The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

  “You’ll have to accustom yourself,” said her father firmly.

  Once ashore, they were plunged into the midst of the crowd. People pressed around her, and stared. She was conventionally dressed now, but she did not look English and she walked with a lithe step like the prowl of a cat. Few Englishwomen, encased in their boned stays, their stomachers and farthingales, could move in such a fashion.

  She kept her head up but stayed close to her father’s side while, as Sir Richard had prophesied, trumpets sounded and a man wearing a chain of office of some kind stepped forward, unrolled a prepared speech and proceeded to read it aloud.

  After that, the situation began to resolve itself, but new surprises awaited her. Many of the people on the quay were known to Sir Richard, who rapidly set about arranging lodgings for himself and his companions by parcelling them out among the many households offering hospitality. Stephen and Philippa found themselves taken in hand by a couple called Bartholomew and Thomasina Hillman, a pleasant, neatly dressed pair who looked as if they were in their early forties. They led their guests toward a coach, at which Philippa looked in wonder.

  “Horses!” she whispered to her father.

  “You’ve seen horses before,” said Stephen. “You saw the ones Sir Richard Grenville’s colonists brought with them.”

  “But I didn’t know they were used to pull things. You told me about people riding them, but not that.”

  “Did I not?” Stephen chuckled. “They’re used for both, though not on Exmoor. The tracks there are no good for things like that coach. You’ll have to learn to ride.”

  “I wonder if my brothers will learn to ride the colonists’ horses.”

  “I’d take a wager,” said Stephen, “that many of your tribe are already learning to ride the colonists’ horses. It won’t be so very long before all your people take horses for granted and wonder how they ever lived without them.”

  “But the colonists didn’t bring that many.”

  “They brought three yearling colts, male, and some of the mares were in foal. In other words, breeding stock for the future. The lives of your people are going to be changed. Not as much as your own,” he added with a touch of compassion, “but changed, all the same.”

  “You told me about the house you own on the place you call Exmoor.” As they came up to the coach, Philippa changed the subject. “Will we be going there soon?”

  “Yes, as soon as possible, and to that house—that is, if I still own it! Twenty years—it’s more than that!—is a long time. Meanwhile, we can stay with my aunt Jane—at least, I trust so. I hope she’s still alive. Let me hand you into the coach.”

  The house to which they were taken overawed her because of its size. Their small cedarwood home in the Algonquin village of Secotan would have fitted easily into the main hall of the Hillmans’ home. The room she was given impressed her as well, with its glossy wooden panels and velvet bedhangings. She stroked them admiringly.

  She was uneasy, though, because she was now separated from her father, and she felt constricted by the stiff English clothes, even though she had firmly declined to wear stays. Nevertheless, she took care over her toilette. She must fit in with this English tribe to which she had come—and come of her own free will, too. She must make herself acceptable to them, and if she felt homesick, no one was to know it. If they did, she would be letting her mother’s tribe down.

  It was midafternoon before dinner was served. Mistress Hillman fetched her and took her down to the dining hall. This was better. Though it had tapestries instead of the deerskin curtains which adorned the tribal houses, and its oak beams lacked the cedarwood scent, the hall nevertheless reminded Philippa of the longhouse in Secotan, where meetings and communal feasts were held when the weather wouldn’t allow gatherings out on the beach.

  The Hillman household seemed to be large. The people at the table included not only Bartholomew, Thomasina and numerous children, varying in age from late teens to a small girl of about six, but also a chaplain, a secretary, a tutor, a man who apparently worked for Bartholomew as a land agent and some relatives who were staying in the house.

  These consisted of a couple in their thirties, who were introduced as Bartholomew’s cousin George Hillman and his wife, Margaret, and Margaret’s formidably dignified mother, who made Philippa feel bashful. She was a widow and her name was Mistress Ursula Stannard. She called her daughter Meg.

  At table, Mistress Stannard and Meg, who was apparently pregnant although this was not yet visible, discussed suitable names for the forthcoming offspring. Mistress Stannard, having declared that the names of Katherine and Elizabeth were being used far too often and it was causing confusion, drew Philippa into the conversation by saying that hers was a musical-sounding name and a little less commonplace.

  “Meg has two sons and a daughter already, and the girl is called Ursula, after me. They’re at home with their tutor just now. Meg, why not call the new one Philippa, if it’s a girl? What do you think, George?”

  George said amiably that he liked the name. Philippa, trying not to stammer with shyness, and thankful that her father had made sure she spoke good English, said she would be honoured. Even when Mistress Stannard was being kind, it was like being addressed by royalty.

  The food was ample but not quite unfamiliar. The roast lamb was very like roast venison and there were oysters, too, to which she was accustomed. She sipped some excellent wine, which warmed her and made her a little less timid, so that after a while she was able to talk quite easily to Meg Hillman, who wanted to ask questions about her early life, and the voyage to England.

  Stephen watched her with approval. This was her first introduction to English society and she must be bewildered, for she had been cast into it straight from the ship. She was doing very well.

  He then became aware that from across the table Mistress Stannard was addressing him. The Hillmans seemed to have told her something about him. She was asking just where in the west country his home was and what relatives he had there. Indeed, she was enquiring about his religion. He wondered why, and with vivid past recollections of religious squabbles in England, became wary.

  “I am very out of touch with English affairs,” he said evasively.

  “Really? But you sailed across with Sir Richard Grenville. He must have told you what to expect when you arrived, surely?”

  “Well, I know that Queen Elizabeth still reigns and that England is officially Protestant. I asked Sir Richard about that before we sailed. I’d have thought twice, if England had been Catholic. I am not of that persuasion. I’ve taught my daughter to be Protestant, as well. My father…”

  He stopped. Mistress Stannard said enquiringly, “Your father?”

  “I didn’t know him well. He and I…were not on good terms. But all the same, he was still my father and but for him, I wouldn’t be here. He was burned for heresy, by Queen Mary Tudor. I was away from home and I learned of it only later. As I said, we were far from close, but after I heard what had happened to him, I couldn’t forget it or forgive it.”

  “I see,” said Mistress Stannard, and sounded as though she did indeed see something interesting, though what it was he couldn’t imagine. She said, “Is your family well-known in Somerset?”

  “He’s connected to the Allerbrooks, who are quite a power in the district called Exmoor,” Bartholomew put in. “I believe Stephen is going first to Allerbrook House, where his aunt Jane Allerbrook lives.”

  “She is still there, then?” Stephen said, his eyes brightening.

  “Oh yes, indeed. I’ve never met her personally,” said Bartholomew, “but we have acquaintances in common. Her son, Tobias, attends court at times, I have heard.”

  “Tobias is my cousin,” Stephen said. “It will be interesting to meet him again. Or is he away at court now?”

  No one knew. Mistress Stannard, however, seemed interested in the social circle around the Allerbrooks and nodded thoughtfully when the chaplain observed that not long ag
o he had met Mistress Jane Allerbrook at Dunster Castle. “The Luttrell family reside there sometimes these days. This was a dinner to celebrate completion of some rebuilding they’ve had done at the castle and I was a guest of their own chaplain—he and I trained together. Master Hillman kindly gave me leave of absence to attend.”

  “When I was young,” Stephen remarked, “the Allerbrooks were acquainted with the Carew family, as well. I knew Sir Peter Carew.”

  “He was part of the Wyatt rebellion against Mary Tudor,” Mistress Stannard observed. “Were you in that, Master Sweetwater? It’s quite safe to say so nowadays,” she added.

  “I was young and wild. Yes, I did ride with Carew for a time, though I ended up having to flee ignominiously for home and pretend I’d never been away. Where is Sir Peter now, by the way?”

  “Dead and gone these many years,” Mistress Stannard said. “There are other Carews still in the west country, however. Perhaps you will meet them. Tell me—” she was looking at him now in a very speculative way indeed “—did Grenville ever speak to you of Mary Stuart?”

  “The former queen of Scotland? Yes. She is in England as a guest of the queen, isn’t she?”

  “Mary is half guest and half prisoner and altogether dangerous,” George Hillman said. “She thinks the crown of England should be hers, and she has friends who every now and then lay plots to put it on her head. Many people think England would be a more restful place if she didn’t have a head, but our merciful queen is reluctant to execute her cousin.”

  Mistress Stannard and George Hillman were gazing at him intently as though they were wondering something about him, and Stephen began to feel more at sea than he had in the middle of the Atlantic. Something was afoot here but he didn’t know what it was, and no one, it seemed, was going to explain. The chaplain now observed that Mary still practised her Catholic religion despite all attempts to convert her, and the tutor joined in with some general remarks about the number of Jesuit priests who were stealing into the country to encourage treasonable plots. George Hillman declared that there would probably be a respite during the winter. “Nothing like bad weather to keep pests at bay.”

  The conversation shifted away then from politics and religion to talk of London and the company of players who were becoming famous for the dramas they put on to amuse the queen. But after the meal, when Thomasina and Margaret Hillman had taken Philippa off to show her around the house, George Hillman and Ursula Stannard quietly steered Stephen out into the grounds. The sunshine was still warm, and they strolled through a topiary garden, chatting idly, until, when they were thoroughly out of earshot of anyone else, Mistress Stannard finally came to the point.

  “I am not merely paying a visit to relatives,” she said. “I have a purpose in coming to this part of England. I have confided it to my son-in-law here, though not to anyone else. You seem, Master Sweetwater, to be both adventurous and intelligent and it seems, too, that you have good reason to dislike and fear the prospect of a new Catholic regime.”

  “Well, I do. When I think of what my father must have suffered, I feel a horror and an anger beyond words. But may I know…?”

  “I have a proposition,” said Mistress Stannard.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A Sense of Familiarity

  1585

  “You need a map,” said Mistress Stannard. The sun had set and mists were drifting in from the sea. They had come indoors, to a small study, where George Hillman had left them. “I’m not really concerned in this,” he said. “Mistress Stannard’s secret world is not to my taste. I prefer to keep out of such things.”

  “A map of what—or where?” Stephen asked. The little panelled room was warm, firelit and candlelit, and there were padded seats and a table laden with miscellaneous items, but no maps that he could see.

  “I don’t mean a map of places,” said Mistress Stannard, seating herself at the table. “I mean a map—in a way—of names and connections. There are things you can’t know, having been away so long. If you are really ready to help us—and I have rather pounced on you when you can hardly have got your land legs yet—then you need information. The names of people in key positions, for instance, and the names of those under suspicion. Are you serious about accepting this commission?”

  “I was unsure at first. But then I thought of my father. Yes, I am serious. That is, if I can be of real use.”

  “You’ll be paid a retainer. That might be an added inducement,” said Mistress Stannard with a smile. “In one way,” she said, “it’s a drawback that you’ve been out of England for so long, but there are advantages, too. No one will suppose that you’re in the queen’s employ. You are a hunter whose scent your quarry will not recognize. Be seated and I’ll instruct you.”

  He sat down. Afterward he said to George Hillman, “Your mother-in-law is the most frightening woman I have ever met. She talked of being in the queen’s employ, but she has such an air of command that I could almost believe she was the queen!”

  “Half-sister,” said Hillman.

  “What?”

  “Elizabeth and Mistress Stannard are half-sisters. Mistress Stannard’s father was King Henry and her mother was one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s ladies. She was a love child. Her early life, when she was brought up on sufferance by her mother’s family, was very hard, I believe.”

  “Good God. So was I—a love child—as a matter of fact,” said Stephen. “And my early life wasn’t easy either. We have something in common, she and I, it seems. I still think she’s terrifying!”

  She had taught him much during the evening in the little candlelit study. He knew now who Walsingham was, and the names of his senior staff. He also had a written list of Mary Stuart’s principal agents in France and England, and another of people in England whom Walsingham considered dubious. He had heard for the first time of Jesuit priests.

  “There are openly Catholic households,” Mistress Stannard said, “and no one interferes with them if they at least attend Anglican services sometimes or else pay their fines. And keep the laws of England, of course. But these priests move from one household to another, holding illegal Masses and preaching sedition. If holding religious services was all they ever did, the authorities would probably wink at it, but it isn’t. They talk of Mary Stuart’s rights and the duty of all good Catholics to uphold her. They imperil the peace and security of England.”

  “I can see,” said Stephen doubtfully, “that in some circumstances I might have to pretend to be a Catholic sympathizer. It makes my gorge rise when I think of my father at the stake, but I suppose, if it were necessary…” He stopped. “But what if I were arrested in error?”

  “I think not,” said Mistress Stannard, and from the box on the table took a couple of rings. “See if one of these fits any of your fingers.”

  The rings varied in size but were otherwise identical. Each consisted of a piece of faceted amber set in elaborately patterned claws, on a wide band of gold. One of them went smoothly onto the middle finger of his left hand. “That fits. But…”

  “Take it off again and look inside the gold band,” said Mistress Stannard.

  He did so. Engraved on the inside of the hoop was an ornamental capital E, followed by a curious elongated pattern of entwined loops. He looked up at Mistress Stannard, puzzled.

  “It’s part of the queen’s signature,” she said. “The initial E of Elizabeth, and the pattern with which she always finishes her name. When she signs documents, the pattern goes underneath. Here, because there isn’t room under the E, it goes alongside. It really is her signature. I mean, she created the design for the die, with her own hand. I held the magnifying lens for her. It would be very hard to imitate. Such a ring will gain you entry to Walsingham’s presence at any time, or even the queen’s, in an emergency, and it will assure anyone who tries to arrest you that you are accredited by Walsingham’s office. The existence and description of these rings are known to senior military ranks from captain upward. And there is one
more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “You must take care, if you have suspicions of anyone, not to warn them, even by accident. This is important, Master Sweetwater.”

  There was a pause, during which Mistress Stannard’s hazel eyes looked very steadily into his. “Much may depend on not alarming the enemy before time,” she said. “It is Sir Francis Walsingham’s wish that if there is indeed a plot, it must be allowed to ripen, because that is the only way he will ever get the queen to put an end to Mary Stuart. Mary is an anointed queen. To execute her would set a terrible precedent. Sir Francis understands that—we all do. But Sir Francis also feels that until Mary’s head is off, there will be no safety in this realm. This is crucial, Master Sweetwater! Fail in this and you yourself would become a traitor.”

  So here he was, Stephen Sweetwater, agent in the pay of Walsingham, riding home on the bay gelding he had bought in Plymouth. It was an expensive animal, but he had his share of the Spanish treasure, plus a first payment from Walsingham, via Mistress Stannard. Philippa was on the pillion and a hired man on a cob rode behind, leading a packhorse. They were crossing the moorland toward Clicket, and Stephen had an amber ring on his left hand and a head full of names and the task of getting himself invited to dinner by as many influential families as he could, in order to sift their conversation and find out who their friends were.

  Here on the moor it all seemed unreal, as remote as the moon. Heather and gorse and bracken, ouzel and kestrel and coney, stag and otter had nothing to do with wrangles about queens and popes. He turned his head to speak to Philippa.

  “Well, this is Exmoor. The dark low-growing plant is the heather. It blooms in August and its flowers are purple. The spiky bushes with the yellow flowers are gorse. Some of them are always in flower, but in August they all are. The whole moor turns to purple and gold. Next year you’ll see.”

  “It’s wild and open,” said Philippa simply. “I didn’t like Plymouth, but I like this. You’ve described it to me many times, but seeing for myself is different! I feel better,” she added.