The House of Lanyon

by Valerie Anand

  “Did he really see a ghost?” asked Hampton, intrigued, offering his guest some more wine.

  “Possibly,” said Master Hilton. “People say that ancient kings are buried under the mounds—barrows, they call them hereabouts—and that they don’t like to be disturbed. Or he may just have caught sight of some deer-poaching peasant slipping out of sight, or even merely a deer. Mist makes everything look strange. Anyway, he couldn’t get back to what he called civilised parts quick enough.”

  “And the third one?”

  “Went on an errand to Porlock, up the coast, took a path over Dunkery, got thrown by his pony, fell into a bog and came home on foot, hours later, soaked to the skin. Dead in a week of lung fever. And that’s when I remembered hearing that you had a onetime chaplain here in this very monastery and I thought, my lord of Pembroke’s the landlord of Dunster and has a right to him if anyone does. And at least your man knows the district. Presumably, he won’t get panic-stricken if he’s caught in a mist on Winsford Hill, or go falling into bogs on Dunkery.”

  A belated sense of responsibility overtook the prior. “You do know how Father Christopher comes to be here?”

  “Oh, yes. The servants left at the castle when I first came spoke of it now and then. Some trouble with a girl, wasn’t there?” Master Hilton didn’t sound as though he attached much importance to this.

  “It was quite a serious matter,” Hampton said. “He was a deacon at the time, studying with Father Meadowes, and helping him. He and a local girl ran off together, though they were caught before they’d gone far and it seems that they did not actually commit fornication. Still, as I said, it was a serious piece of misbehaviour for a man in orders.”

  “Where’s the girl now?”

  “Oh, she was married off and left Dunster. I think she went to Clicket—you know where that is?”

  “Right out on the moor, I believe. Has Father Christopher given any trouble since?”

  “None whatsoever. He keeps the Rule more carefully than some of the brothers do and when he prays, he looks as if he means it. I’d call him a devout man. We’ll miss him,” said the prior, refilling their goblets for the third time. “But as I said, I don’t object if you don’t. It’s for him to say.”

  “I can but ask him. My lord is right—there should be someone to hold daily prayers in the castle. It’s only proper. We’ll all still come to church on Sundays.”

  Prior William Hampton, who dined at the castle fairly often, thought privately that though it was admirable of the unknown Earl of Pembroke, to whom King Edward IV had presented the Luttrell lands, to concern himself about the souls of those who looked after his Somerset castle, it wouldn’t be at all a bad thing if he concerned himself a little more about the castle itself. The earl had never as much as visited it. He took the rents from the village and the farms attached to it, but the castle, it seemed, could fall down from neglect for all he cared.

  In the time of the Luttrells, black grapes had ripened on a vine on its southern wall and it had been customary to send a few bunches to the priory each year. Nowadays, no one bothered to harvest them and the walls around the vine were streaked with the droppings of glossy and gluttonous starlings. The prior itched to let a hawk loose among them. The harbour was silting up faster than ever, too, and no one was even trying to do anything about it.

  “I’ll send for Father Christopher,” the prior said.

  Christopher was in the small walled garden where the monks grew their herbs, culinary and medicinal. During his years within the priory he had discovered in himself an unexpected knack for gardening. It was peaceful to be here, weeding, on a soft spring evening like this, with the rooks circling and cawing above the trees on the tall hill, Grabbist, that overlooked the village, and hearing the sound of someone in the church, practising the organ.

  While he worked, his mind could drift as it would. He had become quite learned by now in Latin and Greek and theology. The novices regarded him with awe, and the novice master said that when Father Christopher toiled alone in the garden, he shouldn’t be disturbed, for he was surely meditating on a theological problem or seeking the truth behind an ambiguous translation of a Greek text.

  Sometimes he was. The years had made his enforced vocation easier, even against his will. He had resisted at first, wanting to grieve, to yearn, to remember Liza every moment of every day, but gradually reality and day-to-day living had their effect. When he’d believed himself to have a vocation, he had perhaps not been entirely mistaken. He had, eventually, begun to find satisfaction in his studies, and had embraced priesthood with something like sincerity. If he could not have Liza, well, there was much to be said for this—the beauty of ritual, the fact that he could offer help and comfort to others, the intellectual pleasure that Greek and Latin and theological problems could give.

  Always, though, before going to sleep, he said a private prayer for Liza. He had promised himself he would do that, on the day that he came to the abbey, and sometimes, especially in this garden, especially in the evening, especially on one such as this soft, green April evening, with the scents of mint and lavender so very disturbing to the senses, then Liza’s memory would come to him, clear and vivid still and not blurred by time.

  When her parents had come to see him, after he and she had been brought back from Nether Stowey, they had told him of their plans for her. What kind of life did she have now, Liza Weaver who had become Liza…Lanyon, wasn’t it…and gone to a farm out on the moorland? Was she happy? Did she have children? Did she love her husband? Were the Lanyons kind to her?

  Did she still remember Christopher Clerk or was he just a youthful escapade, even, perhaps, embarrassing to remember? He hoped not, and at this point in his thoughts he would slip a hand inside the habit he wore although he had not taken a monk’s vows, and find the thin silver chain he kept hidden under his clothes, and trace it down to the patterned silver ring which hung from it. No one knew of these hidden thoughts, of course. Dreams like this were secret.

  He was in the depths of one when a novice came hastily but nervously through the gate to call him to the prior’s lodging. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, Father, and of course I wouldn’t, except that Father Prior sent me. I don’t know what it’s about, but he wants you to come at once. The steward of the castle is taking wine with him.”

  “The steward?”

  “Yes. Shall I clean your tools and put them away for you?”

  “If you would. Thank you.” He stood up, brushed some earth and bits of weed off the habit and hurried to answer the summons. He found, on arriving, that the castle steward, whom he had met when, now and then, his services were borrowed by the castle, was sitting with Prior Hampton, and that there were three goblets on the table, along with a flagon of wine.

  “Here he is,” said the prior. “You know Master Hilton, of course, Father Christopher. What have you been doing, Father? Gardening?”

  “Yes. Weeds sprout overnight, at this season. Good evening, Master Hilton.”

  Hampton filled a goblet and handed it to him. “Sit on that settle there, Father. Master Hilton wishes to make you an offer. How would you like to go back to the castle as the official chaplain?”

  “Go…and live there, you mean?”

  “Most certainly you would have to live there,” said Hilton, and began to explain, all over again, about the instruction received from the Earl of Pembroke, and the misfortunes of the chaplains he had employed hitherto. There was more, about the stipend he would receive, and the fact that he would have a free hand in restoring the castle chapel. He listened as attentively as possible, but his mind was leaping ahead, on a path of its own.

  He would be living outside the monastery. Not just making occasional excursions, usually with a lay brother as servant and companion—or guardian—but living, all day and all night, right outside.

  He had probably been free to go ever since Father Meadowes went away with Lady Elizabeth, but he wasn’t sure. Meadowes had said that
if he set foot outside the priory unaccompanied, he would find his behaviour with Liza reported both to his father in Bristol and to higher church authorities as well, and he did not know whether, before leaving Dunster, Father Meadowes had, as it were, passed the threat into the hands of the prior.

  He had made no attempt to find out. He couldn’t, in any case, see the point of going out into the world again when he had an assured and very comfortable life where he was. The Dunster Benedictines never had interpreted their vows of poverty too literally, for which Christopher was grateful. In his opinion, deprivation wasn’t as good for the soul as some believed. It often made people unhappy, and unhappy people, in his experience, were often unkind ones, too.

  So he stayed where he was, made no protests, kept the Rule and never made enquiries about a young woman who had once lived in Dunster, just in case the prior found out, and had, as it were, been left on guard.

  Now, however, Hampton was setting him free. The castle would be very different from the priory. Hilton was in charge there and he couldn’t see Hilton bothering to act as watchdog.

  At the castle, no one would supervise him. He wouldn’t approach the Weavers directly, but there would be people, in the castle itself, no doubt, who knew them but knew nothing about Christopher and Liza’s little scandal. It was more than ten years ago now. At last he might come by news of Liza. That was all he wanted. Just to know that all was well with her. Then he could forget that he had ever let his feet walk on air, forget he had ever had his head among the stars, and give his heart and mind to being a good priest for the rest of his life, as was now his duty and his wish.

  The steward had stopped talking and was looking at him expectantly. So was the prior. They wanted his decision. “But of course,” he said. “If I am wanted at the castle, naturally I’ll come.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A GOOD SENSE OF SMELL

  Acrow, flapping steadily across the moors and the tangle of lower hills and combes between the heathery heights inland and the Bristol Channel, would have found the distance between Allerbrook and Washford to be about fourteen miles. Earthbound riders, who had to go over hills or, on occasion, around them and take detours to find fords and bridges and avoid bogs, needed to travel half as far again.

  “We ought to take Quentin,” Liza said. “Mother’s never seen her.”

  “With Quentin along, you’ll want the quietest pony and you’ll be tied down to a walk,” Richard said. “Take Mouse. And I think you’ll need to spend a night on the way.”

  “Ned Crowham owns a farmstead about halfway,” Peter said. “They’ll put us up.”

  The farmstead was somewhat farther than halfway. It seemed a long ride the first day, going at the slow pace imposed not merely by Quentin but also by Mouse, who from a filly had been the gentlest and most responsible of ponies, and seemed well aware that the woman on her back had a two-year-old child in her arms and must be treated with care. But it was a pleasant ride through the May sunshine with lark song sparkling in the sky, and by putting in the extra miles, they shortened the second day’s journey. It was only just after noon when the little party rode past the gatehouse of Cleeve Abbey and on along the track to Washford village, where Herbert Dyer’s combined home and workshop stood, a little back from the road.

  The house, recently thatched and looking as though it had a golden pelt, was in front, with the slate roof of the workshop rising behind. There was a patch of front garden, with a few flowers coming into bloom.

  “And someone’s weeding,” Peter remarked as the ponies plodded toward the gate.

  “It’s Mother!” said Liza.

  Margaret had heard the approaching hooves and straightened up to look over the fence. “Liza! Peter—my dears! What brings you here? Nothing’s wrong, is it? Oh, is that my granddaughter? You’ve brought her all that way?”

  “Yes. We…we just came on a visit because I wanted to see you and I thought you’d like to see Quentin,” Liza said carefully. “The weather’s good and she’s been no trouble. The pony’s pace just sends her to sleep.”

  “Oh, give her to me!” Margaret held out her arms and Quentin, waking up, laughed. “Come along, poppet, let your grandmother look at you. You named her for my mother—that was sweet of you. But she hasn’t got my mother’s hair,” said Margaret, laughing, too. “She has yours, Liza, the very same pretty brown. I am very well, I’m glad to say.” She lowered Quentin to the ground. “Good girl. Nice and steady on your feet. Oh, you’re all so welcome. Down you get. I’ll call someone to see to the ponies and you can come in through the garden.”

  She hurried to the right-hand fence and shouted, and a groom appeared around the side of the house, presumably from a stableyard somewhere. He took charge of the ponies and the Lanyon family followed Liza’s mother indoors.

  “She looks happy,” Liza whispered to Peter when they had been shown into a low-beamed parlour with padded settles and an agreeable smell of beeswax, and Margaret had bustled off to tell Herbert they were there. “I’m grateful to Master Dyer for that, but if, after making her happy, he goes and spoils it all…!”

  “He’s never got into trouble yet.”

  “I smelled trouble in those figures. I couldn’t see how he was turning a profit. I know that some of the materials he was buying in should cost more than his estimate. Why did he leave Taunton and then Dunster, I wonder?”

  “The Guilds?” said Peter.

  “Yes, maybe. They keep a close eye on the tradesmen in both places. My father was part of the Dunster Guild of Weavers and used to attend meetings and have other Guildsmen to dine. But…” Liza frowned. “I do remember them saying sometimes that the Guilds weren’t active enough in some villages. Maybe Washford is one of them and maybe that’s why he came here! And isn’t it true that the longer folk get away with things, the bolder they get? Like the man who was supposed to be Geoffrey Baker’s father and…and the clothier I mentioned, in Dunster. I’ve sometimes thought maybe we snared a few rabbits too many and Walter Sweetwater somehow got to hear of it.”

  “Sssh. They’re coming back.”

  Margaret came in, pink and excited, followed by Herbert Dyer, who was calling over his shoulder for someone to bring wine and pork pasties to the parlour. He strode in, beaming, and also burping slightly; clearly he had only just finished his dinner. “Welcome! Have you dined? No, don’t tell me, you haven’t. Why would you, when you were nearly here? I’ll see you right. And what about the little lass, eh? What would she like?”

  “She likes oatmeal porridge and minced meat and little squares of bread with fruit preserves on it.”

  “Say no more.” He went to the door and shouted a second time, which produced a bobbing maidservant. Herbert gave instructions. “And now,” he said, turning back to his guests, “all your family news, if you will. Marge here will want to hear everything. She often talks of you, Liza, and she’s as proud of your girl as if no little wench was ever born before….”

  “I should have ridden out to see her long ago, but first there was Nicholas and I just never could get up the heart, and then there was Herbert’s proposal, and arrangin’ the weddin’…” said Margaret.

  “So we’ve come to you, instead,” said Liza.

  Overwhelmed with hospitality, it was an hour and a half before Peter finally managed to say, “Now that we’re here, could we look at the workshop? I’d be very interested to see what goes on and I know Liza would. After all, she was born into the Weaver family.”

  The meal was finished and Quentin had gone outside, where she was playing in the garden with one of the maidservants. Herbert glanced through the window at them and smiled. “All your family spin and weave, don’t they, Liza? When she’s a little older, I suppose you’ll have Quentin sitting at a loom, instead of toddling about being a household pet. But surely, even in your family, the womenfolk didn’t concern themselves with what went on when the cloth left the premises for fulling and dyeing. Why should they?”

  “My
wife,” said Peter, “takes an interest in everything round her. She’s learned the work of the farm better than some girls who’re born to it.”

  “Ah, well, farming folk are different. Everyone has to join in. But Marge here, why, she’s hardly set foot in the workshop and I wouldn’t want her to. I want her to have a life of ease and luxury, unless she likes to embroider, or maybe spin and weave a little for her own amusement.”

  “I’d be very interested to see the workshop,” said Liza in steely tones. “And so would Peter. Please show us.”

  “Well, if you’re sure. Excuse me, I’ll just go and see what’s being done in there now, and tell my men to expect visitors.”

  He went out. With Margaret there, Peter and Liza couldn’t turn to each other and say what’s he hiding? out loud, but they could and did exchange glances which said it silently.

  Herbert came back a few minutes later. “Well, if you’ll come with me…Marge, are you coming, too?”

  “No, I thank you,” said Margaret comfortably. “I’ve weeding to finish and I want to play with my granddaughter. She’s a pretty one, Liza, no doubt about it. And I’ll see the kitchen knows there’ll be extra mouths for supper. You’ll stay the night, of course.”

  They reached the workshop by a covered passage. “I had the works adjoining the house in Taunton and again in Dunster, but the smells used to get in,” Herbert said. “I used to think I was drinking alum soup.”

  “Alum?” Peter queried.

  “A sort of clay. Comes from the Mediterranean and it’s scarcer and more costly than it was,” Herbert said, pushing open the door at the end of the passage. “It’s used to make a mixture—a mordant, we call it—to soak cloth or the yarn before it’s dyed.”

  “To make the dye stay put?” said Peter, airing his recently acquired knowledge.

  “Exactly. Then it won’t run when it’s washed. As I was saying, when I came here and had this workshop built, I thought, this time, things will be different. I put it away from the house, but I made this passage in between so as to get in and out without getting wet in the rain. Here we are.”