Mist Over Pendle

by Robert Neill

  “Indeed, madam, I have heard of some who died most oddly in this Pendle.”

  And Margery nodded in her turn. She was holding firm to her belief that Alice Nutter was best dealt with by prompt counterattack.

  The gleam of triumph faded and something ugly took its place.

  “They died oddly, did they? And they were folk bred in Pendle?” There was a hint of menace in the smooth voice now. “There might be greater hazard for another.”

  “Another?”

  The nod came again.

  “Master Hilliard is wise to flee our climate. He was not bred to it.” The dark eyes gleamed again. “Nor were you, mistress.”

  “Nor you, madam, as I’m told. But perhaps you were fortunate?”

  “How, if you please?”

  “You were bred, no doubt, in an equally treacherous climate.”

  The dark eyes quivered, and Margery watched with satisfaction. That thrust had gone home, and already she was preparing another.

  “How is Master Miles?” she asked innocently. “I’m told he’s away.”

  “At Lathom, mistress. He’s been there these three weeks.” “You are no doubt prudent, madam. He’ll be away from harm there.”

  “There’s no prudence in it.” The smooth voice was rougher now. “He’s there by invitation.”

  The gleam was in Margery’s eyes now, and her voice slowed to a drawl that was almost insolent.

  “Invitation? Ah, yes. Of one Potter, I’m told.”

  Alice Nutter’s face twitched. Plainly she was not used to this sort of thing, and she was too angry to see the trap.

  “Of Master Matthew Potter, if you please. And pray remember that Master Potter is my nephew.”

  “Nephew, is it?”

  Margery’s eyebrows lifted just sufficiently to point her meaning, and Alice Nutter’s temper broke. The dark eyes blazed, and a wave of red flushed her pale cheeks; and before she had recovered her poise Margery had made a curtsey that was insolent in its fullness, and was marching down the path with Roger, who had been standing, she discovered, comfortably within earshot.

  “That’s barbed by-play,” he remarked as they rode away. “How did it begin?”

  “Begin?” Margery was less calm now than she had been. “It began with Alice Nutter coming wantonly from her way, to play cat-and-mouse with me.”

  “Cat-and-mouse?” Roger laughed. “A pretty mouse you are! You’ve claws as sharp as hers, and your aim’s better. But she’ll remember it, and I’d advise you to have a care when she comes again.”

  But Alice Nutter did not come again, and in the days that followed Margery neither saw her nor heard of her. And the days grew tedious. Nothing seemed to Margery to go as she had hoped it would. Harry Hargreaves, industriously seeking for any pointer that might show who had desecrated the graves, had to report complete failure; and Jennet Device, on whom Margery had pinned some hopes, was just as useless. She came regularly, and she chattered freely; but all she could say about Candlemas was that her own folk had not been out that night. Then Margery found another source of anxiety. She went frequently to Goldshaw, to chat with Tony Nutter and do what she could to cheer him as he regained strength; and going there one cold and windy morning she was distressed to find that he was no longer in his elbow-chair by the fire. Sister Margaret explained gloomily that Tony was back in bed. He had made such progress, she said, and had regained such spirits, that he had insisted on going out. The wind had been cold and the result disastrous, as his sister had feared it would be. These lung troubles, she said, were noted for their trick of coming back, and Tony should have had more sense. But there it was! Tony had never had any sense, and there he was --back in bed again. Margaret chatted lightly about it, but she could not wholly conceal her anxiety, and Margery went away depressed and anxious too.

  Her spirits were not much raised by a letter which Frank contrived to send to her. He wrote cheerfully, and he said that all went well at home; but he had to add that his mother had been more disordered than he had supposed, and her recovery was taking longer--and in short, he would not be able to begin his journey back to Pendle until the end of the month at soonest. Margery pulled a wry face at that. The letter was of cheerful tone, and it had some pleasing sentiments, but the fact remained that Frank had not yet started. Margery went to Roger and plied him with questions about probable travelling-times on winter roads, and her calculation after that was that a return in the first or second week of March was the best she could hope for; and that, in her present humours, seemed a whole weary age away.

  But she had to make the best of it, and as February went its windy way she filled in her time with whatever she could. She was at least always welcome at Wheathead, and she was able to give Grace the news, which young Jennet had somehow gleaned from nowhere, that Miles Nutter was expected to be back at the Rough Lee before Lent began. That was how Jennet had put it, and as Ash Wednesday would be the fourth of March, Grace had something to look forward to; Miles might surely be expected to contrive something when he was once back in Pendle.

  But Lent brought news of a different sort to Margery. On Ash Wednesday she learned that Tony Nutter was perceptibly weaker; on the Friday he was worse, and on the Saturday his sister was in unconcealed anxiety. And on the Sunday, a grey and windless day of teeming rain, Jennet Device made a surprise appearance when Margery was just into her orange-tawny in readiness for Whalley church. Tony Nutter, said Jennet cheerfully, was a-dying; he might last the day or he might not, but certainly he was a-dying.

  Margery sent the rain-soaked child to the kitchen to be dried and fed, and she herself went in blank dismay to Roger. She found him coming down the stair, cloaked and booted for church, and she told him with no waste of words; and could they not, she asked, ride to Goldshaw instead of Whalley?

  Slowly Roger shook his head.

  “That might give embarrassment,” he said.

  “Embarrassment? But surely---”

  “I’ll be better at Whalley.” He did not explain that, but he eyed her strangely. “But you may go to Goldshaw. And when you’re there, and have seen the shape of things, you may give such messages from me as you then judge proper.”

  At another time that might have set Margery probing for his meaning, but at this moment she was too concerned for Tony. She thanked Roger hastily, took one look at the weather, and spared five minutes to change the orange-tawny for her russets and then she was away.

  Chapter 33: THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH

  The Forest lay dark under the pattering rain. It streamed steadily from the low unbroken cloud; it dripped from the trees and ran in rivulets among the grass, its lazy drip and patter loud in the windless air. The track was a squelching sponge, and Margery had to keep her stumbling horse to a slow and cautious walk. She took twice her usual time for the familiar journey, and when at last she came to the house in the pines, her hat and cloak were black, her face was scoured with rain, and a cold trickle from her sodden collar was running down her neck.

  The pines were stark in the grey mist, and behind them the house was quiet and still. Margery sat motionless on her weary horse, and a vague dread began to work on her. There was something odd here, something unnatural and therefore ominous; this silent house offered her no welcome; it stood aloof in the trees and the dripping rain, and it ignored her. The door stayed bleak and shut, and the old servitor did not come out to take her horse. And then she saw that at the window above the door, which she knew to be that of Tony’s bedchamber, the curtains had been drawn across.

  Her alarm grew; she slipped from her horse and made for the door, her boots sliding wetly in the gravel. Some impulse kept her from knocking. Instead she pushed open the door and stepped quietly in.

  The low square hall was still and empty; but not perhaps deserted, for at the foot of the stair a candle burned, the tallow guttering untidily. The kitchen door stood open, and revealed nothing of any serving girls. But from above, from somewhere past the bend of the stair, a vo
ice could be heard, faint and indistinct.

  Margery stood stiffly, and was tense and disturbed. Then she moved slowly to the stair, and the hush that was on the house persuaded her to go tip-toe. She crept silently up the treads till she could see past the bend to the door she knew to be his bedchamber; and here she stopped abruptly. The door was shut, but it fitted badly, and in the chink was candle-light; and unendingly, unceasingly, the quiet voice ran on.

  The voice stopped, and there were sounds of hushed movement; then a clink, and the voice spoke again; but this time it spoke slowly, and the words were clear. Hoc est enim Corpus Meum. . . . She heard the low mutter of the Latin, and she pressed back, startled, against the wainscot, as her puritan upbringing reared in her mind, hinting vaguely at subtle dangers. But at least there could be no doubt of what this meant. A muttered Mass in a curtained room could mean one thing only: Tony Nutter was in extremis.

  But in her alarm she had moved too quickly. Her wet boot slipped on the smooth boards, and her spurred heel clattered against the wainscot. She stood rigid, half frightened and half irritated, wondering what it would bring. Then, when she was beginning to hope she had not been heard, the door was slowly opened, and Margaret Crook, her face white and anxious, peered out. There was relief in her strained eyes as she saw who it was, and Margery did her best to be reassuring; she contrived a smile, and she touched pursed lips with a finger as a sign that she would keep the secret. Apparently Margaret understood, for she went quickly back into the room, and the door shut softly behind her.

  Margery tip-toed down the stair, and after pulling off her gloves, untying her cloak and easing her hat from her wet hair, she went across the hall into the parlour beyond. She mended the fire and laid her wet things before it, and then she moved to the window and stood staring blankly through the glass--staring till the dark clouds faded from her view, and time went back, and it was again a bright September morning with the soft wind blowing through the open lattice; and Tony Nutter was standing in the sunlight, giving her easy talk and a first friendly welcome.

  Feet shuffled on the stair, and again the sky was dark with the clouds and the drenching rain. She turned wearily as the old servant came in, and in silence she pointed to her wet and shivering horse, still patient in the rain. The old man nodded, and in a few moments she saw him go out and lead the beast to the stable behind the house. Again there were feet on the stair, a sharp precise tread this time; and Margery turned sharply as Christopher Southworth came into the room.

  They looked at each other in silence, and it was Margery who spoke first.

  “We owe you thanks,” she said, “for a book. And I for a Cross.”

  It was trivial at this moment, and she knew it, but she could think of nothing better. He inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  “I owe you thanks for more than that,” he said. “And twice. I would that you were of the true Faith.”

  “You waste your time at that.”

  “And time does not belong to me,” he answered quietly. “It is lent to me only, and for a purpose. And perhaps the loan is running out. “What do you intend?”

  “Nothing. You know well enough that I shall not betray you.”

  He bowed slightly.

  “My debt increases. Then I’ll be upon my way. But first, Mistress Crook would be--would be private with me.”

  He waited, and for a moment Margery was puzzled. Then she understood.

  “She’s above?” she asked. “With him?”

  “Yes. She watches.”

  “Then I’ll watch in her stead, and she may come down. But tell me--how is he?”

  “That is with God. I cannot say.”

  His tone was grave and Margery made no comment. She went quietly out of the room and up the stair. Without ceremony she went into the bedroom, and Margaret rose from a chair by the bedside. There was a whispered word and she was gone; and Margery was alone with the stricken Tony.

  It was a simple room. The bed had the centre of it, and there was a press, a table and a pair of chairs; that was all. A fire burned bright in the hearth, and from that and the candles and the drawn curtains, the heat was stifling. Margery gasped, and asked herself if she might at least draw back the curtains now that the priest was gone from the room. But it was not her house, and she hesitated; and while she hesitated, Tony Nutter spoke urgently.

  She spun on her heel, wondering what he had said; for his speech had been thick and she had caught no clear word. She answered, but he did not seem to hear; and she stood unhappily, looking between the half-parted bed-curtains to where his head moved fitfully in the shadows. Again he spoke, and Margery leaned forward, desperate to give what help she could. He turned his face to her and seemed to see her as he spoke again.

  “Anne!” His words were clear now. “Anne, my dear! Oh, Anne!”

  And Margery, clinging wet-eyed to the bedpost, knew that he had never seen her.

  His words ran on, for a moment thick and blurred, and then for a moment clear before they blurred again; but clear for long enough to tell that he was riding with his Anne on an April morning--and he was happy. Margery clung tight to the bedpost, her lip between her teeth, and her face wet in the sweating heat of the room.

  She never knew how long it was before a question from nowhere came shooting through her mind, a question from outside herself, that came with a hideous clarity: a chill of the lungs-- could that breed such raving?

  Margery recoiled from the bedpost and stood quivering; and suddenly a chill she knew had crept into the stifling room. The heat faded, and she felt her back shiver as the Secret Cold came in; and at once her mind was working icily.

  She took a candle from the press and carried it dangerously within the bed-curtains; and holding it so that its light was full on Tony, she looked intently. His face was flushed and red, his mouth open, his lips dry and parched. She put her hand on his forehead and felt it dry and hot. Then she gently eased his head back, and the candle-light fell on the great dark pupils of his staring eyes.

  Mistress Crook, making her Confession to Father Southworth, was disturbed by the ring and clatter of boots on the oaken stair, and she had no more than got to her feet when the parlour door was flung rudely open and a termagant of a girl burst in.

  “What food’s he had?” she snapped. “These last days?”

  Margaret Crook quivered. She was indignant, and she was bewildered. This was not the Margery she had known.

  “What food’s he had?”

  The question came again, and the young voice was savage. That was the end of resistance. Gentle Margaret was no match for this hard-eyed truculence.

  “Why, milk,” she answered meekly. “Milk, and syllabubs, and some barley-water. No more.”

  “The milk--from your own cattle?” There was a ring of steel in the voice.

  “Why yes, to be sure it was. But---”

  “The barley water--who made it?”

  “I did. But my dear---”

  “And the syllabubs--from whence?”

  “Why, I beat them myself.”

  “All of them?”

  The steel in the voice had the edge of a razor now.

  “Myself? Yes, most of them. Though Alice has been---”

  “Alice!”

  She almost spat the word, and gentle Margaret shrank back as she heard the ring of it. But that was the climax. Margery stood rigid, white-faced and tense as she fought for calm; and gradually her bearing eased. She drew a deep breath, and when she spoke again she was almost her own self.

  “I must ask your pardon,” she said slowly. “I’ve been most ill mannered.”

  “Why yes, my dear. Never mind that. But---”

  “Please!” Margery interrupted firmly. “I’ll tell you later why it was. Just now there’s more urgent matter. These syllabubs-- you say Alice Nutter sent some?”

  “Indeed yes. She’s been most kind.”

  “Have you one left--of hers?”

  “Part of one. Tony had---
”

  “May I see it, please?”

  Margery was polite, but the ring was coming into her voice again, and Margaret was too dazed to resist. She led to the door and Margery went quietly after her. Christopher Southworth followed silently, and his dark eyes had an understanding gleam; he was not ignorant, and he was very far from being a fool.

  The old servitor, hovering by the kitchen door with eyes agape, stood aside to let them pass. Margaret opened the cool lime-washed larder and brought out a bowl of crystal--thick fluted glass that could take a glint if the light were bright enough. A soft pink curd filled the bowl, smooth except where a spoon had taken some away.

  Margery took the bowl in silence, and scanned it with care. A syllabub was cream beaten up with wine, and she was thinking that it might disguise a flavour--almost if not completely. She put the bowl into the curve of her left arm and dipped a finger of her right hand into it. Cautiously she put the finger to her tongue.

  The crystal shivered on the stone-flagged floor as she hurled it from her. Margaret shrieked, and the old servitor jumped back, his breeches splashed with curd. Christopher Southworth moved forward with inquiring eyes, and Margery wiped her tongue and spat. Beyond mistake, the acrid bitterness had been there; it was masked and faint, but it was there--to a clean tongue and a wary mind. But would it have been there to the tongue and mind of a sick and weary man? Tony Nutter, she remembered, had been sick from his ride in the snow before ever this began.

  Margaret, dazed and bewildered, looked helplessly at Margery as though asking what she should do. She was promptly told.

  “Tony’s alone,” said Margery quietly, and Margaret stood vaguely until she grasped the meaning. Then she gave a horrified gasp and went hurrying up the stair. The old man stooped and began to collect the pieces.

  “Leave that,” said Margery. “I’ll need my horse. Be pleased to see to it.”

  She was quite sure what must be done. The old man, half comprehending, moved slowly away, and Margery led Christopher Southworth back through the hall and into the parlour. But at the parlour door she checked in surprise; the curtains were drawn across, and only a single candle lit the gloom; she had been too distracted before to notice that the priest had taken this precaution, but now the dark shadows repelled her and she turned back into the hall. He followed without protest.