The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

  “You do look tired,” Ralph agreed. His dark eyes took her in, from grubby cap to the battered shoes on her feet. They were so muddy that it was impossible to tell what they were made of. “Do you get enough to eat? Does anyone hit you?”

  “There’s plenty of food, only sometimes I’m nearly too tired to eat it. I’ve been hit, yes,” said Sybil grimly.

  At home in Allerbrook no one had struck her since she was a small child, and those occasions had been rare and mild. Francis had sometimes made threats, but had never carried them out. As for Katherine Lanyon’s slaps, Sybil now knew what minor affairs they were. The first time Ambrose had clouted her, for leaving a rake propped against the side of a stall where there was a horse, she hadn’t been able to believe it. She remembered reeling against the wall of the stable, clutching her face and staring at him in horror.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like a rabbit at a weasel!” Ambrose had barked. “I hardly tapped ’ee. Leavin’ a rake where the hoss might knock it over and step on the prongs…I ought to half kill ’ee but I’m a kind man, so just never do that again.”

  She never had, but she had made other mistakes just as silly, and incurred other clouts since then. They frightened her.

  “You can’t stay here.” Ralph suddenly made up his mind. “Jane and Harry Hudd are going to move into Allerbrook House. They could take you in. Francis isn’t there to say no. Now, let’s find this piglet, and then we’ll go and talk to these Reeves. You can get your things together and I’ll take you to your sister. My horse can carry us and your bundle, I daresay.”

  “What?” Sybil gaped at him. “Leave here? Go home?”

  “Well, if the Hudds’ll have you, but with Francis gone, there’s a chance. Jane will want to, surely. If not, we’ll think of something else.”

  He was already thinking of something else, as a matter of fact. If that pale hair were washed, and her skin tended for a while, and if she were dressed in something with even a trace of colour in it, she’d be nearly as lovely as she was at eighteen. Which was a great deal lovelier than Dorothy had ever been. Even as she was now, the idea of riding with Sybil held against him was very beguiling.

  “Which way did the piglet go?” he said. “Is it still sucking or will it eat something solid?”

  “Oh, it’s well grown. It’ll eat anything,” said Sybil.

  “Then,” said Ralph, “I recommend a pail of pig swill with a really enticing smell.”

  Thomas Stone’s cousins by marriage would just have to wait.

  Bess and Ambrose Reeve turned out to be respectable if unpolished, and had a sense of responsibility toward the girl they had befriended. Bess in particular seemed suspicious of Ralph, as though she had sensed, though she couldn’t possibly have seen, the kiss he had impulsively given Sybil while they hunted for the piglet.

  Sybil had fetched the noisome bucket of scraps that lived by the kitchen door and was filled each day for the benefit of the sty, but stumbling about in the fog, holding the smelly thing between them and calling, “Piggy, piggy, piggy!” had made them giggle and then Sybil somehow bumped into him and they put the bucket down and kissed as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  They caught the piglet and put it back with its family and then Ralph presented himself to the Reeves. And now Bess, standing in her kitchen, hands on hips, was eyeing him as though she knew very well what had happened in the mist.

  “Fact is, she b’ain’t strong enough for most of what she has to do, but she’s handy with milking and in the dairy and I wouldn’t like to see her cast on the world or put with unreliable folk.”

  “She annoys us now and then,” Ambrose agreed, eyeing the mud-spattered Sybil disparagingly. “But she tries.”

  “Yes, she does,” said Bess. “She’s welcome to stay. And what do we know about you, Master Palmer? You say you’re kin to Sybil, but we’ve never heard of ’ee.”

  “He’s my distant cousin,” said Sybil. “I’ve known him since I was small. Father Drew of Clicket would tell you. Ralph says he’ll take me to my sister Jane. It was my brother turned me out to start with, but he’s dead now, Ralph says. Jane’ll help me. I know she will.”

  “Well, we can’t stop ’ee from goin’,” Ambrose told her. “We don’t own ’ee.” He walked to the kitchen door and looked out. “Fog’s clearin’—that’s a mercy. If you ride off with this man, you’ll be able to see where you’re a’goin’. But now, see here. We won’t see any wench cast on the world with no one to turn to. If things don’t go well, or as ’ee expects—” here the glance he gave Ralph was decidedly hard “—in that case, come back to Stonecrop. We’ll find a place for ’ee at our table and work to do.”

  “They’d certainly find work for me!” Sybil said with feeling as she and Ralph rode away through the last wisps of the mist, Sybil perched in front of Ralph’s pommel and her meagre bundle of belongings bouncing on his broad shoulders. “I’m grateful to you, Ralph.”

  “I hope I’m right to think that Jane and Harry will take you in. But I couldn’t leave you at Stonecrop!” Ralph said.

  At Rixons, plans were being made for the move.

  “To start with, we’ll have to keep comin’ down here to see to things, till Ed gets hisself sorted out,” Harry said. “It’ll be haymaking and shearing afore long. We’ll be splittin’ ourselves between here and Allerbrook for a while, seems to me. Now mind, maid, you’re goin’ home to your fine old house, but I want no fine lady airs. No sittin’ around doin’ fancy stitchin’ or readin’ books of poetry. There’ll be all to do.”

  “Yes, Harry, I know.” She knew that tone of voice. His mind was fixed and even the smallest argument would make him flush and become angry. Whatever happened, nothing must provoke Harry until they were firmly installed at Allerbrook and the Haywards equally firmly installed at Rixons. Until then, she would be unwise even to ask for the smallest boon, not even an hour on a Sunday to read or embroider. “I don’t mind work,” she said cheerfully.

  It didn’t matter anyway. She was going home. Going home! “We won’t need to take much from the kitchen,” she said in a practical voice. “Or bed linen, either. Violet will want it and there’s plenty at Allerbrook. I’ll just need my clothes and brush and comb and such things.”

  “I’m takin’ my favourite tools,” said Harry. “Ed’s got his own and I work better with the wood-axe and the hoe I’m used to. Saints alive,” he added, walking to the window. It was open, as it usually was, even in winter, to let out heat and steam and allow people to see out as well, since it had shutters but no glass. “Who’s this ridin’ up our track from the village? Ralph Palmer, by the look of ’un, but he’s ridin’ double. Who in heaven’s name is that girl he’s got in front of him?”

  Jane came to his side to look at the horse as it bore its two riders up the hill and into the farmyard. Ralph pulled up, dismounted and helped his passenger down.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Jane. “I don’t believe it. It can’t be. She looks terrible! But all the same, I think…I really think it’s Sybil.”

  “No. Not on any account and I’m surprised at ’ee, Master Palmer, suggestin’ such a thing,” said Harry, and with a heavy heart, Jane once more recognized his tone. His mind was fixed about this, too.

  Ralph, of course, didn’t know Harry as well as she did. “Look, Master Hudd, this is your wife’s sister, and she’s had a bitterly hard time. She needs a bit of Christian kindness. She…”

  Sybil was not present at this colloquy in the Rixons kitchen. Jane had taken one horrified look at her bedraggled sister, seized a basin, taken a jugful of water from the pan that happened just then to be heating on the fire and sent Sybil upstairs with it.

  “Have a good wash—your hair, as well! Go to the room on the left at the top of the stairs—that’s ours. You don’t mind, do you, Harry? I must get her tidy!”

  “I’d agree with ’ee there,” Harry said, eyeing Sybil with disfavour. “No, I don’t mind.”

  �
��Thank you.” Jane bestowed a grateful smile on him. “You’ll find ash and lye in pots on the washstand, Sybil. Take a fresh dress from my press. My things should fit you. Take some decent shoes and a clean cap.”

  “’Ee’ve sent her up to get clean. Well, I’ve no quarrel with that,” Harry said now to Jane. “But stop here—or at Allerbrook—she can’t. I won’t have it, seein’ what her past has been. She’s not the sort I want about the place, and that’s final. Plain and ignorant us Hudds might be, but we’m decent and we’m stayin’ that way. If we give charity, it’s to them as deserve it.”

  “But, Harry…” Jane turned to him with appeal in her voice. “I have been thinking to ask you if she couldn’t come home now. There’s plenty of room at Allerbrook and she’s my sister, after all, and—”

  “I knew it!” Harry scowled at her. “The minute you got that legacy, I knew ’ee’d start tryin’ to start pushin’, tryin’ to take charge. I’m the one who says, maid, not thee!” He turned to Ralph. “You took her away from where she was. She’s your business now. Not ours.”

  Jane opened her mouth again but before she could speak, he went crimson and got in first. “Mind your tongue, maid. Don’t go wranglin’ with me. I b’ain’t never been hard with ’ee yet, but don’t ’ee drive me too far. I won’t give her house room and that’s my last word.”

  Ralph looked shocked, but Harry gave him a long, hard stare. “We’re man and wife and we understand each other. Jane’ll see I’m right when she’s had time to think.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ralph said reassuringly to Jane. “I’ll look after her.” His pulse was in fact throbbing with a new hope. They had both enjoyed that snatched kiss in the fog, and riding here from Stonecrop with Sybil in his arms had indeed been agreeable—in fact, exciting. Grubby and ill dressed and hard-faced as she had become, there was something about Sybil, something that explained the careless opportunism of Andrew Shearer. Her body in his embrace was not hard at all, but confiding and warm. She was like a delicious wine in a tarnished cup. He wanted to taste that wine.

  “Mistress Hudd,” he said, addressing Jane with formality in the presence of her husband, “would Dorothy recognize your sister?”

  “She’s never seen her,” Jane said, swallowing down tears. “The Stones were new to Clicket when…well, you know. You were one of the guests at that dinner. Francis made Sybil stay in her room all the time and the Stones went home before she was let out. Then the Lanyons took her away with them.”

  “Good. Now. You’ll not know it yet, perhaps,” Ralph said, “but Master Thomas Stone, my father-in-law, died on the day of Francis’s funeral.”

  “What? Oh, Ralph…Master Palmer…I’m so sorry.”

  “Aye. He was a well-liked man,” Harry agreed. “This is a sad year for both families, it seems.”

  “Yes, it is,” Ralph agreed. “But Dorothy and I will still be the tenants of Clicket Hall. Her father made a will, saying that he wanted her to have the lease when he was gone. In fact, he sent for Francis to get his agreement, the day that Francis was killed. Francis never reached him, but my father-in-law went ahead and signed the will. It’s valid. So if I want to find a place for Sybil at Clicket Hall, I can. It’s probably best,” he said, thinking aloud, “if I don’t present her as herself, if you follow me. But if Dorothy doesn’t know her by sight, she could come, for the time being, as a…a dairymaid, perhaps, using another name.”

  “She’s used to dairy work,” Jane agreed.

  “So I gather. I won’t take her back with me. She can follow me on foot. I can say I stopped at a farm for directions and heard that a girl there wanted a new situation. In fact, we do need an extra hand in the dairy at Clicket Hall. Dorothy and I have inherited all the Kent property, too, of course. You know, I might one day be able to settle Sybil in Kent. Shouldn’t be difficult. I’ll have plenty of money now.”

  “Dorothy’s,” Jane said, with a touch of acidity.

  “The Stones’ money, yes,” said Ralph easily. “Money talks. A sweetener for whoever takes Sybil and a dowry for the lass, as well. Granted it’s just a shadowy notion as yet, but it might work.”

  “I reckon she’ll be recognized in Clicket. Folk there’ll know her,” said Harry grumpily.

  “She’s been gone for some time,” said Ralph. “And she’s changed. If she keeps her hair hidden—it’s the pale hair with the brown eyes that’s so striking—and doesn’t go about the village too much, we might get away with it. Let us hope for the best, then. What name shall we give her? Rosie? There was a Rosie at Bideford years ago, a pretty lass.”

  Rosie had been not only pretty but knowledgeable. It had been Rosie who had initiated Ralph, aged sixteen, into the joys of lovemaking. He would never forget Rosie the maidservant, with her bright come-hither eyes and their warm snugglings in the haybarn. His father would have called it wickedness, but the young Ralph had loved the whole business and they’d done it again, several times. She’d shown him how to avoid unfortunate consequences; Rosie’s instruction course in the facts of life had been comprehensive.

  Until, disastrously, his father had caught them at it. He remembered that with distress to this day. He was used to his father’s beatings, but he had wept that time, not for his own anguish, but Rosie’s and he had loathed hearing her called a whore when his father ranted about fornication. Rosie had been off the premises immediately afterward, allowed to do no more than put her few belongings in a sack. She was still sobbing and limping as she went out the farmyard gate.

  She’d been all right in the end. She’d found work on a neighbouring farm and eventually married the ploughman. While Ralph, reacting finally and furiously against his father’s upbringing, had found that he could attract girls with ease and proceeded to use this delightful talent, though he took great care not to let his father find out. Rosie became part of the past, but he would forever be grateful to her and he would always think that her name was the most musical sound in the world.

  “Rosie,” he repeated. “Rosie…Waters? She’s been using the name Waters already, it seems. That’s settled, then. I’ll get back home in time for dinner and maybe you’d at least give Sybil a bite to eat before you send her after me. And explain what the plan is. Don’t mention anything to do with making a marriage for her, in case it never happens.”

  With Sybil at the table it was an awkward meal. Fortunately, the Haywards had gone to visit the Searle family and were not there to complicate things. Ralph, on the other hand, would have been a help and Jane wished that he’d stayed. In his presence, Harry wouldn’t have been so morose and she could have talked more freely to Sybil.

  As it was, she could do little more than explain what had been arranged, and say that she hoped all would go well and that Sybil would agree to go to Clicket Hall as a servant. “It’s asking rather a lot of you, but it might be for the best. Perhaps things will improve for you, gradually. I’m sure Master Palmer will see you’re well treated.”

  “I’ll make no difficulties. Don’t be afraid of that,” said Sybil. She made no appeal to Harry. Jane looked at her and saw, all too clearly, from her sister’s worn and hardened face, how harsh life had been for her. She wanted to turn to Harry and say, Look, hasn’t she been through enough? Whatever she did that was wrong, hasn’t she paid for it, with interest, over and over again?

  But Harry was in one of his implacable moods and she knew it would be useless and might even jeopardize the move back to Allerbrook.

  She provided Sybil with a few extra items of clothing, and though Harry frowned, she kissed her sister goodbye very lovingly. “Don’t forget. You’re Rosie Waters and you were working on a farm where you just had too much to do. Too many cows to milk or something. Now, off you go.”

  She watched Sybil walk away, hoping that she would be all right. She would pray for her. Harry couldn’t prevent that.

  In Clicket Hall, Ralph was finishing his own dinner and explaining that he hadn’t been able to see his father-in-law’s cousins b
y marriage because the fog had delayed him too long. He’d have to go to Porlock again sometime. Oh, and he nearly forgot. He’d asked the way at a rough and ready farm near Porlock and heard that one of the servant girls there wanted a new place. The girl looked all right and her employers said she was a good worker in the dairy, but free to leave if she wanted.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I’ve told the girl to make her way here. If she turns up, her name’s Rosie Waters—and we do need another hand in the dairy, so the steward tells me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Warm Mulled Wine

  1541

  On the home farm at Clicket Hall, quite close to the house itself, was a haybarn with an upper room, reached by a wooden stair with a trapdoor at the top. The room was rarely used but contained a little furniture in the shape of a bedstead, a chest and two stools. Once in a while, if there was an influx of visitors, a groom or two might sleep there; sometimes it was used to isolate servants who had fallen sick and might be contagious.

  Late on a July evening it was mustily warm from the heat of the day, and dim with the approach of nightfall. A single window cast an ember-coloured patch of sunset onto the plank floor. The air was dusty, and although a pallet had been put on the bed, it was a thin, straw-filled affair that rustled.

  It was a poor sort of place, but to Sybil it meant enchantment. It meant bodily satisfaction and the romance she had long missed. She had grown hard and withered with her longing and needing and now was softening again under the blessed influence of a man’s desire. She had sense enough to know that desire did not mean love, but she didn’t care. Desire would do. Now she sat on the thin pallet and waited, while the dull red of the sunset faded and the shadows gathered. An owl called, somewhere out in the deepening dusk. Sybil, hugging her knees, whispered to herself, “Come soon. Oh, my love. Come soon.”

  When at last she heard Ralph’s feet on the stair, she sprang up to meet him and as he came through the trapdoor, she threw herself into his arms. In a moment they were kissing feverishly and simultaneously loosening their own and each other’s clothing, disentangling themselves from it, dropping it onto the floor. Then, twined together like the strands of a single rope, they cast themselves onto the pallet.