Mist Over Pendle (24 page)

“A what?”

Roger’s voice cut in sharply. Then he relaxed, and spoke quietly.

“That’s of interest, Tom. By what name?” Tom Heber’s fist thumped the table.

“One of your folk, sir. One of yours. The rogue’s a Southworth of your Salmesbury brood.”

“Christopher Southworth?” This was from Nick Banister.

“Aye, that same. D’ye know of him, then?”

“We had some warning that he was at large.”

“As had we.” Tom Heber drained his glass and set it down with a clatter. “Wherefore, when some of us were after the wildfowl at Tom Lister’s place, and we started this black-cloaked rogue from a coppice, We made a guess at it and stayed him with our fowling-pieces.”

“And then?” Roger spoke steadily.

“Why, we had his name out of him, and a confession of what he was----”

“A Jesuit?”

“Called himself a priest only. Which is the same damned thing, hey?”

Roger let that pass. “And where is he now?”

“That’s what’s odd. That’s what I’m telling.” Tom drank thirstily and then explained himself. “We lodged him safely, and I wrote of it to our Lieutenant, never doubting I’d have orders to send the Romish rat to York. And do I get them, hey? Do I get them?”

He drank again and eyed them truculently.

“I wait a week without a word. Then when I’m thinking there’s a messenger dead, up comes a letter long as a parson’s nose. The fellow’s treasons, it says, are all done in Lancashire, and your Earl of Derby is to have him first for a question or two. So he’s to go on loan, as ‘twere, to Lathom, for which service I’m to part with him. And did ye ever hear the like of it?”

“It’s not common,” said Roger, and Margery noted that he had quietly placed the wine by his own elbow. “And is this therefore done?”

“Half.” Tom Heber seemed to be searching for a wine-jug he could not clearly see.

“Half? Meaning what, if you please?”

“Meaning that your Earl sent one of his own gentlemen to escort the rogue.” He hiccoughed suddenly. “Gentleman is it? A gay young spark, all lace and fripperies. And he’s to take my rogue from me, blast him! Where’s the cursed wine? I’m dry as lenten pease.”

He heaved forward in his chair and stretched across the table for what he could not reach. Then, of a sudden, he sagged across the table and lay gasping like a stranded fish. Roger rose quickly and threw him back into his chair, where he slumped in a snoring sleep.

“Get you back into the parlour, Margery,” said Roger, quickly. “He’s no sight for you.”

She obeyed without a word, and until they came to her she sat alone, staring into the fire. That Tom Heber was drunk disturbed her not at all. It was, as she knew very well, the common failing of country gentlemen and the daily habit of many of them. It was the thought of Christopher Southworth and what awaited him beyond Lathom that pounded through her head and set her staring at the fire, till she saw in fancy the glow of the scaffold fire and the gleam of the waiting knives. She knew something of such work. In her weeks at Holborn she had walked more than once over London Bridge and seen the heads on the flanking pikes; and once, by the Charing Cross, there had been a pair of legs to stink and blacken in the sun. All London knew what treason meant, and Margery shuddered sickly. She had liked Christopher Southworth.

It spoilt the day. Roger did his best when he and Nick came in. They had roused Tom Heber and soused his hair with water, and he was almost himself again. The talk grew friendly once more, and partings were cordial as the guests rode away; and when they were gone Roger talked of many things that were far away from treason. Margery did her best to follow him, but the brooding melancholy stayed. It stayed with her throughout the night, and she was positively pleased the next morning when Miles Nutter suddenly appeared after breakfast and desired speech with her. She was already dressed for riding, and was hoping that the wind on the hill would blow the vapours from her.

So she did not keep Miles in suspense; within a few minutes she was riding out with him.

She dealt easily with him. As soon as they were out of earshot of others she saw him look diffidently at her as if he were feeling for words; she cut him short in it.

“You need not give me explanations,” she told him. “I’ve had them and I’ve accepted them and there’s no more needs be said.”

His face cleared at once and relief spread over it. Once again Margery found herself thinking that there was something attractive in Miles Nutter. If these clouds could be dispersed there might yet be good cause to give congratulations to Grace.

“You’re the soul of kindness, madam,” he said quickly.

“Not so. It’s merely that I’ve some sense, and much liking for Grace.” She paused and caught his eye. “And perhaps a little for you also if you now deal honestly with me.”

“Be sure of that,” he insisted warmly. “I’ll not fail you henceforth in that. Be very sure of it, madam.”

“That’s well. On those terms we can be friends. In token of which you may stop calling me madam. Let’s deal simply. Whither do we ride this day?”

It soon appeared, as she expected it would, that he was eager to be at Wheathead, and as Margery was willing enough for a word with Grace, they were soon making for the Newchurch, chatting amiably of everything and nothing as they went. With his mind now at ease, Miles Nutter was an excellent companion.

They were at the mill before noon, and if Margery had any doubts of the propriety of accepting his escort, they melted in the radiance of the smile she had from Grace. Miles, too, was at his best, and both he and Grace seemed to suppose that all was now well; only Margery was clear-sighted enough to see that it was not. Only a passing embarrassment had been dispersed; the hostility of Alice Nutter remained; and Margery, thinking of that, and of the deeper and darker shadows that hung about the Rough Lee, found her thoughts flow gloomily. She was not in humour this day with the chattering pair at her side, and of a sudden she was on her feet and declaring that she would ride on alone; and she persisted in spite of their protests. At their insistence she stayed for dinner in the great stone-flagged kitchen, and then she was away, riding into the clear, pale sun of a November afternoon, desperate to be clear of this air of doubts and thwarted hopes, and eager to be alone.

This time she did not ride past the pool and down the stream to Barley, as she had always done before. Instead, she went up past the granary and then turned to her right into the road that flanked it. This road, she knew, must lead her to the point where the Forest road curled away to Gisburn, and from that point her way home would be as easy as from any other. Yet as things befell, she never reached that point; for in a mile, the road she was riding brought her to an upland valley where a bridle track led off, and here in the rough grass she found a thin and trickling stream which must surely find its way into the Pendle Water far below. It tempted her, and after a little thought she left the road and followed the rough and winding bank. A half-hour’s riding confirmed her guess when she found herself on the slope of the long, wooded ridge that ran behind the Rough Lee; she had ridden this before.

She followed the stream down almost to the road, and then she halted on a wooded knoll to survey the ground. The Forest road ran past the knoll, a bare ten yards away; to her left was the hill by the Malkin Tower, with the road coming steeply down from it; to her right, the road dipped between grassy banks as the stream splashed across it to join the Pendle Water. Margery sat thoughtful, asking herself what she should do.

Up to her left a hoof clattered on a stone, and Margery’s thoughts changed abruptly. She turned alertly as four horsemen came into view, riding slowly down from the Gisburn road. She moved warily into the fringe of pines on the knoll, thinking that it might be prudent not to be seen by four strange men in this lonely dell; then, from the pines, she scanned them more keenly; and what she saw set her heart pounding. The men were in two pairs, and the pair behind had the look of servants; of the pair in front, one was a gay gentleman, bright in a cloak of green and a gold-laced hat with orange plumes; but it was the man at his side, the man in the black cloak and the sombre hat, who stirred the recognition that set Margery into turmoil. Here, beyond doubt, was Christopher Southworth.

She understood at once. The priest was on his way to Lathom House for questioning; and the gentleman in green must be the gay young spark of Tom Heber’s tale, sent by the Earl as escort for the prisoner; this, after all, was their natural road out of Yorkshire into Lancashire, and no doubt they were now in search of quarters for the night.

Margery’s mind was racing. All her sympathy was with the prisoner, going so quietly to Lathom and the awful death that lay beyond, and the thought hammered in her that sympathy was not enough. She must
do
something, do something that would help, do something somehow, and not sit gaping like a fool at a peepshow; somehow and by some means she must raise a diversion and hope that the priest would have wit enough to profit by it.

She swung her horse as the riders came to the knoll, and as they entered the dip in the road she rode wildly at the bank of it, as though in haste to cross the narrow road. Then chance gave her what she could not have contrived; for the bank to the road was steep, and her horse stumbled and reared. Margery left her saddle altogether; she went clear over the horse’s head and thudded into the bank beyond the road.

Fortune was with her, or her young life might have ended there. The October wind had piled the dead leaves thick against the bank, and their soft cushion eased her fall. It broke no bones but it knocked the wind out of her, so that she writhed and twisted, fighting wildly for breath in a long-drawn noisy whooping.

There were sudden voices and a clatter of hooves; and as she blinked and gasped, her shoulders were seized from nowhere and pressed to the ground. Hands took her wrists, and her arms were pulled up and out and down, and then her wrists were driven hard into her stomach. It was drastic, it was primitive, and it was painful. But it was effective; it forced the rest of the wind out of her and let her breathing begin afresh; she sweated and panted, but she knew it was passing.

Through moist and blinking eyes she became aware of a blue sky and a cloud that floated in it; and beside the cloud, and seeming to float with it, was a collar of gold-laced green; and above the collar was a brown and sun-tanned face that had laughing eyes and a cheerful grin. Margery saw the picture slowly, as memory and understanding returned.

Then she remembered her purpose, and at once she was contriving further. She took to blinking again, and she added a few gasps for better effect while the thought crossed her mind that this gentleman in green looked a very proper gentleman. Then she took to rolling, as though in pain, and as she rolled to the side she took a quick glimpse of the road; a few paces away, one of the servants, his eyes fast on her, sat a horse and held two others; beyond him was his fellow-servant, calming Margery’s horse which he had evidently chased and caught.

“You’re not hurt. Stop grunting and get up.”

Margery gasped again, and this time it was genuine. She had not expected that. Sympathy, she thought, would have been more proper. But that must wait; there were other things more urgent, and the first of them was to see along the road to the other side. So she ignored his words and began to heave about again.

“Pray tell me: are you afflicted of St. Vitus?”

The voice came again, and Margery was suddenly still. This gentleman seemed to know too much. And did she detect amusement in his airy voice? She felt herself colour, and to conceal that she rolled right over; and very calmly and deliberately, the gentleman prodded her with the handle of his whip.

She was on her feet, spluttering with indignation, before she had thought at all. And as this gentleman stood in front of her, placidly shaking out his cloak, his brown face was alive with laughter.

Then Margery remembered. Careless now, she looked openly around her, and relief flooded over her. Far from the road, a good quarter-mile down the little stream, Christopher Southworth was at full gallop towards a belt of trees and tangled scrub.

“Lord of Hell!”

The gentleman took his horse at a leap, and with one darted glance at Margery he was away, his two servants scampering wildly after him. Margery shook herself and began to smooth her cloak. Then her eyes strayed again to the belt of scrub, and suddenly she laughed with relief; if Christopher Southworth let himself be caught in that tangle and with that start, it would be his own fault. But she was thoughtful as she picked her hat from the wet leaves and walked stiffly towards her grazing horse; it had occurred to her that the sooner Roger knew of all this, the better.

Yet her mind was not wholly on that as she rode home; from somewhere the thought intruded that she would like to know more of this gentleman in green.

Roger was flattering, for his first thought was for Margery. Not till he was assured that she had taken no hurt would he let her finish her tale, and even then he came back to it, seeking to know how she had fallen and how her breathing had so forcibly been put to rights. He heard her in detail, and then he nodded.

“The fellow has some understanding of things,” was his sage comment.

Margery suppressed the retort that the fellow seemed to have too much understanding of some things. Instead, she went on to say that Christopher Southworth must surely have got clear.

“Not a doubt of it,” said Roger. “He’ll know the ground, which these Lathom men will not. And as for you--if you had your deserts you’d be sent to Lathom in his stead.”

“Why?”

“You’re the slyest fox in Pendle, as I’ve for some time been supposing. It was chance, was it, that brought you blundering on the Seminary and his guard?”

Margery reddened. She had said nothing about motives, but Roger was another who sometimes knew too much. And then she saw his forehead crinkle.