The effect never lasted, though. Gradually Nicholas’s hair had changed completely from flaxen to grey and he had begun to lose weight and complain, at times, of odd pains. Margaret, worrying about him, tried to encourage him to take life quietly, but he preferred to go on attending to his business, and still tried to fill his normal place in the family.
“It’s just that I get tired the way I never used to, and Allerbrook’s such a long ride away,” he said as they lay in bed the night after the arrival of the invitation. “It’s good of Lanyon to ask us, considering.”
“Considering what?” Margaret asked. “They don’t know about Christopher Clerk.”
“Considering that there’s been no child. Richard Lanyon wanted grandchildren. I know that.”
“It could still happen. Cecy went four years once with nothing—after she had such a time with that first little girl and then that string of miscarriages—and then, all of a sudden, there was another little girl.”
“Girls won’t please Richard Lanyon either,” Nicholas said. “Though he ought to be grateful for anything by this time! How long have they been wed? Getting for eight years come November, surely? I often fret about her, wondering whether we did right, pushin’ the marriage on like that, and not givin’ her more time. Still, she and Peter seem to get on, what I’ve seen of them. I wish we could see her more often, but there’s hardly ever time for ridin’ out all that way and I reckon it’s the same for her. Women on farms always have work to do. I’ve decided, Margaret. We’ll go.”
The work on the new wing had been finished in early August, before the corn harvest but comfortably after the haymaking and the shearing. It was a convenient time for a feast. The weather was sultry, however, and Kat and Betsy, working with the kitchen door wide open, grumbled as they swatted flies, trapped wasps in a bowl of honey and water, and sweated over the creation of rabbit pie and a mighty pan of custard. However, by the previous evening, most of the work was done; all that remained was to roast the chickens and the saddle of mutton next day. The household retired early.
That night, Richard slept badly. The heat plagued him, forcing him to leave the window wide so that gnats came whining into the room, looking for blood, and the light of a full moon streamed in with them. When at last he fell asleep, he was again on Castle Rock, in swirling mist, and Marion Locke was there. As in real life, he had hold of her, but this time she didn’t struggle against him but laughed in his face and made him angry and he threw her from him.
She fell backward through the vapours and then she was gone and only her scream remained, echoing in his ears, jerking him awake, except that he wasn’t awake but had only been jolted into another layer of dreams. He was in his bed, but he was lying in a shaft of moonlight that held him down, like a mouse under the paw of a cat, and he knew it was holding him there so that Marion could come back and find him. In the mysterious way of dreams, he was in two places at once, both on his bed and staring down from Castle Rock at what, this time, was a clearly visible moonlit sea, from which Marion, white as bone, was rising toward him, coming for him, fingers curved as if to strangle him, with droplets of moonlit water falling from her fingertips.
He tried to call Deb’s name, but his voice wouldn’t work and Deb didn’t come. Then he was really awake, heart pounding and sweat pouring off his body, but safe in his bed, though he was indeed lying in the moonlight. He got up and went to the window. The world lay hushed and still, a vista of shadows and whiteness, blanched corn, dark moorland marching against a silvered sky. Castle Rock was far away. Yet what would that matter to a ghost? It would be easy to believe that Marion’s pallid shade was travelling toward him, floating over moor and peat stream, farm and woodland, just as birds did, searching for the man who had killed her.
He went back to bed and lay facedown, shuddering, waiting for the sanity of dawn.
It was a good gathering, even if everyone who accepted the invitation hadn’t done so out of admiration for the new wing, or affection for the Lanyons, as the Lanyons would have known, had they been in the White Hart tavern in Clicket the previous evening.
“Can’t think who he thinks he is, buildin’ a great hall, as if he were a Sweetwater,” said Sim Hannacombe.
“Vyin’ with them, that’s what he’s up to,” said Gilbert Lowe, spluttering slightly through his yellowed stumps of teeth. “’Member when they knocked his dad’s coffin into the Allerbrook?”
He then added (because Gilbert always considered that his own personal grievances were the most interesting topics imaginable, and was skilled at twisting any conversation around to them) that it was a pity some folk couldn’t stop where God had put them.
“That girl of mine, Martha, thirty-four she is now and you’d think she’d be past any girlish nonsense, but do you know, she went and took a shine this year to a travelling minstrel that stayed over one night with us! He hung round the district awhile and she took to slippin’ off to meet him! Tilly followed her one day and found them having a cuddle, of all places, in St. Anne’s Church, here in Clicket. We soon had her home and made her understand she’d got to stop there. Would you believe it!”
“Yes. Sounds natural to me. You should have got her wed years ago,” said Sim disapprovingly.
“We need her at home and there she’m stayin’,” retorted Gilbert.
“I daresay. Does the work of three, don’t she?” said Sim.
“What’s this about a coffin being knocked into the Allerbrook?” Young Will Hudd, who was now the tenant of what was still called Rixons, hadn’t heard the story and thought it sounded more intriguing than the details of Martha Lowe’s shattered romance. Information was duly supplied from several willing sources, including Edward Searle, who, along with Toby, often called in for a tankard of ale.
“I was at George Lanyon’s funeral,” Edward said. “I’d have offered to be a bearer, only I’m taller than most and I’d have unbalanced it. It was bad enough with Roger and Higg being different heights!”
“Then the hunt came by and unbalanced it well and truly,” said Toby, amid laughter.
“If you ask me,” said Adam Turner, who was the landlord of the White Hart and responsible for its name, which was in honour of an albino deer that had appeared in the locality twenty years ago, “the Lanyons have always thought they were above the rest of us, or ought to be. George Lanyon, he sent Richard to school and Richard sent Peter, and because they can read and write, they think they’re special. Why, even Liza Lanyon can read and write and how many women can do that? But I wouldn’t go challengin’ the Sweetwaters—no, I would not. Do that to the gentry and you get trodden on, soon or late.”
Turner, unlike most of his customers, was an indoor man, as his pale complexion and his stringy build clearly showed. He was a morose individual and none too fond of his fellow men. He wasn’t even particularly fond of his own wares. His long nose had no red tip or broken veins. He was a good businessman, however, and the White Hart provided him with a steady living.
“I’ve been invited,” he remarked. “But an innkeeper can’t go gaddin’ here and there, though I doubt I’ll get much trade tomorrow. You’ll all be drinkin’ for free at Allerbrook.”
“Don’t grudge us a free mouthful of cider for once, Adam.” The Clicket carpenter had joined the crowd, his day’s work over.
“You’ve made more’n enough out of they Lanyons, what with panelling and furniture,” said Turner glumly, and everyone laughed again.
Nicholas and Margaret were the first to arrive next day, having stayed a night with friends in the village of Winsford, which was on their way. “It made the journey shorter for Nicholas,” Margaret explained as they were getting out of their saddles in the farmyard.
“I can’t ride any distance nowadays,” Nicholas explained, “and it’s that hot and sticky. Thunder soon, I’d say.”
Others presented themselves within the next hour or two: the Hannacombes, the Lowes, the Hudds, a number of villagers and Father Bernard. Betsy
and Kat strove in the kitchen, mopping wet brows as they turned the chickens and the mutton on the spit, prepared sauces and sharpened carving knives. There was no breeze and the sky was beginning to dim from blue to a curious shade of bronze.
Liza and Peter put finishing touches to the new hall, decorating it with garlands of wildflowers made by Liza, spreading the table with white cloths and setting it with bowls and platters, spoons, ladles and an elaborate silver salt, a marvel of little salt and pepper pots and tiny engraved spice trays, which Ned Crowham had sent.
The Crowhams couldn’t come, but this, said the letter their messenger had brought along with the salt, might make up for that. It was the most handsome piece of tableware that Liza had ever seen. They had plenty of tableware otherwise; harvest suppers were always big occasions with most of the parish there, and the Lanyons were proud of the fact that they had ample spoons and dishes and didn’t have to ask people to bring extra.
Shortly after midday the feast was under way and Richard, seated with dignity in his high-backed chair at the head of the table, with Peter and Liza one on each side of him, regarded the scene with complacency. They had got it right. He had thought of having a dais for the family, but both Peter and Liza had objected, saying that it would cut them off from the others, on days when everyone ate together.
“I wouldn’t be easy,” Liza had said. “I’d feel uncomfortable.” And Peter had added that even if the dais were there, he probably wouldn’t be able to bring himself to sit on it.
For a moment Richard had been angry and inclined to tell the pair of them that they’d do as he told them and like it, but realised in time that at heart he didn’t want to cut himself off from Higg and Roger and Betsy and Kat, either. For one thing, farmhouse meals were opportunities for useful conversation. Should we slaughter that cow that isn’t giving good milk anymore? When do we decide to cut the hay? The bay pony’s had colic again—how much root ginger have we got? The rain’s getting in at the corner of the big barn—better see to it, Higg.
Decidedly, it was better to keep the household together, maintain normal farmhouse life but with a bit of extra dignity. Liza was admirably dignified, in a long green linen gown with hanging sleeves. It could have come from the finest dressmaker in Taunton, but hadn’t, because Liza had bought the undyed linen, had it dyed to her own choice of colour, made the dress and embroidered it herself. She’d chosen green, she said, because crimson always seemed to run in the wash and she’d had much the same trouble with a tawny-yellow gown, too.
The green didn’t suit her as well as the warmer shades, but she still looked handsome in it. She could have had silk for best; he and Peter wouldn’t have minded. She’d chosen a good linen instead because she was thrifty and sensible. She’d be an ideal daughter-in-law, except for…
No use thinking of that now. He looked around at his guests instead and saw with satisfaction that they were making short work of the roast meat, the big rabbit pie, the beans in sauce and the cold ham and salad, and were interestedly eyeing the bread pudding that would follow, adorned with clotted cream and a sharp-tasting preserve which Kat made from the barberries that grew up on the dry part of the ridge, north of the barrow. The guests were enjoying themselves. Even Father Bernard, who had grown frail since he’d heard of Geoffrey Baker’s death, was talking animatedly to his neighbour.
Richard reached for the cider jug, replenished his tankard, recommended his guests to try the elderflower wine as well, and was wondering whether to propose a toast to the future prosperity of Allerbrook Farm or whether he ought to ask Father Bernard to propose it instead, when beyond the new leaded windows, all of them open to let in some air, a movement caught his eye.
“Who’s that coming up from the combe?” he said. “Thought we were all here.”
Peter stood up to look, gazing across the farmyard to its open gate and the path beyond, which led down to the combe. He sat down again with a thud. “It’s the Sweetwaters,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ONE COMES, ONE GOES
“The Sweetwaters?” Richard was indignant. “They weren’t asked. Have they gone and invited themselves?”
“They’ve a nerve. Which of us got invited when Walter’s son got wed last year?” said Sim Hannacombe. “And Sir Humphrey never even put his nose in at mine and he was asked to that.”
“That’s right. They don’t goo axin’ us to their affairs or come to ours.” Gilbert Lowe’s spluttery voice was heavy with disapproval.
His daughter Martha, who was wearing a plain dull gown as she always did, even at church, probably because she had no others, muttered, “What affairs do we have for them to come to? We don’t build halls or have weddings,” and was silenced by her mother Tilly’s sharp elbow.
“Well, they’ve come to the feast this time,” said Peter, standing up again to look. “There’s Mistress Mary on Master Walter’s pillion, and Baldwin with Mistress Catherine behind him, and a groom on a pony.”
“I’ll go out and welcome them,” said Liza, and hurried off, murmuring, “Get that rabbit pie out of sight” into Betsy’s ear on the way. Betsy hastened to obey. Peter, rising to his feet, said, “I’d better go with Liza, hadn’t I? Father…?”
“Yes, you go, boy,” said Richard. “And you, Higg. Give the groom a hand with the horses and bring him in for some food and drink.”
The three Allerbrook dogs—descendants of Silky, Blue and Ruff—who had been panting in the shade of the stable all got up and barked as the newcomers rode into the farmyard, and Liza and Peter had to quieten them before turning to their guests. The groom was already helping the ladies down. In the farmyard surroundings the Sweetwaters looked incongruous.
They had dressed for the occasion or, possibly, just to put their hosts at a disadvantage. Mary and Catherine were in flowered brocade gowns that had to be held clear of the farmyard dust, and headdresses draped in white silk which would be ruined if the threatened storm broke while they were out of doors, while Walter and Baldwin, both fleshy and perspiring in velvet doublets, had jewelled brooches in their caps and gems in their dagger hilts, and looked as though they had come from a world unknown to the Lanyons.
Peter and Liza, both feeling demoted by these unwanted guests of honour, bowed, curtsied, were graciously polite and secretly angry.
There were other difficulties, too. Welcoming the Sweetwaters involved some hasty rearranging of people around the table. Roger beckoned to Sim Hannacombe and Will Hudd, and between them they brought an extra table and benches from the parlour to extend the hall table so that space could be made near the head for the landlord and his family. Betsy, returning from the kitchen where she had hidden the illicit rabbit pie, moved the salt so that Margaret and Nicholas should not find themselves unexpectedly below it, which would never do. “Thank you,” said the flustered Liza as she passed Betsy while leading the unwanted guests to their places.
“So,” said Walter Sweetwater once he had been seated, “this is the new Allerbrook hall that the whole village has been agog over these past five years. If you thought we didn’t know about it, you were mistaken, Master Lanyon. A most ambitious project. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you’d ever manage to finish it, which was why I left you alone. There’s a saying about give a man enough rope and he’ll probably hang himself. But you’ve confounded me and done it after all, and all without ever dreaming of asking my permission.”
Walter had the same bushy brown hair and thick brows as the other Sweetwater men, though he was not quite as heavily built as his father and his twin had been, or as Baldwin already showed signs of becoming. He was more subtle than his father and his twin, and now it was hard to tell whether he was sneering or admiring or both of them at once.
Baldwin, however, just turned nineteen and full of himself, looked about him and said, “It’s a fine hall enough, but at home we have two pages to serve us, kneeling, with linen towels over their arms so we can dry our hands after using finger bowls, and we hav
e rose-scented water in the bowls.”
His father nodded in agreement, and Baldwin’s quiet little wife, Catherine, who, with her small pointed chin, the dark hair just showing under her headdress and her almond-shaped blue eyes, looked like nothing so much as a kitten, gazed at him in admiration. Baldwin caught her eye and preened. He was fond of her and had actually been heard to call her Kitten, in tones of real affection.
Of his family, only his mother eyed him reprovingly, but he paid no attention. There were no finger bowls on the Allerbrook table, with or without rose water, and certainly no pages on bended knee with towels.
Neither Richard nor Peter seemed sure what to answer. Liza found that she was now frightened, to the point of feeling trembly and actually rather unwell. These Sweetwaters were dangerous. They had too much power.
Drawing a deep breath, she remembered that long ago, as a child, she had heard her mother say that it was the duty of a hostess to keep guests content. The idea of even trying to intervene made her feel more trembly than ever, but Margaret had always been particular about the details of hospitality. She was looking at Liza now, obviously expecting something of her. Shakily Liza rose to her feet, picked up a dish of carved mutton slices and offered it to Walter, saying, “We meant no offence by building this hall. We’re plain farming folk with plain farming ways. We just wanted a good-sized room for our harvest suppers.”
Richard almost glared at her, since this was not at all how he saw his hall, but realised that she was trying to smooth a difficult moment over, and checked himself. Liza did not notice the momentary scowl, indeed could hardly have seen it, for the bright noonday was rapidly fading to a livid half-light. Beyond the window the sky had turned leaden and, in the distance, there was a flicker of lightning. Nicholas’s storm was on its way.
The House of Lanyon Page 19