“Yes,” said Meg Levant. “We all thought you was dead. Drowned or killed or put to the galleys which is death deferred. I cannot b’lieve tis you safe, unharmed by all they foreigners. Did you get to know the Spanish girls?”
“Some. They seemed much the same as ourselves.”
“Fancy. And how you’ve “rowed! And how thin yore. I mind tis no time since you was below my shoulder. Now I’m beneath yours.”
“There’s been times, Meg, when I’ve wished you were.”
“Naughty. But twas always your way to put on some mock.”
“It is not all mock. So you’re wed to Dick after all, eh?”
“What d’you mean, after all? We was pledged at Christmas and wed proper in Church St George’s Day. There’s no after all ‘bout that!”
“Dear Meg, it was but a turn of speech. He is away today?”
“The old wagon broke Saturday, so he’s gone to Truro with Tom Rose to buy some new axle pins. He’ll be ‘ome ‘night.”
“He’s a fine fellow, Dick. I’m sure he’ll make you a good spouse.”
“Ah, hark at the old man ~ Give me your blessing, will you, Maugan? Dear life, I mind you since you toddled and you was always old-fashioned. This Spanish time has not changed you. But then all our babies be growing up.”
Ever since I first knew her, Meg would retreat behind a superiority of age if I took liberties. Yet today there was a shrillness in her voice as if she meant it or wanted to mean it as if she were willing herself to draw away from me. Now she was married there could never be the same easy comradeship again. Something in her look today gave the impression that all was not well about the withdrawal, or as if perhaps she was not quite at ease with her new life. Dick was very likeable, but perhaps the vein of buffoonery in him took the romance out of his love making. Meg was a romantic girl, living when her endless duties allowed in a world of knight errants and fair maidens imprisoned in castle keeps. If a story-teller came to the house she was always the first to listen.
“All our babies are growing up.” I saw this on the next Sunday, a week after my return, when we walked to church. John was already as tall as his father. Thomas, a year younger, was square-shouldered and squat with his father’s cleft chin and a rolling bandy walk, a musical boy who played the lute well and sang; Odelia, auburn-haired and frail-looking yet in fact a tomboy pretty with dimples and a wide bewitching smile; Henry, aged 11, had eyes so thin-set over a hawk nose that he looked sinister and sometimes the oldest of the lot. Then came Maria, just six, bulging with puppy-fat that squeezed up round her eyes and swamped her pudgy nose; no-body could detect the beauty she was going to be. The last to walk in the procession was Peter, not quite 4, and he cried because it was so far, but as his mother was not there no one took notice of him until I set him on my shoulders, and then Father glowered. Perhaps he knew that Peter cried often and got his way. Perhaps he foresaw that Peter in some measure would always get his way. The two youngest of all, Elizabeth and Simon, were permitted to stay home.
I wonder now what my father would have thought if he could have seen into the future that Sunday morning as he strode vigorously along followed by his clutch of young eagles. Would he have been surprised and pleased to know that three of his sons would receive the knighthood which he had missed, and whose missing he so much resented? And would he have guessed which? Stiff, sober, formal John for whose betrothal he was already scheming? The morose but artistic Thomas, half doer and half dreamer? The acquisitive Henry, old before his time and full of claws? The sinewy Peter, slender and quick and noisy as a weasel? Simon, now attached to life so insecurely but later to be the fighter? William yet unborn?
Perhaps he could more easily have foreseen his own shabby end.
CHAPTER FIVE
Directly after church I told my father about the letter I carried for Thomas Arundell’s sister and asked permission to deliver it. Mr Killigrew was then much occupied with a Baltic hulk which had just been brought in by a Plymouth flyboat. The hulk was carrying pitch, tar, wood and cordage, these being contraband of war were subject to seizure, and my father was in haste to go down in case there might be some pickings for us, so he nodded impatiently to my request.
Mrs Killigrew, down for the first time since the birth of her eleventh child, said I might borrow Copley, her favourite pony. I was at the ferry by six, but the ferryman, a blackbearded dwarf with hands like squids, at first refused to get the larger boat out. We wrangled but when I had paid him fourpence he pulled the boat away from the side and I led Copley trembling into the box at the back. Then I had to help row, for the tide was strong.
The sun was sunk into the trees before the thatched roof of Tolverne showed. The last hundred yards of the path was much overgrown with brambles as if it had been scarcely used this summer, and Copley was nervous as small animals stirred in the undergrowth and birds twittered in the low branches above his head. Even though there had been no rain today the track was miry, and ferns and weeds were rank with moisture. In the yard of the house the cobbles were slippery with mud, and a great pool submerged the half of it. As I jumped down Jonathan Arundell ran out. When he saw me he stopped and looked nonplussed, but by now I was used to this greeting.
“Maugan! But we took you for dead. You were taken by pirates or Spaniards!” He peered past me. “This is a happy surprise. Since when are you home?”
“Seven days ago. You see I’ve not waited long to call.”
“No …” He looked past me again as he patted my shoulder. “This is good news. Come in, come in. Did you come by the ferry? You saw no one on the way?”
“Except the ferryman who scowled like a murderer. You were expecting visitors?”
“Yes. My uncle. And Thomas. They should be here before night falls. What brought you safely home?”
I told him as he led the way in. The house was dark and seemed empty, but while talking I hoped and prayed Sue would suddenly step from some doorway. He stopped to call a servant, who came with a lighted candle and began to light others. Jonathan looked thin and ill. In the galleried hall the remains of a meal were on the table. The candles stained the graying daylight, and portraits grimaced on the panelled walls.
“Is Sue here?” I said, breaking into his tank because I could wait no longer.
“Sue?” He frowned and rubbed a hand over his forehead.
“Sue Farnaby.”
“Oh … No. She left. She left in May. Maugan, there is much to explain, and since you must lie here the night I shad try to explain it. Throw your bag on that chair. Sit down. You’ve eaten?”
“Not since dinner. But I can take something later. Why did she leave? What is wrong?”
“All is wrong, Maugan. Our lives have been sliding downhill for two years. You remember how Sir Anthony was at Christmas when you were here. Well, it has gone from bad to worse. Thomas swears he is mad, but that’s not true; my father is torn apart in conscience and belief, and his struggle has become our struggle so that we as a family are torn also, brother against brother, sister against sister-in-law!”
“It is all to do with religion? What had Sue “
“As a young man my father was as staunch a Protestant as any Killigrew; but as the years have passed the old religion has attacked him like a canker, creeping upon him and upon us.” Jonathan twisted his face. “For my part, Maugan, I cannot seem to feel religion that deep if the truth were told I do not find myself hostile to some of the old forms and beliefs: for me they have a beauty that the new way of worship lacks … But I would not live or die for either. Perhaps it’s a weakness of mine. Thomas thinks so. All I’m concerned for is a happy home, especially for Gertrude, my wife, who has the feelings of her father. So …” He shrugged. “So it went on for a time, a smouldering pot sending up the occasional bubble of steam. As Thomas has grown to manhood he has hated all the things my father is now devoting his life to. A sterner Protestant than Thomas never drew breath … Oh, he has some reason on his side. Sir Anthony has become less cautious; people have talked; it’s a matter of time before he comes into conflict with the sheriff’s officers … Thomas has lived on tenterhooks, says it should not be left to a sick man to lead his family into disgrace. My mother … well you can see how she is torn. Then in January a Godfrey Brett came to stay. He is still here and pretends to be my father’s secretary. I trust I can tell you this without fear of its being repeated?”