Then somebody touched my arm and I spun round to find Francis at my side.
“Penelope. Would you like to come down? We’re digging this shaft and the work goes well. Ugh! It’s cold and wet down there, for we’ve struck a spring.”
He fetched a cloak from the hook in the passage and put it on my shoulders, and together we went into the churchyard. He held the lantern at the head of the shaft so that I could climb down the ladder to the rocky bottom. There the tunnel began, but it was very narrow with jagged rocks piercing it like daggers, and water falling from the roof. The ground was uneven and running with darkly glittering springs. We went some distance, turning sudden corners, then descending steeply or rising according to the nature of the ground. We must have gone a quarter of a mile or more and I could see a glimmer ahead and hear the sound of pickaxes cracking the rocks.
Sometimes we had to squeeze aside as a man came along bearing a wisketful of stones, pushing past us as we waited in one of the hollows which had been made for passage and for the storage of tools. We had left the damp course where the springs cut across the way and were now in drier ground. Then I saw another dancing, glimmering light following us, and there was Aunt Cicely, brave Dame Cicely, bent nearly double, so fat she almost filled the gallery, but no other woman could be trusted to bring food to the miners. She carried jugs of hot spiced ale smelling of nutmegs and cloves, and a bottle of sack and some pasties.
“There you are, Penelope,” she cried in astonishment. “Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were abed! Master Francis should not bring you down underground. It isn’t safe for a young maid.”
“It’s going to be safe for the greatest lady in England,” retorted Francis, “so surely Penelope can come! She’s treading where the queen will walk, for she may be wanted to help on the great day. Her Grace will have no woman with her, you know.”
He took a drink of sack from the leather jug, first offering it to me. Then Dame Cicely passed and went on to Anthony and the men.
“You’ve got on splendid, Master Anthony,” she cried, with the freedom of one who has always shared in every adventure of a big household. “It’s champion what the men have done, clearing away the rubbish and making the paths so nice. You’ll be able to ride Stella along here soon! How long will it take to get there, think you?”
“A couple of months at the worst, but it all depends what obstacles we meet. We are right under the hill-side now. There may be a fall farther on, but I doubt it. I think we are over the worst part. It is clear at Wingfield, but nobody dare dig there lest they should create suspicion. So all must be done at this end. What do you think of it, Tom?”
Then I recognized Tom Snowball, who was stripped to the waist, his round face covered with streaks of earth, a shield over his eyes to keep the flying splinters from hurting him.
“We shan’t be long, Master Anthony. This rock is only fallen loose stuff, broken off by time. Six weeks with God’s help and the power of the miners. They’ve split off the rocks ahead and loosened it well.”
“They use vinegar to split the rocks,” explained Francis to me. “They are trained men, all Catholics, sworn to secrecy. If one betrayed they would all die.”
He seized a pick and worked with the men and I lifted the stones and filled the baskets to be carried away. Then I held the lantern aloft and waited in that deep pit listening to the ring of iron on stone, the murmur of voices, the drip of water, and the echoes which came from all sides. Every now and then Francis stopped and spoke a cheerful word to me, and I was proud and happy, for I had no doubt the queen would escape. Anthony, too, was elated as the work went on. Thackers was small and insignificant, deep in the heart of England, safe and homely, and the queen was near, her cheeks cooled by the same wind, her eyes watching the same clouds. Soon she would walk along the secret way to safety.
“She will escape, won’t she, pretty Pen? She will! Say yes,” he implored, snatching at my hand and tightly holding my fingers, but I could not answer Francis as surely as he wished. “I don’t know. I’ve never known,” I said, faintly, and with that he had to be content.
Francis saw I was tired, cramped with stooping, my feet wet, my hair streaked and plastered on my forehead.
“Come back now, Penelope,” said he kindly. “You’ve been here long enough, you’ll take an ague if you stay, and Dame Cicely will be filled with anger against me. Would you like to visit Mistress Babington, who would be glad to talk with you, or will you go to the kitchen to Dame Cicely and the maids?”
He laughed as he spoke, knowing my answer.
“I’d rather go to Aunt Cicely. That’s where I belong, and she’ll give me a warm drink, for I’m starved. I’m not fit to be seen by Mistress Babington.”
So together we struggled back, I banging my head and scratching my arms and face, but Francis avoiding the ragged ends of rock as he walked with one arm outstretched to feel the way, and the other holding the lantern to guide my feet. He helped me up the ladder into the churchyard, and there we stood, breathless, in the sweet, fresh air of evening.
“You know the way very well, don’t you?” he said. “You don’t fear to go alone? Good night, Penelope, and don’t slip away just yet.”
“Good night, Francis,” I answered, and he stood on the brink of the hole, holding his lantern low, shielded from any casual passer-by in the lane, but lighting my feet across the grass under the tower’s shadow. I looked up at the stone shields blazed round the sides, and the last shield had the arms of Master Anthony’s wife, newly carved and white as the mason had finished it but recently.
Then I walked round to the low door of the kitchen. The servants were listening to one who played a flute. A meal on the table, and I went and sat down.
“Lord bless me! Look at the wench! Where hast thou been?” asked one. “Thou art an adventurous lass.”
“Exploring the lead-mine, I guess,” said another, “along with Master Francis.”
“Come, wash yourself, and eat and drink.”
I washed at the stone sink and wiped my face on a coarse towel Aunt Cicely took from the press. Then I brushed my hair and sat down, for I was hungry and it was late.
“Near nine o’clock and past bedtime,” said Aunt Cicely. “Maids have to rise at four, milking done, floors mopped, and food prepared by six.”
“A song, Dame Cicely,” begged Tabitha. “Penelope and me, Margery and you, just enough of us for a round. You can sing a catch with us, can’t you, Penelope?”
I wondered what they would sing and whether I should know it, but when they took their parts and we set to sing “Three Blind Mice” I could take my place with ease, for I had sung this round at Thackers. Aunt Cicely began, followed four bars later by Tabitha, then Margery and I joined in, and there we were all holding our places, singing the ancient nursery rhyme, laughing till our sides ached as first one and then another soared high and low like a peal of bells.
“Let’s have another,” begged Margery. “You choose, Dame Cicely.”
“Then it shall be:
Hark! Hark! Hark!
The dogs do bark,
Beggars are coming to London Town.
Some in rags, and some in bags,
And some in velvet gowns.
We all know that, for it isn’t so old. It was sung when the monasteries were closed in the troublous days of King Harry, now passed away thank God. Homeless labourers and pedlars and shepherds roamed the land with nowhere to sleep, with no bread and no work. There were thousands of labourers turned away, workless and desperate, when the great houses of the monks were taken by the king. Then black deeds were done, for the men were starving, and folk had to lock and bar their doors lest they should be murdered in their beds. But some of the lowly ones got high office, and beggars wore silk. These were the most cruel of all. That was a sad time for England and we haven’t got over it yet. I wasn’t born, but my grandmother told us of the savage dogs we kept at Thackers to guard us. Now the land is peaceful, or it ou
ght to be.”
I thought of the men underground, working to save a queen. I thought of Master Anthony’s troubled face and of the queen herself pacing the rooms of that stone house across the hill only a few miles away. I knew Aunt Cicely also thought of these things, but she was too wise to refer to present anxieties, and she brought only an atmosphere of goodwill and comfort and merriment to keep the heart brave in adversity.
So we sat by the embers of the fire and sang our song, each taking her own part. In the corners crouched Jude, and as he watched me I felt there was more kindliness in his glance. He sidled across and dropped a small, carved manikin in my hand, a tiny figure of wood, with ruff and doublet and hose, and he looked up into my face as if to read my thoughts.
“He’s taken a liking to you, Penelope,” said Dame Cicely. “He’s been carving that little man for many a day for you.”
I thanked him and examined the lovely thing, and he nodded his shaggy head and touched my dress and retreated once more to watch me. “The bobbin-boy,” I thought, and I held it against my cheek.
Above our heads dangling in the firelight hung bunches of horehound and goosegrass, cummin and mugwort, which I had helped to gather. The brass and pewter skillets on the shelves were all polished, for Tabitha rubbed them with sandstone from the hill-side. Dame Cicely couldn’t abide any dirt. There was a harsh smell of salted meat from the vats in the larder, where the store of pickled beef and fish lay ready for the winter months, and the strong smell of smoky tapers and guttering candles.
On the wall I noticed a motto, beautifully printed in black letters and mounted in a heavy wooden frame.
“Feare Candle in Hay-loft, In Barne and In Shedde,” it ran. Dame Cicely said that Master Francis had once written it as one of his exercises with the holy clerk, and Master Anthony had framed it and hung it there for all to read and act upon. It was Master Tusser’s proverb for all who lived on farms where fires were a terrible danger. Over it was our own candle-cupboard with iron and pewter sticks spiked and rounded. Aunt Cicely bade Tabitha reach down one and get a light from the fire to take us to bed. We trooped out of the door and up the narrow stair which I knew so well to our bedrooms in the garrets over the cowplaces and dairies.
I went first with Tabitha and Margery and Phoebe, for I was curious to see their bedchamber. They had one enormous bed, with a padded and quilted cover, and a straw mattress.
“This holds six of us at Christmas and Michaelmas and Holy Days,” said Tabitha, unbuttoning her bodice. “The maids come from Babington House and stay here and we all sleep together. We have some fun, I can tell you, and we draw lots for who shall sleep in the middle. Those on the outside are pushed out and fall on the floor and those in the middle are warm as roast chestnuts.”
There was a plain oak stool, and that was all the furniture, beside some pegs on the wall, for the coifs and ruffs. There was no looking-glass or bedroom set, but this didn’t matter for the girls washed downstairs with water from the trough as I also had washed at the sink. They tossed off their clothes and piled them on the floor. Their shoes they had already left downstairs, as Aunt Tissie, Uncle Barnabas, and Jess always removed theirs before going to bed.
I sat on the stool and talked to them, watching their bobbing shadows on the rough, stone walls, listening to the tales they told of witchcraft and spells and wonders. Margery lived at Wirksworth where we had ridden to the Fair, and she found it quiet at Thackers, but Tabitha had always lived near and she loved the place. The windows were tightly shut, but enough air crept in from the crannies and rat-holes. There were no curtains and the stars seemed very bright as I sat in that whitewashed chamber. It was a room I knew, one where we kept our store of Indian corn and oats, a garret I had visited with Uncle Barnabas. I thought of him as I sat there watching the three girls in the great wooden bed. For a vivid moment I remembered him, but the girls began to hum a carol of Michaelmas, and then a mummer’s song, and they chattered so that I forgot all but the present. Had I ever seen a play, they asked. They had seen a pageant where devils and angels and good men and bad performed. Flames of fire came from the devils’ mouths, and there were winged beasts, a terrible sight, and angels splendid with gold crowns.
I yawned sleepily, and said good night, for the candle guttered out. Then I turned to find the room I shared with Dame Cicely, where I must have slept sometimes unremembering. I opened the door of an apple-chamber, whose odour was rich and spicy, and I rejoiced for it was our own apple-room. Next door was the cheese-chamber with great round cheeses like full moons covering the stone floor, and there was a scamper of mice and a pungent smell which made me retreat quickly. Then I found myself in the passage and there was the wardrobe-room and Mistress Foljambe’s chamber with its painted trees and birds. By the fire sat Mistress Foljambe, and with her Mistress Babington, and the older woman stroked her daughter-in-law’s hair.
My foot was light as a dream, I seemed to float along. I felt I could walk anywhere and see past or future. I pushed open Master Anthony’s door and entered his room. He had come back and now he sat at the table with a quill, writing fast. Every now and then he rubbed his cheek with the soft feather, and pondered and consulted a tablet. Then, scratch, scratch, he began again. In a corner of the room, sitting with his head bent, was a priest. Those dark, gleaming eyes were fixed on Anthony’s golden hair, and now and then he said a word, dictating, advising.
I realized that Anthony was writing in cipher, which could only be read by those who had the key. My eyes were clear, I could see past and future. I knew, as those who dream know, that Walsingham had this key and that he would intercept this letter and read it to Elizabeth. I wanted to warn him, I opened my lips, but no words came. I put out my hands, but they touched nothing.
I suddenly felt very cold and tired, and there before me was the door I sought. I opened it and walked through, not into any room of the past but into our own warm, apple-scented landing. I ran downstairs and sat in the empty chair between Aunt Tissie and Alison. The grandfather clock was striking nine, and Aunt Tissie still read the tale of Mr. Pickwick. But I leaned forward with my head on her knee and shut my eyes.
“Poor lamb,” I heard Aunt Tissie say as Mother shook me awake. “She’s fair done up with going to Wingfield.”
“It’s not that,” I muttered. “I’ve been so far since then.”
Aunt Tissie came trotting upstairs with the copper warming-pan, and I followed, carrying my pewter candlestick and guttering candle.
“She’ll be as right as rain to-morrow,” prophesied Aunt Tissie, but I felt right as rain the minute I climbed into bed and smelled the lavender sheets.
12. Arabella
Alison and Ian went back to Chelsea with Mother, and I was left at Thackers. I spent my days helping Uncle Barnabas on the farm or wandering alone in the woods, seeking branches of golden beech leaves and mountain-ash berries to deck the farmhouse window corners. Some of my woodland treasures I put in the church, on the altar, and I filled stone jars with autumn flowers and placed them against the white walls. I was seldom out of sight of the beloved church tower, which I began to look upon as a watch tower, set in that green place for the safety of all in the valley and hill-side, but especially the guardian of the thatched barns and haystacks and the farmhouse buildings clustered under its shade like chickens under a hen’s wings. Round my neck I wore the locket of the queen, and in my pocket I carried the worn, wooden bobbin-boy once made by Jude. These two reminded me, if ever I should forget, that Thackers was once the home of people living courageously and simply, in the way my aunt and uncle lived, giving and not asking in return, fearlessly accepting what life offered. I thought much of Francis, and wished I could see him again, for the days were slipping by and I was shut out from the intimacy of the great adventure which was moving swiftly towards its end.
One day when it was raining in torrents I wrapped a coat over my head, and ran to the hay-barn where Uncle Barnabas was working. Jess had brought a load of turnips, a
nd the chopper was going at full speed grinding them into morsels for the sheep. I helped to trim the turnips and feed them to the machine, and now and then I took up a handful of the nutty fragments and ate them.
“Thou’lt spile thy dinner,” warned Uncle Barnabas. “Thou art that finnicky with thy food, and yet thou canst eat the sheep’s fodder,” and he grinned cheerfully in the dusky barn. The rain pattered on the roof and bounced in the yard, in millions of upturned fountains. There was a continuous splash and murmur of water as the spring rushed through the troughs and cascaded away over the grass.
“Has it always been like this?” I asked. “Was it like this in Mistress Babington’s time?”
“Whose? Oh hers!” He went on feeding the chopper, ruminating on my question, and the delicious smell of oil-cake filled the barn as he broke the oblong slabs. The engine thumped and the long belting quivered and whirred in the engine-room above our heads.
“I suppose so. You see how the spring comes out of the earth, Penelope,” he said at last. “There’s a power of water behind it. That’s like life. It’s got a power behind it, that carries folk on to struggle and not give in. This spring at Thackers has never gone dry. It goes on for ever and ever.”
“Goes on for ever and ever.” Perhaps that was why Anthony Babington sacrificed all, knowing life always goes on. I went to the half-door and stared down the hill-side towards the hidden brook tossing its brown waters under the little bridge. There was no bridge in those days, I knew, for the horses walked across and the women used stepping-stones.
The rain came faster than ever, pools glittered with the whirling drops, and the manure heap was a quagmire. Jess staggered out from the cowhouse with a pointed sack over his head, wheeling a barrow which he emptied on the heap. Then he lurched back and I watched him disappear like a shadow in the blackness of the doorway. Then another sound came to mingle with the hiss of rain and the rattle of the chopper, and I raised my head to listen to it.
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