The House Of Allerbrook

“Quite. They keep sheep and the abbot has a house in Dunster, where he stays when he’s there doing business in the wool trade. When the king’s receiver disposes of the abbey, the sheep will come up for sale along with everything else. It will be proclaimed, of course, but since your brother runs a big flock, I thought he might like to know in advance. Those monks are clever shepherds. Their sheep are some of the best in the county. Francis might want to buy some of them and I’m giving him a chance to get in first.”

“Yes, I see,” said Sybil bleakly, understanding but not able to summon up any great excitement about extra sheep for Allerbrook.

As though he had read her thoughts, Owen said quite gently, “You have just asked if you can visit your brother, or if he wishes to visit you. Perhaps I should explain why the answer is no. Francis has handed you into our care and—I am sorry, Sybil—but to him, you are as one who is dead. You are not badly off, living here, you know.”

“That isn’t all that I came to ask,” said Sybil. “I…I just wondered…if there were any chance…that you and Mistress Lanyon might…might arrange a marriage for me. With someone who wouldn’t mind Stephen, who would be a father to him, of course.”

There. It was out.

“Marriage,” said Owen thoughtfully. “A husband and home of your own. A father for Stephen and a lawful father for any other children you might produce. Yes, a very natural wish and not impossible, for although, I’m sorry to say, most of Lynmouth knows or guesses by now that you are not a widow, there are men who would be happy to take you on, since you have proved yourself able to bear children, and that’s something to be valued. But…”

“But?”

“Your brother absolutely forbade it, and one thing that I value is my friendship with him. He and I meet quite often. His orders were that you were to remain in our care and that since you would be perfectly safe under our roof, he had after due consideration decided that you should not marry because—” his voice hardened “—once a girl turns wanton, she is likely to remain so and is not, therefore, fit to be a wife.”

“But…”

“No buts. Whether I fully agree with your brother or not isn’t the point. I will do nothing to jeopardize my friendship with him. Be glad that you and your child have a home here. Now, please leave me. I have much to do before I sail. Ask Perkins to come here. I need him to take this letter to Allerbrook.”

“Couldn’t I even…?”

“Write a letter of your own and send it with mine? No, Sybil. And that’s final.”

So that was that. Sybil, ignoring the fact that she had a whole string of domestic tasks awaiting her, went up to the room where Stephen was playing with some little painted bricks which had once belonged to Idwal. She stood looking at him.

She didn’t love him. She had attended to his needs, obeying ancient instinct, but it wasn’t love. There were times when she almost hated him. But for him, she would have gone to court. But for him, no one would ever have known that she and Andrew Shearer had coupled in the straw at that christening party. But for Stephen…

He would be all right here. Katherine would look after him. She didn’t like him much, but she was a responsible woman, and she’d reared one son; she ought to know how to manage.

Sybil had had enough. Maidservants were paid and had days off, and if they got a chance to marry, they took it. She’d rather be a maidservant than live like this.

It was a busy time of year on farms, with the extra milking to do, more eggs to collect and weeds capable of choking a vegetable bed almost overnight. Next month there would be shearing and haymaking, too. It ought to be possible to find employment.

She thought about the locality. Above Lynmouth towered the cliffs; she must begin by climbing up to Lynton, the little town at the top. Beyond that, if one went on, inland and uphill, lay the open moor and there were few farms there, but there were some in the combes around the edges. If she turned east and followed the East Lyn River, surely she would come to farmsteads, to places where extra hands might be needed.

They could have Sybil’s hands, and pay for them. She was leaving. First thing tomorrow morning.

“Gone?” said Eleanor after she and Jane had listened in horror to Francis as he stood in the hall and read them the contents of the second letter in two days to come from Lynmouth.

Perkins, the Lanyons’ hardworking manservant, had on returning to Lynmouth after delivering Owen Lanyon’s news about the sale of Cleeve Abbey, found himself obliged to go back to Allerbrook again the very next morning, bearing a further missive, penned by Katherine in frantic haste. Owen and Idwal had left for Bristol and would probably have sailed for Venice before the news could catch up with them but Sybil’s family at least could be informed. “She can’t have gone!” Eleanor protested. “Where would she go? What happened?”

“Aye, what? It’s not right, a young girl like that, wanderin’ on the moor all alone!” Peggy gasped. She and the maids were also present and listening with scandalized expressions. “It’s dangerous, that sort of thing,” Peggy added.

Perkins, standing deferentially to one side, spoke up. “The mistress thinks that the girl ran off early today. She was in the house last night, right enough. But today the little boy Stephen started calling out for his mother, and we found Mistress Sybil wasn’t there. Her things were gone from her room and some food from the kitchen and a water flask.”

“Someone must search for her!” Jane cried. “Somebody will have seen her. She shouldn’t be hard to find, surely?”

“Yes. She must be found, before something happens to her!” agreed Eleanor anxiously.

“Mistress Katherine is getting a few folk together and sending them to enquire up in Lynton and round about,” Perkins said.

“Quite.” Francis nodded. “I certainly hope she will be found and brought back. But there’s nothing we can do from here. There never is anyone to spare at this time of year. We’ll pray for her, naturally. She is even more foolish than I thought. First she throws away her chances of going to court. Now she throws away the only home and shelter that she has. However did I come to be saddled with such a ridiculous sister?”

“Oh, how can you be so unkind!” wailed Jane.

Francis looked at her coldly. “There is no unkindness. On the contrary, she has always been treated more gently than she ever deserved and see how she repays it. Peggy, take Perkins to the kitchen and see that he has refreshment. His horse must have some rest, as well.”

“You care more for the horse than for Sybil!” Jane shouted.

“Mind your manners, sister,” said Francis. “And yes, an honest horse is to my mind worth more than a silly, lightskirt wench.”

At Stonecrop Farm, just above Porlock, the days at this time of year began at cockcrow. Bess and Ambrose Reeve rose as usual shortly after the sun, splashed their faces and dressed quickly. Bess dragged a comb through her greying hair and bundled it under a cap. Downstairs, their daughter Alison and the maidservant Marian were already astir, waking up the banked fire in the kitchen, while the farmhands were pulling on their boots, about to go and feed the plough oxen and the pigs. Ambrose went to help them.

The morning was fine, the grass asparkle with dew. Bess and Alison collected pails and set off for the field where the cows were grazing, to milk them out of doors. Two of the dogs went with them, not barking loudly, because they had been trained to be quiet when near the sheep and cattle, but sometimes woofing softly, running here and there with noses to the ground.

Until, as they passed the haybarn, one of the dogs stiffened, pointed his pewter-coloured nose at the barn, and in defiance of all his careful training, started to bark very noisily indeed.

“Now, what’s amiss with you? Be quiet!” Alison seized his collar.

“He never does this as a rule. Now Brindle’s started! There’s something wrong in that barn,” said Bess. “Be a vagabond or something in there, if it b’ain’t a fox. Put thy pail down, Alison, and come along.”

“But Mother, if there’s a wild man in there…an outlaw…”

“We’ve got the dogs. Go and fetch a hayfork! That’ll be enough.”

Sybil, curled miserably in the hay, had barely slipped beneath the surface of sleep, because her empty stomach wouldn’t let her. She woke suddenly, to find two women, both in brown working gowns and white aprons, standing over her. The younger of the pair was grasping a two-pronged hayfork. The second one was middle-aged and standing with arms akimbo. A grey lurcher and a brown-and-white sheepdog stood beside them, growling. Sybil sat up, pulling herself farther away from the threatening points of the hayfork.

“It’s all right, Alison. It’s just a lass,” said the older woman. “Quiet! Down!” she added to the dogs.

They stopped growling and lay down, but Alison continued to hold her hayfork at the ready and demanded, “What be you a-doin’ yur?”

“I just…I just wanted somewhere to sleep. I was cold and it was so late. I meant to come to the house this morning.” Sybil was trembling.

“What be you at, wandering about and sleepin’ in barns?” Bess asked, though not roughly. The sunlight slanting in behind her through the open door had shown her how young Sybil was, and how white her face.

“I…I ran away,” said Sybil. “I took food with me but I’d eaten it all by yesterday morning. I’ve been looking for work, but I couldn’t even find a farm till last night. I saw candlelight…from one of your windows, but it went out before I got close. The barn wasn’t locked. I’m sorry. Oh,” said Sybil, bursting into tears, “I’m so hungry!”

“Well,” said Bess, “young wenches dyin’ of starvation in one of our barns, that’s somethin’ we wouldn’t care for. ’Ee’d better come in for some breakfast. Then we’ll hear thy story. But it had better be the truth, now. Liars b’ain’t welcome at Stonecrop.”

In the kitchen Bess despatched Marian with Alison to see to the milking, telling them to send Ambrose back indoors while they were about it. She then fried a piece of bread and an egg, filled a beaker with ale and handed it to Sybil. “But eat slowly, or thy guts’ll complain,” she warned.

Ambrose, large, gaitered and puzzled, appeared while Sybil was in the midst of eating and Bess did the basic explaining while he listened, pulling off his cap and scratching his thin white hair. At the end, by which time Sybil had finished, he, like Bess, asked for her story.

Sybil was too tired and frightened to lie, and didn’t, except that she begged them not to ask where her original home had been, and clung to the name of Sybil Waters, which the Lanyons had given her. “I walked and walked,” she said, coming to the end of her account. “Miles from Lynmouth, miles up the East Lyn, trying to find somewhere. All day I walked and then when it got dark, I tried to sleep in a patch of trees, but there were things rustling, and I saw eyes….”

“Fox or weasel, no doubt,” said Ambrose with a snort. “Christ, girl, you were a fool to run off like that. And leavin’ thy babby!”

“No one’ll hurt Stephen. They’ll look after him in Lynmouth,” said Sybil. “But I can’t go back. I won’t go back! I’d rather walk into the sea and finish it all. I was used as a slave, just a slave, not a penny in wages and nothing was going to change, ever, for the rest of my life!”