Mist Over Pendle (42 page)

He waited, and for a moment Margery was puzzled. Then she understood.

“She’s above?” she asked. “With him?”

“Yes. She watches.”

“Then I’ll watch in her stead, and she may come down. But tell me--how is he?”

“That is with God. I cannot say.”

His tone was grave and Margery made no comment. She went quietly out of the room and up the stair. Without ceremony she went into the bedroom, and Margaret rose from a chair by the bedside. There was a whispered word and she was gone; and Margery was alone with the stricken Tony.

It was a simple room. The bed had the centre of it, and there was a press, a table and a pair of chairs; that was all. A fire burned bright in the hearth, and from that and the candles and the drawn curtains, the heat was stifling. Margery gasped, and asked herself if she might at least draw back the curtains now that the priest was gone from the room. But it was not her house, and she hesitated; and while she hesitated, Tony Nutter spoke urgently.

She spun on her heel, wondering what he had said; for his speech had been thick and she had caught no clear word. She answered, but he did not seem to hear; and she stood unhappily, looking between the half-parted bed-curtains to where his head moved fitfully in the shadows. Again he spoke, and Margery leaned forward, desperate to give what help she could. He turned his face to her and seemed to see her as he spoke again.

“Anne!” His words were clear now. “Anne, my dear! Oh, Anne!”

And Margery, clinging wet-eyed to the bedpost, knew that he had never seen her.

His words ran on, for a moment thick and blurred, and then for a moment clear before they blurred again; but clear for long enough to tell that he was riding with his Anne on an April morning--and he was happy. Margery clung tight to the bedpost, her lip between her teeth, and her face wet in the sweating heat of the room.

She never knew how long it was before a question from nowhere came shooting through her mind, a question from outside herself, that came with a hideous clarity: a chill of the lungs-- could that breed such raving?

Margery recoiled from the bedpost and stood quivering; and suddenly a chill she knew had crept into the stifling room. The heat faded, and she felt her back shiver as the Secret Cold came in; and at once her mind was working icily.

She took a candle from the press and carried it dangerously within the bed-curtains; and holding it so that its light was full on Tony, she looked intently. His face was flushed and red, his mouth open, his lips dry and parched. She put her hand on his forehead and felt it dry and hot. Then she gently eased his head back, and the candle-light fell on the great dark pupils of his staring eyes.

Mistress Crook, making her Confession to Father Southworth, was disturbed by the ring and clatter of boots on the oaken stair, and she had no more than got to her feet when the parlour door was flung rudely open and a termagant of a girl burst in.

“What food’s he had?” she snapped. “These last days?”

Margaret Crook quivered. She was indignant, and she was bewildered. This was not the Margery she had known.

“What food’s he had?”

The question came again, and the young voice was savage. That was the end of resistance. Gentle Margaret was no match for this hard-eyed truculence.

“Why, milk,” she answered meekly. “Milk, and syllabubs, and some barley-water. No more.”

“The milk--from your own cattle?” There was a ring of steel in the voice.

“Why yes, to be sure it was. But---”

“The barley water--who made it?”

“I did. But my dear---”

“And the syllabubs--from whence?”

“Why, I beat them myself.”

“All of them?”

The steel in the voice had the edge of a razor now.

“Myself? Yes, most of them. Though Alice has been---”

“Alice!”

She almost spat the word, and gentle Margaret shrank back as she heard the ring of it. But that was the climax. Margery stood rigid, white-faced and tense as she fought for calm; and gradually her bearing eased. She drew a deep breath, and when she spoke again she was almost her own self.

“I must ask your pardon,” she said slowly. “I’ve been most ill mannered.”

“Why yes, my dear. Never mind that. But---”

“Please!” Margery interrupted firmly. “I’ll tell you later why it was. Just now there’s more urgent matter. These syllabubs-- you say Alice Nutter sent some?”

“Indeed yes. She’s been most kind.”

“Have you one left--of hers?”

“Part of one. Tony had---”

“May I see it, please?”

Margery was polite, but the ring was coming into her voice again, and Margaret was too dazed to resist. She led to the door and Margery went quietly after her. Christopher Southworth followed silently, and his dark eyes had an understanding gleam; he was not ignorant, and he was very far from being a fool.

The old servitor, hovering by the kitchen door with eyes agape, stood aside to let them pass. Margaret opened the cool lime-washed larder and brought out a bowl of crystal--thick fluted glass that could take a glint if the light were bright enough. A soft pink curd filled the bowl, smooth except where a spoon had taken some away.

Margery took the bowl in silence, and scanned it with care. A syllabub was cream beaten up with wine, and she was thinking that it might disguise a flavour--almost if not completely. She put the bowl into the curve of her left arm and dipped a finger of her right hand into it. Cautiously she put the finger to her tongue.

The crystal shivered on the stone-flagged floor as she hurled it from her. Margaret shrieked, and the old servitor jumped back, his breeches splashed with curd. Christopher Southworth moved forward with inquiring eyes, and Margery wiped her tongue and spat. Beyond mistake, the acrid bitterness had been there; it was masked and faint, but it was there--to a clean tongue and a wary mind. But would it have been there to the tongue and mind of a sick and weary man? Tony Nutter, she remembered, had been sick from his ride in the snow before ever this began.

Margaret, dazed and bewildered, looked helplessly at Margery as though asking what she should do. She was promptly told.

“Tony’s alone,” said Margery quietly, and Margaret stood vaguely until she grasped the meaning. Then she gave a horrified gasp and went hurrying up the stair. The old man stooped and began to collect the pieces.

“Leave that,” said Margery. “I’ll need my horse. Be pleased to see to it.”

She was quite sure what must be done. The old man, half comprehending, moved slowly away, and Margery led Christopher Southworth back through the hall and into the parlour. But at the parlour door she checked in surprise; the curtains were drawn across, and only a single candle lit the gloom; she had been too distracted before to notice that the priest had taken this precaution, but now the dark shadows repelled her and she turned back into the hall. He followed without protest.

He stood grave and impassive under the candle by the stair, and she met his eyes fairly.

“I’m to suppose there was venom in that bowl?” he said. “And that this sickness was born of it?”

She nodded.

“If not born of it, at least nourished of it.” He seemed to accept that easily.

“Witches?” he asked, and again she nodded. There was no need to tell him more.

The dying candle flared smokily, and Margery’s irritations flared with it. She blew it viciously and then flung the outer door wide open. She had had enough of shadows and candle-light, and she wanted the bright day and the clean air. But the day was not bright; she had been so engrossed that she had forgotten that, and it was almost a shock to see the dark sky again, and the spattering pools in the rain-soaked gravel. The light was fading now, and the rain was as loud and as steady as ever.

“Can you do what’s needed?” Christopher Southworth spoke suddenly. “There’s a life to be saved--and you are young.”

She turned from the door and saw his face grave in the fading light. Behind her a horse clopped on the gravel, and she guessed that the old man had saddled her beast and led it round at last. She tried to speak confidently.

“As to saving life--if it’s not too late already---”

“That, as I have told you, is with God.”

She nodded.

“I think I hear my horse. We must get him away from here, and I’ll ride at once for help. Which is to say, sir, that you’ll need to be gone when I return. I think your work is done?”

He made no reply to that. His brooding eyes seemed fixed on the daylight behind her, and suddenly Margery spun round in vague alarm.

Out on the gravel, standing by his horse and watching them both in silence, was Frank Hilliard; and Margery forgot everything as she ran to him

“Frank!” she called excitedly. “Where are you from?”

“Home.”

His answer was curt, and at the tone of it her excitement faded and she looked at him in dismay.

“I came as I said I’d come,” he said slowly. “After a week of March. I came this morning, and they told me you were here. So I followed. I ... I was eager.”

His eyes turned from her and rested for a moment on the priest in the doorway.

“I was eager to see you,” he went on. “But hardly eager to see so much.”

Then Margery understood; and at once her mind slipped back to the night at Marton when she had assured him so keenly that she had ended with Master Southworth. Her courage began to fail as she understood.

He turned from her, and walked to the door. He shook the water from his dripping cloak, and went slowly into the hall, Margery followed limply, and Christopher Southworth stood impassive. In unbroken silence the two men faced each other. And then, before either had spoken, a chair scraped in the bedchamber above, and feet moved quickly.

To Margery, those simple sounds, ringing loud in the silence, were charged with meaning. Margaret Crook had moved to see to Tony’s needs. It was a sharp reminder to Margery that Tony’s needs were the greater; and at once her mind leapt away from her own tangle and became alert in another’s cause.

“God’s Grace!”

It burst from her without warning, and the men whipped round to her in surprise.

“God’s Grace!” she said again, and her voice had something of the ring that had conquered Margaret. “There’s a man dying above, and we linger here like slugs.”

She rounded on Frank, who was plainly startled, and explained herself crisply.

“Tony Nutter--you’ve heard me speak of him--is above there. He’s deadly sick, and like as not he’s dying. And just now that comes before all else.”

Frank saw the question in her eyes and he nodded his assent. She had convinced him of urgency, and he would allow that to come before resentments. She hurried on before he could change his mind.

“Master Southworth’s coming was not contrived by me. I did not think to see him here, nor he, I’m sure, to see me. This Tony Nutter is a papist, Frank, and had need of a priest. That I take to be the truth of it?”

Christopher Southworth bowed his head in agreement, and Margery paused; her eyes held them both.

“There’s a dying man. Will you both do now what shall serve his needs? Master Southworth?”

“I’d refuse that at peril of soul.”

“Frank?”

He spoke for the first time since he had entered the house, and his answer surprised her.

“It’s a hundred and thirty miles hither from my home. I’ve had weather foul and roads worse. But I rode it in four days and a morning, and I did not do that with intent to quarrel when I found you.” He paused, and Margery saw for the first time that his face was strained and his eyes bloodshot. But he had a hint of a smile now. “You seem to have all this under your hand, and I’ll not dispute it with you. What would you have of me?”

But she turned first to the priest.

“Master Southworth; your work here is done, and you linger at your peril--and not your own peril only. I would not seem surly, but we’ll breathe more freely when you’re gone.”

He nodded, but then he turned to Frank.

“She reasons well,” he said. “But you, sir, are in some sort concerned in this. Have I your leave to go?”

Frank shrugged lightly.

“Margery has this under command,” he answered, “and I’ve said I’ll not dispute it with her. You’ll be wise to go.” The smile was hovering on his lips again. “And indeed, sir, I’ve some liking for you and I wish you better than what’s prepared at Lathom. So get you gone while none hinders.”

The priest looked steadily at him.

“You’re generous,” he said quietly.

“Not wholly. I’ve had kin at Douai---” He smiled oddly at that. “And in these days I’m not milord’s catchpoll. You’ll have a horse?”

“Nearby.”

“Seek it then.”

“My thanks--to you both.”

He pressed at the panelling by the side of the stair; something clicked and a panel turned. From the space within he drew cloak and hat, and the discreet travelling-bag that served for plate and vestments--the bag that would hang him if he were taken with it.

In silence he adjusted his cloak and pulled his hat low. Then, by the door, he paused and spoke to Margery.

“I do not think that we shall meet again. I am ordered to another place, and I do not think I can do you any service-- except that you shall have my prayers. If I had stayed here---”

“You must not stay here.”

“No. But it’s my great regret that you are a heretic, for I think you are well disposed. However---”

His hand lifted quickly, and before Margery had seen what he was about, the sigil was completed.

“God be with you--both!”

He pulled his cloak tight and went out into the rain. He walked quickly across the soaking gravel till he came to the hedge of leafless thorn that ran between the pines. For a moment he waited there, looking back at them as they stood in the doorway. Then he moved behind the hedge and was gone.

Margery shut the door and signed to Frank to wait. She went quickly up the stair and looked into the bedchamber, where a bewildered Margaret, bubbling with curiosity, loosed a flood of whispered questions. But Margery put her off with a brief assurance that the priest was safe away; all else, she said, must wait. She stayed only long enough to learn that Tony, if no better, was at least no worse; and then she hurried down the stair again. Frank was still standing at its foot, and for a moment Margery allowed herself to relax.