The House Of Lanyon
When two ambitious families occupy the same patch of English soil, rivalry is sure to take root and flourish.A glimmer of initiative swells into blind desire, and minor hurts, nursed with jealousy, fester into a malignant hatred. When a bitter feud is born, the price for this wild and beautiful piece of ground will take more than three generations to settle. Richard Lanyon answers to no one save the aristocratic Sweetwater family, owners of the land he farms.His bitter resentment is legend within the bounds of their tiny Exmoor community, but as their tenant, Richard must do their bidding. Still, even noblemen don't have the power to contain ruthless ambition, and the Sweetwaters are no exception. Driven to succeed, Richard is prepared to take what is not his, and to forfeit the happiness of his family to claim the entitlements he lusts for.In this epic story Valerie Anand creates a vivid portrait of fifteenth-century English life that resonates with the age-old themes of ambition, power, desire and greed.
Читать The House Of Lanyon онлайн беплатно
The House of Lanyon
Valerie Anand
This book is dedicated, most affectionately and gratefully, to all members of the Exmoor Society, and in particular to the members of its London Area Branch.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE:FOUNDATIONS 1458
CHAPTER ONE:QUIET AND DIGNIFIED
CHAPTER TWO:SHAPING THE FUTURE
CHAPTER THREE:THE BUSINESS OF MARRIAGE
CHAPTER FOUR:ONE MAGICAL SUMMER
CHAPTER FIVE:UNTIMELY AUTUMN
CHAPTER SIX:THE LOCKES OF LYNMOUTH
CHAPTER SEVEN:FLIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT:HUNTERS AND QUARRY
CHAPTER NINE:REARRANGING THE FUTURE
CHAPTER TEN:CLOUD BLOWING IN
CHAPTER ELEVEN:NEW BEGINNING
PART TWO:BUILDINGS AND BATTLES 1458–1472
CHAPTER TWELVE:DEMISE OF A PIG
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:THE HOWL OF THE SHE-WOLF
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:HOPE AND FEAR
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:DEAD DRUNK ON A HALF-STARVED HORSE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:HOUSEWARMING
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:ONE COMES, ONE GOES
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:DREAMS ARE SECRET
CHAPTER NINETEEN:A GOOD SENSE OF SMELL
CHAPTER TWENTY:ESTRANGEMENT
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:REBELLION
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:SHE-WOLF AND CUB
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:OUT OF THE PAST
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:LOVE AND DEATH
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:A MATTER OF A DOWRY
PART THREE:STORM DAMAGE 1480–1486
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:BOULDER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:THE RISING HOUSE OF LANYON
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:WHIRLIGIG
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:HEATHER, GORSE AND HENRY TUDOR
CHAPTER THIRTY:THE RED DRAGON
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:FRIENDS UPON A BRIDGE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:COMING HOME
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:FOES UPON A BRIDGE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:FALLING APART
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:A SENSE OF ABSENCE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:EXTRAORDINARY CHANGES
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:PROPOSAL
PART FOUR:RECONSTRUCTION 1487–1504
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:SETTLED IN LIFE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:TAVERN TALK
CHAPTER FORTY:KICKING A PEBBLE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE:A DUTY TO LIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO:TOKEN
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am most grateful to the many people who have helped me as I did the research for this book. My thanks go in particular to Dolores Clew and Father Garrett for information on the medieval church, and to Michael Grantham (Rector of St. George’s in Dunster), Laurie Hambrook (Churchwarden of St. George’s), Mrs. Joan Jordan (local historian) and Dr. Robert Dunning (County Editor) for information on west country families and fifteenth-century Dunster.
CHAPTER ONE
QUIET AND DIGNIFIED
Allerbrook House is a manor house with charm. Three attractive gables look out from its slate roof, echoed by the smaller, matching gable over its porch, and two wings, with a secluded courtyard between them, stretch back toward the moorland hillside which shelters the house from northeast winds. In front the land drops away gently, but to the right the slope plunges steeply into the wooded, green-shadowed combe where the Allerbrook River purls over its pebbly bed, flowing down from its moorland source toward the village of Clicket in the valley.
Allerbrook is far from being a great house such as Chatsworth or Hatfield, but its charm apart, it has unusual features of its own, such as a mysterious stained glass window in its chapel—no one is sure of its significance—and the Tudor roses, which nowadays are painted red-and-white as when they were first made, which are carved into the hall panelling and the window seats.
The place is a rarity, standing as it does out on Exmoor, between the towns of Withypool and Dulverton. There is no other house of its type on the moor. It is also unique because of its origins. The truth—as its creator Richard Lanyon once admitted—is that it probably wouldn’t be there at all, if one autumn day in 1458 Sir Humphrey Sweetwater and his twin sons, Reginald and Walter, had not ridden out to hunt a stag and had a most distressing encounter with a funeral.
There was no manor house there when, in the fourteenth century, the Lanyons came from Cornwall and took over Allerbrook farm. Then, the only dwelling was a farmhouse, so ancient even at that time that no one knew how long it had stood there.
Sturdily built of pinkish-grey local stone and roofed with shaggy thatch, it looked more like a natural outcrop than a construction. Around it spread a haphazard collection of fields and pastures, and its farmyard was encircled by a clutter of barns, byres, stables and assorted sheds. Inside, the main rooms were the kitchen and the big all-purpose living room. There was an impressive oak front door, but it was never used except for wedding and funeral processions and the hinges were regrettably rusty. It was a workaday place.
On a fine late September evening, though, with a golden haze softening the heathery heights of the moors and gilding the Bristol Channel to the north, there was a mellowness. That mellowness seemed even to have entered the soul of the man whose life was now drawing to a close in one of the upper bedchambers.
This was remarkable, because George Lanyon’s sixty-one years of life had scarcely been serene. He had been an aggressive child, apt to bully his two older sisters and his younger brother, for as long as they were there to bully. The Lanyons had never, for some reason, been good at raising healthy families. All George’s siblings had ailed and died before they were twenty. Only George flourished, as though he possessed all the vitality that should have been shared equally among the four of them.
