by Jean Plaidy
The surrounding villages were more fortunate than the town. It was in the cobbled streets with filth running in the gutters that the dread disease flourished. But fear was in every mind; each watched himself or herself for the dreaded signs – the shivering, sickness, headache and delirium, which must shortly be followed by the fearful sign on the breast which was the grim herald of death.
Into the Sound one hot day came a ship; she rested at anchor while she sent a rowing boat ashore. No citizens were on the quay to greet those three men who came in that boat. The men came ashore, fear in their hearts. It did not take them long to discover why they had received no welcome. They quickly saw the red crosses on the doors, the inert figures of those who had laid down in the streets to die.
They went back to their boat with all possible speed and rowed out to their ship.
Annis knocked at the door of Tamar’s room.
Tamar had her own bedroom now. It contained a four-poster bed, a carved chest, a wardrobe and a press; she had a chair with a tapestry back and there was the great luxury of a carpet on the floor. She delighted in these things to such an extent that Richard had said she must have them. Indeed, she had not yet grown accustomed to them, and would walk round her room examining them, rejoicing in the knowledge that they were hers. There was also a mirror of burnished metal, and in this she enjoyed studying her face; for her beauty delighted her more than her other possessions.
Annis was excited, Tamar saw at once.
‘Mistress Tamar, I must tell ’ee what I’ve found. ’Twere in the barn . . . our barn, you know . . . John’s and mine. I did go home and, natural like, I did look for John. He weren’t to be seen, so I just put me head in at the barn . . . for memory’s sake, you might say . . . and there I did see men! There were three of them . . . all lying down, starving like, they seemed. Queer sort of men. One said: “Mistress, for the love of the Lord bring us food and drink.” And he said it twice before I could understand . . . he spoke that queer. I didn’t know what I should do. I were scared out of my wits.’
‘Men?’ said Tamar. ‘What sort of men?’
‘Strange sort of men . . . and such a way of speaking! I was hard put to it to understand what it was they were saying, and it was guess work that told me. I could see they were starving. I could see they was well-nigh done for.’
‘Why did you not go to your father or mother?’
‘I don’t rightly know, ’cept they’d have drove ’em off the farm. Father, he wouldn’t have strangers there. He says they steal his roots and corn and suchlike. They’d be stealing the pigs’ food – that’s what Father would say. I didn’t know where to turn, so I come to you.’
Tamar smiled, well pleased. She revelled in admiration, and that of Annis was so wholehearted.
‘I’ll go and see for myself,’ she said. ‘I’ll ride over. You can follow me. If these men are starving, they’ll need help quickly. But we have to be careful, Annis. We don’t know who they are.’
‘I thought mayhap you would know,’ said Annis.
Tamar wrinkled her brows in concentration. ‘I feel they are good men,’ she said. ‘Men we may have to help.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ said Annis, ‘for I might have told me father.’
‘First of all, I will see them,’ said Tamar.
The wind pulled at her long black hair as she rode over to the barn. She liked to wear it loose, so that she should be known and recognized at once. She enjoyed Mistress Alton’s horrified glances at the offending glory.
Tamar had grown proud in the last few years, for she had risen too quickly in too short a time. In one stride she had left poverty for luxury, physical misery for comfort; she was Richard Merriman’s acknowledged daughter, but she was not going to lose one whit of the special prestige among the ignorant which the belief in her satanic parentage had brought her.
She reached the barn, pushed open the door and stood looking at the three wretched men lying in the gloom. Their plight was pitiful, but her eyes had been accustomed to look at such sights.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
One of the men who seemed stronger than the others raised himself a little.
‘Lady, my name is Humility Brown, and I and my friends have not eaten for . . . we forget how long. For the love of the Lord, bring us food and drink, or we perish.’
The man’s voice was cultured, which enabled her to understand what he said, but even so it was obvious that he came from another part of the country.
‘Tell me first what you do here.’
‘We rest and shelter against the weather.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘We came off the ship Adventurer. We were on our way to Virginia in the New World.’
‘But where are your shipmates?’
‘They would not take us back. We came ashore for stores . . . three of us . . . and when we reached the town we saw its plight. We returned to the ship, but they would not. take us back aboard. There was naught we could do . . .’
Tamar slipped outside the door and shut it. These men had been in the polluted town. It might be that already they carried the terrible infection, the token already on their breasts.
She ran to her horse and mounted. She knew that the villages were free of the plague because they had cut off all communication with the stricken town.
She met Annis on the way back.
Annis cried: ‘Mistress, you saw them? You are going to help?’
‘Annis!’ cried Tamar. ‘You must not go near the barn. What shall we do? Those men have been in the town. They left their ship to buy stores and came to the town, so their shipmates would not have them back; but you and I, Annis, have been near them.’
Annis began to shiver, but almost immediately she lifted her big grey eyes to Tamar’s face and answered cheerfully: ‘Mistress, you can make as clean. We shall be safe because you will see to it.’
Tamar’s dark eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed. ‘Why, yes. We shall be safe. I shall see to that. Annis, if I told you to go into the barn and have no fear, would you go?’
‘If you would set a charm on me so that I’d come to no harm, I would.’
‘Then I will. This is what I will do. You can go to the barn now, but do not go inside. Stand outside and let no one enter. I will bring food for the men. I will save their lives, and then no one will doubt my power. But, Annis . . . we shall not tell the master of this until it is done.’
Annis nodded.
‘Now to the barn. Remember! Stand there and let no one enter. If any come, you must tell them that plague victims are inside. Wait there . . . till I come.’
Tamar galloped back to the house, where she went to the kitchen and collected food and wine. She found a piece of charcoal which she took with her when she rode back to the barn, where Annis was standing, placidly obedient to her mistress’s command.
‘You can go now, Annis. Wait for me at the end of the field.’
Annis ran off and Tamar opened the door of the barn.
‘Humility Brown,’ she said, ‘are you there?’
‘Yes, lady.’
‘Here is food and drink. I will put it by the door. Have you strength to reach it?’
‘Yes. And may the good Lord bless you for ever.’
‘I will bring more food and drink tomorrow. If there is anything else you want, you must ask me for it.’
Humility Brown said with much emotion: ‘My friends, here is an angel from Heaven. Food, friends. This is an answer to prayer.’
Tamar shut the door, and she wrote on it in charcoal: ‘The Lord have Mercy On Us.’
Anyone approaching would know what that meant.
Tamar was eighteen – wilful and proud. Richard often felt misgivings regarding her. The emotion she aroused in him astonished him. He was beginning to care more for this wild natural daughter of his than he had ever cared for anyone in the whole of his life.
Her beauty enchanted him; her tortuous nature alarmed him. He had
seen her tender and kind, cruel and haughty. She was half cultured, half savage. Her wits were sharp, her mind clear, but nothing he could do or say would rid her of this ridiculous belief in her own supernatural powers. She had, he supposed, found this belief too persistent in her lonely childhood to be able to relinquish it now that she had a comfortable home and an affectionate father to care for her. She was not one to wish to rely on the protection of others.
He had arranged that she should meet all the eligible men of the neighbourhood, but none of them pleased her. There were several who, despite the dark stories which still circulated about her, were so fascinated by all that charm and beauty that willingly would they have married her. But she gave herself the airs of a princess and laughed at the arrangements he would have made for her.
It was not that he wished to lose her; he found her company too entertaining for that; but he had discovered in himself parental feelings which he had not suspected he possessed, and he really wished to do what was best for his daughter. It seemed to him that she would be happier if she were married; he longed to see her with children of her own. If she married and reared a family, she might give up some of her wild ideas; she might accept him as her father, and her own birth as a purely natural event. This he greatly desired, since her persistence in her absurd belief, which proclaimed the savage in her, was at the root of his uneasiness.
Bartle Cavill was home from another voyage, and Bartle was possessed of a pride that equalled Tamar’s own. It was clear that he was far from indifferent to Tamar, and Richard would not be displeased by a match between them.
Well, there was nothing he could do but wait and see. Tonight he was giving a ball for her. The first ball he had given. Why not? She was eighteen; and he wished all the gentry of the countryside to know that he looked on her as his daughter – illegitimate, it was true, but illegitimacy must be winked at when a man had no legal heirs. Tamar would be rich one day and a fortune would wipe out the stigma of illegitimacy.
From his window now he could see her talking to Humility Brown, who was working in the gardens.
He smiled. Her conduct regarding those three men from Adventurer had been brave in the extreme; and yet it might have been her superstitious belief in herself rather than bravery, which had made her act the way she had. He himself had not heard of the affair until it was all over. She had fed those men, who had not been suffering from the plague at all, but from starvation. She had – in that bold, proud way of hers – taken them under her wing. There were only two of them alive, as they had not been discovered in time to save the third man – Humility Brown and William Spears. William was working at the Hurly farm and was living in one of the farm cottages with other workers. Humility was working in Richard’s own gardens and had been allotted one of the outhouses adjoining the house, for, as Tamar had pointed out, Joseph Jubin really needed assistance.
Tamar’s delight in Humility Brown seemed admirable; but was it, Richard wondered. She was a minx, deeply conscious of that rare beauty of hers, and Humility Brown was a Puritan. Her pleasure in saving the man’s life shone in her eyes every time she saw him; Richard guessed that Humility did not feel pleasure in Tamar’s presence . . . Or was it that he was afraid he might feel pleasure? He was a minister from the town of Boston in Lincolnshire, and as fanatical in his beliefs as Tamar was in hers. It was said that there were more Puritans in that part of the country than in any other, and that persecution was more persistent there. Many of Humility’s sect had fled to Holland – that centre of Protestantism – and lived there for some time. Richard found conversation with the man interesting, and was often turning over in his mind whether he might not find him some employment more suitable to his learning; but Richard knew himself; he had often decided he would do such-and-such and through sheer inertia had failed to make the necessary arrangements to bring these plans to fruition.
Now he began to wonder what Humility was saying to Tamar.
Tamar stood watching Humility weeding a flower bed. There were beads of sweat on Humility’s brow, and not only his physical exertions had put them there; he always felt uneasy in the presence of his employer’s daughter.
‘Humility,’ she persisted, ‘you are afraid of me.’
It was a matter of great secret delight to her that he should want to ignore her and yet find this impossible.
‘Nay,’ said Humility; ‘I do not fear thee. In my mind’s eye I see the Cross, and while I keep that in my mind and heart, I fear nothing.’
‘Ah, Humility, you are a good man, and I am glad I saved your life. You thought me an angel when I brought you food. Did I look like an angel?’
Humility lifted his eyes to her lovely, laughing face.
‘To a starving man, any who brought food would seem like an angel.’
‘Even if she came from the Devil?’
Humility said a prayer, not aloud; but she knew he said it by the way in which his lips moved.
‘What did you think when you heard who I was?’ she demanded.
He went on muttering, and she stamped her foot.
‘Answer me, Humility I Have you forgotten that I am the mistress here?’
‘I would,’ he said, ‘that you had allowed me to work on one of the farms . . . or in the town.’
‘But I saved your life. It is for me to say where you shall work. Humility, if you do not answer when I speak to you I shall have you punished.’
‘Your father is a just man. I do not think he would agree to punishment which was unmerited.’
‘If I asked him, he would.’
He smiled. ‘I should not fear punishment,’ he said.
He continued to weed while she watched him. He both delighted and angered her . . . delighted her because he was a continual reminder of her power, angered her because there was a power in him that rivalled her own.
The minister from Boston was a man yearning to be a martyr. He was the sort who would suffer a thousand tortures and deem himself honoured to die for his faith. He believed the power of God was in him as firmly as Tamar believed she possessed certain powers which were a gift from the Devil.
She knew why he looked at her quickly and looked away. He was a man, and he found her beauty encroaching on his notice; he found her, as most men did, desirable.
It was pleasant to be desired, though she had no wish at present to gratify any man’s desires, since she was unsure of her own feelings in this matter; but whereas she could feel fear when the glinting eyes of Bartle Cavill were fixed upon her, she could feel amusement when this man looked quickly and looked away.
He was older than Bartle. He would be about thirty years old, she imagined, which seemed very old to her when she considered the man in the role of a lover. She could guess what sort of life he had led; he was a Puritan child of Puritan parents. Puritans believed that ministers should live frugally, as Jesus Christ had done when He was on Earth. Humility had been brought up to believe that it was sinful to laugh, to enjoy more food than would keep him alive, and as for dancing or making love – these would be mortal sins. She knew that with her flaunting beauty, her quick and ready laughter, her awareness of her own attractions, she must seem like the Devil incarnate to such a man.
She liked to be near him when he was working, just to tease, to taunt. She wished him to know that he was as vulnerable as other men.
She would not have dared to taunt Bartle in such a way.
‘Why do you frown at me, good Humility?’ she asked. ‘Why do you stare at my hair as though you hate it?’
‘You should cut it short or hide it under a cap.’
‘Why so? Do you think it is a gift from the Devil?’
He did not answer and she went on imperiously: ‘Answer when I speak to you. Do you think it is a gift from the Devil?’
Then he said: ‘That may well be so.’
‘I thought that God made all beautiful things.’
He tried to plead with her, as he had on other occasions: ‘Do not be deceived. Me
nd your ways. Renounce the Devil. Embrace the true faith. If you would save yourself from enternal damnation, give up your evil ways.’
‘Was it evil to save your life?’
‘If you called in the aid of the Devil, I had rather you had left me to die.’
‘It did not seem so when I came to the barn. You called out to me most piteously. I’ll warrant you’d have taken food then if imps from Hell had brought it to you.’
‘You deceive yourself, daughter.’
‘Don’t dare to call me daughter. You know whose daughter I am.’
‘I know that your birth was the result of sin.’
‘What if I were to tell your master that?’
‘I would tell him so myself.’
She gave him a grudging smile of admiration, for she knew that he spoke the truth. He was brave; she must concede that. That was why she felt herself forced to taunt him; his bravery was as great as her own; his belief that he was right as firm as that she held.
‘You would, I believe,’ she said. ‘Some masters would have you beaten for it. But he is a good man . . . a far better man than you will ever be, Humility Brown.’
He was silent.
‘Oh,’ she went on angrily, ‘he does not go about thanking God that he is saved, that he is so much better than those who risked their lives to save his. He is a good man, I tell you, and if you dare say you are a better, I will whip you with my own hands.’
It was at such times that he had the advantage. He was calm, and she could never be calm. He was cold and sure; she was fiery and passionate, though equally sure.
‘And you would not care if I did!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘But there are some things I could do which would make you care. Humility Brown, you are a coward. You are afraid to look at me. You take sly glances and look away. Have a care, Humility Brown! I might yet take you to eternal damnation with me. You think me beautiful. Your lips might deny that, but your eyes do not. I might decide to show you that you are but a sinful man, Humility Brown. You have heard talk of who is my real father, have you not? It is true, you know, that I am the Devil’s own daughter.’
