The House Of Lanyon

All of a sudden Richard Lanyon was unsure of himself. All very well to decide that after all he ought to marry again and why not Marion, but there were things to consider. For instance, it was quite true that farm life would be strange to her, far stranger than to Liza, for Liza’s father dealt a lot with sheep farmers and she knew farmers’ wives and had some idea of how they lived.

Still, Marion was young enough to learn, and not squeamish. Fisherfolk were never that. Gutting a herring, or gutting a chicken; there wasn’t much difference really, and Betsy could show her the dairy work.

The lack of any respectable dowry was a worse drawback, but that might be offset if she produced sons to help on the farm, and daughters to be married off into useful families. Taking the long view, even a Marion Locke might provide a step or two on the upward ladder.

Yes. He could take Marion to wife and still remake the future in the shape he wanted. And put Peter in his place.

What would be harder would be convincing her parents that the proposal was a good one, especially as he and they had already agreed that such marriages wouldn’t do.

But, by God, he wanted her. He’d desired her from the moment he first set eyes on her. It was sheer desire that had overridden the old way of thinking, the taking it for granted that fisherfolk and farmers didn’t intermarry, the lack of dowry, the embarrassing fact that his own son had probably had her first. The wench was by all the evidence about as steady as a weathercock in a gale, but he didn’t care. He knew now that he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted Deb and about ten thousand times more than he’d ever yearned after Joan. He wanted to get his hands on her, to make her his, to surround and bemuse her so that she could see no other man, think of no other man, but himself.

The proper thing to do was to see her father, but instinct said no. Instinct said win the girl over first. Go hunting and bring her to bay; tame her to his hand and maybe she could help him tame her parents.

Today was a Tuesday, the second in the month. Next Tuesday was the third one, and she’d be going to Lynton to see her grandmother and aunt. Her mother had obligingly mentioned where her relatives lived—close to the mouth of that strange valley where he’d had a youthful romance long ago. He’d find the cottage easily enough. He meant to be open and honest. He’d call and ask to see the girl. Maybe he could coax her to stroll with him, alone, so that he could talk to her, persuade her…

And he’d make damned sure that Peter couldn’t get away that day. Yes. One week from now. That was the thing to do.

It was a hunter’s moon, shining ahead of the pursuers, low as yet, disappearing at times beyond shoulders of land as they came through the Quantock Hills, but when visible, bright enough to light the track in front of the horses, even to glint in the eyes of a fox as it darted across the path. They could see their way.

“Where are we?” Nicholas asked Gareth as they cantered their horses up a gentle hill and drew rein, looking down on the moonlit world. Somewhere in the distance was the fugitive twinkle of candlelit windows in a village. He knew the countryside east of his home, of course, but he had never ridden through the Quantock Hills after dark before.

“Nether Stowey, that is,” said Gareth’s Welsh voice at his side. “They’ll have gone straight through there, I fancy, if they ever came this way. If I had all of us on my heels, I wouldn’t stop till my pony fell over, indeed to goodness I wouldn’t.”

“Liza’d never push a pony too hard,” said Nicholas, and to his own annoyance, found his eyes pricking. He had been proud of his daughter, proud of her glossy brown hair and her smile and her kindness. She was good with the ponies. Yes, and better at catching them than anyone else because they would come to the field gate to meet her! How could she have so misused her gift with them, and done this to her parents?

“We’d better do some pushing on ourselves,” said Father Meadowes. “As fast as the moonlight will let us.”

They pressed on. Presently, as they came into a shallow dip, he checked his horse again, and the others slowed down with him. “What is it?” asked Nicholas.

Father Meadowes pointed ahead, to the top of the little rise in front of them. “See? Against the skyline? Two riders…there, they’ve gone over the crest.” As he spoke, his horse raised its head and whinnied. “If they’re on the Nether Stowey road ahead of us,” Meadowes said, “those two could be them.”

“They’ve been dithering along the way if it’s them,” said Gareth with a chuckle. “I wonder what for?”

“You mind your tongue,” said Nicholas.

Father Meadowes shook his steed up again. “Let’s catch up. Heaven’s been good to us—we can see where we’re going, just about. We can gallop here.”

“What are we to do tonight?” Liza asked. She was strong, but the day had taken its toll, and they weren’t covering the miles as fast as they should. They had taken a wrong track three times, once heading for the shoreline by mistake, and twice in the fading light as they made their way through the Quantocks. Time had been particularly wasted on a steep, pebbly path which turned and twisted and finally tried to take them back westward.

They were on the right road again now, Christopher said reassuringly as they came out of the hills, but she was growing tired and she was very conscious of having left her home and all familiar things behind. This black-and-silver moonlit land was unreal, alien. And she was cold. There was a chill in the air after nightfall in October.

“We’ll have to find somewhere to sleep, but if we can, we should avoid looking for lodgings or rooms at an inn,” said Christopher. “We don’t want to leave a trail behind. Maybe we should have gone another way, across to Devon, to Exeter. We’d have been that much harder to trace. But London will be easier to find than Exeter. I’ve been there before, as a lad, with my father. Exeter would be quite strange to me.”

“But tonight, Christopher?”

“I think we should try to find a barn with hay in it. I’ve got some bread and cheese with me. I managed to take it from the kitchen when no one was looking. We can eat.”

“But can we find a barn in the dark?”

“Oh, yes, I think so. Look, that’s surely a farmhouse over there. See—where the lights are? There’ll be barns there. Let’s walk the ponies. There ought to be a track turning that way.”

“But what if we can’t find a barn?”

“If we can’t find one here, we’ll find one somewhere else—on the far side of Nether Stowey. There are farms beyond it.”

“Is Nether Stowey far?”

“Only a mile or a little more. Take heart, love. I know where we are well enough.”

The search for a barn was unsuccessful. They found a lane to the right and before long they could distinctly smell a farmyard. But the lane seemed to be leading straight into it and if there were barns at a safe distance from the house, they couldn’t be seen because the lane was a sunken way between high banks with brambles on top, which hid anything on the far side. To make things worse, the darkness became intense because the direction they had taken had put the moon behind a hill. They heard sheep bleating, and then, alarmingly, a dog began to bark. Christopher pulled up, reaching a hand to the bridle of Liza’s pony, too.

“No good. If we go any farther we’ll have people coming out to meet us and we’ll have to explain ourselves. Turn round. We’ll have to go back. Sorry.”

“Oh, Christopher!”

“Don’t let’s have a wrangle here,” he said wryly. “Let’s quarrel later when we can enjoy it!”

“All right!” said Liza, and tried to sound as though she were laughing. She was beginning to feel frightened. They were losing so much time, and the pursuit must surely have begun by now.

They went back. Presently they were on the Nether Stowey road again and once more had the help of the moonlight. “Not far now,” said Christopher. “I think I know where we’ll find a barn, once we’re through the village. And the bread and cheese are fresh. Take heart.”

“I’m certainly hungry,” said Liza, determined to be cheerful. “I’ll enjoy our supper.”

Her new, if somewhat forced, cheerfulness had five minutes to live. At the end of that time, as they cantered to the crest of a rise and paused briefly to look ahead, she saw her pony’s ears flick backward, and then behind them, some way off but not nearly far enough to be comfortable, they heard a horse whinny.

“Christopher…!”

“Maybe it isn’t them,” said Christopher.

“It is! I know it is. I don’t know how I know, but I do!”

“All right. Well, let’s be on the safe side and assume it is, anyway,” Christopher said. “Come on! Let’s ride for it! We’ll look for another side lane and try to dodge into it and let them go past. If it is them. Come on!”

It was the best plan he could make. He had kept his voice steady, but he too was now afraid, for her as well as himself. He could endure whatever they did to him for this, but what would happen to Liza? He had done horribly wrong in bringing her away, but what else was there to do, other than let her go forever?

Side by side, alert for a secondary track, they urged the ponies into a gallop, taking advantage of the moonlight. But providence wasn’t with them. There was no break in the banks to either side, no escape from the track, and sturdy though their ponies were, their short strong legs could not match the stride of the Luttrells’ big horses behind them. They heard the hoofbeats catching up, and then a rider swept past them and swung his horse right across the track to block their way. They found themselves looking up into a dark, square face which Liza did not recognise, though Christopher did. “Gareth!” he said.

“Look round,” said Gareth, grinning, and they turned in their saddles to find that Nicholas Weaver and Father Meadowes had pulled up behind them.

Nicholas rode forward. To Liza’s astonishment he didn’t even look at her, but instead made straight for Christopher. “Have you taken her? Is that what slowed you down on the road? Come on! I want to know!”

“We kept missing our way and then turned aside to look for shelter,” said Liza in a high voice. “We’ve taken vows to each other, but we haven’t…Christopher hasn’t…”

“I’m glad to hear it, but no doubt it was just a pleasure postponed,” said Nicholas. He spurred his horse right up to Christopher’s pony and his fist shot out. It landed with immense force on Christopher’s jaw and the younger man reeled sideways, out of his saddle. His pony plunged. Christopher, who had clung on to the reins, scrambled up again, his spare hand pressed to his face.

“Father, don’t!” Liza cried it out in anguish. “Oh, please let us go! Let me go with Christopher! I can’t marry Peter Lanyon. I can’t. I tried, so hard, to make myself willing to marry him, but I can’t do it. It has to be Christopher…and we’ve bound ourselves…oh, why won’t you understand?”

“I understand that you’re talking nonsense and one day you’ll know it, my girl. I’ve come to take you home,” said Nicholas.