by Anya Seton
“Did ye drop something?” John asked, but before she need answer he said with quiet triumph, “Ah, we’re here! There’s Skirby Hall, they’ve the banner flying fur ye, sweet—and ye’ll find a goodly welcome as Sir John brings home his bride.”
Indeed the welcome was overwhelming. John’s tenants and servants were lined along the road, the women bobbed curtsies, the men pulled their forelocks. A trumpet blared above the shouted greetings. John’s bailiff, wizened like an elderly terrier, came forward and kissed Celia’s hand respectfully. “M’lady, m’lady,” she heard the new title whispered all around her. She heard the admiration, “Sa young, sa fair. Master’s the lucky one . . .”
John heard them, too. He laughed and sweeping Celia up in his arms, mounted the steps like a lad and carried her over the threshold while he whispered in her ear. “We’ll make a son yet, dearling. Ye’ll see—we’ll forget London an’ all the world but our own homeland!”
She smiled a little and kissed his cheek, while his tenantry cheered. Yet, much later beneath the crimson velvet tester over John’s great bed, that which he so desired became impossible when she nestled compliantly against him and whispered, “Ah . . . this is sweet . . . to be held close like a father . . . I remember him a bit . . . he was hearty and strong like you . . . would that you were my father, sir, ’twould make me so happy.”
His arms stiffened around her, then fell away. He sighed heavily.
“Have I said wrong?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to—you’re so good to me. I’m grateful—I ne’er dreamed to be ‘my lady’—you’ll find me grateful . . .”
“Hush—” he said. “No more talking. Sleep now, I’ve much to do on the morrow. I’ve been away too long.”
After that night John ordered a different chamber readied for himself. He left Celia to occupy the sumptuous bed in the great chamber alone.
He treated her with kindness in private, with the respect due to his wife in public, but beyond a kiss on the cheek night and morning, he did not touch her again. Celia, though aware that she had somehow failed him, was deeply relieved. She very soon learned her duties as lady of the manor, and found that her apprenticeship under Ursula had given her ample capability.
Once she understood the Lincolnshire dialect, she had no trouble in directing her serving maids, whether in the house, the laundry, the dairy or the stillroom, and they obeyed her with grudging respect.
By the time the days brightened and flowed to summer Celia had grown accustomed to the watery wastes around the knoll where the small brick manor stood amongst its guardian willows; she could look from her window and watch their tenantry walking on stilts through the marshes to catch the highly profitable geese, plucked several times yearly for their feathers and quills. The former were exported as far as London, where they softened the slumber of countless citizens. The quills made pens for the learned. Goose eggs, too, were sold at Boston mart, along with the warm little corpses of duck, teal, snipe, and even the rare great bustard, when a fowler’s arrow managed to bring one down.
Celia often gazed out at the windmills—she had never seen so many—while the barley, peas and bean crops grew tall on their arable land. She listened for the distant lowing of their cattle, below the shrilling of curlews. At least there would not be another year of famine in Lincolnshire.
As the marshes turned green and leaden skies over the Wash often blazed crimson and gold in the sunrises, she began to feel the still and hazy beauty of the fenlands, though she would never have mentioned this to John, who did not share her quietude of spirit.
He rode daily to his counting house in Boston where he and his colleagues held gloomy discussions. Boston Haven was silting up fast; a hundred years ago Boston had been the second busiest port in England. Now, as he had found in London, financial or mercantile interest no longer included Lincolnshire. Moreover, foreign markets were being glutted with the clothiers’ exports. In order to open up new markets he had joined the Merchant Adventurers and eagerly awaited news of the exploratory ships sent out towards Muscovy and the unknown East. Not one of those ships had been heard from yet, while his own last cargo to Calais had fetched distressingly low prices. And he was having trouble with his weavers—a succession of mishaps to that portion of the cottage industry which he controlled.
It seemed to him that with the essential failure of his marriage he had lost all the verve and optimism which had hitherto made him successful.
Then he had another attack of gout, during which he shut himself in his room for days, allowing nobody near him but his manservant.
Celia was sorry, she made possets for him and sent them up to his chamber. She continued to take pride in her housewifery but there was plenty of time for riding out on Juno and gingerly exploring the mysterious fens. She even wheedled one of the fowlers into teaching her how to paddle the narrow cockboats constantly used by the amphibious population.
Nobody bothered her. The fen-dwellers all knew her to be Lady Hutchinson and a foreigner, who despite her obvious youth and comeliness, kept herself to herself—as was fitting.
Often on a northerly breeze she heard the bells ring out from Boston Stump—St. Botolph’s lofty lantern spire—summoning worshippers to Mass, but she never went, nor did her husband question her. He slowly recovered from the gout and reappeared in the hall for meals. He regained interest in his manor and his business affairs, he even invited some of his Hutchinson relations from Alford to the Michaelmas Feast at Skirby, but his joviality had vanished, he had grown peevish; complaining that the ale was brewed too thin, or the meat was underdone. He often beat off the pedigreed hounds beneath the table when they begged for their usual bones.
Sometimes he sat silent and brooding for hours.
Celia remained dutiful, faintly distressed, yet scarcely noticing these alterations. Juno’s sprained fedock, or the ailments of a little mongrel puppy she had adopted, caused her far more concern.
Celia had named the pup “Taggle,” from the contemptuous remark of a stableboy who had been about to drown the shapeless little runt.
“Wot’s tha want wi’ this, Lady? Raggle-taggle as a beggar, sickly, an’ll not see th’ week out, neither.”
But Celia insisted. She hand-fed Taggle on milksops; she rubbed salve on his mange spots, she took him to her great bed and let him sleep curled against her stomach. Taggle grew plump, he had a snout under a wiry fringe on his protuberant forehead and looked rather like a hedgehog. To every eye but Celia’s he seemed ludicrous—to John a positive insult, and he said so in one of his rare criticisms of Celia.
“I wish ye’d not fondle that bisbegot little monster, it makes me puke. Plenty o’ truebred hound pups ye can have . . .”
“I love Taggle, sir,” said Celia quietly, “love him as perchance I would a babe . . .”
John looked sharply at her and saw that she had meant no taunt, was simply stating a fact. “Well . . . hm-m,” he said. “By the bye, m’dear, tell cook to kill the Michaelmas geese today. Weren’t hung long enough last year—tough as saddle leather, an’ I hope ye’ve grown plenty of sage i’ the herb garden?”
“I believe so,” she said, “though my Aunt Ursula ne’er touched the herbs at Cowdray, there were so many gardeners.”
John grunted. He disliked any thought of Celia’s past life, just as he increasingly shrank from the thought of their future together. He observed that with her skin grown rosy and golden from her summer rambles, her eyes even brighter with a sea-lit translucence, she was becoming a woman of great beauty. She seemed unaware of the covert glances cast at her by his serving men, or by the two merchants he had entertained before his attack of gout.
Yet he remembered the wild allure she had shown him on the night of the wedding . . . his great toe gave a throb, and he said in sudden anger, “Ye’ve been running about somewhat free whilst I’ve been laid up, ye’ll bide home more now, an’ the days’ll be drawing in. There’ll be needlework to keep ye busy . . .” He noted her stricken startled face
and added more gently, “I’ll teach ye draughts an’ I’ll read to ye from the Bible at times, there’s a deal there to interest you.”
“The Bible?” she repeated faintly. “The Protestant Bible? ’Tis forbidden to my faith . . . Stephen said . . .” She stopped, pinching her mouth tight. “If you wish it, sir . . .” She bent over Taggle, squeezing the puppy so hard that he yelped.
“Who the devil is Stephen?” John snapped. “Ye mentioned him once before!”
Celia put Taggle down on the rushes and stood up, smoothing her skirts. “Brother Stephen, a monk—house priest at Cowdray . . . no importance.”
“Oh, indeed,” said John shrugging. “One o’ them, the black crows. I warrant ye’ve forgot a’ that nonsense they taught ye. Ye seem to have.”
“Aye . . .” said Celia after a moment. “I’ve forgot it.”
The Michaelmas Feast at Skirby Hall did the Hutchinsons credit. The roast geese were succulent, the game pies as tasty as the apple and ginger tarts. John’s claret—newly landed from France—had an exceptional bouquet, and though his cousins from Alford secretly preferred ale, they were impressed by the Hall’s new aura of refinement, and the quietly demure manners of the bride.
Soon after their arrival John had indicated that he found her clothes unsuitable, and sent to Lincoln for several fine wool gowns with square-cut necks modestly filled in with white voile, as befitted a matron. Her hair was plaited under white kerchiefs, he gave her a silver chatelaine—from it dangled her household keys—and a clove-scented pomander ball, but the rosary, of course, had been banished. He could not manage to disguise her youthful beauty, as perhaps he had hoped, but he had subdued all hint of coquetry. She appeared older than her sixteen years—and having accepted her lot, she behaved so.
She rebelled only once, before the feast, when she discovered that there was to be no music of any kind. “Not even a piper or fiddle, sir?” she asked in dismay.
“Nay,” answered John sharply. “Who wants twiddles an’ tweedles at their meat? Oh, I won’t say no at Christmastide, maybe, an’t pleasures ye, and we might sing a catch or two—the good old country rounds—but this isn’t London or Cowdray, and ours here be homely ways. Ye must forget the giddy courtiers.”
She had no idea that it hurt him that she never called him “John” or “husband,” though his practical mind accepted the reasons. Gradually he almost forgot that he had ever wished her to. The last fierce flare of autumn love died into embers. But he was proud of her as his property, and very seldom unkind.
In October, Skirby Hall had a visitor who roused all the memories and feelings Celia had managed to quell.
One misty afternoon Celia wandered out through her walled garden to a grassy knoll on the edge of the fen, Taggle flopping and snuffling at her heels.
There was an old willow stump where she liked to sit and watch the lane along the dyke from Boston. John had gone to town that day, and though he seldom mentioned his affairs, she knew that he was worried about an overdue cargo ship from Calais. They would not sup until he returned, and Celia was hungry. She debated filching a staypiece, bread or an apple, from the pantry, then decided that the servants would exchange knowing looks. She knew that they constantly hoped for her pregnancy.
She sat down on the stump and looked towards Boston, then beyond it to the sea. Drifts of fog were blowing in, yet the damp air was very still. She felt, as so often, especially at gloaming time, an infinite hush, as though something were going to happen, and yet it never did. This vast gray monotony oppressed her tonight. Then she saw a horseman on the Boston lane.
Good, she thought, pulling Taggle away from a dead frog, so now we’ll sup. But the horseman did not ride like Sir John, he seemed smaller, he was obviously groping, uncertain of his way.
She watched him idly—any stranger was of interest—until he turned up towards the Hall. She ran back to the garden and through to their gatehouse. There was still light enough to recognize the horseman.
“Wat!” she cried, staring at the buck-head badge. “Wat Farrier . . . I’m so amazed—confounded . . .” She ran up to him as he dismounted.
“God’s greetin’, miss—m’lady, I should say—bloody back o’ beyond ye’ve landed in. Cotsbody, the nag an’ I ’ave been nigh drownded i’ ye’re shitten drains. Wot a place!”
“I’m sorry,” she said smiling. “Come in! I’m glad to see you!”
Wat grunted. “’Tis worse gettin’ here than Cumberland. Have ye anyone about’ll gi’e me a drink?”
“To be sure.” She spoke with a tinge of pride. “I’ve many servants, but you’ll not go to the kitchens, come with me to the Hall. Oh, Wat, how are they all, how is my aunt?”
He glanced at her curiously. “Ye’ve not heard from her . . . nor written neither?”
“Nay,” she said flushing, “you know I can’t write well. I didn’t like to ask Sir John, and I thought she might write to me, except I’ve not been thinking much on the past—only now when I see you.”
Wat grunted. “Lady South’ll does well enough, ye may be sure she’s not forgot ye, ’twas she sent me here—since m’lord bade me go to Sempring’am anyhow—wi’ a message to the Clintons, now they’re doubly related.”
Celia frowned as she poured out a flagon of ale. “I don’t understand you, Wat. Who is ‘m’lord’ and who is doubly related?”
He waggled his head and sighed in a mixture of exasperation and sympathy. “D’ye get no news at all midst these Godforsook bogs?”
“I know that the Queen’s Grace was wed to Philip of Spain on July twenty-fifth at Winchester. We had a bonfire here, and Boston church bells pealed for an hour after the royal messenger got there. But soon as he left, I heard no more. They detest the marriage round these parts, and don’t speak of it—Sir John neither.”
“Ah-r-r . . .” said Wat, nodding. “Lot o’ England feels that way, as ye should know, havin been mixed i’ Wyatt’s Rebellion—poor toad.” Wat crossed himself.
“He’s dead then . . .?” whispered Celia.
“O’ course . . .” Wat wiped his foamy beard on his sleeve. “All spring the bleedin’ heads was a-rollin’, like bowls on Tower Green. Wot ye expect?”
“I didn’t think . . .” said Celia. A sick pang darted through the shrouded memories of what seemed a different life. The debonair Sir Thomas Wyatt had sung to her, laughed with her, desired her . . .
“There’s been no danger for Sir Anthony?” she asked in sudden fear.
Wat threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “To the contrary! Sir Anthony is now m’lord the Viscount Montagu, he’s Master o’ the Horse to King Philip, he’s the apple o’ the royal eyes an’ grown merry as a grig.”
“Wedded?” she asked in a low voice, after a moment.
“Not him . . . not yet, though I’d not wager a groat he won’t pick Lady Maggie wen the fit comes on him—an’ don’t ye know the marriage we did have at Cowdray in May?”
She shook her head. “Not Mabel?”
“The very one. Lord Fitzgerald got hisself turned back into Earl o’ Kildare, so Mistress Mabel is a countess an’ has gone off to Ireland. Ye ne’er saw such doin’s at Cowdray, e’en w’en King Edward come.”
Celia was silent. She knew that she should rejoice for her friends, be glad that Mabel had got her heart’s desire. In fact, she was swamped by envy and the sense of exile. Mabel might have asked them to the wedding. Ursula might have written.
Wat, mellowed by the ale, and experienced in reading human faces, had no trouble in discerning Celia’s thoughts.
“Look’ee, Mistress Celia,” he said briskly, “ye’re aunt loves ye as she allus did, but she feels ye vexed wi’ her. Ye parted cool, an’ she’s too proud a lady to push in where not wanted. But she asked me to come here an’ tell ye that.” Wat looked around the Hall. “Ye’ve a nice little manor here, snug. An’ ye’ve risen to a title . . . wot’s more—”
He paused, and she interjected quickly, “Aye, what more could a pe
nniless tavern wench want?”
“I’m certain ye’re husband fair dotes on ye,” said Wat, a trifle dismayed at her bitter tone. “An’ when ye start breedin’, as no doubt’ll be soon, the babes’ll keep ye content.”
“There’ll be no babes,” said Celia. She picked up Taggle who had been nuzzling her feet, and let him lick her cheek.
“Ah-r-r, indeed . . .” said Wat startled, then comprehending. “So the knight’s lance has lost its thrust? Pity, yet not hopeless. I hope ye’ve not put horns on ’im—made ’im to sing ‘cuckoo’?”
She shook her head decisively.
“Then,” said Wat, “ye must get ye a charm. I don’t hold much wi’ such women’s fancies, yet am bound ter say Molly o’ Whipple did wonders fur an old gaffer i’ Midhurst. He sired a son on the next full moon. Must be some wise-woman nearby.”
Celia flushed. “There’s the ‘water-witch,’” she said very low, glancing over her shoulder. “I’ve heard the servants. They’re terrified of her. She’s not like Molly, she’s evil. The devil is her paramour, he swoops nights out o’ the sea to her hut, in the shape of a great black heron.”
“Taradiddle,” said Wat. “Ye’ve got courage, an’ ye’ve got silver, go buy a philtre wot’ll make ye an’ Sir John content. ’Tis worth a try.”
Celia swallowed and looked away. The thought of the water-witch was repugnant, and yet subtly fascinating. They said the woman could see the future in an iron basin filled with sea water. They said she could summon the tides, and had caused the last devastating spring floods, being annoyed at the quality of the provisions the fen-dwellers timorously left every Friday night a hundred yards from her door. Her familiar was a gray seal, it had been seen slithering on a flat boulder in the shallows off Frampton Marsh, and had been heard barking inside the witch’s hut. Nobody at Skirby Hall had ever seen the witch, who was reputed to have green seaweed hair, but her magical powers were said to be tremendous.
“Ye should try it,” repeated Wat sternly. “Tis ye’re wifely duty, an’ ye can allus be shriven later, the priest’ll understand ye’re plight. Happens often.”
