LITMIR.BIZ

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Margaret and I hardly knew each other before we were betrothed, but once it was agreed between the families, I came courting, didn’t I, Margaret? You had your share of stolen kisses. I don’t know what young Peter thinks he’s about, and that’s the truth!”

      “Bah! She ought to do as she’s bid, with wooing or without. A few more days in the attic ’ud do her no harm,” said Aunt Cecy. “And Margaret here thinks the same, even if she won’t say so.”

      “I don’t care what either of you think!” shouted Nicholas. “I’m her father and I’m the one who’s giving the orders this time! She’s had enough days up there, enough time to study her conscience and get over things, so do as I tell you, leave that damned pan you’re stirring, Margaret, and fetch her down here, and let’s pretend things are normal even if she don’t ever smile at me again. Go on!”

      “Oh, very well,” said Margaret, threw down her spoon and went.

      When she entered the small room under the thatch, where Liza had been locked in now for six days, she found her daughter, as she had found her every time she went up there to take food in or remove the slop pail, lying on the bed and staring at the wall. “Time to get up,” she said. “Your father says so. He’s heartbroken, let me tell you, over what he had to do to you. To run off like that, and with a priest…well, I always thought I was the one who cared about bein’ respectable, but the state your father’s in—sayin’ he’s heartbroken is hardly sayin’ enough!”

      Liza looked at her miserably but said nothing.

      “Forget all about this clerk,” Margaret said. “He’s to finish his studies in St. George’s monastery. Your father and I have seen him—went to the castle and all, and he said to us that he was sorry for the grief he’s caused us all. So that’s the end of it.”

      “We swore oaths, taking each other as man and wife…” Liza began, but her words sounded empty, even to her.

      “Moonshine and you know it!” Margaret snapped. “A man in orders is no more free to swear oaths about marriage than a married man is. Now then. Master Richard Lanyon’s sent us a message by that big hulkin’ fellow of his, Higg. He’s sorry that Peter’s not been over to see you, but there’s been so much to do on the farm. We’ve fixed a weddin’ day in November. So you get off that bed, and put on fresh things and come down to supper. No one’ll say anythin’ to you. No one knows outside the family, or ever will. We’ve not gossiped and the maids daren’t, believe me. Master Luttrell’s promised he’ll order his men not to talk. Everythin’ll be just as usual. You’ll see.”

      There was a long pause. Then Liza said, “You don’t understand how it was between Christopher and me. What it was like. What it is like!”

      “Maybe not, but there’s something you don’t understand either, my girl.” Margaret’s tone was kinder. She could not, she found, turn against her own daughter as she had turned against the Webbers. “You think you’ll never love Peter, but you wait till you’ve lived with ’un awhile. The day’ll come when he’ll be tired and frettin’ over something and you’ll look at his weary face and your heart’ll ache inside you with sorrow for him, and wantin’ to put it right, whatever it is. Marriage has its own power. Now, you comin’ downstairs?”

      “I don’t want to go to Allerbrook,” said Liza dismally. “It’ll never be home.”

      “You’ll be surprised. Now, there’s things to talk about—or do you mean to take your vows in old clothes?”

      There was a silence. Then Liza sighed and, at last, sat up. She did it because she had to. To get up from this bed meant giving in; it meant yielding herself to the stream of wedding preparations and, ultimately, to Peter Lanyon, but she had known her fate from the moment her father had caught up with her and Christopher outside Nether Stowey. Nicholas hadn’t had to explain; there were things one knew. If she refused to marry, she would either be shut up in this room until she gave in, or else she would be deposited in a nunnery. Those were the customary methods of dealing with wayward daughters. Her face was stiff with unhappiness, but nevertheless, she slid off the bed and stood up.

      “All right,” she said.

      She didn’t say it gladly or willingly or even submissively. It came out in a flat tone that might have meant anything. But she said it.

      

      The week that Liza had spent in her parents’ attic, Richard Lanyon had spent making his mind up and then unmaking it again.

      It was all very well to rearrrange the future inside his head, but what if seventeen-year-old Marion didn’t take to the notion of marrying thirty-eight-year-old Richard Lanyon? Or even if she did, would her parents allow it? And if she did and they did, what if Peter kicked up, refused to marry Liza, and set about wrecking his father’s new marriage?

      Well, let him do his worst! Good God, no decent lad ever made eyes at his own stepmother; it was against all the laws of God and man. Peter might rage and scowl and slam doors, but he’d know that Marion was out of reach. He’d come around.

      At this point in his inner dialogue, something inside Richard would snap ferocious jaws, like a pike catching a minnow. Peter would damned well have to come around. Peter was going to marry Liza Weaver, and why should he object to her? He’d known the girl most of his life and she was a fine-looking, good-tempered wench. He was lucky to get her and it was to be hoped that he would have the simple good manners not to sulk to her face. Liza was for Peter and Marion was for Richard and that was that.

      Whenever he thought of Marion, he felt as though a hot, damp hand had clutched at his innards, both maddening and weakening him. At the idea of approaching her, he became anxious, wondering what to do, what to say to her, how to please her. He was like a youth again, bewildered by those strange creatures, girls.

      On the Monday following Richard’s visit to Lynmouth they fetched the sheep in from the moorland grazing, and having done so, counted them, because on these occasions there were nearly always a few missing. Sure enough, the count was half a dozen short. Good, thought Richard. I can make use of that.

      That evening, in the farmyard, he took Higg into his confidence.

      “Tomorrow I’m sending Peter out to look for the strayed sheep and I want you to go with him and make sure he looks for the sheep and don’t go slipping off anywhere. I’ve had a bit of worry with him. There’s a girl in Lynmouth that he’s being a bit foolish about.”

      “Yes, Master Lanyon,” said Higg, and from his tone, Richard gathered that Higg, Roger, Betsy and Kat all knew the situation and were probably discussing it avidly out of his hearing.

      “Most young men have their adventures before they get wed,” Richard said offhandedly. “But Peter’s getting married soon and it’s time this stopped. Tuesdays are likely days for him to go dodging off to Lynmouth, so I’m charging you to see he doesn’t. Understand?”

      “Ah,” said Higg, grinning, and added a comment for once. “Could work out well. A bride’s best off with a groom as knows what he’s about.”

      “I daresay,” said Richard coldly. “Go over Hawkridge way and search there. I’m going the other way, up to the high moor. Between us, we’ll find them, I hope.”

      In the morning he gave his orders, watching Peter intently. Peter glowered, opened his mouth as if to protest, but then shut it again as he met his father’s stern eye. He shrugged, and after breakfast went off with Higg as instructed, taking Silky, the sheepdog bitch, with them. “She’s still mournful, missing my father,” Richard said. “The more work she does, the better. Leave Blue to guard the house.”

      When Peter and Higg were out of sight, Richard asked Betsy for some bread and cold meat—“I could be out of the house at noon, if the sheep have wandered far.” He then saddled Splash, swung himself astride, called his own dog Ruff and set off westward, to the coast and Lynton.

      It was a mild day, the sky a mingling of blue patches and good-natured brown-and-white

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