The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

  “Dorothy lied because she doesn’t like me,” said Jane tiredly.

  “That’s absurd. Why ever shouldn’t she?”

  “I have no interest in Ralph Palmer,” said Jane, deciding on candour. “But Dorothy believes he only cares for her dowry and that if mine were bigger, he’d prefer me to her. She was also jealous of the attention the king paid me! She hates me for it.”

  “If you have no interest in Ralph Palmer,” said Francis unexpectedly, “then I’m surprised at you. He’s personable enough, I would have said! Though I saw your face when Peter Carew rode away. I suppose he’s the one you’d like. You can forget that, my girl. The Carews, even more than the Palmers, go in for advantageous marriages. What am I to do with you?”

  “I wish you’d just try believing me, Francis! It’s true I didn’t really want to go to court, but I fled from it for the reasons I told you. I was not dismissed. Can’t I be useful to you here?”

  “I don’t need you here, Jane. Peggy manages very well with the maids.” Francis rose to his feet. “I don’t know for sure whether the liar is Dorothy or you, but I’m inclined to think it’s you. I don’t mind keeping Lisa on, if she’s willing to stay. She must be a good seamstress—tirewomen usually are. There is always work for a skilled needle in a house like this. But as for you…”

  “Francis, what are you saying?”

  “Harry Hudd is still looking for a young wife and you don’t want to go far from home. He’s a decent, honest man, Jane. He’s older than you, but he’s still under fifty, and he lives just down the hill. Your dowry will be more than enough for him! I shall talk to him tomorrow.”

  “Francis, no!” Jane could hardly believe her ears. She stared blankly at her brother. Memories flooded back—of their parents’ deaths, of how Francis had hugged his sisters and they had hugged him back and they had all cried together. Now Sybil was exiled and Jane was to be thrown to—Harry Hudd and Rixons.

  “Please!” Jane said to her brother’s implacable eyes. “He’s…he’s old and Rixons farmhouse is awful, so cramped and dirty and…”

  “The roof is sound. I’ve seen to that, and you can clean the house. Don’t argue, Jane. I don’t suppose he will. I wouldn’t have foisted Sybil on to him, carrying another man’s love child, but you’re a different matter. Determinedly virtuous, according to you,” said Francis with a kind of grim humour. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s settled.”

  He left the room. That night Jane did not sleep. In the morning he went out early, riding his new horse Silvertail. He didn’t return until after dinner and Peggy expressed anxiety. “Saw that new animal of his bucking as the master rode off. The master’s good in the saddle, but I’d say that horse has a vicious streak.”

  Francis, however, reappeared at suppertime, looking pleased with himself. Over the meal, he said, “Jane, tomorrow morning you will have a caller. Wait in the courtyard at the back if the weather’s fine, in the parlour if not. Don’t wear brocade or damask, but look clean and tidy.”

  “Why? Who is the caller?”

  “Wait and see,” said Francis, and withdrew to his chamber before she could ask any further. Not that she needed to ask. She already knew. Ahead of her lay another sleepless night.

  Next day it was sunny. Shortly after breakfast the caller duly arrived and Francis brought him to the rear courtyard, where Jane was miserably sitting on a stone bench. Harry Hudd, his cap in his hand, his wind-reddened face carefully shaved and his square body encased in the brown fustian doublet and hose which were his nearest approach to a formal suit, had come to ask Jane Sweetwater to marry him.

  “I’ve your brother’s consent. There’s no need to worry about that, maid.”

  Worry about it? Could even Harry Hudd imagine that she would worry if Francis forbade the banns?

  “I’ve not that much to offer, but I’ve got summat. Good health I’ve got. I’m all in workin’ order and likely there’ll be little ones. I reckon ’ee’d like that. Most women want childer. House b’ain’t much, but I’ll leave ’ee free to do whatever’s best. There’ll be money enough—thy dowry and a bit I’ve got put by, only bein’ just a man, I’ve never known how to make a house pretty. My old wife long ago, she knew, but that’s long in the past. She were sickly, that’s why we had no babbies. That were her, not me. I’ve a good flock of sheep, all my own, and half a dozen cows in milk and I hear ’ee’s handy in the dairy. Hear ’ee’s good with poultry, too. We don’t keep geese, but there’s a duck pond….”

  He went on and on, reciting the virtues of Rixons, as if she didn’t know them already and as if they could possibly compensate for the shortcomings of their proprietor. At the end, she said that she must have time to think and he seemed to approve of that. Maidenly and very proper were the words he used to describe it. He’d come back the next day for her answer, he said, and bowed himself out.

  “The answer will be no,” said Jane to Francis when he came out to her after saying goodbye to Harry. “You can’t really believe that I’ll agree to this!” But she said it with fear in her voice. There were ways, and everyone knew it, of inducing unwilling daughters or sisters to marry where their families wished. Plenty of ways.

  “If you don’t agree,” said Francis, “then you must shift for yourself. This will no longer be your home. Go to the Lanyons and ask if they’ll take in another ill-behaved girl who’s been ejected from Allerbrook House. Pity there aren’t any nunneries left now where I could send you. But I won’t have you here. Smile and do as you’re bid, and I’ll see it’s a good wedding and I’ll say it’s what you want, what you’ve chosen. I’ll add to your dowry—you’ll be able to put your new home well and truly to rights. It won’t be a bad bargain.”

  “Francis, please don’t do this! What have I done that’s so terrible? Refuse to become someone’s mistress? Even if the man was the king, does it make any difference? Oh, what can I say to make you understand? Ask Dr. Spenlove what he thinks! He won’t approve of this, you know he won’t….”

  “Spenlove will mind his tongue or else leave my employment.”

  “Francis, please…!”

  She burst into tears, but Francis merely seized hold of her, clapped a hand over her mouth and marched her indoors. He took her to her bedchamber, pushed her in and locked the door after her. She lay on the bed for most of the day, alternately crying and trying in vain to think of a way out. She had always known that Francis had a hard streak in him. He had taken on the duty of caring for his sisters, but in Francis’s mind this was balanced by their duty to obey him. He had abandoned Sybil for failing him. He would abandon Jane as easily.

  She had another dreadful night, visualizing herself turned out, wandering, seeking for shelter, perhaps being taken in by the Lanyons out of charity, perhaps ending up as Sybil apparently had—a servant on a farm.

  At Rixons she would at least be mistress of some kind of house, however ill-kempt; she would be a wife; and yes, there might be children. The thought of going to bed with Harry Hudd made her feel ill, but in the dark she wouldn’t be able to see him. For the first time she felt real sympathy for King Henry. When confronted with Anna of Cleves, his feelings had probably been similar to Jane’s now.

  Harry came back the following morning for his answer. Jane, her eyes heavy and her face pale from lack of sleep, once more greeted him in the courtyard. She wore the same dress as on the previous day, a plain brown affair, opening over a green linen underskirt. It was respectable but not luxurious, nothing like the gown of a court lady.

  Harry Hudd bowed, and smiled his unlovely smile and asked for his answer and Jane, trying to smile back, said yes. The wedding took place one month later, early in July, at St. Anne’s in Clicket. Father Drew conducted the service. Both he and Dr. Spenlove had been astonished by her choice, as indeed had everyone else. Jane was obliged to parry astounded protests and questions from Lisa, Peggy, the maids, the grooms, neighbours and friends alike. It was pride as much as fear of Francis that made her hold up
her chin and declare that this was what she wanted.

  And now it was done, and here she was in the Rixons farmhouse, which had one untidy living room, a kitchen with an earth floor, and two spartan bedchambers upstairs under the thatch, and she would be Mistress Harry Hudd for as long as they both should live.

  Harry, having finished what he was about, rolled out of bed and said, “Well, now. Milkin’. Can’t go lazin’ around here all the day long. I can hear they cows lowin’ now. Up thee comes, maid,” and held out a hand to her. Another day at Rixons had begun.

  She tried to make the best of it. She was probably better off than little Kate Howard, who was now married to the king. There had been proclamations everywhere, announcing that Queen Anna was henceforth to be known as Lady Anna of Cleves, the king’s dear sister, and would live in state but away from the court. Jane wondered if Lady Anna felt relieved, but it must have been a comedown, to be deprived of a crown. Thomas Cromwell, whom the king held responsible for the whole disaster of the Cleves marriage, had been beheaded. No, there were certainly ways in which Mistress Jane Hudd had blessings worth counting.

  And there was the traditional harvest supper at Allerbrook to look forward to. Francis couldn’t expect Peggy to oversee the whole thing without help, she was sure of that. The farms of Clicket parish, Sweetwater home farm, Allerbrook home farm, Hannacombes, Rixons and Greys (Shearers had been renamed after its new tenants, though Rixons still kept the name of tenants long gone) were not reaped at the same time but one after another. Everyone joined in and everyone was invited to the Allerbrook supper when all was done. She would be able, surely, for a day or two, to spend time at Allerbrook House to help Peggy out. That much of her old life was still open to her.

  Lisa would be there, too, the household seamstress now. The wife of Harry Hudd did not need a maid. Jane herself could repair sheets and cushion covers and stitch Harry’s shirts. But at least, at the supper, she would see Lisa, of whom she was fond.

  She followed Harry downstairs to collect the milking pails and go out to the byre. They had lingered abed just long enough for the other Rixons inhabitants to rise ahead of them. There were three of these—a man and wife called Ed and Violet Hayward, and their son Tom, aged about twenty, somewhat stupid and with a disagreeable habit of sniggering at any remark that could possibly be called suggestive, but very strong, which was useful. There was a shepherd, too, Job Searle, but Job and his wife lived away from the house, in a stone hut close to the moor where the sheep ran in summer.

  There was a story that when Violet was baptized, more than forty years ago, the Clicket vicar of the time had objected to the name Violet. He knew of no saint called Violet, he said, nor was it a name hallowed simply by use. Rose, yes, if they wanted a flower name, but not Violet. Violet or nothing, her parents had insisted. It meant a sweet, shy, pretty flower; what could be better for a baby girl? When the vicar persisted in arguing, her father lost his temper and shook an angry fist at him.

  Since Violet’s father was the village blacksmith and his fist was a massive affair at least as large as a ham, the vicar had given in. Jane was inclined, however, to think that the reverend gentleman had had a point. Sweet, shy and pretty were not words that could possibly be applied to Violet Hayward, who was squat in build with straggly straw-coloured hair and a pink piglike face. She also disliked hard work, although this had advantages since she had at least been friendly to Jane, welcoming another pair of hands.

  She was rousing up the fire in leisurely fashion as Harry and Jane passed through the kitchen. “B’ain’t breakfast on the go yet?” said Harry. “We’ll want it straight after seein’ to the cows.” But he spoke good-humouredly. He was not an ill-disposed man, Jane thought.

  As they went out together to the byre where the cows, wandering in from their pasture of their own accord, were already in their stalls, she told herself to be grateful for Harry’s good temper. Indeed, he had thanked her for the efforts she had made to clean the farmhouse and repair the linen. “Why, ’ee’s makin’ a home of the place. Reckon it was more like a pigsty afore ’ee came,” he’d said once.

  And Jane, glad to be praised, had not pointed out that when she came downstairs on her first morning, sore and miserable after a night of Harry’s enthusiastic but hardly tender lovemaking and repelled by the smell of his breath, she had discovered a couple of piglets wandering in the kitchen, completely ignored by the Hayward family, who were already there.

  “Oh, they come and go as they like,” Violet said. “We’re used to ’un.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Jane, and shooed them out. Rixons hadn’t just resembled a pigsty, it had been one.

  It was a pigsty no longer, and Harry approved. Her life could be worse, much worse. She fetched the milking stools from the spare stall at the end of the byre, handed one to Harry and they set to work. Through the sound of milk going into the pails Harry suddenly said, “We wed in July, didn’t we, maid? Near the start of the month, it were.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Jane agreed.

  “I remember about a week after we were wed, ’ee said to me, ‘Let me be for a few days, Harry. I’m not in the right state for lovin’.’”

  “Yes, I recall.”

  “So I let ’ee be for a week. End of that week ’ud be just after mid-July. We’re in September now, just about. Six weeks or a bit more, it is, since then and ’ee’s never said to me since that ’ee’s not in a right state. Would it mean anythin’, would you think?”

  Jane straightened her back, which was aching. It was true. She was more than three weeks overdue.

  She said, “I didn’t want to say anything till I felt certain. But it might mean something, yes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Coming of Tobias

  1540–1541

  In Lynmouth, five-year-old Stephen had been left unsupervised while the rest of the family were receiving guests, in the shape of the young woman Idwal was to marry, and her parents. Her father was from Bristol, where he was one of the merchants in the consortium to which Owen belonged. The adults were now graciously exchanging compliments and bowing and curtsying and Stephen had crept away.

  He didn’t like the girl, Frances Thornley. She’d mumbled hello to him, but in a way which meant that she didn’t know what to say to this unknown child and would rather not say anything. He sensed at once that she would regard anyone’s children but her own as something that merely littered the landscape.

  Having got himself out of sight, Stephen made his way down to the basement, where goods were often stored while awaiting sale or loading onto a ship. He was not supposed to go down there, but that only made the idea more attractive. He wandered inquisitively through the shadowy cellar, where the only light came from the door he had left open at the top of the basement steps, and three gratings in the ceiling. Two of these opened not onto the floor of the house above, but directly into the street. They let in light but also rainwater. There were shutters which could be slid across, and usually they were kept closed except when people were working in the basement and wanted light. Occasionally, though, someone would forget to shut them on leaving. That had happened yesterday and it had rained hard in the night. Stephen, finding a large puddle on the floor, stamped interestedly in it and enjoyed seeing the water splash up.

  Tiring of this, he began to play a game with imaginary enemies, and while trying to squeeze between a row of small earthenware jars and some kegs behind them, he upset one of the jars, which rolled and broke. A scarlet powder trickled out and into the puddle, turning the water the colour of blood.

  Someone shouted his name, and the light from the doorway was briefly darkened as Owen came rapidly down the steps. “I found the basement door open, Katherine!” he shouted over his shoulder as he reached the floor. “I fancy he’s down here. Oh, dear heaven! Oh, you pestiferous, interfering brat!” He swooped on Stephen, picked him up bodily and slapped him hard. Stephen began to howl.

  “Katherine!” bellowed
Owen. “Come and see what he’s done!”

  Katherine Lanyon came down to join them, holding her skirts clear of the steps. “What’s happened? Whatever…oh, how could you? You wicked boy! How many times have you been told not to come down here! Owen, is that…?”

  “Yes, it is. That’s most of a jar of the most expensive red dye known to man, all lost in a puddle. I think,” said Owen, taking a deep breath and attempting to be fair, “that I left that grating open myself yesterday, for which I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t have mattered but for this. You’ve got to keep a harder hand on him, Katherine.”

  He looked again at the reddened pool and lost his temper once more. “He’s a menace! That’s good money, going to waste in that puddle! He would go and damage merchandise that’s valuable and too damned hard to get anyway! I don’t know what’s gone wrong with my suppliers, but I fancy someone somewhere is offering them a better deal than the English are. And then this…this infant lunatic…!”

  He slapped Stephen again, even harder than before. Stephen howled anew, and far away at Stonecrop Farm, Sybil, who was sharpening scythes, was suddenly filled with the certainty that Stephen needed her.

  I shouldn’t have left Lynmouth, I know it! How is Stephen now? What does he look like? I should have stayed in Lynmouth, with my son.

  But it was too late now for such thoughts. She must endure, and hope—and pray—and one day her chance would come.

  “Thee’s doin’ well. Don’t ’ee worry,” Peggy said. “Lucky you’ve got me to help and not that Violet.”

  It was the month of May once more, just over a year since Jane had fled from Whitehall Palace. This room was far from palatial, with its rough walls of pinkish stone and curving black beams. The bed had no canopy, and she could look directly up at the thatch. There was a piece of rope hanging from the bedhead, for her to clutch and pull at when she needed. She had used it several times already and could only hope that the ordeal wouldn’t go on much longer.