“Drink this, my chuck,” said she. “You’ve had a tiring day, and the excitement of Betty has been too much for you. Now show your pictures quietly and then you must go to bed, for you look flushed and your eyes are over-bright. I’ll run the warming-pan over your sheets and bring a posset up to you.”
As Alison and I lay in our beds Aunt Tissie entered with the hot drink in a two-handled cup.
“Here’s a sup that will do you good and make you sleep,” said she. “We always have this same one, and always have done, right-away back.” I tasted the honey and balm, and I thought of the herb posset I had seen Aunt Cicely make for Mistress Babington. It had the same sweet smell, and as Aunt Tissie leaned over to kiss me, there seemed little difference, so that I scarcely knew in which time I was living. Or was it that time never existed, that we all lived between two worlds which I had been privileged to enter?
Days passed in country delights, and for some time I did not see anything of those other inhabitants of Thackers. The mornings began with a ride over the hills to the station, before seven when the dew was heavy and the sun sent long fingers pointing the way to birds and beasts. The flowers raised their heads and drank that heavenly moisture, the pheasants ran across our path with quickly tripping feet, the fox walked unhurrying and secure. We passed through two villages along the riverside and all the way the milk churns jangled with loud music and I bumped about among them. I walked on the platform and watched the folk, the farmers with their fine sticks going to market, the cattle-drovers with cudgels, the boys and girls going to a grammar school. Some nodded to me and others asked after my uncle, for I was accepted as belonging to the place. The train came puffing in with as much importance as if it were a London train. The guard and I exchanged buttonholes, for I always took a Thackers posy in my coat and the guard had a nice little greenhouse at home he told me. Then we waited till the green flag waved, the engine-driver leaned from his cab, and away went the slow old train.
I had my own farm work at Thackers. I was the hen-wife, and I helped to feed the family of pigs. It was my delight to hang over the pig-cote door and watch the fourteen piglings nuzzle their mother, pushing each other out of the way, so that there were always one or two vainly trying to edge their snouts to the milk. Alison refused to join me, she couldn’t get used to the smell of pigs, and when I came back carrying my cans she insisted on sprinkling eau-de-Cologne on my apron, to Uncle Barny’s amusement.
“Penelope’ll be the farmer’s boy, not Alison,” said he. “Penelope’s my little wench,” and I felt proud of that.
Sometimes we all drove out with Uncle and Aunt in the old-fashioned pony-cart. We trundled along the lanes, and walked up the hills, pushing behind to help the horse, and walked down the hills, pulling to act as extra brakes, while motor-cars roared past us, “all in a tarnation hurry to get somewhere and save a minute”, Uncle Barnabas said.
Whether we went up to little villages of stone cottages, or down to the valleys where ivy-covered farmhouses nestled in the trees, where my uncle talked of the prospects of harvest, and the poorness of grassland, or my aunt compared her hens and ducklings, I thought of those bygone days, when other people rode along those same narrow lanes and perhaps tasted the butter and begged for a receipt for syllabub or pigeon-pie, and children in long, stiff clothes played whip and top like the boys and girls I saw.
I asked many questions about Thackers, trying to piece together the life there, but my aunt could not tell me much. Her own grandmother had been born there and many a one before that. Her family had lived on the farm in the time of the great people, the Babington family, who loved this little manor house more than any of their possessions. Their beloved home was Thackers, the nest in the hidden valley, with its church and farmstead, and lands compact and secure from marauding bands of soldiers and heresy hunters. There all the children were born, and there our own ancestors had lived, fitting into those other lives, serving them, faithful to them, linked to them by strong ties of duty and love. She herself felt it was only the other day they had died, and the land been sold, although it was many a year agone.
“But ask me no more,” she sighed. “I’ve had no larning. Me and Uncle Barnabas, we’ve kept things going and had no time for books. I dunno when it happened, the great tragedy, but ’twas a long time ago. Over a hunnerd years, or more maybe. Aye, it must have been more, for Grandmother Penelope Taberner lived here nigh on a hunnerd years ago.”
“Are you talking about Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, Aunt Tissie?” asked Alison, in her cool, clear voice, and I felt annoyed with her for the superiority of her tone.
“That’s her. The Queen of Scotland. Her that was so bonny and wrecked our Master Anthony’s life, and had her own head cut off,” said my aunt in her simple way.
“Only three hundred and twenty years ago,” said Alison with faint sarcasm.
“Three hunnerd! Over three hunnerd! Well, how time flies! I never thought it would be as long ago as that. Well, well.” Aunt Tissie sighed and I felt downright cross with my sister.
They die forgotten as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
murmured Aunt Tissie. “That’s what we sing at church, and it’s true. They’re all forgot.”
“I don’t forget,” I cried indignantly. “I remember them always.”
“Oh, you! You! Penelope’s fey,” laughed Alison to Aunt Tissie. “You go and help Jess feed the pigs my dear, or they’ll think they are forgotten too.”
But I didn’t go to the pigs. I found Uncle Barny and slipped my arm in his and walked across the fields to see the lambs at play and view the growing corn. I longed to visit that great kitchen again, to listen to Dame Cicely, to be scolded by Tabitha, and perhaps to share that warm, intimate comradeship of the family who lived there.
One day I stood on the landing, and I saw the iron latchet and the dark outline of the lost door. A sudden stillness came over the little sounds of the house, I felt strangely light as if I were treading on air. Walls disappeared or stretched out before me in the gable of Thackers. I lifted the latch and stepped down the little stairway into the corridor of time. It was quiet in the passage and I tiptoed along it, but my feet made no sound. Gradually I became accustomed to other scents and the atmosphere of the other time. I was elated and filled with curiosity about the house. I softly lifted the latch of the first room and saw it was only a wardrobe, filled with clothes hanging from wooden pegs, faded farthingales and kirtles of taffeta and rusty silk, petticoats and velvet cloaks, and much-boned corsets which must have belonged to Mistress Foljambe and her daughters. Nothing was ever wasted in a country family, as I knew from my Aunt Tissie’s store of clothing.
The next door was open and I peered inside. Tabitha was standing at the window looking out across the garden, engrossed by the view of Tom Snowball. I went into the room, conscious that I was now making a noise, that I was attuned to the atmosphere around me, but Tabitha was too much absorbed to notice me. There was a carved bed with grape-vines down the posts and dark curtains drawn back. It stood against a wall, and the sheets and embroidered bedcover lay heaped on the floor. A boy’s plum-coloured jacket with slashed sleeves was thrown on a low chest together with a pair of trunk hose, and a leather jacket, pinked all over with tiny cut flowers and buttoned with many leather buttons down the front. On a chair was a collection of arrows, a knife, and some goose feathers. There were pegs in the wall and upon them hung a cloak and feathered hat, and a pair of muddy thigh-boots stood by the door. I moved across the room to see a book which lay open on a table, but Tabitha turned back to toss the feather-bed and tidy the room.
“God ha’ mercy!” she cried, startled. “What art thou doing here, Penelope? Thou’lt catch it if Dame Cicely sees thee peering about in Master Francis’s room! Think shame on thee! Where hast thou been these days, running away from us? Didst go to Darby? Whatever wert thou doing?”
“Exploring, dear Tabitha,” I said, smiling happily.
&n
bsp; “Exploring forsooth! Like Raleigh and Drake, maybe?” scoffed Tabitha, indignantly. “I’ll tell on thee.”
“Don’t tell, Tabitha. I wanted to see what the house is like where Mistress Babington lives.”
I picked up the book. It was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, illustrated with woodcuts, and I turned the pages with interest, for I had worked at it at school.
“Now put that down. It’s not yourn. You can’t read it either, for its pagan stuff, as I know, for I once axed,” said Tabitha crossly. “Come and toss this bed, Penelope, and then off you go.”
“I can read it! I can!” I protested.
“Well you oughtna to, for it’s not for a young maid like thee. Just look at the pictures!”
I laughed and together we fluffed out the bed and straightened the pillows and coverlet.
“Is this the boy’s room?” I asked, although I knew quite well.
“It’s Master Francis’s room, if that’s who you mean, and he’s very particular about it,” said Tabitha severely. “Now don’t you be a meddlesome wench, and poke your nose into business that’s none of yourn. Here, get you gone, and leave that book alone, and help Dame Cicely. Away you go!”
I dropped the book reluctantly, and walked slowly along the passage. I could hear Tabitha thumping and banging about with her besom, and the sound gave me courage, so that I stepped up boldly to a handsome door which had a large key in the lock. With both hands I turned it, and pushed the door. Nobody was there, and I stood for a moment on the threshold, gazing entranced at the beautiful room with its odours of dried roses and violets, its mullioned windows and herb-strewn floor.
Then I entered, and saw the massive carved furniture of the chamber, a great four-poster bed which I recognized, with curtains and bedcover and velvet pillows. There were stools with tasselled cushions, and a cupboard, and long padlocked chest, but it was the wall which attracted me more than anything in the room. Oak and ash and walnut-tree were painted upon it, with dropping fruits, and antlered deer and flying birds, as well as many animals of the wild wood. I walked across the floor forgetful of everything in my curiosity and interest in the lively drawings, which I felt sure had been done from the woods around Thackers, the dark, mysterious woods which stretched up the hill-side.
I only glanced once through the many-sided little window-panes which framed those woods, for I was afraid somebody in the yard below, a groom or leather-coated serving-man would see me, and I hastened back to explore the pictures on the wall. Every beast and bird was different, and I wandered happily around, peering at wild duck and wood-cock, at badger and otter and pole-cat, tracing their spirited actions, seeking creatures I knew.
Suddenly I heard a step behind me and I sprang nervously round.
“Wench! What are you doing here?”
I saw Mistress Foljambe, Master Anthony’s mother, standing inside the doorway, with her starched, white ruff stiffly framing her proud head and her long skirts sweeping the floor. Without more ado, remembering my lesson, I curtsied to her.
“I was admiring the animals and birds on this wall,” I told her, and she seemed mollified for she smiled faintly as I spoke. “I wish I could paint like this,” I added. “It is the most beautiful room I have ever seen.”
“Come here, Penelope,” said she in a more kindly voice, and I went close to her, so that I could smell white violets and some other flower scents which clung to her dress.
“Do you not know this is my private chamber, and none come here without my permission, not even my dear daughter-in-law, Mistress Mary Babington?” she asked, and she put her strong bony fingers on my shoulder and tilted my chin to the light.
“I’ve never been here before,” I explained.
“You are that niece of Dame Cicely’s, are you not,” she asked, looking at me in a puzzled way, “lately come from London?”
“Yes, Mistress Foljambe,” I replied.
“Dame Cicely says you have had lessons in reading, and can acquit yourself well. She told me, too, that you have deft fingers and can make little drawings, and sew evenly with small stitches.”
I hesitated, for my sewing was not at all neat or even, but she went to the great carved tallboy chest and unlocked it with a silver key which hung with many another at her girdle. Then she brought out a little leather-backed book fastened with silver latchets. She drew me to the window, for the room was dusky with the dark furniture and the painted wall.
“This Book of Hours is a treasure I don’t show to every one, and never to those who care nought for beautiful things,” she said. She turned the pages slowly and I looked breathless with delight at the painted pictures, with their rich blues and scarlets and heavy inlays of gold. There were tiny paintings of the Babe Jesus in the manger with the ox and the ass near Him and a thatched roof overhead, and cocks and hens feeding at the doorway.
“It’s like Thackers,” I told her, excitedly, “and that’s our great hay-barn where the Babe lies.”
She laughed with pleasure and gave me a quick appraising glance before she turned another page.
There I saw the Flight into Egypt, with the Holy Babe in His mother’s arms, riding an ass down a lane where dog-roses grew. But it was a lane I had ridden along, and the gate which Joseph opened led to a meadow called Westwood.
Again she turned a page and I saw the delicate miniature of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus, but the room was one I knew, the kitchen at Thackers, with the spit before the fire, and bows and arrows on the wall and Jesus Himself sat in Uncle Barnabas’s chair with His feet in the brass washing-bowl.
Mistress Foljambe was pleased I knew the Bible stories so well, but when I stammered through the Latin she was astonished, for she seemed to expect me to read Latin as easily as English. When I confessed I could not say the Paternoster except in English she shook her head in dismay.
“My children learned the psalms and the Paternoster when they were babes,” she told me. She showed me other books and I read aloud to her part of “The Romaunt of the Rose”, and a fairy-tale called “The Tale of Goody Two-shoes”, to her satisfaction. I remarked on the change of spelling in the same words, and she reasoned with me.
“Spelling is a matter of individuality,” she told me. “I have my favourite ways of spelling words, and I choose my letters. My sons and daughters each spell as they wish, and surely you do the same?”
“If I make a mistake I am scolded,” said I.
She insisted one couldn’t make a mistake, for each spelt according to his whim. That was one of the delights of writing, one was free to invent a pretty word, and she was sure I should not be such a dullard as to spell in the same way always. “Life would lose one of its pleasures if we were deprived of the power to write as we wish. I myself spell my name Alys or Alice or Alyce, and Babington is full of amusement for us in a weary world. It is pictured in our town house at Darby in a carving over the fire as a babe astride a tun, although some fools have made a different spelling and put a coarse ape, or baboon from the Indies, perched upon a tun, Baboon-tun.”
This was a new idea for me and I was delighted that I could spell as I pleased and decorate my words as I wished.
Then she showed me a round, gold clock, the size of a tennis ball, with a pierced and chased cover through which I could see the hours. She lifted the goldencase and I saw an iron finger which moved over the hours and days, leaving the minutes to run as they wished. Roses were engraved on the rim, and flying birds about the keyhole, as if the hours measured only sweet flowers and birds’ flight.
It was a treasured possession, she said, and the only timekeeper in the district except the great iron clock in the church which had been left by Thomas Babington, her husband’s father, in 1558.
“Then how do you know the time, Mistress Foljambe?” I asked her.
“There is the sun in the sky, and a sundial in the garden, and Dame Cicely has an hour-glass for her cooking. What more do you want?” she replied.
Then she tired of me and
sent me away, but I was loath to leave a room so stored with many an object of beauty, and I had not finished looking at the birds and beasts painted on the walls.
“Get you down to the kitchen where I am sure some work awaits you,” she said as I hesitated. “Tell your aunt I find you well instructed in the scriptures and in your mother tongue but not in Latin. Your wits are bright for you recognized the scenes in the Book of Hours. Those illuminations were made by Master Thomas Babington, a learned clerk who lived here in the reign of King Henry V, and they were taken from our woods and lanes. He was our famous ancestor who fought at Agincourt and his sword hangs in the hall, as Dame Cicely will show you. Some day I will teach you further the use of simples and the preservation of flowers and herbs and all kinds of needlecraft, for you have a knowledge of colours, and love for beautiful things. I shall keep you in my household, and train you to be a help to Mistress Babington.”
She waved me away and I left her replacing the Book of Hours and the gold watch in the chest and locking them safely.
I was not to arrive at the kitchen without another encounter, for I took the wrong turning, confused with the passages in the extra wing. Before I could recover myself, I had run full tilt into a tall young man who strode out of a room as I passed. He grabbed me angrily and shook my arm as I apologized. Then he tilted my face upward to the dim light of the leaded panes and stared at me, and I recognized the flaxen hair and the blue eyes of the man I had seen sitting by a fire disconsolate.
“The very same wench who peeked in at me,” said he. “Who are you and where do you come from dressed in this garb? The green smock you wore that night when I had just come home was more becoming to you, for you are a likelier girl than a boy. Who are you?”
“Penelope, niece of Aunt Cicely, that is, Dame Cicely Taberner is my aunt,” I stammered.
“Penelope,” he said the word slowly, and again he repeated “Penelope”, and his voice was soft and full of dreams, as if he liked my name. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Where do you come from? Not from the village surely? I don’t remember you there, and I know most of my people.”
A Traveller in Time Page 8