by Robert Neill
She glanced at Roger again, and with an apologetic smile to him, she rose to her feet, beckoned to the child to follow, and tiptoed to the door. She passed out into the sunlight, and the child followed obediently.
The saddle-bag yielded its treasure, and Margery, who had herself some reputation for appetite, watched a performance that surprised her. The child went at the food like a starving dog; she ate noisily and hurriedly, with an evident determination to miss no crumb; and as she ate she clung tenaciously to what remained, as though she feared it might yet be snatched from her. Margery watched intently, happy to have fed the child and angered that there should have been such need for it.
The child made an end; then she burrowed in the grass in search of lost crumbs, and at length lay on her back with a satisfied grunt. Margery watched with a smile. She was finding it pleasant here in the soft wind and the high sun of noon.
“Is that better, little maid?” she asked.
The child nodded and sighed happily. Margery sat on the grass at her side.
“And what do they call you?”
“Jennet.”
“Jennet what?”
“Jennet Device.”
“Device?” Margery tried to take this in. “Do you mean that ... that your mother . . . that we saw your mother inside there?”
The child nodded again, and Margery tried to make sense of this. This child was perhaps seven or eight years old. Alizon was at most ten years older. So the squinting Elizabeth must be this child’s mother, and Alizon her sister. But . . .
“Is Alizon your sister then?”
Another nod.
“Oh!” Margery looked again at this shapely child with the fair hair and the clear eyes, and mentally compared her with Alizon’s dark shifty cunning. Then she saw a possible explanation. Alizon and Jennet might have the same mother, but it by no means followed, especially with such a mother, that they had the same father.
Jennet sat up suddenly and began to take stock of Margery. Her shrewd young eyes roved up and down from the plumed hat to the fine soft boots, and at last settled into a steady stare at Margery’s face.
“Who are you?” asked Jennet bluntly.
Margery gravely told her, adding that she was come on a visit to Master Nowell.
“Why?”
This was difficult. Margery could think of no very good answer. “Because Master Nowell wished to see me,” was the best she could do. But it seemed to satisfy Jennet, who nodded gravely.
“Me too,” she said. And Margery took this to mean that she had Jennet’s approval.
“I like you,” added Jennet suddenly; and Margery, who had disconcerted many, was for once disconcerted herself.
Then voices by the door brought her quickly to her feet as Jennet dived through the crazy fence like a startled rabbit. Roger had come out, and was walking slowly to the horses. Richard Baldwin, at his side, seemed to be expostulating with him, and Roger was having none of it.
“There’s no profit in complaint,” he was saying. “You know full well that when there’s no confession I can’t commit for witchcraft without two witnesses at the least. And here there’s only one, even if she is your daughter. No doubt it’s to be deplored, but I can’t mend it. And nor can you, Richard.”
“Confession could have been had.” Baldwin’s voice was almost savage. “There are ways of having it, if you’d but use them.”
“Ways? Aye, ways enough!” Roger had stopped in his walk. “I know such ways and I know what they end in. But I’m a Justice of the Peace in this County of Lancaster, not a Spaniard turned loose in the Low Countries. Let that be held in mind.”
But Richard Baldwin was not quelled.
“In all matters else, I’d say amen,” he answered. “But here’s sin against God, and the wrath of God shall be on us if we give it breeding ground. It stinks before the Lord, and it’s to be cut out, root and branch. In God’s name, I say, shrink not from some small severities when there’s His work to do.”
Roger shook his head slowly.
“It’s not my way, Richard, and I’ll not do it.”
Richard Baldwin found his stirrup and swung into his saddle.
“On your head be it!” he retorted. “But I much fear it may be on all our heads.”
He turned to Margery and suddenly swept his hat off to her. For a moment he waited, sitting rigid on his horse, while the bright sun lit his sober clothes and gave a tint of bronze to a face that was still and hard as granite. Then, without another word, he turned his horse and rode away.
Roger turned slowly to Margery.
“The fear of God,” he said, “is the root of some evils. It’s a way fear has.”
Chapter 8: DARK ELEGANCE
“Parsons,” said Roger gloomily, “change with the times, and not always for the better.”
He said it on Sunday morning as they were riding to the church at Whalley, and Margery looked across hopefully. She was beginning to know this fine sardonic tone of his.
“In the old days,” he went on, “one Dobson was parson here. He was Vicar when I was wed in this church. A jovial fellow, even if he was a papist---“
“A papist, sir? In the King’s Church?”
“A papist he was. He put water in the wine and then drank it himself. After him was one Osbaldeston, who was at least a man of decent family. A reading parson too--a thing much to be commended.”
“Reading?” Margery was puzzled. Was it matter for note in Whalley that the parson could read?
“Aye, reading.” Roger gave his explanation in the same sardonic tone. “He read what’s set in the Prayer Book, and that being done, he made an end and suffered us to be gone. But this rogue Ormerod, who’s plagued us these six years, is not content with that. He’s got him a Preaching Licence, and now we don’t know when we’ll dine.”
Margery gurgled with amusement. She was finding that her cousin’s humours sat lightly on her.
“I’ve known the like before,” she said. “How does this Master Ormerod preach?”
“Like a quinsied duck. And when I told him so, the rogue babbled of our great-uncle.”
“Who?”
“The sainted Alexander.” Roger grinned, and then changed his topic abruptly. “There’s one thing of merit about a parish church--you have to ride to it.”
“So I note. But---“
“Which means there are horses to put up. And where there are stables there’s commonly an inn--hard by the church. We’ll comfort our throats before we heave insults at the Devil.”
Margery was shaking with laughter as she followed Roger to the inn. Her cousin, it seemed, took a lighter view of Sunday’s duties than her brothers had ever done.
Once in the church, she found the well-remembered order. The Bidding Prayer was made, the Psalms chanted, the Lessons read, just as had been done every Sunday since she could remember. Master Ormerod, black gowned and grave of mien, and wearing a surplice deliberately torn to show his contempt of it, gave her no trouble. She recognized him at sight as a puritan divine of the breed she knew so well; and when he came to his pulpit and gave out his text from the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus, she sighed wearily. Idols and graven images meant the old familiar sermon against Popery.
So it proved, and Margery was not interested. She had heard it too often, and now she allowed her thoughts to wander. And not her thoughts only; for a quick glance at Roger showed him to be blatantly asleep, and Margery, perceiving that there was no vigilant guardian at her side this day, turned her head a little and let her eyes go roaming too.
She was in a huge family pew, and this in itself was odd. She had marked the inscription on it as they came in. Factum Est Per Rogerum Nowell, the deep-cut letters had said; and the date, MCCCCCCX, was of only a year ago. And what, she was asking herself, did a solitary widower want with this great horse box?
The church was packed, as well it might be when there were churchwardens quick to present the laggards, and magistrates as quick to exact th
e shilling fine. Margery wriggled in her pleated safeguard as sun and crowd combined to heat the church. She twisted to the side, and a chapel took her eye. Or should she call it a chantry? She was not versed in such niceties. But she was at least curious about this one, for it held four women sitting alone, and not a man among them. She looked again, and saw that its windows had stained glass; and in the glass were the arms of Nowell.
.Margery grew attentive. There were the three cups sable in their field of argent, and below them were two figures; apparently they were of man and wife, and seven sons knelt by him and seven daughters by her. Beyond doubt this was some family memorial. But what, then, was this chapel?
Master Ormerod turned his glass and went booming on about idolatrous images of saints. Margery left him to it. She was stickily hot by now, and in no mood to give ear to a sermon she knew as well as he did. She began to pick out the lettering below the figures and she groped in her memory for what rudiments of scholarship she had. Orate pro animabus Rogeri Nowell armdgeri--that, was easy enough--et Gratiae uxoris ejus--and Grace his wife--et pro bono statu Johannis--that, she thought, must mean the well-being of John---primogeniti Rogeri--firstborn of Roger--cum fratribus et sororibus suis--these must be the kneeling figures---
Margery halted and frowned at it. The next was not quite so easy--qui islam fenestram fieri fecerunt. It was something about the window, but--Margery dropped her eyes from the glass as she pondered it; and she saw the women who sat in the chapel. Abruptly her thoughts changed. One of these women was looking at her.
Margery swung her head hastily, and stared dutifully at the preacher. But she caught no word that he was saying. Her mind was in turmoil, and she had feelings of guilt, horribly mixed with a sudden fear; and all at once she was aware that her heart was beating faster than it should. She had to brace her shoulders and steady her breathing before she could ask herself why this was.
Certainly it was odd. She began to disbelieve it, and cautiously she let her head turn to the chapel again. Warily, she took another glance; and she had a flood of relief when she saw that the woman was now apparently intent on the sermon. Margery took the chance and began to study her attentively.
Disbelief began to mount. How could she have been frightened by this decorous lady? For decorous she surely was. Every fold of her sleek black taffeta, every pleat in her white lace collar, spoke decorum; and there was a fine elegance, and a precise good taste too, in the snowy satin of her stomacher and in the silver lace that gleamed and sparkled on the taffeta. It all blended perfectly with her raven hair. The white plumes in her tall black beaver swayed gently as she nodded quiet approval of the sermon. There was nothing rustic here, and surely nothing frightening either. The lady made an admirable picture, and Margery found herself envying the skill and good taste that had gone to compose it.
The heat in the church was getting overpowering; and Margery, dabbing cautiously at her face with her hand kerchief of cambric, wondered if taffeta was cooler than she had supposed. Certainly there was no sign of distress in the sharply-chiselled face under the fine black beaver. Margery’s attention left the clothes and fastened on the face. It was almost too sharply chiselled. A pale oval face this, with small delicate ears, a straight sharp nose and a chin that receded a little. Margery was not sure that she liked that pointed chin; and the small thin-lipped mouth had a droop at the corners that set her wondering what this woman was like to live with. And while she wondered, the woman turned quickly; and her dark deep-set eyes looked full into Margery’s.
Margery jerked upright. She could not look away. The dark glittering eyes held hers; they were deep dark pools, radiating force, wave after wave of it, and of a sudden Margery was cold. In the heat of the church, while her clothes clung damply to her, a shiver crept up her back, to find her heart and set it pounding; and then in an instant, as if a cloud had been swept from the sun, the cold was gone. The heat was with her again, and the dark-eyed woman was giving her a smile as sweet and gracious as might be dared in any church.
Margery gasped with relief, and turned hurriedly to Master Ormerod again. But Master Ormerod was ending at last, and some deep instinct was rousing Roger from his slumbers. Margery shook herself into a becoming propriety as the Blessing was given.
There was a surge of departing; and no sooner was Margery on her feet than she was aware of eyes turned curiously upon her, as gentlemen wondered who this was, and ladies made sharp appraisement of the orange-tawny. Margery stiffened, and made sure that her shoulders were truly braced. Roger, saturnine in cloak and doublet of black velvet, with gold lace and gilded cords, crinkled with amusement as he took it all in. Thereafter he was in no hurry. He gave Margery his arm and went sauntering down the aisle, gazing blandly at the roof; while Margery, half proud and half nervous, was at pains to saunter as carelessly as he. This was a change from black grogram and a sister’s watchful eye.
They came blinking into the sunlight, and Margery was hoping now for some meetings, and perhaps some talk, with one or other of these gentlemen whom Roger surely knew. But in that she was disappointed. For even while Roger stood looking about him and drawing on his gloves, the lady from the chapel, the lady of the black taffeta and the silver lace, bore down upon them purposefully. Margery grew suddenly tense, and for a moment the cold tingle touched her spine. But it faded as soon as it had come. There was surely nothing here to disturb her peace; the lady was all graciousness, and her smile was charming as she glanced inquiringly at Roger. He bowed politely and did what was plainly needed.
“Give me leave, ma’am, to present my cousin Mistress Whitaker. She’s my guest just now. Cousin, here’s Mistress Nutter, wife of Richard--of the Rough Lee.”
The dark eyes were on Margery again, but now they had a light that matched the quivering smile. Margery hastily recalled her manners and made the curtsey that was due. It was punctiliously acknowledged.
“You are most welcome to Pendle, mistress.” The diction was perfect, and the voice a tone deeper than Margery had expected. “But the gossip runs that you’ve come alone, no woman with you?”
“Why yes, ma’am, I have. But I’m my cousin’s guest.” Mistress Nutter rippled into laughter.
“We’ll acquit you of the improprieties, mistress, and surely Master Nowell too.”
“Madam, my thanks!”
If Margery’s keen ears found a hint of irony in Roger’s bland tone, there was nothing in his bearing to support it. He was standing very straight and sober in his black and gold, one gloved hand holding his prayer book while the other rested lightly on the gilded hilt of his ceremonial sword--the very picture of a courteous gentleman who waits at his ease while the ladies talk.
Mistress Nutter chose to be arch.
“I had meant to convey, sir, that your cousin should have some courtesies from her own sex as well as from yours. You’d not confine her to a monastery?”
“Indeed no, ma’am.” Roger was as bland as before. “Nor to a nunnery either. She was not born under such a star if I judge aright.”
The laugh rippled again.
“It’s very well sir.” She turned directly to Margery. “You’ve been already to my poor house, as I’m told, and I’m sorry you’d so sad an errand. Please to come again, and soon. We’ll try then to give you friendlier welcome.”
Margery stood stiffly, her thoughts whirling as she sought for escape. There was something here that she mistrusted, and the memory of that chilling glance in the church came vividly to her as she stood. She knew she had no wish to go again to the Rough Lee, to be the guest of this woman whose dark eyes stabbed like icicles. Then, while she still groped for words of refusal, she was sinking into a quick curtsey and saying how pleased she would be to go.
She was almost relieved when she had said it. There was, after all, no other answer within the courtesies, and she could not stand in silence for ever. She would at least have time to brace herself before the ordeal came.
Mistress Nutter dipped acknowledgm
ent of the curtsey. She smiled acknowledgment of the acceptance. For a moment the dark eyes gleamed, and Margery stiffened again as the ghost of a shiver came and went. But before she had found a word to say,
Mistress Nutter had turned to Roger and was speaking with a most becoming gravity.
“I’m in your debt, sir, for the pains you took when poor Mitton died last week.”
“Not so, ma’am. A simple duty.” Roger’s smooth tone expressed nothing.
“Aye sir, duty no doubt. But duty most zealously performed. I say again that we’re in your debt. And we much regret that so much was laid upon you.”
“Let’s keep regrets, ma’am, for Mitton’s death.”
“Aye indeed.” She nodded decorous agreement. “Poor Mitton! A faithful servant, sir, and I do not know how I shall find his like---“
It almost sounded as though that might be the cause of her regret.
“What of these women, sir?” Her question came sharply while Margery was musing. “Women, ma’am?”
“These Demdikes. I’ve heard such tales---“
“From whom, may I ask?”
The first edge of sharpness had come into Roger’s voice as he slipped his question quickly. But Mistress Nutter was not disturbed. She answered him easily.
“From my servants, sir. They’re in such flutterings---“
“You’ll hardly heed such gossip, ma’am.”
The dark eyes lost their light. They were very steady when she spoke again.