We have left Widow Brissenden in charge of Father. I feel I should hurry back now, but instead I wander with John along the small paths through the bracken and brambles, hand in hand when the way is wide enough, whilst most of the wedding guests go in a laughing crowd along the main path. A hedgepig, which surely should be asleep for winter now, ambles across our path. The trees are hazy with dusk. At the edge of the clearing, we stop.
“Everyone knows about us now,” says John.
“No one seems surprised.”
“No one seems to mind, either.”
“Only Aunt Juniper. What about Hugh and Anne Fairweather! I’m glad. It makes me feel better for refusing Hugh.”
“He looked happy.”
“Unflatteringly.”
John laughs. “I’m sure you could always change your mind.” He puts his arms round me. “For once your red silk gown doesn’t seem to have got you into trouble, though I suppose there’s still time. Are you cold?” He pulls me into the shelter of an elder tree. I look up at him. He has relaxed today. He has not felt it necessary to be so cautious with me. His blue eyes are humorous and he looks capable of mischief. We stand close, close enough to read minds. I know he wants to say, “It will be all right,” but is afraid to, because that refers to things we must not mention, matters which are not in the spirit of the day, horrors that lie beneath. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
Chapter 12
I wake late the next morning. Daylight is already shining through my little window, throwing a pattern of bars across my bed. I turn over and think about the day before, and Verity’s wedding. It seems unreal. It was a good day, an easy day. It was easy being with John. This is how it should be. This is what I could have. We have moved closer. People know about us and the sky hasn’t fallen in. Aunt Juniper didn’t berate me in public. Hugh looks happy, and will be rich, should he wed with Anne Fairweather. The future is there for us all, serene and graspable. So what if a Scottish marauder is rotting in jail? What in heaven’s name did he expect, crossing the border and attacking people’s homes?
I remember his skin, pale and slightly freckled on lower arms and upper cheekbones. I remember the way his eyelashes – unseemly long for a man – looked reddish in the sun. I remember him, whole and beautiful, and black melancholy comes crashing back down, only partly caused by the after-effects of all the wine I drank the day before.
John is out. I feed Father his morning posset, then put on my cloak and ride over to Barrowbeck as usual. I am out of patience with all the henchmen, and particularly with Michael. I ask him if he has ever considered the startling concept of being absolutely truthful at all times. He is so surprised that he stares me in the face, unusual in itself, and answers, “No, mistress.”
By noon I know I have to get away. I have spent much of the morning stocking and checking the root cellar, and bringing Verity’s account books up to date. I go down to the kitchen and scoop a spoonful of dark roast barley into a mug and add a ladleful of hot water. Kate comes up from the cellar carrying a leg of mutton wrapped in bloodied muslin.
“I’m brewing some barley. Do you want some?” I ask her, spooning in honey.
“Thanks lass.” She brandishes the mutton. “Hardly worth the bother. There’s scarce anyone to cook for, these days, with all of you gone. I reckon Verity and yon yokel should come and live here at t’tower. Combine the farms.”
I stare at her. The idea is shocking in its simplicity and obviousness.
“Then,” she continues, “fifteen years or so on, there’s the farmhouse for her eldest. Or yours.” She grins. “Assuming t’parson can get out of the habit of condemning the pleasures of the flesh so heartily.”
I have to laugh. It feels unnatural, as if my face would break. It feels so out of keeping with my mood that there is a moment when it verges on tears. Kate peers at me and pats my shoulder. “It will be all right.”
I nearly tell her. I so want to talk about Robert that I nearly blurt it all out. Instead I say, “Thank you, Kate. Indeed, it will be all right.” I finish my barley broth, kiss her on the cheek and go out into the meadow.
It is only when I am part way through the woods that I realise where I am going. I am walking to the hermit’s cottage, the place where Robert hid last spring and summer, whilst his injuries mended. I trod this path sometimes several times a day when he was at his worst. Now it is overgrown with briars. I force my way through. I wonder if Robert is dead yet in that dungeon. I wonder if his ghost has returned here, and is waiting for me.
When I reach the cottage, I see that the roof has blown off in the autumn gales. This seems so distressing that I sit on the crumbling boundary wall and sob. I put my face in my hands and let the tears drip through my fingers. When I cannot cry any more I still sit there, watching a spider in its web systematically killing a few, late, foolish flies. It is in no hurry. It lets each one become thoroughly enmeshed before it wanders over and finishes it off. Likewise us, I think. I know then that I have to go to Lancaster.
Walking back in the late afternoon, I find that the slugs have come out in the meadow in front of the tower. They cover the grass. It is impossible to avoid stepping on them. Some are long, thick and brown, grained like wood or turds. Some are spheres with flattened edges like the flukes in the bay, and they shift underfoot in the same way that a flatfish hidden in the sand does. Some burst when trodden on, turning explosively inside out, bags of sticky juice, bladders of lard. Likewise us, I think, likewise us all.
When I return to the parsonage it is late. The green is one great shadow, full of all the things which shadows contain. I walk Universe round to the stables at the back. We have taken Dickon on to help us here, and he comes forward now, flushed, from the back of the stables. I glance behind him.
“How are your ears, Esther?” I call. There is shuffling, but no reply.
“I’ll see to the horse, mistress.”
I hand over the reins. “Thank you, Dickon. I notice that Esther’s ears appear to be rotting on her head, where Kate pierced them. I don’t know what she’s been hanging in them. Do get her to go and see my mother for some marigold balm.”
He nods warily. I sigh. For the past few weeks Esther and Dickon have been almost permanently spreadeagled in the hayloft.
I go to check the cart at the back of the stables. I shall need it, if I am to go to Lancaster. It is a slightly sturdier version of our carretta at the tower, with big, broad wheels for getting through the mud, and a high seat at the front.
Esther slides down the ladder from the hayloft and rushes past me before I can speak. Doubtless she is under the impression that I am endowed with the same moral certainties as the parson. If only I were.
The cart’s axles seem well-greased, and its wheels have no chips in them. The spokes ring firm and true when I clatter a stick round them. It will take me to Lancaster with no trouble. I have never driven so far alone before, and thoughts of highway robbers and footpads cross my mind, but I know that Universe can outstrip almost anything else on legs, and anyway, I am about to go in and give one of our most dangerous local highway robbers his evening bowl of gruel.
My mother arrives just after sunset, bringing more of Cedric’s remedies for my father, and something for me too.
“You are suffering from melancholy, Beatrice,” she announces severely, as if I had brought it on myself, which perhaps I have. When Mother Bain has struggled up the stairs to the room she now uses next to mine, and John has gone up to the schoolroom to prepare a sermon, Mother seats herself in the chimney corner, next to my place on the settle, and prepares to give me a lecture. I sigh. I need an early night if I am to leave for Lancaster before sun-up, but I realise this has to be endured at some point. Mother has made several attempts to talk to me about Robert, and so far I have made excuses and avoided it. Now she holds out a small bottle. “Borage and milk thistle. Take it morning and night, without fail. I think we also need to cut down on what you’re doing. Kate said you fainted.” She peers at me. “You’re
not pregnant by that Scot, are you?”
“Mother, for heaven’s sake…”
“That’s a relief then. You realise you must never breathe a word of it? It’s worse than the other business of those men having their throats cut. As if Widow Brissenden weren’t bad enough, we’ve had the widow of the other one at the tower today, demanding money. She said she was glad to see the back of her husband, but now we owe her a living.” Mother shakes her head. “And Leo…” She watches my face. “Oh yes, I know it was him. Leo offered to forfeit a quarter’s wages, but that was obvious nonsense with all those children of his to feed and another on the way. Anyway, I gave the woman enough to keep her going for a while.”
She stands up. “Good. Well, I must get back. Take the medicine. Get some rest. I shall call again tomorrow.” She gets as far as the door, then turns back. The corner of her mouth has a twist to it, and her eyes have become shiny and a little bloodshot. “I’m sorry, Daughter. That wasn’t at all what I came to say. Did you love your Scot? Is that why you are so sad? I am truly sorry. I wish I could help you.”
It wasn’t what I had intended either. I crumple up on the settle, my head on my knees, and weep uncontrollably. John arrives. Mother Bain arrives. I cannot help it. I cannot stop. After a while Mother puts me to bed, and reads me a passage of Scripture on the subject of accepting loss. I cannot listen to her. I feign sleep. Eventually Mother goes, and finally I do sleep.
I dream I am at home, standing in the doorway. The homesteaders are gathered in front of me. “Save us,” they say.
I shake my head. “I must save Robert,” I explain, then shut the door in their faces and run up the spiral staircase. At the window of the men’s common room Robert’s face is looking in.
“Save me,” he says. I shake my head regretfully, and push.
Chapter 13
When I wake, the house is dark and silent. I push aside the bed-curtains and step cautiously to the floor. The fire in the chimney hole is almost out, and the room very cold. I hear Mother Bain mutter in her sleep, then fall silent again. The house timbers creak as a gust of wind beats round them. I light my candle and stand it in front of the long mirror, so that it illuminates the room, then open the cedar chest in the corner. It is full of bedlinen. I lean in, and feel under the sheets, breathing in the scent of lavender. I am scarcely able to reach the bottom, but at last I locate the rosewood box that I hid there, and pull it to the surface. It is very beautiful, carved with roses and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It is full of gold pieces. This is my dowry. It will be John’s if I marry him. What I am committing is theft. I count out half the gold pieces and put them in my leather drawstring pocket, then pull on my clothes and write a note to John.
The brass clock is still lying on the chair on the landing, but I cannot tell what time it means. One of the markers is between the three and the four, so perhaps that means it is between three and four. That would make sense. I take one look back into my room, the bed draped in grey velvet, the raddled panelling and floorboards, the clothes press with my brushes and hairpins and yesterday’s black woollen stockings on it, the long mirror, its frame carved with vine leaves, from which my shadowy form looks back at me. I have come to love this room. For a moment I am afraid to leave it. For a moment I just want to go back to bed.
I tiptoe to John’s room. I was going to push the note under his door, but now I lift the latch and creep in. He has gone to sleep sitting up, with a book open on his lap. His candle is still alight, almost burned down. I stand and look at him. His head is turned to one side against the pile of bolsters. He is deeply asleep. I recognise the bedcover, embroidered with blue silk flowers. Verity and I made it between us, in the days when Germaine was still teaching us how to sew, and we fancied ourselves as broderers. It was one of the items of needlework sold on the family stall at the May Fair that year. I hadn’t realised that John had bought it.
I look at the flowers’ exaggerated design, unsatisfyingly wrong, a triumph of hope over botany. They are the same colour as John’s eyes. For a moment I wish he would wake up, see me, stop me. I tuck the note under his candlestick, blow out the candle and go downstairs.
Universe is frisky as I harness him to the cart. I stroke Meadowsweet’s nose when she ambles up to me in her stall. “You have to stay and carry the parson for a couple of days,” I tell her.
I open all four parts of the stable door and fasten them back. First light is showing now behind the church. The clock must be wrong, or else I have misread it. I lead Universe out, with the cart rattling behind him, unnervingly louder than the birds’ dawn chorus. I shut the doors, hitch up my coat and climb aboard.
Universe likes pulling the cart, and now he wants to be away, but I walk him quietly until we are out of the village. Then, despite the twisting track and the mud under our wheels, I snap the long whip over his ears and let him run. His hooves throw up black spray as we gallop with the dawn on our left. When we reach The King’s Strete south, I give him his head, and he goes flat out. I don’t want to be gone longer than I have to, and controlling the cart will take my mind off what will now be happening back at the parsonage. John will be waking. He will be finding my note. He will be reading it.
When I am well on my way, I slow Universe to a trot. On either side of us the low sun is turning the grass fire-green. I look up and see an arrowhead of grey geese, also flying south. Nearer Lancaster, a merlin plummets into my path, frightening Universe and almost causing us to tip over. In front of my face it seizes a meadow pipit in full flight, then pulls up its long talons and soars, leaving only a fading scream behind. This is fierce country. When I pass the first farms and houses on the edge of the town, I understand what an artificial construct a town is. Below the town lies the land that was once ploughed fields, and below the land that was once ploughed fields lies the wild.
Lancaster is a fair town of many small houses and a few larger ones huddled together below John o’ Gaunt’s castle. I cross the River Lune by the long, arched bridge, pass the boggy water meadows of Green Ayre with their hustling slap of watermills, gallop along Chiney Lane and stop at the George in Market Street, where Mother, Verity and I always stay when we visit Lancaster. The landlord comes out into the cobbled courtyard and takes the reins as I climb down. I am dismayed. It is a new innkeeper.
“Where is Master Slatter?” I ask.
He shakes his head and inhales through his teeth. “Nasty business that, mistress. He was tekken by the sweating sickness at Michaelmas. Matthew Postlethwaite at your service.” He glances at my best coat and hat and ushers me into a private room and fusses about a bit. When I am installed on a cushioned settle in the corner he puts a spill to the fire and then brings me a cup of spiced red wine almost too hot to drink. “Are you travelling far, mistress?” I can see that he is deeply curious that I am travelling alone.
“No, not far, Master Postlethwaite. How go things in Lancaster just now? I hear you have Scots imprisoned in the castle.” I look up at the dark building on the hill behind us. Matthew Postlethwaite seats himself, with a raised eyebrow for permission.
“Aye mistress. Twenty or so. Nasty buggers, begging your pardon. The wife and I saw them brought in. They say the queen wants to make an example of them. We serve out good justice here in Lancaster. We haven’t forgotten them poxy Scots of Robert the Bruce burning Lancaster down.” He pokes the rushes on the floor with his foot. A small mouse runs out. “Little devils. Like Scots they are, right quick and destructive.”
“You have good memories in Lancaster, then, considering Robert the Bruce came several centuries ago. Will the Scots get good justice if Lancastrians hate them so?”
“Certainly they will! Our Justices of Assize are even a bit too scrupulous and fair if you ask some folks. They won’t even condemn witches to hang no more unless they’re proven to have done actual murder by witchcraft. Soft as pie they are these days. Speaking of which, can I get you something to eat?”
“Oh, no thank you. I must be goin
g.” I finish my wine, pay him and follow him out to where the stable boy is leading Universe forward for me. I climb up and take the reins. “I’m grateful to you, Master Postlethwaite, and will undoubtedly see you again before too long.”
“The pleasure’s mine.” He bows as I drive out under the arch.
Not many people are about on the hill as I drive over the cobbles, between the small houses. They say that Lancaster hasn’t made up its population since the Black Death back in the 1300s. The castle stands on the summit of the hill, alone except for the Church of Blessed Mary of Lancaster, which is behind it. I stop the cart by the castle’s great gatehouse with its twin towers. The portcullis is up and two soldiers in the familiar red and brown uniforms are standing guard, their swords out of their scabbards, blades bending slightly as they lean on them.
Two very old women, arm in arm, stop and stare at me sitting there. Their clothes are ragged but neatly patched. They look to be from Gardyner’s Almshouses down the hill. “I hear there are Scots in there at the moment,” I say to them, in what I hope is a casual, gossipy tone. They nod, move closer and settle their feet comfortably for a chat.
“Aye, we get all sorts of rabble foisted on us here. Folks don’t like it, you know. Not Scots. We’ll not be safe in our beds.”
Her companion frowns ferociously and lowers her basket to the ground. “Sooner they’re strung up the better.” She jerks her chin in the direction of Gallows Hill on the far side of town.
“They’re in there.” It’s one of the guards speaking, joining in the conversation. He gestures towards a tower visible beyond the gatehouse. “They’re under the Well Tower.”
“Indeed?” I smile at him encouragingly.
“In the Lancaster Dungeon. You can rest safe, goodwives.” He nods to the old women. “They’re chained to the walls and half dead by now. They’ll not be coming out to hide under your beds.” He laughs. “I doubt most of ’em will last until the Lent Assizes anyway. One’s dead already. Coughed hisself to death. Them underground walls are running with damp.”
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