Devil Water (17 page)

“Alack,” said her Aunt Belle. “I misdoubted this’ld happen. ‘Tis the bairn seeking to be born, and fully airly. Poor Meg’s had too much to bear. Into the straw wi’ ye, lass!” She gestured towards a plank partition which screened off a few feet at the back of the room. It was in there that Meg slept, while the men lay on heather-stuffed sacks in the open loft.

The girl lurched up from her seat, and began dragging her heavy body towards the partition. “Tend Mr. Radcliffe’s wound, Auntie,” she pleaded. “There’s lamb’s wool i’ the coffer.” Her voice cracked in a stifled scream, and she ran into her cubbyhole.

“Go
to her!” said Charles, who had turned white as his shirt. “Hurry to her -- don’t leave her alone!”

“Now -- now --” said Belle Snowdon smiling. “Dinna dither so, lad. Meg’ll not need me yet awhile. Let me see this cheek.” Her stout, deft fingers pulled off the dirty kerchief. “Dear, dear,” she added shaking her head. “Ye’ll carry
this
mark to your grave. Set down so I can reach ye.” She pushed him down on the stool Meg had vacated. “Roger, hold the candle nigh!”

The men had been shuffling uneasily. John Snowdon cast a look of anxiety towards the cubbyhole where Meg’s labored breathing could be heard. “Come, lads, an’ Master Dean,” he said. “This be no place for us. We’ll see to the cattle. Roger, ye’ll follow?” His younger son nodded, while the others trooped out, slamming the door behind them. Roger held the candle while Belle bathed Charles’s gash with water from the kettle on the fire, then took from her apron pocket a needleful of homespun thread. Charles neither winced nor moved as she sewed together the jagged gaping edges of his wound, then bound it with lamb’s wool and a clean kerchief of her own.

“Ye’ve the pluck o’ a dalesman, for all ye come from the South,” she said as she finished.

“Aye,” agreed Roger quietly. He climbed the ladder to the loft and came down with a brown jug. “Here’s a drap fur ye,” he said giving it to Charles. “We needna tell Faither, but ‘twould be a sorry wedding indeed, wi’out a drap.”

“Thank you,” said Charles, and drank the fiery whisky as best he could. The wound had torn his cheek muscles. Then he started as Meg gave a low animal cry. “For the love of God, Mrs. Snowdon. Help her!”

“I will,” said Belle. “Though ‘twill be a lang time yet. Gan ye off ye two, but Roger, ye’ve birthed many a calf and lamb, I may need thee, so stay belaw.”

Meg’s baby was born just as the sun’s first rays struggled over the distant Cheviots and brightened the narrow ravine where the Snowdon peel stood. Charles heard the wailing of the newborn as he stood below in the byre, pressed close to his mare. During the long hours he had curried and tended the mare, shuddering each time one of Meg’s screams shrilled down through the ceiling, yet unable to leave. The other men came and went as soon as there was light, and Rob Wilson had gone off to Tosson mill for a sack of flour. They had eaten oatcakes and mutton stew which Belle had sent to them by Roger, who had made several trips upstairs at her request.

When Roger came down finally he walked, grinning, to Charles, “Weel, lad -- ye’ve a datter. ‘Tis not much o’ one, but the wee lassie’s alive, an’ so is Meg.”

Charles gave a great gulp and stood up straight. “I want to see it.”

“And so ye shall. Faither, ‘tis over,” Roger announced to John Snowdon, who came into the byre dragging a struggling wether by the horns. The old man nodded majestically. “Fetch the minister. He’s reading the Book by the burn.”

Mr. Dean had been unable to ride back to Falstone in the darkness and so had acceded to John Snowdon’s further request that he wait and baptize the baby when it came. For this service Snowdon had added the promise of a pail of honey to the slaughtered lamb fixed as fee for the wedding. Mr. Dean’s lonely little manse on the Border was always in want of provisions and his few church members so scattered and mostly impoverished, themselves, that he often went hungry.

Meg was in exhausted sleep when the men had climbed the stone steps to the big room. Belle sat smiling by the fire, with a bundle on her lap. “ ‘Tis a pairfect wee lassie,” she said to Charles, “An’ll be fair-haired like you, lad --someday. Will ye hold her?” Charles mutely put out his arms, and Belle laid the tiny plaid-wrapped bundle in them. The baby gave a funny chirrup and sigh, then looked up at her father, unwinking. Her head was covered with flaxen fuzz, her face was red, but there was a cleft like Charles’s in the minute chin. A thrill went through Charles as he looked down at his baby. A thrill of pride and sweetness such as he had never known from any of the things which had given him pleasure. And deeper than the thrill was a certainty of communication and significance. That it was pure love, which he had never felt before, nor would ever feel for anything else -- this he could not guess. But his eyes misted, and his arms began to tremble, and John Snowdon said, “Now, now -- Radcliffe, dinna drap the bairn afore it’s a Christian. Gi’e it to me!” Charles unwillingly obeyed.

Belle brought a cupful of water from the kettle and put it on the table beside the minister, who said, “What name is this child to have?”

“Jane,” announced John Snowdon. “Fur its gran’mawther.” Belle stared at the old man. Since the day of the funeral at Falstone, Snowdon had not mentioned the name of his dead wife.

“So ‘tis Jenny!” cried Belle. “An’ a sweet bonny name!”

Snowdon sternly interrupted this irrelevancy. “And I shall be its sponsor, see to its rearing in all things both Godly an’ worldly, and see that it lives by the Covenant.”

“Very good,” said the minister. “ We are all sealed by the Covenant here, except--” He gestured at Charles. “Kindly step aside, sir.”

“I won’t,” said Charles. “It’s
my
baby.”

“Let him be,” said Belle sharply. The minister shrugged, and began the Covenanter’s rite of baptism, which he finished with a sprinkle of water on the baby’s face, “Jane Radcliffe, child of the Covenant, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. Let us pray.” The Snowdon men and Belle fell to their knees, John Snowdon as easily as his sons, though he was hampered by the baby, which he held with the practiced arms of a man who had tended many a small helpless animal.

Throughout the long prayer Charles stood and watched his child. Jenny Radcliffe, he thought. When will she be old enough to walk and talk? I’ll teach her to ride with me. She shall have a little blue velvet riding habit, and a wax doll, from Paris. What else did little girls like? He would find out from his sister Mary; perhaps James would know. James, who would be back at Dilston today.

The thought of James startled Charles from his daydream. When the prayer was ended the baby, whimpering a little, was carried back to Meg. She tucked it in the crook of her arm and looked up at Charles with a languid detachment, very different from the pleading frenzied love she had heretofore given him. Her brown eyes showed faint pity as she contemplated the tall gangling boy and the bandage around his head.

“Ye may furget us now,” she said. “I’m sorry fur what happened, but ye needna think o’ it more. We’ll niver trouble ye, any o’ us. Ye mun gan awa’. Faither’s waiting to guide ye back to Dilston.”

“But, Meg--” said Charles. “We’re married. And there’s her. As soon as you can you must come to Dilston with -- with Jenny.”

Her mouth tightened and she looked something like John Snowdon as she watched the light in Charles’s eyes when he looked down at the little head on her arm. “And what sort o’ welcome would
we
get at Dilston?” she asked. “And what kind o’ happiness would the bairn and me find there?”

Charles was silent. He could not look ahead, and he knew that he didn’t want Meg at Dilston; there was only the peculiar unreasoning desire to be near the baby.

“Hark!” said Meg suddenly. “D’ye hear the singing o’ the burn that tumbles down off Ravensheugh? D’ye hear the cry o’ the waup? D’ye smell the peat smoke an’ the dew-wet heather?”

“What are you trying to say?” Charles asked slowly.

“That I canna live wi’out these things. Nor even wi’out the sternness of m’faither, and the roughness of m’brothers. Nor do ye truly love me, though ye pitied me yestere’en. So we’ll bide here. Me an’ the bairn. And ye’ll go back where ye belang, to the castles an’ the lords an’ ladies.”

There was no more to be said. The Snowdons were finished with him, Meg didn’t want him, the baby did not need him, and he had no plan, no arguments to put up against them. They had drawn together, all of them, as stark and solitary as their own peel tower. Even Belle, who had seemed softer than the others, gave him only a brief nod of farewell and said she hoped his wound wouldn’t fester.

In the full morning light, John Snowdon and Charles set out on the long way back to Dilston. In silence they plodded around the Simonside crags and through Rothbury Forest. Again they reached the Sweethope Lough and the moors north of the Roman Wall. Their progress was much faster than it had been in the other direction, since Charles now had the free guidance of his mare, and also they need not avoid what roads there were. By five o’clock they had covered the forty-odd miles between Coquetdale and Corbridge.

And there by the Tyne Bridge they found one of James’s servants stationed. He gave a cry when he saw Charles. “Oh, sir! We’ve thought ye dead. Or a leg broke at least. There’s a hundred out beating the moors and byways for ye. His lordship’s been a-fretted since he came home ter find ye missing!”

“Where is Lord Darntwatter?” said John Snowdon.

The servant stared at the bearded old man in the black bonnet and dirty plaid, but he answered, “Mebbe at the castle by now. He’s been hunting young master through Dipton Wood, and thereabouts.”

When they rode up to the castle, James was standing on the steps ready to mount again, and search for Charles in a different direction.

“Praises to God and the Blessed Virgin,” he whispered when he saw his brother, but he saw too not only from the bandage on the boy’s head and the haggard look of his face but from the expression of the old bearded man that there was something still very wrong. He asked no questions while he urged the two of them inside, and told a lackey to bring food and drink.

“I’ll tak’ a bite later, my lord,” said John Snowdon, “gin ye still offer it, but first I want a word wi’ ye alone.” His fierce unswerving gaze rested on Lady Constable, who was embracing Charles, and uttering cries of curiosity, lamentation, and relief, then it passed to Mr. Petre, who stood watchful and suspicious by the mantelpiece.

James nodded and took Snowdon to the library.

Two hours later the old man had gone. He had drunk nothing but water, eaten nothing but bread, and he would not stay the night though the light was beginning to fail. And James, still in the library, had been telling the appalling news to his chaplain. Charles had been interviewed and sent to bed, since he was running a fever and was half dead from exhaustion.

“Poor Charles. Poor boy,” said James in a leaden voice, resting his head on his hands, “ ‘tis near as bad a blow as I can think of. How sorely he has paid for his youthful sin.”

The priest made an impatient gesture. “The circumstance is awkward, my lord, but we must not exaggerate it nor give it undue importance.”

“I tell you,” said James sharply, “the boy is
married!
Married by a minister, with witnesses. Snowdon showed me the marriage lines. And Charles admits it.”

“Bah!” said the priest. “You can’t call that a marriage -- performed by a Dissenter -- not even in the Church of England. And Charles only sixteen and forced to submit at the point of a pistol! This is no marriage at all, and certainly not a Catholic one!”

James winced. He picked up the inkpot and laid it down again.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “it is a
legal
marriage, by the law of the land. And Charles says he did it of his own free will when he saw the girl’s condition.”

“Nonsense! The whole thing is a farce. Give those people some money, then we’ll get it annulled -- I’ll write to Rome. If only those villains up there on the Border will keep their mouths shut.”

James looked at his chaplain with sad disapproval. “The Snowdons will take no money, not even support for the child. I offered it. They were concerned only with having the baby born in wedlock. Which it was. They wish nothing more to do with Charles or us ever.”

“Then,” said the priest,
“we
need never mention this.”

“Perhaps not,” said James. “Except to Lady Betty. She can give out what reasons she likes for her match with Charles being broken off.”

The priest bit his lips. He had forgotten Lady Betty. “It’s all excessively awkward,” he said. “It’s tragic, Mr. Petre,” said James quietly.

FIVE

In 1715 on Lammas Sunday, August 7, Dilston villagers celebrated the Feast of St. Wilfrid, as their forefathers had done for a thousand years. The Earl of Derwentwater was delighted to honor the old custom, and much pleased to learn about the fiery Northumbrian saint, who, though educated by the monks on Lindisfarne, had introduced Roman church usage into the North of England. Also, Wilfrid in the seventh century had built the first abbey at Hexham -- the nearby market town, which had been, under Wilfrid’s regime and later, a most famous Catholic shrine and sanctuary.

After Mass in Dilston chapel the Earl, his wife, and aunt, all dressed in mourning, walked to the marble summerhouse, or pavilion, which had just been finished on the edge of the new lawns, overlooking the Devil Water cascade. The pavilion was luxuriously furnished with armchairs, benches, and an inlaid table. Its shade was welcome on this hot August day, and so was the bowl of chilled syllabub which the servants had left.

“Sit down, my love,” said James to his young wife, solicitously arranging cushions for her. “I trust you’re not tired?”

The Countess shook her dark head with a grave smile, then she turned at once to her husband’s aunt --old Lady Mary Radcliffe, who had come yesterday from Durham for an extended visit. “Are you quite comfortable, my lady? I see you have your fan -- shall I fan you? ‘Tis so warm.”