Eric Lake was of yeoman stock and West Leys, his home on the other side of Guildford, although we often referred to it as a manor, only just qualified for the title. It was a pleasant half-timbered dwelling on a hillside, facing west, as its name implied, with the higher part of the hill sloping gently above it towards a saddleback. A path from the back of the house ran up to the saddleback and Kate had told me that it was a walk that she and Eric liked to take on summer mornings.
‘The rising sun hovers over the dip as though it were there to greet us as we reach the top,’ she said. ‘We love it.’
The farmland that went with the house spread in front of it, down the hill and into a valley with a river running through. When I arrived, escorted by Spelton, on a warm July afternoon, I thought that the land looked in good heart, and I noticed that the cows grazing there were glossy and healthy.
My former ward Kate looked well, too, when she welcomed us at the house. Very well, in fact. I looked at the sheen on her dark hair and the liquid sparkle in her dark eyes and said: ‘You didn’t let me know! When is it due?’
‘We think in January,’ said Kate, smiling. She was a good-looking girl altogether and she had a serenity now that she had never had before her marriage, when she was in a constant state of rebellion against her father, who was forever trying to marry her off to older men because he considered that she needed to be controlled. She had reacted to that with a most ill-judged elopement. I had helped to rescue her from it, and it was after that, that her father committed her to my care. I had seen her settled with Eric Lake, and with him, it seemed that she had found contentment.
Eric was a spectacularly handsome young man in a bronzed, blond, blue-eyed fashion. To look at, in fact, he resembled a young pagan god, perhaps the splendid Balder, whom the Vikings had once worshipped. He appeared to be just what Kate desired, though my own impression of him was that however much he might look like a Viking deity, he was actually a trifle dull, with no skill at witty conversation. If one made a joke in his presence, he often failed to see the point. However, Kate didn’t seem to mind, or even notice. I was glad that she was happy.
Eric was out on the farm when we arrived, but Kate sent for him and we settled down in the big kitchen, which was spacious, with a long pinewood dining table at one end, well away from the worktable where eggs were beaten and pastry was rolled and meat cut up. There were seats here and there with colourful cushions on them. Although it was July, the fire was alight for cooking, with a stockpot simmering on a trivet and a spit ready for use, but the back door was open to let the heat out, and let in the scent of newly mown hay. ‘We hardly ever use the parlour,’ Kate said. ‘It faces north, so it’s never very bright. The kitchen’s more cheerful. We don’t go in for formality.’
The two women who were working there went on with what they were doing, while Spelton and Kate and I sat talking of this and that – and particularly of Kate’s prospective baby. It was all very pleasant, and yet, after a while, I began to think that something was not quite right. The two maidservants were minding their own business a little too noticeably while Kate and Eric, though they appeared to be in excellent health, seemed a little distracted, even worried. They looked at each other meaningly from time to time and when, somewhere in the distance, we heard a woman’s voice calling, and youthful voices answering, both of the Lakes turned sharply to look out of the back door and were so obviously uneasy that I said: ‘Kate, is something amiss?’
She glanced at Eric and then said: ‘Well, you didn’t warn us that you were coming, or we might have put you off for a little while. You see …’
Her voice trailed off and I said: ‘But we are only here for a few hours. We’ll go home before nightfall. Is there a problem about us dining with you? But there are only the two of us. Surely …’
One of the maidservants uttered an amused snort at this point and Kate said: ‘No, of course not! We always have good stores of food. You’re both welcome to dine! But the fact is, we have unexpected guests here already and … oh, dear …’
Her voice trailed off again and Eric, stepping in, said: ‘I believe you know them, Mistress Stannard. Indeed, they have mentioned meeting you, at the house, I understand, of my sister-in-law, Mistress Marjorie Harrison. One of them is my other sister-in-law, Mistress Lisa Harrison, and with her are her twins, Thomas and Jane. Lisa is in serious trouble and she and her twins are here because – they have had to leave their home, Firtrees House, for the time being …’
His voice too dwindled away. Kate took up the tale again. ‘Lisa keeps crying, and doesn’t want to show herself. She saw you approaching and she took the twins out for a walk to avoid you. Hoping you wouldn’t stay long, I fancy. They arrived here yesterday, distraught, all three of them.’
Spelton and I gazed at our hosts in consternation, not sure what to say, and then there were footsteps crossing the farmyard and the light from the back door dimmed briefly as Lisa Harrison and her twins came through it. They stopped short when they saw us. Lisa had indeed been crying. Her reddened eyes and drawn face told their own tale. Jane had been crying, too. Thomas’ young face simply looked pale and grim.
‘I’m thorry,’ said Lisa. ‘We are dithturbing you. But Jane is tired and couldn’t walk any further and I thought perhapth you had gone …’
Her lisp was very pronounced; I thought with nervousness. There was a fraught silence until, feeling that someone ought to say something – we couldn’t stay as we were for ever, as though we had been suddenly turned to stone – I ventured: ‘Mistress Harrison! We didn’t know you were here. We … er …’
I found myself tongue-tied, and stopped.
Christopher Spelton said: ‘This is impossible. What has happened? Or would it be best if I and Mistress Stannard simply left and went home? We don’t want to intrude on anything private.’
Lisa found a stool and sank onto it. ‘You’ll find out in the end. The whole county will know! Edmund will cry his outrage to the skies and anyway he’ll have to explain what he’s done, to all our friends, his and mine!’
Her voice was bitter and most of her sibilants came out as th. She was trying to control herself and master the letter s, though with variable success. It would be tedious to record all the times when she failed and I will not do so. She dissolved into miserable weeping and Jane, who had also found a stool and sunk wearily onto it, let out a sob as well. Thomas moved closer to his mother, not seeking protection but offering it. He looked at us challengingly, as though daring us to condemn her, though I didn’t know for what.
Christopher said mildly: ‘Mistress Stannard and I are both well versed in the ways of the world. We are not easily shocked. May we know what has happened?’
Lisa said: ‘Edmund is a good man. But he can be – hard. Harsh, even. Even to the children. That was why … well, I think it was …’
‘I know. I remember. I saw your face, that time, the way you looked at Father afterwards.’ Thomas sounded older than fifteen. His voice, his tone, were those of a man. ‘You were just trying to protect me. I was only twelve.’ He looked round at the rest of us. ‘I’d done something wrong – not attended to my books or something – and Father beat me. It had happened before and Mother often protested but he never would heed her.’ He turned back to her. ‘Only that time, it went on so long and I was screaming so much that you caught hold of his arm to stop him and he threw you off and hit you and you fell onto the floor, and when you got up your nose was bleeding and yes, as I say, I saw your face. I remember promising myself that one day, I would protect you.’
Lisa looked wretched. ‘If it hadn’t been for that – that particular time – I think I might not have, would never have …’ She stopped and swallowed. At length, she said: ‘I have never been really happy with Edmund though I’ve tried to be a good wife and as I said, he is a good man, in his way. He’s honest, always does his duty. But … Our marriage was arranged by my parents. My family and Edmund’s lived near each other; we all knew each other. Edmund’s family had a smallholding, not a good one, but after his father died, Edmund worked to improve it. He sold it for a reasonable price and bought a better place; he was a promising man, my father told me, and I didn’t have a big dowry. When he asked for me, my parents thought he would do. I did what they told me but Edmund made me nervous, from the beginning. He was so quick to anger, often over little things. I never knew what would offend him. He used to hit me. But just after that time when I tried to stop him from beating Thomas, and he threw me off and made my nose bleed – and I had a black eye, too – well, just after that, the time came for us to go to Rosmorwen – that’s the piece of land in Cornwall, that Edmund bought not long after our marriage. He could barely afford it, though it was cheap, but he said it was always worth having land and he raised the money somehow … we go – went – there once every year to stay for a while …’
She became confused and broke off. Thomas took over. ‘It’s small,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘A few fields and a little stock. It’s about four miles from Penzance. There’s a hamlet close by where the farm workers come from – Black Rock, it’s called, because of a funny lump of dark rock on the moor just beside it. Rosmorwen isn’t rented out. Tenants don’t stay; the earth is so unproductive. So there’s a steward in charge of it and he sees that the fields grow what they can and sells the produce and sends us the money from that, less his and the labourers’ wages and the upkeep of the place. It doesn’t amount to much.’
‘Well,’ said Lisa, regaining confidence as our faces showed only interest, ‘it was time for our annual visit but there were business things that my husband wanted to deal with, and he sent me to represent him. He’d done that before. There’s never much to do and I am quite equal to it on my own. I have only to hear a report from the steward and look around for myself. I am capable of seeing when a fence wants repairing or cows aren’t thriving. Edmund gives … gave … me credit for that. So I went. The name of the steward then was John Merrow. I’d met him the year before, when he was new there, and we liked each other then. So I went to Rosmorwen that time – three years ago now – without Edmund and … well …’
She stopped. Her eyes became huge and scared. I helped her out. ‘You had an affair?’ I said. ‘It’s all right. My own past hasn’t been one of total virtue. I am not likely to throw stones at anyone.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Kate. She looked at me. ‘Lisa knows of my foolish elopement. That was why she felt safe in coming here for help.’
‘We had an affair. We were careful,’ said Lisa. ‘There were no … results.’ The word came out as rethults and it imparted an oddly childish air to her tale, although it was no childish story in itself. ‘One day,’ she said, ‘wanting for once to be alone together, to enjoy each other’s company in broad daylight, we went to Penzance, to attend an auction of rare furs from the New World.’
I suddenly realized what was coming. ‘Was that the sale that George Harrison mentioned, when we met him in Marjorie’s house? He’d travelled to Cornwall from Sheffield to attend it?’
‘Yes. I bid for something when we were there,’ said Lisa. ‘I bought that bear pelt you saw at Marjorie’s home. John did the bidding for me. I had it made up into a rug as a Christmas gift for Marjorie. George spoke of it – do you remember?’ She had overcome her tears now but her blue eyes were huge and wet. ‘Marjorie doesn’t – well, no doubt she soon will – know about my … my indiscretion but I know I gave her a help me look and she was quick-witted enough to pretend she’d got the rug in London. Dear Marjorie. In fact, I never have told her where I bought the fur; I’ve never told anyone about that auction. Only – George attended it. I had no idea. He didn’t know me by sight and I didn’t know him, either. He’d only seen me once, at my wedding, nearly drowned in the great big farthingale and the huge ruff my mother put me into for the great day. But at the auction, it seems George was standing near enough to overhear some of the talk between me and John. Loving talk. He heard John call me Lisa. And he heard my lisp. When we met at Marjorie’s house – the time you were there – he remembered it. And then he realized who I was.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘And what he overheard was enough to tell him how things were between you and John Merrow?’
‘Yes. It was a brief affair,’ said Lisa. ‘Only for those two weeks when I was at Rosmorwen without Edmund. It was a comfort to me.’ She was crying again now. ‘John was kind, tender. I still had traces of that black eye. He saw them and he was angry on my behalf. He got me to tell him what had happened and I cried in his arms and … one thing led to another. Can you understand?’
‘I think so,’ Christopher said. ‘Go on.’
‘John left Rosmorwen the next year; he’s gone from my life but I’m grateful to him,’ Lisa said, with sudden passion. ‘I’ll never forget him! His gentleness was like … balm on a wound. Like a warm hearth and a warm drink when you come in from a snowstorm. But for some reason, George has told Edmund! And now I have been ordered out of my home and made to take my children with me because Edmund won’t believe they’re his. We were married for a good seven years – nearly eight – before I had the twins and I’ve had no more children and he says maybe I needed a different man if I was to have children … he says the twins can’t be his, only they are!’
She turned fiercely to her children. ‘You are his! You were born long before I met John Merrow. And that was the only time I strayed. I had been so unhappy, and frightened too. That time when I tried to make him stop beating you … he wouldn’t stop and it was as though he couldn’t! You were in a terrible state. And then he knocked me down. He terrified me. John comforted me. I needed that comfort. But you, my children, are Edmund’s son and daughter. Only he won’t believe it and he’s cast us all off. I brought us all here because we can’t go to Marjorie; he’s there – George.’
Her desperate gaze fastened on me. ‘Edmund says he will disinherit my children! He calls them bastards, fathered by God knows who. He’ll leave all his property to somebody else. I and Thomas and Jane can be a charge on the parish, for all he cares!’ wailed Lisa.
Good, moral people should no doubt have been scandalized by Lisa’s admission. But as I said, most of us were in no position to throw stones. I, and I think all the others, felt sincerely sorry for her.