The House Of Lanyon

“Then go and fetch ’un,” said the woman. “He’m unloading the boat. You can take over from ’un. And ax the gentleman in!”

“I’ll want to come back with ’un,” said Marion querulously, standing aside to let Richard enter. “With Dad, I mean. I’ve met the gentleman’s son and it’ll be about me.”

“All the more reason for you to keep out of it. Send your father back here and you stop down there and get that there boat emptied. Go on!”

Marion clearly didn’t want to go, and pouted. Her mother stared at her fixedly, however, and after a moment she left.

“I don’t want to offend anyone, least of all a man and wife in their own home.” Richard, sitting by the fire with his hat on his knees, was conscious of being on someone else’s territory. Not that it was much of a territory. It seemed to consist of this main room, half the size of the one at Allerbrook, an upper half-floor, reached by a ladder, where he could see some pallet beds, and a small back room, partly visible through a half-open door. In there, he could see a workbench with what looked like some half-made garment thrown over it.

A wise arrangement, no doubt, if one wanted to keep bits of thread out of the cooking and bits of fish out of the stitchery. Dried fish hung from the beams above his head, and there were scales and innards all over the table. His farmhouse was plain, but it had a decent oak front door and two spare bedchambers and even a parlour. They weren’t used much, but they were there. This place was squalid. It also reeked of fish. The smell was far stronger and much more disagreeable than the woolly odours of Nicholas Weaver’s home.

Manners, however, were manners. “I’m here on an awkward errand,” he said, “but likely enough, you’ll feel the same way as I do. You’ll be Master Locke, I think?” He addressed the elder of the two men who had come up from the quay shortly after Marion had left. The younger one had the same pale, wiry hair as Marion. The hair probably came from the father, if the older man were he, though his mop was turning grey. “And you—” he looked at the woman who had been tending the pot “—are Mistress Locke?”

“That’s right,” the older man said. “That’s my wife, Mary, and this here’s my son Art and this is my daughter-in-law Sue.” Sue was the one who had been gutting fish. She had left her work and joined the rest of them on seats by the fire. She had a smiling pink face, and by the look of her, was expecting a baby in a few months’ time.

“And the wench who came to fetch us,” said Master Locke senior, “is my daughter Marion. I’ve a notion it’s her you want to talk about. She said it could be. She said she knows your son.”

Art said glumly, “Here we go again.”

“She does know him,” said Richard, plunging straight to the point, “and it’s difficult. But I’m Richard Lanyon from Allerbrook farm, far over the moor. I rear sheep and grow corn and sell wool. It’s a different life from yours. My boy Peter met your Marion at last summer’s Revel and he says they’ve agreed to marry but…there’s no use going all round the moor about it. I’ve other plans for Peter. Besides, I don’t think he’s right for your girl, or she for him. What do you think?”

“I suppose the lad claims they’ve betrothed themselves?” said Master Locke. He didn’t sound surprised.

“More or less, yes.”

“That’ll be the third time,” said Marion’s mother crossly. “All the lads go after her, she’s got such a pretty face.” Richard heard this understatement with amazement. Did these people, who lived together as a family, never actually look at each other? Pretty? A girl as striking as Marion? You might as well say the sea was wet.

“Aye, she’ll promise anything to anyone and go further, very likely,” Art said. “Reckon she did go further last year, with that young sailor off that ship from Norway that had some foreign name. Fjord-Elk, that’s it. Dunno what it means. She’s in port again now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marion isn’t on the lookout for that young fellow now this minute.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Master Locke assured Richard. “She needs to be married and soon will be, but to someone like ourselves. There’s a likely boy in Porlock, along the coast. Too many folk round here are cousins of ours and the priest won’t have that. You did right to come and warn us, but nothing’s going to come of this. Two silly young people get together and say things, but we don’t need to take no notice. I say nothing about your son, but Marion’s always saying things to young men, mostly the wrong ones. Will you take a dish of stew and a drop of ale with us?”

“I’ll take our share down to Marion,” said Art, “and we’ll eat and drink together and I’ll tell her I’m tired of her foolishness.”

“It’s natural, at her age. She’s barely seventeen,” his father said tolerantly. “We’re an easy-natured lot,” he said. “We don’t watch each other. Marion’s daft and the boys round here turn her head with their sweet talk, but I’ll see it don’t come to anything.”

“She b’ain’t in the family way yet,” Mistress Locke said. “That I do know. And she’d better not be, till she’m wed.”

“He meets her in Lynton when she goes visiting there, so my son says,” Richard said cautiously, concealing his relief at learning that Peter had at least not got his sweetheart into trouble. He had wondered, but it was a difficult question to ask.

“Aye.” Marion’s father nodded. “My mother-in-law and my wife’s sister that’s crippled with the joint evil live up there—they’ve got a cottage and a bit of land at the far end, just outside that valley with the funny-looking rocks in it. Maybe you know it…?”

“Yes, I went there once,” said Richard. It had been long ago, when he was young and had gone to the Revel, just as Peter had done in the summer. He’d taken a girl into the Valley of the Rocks, as many people called it. “I know where you mean,” he said.

“Marion takes fish to my mother and sister twice a month and brings back eggs and goat cheese for us. They keep hens and pasture a few goats in the valley—there’s others do the same—and their maidservant does the milking and makes the cheese,” said Mary Locke. “I wouldn’t like to stop Marion’s visits. They’d be hurt if she didn’t go regular, as they’re fond of her, and they like the fresh fish. And we’d miss the eggs and cheese. I’ve no time to go up there, mostly, and Sue here can’t just now. But don’t fret. It’ll lead nowhere. It don’t do for fisherfolk and farming folk to marry. We don’t understand each other’s lives. That pot of stew’s about ready. It’s not fish.” She grinned, displaying gaps in her teeth but a wealth of good nature. “Last time Marion went, she bring down a nice plump chicken as well, all plucked and drawn ready. Chicken stew, this is. Sue, get the ale.”

Richard reached home to find that Peter’s friend Ned Crowham had ridden in and that as usual, Kat and Betsy, impressed by his velvet doublet and silk shirt and the polish on his boots, had put him in the parlour, lit a fire especially for him and plied him with mutton pie and the best cider.

“Good day, sir,” said Ned civilly as Richard walked in. “I thought you might be out driving ponies off the moor or something of that kind at this time of year, but I took a chance and I found Peter here, though he’s had to go out to the fields now. Kat and Bet said I must eat before I set out for home again.” He chuckled. “As though I hadn’t flesh enough already! They said you’d gone to Lynmouth.”

“Yes. You’d nearly guessed right about the ponies, though. We’ll be bringing them in tomorrow. We fetched the cattle two weeks back.” Richard helped himself to cider.

“I heard from Betsy that congratulations were in order and that Peter’s going to marry Liza Weaver. I told him it was a good match.”

“Did you, now? And what did he say?”

“He thanked me. What else would he do?”

“Hah! Well, if he’s out on the land, he won’t overhear anything.” Richard planted himself on a settle and unburdened his soul. “You’re his friend and I fancy you’re no fool. I wish you’d try and talk sense into him. Liza’s the right girl for him, but he doesn’t think so. I’ve been to Lynmouth today to see the family of a girl—a fisher girl, would you believe it?—that he’s got himself mixed up with. They agree with me that it won’t do, but how the boy could be such a wantwit…!”

“Mixed up with? You don’t mean…?”

“No, she’s not breeding, though I’ve a feeling that that’s just luck!”

“No wonder he was so quiet when I congratulated him,” Ned remarked. “But I doubt if I can talk to him, you know, sir. I don’t think he’d listen to me. I’m fond of him, but…”

“He’s got an obstinate streak. You needn’t tell me! You youngsters!”

“You’re not so old yourself, Master Lanyon,” said Ned with a smile. “Will you think me impertinent if I ask if you’ve ever thought to marry again yourself?”

“Not impertinent, though not your business either. I’ve been content enough single.” Ned knew nothing of Deb Archer and Richard saw no need to tell him. “What brought you here today?” he asked.

“Why, to ask both you and Peter to my own wedding. My family have found me a lovely girl, from east Somerset, near where Peter and I went to school. We’re to marry in the new year. If Peter and Liza are married by then, he must bring her, too.”

The Luttrells heard Mass each day in the castle, said by Father Meadowes, but on Sundays they and their household came down into the village and joined their tenants in worship at the fine church which Dunster shared with the Benedictine monks of St. George’s Priory. It was an uneasy partnership, with frequent arguments about who could use the church when, and who was to pay for what, but the Luttrells—mainly by dint of donations to the priory and regular dinner invitations to the prior—did something to keep relations smooth between the villagers and the monks.

To the villagers, they were familiar figures: fair, bearded, broad-built James Luttrell, putting on weight in his thirties; his wife, Elizabeth, who had been born a Courtenay, no longer a young girl but still good-looking because of her well-tended complexion and the graceful way she managed her voluminous, trailing skirts and the veiling of her elaborate headdress; their well-dressed young son, Hugh; their household of servants and retainers, and the castle chaplain, always known as Father Meadowes because he did not like the custom of addressing priests by their first names, along with his assistant, Christopher Clerk.

All the week, Liza had said to herself, On Sunday Christopher will be in church. On Sunday I shall see him.

She was seeing him now. The Luttrell family had benches near the front while the rest of the congregation stood behind them, but Christopher had placed himself to one side, and was able to glance over his left shoulder and scan the body of the church without it being too noticeable. He caught her eye and let a smile flicker across his face. Liza smiled, too, when her parents weren’t looking.

Afterward, when the service was over, everyone trooped out as usual through the round-arched west door built by the Normans who had founded the priory, and gathered in sociable clusters among the graves, exchanging news and dinner invitations with neighbours. The Luttrells were accosted by the prior, who wished to complain that some unknown person, presumably from the castle, had carved a pattern into one of the benches and he wanted the miscreant brought to justice.

Mistress Elizabeth shook her head gravely, although the fact that she had her little brown-and-white dog under her arm, and he was struggling to get loose, somewhat spoiled the effect. Father Meadowes had also stopped to listen to the prior’s complaint but Christopher, who had been walking respectfully in the rear, moved unobtrusively aside and stood looking up, as if studying a gargoyle on the church roof.

Her own family had fallen into conversation with a group of neighbours. Liza, grown cunning through desperation, drifted gently away as if to approach a group of chattering girls, all acquaintances of hers, but passed them and used them as a shield as she came to Christopher’s side and paused, also looking upward.

“That gargoyle,” said Christopher, pointing, “is supposed to be the face of the prior who was here when the church was being partly rebuilt, not so long ago. So Father Meadowes says. It isn’t very flattering, is it?”

“No, it isn’t. I should think the stonemason hated the prior.”

“I think that, too, but Father Meadowes doesn’t know any more. Liza, I can’t bear it. I can’t go on to become a priest. I’ve made some enquiries, discreetly. It’s unlikely that I can get legally free of the church but I can still run away from it. Will you run away, too, and come with me?”

At any moment the group of girls might move away and her family would see her talking to a young man. Christopher, pointing up at the roof, was apparently instructing her on history or architecture, but that would be a poor protection if the whispers her parents had heard had hinted at the identity of her illicit suitor. But she couldn’t answer him quickly, not over a thing like this. She must say, “Christopher, I need time to think.” She must be sensible….

Christopher…

The sensible thing to do was to say, No, we mustn’t. It’s wrong. The church would hunt us down. My family would never forgive me. I’m sorry, but I can’t.