The Town House (33 page)

‘Up you get,’ and helped me into the saddle. I rode out through the covered way first and once out of the gate, drove in my heel. My palfrey had never once been underfed or overburdened, or hard pressed, and
during Richard’s illness had stood in the stable cramming corn. ‘Let’s see what you can do today,’ I said in its ear.

It did well. The road, heavy from the recent rainy spell, was in our favour; the brown horse was bigger, but Denys weighed all of twelve stone, and there were the two casks.

For eight of the ten miles I stayed ahead, then my beast slackened pace and nothing I could do could make it recover speed. Out of nowhere there came to me the rhyme which Father had said to us, jogging us on his knee.

‘This is the way the ladies ride, trippety, trip, trippety, trip. This is the way the farmers ride, bumpitty, thud, bumpitty, thud.’ And in the end, I thought, bumpitty thud will always catch up with trippety trip. How I longed for the horse in the end of the rhyme, ‘This is the way the gentlemen ride, gallop and trot, gallop and trot.’

Denys came level with me and snatched at my rein.

‘Did the brute bolt?’ He pulled the rein savagely, so that my palfrey’s head was wrenched round and we stood sideways across the road.

‘Don’t do that. I set the pace. I am anxious to arrive.’

He said, and I shall always remember the curious simplicity and innocence that there was both in his voice and in his eye,

‘I wanted to talk to you. It’s been a whole year, with never so much as a word.’

I said nothing.

‘This was our chance to fix something; to meet; to get together again,’ he said, as though explaining something to a stupid child. ‘I’ve been wanting you so badly, I wonder I haven’t done something desperate, all these months. I wonder you never tried …’

He had no suspicion of the way I felt. I’d swung my horse about again so that it was facing the right way and he brought his alongside, and put out his arm to touch me, but the tar barrel prevented him coming close enough.

‘Come on, get down,’ he said in a thick, amorous voice.

I thought the quickest cut would be best. He had dropped my rein, so I set my palfrey going, and he came level, and I said,

‘What happened last June twelvemonth happened because I was mad. It must never happen again.’

‘Oh come! What was so mad about it? And what harm did we do? I’d lay a year’s pay you never had it so good – and nor did I. Things being so cursed difficult I tried to put you out of my mind, but I never
could. And you’d say the same if you weren’t trying to play coy with me.

There’s no need for that … and no time.’

‘I mean what I say. It’s finished. Over and done with.’

‘It’ll come back. Women are often that way, after childbed. You’ll see. This evening, eh? On our way back.’

‘Not then, or any other time,’ I said, trying to get another spurt of speed out of my horse.

He seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘What’s got into you? What’ve I done? I’m just the same. You were starving for it – oh, I could tell. And I didn’t do so badly by you. Two sound brats, with no lung rot.’

Anger flared in me, but I mastered it, and said coolly,

‘You flatter yourself.’

‘Do I. Bedded for a year with a pretty boy that couldn’t father a mouse – a woman like you! Think back to that night on the grass and look what you’re missing.’ He followed this by a remark of such coarseness and familiarity as was not to be tolerated, even if it were deserved.

‘At the next bend we shall be in sight of my father’s house,’ I said. ‘Drop back and ride behind me as a servant should.’

He laughed. ‘That’s my lady! Like plums, the higher the sweeter, once you can reach them down.’ He hit my palfrey a sharp blow and it shot forward.

‘That’s the way,’ he cried, ‘let’s ride in in style.’

For me the day was ruined. Mother was delighted with the cloak and the wine, pleased to see me and avid to hear the last smallest detail about Walter and Maude, but I had to make great effort to chat light-heartedly, and a greater one to do justice to the birthday dinner. I had to ride back to Baildon in Denys’s company. The irony of the thought that little more than a year ago no prospect would have pleased me more only served to underline the horror of my present situation.

I have never known a day go so fast.

I gave Jason the gobbet of red meat which Richard had sent him and listened absentmindedly while Father explained that these last three weeks, during which Richard had not ridden out to Minsham at all would make an excellent excuse for the fact that the young hawk would never accept him as his master.

‘I’ve feared it all along,’ he said in his slow, fumbling way. ‘Twice a week … and let him be the only one ever to take the rufter off. I thought that might just do it. I was wrong and I was afraid the poor fellow would be disappointed; we can lay the blame now on these three weeks.’

With some vague thought of handicapping Denys on the return journey I said,

‘I can’t think why you didn’t let Richard have his hawk at the Old Vine in the first place. Shall we take it back with us this afternoon? I think that would please him.’

‘But who at the Old Vine understands falconry? That’s just it. A tiercel isn’t a lapdog, Anne. Maybe I was foolish … buthehadshown some slight interest in hawking … I told you, that first time. And your mother thought …’

‘Mother thought
what
?’

‘That to get out, out of that office, into the air …. Oh, I know twice a week isn’t much, isn’t enough, but it did make an excuse. And as usual, your mother was right, wasn’t she. So the hawk wasn’t wasted, though I daresay Richard will be a bit jealous that I can now handle his bird. Still, nobody can help being ill.’

‘May I carry Jason back with me this afternoon?’

‘No. You can’t handle him.… Isabel now, if it was Isabel, but you never cared for the sport. And you’d have no place – not so much as a perch. An unhandled hawk, especially one half trained like Jason’d go mad, or pine to death. No. When Richard is better, which God send will be soon, he must come out, and I’ll fool them both. I’ll stand close to him and whistle my whistle through his. We’ll manage.’

Alone with Mother again I put on the drooping, dwindling look which I would have been wise to have put on in the yard hours before.

‘You warned me about riding, but you had it all wrong. It is now that the jolting hurts me.’

She looked concerned. ‘I thought you looked very wan when you came in. You had a hard time, you know, and it’s not so long. Richard ill too, I daresay you’ve been up and downstairs and having broken nights.’

‘If my bed were aired, ’I said, ‘I would lie here tonight. Denys could tell them that I was just tired.’

‘The bed hasn’t been slept in since Isabel went. But I could air it in an hour.’

‘Then I’ll stay, and gladly.’

Mother threw fresh wood on the fire and began to climb the stairs.

‘I’ll help you,’ I said.

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. I can handle that bed. It isn’t like those great fat feather bundles you lie on at Baildon.’ She laughed. In a few seconds she came out of my old room with the bed – a poor thin thing indeed, folded over into a roll and held in her arms. She came down three stairs, then the inside edge of the roll loosened itself and fell lower than the rest; she stepped into it, as it were, missed her footing, almost righted herself, and could have, had that staircase had a handrail to clutch at, but it hadn’t; she clutched at air and fell sideways on to the floor of the hall.

She was up in an instant, before I could get to her.

‘Clumsy!’ she said, and laughed.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Not a bit.’ She went to the foot of the stairs where the mattress, now fully unfolded, lay, and picked it up and gave it a shake.

‘Trip me, would you?’ she said, ‘I’ll roast you for that!’

We propped it up before the fire and the amount of steam which rose from it proved its need for airing. Minsham Old Hall was very damp always, on the hottest day of summer you could write your name on the dewy moisture of the walls.

For supper we ate the remains of the birthday dinner and drank some more of the wine, and now we were truly merry. Denys had gone, with a black look for me over Mother’s shoulder when she gave him his instructions at the door. Tomorrow Father was to ride in with me, and once in the house I should be safe. I’d never ride anywhere again until Richard was fit to ride with me.

Getting up from the supper-table Mother clapped her hand to her side and gave a little cry.

‘I must have caught myself a clout without knowing it. A bruise, no more.’ But even her lips had gone white.

She was up in the morning, however, very cheerful, holding herself a mite stiffly and saying that forty-six was a bit old to go turning somersaults.

‘I shall ride in myself next Wednesday to see those dear children,’ she said, as we parted. ‘Meanwhile, wish Richard good health for me and thank Master Reed for the wine.’

I rode back to Baildon thinking that I had managed very well.

Mother’s birthday was on Thursday. I went home on Friday. Richard was better, but still taking his meals apart in the solar. I ate my supper with him, in the golden, slanting rays of the sinking sun. Master Reed, who had supped in the hall as usual, came into the room afterwards, looked into our wine cups, saw them full and poured his own. Then he said,

‘Anne, Denys the Routier wants a word with you.’

Whether I went red or white I cannot tell; I could only feel my whole face stiffen.

‘With me. What about?’

‘I don’t know. He just asked if he could have a word with you.’

I suppose it was my guilty conscience that made me think his manner a trifle more restrained than usual, his eye just a little suspicious … no … curious.

I turned and hurried, trying not to hurry, out of the solar.

The dining-hall, on the eastern side of the house was already dim and full of shadows. It smelt strongly of rabbit and onion stew and even in that moment of extremity some part of my mind noted the curious fact that a dish of which one has not partaken always has a stronger odour than one which one has eaten. Richard and I, in the solar had shared a cold capon.

Old Nancy stood in the doorway between the hall and the kitchen, watching Meg and Jane, helped by the two youngest apprentices, clear the tables. Denys leaned against the door post of the outer door, his back to the hall, looking out into the yard. The presence of four other – five other people gave me confidence. I walked towards him and said,

‘You wanted to speak with me.’

He turned quickly, so that in the doorway we faced one another and he took hold of my hand. The action could not be seen by those inside in the hall because the bulk of my body was in their way. He fumbled with my hand for a second and then had me by the little finger, bending it down, pressing hard. There is no simple, quiet, secret action that can cause more sharp pain. Anyone who doubts this should try it on himself. Pressing ruthlessly on my finger he pulled me over the threshold. At the same time he hissed into my ear,

‘Call back and say your palfrey is lame and you are looking to it.’

I leaned back, and only just able to speak for the pain in my finger, said,

‘Nancy. Tell Master Richard I have gone out to look at my palfrey. It is lame it seems.’

‘Now,’ he said, with a little more pressure on my finger, ‘come and look just how lame it is.’ He dragged me across the yard and to the fence of the pasture. ‘A pretty trick you played me yesterday. Now listen. Tomorrow is Saturday. In the afternoon they’ll all go to their shooting at the butts. I don’t have to go. I’ve done my soldiering. I shall wait for you in the wool loft, the far end.’

I said, and I could hear how thin my voice sounded, ‘Unless you let go my finger … I can give you no mind … I shall faint.’

He let go then, but he put his arm around me and said,

‘You bring it on yourself, you’re so tricky. It could have been yesterday, you silly little hussy,’ and he pushed his body against me. ‘Now it must wait till tomorrow, and I’ve waited so long ….’

‘I can’t. I can’t. Even if I wanted to … my husband, his father …. I can’t just walk out of the house.’

‘Women always have two excuses – church and the dressmaker. Choose which you like, but I’m telling you, you had better come.’

He let me go, and stooping tugged up a little tuft of grass with the soil clodded about its roots. He tossed it gently over the fence at my palfrey which was grazing amongst the other horses, a pale shadow amongst the darker ones. It started and moved away, one hoof hardly touching the ground, lame as a tinker’s donkey.

‘This time I made an excuse. If you fail me tomorrow I shall ask for you again, and again, and every excuse will be shakier than the one before. And I shall talk about you, in alehouses–’

‘You’ll find yourself in trouble if you boast of rape.’

He laughed, it seemed with real pleasure.

‘I always knew a devil lurked behind that angel face of yours, my pretty! Rape indeed. Was your dress torn? Did you run screaming? Did you complain? Besides which, once I’ve set them all asking questions I shall make myself scarce, leaving you to find the answers.’

Had I been innocent, I suppose that would hardly have been a threat at all. I remembered how my face had felt when Master Reed brought me Denys’s message, I remembered the look I thought he had given me. My best weapon, a clear conscience, was snapped in my hand; I was not equipped to fight.

‘I’ll come,’ I said.

‘And I’ll set your horse to rights.’ He rested one hand on a post of the fence and vaulted lightly into the meadow.

I turned away and hurried towards the house. Master Reed stood at the back door looking out over the yard. I wondered how long he had been there, and whether, at that distance, he could have seen Denys lay hold of me.

‘Anything amiss?’ he said.

‘My horse is very lame. Denys thinks it picked up a stone. He is dealing with it.’

‘How handy is he? He might worsen matters. I’d better…’ He went, with his lurching yet rapid step towards the pasture.