A Traveller in Time

by Alison Uttley

  “You’ve grown very wise, young woman,” mocked Alison.

  “Yes. You can’t live in the depths of the country without acquiring some wisdom,” said I quietly. “Besides, I am an experienced traveller.”

  “Traveller! You! You’ve been nowhere, have you?” she asked, surprised.

  “A traveller in time,” I replied, and Alison gave me a quick glance and shook her finger at me.

  “Oh, Penelope! You’re incorrigible! But you’ll grow out of it,” she assured me.

  Her words made me very unhappy, for I didn’t want to lose this possession of mine, which gave me the power of passing into other layers of time, to share the lives and love of those who dwelt there. I went out of the room with aching heart and stood on the landing. From my mother’s room ran spreading fans of firelight and low voices talking, and from our own room came Alison’s voice humming a song.

  As I stood there the firelight faded, and I was in the darkness with the latch of another, older door within my reach. I lifted it and stepped silently down the little flight of stairs to the corridor below. I walked along, past Mistress Foljambe’s room, where another fire burned and the strange birds and beasts of the woodland seemed to come to life and move among the painted trees on the wall. The round gold watch ticked noisily, the fire spattered as the snow fell down the chimney on to its blazing logs. Mistress Foljambe sat there, with the Book of Hours in her hands, and she turned the pages slowly, not reading. I passed on to Master Anthony’s room and walked inside, waiting for him to speak.

  He saw me at once, and put his finger to his lips for silence, so that I knew the priest was in the secret chamber.

  “Are you safe, Master Anthony?” I asked. “Did the snow hide everything?”

  “Yes, Penelope,” he whispered, in a voice soft as a breath. “They came galloping over the hills but there was nothing. We were sitting at the feast, listening to the mummers. There they were in their masks with their bladders and hobby-horses, acting a play, and we were laughing uproariously when Sir Ralph rode up, for Jude had warned us they were near. No, we knew nothing of doings at Wingfield. We were too much occupied with our festivities. So we gave them cups of sack and invited them to join us. They admired your marchpane Thackers immensely, and tasted the red roses, and took away the sweetmeat tower. They had no desire to go farther in the blinding snowstorm. They rode back without paying any more visits, for the night was cruel wild, and they wanted to get back.”

  “And the queen? Mary Stuart?”

  “Alas, she is to be moved to Tutbury in January, in a few days time. Even the villagers are sorry, for they were profiting by the trade with Wingfield, and some thought they were going to make their fortunes.”

  “And you, Master Anthony?” I asked gently.

  “I have my strength and youth, and I shall devote my life to her service. I shall rescue her, never fear. Even now I am arranging to go to Paris to make fresh plans. My work has only just begun.”

  “Master Anthony, don’t go. You can’t save her, and you may ruin her,” I pleaded with him.

  “One has only to die once, and I’ll outwit them. They shan’t get Thackers. They shan’t get all my estates. I’ll will them to Francis and George. I’ll make my will now and give my lands away before I go to France, and so defraud the cunning crown. The lawyer is in the house, and he shall help me and Father Hurd shall be witness.”

  He seized his quill and ink-horn and dragged a piece of parchment from his desk.

  “Father Hurd,” he called, and the priest moved in the hidden chamber, but I prepared to fly from the room.

  “Good-bye, Master Anthony,” I said sadly. “Good-bye and God be with you.” I knew that the end had come, that I should not speak to him again.

  He looked up but did not see me, he had already forgotten me, and I went softly to the door.

  “Father Hurd. Come quickly. I’m going to make my will and outwit these foxes. Ah! They shan’t have Thackers and its chapel and homestead. They can have this body to break, but not the home of my childhood, and not my faith. Foy est tout, Father Hurd. Come write. ‘Thackers and my meadows, Westwood, Squirrels, Meadow Doles, Hedgegrove, I bequeath them and my horses, Stella, Silver—’ ”

  I shut the door and ran weeping along the passage to the head of the stairs, but no farther could I go.

  Down below in the hall I saw Mistress Babington playing chess with Francis, moving the ivory figures with slow hesitations, listening, her face uplifted, as if she awaited Anthony. Dame Cicely entered with a covered silver cup.

  “Drink this broth, dear mistress,” said she tenderly. “It will put colour in your cheeks. Remember you have another life to think of now.”

  Mistress Babington sipped and smiled at the round homely face bent over her.

  Then she saw me, leaning on the rail, gazing down at the room from which I was separated by a veil I could not penetrate.

  “Look! Look! On the stairs! Penelope is there!” she cried, and Francis sprang to his feet and ran across the room. “Penelope! Stay! Never leave us!” he implored, but even as he called the scene faded, the air lost its luminosity, and Francis was but a shadow moving on the wall. I went along the passage, moving fleetfoot, unreal. The steps were there, one, two, three, under my feet, and I unlatched the waiting door and it closed behind me.

  From the bedroom across the way came my mother’s voice warning my father against spilling the candle wax, and laughing when he asked where the bathroom was. Alison was singing as she brushed her hair, and I caught my breath as I heard her song.

  Greensleeves was all my joy.

  Greensleeves was my delight.

  Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

  And who but Lady Greensleeves.

  “Stop! Stop!” I cried running into the room. “You mustn’t sing that.”

  “Penelope! What’s the matter? I thought you were going downstairs? What’s the matter?” she asked, in surprise.

  “Why do you sing that song?” I demanded.

  “Greensleeves? We danced to it at the folk-dance class. Don’t you like it, Penelope?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “Yes. But I don’t want it to-night, please”; and even then I thought I heard a faint whisper, a breath vibrating the ether. “Penelope! Stay!” it said, but I shook myself free and went downstairs.

  That Christmas Eve, as we ate our mincepies and drank the hot spiced ale and the posset which Aunt Tissie warmed by the fire, the dogs began to bark, and on a sudden there was a burst of music outside. The village choir had come to sing their Christmas carols. They stood in the garden path with their lanterns shining across the snow, some with pieces of music in their hands, others with trumpets and flutes, and I thought they were like those other singers I had heard so recently in the very same place. We opened the door and invited them into the kitchen, and they stamped their boots and left their coats and sticks in the porch. They stood round the fire, and the older men sat down on the settle, and we all laughed and joined in the merriment as they ate their mincepies and sipped the mulled ale Aunt had prepared for them.

  “We can’t stay long, Miss Taberner,” said the leader. “We’ve to go up to Bramble Hall, and o’er the hill. Good-night to all on you. Good-night all. Thank you kindly. The compliments of the season. Don’t forget to ring the midnight bell, Master Taberner.”

  Uncle Barny replied that he had never forgotten bar once, when the spiced ale was too potent. There was renewed laughter, and away they went.

  I said good-night, for my head ached, and I wanted to be alone. I went upstairs to my bedroom where the fire was burning brightly. I leaned out of the window, and far away up the fields I could see the lanterns bobbing in the snow as the waits trudged to other farms. The singing was lost in the soughing of the trees, and the murmur of the brook as it fought its battle against the ice which strove to bind it.

  As I waited there, listening to the crackling sounds of winter, with the frosty sky above and the stars blinking fierce
ly among the dark trees, I heard a voice down on the lawn where the cedar-tree had once stood, and as I stared into the blue-shadowed distance the old tree’s flat, powdered branches swam into my vision, and below I saw a cloaked figure with a pheasant’s feather in his hat. I heard the mocking voice of Francis Babington, half plaintive, half defiant, singing to the open spaces around him.

  Greensleeves now farewell, adieu!

  God I pray to prosper thee;

  For I am still thy lover true,

  Come once again and love me.

  Greensleeves was all my joy,

  Greensleeves was my delight.

  Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

  And who but Lady Greensleeves.

  There was a clatter of hooves from the court-yard and Master Anthony rode out with two horses. Francis sprang to his mare’s back and away they went, down the drive and along the winding valley. I waited there, shivering with cold, but the hoofbeats were only the clamour of the brook’s waters, and nobody returned.

  The peacefulness of Thackers which had held the seasons for five hundred years flowed through me, giving me strength and courage as it had done to those others, uniting me to them. I knew I had seen them for the last time on this earth, but some day I shall return to be with that brave company of shadows.

  ALISON UTTLEY (1884–1976) was born Alice Jane Taylor in Derbyshire, England, into a tenant farming family that had lived on the same land for two hundred years. Uttley would return to the Derbyshire landscape and the house she grew up in, Castle Top Farm, in many of her books, including A Traveller in Time. A bright scholarship student throughout her childhood, Uttley went on to Manchester University, and in 1906 became the second female student to graduate with honors in physics from the university. Marriage and motherhood put an end to her teaching career, and it was only after her son, John, began school that she published her first book, The Squirrel, the Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit (1929). Uttley’s husband died the next year, and she began publishing books at a rapid rate in order to support herself and her son. Among her works are naturalistic novels of youth, adventure tales, and a cookbook, as well as books that grew out of her belief in enchantment, time travel, and the supernatural. By the end of her life, Uttley had written some one hundred books of fiction and nonfiction, including thirty in the Little Grey Rabbit series, and become one of twentieth-century Britain’s most popular children’s writers.

  PHYLLIS BRAY (1911–1991) was an English painter, illustrator, and muralist. She excelled at the Slade School of Fine Art and later married John Cooper, founder of the East London Group of artists, of which she was also a member. Her work is in several public collections in Britain, and through her collaborations with the well-known muralist Hans Feibusch, on display in churches and other buildings throughout the country.

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 1939 the Alison Uttley Literary Property Trust

  Illustrations copyright © 1939 by Phyllis Bray

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Louise Fili Ltd.

  Cover art by Mahendra Singh

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Uttley, Alison, 1884–1976.

  A traveller in time / by Alison Uttley; illustrations by Phyllis Bray.

  p. cm.—(New York Review Books children’s collection)

  Summary: When, in the late 1930s, Penelope is sent to stay with relatives in a remote ancient farmhouse in Derbyshire, she finds herself mysteriously transported to Elizabethan times where her sixteenth-century family is scheming to free the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, but, even with her twentieth-century knowledge, Penelope remains helpless in the face of danger.

  ISBN 978-1-59017-388-6 (alk. paper)

  [1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Country life—Derbyshire (England)—

  Fiction. 3. Derbyshire (England)—History—20th century—Fiction.

  4. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542–1587—Fiction. 5. Babington, Anthony,

  1561–1586—Fiction. 6. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth,

  1558–1603—Fiction.] I. Bray, Phyllis, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.U72Tr 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010026944

  eISBN 978-1-59017-513-2

  v1.0

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