Christopher Uptake

by Susan Price

  "You want me to crawl round the house with a measure, licking my finger and holding it up to test for draughts," I said, "and all without being noticed?''

  He went on as if I hadn't spoken. "There's not a lot I can tell you about secret chapels . . . There probably won't be one, but look for a room that's always in use. They get nervous about their hidey-holes; don't like to leave 'em . . . You'll have to use your head and eyes. There won't be any loose boards, or altar-cloths left hanging over chairs." He fell silent then, staring through me and tapping at his lips with a forefinger, fondly remembering old betrayals and executions he had brought about, perhaps.

  "What if," I said, "what if there aren't any priest-holes at Alston?''

  "Oh, there are, Kit. I'm staking your life on it. But; if there aren't, then I'll give you a chalice and a patten, and a few missals, and you can hide 'em for others to find."

  I gazed at him. "Why?" I said. "Why, for God's sake? All this trouble. Giving me money to keep out of debt. Sending men to Hawksmere. Why not carry a chalice and host in yourself - take a priest with you - arrest everyone and come out again? You wouldn't even have to put anything down! I don't understand, I just don't understand, why you're going to all this trouble."

  Bagthorpe smiled, and leaned back in his chair, pushing it off its front legs, his own legs stretched out in front of him. "It's always better to do it legally, if possible. Get genuine information, lay it in the proper quarters, and then there's nothing out of place, nothing to alarm anyone - not even the Catholic community, if it's handled properly. We must always remember that not every Catholic is a traitor." He spoke this last phrase in a stilted, pompous fashion, as if there were something inherently comical about it, and it could not be said seriously. "If everything goes well, I won't be arresting them, you see, Kit. The officers who, acting on my information, go to carry out the search, will be local men, and they'll say to Brentwood, 'Where are your priest-holes, sir?' 'I have none,' he'll say to them. 'Thank you, sir, sorry, sir', say they, and off they go. When I send those clowns in, I want them to know exactly what they have to look for, and where. Whether Brentwood hid it or you did makes no odds. I want no excuses. But planted evidence is the weakest kind, as you'll understand, Kit. It can be found by the people it's supposed to incriminate - it can even be disproved; it's been known to happen. That's why I'm counting on you, Kit, to find me some good, strong, convincing, genuine evidence."

  "Which will get Brentwood half-throttled, and gutted, and beheaded," I said.

  "He'll be dead in a few years anyway, Kit; he's a traitor. He'll be executed for treason. He wants to see the Queen assassinated, and a Catholic ruler in her place. Catholic rule means the Inquisition. I would have thought that you, of all people, Kit, would have wanted to keep the Inquisition out of England."

  I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, my hands over my face. "I can't argue," I said, "I can't argue."

  "Good. Now - you know what to look for. When you've found it, or when you're sure that Brentwood's hiding nothing, you come and report to me in Alston village. l shall be at the White Hart."

  This seemed ludicrous; too easy. "Oh - after he's watched me poking into every corner of his house, he won't mind my popping out to report to you?"

  "Why should he? You're his guest. If you want to go to look at the village, and if you should go into the White Hart while you're there, what's it to him? And what cheaper, simpler way could there be of passing the information on?" He smiled. "Do you still want to know how you're going to Alston?''

  My last, thin hope of avoiding the journey disappeared. I shook my head.

  "I'll tell you anyway," Bagthorpe said. "You're going with the luggage. Brentwood's already on his way by now, I should think - but I happen to know, since I made a point of finding out, that his luggage isn't starting for another hour, so we've got plenty of time to pick up your things and stroll over to his lodgings, just like a Sunday outing. Hard luck, Kit."

  He stood, and gestured to me to do the same. I did, but remained where I was. I asked quickly, "May I write a letter - one letter?"

  "Who to?"

  “My father.”

  “Oh no, Kit. Best write no letters. And what would your Dad make of this?” He studied me for a moment, then suddenly smiled and held out his hand. “Let’s part friends,” he said.

  I was astonished. Friends! I hated him. “Come on,” he said. “It’s only circumstances that keep us from being the best of friends. Shake.”

  I walked past him. He came quickly round in front of me and held out his hand again, saying, “Shake,” and, at the same time, caught my right hand and held it tightly. With his left hand he took my thumb, set the edge of his thumbnail at the very root of mine, and pressed hard. The resulting pain was far out of proportion to the small cause.

  “I might have used a thumbscrew,” he said. “Listen, Kit. The only reason you are still capable of feeling that is because I need you in one piece. That’s why I’ve been so bloody patient, Kit; that’s why I’m being so bloody patient. But if you fail, if you don’t bring me that information, if you make a fool of me, Kit – I swear – I swear I’ll make you sorrier than I am. I’ll cripple you, Kit; I’ll blind you. And I’ll find you, Kit, just as I found you this time, so remember… If you don’t care for your family, have a care for yourself. Have you understood me?”

  I said, “yes,” but soundlessly. I nodded. He continued to stare at me, his brows raised; then he let go of my hand. I put my thumb into my mouth, and there was a twinge of pain as it touched my teeth. Bagthorpe went across to the door and knocked for it to be opened. He said to the men outside, “See that he goes to Alston.”

  As I passed him on my way from the room, he said, “Remember.”

  PART THREE

  ALSTON

  ALSTON

  Bruised and aching, dressed in clothes even more shabby than those muddied in the churchyard the night before, I travelled down to Alston on the back of a cart. The man in charge of the servants guarding Brentwood's luggage, after inspecting my letter of invitation, did ask if I would like him to find a horse for me, but I have never ridden a horse in my life. I clambered up into the cart, and padded myself against the jolts of the road as well as I could by placing the softer bundles under my shoulders and hips.

  The journey was long, boring and painful. There was never a moment when the cart was not striking some rut or stone, lurching one way and swaying back the other, leaping in the air, crashing back to the ground, and juddering as it struck. Toward midday, it rained. The novelty of the scenery could not survive this; if we had been passing through Persia or Peru, I could not have roused myself from my misery sufficiently to look about.

  I was grateful when we stopped for the night at an inn. As a guest of Brentwood's, I suppose, I could have demanded a private room, but I thought it best to share the accommodation of my travelling companions; I shared their bed-bugs too. In fact, I think I had more than my fair share.

  When I limped out to the cart the next day, I was hoping that the offer to find me a horse would be renewed, but it was not, and I was too proud to ask. All that day, from four in the morning until almost six at night, the cart crashed and banged and swayed and creaked and groaned over the road, and I climbed down in a village I was told was Alston, sick and giddy and hardly able to walk, to spend another night with bed-bugs, There was just one reason to be thankful; the discomforts of the journey were so constant that I had little time to worry about the future.

  On the third day, thanks be, I did not have to spend long in the cart; we had not gone above two miles when one of the men riding alongside said, "Nearly there, Chris."

  I knelt up and looked round. We were jolting along a narrow cart-track through a field of rough grass. Some buildings appeared to my right, which I guessed were barns; there were several of them, with a large yard and many out-buildings. The man riding beside me pointed ahead, saying, "There's the Hall," impatiently, as if he had expected me to see it s
ooner.

  I turned to look in the direction he pointed, and saw, rising from the grass, a grey stone wall, a glimpse of grey, lichen-yellowed roofs, and, at one end of the building, a tall, grey-stone tower with a castellated top. Then, as the cart rose over another bump, I saw a shine of water at the base of the house walls. It was moated. "Is it an old house?" I asked.

  "Oh ar; old," said the man riding beside the cart. "Two hundred years old, I've heard say."*

  The cart track drew nearer to the house and I saw the width of water between the bank and the wall. Twenty feet, at least. This moat ran round two sides of the house, but, on the further side, it widened into a lake; the house was built on a natural island.

  The track curved, following the line of the moat, and we came to the gatehouse. It faced us across the moat, a high, grey building, the windows so small that the long wall seemed almost blank. The gateway was wide enough for a cart and very high - I soon saw that its height was to accommodate the drawbridge. From the bank, and extending over perhaps a quarter of the moat's width, was a stone-built bridge; but the greater part of the moat was bridged by a wooden drawbridge which let down from the gatehouse and lodged on the end of the stone one. The house was a little fortress. I was so full of memories of all I had read of old wars and sieges that, momentarily, I forgot my aches and worries. The sounds of the cart's wheels and the horses' hoofs boomed beneath the arch of the gatehouse, and, as we passed into its shadow, there was a sudden chill of stone and damp across my shoulders, and a smell of moss.

  Once through the gateway, the cart swung right, and stopped outside the stables, which were built beside the gatehouse to continue its long, high, grey wall. I took my bundle and clambered down, stiffly and painfully, from the cart.

  There were buildings in the courtyard made of wattle and daub. I walked round them and came upon an unblocked view of the Hall. The tower was to my left, and in front of me was a long, high building of grey stone, with a tiled roof and four great gables. Three of the gables were settings for tall, arched windows, which began close to the ground and rose to a point above the edge of the roof. The fourth gable held the door, which was broad and arched, and had immense iron hinges and studs.

  I did not like to go in uninvited, and looked round for someone to invite me; but no one came, with beaming smile, across the muddy courtyard to make me welcome, and I wondered what to do next. Then I saw, away to my right, and directly under the defensive wall, another wattle and daub building which I guessed was the kitchen because a boy was standing outside it, scraping left-over food from a dish into a wooden tub. I immediately felt more at ease. Warmth, people, food - the kitchen would suit me very well. I walked over to it and ducked in at the low door.

  Inside it was busy, noisy, hot and dark. Two young girls, their sleeves rolled up, their faces dripping with sweat and their skirts soaked and blackened with water, were scrubbing a round wooden table which stood in the centre of the room. An older woman was kneeling on the floor, picking up the pieces of something broken, and crying, the poor soul. A boy was sweeping the floor, and another went backward and forward to the wooden tub outside the door, passing me each time without a glance, and carrying one wooden dish at a time, without ever thinking to carry several at once.

  At the far end of the kitchen was a stone wall into which were set the bread ovens - a terrific heat came from them. Near them, an elderly woman kneaded dough in a waist-high trough.

  I was watching all this activity when a loud voice bawled, "And who are thee?" The questioner was the woman making bread. She was now cleaning dough from her hands and glowering at me with red eyes from a hot, ill-tempered face. Everyone else looked at me too, but no one stopped work.

  I said, "My name is Christopher Uptake, madam," and was about to explain why I was there, when she said, "So you're Christopher Uptake. What should I make of that?''

  I unbuttoned my jacket, and took out Brentwood's invitation. Passing it to her, I said, "Master Brentwood invited me to stay here. Can you tell me where he is?"

  The woman took the letter, turned it over, unfolded it, looked at it again, and then looked at me. I realized that she could not read. "He invited you, you say? Is that what this means?''

  I explained how I had come with the luggage. She stared at me, and I realized that my bruises did not trouble me alone. My face was discoloured and scratched, my clothes poor, and I probably looked more like a beggar than someone whom Brentwood would invite into his home. But the woman asked no further questions; she turned and called to a girl who, at that moment, came into the kitchen: "Sarah - show this gentleman up to Mistress Cowling's room."

  The girl led me through the dark doorway at the end of the kitchen, along a short, covered, and pitch-black passageway; and down a flight of steps into an underground room of dank, cold, grey stone. There was a large alcove, filled with a well and the mechanics for drawing up the buckets. The place had a strong smell of green water. A flight of steep stone steps led up from this unpleasant place towards the light, and when I reached the top of these steps, I saw before me a huge, high room, a beautiful room: the hall after which the house was named.

  I wandered out into it, turning and walking backwards while I looked up at the roof. It was the room I had seen from the courtyard, with the three tall, arched windows, and its size and lightness made a welcome contrast to the kitchen and well-room I had just left. It was floored with stone flags; the walls were of grey stone; the roof, with its huge beams making one sweep across the whole width, was of wood. I did not know whether its size or its age added more to its beauty.

  There were four long trestle-tables set out, with benches, and girls were setting these tables for a meal, probably for breakfast. At the further end of the hall, I could see a stone platform - the dais, of course, where the lord of the manor sat. It was all fascinating, and I could see some carvings on the supports of the roof-beams, which I wanted to look at, but the girl who was to take me to Mistress Cowling was waiting nervously, so I went with her, carrying my bundle. She led me across the width of the hall to some wooden steps which, supported by thick wooden pillars, climbed the end wall of the hall in two flights. The first flight ended at a small landing perhaps seven feet from the hall's floor. A room opened from this landing.

  The second flight went on up from there to another landing which was among the rafters, at a height of at least fifteen feet. The stairs trembled slightly beneath our weight, and we were able to look down through the gap between each step and see how far we had climbed.

  Half-way up, I thought of going back down again, and only because the little girl in front of me climbed so unconcernedly did I continue. When we reached the landing at the top, with its flimsy wooden handrail, under which I feared I might slip, I stood and looked at the birds' nests in the rafters on a level with my eyes, while the girl knocked on the door of the room. Someone called out for her to enter. I heard her open the door, and say, "Please, Mistress, Cook told me to bring this gentleman up to see you."

  "Gentleman?'' said the voice. "Show him in, show him in."

  The girl turned to me, said, "You're to go in, sir," and ran - actually ran - down those stairs.

  I looked into the room. It was large, smelt pleasantly of fresh rushes, and was furnished with a bed, a food-hutch, and two tables. A woman sat at one of them, a book in front of her which it seemed she had just shut, for her hand still rested on it. She was dressed in black, and had a striking face: square, gaunt and broadboned, with a light-brown skin which gave her a look of carved, polished wood. Her hair was dragged back beneath her cap so that none of it showed, not a strand. She looked at me with such astonishment that I thought I had better speak first.

  "I am Christopher Uptake," I said. ''A playwright. Master Brentwood may have mentioned me . . .?'' She gave no sign that he had, so I held out my letter. "He invited me to stay."

  She rose quickly and came round the table, her heavy skirt dragging behind her in a sad sort of way. A beaded chatel
aine was fastened round her waist, holding scissors and keys, proclaiming her to be the housekeeper. "No," she said "he didn't . . . '' She took the letter from me and read it, then looked up at me and frowned. I guessed that, like the cook, she was wondering about my scratches and bruises, and I quickly explained that I had been attacked by robbers on the very night that Brentwood had sent me the letter, which was why I had been unable to ride down with him.

  "How frightful," she said. "I hope you received no serious injury? Well, Master Uptake, I am afraid that my cousin has not mentioned anything about your visit to me, though, of course, you are very welcome. I daresay you are hungry? You will have to excuse me; we are about to serve breakfast in the hall - If you would like to make yourself comfortable here for a while - ? This is my room; please treat it as your own. I will see that some hot water is brought up for you to wash, and something for you to eat. You'll excuse me?"