The House of Allerbrook Page 2

  Up in the parlour in the little tower above the family chapel, Jane and Eleanor, who had been watching for Francis and had also heard the whistling, looked at each other in anguish.

  “I can’t imagine what he’ll say!” said Eleanor. She was a cool, sensible woman as a rule, but just now she looked terrified. “He’ll be so angry, and he has all the Lanyon temperament! Will he think it was my fault? That I haven’t watched over the two of you as I ought?”

  “But you have,” said Jane unhappily. “You can’t be everywhere, all the time.”

  “No, I can’t! God’s teeth, Sybil is the silliest little girl in Christendom! I’ll go down and meet him…oh, I don’t know how to tell him!”

  Pale with anxiety, she descended the spiral stairs to the hall. Madame La Plage had long since left to go back to Minehead, and Sybil had been locked in her chamber. Francis, stepping into the hall, pulling off his red velvet hat and stripping off his gloves, greeted her and asked if his sister’s gowns had come. “I’ll have something to say to Madame La Plage if they haven’t!”

  “They’re here,” said Eleanor, “but…”

  “Good. I hope they’re suitable,” Francis said. “Where’s Sybil now? I want to see her in her new finery.” Then he saw Peggy looking at him from the kitchen door, and must have recognized the fear in her face and Eleanor’s. “God’s death, what’s the matter?”

  “Please come up to the parlour, Francis,” Eleanor said. “I have terrible news. Peggy, bring wine. Your master will need it.”

  “For the love of heaven, what’s happened? Is Sybil all right?”

  “It’s worse than that. We must be private when I explain. Not that we can keep it secret for long—well, it isn’t now. All the household knows, and Madame La Plage. Jane is in the parlour, but she knows, too. She was there when…”

  “Will you stop dithering, woman!” shouted Francis as Eleanor turned and led the way back up the staircase. “Tell me!”

  In the parlour she turned to face him, and while Jane sat shivering in her seat by the window, Eleanor said the words that had to be said. “Sybil can’t go to court. She is expecting a child. Probably in August.”

  Francis collapsed onto the nearest settle. “What was that? Repeat it, if you please.”

  “Sybil can’t take up her post at court. She’s with child.”

  Francis bore the name of Sweetwater, but another family, the Cornish Lanyons, also formed part of his ancestry. His blue eyes were inherited from his mother but otherwise he was a Lanyon—tall, handsome, strongly made and dark haired. He also possessed what was known as the Lanyon temperament. This was thoroughly Celtic, as passionate and explosive as gunpowder. Eleanor and Jane, observing Francis now, could almost hear the fuse fizzing toward the barrel, almost see the travelling flame.

  The explosion came. Francis shot to his feet and crashed a fist on the back of the settle. “This is beyond belief! Who’s the man? Who did it? And where’s Sybil now?”

  “She’s locked in her chamber. I have the key,” said Eleanor. “The man is Andrew Shearer.”

  “Andrew Shearer? Of Shearers Farm? My tenant? He’s married!”

  “Yes. We all went to the christening of his little son last November, if you recall,” said Eleanor, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “That’s when it happened, it seems. We went to Shearers for the celebration dinner, and stayed on after dark—do you remember? There was dancing, by candlelight. Sybil and Andrew danced together. I never noticed that they disappeared for a while, but it seems that they did. He somehow enticed her into another part of the house and…she says she hasn’t seen him since, but that he’d paid her compliments before, when they met during the harvesting. We sent her out with cider for the harvesters. She says she didn’t mind when he…I mean, she wasn’t forced. She admits that.”

  “He’s married. I can’t make him wed her. I can order the Shearers off my land, of course, though they’ll only get a tenancy somewhere else, and thumb their noses at me, I suppose. I can think of three Exmoor farms straightaway in need of new tenants, since we had that outbreak of smallpox last year. The trouble that brought us! Killed our chaplain and two of our farmhands! But it’ll no doubt make life easier for the Shearers. I’ll be throwing them out on principle, that’s all. But…dear God!” shouted Francis. “Sybil’s farewell dinner is tomorrow! It’s too late to cancel it! The Carews have probably set off from Devon already!”

  The fury in his voice was so intense that Eleanor visibly trembled and Jane began to cry. Francis swept on.

  “The Stones from Clicket Hall are coming, and bringing their girl Dorothy—they want to get her to court in a year or two, when she’s older! Owen Lanyon and his wife from Lynmouth, they’re coming…”

  His voice faded somewhat. The one branch of the family that still bore the name of Lanyon wasn’t actually entitled to it. Many years ago there had been another unsanctioned baby in the clan. That child’s descendants, though, still called themselves Lanyons. Francis resumed, however, as the enormity of the present situation grew larger and larger in his mind.

  “Luke and Ralph Palmer are coming! They’re very likely on their way by now, too. Bideford’s only twenty-five miles off, but Luke’s at least sixty and they’ll have to take it slowly.” Francis was literally clutching at his hair. “They’re only distant connections but, God’s elbow, it was their wealthy London cousin who pulled the strings to get Sybil her place at court! And now this! What am I to say to them? I…we’ll say Sybil’s ill! And I’ll give her such a beating that with luck she’ll miscarry and then she can go to court after all! Yes, that’s the best thing to do. I’ll—”

  “No!” sobbed Jane. “No, you can’t! Francis, you mustn’t! It could kill her. She’s past four months gone.”

  “And no one noticed anything?” Francis spluttered. “She never told anyone?”

  “She said—” Eleanor gulped “—that she kept hoping it wasn’t true. She’s just gone on from day to day, hoping…there are so many women in this house, Sybil and Jane and me, and the maids…no one noticed that she hasn’t been using her usual cloths. She didn’t have much sickness, it seems. Oh, Sybil can be so silly!”

  “She certainly can,” said Francis. “A fault I propose to cure. Give me her key, Eleanor. At once!”

  “Francis, no, you mustn’t.” Jane was frightened but determined. “If you hurt Sybil too much, yes, she might lose the child, but if that happened she really could die! You can’t want that!”

  “I don’t need to be told my business by a little girl of sixteen!”

  “She might not lose the child,” Eleanor pointed out. “And if she did, and survived and went to court, how could we trust her, after this! She might create a scandal there, and what good would that do us?”

  “It’s a complete disaster!” Francis groaned. “It’s been trouble enough, planning for portions for my sisters. We were well-off when I was a boy, but that was before Father sold our stone quarry so as to rebuild the east wing. We’ve lost income without it. Letting Clicket Hall doesn’t make up for it. I’ve worried! Getting one of the girls to court would help—there’d be all sorts of opportunities. Good contacts are worth having in a dozen ways and they can smooth the path to marriage even for a girl with a modest dowry.”

  “We have good contacts already,” said Eleanor weakly.

  “I want to do better! But now…! We can’t keep it secret. You said yourself, the whole household knows—Peggy, the maidservants…Susie’s courting Tim Snowe and I saw them as I came in, talking in the yard. By tomorrow all the farmhands will know and the whole lot of them have families roundabout. And Madame La Plage will have taken the news back to Minehead!”

  “Yes,” agreed Eleanor dismally.

  There was a dreadful silence.

  “Well,” said Eleanor, “all we can do is face it out, and I’m sorry, Francis, but even if she is only sixteen, Jane is right. You can’t beat a young girl while she’s carrying.”

  “I�
�m entitled, and the whole world would say so.”

  “Not if you killed her, and you might. That’s true.”

  “But what are we to do?” demanded Francis. He sat down on the settle again, his head in his hands. “What are we to do?”

  “I suggest,” said Eleanor, “that we hold the dinner—without Sybil, of course—and tell our guests the truth and ask their advice. Andrew Shearer can’t marry her, but perhaps they know of someone who will. Let’s be candid. Then the truth can’t creep up behind us years in the future and do any harm. These things…well, they do happen. Owen Lanyon’s father was a love child, after all. But everyone respects Owen well enough. He won’t refuse to know us, and nor will any of the others. I’m sure they won’t. They’re all our friends and some are kinsfolk. They’ll want to help.”

  After a very long pause, Francis said, “Very well. Very well. I’ll get rid of the Shearers—that I will do. Sybil must stay in her chamber. I will neither see her nor speak to her. And we will tell the truth to our friends and family.”

  Eleanor said reassuringly, “We will find a way through, my dear. Somehow. You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Remarkable Occasion

  1535

  The four families who attended that remarkable gathering at Allerbrook House on 16 March 1535 all arrived in good time, in happy expectation of a festive dinner and the pleasure of congratulating young Sybil Sweetwater on her appointment to the court.

  They were startled to discover that Sybil, who should have been the centre of attention, was nowhere to be seen, while their hostess, Eleanor Sweetwater, looked harassed and her husband, Francis, their host, had a distracted expression, a bruise on his jaw and a spectacular black eye.

  The first to ride in, though their home at Mohuns Ottery in Devon was the farthest away, were Sir William Carew and his wife, Lady Joan. Lady Joan was a picture of elegance, but Sir William, though he represented a leading Devonshire family, was an earthy and outspoken individual with a broad Devon accent.

  Having dismounted, aimed a kick at the gander and helped his wife to alight, Sir William came up the steps to where Eleanor and Francis were waiting to welcome them, looked in candid amazement at Francis’s face and said, “God save us, who’ve you been a’vightin’, then?”

  “It’s a sorry story,” said Francis, leading the way indoors. “I’ll tell it in full when everyone’s here.”

  “Ah, well, you’m still in your twenties—suppose you can still give an account of yourself. Wait till you get to your forties, like me.” Sir William actually looked older than that, his face too flushed to be healthy and his hair and moustache already turning grey. “What’s the other man look like?” he demanded.

  Eleanor, who had been taught by her parents that a lady should always retain her composure, no matter what the circumstances, carried the situation off as best she could and tried to satisfy at least some of Sir William’s curiosity.

  “My husband had occasion this morning to order one of our tenants, Andrew Shearer, who has—well, had—a farm of ours, on the other side of the combe, to surrender his tenancy. Master Shearer took exception and there was a fight. The Shearers will be gone by tomorrow, however.”

  “Shearer looks worse than I do,” said Francis, with a certain amount of grim humour. “But not entirely because of my fists. His wife joined in. With a frying pan. Applied to him, I mean, not to me.”

  “Good God! Reckon the story behind this must be interestin’, sorry or not,” said Carew and his wife said, “My dear Eleanor, how tiresome to have this happen just now. But where is your sweet Sybil?”

  “The tale concerns her,” said Francis, “and that’s why I want to wait until the other guests are here before I explain in full. Meanwhile, my sister Jane will show Lady Joan to a bedchamber—ah, there you are, Jane. Look after the Lady Joan, please. But no gossiping!”

  The next to arrive was Francis’s distant cousin, Ralph Palmer, who rode in alone. “Your father is not with you?” Francis asked, forestalling any comments on his battered face.

  Ralph, who was young and good-looking, dark haired and dark eyed, was studying his host’s appearance with evident amazement, but took the social hint, restrained his curiosity and said, “No. Father is having an attack of gout and couldn’t make the journey from Bideford.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” said Francis gravely. “Please convey our sympathy when you go home, and wish him a quick recovery.”

  “Certainly, Cousin,” said Ralph, equally gravely. He added in a low voice, “It may be as well that he can’t be here. I am sorry for him, but he is still very interested in the Lutheran teachings and it can be, well, uncomfortable when he insists on talking about them to people he doesn’t know well.”

  Ralph himself was a merry soul with a flirtatious reputation, but his father, Luke Palmer, at sixty, was a known blight on even the happiest occasions. Luke’s principal interest in life was religion and being what he called godly and most other people called tediously righteous. He disapproved of dancing and he hardly ever smiled.

  His interest in the new Lutheran heresy which was beginning to be called Protestantism was also a worry to his relatives. It was an unsafe point of view, since some prominent Protestants had been put unpleasantly to death. Conversation with Luke Palmer could be embarrassing at the best of times, which this certainly was not. Francis Sweetwater would not have dreamed of saying so aloud, but he was not sorry to be spared both Luke’s tendency to heretical remarks and his probable comments on Sybil.

  The next party to arrive was the Stone family, consisting of Master Thomas Stone, his wife, Mary, and their daughter, Dorothy. The Stones had just taken on the lease of Clicket Hall after the previous tenant’s death.

  Clicket Hall, which stood on a knoll overlooking Clicket, a mile away down Allerbrook Combe, had once been called Sweetwater House and had been the home of the Sweetwaters until they decided that they liked Allerbrook House better. Francis had changed the name to Clicket Hall because first-time visitors were often confused into turning up there instead of riding on up the combe. The Stones had leased the hall because Mistress Mary Stone had cousins in the district and wished to see them sometimes. Thomas Stone, however, was actually the owner of extensive property in Kent and was better educated, better connected and a great deal better off than Francis.

  Since the Stones were new to Clicket and had not hitherto met any of Francis’s womenfolk, the first thing Master Stone did was to assume that Jane was Sybil, and greet her with kind congratulations.

  “I’m afraid this is my younger sister, Jane,” said Francis. “You will not after all meet Sybil today. A most unfortunate thing has occurred—involving Sybil and also involving me in a fight this morning, hence my half-closed eye. This is my wife, Eleanor…”

  “Isn’t Sybil going to court after all, then?” asked Dorothy. She was sixteen, short and pale and somewhat overplump. She was dressed in crimson, which was too bright for her complexion. Her tone, regrettably, suggested pleasure in the girl’s trouble, rather than friendly concern for another’s disappointment.

  Her mother and father frowned her into silence and Dorothy subsided, looking sulky. Francis, however, said, “Well, to my regret, Mistress Dorothy is right. Our plans for Sybil have had to change. Do please come into the hall. Seat yourselves around the hearth.”

  Hard on the heels of the Stone family came the last arrivals, the dignified, bearded merchant Master Owen Lanyon, whose father had been the illegitimate Lanyon of bygone years. He had journeyed from the Exmoor port of Lynmouth, bringing his equally dignified wife, Katherine, and their fifteen-year-old son, Idwal. Both Owen and Idwal had red hair, and if Owen’s was fading now, Idwal’s looked vivid enough to set a house on fire. They civilly ignored Francis’s face but spoke approvingly of the pleasant aroma of roast mutton which was drifting out of the kitchen.

  “One of my tenants, Harry Hudd, donated a haunch and shoulder of mutton for the occasion,” Francis s
aid. “Very generous of him.”

  “Will he be with us today?” Mistress Stone enquired.

  “No, not today,” said Francis, thinking of Master Hudd’s rough accent and florid, gap-toothed face. “It wouldn’t be suitable.”

  To begin with, however, although the dinner table waited in the centre of the hall, set with white napery and silver plate, Francis assembled everyone around the hearth, where a good fire was crackling. Peggy came bustling out of the kitchen with Beth and Susie, and handed around wine, cider and small pewter dishes full of sweetmeats.

  “We have a good dinner for you,” Francis told the guests. “But what I have to tell you won’t fit in with chitchat across the roast. I only hope you don’t all walk out in horror when you’ve heard what I have to say, and leave the meal uneaten!”

  “It sounds,” said Owen in his deep, slow voice, “as if you’re going to tell us of a scandal.”

  Ralph, whose good looks included excellent teeth, grinned and said, “Are any of us likely to walk out in a pet? We all know the world. And we’re all agog with interest, aren’t we? Is it scandal?”

  “Well, let’s hear what Francis has to say,” said Thomas Stone in a practical voice. “Should Dorothy be here?” he added, glancing at his daughter. “She’s only sixteen.”

  Dorothy glowered but held her tongue. Francis nodded to where Jane had seated herself apart, on a window seat. “So is my sister Jane and she knows all about it,” he said.

  “Very well.” Thomas exchanged looks with his wife and then shrugged. “Dorothy may stay.”

  Dorothy’s expression changed from sullen to pleased. Francis took up a position with his back to the fire, cleared his throat and embarked on the unhappy business of explaining.

  Jane sat quietly listening, hands clasped on her lap. She had been presented with the tawny gown and yellow kirtle originally meant for Sybil. Though younger, Jane was the same height as her sister, and the clothes fitted her quite well. Madame La Plage had had to make only very minor adjustments before she went home.