Devil Water

by Anya Seton

  “We ken naught o’ your mucky Papist ways, nor what they do i’ Lunnon!” cried Roger with sudden anger. “We live by the Good Book, an’ the Covenant o’ God, and we don’t suffer sin amangst us!”

  “Aye,” said John Snowdon, hearing this and turning in his saddle. “Weel spoke, Roger. Will, are ye sure Master Dean’ll be waiting?”

  “Aye, Faither,” said Will. “Tarn went to Falstone fur him yes-tere’en.” Again there was silence, except for the dry thuds of the horses’ hoofs on the young bracken and the heather.

  They’re mad, Charles thought. Mad. Are they going to kill me? I must keep my wits somehow. When we get where we’re going, they’ll have to take me off the mare. They won’t butcher me in cold blood, or they’d have done it sooner. I must keep my wits and watch my chance. Holy Mother of God, help me to think! But his mind was leaden and when he saw the country grow yet wilder and more desolate, fear rose tight in his throat. At gloaming the Simonside Hills loomed up ahead. The ancient bare-topped crags had an air of brooding mystery. Eagles nested in these cliffs. The wastes of heather became darkened at times by streaks of brown peat. They passed a ring of stones and ancient earthworks which had been made by the little folk of the North long before the Romans came. John Snowdon led them on a track around the foot of Dove’s Crag, then struck sharply upwards over a spur of gritty sandstone, where the horses slipped and scuffled. They had passed no dwellings for hours, but now for a moment Charles saw a few scattered candles glimmering out of windows down in the Coquet valley. He looked towards them with sudden hope, which the old man extinguished. “Roger,” he said to his son. “We’ll not go nigh Tosson. Can ye guide us hame, by Wolvershiels? Ye’re een’re better than mine i’ this gloaming. But mind the bog!”

  “Aye, Faither,” said Roger moving up ahead. The interminable ride continued. Charles’s tired mare stumbled more often and Will jerked her head up. When they disturbed three sheep, which went scurrying and bleating into the darkness, the mare shied and Charles, very nearly thrown again, felt with new dismay that the numbness of his arms had spread to his thighs. I won’t swoon, he said to himself. Blessed Virgin, help me. I must keep my wits. But they seemed as numb as the rest of him.

  The long May twilight had nearly vanished when they came suddenly on a tiny burn, and beside it, solitary, tucked away and hidden beneath Ravensheugh crag, stood a small high peel. It was made entirely of stone except for the thatching, and it was built like an upended roofed box. It consisted of a cattle-byre below and one room above for humans. It had stood there for centuries, and sheltered many a family with their precious sheep and cattle against sudden thieving raids by Scots or by Redesdalers, who were also hereditary enemies of the Coquet dalesmen.

  Two dogs rushed up barking as the horses approached and were silenced at once by their master’s voice. The Snowdons and Rob dismounted. Roger unlashed Charles’s feet and wrists, then pushed him from the saddle. “Ye’ll na get awa’ from us now, laddie!” he said not unkindly, and added a grunt of laughter as Charles, whose legs would not support him, collapsed on a patch of grass and tried to rub his throbbing wrists. An outside flight of narrow stone steps was the only approach to the Snowdon living quarters. At the top of them, halfway up the building, the door opened and in a slit of yellow light there showed a woman’s tall stout figure. “Did ye get him?” she called down. “We did,” snapped John Snowdon. “Is Master Dean here?”

  “Aye, since noon. Meg’s took worse. Greeting and moaning most pitiful. Ye shouldna ha’ beat her so, Jock Snawdon, but Snawdons’re a harsh breed as I s’ld knaw who married one.”

  “ ‘Tis atwixt me an’ the Lord what I do wi’ my datter, Belle,” retorted the old man. “She’ll sune stop greeting when she sees what we’ve brought her.” He leaned over and jerked Charles to his feet by the coat collar. “Get up, ye wretch! We didna fetch ye here to loll on the sward.” He and the young men shoved Charles up the stone steps and through the door into a square smoky room which smelled of dung from the byre beneath. A peat fire burned in the crude fireplace. There was no furniture but a table and stools. The woman, Belle Snowdon, held the candle high. She had been Isabel Jack from Hepple and long married to John Snowdon’s brother, Edward. Of all the Snowdons who lived hereabouts only she had come to be with Meg, for John Snowdon did not like his other kin, who were none of them Dissenters.

  Belle stared hard at Charles. “Ah, he’s verra young,” she said quickly. “An’ what ha’ ye done to his face?” The blood from the gash had oozed through the kerchief and caked in dark splotches. Meg had been huddled on a stool near the fire moaning to herself; when her Aunt Belle spoke she raised her head and gave a cry. She staggered to her feet and walked heavily across the stone floor to Charles. “Ye’re hurt!” she cried. “Oh, sir, for-r-give me, I didna want this. I ne’er meant them to knaw. I didna tell them, ‘twas the Faw who told!”

  Charles wet his lips and gaped down at her. He saw that her brown eyes were filled with anguish. He saw that there was a lump on her forehead and bruises on her arms. Then he saw her great swollen belly under the homespun apron. “You’re with child,” he whispered. “Did I get you with child, Meg?”

  “I didna mean ye to knaw,” she repeated. “ ‘Twas all my sin.”

  “ ‘Twas foul sin in both!” shouted John Snowdon. “An’ they’ll be no bastards in my family! Master Dean, are ye ready?”

  A man in a shabby homespun suit had been standing in the shadows by the small shelfful of sermons which were John Snowdon’s constant reading. He was John Dean, the Dissenting minister from the Border church at Falstone. He adjusted his wrinkled cotton falling bands, and strode towards the table, where he laid the big Snowdon Bible in the precise center. “Aye, ready,” he said in measured tones. “Stand here, you two!” And he pointed from Meg to Charles and indicated the front of the table.

  “No, no!” cried Meg, wringing her hands and looking wildly from one to another of the implacable Snowdon faces. “Mr. Radcliffe can’t wed me! I told ye that, Faither. ‘Tis not seemly, and he’s betrothed to a great lady in London. He doesna want me, he niver did!”

  “Hush thy clatter, lass,” said John Snowdon. “The babe mun ha’ a name, and he’ll wed thee, willy-nilly, gin he values his life.” The old man glanced towards his huge blackthorn cudgel which stood by the hearth. Will Snowdon put his hand on his pistol, and watched Charles, who stood rooted by the door, staring at Meg and at her great belly. It is my child in there, he thought. Mine, and for it Meg has suffered greatly. A spasm of wondering pity gripped him. Around him the other figures seemed to recede. They grew unreal as the actors in plays he had seen in London. Their menace seemed unreal. He did not feel the menace. Once, at the theater with Betty, a scene had grown tiresome and they had got up and left. Charles felt the same way now, that he might leave this smoky room, these mouthing actors. Meg alone was real. The piteous little face which he had once so eagerly kissed was real -- and real too was the fruit of the love-makings which she so incredibly carried within her.

  “I will wed you, Meg,” he said, walking over beside her.

  Belle Snowdon exhaled a great sigh. The Snowdon men and little Rob, who were peering from behind, all slackened their tense muscles, and Will Snowdon said with a curt laugh, “Better a wife than a shroud.”

  The minister held up his hand. “We will proceed without more ado. Margaret Snowdon, hold the Book of God’s Holy Word and swear that this is the father of the child with which you are quick -- and will you take him for your wedded husband? . . . Charles Radcliffe . . .” Charles heard neither Meg’s tremulous whispers nor his own voice answering “I do” and “I will.”

  He heard instead the restless stamping of the cattle beneath them, heard the feeble bleating of a sick lamb. How strange, he thought, to have cattle crammed in the house with one. And I wonder if the mare has been properly watered and fed down there. I must see to her. He did not hear when the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” But he was st
artled when John Snowdon came up to him and shook his hand. “ ‘Tis the last time I’ll do this, Radcliffe,” said the old man solemnly. “I like neither your ways nor your religion, nor your name. Yet it is a name that now my datter bears, and can hold her head up again wi’ God-fearing folk. Come, we mun all sign the paper.” Snowdon had provided a marriage certificate in case anyone might question a Nonconformist marriage performed within Rothbury’s Church of England parish. So they signed. And when Meg had finished she gave a sharp cry and put her hand to her back. Then she went to the stool and doubled over, her arms across her belly.

  “Alack,” said her Aunt Belle. “I misdoubted this’ld happen. ‘Tis the bairn seeking to be born, and fully airly. Poor Meg’s had too much to bear. Into the straw wi’ ye, lass!” She gestured towards a plank partition which screened off a few feet at the back of the room. It was in there that Meg slept, while the men lay on heather-stuffed sacks in the open loft.

  The girl lurched up from her seat, and began dragging her heavy body towards the partition. “Tend Mr. Radcliffe’s wound, Auntie,” she pleaded. “There’s lamb’s wool i’ the coffer.” Her voice cracked in a stifled scream, and she ran into her cubbyhole.

  “Go to her!” said Charles, who had turned white as his shirt. “Hurry to her -- don’t leave her alone!”

  “Now -- now --” said Belle Snowdon smiling. “Dinna dither so, lad. Meg’ll not need me yet awhile. Let me see this cheek.” Her stout, deft fingers pulled off the dirty kerchief. “Dear, dear,” she added shaking her head. “Ye’ll carry this mark to your grave. Set down so I can reach ye.” She pushed him down on the stool Meg had vacated. “Roger, hold the candle nigh!”

  The men had been shuffling uneasily. John Snowdon cast a look of anxiety towards the cubbyhole where Meg’s labored breathing could be heard. “Come, lads, an’ Master Dean,” he said. “This be no place for us. We’ll see to the cattle. Roger, ye’ll follow?” His younger son nodded, while the others trooped out, slamming the door behind them. Roger held the candle while Belle bathed Charles’s gash with water from the kettle on the fire, then took from her apron pocket a needleful of homespun thread. Charles neither winced nor moved as she sewed together the jagged gaping edges of his wound, then bound it with lamb’s wool and a clean kerchief of her own.

  “Ye’ve the pluck o’ a dalesman, for all ye come from the South,” she said as she finished.

  “Aye,” agreed Roger quietly. He climbed the ladder to the loft and came down with a brown jug. “Here’s a drap fur ye,” he said giving it to Charles. “We needna tell Faither, but ‘twould be a sorry wedding indeed, wi’out a drap.”

  “Thank you,” said Charles, and drank the fiery whisky as best he could. The wound had torn his cheek muscles. Then he started as Meg gave a low animal cry. “For the love of God, Mrs. Snowdon. Help her!”

  “I will,” said Belle. “Though ‘twill be a lang time yet. Gan ye off ye two, but Roger, ye’ve birthed many a calf and lamb, I may need thee, so stay belaw.”

  Meg’s baby was born just as the sun’s first rays struggled over the distant Cheviots and brightened the narrow ravine where the Snowdon peel stood. Charles heard the wailing of the newborn as he stood below in the byre, pressed close to his mare. During the long hours he had curried and tended the mare, shuddering each time one of Meg’s screams shrilled down through the ceiling, yet unable to leave. The other men came and went as soon as there was light, and Rob Wilson had gone off to Tosson mill for a sack of flour. They had eaten oatcakes and mutton stew which Belle had sent to them by Roger, who had made several trips upstairs at her request.

  When Roger came down finally he walked, grinning, to Charles, “Weel, lad -- ye’ve a datter. ‘Tis not much o’ one, but the wee lassie’s alive, an’ so is Meg.”

  Charles gave a great gulp and stood up straight. “I want to see it.”

  “And so ye shall. Faither, ‘tis over,” Roger announced to John Snowdon, who came into the byre dragging a struggling wether by the horns. The old man nodded majestically. “Fetch the minister. He’s reading the Book by the burn.”

  Mr. Dean had been unable to ride back to Falstone in the darkness and so had acceded to John Snowdon’s further request that he wait and baptize the baby when it came. For this service Snowdon had added the promise of a pail of honey to the slaughtered lamb fixed as fee for the wedding. Mr. Dean’s lonely little manse on the Border was always in want of provisions and his few church members so scattered and mostly impoverished, themselves, that he often went hungry.

  Meg was in exhausted sleep when the men had climbed the stone steps to the big room. Belle sat smiling by the fire, with a bundle on her lap. “ ‘Tis a pairfect wee lassie,” she said to Charles, “An’ll be fair-haired like you, lad --someday. Will ye hold her?” Charles mutely put out his arms, and Belle laid the tiny plaid-wrapped bundle in them. The baby gave a funny chirrup and sigh, then looked up at her father, unwinking. Her head was covered with flaxen fuzz, her face was red, but there was a cleft like Charles’s in the minute chin. A thrill went through Charles as he looked down at his baby. A thrill of pride and sweetness such as he had never known from any of the things which had given him pleasure. And deeper than the thrill was a certainty of communication and significance. That it was pure love, which he had never felt before, nor would ever feel for anything else -- this he could not guess. But his eyes misted, and his arms began to tremble, and John Snowdon said, “Now, now -- Radcliffe, dinna drap the bairn afore it’s a Christian. Gi’e it to me!” Charles unwillingly obeyed.

  Belle brought a cupful of water from the kettle and put it on the table beside the minister, who said, “What name is this child to have?”

  “Jane,” announced John Snowdon. “Fur its gran’mawther.” Belle stared at the old man. Since the day of the funeral at Falstone, Snowdon had not mentioned the name of his dead wife.

  “So ‘tis Jenny!” cried Belle. “An’ a sweet bonny name!”

  Snowdon sternly interrupted this irrelevancy. “And I shall be its sponsor, see to its rearing in all things both Godly an’ worldly, and see that it lives by the Covenant.”

  “Very good,” said the minister. “ We are all sealed by the Covenant here, except--” He gestured at Charles. “Kindly step aside, sir.”

  “I won’t,” said Charles. “It’s my baby.”

  “Let him be,” said Belle sharply. The minister shrugged, and began the Covenanter’s rite of baptism, which he finished with a sprinkle of water on the baby’s face, “Jane Radcliffe, child of the Covenant, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. Let us pray.” The Snowdon men and Belle fell to their knees, John Snowdon as easily as his sons, though he was hampered by the baby, which he held with the practiced arms of a man who had tended many a small helpless animal.

  Throughout the long prayer Charles stood and watched his child. Jenny Radcliffe, he thought. When will she be old enough to walk and talk? I’ll teach her to ride with me. She shall have a little blue velvet riding habit, and a wax doll, from Paris. What else did little girls like? He would find out from his sister Mary; perhaps James would know. James, who would be back at Dilston today.

  The thought of James startled Charles from his daydream. When the prayer was ended the baby, whimpering a little, was carried back to Meg. She tucked it in the crook of her arm and looked up at Charles with a languid detachment, very different from the pleading frenzied love she had heretofore given him. Her brown eyes showed faint pity as she contemplated the tall gangling boy and the bandage around his head.

  “Ye may furget us now,” she said. “I’m sorry fur what happened, but ye needna think o’ it more. We’ll niver trouble ye, any o’ us. Ye mun gan awa’. Faither’s waiting to guide ye back to Dilston.”

  “But, Meg--” said Charles. “We’re married. And there’s her. As soon as you can you must come to Dilston with -- with Jenny.”

  Her mouth tightened and she looked something like John Snowdon as she wa
tched the light in Charles’s eyes when he looked down at the little head on her arm. “And what sort o’ welcome would we get at Dilston?” she asked. “And what kind o’ happiness would the bairn and me find there?”

  Charles was silent. He could not look ahead, and he knew that he didn’t want Meg at Dilston; there was only the peculiar unreasoning desire to be near the baby.

  “Hark!” said Meg suddenly. “D’ye hear the singing o’ the burn that tumbles down off Ravensheugh? D’ye hear the cry o’ the waup? D’ye smell the peat smoke an’ the dew-wet heather?”

  “What are you trying to say?” Charles asked slowly.

  “That I canna live wi’out these things. Nor even wi’out the sternness of m’faither, and the roughness of m’brothers. Nor do ye truly love me, though ye pitied me yestere’en. So we’ll bide here. Me an’ the bairn. And ye’ll go back where ye belang, to the castles an’ the lords an’ ladies.”

  There was no more to be said. The Snowdons were finished with him, Meg didn’t want him, the baby did not need him, and he had no plan, no arguments to put up against them. They had drawn together, all of them, as stark and solitary as their own peel tower. Even Belle, who had seemed softer than the others, gave him only a brief nod of farewell and said she hoped his wound wouldn’t fester.

  In the full morning light, John Snowdon and Charles set out on the long way back to Dilston. In silence they plodded around the Simonside crags and through Rothbury Forest. Again they reached the Sweethope Lough and the moors north of the Roman Wall. Their progress was much faster than it had been in the other direction, since Charles now had the free guidance of his mare, and also they need not avoid what roads there were. By five o’clock they had covered the forty-odd miles between Coquetdale and Corbridge.

  And there by the Tyne Bridge they found one of James’s servants stationed. He gave a cry when he saw Charles. “Oh, sir! We’ve thought ye dead. Or a leg broke at least. There’s a hundred out beating the moors and byways for ye. His lordship’s been a-fretted since he came home ter find ye missing!”