by Jean Plaidy
He said: ‘If it were the will of God that I should be taken, then it would be I who was in gaol at this moment.’
‘You madden me! So it is God’s will that Annis should suffer thus?’
‘How could it be otherwise? Sin brings punishment, and she has been guilty of the greatest sin.’
‘Have you never committed such a sin?’
He flushed scarlet and looked at her in horror.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘You have not! You are not man enough. You might take sly glances and think . . . and hope . . . but you escape sin because you are not a man but a . . . a Puritan!’
‘You make excuses for your maid, and perhaps . . . yourself.’
Her rage was uncontrollable at that moment and, lifting her riding whip, she struck at him. The lash came down on his hand as he stepped back, and, watching the red weal spring up, she was instantly sobered and ashamed.
‘You . . . you maddened me!’ she said.
‘The Devil was at your elbow,’ he said; and it seemed to Tamar that he regarded his hand with a certain satisfaction.
Her anger returned. ‘If you dare talk to me in that strain,’ she said, ‘I will do it again . . . and again!’
Then she turned and ran into the house.
Annis’ child was a boy, and she called him Christian. ‘In the hope,’ said Annis tearfully, ‘that he will grow up better than his sinful parents.’
John was released a month or so after the birth, and he and Annis were married at once, settling into the new cottage near the Swanns’.
The villagers grumbled that the Tylers were the luckiest pair to be met with for many a mile, and it seemed that rewards went to the sinful. That was not what Preacher Brown taught. It was not what the Church taught either! It was easy enough to see what had happened. Tamar had brought this about. Tamar was pleased. Of course she was! Another baby born out of wedlock! Another to be brought up in the service of the Devil!
As for Mistress Alton, she was almost beside herself with annoyance. She chattered to anyone who would listen. It was only when people demanded to know how she could continue to work in a house whose mistress she believed to be a witch that she began to ask herself what she would do if she were turned away. Then she was a little subdued.
Humility Brown was even more dismayed than Mistress Alton. All during the months of Annis’ pregnancy he had tried to persuade Tamar not to give the cottage to the Tylers, and she, being contrite because of the mark her whip had made on his hand, was polite to him until the weal had gone. When it had completely disappeared there was many a stormy scene between them.
‘What would you do if you were in my place?’ she demanded. ‘Tell me what I should do if I were a good Puritan.’
‘Pray for the girl.’
‘Prayers would not build her cottage.’ She laughed mockingly at him. ‘My words shock you. You expect the heavens to open and some terrible blight to fall upon me. Annis has sinned, you say; and I will say to you what I have said to others: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Would that be you, Humility Brown? I believe it would be. Humility! That should not be your name. Pride should be your name. For the pride of those who are saved, such as you, seems beyond the pride of the damned such as I suppose I am.’
‘You condone sin,’ he explained. ‘There are deserving couples in this place who marry in purity. Could you not have given one such couple a cottage?’
‘But I love Annis and Annis is in trouble. But how could you understand that? You never loved anything but good – never hated anything but evil. You would turn Annis out, would you not? Send her home to those wicked parents of hers, whom doubtless you consider good people. It seems to me that your Church has led you a long way from the teachings of Jesus.’
‘You would glorify evil,’ he said. ‘There is no denying that.’
With rising temper, she left him.
One summer’s day Bartle came home. Down in the town there was the excitement and bustle which the return of the ships never failed to produce.
The day after his arrival he came riding into the stables at Pennicomquick. Tamar heard the clatter of hoofs and she hurried to her window, for the news of his return had reached her immediately on his arrival and she had been expecting his visit. She saw him leave the stables; she saw him come striding across the lawns in his arrogant way, towards the house. He looked up at her window and she hastily withdrew. She was astonished to see how her hands were trembling as she pulled at her bellrope.
Annis came, for Annis still worked for Tamar, bringing her baby, who was now a year old, with her from the cottage each day. Christian was at this moment toddling on the lawn, for he was just learning to take a few unsteady steps by himself.
‘Annis,’ said Tamar, ‘if anyone asks for me, say I am not at home. That is all.’
Tamar went back to the window, standing cautiously away, and she saw Bartle approach the child. Little Christian toddled willingly towards him, and Bartle lifted him, and as he held the child high above his head, Tamar heard Christian’s shrieks of joy.
Then she stepped back quickly, for Bartle had looked from the child to the window.
He had not been five minutes in the house when Annis came running up.
‘Mistress, the master sent me up to find ’ee.’
‘I told you to say I was not at home.’
‘Mistress, ’twas a lie. I could not say it.’
Tamar laughed angrily. ‘Here is more of Humility Brown’s work! You cannot tell a lie when I bid you!’
‘Well, mistress, I did say I would come to your room and, if you were here, tell you that you were wanted below. And, mistress, ’tis a gentleman as the master says you’ll be pleased to see.’
‘I know who is there!’ she cried.
Annis kept her eyes downcast. She was a good Puritan now – she and John together – and any manifestation of the peculiar powers of her mistress, while exciting her as they always had done, filled her with apprehension. Humility Brown preached against witchcraft even as the prickers did; and yet one whom Annis loved equally with her husband and child was of that strange and frightening community.
With a suddenness typical of her, Tamar’s anger changed to understanding. She laid a hand on Annis’ shoulder and said: ‘I saw him from the window. There was no craft in it; and since you do not wish to lie, you may say that I am here, but that I do not wish to come down.’
Annis, smiling gladly with that simplicity which always touched Tamar, went out, but in a little while she was back.
‘The master says it is Mr Cavill returned from the sea, and he thinks that will make you change your mind.’
‘Go and tell him that that does not make me change my mind.’
She stayed in her room for more than an hour and it was only when she had seen Bartle leave that she went downstairs.
Richard was there, sitting thoughtfully in the window-seat of the big room, looking idly out of the window. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her.
‘That was most discourteous of you!’ he said.
‘I had no wish to see him.’
‘He is our neighbour and there is a friendship between our families. He has been away a long time . . . two years, I believe; and when he comes to see us you send down such a message!’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Tamar,’ he went on, ‘why do you continue to hate that young man so vehemently? Can you not forgive him for what he tried to do to you so long ago?’
‘No, I cannot.’
‘But it is so long ago and he was but a wild boy then!’
‘He is a wild man now.’
‘I wish you would marry. You are twenty years old, and that is a marriageable age. You see the happiness of Annis and her John. You are fond of little Christian. Have you no desire to have children of your own?’
‘I think when the time comes for me to marry, I shall know. If it does not come’ – she shrugged her shoulders again – ‘well, then I shall
not marry.’ She turned on him fiercely. ‘Why do you always think about my marrying when Bartle is here?’
‘Perhaps because I feel he would make a suitable husband.’
‘How can you think that? What is your opinion of me, that you think him a match for me? He is nothing but a buccaneer, a pirate! Oh . . . all very legal, because it is only Spanish ships that he robs, Spanish towns that he fires, only Spanish virgins whom he violates! Or are there others who suffer at his hands?’
‘I fear you are determined to hate him. It is that pride of yours, which will always be your biggest enemy. You are so sure that you are right when you set yourself to judge such as Bartle, to protect such as Humility Brown; but, do you know, your sense of right and wrong is governed by your emotions? Bartle is a buccaneer; therefore to be despised. Myself, Annis, John Tyler, have all been guilty of sin, but us you fiercely defend. I wish very much that you would try to be a little more reasonable with Bartle.’
‘He does not need my kindness!’ she said.
The next day she was riding on the moors, thinking of him – as she had not ceased to do for one moment since his return – when she heard the sound of thudding hoofs behind her; and there was Bartle himself.
She drew up and faced him. He had aged a little. He was nearly twenty-seven years old – a man in years. There were more lines about his eyes; his skin was more deeply bronzed; the scar on his cheek seemed less prominent than it had; but his eyes were the same brilliant blue that she remembered. They mocked her now, and she felt the old excited hatred rising within her.
‘Well met, Tamar.’
‘I doubt that it is well.’
‘What a greeting for your lover!’
‘You are no lover of mine!’
‘Have you forgotten that night we spent together?’
‘I have done my best to wipe the shame of it from my mind.’
‘At least,’ he said, ‘you speak too vehemently for indifference.’ He smiled. ‘And that gives me hope.’
‘Hope? Of what? That you may trick me as you did before?’
‘Come, Tamar. Be true to yourself. You saw through the trick. I was merely being generous . . . giving you a chance to surrender, not for your own sake – for that you were determined not to do in spite of the fact that you found me irresistible – but for the sake of another.’
‘Your conversation tires me. I am riding back now.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You will stay awhile and talk with me. Shall we dismount? Let us tie our horses to yonder bush. Then we can make plans more easily.’
‘I have no plans to make with you.’
‘That’s a pity, for I have plans, and it would be as well for you to know of them.’
‘I shall not join in them. Nor shall I discount.’
He leaned over and, catching her bridle, laughed up into her face. ‘You are afraid to dismount. You are afraid that I shall seize you as I almost did that day . . . do you remember when you saw me go to Richard’s and were so beside yourself with your desire for me that you stripped and lay in wait to seduce me?’
She looked at him haughtily. ‘Why do you do everything to increase my hatred for you?’
‘Because your hatred is the measure of your love.’
‘You appear to think you have learned much subtlety from your Spanish conquests. Let me tell you that you are completely ignorant of me and my feelings.’
‘A Spanish woman and an English one are much the same under the skin, you know. One can divide them into types . . . the clinging types, the meek types. Then there is your own type, Tamar. The wild ones needing to be tamed.’
‘Your stupid talk sickens me. I am not a horse to be broken in.’
‘No indeed. As I told you once before, you are a woman who must be wooed . . . now that she has been won.’
‘Do you think that, because you once handled me shamefully, it gives you the right to speak to me thus?’
‘Ah, Tamar, how I wish that you could see your face. You are excited . . . You are hoping that I will take you now as I did before. Even while you are just a little afraid . . . you hope. Look into your mind, my beauty, and tell me what you see there. Tell the truth. Tell how every detail of our love is cherished in your heart. You have remembered . . . all the time I have been away you have remembered, as I have.’
She let her whip cut across her horse’s flanks so that it reared and broke away from his hold on the bridle. It galloped off, but Bartle was soon beside her.
He shouted: ‘I thought the child in the garden was ours.’
She looked straight ahead.
‘I was disappointed,’ he continued to shout.
She slowed down her horse to fling at him: ‘I should have killed myself before I would have borne a child of yours.’
‘You talk too lightly of death, just as you talk too fervently of hate.’
‘Go away! Leave me alone.’
‘I must talk to you.’
‘You could have nothing to say which could be of the slightest interest to me.’
‘You are afraid of me.’
‘I know you so well. You are a brute, a raper of women, a buccaneer, a robber. All that you are I loathe and despise. And I do not trust you. You have more physical strength than I have, and I would not care to be alone with you in lonely places.’
She heard his guffaw.
‘Oh, Tamar,’ he cried, ‘have I ever forced you? Did you not receive me into your bed without a protest?’
She felt hot tears of shame pricking her eyes and she angrily whipped up her horse.
‘Come!’ she whispered. ‘Gallop faster. Let us put a great distance between him and us.’
But the sweating horses kept level.
Bartle shouted: ‘Tamar, never fear! It is going to be you and I together . . . for as long as we live.’
When they had left the open country behind them and were in the narrow, hilly lanes, it was necessary to walk their horses, and he talked to her with seriousness.
‘Tamar, listen to me. I grow old and I must marry. My father is anxious to see my children before he dies. I have thought of this matter while I have been away. I love the sea; but I love you more. You are like the sea, Tamar . . . uncertain . . . beautiful and tender to some, wild and stormy to others. I want you, Tamar.’
‘You waste your words. And if you would ask my advice I would say this: Yes, you should marry and produce children. There are many girls in this countryside, as well-born as yourself, who would make excellent wives. One of them would doubtless be glad to put up with your crude manners and infidelities, for the sake of one day becoming Lady Cavill.’
‘I want none but you.’
‘That may be so, because it would be characteristic of you to want what you cannot have.’
‘I should not be continually at sea,’ he said. ‘We could watch our children grow up. What say you, Tamar?’
‘I say you are a fool. In the opinion of your family, I should not be considered worthy of you, and in my opinion you are not worthy of myself. So much unworthiness could not make for happiness, I feel sure.’
‘My family would forget all those strange stories of your birth once you married me.’
‘They will never be forgotten.’
‘Only because you give yourself such airs. You ride about with flying hair so that you may look like a witch, apart from all other witches, with a beauty that fires the blood of men and sickens the hearts of women with envy.’
‘So you would marry me, knowing me different from other women?’
‘I want to marry you,’ he said firmly.
‘Bartle.’ Her voice softened slightly. ‘You believe, do you not, that I am no ordinary mortal woman? You believe that I have a power which is not of this Earth. Do you believe that the Devil forced me on my mother that night twenty-one years ago?’
He avoided her eyes. ‘How should I know what to believe?’
‘And yet . . . you would marry me. You would ask me to be the mother
of your children!’
‘I would,’ he said solemnly. ‘There are two loves in my life,’ he went on slowly, ‘and I understand myself sufficiently to know that there always will be. One is the sea. You know I ran away to sea when I was fourteen. That was against my father’s wishes. I knew that he might disinherit me for this, as he had threatened to do, but I did not care. I had to go to sea. I did not care that for a time I should live the life of a common sailor. I knew my life was in danger; I knew I faced death; but that was what I wanted. And you are my other love, Tamar. Untamed as the sea . . . and as dangerous. I know it, but I must have you. I faced continual dangers on the sea, and I will face them in union with you . . . woman . . . witch . . . devil . . . whatever you be.’
She was moved, for she had never before known him speak with such seriousness. Moreover, she could not help feeling proud to see him so humble before her. In some measure that made up for the shame he had inflicted upon her.
She said, and her voice was more gentle than it had ever been when she was addressing him: ‘If what you say is true, then I am sorry for you. But I will never marry you. You must content yourself with your other love, the sea. You are a fool, Bartle, and I could never love a fool. If you had been kind to me, I might have felt some friendliness towards you; and if you had continued to be kind I might even have married you. Violence . . . shameful violence . . . such as you have dared to show towards me, would never win anything but my contempt.’
‘So you continue to hate me?’
‘I can never love you.’
‘You forget I have felt you tremble in my arms.’
‘With hate.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘with passion.’
‘If that were so, why should I not take advantage of what must seem to you this great and magnanimous offer to make me your wife?’
‘Because you do not know yourself. You are determined to hate me, and you cling to hatred as a drowning man clings to a raft, knowing it will soon be swept away from him.’
‘Know this,’ she answered. ‘You have done to me that for which you will never have my forgiveness. You know that I am not like other women. You have said yourself that I have the Devil in me.’
