The tracks led across the high moor and brought him at last to the East Lyn River—which his besotted son could not conceivably have mistaken for the Barle, since the high ridge known as the Chains lay between them. He rode downhill beside the tumbling stream, on a steep path through bracken and trees, came to a fork, took the branch that bypassed Lynton village at the top of the cliffs and went on down to its sister village, Lynmouth, at the foot.
Here there was a harbour, with a quay and a square stone building with a smoking vent, where herring were dried. The tide was in and so were a couple of big ships and a fleet of small boats, which were being unloaded. Both men and women were bringing netting and baskets of fish onto the quay, and buyers were already clustering around them. Close by stood the thick-walled thatched cottages of the fisherfolk.
He looked for a roof decorated with birds made of twisted straw, and found it at once. It was one of the larger cottages, which suggested that the Locke family was comparatively prosperous. But still nowhere near as well-off as he was, he thought grimly. This was not the place to find a new mistress for Allerbrook farm, even if the girl Peter had in mind was respectable, which he doubted.
There was a hitching post beside the cottage. He secured Splash, loosened the girth and ran up the stirrups, gave the horse his nosebag and went purposefully to knock at the door of the cottage. It was ajar and opened when he rapped, but he paused politely, waiting for someone to come. The door opened straight into a living room and kitchen combined; he could see a trivet and pot, set over a fire, and a woman stirring the pot. Another woman was standing over a whitewood table close to a window, no doubt for the sake of the light, and gutting fish with a ferocious-looking knife. A third, broom in hand, was now advancing to ask him his business. He knew at once that this was Marion.
Peter had said she was beautiful, but it was the wrong word. Inside his head Richard struggled to find the right one and found himself thinking luscious, like the pears and plums which grew beside the southernmost wall of Sweetwater House. It was sheltered there, with good soil, and the fruit was always so full of juice that it seemed about to burst through the skin.
Village boys were employed as bird scarers and when the fruit was ready to harvest, they were paid with a basketful each. Richard himself, as a lad, had sometimes helped to frighten off the starlings, and been paid with pears and plums, the taste of which he had never forgotten.
This girl called them to mind. Her working gown was a dull brown garment, but within it, her shape was so rich and full that he had hard work not to stare rudely. He saw, too, that her hair, which was not concealed by any cap or coif, was extraordinary. It wasn’t so much curly as wiry and it was an astonishing pale gold in colour. She had pulled it back and knotted it behind her head, but much of it was too short for that and stood out around her head in a primrose cloud. It was clean hair, too. She looked after it.
Beneath it, her face was round, but there were strong bones within that seeming softness and she had long, sloe-blue eyes, full and heavy with knowledge and an unspoken promise to impart it.
And she was aware of him, of his dark good looks, and young as she was—sixteen, seventeen?—she knew something about men. He couldn’t blame Peter for falling for this. But all the same…good God, Peter was welcome to his wild oats. No one in their senses grudged a young man that. But marriage—that was different.
“Are you Marion Locke?” It came out harshly, as though he were angry with her.
“Yes, that I be.” Her accent was thick. Her looks might be remarkable but he doubted if she knew A from B.
“My name is Richard Lanyon. I believe you know my son, Peter. Is your father at home?”
“Aye. Down on the quay, he be. You want to talk to ’un?”
“I certainly do…ah!”
The woman who had been stirring the pot had put her spoon aside and come toward them. “What is it, Marion?”
“Gentleman axin’ for dad. Name of Lanyon.” Marion smiled beguilingly, as though she imagined he was here to settle the marriage arrangements. You’re wrong, my wench, said Richard to himself.
“Then go and fetch ’un,” said the woman. “He’m unloading the boat. You can take over from ’un. And ax the gentleman in!”
“I’ll want to come back with ’un,” said Marion querulously, standing aside to let Richard enter. “With Dad, I mean. I’ve met the gentleman’s son and it’ll be about me.”
“All the more reason for you to keep out of it. Send your father back here and you stop down there and get that there boat emptied. Go on!”
Marion clearly didn’t want to go, and pouted. Her mother stared at her fixedly, however, and after a moment she left.
“I don’t want to offend anyone, least of all a man and wife in their own home.” Richard, sitting by the fire with his hat on his knees, was conscious of being on someone else’s territory. Not that it was much of a territory. It seemed to consist of this main room, half the size of the one at Allerbrook, an upper half-floor, reached by a ladder, where he could see some pallet beds, and a small back room, partly visible through a half-open door. In there, he could see a workbench with what looked like some half-made garment thrown over it.
A wise arrangement, no doubt, if one wanted to keep bits of thread out of the cooking and bits of fish out of the stitchery. Dried fish hung from the beams above his head, and there were scales and innards all over the table. His farmhouse was plain, but it had a decent oak front door and two spare bedchambers and even a parlour. They weren’t used much, but they were there. This place was squalid. It also reeked of fish. The smell was far stronger and much more disagreeable than the woolly odours of Nicholas Weaver’s home.
Manners, however, were manners. “I’m here on an awkward errand,” he said, “but likely enough, you’ll feel the same way as I do. You’ll be Master Locke, I think?” He addressed the elder of the two men who had come up from the quay shortly after Marion had left. The younger one had the same pale, wiry hair as Marion. The hair probably came from the father, if the older man were he, though his mop was turning grey. “And you—” he looked at the woman who had been tending the pot “—are Mistress Locke?”
“That’s right,” the older man said. “That’s my wife, Mary, and this here’s my son Art and this is my daughter-in-law Sue.” Sue was the one who had been gutting fish. She had left her work and joined the rest of them on seats by the fire. She had a smiling pink face, and by the look of her, was expecting a baby in a few months’ time.
“And the wench who came to fetch us,” said Master Locke senior, “is my daughter Marion. I’ve a notion it’s her you want to talk about. She said it could be. She said she knows your son.”
Art said glumly, “Here we go again.”
“She does know him,” said Richard, plunging straight to the point, “and it’s difficult. But I’m Richard Lanyon from Allerbrook farm, far over the moor. I rear sheep and grow corn and sell wool. It’s a different life from yours. My boy Peter met your Marion at last summer’s Revel and he says they’ve agreed to marry but…there’s no use going all round the moor about it. I’ve other plans for Peter. Besides, I don’t think he’s right for your girl, or she for him. What do you think?”
“I suppose the lad claims they’ve betrothed themselves?” said Master Locke. He didn’t sound surprised.
“More or less, yes.”
“That’ll be the third time,” said Marion’s mother crossly. “All the lads go after her, she’s got such a pretty face.” Richard heard this understatement with amazement. Did these people, who lived together as a family, never actually look at each other? Pretty? A girl as striking as Marion? You might as well say the sea was wet.
“Aye, she’ll promise anything to anyone and go further, very likely,” Art said. “Reckon she did go further last year, with