Alinor shook her wet shawl out of the door and put it on a hook, then pulled her cap lower over her fair hair. “If I may,” she said.
“I knew you’d be desperate to see him,” the cook said shrewdly. “But he’s well. He’s not pining. At any rate, he eats well enough, he’s not off his feed.”
Stuart gave a short laugh. “He’s not that!”
“Did I ask you?” the cook demanded, and Stuart ducked his head and went out to stock the wood basket, as a bell in the hall sounded three times.
“We can go now,” Mrs. Wheatley said, rinsing her hands under the pump at the kitchen sink and drying them on the cloth at her waist. She laid aside her stained apron, revealing a clean one underneath, and led the way out of the kitchen.
The two women went down the stone-flagged corridor towards the entrance hall. Three dairymaids were waiting outside the carved wooden door to the Peacheys’ private chapel, lined up before the wall in silence. Alinor and Mrs. Wheatley joined them. His lordship’s valet, Stuart, another footman, a couple of grooms, and two gardeners took the opposite wall.
Alinor heard the Peachey family descending the great wooden stairs. First, his lordship, magnificent in dark red velvet with a rich lace ruff, tall hat on his head, cane in his hand, gloriously overdressed for a country morning, for attendance at his own private chapel. His eyes flicked incuriously over his household and stable staff; he did not even notice Alinor. Behind him came his son, dressed more plainly in a brown suit of knee breeches, and a jacket over a linen shirt with a short white collar. He was bareheaded with his light brown hair brushed smoothly, falling to his shoulders. He recognized Alinor, who had nursed him in two illnesses, and he smiled at her and turned to speak to the boy who followed him down the stairs. It was Rob. Alinor would have known him in a heartbeat for her boy, her beloved boy, but he was transformed. He was wearing an old dark green suit of Walter’s with a clean white linen collar edged with a little lace, white woolen stockings to his knees, and black shoes with buckles. Everything was a little too small for his long legs and growing frame, the jacket sleeves showed his bony wrists, the breeches were pulled too high; but he looked nothing like the boy who had emerged unwashed from the cottage by the mire to play barefoot in the churchyard before school.
When he saw his mother, his beaming smile was just the same, and Alinor’s face shone back at him. With a tiny lift of his shoulders he showed off the jacket and the white lace collar, and Alinor nodded her silent admiration. As Sir William arrived at the foot of the stair, Mr. Tudeley, the steward, stepped forward to greet his lordship, and Rob came to his mother, knelt for her blessing and then bounced up, and hugged her tightly.
“I knew you would come,” he said with a giggle in his whisper. “I knew you would.”
“I had to see you. I couldn’t wait till Sunday. Is everything all right?”
“It’s well,” he said. “It’s very well.” He released her and fell into line with the Peachey procession. His lordship walked down the hall, his high heels clicking on the stone floor, his beribboned cane tapping a counterpoint to his stately progress towards the chapel doors, followed by his son, Mr. Tudeley, and then Rob. All the servants curtseyed or bowed as his lordship went by, and then followed in strict order of precedence as the double chapel doors opened wide for them, and there, bowing to his lordship in the doorway, in a suit of dark black with the austere white collar of the reformed preacher, was Father James.
He rose up from his bow and preceded the Peachey family to the ornately carved seats in the chapel. He went past them to step behind the bare communion table, which was placed firmly at the crossways of the chapel. There was nothing on the table but the Bible in English, and the Prayer Book, approved by parliament, open at the morning service. There was nothing to betray him as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church: no vestments, no candles, no incense, no monstrance displaying the sacred host. It was as clean and clear as any chapel in the land. Oliver Cromwell could have prayed in the Peachey pew without troubling his conscience.
His lordship took his place in his seat, his son beside him, Rob a little farther along, and the household assembled behind them. Alinor, standing beside the cook, a few pews behind Sir William, could not take her eyes from Father James as he bent his dark head and read the bidding prayer. He raised his head and, for the first time, he saw her.
His expression changed at once. She knew that her own face was frozen. It felt like a physical shock to see him after thinking of him with such secret delight for so long. She had thought that they would never meet again; and yet here he was, under the same roof as her son, just a few miles from her home. Dutifully, Alinor bent her head and repeated the new prayers. She watched him from under her eyelashes as he moved slowly and confidently through the phases of the service, from the bidding prayer to the declaration of faith.
When he looked up from the Prayer Book and their eyes met again, he seemed intent only on the words of the service. He did not acknowledge Alinor, and she kept her head down, trying not to watch him, wondering if he had won a place for Rob in the Peachey household as a great favor to her, or if he had put her son in grave danger: in a royalist house with a recusant priest.
The household took communion in strict order of precedence—bread only, no wine at the plain wooden table set square in the middle of the chapel like a dining place for common men. Sir William went first, his son next, the steward behind him. Alinor smiled to see her son follow the steward. As a companion of the young lord he went before all the servants. Alinor followed Mrs. Wheatley and found herself in front of Father James, her hands cupped to receive the holy bread from his steady hand. She took it and swallowed it and said “Amen” clearly before she moved away. Her mother had always been particularly observant of the ritual of the church service. A wisewoman should always make clear that she had swallowed the bread and was not smuggling it out for use in healing magic. Alinor could almost hear her mother’s voice as she went back to stand behind the Peachey family pew. “Take care. Never cause folk to question. You have to be—always—in the bright light of day.”
Alinor knelt and buried her face in her hands. Having rescued a papist, brought him to a royalist safe house, put her son into service under a cavalier lord, and lied to her brother, she feared she was very far from the bright light of day.
Mrs. Wheatley nudged her. “Amen,” she said loudly.
“Amen.” Alinor rose to her feet and joined in.
It was the bidding prayer that released them. Sir William rose to his feet, remembered not to bow towards the old stone altar, which stood ignored, swept bare of the rich gold and silver, under the eastern window of the chapel. His lordship turned his back on the consecrated ground as if it were not his family’s long-revered sacred space, and led the way out. Everyone followed him. Only the priest stayed in the chapel, his head bent in prayer in the silent whitewashed room.
“I go to breakfast now.” Rob appeared at his mother’s side as the household dispersed to work. At once Alinor put her arms around him and kissed the warm top of his head.
“Is everything all right?” she asked him quickly. “Are you well treated?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I get beef for breakfast, and ham if I want it.”
“You go,” she agreed. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”
A quick smile and he was gone, trotting after Walter. As he came alongside, he deliberately bounced against Walter and the noble-born boy jostled him back as if they were both village children in the churchyard. Alinor, watching, realized that her son was happy, and his companionship with the son of the lord of the manor was a real friendship.