The Water Devil (28 page)

“Haven't you seen Petronilla's new lap dogs? How could you not have noticed before now?” It was Petronilla who had passed, her nose in the air, followed by not one, not two, but three little spotted spaniels with curly hair and bulging, idiotic eyes.

“It's not the dogs, it's the gown. Margaret, it's a
sight.”
“Perhaps the canon forgot Lilith, the demon of bad taste in clothing,” I said, looking down into my sewing.

“Margaret, you made that up,” said Gilbert, his voice full of pretended reproof.

“I thought you liked ray cloth.”

“There's ray cloth and there's ray cloth. That stuff, that mustard yellow and bile-green, it's uglier than a sick hound's leavings.”

“It's the latest fashion, Gilbert. The draper from St. Alban's who sold it to her said it was ‘subtle.'You may be assured that she has let every female within ten miles know how far advanced she is over their low, provincial tastes.”

“Subtle, indeed. Stripes the breadth of a man's palm are hardly subtle. It looks like some lackey's livery.” In the background, I could hear Madame chuckle.

“But what has brought you from the tiltyard, my lord husband? I thought you and Hugo had a bet on.”

“Well, I was on the point of winning, when the word came, and I wanted to share it. Hugo was just as glad to leave off, and now he claims he was on the point of winning, and gallantly let me go to save me from shame. But however it was, the news is splendid. Remember the justice that the lawyer bribed? It's all waste and vanity. The lawyer's so terrified of defeat that he ran straight to the abbey and had the abbot pose as a peacemaker and petition the King for a private settlement. Now the King is sending a royal magistrate out from Westminster to inspect the documents. We've got them, Margaret! We're bound to win, once they see what we've got. Father's ecstatic. Our connection with the Duke, our terribly ancient charter with specific mention of the spring, all those testimonials from old residents—it's all easy now. Margaret, do you know what he said? He said, ‘Well, maybe every family ought to have a scholar. Not more than one, though. It isn't altogther a waste.'” I was just on the point of saying something sharp about the selfish, grudging nature of old Sir Hubert, when I saw the look of utter happiness on Gilbert's face. It's not often a second son gets any praise at all, even grudging. And especially Gilbert. So I didn't say anything, so as not to spoil his moment.

“Where's my silver-gilt belt buckle that I brought with me from France, Gilbert? The one with the amethyst mounted on it. Have you seen it? I swear, things just keep vanishing around here. I've hunted in every chest, and I just don't see it.” One person who never feared to interrupt and spoil any pleasant mood was Hugo. He came striding down the solar stair shouting.

“Why on earth would I know where you put your buckle? It's always been on your dress swordbelt in your big chest in the tower room. Besides, you don't really need it just now.”

“She said you'd say that. She said you probably had it.”

“She? You mean your lady wife, Hugo? Brother, I would never take something that was yours.” I looked at Hugo, all flaming with indignant wrath, and thought I should point out the obvious.

“Think again, Hugo,” I said. “Think ray cloth and new morocco leather shoes, and velvet cloaks with silk linings, and a shiny new silver cloak-pin the size of an archbishop's pectoral.”

“What's that your wife is saying?” said Hugo, pulled up short.

“Margaret, you're cruel,” said Gilbert, but he didn't look sad to see his brother's unjust wrath diverted.

“Lilith the demon of vulgar clothes has been annoying me lately.”

“Margaret, what are you saying?” Hugo had decided to loom over me menacingly as I sat. Loom away, I thought, my Gilbert is here, and you don't dare try to shake me, as you'd like to. I just looked up from my sewing as if he were a more irritating sort of horse-fly.

“I'm saying that instead of beating grooms and threatening to chop the hands off serving women and trying to strike your own brother, you should try to imagine where someone with no money would acquire the funds for three new French lap dogs brought over from Calais, and an entire new wardrobe.”

“But she told me—she told me—”

“That the dogs were from her father, and her dear old auntie just sent her a little cash.”

“How did you know?”

“Balam, the demon of inappropriate laughter, has been making a few visits lately.”

“That, that—deceptive, lying, conniving—I was
fond
of that groom I sent away—” Hugo stormed back up the solar stair.

“Well, well, there goes Hugo to pound on Asmodeus, the demon of excessive spending.”

“Margaret, I'm shocked. Have you turned to learning demonology?”

“No, I just made that up, too,” I answered.

“It was a mistake to let her out of that room. She's everywhere all at once, and as hard to lay hold of as quicksilver.”

“Speaking of that, my lord husband, look behind you out the window—no, not like that, just from the corner of your eye, or she'll see you.”

“See what I mean? Like quicksilver. How did she get there?”

“She went up to her room, then out down the tower stair.”

“But why? She didn't know Hugo has just gone up looking for her.”

“Because she is going to make another grand entrance while you're here. I saw her planning the first one. Don't you know she's trying to attract your attention?”

“She
has.
That awful gown. Those noisy, pop-eyed dogs. Yes, you're right, here she comes again.” There was a sudden increase in the yiping and yapping of the little dogs.

“Oh, my poooor little sweetsie Doucette, does 'oo wants 'oo's mummy to pick 'oo up?” Petronilla had paused directly behind Gilbert, where he was facing me on the bench. Odd, how in this comparatively sane state, she was more irritating than ever. Gilbert's eyes opened wide in horror. I just looked down at my sewing and smiled.

“Oo's
crying.
Is there something sharp in 'oo's tiny paw?”Gilbert's eyes spoke volumes. What shall I do to get rid of this ghastly woman, was what his eyes were saying. I made a little gesture with my chin that said turn around. She won't leave until you speak to her, I mouthed silently, as she fumbled over the dog she had picked up. Gilbert turned, a look of acute distaste on his face.

“Oh, Sir Gilbert, there's something sooooo terribly sharp in my pooooor dear little baby Doucette's paw, could you find it with your big, manly hand?” I tried so hard to keep from laughing that tears started to run out of my eyes. I looked over at Madame. Her face was turned to the wall, and her shoulders were shaking. Gilbert turned quite crimson. In the embarrassing silence that followed, he fumbled until he found a rose thorn in the dog's paw, and drew it out. “Oh, you are so
clever,
Sir Gilbert. I do
admire
a clever man so,” said Petronilla, looking up through her eyelashes at him. Gilbert looked appalled. Still clutching the little dog under one arm, she turned so that she managed to bump against him, then put her hand on his arm to steady herself. Then, just in case he didn't understand, she ran her fingers lightly down his arm. Then, disengaging
her hand, she sidled off, casting a backward glance of smoldering passion through half-lidded eyes.

“Oh, my God, I need to wash,” said Gilbert.

“Don't do it in this house. She'll leap on you in the bath,” I answered.

“What on earth is going on with her?” he asked.

“It's easy. She can't get what she wants at the pond anymore, and you're the current choice.”

“But, Margaret, that's—that's disgusting. What shall I do?”

“Well, when you're not with me, I suggest you keep company with Hugo—she does everything to avoid him.”

“The cure is as bad as the disease,” he grumbled.

“My lord husband, there's nothing she wouldn't stop at, this I know. She put that thorn in the dog's paw herself. I saw her pause at the door to do it. She is infinitely more dangerous now that she's been let out of confinement and cured of all those devils. Watch her—her mind is sparking like flames in the wind, she has become as swift and sly as the devil himself.”

“Well, I did notice her speed.”

“Her mind is working that way, too. Swift and wild. We need to get out of here, Gilbert—”

“I thought I heard those despicable little dogs down here,” said Hugo, coming in the front door of the hall. “I've looked everywhere—has that wife of mine come through?”

“She's gone right up the solar steps.” From the corner where the children were playing, sharp, sarcastic little voices came.

“Oooooh, Sir Knight, my tiny, 'eeny, little sweetie puppy has made a big poopie. Can you scoop it up in your big, manly hand?” At this, Hugo's eyes rolled, and he bounded off in hot pursuit of his errant wife. Gilbert, on the other hand, seemed rooted to the spot for an instant. He turned purple, his eyes started, and then, suddenly, burst into action, reaching the corner in a few big strides.

“Gilbert, don't you dare,” I called after him. “They have good reason not to like her either, you know.”

“Sir Gilbert, justice must be tempered with mercy,”said Madame, drawing at his sleeve with her narrow, pale hand. But her face for once was most becomingly pink, and I myself had seen her wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Madame, they must learn not to mock their betters.”

“It was not their better that they were mocking,” said Madame very quietly.

“Father, we're sorry, sorry, very sorry,” said Alison, who was always quick to look after her own advantage.

“Father, she's very false,” said Cecily. “You aren't going to wear her favor, are you?” Gilbert looked horrified.

“Whatever made you think a terrible thing like that, Cecily?”

“Well, that's what we're learning about chivalry just now, but it seems very wicked.”

“And so it does to me, Cecily. You know I'd never wear any favor but your mother's. God didn't send me back from France to be false.”

“I'm glad, father,” said Cecily. “Stay away from that lady. She's tricky and bad.”

“That I shall, even at the cost of seeing more of Hugo than I'd like.”

“See Peregrine's puppy, papa. His eyes were all closed. Now they're open, and he can walk. Papa, were my eyes closed like that?”

“When you were born? No, they popped right open. I saw it myself. People aren't like puppies, you know.”

“Oh, too bad,” replied Peregrine. I had put down my sewing and come to look at the puppies, too, where they tumbled about Sir Hubert's favorite bitch hound. They had been given to the children, all four of them, to take away “as soon as possible, if not sooner.”

“They aren't so bad, if you don't think of them as dogs,” said Gilbert, cocking his head to one side to inspect them.

“I think they're lovely. They're going to look just like Lion, only bigger.”

“That's exactly what I mean. I have never seen the use of a dog that looks exactly the same at both ends.”

“Well,
he
seemed to know the difference,” I said, picking up one of the puppies.

“Margaret! In front of the the children!” I couldn't help smiling at the shocked look of reproof on his face. Something about my Gregory had never left the monastery, even after all this time.

T
HE CHAPEL AT BROKESFORD MANOR was very cold and gloomy, for being one of the oldest parts of the house, it had stone walls twelve feet thick and was lit by the narrowest of cruciform slit windows, designed to keep any stray arrows from penetrating the sanctuary. Whatever whitewash or holy paintings it once boasted had in some previous century fallen victim to the oozing damp in the walls. And though it was attached to the great hall, the alterations in the ancient stonework made to accommodate later extensions of the hall had left the chapel connected by a narrow and inconvenient stone corridor that cut it off from the general traffic to and fro in the hall and increased the general sense of isolation of that chamber.

This tall, circular room, its ceiling blackened by candle smoke and its flagstone floor colder than a sheet of ice, contained little but a stone altar decorated by a cloth gray with antiquity, and a couple of cheap iron candlesticks. But in com- pensation for this lack of sacred furnishing, it was used for storing old furniture, harnesses in need of mending, and what paper and writing implements the manor possessed. It had also once possessed a ghost, but even she had given up on the place. The Lord of Brokesford liked his chaplains drunk and his penances light. This meant that every so often he lost one, usually to the steep outer tower stairs or the fishpond in the dark, or sometimes just to that overbalancing of the bilious humor which turned them yellow and rendered them incapable of further service. But the general effect of this turnover in spiritual
advisers was that the chapel tended to be neglected, which made it gloomier still.

Madame, with her passion for renewing altar cloths, had thought the place a worthy project. But the village church was so much more cheerful and it was so much more delightful to sit in the sunny garden to sew whatever was needed, that the chapel rarely echoed to her footsteps. Margaret, having paid a perfunctory visit, suddenly remembered all the gloom and grief she had once experienced there, and decided that she would worship God in Nature, except on Sundays, when the village church was full of joyful comings and goings.

Only Gilbert frequented the place, and he rarely, coming just to renew his paper, ink, and sand, for he was deep in the throes of creation. It had come to him in the middle of the night, a powerful inspiration for a lament in the old style, concerning a Christian knight held captive by Saracens. It involved a whole series of new thoughts that he, a master of satiric verse and theological polemic, had never entertained before. These thoughts involved a very complex and delicious self-pity, and why they had come to him during this visit to his father's house, which he considered the very antithesis of art and learning, escaped him. Margaret was very happy to see him mentally occupied, for he was at his best when inspiration struck. It made his eyes bright and his face rapturous. People who didn't know him thought he was in love.