Devil Water (45 page)

The next morning Charles, Jenny, and Alec quitted Blanchland. They avoided the main road through Slaley, and struck out across Blanchland’s high moor. Even Charles, upon reflection, admitted that it would be unwise to court the risk of meeting Patten, or any other unsympathetic wayfarer.

By ten they reached the brink of the Devil Water, and turning north followed the bank of that cascading turbulent stream. Now every foot of the way was familiar to Charles, and every place poignant with memory. Here was Newbiggin Cottage, where James had hid when the bailiffs were after him in 1715, and here the clump of giant hollies where Jacobite messages had been secreted; here was the Linnels Bridge, which James crossed with Charles before joining Tom Forster on that brave October morning. Here was the Dipton Wood and Swallowship, where the brothers had so often hunted the red deer together. And all along the way the burn tumbled and foamed in tiny cataracts between the fringes of silver birch, or the darkness of pines against the mossy rocks. There were glimpses now and then of the rowan ash’s flame-colored berries.

Charles pointed out the landmarks to Jenny; she acquiesced quietly when he asked her if she did not think the Devil Water charming, then she added a strange remark, “ ‘Tis a good thing the rowan grows here, Papa, for that’s a charm against evil, as everyone knows.”

“Oh, nonsense, child!” said Charles. “Don’t be superstitious! And what evil could there be by this beautiful burn!”

“I know,” she said, and added in half explanation, “yet it has such a peculiar name.”

Charles set himself to explaining the name. Jenny listened politely and was silent, as she had been all morning. There was no accounting for the melancholy which gripped her as they came upon the burn and it deepened as they rode along -- not like the fear she had felt last night upon hearing the ghostly bells, but an impression of anguish. It was as though the waters sobbed. She felt thus perhaps because she had slept so little, Jenny thought, and rallied herself with the hope that soon,
soon,
she would see Robbie.

They clung to the shelter of the woods, until through the trees there loomed the huge gray-white shape of Dilston Hall, with its rows of tall windows, its balustrade and square built-in pillars -- the great Palladian mansion James had built onto the old castle of his ancestors.

“ ‘Tis very big,” said Jenny softly. “I’ve never seen a house so big!” She looked up at her father and saw that his mouth was twisted, his eyes filled with moisture. She looked again at the mansion and discovered that many of the windows had no glass, that brown streaks ran down the marble facing, that what must have been the lawn was waist-high in weeds. The place had a forlorn air of neglect and desertion.

“Best stay here, sir,” said Alec behind them. “Under cover. I’ll go see how the land lies.”

Charles nodded without speaking. They waited. Jenny let Coquet browse, Charles’s horse stamped and twitched. Charles paid no attention, his fixed gaze never left Dilston Hall.

In twenty minutes Alec returned. “It’s all right, sir. I saw old Busby, he’s been expecting you -- and Mr. Brown’s here!”

Charles started. “Father Brown, the priest? Why, he was in France!”

“Well, he’s here now, sir. Has been for a month. He says to come to his quarters in the gatehouse. Nobody’ll see you, the villagers are all at work.”

“Is Rob Wilson here too?” asked Jenny in a small voice.

“Why no, miss. Though I believe there’s some message.”

Jenny sighed and clenched the bridle tight. They hurried from the wood, across the abandoned pleasure gardens, past the dilapidated summerhouse and the chapel until they came to the gate. The priest’s quarters were next, and Father Brown in a black cassock was waiting in the doorway, his hands outstretched, his thin furrowed face beaming welcome. “My son, my son,” he said hoarsely.
“Benedicite,”
and he blessed Charles, who fell to his knees and kissed the Jesuit’s hand, while they both thought of their last meeting -- in the Newgate cell on the day of James’s death.

The priest led them into his austere whitewashed parlor. There was no furniture but stools, a table, and a large ebony crucifix on the wall. “So this is your daughter?” said Father Brown, smiling at Jenny. “Sit down, my child. Have a singing-hinny. Mrs. Busby just made them.” He handed her a platterful of cakes, and Jenny took one, trying not to stare at the priest. She had never seen a priest before, but according to Miss Crowe they were all wicked wily men with serpent eyes who worshiped heathenish statues and took their orders from a scarlet monster in Rome. This Mr. Brown didn’t look wicked; he looked kind and tired as he explained himself to her father.

“I’ve been worrying about my little Dilston flock -- bereft of any spiritual comfort. I got permission from the Society to return here, until I can find myself a replacement. I had thirty at Mass last Sunday,” he added smiling.

“I’m glad,” said Charles, “that
something
is as it used to be. Almost I regret coming back, but I wanted to see --” He gestured towards the chapel next door, where was James’s tomb. “I’ve brought an offering from my Lady Derwentwater she wants put there--” He broke off, and turned away.

“I understand,” said the priest gently. “It will lighten your heart to know that the chapel has become quite a shrine to Catholics for miles around. I’ve had to forbid actual worship of the tomb of course; they had canonized him on their own, not but what it may come someday.”

Charles and the priest both crossed themselves. Then Charles said, “I expected Robert Wilson waiting here with a document of great importance to me. Did Errington explain?”

“Yes. Wilson hasn’t come, but there’s a letter from him. A Rothbury lad brought it yesterday.”

Jenny, who had been puzzled, faintly dismayed by the men’s earlier conversation, jumped from her stool. “Oh Papa! What does Robbie say?”

Charles looked at the piece of folded paper, which was addressed in a firm, quite literate hand, “C. R. Jones esq. c/o Mr. Busby, Dilston.” He frowned as he broke the seal and read the four lines inside. Beneath the disappointment of the message, he was startled that the young lout wrote so well and annoyed at the references to Jenny without the deferential “Miss.” “This is damnably awkward,” said Charles. “Damnably.”

Jenny put her hand on his arm.
“Please
Papa, let me see what Rob says!”

Charles made an impatient sound. “Take it then!” Jenny grabbed the letter and devoured the message.

Sir -- They wilnot give me what you want.
Only Jenny might get it. Send her here.
Not you. They’d shoot you on sight.
I’ll wait for Jenny.
Resptfly     R. Wilson.

Jenny drew a happy breath, and held the letter close between her palms. “So I shall go to Coquetdale,” she said.

“Certainly not!” cried Charles. “I’ll go myself, I’m not afraid of a pack of crazy ruffians, I’ll force them to behave! This is ridiculous.” He was not aware that his sudden fury came as much from the way Jenny looked at the letter as from the bad news it contained. “I’ll not let you go back to that miserable hole!”

Father Brown cocked his head, and surveyed Charles’s angry face, then he reached out his hand to Jenny. “Give me this disturbing letter, my child.” She yielded it with reluctance. He read it and said, “I think you had better leave me alone with your father. Alec is outside, he’ll show you around.”

Jenny sent her father a beseeching look. She had never before seen him angry. She went out with dragging feet.

“Now, my son,” said the priest, “we will discuss this matter dispassionately.”

Father Brown, who had known Charles since boyhood, exerted the calm authority which had always subdued the lad. He congratulated Charles on the prospects of an excellent Catholic marriage, and emphasized the need for written proof of the first wife’s death. To Charles’s sullen response that he knew all that but Jenny should not be involved, the priest replied with incontestable logic that Jenny was apparently the only one likely to be successful with the mission. And that it was natural the child should wish to see her birthplace once again, seemly too that she should pay some respect to her mother’s memory; while it would be not only reckless but stupid for Charles to antagonize the Snowdons -- let alone run the risk of getting himself shot.

“You’re in enough danger here, as it is,” said the priest. “Busby and I’ve decided that you’ll stay in the steward’s room in the old tower, and go forth only at night. I trust most of my own flock, yet even amongst
them
the temptation of a large reward might be too much. You’ll be safe in the tower, because nobody dares go near it. Do you remember Mrs. Selby, the blacksmith’s wife, mother of the simple-minded lad?”

Charles said grumpily that he did.

“I think she’s gone a bit soft in the head herself,” continued the priest. “She broods on the Earl’s martyrdom -- can’t blame her for that, but she’s taken to seeing things. Now it’s a white shape on top of the tower, holding a torch. She saw it first last week on August thirtieth, then last night too, and has convinced the whole village.”

“Hokery-pokery,” said Charles in disgust. “So I’m to be protected by a ghost!”

“I pray that the Blessed Virgin will protect you,” said the priest sternly. “But I insist you take certain wise temporal precautions as well.”

Thus it was that Jenny set out next day at dawn for Coquetdale, with only Alec as escort. During the first part of her journey through Corbridge and across the Roman Wall and on through open fields and marshes near Bavington, Jenny worried about her father. He had seemed unhappy when she left, though no longer angry. He kissed her hard, and impressed on her rather pathetically the importance of her mission. She saw that he suffered at being mewed up in a small dark room in the tower, and that he suffered at the general state of Dilston Hall with its tiers of echoing empty apartments from which the furniture had long since been sold. She understood that inaction was itself a punishment for him and even vaguely understood why he dreaded her journey into a place so alien to him, and so bitter in memory.

Then when they reached the moors and the edge of Rothbury Forest, Jenny forgot her father. Her spirit began to expand, a half-guilty excitement possessed her. The crag up yonder -- was that where she’d found an eagle’s nest? And that tumulus of stones amongst the heather, was that the one Rob had taken her to, and told her was made by the “wee folk” before the dawn of time? Mile after mile Jenny and Alec plodded on, seeing nobody but an occasional shepherd. The black-faced sheep scuttled off into the moor as they went by. The road grew rougher; they climbed around the edges of the great Simonside Hills. They skirted bogs, and sloshed through burns as brown as the peat moss.

While the sun dipped behind the darkening crags, the air freshened, and smelled of mountain grasses and burning bracken. They came to a turn in the road, and Jenny pulled up Coquet. “There’s Lordenshaw,” she said, pointing to a small gray stone farmhouse, surrounded with beehives. “It’s a shortcut to Tosson, we’ll take it.”

“Are you
sure,
miss?” Alec asked anxiously. The so-called highway they had been traveling seemed bad enough to him without braving the wildest of hilly moorland.

“Aye,” said Jenny guiding Coquet up a cart track. “See down there the old peel tower at Great Tosson?”

Alec protested no more, and let the girl lead him. There were still several miles to go. From time to time they passed an isolated farm, all of which looked alike to Alec, though Jenny greeted each gray stone building with a murmur of satisfaction. “Allerdene,” she said beneath her breath, “Bickerton.” As they passed, faces appeared at windows, staring curiously. Nobody spoke to them, the dalesmen did not encourage strangers. “There’s the pine dell,” said Jenny pointing with her riding crop. “We turn there, t’other side, and climb again -- ”

Alec said, “Very good, miss,” sighing. They entered the pine glade and a man came running towards them. In the gloaming Alec did not recognize him and felt for the pistol his master had provided, but Jenny had pulled up her mare and dismounted in a twinkling.

“Robbie!” she cried, and holding out her arms started to run with the same joyous welcome she had ever shown him. Yet Jenny was no longer a child, and Rob was not as she remembered him. He had grown so big -- taller and broader than her father, and his square face with its heavy black eyebrows was that of a man. Her arms dropped, she blushed and drew back. “Rob -- ” she said hurriedly, “I would hardly have known you.”

His discomfiture was as great as hers. He saw the new beauty that had come to her, he saw the small breasts and narrow waist in the fashionable gown beneath the riding cloak, he saw the expensively gloved hands, he heard the cultured London accent in her maturing voice. She’s near grown, he thought. The brotherly affection and half-patronizing camaraderie he used to feel for her received a shock.

“So ye’re here,” he said smiling. “I’ve been on the watch. Good even, Alec. There’s been a deal o’ water o’er the dam since we last met.” Rob spoke awkwardly, shifting brawny shoulders under his old leather jacket. “I see Mr. Radcliffe took my warning and bided at Dilston. A good thing too. The ould man crouches by the door, day in, day out, wi’ his Bible on his lap an’ his musket primed. He sleeps wi’ the Bible an’ the gun.”

“Wuns!” said Alec. “Is Miss Jenny quite safe then?”

“D’ye think I’d let her come here, else?” said Rob. “D’ye think I canna protect her?”

“I was never afraid of Grandfather,” said the girl.

“Will ye mount again, Miss -- Miss Jenny?” Rob laced his hands and held them for her to step on. She hesitated, then, accepting the aid, vaulted into the saddle. In the old days, she thought, he would have lifted me by the waist, and he never called me “Miss” before. The horses began to walk, stumbling a little as they climbed the rough track up the slopes of Tosson Hill towards the Snowdon burn.

“Rob,” she said after a moment, “who’s now at the peel? Is it as it was -- except for my mother?”

Rob shook his head. “Your Uncle Roger’s gone. He married and moved to Hepple. Will, he stayed on, not being minded to wed. And now Nanny’s come to bide in Meg’s stead. Ye never met your Aunt Nan?”