A Traveller in Time (26 page)

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.

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, and 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.

“Music!” I said, turning to Uncle Barnabas. “There's music coming from the church.”

“I can hear nowt,” said Uncle Barny, “but this chopper makes such a tarnation racket.”

“There is! Listen Uncle Barnabas,” I cried. “Who can it be?”

“It's maybe Mrs. Pluck, practising for Sunday, but why she wants to come on a bad afternoon like this, I dunno know,” he replied, and he trimmed the turnips and fed the whirling chopping-machine, with never a moment's respite. “Dunno talk to me,” he continued. “I canna attend to two things at once.”

I wrapped my coat over my head again, and unlatched the half-door and fastened it behind me, to keep the rain from pouring in the barn. Then I stepped across the deep puddles, keeping to the cobblestones, and avoiding the liquid manure which was spreading over the yard. I ran lightly over the wet grass and up the path to the church door, but even as I went I was suddenly filled with fear. The church door was shut and there was never a glimmer of candlelight although it was nearly dark with the pouring rain. I stopped running and walked more slowly, dragging back, yet constrained to move forward as the music came in elvish sweetness. Mrs. Pluck never played like that; her music was faltering and broken, except when she thumped out a well-known hymn. This was no hymn, it wasn't sacred music at all, and for that I was glad, but it was unearthly and fairy, as if the wind had come down to earth to play a harp of willow boughs. It was unlike anything I had ever heard, and I stood in the church porch sheltering from the rain, listening, hesitating. I felt dizzy and sick and I began to tremble. I unlatched the great door and slowly pushed it open. The church was in pitchy darkness as if it were the middle of the night, and I could smell the green rushes on the floor. Then the blackness lightened and I could distinguish a figure crouched by the font, with intense white face and closed eyes. It was Arabella with a small harp in her hands. She continued to play her magical tune, and I walked over to her, as if drawn by an invisible cord. Her long white hands moved on the strings, and she seemed to sing some strange words although her lips never moved. Then she looked at me, and started as if she had only just seen me. She rose to her feet and bowed in a formal way, and smiled pleasantly, although her smile filled me with the same strange fear.

“How charming you look, Penelope!” she said. “But you are pale, my sweet wench! Didn't my poor music please you, or don't you wish to visit this world in which we dwell? You see I know all about you, Penelope. I have some powers which my father has taught me.”

I stood motionless before her, waiting for something to happen, bound as if in a dream.

“Francis has told me about the tunnel, Penelope,” she continued in the same honeyed voice. “I am a Babington, too, and must share the fortunes of the house. The work is going well. I have never seen it, but you have. Do you think Cousin Anthony would take me down? Or Cousin Francis? He is your friend; perhaps he would go with me if you asked him.”

There was a long silence, and I heard only the loud ticking of the clock and the rustle of mice among the rushes. The wind caught a curtain and swayed it to and fro and the door creaked on its hinges. My heart was beating rapidly, and I caught my breath to keep down my rising fear. The strangely bright eyes of the girl were fixed upon me.

Then Arabella lowered her voice and spoke in a different tone, as if reassuring me.

“Francis wants to speak with you, Penelope, privately about the queen's passage. He has something we can do to help, but we must meet him secretly. He is waiting in the old ivy-barn.”

“But he doesn't know I am here,” I said.

“Oh yes, he does. He knew you would come from wherever you were to give him aid, for you love the queen as he does.”

That was true, and when Arabella went towards the door I followed her. The rain had ceased, the stars shone in the clear, frosty air. We went past the brew-house, where the smell of the malt was strong, and by the store-barn, now emptied of its fleeces. The immense wooden bins were filled with winter corn which trickled on the floor, and hens ran there pecking in the dust. A cowhouse door was open and I saw the backs of a row of cows, small beasts, not like our Lusty and Rose. But Arabella beckoned me on, hurrying me as I loitered to peep into the familiar buildings to find somebody whom I had seen but lately.

She took me to a small stone building which I had never entered, a tumbledown place smothered in ivy. She pushed open the broken door and we stepped into a small chamber whose floor was covered with bracken and litter. The room was chill and the rough walls ran with moisture, which shone in the faint light of the doorway. I stared round at the rusty bills and broken longbows hanging on the walls, and the flail and stone-headed hammers and bits of leather and mouldy gear piled on the floor. It was evidently an old storehouse, seldom used, for cobwebs hung black from the corners, and piled rubbish lay decaying on the ground.

“It's not very pleasant, is it?” Arabella remarked cheerfully. “It feels quite ghostly, doesn't it? A haunted barn, the servants say. That's why nobody ever comes here and Francis thought it would be a quiet place to meet.”

In the half-darkness her voice had taken on a shrill quality, and her eyes shone green like a cat's from the shadowed doorway.

“I don't think I will wait,” I said. “I will go back to the house and see Aunt Cicely.”

But Arabella sprang to the door and put her back against it, facing me with flashing, wild eyes.

“Yes, you must wait,” she cried. “You will have to wait a long time too. Now I have you, Mistress Penelope, and you needn't scream, for no one will hear you. Anthony's at Wingfield and your beloved Francis has gone to meet him. Mistress Babington has a megrim, and your aunt is attending her. Nobody knows you are here. Nobody at all.”

“Please let me pass, Arabella,” I said, and my voice was calm, for suddenly I felt no fear.

“Not till you tell me how you know about the future. What do you know about the Queen of Scotland? What do you know about Anthony? Is he in danger? Will he save the queen? Answer me.”

I shook my head. “I cannot tell,” I said sadly.

“Confess, traitor! Francis and Anthony have told you secrets. They have trusted you and you are sending news to Walsingham through that spy Ballard, for I know he is a spy.”

“I've never heard of Ballard, and I know nothing of Walsingham,” I answered truthfully. “I know less than you do.”

“You can read and write with ease which is unnatural in a wench of your position, and Mistress Babington takes your part, and would have you in her household. You are a tool of the State, and a spy against Mary Stuart, and you have wormed your way into this household only to betray them all. Is their work for nothing? Are they tunnelling this passage only for your gain?”

“I want to save the queen too,” I cried indignantly, “but nobody can save her. She is doomed.” My voice dropped, and I swayed, sick with my knowledge.

But Arabella thrust her passionate face close to mine, and spoke in fierce rapid whispers.