The King's List

by Peter Ransley

  He drew his pistol. The man must have heard the click for he plunged away through some bushes. Scogman gave chase but came back panting, shaking his head, holding the fowling piece the poacher had dropped. Eventually the spots of blood took us to a dead deer.

  ‘I have an idea who he is,’ Scogman muttered. ‘I’ll have him. Stealing my game.’

  ‘My game,’ I said mildly.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir. The game what I look after for you.’

  We looked at the deer and then at one another. We had eaten little more than bread and cheese since leaving London. It would take us two or three hours to get to Highpoint. We were so hungry we ate the first slices half raw, watching in silence as the fat bubbled and the meat darkened before we cut more.

  ‘Richard’s game now, I suppose,’ I said, wiping the grease from my mouth. With that thought as sauce, the venison tasted even better.

  On the way back to the horses, we found another disabled trap. Then, as he was putting the fowling piece in the saddle holster, Scogman frowned and pointed to the stock. There was an imprint, in lighter wood, of a metal crest bearing the Stonehouse falcon. I recognised the piece. It had come from the Highpoint gunroom, which was always securely locked.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Scogman muttered.

  We skirted round the edge of the forest, seeing nothing else untoward. The wind freshened, driving dark clouds from the west. You could always see the weather before it arrived at Highpoint and we wrapped our cloaks tightly around us. We rode on without incident until gone noon when we reached Isaac’s Corner. Who Isaac was nobody knew, but there had always been a woodman here, who leased the rights of this part of the forest from Highpoint.

  The forest was thinning and the wind grew stronger. Scogman’s horse reared as something flapped across the clearing, coiling around the horse. It was a piece of oilcloth. Across the clearing there was normally a huge pile of logs, which the oilcloth had covered, and another of kindling wood. Both were gone. The ground was littered with splinters of wood. The wheels of a cart and a dropped log or two marked where they had gone – in the direction of the common land, high in the hills, too poor for any landlord to want to buy. Lord Stonehouse had been strict about forest rights. He would have treated the hunted deer and the stolen wood as hanging offences. I was much more lenient, letting commoners have the dead wood and rabbits, even turning a blind eye to small game. But this was too much. I forgot that I had ever hated Highpoint. Forgot that my grasp on it was, at most, tenuous, and rode through the last of the forest and up the rise that led to the house.

  ‘There he is!’ yelled Scogman, shouting abuse fruitlessly across the valley to the toy-like cart crawling up the hill road towards Shadwell. I told him sharply to be quiet, and dismounted. Half-buried among the long grass was a cooking pot. Near it were the tracks of a number of carts. Scogman checked the fowling piece was loaded and gave it to me, putting his pistol in his belt. The wind increased as we approached the top of the ridge. Scogman urged caution but I galloped on, fearing that something dreadful had happened to Anne. Scogman almost collided with me as I stopped abruptly.

  Highpoint was dark and silent. As big as a small town, with its stables, brewery, bakery and kitchens, at any time of the year the great house was always full of life. There was not a movement, a servant, a candle in a window, or a sound, but for the wind as we descended slowly, fording the stream and approaching the driveway. The lodge door was open. Papers were scattered on the floor and it smelt of urine.

  The fountains were not playing, green slime beginning to creep over the surface of their pools. The mouth of a cherub, which normally spouted water, was stuffed with dead flowers. The overgrown lawn was scarred with cart tracks. From the east wing a thin plume of smoke ascended. Windows had been smashed to gain entry to the kitchens, which had been looted. Our feet kicked against empty wine bottles. We doused the fire, which was in wooden cladding in a room near the kitchens. It looked as though it was the smouldering remains of a larger fire that had been put out, whipped into life again by the wind. There was a scampering sound in the corridor. Scogman lifted his pistol, jumping backwards as a dog burst through past us, a squealing rat in its jaws.

  We walked through silent corridors into the main house, where our boots echoed through empty room after empty room. Odd pieces of furniture littered the place but anything of value had gone. The long gallery was stripped of its paintings, its Rubens, Titians and Van Dycks; the library of its most precious books. Gone were the earliest printed books I most treasured: Ovid’s Works printed in Venice in 1474, Thomas More’s Utopia, Ptolemy’s Geography. Gaps on the wall marked where priceless Flemish tapestries had hung. Wherever I expected to see a rare, familiar object – a silver-mounted ebony table, a Ruckers harpsichord, a Japanese lacquer cabinet – there was an empty place. Whoever had pillaged Highpoint knew exactly what to take. Everything that Anne had carefully chosen and put together to create the magnificence that made Highpoint the finest seat in England had gone.

  32

  After this, it was almost as much of a shock to see Mr Travers, the minister of Shadwell, up in the hill country treat the matter so casually. He seemed to think we knew about it. He certainly knew we were without lodging for the night and, fat and jovial as ever, offered us supper and a bed.

  We were only too glad to accept as the dark clouds had brought persistent rain. It dripped from the trees as I went to pay my usual respects to my mother’s grave. When I first came to Highpoint I had found her in an unmarked spot. I had put up a stone, and expected it to be as neglected as usual. To my surprise fresh flowers were laid on it and there were bunches of sweet-smelling herbs: thyme, marjoram and basil.

  The grass was cut and the moss carefully scraped from the wildcat’s paw in the Pearce coat of arms, where it always gathered.

  MARGARET PEARCE

  1601–1625

  Tantum Teneo

  Only persist. My mother would have liked that. ‘I will have one of them,’ she had said, in her determination to marry one of the Stonehouses and take over their estate, as they had swallowed up her father’s, causing, she believed, his death. Tantum Teneo. Only persist.

  ‘Parsons are the biggest rogues!’ Scogman exploded. He was pointing across the graveyard. At the back of the parsonage was a neatly stacked pile of freshly cut logs, covered by a piece of oilcloth similar to the one we had seen in the forest.

  The careful tending of the grave had softened me and I said I was sure that, if the logs were stolen, the parson was unaware of it.

  When I thanked the parson for looking after the grave he replied, ‘Ah, not my doing I am afraid, sir, but that of my outer flock. They have gone from thinking your mother a malign spirit to benign. Some of them – although, of course, I counsel them severely against it – even believe her divine.’

  He chuckled. His laughter, in which his eyes creased and his whole body shook, was as rich as his stews. He went no further for we were called in to supper. The mutton stew was as good as I remembered it; even more enjoyable since it was accompanied by gusts of wind throwing rain against the windows and flames from the logs, stolen or not, crackling cheerfully up the chimney. Scogman, however, seemed to have indigestion. When the parson left to get another bottle of wine he pointed indignantly to a pair of silver candlesticks on the dresser, which I remembered came from the dining room at Highpoint. I told him to be quiet and I would deal with it later, but when Travers returned, opening a bottle of claret with the Highpoint crest on it, Scogman could contain himself no longer.

  ‘I see you have a very good vintage there, sir.’

  The parson beamed. ‘Thanks to the generosity of your master, sir. To me and the church.’ He indicated the candlesticks. ‘Sadly, in these times they are not secure in the church, but they take pride of place in every service.’

  He poured the wine with reverence. It was a good vintage, which Lord Stonehouse had laid down for special occasions. Its aroma filled the room, mingling with t
he sweet herbs of the stew and the scent of the burning logs.

  ‘My generosity,’ I said.

  He laughed. The table trembled and glasses shivered as his stomach quivered against it. ‘You are too modest, sir. You have always moved in mysterious ways.’

  ‘What mysterious ways? What happened at Highpoint?’

  He laughed again. ‘I was hoping you would tell me, sir. You do not recall sending me this?’ He produced a letter from a drawer in the dresser.

  Dear Reverend Travers,

  Due to the changing circumstances, I very much regret having to leave Highpoint. As a measure of my appreciation for your services to the people of Shadwell and the estate, I would like you to accept these candlesticks for the church and this crate of good wine for yourself.

  I remain, sir, your humble servant,

  Thomas Stonehouse

  It was clearly written by a professional scrivener, but the signature was mine. I did not remember dictating it or signing it, but I dictated so many, often barely remembering them when I did sign them. I had to look closely at it before I picked up the hesitation in the loop between the two words, and one or two other things which only I would notice. During this perusal, Travers stopped laughing, swallowing his wine nervously and pouring another glass, as if afraid I might take it back.

  ‘Is it not correct, sir? You did not sign this?’

  ‘I think you had better tell me what happened, Mr Travers.’

  He told me that one day a carter had turned up with the letter and the crate containing the wine and the candlesticks. His cart was full, with deliveries he had to make as far afield as Oxford. Riding with the carter was a gentleman he did not know, who gave him the gifts. Beyond that, Travers knew nothing, saying there were several versions I could choose from. I replied that we had all night, and were in need of good stories.

  He stoked up the fire, had cheese served with another bottle and told me what the outer flock believed. He called them the outer flock because they lived in scattered hill farms and hamlets on the fringes of the straggling parish. They were also on the fringes of religion, believing as much in magic as in the teachings of the Church. Horseborne, where my mother, Margaret Pearce, had died giving birth to me, was such a hamlet. To this day, Travers said, older people would not go near Horseborne in September when the nights drew in, for fear of meeting the plague cart into which, believing me to be dead, the carter Matthew Neave had flung my body. In spite of the heat of the fire a shiver passed through me. It brought back the worst of my boyhood, when people believed if I had survived the plague, I must have consorted with the Devil. Even Scogman began looking nervously at me, jumping and spilling his wine when a pail, blown by the wind, clattered across the yard outside.

  ‘What nonsense!’ I said.

  Travers nodded. ‘Exactly what I told them, sir. It made no difference. If a cow would not give milk, Margaret Pearce had cursed it. If a child misbehaved, he was told the plague cart would come.’

  I stared into my glass, which reflected the leaping flames of the fire. As usual, the truth was unimportant. What mattered was what people believed. For years, until I had rescued it, my mother’s grave had been desecrated with red plague crosses from the dye that shepherds used to mark their sheep. I went to the window. The wind blew clouds from the moon and, across the graveyard, I could see my mother’s gravestone, gleaming from the rain and piled with herbs, the wildcat’s clenched paw raised in what seemed to be a gesture of triumph. Travers stood at my elbow.

  ‘They claim to have seen her. In the flesh. She talked to them. She said they had certain rights that the Stonehouses had unlawfully taken from them generations ago. The rights of common land at Lower Reaches.’ Travers threw a log on the fire, a flicker of a smile across his face. ‘Forest rights up to and including the old hill road. Fishing rights upstream from Stone Cross –’

  Scogman spat derisively in the fire. ‘Those are my rights.’ He looked at me. ‘I paid good money for those, did I not, sir?’

  ‘They have proof, which they showed me,’ Travers said. ‘A letter signed by Thomas Stonehouse –’

  ‘As he signed the letter for the candlesticks –’ Scogman began.

  I told him sharply to be quiet. ‘This spirit, Mr Travers … They saw her?’

  ‘Dysart did.’

  ‘Dysart.’ Scogman spat again into the fire.

  Dysart was the gamekeeper whose traps had been sprung. He came from the hill country and for years he had been talking of retiring there to live with his daughter near Horseborne. He was convinced (or had convinced the credulous) that he had seen Margaret Pearce but he told Travers a different story, which Travers corroborated with some other servants at Highpoint.

  Late one afternoon a coach was seen approaching the Highpoint lodge gates. The lodge-keeper put his glass to his eye, identified the falcon crest and sent his boy running to the house. The servants, who had daily been expecting Richard Stonehouse, quickly assembled outside, marshalled by the house steward and housekeeper. To their surprise, Lady Anne Stonehouse stepped out of the carriage. Travers emphasised her Christian name for, I suppose, the servants were expecting another Lady Stonehouse to alight.

  ‘How was she?’ I said eagerly.

  From all accounts, he replied, they had never seen her better, never seen her more dignified, beautiful, stately, in complete command of herself and, paradoxically, Highpoint. Although she was leaving it, she said, Highpoint was not the land, the bricks, stone and wood it was built from, but what they clothed it with. What were the lawns, the fountain gardens or the wilderness walk without the gardeners? What were the great oak dining table, the oak panelling of the long gallery, the carvings of the grand staircase, without the joiners, carpenters who made them and the servants who cared for them and polished them every day? What were the seasonal feasts, looked forward to by the whole county and beyond, without the cook and kitchen staff? She thanked each one of them, personally, by name. Long before she reached the smallest bootboy there was not a man who was not blowing his nose or a woman not dabbing her apron to her eyes.

  I could picture it. Even I, who hated Highpoint, loved it at that time in the evening when the shadows lengthened and the sun glittered in the fountains and sparkled on the windows of the east wing. For a moment, the servants had told Travers, Lady Stonehouse stopped. It looked as if she was going to break down herself. Then she went on. They would shortly have a new master, she said. Some would remember him as a young man at Highpoint.

  I could imagine their faces when she said that. If Richard, with his whoring and his gambling, had been the despair of Lord Stonehouse, with his arrogance and demands he had been hated by the servants.

  Travers looked into the fire, then at my torn jerkin and growth of beard, as if he regarded me as an eccentric philanthropist. He seemed suddenly convinced again that, just as I had helped the hill farmers before, I must be behind it, being as diffident and modest about it as I had been about those transactions.

  ‘But you know what happened next, sir. You must do. You must have planned it – a, a masterstroke, if I may say so.’

  ‘Go on, Mr Travers,’ I said evenly. ‘Just tell me what you heard.’

  Lady Stonehouse told the servants that the furniture and other rare pieces were being distributed to those personal friends in the county who had always admired them, and who would cherish and appreciate them. Just as these treasures were esteemed, she said, so were they: she had chosen them with just as much care. Who in the county had not tasted Mrs Crosby’s venison and raisin pie, savoured her sugar cakes? Who had not admired Mr Jeffrey’s knot garden, or walked through his masterpiece, the Orangery? She had places and characters for all of them if they wished to go. They all did. With one voice.

  My head was in a whirl. I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. What a coup! I only wished I had thought of it. She had been determined to have Highpoint, which she had turned, brick by brick, picture by picture, into the pre-eminent seat in the co
unty. Now she was determined Richard would not have it. She had ripped the soul from it, leaving only its decaying body. It would never recover. Richard had neither the talent nor the inclination. On the other hand, it was my property. She had forged my signature. I would be seen as duped by my own wife and would be the laughing stock of the county. If I had ever cared for the county, I gave not a fig for it now. Worse, much worse, was that she would be branded as a thief. I could not bear that.

  When Travers reached the end of his story, saying yet again with that look of incredulity stealing over his face, that I must have known about it, I gave him a modest smile. ‘Mr Travers, it is better to give than receive.’

  Scogman opened his mouth, but at a warning look from me said nothing.

  Travers gave a great shout of laughter, shaking like a jelly, toasting me, his candlesticks and what was left of his crate of good wine. ‘You had me there, Sir Thomas, you had me rather worried there for a moment, I confess it, sir.’ He wiped his eyes, spluttering. ‘I was beginning to think you knew nothing about it. Acts 20: 35. Better to give than receive. I will use it as my sermon on Sunday. We will remember you in our prayers, sir. You are a great joker as well as a great benefactor.’

  33

  When we left the next day, there were more flowers on my mother’s grave. Riding through the village, people doffed their hats. One ran up and said, ‘Bless you, sir.’ Another, whose fingers had been mangled in a rock fall, begged me to touch his hand. When I told him it would do him no good, he retorted, ‘Won’t do me no harm, sir, will it?’ I pressed his crushed fingers. They looked exactly the same to me but he claimed he felt a warmth, a movement that was not there before.

  Scogman sniffed and said nothing. When we had staggered upstairs the night before he would not stop talking about the wretched candlesticks, the wine and his precious fishing rights. My head pounded and all I wanted was sleep. He had his own room but would not go away.