The House of Lanyon

by Valerie Anand

  She said, “I will.” Peter put a ring on her left hand, the priest pronounced them man and wife and another stone was added to the wall that divided her from Christopher, this one a wall of law and religion and society, not tangible like stone but just as strong. The priest was jocularly encouraging Peter to kiss the bride. Someone in the throng of well-wishers remarked that he’d be doing a lot more than that before another day dawned and everyone laughed, including the priest. Liza managed to smile. She even managed to smile at Peter. There was no point in being sullen. He would be a power in her life henceforth. Whatever went on inside her head must remain known only to her. Besides, she and Peter were old acquaintances, if not close ones. At least, she thought, trying her hardest to overcome the scared, lonely feeling which had been growing on her all day, she wouldn’t be left alone tonight with a stranger.

  The crowd that returned to the Weavers’ home for the feast seemed enormous. “If I’ve forgotten to invite anyone I should, they’ve turned up anyway,” Nicholas remarked as the rooms filled up, the older folk occupying every last settle, stool and window chest while the younger ones sat on the floor.

  Bart and Alison Webber were not there, but they were gone from Dunster anyway. Bart, only two weeks ago, had had an accident with an axe while chopping down a dead tree in his garden, or perhaps it hadn’t been an accident. At any rate, he had sliced the great artery in his left thigh and died of it, and Alison had gone back to her parents in Dulverton. They were still subjects of gossip, but not today. Today everyone’s attention was on Liza and Peter.

  The feast was generous, including roast pork and a saddle of mutton, a fruit pudding with figs and raisins and honey (Margaret had gone all the way to the county town of Taunton for the figs), and another pudding made of bread, eggs, wine and spices, and with real sugar in it.

  Cider and ale were on the board, and for the Weavers and Lanyons and their chief guests even some French wine. Liza’s two little brothers acted as pages and helped to serve the guests. Liza was glad of the wine, because despite all her efforts to encourage herself, the sense of dread and loneliness was still increasing.

  Dancing followed the feast. Nicholas’s friends included people who could play pipes and lutes and drums and between them they formed an impromptu band. The bride and groom opened the dancing and then Liza danced with a dozen different partners at least, before the moment came when her mother and Aunt Cecy and Elena quietly cut her out of the gathering and led her up to the room where her parents usually slept. It was the wrong time of year for flowers, but it had been decorated with evergreens and some sprigs of gorse which were still in bloom, and the air had been sweetened with dried lavender. Candles were alight, and there were clean sheets on the bed beneath the white fleece coverlet.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just make up your mind you’re goin’ to be happy, and you will be,” her mother whispered as they settled her in the bed. Liza, giddy with the wine she had gone on drinking between dances—though in her opinion, not nearly giddy enough—dutifully whispered, “Yes, of course. Thank you for everything.” Then they went away and left her alone, but not for long.

  All too soon she heard masculine footsteps and laughter on the stairs and then Peter was brought in, draped in what, so far as Liza could see in the flickering candlelight, looked like one of her father’s loose bedgowns, a casual affair of brown wool that Nicholas tossed on if he wanted to move about the house before he was properly dressed.

  The priest followed the men, and the women came back, too, for this final stage of the ritual. Peter was inserted under the sheets beside her and the priest said a short prayer, largely inaudible because of all the ribald jokes which were being thrown about. Like Liza herself, most of the company was rather drunk.

  It was Peter, apparently less drunk than anyone, who, as soon as the priest had finished, proceeded to shoo everyone out of the room. He did it quite commandingly, even pushing his own father through the door. Having emptied the room, he slammed the door with vigour and shot the bolt.

  “That’s got rid of them,” he remarked, coming back to her. “You must be tired out, Liza, and no wonder. I feel as if I’d been squashed in a cider press.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. “It’s not as if we’re strangers—there’s that to be thankful for. This is a new beginning. I hope it’ll be all right. I mean, I hope I can…”

  He stopped. Liza studied him. The woollen gown had fallen open—she could see the paler brown cloth lining and yes, he had borrowed it from her father; there was the place where she herself had mended a small tear. She could see his bare chest with a scattering of dark hairs like the hairs on the backs of his hands. His hands were quite different from Christopher’s—longer and narrower, though very sinewy, and browned by the weather. She wondered why he had stopped speaking in midsentence and noticed that he had turned his head away.

  “Peter?” she said uncertainly.

  He turned back to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve said I will to you, and I mean it. I’ll be as good a husband as I can. I promise.”

  “But?” Liza pulled herself more upright. Through the haze of wine she had sensed that something was amiss, and knew she ought to find out what the something was, and try to put it right. “What is it? Peter, tell me.”

  “I can’t do that, Liza. It wouldn’t be right. I think we should…”

  “Were you—are you—in love with someone else?” Liza asked bluntly, and the wave of scarlet that ran up into his face was answer enough. He did not have to speak.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Liza gently.

  “I wanted to marry her. I thought we were betrothed, but her parents told my father that she’d promised herself to others before me, so her promises were empty. Then she ran off with another man. That’s all,” he said at last, with difficulty.

  “Oh, Peter.”

  She was genuinely sorry for him. She of all people knew what it meant to be compelled to turn your back on the one person you truly wanted.

  But she must never tell him about Christopher. He could speak of his girl, but she must not speak of Christopher. If she were to build any future with Peter Lanyon, and build one she must, then Christopher must remain her secret. She must be Peter’s refuge, the rock on which his house could be founded. That was what a sensible girl would set out to do.

  She shook herself inwardly, to disperse the wine fumes, and said, “I am most truly sorry. But here we are, together. I’ll be coming back to Allerbrook farm with you tomorrow. I’ll do my best for you. What else can I say, or do?”

  “You can be my friend. Will you try to be that?”

  “Yes, of course. But…”

  “No, I know. We have to be man and wife as well and everyone downstairs is expecting us to get on with it. They’re probably looking at the ceiling and listening for, well, interesting noises.”

  “If they’re still drinking,” said Liza, “they’ll be too fuddled before long to listen for anything. Some of them won’t get home tonight, or if they do, it won’t be in a straight line. Soon we’ll hear them going zigzag and singing along the street.”

  It worked. Suddenly he chuckled and Liza, thankful to see his face crease in amusement, chuckled, too.

  She, like Peter, had said I will. This was indeed a new beginning, and yes, it was better not to look back through the gates of Eden. “I would like to be friendly,” she told him, and, a little shyly, held out her arms.

  Peter leaned forward. “I forgot to pack a loose gown. Your father lent me this and the damned thing itches. Take it off for me, will you?”

  She took it off. There was nothing unpleasant about his body. It was young and clean and hard and it would have been a very strange wench who didn’t admire it. He took hold of her, strongly but not roughly, and his warmth was pleasant.

  Peter himself was realising that Marion, who had hurt him so badly, had at least done him one service. She had taught him his business. He knew what to do, how to
caress and persuade, so that when the moment came, it would be easy for Liza, and not frightening.

  There was one absurd moment, about ten minutes later, when his left knee missed the edge of the bed and the two of them nearly fell off. Peter shot his right hand out, clutched at the bedpost behind Liza to check their fall, and hauled them both back to safety, whereupon they found themselves laughing aloud.

  Downstairs, a number of people, including Nicholas, Margaret and Richard, did indeed hear the laughter, and smiled at each other.

  “It’ll be all right,” Nicholas said. “Sounds as if it already is.”

  “God be praised,” said Richard, rather overfervently, to Margaret’s ears. She wondered why. She and Nicholas had reason to feel like that, but why should Richard? Had Peter been difficult?

  Oh well, what if he had? He clearly wasn’t being difficult now, and nor, thank heaven, was Liza.

  PART TWO

  BUILDINGS AND BATTLES 1458–1472

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DEMISE OF A PIG

  It was all very well, borne on the emotional wavecrest of a wedding day and more than slightly drunk on strong red wine from France, to take resolutions about putting the past away and dedicating one’s life to being a rock and a refuge for someone for whom you had no feeling beyond mild friendship.

  At the time, Liza had thought well, I have to do it, somehow, and believed that because she must, she could. She had roused up her courage and for a while she felt brave, like a knight, ready to sacrifice herself for a noble cause. But what it actually amounted to was day-to-day life in Allerbrook farmhouse, and getting used to that, she sometimes thought, was going to take her a lifetime.

  It would have been better if she and Peter had had a home of their own, but although there was an empty cottage on the farm which Peter’s father admitted he had thought of giving them, they were living in the farmhouse after all.

  “There’s plenty of space here,” Richard told them. “You two can have the room my father had. You’ll be more comfortable and it’s best if we’re all together. I’d feel lonely, rattling around in the farmhouse with no family round me and I’m planning to plant some extra crops, so it’s always possible I’ll take on more farmhands one day. They might need the cottage. I could afford to pay them. Your dowry was generous, Liza.”

  Her father had increased it, perhaps to reward the family that had taken his erring daughter off his hands, perhaps to do what he could to see that she was valued by the Lanyons and well treated! Nicholas must have dug deep into his coffers, even though he had already agreed to share his profits with Richard Lanyon. She thought with longing of Christopher, but also, now, with guilt. Her father and mother had brought her up, loved her and cared for her and even given her some schooling, which many girls never had, and now her father had been very generous indeed with her dowry. Running off with Christopher hadn’t been much of a way to repay them.

  Christopher. What are you doing, now, at this moment? Are you thinking of me?

  She must put such thoughts out of her head and knew it, but it was a tiring struggle and after only a few weeks at Allerbrook, she was already tired enough. Going to bed every night with Peter Lanyon, waking up beside Peter every morning and then working…working. She was strong and healthy enough, but despite Peter’s reassurances beforehand, she had never, physically, worked like this.

  At home she had helped with spinning and weaving, had shared the task of milking the cows, had made cheese and butter and shaped bread. Here, although there was a loom, once used by Peter’s mother, and a spinning wheel, too, she had so far had no time even to touch them. Here, the dairy work and the bread making were only a small part of a much more arduous regime, which involved carrying fodder to the oxen and buckets of swill to the monstrous pig that was being fattened in a sty next to the farmyard, caring for the poultry, searching for eggs and gathering firewood in the combe, as well as helping Kat and Betsy to get the meals and clean the house while, even at this season, the vegetable plot needed some attention. The onions and cabbages could be invaded by weeds at any time of year.

  And at other times she would, she was assured, be busier still, for she would have to help with both the harvest and the lambing, and lend a hand in gathering the apples from the little orchard below the house, in order to make cider. Betsy would show her how, Peter said.

  Even now, in winter, she was out of doors much more often than she had ever been at Dunster, at times in rain or bitter winds, with heavy leather boots on her feet to protect them from the mud. At night she was usually so weary that she swayed as she went up the stairs, and then Peter’s embraces still lay between her and the blessing of sleep. She was often out after dark or before dawn, but she never, now, looked up to wonder at the moon or the stars. She hadn’t the time.

  The greatest relief came on Sundays when they went down the combe to attend the church in Clicket, after which, in dry weather, most of the menfolk would spend the afternoon at the archery butts set up on the green, close to Sweetwater House.

  All able-bodied men were supposed to practise archery regularly, and although down here in the southwest they were well away from the quarrels between the ailing King Henry’s warlike wife and his cousins of York, that could change. Families like the Luttrells and the Courtenays and Carews and the Sweetwaters, too, had their allegiances. For the moment, however, in Clicket, as in Dunster, the men—even though one at least of the Sweetwaters usually joined them, to make sure that their tenants attended—regarded the archery as sport, one of their few relaxations, except for occasional social gatherings at the various farmsteads.

  Gatherings there had been, as the neighbouring farming families were friendly enough, and wanted to make the new bride at Allerbrook feel welcome. There had been Sunday dinners and Christmas celebrations with the other tenant farmers of the Sweetwater estate, the Hannacombes, the Rixons and the Lowes.

  The Hannacombes, Sim and Anna, were quite young and had two small sons, one aged two years and another just two months. They were a good-humoured, broad-built, pink-complexioned pair who kept their fields well weeded and drained. The Rixons and their four children, whose ages ranged from two to eleven, lived squashed into a very small farmhouse but were jolly by nature and very musical. Gatherings at their home always meant singing and even dancing, cramped though their main room was. Harry and the elder of the two boys could play the guitar, Harry’s wife, Lou, could perform on the flute and Lou’s widowed mother would tap a hand drum to give them a rhythm. Going to the Rixons was enjoyable.

  The Lowes, Tilly and Gilbert, on the other hand, were much less likeable, though they didn’t seem to realise it. Tilly was skinny and as sour as turned milk, while Gil was an ugly little man with dirt seamed into the lines on his face and most of his teeth gone, the rest being mere yellow stumps. They had their byre and stable under the same roof as themselves, with only a central passageway between the humans and the animals, and hens wandering in and out of the kitchen. They were older than the others and had reared only one child, their daughter Martha.

  “A very suitable name!” Richard said. “Poor wench is only in her twenties yet, but with no looks and no portion, she’ll be an unpaid servant to those two, till either she dies, or they do.”

  The Lanyons had held a party of their own at Christmas. Liza found a stock of almonds in the house, and as she knew how to make and mould marchpane into simple shapes, she made a marchpane ram for the occasion.

  “In honour of the shepherds who were visited by the angels and the sheep that matter so much to us,” she said, which met with approval from all quarters. She was asked to make another as a gift when in January they journeyed across the county to attend the wedding of Peter’s friend Ned Crowham. Those, at least, were occasions when she felt like a success.

  Usually, however, any pleasure in these social get-togethers was limited because the talk was nearly all to do with farming, which as yet was not familiar to her. It was all so different from the
wool trade society of Dunster that she sometimes felt she was listening to a foreign language.

  She told herself not to complain. Peter was gentle in his lovemaking, and Kat and Betsy seemed to like her and had shown her how to cook dishes that Peter and Richard especially enjoyed, including the illicit rabbit pies which were a regular feature of the Lanyon table.

  Rabbits were game in the eyes of the law and not to be taken without permission, but Richard and Peter, whatever their other disagreements, were as one when it came to hungry rodents in the cabbage patch. They set snares, made pies of the victims and carefully hid all the traces if anyone called who was employed by or simply too well in with the Sweetwaters.

  Liza had worked hard to master the art of a good rabbit pie, and then achieved another small success when she showed Kat and Betsy her own recipe for verjuice, the sharp sauce made from unripe apples, which gave flavour to so many dishes.

  Kat’s husband, Roger, was a little shy of her but always polite, while Higg, who had some skill at woodwork, made her a Christmas gift in the form of a decoratively carved wooden platter for use at Sunday dinner. She couldn’t say that she hadn’t been made welcome.

  But nevertheless, she knew that Peter’s mind was still detached from her (as hers was from him, although she hoped she was concealing it better), and though he was always courteous, Richard Lanyon intimidated her. Everyone jumped to obey his orders just a little too quickly. And then, one cold, overcast January morning, she understood why.

  Ever since Christmas, Richard had been talking about putting up fences around a south-facing field called Quillet, because he intended to use it for wheat this year instead of leaving it as meadowland, and it would need better protection from deer than the existing ditches could provide. The field sloped and the ditches drained rainwater off into the combe, which was useful, but they were hardly an obstacle and anyway, the ditches here and there ran through culverts so that people and animals could have a way into the field. Liza had already seen the ox team take the plough in to tear up the rich grass of Quillet. Henceforth, the entrances would be guarded by gates.