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Authors: Philippa Carr
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What shoes have you packed?”
She started to enumerate them, smiling in her usual good-tempered way. It was
impossible
to ruffle Damaris.
Twelve years old, I mused. I was just past twelve when I first met
54
Beau. I was very different from Damaris. Aware even then of those glances that came my way. Damaris never saw anything but sick animals and tenants who were in need of repairs to their dwellings. She would make a very good wife for someone as stolid and virtuous as herself.
“Oh, get along, Damaris,” I said. “I can do this better myself.”
Crestfallen, she went. I was unkind to her. I should have tried to deserve a little of that admiration which she gave me so unstintingly. Poor pudgy little Damaris, I thought. She would always be the one to serve others and forget herself. She would live pleasantly ... for others and never really have a life of her own.
If I wasn’t so impatient with her I could find time to be sorry for her.
I was to leave the next day; and there was quite a ceremonial supper at Eversleigh, for my grandmother always insisted on our going over on occasions like this.
My uncle Car], my mother’s brother, was home on leave. He had followed the family tradition and gone into the army. He was very like his father and Carleton was rather proud of him.
My grandmother gave me lots of messages for Harriet and had prepared some herbs and lotions which she thought might interest her. They would go with my baggage on one of the pack horses. It was a three-day journey taken in easy stages, and they were discussing the route by which I should go. As I had done it many times before this seemed unnecessary.
I protested that they were making it seem like the feast of the Passover.
Grandfather laughed and said: “Oh, our lady Carlotta is a sea| soned traveller.”
“Enough of one to feel that all this discussion is unwarranted,” I said.
“I heard that the Black Boar is a most reliable inn,” put in Arabella.
“I can verify that,” said Carl. “I spent a night there on the way here.”
“Then you must go to the Black Boar,” said my mother.
“I wonder why they call it the Black Boar,” asked Damaris.
“They keep one there to set on the travellers they don’t like,” said my grandfather.
55Damaris looked alarmed and my mother said: “Your grandfather is teasing, Damaris.”
Then the political talk started and once that had begun my grandfather would not let it stop. My grandmother suggested that we leave the men to fight their imaginary battles while we gave ourselves to more serious matters.
So the females sat in the cosy winter parlour and talked about my journey and what I must take, and that I must not allow Harriet to keep me too long. I was delighted when we left for the Dower House.
The next morning I was up at dawn. My mother and Damaris were in the stables and my mother assured herself that everything I should need was on the two packhorses.
Three grooms were accompanying me and one of them was to look after the packhorses.
My mother wore her anxious look.
“I shall expect a messenger to be sent back to me as soon as you arrive.”
I promised this should be done.
Then I kissed her and Damaris and set out, riding behind two of the grooms while one rode behind me; and the packhorses came a little way behind him. It was the usual procedure for the roads, for although they had improved in late years, they could still be unsafe.
I had had instructions, which I had agreed to obey, that I would not travel after dark.
I was on my way to Harriet.
57AN ENCOUNTER AT THE BLACK BOAR
It was a beautiful morning and I felt my spirits rise as we rode along the familiar lanes all gay and full of flowers-meadsweet, stitchwort and ground ivy. I could smell the sweet hawthorn as we passed fields i n \\hich t he buttercups and daisies abounded, and in the orchards the apple and cherry trees were a riot of rose and white.
The fresh morning air,
What shoes have you packed?”
She started to enumerate them, smiling in her usual good-tempered way. It was
impossible
to ruffle Damaris.
Twelve years old, I mused. I was just past twelve when I first met
54
Beau. I was very different from Damaris. Aware even then of those glances that came my way. Damaris never saw anything but sick animals and tenants who were in need of repairs to their dwellings. She would make a very good wife for someone as stolid and virtuous as herself.
“Oh, get along, Damaris,” I said. “I can do this better myself.”
Crestfallen, she went. I was unkind to her. I should have tried to deserve a little of that admiration which she gave me so unstintingly. Poor pudgy little Damaris, I thought. She would always be the one to serve others and forget herself. She would live pleasantly ... for others and never really have a life of her own.
If I wasn’t so impatient with her I could find time to be sorry for her.
I was to leave the next day; and there was quite a ceremonial supper at Eversleigh, for my grandmother always insisted on our going over on occasions like this.
My uncle Car], my mother’s brother, was home on leave. He had followed the family tradition and gone into the army. He was very like his father and Carleton was rather proud of him.
My grandmother gave me lots of messages for Harriet and had prepared some herbs and lotions which she thought might interest her. They would go with my baggage on one of the pack horses. It was a three-day journey taken in easy stages, and they were discussing the route by which I should go. As I had done it many times before this seemed unnecessary.
I protested that they were making it seem like the feast of the Passover.
Grandfather laughed and said: “Oh, our lady Carlotta is a sea| soned traveller.”
“Enough of one to feel that all this discussion is unwarranted,” I said.
“I heard that the Black Boar is a most reliable inn,” put in Arabella.
“I can verify that,” said Carl. “I spent a night there on the way here.”
“Then you must go to the Black Boar,” said my mother.
“I wonder why they call it the Black Boar,” asked Damaris.
“They keep one there to set on the travellers they don’t like,” said my grandfather.
55Damaris looked alarmed and my mother said: “Your grandfather is teasing, Damaris.”
Then the political talk started and once that had begun my grandfather would not let it stop. My grandmother suggested that we leave the men to fight their imaginary battles while we gave ourselves to more serious matters.
So the females sat in the cosy winter parlour and talked about my journey and what I must take, and that I must not allow Harriet to keep me too long. I was delighted when we left for the Dower House.
The next morning I was up at dawn. My mother and Damaris were in the stables and my mother assured herself that everything I should need was on the two packhorses.
Three grooms were accompanying me and one of them was to look after the packhorses.
My mother wore her anxious look.
“I shall expect a messenger to be sent back to me as soon as you arrive.”
I promised this should be done.
Then I kissed her and Damaris and set out, riding behind two of the grooms while one rode behind me; and the packhorses came a little way behind him. It was the usual procedure for the roads, for although they had improved in late years, they could still be unsafe.
I had had instructions, which I had agreed to obey, that I would not travel after dark.
I was on my way to Harriet.
57AN ENCOUNTER AT THE BLACK BOAR
It was a beautiful morning and I felt my spirits rise as we rode along the familiar lanes all gay and full of flowers-meadsweet, stitchwort and ground ivy. I could smell the sweet hawthorn as we passed fields i n \\hich t he buttercups and daisies abounded, and in the orchards the apple and cherry trees were a riot of rose and white.
The fresh morning air,
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