by Norah Lofts
He was a practical, not an imaginative, man but as the formalities were concluded—the signing of the agreement between Our Sovereign Lord the King and Henry Tallboys of Knight’s Acre in the County of Suffolk—his mind did run forward and shrank from what it saw.
‘Now I have a favour to ask. Could you lend me a little wine?’
‘Fortunately, yes. Uncertain of how or where we shall lodge, we carry our own supplies. And here a small cask had been overlooked.’ Inadvertently, of course, the Commissioner thought to himself; not much that was portable had been left when the Bishop withdrew. ‘Would you prefer red or white?’
‘Whichever is most heartening,’ Henry said.
What he had not foreseen was that Joanna was celebrating her birthday in a humble way. She had decided Henry’s glum look at dinner was concerned with business at Moyidan; bad news perhaps. And bad news for Dick—she always used that name since he had expressed a preference for Richard—would be good news for her. It might worry Henry for a while, he was such a family man, but he’d get over it and a cheerful meal might help.
The rose-trees, for so long neglected, no longer bore the kind of flower of which Lady Randall, who had sent them to Sybilla, would have approved; but the inferior flowers were plentiful and Joanna had set a great bunch, some upright, some trailing, in the centre of the table in the hall. There was every excuse, this evening, for not eating in the kitchen—she had baked new bread there this afternoon. The hall was cooler.
Sybilla’s herb garden, which included the vegetable patch, was as neglected as the rose-trees but amongst the weeds there were a few hardy self-sown plants which, eked out by young dandelion leaves which were plentiful, made a cool-looking salad. There was ham, properly soaked, properly cooked; new bread; a great bowl of wild strawberries, fresh cream.
She wore her new blue gown. (This had evoked a remark, more wistful than reproachful, from Dick. ‘If you’d taken those blue beads I offered you, they would have gone well together.’ She had answered him with her usual acerbity. ‘How could I? The receiver is as bad as the thief!’ For once a rebuff from her failed to depress him, because he was sure that any business at Moyidan must be concerned with his restoration to it. The fact that Uncle Henry looked sour and spoke shortly did not affect him. In fact it boded favourably. He sensed that Henry had no real fondness for him and would not rejoice if his fortunes took a turn for the better.)
Godfrey decided to change into his better clothes and Dick did the same. All was ready.
However the business at Moyidan had gone, Henry looked no better. The dingy look behind the sunburn, the lines of strain were still there.
Joanna ventured to remark upon it. ‘You look tired, Henry.’
‘Who wouldn’t?’ I’ve tramped all over Moyidan this afternoon. And some things I saw did not please me.’
‘Never mind. Look, I set supper here. It is cooler. And Henry, I even have ale. Joseph held some back. He said the shearers had quite enough last night and it would do them no good to arrive at their next job drunk.’
‘They hadn’t lacked,’ Henry said. ‘They sounded merry enough when I passed them in the lane.’
The food, good as it was, tasted of nothing but he choked it down, conscious of Joanna’s eye upon him. Let her enjoy this pitiable little feast!
Presently Richard, unable to bear uncertainty any longer, said, ‘Am I to have Moyidan back?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew it! I always knew it!’
‘Not quite as you think,’ Henry said, giving way to the sourness within him; taking out his spite against the whole bloody world on the boy who was in no way to blame for this. ‘Not quite as you think, my boy. There’s a lot of hard work to be done there and you’ll do most of it. You’ll go first thing tomorrow morning and start cutting hay.’
‘Cutting hay?’
‘Yes. It should have been started a week ago.’
‘Moyidan is my manor,’ Dick said, for perhaps the thousandth time. ‘Who can make me cut hay?’
‘I can.’
‘Because you are…my uncle?’
‘No. Because the King has appointed me to take charge of you, and your manor, until you are twenty-one.’
There were many stories about uncles who had usurped their nephews’ rights. Richard Tallboys had, in fact, contributed one, having learned in a painful way that it was unwise to go about Eton grumbling that the Bishop of Bywater had taken Moyidan away from him. Eton was a clerical establishment and such talk was not to be encouraged. He was beaten for three serious faults: untruthfulness; lack of respect; ingratitude. Not being stupid, he changed his story and said that his Uncle Richard had robbed him.
Now he suspected that Henry, in some mysterious way, had usurped the Bishop, as the Bishop had usurped Uncle Richard.
Richard’s rule had been careless but not harsh; there’d always been enough to eat, new clothes when they were needed. There’d been Master Jankyn, the tutor, too, but he’d soon learned not to be strict with the boy who was on such good terms with the servants that a blow struck at him rebounded in the form of bad service. And for a time there’d been Robert to act as whipping boy. Life had not been too bad then. After the Bishop had taken over, the heir had been ill-fed and in the end practically without shoes; but at least nobody even then had suggested that he should work! At last he had appealed to Uncle Henry who had taken him in, provided him with clothes, fed him after a fashion—but made him work. Then came Eton, sounding promising but quite horrible. Then Uncle Henry again. And now Uncle Henry for the next almost eight years. It was intolerable.
Inside this Richard Tallboys there still lived, and would always live, the pampered little boy whose grandmother had doted upon him; who had so often assured him he would be rich, that Moyidan was his.
Sullen, defiant, he said, ‘Another dirty trick! As though the King would lend himself… ’
‘See for yourself,’ Henry said, jerking a thumb towards the cupboard on whose open shelf lay the two parchments, the agreement, the list of Moyidan’s resources at the moment—and standing alongside, the stout leather bottle of heartening red wine. The sight of it reminded Henry of what he had still to face and once again he groaned, inwardly.
Now the moment had come. The table, cleared of everything but the roses, two candles just lighted, the wine bottle and two cups. The boys dismissed, summarily, to their beds; Godfrey still young enough to be almost drunk on such a meal and a mug of ale, Richard reduced by one glance at that so-official, so final a document.
Outside one lonely, belated cuckoo gave her last cry and the wild doves took up the mournful sound.
‘Joanna, I have to tell you something.’
She thought she knew what it was. Everything, since her return, had been nudging towards this moment; the day when she was fourteen and no longer too young. When that hasty, unwitnessed betrothal must be either acknowledged or repudiated. In her mind she was prepared. Six months and the word never mentioned, glances fond, brooding, amused, but never right. Never wanting.
She sat, straight and still, her hands undamaged by six months rough work folded in her lap.
‘Spare yourself, Henry. I know. That was a makeshift betrothal. I forced you… But, my dear, I did not keep my side of the bargain. I should have spent another year at Stordford. You are absolved.’
‘It isn’t that. Far less simple. Joanna… I think no two people were ever placed as we are. That makeshift betrothal must be made anew and witnessed. Unless you are to be sent to Clevely.’
‘Clevely. The nunnery. Who could send me there?’
‘The King… But that is not the nub of the matter. Honey, by claiming to be betrothed to you, I saved you from marriage to an old, toothless man. It was all I could think of at the time. And now all I can think of, to save you from Clevely, is to claim it again but on sounder ground, with the priest as witness. But my dear, my sweet… It would be only a stop-gap, a time-saver… Marriage between us is impossible. We are blo
od kin. Your father was mine.’
There, it was said. He drew a gasping breath of relief which coincided with one of hers, let out as though she had been punched. Her lips whitened, her eyes turned black as the pupils widened. Time for the wine.
‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘Good for shock.’ His hand, holding the cup to her, was not quite steady; hers, pushing it gently away, was firm as rock but so cold that it sent a shiver through him.
‘Later,’ she said. ‘Have you… known all along?’
He shook his head. ‘Not the faintest suspicion. It was that young man, Peter Wingfield… ’
‘How could he know? Who told him?’
‘The family resemblance, he said. Then I saw how blind I had been.’
‘In what way?’ Her colour had come back and she sounded interested, as though discussing something which concerned neither of them intimately.
‘In not putting two and two together. You and Robert were born on the same day; he was premature, you were full time. That was frequently mentioned—to account for the difference in size. Your mother and mine, and the father of us both, kept the secret well. But, Joanna, once he let something slip. In all, from the land of the Moors to England, the journey had taken four months. So they set out in September!’
‘I see. Well, apart from the betrothal—and we can get around that—it isn’t such a calamity, is it? I mean… I don’t mind having you as a half-brother. In fact, I’m rather proud.’
‘I have always been very proud, and very fond, of you.’
He was proud of her now. None of the fuss which he had dreaded.
‘As for the betrothal,’ he said, reverting to practicality, ‘it must be made, first thing tomorrow morning. And last until… until this threat of Clevely has died down. The King may change his policy. Or die. A new king often alters laws.’
‘Quite apart from everything else, my dear, you can’t spare me to Clevely now. With Moyidan on your hands, you need me to take charge here.’
‘That is true. Knight’s Acre must not be neglected.’
Nothing would be neglected. Nor need be, for suddenly life and vigour and tireless energy came flowing back. There was nothing he would not tackle, nothing he could not achieve.
Joanna looked to the future, too. One aspect of it bleak, empty of hope, dead. But then that hope had been dying, little by little, ever since her return from Stordford. For the rest… She’d have Knight’s Acre which she loved; that horrible boy would be gone, the happy family life resumed.
Family!
Something remained to be done. She braced herself to tell a gallant lie.
‘Henry. That day by the pool. I said a lot of things that l didn’t mean. At least, not how they sounded. I was too young to tell one sort of love from another.’ Then she added in her own special, light way, ‘And I was half-drowned!’ She smiled, and Henry smiled back.
‘So I noticed at the time!’
They laughed, as they had done, years ago, jogging home from market. Two against the world.
