The House Of Allerbrook

Peggy Ames, the chief cook and housekeeper, came out in her stained working apron, brandishing a rolling pin and laughing all over her plain, cheery face, to help chase the geese away, and Madame La Plage, along with her hampers, was taken into the hall. Eleanor sent Jane to call her sister, and offered refreshments which Madame said she would welcome after her long ride. The wind had been chilly, she said. She kept her mind on her business, though, and while sipping wine, began to talk of Sybil and the new gowns.

“You will like the tawny especially, I think. It will look charming over the pale yellow kirtle. It is ideal for a girl with fair hair. Ah, she is such a pretty girl, your sister-in-law Sybil. The fashion now is all for dark ladies, of course, but such blond hair is rare, above all with brown eyes.”

“Sybil is pretty enough,” conceded Eleanor, just a little sourly. Her own hair was mousy and her eyes an indeterminate grey. She had never been handsome. Her dowry had got her safely married and Francis had grown fond of her, but she didn’t have the looks to turn anyone’s head, and she knew it. Sybil, at court, would probably have every young man in sight dedicating sonnets to her. One could only hope that she would behave herself. “She’s a little greedy, I fear,” Eleanor said. “She eats too much cream. I have warned her that she will grow fat, but she takes no notice.”

“Perhaps her brother Master Francis should tell her, and maybe she will take notice of him. He is not here just now?”

“No, he’s out exercising his horse and riding round the farms. He takes good care of his estate,” Eleanor said.

Madame La Plage beamed. “Ah, his horse! He is known for his love of fine horses. He has good taste in all ways, has he not? I hope he will approve my work. Well, Mistress Sweetwater, shall we call Mistress Sybil and fit the gowns? Where is she? Most young ladies come running when new clothes are delivered!”

She and Eleanor both turned as a door opened at the end of the hall, but it was only Jane, on her own.

“Where has Sybil got to? I asked you to fetch her,” said Eleanor.

“She’s in her bedchamber,” said Jane, sounding puzzled. “She seems upset about something.”

“She’s been very quiet for a while now,” Eleanor said. “Can she be nervous about going to court? It’s not like Sybil to be nervous. She isn’t ill, is she?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jane. “But I think she has been crying.”

“Well,” said Madame La Plage, “let us see what pretty new gowns can do for her, shall we?”

“May I come, too?” asked Jane.

“Yes, of course.” Eleanor had dutifully tried to love and be a mother to both her husband’s young sisters, but she had never quite managed to become really fond of Sybil. Sturdy brown-haired kindhearted Jane, on the other hand, who always had a smile in her eyes, was easy to love. Sybil was affectionate enough, but she was careless. If you sent her to fetch something from another room, she’d probably bring you the wrong thing or get distracted on the way and forget her errand altogether. Now she had apparently found a new way of being difficult. What on earth was she crying about? “We’ll all go,” said Eleanor. “Come along.”

They found Sybil reading on the window seat in her chamber. She put down her book of poems when they entered, slipped from the seat and curtsied politely to the older women. Her little pointed face was very pale, however, and her eyes were certainly red. She looked at the hampers, which Jane and Madame La Plage were carrying between them, as though they were instruments of torture, or possibly execution.

“Now, why this sad face?” said Eleanor briskly. “Come. It’s an adventure, to be going to court to wait on the queen of England! Jane will help you off with what you’re wearing and we will see how these fit. Madame, shall we start with the tawny gown?”

“Has the young lady no tirewoman?” Madame La Plage enquired. “Surely, at court…”

“Yes, we have found a maid for her, but she lives in Taunton. We shall pass through Taunton on the way to London and the woman will join us there. We live simply here at Allerbrook, and assist each other instead of employing tiring maids,” said Eleanor with regret. She had had a maid in Dorset, but Francis had seen no need for one here. He had a parsimonious streak, except when it came to buying the fine horses he so loved.

“I’ll help you,” said Jane, going to her sister.

“No. No, I can do it myself,” said Sybil.

At Allerbrook they mostly wore clothes of simple design except on feast days. Sybil’s light yellow gown was loose and comfortable and she could draw it over her head without aid. Slowly, and it seemed with reluctance, she pulled it off and removed her kirtle and undergarments, leaving only her stays.

“Stays, too,” said Madame La Plage. “New stays are included in the price and I have them here. You must have strong new stays to wear under the gowns I have made for you.”

Miserably Sybil removed her stays, as well.

“But…that is not the result of too much cream!” gasped Madame La Plage.

Jane said, “Oh, Sybil, Sybil!”

Eleanor said, “Oh, my God!” and then clapped her hands to her mouth and burst into tears.

CHAPTER TWO

Breaking the News 1535

Afterward, what Jane remembered most vividly about that dreadful day was the fear: fear on behalf of Sybil, and another, more amorphous dread that this awful discovery heralded awful changes; that nothing in their lives would ever be the same again.

It was near dusk before Francis rode in on his handsome dark chestnut horse Copper. He had been pleased with the condition of his land and stock and he came into the farmyard whistling. In the kitchen, Peggy Ames looked at the other maids, Beth and Susie, and said grimly, “Just listen to ’un! He won’t be that merry for long!”

Up in the parlour in the little tower above the family chapel, Jane and Eleanor, who had been watching for Francis and had also heard the whistling, looked at each other in anguish.

“I can’t imagine what he’ll say!” said Eleanor. She was a cool, sensible woman as a rule, but just now she looked terrified. “He’ll be so angry, and he has all the Lanyon temperament! Will he think it was my fault? That I haven’t watched over the two of you as I ought?”

“But you have,” said Jane unhappily. “You can’t be everywhere, all the time.”

“No, I can’t! God’s teeth, Sybil is the silliest little girl in Christendom! I’ll go down and meet him…oh, I don’t know how to tell him!”

Pale with anxiety, she descended the spiral stairs to the hall. Madame La Plage had long since left to go back to Minehead, and Sybil had been locked in her chamber. Francis, stepping into the hall, pulling off his red velvet hat and stripping off his gloves, greeted her and asked if his sister’s gowns had come. “I’ll have something to say to Madame La Plage if they haven’t!”

“They’re here,” said Eleanor, “but…”

“Good. I hope they’re suitable,” Francis said. “Where’s Sybil now? I want to see her in her new finery.” Then he saw Peggy looking at him from the kitchen door, and must have recognized the fear in her face and Eleanor’s. “God’s death, what’s the matter?”

“Please come up to the parlour, Francis,” Eleanor said. “I have terrible news. Peggy, bring wine. Your master will need it.”

“For the love of heaven, what’s happened? Is Sybil all right?”

“It’s worse than that. We must be private when I explain. Not that we can keep it secret for long—well, it isn’t now. All the household knows, and Madame La Plage. Jane is in the parlour, but she knows, too. She was there when…”

“Will you stop dithering, woman!” shouted Francis as Eleanor turned and led the way back up the staircase. “Tell me!”

In the parlour she turned to face him, and while Jane sat shivering in her seat by the window, Eleanor said the words that had to be said. “Sybil can’t go to court. She is expecting a child. Probably in August.”

Francis collapsed onto the nearest settle. “What was that? Repeat it, if you please.”

“Sybil can’t take up her post at court. She’s with child.”

Francis bore the name of Sweetwater, but another family, the Cornish Lanyons, also formed part of his ancestry. His blue eyes were inherited from his mother but otherwise he was a Lanyon—tall, handsome, strongly made and dark haired. He also possessed what was known as the Lanyon temperament. This was thoroughly Celtic, as passionate and explosive as gunpowder. Eleanor and Jane, observing Francis now, could almost hear the fuse fizzing toward the barrel, almost see the travelling flame.

The explosion came. Francis shot to his feet and crashed a fist on the back of the settle. “This is beyond belief! Who’s the man? Who did it? And where’s Sybil now?”

“She’s locked in her chamber. I have the key,” said Eleanor. “The man is Andrew Shearer.”

“Andrew Shearer? Of Shearers Farm? My tenant? He’s married!”

“Yes. We all went to the christening of his little son last November, if you recall,” said Eleanor, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “That’s when it happened, it seems. We went to Shearers for the celebration dinner, and stayed on after dark—do you remember? There was dancing, by candlelight. Sybil and Andrew danced together. I never noticed that they disappeared for a while, but it seems that they did. He somehow enticed her into another part of the house and…she says she hasn’t seen him since, but that he’d paid her compliments before, when they met during the harvesting. We sent her out with cider for the harvesters. She says she didn’t mind when he…I mean, she wasn’t forced. She admits that.”

“He’s married. I can’t make him wed her. I can order the Shearers off my land, of course, though they’ll only get a tenancy somewhere else, and thumb their noses at me, I suppose. I can think of three Exmoor farms straightaway in need of new tenants, since we had that outbreak of smallpox last year. The trouble that brought us! Killed our chaplain and two of our farmhands! But it’ll no doubt make life easier for the Shearers. I’ll be throwing them out on principle, that’s all. But…dear God!” shouted Francis. “Sybil’s farewell dinner is tomorrow! It’s too late to cancel it! The Carews have probably set off from Devon already!”