The House on the Strand (36 page)

"God preserve me from a woman's spite," said Polpey. "Roger has held the office for ten years, and now to be dismissed without reason being given, and the stewardship handed to Phil Hornwynk—"

"Young William will reinstate him when he comes of age, no doubt of that," replied Trefrengy. "He has his father's sense of justice and fair play. But I could smell the change coming these past twelve months or more. The plain truth is that she lacks not only a husband but a man as well, and Roger has had his belly-full and will oblige no more."

"He finds his oats elsewhere." The last speaker, Geoffrey Lampetho from the valley, had shouldered his way through the crowd to join them. "Rumour has it there's a woman under his roof. You should know, Trefrengy, being his neighbour."

"I know nothing," answered Trefrengy shortly. "Roger keeps his counsel, I keep mine. In hard weather such as this wouldn't any Christian give shelter to a stranger on the road?"

Lampetho laughed, digging him with his elbow. "Neatly said, but you can't deny it," he said. "Why else does my Lady Champernoune come here from Trelawn, disregarding the state of the roads, unless to snuff her out? I was in the geld-house here before you to pay my rents, and she sat in the inner room while Hornwynk collected. All the paint in the world couldn't hide the black look on her face: dismissing Roger from his stewardship won't see the end of it. Meantime, sport for the populace of another kind. Will you stay to watch the fun?"

Julian Polpey shook his head in disgust. "Not I, he answered. Why should we in Tywardreath have some custom foisted upon us from elsewhere, making us barbarians? Lady Champernoune must be sick in mind to think of it. I'm for home."

He turned and disappeared into the crowd, which was now thick not only upon the summit of the hill where the house and chapel stood, but half-way down the track to Treesmill. One and all wore this curious air of expectancy upon their faces, half-resentful, half-eager, and Geoffrey Lampetho, pointing this out to his companion, laughed again.

"Sick in mind, maybe, but it salves her conscience to have another widow act as scapegoat, and sweetens Quadragessima for us. There's nothing a mob likes more than witnessing public penance." He turned his head, like the rest, towards the valley, and Henry Trefrengy edged forward past the Champernoune servants to the chapel entrance where Roger stood, while I followed close behind.

"I'm sorry for what has happened," he said. "No gratitude, no recompense. Ten years of your life wasted, gone for nothing."

"Not wasted, answered Roger briefly. William will come of age in June and marry. His mother will lose her influence, and the monk as well. You know the Bishop of Exeter has expelled him finally, and he must return to the Abbey at Angers, where he should have gone a year ago?"

"God be praised!" exclaimed Trefrengy. "The Priory stinks because of him, the parish too. Look at the people yonder..." Roger stared over Trefrengy's head at the gaping crowd. "I may have acted hard as steward, but to make sport of Rob Rosgof's widow was more than I could stomach," he said. "I stood against it, and this was another reason for my dismissal. The monk is responsible for all of this, to satisfy my lady's vanity and lust."

The entrance to the chapel darkened, and the small, slight figure of Jean de Meral appeared in the open doorway. He put his hand on Roger's shoulder.

"You used not to be so squeamish once," he said. "Have you forgotten those evenings in the Priory cellars, and in your own as well? I taught you more than philosophy, my friend, on those occasions."

"Take your hand off me," replied Roger curtly. "I parted company with you and your brethren when you let young Henry Bodrugan die under the Priory roof; and could have saved him."

The monk smiled. "And now, to show sympathy with the dead, you harbour an adulterous wife under your own?" he asked. "We are all hypocrites, my friend. I warn you, my lady knows your wayfarer's identity, and it is partly on her account that she is here in Tywardreath. She has certain proposals to put before the Lady Isolda when this business with Rosgof's widow has been settled."

"Which business, please God, will be struck from the manor records in years to come, and rebound upon your head instead, to your everlasting shame," said Trefrengy.

"You forget", murmured the monk, "I am a bird of passage, and in a few days time shall have spread my wings for France."

There was a sudden stir amongst the crowd, and a man appeared at the door of the adjoining building, which Lampetho had named the geld-house. Stout, florid-faced, he held a document in his hand. Beside him, wrapped in a cloak from head to foot, was Joanna Champernoune. The man, whom I took to be the new steward Hornwynk, advanced to address the crowd, unrolling the document in his hand.

"Good people of Tywardreath," he proclaimed, "whether freeman, customary tenant or serf, those of you who pay rent to the manor court have done so here today at the geldhouse. And since this manor of Tywardreath was once held by the Lady Isolda Cardinham of Cardinham, who sold it to our late lord's grandfather, it has been decided to introduce here a practice established in the manor of Cardinham since the Conquest." He paused a moment, the better to impress his words upon his listeners. "The practice being", he continued, "that any widow of a customary tenant, holding lands through her late husband, who has deviated from the path of chastity, shall either forfeit her lands or make due penance for their recovery before the lord of the manor and the steward of the manor court. Today before the Lady Joanna Champernoune, representing the lord of the manor William, a minor, and myself, Philip Hornwynk, steward, Mary, widow of Robert Rosgof, must make such penance if she desires the restoration of her lands."

A murmur rose from the crowd, a strange blend of excitement and curiosity, and a sudden sound of shouting came from the road leading down to Treesmill.

"She'll never face them," said Trefrengy. "Mary Rosgof has a son at home who would rather surrender his farmland ten times over than have his mother shamed."

"You are mistaken," answered the monk. "He knows her shame will prove his gain in six months time, when she is brought to bed of a bastard child, and he can turn both out of doors and keep the lands himself."

"Then you've persuaded him," said Roger, "and lined his purse in so doing."

The shouting and the cries increased, and as the people pressed forward I saw a procession ascend the hill from Treesmill, lumbering towards us at a jog-trot. Two lads raced ahead, brandishing whips, and behind them came five men escorting what at first sight I took to be a small moorland pony with a woman mounted on its back. They drew closer, and the laughter amongst the spectators turned to jeers, as the woman sagged upon her steed and would have fallen, had not one of the men escorting her held her fast, flourishing a hay-fork in his other hand. She was not mounted upon a pony at all but on a great black sheep, his horns beribboned with crepe, and the two fellows on either side had thrust a halter over his head to lead him, so that, startled and terrified of the crowd about him, he ducked and stumbled in a vain endeavour to throw his passenger from his back. The woman was draped in black to match her steed, with a black veil covering her face, her hands bound in front of her with leather thongs; I could see her fingers clutching at the thick dark wool on the sheep's neck. The procession came stumbling and lurching to the geld-house, and as it drew to a standstill before Hornwynk and Joanna, the escort jerking the halter, the man with the hay-fork dragged off the woman's veil to disclose her features. She could not have been more than thirty-five, her eyes as terror-striken as the sheep that bore her, while her dark hair, roughly scissored, stood out from her head like a cropped thatch. The jeering turned to silence as the woman, trembling, bowed her head before Joanna.

"Mary Rosgof, do you admit your fault?" called Hornwynk.

"I do in all humility," she answered, her voice low.

"Speak louder for all to hear, and state its nature," he cried. The wretched woman, her pale face flushing, raised her head and looked towards Joanna.

"I lay with another man, my husband not six months dead, thus forfeiting the lands I held in trust for my son. I crave indulgence of my lady and the manor court, and beg for the restoration of my lands, confessing my incontinence. Should I give birth to a base-born child, my son will take possession of the lands and do with me as he pleases." Joanna beckoned the new steward to her side, and he bent low as she whispered something in his ear. Then he turned once more and addressed the penitent.

My gracious lady cannot condone your fault, which is of a nature abhorrent to all people, but since you have admitted it in person, and before the manor court and others of this parish, she will, in great clemency, restore the forfeited lands you rent from her.

The woman bowed her head and murmured gratitude, then asked with swimming eyes if there was further penance she must do.

"Aye," returned the steward. "Descend from the sheep that carried you in your shame, proceed to the chapel here, crawling on your knees, and confess your sin before the altar. Brother John will hear your confession."

The two men who held the sheep pulled the woman from its back, forcing her to her knees, and as she dragged herself along the path towards the chapel, hampered by her skirts, a groan arose from the watching crowd, as if this total degradation could in some way appease their own sense of shame.

The monk waited until she had crawled to his feet, then turned into the chapel, where she followed him. Her escort, at a sign from Hornwynk, set the sheep free, whereupon it ran in terror amongst the crowd, scattering them to either side, and a great shout of hysterical laughter burst forth, as they drove it back along the road to Treesmill, pelting it with pieces of packed snow, sticks, anything they could find. With the sudden release from tension everyone was in a moment laughing, joking, running, seized by a holiday mood, what was happening making a break between winter and the Lenten season just begun. Soon they had all dispersed, and no one was left before the geld-house but Joanna herself, Hornwynk the steward, and Roger and Trefrengy standing to one side.

"So be it," said Joanna. "Tell my servants I am ready to leave. There is nothing further to keep me here in Tywardreath save a certain business which I can attend to on the road home."

The steward went down the path to prepare for her departure, the servants opening the carriage door in readiness, and Joanna, pausing, looked across the path at Roger.

"The people were well satisfied if you are not," she said, "and will pay their rents the sooner for it in the future. The custom has its merits if it inspires fear, and may well spread to other manors."

"God forbid," answered Roger.

Geoffrey Lampetho had been right about the paint on her face, or perhaps the atmosphere inside the geld-house had been close. It ran in streaks now on either cheek, which, with increasing weight, were a puffy puce. She seemed to have aged, since I saw her last, a good ten years. The splendour had gone from her brown eyes, turning them hard like agate. She put out her hand now and touched Roger's arm. "Come," she said, "we have known one another too long for lies and subterfuge. I have a message for the Lady Isolda from her brother Sir William Ferrers, which I have promised to deliver to her in person. If you bar your door to me now I can summon fifty men from the manor to break it down."

"And I another fifty between here and Fowey to withstand them," answered Roger. "But you may follow me to Kylmerth if you wish, and beg an interview. Whether it will be granted or not I cannot say."

Joanna smiled. "It will," she said, "it will," and taking her skirts in her hands she swept down the path towards the carriage, followed by the monk. Once it would have been Roger who helped her mount the steps into the waiting vehicle; today it was the new steward Hornwynk, flushed with self-esteem and bowing low, while Roger, crossing to a gate behind the chapel, where his pony was tethered, leapt upon its back, and kicking his heels into its side rode out into the road. The lumbering chariot rumbled after him, Joanna and the monk inside it, and the few stragglers at the top of the hill stared to watch it pass down the icy road to the village green and the Priory walls beyond. A bell sounded from the Priory chapel and the vehicle began to draw away from me, and Roger too, and I started running, fearing to lose both. Then a pounding in my heart began, and a singing in my ears, and I saw the carriage lurch to a standstill; the window was lowered, and Joanna herself looked out of it, waving her hand and beckoning to me. I stumbled to the window, breathless, the singing increasing to a roar. Then it ceased, absolutely, and I was swaying on my feet, with the clock in Saint Andrew's church striking seven, and the Buick had drawn up on the road ahead of me, with Vita waving from the window, and the surprised faces of the boys and Mrs. Collins looking out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THEY WERE ALL talking at once, and the boys were laughing. I heard Micky say, "We saw you running down the hill, you looked so funny..." and Teddy chimed in, "Mom waved and called, but you didn't hear at first, you seemed to look the other way." Vita was staring at me from the open window by the driving seat. "You'd best get in, she said, you can hardly stand," and Mrs. Collins, red in the face and flustered, opened the door for me the other side. I obeyed mechanically, forgetting my own car parked in the lay-by, and squeezed in beside Mrs. Collins, as we continued along the lane skirting the village towards Polmear.

"A good thing we drove this way," said Vita. "Mrs. Collins said it was quicker than going down through Saint Blazey and Par." I could not remember where they had been or what they were doing, and although the singing in my ears had stopped my heart was thumping still, and vertigo was not far away.

"Bude was super," said Teddy. "We had surf-boards, but Mom wouldn't let us go out of our depth. And the ocean was rolling in, huge great waves, much better than here. You ought to have come with us." Bude, that was right. They had gone to spend the day at Bude, leaving me alone in the house. But what was I doing wandering in Tywardreath? As we passed the alms-houses at the bottom of Polmear hill and I looked across to Polpey and the Lampetho valley, I remembered how Julian Polpey had not waited for the loathsome spectacle outside the geld-house but had walked home, and Geoffrey Lampetho had been one of those amongst the crowd who had pelted the sheep with stones.