The Reverend Grimwade then talked about finding homes for me, Evelyn and Frances, as though we were so many puppies. He looked expectantly at Diana and her husband.
“I only came to borrow a book!” said Mr Pincher, but no one laughed. He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.
“In that case,” Reverend Grimwade said, “Clarissa and I propose to take in Frances. She can help with the children.”
Frances looked as if she were going to be sick. Of all of us she was the least suited to domestic life, being something of a tomboy and always happiest roving about the fields. To keep her indoors – moreover under Clarissa’s chilly eye – would be like tying a bottle to a dog’s tail.
“We will ask Aunt Madge to take in Evelyn,” said Clarissa.
To be parted from Evelyn was a horror I had not thought of. I felt the room and everything in it roll about.
“What about H?” I heard Evelyn saying.
I looked at the grown-ups and they all looked somewhere else. What were they not saying? Where was I going?
Then I saw Evelyn’s chin was trembling and Frances’s face was red. Evelyn was upset and Frances was angry. What did it mean? Then it struck me. Nobody wanted me.
“Let’s see what Aunt Madge says about Evelyn first,” said Reverend Grimwade. “She will earn her keep of course. We seek no charity.”
Now I must fill you in on a piece of family history. Aunt Madge was the widow of a Royalist soldier, killed at Stow-on-the-Wold in the very last battle of the First Civil War. Under the Commonwealth, all his assets had been sequestered. Aunt Madge had married again and the recent death of her second husband and his legacy, added to the recovery of her fortune from her first husband after the Restoration, had left her more than comfortably situated. The highlight of our year had always been our trip to London to visit her. Her two sons, who were away at school during our visits, like Grace and Frances, were twins, and identical in appearance but vastly different in their natures. Frederick was quiet and studious, but Roger, the elder, was reputedly a most tearing spark, and a source of great anxiety to her. Perhaps because she had only boys, Aunt Madge was very fond of us girls.
“I won’t go,” Evelyn said, as we lay in bed that night.
“You will,” I said. “You must.”
We were turning the matter over in our minds, when Frances crept in.
“I must tell you something,” she whispered, and we made room for her in our bed. “I’m not going to Clarissa’s,” she said. “I’m going to run away.”
I instantly guessed this had something to do with her soldier-boy. Evelyn and I spent all our idle moments together, but Frances preferred to spend her rare hours of freedom thinking about this boy, for whom she had conceived – it seemed to me – an odd sort of affection. One time I came upon them together in the woods while I was collecting sticks for the fire. I drew back as soon as I saw them, not exactly to spy, rather so as not to be observed while I indulged my curiosity – though Evelyn later pointed out that this was precisely what spying was. I mean to say that I had not set out to spy on them, but now that I was there, I was interested to see what they were doing. It was not at all what I had expected.
Frances appeared to be marching up and down and going through a kind of drill while her soldier-boy shouted orders. She had a stick for a musket and on his command appeared to go through a routine which I supposed involved loading it. After she had done this several times, he caught her by the arm and tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away and said “Again!” and they repeated the whole performance. I did not stay to see more, and after I had told Evelyn about it, did not think of it again until much later, and did not understand it until later still.
“But Clarissa is taking you in, Frankie. That is kind, is it not?” I ventured, as although I had never cared much for Clarissa, this had seemed well-intentioned in my eyes.
Evelyn sighed.
“Not as a sister,” she said. “As a servant. Frances will be a living sign of Clarissa’s charity to the world. And full cheaper than a nursemaid.”
“So, in fine, I am not going to Clarissa,” said Frances.
To my surprise, Evelyn did not argue with Frances’s rebellion, as she usually would, being so good and wise.
“The garrison leaves next week for Cheltenham. I am going with it,” she said. “We’ll speak tomorrow.” She kissed us both quickly, scampered off to her own room and left us full of confusing thoughts as to what was to become of us all. Any security I had believed in in this world was vanishing and I held fast to Evelyn that night as I knew she too might disappear, along with every certainty I had hitherto clung to.
3
We awoke the next morning to a knock at the door. It was a messenger boy with a letter. I took it quickly and gave him a penny. I ran up to give it to Evelyn.
“It’s too soon to be from Aunt Madge,” she said. “And look, it is addressed to us both.”
Dear sisters,
Do not worry, I will be quite all right. The boy who delivered this should be proof enough of that.
Love from
Frankie xxx.
I ran to Frances’s room. She was not there but her clothes were. This made no sense. I ran down to the front door to call the boy back, but he was gone. I ran back up to our bedroom window, to see down into the lane. There was the boy. I struggled to open the creaking window and called out “Hie! You! Boy!” and the boy heard me, and turned, and still walking, but backwards, waved to me and smiled, and I saw to my astonishment that the boy was Frances. With her hair cut off and dressed in man’s apparel, she did indeed look just like a boy.
“Come back!” I shouted.
“No fear!” she called back, and was gone.
Most amazed, I ran to Evelyn and told her. She did not look as surprised as I had expected.
“Why?” I cried. “She has cut off all her pretty hair! I don’t understand.”
“She has not just gone away with the garrison,” explained Evelyn, “she will join the garrison.”
“To be a soldier?” I asked, incredulous. “Did you know?”
“Yes,” said Evelyn. “I guessed. That is to say, I suspected.”
“Will she… will she pass for a boy?” I asked.
“What do you think? You answered the door.”
And I had to confess that if I did not recognise my own sister, there was nothing in her appearance to betray her to strangers. Almost flat-chested and with a gait that Clarissa had described as “like a carthorse”, Frances might look more herself as a boy than as a girl. It was all most strange.
“Should we not stop her?” I asked.
Seeing my worried face, Evelyn took my hands and said, “Listen, H. It is what she wants. She has more chance of surviving the army than surviving Clarissa’s nursery. She is free and we can do nothing but wish her well.”
When Clarissa and Diana learned what had happened they quickly gave our neighbours to understand that Frances had joined Grace with distant relations in Scotland. Even in their minds they had put them as far away as possible.
“Another one gone to her ruin,” said Reverend Grimwade. “Thanks be to God your poor parents are not here to suffer this further humiliation,” he added to Clarissa.