Mist Over Pendle (30 page)

“So soon?” she called.

“Aye,” he said quietly. “So soon.”

“You’re well come,” she told him. “Well indeed.”

She turned to Roger, as though inviting him to add his word to that. But Roger did not share her raptures; he kept his experienced eyes on the younger man’s face, and when he spoke his tone was grave.

“What trouble are you in?” he asked quietly.

Margery’s smile faded quickly as she looked from the one man to the other. Then she listened anxiously as Frank Hilliard told his tale. He told it where he stood, barely inside the door, with his gloves still in his hands and cloak still dusty about his shoulders. Yesterday’s early start, he said, had brought him to Lathom by the afternoon, and he had at once gone to the Earl’s closet. He had sent in his name--and had been denied audience. Through the evening he had stayed in the ante-room, cooling his heels and asking himself what this portended. Not till midnight had he been admitted, and when he was at last in the closet his reception had been cold and hostile. A frigid Earl had as good as accused him, not merely of negligence, but almost of connivance in the escape of Christopher Southworth, priest. The audience had ended with His Lordship’s curt command that Master Hilliard should at once depart from Lathom, and should not presume to return until that meddlesome priest had been re-taken--how or by whom did not signify. Master Hilliard had been given no chance to make a protest. A chamberlain had at once swung the door for him, and he had fancied as he left that even the clerk at the side-table was permitting himself the insolence of a smile.

He ended his tale and looked diffidently at Roger.

“The only comfort I had, sir, was the scope of the invitation you sent me off with. And--and in short sir, here I am.”

“You did well.” Roger spoke gravely. “As Margery has said, you’re well come. So be at ease on that score.”

He lapsed into silence, and Margery’s agitation grew. She had feared that there might be some recriminations over the priest’s escape, but it had never occurred to her that anything more than carelessness could be in question. An accusation of connivance, even if there was little to support it, was another thing, and Margery had no wish to see so grave a charge laid at Frank’s door. Her liking for him apart, she knew well enough that she was herself the true culprit here, and that he was merely paying for what she had contrived. She glanced round her unhappily. Frank was still standing quietly with his eyes on Roger, whose face seemed carved from stone. Tom Peyton lurked in the shadows, missing nothing; and the door creaked suddenly as the wind swayed it.

“I never could hold that fellow’s name,” said Roger slowly. “What is it Tom?”

“Which fellow sir?”

“The fellow at Lathom. Alice Nutter’s nephew, or whatever he calls himself---“

“Potter, sir.”

“Potter it is.” Roger spoke it grimly. “Matthew Potter, a Clerk of the Closet--hard by His Lordship’s ear.”

Master Ormerod’s sermon the next morning was no more to Roger’s taste than might have been expected. He slept through most of it, and then came out of the church in a fine sardonic humour.

“There’s a windy rogue,” he grumbled as they came into the churchyard. “Wind enough for a May-Day bladder, and sense by the same reckoning. I’ll get me a cloak with a higher collar.”

“Collar is it?” Frank Hilliard was answering him from Margery’s other side. “I’ve never known why the Scold’s Collar can’t be fitted to a windy parson. There’s many a woman bitten it for less.”

Margery’s forehead began to crinkle. She could never resist this kind of thing.

“It’s the woman who commonly suffers,” she said provocatively. “As this morning.”

Roger’s eyebrows took their familiar lift.

“How?”

“I stayed awake.”

His laughter gave scandal to some worthy worshippers, and Margery waited warily for the retort which it would not be in his nature to forgo. But this time he did forgo it. The gleam perished from his eyes and the laugh from his lips; his shoulders stiffened, and his face froze to formality. Margery suddenly understood, and she turned quickly as Alice Nutter came upon them.

Roger’s beaver swept impeccably. Frank’s followed. The two curtseys came a second later, the one exact and the other elegant.

“Your servant, ma’am. We are all your servants.”

He was half smiling and wholly assured; and Margery, stealing a quick glance, marvelled at his easy air; only the steadiness of his eyes gave hint of his wariness.

“I had not expected the pleasure of seeing Master Hilliard here this morning.”

It was very properly said, and her tone could not be called discourteous; it had something that compelled attention; that was all. But Frank Hilliard began to look diffident.

“In truth, ma’am, I’d hardly expected it myself,” he answered, and Alice Nutter nodded pleasantly.

“Life brings surprises, Master Hilliard. Perhaps we should be glad of that. To know what is in store for us might not always breed happiness. Do you not think so, mistress?”

Without warning the dark eyes were on Margery, and for a moment her mind was a frightened chaos. Power and menace were shooting from those depths, and a wild urge was on her to turn and run. Then, as if from a far, cold distance, she heard her own voice.

“It’s very true, ma’am. And it’s most true for those who do least heed it.”

Where she had that answer from, she never knew. The voice was hers, but the words were not; they seemed to come to her from outside herself. And while she wondered at them, a new thought came flooding through her, sweeping away fear and bringing assurance. To be frightened of Alice Nutter, to wait passively while she wove her schemes, was to wait for sure disaster; as well might a rabbit wait upon a stoat. But to meet Alice Nutter with force and daring would be to meet her with what she had never known; and that might find her unprepared. Margery’s eyes grew bright and hard as understanding grew within her.

But Alice Nutter was speaking again.

“As you say, mistress.” Her voice was rasping now, almost as though she found presumption here. “That’s more true than you know. How true you’ll learn--if you live to be a proper age.”

Margery’s retort came promptly.

“I’m already learning, ma’am. I’m in wonder at what I’ve learned--since I came to Pendle.”

The last of the worshippers, threading past this group who blocked the path, looked askance at the tense and silent figures. Mistress Nutter’s forehead was twitching, and her eyes had seething fury now. Then Roger’s voice came steadily.

“Life, ma’am, can be most uncertain--for all of us. As a Justice, I’ve had cause to notice that.”

Alice Nutter spun to face him, and he met her with a cold assurance that seemed to disconcert her. For a moment she stood at gaze, rising almost on her toes. Then she relaxed. Her face eased; her forehead smoothed; the fury faded; the smile was back on her lips.

“We grow earnest, sir, for so fair a day. But I must take my leave. Your servant, sir---“

Her curtsey was punctiliously acknowledged, and at once she was away, walking quickly in search of her horse. And with her the tension went also. Margery turned to Roger in relief, and his eyes met hers. But it was Frank Hilliard who chose to speak first.

“It’s very odd,” he complained. “There’s more here than I understand.”

“I nothing doubt it,” said Roger tersely.

He offered no further enlightenment, and he rode home in a brooding silence, leaving Margery to deal with Frank as she saw fit; and as she had no mind now for what must be difficult, she turned their talk to lightnesses. They chattered airily, and both with apparent enjoyment. But under her chatter Margery was brooding. The encounter with Alice Nutter had been more than trivial, and Margery was feeling in much need of a quiet talk with Roger.

She had it that afternoon, and it did not bring the comfort she had expected. When dinner was done, Frank went off reluctantly to write some account of affairs for his father in Warwickshire. He was, he said, a very poor hand with a pen, and he would welcome Margery’s experienced help. But on that Roger interposed firmly. He kept Margery in his parlour, and he spoke his mind with more precision than she relished; and he did not even mention Alice Nutter.

“Why,” he asked, “did young Hilliard return here in such haste from Lathom?”

Margery was perplexed. She had thought this obvious, and she said as much.

“He was invited. And he had promised to come.”

Roger nodded.

“I’d not forgotten that. And more likely than not it’s as you say. Yet there are some other possibilities, and where so much is tangled it’s well to have clear what can be clear.”

Margery began to be interested. Evidently Roger was not talking at random.

“There are some other possibilities,” he repeated calmly. “You’ve not seen Lathom yet?”

“No. But---“

“It’s almost a palace. From which it follows that life at Lathom is almost life in a court.”

He paused; and Margery sat attentive, wondering what was coming.

“Life in a court,” said Roger slowly, “teaches a man to look to his advancement--to set it before all things. And many a courtier has set it before his honour.”

He paused again, and Margery sat tensely. There was an ominous ring in this, and his grave tone supported it.

“Bear in mind,” he was saying, “that this Frank is a younger son. And it’s the way of things that a younger son must look to himself if he’s to avoid poverty.”

“He shows no sign of poverty. There’s nothing mean in his apparel.”

Margery’s sharp tone suggested that Roger’s words had stung. But he answered her quietly.

“That’s to be expected. There’s no advancement in a court for the man who’s shabby, so he must look to that before all things. He must dine off salted fish, and be at charges for a velvet cloak. That’s the courtier’s hell. And if he loses his lord’s favour---“

Again Roger paused, and Margery waited unhappily. She was too shrewd to doubt the truth of this--in general. But was it true of Frank Hilliard in particular?

“Aye,” she said at last. “And if he loses his lord’s favour? What then?”

Roger looked her in the eye.

“Then he must retrench, and sharply. He might begin by parting with his servants.”

That went home, and Margery jumped to her feet in agitation. She had wondered where the two servants were who had attended Frank when he first appeared in Pendle. This was no pleasant picture that Roger was painting for her.

“Where do you lead me?” she asked suddenly. “Whither does this tend?”

He answered that without haste.

“If Frank Hilliard returned here, as it’s very possible he did, in simple consequence of invitation given---“

“Yes?”

“Then that should mean, little cousin, that
you
are the attraction. You, your form and feature, your taste and talent, talk and disposition--all, in short, which in sum is you.”

Margery felt her cheeks tingling.

“I know nothing of that,” she said. “But if it is so, what then?”

“That would be for you to answer--if it is so.”

His tone had a dryness that brought her to earth again. She looked at him steadily.

“Will you be more plain, sir? Whither does this tend?”

“It would appear,” he said deliberately, “that his return to milord’s favour depends on the taking of Master Southworth, the Seminary. And to that, he might have hoped to find some pointer here.”

“Here?”

“Shall I say, then, in your company?” Margery’s temper fired at that.

“What?” she blazed. “He’d have me serve such ends? He’d use me slyly?”

“He may have thought you’d used him--slyly.”

Her fire died suddenly, quenched in that cold logic. That, after all, was precisely what she had done.

She looked helplessly at Roger, and to her unspeakable relief there was the hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth. She seized on that as an omen, and a faint warmth began to creep through her chilled thoughts as he spoke again.

“Now mark,” he said. “I spoke of possibilities, and I rate this no higher. It is a possibility, and no more. I’m not one of those who would drop poison between you and him. And the truth is, I do not judge young Hilliard to be a knave.” He paused, and his steady eyes held hers while that sank in. “I have, down the years, known knaves in plenty and honest men not a few. And between them I’d judge Frank Hilliard to be the honest man. You may take that to your comfort.”

He stopped, and for a moment the smile took life. Then it died again, and his quiet tones went on.

“But the possibility remains. It’s to be reckoned with, even if it’s thought unlikely. Which comes to this--that you must guard your tongue. That is all. There must be no giving of full confidence, especially in what touches Master Southworth. On that topic, silence can lose you nothing, and chatter might lose you all. Is that plain?”

Margery let her head droop. It was more plain than pleasant.

“Aye sir,” she answered. “It’s plain enough.”

He seemed to have no more to say, and Margery had no wish for more. She had not even the wish to ask him what he had thought of Alice Nutter that morning. But later, as she sat aside and brooded, those threatening exchanges held her thoughts. If Roger had been right in supposing that Alice Nutter had used her kinsman at Lathom to drop to the Earl a poisoned tale about the escape of a priest, her motive must surely have been to secure the removal from Pendle of a man whose presence spoiled her plans; she might reasonably have expected that Frank Hilliard would be instantly called from Pendle to render account at Lathom; and surprise at seeing him in Whalley church this day might well have provoked her to indiscretion. And what next? Malice seemed certain now, and it would not be for Margery alone; there would be enough of it to embrace Frank too.

Margery grew uneasy. She had brought Frank into enough trouble already without exposing him to more. Her uneasiness grew as she considered it, and soon she was anxious to lay it before Roger and have his shrewd counsel. Yet that, at this present moment, she could not do; for now Frank was back in the room, chatting with Roger about Lathom and the affairs of the County, and in his hearing she could hardly broach such a matter as this-- especially after Roger’s warning. So she had to wait. She had to wait through the evening for an opportunity that did not come, and in the end she had to resign herself to leaving the matter till the morrow.