she had not rejected him, and there had followed six years of such happiness as he had not imagined could exist on earth.
Loving her and being loved by her had opened a door in his soul, through which he glimpsed a bliss so intense that it frightened
him, and on all but a few occasions he kept the door tightly shut. But best of all was that Mary Esther seemed to understand
this, understand that he loved her far more than he was able to shew, except on rare occasions; and she gave him her love
in the full, generous measure that existed for her unspoken inside him.


The light summer breeze stirred the fronds of dark hair that curled about her brow, and her face turned up to him on her long
slender neck like a flower turning up to the sun. His love clenched like a fist, squeezing his heart, and ‘yes, Madam?’ he
said unsmilingly. ‘You wanted to speak to me – about Richard, no doubt.’


‘About Richard,’ she concurred. ‘Something has to be done about him. He is going to get into trouble. You should have been
firm with him.’


Edmund raised an eyebrow. ‘I am firm with him.’

Mary Esther shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You are severe, but you are not firm. Father Moyes was the same. I wish you had
sent him to school with Kit, but it’s too late now.’


‘Do you think that he should be sent away? To University perhaps?’ Edmund asked. Mary Esther looked at him steadily. She knew her husband better than anyone else, and she knew that
his way was always to seek opinion, gather information from every source. But in the end he always made up his own mind, and
she would never persuade him to change it. She could only present her thoughts for his consideration, and the best way was
to present them unemotionally. She, and she alone, knew of the passion that was in him, shut down like a bubbling spring under
rocks, waiting to burst forth.


She looked up into the beautiful, clear face: the broad brow, the high cheekbones, straight delicate nose, strong chin; the
hair so fair it was almost silver, the eyes dark grey under fine fair brows; it was said he looked very like his grandmother,
Mary Percy, heiress of Todsknowe. He might have been carved of crystal, his beauty was so perfect and so cold; but she knew
that at the heart of the crystal was a vein of gold, liquid running fire.


She knew, but Richard never would. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think that he is beyond discipline now, unless he disciplines himself.
He would get into more trouble at University than he does here. What he needs is to be occupied, to have some work to do that
he feels is important. Could you not send him abroad, to Italy perhaps, or Venice, on some business for the family? A factor
could go with him to guide him along the right way.’


Edmund considered. ‘Abroad? Well, I will think on it. But I kept him here because I wanted him here, at home.’

‘Then give him some occupation.’

‘I think perhaps he should have someone with him all the time. A manservant of his own, but one who is reliable.’

Mary Esther despaired. ‘If he thinks he is spied on, it will give him the greater pleasure to escape his jailor.’

‘Spied on? Jailor? Those are his words, I think, not yours.’

Mary Esther saw her mistake, and calmed herself. ‘At least, he should have companions of his own age. When we move back to Morland Place, could we not find someone for him? Perhaps
Malachi – ?’


‘Or your Uncle Will’s sons? Well, I will think about that too. And now my dear –’

He paused in his walking, and turned to face her. She looked up at him sadly, knowing already that her suggestions would not
be taken up, and he looked down at her apologetically, not liking to deny her any gratification.


‘I must be about my business,’ he said. ‘Will you come in?’

‘No, I’ll walk a little longer.’

‘I’