A Traveller in Time (8 page)

We passed the oak-studded door of the church, and the yew-trees in the churchyard, and took a path skirting a lawn smooth as green silk with a cedar-tree in the centre. On the border grew an oak-tree which I recognized as the giant tree under which I had rested with Uncle Barnabas. The forking boughs and the horizontal branch were the same, but the girth of the tree was smaller.

Uncle Barnabas! The memory shot through me and I struggled as in a dream. Where was he? Then he faded from my mind as Tabitha's warm fingers drew me on. Our path was separated from the green by a yew hedge with peacock and ball trimly cut. Through a wicket I saw a lady pacing under the cedar, reading a letter. A couple of hounds lay with their noses between their paws, half asleep, and a small spaniel danced round her flowing skirts.

I stopped to stare at the lady in her fine dress sprinkled with little embroidered flowers on the kirtle and the stiff white ruff upstanding round her neck. Then I whistled softly to the dogs.

“Good boy! Here!” I called and the lady lifted her head and stared at me in amazement just as if I had no business to be there.

“Hush, wench!” cried Tabitha. “Have ye no sense? You mustn't call when Mistress Babington is here. Where are your manners? Haven't you been taught none in Chelsey? And whistling! Don't you know the adage: ‘A whistling woman and a crowing hen deserves to have their heads cut off'?”

Tabitha reproved me with angry voice. The dogs came bounding across the lawn, but when they came near me they gave little whimpers of fear and retreated with their tails between their legs. I cared nothing for Tabitha and held out my hand trying to coax them, but they ran back to the lady, growling and trembling.

“Tabitha,” she commanded in a clear, young voice, proud and haughty. “Tabitha. Bring that boy to me, and don't talk of heads being cut off. There are too many heads lost in these days to joke about it.”

“She's no boy, Mistress. She's Penelope, niece to Dame Cicely, come from Chelsey to help her aunt. She's dressed up in some clothes from the playacting chest, or from that press where the poor folks' weeds are kept for Mistress Foljambe's charities, Madam.”

“Come here, girl,” said Mistress Babington, and I opened the gate and went close to her. I looked up into her pale face, at her deep blue eyes in which there was unhappiness, and the crimson bow of lips unsmiling and stern. Her hair was brown with little curls on her forehead, half hidden under a white winged cap of delicate lace standing stiffly out like petals of a rose.

“You are the girl who looked into my chamber. I remember you,” said she slowly, staring at me as if puzzled.

“Curtsy to Mistress Babington,” whispered Tabitha fiercely, and I obeyed.

“What is your name?” asked Mistress Babington.

“If it please you, my lady, it's Penelope Taberner from Chelsey, London,” answered Tabitha speaking for me eagerly.

I opened my mouth to interrupt but Tabitha went on in her cheerful way as if wishful to change the lady's thoughts from London. “We're going to gather herbs for your possets, Madam, and for Mistress Foljambe, and that's why we came this road.”

“Away with you then, Penelope, and see you obey your aunt, for she is the mainstay of this house of ours, and if you grow up like her it will be well. But don't go hunting in the play-acting chest, nor must you ape the men and whistle.”

She gave a sad little smile which made me like her, she flicked her long white fingers to dismiss me and turned away.

All the time we had talked the dogs were whimpering, but when I went through the narrow wicket in the yew hedge they returned and played round the lady's violet silk dress. She sat under the cedar-tree looking after me, and I glanced over my shoulder and saw the sunlight fall through the flat boughs and fleck her dress and cap with bands of brightness.

“Who is that lady?” I asked Tabitha as we hurried along the unevenly paved path. “Who is she and why did I have to curtsy?”

“She's Mistress Babington, Master Anthony's young wife, as is mistress here. Leastways she is mistress part of the time, but when Mistress Foljambe, Master Anthony's mother, comes from Darby then we have two to obey. But they get on well together, and we love them both. You curtsy because it is the custom. Don't you curtsy to your betters in London, or are you freer in your manners there? What ails you? You'd best have a cupful of rue to-night to clear your wits.”

She spoke severely but in a minute her face brightened as she looked through the bushes.

“Let us run down this alley where no one can see us. There's the herb-garden at the end. You pick the herbs and I'll go about my own affairs. I must have speech with Tom Snowball the gardener.”

So I gathered the pungent grey-green herbs which grew on many small bushes in the Thackers herb patch where I had been before, and I sniffed the strong, clean smells which were those which permeated the Thackers kitchen, where bunches hung from the beams and walls. As I filled my large basket with the sprays and leaves I looked round at the flowers in surprise, for although my Aunt Tissie's garden had many a bloom as I knew very well, for I went there every day for a posy, this garden was more carefully tended, and lay in straight lines and squares like a patterned quilt. There were the same small daffodils, which my aunt called “daffodowndillies” growing in masses by the walls, and white violets in snowdrifts filling the crannies of the path. Gillyvers striped and yellow sprung from the mossy walls, where a cat crouched eyeing me balefully. The beds were bordered with little low hedges of box, smooth as green walls, cut into trim shapes like the hedge. There were bushes of Lad's-Love which sent out their rich fragrance, and lanes of lavender, and clumps of spraying rosemary, with many a rose-tree growing alongside, already in full leaf.

I wandered about on the narrow paths which led me in a maze in and out and round about a dozen flower-beds which would soon be ablaze, each one bounded by the box hedge. Pale lilies-of-the-valley and blood-red primulas were out with bees hovering round them from the straw skeps perched on stone stools farther up the garden. Tall orange lilies, bronze-budded, stood like soldiers guarding them, and overhead darted the blue swallows.

I went back to the herb patch and filled the basket. Over it I slipped the brown lid, and clasped it with a wooden pin which dangled from it. I gazed up at the blue sky and the rounded hills and woods. Then I heard laughter and away down the alley among the lilies I saw Tabitha and a young man. He wore leather leggings and rough, heavy shoes clogged with soil and a short leather coat on his back. His eyes were bright as an hawk's, and his cheeks ruddy as a ripe wood-nut. His head was black and tousled, for he had taken off his round leather hat and stood with hair on end. He put his arm round Tabitha and kissed her with loud smacking kisses, which she seemed to enjoy. Then he saw me peeping over the hedge.

“Ah! The little spying wench from London! I'll buss thee too if thou tell'st on me!” he cried laughing, and Tabitha sprang from his arms and came back very red in the face.

“Penelope! Not a word to your aunt,” she warned me.

She took the basket and together we returned along the garden path towards Thackers. When we reached the wicket I saw four ladies sitting under the cedar-tree, sewing and talking with their heads nodding together.

“Master Anthony's two sisters and his mother, staying with us. Since his marriage they spend their time between Thackers and the big house at Darby, but they all love this place best.”

I wanted to stop but Tabitha forbade me. “It is not for us to speak before we're spoken to. Keep to your own side of the hedge,” said she.

“I've seen them before, playing a game in a room,” I explained, and I peered over my shoulder at their quilted skirts and their proud, young faces and the sad eyes of the older lady.

“Maybe. They've their own parlour upstairs, but you've no business spying! You munno enter except to wait on them,” said Tabitha, severely.

We went past the open door of the church, and from within came the faint sounds of music very sweet and gay, and a boy's voice sang a carol.

“Master Francis, playing his lute,” said Tabitha grown cheerful again, and we looked through the doorway. I saw the boy who had leaned from the window, but now his face was grave. He was gazing up at the beams of the church, unconscious of my peeping eyes, singing in his clear fresh voice, plucking the lute carelessly, and the music was cold as the voice of a stone angel in the choir.

Softly, without disturbing him, we went back to the kitchen. I unlidded my basket, and scattered the herbs on the table. Then I sat down to watch Tabitha empty a creel of fresh speckled trout and start to clean them.

Aunt Cicely took boiling water and made a posset of some of the herbs she chose from my collection.

“You've brought some wrong 'uns, as I didn't ask for,” she said, turning over the green-and-yellow sprigs. “Why did you get basil and hyssop? Surely you know the names of all herbs. Your mother should have taught you. Even in Chelsey they grow in the fields, don't they? Or don't you go herb-gathering?”

“No, Aunt Cicely,” I shook my head.

All this time the humpbacked boy sat by the hearth turning the spit with the brown, crackling fowls trussed upon it, and his strange green eyes were fixed upon me. I tried to talk to him; but I couldn't understand the grunts he made.

“He's dumb, poor worm,” said Aunt Cicely with a hearty laugh, as if she thought it very amusing. “No need to talk to he. He's as the Good God made him. He was found by Master Anthony deserted by gipsy vagabonds, and he brought him here, near dying. Master Anthony's priest baptized him Jude, for he was found on Saint Jude's Day.”

The boy looked at her as she talked, and then pointed at me and made queer noises. I went up to him and took his hand in mine, for I was sorry for him with his ragged leather clothes, and hands scarred and blistered and scratched. A quiver went through him at my touch, and he shivered and gave a horrid cry. Then he bolted like a startled rabbit through the open door. Tabitha left her fish to catch him, for the spit had to be turned.

“What ails the lad? What did you to affright him, Penelope?” asked my aunt.

“I only touched his hand,” I faltered.

“He's timid as a hare. Sometimes I think he's got extra senses sent by Our Lord to make up for those others he's lost. He knows things we don't know, he feels through his fingers what we can't understand with all our ears and tongues and minds. He warns of storms brewing, and bad luck and even death. Last night he came in with a little elder pipe, made by one of the stable boys, maybe, but he played queer music like fairies might make, or even like Robin Goodfellow himself plays in the dairy, although the poor fish he couldn't hear a note, or so we think.”

She pointed to the little elder pipe which lay on the hearth and I knew I had seen one like it somewhere. I couldn't remember where, for the memory was like a faded dream, and it slipped away at once.

Tabitha came back with the boy and he sat down by the hearth, with quick glances of fear mingled with pleasure. He picked up the pipe, and then looked searchingly at me, and between our eyes a flash of knowledge swept. Once he rose and came across to the oaken stool where I sat watching Aunt Cicely and Tabitha and he touched my dress and shoes and smelled my hair, but he would not lay a finger on my outstretched hands. Then he turned back again, and kept his eyes on my movements as if I were a strange animal he did not know.

I was too much interested in all I saw to trouble about him. Our old dresser filled one side of the room, but instead of the china jugs and best dinner service there was ranged a variety of pewter plates and dishes, drinking-horns and flagons, bowls of wood and earthenware. On a shelf by the fireplace were brass and pewter pans, a great fish-kettle and some iron skillets, with little legs upon which they stood on the hearth. Wooden candlesticks were fixed to the wall, and one of the maids drew out scraps of tallow and put in fresh candles from the bundles hanging by their wicks. A pot of musk glowed golden on the deep window-sill over the broad, stone sink where I washed myself, and the scent filled the air. In the little window which looked on the church was an hour-glass with the sand slowly trickling through, and Aunt Cicely glanced at it now and then as she went to the oven and looked at the flat loaves baking there. She put her hand in a canister and brought out some strong peppermints, which she gave to me, and I sucked them as I watched the slippery, speckled trout on their bed of grass.

“Where have they come from?” I asked.

“From the River Darrand. Master Francis catched them, ready for his brother. Master Anthony's a Papist, and this is a fast day for him. We're expecting him home from London, thank God.”

The River Darrand! That was what Uncle Barnabas called the little river by whose side we drove, but others called it the Derwent. So Uncle Barnabas was right, as he always was! Yes, I knew where the trout had been caught, and my thoughts flashed down to the lovely winding river with its fringe of alders and willows, to the black stones over which it rushed, and the water-hens and kingfishers which haunted its tossing singing waters.

“Master Anthony's the Old Faith?” questioned Tabitha. “Don't he go to the chapel here?”

“Sometimes for appearance's sake, but a priest comes here with him and says Mass in his private room and teaches Master Francis Greek and Latin. We all know Master Anthony is a Catholic but it doesn't do to talk about such things these days, with the persecutions of the Catholics and hatred of the priests. We have Mass in the chapel sometimes, and why not, when it is his own chapel, and the family an old Papist family? There are spies about, but not here. Thackers is such a lonely place, nobody would ever come here. If they did they would see nothing, because there is nothing to see. We're a God-fearing family, Mistress Foljambe and young Mistress Babington, and Master Francis and all who live here, and we go to chapel on Sunday and listen to parson's long sermon, and honour the queen and keep her laws.”