The House On The Strand Part 3

My mission accomplished, I drove up through Tywardreath and took the left-hand fork to Treesmill. The narrow road, with fields on either side of it, ran steeply to a valley, and before the final descent sloped sharply to a humped-backed bridge beneath which the main railway line ran between Par and Plymouth. I braked by the bridge and heard the hoot of the diesel express as it emerged from the tunnel out of sight to my right, and in a few moments the train itself came rattling down the line, pa.s.sed under the bridge, and curved its way through the valley down to Par. Memories of undergraduate days came back to me. Magnus and I had always travelled down by train, and directly the train came out of the tunnel between Lostwithiel and Par we used to reach for our suitcases. I had been aware, then, of steep fields to the left of the carriage window and a valley to the right, full of reeds and stumpy willows, and suddenly the train would be at the station, the large black board with the white lettering announcing 'Par - Change For Newquay', and we should have arrived. Now, watching the express disappear round the bend in the valley, I observed the terrain from another angle, and realised how the coming of the railway over a hundred years ago must have altered the sloping fields, the line literally dug out of the hill-side. There had been other disturbers of the peace besides the railway. Quarries had scarred the opposite side of the valley on the high ground where the tin and copper mines had flourished a century ago-I remembered Commander Lane telling us once at dinner how hundreds of men had been employed in the mines in Victorian days, and when the slump came chimneys and engine-houses were left to crumble into decay, the miners emigrating, or seeking work in the newer industry of china-clay. This afternoon, the train out of sight and the rattle spent, all was quiet once again, and nothing moved in the valley except a few cows grazing in the swampy meadow at the base of the hill. I let the car descend gently to the end of the road before it rose sharply again to climb the opposite hill out of the valley. A sluggish stream ran through the meadow where the cows were grazing, spanned by a low bridge, and above the stream, to the right of the road, were old farm-buildings. I lowered the window of the car and looked about me. A dog ran from the farm, barking, followed by a man carrying a pail. I leant out of the window and asked him if this was Treesmill.

"Yes," he said. "If you continue straight on you'll come to the main road from Lostwithiel to Saint Blazey."

"In point of fact," I answered, "I was looking for the mill itself."

"Nothing left of it, he said. This building here was the old mill-house, and all that's left of the stream is what you see. The main stream was diverted many years ago, before my time. They tell me that before they built this bridge there was a ford here. The stream ran right across this road, and most of the valley was under water."

"Yes," I said, "yes, that's very possible."

He pointed to a cottage the other side of the bridge. "That used to be a pub in old days", he said, "when they were working the mines up at Lanescot and Carrogett. It would be full of miners on a Sat.u.r.day night, so they tell me. Not many people alive who know much about the old days now."

"Do you know", I asked him, "if there is any farmhouse here in the valley that might have been a manor house in days gone by?"

He considered a moment before replying. "Well," he said, "there's Trevenna up back behind us, on the Stonybridge road, but I've never heard it was old, and Trenadlyn beyond that, and of course Treverran up the valley nearer the railway tunnel. That's an old house all right, fine old place, built hundreds of years ago."

"How long ago?" I enquired, interest rising.

He considered again. "There was a piece about Treverran in the paper once," he said. "Some gentleman from Oxford went to look at it. I believe it was 1705 they said it was built."

My interest ebbed. Queen Anne houses, tin and copper mines, the pub across the road, all these were centuries later than my time. I felt as an archaeologist must feel who discovers a late Roman villa instead of a Bronze Age camp.

"Well, thanks very much," I said, "good day to you," and turned the car and drove back up the hill. If the Champernounes had descended this road in 1328, their covered wagonettes would have been baulked by the mill-stream at the bottom, unless an older bridge than the one I had seen once forded it. Half-way up the hill I turned left into a side-lane, and presently saw the three farmsteads the man had mentioned. I reached for my road-map. This side-road that I was on would join the main road at the top of the hill-the long tunnel must run deep underground beneath the road, a fine feat of engineering-and yes, the farm on my right was Trevenna, the one in front of me Trenadiyn, and the third, near to the railway line itself would be Treverran. So what, I asked myself? Drive to each in turn, knock upon the door, and say, Do you mind if I sit down for half-an-hour, give myself what the drug-addicts call a fix and see what happens?

Archaeologists had the best of it. Someone to finance their digs, enthusiastic company, and no risk of a lunatic asylum at the end of the day. I turned, drove back along my side-road, and up the steep hill towards Tywardreath. A car, towing a caravan, was trying to edge its way into the entrance of a bungalow half-way up the hill, effectively blocking my pa.s.sage. I braked, almost in the ditch, and let the driver proceed with his manoeuvres. He shouted his apologies, and finally succeeded in getting both car and caravan parked beside the bungalow. He climbed out of his car and walked towards me, apologising once again. "I think you can get past now," he said. "I'm sorry for the hold-up."

"That's O.K." I told him, "I'm in no hurry. You did a fine job getting your caravan clear of the road."

"Oh well, I'm used to it," he said. "I live here, and the caravan gives us extra room when we have summer visitors."

I glanced at the name on the gate. "Chapel Down," I said. "That's unusual."

He grinned. "That's what we thought when we built the bungalow," he said. "We decided to keep the name of the actual plot of ground. It's been Chapel Down for centuries, and the fields across the road are both called Chapel Park."

"Anything to do with the old Priory?" I asked.

He did not register. "There were a couple of cottages here once," he said, "some sort of a Methodist meeting-house, I believe. But the field names go back a lot further than that."

His wife came out of the bungalow with a couple of children, and I started up the car. "All clear ahead," he called, and I pulled away from the ditch and drove up the hill until the curve in the road hid the bungalow from sight. Then I pulled across to a lay-by on the right, where there was a pile of stones and timber. I had reached the summit of the hill, and beyond the lay-by the road curved down to Tywardreath, the first houses already in sight. Chapel Down... Chapel Park... Could there have been a chapel here in former days, long since demolished, either on the site of the caravan-owner's bungalow or near the lay-by, where a modern house fronted the road? Below the house a gate led into a field, and I climbed over it, circuiting the field and keeping close to the hedge until the sloping ground hid me from sight. This was the field the caravan-owner said was Chapel Park. It had no distinctive feature that I could see. Cows were grazing at the far end. I scrambled through the hedge at the bottom, and found myself on the precipitous gra.s.sland a few hundred feet above the railway, looking straight into the valley. I lit a cigarette and surveyed the scene. No chapels tucked away, but what a view, Treesmill Farm away to my right, the other farms beyond, all sheltered from prevailing wind and weather, immediately below me the railway, and beyond it the strange sweep of the valley, no pattern of fields, nothing but a tapestry of willow, birch and alder. A paradise, surely, for birds in spring, and a good place for boys to hide from the parental eye-but boys never went birds-nesting nowadays, at least my stepsons didn't.

I sat down against the hedge to finish my cigarette, and as I did so became aware of the flask in my breast pocket. I took it out and looked at it. It was a handy size, and I wondered if it had belonged to Magnus's father; it would have been just right for a nip of rum in his sailing days, when the breeze freshened. If only Vita had disliked flying and had chosen to come by sea it would have given me several more days... A rattle beneath me made me look down to the valley. A solitary diesel engine was coming up the line, going h.e.l.l for leather without its load of carriages, and I watched it worm its way, like a fat, swift-moving slug, above the willows and the birches, pa.s.s under the bridge above Treesmill, and disappear finally into the gaping jaws of the tunnel a mile distant. I unscrewed the flask and downed its contents. All right, I told myself, so what? I'm b.l.o.o.d.y-minded. And Vita's still in mid-Atlantic. I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER SIX.

THIS TIME, SITTING motionless with my back against the hedge and my eyes shut, I would try to pin-point the moment of transition. On the previous occasions I had been walking, the first time across fields, the second up the churchyard path, when the vision altered. Now it would surely happen otherwise, because I was concentrating on the moment of impact. The sense of well-being would come, like a burden being lifted, and with it the sensation of lightness as feeling went from my body. No panic today, and no dismal falling rain. It was even warm, and the sun must be breaking through the clouds-I could sense the brightness through my closed eyelids. I took a last pull at the f.a.g-end of my cigarette and let it drop.

If this drowsy content lasted much longer I might even fall asleep. Even the birds were rejoicing in the burst of sunshine; I could hear a blackbird singing in the hedge somewhere behind me, and more delightfully still a cuckoo called from the valley, distant at first, then near at hand. I listened to the call, a favourite sound, connected in my mind with every sort of carefree boyhood ramble thirty years ago. There, he called again, immediately overhead.

I opened my eyes and watched him wing his strange, unsteady flight across the sky, and as he did so I remembered that it was late July. The cuckoo's brief English summer ceased in June, along with the blackbird's song, and the primroses that were blooming in the bank beside me would have withered by mid-May. This warmth and brightness belonged to another world, an earlier spring. It had happened, despite concentration, in a moment of time that had not registered in my brain. All the sharp green colour of that first day was spread about me on the sloping hill below, and the valley with its tapestry of birch and willow lay submerged beneath a sheet of water, part of a great winding estuary that cut into the land, bordered by sandbanks where the water shallowed. I stood up, and saw how the river narrowed to mingle with the tumbling mill-stream below Treesmill, the farmhouse altered in shape, narrow, thatched, the hills opposite thickly forested with oak, the foliage young and tender because of spring. Immediately beneath me, where the field had shelved precipitously to the railway cutting, the ground took on a gentler slope, in the midst of which a broad track ran to the estuary, the track terminating in a quay beside which boats were anch.o.r.ed, the channel there being deep, forming a natural pool. A larger vessel was moored in mid-stream, her sail partly stowed. I could hear the voices of the men aboard her singing, and as I watched a smaller boat alongside pushed off to ferry someone ash.o.r.e, and the voices were suddenly hushed, as the pa.s.senger in the small boat lifted his hand for silence. Now I looked around me, and the hedge had gone, the hill behind me was thickly wooded like the hills opposite, and to my left, where there had been scrub and gorse, a long stone wall encircled a dwelling-house; I could see the roof-top above the surrounding trees. The path from the quay led straight uphill to the house.

I drew nearer, watching the man below descend from the boat at the quay, then proceed to climb the road towards me. As he did so the cuckoo called again, flying overhead, and the man looked up to watch it, pausing for breath as he climbed, his action so ordinary, so natural, that it endeared him to me for no reason except that he lived, and I was a ghost in time. A time, moreover, that was not constant, for yesterday it had been Martinmas, and now, by the cuckoo's call and the Primroses in flower, it must be spring. He came close, breasting the hill, and as I recognised him, though his expression was graver, more solemn than that of the preceding day, the a.n.a.logy came to me that these faces were like the diamonds, hearts and spades in some well-thumbed pack of cards shuffled by a patience-player; however they were sorted, they still formed themselves into a combination that the player could not guess at. I did not know, nor they, how the game would go. It was Otto Bodrugan climbing the hill, followed by his son Henry, and, when he raised his hand in greeting, so instinctive was the gesture that I raised mine in answer, and even smiled; but I should have known the futility of my action, for father and son brushed past me towards the entrance gate of the house, and Roger the steward came forward to greet them. He must have been standing there watching them approach, but I had not seen him. Gone was the festive air of yesterday, the mocking smile of the would-be go-between; he wore a dark tunic, as did Bodrugan and his son, and his manner was as grave as theirs.

"What news?" asked Bodrugan.

Roger shook his head. "He is sinking fast," he said. "There is little hope for him. My lady Joanna is within, and all the family. Sir William Ferrers is already come from Bere, accompanied by the lady Matilda. Sir Henry does not suffer, we have seen to that-or, to speak more plainly, Brother Jean has done so, for he has been at the bedside night and day."

"And the cause?"

"Nothing but the general weakness of which you know, and a sudden chill with that late frost we had. He wanders in his mind, speaking of his grievous faults and asking pardon. The parish priest heard his confession, but, not content with that, he begged to be shriven by Brother Jean as well, and has received the last rites." Roger stood aside to let Bodrugan and his son pa.s.s through the entrance gates, and now the extent of the building came into view, stone-walled with tiled roof fronting upon a court, an outside staircase leading to an upper chamber, the steps similar to those serving a farmhouse granary today. There were stables at the rear, and beyond the walls the track wound uphill towards Tywardreath, the thatched cottages of the serfs who tilled the surrounding lands scattered on either side of it. Dogs ran barking across the court at our approach, crouching low, ears flat, as Roger shouted at them, and a scared-faced servant emerged from a corner of the building to drive them off. Bodrugan and his son Henry crossed the threshold, with Roger in attendance, and I his shadow close behind. We had entered a long, narrow hall, extending the full width of the house, small cas.e.m.e.nt windows giving upon the court on the eastern side and looking down to the estuary on the west. There was an open hearth at the far end, the banked turf barely smoking, and across the width of the room was a trestle table, with benches alongside. The hall was dark, partly because of the small windows and the smoke that lingered in the atmosphere, partly because the walls were plastered a deep vermilion, giving the whole a rich and sombre air. There were three youngsters straddling the benches, two boys and a girl, their sprawling att.i.tude of dejection suggesting a numb bewilderment at the approach of death rather than actual sorrow. I recognised the eldest, William Champernoune, who had been presented to the Bishop; he was the first to rise now and come forward to greet his uncle and cousin, while the younger two, after momentary hesitation, followed his example. Otto Bodrugan bent to embrace all three, and then, as children will at the sudden entrance of adults in a moment of stress, they seized the opportunity to escape from the room, taking their cousin Henry with them.

Now I had leisure to observe the other occupants of the room. Two of them I had not seen before-a man and a woman, the man light-haired, bearded, the woman stout, with a sharp expression which boded ill for those who crossed her. She was already dressed in black, ready for calamity when it came, her white coif contrasting with her dark gown. This must be Sir William Ferrers, who, so Roger had said, had come post-haste from Devon, and his wife Matilda. The third occupant of the room, who was sitting on a low stool, was no stranger; it was my girl Isolda. She had made her own gesture to impending mourning by wearing lilac; but the silver sheen of the dress glistened, and a lilac ribbon, looping her braided hair away from her face, had been placed there with care. The prevailing mood seemed to be one of tension, and Matilda Ferrers wore an expression of high dudgeon which spoke of trouble. "We expected you long since," was her immediate reproof to the new arrival, Otto Bodrugan, as he advanced towards her chair. "Does it take so many hours to sail across the bay, or did you delay purposely that your men might amuse themselves fishing?"

He kissed her hand, ignoring the reproach, and exchanged a glance with the man behind her chair. "How are you, William?" he said. "One hour from my anchorage to this, which was fair going, with the wind abeam. It would have taken longer had we ridden."

William nodded, with an imperceptible shrug, used to his lady's temper. "I thought as much," he murmured. "You could not have come sooner, and in any event there is nothing you can do."

"Nothing he can do?" echoed Matilda. "Except support us all when the moment comes, and add his voice to ours. Dismiss the French monk from the bedside and that drunken parish priest from the kitchen. If he cannot use a brother's authority and persuade Joanna to listen to reason, n.o.body can."

Bodrugan turned to Isolda. He barely brushed her hand in greeting, nor did she look up at him and smile. The constraint between them surely was due to caution: one word of too great intimacy would draw comment. November... May... Six months must have pa.s.sed, in my leap through time, since the reception at the Priory for the Bishop's visitation.

"Where is Joanna?" asked Bodrugan.

"In the chamber above," replied William, and now I saw the family likeness to Isolda. This was William Ferrers, her brother, but at least ten, perhaps fifteen, years older, his face lined, his light hair turning grey. "You are aware of the trouble," he continued. "Henry will have no one near him but the French monk Jean, receives no treatment but from his hands, and refuses the surgeon who came with us from Devon and stands in high repute. Now, the treatment having failed, he is fallen into a coma and the end is near, probably within a few hours."

"If such is Henry's wish and he is not suffering, what is there to complain of?" asked Bodrugan.

"Because it is ill done!" exclaimed Matilda. "Henry has even expressed a wish to be buried in the Priory chapel, which should be withstood on every account. We all know the reputation of the Priory, the lax behaviour of the Prior, the lack of discipline amongst the monks. Such a resting-place for someone of Henry's standing would make fools of all of us in the eyes of the world."

"Whose world?" asked Bodrugan. "Does yours embrace the whole of England or only Devon?"

Matilda crimsoned. "We know well enough where your allegiance lay seven years past", she said, "supporting an adulterous Queen against her son, the lawful King. Doubtless all things French have your attachment, from invading forces, should they cross the Channel, to dissolute monks serving a foreign Order."

Her husband William laid a restraining hand upon her shoulder. "We gain nothing by opening old wounds," he said. "Otto's part in that rebellion does not concern us now. However..." he glanced at Bodrugan, "Matilda has a point. It might not be politic for a Champernoune to be interred amongst French monks. It would be more fitting if you would let him lie at Bodrugan, seeing that Joanna holds much of your manor fee as her marriage portion. Or I should be most happy for him to be buried at Bere, where we are rebuilding the church at the present time. After all, Henry is my cousin: the connection is almost as close as your own."

"Oh, for the love of G.o.d," Isolda broke in impatiently, "let Henry lie where he will. Must we conduct ourselves like butchers haggling over a sheep's carcase before the beast is slain?"

It was the first time I had heard her voice. She spoke in French, like the rest, with the same nasal intonation, but perhaps because she was younger than they, and I was prejudiced, I found the quality more musical, holding a ring of clarity theirs did not possess. Matilda at once burst into tears, to the consternation of her husband, while Bodrugan strode over to the window and stared moodily at the view beyond. As for Isolda, who had caused the commotion, she tapped her foot impatiently, an expression of disdain upon her face.

I glanced at Roger standing beside me. He was making a supreme effort to conceal a smile. Then he stepped forward, his att.i.tude one of respect towards all present, and observed to no one in particular, but I suspected to catch Isolda's eye, "If you wish, I will tell my lady of Sir Otto's arrival."

n.o.body answered, and Roger, taking silence for acquiescence, bowed and withdrew. He climbed the stairway to the upper chamber, I following close upon his heels as if some thread bound us together. He entered without knocking, pushing aside the heavy hangings that masked the entrance to the room, which was half the size of the hall beneath, most of the s.p.a.ce taken up by a draped bed at the further end. The small, pane-less windows gave little light, the aperture tight closed by oiled parchment, while the lighted candles standing on the trestle table at the bed's foot threw monstrous shadows on ochre-coloured walls. There were three people in the room, Joanna, a monk, and the dying man. Henry de Champernoune was propped up in the bed by a great bolster that thrust him forward, forcing his chin upon his breast, and a white cloth was bound round his head turban fashion, giving him an incongruous likeness to an Arab sheik. His eyes were closed, and judging by the pallor of his face he was on the point of death. The monk was bending to stir something in a bowl on the trestle table, and he lifted his head as we entered. It was the young man with the brilliant eyes who had served the Prior as secretary or clerk on my first visit to the Priory. He said nothing but continued stirring, and Roger turned to Joanna, who was seated at the other end of the room. She was perfectly composed, without a sign of grief on her face, and was engaged in drawing threads of coloured silk through a frame to form a pattern.

"Are they all here?" she asked, without turning her eyes from the frame.

"Those who were bidden," answered the steward, "and already at odds with one another. Lady Ferrers first scolded the children for speaking too loud, and has now fallen out with Sir Otto, while Lady Carminowe, by her looks, wishes herself elsewhere. Sir John has not yet come."

"Nor likely to," replied Joanna. "I left the matter to his discretion. If he is premature in condolence it might be thought over-zealous on his part, and his sister Lady Ferrers will be the first to make mischief out of it."

"She is making mischief already," replied the steward.

"I'm aware of it. The sooner the business is over the better for all of us."

Roger crossed to the foot of the bed and looked down upon the helpless occupant. "How long now?" he asked the monk.

"He will not wake again. You may touch him if you will, he cannot feel it. We are only waiting for the heart to cease, and then my lady can announce his death."

Roger shifted his gaze from the bed to the small bowls on the trestle table. "What did you give him?"

"The same as before, meconium, the juice of the whole plant, in equal parts with henbane to the strength of a dram."

Roger looked at Joanna. "It would be as well if I removed these, lest there should be discussion as to the treatment. Lady Ferrers spoke of her own surgeon. They hardly dare go against your wishes, but there could be trouble."

Joanna, still employing herself with her skeins of silk, shrugged her shoulders.

"Take the ingredients if you will," she said, "though we have disposed of the liquids down the drain. The vessels you may remove if you consider it safer, but I hardly think Brother Jean has anything to fear. His discretion has been absolute."

She smiled at the young monk, who responded with one glance from his expressive eyes, and I wondered if he too, like the absent Sir John, had found favour during the weeks of her husband's illness. Between them, Roger and the monk, they made a package of the bowls, wrapping them in sacking, and all the while I could hear the murmur of voices from the hall below, suggesting that Lady Ferrers had recovered from her fit of crying and was in full spate again.

"How is my brother Otto taking it?" asked Joanna.

"He made no comment when Sir William suggested that interment in Bodrugan chapel would be preferable to the Priory. I think he is hardly likely to interfere. Sir William proposed his own church at Bere as an alternative."

"To what purpose?"

"For self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, perhaps-who knows? I would not recommend it. Once they had Sir Henry's body in their hands there could be meddling. Whereas in the Priory Chapel-"

"All would be well. Sir Henry's wishes observed, and ourselves at peace. I look to you to see there is no trouble with the tenants, Roger. The people have no great love of the Priory."

"There'll be no trouble if they are treated well at the funeral feast," he answered. "A promise of mitigation of fines at the next court and a pardon for all misdemeanours. That should content them."

"Let us hope so." She pushed aside her frame and, rising from her chair, went to the bed. "Is he living still?" she asked. The monk took the lifeless wrist in his hand and felt the pulse, then lowered his head to listen to his patient's heart.

"Barely," he answered. "You may light the candles if you will, and by the time the family has been summoned he will have gone."

They might have been talking of some wornout piece of furniture that had lost its use, instead of a woman's husband on the point of death. Joanna returned to her chair, took up a piece of black veiling, and began to drape it round her head and shoulders. Then she seized a looking-gla.s.s made of silver from the table near at hand.

"Should I wear it thus", she asked the steward, "or covering my face?"

"More fitting to be covered," he told her, "unless you can weep at will."

"I have not wept since my wedding-day," she answered. The monk Jean crossed the dying man's hands upon his breast and fastened a linen bandage about his jaw. He stood back to observe his work, and as a finishing touch placed a crucifix between the folded hands. Meanwhile Roger was rearranging the trestle table. "How many candles do you require?" he asked.

"Five on the day of death," replied the monk," in honour of the five wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you a black coverlet for the bed?"

"In the chest yonder," said Joanna, and while monk and steward draped the bed with its black pall she looked in the mirror for the last time, before covering her face with the veil.

"If I may presume," murmured the monk, "it would make the better impression if my lady knelt beside the bed and I stationed myself at the foot. Then when the family comes into the chamber I can recite the Prayers for the Dead. Unless you prefer the parish priest to do so?"

"He is too drunk to mount the stairs," said Roger. "If Lady Ferrers has one glimpse of him it will be his finish."

"Then leave him alone," said Joanna, "and let us proceed. Roger, will you descend and summon them? William first, for he is the heir." She knelt beside the bed, head bowed in grief, but raised it before we left the room, saying over her shoulder to the steward, "It cost my brother Sir Otto near on fifty marks at Bodrugan when my father died, not counting the beasts that were slaughtered for the funeral feast. We must not be out-done. Spare no expense."

Roger drew aside the hangings by the door, and I followed him on to the steps outside. The contrast between the bright day without and the murky atmosphere within must have struck him as forcibly as it did me, for he paused at the top of the steps and looked down over the surrounding walls to the gleaming waters of the estuary below. The sails of Bodrugan's ship were furled loosely on the yard as she lay at anchor, and a fellow in a small boat astern skulled to and fro in search of fish. The youngsters from the house had wandered down the hillside to stare at their uncle's boat. Henry, Bodrugan's son, was pointing out something to his cousin William, and the dogs leapt about them, barking once again.

I realised at that moment, more strongly than hitherto, how fantastic, even macabre, was my presence amongst them, unseen, unborn, a freak in time, witness to events that had happened centuries past, unremembered, unrecorded; and I wondered how it was that standing here on the steps, watching yet invisible, I could so feel myself involved, troubled, by these loves and deaths. The man who was dying might have been a relative from my own lost world of youth-my father, even, who had died in spring when I was about the age of young William down there in the field. The cable from the Far East-he had been killed fighting the j.a.panese-arrived just as my mother and I had finished lunch, staying in an hotel in Wales for the Easter holidays. She went up to her bedroom and shut the door, and I hung about the hotel drive, aware of loss but unable to cry, dreading the sympathetic glance of the girl at the reception desk if I went indoors.

Roger, carrying the piece of sacking containing the bowls stained by herb-juices, descended to the court, and went through an archway at the further end leading to a stable-yard. What servants made up the household seemed to be gathered there, but at the steward's approach they broke up their gossip and scattered, all but one lad whom I had seen that first day and recognised, by his likeness to the horseman, as Roger's brother. Roger summoned him to his side with a jerk of his head.

"It is over," he said. "Ride to the Priory at once and inform the Prior, that he may give orders for tolling the bell. Work will cease when the men hear the summons, and they will start to come in from the fields, and a.s.semble on the green. Directly you have delivered your message to the Prior ride on home and place this package in the cellar, then wait for my return. I have much to do, and may not be back tonight." The boy nodded, and disappeared into the stables. Roger pa.s.sed through the archway into the court once more. Otto Bodrugan was standing at the entrance to the house. Roger hesitated a moment, then crossed the court to him.

"My lady asks you to go to her," he said, "with Sir William and Lady Ferrers and the lady Isolda. I will call William and the children."

"Is Sir Henry worse?" asked Bodrugan.

"He is dead, Sir Otto. Not five minutes since, without recovering consciousness, peacefully, in his sleep."

"I am sorry," said Bodrugan, "but it is better so. I pray G.o.d we may both go as peacefully when our time comes, though undeservedly." Both men crossed themselves. Automatically I did the same. "I will tell the others," he continued. "Lady Ferrers may go into hysterics, but no matter. How is my sister?"

"Calm, Sir Otto."

"I expected it."

Bodrugan paused before turning into the house. "You are aware", he said, and there was something hesitant in his manner, "that William, being a minor, will forfeit his lands to the King until he attains his majority?"

"I am, Sir Otto."

"The confiscation would be little more than a formality in ordinary circ.u.mstances," Bodrugan went on. "As William's uncle by marriage, and therefore his legal guardian, I should be empowered to administer his estates, with the King as overlord. But the circ.u.mstances are not ordinary, owing to the part I took in the so-called rebellion." The steward maintained discreet silence, his face inscrutable. "Therefore", said Bodrugan, "the escheator acting for the minor and the King is likely to be one held in greater esteem than myself-his cousin Sir John Carminowe, in all probability. In that event, I don't doubt he will arrange matters smoothiy for my sister." The irony in his voice was unmistakable.

Roger inclined his head without replying, and Bodrugan went into the house. The steward's slow smile of satisfaction was instantly suppressed as the young Champernounes, with their cousin Henry, entered the court, laughing and chatting, having momentarily forgotten the imminence of death. Henry, the eldest of the party, was the first to sense, intuitively, what must have happened. He called the younger pair to silence, and motioned William to come forward. I saw the expression on the boy's face change from carefree laughter to apprehension, and I guessed how sudden dread must have turned his stomach sick. "Is it my father?" he asked.

Roger nodded. "Take your brother and sister with you", he said, "and go to your mother. Remember, you are the eldest; she will look to you for support in the days to come."

The boy clutched at the steward's arm. "You will remain with us, will you not?" he asked. "And my uncle Otto too?"

"We shall see," answered Roger. "But you are the head of the family now." William made a supreme effort at self-control. He turned and faced his younger brother and sister and said, "Our father is dead. Please follow me," and walked into the house, head erect, but very pale. The children, startled, did as they were told, taking their cousin Henry's hand, and glancing at Roger I saw, for the first time, something of compa.s.sion on his face, and pride as well; the boy he must have known from cradle days had not disgraced himself. He waited a few moments, then followed them.

The hall appeared deserted. A tapestry hanging at the far end near the hearth had been drawn aside, showing a small stairway to the upper room, by which Otto Bodrugan and the Ferrers must have ascended, and the children too. I could hear the shuffle of feet overhead, then silence, followed by the low murmur of the monk's voice, Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

I said the hall appeared deserted, and so it was, but for the slender figure in lilac: Isolda was the only member of the group who had not gone to the room above. At sight of her Roger paused on the threshold, before moving forward with deference.

"Lady Carminowe does not wish to pay tribute with the rest of the family?" he asked.

Isolda had not noticed him standing there by the entrance, but now she turned her head and looked at him direct, and there was so much coldness in her eyes that standing where I was, beside the steward, they seemed to sweep me with the same contempt as they did him.