“I can see Tim!” Jane was still looking out the window. “He’s fighting…oh no, oh no! He’s down. Someone got him with a pike and he’s down on the cobbles…!”
Flinging herself away, she tore down the stairs and out the door. If someone recognized her and there were reprisals later, as Tim had feared, it couldn’t be helped. Tim must be rescued, no matter what the risk. She found as she rushed into the street that even during the brief time she had taken to get there, the situation had changed. Wright’s army had been trying to keep the aggressors from getting into St. Anne’s, but although reinforced by other folk from Clicket, who had run from their homes to join in, they were still outnumbered and the enemy had broken through.
They had hurled themselves into the church and no one hindered or threatened Jane as she threw herself on her knees beside Tim. He raised himself on an elbow and said, “Not dead, mistress. Don’t ’ee take on. Some bugger, beggin’ your pardon, slashed my calf with a pike. I’ll be all right.”
He tried to get to his feet, but failed. Biddy, however, had come after Jane and between them they got him up, draping his arms across their shoulders. From within the church they could hear the sounds of stone being smashed, which was probably the end of St. Anne’s statue. A few of the mob were now filtering out again, but they had found little booty. Danny Clay was waving two small gilt candlesticks which had somehow been overlooked, and that was all.
“Looks like old Drew came to ’un’s senses in time,” another of the intruders was saying as they went unheedingly past Tim and his helpers. Jane turned her head away, afraid of being recognized, but they never even glanced toward her. “Here, that’s my brother, flat on his back there. Hey, Jeffrey, what’s amiss with ’ee? Someone give me a hand…!”
“I b’ain’t hurt. Just fell over, dodging a great iron horseshoe some mad harridan threw at me. They’m all crazy papists in this place,” said the fallen Jeffrey, sitting up. “Is that all ’ee found in there, Danny—them tiddly little candlesticks? Where are we off to next?”
“North Molton,” said Danny as Jeffrey got to his feet. “Finish here, get some food at the inn and march straight on, he said. Fellow at Molton’s a cousin of Drew or something and he’s supposed to be one of us, but there’s an image on the church tower that he’s had no business to leave there, and more papist things inside the church. I’ve seen ’em! I get about, I do. We’re for North Molton next. Get there afore night.”
“I’ll go and warn them,” said Tim valiantly. “Just patch me up and…”
“You’re goin’ nowhere, with this great slash in your leg…hold still while I stitch it….” Biddy had reared four sons and knew a good deal about emergency doctoring. “I’ve washed out the dirt. It’ll heal but not if you go chasin’ off on a pony. Vicar of North Molton’ll have to cope on his own. Supposed to be a Lutheran, b’ain’t he?”
“He’ll still want to protect the things his flock love,” said Drew. Biddy had somehow prevented him from rushing out to Tim’s aid along with her, but he had been ready with warm water when they brought him in and was now steadying Tim’s injured leg while Biddy stitched the slash. “John Grede’s a good decent man. But he needs to be warned, same as I was! What’s going on out there now?”
Jane went to the window again. A species of truce seemed to be developing. The fighting had apparently ceased and the fallen were being ministered to. There were a couple of sad little processions going toward the inn; it looked as though at least two men were dead, but it seemed to her a miracle that the number was so low.
Arthur Wright went past in a group of people that seemed to include both Clicket and Minehead folk. The Clicket contingent were saying that the funeral feast wasn’t finished and the uninvited guests from Minehead were saying they needed food and drink and would pay for it. Someone was even apologizing for the invasion.
“Looks like there was nothin’ there to complain about, bar a statue that your poor old vicar probably couldn’t see how to get rid of, anyhow.”
“Quite. Reckon Shearer got it wrong this time….”
“He b’ain’t wrong about North Molton, though. I’ve been to a cattle sale there and seen those popish things my own self….”
Quietly Jane closed the window. “They’re going to the White Hart.” She stood for a moment, coming to a decision, and then said, “Biddy, I need something to eat and drink myself, but it has to be something quick. I mustn’t waste time over it. Father Drew, can I borrow your mare? Ginger’s been to Minehead and back already today. If I take a fresh pony from Allerbrook, Harry will say no. He’ll say send one of the grooms instead, and I can’t afford all that. There’s no time to lose.”
“Take Bella and welcome,” said Drew and Biddy, without a word, hurried into the kitchen. “I ought to go myself,” the priest said miserably. “This joint evil keeps me from my proper work. I can hardly get up the combe to see Spenlove these days. You can collect Ginger when you come back. Hope Bella behaves. She can be awkward, but she’s fresh, at least. I’ll see word gets to Allerbrook, to say where you’ve gone.”
“Don’t fret, Father Drew,” Jane said. “I’ll make sure that Master Grede is warned.”
“You can’t go alone!” Tim expostulated, jerking himself upright on the settle on which he was lying. “Get one of the villagers to go! Drag someone out of the White Hart! It can’t be you, mistress.”
Biddy came back with cold meat, bread and a beaker of small ale and Jane, seizing them from her, began to consume them standing up. “We can’t waste time and the White Hart’s full of Shearer and his madmen, and if any of us goes in there, someone will recognize us and know what we’re about and stop us. I will not be stopped. Not by anyone! Not by them or Harry or you, Tim. Don’t try!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Resourcefulness is a Virtue
1550
Jane, pushing Bella, Father Drew’s flea-bitten grey mare, on up Allerbrook Combe, was tired, frightened and also, as she now realized, annoyed. The task of dealing with crises seemed to be devolving on her too often.
Sybil couldn’t go to court to further Francis’s ambitions, so Jane had had to go instead. Sybil and Stephen alike had needed her help and Jane had done her best for them in the face of Harry’s fury. And must carry the guilt for Harry’s apoplexy for the rest of her life.
Now it was Father Drew, wanting to know about the danger that threatened from Minehead, wanting to warn his kinsman in North Molton, and somehow or other it had fallen to Jane to do it. She had promised herself that she would look after everyone, but, “It’s turning out to be a complicated business,” she said aloud to Bella’s speckled ears.
They had just reached the place where the track branched off toward Allerbrook House. As he saw her off, Father Drew had warned her that Bella’s awkwardness often took the form of balking at unfamiliar routes. “I’ve not had her long. She’s got used to visiting Dr. Spenlove at Allerbrook, but I’ve not yet had to take her over the ridge to Hannacombes. I hope she won’t give you trouble,” he said.
Now as they reached the Allerbrook track she tried to turn that way, and when Jane pointed her up the combe instead, she stopped dead and dug in her forefeet. “Bella!” Jane protested. “We’re going straight on. We must.”
Bella, front hooves firmly planted, said, “Shan’t!” as clearly as a horse possibly could.
Jane was a gentle rider who disliked hitting horses, but this time she used her whip with vigour. The mare, outraged, put her ears back and went up the combe obediently, but flat out, long legs reaching for the ground, mane flying and muzzle extended in indignation. Fortunately, the final slope slowed Bella down and the pace steadied as they reached the top of the ridge, emerging from the trees into the sunlight. Jane pulled up and surveyed the terrain ahead.
She knew the way. North Molton lay five or six miles off, on the other side of a broad expanse of moorland. She had visited it occasionally. However, the track did not take a straight line and it wound up
and down a good deal. Oh, well. The marchers would have to cope with the same delays, and she was well ahead of them. She patted Bella to show that there were no hard feelings, and pressed on, going downhill now, into the valley immediately before her, skirting the edge of Hannacombes Farm.
She hoped she wouldn’t meet the Hannacombes or any farmhand who knew her, for she did not want to stop and explain herself. However, no one seemed to be about. Very likely they had all gone to Clicket to attend the funeral, since most of them had known Marjorie. Indeed, Jane thought she could remember seeing Will Hannacombe in the fighting.
She passed the farmland as briskly as she could, however. At one point Bella shied for no apparent reason, but it was probably because she had smelt an adder in the long grass by the path. Jane, gripping hard with her knees, muttered an inelegant curse.
Adders usually heard horses coming and kept themselves out of the way, but horses loathed them. Even the imperturbable Ginger had been known to shy if he sensed one. Riders had on occasion been thrown, to land on top of the snake. The moment passed, however, and presently, leaving the fields behind, she put Bella into a canter as the track climbed a gentle slope up the moorland on the other side of the valley.
All the time, she was wondering how to shorten the journey. There were places where one could cut across the moor and avoid some of the track’s windings and she knew of at least two such shortcuts that wouldn’t lead to bogs or sudden precipitous dips.
She was halfway along the second shortcut when a coldness at her back and a dimming of the sunlight warned her to glance over her shoulder.
A white wall of mist had wiped out all the moorland behind her, and the sun had faded to a pallid circle behind a veil of vapour. The mist was gaining on her. Even as she looked, the sun vanished altogether and the first pale wisps blew around her. Another thirty seconds, and the world about her had dwindled to a vista only a few yards across. “Oh, damn!” said Jane.
And she was off the track. The marchers would no doubt keep to it. They were probably on their way by now, and even if they were already high enough on the moor to be inside the cloud as she was, they would not get lost if they kept to the path. The track was well-defined, the few side paths being only narrow sheep trails.
She could only go on. Bella was showing a desire to turn around, which meant that she wanted to go home. She would know the way; horses usually did. Jane had only to slacken the reins and Bella would take her back to Clicket without hesitation. But that would never do. “On, Bella,” she said. “On!”
They moved forward. The mist showed no sign of dissipating but it was on the move, flowing on a west wind. The visibility kept changing. When the mare suddenly stopped short, Jane sat still, peering forward, waiting for the view to improve for a moment. When it did, by a matter of a few yards, she saw that Bella had sensibly stopped almost at the edge of a place where the hill plunged downward at a hair-raisingly steep angle. Quickly Jane turned them away from it.
She halted again, trying to think. She had meant to cross a shoulder of moorland, instead of following the track, which curved around it. She had veered too far to the right, probably. Yes, she recalled that the hillsides did become much steeper in that direction. She had turned left to avoid the steep plunge. If she now rode on, slowly and carefully, she ought to find herself going gently downhill toward the track.
She did so, for what seemed a long time. Then she drew rein again, knowing that she was horribly astray. She had come face-to-face with a barrow. She should have been close to the track by now and there was no barrow near it.
All the barrows were supposed to be haunted and for a moment, when through the blowing vapours she saw the long grass on top of it move against the wind, a stab of pure supernatural terror went through her. Then a stag sprang out of the grass and fled away into the greyness. He was a fine animal with twelve points on his antlers and he was decidedly part of the material world. Jane’s accelerating heartbeat slowed down. But she still had ample cause for anxiety. “Where on earth are we?” she said aloud.
Summoning up all the resourcefulness she possessed, she remembered that the mist had come from the west. She wanted to go south. Judging the direction as best she could by the movement of the vapours, she urged Bella cautiously that way, only to halt in despair after a short distance. They were apparently descending into a narrow combe. Small trees had appeared, pale and ghostlike. She had no knowledge of this place. She was losing time with every moment that passed, but there was only one thing to do.
She slackened the reins and said, “Bella, go home.”
Bella unhesitatingly turned around, went back up the combe, over a stretch of heather and then downhill again. Mists clearly meant nothing to her. Ten minutes later they emerged into clear air, and there was the North Molton track just ahead. Bella made for it, and pointed her nose toward home.
The cloud now was overhead, shrouding only the higher ground. Jane, facing back toward Allerbrook, could see the track winding away up a long moorland slope to vanish into the mist. Something was emerging from that mist, coming down from the hidden hillcrest. It was a crowd of tiny figures. The marchers were on their way.
She spun Bella around. “This time we keep to the track but we go fast! We must gain ground and get out of sight! Come on, Bella!”
Jane’s urgency and fear must have communicated itself to Bella, for this time the mare didn’t fight the order. She stretched out her neck, snorted and took off, galloping strongly. The shoulder of hills over which Jane had tried to ride with such disastrous results loomed on her right. The path bent around it and a moment later they were safely out of sight of the marchers and pounding onward. Even now she could hope to get there with a little while to spare. Even now she could be in time.
A quarter of an hour later they were clattering past the thatched dwellings of North Molton and then across the cobbled space before the churchyard. It sloped upward to the church, and from a niche high on the tower a stone Virgin and Child looked benignly out over the village. No one seemed to be about, but the vicarage was there to the right of the churchyard. Jane jumped from the saddle, led her mount to the door and hammered on it.
It was opened quickly and somewhat indignantly by a large lady with a cap slightly awry, a stained apron over a dark gown and a floury rolling pin in a powerful right hand. “Just what’s this? A-knockin’ and a-bangin’ on the door as if you were Gabriel tryin’ to announce Judgement Day without ’un’s horn! Who be you, mistress?”
“Is Master Grede here?”
“I’m his housekeeper. Who be you and what’s thy business? The master’s not at home to everyone as comes a-crashin’ and a-poundin’…”
“Master Grede!” Jane shouted at the top of her voice, causing Bella to fling up her head so that Jane had to hold tightly to the bridle. The shout produced results, however, in the shape of a dark-gowned young man who appeared behind the housekeeper, his finger still keeping a place in a book he had evidently been studying.
“What’s this uproar?” He had pale, bright eyes and a pale chiselled face, in which cheekbone, jaw and nose all seemed to have a sharp edge. His voice was as sharp as his bone structure. He frowned at Jane, light brown eyebrows drawing together.
“Are you John Grede?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Jane Allerbrook. I come from Father Anthony Drew of Clicket. A mob has attacked his church, wanting to destroy what they call popish symbols. He was warned just in time to hide most of them. The same rabble is on its way here, now. If there is anything in your church that they think is popish, they’ll snatch it, or smash it. They’re close behind me. I was delayed. I lost my way in a mist.”
With relief she saw that his mind was keen-edged, too. He nodded and the frowning brows relaxed. “Ah. There have been tales of trouble. All right, Mattie.” He patted the housekeeper’s arm reassuringly. “How far away are they, mistress? Can you tell me?”
“They were still…let me think, about fo
ur miles from here when I saw them and that was—oh, perhaps a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Then we should have a good half hour. Ah. Here come reinforcements.”
Alerted by Bella’s noisy hoofbeats, people were coming inquisitively across from the cottages. A wiry old man in a workman’s sleeveless jerkin hurried from the churchyard, grasping a scythe with which he had presumably been trimming the grass, and a young groom with a dandy brush in his hand came around the corner from the back of the vicarage. Grede beckoned to the villagers, told the groom to take Bella and then strode to meet his parishioners, who gathered around him as he began to explain. Then he led the way into the church, with the crowd and Jane at his heels.
It was a bigger church than St. Anne’s, and more shadowy, though beautiful. “They’ll have hard work to do much damage to those,” Grede said, pointing to the carved leaves and flowers of the roof high above them and to the handsome and beautifully carved font. “But the candlesticks on the altar will have to be hidden—yes, and that gold crucifix—”
“And what about the saints round the pulpit?” someone asked. The pulpit was seven-sided, with a niche in each side, each niche containing a gilded wooden statue of a saint.
“Yes, those, too. Let’s get to it. Quickly, now!”
“But where do we hide ’un?” That was the gardener with the scythe.
“Do you have a recent grave they could be buried in?” Jane asked. “That’s what Father Drew did in Clicket.”
“No. We’re a healthy lot hereabouts. We haven’t had any funerals lately,” Grede told her. He stood for a moment, frowning again. Then his face cleared and he turned to one of his flock.
“Will Fuller, haven’t you just dug over half your vegetable plot? Getting too weedy, you said, didn’t you? You could put sackloads of things in there, where there’s turned earth already. There are spades and sacks in the lean-to alongside my stable. Will can show you where to bury the things. Then go well away, all of you, back home or about your business. You can come back here and carry on scything, Tammy. Hurry! There’s hardly any time.”
The House of Allerbrook Page 22