Knight's Acre

by Norah Lofts

  When he rode away Sir Simon was deeply, and now legitimately, in love. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife: and Sir Godfrey had been in a way his neighbour in several bloody little affrays. Now he was dead—God rest him in peace—and Sybilla was not a wife, she was a widow.

  Lady Randall knew. For Simon, who had always shied away from anything that was not completely pleasant, to go out of his way… This Lady Tallboys…typical widow…she had known several, one man lost; all agog to catch another. Experienced. Wily.

  She had an erroneous picture in her mind. After Simon’s first—and completely explicable—visit to Knight’s Acre he had spoken of Lady Tallboys, mentioning the four children, two big, rather naughty boys, mentioning also her youthful look. That implied a liberal use of cosmetics.

  Now, after his second visit, he sounded concerned about the woman in a way that could only mean one thing—concern for others not being one of his outstanding virtues. Knight’s Acre was such a remote place and, although Lady Tallboys denied that she was lonely, she must be, left with only children and servants for company. Had she no relatives? Yes, and both Sir Godfrey’s brothers had offered her a home but she preferred to remain in her own. A woman out to catch another husband, Lady Randall reflected, would enjoy far more freedom of action under her own roof.

  Open opposition would be worse than useless, all mothers knew that. Lady Randall could only hope that this infatuation would wear off; that some man nearer at hand would forestall Simon; that if the worst came to the worst, Lady Tallboys was capable of bearing another son. She had a great longing for grandchildren but was prepared to make do with one, if a boy.

  In October the Cressacre orchards yielded their final offering for the year; particularly excellent pears, long-keeping apples, walnuts. ‘Lady Tallboys has no such things,’ Simon said. So the gaily-painted cart was loaded again and into it went two casks of good wine as well. Sir Simon followed his gift and was prettily thanked and given a good dinner, for Walter had killed a pig that week.

  That morning there was a good fire in the hall but, partly because it was so sparsely furnished, it still struck cold. Of course, no rushes on the stone floor. On his way home he turned aside and went to a place called Shimpling where a special kind of reed grew; scented, so that every time a step was taken, a pleasant odour was emitted. He paid for a load to be delivered to Knight’s Acre.

  It was that gift which wakened a suspicion in Sybilla’s mind.

  Presents of surplus produce were usual enough, costing the donor nothing; but she knew this particular kind of rush and how much in demand, how extremely costly it was.

  Dismiss the suspicion as ridiculous! Take a look in your mirror! A boy, twenty-three at most. And are you so old?

  Twenty-seven. But one ages not only by one’s birthdays. In all but years’ reckoning I am old enough to be his mother!

  He is a young man with a kind and generous heart; he had a fondness for Godfrey. I wrong him. I flatter myself.

  But he came again, just before Christmas, bringing not only gifts but an invitation which Lady Randall had extended in a spirit of resignation. If Lady Tallboys had no previous engagements, Lady Randall would be most happy if she, and her family, would come to Cressacre for the festive season.

  ‘And I thought,’ Sir Simon said, ‘that if you travelled with the younger children in the wagon, the cloak would keep you warm.’

  It was of sable; the costliest fur known coming, as it did, all the way from Muscovy.

  The Abbess of Lamarsh, training a promising girl had said, ‘Of two possibilities, think of the worst first. One can always retract.’

  Time to make things clear; but gently. She used his name without its prefix for the first time.

  ‘Simon, such a gift no honest woman could accept—as you, must surely know—except from a wealthy kinsman or a husband.’

  Playing straight into his hands. ‘And that is what I wish to be; to you, Sybilla. I fell in love with you at first sight.’

  The very words Godfrey had spoken in the cold convent parlour. And then, all innocence and defiance and with a feeling of being let out of a trap, she had been able to say with all sincerity, ‘And I with you.’ That was not possible now.

  ‘You must put all such thoughts from your mind. I shall never marry again.’

  ‘I spoke too soon…’ He had indeed been precipitate; he had intended to make his declaration at Cressacre.

  ‘No. In ten, twenty years. I shall still be of the same mind. A proposal is always a compliment and I value yours, Sir Simon. But I cannot accept it.’

  ‘Why? What have you against me?’ What indeed? He was young and handsome and rich and had gone out of his way to show fondness; he was prepared to treat the children as his own.

  ‘Against you? Nothing! Nothing. But it would be impossible for me to marry any man.’

  They were now talking at cross purposes. He felt that he had blundered—though she had known of her widowhood since April. He attempted to defend himself.

  ‘Sybilla, I should have waited. But, beside my love, there is another reason… Time may be short… The threat of civil war hangs over us all. Next year or the one after at latest. If you do not love me,’ as plainly she did not, ‘consider your safety and that of your children. Cressacre is well fortified; moated. It could withstand a siege. Also, married to me, you would be on the winning side. York!’

  Sybilla had heard talk of civil war as long ago as when she was staying at Beauclaire: her brother-in-law, Lord Astallon, had been sure that it would come and equally sure that a cautious man could remain neutral. He never went to Court, much to the chagrin of his lady; he did not allow political talk in his hearing; he avoided people with strong views.

  ‘I shall be safe here,’ she said. ‘I take no sides and I have nothing that anyone could covet.’

  In any other woman he would have regarded such reasoning as idiocy; in her it indicated a touching innocence.

  ‘I beg you,’ he said, ‘reconsider. Do not refuse out of hand. I will accept that you do not love me—but you might come to do so. Marriages are made every day with no fondness on either hand—yet love comes. And I love you so much. I could make you love me, given half a chance.’

  She shook her head. ‘I loved Godfrey. I love him still.’

  He had spoken too soon!

  ‘Think it over,’ he said again. ‘I will come again, after Christmas.’

  ‘That would be foolish. You must forget all this. There must be so many girls with love locked in them, waiting to be freed. So it was with me. Find one of them. And I wish you happy.’

  Their leave-taking had, on her side at least, an air of finality.

  He did not ride home directly. Temporarily defeated, he felt the need of allies—and found them.

  James at Moyidan said, ‘It would be the most wonderful thing for Sybilla. She has, as you know, so small a substance. Four pounds a year in rent and what the farm—it is only a farm—brings in. We do what we can, of course,’ he said deprecatingly and, in fact, when their bees swarmed they had sent Sybilla a hive, ‘but times are bad and getting worse.’

  (You are a fat selfish pig, Sir James Tallboys, and every twinge of your gout is well-deserved, Sir Simon thought.)

  But he was an ally, saying yes, and yes, he would make the great effort and some time over the Christmas season go and have a talk with Sybilla.

  William at Bywater was equally obliging if less outspoken. In his long and, on the whole, sorry experience, women who had once known the joys of love, as they called it, needed it again. Time after time a woman, betrayed, rescued and placed in a position which promised security, had fallen again. And he knew about widows, too. Only a few, disappointingly few, were content to live on in loneliness and leave their goods to the Church.

  ‘It would be an excellent thing for Sybilla,’ William said. ‘If you could be patient, Sir Simon. I think she has not yet realised what loneliness—without hope of relief—can mean. And she is
a comparatively young woman, still.’

  ‘She has requested me not to visit her again.’

  ‘And that, surely, is discreet. But you may rely upon me—and upon James, I am sure—to advise her for her own good.’

  ‘She refused me,’ Sir Simon told his mother. ‘And also your invitation.’

  To her already unpleasant vision of Lady Tallboys, Lady Randall added another stroke—Coy! She then made a blunder.

  ‘Perhaps, my dear boy, it is as well. A widow with four children. Not an ideal match.’

  ‘The only woman I ever wanted to marry—or ever shall. I can tell you this. Unless Sybilla changes her mind, I shall never marry.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ his mother said briskly, ‘if you can stay away from her for six months you will forget all about her.’

  Lady Randall was a practical woman and, anticipating that Lady Tallboys, falsely youthful, would be spending Christmas at Cressacre had invited also two very pretty young girls.

  ‘And you cannot not marry, Simon. Cressacre needs an heir.’

  ‘My uncle of Malvern remained a bachelor. I have no nephew but doubtless I shall find a godson.’

  Christmas passed; the pretty young girls doing their best and winning from their host nothing more than a host’s due civility. In his lordly surroundings Simon Randall awaited the coming of a messenger just as Sybilla had waited. Sybilla could have changed her mind; the persuasions of her relatives could have been effective; but there was no word from Knight’s Acre, Moyidan or Bywater. January, by measure of days one of the long months of the year but of itself the longest, painfully climbing out of the trough of winter, came and went. Early in February a baby born at nearby Bradwald was christened—with Sir Stephen Randall as his godfather; and Lady Randall, looking with unfond eyes at the squawling, red-faced scrap of humanity, asked herself—Was it for this that I managed during Simon’s minority?

  Oh, better a widow—still of child-bearing age, one hoped.

  Bang, bang, bang of the iron ring on the solid door. Father Ambrose again. A form of discipline.

  ‘Any news of Sir Godfrey, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, Father, he died in Spain.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. I will say a mass for his soul.’

  Again and again, impatience become tolerance and tolerance melting into impatience again. This time she would not even remove the apron, then he would see that she was busy and not make some remark about the weather and then repeat the question. Madge, taking advantage of the fine, bright day, was at the washtub and Sybilla had been dealing with a piece of bacon which Walter had taken from the smoke-hole in the kitchen chimney before taking a sack of wheat to be ground at the mill.

  A poor household indeed, Lady Randall thought, where the door was opened by a little kitchen slut with black hands and a smut on her face.

  ‘I wish to see Lady Tallboys.’

  ‘I am Lady Tallboys. And you, I think, must be Lady Randall.’

  Dumb from astonishment Lady Randall, who had walked straight into the hall, turned and stared at Sybilla who was closing the door. Outside, on the wide path flanked by Lady Randall’s roses, Lady Randall’s attendant stood holding Lady Randall’s two tall horses.

  ‘There is such a strong resemblance,’ Sybilla said, and smiled.

  Since Simon had always been considered handsome and Lady Randall, even in youth not even pretty, this was a compliment indeed.

  ‘I beg you, excuse my appearance. Had I had warning… I was doing a rather dirty job. Pray be seated.’ With one soiled hand she indicated the cushioned settle. She then divested herself of the coarse apron. On the cleaner parts of it she rubbed her hands, taking off the worst but leaving them still far from clean. She rolled the apron and dropped it out of sight behind the settle and then seated herself on the plain wooden bench.

  Then, since Lady Randall was still speechless, Sybilla said, ‘I am so happy to see you and to be able to thank you in person. I asked Sir Simon to tell you that everything had flourished most wonderfully—but a message is not quite the same.’

  Lady Randall recovered sufficiently to say that it always gave her great pleasure to give a few plants to appreciative people. But as she spoke she was taking stock. What can he see in her? Somewhat over thirty; colourless; no figure to speak of. A kind of grace, yes, a pleasant voice, a composed manner and dignity—despite the smudged face and the rolled-up sleeves. Nothing to account for the boy’s infatuated behaviour. Nothing that could not be matched a dozen times, with youth and prettiness thrown in.

  ‘I am—thanks entirely to your generosity—able to offer you a cup of wine, Lady Randall. If you will excuse me. My maid-servant is completely deaf.’

  While she was alone Lady Randall could study the hall, the bare cupboard, the single wall hanging. Her mystification grew; and curiosity alongside.

  When Sybilla returned she was clean. She had dabbed her hands in the washing tub and Madge, saying ‘Excuse me, my lady,’ in the harsh toneless voice of one who had been deaf for years, had removed the smudge.

  ‘I came,’ Lady Randall said, accepting a cup of wine and a wafer-thin slice of something that was neither bread nor cake, ‘to talk to you about my son. I understand that on his last visit he made you an offer of marriage and that you refused it. And said you did not wish to see him again.’

  ‘I hope—no, I am sure—that I did not speak so harshly. I refused his offer. I advised him to go away and forget me. I advised him to find a young woman who would love him as he deserves to be loved.’

  ‘As you cannot?’

  ‘As I cannot.’

  ‘Why? If you think him worthy of love?’

  ‘Because I loved my husband. It is too long a story to tell… He loved me and I loved him. What feeling is left in me is for his children, because they are his. I have nothing to spare, even for someone so charming, so kind, so handsome, so altogether delightful as Sir Simon.’

  Lady Randall had come in desperation to plead with a coy, flighty widow who might—one never knew, men being so stupid—have another, even more eligible man on a hook. Now, again confounded, she said, ‘Perhaps Simon spoke too soon. I know. I have myself been widowed… I wept every day for a full year. But my dear Lady Tallboys, life must go on.’

  ‘It goes on here. Every day.’

  Lady Randall brought her hands together in an ungraceful way, the right fist clenched and banging into the palm of the left.

  ‘Listen. Within a year there will be war. My brother-in-law, Lord Malvern, informed me privately, only the other day. The present situation cannot outlast the summer.’

  And God knew that she had meant to mention Lord Malvern in another connotation, bait for the coy, flighty widow. But this was bedrock stuff. If this stubborn, stupid woman persisted in her refusal and Simon, stubborn and stupid, persisted in his determination to marry nobody else and the war came…

  ‘Has a reluctance to give your children a step-father any bearing on your decision, Lady Tallboys? I can assure you that Simon…’

  ‘Far from it. I know very well that they would benefit. Indeed, I am not very happy about Henry—that is my eldest. He is eleven and has had no advantages at all. But…’

  ‘You must have married very young.’ A cunning interruption.

  ‘I was just sixteen and Henry was born within a year.’

  Twenty-eight then; and four children living. A good breeder!

  ‘Naturally any son of Simon’s own would inherit Cressacre. But—not to put too fine a point upon it—Simon is very well-to-do. My husband was rich; I brought him a good dowry; and in the years before Simon came of age, by thrift and good management I added to the estate. There would be enough for all; even without regard to the fact that Simon will in all probability inherit Lord Malvern’s lands—and title.’ Surely as glittering a bait as was ever dangled before a poor widow with four children.

  ‘There are times,’ Sybilla said, ‘when one’s mind moves quickly. I thought of all the advantages as soon
as Simon had spoken. But even as I thought I knew that it would be impossible for me to remarry. I regret the impossibility—but not the decision.’

  ‘I fear that you will, Lady Tallboys. Privations lightly borne in youth become burdensome as one ages.’

  ‘And some ease,’ Sybilla said—again that smile. ‘A few years ago, it would have mortified me to wear such a dress. I should have sat up all night to refurbish it. Now I do not even notice.’

  To Lady Randall the most infuriating thing was that she found herself liking the woman, positively wanting her as a daughter-in-law—a very different thing from the grudging acceptance, the better-this-than-nothing mood that had brought her here. She was now even prepared to admit that Sybilla had beautiful eyes and an entrancing smile. She tried persuasion; Cressacre with its castle and all the most habitable living accommodation that had been added was big enough for four or five separate households; Sybilla need not fear any interference or overlapping. She made the final, sacrificial offer. Sybilla could have her garden, she would make herself another, begin from the beginning again.

  And all Lady Tallboys said was, ‘I am sorry. I am very sorry.’ Lady Randall, like her son—and like the Abbess of Lamarsh—was accustomed to getting her own way. In the end she was angry and said some very unkind things. But long ago, as a child at Lamarsh, Sybilla had learned not to meet anger with anger. The soft answer was supposed to turn away wrath. The Abbess had said that—a quotation from Holy Writ, early on, before she had need for wrath or Sybilla need for soft answers. Later, Sybilla had learned that when the soft answer turned wrath to rage, a harder one served, provided it were politely phrased and towards the end of this extraordinary interview she said, ‘Lady Randall, you are wasting your time.’