Plague Child

by Peter Ransley

  ‘The clothes are a stroke!’ Turville rubbed his plump hands. ‘They make him, Mr Eaton!’

  ‘He is like,’ Eaton muttered.

  ‘Like? He is very like!’

  They were looking at a picture in the centre of another wall, which I now know was a Van Dyck. At first I did not recognise Lord Stonehouse. It was only partly that he was so much younger. Mainly it was because he looked so happy. This was painted long before his hair had greyed and the lines on his face deepened into the penetrating frown I had seen in the royal procession. The picture was a family group with Highpoint House in the background. Next to Lord Stonehouse was a modest-looking woman with features that bordered on the plain, but whose face was touched into beauty by happiness. What might have been too idealistic was made real by the restlessness of the older boy trying to pull a stick from a spaniel’s mouth, and the younger boy clutching fretfully at his mother’s skirt.

  ‘He has the Stonehouse nose,’ Turville said. ‘Aquiline.’

  Aquiline? Suddenly the nose I had always despised had the bleak arrogance of an eagle. Or a falcon. Perhaps it had given rise to the family symbol. I could see it – or fancied I could – repeated in the faces in the painting.

  Turville put his hand on my shoulder. ‘If he continues to be in the dark, how can he see the dangers?’

  ‘Are you saying I should tell him?’ Eaton said.

  ‘An edited version, Mr Eaton, an edited version. And I am not saying – I can only advise. He is your responsibility.’

  His responsibility? Eaton was not wearing a scarf and as he came towards me, preparing to speak, the scar quivered like a second mouth. I flinched involuntarily. Turville lost patience.

  ‘You,’ Turville said to me, with a severity he tried to make playful by wagging his finger, ‘owe Mr Eaton a very great debt.’

  ‘Like a Tyburn prisoner owes his hangman,’ I said bitterly.

  Eaton jumped up. ‘I’m taking no more of this, Turville!’

  ‘Please, Eaton – let the boy speak! It has been difficult enough for us, God knows – think what it must have been like for him. Start at the beginning. Why did you run from Mr Black, when he was only trying to protect you?’

  Protect me! I thought the answer to his question obvious enough, but as I gave it Turville shook his head, pulling a handkerchief from his cuff and wiping his brow and his hands. When I came to the letter from Lord Stonehouse saying I was a ‘great Folie’ who must be got rid of, Turville groaned out loud.

  ‘You see, Eaton, you see?’ He turned to me. ‘Lord Stonehouse is not trying to kill you – that letter was not from him! It was from Eaton, warning Mr Black you were in danger from Richard. It is Richard, not Lord Stonehouse, who sees you as a great Folie who must be –’

  ‘Have a care, Turville, have a care!’

  Now Eaton certainly was frightened. He jumped up with such speed he sent his chair careering backwards. My eyes were not drawn to his scar now but to his hands, which gripped the back of another chair. He could pass for a gentleman but for those hands. They were the deeply weathered hands of a countryman who worked the land, not just rode over it. His knuckles were like knots of wood and his nails bitten. I suddenly saw my hands, in years to come, if I stayed a printer. He pointed a finger with a yellowed misshapen nail at me.

  ‘He is an act of charity, Turville! Nothing else. That is what my lord told me. And that is what he is until my lord tells me otherwise. I know when to keep my mouth shut. I have done it for thirty years and I am not going to throw everything away now for this little brat!’

  ‘The war changes everything, Eaton!’

  ‘War, what war?’

  ‘The King is in Oxford, raising an army.’

  ‘An army! Both sides have sent letters to the lord lieutenants of all counties. Parliament orders you to send your soldiers. The King commands you to send your troops to his army.’ Eaton snapped his fingers in contempt. ‘Some have been stupid enough to take sides. Most are shitting themselves. Nobody has declared war. Nobody will.’

  Turville kept trying to interrupt, snatching his handkerchief from his cuff, filling the air with musk, wiping his forehead. ‘Suppose they do? And the wrong side wins? You would lose everything then. As would I.’

  ‘Which is the wrong side?’ I asked.

  They stared at me as if they had completely forgotten about me. From being almost at each other’s throats, they were thrown off balance. Turville recovered first. ‘Ah, Tom, there you have it. Which is wrong and which is right? Mmm? The boy has a head on his shoulders. Come, Eaton, it is time we got off the stool. Otherwise we will by caught with our breeches down.’

  In the hall the clock chimed eleven. Both of them looked towards the sound, and then at each other. I remembered overhearing Turville telling Eaton to wait until the day is over. And the puzzling words Jane had picked up about me being cured of love when the week was out came back to me.

  ‘What is happening today?’ I asked.

  Again they glanced at one another before Turville spoke. ‘Why, Tom, this is happening – this auspicious meeting. A little earlier than we, er, planned – but that’s of no consequence, is it, Eaton?’

  Eaton looked from me to Turville and back again. Then, as the last chime of the clock echoed into silence, he seemed to reach a decision. He came over to me, lowering his face into mine, speaking with a frightening intensity. ‘I wrote the letter, part of which you saw. It was a warning to Mr Black that you were in great danger. It is Lord Stonehouse’s son, Richard, who sees you as a “great Folie”, not his father.’ He pointed to the boy in the picture, trying to wrest the branch from the dog’s jaws. He gave me a bitter smile. ‘It is that delightful boy, whom I have rescued from whores and gambling debts, who has been trying to kill you, while I have been entrusted by his father to see that not a hair of your precious head is harmed.’

  The scar quivered. There was a rank animal smell about him which brought acid to my throat. I fought a desire to back away. ‘Not harmed? Is that why you have a prig downstairs, ready to shoot me if I leave?’

  This amused Turville, who flung up his hands in delight. ‘You see, Eaton – he’s as suspicious as you are. Understandable, understandable! The poor boy was frightened.’

  ‘Gibson shouted at you to warn you,’ Eaton said. ‘We knew you would be at the Guildhall. So did Gardiner. Gibson lost you, but saw Gardiner and followed him. He shot Crow. Unfortunately, Gardiner got away.’

  ‘Then Eaton carried you here, at some danger to himself . . .’ Turville put in.

  ‘More to my coat,’ Eaton said resentfully. ‘Ruined it. You were bleeding like a pig.’

  ‘A charge to the estate. I’ll warrant you’ve not missed charging that one, Mr Eaton,’ Turville said, with a wink at me.

  I stared stubbornly at them. ‘When I ran into the royal procession I saw Lord Stonehouse ordering Richard to kill me.’

  ‘Saw! Saw!’ Eaton clenched his fists in rage at me.

  Much more composed, Turville sat at his desk and linked his fingers together. ‘Did you hear Lord Stonehouse say that?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘He told Richard not to harm you. I have it from his lordship.’

  ‘He came at me with his rapier!’

  ‘Of course he did!’ Eaton turned away from me as if could not bear the sight of me any longer. He looked at the boy in the picture wrestling with the dog, mimicking a gentleman’s voice surprisingly well. ‘I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t hear you. My one thought was to protect you!’ He turned back to me. ‘I had to apologise to Lord Stonehouse for that. He blamed me, of course. I have nearly lost my position because of you!’

  I trusted neither of them, for with every truth they told me, I felt they kept another one back. If anything, I preferred Eaton’s testimony, for it was drawn from him with such bitter reluctance I felt it must be true. And, as he went on, it seemed incontrovertible that Eaton had indeed saved me from Gardiner and Crow.

  ‘I am very gr
ateful to you, sir,’ I said, as if a tooth was being drawn from me.

  ‘Well done, Tom!’ cried Turville. ‘Now, shake hands with your guardian.’

  My guardian! The twisted world that I had fallen into got worse and worse! This raw, brutal creature who had driven the man I believed to be my father away in terror, and who inhabited my nightmares – my guardian! The thought of shaking hands with him made me sick to the stomach, but I felt I owed my life to him and forced myself to hold out my hand. He took it with a hand as hard and rough as rusted iron and with a smile – I took it to be a smile – that held much more of distrust and caution than friendship.

  Turville rang for Jane, who came in trembling, and looked at the scene in amazement. He told her to bring drink to celebrate what he called this happy reconciliation, smiling at her as she put the glasses in front of us.

  ‘Does Mr Tom not look a perfect gentleman, Jane?’

  ‘He is a gentleman,’ she said, the blood rising in her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, mark the roses in her cheeks, Eaton! If only I were young again and I could grow such flowers there, like our young poet Mr Tom.’

  She stared away from me, growing rigid as he patted her flaming cheeks. I jumped up, unable to stop myself. ‘Leave her! She does not like it!’

  There was a silence. Turville lost all his joviality and his eyes blazed with anger at me. Eaton grinned. Jane completely lost her usual composure, twisting her hands in agony. ‘I – I am sorry, Mr Turville.’

  Turville regained his joviality as quickly as he had lost it. He told her he understood perfectly, with a wink at Eaton which made me want to strike him, but I knew I was only making things worse for her. She left without looking at me and I cursed myself for opening my mouth.

  The wine was a sweet sack. Trusting nothing in that house I scarcely touched mine, even when Eaton swallowed a second glass. I told them it made little sense to me that Lord Stonehouse did not want a hair of my head harmed, while his eldest son was trying to kill me.

  ‘D’you hear the logic in that, Eaton!’ Turville cried. ‘The money on that education was well spent.’

  ‘Logic?’ Eaton stared at the painting gloomily. ‘You need more than logic to deal with that family. His lordship has no idea his eldest son is trying to have you killed.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell him?’ I asked in amazement.

  Eaton looked at me not with anger now but contempt. His outburst seemed to have exhausted him. He dropped on to a chair back to front, as if he was riding it, lowered his chin on to his clenched hands and stared broodingly at me. Turville smiled benignly.

  ‘Innocence, Mr Eaton,’ he said, ‘is a quality to be treasured not despised.’ He coughed, drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow and hands. His voice became suddenly sharp. ‘You are not to repeat any of this until and unless we give you permission to do so. Is that clear?’

  It was perfectly clear, but I said nothing. Turville wiped his brow again, although there was no sweat on it. Eaton smiled. They seemed to enjoy each other’s discomfort.

  ‘I will deny this conversation. So will Eaton. Do you understand?’

  I said nothing. He clenched his hands, thrust his handkerchief in his cuff, pulled it out again and continued to speak in sharp, clipped tones. ‘Lord Stonehouse would not believe us. We have no firm evidence it is Richard who is trying to have you killed. Even with evidence it would be a risk. Lord Stonehouse is . . . unpredictable. Richard is his eldest son. Lord Stonehouse knows his faults, but I would not want to be the person telling him that Richard is attempting the cold-blooded murder of –’

  Eaton sprang up. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Turville!’

  ‘– of someone to whom his father has extended such a great, indeed an unprecedented act of, er, charity.’

  Reluctantly accepting this legal description of me, which was as clear as London fog, Eaton slowly sank back into his chair while Turville told me that, at the age of sixty, and in indifferent health, Lord Stonehouse had one urgent, overwhelming concern in life – the succession of his great estates. Richard should inherit them. He expected to do so. But at the age of thirty-six his main achievement in life had been to lose a small fortune on a non-existent sugar plantation. And another on whores and gambling, muttered Eaton. Even more unfortunate from Lord Stonehouse’s point of view, Turville continued, Richard’s wife had died leaving him two daughters and no sons.

  Slowly, the fog began to part in places. I began to form a picture of the family. Lord Stonehouse’s wife, Frances, had had a rare combination of sweet benevolence and shrewdness that held together not only the family but the whole estate. Turville and Eaton both concurred on that. She knew everyone in every farm and village, knew and cared about every birth and death. She would listen, advise and, if she felt help was merited, give it. Her way of saying no made even the most disappointed feel they had been given something. Five years before I was born, Frances had died. The happiness that filled the painting disappeared. Richard became arrogant and head-strong. In spite of a generous allowance, and constant promises to reform, he was so heavily in debt his father feared that, under him, the estate would rapidly disintegrate.

  Richard was confident his father would not, and indeed could not, take action. The estate was entailed – legally bound to the eldest son. That bond was hard to break. But someone of Lord Stonehouse’s power and influence with a clever lawyer – Turville smiled modestly – might circumvent parts of it. And there was a substantial amount of money and London property outside the entail. Lord Stonehouse took steps to change his will and leave as much as possible to Edward, the younger son. I gazed at the boy in the picture, clinging anxiously to his mother’s hand.

  ‘There’s another one,’ muttered Eaton.

  Edward, a clergyman, was less concerned with the estate than his church, and less concerned with that than his laboratory, where he searched for the philosopher’s stone. But his son, James, was the apple of Lord Stonehouse’s eye. Then the plague struck Edward’s parish. Edward survived, but James and the rest of the family died. Edward eventually married again, but Lord Stonehouse’s grief was slow to heal.

  Turville leaned closer to me, his voice dropping. He was older than he looked, the vanity of powder hiding the veins in his cheeks and pits in his skin. ‘It was six years ago, in the depths of this grief, that he saw you.’

  ‘In the shipyard.’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘Just so! Just so!’ Eaton mocked Turville’s equable tone. He said nothing was ‘just so’ at Highpoint. Turville tried to stop him taking more wine, but he might as well have tried to stop a hunting dog in full cry. The words came out like the spittle that flew with them, an extraordinary mixture of pride and venom, power and frustration. ‘I am Lord Stonehouse’s scavenger. I clear up the messes he and his sons make.’ He stabbed his bitten fingernail at Turville. ‘He makes them legal. You –’ he stabbed the fingernail at me ‘– you are the worst mess I have ever had to deal with and you go on and on, year after year after year!’

  Turville shook his head apologetically at me, bouncing about on his chair as if it was hot. ‘Come, Eaton, come –’

  ‘Come, my arse!’ He smashed his fist on the desk. ‘I have taken the brunt of this bloody business!’

  ‘Mr Tom might be –’

  ‘Might be! Mr Tom! Oh, he’s Mr Tom, is he? Mr Tom Might Be!’ He stopped, Turville’s agitation cooling him a little. ‘Mr Tom.’ He gave me an ironic little bow and looked at the painting. ‘Mr Richard, Mr Edward, Mr Tom.’

  ‘The situation has changed, Tom,’ Turville said. He smiled, a smile I trusted less than Eaton’s surly bluntness. ‘We need your help. We need to find out who you really are. And quickly.’

  I looked from one to the other. ‘Changed? What situation?’

  A shaft of winter sun played over the desk, lighting up dust motes still settling where Eaton had struck it. It was so quiet I could hear the ticking of the clock in the hall. Then Turville spoke, forming h
is words as carefully as if he were writing a legal document.

  ‘In spite of everything Richard did, in spite of Lord Stonehouse’s threats to change his will, or steps to do so, we were resigned to Richard inheriting. Though we indicated to his lordship, as near as we dare, the disastrous consequences, it made no difference. Richard is the eldest son. He drives his father nearly out of his mind, but he loves him and in the end he always forgives him.’ Turville cleared his throat. ‘You, Tom, were an old man’s whim. We were convinced you would never be more than that. But, during your illness here, something happened we never foresaw. While Lord Stonehouse has been organising an army for Parliament, Richard has told his father he is joining the King.’

  Chapter 15

  Did I change in that instant? Yes. Did they? Certainly. I felt I was no longer in borrowed clothes, while, in some indefinable manner, their attitude shifted. In no way did they become servile. They were still very much in control. Yet when they called me Mr Tom the mockery was less certain, the irony diluted. I was still in a kind of limbo, not to be acknowledged or spoken of in polite society. One false move could be very dangerous for the three of us, Turville said, as though we were already plotters together.

  Now, with me bursting in, looking like half a lord at least, and the drink in him, Eaton overcame his reluctance to break his master’s ban. Once he began to talk, he was like a dam breaking and he held me as spellbound as Matthew ever did over an evening fire as he told me about that dark September evening, sixteen years before.

  Eaton talked jerkily, as if he was back on his bay gelding, riding towards Highpoint that night. Just beyond the lodge, he told me, Lord Stonehouse’s coach swerved past him out of the driveway. Henry, the coachman, did not acknowledge him – a sign that this was business that must not be talked about. In the back of the coach he glimpsed a woman with hair as red as fire. Another woman pulled down the blind as the jolting, rocking coach flashed past.