“It seems to me a strange coincidence that you should be lost near the house in which Dickon is a servant.”
“Life,” said Senara demurely, “is full of strange coincidences.”
When we reached the castle the servants looked at Senara with awe. I saw one of them cross herself when she thought we were not looking. This sort of thing disturbed me and filled me with a vague apprehension.
Senara did everything to encourage it which I thought very reckless of her.
“Why,” she cried to one gaping serving-girl, “did you think I’d flown off on my broomstick?” Then she went close to her and narrowed her eyes so that the girl grew pale. “Perhaps next Hallowe’en I might.”
When we were alone in our bedchamber I admonished her, but she laughed at me. She was excited as I had rarely seen her.
“Imagine Dickon a puritan!”
“Is he sincere, do you think?”
“Dickon is always sincere. He believes wholeheartedly in everything he does … at the moment. That is what I like in him. He made me feel that I could be a puritan too.”
“You, Senara! You are a pagan, which is the very opposite.”
“I could change,” she said, “perhaps. He talked to me about it. It is inspiring … in a way.”
“Inspiring to you! I never knew anyone who loved finery as you do. One day you want to be a witch. The next a puritan!”
“Dickon talked to me about the sect. They are very noble. The Deemsters are fond of him. They love converts. You see, when he went there he was such a beautiful young man, with his feet firmly planted on the road to hell. They have saved his soul. You know how attractive anything that you have saved is.”
She had learned something about the puritans. The Deemsters came from Lincolnshire. Master Deemster’s mother had been Dutch and they had ties with Holland. “They believe that life should be simplicity,” she said, “and abhor all papist idols.”
“As we do.”
“For the puritans their religion is the most important event in their lives. They care for nothing but their simple goodness. They do not believe in the riches of this life. They believe we should live humbly, simply, and that all vanity is an offence to God. They would die for their beliefs.”
“I pray God they do not have to. The King is against them and has sworn to harm them.”
“They know that well.”
“He believes that they are as the Scottish Presbytery, of which he has had some experience, and he has said that that agrees as well with a monarchy as God with the Devil.”
Senara laughed as though this pleased her. I think she was enamoured of the puritans because by pursuing their brand of religion they courted danger.
“Moreover,” I went on warningly, “the King has said at the Hampton Court Conference that he will harry the puritans out of land or else do worse. They must either conform or take the consequences.”
“Oh yes, they know this and they care not for his threats. They are planning action. One thing they will never do is give up their religion.”
I could see she was excited by her adventure and that this was in some measure due to the fact that the puritans were in danger.
I was very disturbed indeed when I discovered that she had known Dickon was at Leyden Hall. One of the servants had found out that he was there and told her. She had staged her little adventure for Hallowe’en—what a fearless reckless girl she was!—and had pretended to be lost that she might see Dickon and talk with him.
From then on she talked of him a good deal and often called at Leyden Hall. She began to learn a great deal about the puritans and their beliefs and aims, which was strange considering she was Senara.
THE TURRET LIGHTS
IT WAS CHRISTMAS DAY, my eighteenth birthday and Senara’s sixteenth. My stepmother had invited people to the castle. She seemed eager to find husbands for us both, and particularly for me perhaps because I was two years older.
During the last weeks Senara liked to go off alone. I believed that she was riding to Leyden Hall. She was becoming more and more interested in the new sect who were called the puritans. It amused me because there could be no one less like a puritan than Senara.
She had taken the feather out of her riding hat and wore it plain. She would put on a demure expression which ill-matched her brilliant long eyes with the mischief in them. Of course I had never been absolutely sure of Senara.
She talked to me about the puritans and often she would become quite earnest.
“They want to make it all as simple as possible, Tamsyn,” she said. “And religion should be simple, shouldn’t it? Do you think God wants all that ceremony? Of course He doesn’t. One should worship Him in the simplest possible way. The church is always ready to persecute those who don’t conform.”
“You are really interested, Senara,” I said. “You’ve changed since you arranged to get lost near Leyden Hall.”
“I arranged it, as you know,” she said. “I couldn’t believe Dickon had become a puritan. I had to go and see.”
“Surely he is not making one of you?”
“Can you imagine me … a puritan!”
“That is something beyond my powers of imagination.”
“No, I should never be a puritan at heart, but I admire them in a way. Think of Dickon.”
“It seems to me you think of him a good deal.”
“He is so beautiful … even now in his plain clothes and his curls pressed out he is still more handsome than any other man … even your Fenn—who has gone away without declaring his feelings—even he looks quite ugly compared with Dickon.”
“You are bewitched by him.”
“You forget I am the one who does the bewitching.”
“So it is he who is bewitched by you.”
“I think that in spite of his new puritan ideas, he is a little. For I am a very bewitching person, Tamsyn.”
“In your own opinion, certainly.”
“It is so interesting,” she said, “and so dangerous. It has been since the Hampton Court Conference.”
“Keep away from religion that is dangerous.”
“What a thing to say! Surely that is quite cynical. How can people help what they believe, and if you believe, shouldn’t you defend that belief with your life if need be?”
“Our country and my family have been torn by religious beliefs. One of my ancestors lost his head in the reign of Henry VIII, another was burned at the stake in the reign of Mary. We don’t want any more religious conflict in the family.”
“You’re a coward, Tamsyn.”
“That may be but that is how I want it.”
“They are talking of going away.”
“Who, Dickon and the Deemsters?”
“Yes, to Holland. They can worship there as they wish. Perhaps one day they will go far away and make a land of their own. They talk about it a good deal.”
I laughed.
“What amuses you?”
“That you, Senara, of all people, should be caught up with puritans. Of course it is not the puritans, I know. Can it really be Dickon?”
“How could it be? I would never be allowed to marry a man who was our music master and now grows vegetables and works for a family like the Deemsters.”
“I cannot see you in the humble role of wife to a man in such a lowly position.”
“Nay, nor could I. For I came from such nobility that is far beyond anything I have had here.”
“Oh, how do you know this?”
“My mother has told me. In Spain she moved in very noble circles—royal, in fact. So you are right when you say I could not marry Dickon.”
“Don’t look sad. It’s the first day of Christmas. We shall make merry this night. You will dance and sing for the company and no one will be merrier than you.”