by J. D. Davies
Lord Teviot asked me if I wished for more wine, and I asked for my glass to be charged, if only because I dreaded what might come next.
Our new Countess is to be Louise, Lady De Vaux. You might have heard of her, for she has a considerable name at court. Several names, indeed, of which 'harlot' is the one least likely to cause offence to the King of Spain's Inquisition if they intercept any of the copies of this letter. But she has an ample estate, it's said, thanks to two dead husbands. Now, Matt, some will say that two dead rich husbands are the will of God. Yet I have witnessed all the late troubles in this land, and have seen death come in a thousand ways or more, and I wonder—can two dead husbands truly be the will of God, or the will of the Lady Louise? And thus, what intentions might she harbour toward her third? You will forgive me for such thoughts, for believe me, they are as nothing to the opinion of your own dear wife, who rode here to Oxford but yesterday to regale me upon the matter. This was typical of Cornelia, who would not have balked at the surprised stares and caustic comments of those who witnessed a lady of breeding riding hell-for-leather (as was always her wont) the fifty or so miles between Ravensden Abbey and Oxford. I could also imagine her opinion. Indeed, I did not need to imagine it for very long; it awaited me on the pages of her many letters. Even today, in these rude and permissive times, I have rarely encountered an author who possesses such a richly diverse vocabulary of the obscene. If Tristram's concerns over potential interception by the Spanish Inquisition had any justification, and even if only one of my wife's letters had fallen into their hands, then the successors of Torquemada would have significantly enhanced their comprehension of human anatomy. Such were the consequences of Cornelia's childhood, much of which was spent avoiding her dull parents and mixing happily with the foul-mouthed sailors and fishwives who thronged the quays of Veere, her home town in Zeeland.
I returned to my uncle's peroration. Forgive me, nephew, for I write importunely. You cannot possibly influence or deter what is to come to pass—what might already have come to pass, perhaps, by the time that you and your ship return safe to England's shore. Perhaps these are but the rantings of an old and bitter man, and your brother and the Lady Louise will indeed provide the longed-for heir to Ravensden. God knows, they may live in married bliss hereafter, to the glory and honour of our ancient lineage. But I write this to you now, as your father's son and the bearer of my father's name, knowing that you will not betray my confidence, and that you will share at least some of my fears for Charles and our most glorious, but most vulnerable, House of Quinton. God be with you, dearest nephew.
Your most loving uncle,
T. Quinton.
T. Quinton; never Tristram. I put down the letter, and saw Teviot's eyes upon me. He asked me how I fared, or something of the sort. I cannot recall it, but I can recall my reply: ' The longed-for heir to Ravensden. But I am the heir to Ravensden.' A responsibility I had shunned all my life; and yet the prospect of it being taken away by the issue of this unnatural marriage brought on a strange surge of anger. 'My poor brother. My poor family. This cannot happen. This will not happen.'
PART TWO
Ravensden Abbey, Newmarket, and London
September to December 1663
Three
'She is a murderess, and twice over,' said my wife. 'I am convinced of it. Tristram is convinced of it.'
My anger toward the marriage had been tempered in the long weeks that it had taken the Wessex to make passage back to England. It survived a great storm in the Bay of Biscay, then began to abate a little as we were driven back by contrary winds in the Channel, and finally blew over as we made our way round from the Downs to Chatham, where we had finally moored but a few days before. Musk had immediately resumed his old duties as steward of our London house, relegating to ancillary duties the youthful Barcock who had substituted for him during his absence at sea. Thus I had made my way north alone, returning finally to the ancient monastic pile that now passed for our family home.
Upon my return to the crumbling ancestral walls of Ravensden Abbey, I had certain matters of the flesh in mind. But Cornelia turned away, to stand in determined, cross-armed isolation at the window of our bare old room, looking out over the ruins of the old abbey church.
And she is to be the Countess!' she continued, more sad than furious. 'Countess of Ravensden! Mistress of this house—our home, Matthew, until you finally have sufficient income from your pitiful naval service to get us some mean tenement in London. If you ever do, of course, and are not killed by a Turk, or drowned in a storm, leaving me a widow and at the mercy of your mother and this De Vaux stoephoer .' Cornelia had still not really forgiven me for turning down a commission in the Guards, and with it status, privilege, a splendid uniform, and above all a regular income. Nor had she reconciled herself to my chosen career in the navy, even though her own brother had been captain of a Dutch man-of-war for ten years or more (and had been on hand providentially to save my life during my second commission). 'Dear Lord, think on that, husband—she will be the Countess. She will have power over us, that vuile teef—' Cornelia's vitriol began to translate into her native Dutch. I moved toward her, opening my arms in loving greeting once more, and hoping by that means to curtail the beginnings of another colourful diatribe against the Lady De Vaux. She turned from me and said, 'It is all your mother's doing, of course. All so that there may be an heir. All because we cannot—I cannot—' The tears began, and I went to her, putting my arms around her. She turned to me and said, 'You must put me away, Matt. I will turn papist, become a nun at Brussels as your mother suggests. I will accept a divorce. You must marry another, who will give this house its heir. It will be better than forcing this unnatural marriage onto poor Charles—'
I lifted her face and looked into those dear, deep, weeping eyes. 'Never. No, never, Cornelia. We are one. Forever. I would rather forsake the King and the navy than forsake you.'
She cried much more, then laughed a little, and in but a brief time my thoughts of the flesh were made real.
Our splendid afternoon sojourn was short lived. It was not curtailed by my mother, who was unaware of my early return from the Straits and had thus decamped to nearby Buckden, the palace of the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, to lecture that unfortunate prelate on the manifest evils of the increasing number of dissenting congregations in Bedfordshire. Instead, it was one of the many sons of our ancient steward, Barcock, who knocked delicately on our door, informing us that the Vicar of Ravensden had learned of my return from sea and wished to present his compliments. Cornelia sighed, something she had done often enough in the last hour, but in this case it expressed her discontent rather than her pleasure. Until but six months before, my own reaction would have been even more vocal. Our previous incumbent, the Reverend George Jermy, had been so old and so dull that his continued presence on this earth was almost as much a mystery as the continued presence of his congregation. Faced with the tedium of his sermons, it was a miracle that the entire village had not decamped to the woods to join the dissenters who so alarmed my mother. But finally, and in the presence of myself, the Earl, and the Dowager Countess of Ravensden, Jermy had simply halted in the middle of the first verse of Chapter Twenty-Three of Deuteronomy, fallen gently forward in his pulpit, and given up the ghost to a maker who presumably had forgotten to reclaim him several decades before.
I dressed, descended the stairs, entered the grand porch of Ravensden Abbey, lined with the swords and armour of my ancestors, and greeted our new rector, a broad, strong man of close to fifty years.
'Captain Quinton,' he said. 'I rejoice at your return from the Straits, sir. In approximately equal measure, Matt, I regret that I could not accompany you and cleave my sword into the hordes of heathen Turks.'
At that he grinned, and we both embraced; for at my behest, on Jermy's death my brother had exercised his right of patronage over the parish of Ravensden by installing my former chaplain aboard the Jupiter, the Reverend Francis Gale.
I led my dea
r friend to the library, the octagonal room that had been the chapter house of the original abbey. It was one of the few large rooms still in a state fit enough to receive visitors, although a suspicious odour of damp was beginning to cling to many of the books. Francis Gale was no longer the bitter and hopeless sot that I had first encountered on the Jupiter, a man consumed by the dreadful death of the woman he loved and their unborn child amidst the horror of Cromwell's onslaught at Drogheda. But nor was Francis Gale made to be an entirely abstemious paragon of sobriety. He still relished a bottle, though now he imbibed for good cheer and fellowship, not to drive away his tormenting demons. Thus he had rapidly become firm friends with my uncle; they spent many long hours in this very library, debating everything from the nature of the Trinity to the peculiar shape of Lady Castlemaine's bosom, with every discourse washed down by generous measures of old sack and some of the more ancient wines that my grandfather had brought back from France.
Another young Barcock brought us some flagons of good local ale, and we settled to discourse. Francis wanted every detail of my journey to the Straits, of my meeting with the corsair and the knight of Malta, and of the renegade Irishman O'Dwyer, who now sat in a cell of the Tower, awaiting the King's pleasure. He, too, was convinced that the man was a fraud, one of the many imposters and cunning men who had crawled out from under stones since the King's restoration, hoping to take advantage of a generous-hearted monarch and an inexperienced government. A mountain of gold? No, it was preposterous, Francis thought: a myth, or a mere story to divert young children.
We turned to other matters, and I asked how he was enjoying his new living. 'Ah, there's much to do, Matt. As you'll know better than I, my predecessor had not really been the most active servant of the Lord for many years. Decades, if truth be told. There are grown men yet unbaptised, and I have yet to find one villager who knows his Creed. Then there's the fabric of the church itself—apparently the choir boys have wagered on whether the bells will fall before the tower collapses, or vice-versa. And the parish registers are chaos.' Francis sighed and took a long draught of ale. 'Pieces of paper everywhere, some chewed by rats, some years not written up at all. Yesterday I found the page with the marriage record of your great-grandfather, the seventh earl, from the year 1557. It was in the vicarage's privy, ready for use, along with a whole set of transcripts that should have been sent off to the bishop in King James' time. But thankfully I have the lad, Andrewartha. He's a good worker, and his appetite for putting records in order is rather greater than mine. He shows a true vocation, and I hope shortly to secure a place for him at Emmanuel in Cambridge, my old college. He'll be a fine candidate for the Church.'
This pleased me; young Andrewartha had been an officer's servant on the Jupiter, and was saved from a court-martial and an almost certain hanging by the generous spirit of Francis Gale. But the mention of my ancestor's marriage brought me back to present concerns, and I said, 'Well, Francis. So what is your opinion of the proposed match between my brother and the Lady De Vaux?'
I had seen Francis Gale in many states. I had seen him drunk. I had seen him angry, I had seen him desperately sad, I had seen him deliriously happy. I had seen him kill men with rabid blood-lust in his eyes. But until that moment, I had never seen him embarrassed. Haltingly, he said, 'She—she is a fine lady, sir. She will be a countess to bring credit to this house—'
The library door was thrown open with such force that it struck hard against the inner wall, shaking loose some plaster from the ceiling. 'Oh, kloten—bollocks, Francis!' cried Cornelia, who was finally dressed.
We stood, and my wife made straight for my flagon of ale and drained a long draught. As the world knows, Dutch women come out of the womb crying not for their mother's milk, but for beer.
I said, 'My dear, perhaps Francis has a different opinion of her—'
Gale sat, but rather less comfortably than before. 'Oh, husband,' said Cornelia. 'Think on it! I will say what Francis dares not, but which should be obvious to the man who could be Earl of Ravensden in a heartbeat. For but a few months more, at any rate. In this country, any vicar owes his place to whoever holds the right of presentation to the living. Is this not so? Thus Francis remains our vicar only at the pleasure of the earl, although of course, that pleasure would also be shaped by the two women who bear the title Countess of Ravensden—the earl's mother and his new wife. And should there ever be any debate in the matter, the final judgment would rest with the Supreme Governor of the Church that Francis serves. The earl's friend King Charles, in other words. Now, what do all of those who hold power over poor Francis's position have in common? Ah yes. They all favour the marriage.'
For my part, I was increasingly uneasy that both my wife and uncle had condemned this woman out of hand, without fair trial and without even meeting her. But in one sense she was right. The Vicar of Ravensden's position was particularly delicate, perhaps because—'Oh, Francis,' I said, 'surely you are not to officiate at this ceremony?'
Francis Gale essayed a little smile of relief. 'No, Captain. God places men in situations that are invidious enough, and He has not sought fit to inflict that additional punishment upon me, thanks be to Him. The ceremony will be at Saint Paul's, no less, and in November, so thankfully distant. It's as well, really, for Ravensden Church could never hold the congregation that's expected. What's more, the King himself intends to give away the bride, so I would not wish to be held to account if the roof collapsed in the middle of the service. Some might construe that as high treason.'
Ah, Francis, my old and long-gone friend; would that we all have the gift of second sight. For the roof, tower and bells of Ravensden Church are all still there and sound enough, more than sixty years on. They will probably still be there at Doomsday. Whereas, of course, old Saint Paul's was reduced to cinders but three years later.
Cornelia sniffed. 'Ha, Charles Stuart only chose Saint Paul's because no other church is large enough to accommodate his brood of mistresses and bastards. Then there will be the family and confidantes of our new countess, of course. A veritable multitude they'll be.'
Francis said, 'Not so, Mistress Quinton. It seems she has no immediate family of any sort.'
Cornelia and I leaned forward, almost in unison. This was news indeed. My wife said, 'No family? Who has no family, other than beggars, orphans and the very old? Most of us have too much family.' This was undoubtedly true of her own breed, the van der Eides: her parents, brother, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, spread across a large swathe of the Netherlands and Flanders, constituted a vast dynasty of tedium. It was less true of the Quintons, a line that was almost extinct; but even I had a living mother, a brother, a sister and an uncle (as well as innumerable cousins on my mother's and grandmother's sides of the family, including even a few who were both sane and not French).
Francis nodded. 'Quite, Mistress. But the Master has written to tell me that he has been conducting some discreet researches into Lady De Vaux's history. He has no conclusions as yet, but as he writes in a letter I received only today, neither does she. No conclusion to any branch of her family's history, for there seems to be no family.'
The juxtaposition of Master and Mistress confused me momentarily. Then I realised that 'the Master' could only be my uncle Tristram, the Master of Mauleverer. So Tris was looking into our new countess's past.
I looked at my wife, and at my friend Francis Gale, and knew in that moment that I was looking upon the beginnings of a conspiracy. My heart cried out to me to join it, there and then, but my head urged different counsels. You have not spoken with your brother, said my head, and after all, it is his marriage. My heart protested that it might indeed be his marriage, but that it was my inheritance, for good or ill, sought or unsought; my duty to the past and future of the House of Quinton. Besides, my brother was far away, inspecting the bleak and barely economical estate in Northumberland that a complex marriage-settlement had brought to our family a century or so before. That may be, said my head, but neither
have you spoken with the two who urge this marriage more than any others. This was so, but I could hardly seek an audience of Our Sovereign Lord the King to demand to know why he wished my brother to marry a suspected murderous whore. But as for the other...
As if summoned by angels or demons, the state coach of the Earls of Ravensden thundered into the stable yard beyond the library window, an unjustifiably extravagant team of six horses pulling it home. Two young Barcocks rushed forward to the door that bore our ancient blazon of arms, opened it, and helped a tall but stooped old woman to descend. Still clad in mourning black, some eighteen years after her husband's death, the Lady Anne, Dowager Countess of Ravensden, looked about her with a satisfied air and made her way slowly towards our old house, bent almost double, her two sticks striking the cobbles and giving her the unsettling sight and sound of a vast and ancient spider, moving relentlessly towards its next fly.
