He glanced about us, his face suddenly fierce. ‘Have they followed us here?’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible. They followed us to Cambridge.’
‘I’ll keep a watch, master, I promise.’
‘I know you will.’ A thought struck me. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘No, sir. Only an apple.’
I felt a sudden surge of anger. No one had troubled to wonder whether Stephen might be hungry, including myself. ‘Come. We must find you some food.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AFTER EVENSONG, THE vicar came back for supper. He was a wiry, nervy man with hunched shoulders and eyes that were never still. His name was Dawson. Perhaps Lady Warley invited him to prevent the conversation returning to Frances. Lady Quincy and I were introduced to him as travellers from London, who were acquainted with Mr Warley.
Dawson had once been a fellow of Jerusalem and Warley’s tutor. When his term as a fellow had come to an end, his position had been desperate indeed, for he came from a humble family and had no resources of his own. The living of Hitcham St Martin happened to fall vacant at this time. Warley, who had the right of presentation, had offered it to him, and Dawson had accepted with gratitude. The income was only £40 a year and the house was not in perfect repair. But with prudent management, he told us, and through the constant benevolence of his patron and his patron’s grandmother, he had contrived very well on this, and even managed to marry a wife and support a family.
I learned all this and more in the first ten minutes. The man could not stop talking. The Warleys encouraged him to some extent, partly because Dawson harped so constantly on their generosity to him, partly because it stopped us talking about Frances and our reason for being here. He and his patrons had in its way a perfectly balanced relationship, with symmetrical benefits on either side.
The candles were lit. Frances was sent to bed, curtseying precariously to each of us in turn. Again, only for a moment, I had that curious sense of familiarity when I looked at her. After she had gone upstairs, the five of us sat in the gloomy hall where we had dined earlier in the day. Mr Warley was at one end of the table, his grandmother at the other, with the vicar on her right. I was next to the vicar.
Lady Quincy sat opposite Dawson and me, her head slightly bowed. I had noticed before that candlelight became her, giving her skin a soft, smoky quality, like the bloom on a piece of fruit. I had to force myself not to stare at her.
‘That was a most instructive sermon, sir,’ Mistress Warley said graciously to Mr Dawson, as if encouraging a backward child. Her eyes flickered towards Lady Quincy. ‘If only our guests had been able to attend evensong. They would have found much meat in it, much to digest.’
‘What was your text, sir?’ I asked, as the conversation showed signs of foundering.
‘“And there came a fear on all,”’ Mr Dawson said sternly. ‘“And they glorified God.” From today’s Gospel,’ he added in his ordinary voice. ‘The story of the widow of Nain and her dead son from St Luke, chapter seven.’
In his excitement, he wriggled on the chair beside me, and I felt his foot brush mine. I moved my foot away.
‘It is an affecting story, which shows Our Lord’s compassion to widows,’ Mistress Warley said. ‘Mr Dawson gave us a most learned account of why it meant we should all fear God, and why widows in particular should bless Him and the infinite mercies He bestows.’
Was this a sly taunt directed at Lady Quincy? The vicar nudged my foot again. I drew away and glanced at him. To my surprise I saw that he had turned to face Mistress Warley. Unless the laws of anatomy had changed, it could not have been his foot.
‘When the widow’s son rises up from his bier at Our Lord’s command,’ Mr Dawson said, ‘it signifies that Our Lord brings us all the blessed possibility of redemption in the name of His Father.’
The pressure on my foot returned. A pulse began to beat in my temple. I looked across the table. Lady Quincy was peeling an apple, the coils of its skin winding like a snake on to her plate.
For an instant she looked at me and parted her lips. She gave me the ghost of a smile. Then the pressure withdrew and she returned to her apple.
They kept early hours in Hitcham St Martin.
After supper, the vicar had departed, a stream of thanks pouring from his lips into the dank evening air, and the front door was barred against the outside world. We withdrew to the parlour, where Mr Warley read prayers to the assembled household. The dog was loosed in the yard. Mistress Warley ushered us all to the foot of the stairs, where the maid waited with a tray of lighted candles.
‘You will be leaving us tomorrow, I imagine?’ she said to Lady Quincy. ‘And I know Richard needs to get back to Jerusalem as quickly as possible – the college must be in a sad way after Dr Burbrough’s unhappy accident. Shall I send someone to call you early?’
‘Thank you, no. I haven’t quite settled my plans.’ Lady Quincy inclined her head. ‘Goodnight, mistress.’
The Warleys lingered at the bottom of the stairs, talking in low voices, perhaps about their unwelcome guests. Lady Quincy paused at the head of the stairs. I joined her on the landing. The Warleys were out of sight round the turn of the stairs, though their voices were still audible below.
‘Would you come to my chamber a little later, sir?’ Lady Quincy murmured. ‘In twenty minutes or so – I wish to ask your advice.’
I bowed, and she wished me goodnight in a firm, clear voice which showed me that the invitation was a private matter. Not, I thought hastily, that there could be anything improper in my visiting her in her chamber, for Ann would be there to make her mistress ready for bed.
I went up to my own room, which was on the floor above. There was no light in it, apart from the candle in my hand. Stephen lay asleep on a truckle bed between my own bed and the wall. He didn’t wake as I entered. I saw the outline of his body under the covers, somehow smaller in sleep, and heard his slow, almost soundless breathing.
I sat down on the side of my bed and tried to argue a little sense into myself. Why should Lady Quincy have meant any more than her words had said? There was a matter she wanted to discuss confidentially with me. That was all.
However, I removed my coat and wig, laid them on the bed and washed my hands and face in the basin on the table. I took a toothpick to my teeth. I had not shaved for three or four days but it was too late to worry about that. I put on my coat and tugged down the sleeves. I set the wig on my head and straightened it as best I could without a mirror.
I had felt that pressure on my foot under the table at supper. It hadn’t been the vicar or Warley. It must have been Lady Quincy.
‘You’re a fool,’ I whispered to myself. ‘You’re a fool.’
Lady Quincy’s bedchamber was directly under mine. The air was chilly and damp, for Mistress Warley had not ordered a fire to be lit for her guest. The room was lit by two candles, one on the night table by the bed, and the other on a dressing table, with a mirror behind it that doubled the light it threw into the room. There was a smell of perfume – musky, with a hint of something earthy underlying it.
Lady Quincy was already in bed, propped against the pillows. I looked about for Ann, her maid, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Close the door,’ she said softly. ‘And put the bolt across.’
I obeyed her. My fingers shook as I pushed the bolt into its socket.
‘It’s so cold, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Damp, as well. I wonder when this room was last used.’
I turned to her and said abruptly, ‘Why do you want to speak to me, madam?’
She patted the bed. ‘Come and sit here, Mr Marwood. I can hardly see you over there. And it would not do for us to raise our voices.’
When I sat down, she moved to make room for me on the bed. Her bedgown fell open, showing the smock she wore beneath it and the swell of her breasts.
Dear God, I thought, must she tease me so? It was either that or she considered me essentially harmless, a c
reature without carnal desires, someone like Ann or Stephen. It was a form of humiliation, however I looked at it.
‘This is a dreary place, isn’t it?’ she said, smiling. ‘I believe that foul old woman would drown us both in the mud if she thought she could get away with it.’
I found myself smiling back, drawn into her humour. Her white hand lay inches away from my leg. Her fingers picked at the coverlet.
‘I don’t know how I could have managed this journey without you,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you would have managed perfectly well, madam.’
‘You value yourself too low, sir. The King was determined to send someone with me, you know, so I asked for you. And he commended my choice.’
I like flattery as much as any man, but I was wary of it in this context.
‘And here,’ she went on, ‘we have a difficulty where I least expected to find one.’
‘Mistress Warley, you mean? We must go back to London empty-handed, I suppose. Unless we stay a night or two in Cambridge and you write to the King for instructions from there.’
‘There’s another way. If the foolish old woman won’t give us Frances, we simply take her.’
‘But we can’t do that. Think of the scandal, madam.’
‘I’m sure we would be able to find a way to contain it. It would hardly help Mistress Warley if the news got abroad, would it? After all, she has no legal right to the child. And her grandson will do what he can to suppress the story, even if he dares not cross her to her face, in this house. He is ambitious. He knows whom he must please if he is to find preferment.’
‘We can’t simply call Frances to us and walk out of the house with her,’ I said. ‘Even if the child obeyed, Mistress Warley’s quite capable of using force to stop us. What do you suggest? That your servant and I draw our swords and fight our way out of here?’
The unexpected humour of the situation caught us both off guard, and we smiled at each other, suddenly as complicit as children in their shared naughtiness.
‘I think the old lady would almost enjoy a battle,’ Lady Quincy said.
‘And she might well win. Swords or no swords, there are any number of servants or peasants in this barbarous place who will do her bidding. What if someone were hurt, or even killed? Remember, we have no standing here.’
She shifted on the pillows, and her eyes met mine. ‘Then we must find a way to prevent her from raising the village against us.’
‘How would we do that?’ The conversation had taken such a bizarre turn that I was still smiling, still willing to indulge this flight of fancy. ‘Break into her chamber? Tie her up and gag her? Lock her door, and then leave in a hurry, before anyone can stop us?’
She nodded. ‘That might answer very well.’
‘I spoke in jest, madam, as well you know.’
‘And as well you know, sir, many a true word is spoken in jest.’ She turned towards me, and the contours beneath the smock shifted. ‘Mistress Warley has been most discourteous to us, and I don’t mind causing her a little discomfort. I have come here for Frances, and I will leave with her.’ She paused. ‘If you will help me.’
‘I can’t. It’s a reckless scheme. Mistress Warley may have no legal right to the child, but we have no right to confine her in her own house. Imagine the scandal if it got out. I can’t think that the King would approve.’
‘I’m not talking about the King. I’m talking about me.’
She lifted her hand from the coverlet. She held it up, parting the fingers, and the candle flame made five shadows on my leg. Then she picked up my own hand and carried it to her breast.
If I were a knave or a courtier, a strutting soldier or a lewd apprentice, I would boast of my conquest, embellishing the story to make my lusty qualities shine like a beacon. But I’m none of these things, though sometimes I wish I were: instead, my conscience ambushes me when I least expect it. For all I might wish to take these things lightly, I cannot. To do so would cut against the grain of who I am and who I was. Even when we reach man’s estate, we never quite escape our childish selves.
So, back to the matter of Olivia, Lady Quincy, and myself, and what happened that night. The first time was rushed – on my part not hers – for it was not within my power to delay for an instant what I had desired for so long.
Without warning, it was over.
The candles were still burning. I was still half dressed. The very touch of her, the sight of her, had been enough to catch me unawares. Then disappointment. Was this all there was and ever would be, this quick, unhappy fumble?
I drew away from her. I felt ashamed of myself. I had allowed myself to succumb to her charms, knowing that she could not desire me. All I wanted was to retreat into the welcoming darkness.
But she said – from pity? from policy? – ‘It’s cold. Snuff out the candles and come to bed.’
I undressed to my shirt and climbed into the high bed. She and I lay side by side in the tolerant, enchanted darkness, only our hands touching. The sheets were warm with the heat of her body.
For a while neither of us spoke. I wondered if she despised me as I despised myself. But a bargain was still a bargain. I could not renege on it, for that would be another thing that would go against the grain. I had committed myself to help her in her mad scheme. I wondered at myself, too, for agreeing to do what she wanted, and for so strange and unsatisfactory a reward.
At her request, I had closed the bed curtains. The darkness was absolute. I felt, rather than saw, her head turn towards me on the pillow. Her breath touched my cheek, soft as a whisper.
‘You must think me mad,’ she said, ‘even to entertain such a plan.’
‘Not mad. Reckless, certainly. Either that or …’
‘Or what?’
‘Or there’s something I don’t yet understand.’ I turned my own head. Our faces could be no more than six inches apart. I abandoned all caution, for after what had happened between us there was no reason not to speak my mind. ‘You don’t strike me as reckless. Quite the reverse. So there must be a reason for your determination to take Frances away, and to take her now.’
‘Go on, Marwood.’
‘Who wants her so badly? You or the King? Or possibly both?’ I thought of Stephen and his scrofula. ‘Is it to do with the King’s Evil?’
She gave a snort of laughter. ‘You could say that. Light the candle. I want to see you.’
I swung my legs out of bed and tugged back the bed curtain. I fumbled in the darkness for the tinderbox on the night table. It took me at least a minute to light the candle there, and I was glad of the chance to think. The flame caught at last. I watched it grow on the wick, wavering in a draught.
‘Perhaps the disease must receive swift treatment if it is to be cured,’ I said. ‘Though it can’t be as urgent as that, for a few days could not much matter either way. But perhaps you aren’t certain of the King’s wishes?’ I paused and then said casually, ‘Is she his daughter?’
‘I can see why you might wonder that,’ Lady Quincy said.
I waited but she said nothing more. If Frances were the King’s bastard, why had she been tucked away in this godforsaken place? I remembered my speculation earlier today: that perhaps the child’s mother was married to someone else, and the bastard had been spirited away to avoid the husband learning of his wife’s infidelity.
I climbed back into bed and turned to look at Lady Quincy’s head next to mine on the pillow. The light of the candle flickered over her face, turning it into an unfamiliar landscape: it created valleys and hills, it turned her eyes into golden pools. And yet—
The landscape was not so unfamiliar after all. I had seen a similar face, and seen it very recently. I had been a fool. ‘Madam,’ I said. ‘Is Frances your daughter?’
I sensed her body stiffening beside mine.
All she said was, ‘Would you still help me if she were?’
‘Yes. I said I would.’
I heard her letting out her breath. We lay
together without speaking for a moment, our own breathing the only sound in the room. Somewhere outside, an owl hooted. A dog barked twice, and then fell silent. I tried to imagine Frances as a young woman, her plumpness gone, her scrofula cured, her body no longer a child’s. Yes, it was perfectly possible that the adult Frances would make a copy of her mother. A crude copy, perhaps, but still one that derived unmistakably from the original beside me in the bed.
‘She’s your child,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Lady Quincy’s hand moved from the sheet between us and rested on my leg. She lifted the hem of my shirt. I thought, what does it matter?
This time it took longer. Towards the end, however, something unexpected happened. As the rhythm speeded up, as our double urgency reached its peak, my mind filled with an incongruous image. I thought of Catherine Lovett on the pillion saddle we had shared when we had ridden back from the refugee camp three days earlier. I thought of how she had changed since I had last seen her in May, and the touch of her body bobbing up and down behind me, and her breath on my cheek when I turned back to her.
Cat Lovett? God help me, I thought, surprised into childish superstition, what witchcraft is this?
And then, in a rush of sensation, it was all over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
WHILE IT WAS still dark, I went back to my own room. I fell asleep almost at once.
I woke an hour or two later, when the dawn light was fingering its way between the curtains of the bed. Despite having had so little sleep, I felt refreshed. I needed the pot so I got up and pulled it from under the bed. As I relieved myself, I glanced down at the pallet where Stephen lay.
He wasn’t there.
I flung open the curtains over the window. Light poured into the room. His covers were thrown back. He had been there when I came up to the bedroom before going to see Lady Quincy. But I hadn’t noticed him when I returned. I hadn’t looked. At some point in the night he must have gone, but I had no idea when.
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