Daughter of Satan (13 page)

‘No one from the kitchen is allowed to come in here. Please go.'

Her heart was quaking, but she stood boldly before him.

‘You are clever,' she said. ‘It is not proper that you should have a daughter who does not know what books mean.'

He laughed suddenly, and she saw now that he had ceased to be angry.

‘You mean you want to read? Do you think you possibly could?'

‘If I wished,' she said.

‘You must not give yourself airs because I allow you to work in my kitchens.'

She repeated stubbornly: ‘It is not proper for you to have a daughter who does not know what books mean.'

‘Nonsense!' he retorted. ‘Very few girls . . . highborn girls at that, not bastards like yourself . . . are taught to read.'

‘Perhaps they don't want to,' she said. ‘If they did . . . and were clever enough . . . they would learn.'

‘You are persistent, Tamar,' he said.

She smiled dazzlingly, for she could see that he was just a little interested.

‘Listen to me; if you were obliged to learn, you would hate it. It is not easy.'

‘I like to learn. I learned all Granny could tell me.'

‘This is very different from listening to the chatter of an old woman.'

‘Old men chatter very like old women.'

He looked at her sternly and then suddenly burst into a laugh. ‘Do you refer to me as an old man?'

‘You are not very young.'

‘And you suggest that
I
should teach
you
how to read?'

‘I am your daughter. You have told everybody so. It is not proper that I should not know what these books mean.'

He came close to her and looked into her face. ‘Listen to me,' he said. ‘I will show you that you can never learn to read.'

She smiled. ‘I will show you that I will.'

‘You will come here for an hour every morning, and I myself will attempt to teach you. I will do this for a week, and at the end of that time you will have discovered that you cannot learn to read and write.'

‘And write too!' she cried gleefully

‘Do not smile so complacently,' he said. ‘I am a very impatient man and I cannot endure stupidity.'

She said: ‘I am very clever and I will show you how I shall learn.'

‘We will start tomorrow,' he said. ‘Come here at ten of the clock.'

She went out smiling, but in spite of her victory she felt very sad. She could very easily have wept; she did not know why, except that he made her very sad and happy all at once.

But her learning did not end in a week. Richard was to discover he had no ordinary pupil, and in spite of himself he was aware of a faint excitement when the girl was with him. He was amused by her concentration, delighted to see
her
delight when at length, after what seemed like hours of struggle, she ceased to make her capital J's round the wrong way.

At the end of the week, he said: ‘Not very amusing, is it?'

She agreed that it was not. ‘But it will be,' she added, ‘when I know it.'

He was secretly pleased that she wished to go on; he enjoyed teaching, and teaching such a strange creature was particularly interesting.

‘I'll give you another week,' he said grudgingly.

One day he spoke to her very sternly. ‘I saw you gathering weeds the other day. I suppose it was for some charm or other. That was a very stupid thing to do. Don't you realize what a narrow escape you had?'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘If you got into trouble again, it would not be so easy to get you out of it. Moreover, I might not feel inclined to do so. I did so in the first place because it seemed to me no fault of your own that those fools were after you. But, in the face of what happened, deliberately to go out . . . collecting herbs . . . making charms . . . That I consider the height of folly.'

He dismissed her, and she was very sorry that she could not please him in this matter, but she had to keep her promise to Annis, so she went on gathering what she needed for her brew.

The day came when the potion was completed and Annis drank it. She had had to make it at twelve noon, although it should have been midnight; but as they were locked in their room, this could not be.

‘I have said a special word about the time,' she explained.

‘Do you think it'll make any difference?' asked Annis anxiously.

‘No. I said that it was because of Mistress Alton, and you can depend upon it those who are helping us will understand.'

Annis was delighted. She found it hard to wait until she could see John Tyler again.

Bartle and his father rode over to Pennicomquick, and supper was served to them in the winter parlour, where Moll and Annis waited on them. Richard did not wish Tamar to do so. Tamar went out of the house and into the gardens; she was trembling at the thought of Bartle being in the house.

It was the silliest thing she could have done, because he saw her from one of the windows, and, making an excuse to the two men, came out to her.

‘Hello, Devil's daughter!' he said.

‘Don't you dare come near me!' she snapped.

‘Have you no kiss for me? 'Twill be a farewell kiss. I am sailing tomorrow.'

‘I'll never have anything but kicks and scorn for you.'

‘That's a fool's prophecy . . . doomed to be false.'

‘I am no fool.'

‘Tamar, you are the greatest fool in Devon. You might have been my mistress by now. Think of the honour of that to such as you!'

‘I see only the shame.'

‘Think also of the beautiful foreign girls who will be enjoying me. That is what you have to think of, Tamar, until I come back. I have made a vow. When I come back it is the Devil's daughter for me. She may be a little unwilling at first, but afterwards . . . afterwards . . . you will see, Tamar.'

‘I hate you. I shall always hate you.'

‘Another false prophecy. And you have changed. Yes, you have. You've got new airs . . . new graces, but damn me, you're as pretty as ever! No! You're more pretty.'

She walked past him into the house. She was confident in the knowledge that he dared not touch her now. Life had changed for her. She was learning to be a scholar and a member of the gentry; and at the same time she was not losing any of her magical powers.

Bartle sailed away next day, and for that she was thankful. Now she could enjoy listening to Annis' stories of her love affair with John Tyler.

‘Why,' said Annis, ‘I met him there in the hayfield, and I said to him, “How do 'ee do, John?” and he looked sort of sheepish like, as he has been since he forgot me for Bessie.
He said, “I be well, Annis. And how be you?” And I said, just as I'd said when I drank the brew like as you told me, “Beautiful and desirable in your eyes, John Tyler.” “What be that, then?” he asked. I said, “'Tis goodbye you've said to your tumbles with Bessie, John; from now on there's no one in this–world for you but me.” He said, “Why's that, then, Annis?” Then I told him. “For this, John. I've bewitched 'ee. I've taken the draught as Tamar did brew for me. She's charmed you, John.” “Well, then,” he said, “there's naught as we can do about it.” So we went to the barn and all is well between us two.'

Listening, Tamar was filled with pleasure. She was going to be able to read and write; she was going to be able to talk as easily and cleverly as did the gentry. She was going to be one of those people whom she admired – with this difference: She could work spells, and they could not!

Tamar was sixteen years old. She had grown taller and plumper in the last two years – the two most important years in her life so far.

There had been no kitchen work for Tamar for a long time. She was accepted as the daughter of the house now. In spite of himself, Richard could not control a growing delight in her. For one thing she was so beautiful – and he had always been susceptible to beauty in any form – so that it was a source of delight merely to look at her. For another she was intelligent; she could amuse and amaze him. She had learned quickly and in a few months after those first lessons she was reading and writing. He had told her then that he did not wish her to waste time in the kitchen; if she cared to study, he would help her.

She did care. She cared deeply.

‘You have much to learn besides reading and writing,' he said. ‘You must learn to walk with grace, to act with dignity, to be always poised. And there is your speech. That offends me greatly.'

After that she must sit before a mirror mouthing words, taking each vowel and consonant and repeating it until she could say it in a manner which pleased him. She was now
speaking in an accent similar to his own, with little trace of soft, cooing Devon in it.

She loved gay colours, and in the blues and scarlets which she favoured her dark hair looked darker, her flashing eyes more bright. When she rode out – for among other things she had learned to ride – people turned to look at her, and swore she had a touch of the Devil in her. She was too beautiful and too clever, they said, to be all human. Look how she had escaped pricking and death, and look what she had made out of it!

Tamar ignored them; she was secretly pleased that they should continue to regard her as the possessor of supernatural powers.

Richard deplored this in her. He would have her sit and talk with him; since the death of his friend in Pennie Cross he needed someone to whom he could talk of the subjects which interested him most and, to his astonishment, Tamar was filling that need. It seemed amazing to him that he could talk thus to the girl who a few years ago had seemed such a little savage.

Sir Humphrey once said: ‘Merriman, you dote on that girl.' He nudged Richard. ‘Damme! If you hadn't told us she was your daughter, I'd say she was your mistress. Not sure I don't believe it now.'

‘Nonsense!' he had retorted sharply. ‘I'm interested. Who could help being interested in a girl like that? Think of her upbringing and look at her now. She's damned unusual.'

Sir Humphrey had gone off chuckling.

The fact was that Richard was growing more interested in Tamar than he had thought it possible for him to be in any person. That was why it disturbed him deeply that she could cling so stubbornly to the belief in her supernatural birth. And the reason? Because he feared for her. He feared that if she were in danger again he might not be able to save her, and the thought of losing her, as he said, depressed him; but that, he knew, was a very mild way of expressing what he would feel.

Again and again he remonstrated with her; he was coldly contemptuous; he told her she was being stupid; but nothing he could say could turn her from her beliefs.

One November day he called her to his study.

She noticed that a faint colour burned under his skin, and she knew that something had happened to perturb him.

‘Tamar,' he said, ‘sit down, child. I want to talk to you. I've just had news of a diabolical plot in London. It's going to have far-reaching effects on the whole country, you will see.'

‘What is this plot?' she asked.

‘A plot to blow up the King and Parliament, and so rid the country of its rulers at one blow. This is going to mean fresh persecutions.'

‘Who did this thing?'

‘Oh, it was a foolish plot . . . doomed to failure. As I've heard it, a Robert Catesby – a Northamptonshire man and a Catholic – gathered together some fellow Catholics, engaged a man called Guy Fawkes, a soldier of fortune, to secrete himself in the vaults of the Houses of Parliament with a barrel of gunpowder and matches. One of the conspirators warned a friend not to attend Parliament on November the Fifth – the day for which it had been arranged – and so suspicion was aroused, the vaults searched, the plot discovered. Such folly! This is not the way to get that freedom to live and worship which I long to see in this land.'

‘Freedom to live and worship,' she repeated; and added mischievously: ‘And to believe in witches . . . if you wish to?'

‘How you cling to that stupid belief! There are times, Tamar, when I despair of you.'

‘It is such a distinction to be the daughter of the Devil. I cannot give it up. And whatever you say, Granny Lackwell's charms did what they were supposed to do. The sick were healed. Some fellsick when she had looked at them . . . or had bad luck.'

He looked at her wearily, but even so he could not help smiling at the lovely, animated face. ‘Sometimes the charms worked,' he said; ‘sometimes they did not. When they did not, it was forgotten; when they did, it was remembered and talked about. That was chance, my dear. We have talked of this many times But this plot . . . it is going to mean new and severe laws against the Catholics. We shall probably have Catholic-prickers among us as well as witch-prickers.'

‘At least you need have no anxiety for me when these new prickers come.'

He looked at her quizzically. ‘I fear you are a wild girl, Tamar, and I confess you give me some anxiety. You have learned much, and quickly – no one would guess that you were not born into your present position – and yet you persist stubbornly in clinging to superstitions regarding yourself which can bring at best discomfort, at worst disaster.'

‘I know,' she answered, ‘that there is a mystery surrounding my birth. You forget that I saw my mother's face when it was referred to. She would not have made up a story about being seized by the Devil in a dark wood.'

‘There is something I have to say to you, Tamar. I did not mean to . . . yet; but I see I must. I shall have to tell you something of myself. First, I am collecting information of a certain sort. When I have all I need I may have it printed as a book.'

‘What kind of book?' she asked.

‘A book of all times – past and present, of bloodshed and horror.'

‘Why are you compiling this book?'

‘I think it may be because I wish to show what I have found, to others . . . Perhaps also that I am seeking something myself.'