‘Most definitely,’ I said.
‘And you have business with Mistress Gould, our … Principal?’
‘Indeed we have,’ I said. ‘Though tomorrow will do for talking about that.’ My teeth would be chattering audibly before long, I thought.
Sybil voiced what I was thinking. ‘For the moment, we are glad just to be in shelter. We are cold and very tired.’
‘Quite. Mary will have the rooms ready very quickly. Meanwhile, come into the guest hall. Mary, make haste and fetch kindling and light fires in the hall and in rooms one and two. Then get bedlinen and covers and prepare the beds.’
We were shown through a door on the right, opposite to the one through which the two women had come, and found ourselves in a hall, stone-walled and flagstoned like the vestibule, and provided with a hearth. At the moment, it was a dark, unheated mouth with an empty fuel basket beside it. In the middle of the hall there was a table with benches along each side, and against one wall stood a wooden settle with no cushions. At the far end of the hall a flight of stone steps led up to a gallery running round two sides of the place, and up there we could see doors, all alike, solid oak by the look of them, with heavy iron hinges. The guest bedchambers, presumably, though the immediate impression was that they were a row of prison cells. Since there seemed to be nothing else to do, the three of us sat down on the settle. Angelica and Mary bustled off, leaving us for the moment alone.
‘A real, homelike welcome,’ said Sybil unenthusiastically. ‘I’m not given to complaining, but just now …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t feel too hospitable and if you’re about to say, Dale, that you can’t abide such a state of affairs, I’d agree with you! We’re all tired out and longing to be warm, fed, and asleep. Ah. Something is happening.’
Mary Haxby had come back, carrying a big basket full of firewood. She set about lighting a fire in the dismal hearth, bringing it to life and somewhat mitigating the bleakness of the place. The unsmiling Angelica Ames reappeared a few moments later, followed by another woman, even smaller and more inclined to scuttle than Margaret Beale. Both were laden with sheets and fur bedcovers. They went up the stairs and into one of the guest chambers, and then Mary Haxby, having got the fire going and filled the fuel basket by the hearth, went up after them, carrying the big basket, in which there was still a good supply of firewood. Faintly, we could hear Mistress Ames’ voice, supervising the making of a bed.
Presently, they returned to us. Mary and the little scuttling woman, whose name was apparently Annie, were sent away and Mistress Ames said that our rooms were ready. We accompanied her up to the gallery and she showed us into our quarters.
‘We have put Mistress Stannard and Mistress Jester together,’ she said, opening a door and motioning to me and Sybil to go in. ‘Your tirewoman and her husband are next door, in accordance with your wishes. Our guest chambers are nothing special, but we hope they’re adequate. They’re not much used,’ said Mistress Ames, standing with her hands folded at her waist and watching us as we took in our surroundings. ‘To begin with, they weren’t used at all! The house was chosen for us because it was reasonably priced, but at first it was much too big and this guest wing was just a nuisance that had to be kept dusted. At the start, there were just four of us though Mistress Gould already hoped that others would join us. We rattled around in the place until they did, I must say, though now that there are sixteen of us, we sometimes feel quite crowded. Now, of course, we use the guest wing for guests in the usual way, though we have only a few. This is a lonely place and benighted travellers would find only poor hospitality in the village.’
‘And providing for guests was part of Benedictine life,’ I said. ‘We do know that you live more or less as Benedictines did. There is no secret about that, apparently.’
‘Quite right. I see that you are well informed about us. Now, if you wish for anything, there is a bell on the table down in the guest hall. Ring it loudly – you had better go to the hall door and ring it there; the walls of this house are quite thick and it may not be heard otherwise. Warm water and towels will be brought up shortly and a meal will be served to you down in the guest hall in an hour or so. We ladies have our own refectory in the main part of the house, but we eat in silence, which we would not inflict on our guests. I will leave you now. Mistress Haxby will bring your manservant up when he comes in.’
She nodded in farewell and left us. We stood looking round us. Sybil said: ‘Well, I agree that it’s much better than being out in a blizzard.’
‘We can give thanks with due formality,’ I said drily. ‘There’s a prie dieu over there in that corner. With candles, ready to be lit.’
‘We may as well light them now,’ said Sybil. ‘It’s nowhere near nightfall but it’s so gloomy in here that we won’t be able to see to unpack.’ She took one of the candles to the fire to kindle it, and then used it to ignite the others. ‘I see we have a graphic crucifix on the wall above the prie dieu,’ she remarked. ‘It’s plain enough which faith our hostesses follow. They don’t hide it.’
‘I never thought to see that kind of thing in England,’ said Dale, with a sniff.
I sent Dale to inspect her room next door while Sybil and I went to warm our hands by our hearth. The fuel basket beside it was now full but the fireplace was tiny and the fire didn’t give off very much warmth, even though the room was far from spacious. Nor was it warmly furnished. The walls were of bare stone, with no hangings, and the crucifix was the only ornament. The bed had no hangings either, though it was a four-poster with the fittings for them. As it was, its uprights and crossbars stood starkly, skeletal and uncompromising. Still, the window was glazed and the bed was at least wide enough for two and had pillows and a fur coverlet. A utensil for calls of nature lay beside it.
There was a press for clothes and Sybil, having thawed out a little, crossed to the window and raised the wide window seat to reveal a further storage space beneath. I wandered to the window as well. It was leaded, with small panes, little upright oblongs, of the same thick, blue-green glass as in the Earl of Morton’s anteroom. It let in a little light but there was no seeing out of it.
Wanting to know what was outside, I unlatched it and pushed it open. It was equipped with shutters, which at the moment had been latched back, out of the way. Our room overlooked the back of the house. Immediately below was a garden, now deep in snow, forlorn and empty, though a row of pea-sticks and some small, leafless bushes and what looked like the outlines of some raised flowerbeds suggested that in summer it might be a pleasant enough mixture of kitchen garden and place for recreation. The wall which we had passed through by way of the gatehouse apparently went all the way round the place, for the garden was bounded by what looked a continuation of the same wall. Beyond this, the hillside continued upwards and as the wind blew the curtains of falling snow this way and that, I caught a glimpse of a distant crest of moorland, remote and lonely.
Turning from the window, I heard a welcome sound. ‘I think that’s Brockley’s voice,’ I said.
He tapped on our door only a few moments later and we let him in. He was carrying our saddlebags, which he put down on the floor.
‘This isn’t the jolliest place I’ve ever seen in my life,’ he remarked. He had shed his damp cloak and hat, and exchanged his boots for slippers. ‘Our horses are settled. The stabling’s good. The ladies have a couple of heavy horses and two riding horses and one of those is a really well-bred animal, a striking strawberry roan. I saw a couple of side saddles in the tackroom. I don’t think our hostesses live quite the enclosed lives of the Benedictine nuns they’re said to be imitating. And there are no red chalk signs anywhere in the stable or the tackroom. I made sure I looked and so did Joseph, though I think Walter Cogge was wondering why we kept peering into corners. It really would be tricky, you know, deciding where to put such marks. How does one find a place where someone who was looking for them could find them, but they wouldn’t be noticed by the wro
ng people, who would say tut-tut and wipe them away with a sponge?’
‘There are certainly no red chalk signs here,’ I said, glancing round at the bare walls. ‘Nor in your room, presumably. You have a fire there? I sent Dale in to see what kind of cheer the ladies had prepared for the two of you.’
‘Yes, there’s a fire. Fran has built it up and is thawing herself out – poor Fran, she was so cold! I’m thankful to have got her under cover. She’ll come back in a moment and do your unpacking. Our room is exactly like this. I understand that we’ve been given the two biggest guest bedchambers. Joseph is all right, too. The man Cogge has two very comfortable rooms over the tackroom, and a spare pallet. He seems to be a friendly fellow.’
‘They’re going to send us washing water and food,’ I said. ‘We’re to eat in the guest hall downstairs, so that we can talk to each other. The ladies dine in a religious silence, it seems.’
‘I wonder when we can see the chief lady of this establishment,’ said Brockley. ‘Not that there’s any real hurry. In weather like this, I should think we’ll be here for days!’
‘I fear we are,’ I said, somewhat grimly.
We made ourselves at home as well as we could. The water and towels arrived, along with basins and soap. Sybil’s calves were very sore where her stirrup leathers had rubbed, and even if the weather had been good, I didn’t think we could have ridden back the next day. Sybil needed two days at least to get over this. Dale and I had managed our skirts a little better and our calves were no more than slightly reddened and should be all right after a night’s rest. Dale helped to bathe Sybil’s abraded skin in warm water and clean it with soap and then, resourcefully, sacrificed a spare petticoat to create makeshift leggings which we could all use when next we got into our saddles.
We all helped with the unpacking. The purse of money for John of Evesham’s book, I placed carefully in a drawer at the bottom of the clothes press with some shawls and spare sleeves on top of it. My formal gown was regrettably crushed after travelling in a saddlebag, and so was the amber-coloured dress that Sybil had brought for best. Dale produced a smoothing iron, heated it on the fire, and got the worst of the creases out of the two gowns before tenderly stowing them in the chest under the window seat. We did not wish to wear them here. Stonemoor House didn’t feel like the place for finery. Then we went down to await our dinner.
This, when it came, was quite good, though not exhilarating. There was a stew with dumplings afloat in it along with beans and pieces of meat – salted pork, by the taste of it – and we each had one small wedge of a game pie. This was actually excellent, but it only amounted to a few mouthfuls.
‘They weren’t expecting guests in this weather,’ said Brockley acutely. ‘They were having game pie themselves but they didn’t have enough for extra mouths.’
The bread was rye bread, black and heavy though freshly baked, and to follow there was a dish of preserved plums and an egg custard. There was also a flagon of white wine. The wine was thin and sharp; it quenched one’s thirst but not much else could be said for it.
Plump Mary Haxby and little scuttling Annie came to clear the dishes afterwards, arriving unexpectedly and silently. Margaret Beale had had ordinary outdoor shoes which clip-clopped as such shoes normally do, but the ladies we had met indoors all moved silently. Their shoes looked substantial but must have been soled with something that deadened sound.
When the clearing was finished, a lady we had not seen before came into the guest hall and stood for a moment, surveying us. Then, in a thick Yorkshire accent, she said: ‘I’m Mistress Bella Yates, sister to our Principal, Mistress Philippa Gould. My sister’s that busy just now but she’ll see thee coom the morning. She says as thee’ve business here. She says I’m to ask what it’s about as she wants to be prepared, like.’
I wondered if the unknown Philippa Gould would resemble her sister. If so, then surely we had little to fear in this house. Bella Yates didn’t just speak with a strong local accent, she was also decidedly rustic, though she was not a typical Yorkshire woman, for the folk of Yorkshire tend to fairness and Bella did not. She was another example of someone whose parents had named her unwisely. The word bella is the Latin for beautiful but Bella Yates wasn’t. She was short and thick-shouldered, with a face both soft of flesh and heavy of bone, a swarthy complexion and small dark eyes, like currants in dough, although they did not have the bloom of healthy currants, but were opaque, hiding the thoughts of their owner. She stood with her hands folded at her waist, awaiting our reply.
I said: ‘It is quite simple. Mistress Gould has been in correspondence with the royal court – in particular with one Doctor Dee – about a book that she wishes to sell and he wishes to buy. We have brought the money and have been asked to collect the book.’
The currant eyes snapped. ‘That book? That heathen thing? What are decent Christian folk wanting with that?’
‘We’re not buying it ourselves,’ I said mildly. ‘It is wanted by Doctor Dee, the queen’s … adviser.’ The word magician might not, I thought, be very pleasing to Bella Yates.
‘Shameful, that’s what it is. That book should be burnt. Full of heresy and numbers in the infidel fashion and a wicked blasphemous drawing, that’s what it is.’
‘Nevertheless, we are here to collect it. Surely your … your Principal has been expecting someone to call for it.’
‘Ho! Yes, so she has, and for a long time now. Very well. I shall tell my sister. She can sell it to thee if so be she wants. No one else’ll have any say. She’s our Principal right enough.’
She turned away and went out, to be replaced a moment later by Angelica Ames, who announced that Mary Haxby would bring us more wood so that we could make up our fires before we slept.
‘It is cold tonight,’ she said. ‘Would any of you care for a hot herbal posset? Mistress Yates, whom you have just seen, is skilled at such things.’ A contemptuous expression crossed her face. ‘Some of the villagers come to her for medicines, but others regard her gift as witchcraft and mutter about it. They are simple people and easily affrighted by things they can’t understand.’
I thought about Gladys Morgan, back in Hawkswood. ‘At home, I have a servant who was once, quite wrongly, accused of witchcraft because she is clever with herbal medicines. It’s very unfair.’
‘Quite. Well, would you? Like any hot possets, I mean.’
We all declined. I don’t think any of us feared that Bella Yates would actually poison us, but she obviously didn’t like us. As Brockley remarked after Mistress Ames had gone: ‘Well, I hope we don’t have to stay here too long. I can’t believe there’s danger here, but I don’t think we’re all that welcome, either.’
In the night, I woke suddenly and found myself cocking my head, trying to catch the sound which had disturbed me. Beside me, Sybil also stirred and then sat up. ‘Ursula! Surely I can hear chanting.’
We had closed the window shutters before we slept but there was some light from the embers of the fire. I slid from the bed and made my way, shivering, to the window, opening it and unfastening the shutters so that I could peer out. Snow was no longer falling. There were patches of starlight between the clouds and I could see the glimmer of the snow that covered everything outside.
To my left, I could make out the back of the main house and at the far end I could see that an extension jutted out. Its bulk was just visible. I couldn’t actually see the outline of any windows, but there was at least one, for there was a faint vertical line of light, such as one often sees when a shutter doesn’t fit perfectly. The room within must be lit with candles. On such a night, one would have expected the world to be full of the muffling silence of snow, but the sound of chanting was quite unmistakeable, and it came from that lit room.
Leaning out and straining my ears, I realized that I recognized the chant. I pulled my head in, closed shutters and window, and came back to the bed. ‘They’re chanting matins as Benedictine nuns would do. It must be midnight or close to i
t.’
‘How do you know?’ Sybil asked sleepily.
‘When I was still living at Faldene with my uncle and aunt, the year before I ran off to marry Gerald, Queen Mary came to the throne and the state religion was changed to Catholic. On Christmas Eve that year – 1553, it was – Uncle Herbert made all the Faldene household attend a midnight mass in the Faldene church. An old-fashioned matins chant was sung – the one that used to be sung in abbeys before King Henry abolished them. The vicar was trying to revive the old chants, as far as his little choir of village singers could manage to learn them. It was to please Queen Mary, he told us. He had been an earnest Protestant and I expect he was afraid of losing his position. He was currying favour, in case the queen had any spies in the district. That’s how I know what matins sounds like. My aunt and uncle approved. They still cling to the old faith, even now, and back then they were pleased to see Queen Mary on the throne, and I think the sound of matins made them feel quite nostalgic.’
‘Well, we knew that the ladies here are living as unofficial nuns,’ said Sybil.
‘I know. But it’s eerie – actually hearing it. It’s like an echo from the past.’
‘Let’s just go back to sleep,’ said Sybil.
TEN
The Beautiful Book
We rose early next morning, though someone was ahead of us, for when we descended to the guest hall, we were pleased to find an encouraging welcome. A fire was already lit and breakfast things were laid. Someone must have been aware that we were up, for Mary Haxby and Annie appeared almost at once, bringing the food. Breakfast consisted of porridge, with salt, in the northern fashion, black bread and honey and small ale, hardly luxurious but at least there was plenty of it, and we were thankful for the fire, for our bedchamber hearths by then held only grey ash and the morning was savagely cold. Outside, it was snowing again.
The Heretic’s Creed Page 9