Page 23

We emerged from the bright glare of the front hall into the quieter light of the long kitchen and the warmth of a real fire. A woman sat to one side of the hearth, nursing a round, red-faced baby. Near them, a younger woman bent over the fire, holding her skirts clear of the flames with an expert hand while she stirred the steaming contents of an iron kettle. Both women turned their heads as we entered the kitchen, their eyes flashing first to my uncle's face, and then to mine. He nodded toward the woman with the baby.

'Your aunt Caroline,' he told me.

She had a pleasant face, firm and youthful despite the white streaks marring the dark mass of her hair. But I found her expression unsettling. It was neither friendly nor malicious; it seemed more an absence of expression, devoid of character, the eyes dull and vacant like those of a sheep. She nodded imperceptibly, acknowledging me, and went on rocking the child. 'Rachel, my wife's younger sister,' my uncle said next, as the other woman straightened from the glowing hearth. She, at least, was fully alive, and closer to my own age—a year or two younger, perhaps, than my own twenty years. Her honey-colored hair lay in ringlets against her flushed cheeks, and her quick smile was warm and welcoming.

'I've mulled some ale,' she announced, 'and there's bread on the table if you're hungry.'

I was, in fact, ravenous, having eaten nothing since late morning. I gratefully took a seat opposite my uncle at the rough oak table, accepting the earthen mug of fragrant ale and the generous slices of heavy bread that were handed to me. The girl Rachel sat beside me, her dark eyes frankly curious.

'What news of London?' she asked. 'Is it true the king would remove to Hampton Court, for fear of the sickness?'

'I know not what the king intends,' I said honestly, 'but the common people talk much of leaving.'

Under Rachel's prodding, I told them of the panic that had gripped the City, the ceaseless whispers and muttered prayers, and of the houses I had seen shut up in Westminster, with the red warning crosses painted on the doors and the words "Lord have mercy upon us' scrawled beneath the crosses by some frantic, hopeful hand.

My uncle shrugged.

'London is a godless, sinful place,' he said, 'and the hand of the Lord is seeking vengeance. Those who are righteous having nothing to fear.'

I lifted my chin, my eyes stinging.

'My mother did not sin,' I told him, 'and she is dead.'

My uncle finished chewing a mouthful of bread, his face impassive. His pale eyes seemed suddenly hard and remote, for all the calmness of his voice. 'She disobeyed her father. In the eyes of God, that is a sin.'

I did not need to press him further. I knew well enough that my mother had married against her father's wishes, choosing a poor scrivener over the attentions of her local suitor. Having witnessed firsthand the love of my parents, a love that had illuminated my childhood and sustained my mother through nine lonely years of widowhood, I could not bring myself to call her choice a sin. But I did bite back my words of argument, remembering in time that the independence of spirit encouraged by my parents was not to be tolerated in other households.

I lowered my eyes, and would have lowered my head had my uncle not reached across the table, grasping my chin with one large hand and tilting it to the light of the fire.

'You do not look like your mother,' he said bluntly, after a moment's study. 'Annie was a comely lass. Nor can I see your father in you, praise God.'

'I am told I am very like my father's mother.'

He grunted, losing interest, and let go my chin.

'The girl is weary, Jabez,' my aunt said unexpectedly from her seat in the corner, in a voice as lifeless as her eyes. 'Rachel can show her to her room.'

'Ay,' he conceded. 'Get you to bed, child. We rise early for prayers.'

I made to rise, but he leaned forward suddenly, his eyes fastening on mine with a burning interest. 'Do you fear God, Mariana Farr?' he asked.

'I have been taught to do so.'

He did not touch me physically, but his eyes held me to my seat, and his voice was almost frightening in its intensity. ' "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion,"' he quoted softly, ' "and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble ..." ' He paused, waiting, and I realized it was a test.

I finished the scripture for him. ' "... for the day of the Lord cometh,"' I said, ' "for it is nigh at hand." '

'Good girl,' my uncle praised me, relaxing back in his chair with a satisfied smile. 'Very good. We shall do well together, you and I.' It was a dismissal. Rising, I wished both my aunt and uncle a good night and followed the girl Rachel from the room. She walked a few paces ahead of me, holding aloft a sputtering candle to light our way up the wide staircase to the upper floor. The air was colder here, and damp, and the flame from the candle cast long slanting shadows on the bare plaster walls.

'Your room is here,' Rachel said, leading the way along the dark passage to a door at the back corner of the house.

It was a mean and Spartan chamber, with a narrow bed and empty clothespress, and I felt Rachel watching my face as I gazed about the room. 'It is a small room,' she said, 'but it's wonderfully quiet, and you've a view all the way down to the river from your window.'

She was so obviously eager to please that I forced a smile, and voiced some unfelt platitude. The girl's relief was visible, and touching in its sincerity. 'I brought one of my nightgowns for you,' she said, indicating the white ghostly shape on the bed. 'We did not know if you would have baggage’