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All of a sudden Richard Lanyon was unsure of himself. All very well to decide that after all he ought to marry again and why not Marion, but there were things to consider. For instance, it was quite true that farm life would be strange to her, far stranger than to Liza, for Liza’s father dealt a lot with sheep farmers and she knew farmers’ wives and had some idea of how they lived.
Still, Marion was young enough to learn, and not squeamish. Fisherfolk were never that. Gutting a herring, or gutting a chicken; there wasn’t much difference really, and Betsy could show her the dairy work.
The lack of any respectable dowry was a worse drawback, but that might be offset if she produced sons to help on the farm, and daughters to be married off into useful families. Taking the long view, even a Marion Locke might provide a step or two on the upward ladder.
Yes. He could take Marion to wife and still remake the future in the shape he wanted. And put Peter in his place.
What would be harder would be convincing her parents that the proposal was a good one, especially as he and they had already agreed that such marriages wouldn’t do.
But, by God, he wanted her. He’d desired her from the moment he first set eyes on her. It was sheer desire that had overridden the old way of thinking, the taking it for granted that fisherfolk and farmers didn’t intermarry, the lack of dowry, the embarrassing fact that his own son had probably had her first. The wench was by all the evidence about as steady as a weathercock in a gale, but he didn’t care. He knew now that he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted Deb and about ten thousand times more than he’d ever yearned after Joan. He wanted to get his hands on her, to make her his, to surround and bemuse her so that she could see no other man, think of no other man, but himself.
The proper thing to do was to see her father, but instinct said no. Instinct said win the girl over first. Go hunting and bring her to bay; tame her to his hand and maybe she could help him tame her parents.
Today was a Tuesday, the second in the month. Next Tuesday was the third one, and she’d be going to Lynton to see her grandmother and aunt. Her mother had obligingly mentioned where her relatives lived—close to the mouth of that strange valley where he’d had a youthful romance long ago. He’d find the cottage easily enough. He meant to be open and honest. He’d call and ask to see the girl. Maybe he could coax her to stroll with him, alone, so that he could talk to her, persuade her…
And he’d make damned sure that Peter couldn’t get away that day. Yes. One week from now. That was the thing to do.
It was a hunter’s moon, shining ahead of the pursuers, low as yet, disappearing at times beyond shoulders of land as they came through the Quantock Hills, but when visible, bright enough to light the track in front of the horses, even to glint in the eyes of a fox as it darted across the path. They could see their way.
“Where are we?” Nicholas asked Gareth as they cantered their horses up a gentle hill and drew rein, looking down on the moonlit world. Somewhere in the distance was the fugitive twinkle of candlelit windows in a village. He knew the countryside east of his home, of course, but he had never ridden through the Quantock Hills after dark before.
“Nether Stowey, that is,” said Gareth’s Welsh voice at his side. “They’ll have gone straight through there, I fancy, if they ever came this way. If I had all of us on my heels, I wouldn’t stop till my pony fell over, indeed to goodness I wouldn’t.”
“Liza’d never push a pony too hard,” said Nicholas, and to his own annoyance, found his eyes pricking. He had been proud of his daughter, proud of her glossy brown hair and her smile and her kindness. She was good with the ponies. Yes, and better at catching them than anyone else because they would come to the field gate to meet her! How could she have so misused her gift with them, and done this to her parents?
“We’d better do some pushing on ourselves,” said Father Meadowes. “As fast as the moonlight will let us.”
They pressed on. Presently, as they came into a shallow dip, he checked his horse again, and the others slowed down with him. “What is it?” asked Nicholas.
Father Meadowes pointed ahead, to the top of the little rise in front of them. “See? Against the skyline? Two riders…there, they’ve gone over the crest.” As he spoke, his horse raised its head and whinnied. “If they’re on the Nether Stowey road ahead of us,” Meadowes said, “those two could be them.”
“They’ve been dithering along the way if it’s them,” said Gareth with a chuckle. “I wonder what for?”
“You mind your tongue,” said Nicholas.
Father Meadowes shook his steed up again. “Let’s catch up. Heaven’s been good to us—we can see where we’re going, just about. We can gallop here.”
“What are we to do tonight?” Liza asked. She was strong, but the day had taken its toll, and they weren’t covering the miles as fast as they should. They had taken a wrong track three times, once heading for the shoreline by mistake, and twice in the fading light as they made their way through the Quantocks. Time had been particularly wasted on a steep, pebbly path which turned and twisted and finally tried to take them back westward.
They were on the right road again now, Christopher said reassuringly as they came out of the hills, but she was growing tired and she was very conscious of having left her home and all familiar things behind. This black-and-silver moonlit land was unreal, alien. And she was cold. There was a chill in the air after nightfall in October.
“We’ll have to find somewhere to sleep, but if we can, we should avoid looking for lodgings or rooms at an inn,” said Christopher. “We don’t want to leave a trail behind. Maybe we should have gone another way, across to Devon, to Exeter. We’d have been that much harder to trace. But London will be easier to find than Exeter. I’ve been there before, as a lad, with my father. Exeter would be quite strange to me.”
“But tonight, Christopher?”
“I think we should try to find a barn with hay in it. I’ve got some bread and cheese with me. I managed to take it from the kitchen when no one was looking. We can eat.”
“But can we find a barn in the dark?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. Look, that’s surely a farmhouse over there. See—where the lights are? There’ll be barns there. Let’s walk the ponies. There ought to be a track turning that way.”
“But what if we can’t find a barn?”
“If we can’t find one here, we’ll find one somewhere else—on the far side of Nether Stowey. There are farms beyond it.”
“Is Nether Stowey far?”
“Only a mile or a little more. Take heart, love. I know where we are well enough.”
The search for a barn was unsuccessful. They found a lane to the right and before long they could distinctly smell a farmyard. But the lane seemed to be leading straight into it and if there were barns at a safe distance from the house, they couldn’t be seen because the lane was a sunken way between high banks with brambles on top, which hid anything on the far side. To make things worse, the darkness became intense because the direction they had taken had put the moon behind a hill. They heard sheep bleating, and then, alarmingly, a dog began to bark. Christopher pulled up, reaching a hand to the bridle of Liza’s pony, too.
“No good. If we go any farther we’ll have people coming out to meet us and we’ll have to explain ourselves. Turn round. We’ll have to go back. Sorry.”
“Oh, Christopher!”
“Don’t let’s have a wrangle here,” he said wryly. “Let’s quarrel later when we can enjoy it!”
“All right!” said Liza, and tried to sound as though she were laughing. She was beginning to feel frightened. They were losing so much time, and the pursuit must surely have begun by now.
They went back. Presently they were on the Nether Stowey road again and once more had the help of the moonlight. “Not far now,” said Christopher. “I think I know where we’ll find a barn, once we’re through the village. And the bread and cheese are fresh. Take heart.”
“I’m certainly hungry,” said Liza, determined to be cheerful. “I’ll enjoy our supper.”
Her new, if somewhat forced, cheerfulness had five minutes to live. At the end of that time, as they cantered to the crest of a rise and paused briefly to look ahead, she saw her pony’s ears flick backward, and then behind them, some way off but not nearly far enough to be comfortable, they heard a horse whinny.
“Christopher…!”
“Maybe it isn’t them,” said Christopher.
“It is! I know it is. I don’t know how I know, but I do!”
“All right. Well, let’s be on the safe side and assume it is, anyway,” Christopher said. “Come on! Let’s ride for it! We’ll look for another side lane and try to dodge into it and let them go past. If it is them. Come on!”
It was the best plan he could make. He had kept his voice steady, but he too was now afraid, for her as well as himself. He could endure whatever they did to him for this, but what would happen to Liza? He had done horribly wrong in bringing her away, but what else was there to do, other than let her go forever?
Side by side, alert for a secondary track, they urged the ponies into a gallop, taking advantage of the moonlight. But providence wasn’t with them. There was no break in the banks to either side, no escape from the track, and sturdy though their ponies were, their short strong legs could not match the stride of the Luttrells’ big horses behind them. They heard the hoofbeats catching up, and then a rider swept past them and swung his horse right across the track to block their way. They found themselves looking up into a dark, square face which Liza did not recognise, though Christopher did. “Gareth!” he said.
“Look round,” said Gareth, grinning, and they turned in their saddles to find that Nicholas Weaver and Father Meadowes had pulled up behind them.
Nicholas rode forward. To Liza’s astonishment he didn’t even look at her, but instead made straight for Christopher. “Have you taken her? Is that what slowed you down on the road? Come on! I want to know!”
“We kept missing our way and then turned aside to look for shelter,” said Liza in a high voice. “We’ve taken vows to each other, but we haven’t…Christopher hasn’t…”
“I’m glad to hear it, but no doubt it was just a pleasure postponed,” said Nicholas. He spurred his horse right up to Christopher’s pony and his fist shot out. It landed with immense force on Christopher’s jaw and the younger man reeled sideways, out of his saddle. His pony plunged. Christopher, who had clung on to the reins, scrambled up again, his spare hand pressed to his face.
“Father, don’t!” Liza cried it out in anguish. “Oh, please let us go! Let me go with Christopher! I can’t marry Peter Lanyon. I can’t. I tried, so hard, to make myself willing to marry him, but I can’t do it. It has to be Christopher…and we’ve bound ourselves…oh, why won’t you understand?”
“I understand that you’re talking nonsense and one day you’ll know it, my girl. I’ve come to take you home,” said Nicholas.
CHAPTER NINE
REARRANGING THE FUTURE
“Go to her, Margaret,” Nicholas said. “Bring her downstairs and get her thinking about her bride clothes. She’s got to at some point. Saints in heaven!”
His normal robust heartiness was dimmed. He was sitting by the kitchen hearth while Margaret and Aunt Cecy helped the maids with supper, and he could hear his young sons, Arthur and Tommy, laughing over some game or other in the adjacent living room, but just now these pleasant things could not comfort him. His shoulders were hunched and his face drawn with misery, and the two maids, aware of it, were unusually quiet.
“We never had this sort of trouble with either of our girls,” said Aunt Cecy righteously. “Maybe that was because we walloped them when they needed it instead of bein’ soft, the way you two are.”
“We haven’t been soft this time!” Margaret snapped, and continued obstinately stirring a pan of pottage.
“No, we haven’t!” Nicholas agreed irritably. “But at least we had good reason. Cecy, you used to slap your girls for a bit of careless stitching or a speck of flour dropped on the floor, as if there weren’t worse things! Reckon they were glad to be pushed off when they was barely ripe!”
“Well, really!” said Aunt Cecy. Nicholas ignored her.
“There’s never been anything really truly bad in this house in my time, till now. I never thought our Liza would do this to us! I never thought I’d…I’ve never raised a hand to her, all her life, afore this and to have to take a stick to her…it broke my heart and I’m half afraid it’s broken hers.”
“Then the sooner she’s married and away, the better,” Aunt Cecy said sharply. “We’ll all be happier, her included.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it of her either,” said Margaret, still stirring. “It’s a mercy we got her back in time and that there’s been no more gossip.” She eyed the maids, who had become very busy about the cooking. “And if I hear of you tattling, either of you, you’re out! I mean it.”
“If you ask me, half of this business is Peter Lanyon’s fault,” said Nicholas. “And you’ve said it, too, Margaret. He should have come to see her and done a little wooing! Margaret and I hardly knew each other before we were betrothed, but once it was agreed between the families, I came courting, didn’t I, Margaret? You had your share of stolen kisses. I don’t know what young Peter thinks he’s about, and that’s the truth!”
“Bah! She ought to do as she’s bid, with wooing or without. A few more days in the attic ’ud do her no harm,” said Aunt Cecy. “And Margaret here thinks the same, even if she won’t say so.”
“I don’t care what either of you think!” shouted Nicholas. “I’m her father and I’m the one who’s giving the orders this time! She’s had enough days up there, enough time to study her conscience and get over things, so do as I tell you, leave that damned pan you’re stirring, Margaret, and fetch her down here, and let’s pretend things are normal even if she don’t ever smile at me again. Go on!”
“Oh, very well,” said Margaret, threw down her spoon and went.
When she entered the small room under the thatch, where Liza had been locked in now for six days, she found her daughter, as she had found her every time she went up there to take food in or remove the slop pail, lying on the bed and staring at the wall. “Time to get up,” she said. “Your father says so. He’s heartbroken, let me tell you, over what he had to do to you. To run off like that, and with a priest…well, I always thought I was the one who cared about bein’ respectable, but the state your father’s in—sayin’ he’s heartbroken is hardly sayin’ enough!”
Liza looked at her miserably but said nothing.
“Forget all about this clerk,” Margaret said. “He’s to finish his studies in St. George’s monastery. Your father and I have seen him—went to the castle and all, and he said to us that he was sorry for the grief he’s caused us all. So that’s the end of it.”
“We swore oaths, taking each other as man and wife…” Liza began, but her words sounded empty, even to her.
“Moonshine and you know it!” Margaret snapped. “A man in orders is no more free to swear oaths about marriage than a married man is. Now then. Master Richard Lanyon’s sent us a message by that big hulkin’ fellow of his, Higg. He’s sorry that Peter’s not been over to see you, but there’s been so much to do on the farm. We’ve fixed a weddin’ day in November. So you get off that bed, and put on fresh things and come down to supper. No one’ll say anythin’ to you. No one knows outside the family, or ever will. We’ve not gossiped and the maids daren’t, believe me. Master Luttrell’s promised he’ll order his men not to talk. Everythin’ll be just as usual. You’ll see.”
There was a long pause. Then Liza said, “You don’t understand how it was between Christopher and me. What it was like. What it is like!”
“Maybe not, but there’s something you don’t understand either, my girl.” Margaret’s tone was kinder. She could not, she found, turn against her own daughter as she had turned against the Webbers. “You think you’ll never love Peter, but you wait till you’ve lived with ’un awhile. The day’ll come when he’ll be tired and frettin’ over something and you’ll look at his weary face and your heart’ll ache inside you with sorrow for him, and wantin’ to put it right, whatever it is. Marriage has its own power. Now, you comin’ downstairs?”
“I don’t want to go to Allerbrook,” said Liza dismally. “It’ll never be home.”
“You’ll be surprised. Now, there’s things to talk about—or do you mean to take your vows in old clothes?”
There was a silence. Then Liza sighed and, at last, sat up. She did it because she had to. To get up from this bed meant giving in; it meant yielding herself to the stream of wedding preparations and, ultimately, to Peter Lanyon, but she had known her fate from the moment her father had caught up with her and Christopher outside Nether Stowey. Nicholas hadn’t had to explain; there were things one knew. If she refused to marry, she would either be shut up in this room until she gave in, or else she would be deposited in a nunnery. Those were the customary methods of dealing with wayward daughters. Her face was stiff with unhappiness, but nevertheless, she slid off the bed and stood up.
“All right,” she said.
She didn’t say it gladly or willingly or even submissively. It came out in a flat tone that might have meant anything. But she said it.
The week that Liza had spent in her parents’ attic, Richard Lanyon had spent making his mind up and then unmaking it again.
It was all very well to rearrrange the future inside his head, but what if seventeen-year-old Marion didn’t take to the notion of marrying thirty-eight-year-old Richard Lanyon? Or even if she did, would her parents allow it? And if she did and they did, what if Peter kicked up, refused to marry Liza, and set about wrecking his father’s new marriage?
Well, let him do his worst! Good God, no decent lad ever made eyes at his own stepmother; it was against all the laws of God and man. Peter might rage and scowl and slam doors, but he’d know that Marion was out of reach. He’d come around.
At this point in his inner dialogue, something inside Richard would snap ferocious jaws, like a pike catching a minnow. Peter would damned well have to come around. Peter was going to marry Liza Weaver, and why should he object to her? He’d known the girl most of his life and she was a fine-looking, good-tempered wench. He was lucky to get her and it was to be hoped that he would have the simple good manners not to sulk to her face. Liza was for Peter and Marion was for Richard and that was that.
Whenever he thought of Marion, he felt as though a hot, damp hand had clutched at his innards, both maddening and weakening him. At the idea of approaching her, he became anxious, wondering what to do, what to say to her, how to please her. He was like a youth again, bewildered by those strange creatures, girls.
On the Monday following Richard’s visit to Lynmouth they fetched the sheep in from the moorland grazing, and having done so, counted them, because on these occasions there were nearly always a few missing. Sure enough, the count was half a dozen short. Good, thought Richard. I can make use of that.
That evening, in the farmyard, he took Higg into his confidence.
“Tomorrow I’m sending Peter out to look for the strayed sheep and I want you to go with him and make sure he looks for the sheep and don’t go slipping off anywhere. I’ve had a bit of worry with him. There’s a girl in Lynmouth that he’s being a bit foolish about.”
“Yes, Master Lanyon,” said Higg, and from his tone, Richard gathered that Higg, Roger, Betsy and Kat all knew the situation and were probably discussing it avidly out of his hearing.
“Most young men have their adventures before they get wed,” Richard said offhandedly. “But Peter’s getting married soon and it’s time this stopped. Tuesdays are likely days for him to go dodging off to Lynmouth, so I’m charging you to see he doesn’t. Understand?”
“Ah,” said Higg, grinning, and added a comment for once. “Could work out well. A bride’s best off with a groom as knows what he’s about.”
“I daresay,” said Richard coldly. “Go over Hawkridge way and search there. I’m going the other way, up to the high moor. Between us, we’ll find them, I hope.”
In the morning he gave his orders, watching Peter intently. Peter glowered, opened his mouth as if to protest, but then shut it again as he met his father’s stern eye. He shrugged, and after breakfast went off with Higg as instructed, taking Silky, the sheepdog bitch, with them. “She’s still mournful, missing my father,” Richard said. “The more work she does, the better. Leave Blue to guard the house.”
When Peter and Higg were out of sight, Richard asked Betsy for some bread and cold meat—“I could be out of the house at noon, if the sheep have wandered far.” He then saddled Splash, swung himself astride, called his own dog Ruff and set off westward, to the coast and Lynton.
It was a mild day, the sky a mingling of blue patches and good-natured brown-and-white cloud, carried on a light west wind. The rolling moors, which from a distance looked so smooth that their colours could have been painted on them, were patched pale gold with moor grass and dark where the heather grew. Here and there were the green stains of bogs, and in places there were gleams of bright yellow, for always there was gorse in bloom somewhere.
Splash was fresh and they made good time. Richard found himself almost at the Valley of the Rocks while the morning was still quite young. He drew rein and looked round. That must be the cottage where the grandmother and aunt lived, standing a little back from the road; he could see its thatched roof, just visible above some apple trees. He hesitated. Would Marion be here yet? She would have quite a long walk from home, up the steep path which linked Lynmouth to Lynton, and then through Lynton itself. Should he wait, or go straight to the cottage and knock, or…?
Then he saw her, walking toward him, her basket on her arm. He knew her at once. It was as though during that one brief meeting a week ago he had memorised her, head to footsoles, every line and movement of her. He rode toward her.
“Marion Locke!”
She stopped, looking up at him in surprise, and he saw that she didn’t recognise him and was startled, although, as she looked into his face, he also saw appreciation there. Marion responded to the sight of a handsome man as instinctively as a flower opening in the sun. Ruff ran up to her, wagging his tail, and she stooped to pat him.
“I’m Richard Lanyon,” he said. “Peter Lanyon’s father.”
She’d recognised him now. She straightened up and smiled and he doffed his cap. “You saw me last week, when I called at your parents’ home. I brought you a disappointment, I think. My son is betrothed already, my dear. But I wish to talk to you. Will you ride with me a little way before you go to see your grandmother?”
She got up behind him without the slightest hesitation and neatly enough, despite the basket on her arm, putting her left foot on his and accepting a hand to help her on. For the first time he touched her, and the contact burned him like white fire. More prosaically, a smell of fish arose from the basket and Splash snorted disapprovingly. “Your horse don’t like the scent of herring,” said Marion, laughing. “But they taste all right.”
“Not to him,” said Richard, also amused. “Hold tight!” He put Splash into a trot on purpose, so that she would have to hold on and he would feel her hands grip his waist.
