A Traveller in Time (9 page)

“Thackers,” I said to myself. “Thackers,” and I tried to remember more.

Aunt Cicely went on in her comfortable, slow voice in the warm burr which took all alarm from my heart so that I leaned forward to hear: “Master Anthony will have fine tales to tell of the queen's court. He's been there, on and off, for three years, since he was eighteen, although he went to London first to study law at the Inns of Court, like all proper young gentlemen.”

Aunt Cicely's hands fashioned the round, flat cakes, spiced and honeyed, as she talked. She pricked them in a device of leaves and put candied fruit on the top.

“He saw the queen sail in her gilded barge on the Thames and he's been at Greenwich Palace and mixed with the greatest in the land, has Master Anthony.”

“He's very clever, writing his poems, and reading his Latin and Greek books. He'd be welcome at court where there are many witty gallants,” added Aunt Cicely, proud in the exploits of her beloved nurseling.

“Why did he study law?” asked Tabitha, and she skewered the trout on long wires and tossed the guts to the cat and kitlings.

“All landowners must have a knowledge of law,” explained Aunt Cicely patiently, “and his step-father, Master Foljambe, and also the Earl of Shrewsbury, his guardian, arranged for him to prepare for the duties which would fall to him when he came of age. He is a handsome gentleman with a fine figure and in London he met others who were at the queen's court. But he was a courtier at another court before that of Queen Elizabeth, and there he learned to make pretty speeches, proper for a queen's ears.”

“Another court?” Tabitha was surprised, and I listened amazed.

“He learned the ways of a queen and the manners of courts from a more beautiful queen than Queen Bess. With his gracious manners and wit and comely looks he was welcomed at Greenwich, but I doubt whether he pleased Queen Elizabeth, for he didn't flatter her like others who flit around her throne. She's a glorious, masterful woman and every one must admire her for the peace and prosperity she brought to England, but Master Anthony's heart is elsewhere.”

“He has his young wife waiting here, Dame Cicely,” interrupted Tabitha, eager for romance. She paused in her chopping of fennel and looked towards the window as if she sought her lover. “Surely he doesn't love another beside Mistress Babington?”

“He was married before he was eighteen,” said Dame Cicely shortly, “and he loves his wife in a right and proper way but his heart is given to one above all others. There are different kinds of love, Tabitha, and you know only one. There is love for your sweetheart and wife, which is different from mother-love for your childer; and there's love for your country which makes you go to fight the French and Spaniards; and there's love for God, which is the best of all. But there's another love, born of beauty in sorrow. Master Anthony loves the greatest and unhappiest lady in the land, the queen's cousin.”

Dame Cicely had dropped her voice and she looked round cautiously as she spoke. The other maids were in the far corner of the room, busy with clanking pails and brooms, singing and teasing as they swished the stone passages, splashing water on one another, stepping through the pools in the flagstones in their high iron-heeled pattens.

“Mary, Queen of Scotland,” she whispered, “the queen's cousin and heir to the throne.”

Tabitha started and dropped the speckled trout she was holding so that it slithered to the floor and was pounced on and carried away by a great cat. Away ran the sly creature and the maids ran after with their brooms shouting “Hi! Tibby!”

“The captive queen!” cried Tabitha in surprise.

“Hush,” warned Dame Cicely, nodding and glancing round to see if any one had heard.

“She's got beauty and wit, and a tongue of silver, and eyes that kindle a fire in all men's hearts,” she continued, warmly. “She has no age they say, she is lovely and fresh as the dewy morning. Young Anthony was page to the Earl of Shrewsbury when he was nobbut fourteen, and he lived at Sheffield Castle, where the queen was imprisoned. His father died when he was only ten, and his mother was filled with pride when he was appointed there. Master Foljambe, his step-father, had a hand in it, and was mighty pleased, for he was fond of his step-children. There, at the castle, Anthony worked at Latin and Greek and French with his tutor, and there he learned to sing many a song and turn rhymes deftly, and make up sweet airs for the lute. There, too, his young heart was caught by the loveliness of the poor prisoned queen, alackaday!”

“She must be a real beauty,” Tabitha agreed. “I've heard my father talk about her, for he saw her walking in the gardens at Hardwick Hall where he was working before he fell sick. He said that Bess of Hardwick didn't like Mary Stuart, and called her cruel names, ‘Scarlet Woman', and ‘whore'.”

Aunt Cicely frowned. “Yes, every one knows the Countess is jealous of the Scottish queen, of her charm and her lively ways and witty talk. Those who go to Sheffield Castle to buy and sell, to show their wares to the queen's servants and ladies—for there's a fine lot of them, nearly four hundred serving-people—they say that the talk of her in the kitchen and servants' quarters is that her skin is white as milk, her lips red as the rowan berry, her veins blue as the sky and the blood of her body flushes her creamy skin like the wild roses in the lane yonder. Her voice is low, and full of tremors, stirring to young hearts. That's what they say, those who have heard her speak, although it is hard to get near her, she is guarded so closely. She is kind and loving to those who serve her, not like Queen Elizabeth, who is hard, but Mary Stuart never forgets a wrong.”

“Then she'll have a lot to remember,” said Tabitha.

“Aye! She was born for delight, but she has had little enow these last many years, pindling in captivity. Master Anthony once told me she would play with her pages and make a pretence of a banquet when they sat in the gardens, with wee silver cups of wine and dishes of tiny cakes and sweetmeats and they would eat and drink, forgetful she was a queen. She would laugh merrily and one would sing a ballad and she clapped her white hands and rewarded him with a box of comfits or a toy. There she romped with her little dogs, or fed her birds from her own lips. Then she would remember and sit for hours, unspeaking, with her eyes staring far away, and her mouth working bitterly with her unhappy thoughts.”

“That's like Mistress Babington,” said Tabitha. “Sometimes she plays with her dog Belle, and sometimes she sits all forlorn, and tears fall on her hands.”

“How long has the queen been imprisoned at Sheffield?” asked Tabitha. Dame Cicely counted on her fingers. “Ten—twelve—yes twelve years come Michaelmas. I know because it was a wild, windy autumn, and one of the great walnut-trees was blown down. We thought it was a sign of something, and the next thing we heard was that the Queen of Scotland was coming. Master Anthony's father went to see her travel the road with her suite, crowds of horsemen and soldiers. We thought it wouldn't be long before she was moved to London to be with the queen in her palace, perhaps, but it seems she'll stay there till she dies.”

“And now Master Anthony's coming home,” cried Tabitha, excitedly.

“Yes, and quite time too, for he ought to look after the lands his father left him, Lea and Codnor and Wirksworth, with farms and woods and lead mines and quarries and all his people waiting to welcome him back. Thackers is his home, not London.”

“Thackers is my home, not London,” I echoed. Then I remembered something, and I looked at the weapons above the fire.

“Aunt Cicely,” I cried, springing to my feet and clutching her woollen sleeve. “Where is Uncle Barnabas?”

“Uncle Barnabas? My brother, Barnabas?” she asked astonished. “What's the wench talking about? Your Uncle Barnabas was killed in the wars in the Netherlands. There's his dinted helmet, brought back by Abel Fletcher. 'Twas his little wench, Penelope, you favour so much.”

“Killed! Uncle Barnabas!” I burst into tears. Tabitha put her arm round me to comfort me and Aunt Cicely came round and kissed my wet cheeks.

“There! Don't take on, my dear,” said she. “He's in Paradise, along of Sir Thomas More and all of 'em.”

But from outside there came a great clatter and noise, shouts rang through the air. Men came into the kitchen, buttoning their leather jerkins, fastening the buckles unloosened while they worked. They drew on their long boots, and their wooden heels clanked on the stones, and their spurs brought sparks. They smelled rankly of stable and byre, as they pushed and jostled and talked loudly to Aunt Cicely.

“They're coming! They've been sighted from the top of the Starth. Will Stoker was minding the swine in the woods by Cliff Rocks and he saw the cavalcade riding in the south. They'll be here in an hour, and we're going to the ford to meet them, for the river's high and they'll want help. Young Master Anthony's coming home for good!”

Horses were saddled, and men rode down the lanes, past the brook to the hills whose rounded shapes I already knew by heart. Away they went with a pennon waving in the air, with the arms of Master Anthony upon it. Tom Snowball ran to the church with Abel Fletcher and rang the bells in a joyful tumult of music. Young Mistress Babington came out of the house wearing her green riding habit and the white horse was brought round for her. Tabitha and I watched her ride away with the boy Francis to meet her husband. A flag was hoisted on the tower and Aunt Cicely and the maids hurried to prepare the rooms.

I went to the porch to see the flag flutter on high, to watch the rooks fly cawing from it in a fright, and the pigeons wheel as the ringing bells tossed in the high tower. As I gazed up in the blue, limpid air the flag faded away into a white cloud, the bells were the sheep-bells in the pastures. Across the fields I could see a chestnut pony with a boy astride. I looked back to the kitchen where Aunt Cicely and Tabitha were lifting the iron pot from the fire, but even as I looked they became dim as wood-smoke. I met the eyes of the boy Jude, who was staring at me as if he saw a ghost. I waved, but he shrank back, covering his face with his hands in terror. Then I ran out of doors, across the grassplat where white cloths were bleaching, to the gate.

“It's your turn, Penelope. Didn't you go upstairs? I suppose you hadn't time to change you were in such a hurry to get back.”

“Hurry to get back!” I echoed, softly. I had been away for hours, days it seemed, but the fingers of the grandfather clock had not moved while I was away. Like a dream which abolishes time and space, which can travel through years in a flash and to the ends of the world in a twinkling, I went into another century and lived there and returned before the pendulum of the grandfather clock had wagged once behind the bull's-eye glass. I had experienced the delights and anxieties of another age, moving quietly in that life, walking in the garden, talking and loitering and returning in the blink of an eyelid. It was neither dream nor sleep, this journey I had taken, but a voyage backward through the ether. Perhaps I had died in that atom of time, and my ghost had fled down the years, recognized only by Jude, and then returned in a heart-beat.

I looked down at my hands, from which a sweet and disturbing scent came. It was musk from the garden path of another age. I stood motionless, waiting for something to happen.

Ian rode up on the pony, Betty, and I mounted. I took the reins without speaking, and galloped up the fields, my head in a whirl, my heart pounding as I breathed the icy coldness of the air. I pulled up at the top of the hill and stared about through the gaps in the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of a company of horsemen riding on a distant slope. I listened for the sound of the horn which the fair-haired boy Francis had wound as he cantered away, for the echo was still in my ears. I looked up at the sky, at the floating clouds and the wind-swept, tossing trees which moaned under a rising wind. The fivefold hills were lavender, indigo, violet in the soft light, one behind another, concealing the small villages in their shadowed troughs. Life went on unseen in those misty shallows, and another life moved in the folded layers of time.

I turned the pony round and came slowly back to the farm, trying to puzzle it out. There before me was the church, with its broken shields on the tower and the latest one, which the unseen mason was shaping, was already weathered and worn. Hens clucked around the doorway, as they had always done, and a cock crowed with shrilly challenge. In the yard cattle were lowing, and the sheep with their tinkling bells came down the pasture with the dogs. I was living in the past and the present together, at Thackers, the home of my ancestors. I saw the web and woof of time threaded in a pattern, and I moved through the woven stuff with the silent footfall of a ghost.

Slowly I rode across the yard to the stable door, and Ian met me angrily.

“You've ridden too fast,” he cried. “You galloped her up the hill and then you let her stay still, all sweating. She's all of a lather. Penelope, you don't deserve to share a pony.”

He rubbed the darkly streaked sides and I bit my lip, already forgetting. I didn't know what possessed me, except that I wanted to see someone before he disappeared, to catch a glimpse of a pageant of blue and silver somewhere in the distant woods, to hear the sound of a horn.

“Don't scold her,” said Uncle Barnabas, and I clung to his warm, work-hardened fingers. He was there, touching me, and I had had a bad dream about him. He would never die as long as Thackers existed. “She's my brown lass, and she's done nowt amiss,” said Uncle Barnabas valiantly. He gave a hearty laugh as we went into the farm kitchen, and I started, for it was the deep laughter of Dame Cicely.

There was the fire burning unchanged, but the great cauldron of venison was replaced by a copper kettle which sang a quiet song. In front of the blaze, instead of the spit turned by a swarthy, green-eyed boy was a Dutch oven with a bird grilling in it for dinner. Instead of the long-shafted weapons, the pikes and halberds, were my uncle's guns, polished and cleaned ready for use.