The House Of Lanyon

Sometimes Liza felt that she was dedicating her entire life to appearing sensible when inside herself, she often didn’t feel sensible at all, but wild and vulnerable, like a red deer hind, fleeing before the hounds.

Now she wanted to get well away from poor Bart Webber. Elena and Laurence, who were with her, stayed to stare but Liza, abandoning them, edged back through the crowd. Then she realised that a young man who had been standing next to Laurence had turned away, too, and was beside her and seemed to want to speak to her. She looked at him in surprise, and he said kindly, “You didn’t like seeing that, did you?”

She stopped and studied him. He wore a clerk’s black gown and a priest’s tonsure. The ring of hair left by the tonsure was an astonishing shade of flame-red. “I know him,” she said. “Bart Webber. He’s dined with us. No, I didn’t like seeing him—like that.” It occurred to her that the young clerk had been watching her and that this was impertinent of him. With a rush of indignation she said, “You were looking at me?”

“Forgive me,” he said mildly. “But when I saw you move away alone—well, in such a throng, you shouldn’t be on your own.”

“I was with cousins, but they’re still back there. I’ve other relatives somewhere about, though, and my home is over there.” She pointed.

“Let me walk with you to your door, or until you find some of your family.” His voice was intentionally gentle, cooling her flash of annoyance. “You never know. There could be cutpurses about.”

She let him escort her and as they walked, they talked. He was Christopher Clerk, halfway to priesthood, studying with the chaplain at the castle. She was Liza Weaver, daughter of Nicholas Weaver who, with his family, owned three Dunster houses and was head of a business which carried on both spinning and weaving. “Our cloth’s quite well-known, and so is my mother’s special fine thread.”

“You sound as though you’re proud of your family,” he said.

“I am! And you must be proud of your vocation, and of living in a castle! Is it very grand, with paintings and carpets from the east and silken cushions for the ladies?”

“All those things, but my quarters are plain, as they should be. I wouldn’t have it otherwise. I felt called to be a priest, and once that happens, a man doesn’t seek to live in luxury.”

“Do you mean you give it up even though you miss it, or you somehow don’t miss it because you don’t want it anymore?” Liza asked, interested. She often caught sight of the Abbot of Cleeve and his entourage of monks coming and going from their house and had many times wondered what made them choose such lives. Were they happy, always wearing such plain white wool garments and never marrying?

“Some of us cease wanting the pleasures of the senses,” Christopher told her, “and others give them up. They are the price. But if you really value something, you don’t mind paying for it.”

“But which group are you in?” Liza asked acutely, and privately marvelled at her own outspokenness. He might well accuse her of impertinence! Yet it seemed easy to talk to him, as easy as though she had known him all her life.

“I’m among those who have to make an effort. But as I said, the price is worth it.” She turned her head to look at his face and he gave her a grin, a tough, cheerful, entirely masculine grin, and she found herself smiling back. His eyes, which were the warm golden-brown of amber or sweet chestnuts, glowed with laughter, and without warning, her breath seemed to halt for a moment and her heart turned a somersault.

“I won’t say it’s always easy,” he said, searching her face with his eyes, and she knew, without further explanation, with a certainty that would not be denied, a certainty as solid as the simple fact that two plus two made four, that now, this moment, was a time when it wasn’t easy. That he was talking, obliquely, about her.

About them.

About us. But we met only five minutes ago!

At that moment she caught sight of her parents, apparently arguing and just going in at their door, for dinner no doubt, since it was past noon. With a few words of farewell and thanks for his company, she took her leave of Christopher and followed them into the house, to find that an argument was indeed in progress, and that it was about Bart Webber.

“To my mind, Margaret, it’s enough, what he went through today. There’s no need to keep on about it and say we can’t have him and Alison to dine or ask them to Liza’s wedding when it comes….”

“I don’t agree, Nicholas. I can’t. I’m sorry for Alison and I’d sooner lie dead and in my coffin than be in her shoes, but have them at my table…no, it won’t do. It’s makin’ out we don’t take honesty seriously and we do.”

“But…”

Margaret would win, of course. When it came to social niceties she usually did, and as other households often followed the Weaver lead, Liza now felt sorry for Mistress Webber as well as for Bart. Her parents broke off their wrangle when they saw her and greeted her, and to her surprise, they seemed to notice nothing strange about her.

Liza herself gave the Webbers little further thought, for she was engrossed with the astounding experience she had just had, and amazed that it had apparently left no mark upon her. She felt as though it should have done; as though the wave of hair which always crept from under her neat white coif should have changed from beechnut brown to bright green, or as though luminous footprints should appear wherever she trod.

But after all, what had really taken place? Nothing that anyone could have seen, and nothing that could be repeated. Very likely she would never set eyes on the red-haired clerk again. Whatever had happened, it would never be repeated. She had better forget it. That would be sensible.

No doubt it would have been, but a perverse providence seemed determined to reunite them. Two mornings later, going to the herb plot at the far end of the garden to fetch flavourings for dinner, she discovered a small brown-and-white dog industriously digging a hole under the mint.

“Here, stop that! Where did you come from?” said Liza, advancing on the intruder and picking it up. It yapped at her indignantly and struggled, while Liza stood with it in her arms, wondering how it had got in. Then she saw that there was a hole under the wooden fence which bounded the end of the garden. Beyond, meadowland sloped away, down toward Dunster’s harbour. It was silting up these days. Just now, the tide was out and a number of small boats from the Dunster fishing community lay aground, waiting for the sea to come back and refloat them. The sea itself was a band of iridescent blue and silver, far away, with the coast of Wales beyond.

To the right, however, the meadow was bounded by the castle hill and its covering of trees. The Luttrells’ black cattle were in the pasture, and a man was hurrying across it from the direction of the trees and the castle. He saw her and waved, and came on faster. “You’ve got him!” he said breathlessly as he came up to the fence. “Wagtail! You wicked dog!”

“Is he yours?” Liza asked. “He shouldn’t be let loose to scrabble in people’s gardens. Someone might throw stones at him or kick him!”

Wagtail barked again and struggled in her arms. And then she recognised the man. He was once more in clerical black, though this time in the more practical form of hose and jerkin, and he had pulled a dark cap over his fiery tonsure. Some of his red hair was visible, though, with an oak leaf absurdly clinging to it. Christopher Clerk, the young man who had read her mind and knew that she was sorry for the swindler Bart Webber.

“I hope he did no serious damage,” he said. “He belongs to Mistress Luttrell—he’s her lapdog—but he’s forever running off into the woods. I think he thinks he’s a deerhound! Can you hand him over the fence to me?”

Liza went to do so and his eyes widened. “Don’t I know you? Aren’t you Liza Weaver? We met two days ago at the fair.”

“Yes, yes, I am. And you’re Christopher.” At the fair they had stood and walked side by side. This was the first time she had stood face-to-face with him and really studied him. He had a snub nose and a square jaw with a hint of pugnacity in it, the effect both tough and boyish and remarkably attractive. His red-gold eyebrows were shapely above his smiling eyes, and once more she noticed how beautiful and unusual their colour was. That amber shade was quite different from the soft velvet-brown of her own eyes, as she had sometimes seen them when looking in her mother’s silver mirror. There were a few gold flecks in the amber, and his skin, too, was dusted with golden freckles. There was a slightly denser freckling on his chin, adding an endearing touch of comedy to his face.

The hands that reached to take the struggling dog from her, though, were beautiful, strong without being coarse, the backs lightly furred with red-gold hairs, the bones clearly defined beneath the skin, the fingers and palms in perfect proportion. She found it hard not to keep gazing at them.

On his side, he was having his first clear view of her. He took in fewer details, but the little he did absorb was enough—the deep colour of the beechnut hair showing in front of the coif, the candid brown eyes, the good skin. She was tall for a girl, and within the plain dark everyday gown her body had a sturdy strength. Not that either of them felt they were studying a stranger. It was more as though they were reminding themselves of something they had known since before they were born but had unaccountably forgotten.

“The bluebells are still out in your garden,” he said. His hands were now full of dog, but he nodded to the little splash of blue next to the herb plot. “There are wonderful bluebells in a dell on the other side of the castle. You can get there by the path past the mill. A few yards on, there’s another little path that leads aside, leftward, to the dell. Do you know the place? Anyone can go there.”

“Yes. Yes, I know it. But how do you come to know it?” Liza asked curiously. “I thought…I mean, you have your work.”

“I came across it a week ago—chasing Wagtail again! He’s always getting out, and whoever sees him slipping off usually goes after him—page, squire, man-at-arms, maid or cook or groom! Not the chaplain or Mistress Luttrell herself, though. They keep their dignity. I found Wagtail among the bluebells and I’ve been back since to see them before they fade. Father Meadowes—the chaplain, that is—gives me a passage from the Scriptures to meditate on each day, and three times I’ve done my meditating while walking about in the dell after dinner. At about two of the clock.”

He shouldn’t be saying these things. Liza knew it and so did Christopher. He shouldn’t, either, have lain sleepless last night, while the girl he had met at the fair danced through his mind, glowing with light and warmth so that all thoughts of priesthood and his vocation had melted like morning mist before a summer sunrise. Now the words he ought not to say had come out, apparently by themselves.

“I walk out to take the air sometimes, too,” said Liza. She smiled. “There’s a leaf in your hair. Did you know?”

“Wagtail’s fault. He tore straight off through the woods below the castle and I went straight after him. But it’s hard going if you don’t take a stick or, better still, a wood-axe along with you,” said Christopher, grinning, and because he was still holding the dog, he leaned forward across the fence and let her remove the leaf from his tonsure. It was the first time they’d ever touched. It made her inside turn somersaults again.

“I must go,” he said, and she watched him walk away across the meadow. He was almost a priest and her parents wouldn’t like this at all, but it made no difference. Something had begun that would not be halted. At the thought of seeing him again, her spirit became as light as thistledown, dancing in the wind. Around her, the scent of the herbs, the green of the meadow, the azure of the bluebells, the distant sparkle of the sea all seemed enhanced, brighter, stronger, as though her senses had been half-asleep all her life and now were fully awake at last. She felt about as sensible as a hare in March, or an autumn leaf in a high wind.

She would see him again. She must.

In the afternoon she slipped away, through the village, along the path that led to the dell, and found him there and they walked together.

Three days later, although the bluebells were no longer at their best, they met there again and this time they kissed. Then they sat down on a fallen log and stared at each other in consternation.

“I’m going to be a priest. Well, I already am, in a junior way. I’ve been a subdeacon and six months ago I was ordained deacon. Becoming a full priest is the next step, the final one. If I…if I abandon my vocation now, my father won’t take me back. He has other sons to settle. He’s a merchant in Bristol, successful but not rich.”

“I see. Well, you told me to begin with that you were going to be a priest. But…” Liza’s voice died away in bewilderment, mainly at herself.

Christopher thrust his fingers through his tonsure. “Liza, my father and mother are both steady, reliable people. They expect their children to be steady and reliable, too, and I thought I was! And then—we met at the fair, and you smiled at me and all my good sense has flown away like a flock of swallows at the end of summer! You make me feel as though my feet have left the ground and my head’s among the stars. I don’t understand myself!”

He stopped running his fingers through his hair and reached out to take her hands. “What I do understand is that my world has turned upside down. Liza, as I said, I’m already in the priesthood. To get myself released from this would be horribly difficult. I’d have to go to my bishop and he’d probably say I was committed for life. I’ve heard of men who’ve bought their way out, but I have little money. I suppose I could borrow some. I know I could make my way in the world, given time, but it would be very hard at first and perhaps I’d be in debt. Would you wait for me? Would they let you wait?”

“I don’t think so. They want to get me married, and they’d say that a priest can’t marry and that’s the end of it.”

Liza knew her family. They were good-natured as a rule, though liable to shout loudly in times of crisis—if, for instance, a pot should be spilled in the kitchen or a piece of weaving be damaged or if Aunt Cecy discovered a spider in her bedchamber—but with no real ill feeling behind the uproar. Nevertheless, for all their seemingly easygoing ways, they took their work seriously; nothing slipshod was ever let past. And they expected their private life to be properly conducted, expected that parents would arrange their children’s future careers and marriages and that the children would concur. The arrangements would be made with affection and consideration, but made, just the same, and with a very keen regard for respectability. What Liza was doing now would not be tolerated. She would be seen as a wanton who had tried to seduce a priest from his vocation. Her mother in particular would be horrified. Margaret prided herself on holding up her head among the neighbours.

“No, I see. I’d say the same, in their place. Liza, what has happened to us?”

“It’s as if…this were meant to be. I was reared to be steady, sensible, like you. My father talks to me about cloth-making because sometimes I ask questions about it and he says he likes to see his daughter being interested in practical things and her family’s business.”

If you’re taking the trouble to learn about my business, you’ll do the same about your husband’s business when you marry, whether he’s in the weaving trade or no. I’d sooner see you with an abacus than mooning at the moon. Nicholas had said such things to her several times.

“He’s taught me to keep accounts, with Arabic figures, and an abacus,” Liza said. “I’ve always tried to be what he and my mother wanted of me. I think my parents are like yours in many ways. But now…my head’s among the stars as well.”

They looked at each other helplessly, two earnest young creatures who had suddenly found that common sense wasn’t enough.

“Except that it can’t come to anything. Dear heart. Oh, Liza, what have I done to you, letting you love me, letting myself love you? It really is like that, isn’t it? I mean—love?”

To Liza’s distress, there were tears in his eyes. “Yes. I don’t see how I can ever marry anyone else, but they’ll make me!”

“Oh, my poor Liza! Oh!” He cried it out in anguish. “Why can’t a priest be a man as well and live as other men do? Why are we condemned to this…to rejecting human love, to being so alone? It’s cruel! And there’s nothing, nothing I can do about it, for you or for me!”

“Hold me,” said Liza.

On the way home, aglow from the feel of his arms around her and the feel of his body as her arms closed around him, she came face-to-face with a small, wan woman whom she recognised as Alison Webber, the wife of the unfortunate Bart. Bart was at least forty, but Alison was his second wife and she was still very young; indeed, not yet married a year. She had been a rosy girl with bright eyes like a squirrel, but now she went about like a shadow, and Liza, troubled at the sight of her, paused to say good-day. Whereupon Alison’s haunted eyes blazed at her.

“You wish me good-day? Your mother’s the cruel-lest woman in all Dunster. Won’t speak to me in the street, as if it was all my fault, and it isn’t! Your parents should have dined with us yesterday and they cried off. And what the Weavers do, others do! If she’d put out a hand to us, it ’ud be different. She’s pushed us into hell and she’s done it a’purpose and I’ve no word to say to you. Just this!” said Alison furiously, and spat at Liza’s feet before pushing past and going on her way.

No, thought Liza miserably, all the glow gone, no, there was no future for her and Christopher. Margaret would never forgive her if she knew. Never.

But all through the summer she and Christopher went on with their stolen meetings, most of them in the dell. One, by chance, was on the stone bridge which had been built across the Avill River for the benefit of packhorses carrying wool to and from Dunster market. On the bridge, shadowed by the trees that bordered the river, they hugged each other and then stood to talk and look at the water, and Liza saw someone in the garden of a nearby cottage looking at them. Alarmed, she dragged Christopher off the bridge without explaining why, which annoyed him because he thought he’d seen a trout and was about to point it out.

“A trout!” Liza gasped. “The woman who lives in that cottage has the sharpest nose and the longest ears in Dunster! If she recognised us…!”

“Never mind her nose or her ears. Unless she’s got the eyes of an owl as well, she couldn’t possibly have recognised us in the shade of the trees! Acting guilty like that, you’ve probably drawn her attention. She’ll think about us now and start wondering who we were!”

“Oh!” Liza burst out, stamping her foot. “How I hate this secrecy!”

“Good thing we’re off the bridge. You might damage it, stamping like that,” said Christopher, and as he pulled her into his arms, there, once again, was that tough grin which had turned her insides to water at the fair.

They had other small squabbles later. Liza never told him of the feeling of guilt toward her family, which often kept her awake at night; nor did he tell her of his own wakeful nights, when he wondered what he was about, how it happened that the studies, the prospect of full priesthood, which had once, to him, been the meat and bread, the sweet water and glowing wine of the spirit, were now nothing but yesterday’s cold pottage.

But sometimes their secret misery, forced to dwell side by side with this extraordinary thing which had come upon them and bound them together and could not be altered, seemed to turn them into flint and tinder and sparks of anger were struck, though only to be extinguished moments later by Liza’s tears and Christopher’s kisses and that sudden, enchanting grin as his temper faded.

They never went further than kisses, though. Their stolen embraces woke a deep hunger in them, but the common sense to which they had been bred, and the knowledge, too, that they would be breaking Christopher’s solemn, priestly promise of celibacy, protected them.

“I think sometimes that we quarrel because I want you so much but I know I mustn’t,” Christopher said once, after one of their brief arguments.

Cautious caresses were all they would ever have of one another and they knew it. They would have this one magical summer, but never would the enchantment reach its natural conclusion, and the summer would soon be gone. As it now was. From what Liza had heard that morning, the woman with the sharp nose and ears apparently did have owl’s eyes, as well. Talk had started somehow and almost certainly with her. Very likely she knew them both quite well by sight. Their secret was almost out. Only her family’s kindly trust in her had kept them skeptical, but it wouldn’t last.

Now, standing by the plague cross on the Alcombe road, they recognised that their time was done.

“They are arranging my marriage,” said Liza. “And they’ve heard talk. We dare not ever meet again. It’s over, Christopher.”

“Oh, dear God. Don’t say that!” He closed his fingers around her upper arms so tightly that she protested and he eased his grip, but his face had gone hard. “It can’t be…so suddenly, so soon!”

“But we knew it was coming,” said Liza miserably. “We’ve always known. I can’t defy them and if I did—even if we ran off together—I shouldn’t take you from your vocation. I know that. Only, I don’t know how to bear losing you. I just don’t know how to bear it.”

“Nor do I!”

He drew her into the shelter of some trees, out of sight of the track, and pushed her coif back so that he could kiss her thick brown hair, and then for a long time they stood there, clasping each other so tightly that they could almost have been one entity, as they longed to be.

Parting was so painful that they did not know how to do it. Liza, gazing into his face as though she were trying to memorise it, had a sudden inspiration and pulled a patterned silver ring from the middle finger of her right hand. “Christopher! Take this! It’s loose on my thickest finger, but it might fit one of yours. Please take it and wear it. I want you to have it!”

“But…how did you come by it? If someone gave it to you as a gift, should you give it away?”

“It belonged to my grandmother. When she died, Mother gave it to me. But it’s always been loose, as I said. I can say I’ve lost it. Mother will scold because she’ll think I was careless, but nothing more. Take it, Christopher, please.”

He did so, trying it on his left little finger and finding that it fit quite well. Then, at last, after one final and furious kiss, they let each other go. Christopher, looking over his shoulder all the time, went to reclaim his pony, and Liza, putting her hair back under its coif, found her hands trembling. She saw him mount and waved to him, but then couldn’t bear it anymore. She turned away, brushing a hand across her eyes, and started back across the field.

The women were still there, gleaning, nearer to the path now, and they looked at her curiously. One of them—Liza recognised her as Bridget, the wife of another weaver—said, “Are you all right, m’dear? You look a bit mazed and sad-like.”

That was when she realised she was crying. She wiped her knuckles across her eyes. “It’s nothing.” They went on staring at her and she told them one small part of the truth. “I think I’m going to be married but I don’t know him very well and…”

“Ah, that’ll come right soon enough,” Bridget said kindly. “Don’t ’ee worry, now. Nicholas’ll not agree to anything but what’s good for thee. Don’t ’ee fret a moment longer. You’ll be as happy as a lark, and think of all they pretty babes that’ll come!”

“Of course,” said Liza, now determinedly smiling. “Of course I know you’re right.”

Whatever happened she mustn’t have red eyes when she reached home. With a frightened jolt she realised she had been away without explanation for quite a long time, and that her parents knew there was gossip about her.