The House Of Allerbrook. Valerie Anand

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СКАЧАТЬ be embarrassing at the best of times, which this certainly was not. Francis Sweetwater would not have dreamed of saying so aloud, but he was not sorry to be spared both Luke’s tendency to heretical remarks and his probable comments on Sybil.

      The next party to arrive was the Stone family, consisting of Master Thomas Stone, his wife, Mary, and their daughter, Dorothy. The Stones had just taken on the lease of Clicket Hall after the previous tenant’s death.

      Clicket Hall, which stood on a knoll overlooking Clicket, a mile away down Allerbrook Combe, had once been called Sweetwater House and had been the home of the Sweetwaters until they decided that they liked Allerbrook House better. Francis had changed the name to Clicket Hall because first-time visitors were often confused into turning up there instead of riding on up the combe. The Stones had leased the hall because Mistress Mary Stone had cousins in the district and wished to see them sometimes. Thomas Stone, however, was actually the owner of extensive property in Kent and was better educated, better connected and a great deal better off than Francis.

      Since the Stones were new to Clicket and had not hitherto met any of Francis’s womenfolk, the first thing Master Stone did was to assume that Jane was Sybil, and greet her with kind congratulations.

      “I’m afraid this is my younger sister, Jane,” said Francis. “You will not after all meet Sybil today. A most unfortunate thing has occurred—involving Sybil and also involving me in a fight this morning, hence my half-closed eye. This is my wife, Eleanor…”

      “Isn’t Sybil going to court after all, then?” asked Dorothy. She was sixteen, short and pale and somewhat overplump. She was dressed in crimson, which was too bright for her complexion. Her tone, regrettably, suggested pleasure in the girl’s trouble, rather than friendly concern for another’s disappointment.

      Her mother and father frowned her into silence and Dorothy subsided, looking sulky. Francis, however, said, “Well, to my regret, Mistress Dorothy is right. Our plans for Sybil have had to change. Do please come into the hall. Seat yourselves around the hearth.”

      Hard on the heels of the Stone family came the last arrivals, the dignified, bearded merchant Master Owen Lanyon, whose father had been the illegitimate Lanyon of bygone years. He had journeyed from the Exmoor port of Lynmouth, bringing his equally dignified wife, Katherine, and their fifteen-year-old son, Idwal. Both Owen and Idwal had red hair, and if Owen’s was fading now, Idwal’s looked vivid enough to set a house on fire. They civilly ignored Francis’s face but spoke approvingly of the pleasant aroma of roast mutton which was drifting out of the kitchen.

      “One of my tenants, Harry Hudd, donated a haunch and shoulder of mutton for the occasion,” Francis said. “Very generous of him.”

      “Will he be with us today?” Mistress Stone enquired.

      “No, not today,” said Francis, thinking of Master Hudd’s rough accent and florid, gap-toothed face. “It wouldn’t be suitable.”

      To begin with, however, although the dinner table waited in the centre of the hall, set with white napery and silver plate, Francis assembled everyone around the hearth, where a good fire was crackling. Peggy came bustling out of the kitchen with Beth and Susie, and handed around wine, cider and small pewter dishes full of sweetmeats.

      “We have a good dinner for you,” Francis told the guests. “But what I have to tell you won’t fit in with chitchat across the roast. I only hope you don’t all walk out in horror when you’ve heard what I have to say, and leave the meal uneaten!”

      “It sounds,” said Owen in his deep, slow voice, “as if you’re going to tell us of a scandal.”

      Ralph, whose good looks included excellent teeth, grinned and said, “Are any of us likely to walk out in a pet? We all know the world. And we’re all agog with interest, aren’t we? Is it scandal?”

      “Well, let’s hear what Francis has to say,” said Thomas Stone in a practical voice. “Should Dorothy be here?” he added, glancing at his daughter. “She’s only sixteen.”

      Dorothy glowered but held her tongue. Francis nodded to where Jane had seated herself apart, on a window seat. “So is my sister Jane and she knows all about it,” he said.

      “Very well.” Thomas exchanged looks with his wife and then shrugged. “Dorothy may stay.”

      Dorothy’s expression changed from sullen to pleased. Francis took up a position with his back to the fire, cleared his throat and embarked on the unhappy business of explaining.

      Jane sat quietly listening, hands clasped on her lap. She had been presented with the tawny gown and yellow kirtle originally meant for Sybil. Though younger, Jane was the same height as her sister, and the clothes fitted her quite well. Madame La Plage had had to make only very minor adjustments before she went home.

      “Please, I don’t want Sybil’s gown,” Jane had said, while Sybil wept forlornly, out of fear for her future and grief at her lost hopes. Eleanor would not listen and so here Jane was, whether she liked it or not, at what should have been Sybil’s farewell dinner, dressed in what should have been Sybil’s gown, uneasy in the first farthingale she had ever worn, and miserably embarrassed. Originally these important guests, landowners, a prosperous merchant, even a knight and his lady, had been invited to do honour to Sybil. Now it felt as though they had become her judges.

      Francis finished his speech and then looked gravely at Ralph Palmer. “I feel especially bad about you, Ralph, since it was your cousin Edmund, a kinsman to me just as you are, who so kindly used his influence at court to obtain Sybil’s appointment for her. She has failed you both. I feel that in some way I, too, have failed you both. I am sorry.”

      Ralph shook his head. “I can’t see that you’re responsible, Francis. I was going to London as part of Sybil’s escort. I will see my cousin Edmund there and if you wish, I’ll tell him that the girl isn’t strong enough for court life. Maybe,” he added, with a smiling glance toward Jane, “I could say that there’s a younger sister coming along, who’ll be ready for court in a year or two.”

      “That is kind indeed, Ralph,” said Eleanor. “We all appreciate it.”

      Oh, no. As the eyes of the company turned to her, Jane shrank back into her window seat. The eyes were friendly, but they frightened her. She didn’t want to be taken away from the dark moors and the green combes of home, which she loved. Sending a girl to court, with the necessary gowns and jewellery, was expensive. Hitherto, the plan had concerned only Sybil. But now…inside her heavy skirts and the unfamiliar farthingale, she shivered.

      Still, for the moment, the danger wasn’t immediate. Francis smiled at her, too, but then said, “We will think about that later. Meanwhile, I want to ask you all for your advice. What am I to do with Sybil? Some provision must be made for her, but I can’t condone what she has done.”

      There was a pause. Owen and Katherine whispered together, but said nothing aloud. Mary Stone was the first to speak.

      “I agree with Master Sweetwater.” Mary was fat and pallid, with a voice full of phlegm. Her amethyst-coloured damask was expensive but stretched so tightly around her ample form that it formed deep creases across her stomach. She offered a depressing suggestion of what Dorothy might turn into eventually. The sweetmeats had been passing unobtrusively around throughout the whole business and Mary’s plump white fingers had helped themselves liberally. She licked sugar off her fingertips and said, “If she were our girl, she’d find herself turned out and depending on the parish. СКАЧАТЬ