A Traveller in Time (31 page)

They entered, stamping their feet and shaking their cloaks which they flung in a pile in the porch. They stood by the great fire and warmed their chapped hands, speaking of the suddenness of the snowfall which nobody, not even the oldest gaffer, had expected on such a bright and starry night.

Outside the snow fell in a thick pall, hiding the walls and buildings, covering the earth. Those at Thackers knew that no trace of the secret passage would be found as long as the snow remained, and when it melted there would be a chance of the scars being healed.

A dim shape came from the churchyard, staggering blindly in the whiteness. It was Francis with a sack wrapped round his head.

“Master Anthony is safe. Nobody can find out now,” I cried. “The snow has come and God sent it.”

“Yes, Penelope,” sighed Francis wearily. “It's snowing hard. A blizzard sprang up like a flash. It's a miracle. We are safe, thank God.” Then he saw the cloaks and staves and lanterns in the porch.

“What's this? Are they here already? Have they come on foot? Why didn't Jude warn us?”

“It's only the mummers, Francis, come a-wassailing,” I whispered, touching his arm, and reassuring him.

“Ah! Thank God!” He sank back exhausted. From the kitchen came the laughter and talk of the mummers and the clink of tankards.

“Francis,” I said, kneeling by his side. “They'll ride from Wingfield and search the house, but they will find only Christmas festivities, and the table laid, and my marchpane Thackers there, and the wassail cup moving from one to another, and the mummers drinking and perhaps Mistress Babington singing her sweet carol. They will never suspect, will they, Francis?”

He laughed softly, and put his arms around me. “I think you are right, Penelope. We are safe this time. We have another chance. Thackers is delivered too. Penelope! Penelope!”

He stooped over me and kissed me, and for a moment I lay in his arms. “Don't leave me, Penelope,” he whispered.

But I sprang to my feet. “It's still snowing,” I cried, pointing to the sky, and when I turned to him again, he was gone.

“It's still snowing, and they will ride over from Wingfield but they will find nothing,” I said aloud, and I held up my hands to catch the dancing flakes. “Nothing! Nothing!” came a ghostly echo, and the songs of the mummers and the laughter of the serving maids died away. But the warm touch of Francis's arm, and the look he had bent on me remained, and I waited there, longing and despairing. “Nothing!” whispered the falling snow petals, and my heart took up that cry: “Nothing.”

I leaned against the porch, fumbling with trembling fingers for the stones, sinking half-dead upon the snow-covered seat. For a moment I heard the harsh clatter of swords and the neighing of horses and shouts of men, and then all was silent. A shadow moved over the yard, and a lighted lamp sent its beams on the snow from the kitchen window. Aunt Tissie sang in her cracked old voice as she walked about the room, and the words came to me as I bowed myself in sorrow by the door. “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,” and I too whispered, “Abide with me, Francis. Abide with me.”

Then the sound of a horse's hooves trotting down the road came beating rhythmically out of the night, and Jess hurried from the stable, buttoning his coat.

“They're here,” he called, and he ran down and opened the big gate. The horse came clicking up the drive to the house. The light from the trap lamps moved in long jagged beams on the walls. I saw Mother and Father, with Alison squeezed against Uncle Barnabas's bulky form and Ian shutting the gate after them.

“Welcome to Thackers,” cried Aunt Tissie, running to the porch with the warming-pan in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. “I was just going to run this over their bed, Penelope,” said she as she saw me, “and here they come before their time.”

There was such a confusion of people talking and dogs barking that I felt that this was the unreal life and the tragedy going on at the same time in the unseen part of the house was the reality. For once I did not want to come back, not even to see my own mother and father, who spoke a different language with their high polite voices, instead of the sweet low burr of the country folk, of Aunt Tissie and Uncle Barny, of Tabitha and Dame Cicely and even of Francis and Anthony Babington.

“Aren't you pleased to see us, darling Penelope?” asked Mother wistfully, as I stood staring blankly at them with never a word or smile, not even returning their embraces.

“Yes, only I didn't expect you,” I faltered.

“Why, my dear, I wrote to say we were coming, and Uncle Barnabas came to meet us! Are you asleep Penelope? Aren't you well? What is the matter?” Mother's voice was sharply anxious as she drew me to the light and looked keenly at me.

“Yes— No—It's the snow, Mother,” I stammered, shivering. “I've been watching it, and I feel dazed with its dancing,” I excused myself.

“She's been sitting in the porch,” explained my aunt, and she brushed the snow from my hair. “I thought she was looking out for you, she sat so still. But come along, dear Carlin and Charles. I'm very glad to see ye both and I hope ye are quite well.”

Aunt Tissie enveloped them all in her arms, and led them to the fire in the parlour. I followed with slow reluctant steps, half-glancing back into the kitchen, peering for the mummers, listening for other voices beside those of my parents. But I was quickly called to attention, to carry the cloaks and hats to dry in the brewhouse, to fetch cans of hot water for the bedrooms, and to refill the kettle for cups of tea.

“How beautiful it is,” sighed my mother, as she held her hands to the fire. “You don't know how I have been looking forward to bringing Charles to see you, dear Aunt Tissie.” And my father wandered about the room, uneasy and curious in the old country house.

“Take them upstairs, Penelope,” said Aunt Tissie. “Get the candles and take them to their rooms.”

“All the bedroom fires are lighted, my dear Carlin,” she turned to my mother, “and you need have no fear of damp beds, for we have been airing them for a week. I have put you and Charles in the best bedchamber, and there is a monstrous fire burning, and I beg you to take care and not set the house afire by putting more logs on!”

“I'll take care, Aunt Tissie,” laughed Mother. “We won't set darling Thackers ablaze.” I went to the candle cupboard and got out the pewter candlesticks which were polished and fitted ready for the guests, and I lighted them, stooping over the fire, lingering as long as I dare.

So I led the way, but as I went up the crooked stair, carrying my candle aloft, I felt I was taking strangers to Anthony's house, and they had no right to be there.

I flung open the door of the best bedchamber, where the fire burned brightly, and shadows swept up and down, mopping and mowing like dark travellers themselves, seeking in walls and cupboards evidence of guilt. I could have sworn that some of them had plumed hats and swords in their hands, as they dived away before my upheld candle.

The beautiful bed was ready, its four carved posts polished and reflecting the firelight, the little angels, or cherubs, whichever they were, and the babe seated on a tun, “poor Babington”, all with shining faces after my morning's work with the beeswax. The bed curtains had been freshly washed and they moved gently in the draught from the window, swaying outwards as if somebody were already in the bed, listening to our voices. The best patchwork quilt with its satin and silk hexagons looked dark in the shadow, but Mother ran with uplifted candle, raised the curtain and looked at it with admiration.

“Look, Charles, darling, look.” She pointed with her forefinger to one of the “patches” of claret-coloured embossed velvet.

“Look! That was a bit of my own mother's wedding-dress. Mother showed me the dress once. Aunt Tissie's sister, you know.”

Father bent his head, and touched it gently, smiling at her excitement.

“What a conglomeration of scraps!” said he. Then, “Here's a lovely bit of ancient stuff.”

He picked out a piece of embroidery, a scrap of tapestry work, inserted oddly in the border, for it didn't fit in with the patterns of silks and velvets.

“Do you know what that is? By Jove, it's very old. I wonder what it is. I can't make it out, but it is antique, I swear.”

Mother didn't know, but I recognized it with a queer excitement that set me trembling, so that I backed away lest they should notice my shaking hand. I couldn't tell them that it was a sheaf of corn, with the sun behind it, one of Joseph's brethren, cut from the embroidered strip which Mistress Anthony Babington's long white fingers had worked over three hundred years ago. Why it had been cut and where the rest of it was I never discovered, for Aunt Tissie could only say it was very old, and it had lain in her grandmother's oak workbox for many years till she had begged it for the quilt.

Ian was already in his room, unpacking his suitcase. “Uncle Barny, will there be any pheasant shooting?” I heard him call as he galloped noisily downstairs. “Can I be a beater? Will the Squire let me go with the beaters?”

Alison was eager and excited to be back again. She leapt upon the feather-bed and thumped it joyfully, and then ran round the room, looking at the old things, pulling out the tiny drawers in the looking-glass, peering at herself in the dim speckled mirror, and I leaned over her shoulder.

I saw my own pale face as I had seen it when first I came to Thackers, but older, more mature. I saw Penelope Taberner in the glass, and I felt very near those who loved her, so that I longed to slip through the hidden door to that unseen world where hearts were aching for a captive queen and a broken cause. But there was my sister Alison, laughing and talking of London, teasing as she turned over the contents of my mahogany workbox and saw the jewel and the precious signature, then opening her suitcase and displaying her clothes.

She showed me the morocco bag she had bought for Aunt Tissie and the briar pipe for Uncle Barnabas.

“Uncle Barny doesn't smoke,” I objected. “‘'Ware candle and pipe in barn and in house' he once told me.”

“Oh dear, I'd quite forgotten,” cried Alison.

“He will treasure it all the same,” I told her; “and Aunt Tissie will say the bag is too grand for the likes of her, but she will wrap it in a linen handkerchief and love it.”

“You've grown very wise, young woman,” mocked Alison.

“Yes. You can't live in the depths of the country without acquiring some wisdom,” said I quietly. “Besides, I am an experienced traveller.”

“Traveller! You! You've been nowhere, have you?” she asked, surprised.

“A traveller in time,” I replied, and Alison gave me a quick glance and shook her finger at me.

“Oh, Penelope! You're incorrigible! But you'll grow out of it,” she assured me.

Her words made me very unhappy, for I didn't want to lose this possession of mine, which gave me the power of passing into other layers of time, to share the lives and love of those who dwelt there. I went out of the room with aching heart and stood on the landing. From my mother's room ran spreading fans of firelight and low voices talking, and from our own room came Alison's voice humming a song.

As I stood there the firelight faded, and I was in the darkness with the latch of another, older door within my reach. I lifted it and stepped silently down the little flight of stairs to the corridor below. I walked along, past Mistress Foljambe's room, where another fire burned and the strange birds and beasts of the woodland seemed to come to life and move among the painted trees on the wall. The round gold watch ticked noisily, the fire spattered as the snow fell down the chimney on to its blazing logs. Mistress Foljambe sat there, with the Book of Hours in her hands, and she turned the pages slowly, not reading. I passed on to Master Anthony's room and walked inside, waiting for him to speak.

He saw me at once, and put his finger to his lips for silence, so that I knew the priest was in the secret chamber.

“Are you safe, Master Anthony?” I asked. “Did the snow hide everything?”

“Yes, Penelope,” he whispered, in a voice soft as a breath. “They came galloping over the hills but there was nothing. We were sitting at the feast, listening to the mummers. There they were in their masks with their bladders and hobby-horses, acting a play, and we were laughing uproariously when Sir Ralph rode up, for Jude had warned us they were near. No, we knew nothing of doings at Wingfield. We were too much occupied with our festivities. So we gave them cups of sack and invited them to join us. They admired your marchpane Thackers immensely, and tasted the red roses, and took away the sweetmeat tower. They had no desire to go farther in the blinding snowstorm. They rode back without paying any more visits, for the night was cruel wild, and they wanted to get back.”

“And the queen? Mary Stuart?”