Mist Over Pendle

by Robert Neill

  Margery whistled softly. She had not suspected this.

  “And Alice Nutter--she visits there?”

  “So we saw--as the Lady Bountiful! That’s her favoured pastime, and it disposes some to speak well of her. I’m asking now if it covers some other things.”

  Roger paused, and his sombre eyes gazed steadily at Margery.

  “She railed at me that I put something on Eliza Howgate. What was it that she supposed me to have put upon the woman?”

  Margery met his gaze squarely. She had expected this, and her eyes were as steady as his.

  “Your words should have meant what you pretended, sir--which, of two misfortunes? They could also have meant the truth.”

  “Meaning the child on the stones?”

  “Aye, sir. Just that.”

  “As you say--just that. And Alice was so hot on it, and in such haste to deny---“

  The rippling stream filled the silence as he ended. It was Margery who found words first.

  “If it’s that she was in haste to deny---“

  “She must know something of it.” Roger’s eyes had never left Margery’s. “And will you tell me how she knew--if she did know?”

  “This Howgate, perhaps?”

  “Not so.” He shook his head decisively. “For if she was in haste to deny, she must have supposed me to know something of the matter too. She would not have denied what she supposed I did not know. And how could the Howgates have told of our last night’s doings?”

  Again there was silence as Margery followed his thought.

  “There’s Tony Nutter,” she said slowly. “He surely knows, and she’s his sister-in-law---“

  “Whom he loves like the sweating sickness. He’d spill no papist secrets there, even if she’d had time to seek him out.”

  Margery nodded.

  “I thought of that also.”

  “Yet she knew. Call it guessing if you wish, but I say she knew. I’ve a whim about it, as Nick Banister might say. And again I ask, who told her?”

  “There’s one thing possible---“ Margery spoke doubtfully.

  “But continue. In charity, continue.”

  “It’s been in my mind that whoever laid that child upon the stones might have stayed hid--to watch what befell.”

  “God’s Grace, lass!” He tapped his saddle thoughtfully. “You see it always. Which should mean that whoever laid the child has contact with our Alice. One asks why.”

  “Aye sir. It’s a thing ... a thing not to be expected.”

  “There’s much in Pendle not to be expected. Now there’s one thing more, and this the most ill scented.” He gazed, hard-eyed, at Margery, and his nostrils were quivering with disgust. “Your poison herb, and baby’s fat, and raving death--Anne Nutter may have died so?”

  “It ... it has that look.”

  “Mark it then.” His words came slowly. “This Alice is ambitious for her son. She’d have him an Esquire---“

  “So it’s said.”

  “Tony Nutter dropped it this morning that the boy’s his heir. Now why did that come about?”

  Margery felt her eyes widen; and a chill she had known before came gnawing at her spine as she took his meaning. She stared at him speechless.

  His voice came again, quietly and remorselessly.

  “Why did that come about?”

  “Because Anne died,” she answered, and hardly heard her voice.

  Chapter 18: AMBITION’S TRACK

  “And that’s not all,” said Roger slowly.

  He broke an unhappy silence. Margery stayed quiet and waited.

  “It comes back to me now,” he went on, “that there was another Nutter who died oddly and to the profit of the Rough Lee.”

  “And . . . and in that manner?”

  “That I know not. It was twenty years agone, and memories grow dim. Yet Tony and his Margaret should know something of it if their minds be but jogged a little.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That shall be my work. I’ll go visiting again. And you--get you to Wheathead and deal with Baldwin for me in the matter of this burial.”

  “Telling him what?”

  “That’s with you. You know my mind and you’ve wit enough to judge what’s safe. Now get you gone. We’ll talk at supper.”

  He wheeled his horse and cantered off. Margery watched him go. Then she rode quietly across the stream and through Barley village, her eyes unseeing and her thoughts in turmoil. For what was suggested was as plain as it was foul: that these witch women, ignorant and evil, danced to another’s tune and for another’s profit; and as she thought of it, there came back to her the memory of Nick Banister, sitting at ease by Roger’s fire and asking who had learning enough to order that lonely coppice.

  She passed through the village and came to the higher upland, where the stream splashed on the stones and the wind had a keener edge. She rounded the bend and came to the pool and the mill and the wheel in the seething froth. And then her head reared. For there was Grace, sitting in the sunlight by a spinning-wheel that clicked and chattered; and at her side, lounging on the low stone wall and very much at his ease, was Miles Nutter..

  They came to their feet as they saw who it was, and Miles was plainly out of countenance; Grace stood quiet and composed, and Margery scanned her keenly, suspecting that a shade of embarrassment hid behind that friendly smile. If it was so, it had Margery’s sympathy. This was a meeting she could well have done without; she thought she had enough in her mind this day without having to deal with Miles Nutter too.

  “This is pleasure,” said Grace. “And not one we had expected.”

  “I’d not expected it myself, but I’ve messages for your father, and of some urgency.”

  “I’ll take you to him. It’s a month and more since we saw you.”

  “Blame weather and witches, if you please.”

  “And brewing. I know how it is. Miles here has missed you too.”

  “I didn’t know he’d sought me.”

  Margery turned to Miles for the first time, thinking she could not continue to ignore him. He reddened under her gaze and twisted awkwardly. But before he had found words the door of the millhouse opened and Richard Baldwin came out, his brown face aglow. Margery turned to him with relief.

  “This is a kindness,” he said heartily. “It will please us all.”

  Margery took a quick glance at Miles and doubted that sentiment ; then she came quickly to the point.

  “Truly sir,” she said, “it’s not kindness. It’s need. I have messages from my cousin.”

  “Is it so?” His face grew graver. “I doubt that bodes no good at this season. But come within. I’ll have a lad care for your horse.”

  But Miles Nutter interposed. He came forward and took her bridle.

  “At least let me serve, you in this,” he said, and Margery hastened to give him a gracious answer.

  “I’ll be grateful,” she told him smilingly. Anything, she thought, that might ease this moment, if only for Grace’s sake.

  She followed Richard into the big kitchen and from there into a small parlour which she judged must be private to himself. It had only a table, a pair of chairs and a bookshelf; and she swept an expert glance over this as she took the proffered chair. There were manuscript books which she thought must be the mill accounts; there was the heavy quarto Geneva Bible, Calvin’s Institutio, and a dozen or so of lesser works of the sort that had graced her brothers’ shelves. And open on the table, clearly in present use, was her own copy of the Homily On The Justice Of God.

  “Now mistress. What of these messages?”

  She turned to the tiny hearth and warmed her hands thoughtfully while she considered what words she should use. Then suppressing what she thought dangerous, she told him all she thought safe of the doings of the night. He listened quietly, but she saw plainly from his hardening face that he was stirred by her relation.

  “They hold all together and keep themselves close,” he quoted as she ended. “Shall they escape for thei
r wickedness? Thou, 0 God, in Thy displeasure shalt cast them down.”

  He sat in silence after that, and only his smouldering eyes showed how deeply he was moved. Margery ran over her memory of the Psalms.

  “The pestilence that walketh in darkness,” she said. “The sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.”

  He was nodding approval of that before she had realized that her thought had been with Anne Nutter, rather than with a dead child.

  “It’s even so,” he said. “But I feared there would be some vileness yesternight. I’ll be right glad to be done with all these Saints’ Days, and not with some only. They’re occasions ever for lewdness by the vulgar and worse by the wicked.”

  Then he became practical.

  “This child must have decent burial, to be sure. But can it be at the Newchurch, or indeed at any church? Can we suppose there has been Baptism?”

  That took Margery by surprise, and she all but blurted out too much. She checked just in time, and hastily sought for an answer. But she had not been bred among divines without learning something of equivocation.

  “I think,” she told him carefully, “that our Church permits Baptism by those who are not its Ministers when there is extremis.”

  “Ha!” His eyes lit at that. “So much was done then? This child was alive when found?”

  “Yes. Alive, and was then baptized.”

  “Thanks be to God! I ask now, who thought of that?”

  “Does it signify?”

  “I’ll take that as my answer. I make you my compliments.”

  She accepted them placidly, telling herself that she had earned them in one way, if not in another. She thought she had managed that adroitly, and without an untruth.

  “That being so,” he said, “there’s no reason why the child should not be in the ground of the Newchurch, and I’ll urge that on Master Town. A well-intentioned man, mistress--well-intentioned I’ll grant, but he errs. He errs grievously. You’ve noted he’s corroded with the Arminian pestilence, but he has errors added to that. Now this day he goes to Burnley where he’s to uphold---“

  He was still expounding what he called the Infralapsarian heresies of the curate when Grace came in to call them to dinner. He continued his discourse throughout the meal, and Margery had to keep her mind alert lest she make some foolish answer. One thing eased her; she noted that Miles Nutter was no longer to be seen But when dinner was done and Thanks had been given, she looked appealingly to Grace, who at once carried her off to her own small room on pretext of tidying hair.

  “Thanks!” said Margery briefly.

  Grace laughed.

  “I thought you were very brave. Listening to such talk can be trying work.”

  “I’ve served a sound apprenticeship to it.” Margery smiled ruefully. “It runs in my family at home.”

  “You were very tactful.” Grace seated herself on her bed and left the only chair to Margery. “And you were very tactful with Miles before-dinner.”

  Grace was obviously making an opening and Margery was anxious to help her; the sooner this was cleared, the better.

  “As to that,” she answered, “to be perfectly plain, I begin to find Master Nutter an embarrassment.”

  “I’m sure you do. You’ve been treated with too little courtesy, and it’s time you knew the truth of this.”

  “There’s no reason why I should. It’s his affair and perhaps yours, but it’s not mine. I’m not a maker of trouble.”

  “Listen, Margery---“ Grace was insistent. “It’s best for us all that you should know the truth of this. So listen.”

  It was not an easy tale for Grace to tell, and she looked at her bed more than at Margery. But in the end she had it plain.

  Margery had supposed correctly that something lay between Grace and Miles Nutter. It was indeed more than that, and it would have ripened into a betrothal but for one thing--the uncompromising opposition of Alice Nutter. On that, Grace was forthright. Alice Nutter, she said, had no mind that her Miles should, as she phrased it, throw himself at a yeoman’s girl. Dick Nutter, himself a yeoman, would have made no trouble; Richard Baldwin might have been persuaded; but Alice would have none of it. Her son was to rise in the world; he was to end as an Esquire, and he must find a wife in the family of an Esquire. Nothing less would do, and Miles was straitly forbidden to have dealings of any kind with Grace. Forbidden meetings naturally followed.

  “You make it very plain,” said Margery. “It explains what seemed odd discourtesies. I perceive his embarrassments. But it does not explain why he sought me at all. Why could he not leave me in peace?”

  Grace hesitated.

  “Judge him not too harshly for that,” she said at length. “It would truly bring blame on most. But not only Miles. With such a mother, and with her so insistent, what could he do but comply? You’ve met Alice Nutter, Margery? You know the force that’s in her.”

  “I do. But are you saying that it was Alice Nutter who set him on to go a-riding with me?” “No less.”

  “But why? In the name of what makes sense--why?”

  “Are you not kin to an Esquire?”

  “God’s Grace!” Roger’s exclamation came from her before she could check it. “It was for that that he rode with me?”

  “At her insistence. Only at that. Though it’s sour hearing for you.”

  “Pay no heed to that. I don’t want your Miles, and I’ve taken no hurt. But how of your father? Had he no word to say?”

  “That Miles visits me, he knows. It could not be otherwise. And he has said no word against it--or against Miles. Why should he? Miles is a yeoman’s son, and---“ Grace had coloured as she sought for words. “And it might be thought a proper match.”

  “Proper indeed. But if it be forbidden by----”

  “Don’t you see it? My father knows all things of it but that. Miles has not spoken of his mother’s commands.”

  “But she herself? Surely she---“

  “Then you don’t know Alice Nutter. Trust her for that! A most kindly gracious lady, our Alice! She’s friend to all the world---and lays her commands in secret.”

  Margery sat silent. Unbelievable though it was, she believed it. It fitted, she thought, with what else she knew--and fitted, too, with what had been darkly hinted. Was nothing done with decency in Pendle? Was there nothing here but misery? The child dead in the night; the hunted priest; Anne Nutter, darkly dead; Margaret Baldwin; and now this! And what would come next?

  “My poor Grace!” she said quietly. “I think I see it all--and believe it too. Now what would you have me do? I’m yours to serve in all things.”

  Grace lifted moist eyes to Margery’s.

  “Just this,” she answered steadily. “Forgive Miles. Be understanding. And if he’s driven to call on you again, resent it not but show him some courtesies.”

  Margery agreed at once.

  “All that most willingly, and it’s little enough. But would it not be better if I were to refuse to see him? Even his mother could scarcely insist on his visits after that.”

  But Grace would not agree. She showed instead some signs of alarm.

  “God forbid!” she burst out. “Margery, you don’t know Alice Nutter as Miles and I do. She’s wicked, Margery. Truly she is, and she’s dangerous. God forgive me for saying it, but she is. I know not what would follow if you drove it so. For pity’s sake, let it be.”

  Margery clung to a coolness that was slipping from her. This, from the gentle Grace, was perturbing; and again she had Roger’s dark thoughts surging in her mind. Then she forced herself to be steady, and she phrased her question carefully.

  “This wickedness of Alice Nutter, Grace. I think I could believe in that. But tell me, what form does it take?”

  “I’d feel safer if I knew. Even Miles does not know. I think he guesses something, but he has not told me. All being said, how could he?”

  “He couldn’t. I perceive that.” Margery came to her feet. “But Grace, you’re looking strai
ned. You’ll be better beyond doors at your spinning wheel. And I’ll be better on my road. But be sure I’ll do as you’ve asked.”

  They parted amiably, and Margery took due and cordial leave of Richard Baldwin. But once she was round the bend and out of their sight she rode fast. She was in haste to talk with Roger, and there was a chaos in her mind that was not pleasant. Until yesterday Pendle had been a rustic place, unhappily plagued by some vicious women. Now the picture had changed, and a much more formidable person had come into view; vaguely indeed, but not less alarmingly for that.

  In the end she hurried too much, and she was home before Roger; and not until supper was done were they free from attendance and able to talk at ease. But once they were back in the parlour, with the fire and the candles and the wine, Roger lost no time in coming to what was in his mind.

  “You took order with Baldwin for that burial?” he asked without prelude.

  “Yes.” She did not trouble to explain how. “But there’s some more. It was a secret, to speak truly. Nevertheless---“

  “You take no risk with me,” he assured her. “Country gossip’s not among my faults.”

  “I know.” She told him briefly of Grace’s tale and of the doings of Miles Nutter.

  It stung his pride and angered him.

  “Here’s a tale!” he snapped. “She’d make you a creature for her advancement, would she? She’d link her lad with you, and through you with me, and through me with half the quality of Lancashire? Was she drunk when she thought of it?”

  But he cooled and listened calmly to the rest of it. Then he grew heated again when he learned that Miles Nutter might yet be calling on Margery.

  “Do you lend yourself to this?” he asked angrily. But he cooled again when she explained the matter.

  “You may lay this to your credit,” he told her. “If I thought less well of your wits, I’d forbid it shortly. As it is----” He regarded her smilingly. “As it is, you’ve a face that will call men from afar, but you’ve some cool sense within it--or I’d not talk with you as I do. Have it your way then. Be civil to the lad if you wish. But let him not call too often, lest neighbours gossip.”