Frobisher's Savage

by Leonard Tourney

  Alice nodded, gulped some air, and said, “It is said that he makes lies on Mistress Stock’s commands.”

  “What lies?” Joan asked.

  “Lies about John Crookback, and what went on before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before—in the old days. When John Crookback returned from the sea to take up his inheritance. It is said these lies are shaped to put into question their inheritance because the Stocks would have the land for themselves.”

  “A foolish slander,” Matthew said. “What possible claim could we have to Crookback Farm, even if the rest of these libels are true?”

  “It is said that if the claim of the Profytts and Carews is doubtful, then my husband may lay claim, which claim he intends to share with you. It is said that you are planning to accuse the daughters of the murders, for no murderer can inherit his victim’s goods.”

  “So may the law decree,” said Joan, “but I still do not understand how Matthew or I should benefit from your husband’s inheritance any more than another citizen who urged your husband on.”

  “Sarah Bright said she understood that you and your husband and my shiftless one and I were all at one in the conspiracy. That you were working to clear Nicholas and Master Burton’s servant from blame and to shift suspicion to the Profytts and Carews.”

  “Still that would not accrue any benefit to us,” Matthew reasoned. “We have no connection to the Crookbacks, nor does anyone think it that I know of. Free of blame, Nicholas Crookback is the true heir as the sole surviving son of John Crookback.”

  “Sarah Bright said that it was all a conspiracy, that you would find a way to make my husband the heir. Why, she even said to me she hoped I would remember her well when I came into my newfound wealth, although she warned me to beware of my husband’s love, for she said when men became suddenly wealthy they often tired of old wives and sought out new. I am healthy as a horse and plan to live until I am old, said I. But she said, men have ways to bring good women to an early grave.”

  “This is all confused and malicious gossip,” Matthew said with disgust. “It makes no sense at all. Surely a reasonable person would see that we have no way of benefitting from the Crookback inheritance. I am no farmer, but a clothier, and no more relation to John Crookback than to the queen.”

  For a while Joan had been silent; Matthew looked up at her, as though to ask if her fury was spent. “I am thinking,” she said, “that something of these calumnies is truth.”

  “What, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Well,” Joan said, regarding her husband with a shrewd expression she reserved for occasions when she was thinking very hard about something, “my queries do undermine the claims of the Profytts and Carews. If John Crookback that appeared to be was some other person only posing as the heir, then his claim was fraud. Nor would the imposter’s daughters—or for that matter his son, Nicholas—have a valid claim. Another heir must be sought, and as far as is known, Richard is the only living relation of old Abraham Crookback.”

  Matthew thought about this, then said, “Marry, so it may be that this assumption of impostership undermines their claims. Still, it is not true we have accused Agnes or Mildred of murder.”

  “We have made no charges of that kind,” Joan agreed, “but consider this. Wliat if their father was not John Crookback, mariner, but some erstwhile companion of the real heir, who, having learned the circumstances of the true John Crookback’s youth, then returned upon the true heir’s death—or heaven forfend, murder—pretending to be John Crookback?” “Go on,” Matthew said.

  “Then toward his life’s end, this same imposter of whatever true name remains yet to be discovered, is called to account by conscience, informs his family of the truth and his intention to confess all that he may find a place in heaven. The children of such a man would be disgraced. More to the purpose, they would lose all, the farmstead as well as their reputation.”

  “I cannot believe patricide would proceed from such a motive,” Matthew said. “Agnes and Mildred are the daughters of the dead man.”

  “A man that rumor held was much detested by the same daughters, and the stepmother and her brood held in less esteem by these children of the first wife. It all fits, Matthew, like hand in glove. The Profytts and Carews are of modest means. Their shares of Crookback Farm would enhance their wealth considerably, just as the silence of their father about his true identity would spare them disgrace. There may indeed be things that even the greedy will not do for money, but the desire to avoid the contempt of one’s neighbors may be an even stronger motive to break God’s laws and man’s.”

  For another hour she developed her theory, until her husband claimed he was persuaded that there might be more truth in it than imagination. “But you must do more than conjecture,” he said. “Proof must be furnished, of which precious commodity we have little at present.”

  “At least it’s a beginning,” she said smiling pleasantly at him, grateful for this modicum of support, for she was not perfectly sure of her theory herself, and not unhappy at the vision of Agnes Profytt or Mildred Carew—or perhaps both— dangling from a hangman’s rope.

  By the end of the afternoon the absence of custom in his shop had made Matthew even more worried about the damage done by Agnes Profytt’s malice, if indeed she was the source of the calumnies. He also had second thoughts about Joan’s account of the murder, which he believed not so neatly woven as she had argued with such vigor. In the first place he wondered why, if the murders were the work of the daughters and their husbands, Nicholas Crookback should have been spared. By all accounts, the daughters hated their half brother, finding him both obnoxious and an embarrassment to them. Why should he not also have been slain and dumped down the well? Unless of course Nicholas was an ally against his own father, which thing Matthew could hardly credit.

  And in the second place, he thought the preventing of the false John Crookback’s confession would not require the murder of his wife and other children. Unless Crookback had told them and they too knew the truth, which thing Matthew thought possible but unlikely. No, to Matthew, the breadth of the slaughter suggested revenge, not a desire to suppress a dangerous truth. Master Fuller’s view that Adam Nemo murdered the Crookbacks had this to recommend it, that a savage bent on avenging an old wrong might according to his benighted reasoning kill his enemy and all his relations too. That made a kind of sense. Joan’s explanation did not.

  He was mulling over these matters when the door of his shop opened. He looked up expectantly, hoping to see one customer at least, and was surprised to see the very man of whom he had been thinking. But Fuller was hardly alone; with him were Sir Thomas, William Dees, and Miles Carew. All the men looked very serious, and when he welcomed them to his shop Sir Thomas responded with a curt God save you, and they all came in and stood around very awkwardly, Matthew thought. He asked if this worshipful company were there to buy cloth, but no one answered or seemed to appreciate his humor.

  Having heard the shop bell ring, Joan at the same time came in from the kitchen and now stood wiping her hands on her apron. Before anyone could say another word, she was asking Sir Thomas and Master Fuller if their worships would have something to eat or drink, for it was late in the day, she said, almost suppertime. And she looked at Matthew too, as though to ask if more light should be fetched, for it was near four in the afternoon if she had counted the last peal rightly.

  “We will not stay long enough to partake of your hospitality, Mistress Stock,” Sir Thomas said solemnly, and then he turned to Matthew and said, 4 4We have heard some things we like not, Master Stock.”

  “What would those things be, Your Honor?” Matthew replied, feeling that he already knew and shifting his own gaze to meet that of Miles Carew, whose smug expression convinced Matthew that he was right.

  “I will not mince words,” Sir Thomas said. “I have heard that you and your wife have been asking questions touching upon Miles Carew’s late father-in-law and have be
en casting suspicion among your neighbors, so as to throw into doubt the guilt of Nicholas Crookback and him they call Adam Nemo in that same person’s murder. I would know if what I have been told is true, and if it be so, what proof you have to offer.”

  Matthew exchanged glances with Joan, who was standing very still, her hands still caught up in her apron. In the dim light of the window her face seemed gray and immobile.

  “I admit, Your Honor, that I have my doubts about the guilt of the two persons you have named.”

  4 4And your proof? ’ ’

  Matthew again looked at Joan. Her dark, watchful eyes gave him no signal of reassurance. Looking back at the magistrate, Matthew shrugged and admitted that he had none, not an iota.

  “I see,” said Sir Thomas, frowning. “So you have no proof at all.”

  “Yet that either my wife or I have cast suspicion upon any other persons is a malicious falsehood spread by I know not whom,” Matthew said.

  “We have heard otherwise, Master Stock,” said Fuller, stepping forward a little, so that his imposing form seemed to fill the room. “Miles Carew here claims you told Sarah Bright that his wife was no true descendent of Abraham Crookback, and that both he and his wife might have had good reason to see her late father brought to his grave sooner than the natural course of things allowed. To me that is nothing else but an accusation of murder.”

  “And I am falsely accused, and my wife as well,” said Miles Carew, lifting his chin defiantly behind Fuller.

  “As God is my witness, I have made no such accusations,” Matthew said.

  Now Joan spoke, declaring that she too had never said any such thing and hoped heaven would spare whoever had claimed otherwise, for it was a damnable lie and false witness.

  “Moreover, there is a wealth of evidence proving the two prisoners guilty as charged,” Fuller said, looking around at the other men for support of this proposition. “Who but a heathen would have committed such a monstrous act? Who but a simpleton could suppose that decent Christians such as none may doubt the Profytts and the Carews to be would risk damnation to kill their very parents. It’s a monstrous thing just to think it.”

  “Well,” Joan said, “Nicholas is their son and he is accused. Why is it less monstrous to accuse the son of killing the father than to accuse the daughters?”

  Fuller regarded Joan contemptuously. “Why, what are you thinking, woman? This Nicholas is no ordinary boy. His affliction is a curse of God—for some evil done either by him or by his parents. Were it otherwise, he would be whole. In any case, he cannot be considered to have the same moral impulses as a normal child. He cannot be trusted to have within his heart the law which makes patricide unthinkable.”

  Joan had no answer to Fuller’s speech. He was a learned man; she was a simple housewife. What did she know of moral impulses or patricide, whose daily concern was the care of her husband and the rearing of her child? And yet Joan knew in her heart what Fuller had said was neither right nor true. Whatever a moral impulse was, she was convinced it was as much a part of Nicholas’s being as it was of her own. She had looked into the boy’s eyes; she had seen no evil there. And while she might not know a fig of philosophy, she knew right from wrong, goodness from its opposite. If anything, Nicholas’s affliction was a blessing from God, setting him apart from his neighbors, surrounding him with the aura of sanctity. But she did not put these thoughts into words. She merely bowed her head in apparent submission, praying that Fuller would now be satisfied that his point was made.

  But then Matthew answered on her behalf. “The accused men are no strangers to this town,” he said in a calm, confident voice, looking straight in Fuller s eye. “Adam Nemo has lived among us for twenty years, since John Crookback brought him here; Nicholas Crookback all of his life. Were either imbued with the evil you suggest, sir, surely it would have manifested itself earlier. But it did not so. No one has complained of Nicholas’s behavior. No one ever feared Adam Nemo’s vengefulness, nor even detected it. No one thought anything but that Adam was a foreigner, like one of the Dutchmen who labor in our trade, and for that reason strange in appearance, and strange of speech. It seems wrong to me that he should be condemned for a moral fault simply because he is not English—as it seems wrong Nicholas should be likewise regarded because an accident of birth left him deaf and dumb. Surely God understands the words of his heart, and if indeed this is so, then we do him wrong to call him evil whom God has heard in silent prayers.”

  For a moment Fuller made no answer to Matthew’s statement. Joan held her breath. The room was deadly quiet.

  Then Fuller said, “I see, Master Stock, that what is said of you in the town is true, that you think a great deal of yourself, for how else should you presume to contend with me over matters of philosophy? Have you been at the university, then, and studied these matters, or do you have your learning from some other place?”

  “I have no learning, sir,” Matthew said, “above what I have acquired in my trade and in our school here, and precious little in the latter.”

  “Then you speak presumptuously and foolishly,” Fuller said. “Take my advice. Seek not to counsel those whom God has chosen to place above you.”

  “Master Fuller speaks wisely, Matthew,” said Sir Thomas. “He has studied the nature of humankind for many years and has traveled among the savages of America. He knows their practices and their disposition. As for the good demeanor of this Adam Nemo, it is not unusual for these savages’ true natures to rest obscure for many a year, only to burst forth when they are least expected. Is that not so, Master Fuller?”

  Fuller said it was.

  There was another awkward silence, during which Joan was so fearful that she wished she might sink through the very floor. She looked at Matthew, whose face was ashen, but whose eyes still burned hotly with what she recognized as suppressed anger.

  “I am heartily sorry if I have overstepped myself,” Matthew said. He looked at Joan and then made a low bow in Fuller’s direction. “And I beg your pardon, Master Fuller. Of course I do not presume to know more than you about philosophy or human nature. I am a clothier, a simple man.”

  “Well then,” said Sir Thomas, “let us have no more contention about these accused persons. Let the queen’s law take its course. At their trial all evidence will be heard, and at that time I trust justice will be done and with great satisfaction we will watch these two hanged.”

  There were murmurs of agreement from William Dees and Miles Carew at this. Then Miles Carew said, “What about the slanders against my wife and family, Sir Thomas? Should Stock not be admonished to desist?”

  “I do admonish him, Miles Carew,” Sir Thomas said, looking directly at Matthew. “And his good wife as well. The town has been more than troubled by these murders. Let those troubles not be added upon by malicious rumor, nor a decent family who has lost much in these horrors be vilified by groundless suspicions. John Crookback’s claims to his father’s farm were duly considered, with honest witnesses coming forth, such as our good William Dees who knew John Crookback from boyhood on and acquitted himself so bravely yesterday. The matter is settled once and for all. Let us not dig up old controversies that have been laid to rest. Is that understood, Matthew?”

  Matthew said it was. Their visitors departed without further word, and husband and wife stood looking at each other and not saying anything for some time.

  That morning Adam’s jailers brought him breakfast—a piece of moldy bread and a thin gruel in which he found nothing afloat. The gruel was cold, tasteless as brackish water. But it was all one with him who had no appetite at all and had determined not to eat. He spent his time listening, and he would have called out for Nicholas if calling out would have done any good. The smell of his own excrement, unremoved from the leaking chamber pot left for him, was so disgusting as to bring on an awful nausea. This he endured too, waiting now for the end of his misery.

  He was contemplating that end, and it was worrying him not at all, when he wa
s startled by the ring of a pistol shot from somewhere nearby. His heart failed him for fear—not for himself, for had he his choice he would have preferred a ball in the head or heart to a broken neck, or worse, slow strangulation upon the gibbet. But what of Nicholas. Had they killed him outright, without waiting for the trial?

  Only a short time later Adam heard several sets of footsteps approaching. The door was unlocked, and then it swung open; three men—one of whom was the near giant, he who had escorted Adam roughly into his narrow cell the day before— stood outside.

  “There he is,” said the big man, his face as round and pocky as the moon. “Take your look and do not say I asked too much for the honor.”

  The other two men, who were evidently household servants such as Adam had been, smooth-faced and neat in their liveries, looked in hesitantly. One made a face of disgust and complained of the stench.

  “Oh that’s as much him as his shit,” said the big man in response to the complaint. “The savages all smell that way. Master Fuller says as much. But does he not look like the very image of a murderer?”

  The servant who had voiced the complaint said it was so, and the big man said all savages were murderers at heart and that no honest Englishman would be safe until the miscreant before them rode upon the three-legged mare, as the gallows of St. Giles was called.

  “Pray God he ride soon,” said the third man, who had flaxen hair so soft a woman could have been proud of it and a clear blue eye and red lips. He looked at Adam as though he were a dead, bloated dog rotting on his doorstep.

  “Oh he will ride soon enough,” said the big man, “for the evidence is weighty against him, though he has the gall to deny it. His companion, the dummy, is another. He’s English, but of the same heathenish stripe, for he cannot speak nor hear, as you saw when I fired my pistol next his head.”