A Traveller in Time

by Alison Uttley

  More riders pressed through the market, and stopped to buy at the booths and to see the painted doll. Among them I saw the lovely red-haired girl who had walked in the garden at Bramble Hall. She rode swiftly up to us, calling to Francis, above the people’s heads.

  “Cousin Francis! Coz! Here you are! I have been seeking you. Who is this with you? I thought it was your sister, Alice, and I see it is the kitchen wench, dressed in Alice’s weeds, a sparrow aping a hawk.”

  She spoke with strident harshness and those around laughed and nudged each other, staring at me and at the girl’s mocking face, and they clustered close, scenting a quarrel, eager to take sides.

  “This is Mistress Penelope Taberner, my friend, from London,” said Francis, doffing his hat in a low bow. “You have made a mistake, Cousin Arabella. Good day to you.”

  He swept off his hat again with an imperious gesture, and beckoned to me, and we rode away down the steep hill-side, leaving Arabella with a frowning face, scowling after us.

  Although I knew the great rounded hills which curved against the sky with contours unchanged for immemorial years, the villages nestling in their folds were smaller, with only a few cottages thatched with straw and rough huts where children peered. There were wild uncultivated stretches of moorland and wood where once I had seen cornfield and meadow. We stayed for a moment looking across the heavily forested slopes where hills were blue as speedwell against a violet distance, and down in the hollow basin lay the market-town with its little stone houses jumbled together and wreathed in a smoky mist. Then we climbed higher, avoiding the rocks which jutted from the path, following a road as old as the hills themselves, the way taken by many a traveller journeying from the north of England to the south.

  Below in the valley was the river, running through willow and alder thickets, and as I watched the winding stream I remembered riding to the station in the milk-cart along a white road by its side, but only a grassy path was there, with anglers fishing in the Darrand.

  We drew rein and gazed at the scene, at the peaceful beauty of the sun-drenched landscape, and the flecked and shadowed silver stream which sparkled as it broke over the rocks. Francis was intent on the fishermen who stood in the water with their rods and nets gathering a harvest of trout; I strove to bring to the surface of my mind the glimmering thoughts which swam like fish evading me.

  “It is now,” I mused. “All the past and the future are there, but we only see one part of it, the other is hidden in mists.”

  Francis started and turned quickly to me.

  “Tell me more, Penelope,” he implored. “How did you come here? How can I go there and see the future?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I knew, I wish I could remember more and see more. My visits must be outside time, for when I return I find I have been away for only a fraction of a second, no measurable period, not a heart-beat, but in that span I feel life more intensely and all my senses are more acute. The grass is greener, the sky more translucent, as I step light-foot and silent across the border.

  “I spend a whole day with you, and the fingers of my watch haven’t moved. The time I left is the time I return. See,” I showed him my wrist-watch. “It was late in the afternoon when I came from...from...I forget what I was doing or where I was, but it was a sweet-smelling place, for I can smell it now. Then I talked with you, and we rode, and here we are, but the clock has not moved on.”

  “It’s like a dream, Penelope,” Francis mused.

  “One makes visits like that in dreams. The philosophers say that a dream journey takes but a flash of time, that we may travel to the ends of the earth in a heart-beat, and that if we overstay in that mysterious world of dreams, we die.”

  “That’s what I fear,” I said very low, scarcely breathing. “If I stay too long in this world of dreams, I shall die,” and I looked round at the brilliant green of the landscape and the dark rocks and the waving trees. For a moment they seemed unreal, like the painted scenery of a play with the footlights casting no shadows.

  Francis did not hear me, and perhaps I never said my thought aloud, for he went on, heedlessly. “Once I was awakened by Anthony knocking at my door. He knocked twice, he told me afterwards, with scarce a second between, but I went through a thousand adventures in that time, dreaming of a voyage to the Spanish Main with Captain Drake, fighting savages and eating strange tropical fruits, then taking ship again and seeking for the gold ships. The knock on my door was the banging of our guns at the galleons. Do you have wars, Penelope? Or is your future that Utopia about which Thomas More wrote?”

  “We have wars, and there isn’t Utopia yet,” I laughed ruefully.

  “Tell me more about yourself, Penelope,” he added, and I remembered little things and spoke of them to him, unimportant incidents which must have been etched in my brain, and now appeared flashing across my consciousness with the incongruity of a dream sequence. As I recalled these memories they seemed to be fairy-tales read in an old book, and I saw the pages turned, each with its picture which hung clear as light for a moment and then faded and was lost as I tried to catch it and bring it before the boy by my side. Like a dream within a dream my other life appeared before me, clearer now than when I first entered the Elizabethan times, but always ebbing and flowing in a manner I could not control.

  I spoke of Chelsea and the river, of Westminster and Greenwich, but Francis asked questions which I couldn’t answer, about the grandeurs and beauties of palaces, which had disappeared, and the retinue and liveries of famous men, who were only names to me.

  Then Francis began to talk about Babington House, which he had lately visited to see his mother.

  “You must go there, Penelope,” he said. “In the great hall is the carved shield with our motto ‘Foy est Tout’, splendid to see. There is a library with many books belonging to my father, and silver and tapestries. There is a square garden with a fountain, a high spout of water most diverting, not a tiny pretty trickle like the one at Thackers, for a conduit runs near. And we have flowers from foreign lands, and a tree of purple blossoms from Italy, and a cage of coloured birds.”

  We rode together in silence as he pondered the riches of the Derby house. Then with the sudden charming gesture which pleased me he added: “I love Thackers best, with its wild flowers and singing birds in the orchard, and the green woods around it. I want no town life, for it doesn’t give me the pleasures of the country. Here I can track the deer, or train my falcons, and break in a wild young colt. I watch the herons’ flight, and set my goshawks to bring them down, and when the hunt is up it is fine sport for every man alive. Yes, I am glad I live now, happy in my own time, not wishful for the unknown future. I am content with Thackers, and I would that Anthony were of the same mind. But it looks as if the peace of England will be destroyed, for I believe we shall have a war with Spain. The Spaniards are a proud race, and our avowed enemies. They are building mighty warships, galleons, for they are angry with Drake and his adventurers, and angrier still with the queen. We have only little warships to meet them, but we shall fight. I won’t stay here guarding Anthony’s lands. When I bought my ballads yonder I saw another in the fellow’s hand, one written about Father Campion, Anthony’s friend. He was caught and hanged, and every day there is talk of house-searchings. What the end will be I know not. Anthony is firm for the Old Faith, and the country folk say there is danger from the King of Spain. No, I won’t stay here if there is fighting but I love Thackers so much!” He sighed deeply.

  “Is it the Spanish Armada they are preparing?” I asked timidly.

  “Yes. What do you know?” he questioned quickly.

  “It is one of the famous tales of England,” I said slowly, unwilling to say more, nor could I remember much as I rode at Francis’s side on that lovely hill.

  “If we are attacked there will be a beacon lighted on the Carr, and on the Starth by Windystone, and on Masson, to carry the tidings across the valleys. Every hill-top will have its fire, as in my grandfather’s time
, when they made a chain of flame across England.”

  We looked up the wooded valley to the Starth, a ridge against the sky, and Carr on the opposite horizon, but we rode past cottages where children played, kicking bladders, or tossing knuckle-bones, unconscious of rumours of war. In a field by the roadside was a pond with a great willow dropping its branches like silver-green fingers, and in and out of the shadows floated a flock of Thackers’ ducks.

  I could see Thackers among the trees in the distance and my heart beat gladly, for I wanted to get back to the house and surroundings I knew, but Francis began to talk low and rapidly, with an urgent force and quick glances around.

  “Penelope. Can you keep a secret? Shall I tell you something vital? Can you be trusted?”

  “Why of course I can, Francis,” I replied, wonderingly.

  “Swear it on your life. If you told, my brother and all of us would die, and then you would die too. I would denounce you as a witch-girl, and you would never again go to that future where you say you live.”

  He spoke darkly, almost savagely, his manner changed from the boy who had ridden with me to that of a man.

  “I have kept all your secrets,” I said, proudly. “Nobody knows I come here. I won’t be called a witch. You are absurdly superstitious, Francis.”

  He drew his horse across my path and I had to stop.

  “Why are we quarrelling, Penelope? I know you are true in a world where distrust abounds, but it is a life and death secret, and involves Thackers besides ourselves.”

  He looked round at the trees as if he thought they might conceal some one. Then he rode to a meadow and stopped again. The meadowsweet was thick and creamy in the ditch, flowing like a stream of white blossoms, and the honeysuckle curled around the nut-trees in our path. It was my favourite field, Squirrels, the five-acre, where I had walked once, long, long ago with Uncle Barnabas.

  “Queen Mary of Scotland is going to be moved from Sheffield Castle to Wingfield Manor, and that is only four or five miles away from here. Anthony will try to save her, for he knows the house well, and its secrets. He is planning her escape, and if he succeeds she will get to France, where he has made arrangements for her. Not a word is written down, there can be no betrayal. She will raise a force in France and Catholics of England will rise to make her queen.”

  I gasped, hardly realizing the full import of his words.

  “But Queen Elizabeth?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “She can live in prison walls for a change. I am talking treason I know. You talk treason too. What does it matter if we speak the truth where only the birds can hear?”

  He pricked his horse and cantered away, calling to me to follow, and we rode up the short drive to Thackers. Blue smoke curled from the chimneys and the smell of brewing came from the stone-built brewhouse in the yard. Francis helped me to dismount, and I walked stiffly across the cobbles to the white porch.

  “I must see the time,” called Francis and he ran to the sundial on the lawn. “If your little clock refuses to tell the truth, the sun cannot lie. We have been out five hours.”

  I took off my riding dress in the wardrobe room and put on my cotton frock. I tucked the woolly lambs and the ribbons in my pocket, and opened the door to Mistress Foljambe’s room. The bed lay tempting with its carved bedposts and embroidered cover. I would lie down for a moment before I tried to find my way back, I thought. I flung my weary body down and put my head on the crackling feather-pillow. In an instant I was asleep and when I awoke Aunt Tissie was bending over me.

  “How are you? Have you slept well?” she asked.

  I raised myself bewildered, and then sank back with a groan. “I have such an ache,” I murmured.

  “It’s the haymaking. It always gets you when you begin,” she reassured me.

  “It was the ride over that rough country,” I thought, and quickly I looked at my wrist-watch. It was ticking again, but not a minute had gone by. The ribbons, the woolly lambs, all had vanished like a dream. I had had to leave my sweet possessions behind me, with those who were stealing my heart away. There only remained with me a small exquisite drop of emotion which seemed to have distilled out of time for my comfort.

  9. The Secret Passage

  Haymaking took the whole of the June days, for the men began when I was asleep in the morning, and the work never stopped till the moon came out and the bats flew in and out of the barns. The haystacks were growing in the grassy yard by the church and the great wains of new hay came lurching top-heavy along the lanes and meadows past the tower. Sometimes I rode on top of the grey-gold load with Patrick, my favourite Irishman, beside me. I looked up at the tents of green leaves waving above me, with clear light dripping like water upon the ever-changing colours of the shadowed hay. Time and space seemed to slip away, I was riding on a cloud, not on the earth at all. Sometimes I thought I heard a voice calling: “Penelope. Penelope.” But it was only the song of the cuckoo. Sometimes I heard the cries of huntsmen and saw dim, flying horses gallop over the fields to the opposite wooded hills, but when I raised myself it was only the cloud-shadows racing up the valleys to the horizon.

  One day when I leaned idly against the churchyard wall waiting for the haycart to be emptied, I heard Anthony’s deep voice talking to his wife, and for a moment I saw him. The garden at Thackers which adjoined the church changed before my eyes, the smooth lawn of other days spread from the little croft, the cedar-tree came from the shade. Young Mistress Babington’s hand was on Anthony’s shoulder, her pretty face was white and drawn, she seemed to be pleading with him. I saw his plum-coloured cloak thrown back, and I caught the glint of a signet ring he wore.

  “Mary, dear heart, I have pledged my life to save her. I am bound by sacred vows, and I am ready to die in her service. I must keep my word to the Catholic Church and the queen.”

  “Your duty lies here, Anthony, at Thackers. These people are your people, Cicely and old John Darbishire, and the folk of the valleys and hills. Life is sweet, Anthony; we are only on the threshold of marriage. We should have many years of happiness before us, carrying on the work of your forefathers, caring for the land, living a quiet country life, serene and secure, in this valley where all is so beautiful. Stay here, dear Anthony. Don’t leave me again. I can’t bear the separation and the agony of fear for your safety.”

  She stretched out her hand with a sweeping gesture to the warm, green woods and the sun-freckled fields. Out of the depths of the blue sky swooped a hawk, and the plover cowered in the bracken.

  “Oh, take care! Take care!” I wanted to cry, but no voice came, and I beat my hands in vain.

  Anthony put his arm round his wife, and pointed to the church tower with its row of shields. “Foy est tout, Mary. I must keep faith with the three, Mary, Queen of Heaven, Mary the queen in captivity, and Mary my wife.”

  “Mary of many sorrows.” The whisper came like a breath from her lips, the voices were silent, the figures faded, and I saw only the massive yews, sombre and remote, reminding me that they had witnessed scenes of parting and sadness for centuries, they had shared the life of Thackers with its births and deaths, and caught the essence of sorrow in their funereal boughs.

  I went into the house and climbed the twisted stair to the landing, seeking to enter that remote world, but not succeeding, although I knew it was close to me. The door was waiting to be opened if only I could see it.

  That evening the men worked late to finish and I raked the fields in the dusk with Alison, stopping to pick the dog-roses which were like white stars in the hedges, then hastening after my sister. Dumbledores boomed as they struck our dresses, a hedgehog walked in the path, and we could hear the barking of a fox in the wood. Night creatures were about, and a vibrant stillness was in the air, so that every sound was magnified, and the voices of the men echoed against the tower. My mind was half with the haymakers, and half with those others of three hundred years before, for that time seemed very close to me. With my feet I walked the same wa
rm ground that Anthony and Francis Babington had trod. I smelled the same roses, blooming on the hedges, creeping over old barns, undisturbed for generations, renewing themselves yet always the same. Poor Mary Babington may have wept under one of the yews and pressed her face against its trunk. Dame Cicely Taberner picked herbs in the garden and stooped over the bushes of rue and wormwood as I bent my face to the olive leaves. I rode on the last load of hay, under the pricking stars, and the horses drew me to the stackyard where I could see the great haystacks already built silvery-grey and rich with heavy fragrance.

  They seemed half as high as the tower from where I crouched, and I was proud of Uncle Barnabas’s famous stacks. I slid down and waited and the moon rose white-faced from the hills. It was a strange unearthly scene, the men like shadows, the dark horses, the church soaring under the new light. The fields lay smooth as lawns, pale in the moon rays, and the horses whinnied with pleasure as Ian opened the gate and turned them loose. Hay-harvest was done and all the fun and the hard labour was finished. The land was resting after its close communion with man.

  Aunt Tissie called me from the kitchen door, and waved her apron to me. Another voice seemed to come trilling like a bird in the night air. I shivered and ran indoors to the farm kitchen and washed my streaky face in the brass bowl at the sink. Then I changed my dress and took my supper to the garden where I sat under the oak-tree, listening to the talk of the men.