The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham
He said, would I keep it quiet from my father, so I went down to dinner and told a story that Belemus was staying the day with the Arundells; but I did not think the deception would work long, for too many servants were in the secret. Belemus spent the night in my chamber, while I slept on the floor and John squeezed in next door. Belemus had a fever, but all his cursings and ravings were of a quite logical turn, on the theme that Sibylla would be expecting him and he would not be there.
The following day he was hardly able to move, but he crawled down to dinner somehow and told how he had fallen from a horse. It was clear that any prospect of visiting Sibylla was remote for at least a week. I said, well, I would go and tell her.
He said: “Go after dark. And take Long Peter. He is the roughest man I know when it comes to an ambush or a tavern brawl.”
“Are you in love with Sibylla, Belemus?”
He stared. “ Of course. I worship the ground she steps on. She is like Thisbe walking in a woodland glade! She is so beautiful I lose my breath every time I look at her—”
“Yes, yes, I understand. And does she love you?”
“Mother of God, how could you doubt it? D’you think she’s a whore? D’you think she would have given herself to me otherwise—”
“And shall you wed her?”
He tried to catch his moustache with his bottom teeth. “ I think it is possible, Maugan. I think it is likely. But with my father in prison a deal may depend on my marriage. I’m not as free as you. But I would wish to; I would certainly wish to.”
“She will have little money and no position. It is something to think of.”
“Oh … That is in the future—we are both young. I love her, and she loves me, that’s all there’s to it now. If things go wrong betwixt us I shall wed her, you can be assured of that. You were always one to look on the black side.”
I patted him gently on his unsore shoulder and said: “ It’s all very plain now. I will give her your message and your love.”
The nights were drawing in, and when supper was over it was dark. I did not ask Long Peter to go with me; I thought he might be in the way.
I walked to Penryn and Cox’s Tavern. Only four men were in the taproom, and they were all fishermen, of a harmless sort, not toadies or bullies. I drank a pint of small beer. Cox had a heady ale known as ‘lift leg’, but the business tonight demanded clear thinking. After an hour I asked for the chamber which my cousin Belemus had reserved. With some side glances I was shown up into a tiny room, so low-beamed that you could not stand upright. The window was already shuttered, and the pot boy who showed me up set down the candle on the chest by the door and quickly left.
I shot the rude bolt on the door, unlatched belt and sword and put it on the pallet, then beside it I set my leather jerkin. The situation was as Belemus had described it: a shuttered window opposite, with a wall between which came no higher than the sill.
Most people were now abed, but there was a chink of light showing through the shutters opposite. Below all was silent and black. I set the candle down so that the light was entirely shaded from the window; then climbed out, stepped on to the wall, and redistributed my weight so that instead of leaning back against the wall of the tavern I was leaning forward against the wall of the Kendalls’ house; then gently tapped.
The light went out. Now except for the reflected light from the candle in my room it was pitch dark.
The shutters parted. I could see an arm. I put one foot up and swung myself in. In a moment not one arm but two were round me. I put my hands about Sibylla. She was wearing only a night smock. After a little pleasant groping in the dark I found her face and kissed her.
She began to scream; but my fingers on her mouth and her quick mind stopped her.
“Do not be alarmed. I had no time to grow a beard,”
“Maugan! … Tis you! Where is Belemus?”
“Abed with a knife wound in his ribs, got by being set on in the woods. Shall we be heard?”
She drew herself away. “ Nay … Nay, not if we whisper. Love-a-duck, you give me a scare! Is he serious sick?”
“Not serious, but he’ll be laid away for some days. It was some of your tribe who set on him?”
“How should I know? They d’ know naught of this—”
“It cannot be unknown that Belemus still comes to the Tavern, even if Cox keeps his mouth tight over the hiring of the chamber.”
“And—and why’ve you come?”
“To bring word from Belemus. Have you a light? It is pitch in here.”
She moved, and a cupboard door opened to show that she had not put out the rushlight but had only hidden it. She looked nice in her thin smock with her long black hair over her shoulders.
“Give me the message.” Conscious of my look, she picked up a shawl and wrapped it about her.
“You have the message: that he’s wounded and cannot come. He sends his love.”
“And also his friend. Did he tell you to climb in here and make yourself free?”
“How else could I give the message?”
“By writing it and throwing it up.”
“Can you read?”
She hesitated. “Well, I would ha’ guessed what twas! You’d no right to give me such a fright. I’ll tell Belemus of ee.”
“If you tell him so much he’ll think the more. He says you’re a passionate girl.”
“How dare he speak of it!”
“We are close friends. We share many things.”
“Ah, but there’s some things you cannot share, and I’m one of ’em, Maugan Killigrew.”
“Well, a kiss more or less is no killing matter.”
She eyed me up and down, but I think the rushlight was too frail to show up my uncertainty. A draught from the window made the flame lurch and I pulled the shutter to with my hand.
“Well, saucy,” she said. “Grow a beard an’ I’ll think about it. Why, you’re half a boy yet!”
I knew then. “Oh,” I said, “that’s dangerous talk.”
“I don’t see.”
“It would be easy to prove different. And you could scarcely scream.”
She backed away. “If I screamed I’d be for trouble, but not like you. Love-a-duck, they’d kill you! Nay, quiet: they’ll hear you movin’; that board d’ creak!”
I had followed her. “ I’ll confess to you it was no hardship to come.”
We talked for some minutes in whispers. I persuading, she refusing, yet each refusal on slightly weaker ground than the last. Presently by little degrees I was able to put my hands on hers and then to kiss her, she still protesting. However, I remained so, brushing her face with my lips, and thus got my arms about her. For a first time it all, I think, had a fair appearance of expertness.
“Ah,” she whispered, “ what a scoundrel y’are. Have you no loyalty to Belemus, eh?” But she did not now move much in my grasp.
We sank back on the bed. It was of stout planking and did not creak. My hands began to caress her through her night smock. “Nay,” she whispered, “ wait. Untie me this knot.”
I did as she said, and she began to kiss me in return. Then I felt her body stiffen in my arms.
“What is it?”
“Listen.”
“Oh, it’s the wind—”
“Nay! Listen …”
The shutter of the window was not properly caught. I heard someone cough.
She got up from the bed and reached for the rushlight. Then we were in the dark.
“It’s someone outside,” I whispered, “ some passing fisherman. It is of no import—”
“Oh, yes it is. I think—at least, I fear … Wait”
She slipped away from beside me, and I heard a board creak as she stepped on it. Then her shadow showed by the slit in the shutter. She was there some time.
Her breathing was very quick when she came back. “ There’s two of ’em! Tis Lawson, the sexton, and my Uncle Reynold! They’ll be armed!”
“And what makes y
“Because I know now! Father yesterday dropped hints that I didn’t follow—! Maugan, they’ll beat me half to death and they’ll kill you! I know it! I know it!”
“Ssh, ssh, quietly does it. Let’s think. We’re not found yet,” But for all my show I was beginning to sweat. I had left my sword in the tavern. In the pockets of my slops there was a folding knife: that was all.
From this window the shaded candle in my own chamber opposite was the only light. The shutter swung loose, no doubt telling its tale. Almost directly below, two men were standing. I went back to the bed.
“They’ll get tired waiting there until the dawn comes.”
“Nay, Maugan, nay.” She put her hand on my knee. “They’ll wait and wait. And if the light breaks it will go the worse for you. But I been thinking.”
“Tell me.”
“I been thinking … Outside this door tis but ten steps down and then a front door bolted only at the top, the bottom bolt be broke … They’ll think to surprise you as you come out of the window—if they know you be in—but they’ll not think you’ve the sauce to come out of the door. Tis like to be unguarded.”
I hesitated, frustrated, wildly angry, but the anger was a defence against fear. So long as I could be angry I could see myself as a disappointed seducer, still as the hot spark who had begun the evening, not as a boy surrounded by dangerous men and in hazard of his life.
She said: “Shall I open the door and see if the way be clear?”
“No, wait a while.”
But after waiting I agreed, seeing no better way. She described the small house, assured me there were no turnings: it was straight down and out.
So she went to the door. I unfolded my knife and followed. One moment there was her soft warmth beside me. The next I was in the passage outside listening in the silence.
Someone was snoring. It was the comforting sound of a house harmless and asleep. But there was another sound, nearer, less harmless, though at first I could not name it. Then I knew it for someone’s breathing. And whoever was so breathing was awake. And near me.
Whoever was so breathing must know that I had come out of Sibylla’s room and must be waiting for me to make the next move before pouncing.
I did not move but stared in a sickly fashion into the shadows. Some faint reflection of light there was, and I made out what looked to be the head of the stairs. I suddenly went down on hands and knees and crawled towards it.
At once there was a thunderous clatter over my head, as if someone had swung a club and hit only wall; then a figure fell across mine. A groping hand caught my foot and when I kicked free the body twisted itself and fingers tore at my face. I stabbed with the knife. There was a grunt: I kicked clear and half ran, half fell down the stairs.
Grope for the door; there seemed only hinges. The wounded man was crawling down the stairs. I turned into the next room; this was all there was to the house. The shutters were poor here; they fell apart; I jumped into the yard. After the dark of the house the night was clear. On a bin, I pulled myself over the wall.
A lane. Away from the town; away too, it must be at first, from Arwenack. Panting like a hound at the end of a chase, I went up the hill, leaping from cobble to cobble and slipping and sliding in the muddy pools.
At the top I stayed long enough to swallow and look back. Three were coming. I ran on then, making for the mill where Katherine Footmarker had lived; but before I got there they had lost me.
Chapter Two
Soon after this my father left for London. His affair with Mistress Margaret Jolly had prospered, and, so prospering, had come to die a natural death. His visit to London was to be a routine one to see his friends and to attend at Court. So he said. But in fact everyone knew that he was to meet a Sir George Fermor of Northampton, and that Sir George, an army man, had a daughter called Jane. Jane was 15 and an heiress. John, my half-brother, was now 15.
By the time Mr Killigrew left the scratches on my face were forming scabs, and by the time he returned they had healed. But after all these years there is still a white mark where finger nails went deep.
The man I had wounded was Sibylla’s father, Otho. There was much whispered talk about it all, but the justices were not invoked. The Kendalls were not people to go to law, being too cautious to risk a case against one of the great landlords. They would have their own revenge in their own way and in their own time.
We never saw Sibylla again. We heard she was beaten with a wooden rod until she bled, then was packed off to an aunt in St Austell, and very soon we heard she was wed to a cousin there. It was the safest way for them of covering up the scandal.
I took all the blame and notoriety, Belemus none. He was amused, and although he bore Sibylla’s loss ill for a few days he soon re-won his spirits. He had not been so deeply involved.
My father said to me: “ Well, boy, we all have our rigs and sprees, and I’m the last one to be stopping you in your youthful pastimes; but you could have chosen a better place to play the turkey than Penryn—and among those Kendalls. Awkward rogues, every one of them. Lucky to escape as you did.”
I muttered something.
“And watch your step when away from this estate. All Penryn men have long memories. I don’t want more trouble just at the present—they have ways of running to Westminster and telling tales behind my back. Were you a party to this prank in the church too?”
“Sheep are always straying where they don’t belong, sir.”
“Yes, well, you’ve done enough now. What was the girl like?”
I looked up and saw him watching me with a speculative, envious gaze. I felt myself flushing. “ Why … like most girls, father.”
“God’s breath, you’ve had so many that you lump ’em all together? You must have been active in Spain!”
“No, I—”
“Well, I see, it’s just an evasion. I agree she was a pretty little sweetmeat. I saw her—or I think it was she—with the nets when they were being mended after the Easter gales. I thought to myself: there’s a catch for some young fisherman; but I never thought to think it would be you! You hadn’t thoughts of marriage, I hope?”
“No, father.”
“I should think not. You’re only half a Killigrew but a half of one should look for something better than a Sibylla Kendall. Before ever you went away Mrs Killigrew said you had thoughts for the Farnaby girl. Is that true?”
“She’s wed now. To a man called Reskymer, who’s rector of Paul.”
“What, Philip Reskymer? That tall thin man with the sad yellow face? If that’s so he’s a kidnapper, for he must be fifty if he’s a day. She’s gone for a safe place no doubt—the Farnabys were ever a shiftless timid lot and Philip Reskymer has lands and money in a small insignificant way.”
“They say he was married before,” I skid, turning the knife.
“Oh, yes, twice I believe. The flowers sicken quickly when planted in his bed.”
My father waited until he had seen all the corn, such as it was, stooked and dried and gathered in. The week the thrashing began he left, and Thomas Rosewarne: rode with him. This left three who might give orders in the house: Lady Killigrew, Henry Knyvett, and Mrs Killigrew. But Lady Killigrew was still confined to her chamber with bronchitis; Henry Knyvett, having come to some temporary remission with his wife, was at Rosemerryn when sober and unsober when at Arwenack; and Mrs Killigrew although not at the moment sick with her usual complaint, was much concerned for her two youngest who ailed often.
That left me. Mr Killigrew had said nothing but he had implied much by the confidences he had reposed in me over the last two months. After all, Belemus was not of the family, and John, however valuable as a pawn on the marriage board, was still too young for authority. I would soon be seventeen …
I liked thrashing, and this year it fitted with my wild restless mood. All the time we were doing it the rain came down. The great barn where we worked was open; at one end, but w
We laughed and joked and told tales. Dick Stable told the story of the miser of Market Jew who met the devil and was granted three privileges: to sit in his own light, to sit next to the parson, and if he saw a pig in a gutter he might turn it out and take its place. Dick was always one for comic stories, but I did not think his new wife Meg laughed so heartily as the rest.
When enough of the grain had been beaten the straw was raked away; but the gale outside persisted so high that we could not let it do the winnowing: if we had opened the doors it would have taken the roof off. So we made our own draught with goose wings on long poles and then gathered up the corn into baskets before carrying it to store.
I worked for a time beside Meg, and thought she went at the corn much as I did, as if it served to work off an inner hurt. Out of the corner of my eyes I watched her movements as she swung her staff: her slight yet comely figure, the breasts raised under her grogram shirt each time she lifted her freckled arms; what caught my eye most was the slimness of her stomach and waist. Now and then her dark auburn hair would fall over her brow and she would shake it back impatiently; it was hot working in the closed barn, and there was a dampness of sweat on her forehead and on her upper lip. The sight of her was something I could not ignore.
The gales abated as the thrashing was completed but it stayed dark weather with flurries of rain, and clouds hanging low on the river. The autumn killing of cattle began, and the salting of the beef to see us through the long winter months. We ate our fill at this time for there would be no more fresh meat until the spring.