The House of Lanyon

by Valerie Anand

  “I’ve done it,” said Nicky. There had been no need to send Nicky away to school as Peter and Richard had been sent, not with Father Matthew in the village and willing, at Richard’s request, to give Nicky private lessons three times a week. “He gave me some Latin to put into English and some sums and they’re all finished. And now I want to go out and I can’t!”

  “Well, I don’t order the weather, and if you went out in this, you’d probably drown,” said Liza with vigour.

  “Father and Grandfather went out in it this morning! So did the Hannacombes!”

  “They’re grown up and they had to fetch the animals in and even at that, Roger didn’t go. He says he’s too old. Kat came over to say he was staying in the cottage, and we sent her back to him. I’ve never seen such weather. It’s just as well this is November and the stock’s not out on the moor, except for the pony herd, and they seem able to find shelter from anything. I’d like a walk on the moor but I can’t have one. Why don’t you make another try at learning to weave?”

  “I hate sitting at a loom. It goes clatter, clatter, clatter and every moment’s just like the one before and it’s dull.”

  “And you’re clumsy. You break threads and I’m always afraid you’ll break the loom, as well.”

  Nicky laughed, and Liza, unable to help it, laughed with him.

  It was always happening. She would try, for his own good, to be severe, to tell him he must study his books or be patient about bad weather, be a good child, like his sister, Quentin—who was at this moment in the workroom, busy at the loom, weaving the first piece of cloth she had ever made completely by herself.

  Quentin was hardly ever disobedient. She was a responsible little girl with a gift for soothing people. Once or twice, when Peter had been angry about something and marched out to vent his fury by chopping wood or digging a ditch with ferocious energy, Quentin had gone out to him and restored his good temper simply by being there and chattering to him about some everyday matter.

  Nicky was the wayward one, and Liza knew she ought to be firmer with him. But then Nicky’s astonishing resemblance to Christopher would overwhelm her with love as though a great wave had broken over her, and if he came to her for comfort because his father had rebuked him, she would give him an apple or a honeycake because she couldn’t bear that little snub-nosed, freckled face to look unhappy. Wayward he might be, but he was affectionate, too, which made giving in to him all the easier.

  She was thankful that none of the Lanyons had ever met Christopher and that in the present Weaver family, there was no one now who knew him except as a distant figure occasionally glimpsed in church. She shocked herself sometimes by admitting privately that it was just as well that her parents, who actually had met him, were both gone.

  It was six years now since Margaret had finally taken to her bed in the guest house at St. Catherine’s and slipped out of life. Liza had mourned her deeply, but was also relieved that Margaret had never set eyes on Nicky and now never would. There was only one source of danger left, and that was the risk that one day, somehow or other, Nicky and Christopher would be seen together by a member of the family. There, she must hope for the best and pray, although it seemed unlikely that God and his angels, or even the merciful Virgin, would collude in hiding her guilt.

  Yet her path of deception had certainly been marvellously smooth. Nicky had been born, as far as Liza could calculate, a few days later than he should have been; certainly no one had ever questioned that he was the result of her reunion with Peter. He had emerged straight into a patch of spring sunlight, and that had been the worst moment because there on his newborn head was a tuft of hair as red as fire.

  Whereupon Betsy had said, “Look at that! Mistress, didn’t you say when Quentin was born, and the master said to name her for your grandmother, that your grandmother was carrot-haired? This one’s going to be more like her than Quentin is!”

  “Yes,” said Liza faintly. “Yes, he will. There was a little red in my mother’s hair when she was young and there’s just a glint of it in Quentin’s, in some lights.”

  “Maybe he did ought to be named for your side of the family, Mistress.”

  “Yes,” Peter said, when his opinion was sought. “Call him after your father, Liza. Didn’t my father suggest that once?”

  Never, for a moment, had there been suspicion. Yet every time she looked at Nicky, Christopher was there again for her, fiery hair, shapely eyebrows, eyes the colour of amber or sweet chestnut—quite unlike her own soft brown ones or Peter’s Lanyon eyes, which were so dark that from only a short distance away they looked black. He had Christopher’s dear snub nose and even a cluster of freckles on his square little chin.

  Christopher was still, as far as she knew, at Dunster Castle. She hadn’t seen him since that day in the dell and probably would never see him again, for she didn’t go to Dunster now. Nicky occasionally did, because his father had decided when the boy turned eight that he was old enough to be taken along when wool was delivered to the Weavers. Sometimes he had stayed there for a week or two, helping to wash fleeces at the river, and being instructed in the craft of weaving, though his Dunster relatives, like Liza, all agreed that he had little aptitude for it.

  Liza was uneasy at the idea of Nicky and Christopher being in the same village, but she knew that he should get to know his mother’s family. This was a gamble she must accept. For her, Nicky’s resemblance to his father was a blessing. He kept Christopher’s memory green for her. Christopher lived in her mind, unknown to all others, a quietly flowing underground river. It was enough.

  She wished the Allerbrook were flowing more quietly. The noise of it worried her. The wind was increasing, too, and when she peered through the window glass she saw that still darker weather was approaching from the west. Something worse was on the way.

  The door to the kitchen swung open and Peter came in, wrapped in a blanketlike robe and rubbing his hair on a towel. The robe was one of a set created by Liza after Higg’s death. In farm life, people were always getting drenched in bad weather but she didn’t want anyone else to die as Higg had done, and she had woven and sewn a set of thick robes for the purpose of getting wet bodies warm and dry in a hurry.

  “What a day! Betsy’s put our clothes to dry and the Hannacombe boys are wandering about in a couple of your woolly gowns, looking like a pair of monks.”

  “I don’t see them as monks!” Liza said. “I’ve been meaning to mention this to you. Quentin’s thirteen now. She’s growing up. What do you think about Eddie Hannacombe? Your father mentioned the idea once. When Quentin’s seventeen, say. Eddie’ll be about twenty-six by then. Jarvis is younger, but I’d prefer Eddie. He’s is quiet and responsible and Jarvis already has a bit of a name for flirting among the village wenches.”

  “Father mentioned it to me as well, not long ago. As a matter of fact, Eddie’s in the workroom now, talking to Quentin. They’re good friends, those two. I fancy the idea will appeal to them. Well, I’m agreeable if they are—and Sim, of course. And yes, it should be Eddie—you’re right about Jarvis, I’d say. We could arrange a betrothal party soon, I think—when the rain stops. I’ve seen plenty of wild weather, but I’ve never seen rain like this in my life. We’ve lost a sheep. The bog on the ridge has overflowed and there’s a torrent down the hillside out in front of the house, and a sheep lying on an outcrop in the middle of it. Must have been caught and swept away when the water came over the edge.”

  “I hope it’s the only one,” Liza said anxiously.

  Nicky, who had now climbed up to stand on the window seat so that he could look out, said, “Oooh! Look at that cloud! I’ve never seen one like that before!”

  Liza went to look and was alarmed. The dark weather from the west was now an advancing inky mass that seemed to be wiping out the world below it. “Nicky, go and fetch Quentin, and take her to Betsy in the kitchen and ask for honeycakes. She made some yesterday. Say I said you could both have one. Go along now.”

&
nbsp; As soon as Nicky had gone, she turned to Peter. “That sky’s frightening. There’s no thunder. But—look at it.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it,” Peter said. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s been a house here for centuries. The stock’s safely in now, all but that sheep. It’ll pass and meanwhile, we’re safe, too, in here. We’d better have some candles. It’ll be as dark as night in a moment.”

  They were lighting candles when the monstrous cloud reached them, taking the last of the daylight, and the wind and rain suddenly doubled. The windows streamed as though water were being poured down them by the bucketful. A mass of water tumbled down the chimney, putting out the fire with a noisy sizzle and causing Liza to spring around in alarm, taper in hand. Then, her eyes widening, she cocked her head and said, “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” said Peter calmly. “It’s just the wind. It…”

  A fearful roar and crash from outside interrupted him. The very walls of the hall, stout as they were, shuddered. A chorus of frightened cries rose from the kitchen and the door to it crashed open. Eddie came in at a run with Quentin and Nicky. Eddie and Quentin were both pale with alarm though Nicky, by contrast, had gone red with excitement.

  “What’s happening?” Liza rushed to meet them. “What…?”

  “Mistress, it’s terrible! There’s water in the back of the house—”

  “Right inside!” Nicky squealed.

  “And a great big tree’s come down with it!” Quentin was clearly terrified.

  Jarvis Hannacombe arrived in haste, and his normally stolid pink face was also unwontedly pale. “It’s the bog on the ridge—I think! It’s overflowed in a new place, close above here. It’s pouring down the hillside like a new river. It’s—”

  “It’s in the dairy!” screamed Betsy, lumbering in at the nearest approach her aged legs could make to a run. “There’s filthy water in the dairy! The window’s burst in and so’s the outer door! A tree came down and smashed them in! It’s sticking its branches through into the dairy and the apple store up above. And there’s water in your parlour, Mistress!”

  Incredibly, as they stood there exclaiming, the wind and rain strengthened yet again. A shower of slates hurtled off the hall roof. From the stable, faintly audible through the din, came frightened whinnying.

  “I’m going to look at the damage to the rooms in front,” Peter said. “Betsy, Liza, stay here with the children. You lads come with me!” He beckoned to the Hannacombes and they all hurried off through the kitchen. Quentin ran to her mother and stood trembling in the curve of Liza’s arm but Nicky shook himself free and ignoring his mother’s protesting shout, ran after the men.

  “Quentin,” said Liza, “be good and stay here. It’s all right. It’s just a loud noise and a lot of rain and some damage to the front of the house, and it’s let water in. But I must fetch Nicky. Betsy, take care of her!”

  Lifting her skirts, she sped off through the kitchen and almost collided with Richard, who had been upstairs and had now rushed down, to stand aghast at the door into the dairy. “Where’s Nicky?” Liza panted.

  “I don’t know. Wasn’t he with you?”

  “Nicky!” Liza shouted. “Where are you? Nicky!”

  “The whole front of the house is flooded!” Peter came striding back through the workroom with Eddie and Jarvis behind him. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, never!”

  “God’s teeth, nor have I!” Richard gasped.

  The dairy was several inches deep in brown peaty water, but it was on a lower level than the kitchen, with two steps down to it, and so far, the kitchen and its adjoining larder had escaped. But wind and rain were now driving in through the broken window and the shattered door and the thing that had done the damage, one of the shallow-rooted trees from the hillside above the farm, was thrusting vicious twigs and branches in through the holes. The inrush of water had knocked over a table where a row of pans had stood, full of cream which was setting. The pans were afloat in the water, and a milky swirl was all that remained of the cream. Several cheeses, swept from their shelf by an intrusive tree branch, wallowed dismally beside them.

  “Where is Nicky?” Liza wailed. “Nicky!”

  Her redheaded son appeared in answer, in the doorway from the storeroom next to the dairy. “Isn’t it exciting? The tree’s trying to get in!”

  “Nicky! Come here! No, don’t wade across through that water. It’s disgusting! Go round by the workroom but then come to me at once! What do you mean by running off…?”

  There was a renewed roar and rumbling from outside and Nicky, not obeying orders but plunging excitedly knee-deep into the flooded dairy, kicking pans and cheeses aside, made toward the broken outer door. “Look!”

  They did look, and Liza cried out. The worst of the cloud was passing and grey daylight was returning to the stricken world. Even from the inner side of the dairy, they now had a view of the landscape beyond the smashed outer door and what they could see was terrifying. High on the slope above the farmhouse, a great boulder, one of the outcrops which dotted the hillside, had been torn loose by the flood from the overflowing bog. It was rolling, bouncing, straight toward the house, and another surge of water was coming with it, as though the uprooting of the boulder had released it.

  “Nicky!” Liza screamed.

  But Nicky, wildly excited, did not even hear her. Eager to see better, he splashed right into the broken doorway, clinging to the doorpost.

  Peter and Liza shouted his name again, in unison, and started forward, stumbling down the submerged dairy steps, but Eddie Hannacombe, younger and quicker than either of them, brushed past and threw himself across the room. In the brief seconds before the boulder arrived, he grabbed Nicky, picked him up bodily and hurled him back across the room toward Peter and Liza. Liza flung her arms around him, and Peter, grabbing her arm, dragged them both back up the steps into the kitchen. Eddie waded after them, the skirts of his thick robe spreading out around his knees.

  The boulder struck.

  The kitchen survived because the inner walls of the old farmhouse were as strong as the outer ones and the outer ones took the brunt, slowing the monstrous missile down. As it was, the dairy’s outside wall shifted under the impact and then gave way in a tumble of rubble and stone slabs. The huge rock, crashing through it, crushed the tree as though its sturdy trunk were nothing but a twig and then fetched up against the far wall while the flood that came with it poured across the dairy in a murky brown wave and on into the kitchen, knocking everyone there off their feet.

  Like the boulder itself, however, it had lost impetus on the way through the dairy and they scrambled back to their feet, choking and spluttering. And then clung to each other in terror as they saw a second boulder coming. It thundered into the front of the house farther along, striking the parlour by the sound of it, and the entire building shuddered. Then there was stillness except for the sloshing of water.

  In the kitchen, though soaked and terrified and standing in two feet of water, everyone was still alive. But Eddie Hannacombe had not been in the kitchen when the boulder hit. He had still been wading across the dairy and had been caught between boulder and wall. They found him there, his body crushed and his head lolling, the blood flowing out and staining the water all around him. The only consolation was that he had probably died at once.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE RISING HOUSE OF LANYON

  News found its way around the moor in the days that followed, news of farmhouses and cottages swept completely away; of villages flooded by rivers which had always hitherto been friendly brooks; news of sheep and cattle, ponies and wayfarers, caught and drowned; of meadows under water which had never been flooded before; of uprooted trees, of landslides, of peat streams which had changed their courses.

  The Lanyons swept the water out of their farmhouse and considered the damage. The outhouses around the yard were unscathed and so, because it was on higher ground, was the hall. The
cottages were safe, too. Kat and Roger had crouched, petrified, by their hearth, but their sturdy stone walls had stood firm in the wind and rain, and only their thatch would need repair. Betsy’s cottage, sheltered by a spur of hillside, was altogether untouched.

  The farmhouse itself, however, had been badly hit. The rooms facing the yard had survived, though their floors had been flooded, but the second boulder had smashed right into the parlour and also destroyed the rusty hinges of the disused front door. The front of the house was a wreck, the upper storey sagging dangerously on unsteady beams, and the thatched roof half gone.

  Worst of all was the death of Eddie Hannacombe, and among the most urgent tasks, as well as the most distressing, was his retrieval and burial. Once the water had been swept out, Peter took Plume down the mired path through the combe to see the carpenter and the sexton and bring a coffin back, strapped to Plume’s back. The carpenter usually had one or two in readiness and Peter returned two hours later, bringing not only the coffin but Father Matthew, who did his best, offering physical aid as well as prayer, to help them through the horrible business that faced them.

  To do it, they had to clear away the rubble of the smashed dairy wall, and then hitch their own and some borrowed oxen to the boulder to drag it away, and even at that, the men, including Father Matthew, had to add their strength to the ropes. Then they lifted the crushed thing that had been Eddie, laid him in the coffin and placed the lid over him, in haste.

  The burial was the next day. When the pitiful remains were safe in the churchyard, the Lanyons turned their attention to Nicky.

  Since the disaster, no one had said much to him. He had been given jobs to do and had done them, but it had been made unsmilingly clear to him that the adult world was merely dealing with more immediate matters before it dealt with him. Once he found Quentin crying in the workroom, and gathering from her tearful explanation that she was grieving for Eddie, he cried, too, and said he was sorry, and Quentin, surprisingly, actually attempted to comfort him rather than the other way around, saying that she knew he hadn’t meant any harm, that it wasn’t his fault. The only friendly words he heard during those frightening days were hers. Everyone else, his mother included, was chilly and remote.