The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

“Why are you worried?” Stephen asked, sitting down. “Because you obviously are.”

  “Because of Tobias, mainly. If…if they are attracted to each other as you thought yesterday they might be, I don’t think Tobias will like it. Where is he, by the way? I thought you two were riding around the fields together.”

  “He’s looking at the fence around the sheep pen. He hasn’t changed much, has he? I don’t think he’s over-delighted to see me back again. Still, I won’t be under his feet for long. I’ll move out into Clicket Hall as soon as I can if I still own it. Do I? Look, Aunt Jane, Philippa is young and marriage is the natural thing for her. She understands that she will live in England for good and will be wed here. Back with the tribe, she would be expected to marry soon. It seems quite natural to her. But England must seem strange to her and I’d like her to be with someone who won’t make her feel even more strange. Now, Robert is part of the family.”

  “Oh, you are going too fast!” said Jane irritably. “You’ve scarcely arrived! Let the poor girl get used to us all! I have kept an eye on Clicket Hall, by the way. We all thought you were dead but I have never put it up for sale and the agent—it’s still the same man—has gone on following your orders and letting it only on short leases. The rent has been mostly used for upkeep but some has been separately banked—just in case. Somehow, I never wanted to…”

  “Shut the door on the hope that I would turn up after all? Thank you for that, Aunt Jane.”

  “But the existing lease has only just been renewed. It won’t run out till this time next year.”

  “Indeed? That’s a pity. Aunt Jane, what would Toby’s objection really be, if I’m right about Robert and Philippa? Why should he mind? He’s never liked me, I know, but surely he can’t hate Philippa herself?”

  “Stephen, please slow down! Philippa has much to learn before we worry about Robert or anyone else. I have been talking to her this morning and she seems intelligent and has a great natural dignity, and those are assets. But she can hardly read!”

  “Yes. She needs a tutor. Have you any ideas?”

  “Our chaplain, Gilbert Mallow, can instruct her. He educated Robert for a time.”

  “You say your chaplain is called Mallow? What happened to Dr. Spenlove?”

  “He died in 1574—he was about seventy-four himself. I miss him. He was a good friend.” Jane paused, looking back at memories. “When he was near the end—we both knew—I thanked him for all he had done through the years, and he was able to understand me, for which I’m glad.”

  We understood each other. Our eyes said all that we would never put into words. I had so much to thank him for and he…I never knew it before, but I really think he loved me.

  He had committed a crime for her. Many times over the years she had studied Francis’s will, and lately she had noticed as the ink aged, the writing in the final paragraph had faded a little more than the rest. It was evidence enough for her.

  “Have you noticed my portrait in the gallery upstairs?” she asked. “He painted it—Blanche and Tobias asked him to do it at the time of their marriage. It’s a pleasant reminder of him.”

  “Where is this man Mallow now? He obviously isn’t here.”

  “He’s visiting a friend in Plymouth. The friend has a guest he wants Gilbert to meet, I understand. He’ll soon be back. Mallow’s been with us for ten years, but he’s still quite young and full of energy. He’s a good teacher. Philippa needs advice about dress, too, but she can share my maid. Alice is a good helpful girl. I miss Lisa as much as I miss Spenlove. She died just after he did, during a bad winter. They both caught cold and it turned to lung congestion. Stephen, I think I must be frank. If Philippa and Robert really are attracted, Tobias will dislike the idea principally because he disapproves of cousin marriages. He says that the old faith was right about that.”

  “The old faith? Are you telling me,” said Stephen, “that Tobias has Catholic leanings?”

  “I’m afraid so, and they’re not wise opinions these days. I worry about it. It came about when he was visiting the royal court in London, about two years ago. He made friends with a young Catholic gentleman there. There are Catholics at court, Stephen. They’re not all the queen’s enemies, I do assure you….”

  “Didn’t the Pope issue orders at one time that they all ought to be, and would be excommunicated if they weren’t?” enquired Stephen.

  “Yes, but many of them still manage to walk a fine line. Toby’s friend is like that. I haven’t met him, but I know it was he who finally converted Toby to his faith. Toby says he is charming and cultivated.”

  “I see. Well, we must take things one step at a time, I suppose.”

  “We certainly must.” Jane pushed her needle into the case that was lying on a table close to her, and laid her work beside it. “Now, Stephen. Let us talk of other things. What has been happening to you all these years? You told us yesterday that you had been wrecked on a New World coast and had lived with the native people, but then you began to ask questions about Allerbrook. I want to know more. What kind of ancestors does Philippa have on her mother’s side, for instance? You said yesterday that her mother was the daughter of a tribal chief and that you fell in love on sight. But that means your wife’s relatives were people of some importance. How did you come to marry into a family like that?”

  “We both knew at once what we wanted,” said Stephen. “But I dared not approach her, of course, not then. Anyway, I knew nothing of the language! But I hadn’t been with the tribe long before I was taken on a hunting trip, after deer. The tribe uses bows, quite powerful ones. Most of the arrows have stone tips….”

  “Stone?” said Jane, astonished.

  “Yes. The Algonquin haven’t much metal, except for a little copper. Some axes and arrowheads are copper, but believe me, the first time I tested a stone arrowhead with my finger, I cut myself. They build cedarwood houses and they can cut down trees and split logs with stone-headed axes as easily as with copper ones! On this trip, one of the men was attacked by…oh, it was like a tawny panther. I’ve seen lions and panthers in the menagerie at the Tower of London. This was lion-coloured and panther-sized. It just sprang out of the undergrowth, onto the fellow’s back. I chanced to be well placed for shooting at it, so I did, and saved the man’s life.”

  “Was the man the chief?” Jane asked.

  “No, just one of the tribesmen, but a good hunter. The others valued him. I didn’t kill the beast outright. It leaped off its victim and charged me—came at me snarling, with my shaft sticking out of its side. I was terrified! But I just had time to nock another arrow into place and loose again, and this time I got it in the chest and it rolled over. The man it attacked didn’t die. He’d been clawed—that creature had claws like iron hooks! But we carried him home and he recovered. Everyone was pleased, and there was a ceremony. They managed to convey to me that they were making me a member of the tribe. They gave me a name, though I didn’t find out till later that it meant Swift Arrow. And then…”

  Stephen sat by the fire with his hands, brown and calloused from the hard outdoor life he had led for so long, dangling between his knees. His brown eyes looked into the flames, as though he saw pictures there. “That was when Running Doe—that was what her name meant in their tongue…”

  “The chief’s daughter?”

  “Yes. She was there. All the villagers of Secotan had been called to this gathering—it was held on the beach. She went to her father and spoke to him, pointing at me, and then came over to me and took my hand. There was some talk and some argument, a few cheers and a good many head-shakings, but she went back and knelt before her father and two days later there was another ceremony, of which I hardly understood one word, but her father put her hand in mine and there was a feast and from then on, she was my wife. I learned enough of her tongue to talk to her eventually. She never learned much of mine.”

  “If Robert has a romantic thread in his character, I think it must be a family characteristic! You
’ve got it, as well.”

  “We had two sons as well as Philippa,” said Stephen reminiscently. “They’re grown up now—but they are Algonquin to the bone. I was never really close to them. Running Doe died two years ago and I still mourn for her, but if she’d lived, I couldn’t have come home and I’m glad I have.” He lapsed into silence, still gazing into the fire. Jane sat quietly, studying him.

  He had changed. He was…she groped for a word…mature. Well, he had travelled to far-off places and lived a life she could scarcely imagine. He must have learned much. He had come back knowing that he wished to live at Clicket Hall and see his daughter married and absorbed into England. The child Sybil had borne out of wedlock and then abandoned had gone away to find himself, and done precisely that.

  But that atmosphere of disturbance was still there. It was already making itself felt, in the matter of Robert and Philippa. She had watched Stephen and Tobias yesterday, listened to their voices as they made conventional conversation, and she knew perfectly well that they were as they always had been: as incompatible as oil and water, as dissimilar as day and night. Their minds could not meet. Tobias would not welcome Stephen’s daughter as his son’s wife.

  Abruptly Stephen withdrew his gaze from whatever imaginary worlds he had seen in the glowing logs and looked at her. “Aunt Jane, I believe you are acquainted with the Luttrell family now?”

  “With Lady Margaret Luttrell, yes. It’s a slight acquaintance—it began when I bought a farm from the Luttrells. I’ve done my best to build up the Allerbrook fortunes over the years and with some success, though I say it myself. Toby and I are invited sometimes to Dunster Castle. Lady Margaret and George Luttrell—that’s her son—are there quite often these days. Lady Margaret’s husband died a good many years ago, when George was still a boy.”

  “Are you likely to be asked there again soon?”

  “I have been invited to a gathering in November, yes. With Toby and Blanche.”

  “Can I come with you? They might be interested to meet the adventurer who spent over twenty years with the Algonquin tribe and has come back with a half-Algonquin daughter. Would you ask them?”

  “Are you trying to tell me that if Robert doesn’t ask for her hand after all, you might try to find Philippa a husband in the Luttrells’ social circle? That’s aiming rather high! It’s true that George’s wife, Joan, is only the daughter of a lawyer, but I understand that the lawyer concerned was George’s guardian. Everyone says he foisted the girl on to him. She’s poorly educated, and last time I was there, her gown was all splashed with whatever meal she’d eaten last. Hmm.” Jane put her head on one side. “Maybe Philippa has a chance in that company after all. With a little teaching, she’ll leave Joan Luttrell far behind.”

  “My dear aunt, what glorious gossip!” Stephen began to laugh. “This is nothing to do with Philippa,” he said. He paused, looking with great affection at his aunt Jane, remembering how she had protected him from Captain Clifton, knowing that he could probably trust her and knowing, too, that he would be wiser not to trust anyone, least of all someone whose son was a Catholic.

  He was not going to include Tobias’s religious beliefs in any kind of report to Walsingham. He didn’t intend to point the finger at his own relatives, but he must still be alert to learn whatever he could about other people’s families, and that would be easier if Tobias had no suspicions of his newly returned cousin.

  “I just want to get to know my new neighbours,” Stephen said. “I’m interested in local affairs—local gossip, if you want to put it that way.”

  “I see,” said Jane.

  She wished she knew why she felt that something was being kept from her. She wished she knew why that feeling of disturbance had suddenly increased and why, deep within herself, she felt afraid.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Worm at the Heart of the Apple

  1585

  The news that Stephen Sweetwater was home, accompanied by a daughter whose mother had come from a New World tribe, spread rapidly around the county. Allerbrook tenants, Clicket villagers, acquaintances from Withypool, Dulverton and Winsford all found excuses to visit the house. “I knew this would happen,” Jane said resignedly, despatching Paul Snowe to Dulverton for extra stores.

  The news penetrated as far as the coast, causing Nicholas Lanyon, his wife, Agnes, his two young sons, his sister Gwyneth Mercer and her husband, John, along with their daughter Nicola and her newlywed husband, Will Steadman, to arrive at Allerbrook unheralded and in force.

  “It was sheer curiosity that brought us,” they said candidly, beaming and shaking Stephen’s hand with enthusiasm. Stephen the difficult child who had caused a rift between the two sides of the family was forgotten. He was now a returned traveller from exotic lands and they were delighted to see him. Jane graciously accommodated them overnight and Philippa bore up well under their interested scrutiny, dressing carefully, answering questions politely, speaking only when addressed and smiling at everyone. If she felt she was being put on display, she didn’t say so.

  The November gathering at Dunster Castle duly took place and as Stephen had hoped, the Luttrells, too, had heard of him and his unusual daughter and were only too pleased to extend the invitation to them. The event was a success from a social point of view, but from the point of view of espionage it was a complete blank.

  Stephen thought it over as they jogged home afterward, through the woodland tracks that wound their way up the Avill valley toward the moorland, reviewing it in his head, putting the dinner table conversation through the sieve of memory, and finding nothing.

  Nothing! He had promised to send reports direct to Sir Francis Walsingham in London, using the royal courier service from Taunton. Any report he sent now would be as bland as plain blancmange.

  None of the numerous visitors to Allerbrook had said a single word out of place, and at Dunster Castle young George Luttrell had talked mainly of plans for reconstructing Minehead harbour, while his mother, like most older ladies of standing, was interested only in the household and estate. As for George’s wife, Joan, she was as Jane had implied—uninformed, untidy and lacking in any opinions whatsoever.

  Walsingham’s retainer was of course useful, but Stephen, owner of Clicket House and some useful profits from the Santa Maria, could do without it. He was beginning to think that he should write to Mistress Stannard and ask to be released from his task.

  Jane, riding beside him, was thinking how pleased she was with Philippa, who was already promising to become a dignified and cultured young woman. She had begun to learn how to brew cider and cure hams and she had been studying dutifully. Even a few weeks of lessons with the chaplain, Gilbert Mallow, had developed her mind considerably. He had started her on Latin and French, and her reading and penmanship had already improved a good deal.

  And if she had also spent a good deal of time in Robert’s company, he seemed to keep her cheerful. Tobias didn’t like it, and showed it, but the couple took little heed and Jane, gently, had told him to let them alone. “He’s good for her. Stephen told me she was homesick at first. Now she’s beginning to put down roots at Allerbrook and Robert is helping her.”

  “Gilbert Mallow is doing more,” said Tobias. “And he’s brought a musician back from Plymouth with him. I’ve been talking to the man and he’s willing to start Philippa on the virginals and the lute.”

  The musician was the man Gilbert Mallow had gone to Plymouth to meet. He had come back to Allerbrook with Mallow, and Tobias had granted permission for him to stay for a while. His name was Charles Dupont and he was half-French but preferred, he said, to live in England. He was young and quiet but gifted, since he was a composer who had written a number of pieces for various instruments.

  “I believe,” Jane remarked now to Stephen, “that Philippa is showing some aptitude for the lute. I must give her some lessons in dancing, too. Mallow and Dupont are doing well by her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll become a graceful dan
cer,” said Stephen somewhat distractedly.

  He had nothing against Dupont, but he was less enthusiastic about Mallow. Philippa, when talking to him of things she had learned from Mallow, had remarked that he admired Mary Stuart of Scotland. “Father, he says that in England she is wrongfully imprisoned, and ought to be restored to the Scottish throne.”

  “Those are unwise remarks,” Stephen told her. “Naturally you mustn’t contradict your tutor, but don’t repeat them.” He had wondered if here, at last, was something he should mention in a report to Walsingham, but had decided against it. He certainly did not want the authorities to begin eyeing his own home with suspicion. Yes, it would be better if he withdrew from the business of being an agent. Then he wouldn’t have to take these inconvenient decisions.

  “You are very quiet,” Jane remarked. “By the way, I must tell you—I overheard George Luttrell asking Tobias when he next intended to visit the royal court, and Toby said perhaps at the end of the winter. It could be a good thing for Philippa to have relatives who attend court. Toby goes most years, for a while. He likes to visit his friends there, too.”

  “Including the one who turned him into a Catholic?” Stephen asked.

  “Oh yes, indeed. He finds Sir Anthony such good company, he said. Anthony Babington—that’s the name of his friend.”

  Stephen lay in his bed in the dark, and could not sleep.

  He had been so glad to come home. During the long years of homesickness he had begun to understand what he and Hawkins had done to their cargo of enslaved and kidnapped Africans and to know it for an evil. He would never take part in such a trade again—even if he ever had the chance.

  He had not been a slave, but the pain of separation from his homeland and all familiar things had been intense. He had not even had the other survivors from the Sweet Promise for company, for both had died, quite soon, of some local fever.

  He had made a life among the Algonquin and, blessedly, there had been Running Doe to help him, but because of her, he had had to keep out of the way the first time a ship from England put in, and let his first chance of getting home slip by.