Towers in the Mist

by Elizabeth Goudge

  The Dean made an equally distracted gesture with his hands. “God knows,” he whispered. “You—me—the whole College. God help us all.”

  Outside in the hall Canon Leigh found his whole family, with the exception of Will and Thomas, mercifully absent at school, and Great-Aunt, even more mercifully absent upon one of her rare shopping expeditions, gathered in a row to gape at the Chancellor. They stood in order of height, Joyeuce at one end of the row and the little boys, with the dogs and Tinker, at the other end. The girls in their billowing black frocks sank to the ground in curtseys, like four blackbirds coming to rest upon the earth, Diccon and Joseph, one dressed in scarlet and the other in sky blue, bowed till their heads nearly touched the floor, the dogs wagged their tails and Tinker sat down suddenly and washed himself. . . . The whole collection was a pleasing sight and the Chancellor was touched. He kissed the girls and chucked the little boys under the chin. He patted the dogs and took trouble not to step upon the tail of Tinker. Then he turned back to the little boys, the one with the mop of dark curls in his doublet of poppy red, and the other with the fair head in his suit of azure. “Pages for the Queen,” he said. “Attired as cupids, or what-not, they would be likely to tickle the fancy of the Queen’s Grace exceedingly. Jog my memory, Master Dean, when the time comes.”

  The Dean nodded and a gasp of excitement and incredulous questioning went up from all the children. “The Queen, when she visits Christ Church this summer, will honor our poor home by staying at it,” Canon Leigh told them gloomily. “Joyeuce, you had better accompany us round the house to receive directions as to what alterations and decorations will be necessary.”

  “Lead on, mistress,” said the Chancellor gallantly.

  Joyeuce stepped bashfully forward, but Grace, to her father’s astonishment, stepped forward too, with her chest well thrown out and her hands clasped importantly upon her stomacher. He had half a mind to order her back, for he had not commanded her attendance upon this occasion, but it was his habit never to rebuke his children in front of strangers, and he let it alone for the moment. He would deal with her insubordination later.

  Yet, as the tour proceeded, he found that it was Grace who was the most helpful of the two girls. While Joyeuce hesitated she answered questions with decision and promptitude. She knew what to do and how it ought to be done. She even went so far as to haggle with Master Wythygge and Master Baggs; the prices they quoted, she had the temerity to tell them, were far too high. And once, if not twice, she actually snubbed the Chancellor, whose knowledge of household affairs, she gave him to understand, was by no means equal to her own. Indeed in a very short time she had all the males present, helpless as always in the hands of a woman who is a good manager, completely in subjection. Her father gazed at her in amazement. How was it that he had not noticed how she had developed? Her chest was now firmly rounded and her waist compact. Her rosy face was curiously mature for so young a girl and the direct gaze of her blue eyes demanded obedience. The keys at her waist jingled importantly and the sound of her small feet stepping decisively upon the bare boards was louder than one would have expected. . . . Joyeuce, he noticed, wore no keys at her waist, and her step made no more sound than the patter of falling leaves in autumn.

  The house was explored from top to bottom and matters soon arranged. The Queen, the Chancellor had no doubt, would wish to occupy Great-Aunt’s room. Its central position would please her, for very little could go on, said the Chancellor as he swung in delight from the window commanding the hall to the window opening upon the garden, either in or out of doors that she would not know about; her loving interest in the affairs of her subjects, he hastened to assure his audience, was always unswerving in its devotion. . . . “It’s the same with Great-Aunt,” said Grace. . . . And then the girls’ room leading out of it would serve excellently for her ladies of the bedchamber, and in its far wall could be made the door leading to the hall. “Another door will increase the draughts in this room,” objected Canon Leigh. “No matter,” was the Chancellor’s answer. “The room will merely be occupied by the ladies of the bedchamber.” Canon Leigh, sighing, supposed that in future years the door could always be blocked up again at his expense.

  They were so occupied in deciding the position of this door that they did not hear a footfall in the next room. It was not until they turned back and were about to re-enter Great-Aunt’s room that they saw her standing in the middle of it. She had just returned from her shopping expedition. She wore a voluminous purple satin farthingale over an immense kirtle of purple velvet. Her cloak, also of purple velvet, was flung regally back from her shoulders. One gnarled jeweled old hand was placed upon the head of her stick, the other was laid dramatically upon her bosom. Her eyes and the diamonds in her ears flashed. Her nose was hooked more aggressively than usual and her chin jutted truculently beneath it. “Tilly-vally!” she ejaculated in a deep bass voice. “And what is the meaning of this?”

  Canon Leigh presented the Chancellor to her, and explained the reason for his visit, while the Dean hastily suggested that the Leighs would feel themselves deeply honored when their roof sheltered the Queen’s Grace.

  “I’ve no objection,” said Great-Aunt amiably. “I shall be happy to receive the Queen’s Grace. If the children are distributed among our friends there will be plenty of room for the Queen and her personal attendants. . . . I should suggest, Gervas,” she said, fixing her nephew with a glittering eye, “that you sleep in your study and hand over your room to the Queen’s Grace. Her attendants can sleep in the boys’ room.” Her eye swung round and fixed itself upon the Chancellor. “It is unfortunate that the girls’ room is not available, but, as you see, it is only reached through my own.”

  The Chancellor, his gloves airily brandished, courteously explained to her the arrangements that had already been made. He exerted all his charm of manner. He was not slow to see in her face the remnants of great beauty, and he did homage to it, though there was an edge to his voice. He was to perfection the iron hand in the velvet glove. His voice flowed melodiously on, then ceased. He waited, hand on hip, to receive her submission and apology.

  None came. Her eyes, that had been fixed on his face, traveled downwards, noted the cut of his beard, swept over his magnificent clothes, concentrated upon his shoes with their long exaggerated points, closed as though the sight tired her, opened once more and returned to his face, thinking little of it.

  “It is entirely out of the question,” she said, “that I should relinquish my room. The Queen’s Grace, were she to be made acquainted with my age and infirmities, would be the last person to wish such an outrageous step to be taken.”

  The eyebrows of the Chancellor were raised and his mouth slightly ajar. Such an outrage as this he had not yet experienced. . . . Men had been beheaded for less. . . . Joyeuce and Grace, mentally seeing Great-Aunt at the block, clung to each other in terror. Master Wythygge and Master Baggs gasped. Canon Leigh and the Dean stood with their hands thrust into the long sleeves of their gowns and their eyes upon the floor. A slight smile played about the lips of the Dean, for he remembered the battle there had been about the making of that window in Great-Aunt’s room, and her final victory. Far be it from him to interfere in a battle between such well-matched protagonists. . . . For himself, he backed Great-Aunt.

  “I think, madam,” said the Chancellor, “that you have not completely understood the situation. Let me explain once more—”

  “My Lord,” interrupted Great-Aunt, “you have already explained at quite unnecessary length. I retain, I thank God, the use of my hearing and my intelligence.”

  The Chancellor was about to speak again but her eyes checked him. They appeared to be boring right through his head, noting the quality of his brain and finding it exactly what she had expected, and coming out at the back where he had a slight bald patch that was causing him anxiety. He flushed suddenly and swung round upon Canon Leigh. “Sir,” he ejacu­lated, “c
annot you bring this aged gentlewoman to a sense of her duty?”

  “That, my Lord,” said Canon Leigh, raising his head, “is a task upon which I am ever engaged, but ever unsuccessful.”

  “Hold your tongue, Gervas!” cried Great-Aunt, striking her stick upon the floor. She was in one of her rages now, one of her magnificent rages that seemed to send unseen thunderbolts hurtling through the air and electric currents throbbing through the bodies of all present. “These Tudors have robbed me of much,” she said to the Chancellor, rounding upon him. “King Harry cut off the head of my brother and Queen Mary burned my husband, the worldly goods that should have come to me being appropriated by the throne, and I’ll not be robbed of my bedroom by another of ’em; and she a red-headed sharp-nosed young hussy whose flirtations with the gentlemen are enough, from all accounts, to bring a blush to the cheek of every modest gentlewoman; as you should know, my Lord of Leicester, who—”

  “Madam, hold your peace!” thundered Canon Leigh suddenly. “I will have no such immodest remarks made in my house. You will relinquish your bedroom to the Queen’s Grace, and be thankful that it is not your head also.”

  “I will do no such thing,” said Great-Aunt. “I have slept in that bed for a number of years and I will sleep in it till I die. The Queen may pass through my room, due warning being given beforehand, to reach the door you propose to make into the hall, but a further concession than this should not be expected of me, at my age, with my infirmities, to these Tudors, who have so grossly misused my family and brought me in my old age to be a penniless pensioner upon the grudging charity of my unwilling nephew.”

  Canon Leigh, remembering her quite considerable wealth and the Christian welcome he had given her in his home, said nothing. The Dean said nothing. The Chancellor, choked by rage tried to speak and failed. It was Grace, lifting her head like a bright little robin, who piped out cheerfully, “Father’s bedroom has a very pretty view.”

  “Extremely pretty,” said Great-Aunt, “allow me to conduct you thither that you may behold it for yourself.” Her rage had suddenly fallen from her and with a confiding smile she laid a jeweled little hand upon the Chancellor’s sleeve. She made play with the fine eyelashes that still were hers, and her eyes were now soft as pansies. She moved forward a little, her silk farthingale whispering upon the floor, and he was obliged to move with her, for though her hand had been laid so gently on his arm the fingers were now fixed upon it like a vice. A faint smell of violets clung to her skirts. It was like the ghost of her beauty, a ghost that could be very potent when she chose. . . . The Chancellor found himself smiling upon her. . . . They all moved forward, out of Great-Aunt’s room, across the passage and into Canon Leigh’s. As they entered the sun burst suddenly through the mist, illuminating the awakening garden outside the window and the delicate tracery of the trees beyond, touching the soft tapestries on the walls to a riot of blues and greens and shining upon the white linen of the bed—clean sheets today, thank God, thought Grace—so that it shone like driven snow.

  “A charming room!” cried my Lord of Leicester. “The best in the house. I did not, when I saw it just now, realize its beauty. Charming! Charming!”

  Chapter 14: The Troubadour

  Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

  That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,

  Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

  Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,

  I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;

  Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,

  Oft turning others’ leaves to see if thence would flow

  Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.

  But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;

  Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,

  And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

  Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

  Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

  “Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

  PHILIP SIDNEY.

  1.

  CANON Leigh sat reading in his study, rejoicing in a most unusual peace. The news that the Queen meant to visit Christ Church had lately set the whole College-full of scholars chattering like starlings, and concentration had been impossible for the serious-minded. But now, praise be to God, the imminence of the spring examinations, fixed for the day after tomorrow, had shed abroad a spirit of depression and a subsequent blessed silence. The scholars were all within doors, groaning over their books, and the quadrangle was empty except for two black figures; Tinker the cat basking in the sunshine and the Dean on his way from the Deanery to the scholars’ rooms, to inquire into the progress of their studies. . . . These tender visits of inquiry were at that time the custom, and part of his official duty, but they were at a later date discontinued because of their extreme unpopularity both with the visitor and the visited.

  Thank God, thought Canon Leigh, turning a page of the great leather-bound book that lay before him, there was no one likely at this moment to visit him. Afternoon peace reigned both inside and outside the house, and the window was open to the first real warmth of the year. He allowed himself to lean back in his chair for a moment, enjoying it. Those colors and scents of spring that on that day of the Chancellor’s visit, only a short while ago, had been waiting behind the mist, had drawn a little nearer. The sunshine seemed to smell of the primroses that were already out in sheltered corners of the gardens, and snatches of bird-song rang out like carillons of hope in the blue air. It was a day to shelve all problems, domestic, collegiate and national. It was a day to follow the example of Tinker the cat, sleeping in the sun, awaking to blink at it, then stretching himself luxuriously to sleep again. Canon Leigh followed it, closing his eyes that he might think the better, opening them to admire a billowy white cloud floating dreamily across the blue sky, closing them again that thought might deepen into contemplation and contemplation into sleep.

  He was awakened, not by any means for the first time in his life, by sounds of domestic disturbance. “Perdition take those two little boys!” was his first unfeeling exclamation, followed instantly, as with full awakening the thoughts of a father superseded the reaction to noise of the natural man, by “the high spirits of the dear little children sorely need the curb of wholesome Christian discipline.” He arose to apply it and, sighing, looked round for his cane.

  Yet when he had reached the hall, and the sounds of rage and woe from beyond the kitchen door smote like blows upon his ears, he was astonished to find that every member of his household was apparently adding its quota to the general tumult. The roars of Diccon led the van, so to speak, but they were followed by the tearful hiccups of Joseph, the distressing squeaks of the twins, the loud crying of Dorothy Goatley, the voice of Grace raised in most unusual anger, and during a pause in the row he thought he heard the pathetic gasping sobs of Joyeuce herself. Joyeuce crying? Were they bullying her? At the thought of any harm threatening his favorite child the usually gentle scholar became as a primeval savage, upon the warpath. Gathering up his black gown in one hand and brandishing his cane in the other he launched himself upon the kitchen door.

  The sight that met his eyes was heartrending in the extreme. In the window stood Dorothy Goatley, her apron flung over her head, weeping loudly, and clinging to her skirts were the twins, squeaking nineteen times to the minute, tears rolling down their far cheeks and dripping on to the floor in heartbreaking cascades. At the table sat Joyeuce, her head buried in her arms, sobbing, and on the floor beside her, burrowing their heads against her in a passion of love, were Diccon and Joseph, roaring and hiccuping their sympathy. Before the fire stood Grace, flushed with anger, demanding indignantly, “Why didn’t you do as I told you and leave it to
me? Why in the world didn’t you leave it to me?” Midway between Joyeuce and Grace, white to the lips, bewildered and unhappy, stood the only man present, Faithful. The room was stiflingly hot, with the fire roaring up the chimney and the warm oppressive smell of ironing hanging heavy in the air. Piles of sheets, pillow cases, towels, quilts, aprons, coifs, shirts and kerchiefs took up every available space, and upon the table before Joyeuce was a lovely lace-trimmed petticoat utterly ruined by the application of too hot an iron. “My best petticoat,” wailed Grace.

  But at the first whiff of that hot ironing smell Canon Leigh had understood the situation, had lowered his cane and regarded his family with an indulgent smile. Until he smelled that smell he had momentarily forgotten that they were in the midst of that terrible infliction of the sixteenth century, the Annual Spring Wash. Yearly, at the first spell of settled sunshine, it fell upon every household like a blight. It always began well, with the females of the family falling upon every washable piece of material in the house in a spirit of inspiring enthusiasm, and the males betaking themselves hastily to the nearest tavern, but as the laborious days went on, the first inspiration was apt to flag a little, giving way to grim determination, and that in turn to a shortness of temper very distressing to all concerned. Looking back, Canon Leigh remembered that all the serious family disturbances of his married life had taken place during the latter period of the Spring Wash; and had sprung, all of them, from accidents so trivial that they would hardly have been noticed at other times. They were, he remembered, well into the latter period of the Spring Wash now. For days the garden had been festooned with washing. The yew hedge had been lost to sight beneath snowy sheets, and Romulus and Remus, the clipped yew peacocks, had been draped with towels as though about to step down to the river to take a dip. The lawn had been white with spread quilts and every species of undergarment had fluttered from lines between the apple trees. . . . Certainly the time was ripe for the Annual Family Disturbance.