A Traveller in Time (11 page)

“God ha' mercy!” she cried, startled. “What art thou doing here, Penelope? Thou'lt catch it if Dame Cicely sees thee peering about in Master Francis's room! Think shame on thee! Where hast thou been these days, running away from us? Didst go to Darby? Whatever wert thou doing?”

“Exploring, dear Tabitha,” I said, smiling happily.

“Exploring forsooth! Like Raleigh and Drake, maybe?” scoffed Tabitha, indignantly. “I'll tell on thee.”

“Don't tell, Tabitha. I wanted to see what the house is like where Mistress Babington lives.”

I picked up the book. It was Ovid's
Metamorphoses
, illustrated with woodcuts, and I turned the pages with interest, for I had worked at it at school.

“Now put that down. It's not yourn. You can't read it either, for its pagan stuff, as I know, for I once axed,” said Tabitha crossly. “Come and toss this bed, Penelope, and then off you go.”

“I can read it! I can!” I protested.

“Well you oughtna to, for it's not for a young maid like thee. Just look at the pictures!”

I laughed and together we fluffed out the bed and straightened the pillows and coverlet.

“Is this the boy's room?” I asked, although I knew quite well.

“It's Master Francis's room, if that's who you mean, and he's very particular about it,” said Tabitha severely. “Now don't you be a meddlesome wench, and poke your nose into business that's none of yourn. Here, get you gone, and leave that book alone, and help Dame Cicely. Away you go!”

I dropped the book reluctantly, and walked slowly along the passage. I could hear Tabitha thumping and banging about with her besom, and the sound gave me courage, so that I stepped up boldly to a handsome door which had a large key in the lock. With both hands I turned it, and pushed the door. Nobody was there, and I stood for a moment on the threshold, gazing entranced at the beautiful room with its odours of dried roses and violets, its mullioned windows and herb-strewn floor.

Then I entered, and saw the massive carved furniture of the chamber, a great four-poster bed which I recognized, with curtains and bedcover and velvet pillows. There were stools with tasselled cushions, and a cupboard, and long padlocked chest, but it was the wall which attracted me more than anything in the room. Oak and ash and walnut-tree were painted upon it, with dropping fruits, and antlered deer and flying birds, as well as many animals of the wild wood. I walked across the floor forgetful of everything in my curiosity and interest in the lively drawings, which I felt sure had been done from the woods around Thackers, the dark, mysterious woods which stretched up the hill-side.

I only glanced once through the many-sided little window-panes which framed those woods, for I was afraid somebody in the yard below, a groom or leather-coated serving-man would see me, and I hastened back to explore the pictures on the wall. Every beast and bird was different, and I wandered happily around, peering at wild duck and wood-cock, at badger and otter and pole-cat, tracing their spirited actions, seeking creatures I knew.

Suddenly I heard a step behind me and I sprang nervously round.

“Wench! What are you doing here?”

I saw Mistress Foljambe, Master Anthony's mother, standing inside the doorway, with her starched, white ruff stiffly framing her proud head and her long skirts sweeping the floor. Without more ado, remembering my lesson, I curtsied to her.

“I was admiring the animals and birds on this wall,” I told her, and she seemed mollified for she smiled faintly as I spoke. “I wish I could paint like this,” I added. “It is the most beautiful room I have ever seen.”

“Come here, Penelope,” said she in a more kindly voice, and I went close to her, so that I could smell white violets and some other flower scents which clung to her dress.

“Do you not know this is my private chamber, and none come here without my permission, not even my dear daughter-in-law, Mistress Mary Babington?” she asked, and she put her strong bony fingers on my shoulder and tilted my chin to the light.

“I've never been here before,” I explained.

“You are that niece of Dame Cicely's, are you not,” she asked, looking at me in a puzzled way, “lately come from London?”

“Yes, Mistress Foljambe,” I replied.

“Dame Cicely says you have had lessons in reading, and can acquit yourself well. She told me, too, that you have deft fingers and can make little drawings, and sew evenly with small stitches.”

I hesitated, for my sewing was not at all neat or even, but she went to the great carved tallboy chest and unlocked it with a silver key which hung with many another at her girdle. Then she brought out a little leather-backed book fastened with silver latchets. She drew me to the window, for the room was dusky with the dark furniture and the painted wall.

“This Book of Hours is a treasure I don't show to every one, and never to those who care nought for beautiful things,” she said. She turned the pages slowly and I looked breathless with delight at the painted pictures, with their rich blues and scarlets and heavy inlays of gold. There were tiny paintings of the Babe Jesus in the manger with the ox and the ass near Him and a thatched roof overhead, and cocks and hens feeding at the doorway.

“It's like Thackers,” I told her, excitedly, “and that's our great hay-barn where the Babe lies.”

She laughed with pleasure and gave me a quick appraising glance before she turned another page.

There I saw the Flight into Egypt, with the Holy Babe in His mother's arms, riding an ass down a lane where dog-roses grew. But it was a lane I had ridden along, and the gate which Joseph opened led to a meadow called Westwood.

Again she turned a page and I saw the delicate miniature of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus, but the room was one I knew, the kitchen at Thackers, with the spit before the fire, and bows and arrows on the wall and Jesus Himself sat in Uncle Barnabas's chair with His feet in the brass washing-bowl.

Mistress Foljambe was pleased I knew the Bible stories so well, but when I stammered through the Latin she was astonished, for she seemed to expect me to read Latin as easily as English. When I confessed I could not say the Paternoster except in English she shook her head in dismay.

“My children learned the psalms and the Paternoster when they were babes,” she told me. She showed me other books and I read aloud to her part of “The Romaunt of the Rose”, and a fairy-tale called “The Tale of Goody Two-shoes”, to her satisfaction. I remarked on the change of spelling in the same words, and she reasoned with me.

“Spelling is a matter of individuality,” she told me. “I have my favourite ways of spelling words, and I choose my letters. My sons and daughters each spell as they wish, and surely you do the same?”

“If I make a mistake I am scolded,” said I.

She insisted one couldn't make a mistake, for each spelt according to his whim. That was one of the delights of writing, one was free to invent a pretty word, and she was sure I should not be such a dullard as to spell in the same way always. “Life would lose one of its pleasures if we were deprived of the power to write as we wish. I myself spell my name Alys or Alice or Alyce, and Babington is full of amusement for us in a weary world. It is pictured in our town house at Darby in a carving over the fire as a babe astride a tun, although some fools have made a different spelling and put a coarse ape, or baboon from the Indies, perched upon a tun, Baboon-tun.”

This was a new idea for me and I was delighted that I could spell as I pleased and decorate my words as I wished.

Then she showed me a round, gold clock, the size of a tennis ball, with a pierced and chased cover through which I could see the hours. She lifted the goldencase and I saw an iron finger which moved over the hours and days, leaving the minutes to run as they wished. Roses were engraved on the rim, and flying birds about the keyhole, as if the hours measured only sweet flowers and birds' flight.

It was a treasured possession, she said, and the only timekeeper in the district except the great iron clock in the church which had been left by Thomas Babington, her husband's father, in 1558.

“Then how do you know the time, Mistress Foljambe?” I asked her.

“There is the sun in the sky, and a sundial in the garden, and Dame Cicely has an hour-glass for her cooking. What more do you want?” she replied.

Then she tired of me and sent me away, but I was loath to leave a room so stored with many an object of beauty, and I had not finished looking at the birds and beasts painted on the walls.

“Get you down to the kitchen where I am sure some work awaits you,” she said as I hesitated. “Tell your aunt I find you well instructed in the scriptures and in your mother tongue but not in Latin. Your wits are bright for you recognized the scenes in the Book of Hours. Those illuminations were made by Master Thomas Babington, a learned clerk who lived here in the reign of King Henry V, and they were taken from our woods and lanes. He was our famous ancestor who fought at Agincourt and his sword hangs in the hall, as Dame Cicely will show you. Some day I will teach you further the use of simples and the preservation of flowers and herbs and all kinds of needlecraft, for you have a knowledge of colours, and love for beautiful things. I shall keep you in my household, and train you to be a help to Mistress Babington.”

She waved me away and I left her replacing the Book of Hours and the gold watch in the chest and locking them safely.

I was not to arrive at the kitchen without another encounter, for I took the wrong turning, confused with the passages in the extra wing. Before I could recover myself, I had run full tilt into a tall young man who strode out of a room as I passed. He grabbed me angrily and shook my arm as I apologized. Then he tilted my face upward to the dim light of the leaded panes and stared at me, and I recognized the flaxen hair and the blue eyes of the man I had seen sitting by a fire disconsolate.

“The very same wench who peeked in at me,” said he. “Who are you and where do you come from dressed in this garb? The green smock you wore that night when I had just come home was more becoming to you, for you are a likelier girl than a boy. Who are you?”

“Penelope, niece of Aunt Cicely, that is, Dame Cicely Taberner is my aunt,” I stammered.

“Penelope,” he said the word slowly, and again he repeated “Penelope”, and his voice was soft and full of dreams, as if he liked my name. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Where do you come from? Not from the village surely? I don't remember you there, and I know most of my people.”

“From Chelsea, Master Anthony,” said I boldly, for I was sure he was the famous heir of the Babingtons who had come home from London.

“From Chelsey?” he echoed. “When I was newly married I took sweet Mistress Mary to Chelsey and we dwelt in a thatched cottage down by the church with the fields and flowers about us. Do you know it?” He didn't wait for my reply but continued. “Later I went to Chelsey to visit the house of poor Sir Thomas More along with others of the court. We went by river, in painted barges, with musicians playing and flags flying, a gallant show, but it gave me no pleasure.”

“I live by the church, sir,” I interrupted eagerly, but he took no notice.

“I have had enough of court life,” he continued, low, as if I were not there. “I was kept dallying on the outskirts of Greenwich, wasting my money, for I never got near enough to the queen to make the show I wished. So there I stayed, dissembling my love for another, concealing my religion, talking to fools, gambling away my substance, turning witty speeches, sick at heart, till I met those who showed me how I could help the one I worshipped.”

He spoke softly as if to himself, standing at the window staring out at the lovely hill-side where I had walked that day. Something stirred in my mind, and I interrupted him. “There's a badger's holt in that wood and Jess is going to show it to me. I ought to go,” said I, but my words died away in forgetfulness, and I turned back to the young man at my side. His fingers were playing with a thin gold chain, fine as twisted hair which hung round his neck. On it I could see a gilded locket, with the letters M.R. engraved upon it. Instinctively he concealed it with his hand. Then he changed his mind, for he turned abruptly to me, and drew me into the room close by. The filmy lace of his ruffle swept my neck but his fingers were hard as iron as they pressed my shoulder and propelled me to the daylight. I forgot Jess and the badger and Thackers wood as I felt the pressure of his arm and heard his deep, low voice.

“Do you know who this is, Penelope Taberner? Have you ever seen a face like hers? Do you believe the evil they say or do you know the courage and splendour of her?”

He spoke passionately and he pushed me round to face the window of the little chamber, and then he slipped the gold chain from his neck. He pressed a catch and held the open locket in the palm of his hand.

I bent my head and gazed long at the miniature of a woman, wearing a black dress, bordered with fur, and a pointed lawn headdress winged and stiffly outspread like a lily's petals, edged with narrow lace. The oval face was palely beautiful, the hazel eyes were laughing stars under the lovely arch of the brows, the scarlet lips seemed as if they were about to utter a mocking word. In her long fingers she held a carnation, red as her lips. Round her white neck, over the open ruff, was a gold crucifix. I stared enchanted by the delicate features of the lady, by the lacy detail of her headdress, the bunch of pearls which fastened the boyish ruff, and the little enamelled Christ on the gold crucifix. I saw the transparent beauty of those fingers which seemed to twist the stem of the flower before tossing it to one the lady loved.

“She's very beautiful,” I murmured.

“She is the star of heaven and earth,” said Anthony under his breath.

“That's a lovely carnation,” I added, for I love flowers always.