Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [492]
She knew only one thing: she did not want to give the boy up.
She had tried not to notice the years passing. She was a woman of over thirty now, long past the age when she should have married. She had lost her father and two brothers; she had brought the child up during those terrible years as though he had been her own.
“If I lose him now,” she thought, “then what is left for me?” The farm? Obadiah?
She was aware that sometimes people laughed at her. The exploits of the young woman in her early twenties, the dashing defence of her farm against the soldiers – these had been long ago. Her forthright ways were only thought eccentric now. She had a favourite cat; she fed birds each morning at the door and gave them names; she talked to the cows in the field above the house. She was becoming an old maid.
Obadiah was aware of it of course. He never said anything, maintained his customary cold reserve, except when she taunted him. But often in his eyes she could see a faint look of scorn which was painful to her.
But she still had Samuel.
Obadiah had appeared at Michaelmas, and come straight to the point.
“It is time Samuel was put to school in Salisbury,” he told her. “He shall live with me.”
She understood. It was not only schooling Samuel would receive, but a strict Presbyterian upbringing, away from her Anglican influence and the Prayer Book. If the suggestion had been made by anyone but Obadiah she might have agreed.
“I refuse.”
His face was motionless. His hair was all iron grey now. He looked so severe in his plain grey Puritan clothes. His lisp nowadays sounded harsh, adding an extra edge to his words. He had not come to temporise.
“I can compel thee. I am head of this family now.”
“Try,” she blazed back. “Will you kidnap the child?”
He paused, gazing at her thoughtfully.
“We shall speak of this again.”
She was not so foolish as to think that she had won.
He was back a week later.
“Do you still refuse?”
In fact, she had considered carefully. She was aware, also, that the boy was excited by the idea. If she tried to hold him back, sooner or later she would lose.
But the more she considered the business, the more certain she became that she must keep the boy from Obadiah.
It was not only jealousy, not only her loathing of his dour Puritan ways. It was something else she knew about him, and that she had known ever since she was a child.
Perhaps Obadiah hardly knew it himself.
He was cold.
True, he could sometimes show a passionate anger when he was scorned or crossed. But that was all the emotion he possessed.
He thinks only of himself, she considered. If he takes the boy, he will train him to be his servant, but nothing more. He will impress him with his learning, but Samuel will live in a tomb. She would not have him take away the boy’s heart.
And so, when he appeared again, she cried:
“No. He shall never be thine, Obadiah. Not in a thousand years.”
“I can claim him,” he warned.
“You cannot, nor shall you see him any more. If you come near the farm again, I will have the men set the dogs on you.”
He was ashen with anger.
“You will regret this folly.”
“I shall not.”
“Why are you so wilful, ignorant woman?”
“Because I know you,” she told him frankly, “and I know your heart is evil.”
She looked into his eyes, and knew that she was right. For they were not hurt, nor angry, but completely cold.
From that day began a strange period in Samuel’s life.
He was forbidden to call on Obadiah. If he went to Salisbury, she accompanied him. He knew that the farmworkers had orders to report at once if the preacher was seen approaching the house. It was like a state of siege.
The Godfreys or Margaret always seemed to be within sight, wherever he was; and it was clear that Margaret feared that Obadiah might try to kidnap him. When he asked her:
“But is not Obadiah my friend?” she shook her head and replied:
“He is no man’s friend. You will see when you are older.”
Samuel himself was not sure what