The House of Lanyon

by Valerie Anand

  “I heard from Betsy that congratulations were in order and that Peter’s going to marry Liza Weaver. I told him it was a good match.”

  “Did you, now? And what did he say?”

  “He thanked me. What else would he do?”

  “Hah! Well, if he’s out on the land, he won’t overhear anything.” Richard planted himself on a settle and unburdened his soul. “You’re his friend and I fancy you’re no fool. I wish you’d try and talk sense into him. Liza’s the right girl for him, but he doesn’t think so. I’ve been to Lynmouth today to see the family of a girl—a fisher girl, would you believe it?—that he’s got himself mixed up with. They agree with me that it won’t do, but how the boy could be such a wantwit…!”

  “Mixed up with? You don’t mean…?”

  “No, she’s not breeding, though I’ve a feeling that that’s just luck!”

  “No wonder he was so quiet when I congratulated him,” Ned remarked. “But I doubt if I can talk to him, you know, sir. I don’t think he’d listen to me. I’m fond of him, but…”

  “He’s got an obstinate streak. You needn’t tell me! You youngsters!”

  “You’re not so old yourself, Master Lanyon,” said Ned with a smile. “Will you think me impertinent if I ask if you’ve ever thought to marry again yourself?”

  “Not impertinent, though not your business either. I’ve been content enough single.” Ned knew nothing of Deb Archer and Richard saw no need to tell him. “What brought you here today?” he asked.

  “Why, to ask both you and Peter to my own wedding. My family have found me a lovely girl, from east Somerset, near where Peter and I went to school. We’re to marry in the new year. If Peter and Liza are married by then, he must bring her, too.”

  The Luttrells heard Mass each day in the castle, said by Father Meadowes, but on Sundays they and their household came down into the village and joined their tenants in worship at the fine church which Dunster shared with the Benedictine monks of St. George’s Priory. It was an uneasy partnership, with frequent arguments about who could use the church when, and who was to pay for what, but the Luttrells—mainly by dint of donations to the priory and regular dinner invitations to the prior—did something to keep relations smooth between the villagers and the monks.

  To the villagers, they were familiar figures: fair, bearded, broad-built James Luttrell, putting on weight in his thirties; his wife, Elizabeth, who had been born a Courtenay, no longer a young girl but still good-looking because of her well-tended complexion and the graceful way she managed her voluminous, trailing skirts and the veiling of her elaborate headdress; their well-dressed young son, Hugh; their household of servants and retainers, and the castle chaplain, always known as Father Meadowes because he did not like the custom of addressing priests by their first names, along with his assistant, Christopher Clerk.

  All the week, Liza had said to herself, On Sunday Christopher will be in church. On Sunday I shall see him.

  She was seeing him now. The Luttrell family had benches near the front while the rest of the congregation stood behind them, but Christopher had placed himself to one side, and was able to glance over his left shoulder and scan the body of the church without it being too noticeable. He caught her eye and let a smile flicker across his face. Liza smiled, too, when her parents weren’t looking.

  Afterward, when the service was over, everyone trooped out as usual through the round-arched west door built by the Normans who had founded the priory, and gathered in sociable clusters among the graves, exchanging news and dinner invitations with neighbours. The Luttrells were accosted by the prior, who wished to complain that some unknown person, presumably from the castle, had carved a pattern into one of the benches and he wanted the miscreant brought to justice.

  Mistress Elizabeth shook her head gravely, although the fact that she had her little brown-and-white dog under her arm, and he was struggling to get loose, somewhat spoiled the effect. Father Meadowes had also stopped to listen to the prior’s complaint but Christopher, who had been walking respectfully in the rear, moved unobtrusively aside and stood looking up, as if studying a gargoyle on the church roof.

  Her own family had fallen into conversation with a group of neighbours. Liza, grown cunning through desperation, drifted gently away as if to approach a group of chattering girls, all acquaintances of hers, but passed them and used them as a shield as she came to Christopher’s side and paused, also looking upward.

  “That gargoyle,” said Christopher, pointing, “is supposed to be the face of the prior who was here when the church was being partly rebuilt, not so long ago. So Father Meadowes says. It isn’t very flattering, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t. I should think the stonemason hated the prior.”

  “I think that, too, but Father Meadowes doesn’t know any more. Liza, I can’t bear it. I can’t go on to become a priest. I’ve made some enquiries, discreetly. It’s unlikely that I can get legally free of the church but I can still run away from it. Will you run away, too, and come with me?”

  At any moment the group of girls might move away and her family would see her talking to a young man. Christopher, pointing up at the roof, was apparently instructing her on history or architecture, but that would be a poor protection if the whispers her parents had heard had hinted at the identity of her illicit suitor. But she couldn’t answer him quickly, not over a thing like this. She must say, “Christopher, I need time to think.” She must be sensible….

  Christopher…

  The sensible thing to do was to say, No, we mustn’t. It’s wrong. The church would hunt us down. My family would never forgive me. I’m sorry, but I can’t.

  Unfortunately—or fortunately, and only time would tell which estimate was the right one—she had lost the fight to be sensible. Liza-in-Love and Liza-the-Sensible had striven one with another all through the summer, and Liza-in-Love had won. She and Christopher belonged together. They had met as though they had been moving toward each other since the beginning of time and there was nothing to be done about it. And yet—to leave her family, to abandon her good name for an unknown future with a man she could never lawfully marry…that was as terrifying as jumping off a cliff. Even though she would be hand in hand with Christopher.

  She stared at him, poised equidistant between two opposites and unable to speak.

  “We could make for London,” he said. “I’ll have to shave this tonsure off on the way—and keep a cap on wherever I go till my hair grows again. I do have some money, if not much. I’ve been saving my pay all summer…half planning. We’ll get to London. London’s very big. We’ll be lost in all the crowd. We might even marry eventually, though not yet because they’ll be looking out for us. The church has a very long arm. We’ll have to find a small church to attend on Sundays and stand modestly at the back. We’ll take new names and for the time being we’ll just say we’re married. Or we might go to France. I speak French well. Sweetheart, don’t be afraid. I’ll make my way. I understand merchanting. I was brought up in the midst of it. I’ll find a merchant somewhere who needs a clerk. Believe me, I will make a life for us!”

  There it was again, that vigorous grin. “It’ll be just lodgings at first, but one day we’ll rent a little house. Here or in France, we’ll manage. There’ll be children. Just an ordinary, everyday life, but we’ll be together. If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s all I can imagine wanting,” said Liza. And closed her eyes for a moment, so as not to see the rocks at the foot of the cliff, and jumped. “Yes,” she said in a low voice. “I’ll come. But Christopher…even if we can’t marry, can’t we at least take vows?”

  He glanced around. The girls were still chattering together; beyond them, the prior was still monopolising the Luttrells and Father Meadowes, and Liza’s family was still deep in conversation with their friends. Rapidly, in a low voice, he said, “I, Christopher Clerk, promise before God that I take thee, Liza Weaver, as my wedded wife.”

  Also rapidly and in
an undertone, Liza said, “And I, Liza Weaver, promise before God that I take thee, Christopher Clerk, as my wedded husband. There!”

  “It’s not valid,” said Christopher. “Not in the eyes of the church. But it’s valid for me, my love. When and where can we meet? I’m often free for a while after dinner, just as I always was, though I do more study now, so the best time would be later than it used to be. About three of the clock would be right, I think.”

  “Won’t we need horses?”

  “Horses!” For a moment he looked appalled. “Horses—of course! My wits are going, I think. Well, one thing I daren’t do is steal horses from the Luttrells. Can you get hold of any horses?”

  “My father has three ponies. We all use them. They’re family animals…as much mine as anyone’s. I don’t think they’ll come after us for horse theft! But Christopher, they suspect something—they watch me these days. Yesterday they wouldn’t let me go out for a walk alone. I can go into the garden, though!” She was thinking aloud. “I could get away over the meadow at the back. That’s easy for you to reach, too. You mean we’d set off at once?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could meet and go straight to the paddock. Tomorrow?”

  “No, Tuesday. Mondays I do some study with the chaplain after dinner and if I don’t appear, he’ll look for me. We need a head start if we’re to get away safely. But Tuesday, yes, unless it’s pouring with rain. If it is, then the first day when it’s not. If Tuesday is dry—then that’s the day.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FLIGHT

  Ned stayed overnight but didn’t broach the matter of Peter’s love affair. Richard did not discuss his visit to Lynmouth, either, and Peter, though he knew well enough where his father had been, asked no questions. The next day Ned left. Peter still asked no questions. Richard, grimly, knew what the boy was up to. He was just going to blank Liza Weaver out of his mind and pretend she didn’t exist. Well, that ploy wasn’t going to succeed. Even if Liza had never been born, Marion Locke was an impossibly unsuitable bride for Peter Lanyon. It was time to talk to the boy again.

  This, however, was the day when they and their neighbours went to fetch the ponies in from the moor, to check their condition, separate the foals from their mothers and choose the ones to be sold. It meant rising early and snatching breakfast on one’s feet, with no time for family wrangles. Afterward they would dine with the Rixons, whose farm adjoined theirs farther down the hillside. It would be a late dinner and they’d come home tired, with a dozen chores to do before a hurried supper. There would be no good opportunity in the evening.

  However, the matter was so urgent that Richard finally blurted it out when he and Peter were riding close behind the herd as it trotted, all tossing manes and indignant white-ringed eyes, through the narrow lane that led to the Clicket pound. Just then, they were out of earshot of their fellow herdsmen, who were some way behind. Richard seized his chance.

  His son’s reaction was pure outrage.

  “You’re lying!” Peter said fiercely. “Telling me that Marion’s betrothed herself to others beside me! She wouldn’t! She couldn’t! Betrothal’s serious—it’s nearly as binding as marriage, and—”

  “I’ve seen the girl and I’ve talked to her father. I don’t blame you for going head over heels for her, boy, but she’s not for marrying. What you’ve got,” said Richard brusquely, “is an attack of sex. We all get it. It’s like having the measles or the chicken pox. If you wed her, the day would come when you’d be sorry. She’s a lightskirt. I tell you—”

  “No, I’ll tell you. If when you were betrothed to my mother someone had called her a lightskirt, how would you have felt? What would you have said?”

  “No one would have said such a thing, that’s the point, you damned young fool—can’t you see it? Why, your mother’d hardly as much as kiss me until we’d both said I will. Can you say that of Marion?”

  “I’m not going to talk about this. I’m betrothed to her and that’s the end of it,” said Peter, and spurred his mount up onto the verge alongside the track, shouting at the herd to hurry them up, his face averted from his father and likely, thought Richard bitterly, to remain that way for a very long time indeed.

  It was all the more annoying because the fury emanating from Peter had almost intimidated him, and Richard was not going to tolerate being bullied by his own son. He knew he would be wise not to try physical force to make Peter obey him, but there were other methods. One way or another, Peter, that ill-behaved pup, must be brought to heel.

  And he was beginning to see how he might achieve it. Since her death, he had more than once dreamed at night of Deb Archer, but oddly enough, last night she’d turned into Marion halfway through the dream.

  Maybe that cheeky, overweight, well-bred friend of Peter’s, Ned Crowham, was right. Maybe he ought to get married again after all.

  There’d be no advantage, socially or financially, in marrying Marion Locke, but now that he’d seen her…

  Peter hadn’t got her with child, but probably that was because he hadn’t had chances enough. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t have babies once she was a wife. It would be a pleasant change for Allerbrook to have children about the place. His and Marion’s; Peter and Liza’s. Peter’s marriage would be the one to bring the material benefits. And it would show Peter who was master. Oh, yes indeed.

  It wouldn’t do to have Peter under the same roof as Marion, of course. No, that would be daft. But there was a good-sized cottage empty just now, over on the other side of Slade meadow, where Betsy’s son and his wife and children had lived before the young fellow took it into his head to go off to the other side of Somerset because he’d heard life was easier there, away from the moors that were so bleak in winter. And off he’d gone, depriving Allerbrook of two pairs of adult hands and several youthful ones. George had been alive then and he hadn’t been pleased. He’d said that all of a sudden he could see the point of villeinage.

  Still, the cottage was there, and once Peter was installed in it with Liza, he needn’t come to the farmhouse often. He wouldn’t come at all, except when his father was there; Richard would see to that. Once the boy had settled down and seen what Liza was worth and got some youngsters of his own, and Marion had a few as well, wanting her attention, getting underfoot and thickening her midriff, Peter’s infatuation would die away.

  Marion would probably breed well. She looked strong, quite unlike his poor ailing Joan. It was an idea.

  It was a most beguiling idea.

  “Where’s Liza?” Margaret called to Aunt Cecy as she came down the stairs from her bedchamber. “In the weaving shed? It’s time we were talking of her bride clothes, and I must say I’m surprised that Peter Lanyon hasn’t been over to see her. A girl’s entitled to a bit of courting.”

  “Farm folk are different from us,” said Aunt Cecy. She was patching one of Dick’s shirts, though because her eyesight was faulty nowadays, she had Margaret’s small daughter beside her to thread needles. “She’ll have to get used to a lot that’s different, out there on Allerbrook. She’s not in the shed. She went into the garden with a basket—said something about fetching in some mint.”

  “I’ll call her,” said Margaret, and hastened out through the rear of the house.

  Five minutes later she returned, frowning, and once more went upstairs. Great-Uncle Will, back in his familiar winter seat beside the hearth, remarked, “Looks as if Liza’s not in the garden. Funny.”

  “She’ll have slipped off somewhere,” Aunt Cecy said. “She’s always had a fancy for going walking on her own, but Margaret told her she wasn’t to go out by herself anymore.”

  “I did indeed,” said Margaret, reappearing on the staircase. “But she’s not in the garden and not upstairs, nor is she in the kitchen or at her loom. I’ve looked. And I’ve just been into her chamber and her toilet things are gone—the brush and comb and the pot of goose grease she uses for her hands. So I opened her chest and I could swear some of her line
n’s missing. I don’t like it.”

  Aunt Cecy said, “I can’t see so clear as I used to, but I thought I saw her talking to a fellow in the churchyard when we came out of the service on Sunday. He were pointing out something on the church roof. Looked harmless, but…”

  “She might have gone across to see Elena for something,” said Margaret uncertainly.

  “And she’d take her linen and toilet things for that, would she? Better look for her,” said Great-Uncle Will. “And fast.”

  “So she’s not in any of our houses,” said Nicholas, who had been hurriedly fetched from the inn at the other end of the village, where he had been talking to a potential buyer of his cloth. “You’ve made sure, you say, Margaret. And she’s not in any of our gardens and some of her things are gone.” He turned to Will. “Great-Uncle, you said that according to the gossip that’s going about, she’s been meeting a red-haired clerk from the castle. I think I’ve seen him at church with the Luttrells.”

  “That’s him. And that’s what’s being said, yes,” said Will.

  “The fellow I saw her talking to on Sunday were outside the church and he had his cap on. But he were all in black, like a clerk,” said Aunt Cecy.

  “I wish we knew his name,” said Nicholas, “but I think we know enough. I’m going up to the castle. Now.”

  “Why is it,” grumbled James Luttrell, standing in his castle hall, wishing he could sit down to a peaceful supper and irritably aware that any such thing was out of the question for the time being, “why is it that trouble is so catching? The whole world’s disturbed these days and it spreads like plague. There’s no good government in the land, with all this squabbling between the king and these upstart cousins of his, Richard of York and his sons. What’s it matter if the king is weak in his mind? He’s been crowned and anointed and that ought to be good enough for any man.”