The House Of Allerbrook. Valerie Anand

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      “But…that is not the result of too much cream!” gasped Madame La Plage.

      Jane said, “Oh, Sybil, Sybil!”

      Eleanor said, “Oh, my God!” and then clapped her hands to her mouth and burst into tears.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Breaking the News 1535

      Afterward, what Jane remembered most vividly about that dreadful day was the fear: fear on behalf of Sybil, and another, more amorphous dread that this awful discovery heralded awful changes; that nothing in their lives would ever be the same again.

      It was near dusk before Francis rode in on his handsome dark chestnut horse Copper. He had been pleased with the condition of his land and stock and he came into the farmyard whistling. In the kitchen, Peggy Ames looked at the other maids, Beth and Susie, and said grimly, “Just listen to ’un! He won’t be that merry for long!”

      Up in the parlour in the little tower above the family chapel, Jane and Eleanor, who had been watching for Francis and had also heard the whistling, looked at each other in anguish.

      “I can’t imagine what he’ll say!” said Eleanor. She was a cool, sensible woman as a rule, but just now she looked terrified. “He’ll be so angry, and he has all the Lanyon temperament! Will he think it was my fault? That I haven’t watched over the two of you as I ought?”

      “But you have,” said Jane unhappily. “You can’t be everywhere, all the time.”

      “No, I can’t! God’s teeth, Sybil is the silliest little girl in Christendom! I’ll go down and meet him…oh, I don’t know how to tell him!”

      Pale with anxiety, she descended the spiral stairs to the hall. Madame La Plage had long since left to go back to Minehead, and Sybil had been locked in her chamber. Francis, stepping into the hall, pulling off his red velvet hat and stripping off his gloves, greeted her and asked if his sister’s gowns had come. “I’ll have something to say to Madame La Plage if they haven’t!”

      “They’re here,” said Eleanor, “but…”

      “Good. I hope they’re suitable,” Francis said. “Where’s Sybil now? I want to see her in her new finery.” Then he saw Peggy looking at him from the kitchen door, and must have recognized the fear in her face and Eleanor’s. “God’s death, what’s the matter?”

      “Please come up to the parlour, Francis,” Eleanor said. “I have terrible news. Peggy, bring wine. Your master will need it.”

      “For the love of heaven, what’s happened? Is Sybil all right?”

      “It’s worse than that. We must be private when I explain. Not that we can keep it secret for long—well, it isn’t now. All the household knows, and Madame La Plage. Jane is in the parlour, but she knows, too. She was there when…”

      “Will you stop dithering, woman!” shouted Francis as Eleanor turned and led the way back up the staircase. “Tell me!”

      In the parlour she turned to face him, and while Jane sat shivering in her seat by the window, Eleanor said the words that had to be said. “Sybil can’t go to court. She is expecting a child. Probably in August.”

      Francis collapsed onto the nearest settle. “What was that? Repeat it, if you please.”

      “Sybil can’t take up her post at court. She’s with child.”

      Francis bore the name of Sweetwater, but another family, the Cornish Lanyons, also formed part of his ancestry. His blue eyes were inherited from his mother but otherwise he was a Lanyon—tall, handsome, strongly made and dark haired. He also possessed what was known as the Lanyon temperament. This was thoroughly Celtic, as passionate and explosive as gunpowder. Eleanor and Jane, observing Francis now, could almost hear the fuse fizzing toward the barrel, almost see the travelling flame.

      The explosion came. Francis shot to his feet and crashed a fist on the back of the settle. “This is beyond belief! Who’s the man? Who did it? And where’s Sybil now?”

      “She’s locked in her chamber. I have the key,” said Eleanor. “The man is Andrew Shearer.”

      “Andrew Shearer? Of Shearers Farm? My tenant? He’s married!”

      “Yes. We all went to the christening of his little son last November, if you recall,” said Eleanor, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “That’s when it happened, it seems. We went to Shearers for the celebration dinner, and stayed on after dark—do you remember? There was dancing, by candlelight. Sybil and Andrew danced together. I never noticed that they disappeared for a while, but it seems that they did. He somehow enticed her into another part of the house and…she says she hasn’t seen him since, but that he’d paid her compliments before, when they met during the harvesting. We sent her out with cider for the harvesters. She says she didn’t mind when he…I mean, she wasn’t forced. She admits that.”

      “He’s married. I can’t make him wed her. I can order the Shearers off my land, of course, though they’ll only get a tenancy somewhere else, and thumb their noses at me, I suppose. I can think of three Exmoor farms straightaway in need of new tenants, since we had that outbreak of smallpox last year. The trouble that brought us! Killed our chaplain and two of our farmhands! But it’ll no doubt make life easier for the Shearers. I’ll be throwing them out on principle, that’s all. But…dear God!” shouted Francis. “Sybil’s farewell dinner is tomorrow! It’s too late to cancel it! The Carews have probably set off from Devon already!”

      The fury in his voice was so intense that Eleanor visibly trembled and Jane began to cry. Francis swept on.

      “The Stones from Clicket Hall are coming, and bringing their girl Dorothy—they want to get her to court in a year or two, when she’s older! Owen Lanyon and his wife from Lynmouth, they’re coming…”

      His voice faded somewhat. The one branch of the family that still bore the name of Lanyon wasn’t actually entitled to it. Many years ago there had been another unsanctioned baby in the clan. That child’s descendants, though, still called themselves Lanyons. Francis resumed, however, as the enormity of the present situation grew larger and larger in his mind.

      “Luke and Ralph Palmer are coming! They’re very likely on their way by now, too. Bideford’s only twenty-five miles off, but Luke’s at least sixty and they’ll have to take it slowly.” Francis was literally clutching at his hair. “They’re only distant connections but, God’s elbow, it was their wealthy London cousin who pulled the strings to get Sybil her place at court! And now this! What am I to say to them? I…we’ll say Sybil’s ill! And I’ll give her such a beating that with luck she’ll miscarry and then she can go to court after all! Yes, that’s the best thing to do. I’ll—”

      “No!” sobbed Jane. “No, you can’t! Francis, you mustn’t! It could kill her. She’s past four months gone.”

      “And no one noticed anything?” Francis spluttered. “She never told anyone?”

      “She said—” Eleanor gulped “—that she kept hoping it wasn’t true. She’s just gone on from day to day, hoping …there are so many women СКАЧАТЬ