Abbeyford Read online

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  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published, classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

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  Contents

  Margaret Dickinson

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Margaret Dickinson

  Abbeyford

  Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Margaret Dickinson moved to the coast at the age of seven and so began her love for the sea and the Lincolnshire landscape.

  Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by twenty-seven further titles including Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed and Reap the Harvest, which make up her Lincolnshire Fleethaven trilogy.

  Many of her novels are set in the heart of her home county, but in Tangled Threads and Twisted Strands the stories include not only Lincolnshire but also the framework knitting and lace industries of Nottingham.

  Her 2012 and 2013 novels, Jenny’s War and The Clippie Girls, were both top twenty bestsellers and her 2014 novel, Fairfield Hall, went to number nine on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

  My writing career falls into two ‘eras’. I had my first novel published at the age of twenty-five, and between 1968 and 1984 I had a total of nine novels published by Robert Hale Ltd. These were a mixture of light, historical romance, an action-suspense and one thriller, originally published under a pseudonym. Because of family commitments I then had a seven-year gap, but began writing again in the early nineties. Then occurred that little piece of luck that we all need at some time in our lives: I found a wonderful agent, Darley Anderson, and on his advice began to write saga fiction; stories with a strong woman as the main character and with a vivid and realistic background as the setting. Darley found me a happy home with Pan Macmillan, for whom I have now written twenty-one novels since 1994. Older, and with a maturity those seven ‘ fallow’ years brought me, I recognize that I am now writing with greater depth and daring.

  But I am by no means ashamed of those early works: they have been my early learning curve – and I am still learning! Originally, the first nine novels were published in hardback and subsequently in Large Print, but have never previously been issued in paperback or, of course, in ebook. So, I am thrilled that Macmillan, under their Bello imprint, has decided to reissue all nine titles.

  Abbeyford, Abbeyford Inheritance and Abbeyford Remembered form a trilogy with a chequered history, which took four years to complete. It began life as a long, rambling 150,000 word novel, Adelina. On advice, this was cut drastically to about 60,000 words but it still failed to find a publisher. I started a sequel, Carrie, and this seemed to work much better. It was then suggested that this book should be submitted instead of Adelina, but to me that would have been wasting the first part of the story. I decided to put the two novels together and to write an earlier piece to start it all off, thereby forming one long novel again, but in three separate parts. This was then sent out to publishers and found acceptance. But – wait for it – the publishers wanted it split into three separate books. So, all three were published in 1981 by Robert Hale Ltd. as Sarah, Adelina and Carrie. At a later date, these were reissued by Severn House Publishers, again in hardback, under new titles and became The Abbeyford Trilogy.

  Chapter One

  Abbeyford, England, 1795

  “Smallpox!” Joseph Miller gaped at his wife, Ellen, in horror. “Oh no! No!”

  He sank down on to the wooden chair at the side of the hearth. With her usual stoical acceptance of life’s hardships, Ellen Miller continued to stir the gruel in the huge cooking-pot suspended from an iron crane over the fire.

  “I was afeard of it when she fell ill three days back, but I kept it to mysel’.” She paused, then said flatly, “ Now I’m sure.”

  “There’s a rash?”

  Ellen Miller nodded. “All over ’er face, an’ spreadin’.”

  Joseph Miller groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Poor bairn. Poor Beth.” Then he raised his eyes and looked at his wife, his voice a hoarse whisper of fear. “ What of Sarah and little Ella?”

  Ellen shrugged her shoulders, not because she did not care, but because there was nothing she could do.

  “Time will tell,” she said sadly and began to ladle the hot liquid into a wooden bowl for her sick daughter.

  “You’ve some red flannel?”

  “Aye, an’ I’ll wrap her in it. But …” She left the words unsaid and moved towards the other room of their small cottage where her fifteen-year-old daughter lay shivering with a high fever.

  Joseph hovered in the doorway for a moment watching the tortured twistings and delirious mumblings of his child. Then he turned away, helplessness bowing his strong shoulders.

  He left the cottage to return to his work. There was still work to be done. No matter what affliction hit his family, there was always work to be done!

  From his cottage, Joseph Miller crossed the village green and took the path leading to the common land where the villagers grazed their own few livestock. A stream ran through the common land and beyond that, higher up the hill, stood the Manor House, a square, solid building with farm buildings behind it. Joseph Miller’s face hardened. The Manor—and the Trents who lived there—ruled their lives. There was a deep-rooted bitterness in Joseph Miller’s heart.

  Hardship was no stranger to his family. Generations ago, under the open-field system, his forefathers had tilled their own strips of land, working only on the lord’s land as payment of rent. But a Bill of Enclosure had changed all that. Now all the arable land, all the buildings, even the cottage which Joseph Miller called home, belonged to the Earl of Royston of Abbeyford Grange. And he preferred to let his land to one tenant farmer, Sir Matthew Trent, who in turn employed some of the villagers as his farm labourers. Now they worked the land that had once been their own for a weekly pittance. True, each villager had a strip of land behind his own cottage, but it was scarcely big enough to grow more than a few potatoes, and support a few chickens or maybe a pig. They were becoming dependent upon the self-appointed ‘squire’, Sir Matthew Trent.

  But a few—like Joseph Miller—still clung tenaciously to their self-sufficiency. They still had the right to graze their livestock on the common waste-land, and his wife, Ellen, and daughter, Beth, worked at the spinning-wheel to bring a little extra money into the home.

  He stood a moment at the edge of the common watching his eldest daughter, black-haired, rosy-cheeked Sarah, tending their few sheep, two cows and ten geese. She wore a low-necked bodice, a coarse woven skirt hitched up to her knees and she had kicked off the clogs her father had made for her and ran barefoot.

  “Sarah, oh Sarah,” Joseph Miller whispered in anguish. “Not my pretty Sarah.” Stout-hearted though he was, the burly countryman felt a lump in his throat and tears prickle his eyelids at the mere thought of pretty, lively Sarah scarred to ugliness by smallpox—Sarah whom he could not help but love best of all of his three daughters.

  For Beth he had a natural fondness and for little
Ella an added feeling of protectiveness for she had not grown and developed as she should have done. Already Ella had brought Joseph and his wife sadness though through no fault of her own. She was a pretty ten-year-old with golden curls, but in her eyes there was a vacancy and a lack of understanding and when she did speak—which was rare—it was in the words of a five-year-old.

  It was Sarah who brought Joseph joy, in whom he placed his trust and his hopes for the future. Her pertness enlivened his day, her willingness gladdened his heart and her beauty was his pride.

  But now! What now?

  “Come on, Pa,” she was calling to him with mock impatience as he neared her. “It’s time we wur milking. That un over there can ’ardly walk, her udder’s that heavy.”

  “Sarah,” he called, but already she was darting away from him, rounding up the straying cow. “Sarah! Come here, girl, I’ve something to tell you.”

  “Aw, Pa!” She came reluctantly and he could feel her impatience to be off again.

  “It’s our Beth.”

  “Beth? Is she worse?”

  “Aye, I’m afeard so.”

  “What—is it?” Now there was anxiety in Sarah’s voice and her youthful restlessness was stilled by a chill of fear.

  “Your ma says it’s the smallpox.”

  “Oh no!” Her violet eyes widened. Father and daughter stared at each other. At last Joseph Miller sighed and moved stiffly. “Ah well, we’ve work to do, girl. While us can.”

  “Aw Pa. Poor Beth.”

  “Aye, poor Beth indeed,” he said bitterly and he glanced back over his shoulder towards the village. “An’ poor Abbeyford if it spreads among us all.”

  Abbeyford nestled in its own shallow valley in rolling countryside some fifteen miles south of Manchester. Not that the cottagers knew much about life outside their own enclosed community. Most of them were born, grew up, fell in love, married, became parents themselves, grew old, died and were buried in the small churchyard in the centre of the village without ever having travelled more than a mile or two beyond the valley.

  “Come on, let’s get these cows milked,” Joseph said roughly to hide the growing terror in his heart.

  Soberly now, with the carefree lightness gone from her step, young Sarah went about her work.

  “You mun come an’ stay with us. Sarah, out of harm’s way.”

  “I’ll do no such thing, Henry Smithson,” Sarah snapped at the tall youth who stood over her, frowning heavily. Then regretful of her sharpness, for after all he was only thinking of her welfare, she said more gently, “It’s kind of you, but I mun stay with Ma and Beth and help where I can.”

  “Aw Sarah, but if you should catch it …” Henry’s eyes roamed over her clear skin, her rosy cheeks, her bright violet eyes and shining long black hair and the thought of her with that dreadful disease made him feel sick in the pit of his stomach.

  “Sarah …?” His hand was on her arm. “ Let me speak to your Pa about us. I know you’re young yet, but we could be promised.”

  Sarah wriggled under his touch. She knew—it seemed as if she had always known—that Henry had a special feeling for her. Instinct had told her he was waiting for her to grow up. He wasn’t exactly her cousin but their families were related way back.

  Now he had put these feelings into words and Sarah wished that he had not. She had no desire to be tied by a promise at sixteen.

  “Sarah—please …?”

  “No, Henry. You know Pa wouldn’t agree.”

  The young man’s frown deepened and he said moodily. “He’d agree if it wur what you wanted Sarah.”

  “Then you dunna know him as I do. Pa’s got a right temper on him if things dunna go his way.”

  Henry made a clicking noise of disbelief. “Ach, you can twist him round your finger if you’ve a mind, Sarah.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Henry,” Sarah replied quietly.

  “Ah, an’ it seems to me you’re as stubborn as your Pa, an’ all. All right, go home, go and catch the smallpox an’ see if I care!”

  Swinging his arms, Henry Smithson marched off up the lane towards his own home, his back rigid with anger. Despite his denial, the trouble was that he cared far too much for young Sarah!

  Sighing, Sarah opened the door of the Millers’ cottage, eager to see how her sister fared and yet reluctant to become involved in the atmosphere of sickness and worry. In the corner the spinning-wheel stood idle. Her mother was not in the one main room which served as kitchen-cum-living-room, but Sarah could hear sounds from the adjacent small room—her parents’ sleeping quarters. Normally the three girls slept in the attic bedroom of the tiny cottage, directly under the thatch, but in times of sickness they were moved to their parents’ room. Sarah stood in the doorway, almost recoiling from the sight of her poor sister.

  Beth’s face was blotched with small, hard pimples. For three days before the appearance of this rash she had been unwell with shivering fits and vomiting and had complained constantly of pains in her back and legs.

  Now she lay quietly, her eyes closed as if sleeping.

  “Ma?” Sarah whispered.

  Ellen Miller turned. “Don’t come in here, Sarah.”

  “But isn’t there anything I can do to help?”

  Ellen walked through to the kitchen, her movements slow and stiff as if she carried a great weight. She was a thin woman, slightly round-shouldered from the hours she spent at her spinning-wheel to augment the family income. Her hair, beneath her bonnet, was grey, her hands red and always a little swollen for there was never an idle day in Ellen Miller’s life.

  “Not for Beth—no,” she answered Sarah. “ But for yoursel’—keep away!”

  “Ma, she’s not …?”

  “No, no, child. She’s feeling better for the moment now the rash has come out.” Ellen glanced back towards the sickroom and sighed. “But in a few days she’ll be bad again when all those spots turn into abscesses. Here, help me tear this flannel into strips. It’s an old remedy my own grandma told us—to wrap her in red flannel might stop her being so badly scarred.”

  Silently Sarah tore the red material into strips.

  “You know, Sarah, you could be safe from it.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “You had cowpox last year when you started helpin’ milk up at the Manor.”

  “So I did, but …”

  “They reckon anyone who’s had cowpox dunna get the smallpox.”

  “Oh.” Sarah was thoughtful whilst she took in the full meaning for her. “ But Ella—she’s not had the cowpox.”

  “No, I know.”

  “What about you an’ Pa?”

  “I reckon I had it as a child, but I dunna know about your Pa.”

  “I hope it dunna spread round all the village,” Sarah murmured, but with little hope.

  Beth’s spots grew larger and became blebs of milky fluid; still growing, the fluid became a yellow pus and her face and body were covered with abscess-like spots. Round each telltale pock was an inflamed ring. The fever returned and Beth twisted and cried in pain, tearing the red flannel from her face and scratching in anguish at her swollen eyes.

  Patiently Ellen nursed her daughter through the crisis. Her life was saved but not her smooth, childish complexion.

  Beth’s face was hideously marked with cruel pocks.

  A little over two weeks after Beth, Ella fell ill too. Placid, docile Ella lay quite still, close to death and yet never a cry of complaint did she make. Meekly she submitted to being wrapped in red flannel and, when the worst was over, it was obvious that she was not to be so badly scarred as poor Beth who had repeatedly torn away the covering in her delirium.

  As the Millers had feared the disease spread through the village, but no one else in their own family caught it.

  Two babies, three older children and an elderly woman died and then came the shocking rumour—shocking to the villagers who believed that their own troubles and hardships never touched their betters.

&
nbsp; Joseph brought home the news.

  “Lady Caroline has the smallpox!”

  Three pairs of eyes regarded him in surprise; Ella in her corner crooned softly to her rag-doll, lost in her own little world.

  “Never!” exclaimed Ellen, whilst Beth fingered her own disfigured face.

  “She’ll not be so high ’ n mighty if she ends up like me!” Since her illness, Beth’s tongue had sharpened with bitterness.

  Sarah was silent thinking of the girl she had seen so often in Lord Royston’s open carriage around the lanes of Abbeyford. A pretty child. No, more than pretty, Sarah thought without envy. Lady Caroline was beautiful. Was that beauty to be lost for ever? Beth had not been what would be called pretty even before the smallpox. And now …

  Sarah reached for her shawl from the hook.

  “Where are you going, girl?” her father asked.

  Sarah wrapped the shawl closely around her thin shoulders and lifted the latch on the door. “ To the Grange.”

  “The Grange!” Her mother was scandalised. No villager ever approached Lord Royston’s home without a very special reason. “Whatever are you wantin’ there, child?”

  “I mun see how the li’le lady fares. Maybe there’s summat as I can do to help.”

  “Help! Help, is it?” Beth screamed, her blotched face growing purple. “Who was there to help me?”

  Sarah looked at her sister with pity, then without a word she turned and left the cottage.

  Sarah crept along the edge of the gravelled driveway of Abbeyford Grange, not feeling quite so bold in her errand of mercy now she was in the shadow of the awesome building and the powerful gentry who lived there.

  To her left stone steps led down into a sunken rose garden. She paused a moment to admire the profusion of pink roses. No other colour broke the mass of flaunting pink. Already the gardener was sweeping the fallen petals and cutting off the overblown blooms.

  He looked up and stopped his sweeping. “What you doin’ here, young Sarah Miller?”