Page 171 of The Armor of Light

Sal was not all right. When Elsie walked in she was sitting in the kitchen with her elbows on the table. She was thin, tired and dirty. Kit and Sue stood staring at her: both children had been shocked and silenced by the change in her appearance. There was a cup of ale in front of her but she was not drinking. She must be hungry, Elsie reasoned, but too exhausted to move.

Jarge said: ‘She’s done in, Mrs Mackintosh.’

Elsie sat beside Sal. ‘You need to rest and eat to rebuild your strength,’ she said.

Sal spoke listlessly. ‘I’ll rest today, but I must go to work tomorrow.’

Elsie said: ‘Jarge, get some mutton from the butcher and make a fatty broth for her to drink.’ She took a sovereign from her purse and put it on the table. ‘And some bread and fresh butter. When she’s got food inside her she’ll sleep.’

‘You’re very kind,’ said Jarge.

Elsie said to Sal: ‘It must have been brutal, doing hard labour.’

‘Hardest work I’ve ever done. Women faint from weakness, but they’re whipped until they come round and stand up and start again.’

‘And the men in charge – how did they treat you?’

Sal’s eyes flashed a warning to Elsie. It was a split-second look, and Jarge did not see it, but Elsie guessed its meaning: the jailers had abused the women. Sal did not want Jarge to know that. If hefound out, he would probably kill one of the jailers, and then he would be hanged.

Sal covered the brief silence. ‘They were hard taskmasters,’ she said.

Elsie took Sal’s hand and squeezed it. Sal squeezed back briefly. It was women’s code. They would keep the secret of the prison rape.

Elsie stood up. ‘Food and rest,’ she said. ‘You’ll be your old self soon.’ She went to the door.

Jarge said: ‘You’re an angel, Mrs Mackintosh.’

Elsie went out.

She walked back to the town centre in the rain, reflecting grimly on the cruelty of human beings to one another, and how one gold coin could seem, to a poor man such as Jarge, to be a miracle wrought by an angel.

She continued to be worried about her mother. What was going on at home? What punishment did her father envisage? Would he lock Arabella up for a week with only bread and water, as he had Elsie?

When she returned to the palace, her mother was not in the morning room and her father was not in his study. She went to her mother’s bedroom and found her sitting on the bed weeping bitterly. ‘What is it, Mother?’ said Elsie. ‘What has he done now?’

Arabella seemed unable to reply.

A terrible thought crossed Elsie’s mind. Surely her father would not harm the baby? She said: ‘Is Absalom all right?’

Arabella nodded.

‘Thank God. But where is my father?’

Arabella managed: ‘Garden.’

Elsie ran down the stairs and through the kitchen, where the servants were looking subdued and scared. She stepped out through the back door and looked around. She could not see her father but could hear voices. She crossed a lawn and passed under thebasketwork arch that carried a hundred roses in summer but now, in winter, held only bundled twigs. Then she entered the rose garden.

She was shocked by the sight that greeted her.

The square of low rose trees in the middle had been dug up, and the ruined stalks now mingled with excavated earth. On the far side, the trellis had been ripped off the old wall and thrown to the ground, and the rose trees that had decorated it had been uprooted and tossed aside. A cold drizzle fell dismally on the turned clods. Two gardeners with spades were energetically levelling the area, supervised by the bishop, who had mud on his white silk stockings. He saw Elsie and grinned with a delight that seemed to her borderline manic. ‘Hello, daughter,’ he said.

She said incredulously: ‘What are you doing?’

‘I thought we’d have a vegetable plot,’ he crowed. ‘Cook loves the idea!’

Elsie struggled not to cry. ‘My mother loves her rose garden,’ she said.

‘Ah, well, we can’t have everything we want, can we? Besides, she’s going to be too busy looking after her new baby to do any gardening.’