i b8cff8977b3b1bd2 (4 page)

Anne, waiting as they all were for the first guests to arrive, watched her mother with amusement, knowing that when the deVeres came, the old lady would find opportunity to read out the motto on the fan. She was proud of her French, which she had learned from a Belgian lacemaker who had settled in the village of Edwardstone,

“Now ye look like yourself again, daughter,” said Adam, coming up to Anne and pinching her cheek. “Like my pretty lass that was the fairest bride in Suffolk when she wed ...” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t give ye to a bad husband, did I, darling?” he said anxiously. “Thomas Fones is good to you?”

“Oh yes, Father... He’s a fine man...”

Adam nodded, satisfied at once, unwilling to have any disquiet spoil the satisfaction of his party. His family, dressed as richly as any gentry in the land, affirmed his prosperity, as did this great room glowing with tapestries, lit by a hundred candles, and the carved oak table with its bulbous legs, its beeswaxed board loaded already with punch bowls and cold pasties and flagons of nut-brown ale, while the servants scurried back and forth to the kitchen for fresh supplies. Four musicians were waiting too by the screen’ that led to the parlour - the fiddler, a gittern player, a piper, and a little drummer. Lucy was even prepared to play on the virginals, if the deVeres were inclined for singing. Nobody could deem the entertainment niggardly.

“That’s a fair little wench you’ve got there, Anne,” said the old man, his complacent eye suddenly caught by Elizabeth, who was sitting sedately as near the fascinating drummer as she could get, and whispering to Jack. The younger children had been put to bed, and Elizabeth was very conscious of privilege and of her rustling green taffeta dress, edged with silver lace exactly like her mother’s. “ ‘Tis a pity she has the Winthrop nose,” the grandfather added, “a mite long for a girl - my old grandame always used to say the Devil tweaked the first Winthrop’s nose in passing one black night - but wi’ that mass o’ hair and those big eyes and cheeks like a blaze o’ poppies, she’ll win many a lad’s heart some day.”

Anne smiled. “Bess loves Jack, child though she is.” She broke off. “Look at Harry!”

Young Henry had been taking copious samples from the punch bowl, and was quite tipsy. He was also intoxicated by the occasion, and by a desire to impress Bess who was being dignified and as priggish as Aunt Lucy. Acting on wild impulse Harry had seized a handful of walnuts from the table and, swarming up the fireplace like a monkey, perched on the mantel, six feet above the hearth. There he crouched, teetering on the narrow ledge, his long bright curls too near the candles, and began to pelt his brother and Elizabeth with the nuts.

“Come down, sir - “ shouted Adam, striding down the Hall. “Come down at once!” Harry, whose hair was beginning to singe, and who had begun to feel giddy, would have obeyed but the drop looked formidable from the top, and he swayed uncertainly.

“He’ll fall...!” Lucy shrilled. But he did not. Jack acted with the speed and instant comprehension which were to be his all his life, and before their grandfather got there, he had pulled a stool to the hearth, got up on it and scooped his younger brother down. “You dunce,” he said good-humouredly, yet with an exasperation which was nearly adult “Why do you always have to play the fool?”

Harry flushed, muttered something and glared at Elizabeth whom he obscurely blamed for all this, Adam strode up and dealt his grandson a resounding box on the ear, and there would have been other punishment except for the pounding of the great bronze doorknocker. The Waldegraves had arrived. Adam immediately forgot his grandson, who vanished to spend the next hour in the pantry sulkily filching comfits from the pastry table whenever the cook’s back was turned.

Fortunately - since the food and wine could not be touched nor the musicians play until they came - Lord and Lady deVere were not tardy. They arrived in one of the new German coaches drawn by four horses, and their entrance into Groton Park was announced by a bugle strain from the outrider.

The noble couple swept into the hall on a wave of musk and magnificence, dispensing gracious smiles and nods. Mistress Winthrop murmured apology for her condition while Anne and Lucy curtseyed low. Elizabeth, though nobody saw her, curtseyed too, and stared in admiration. She had seen fine folk pass on the London streets, but never near like this. The deVeres were a blaze of lace and gold and jewels. The Baron’s doublet was brocaded with roses, his hose were blue, there were red rosettes on his silver shoes, his long curled hair and pointed beard glistened above the wired Valenciennes collar. The Baroness wore one of the enormous new-style farthingales Queen Anne had introduced; it stood out around her hips like a silk tent. Her greased hair was swept up high over pads and studded with sham jewels. The neck of her pointed bodice was cut so low you could see a little bit of her stomach between her breasts. Elizabeth thought that interesting, and she noted too that the lady did not seem very clean. There were shadows in the creases of her neck, a large stain of what looked like wine on the embroidered skirt; a strong smell of sweat mingled with the musk, and the heavily beringed hand had black fingernails. It must be that she was so rich and grand she did not have to wash, thought Elizabeth enviously.

So entranced was Elizabeth by the deVeres that for awhile she did not notice they had brought people with them, two ladies and a gentleman. These weren’t nearly as impressive. The younger lady wore red silk edged with gold lace, and had some little pearls around her neck, yet she was somewhat dowdy. She was dark and plump and had a motherly air, like the Winthrops’ little spaniel bitch, Trudy.

Jack, as the elder grandson and eventual heir to Groton Manor, had been taken around and introduced to all these people, but being now dismissed, he came back to Elizabeth, who greeted him eagerly, “Who’s
them?”
she whispered, “that came with the lord ... I like the red one, she looks like Trudy.”

Jack’s brown eyes crinkled. “Mayhap she does! ‘Tis a Mistress Margaret Tyndal, and her brother, Arthur, and their mother, Lady Tyndal. They’ve come with the deVeres from Essex near Castle Hedingham where the Earl of Oxford lives.”

“Are these Tyndals noble too?” asked Elizabeth, thinking how gloriously she could boast to her friend the goldsmith’s daughter when she got back to London.

“No,” said Jack. “Lady Tyndal’s husband was a knight, a Master of Chancery ... He was murdered last year by a madman.”

“Oh,” breathed Elizabeth, staring with all her eyes at Margaret Tyndal, who didn’t look at all like someone whose father had been murdered.

Healths were drunk to King James and his Queen, and to their children: Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia. The Baron praised the Winthrop malmsey, and after several cupfuls proceeded to tell an exceedingly coarse story. It was about his Sovereign, and two pretty Scottish lads. Mistress Winthrop did not hear the anecdote; Lucy, the children and most of the neighbours did not understand it, but Anne, who lived in London, blushed, while Adam roared out between dismay and laughter, “Damme, my lord - d’ye mean our King must have his catamites? . . I’d thought him a roystering, full-blooded
wencher!”

“Ah, that’s as may be,” answered the Baron smiling, but with a shade of reserve to indicate that this country squire could scarcely be supposed to know what occurred at court. “What of the dancing, now?” went on deVere. “Let’s see how Groton music sounds . ..” His pale eyes roved over the assembled women and lit on Anne. “Mistress Fones shall dance with me. I’ll teach her the latest galliard.”

Anne’s heart sank. The wine she had drunk no longer sustained her, an aching tiredness flowed through her bones, but there could be no refusal. She accepted the Baron’s moist hand, followed his high prancing steps as best she could and tried to avoid both his foul breath and the amorous looks he bestowed on her. Adam danced with the Baroness, the rest of the company paired off; the fiddler squeaked, the gittern plinked, the piper tooted, and the village drummer, much awed by the grandeur of the occasion, timidly thumped his tabour when he thought of it.

Nobody noticed the great door open, nor saw the tall man in black who stopped in astonishment to stare at the gyrating couples.

He watched them for a moment, then walked across the end of the room to Mistress Winthrop’s chair. “For the love of heaven, my mother - what is the meaning of this?” he said in her ear as he kissed her cheek.

The old lady had been dozing. “Mercy, what a startle! Why, John,

“So I see,” said John Winthrop. “And I have a very good notion as to why.” He had been hearing of deVere in London. The Baron was out of favour at court, had run up huge gambling debts, there was talk of bankruptcy. The favour and indeed more tangible help of a prosperous neighbour might well be useful. Still it was agreeable to be on equal footing with a nobleman. John withdrew behind his mother’s big chair and gazed thoughtfully at the dancers.

On all this trip to London John had been wrestling with his soul, endeavouring to follow the rigid course of discipline he had laid out for himself. He had avoided all drink but water, he had eschewed smoking of which he had been overly fond. He had read nothing but the Scriptures, spoken no ungodly word. He had kept the Sabbaths with careful piety and found a nonconformist church where the minister bravely ignored the ceremonies ordained by the bishops. Above all John had resisted the lewdness of the flesh which had bedevilled him since his wife’s death, and there had been a moment of hideous temptation one night on the Chepe - a beautiful Spanish whore. God had rewarded him. Every business matter had been decided in his favour, the final settlement of his first wife’s estate had been made. He had returned home with his money-bag far heavier than when he started. But his mood was lighter. A month ago this frivolous scene would have disgusted him, he would have felt it his duty to remonstrate with his father. But now as he watched the bright couples change from the galliard to a livelier hay and listened to the cheerful music he began to wonder if extreme asceticism were not another of the Devil’s guises for Pride, for somewhere on the journey home the certainty of righteousness had vanished. And it is true, he thought, that David saw no harm in dancing and that Our Blessed Lord smiled on the feast at Cana. “Who is that young gentleman in red?” he suddenly asked his mother. “The one dancing with Edward Waldegrave.”

Mrs. Winthrop squinted towards a group near the door and said, “Oh, ‘tis Margaret Tyndal, a spinster. Her brother, Arthur, is yonder by the stairs, and there is her mother, Lady Tyndal, dancing - and at her age I find it unbecoming - with your father.”

“Indeed,” said John, “not the family of Sir John Tyndal who was cut off in London by the mad assassin last year?”

“The very one,” said his mother. “They have large property at Much Maplested in Essex. I hear that the young gentlewoman
is
well dowered.”

John said nothing for a moment, as he watched Margaret. He though her somewhat short and dumpy and saw that she was unskilled at dancing, but the round face between the bobbing brown ringlets was comely enough, and as she answered something said to her by young Waldegrave she showed a singularly sweet smile. “She seems not far from thirty,” he remarked. “Strange that she has not married . . . perhaps some physical weakness we see not. . . .”

His mother shot him a shrewd look. “I believe it’s nothing of the kind. I had some converse earlier with Lady Tyndal. Mistress Margaret has been betrothed but the man died, and then this tragedy to her father, and besides I believe the brother is most proud, wishes a great match for his sister.”

John listened with the grave attention which was characteristic of him but said no more except, “She has rather a sensible air, though I cannot say as much for her scarlet and gold dress, uncommon garish for a God-fearing maiden.” The music and dancing stopped suddenly. John walked to the centre of the Hall and greeted his father, who let out a roar of delight and embraced him heartily. “Welcome, welcome, my son! A splendid surprise! We have company, you see, to honour the King’s birthday. My Lord and Lady deVere are here, and with them the Tyndals. Let me present you at once.”

“It will give me much pleasure,” said John and he smiled.

His sisters watched him with astonishment. Lucy, whom John had often urged to beware of the world, had been ready to deny all pleasure in this festivity, and point out that she was but obeying their father’s regrettable orders, but she saw that this denial would not be necessary. John showed no signs of disapproval and was chatting easily with the deVeres and Tyndals. He fetched a cup of wine and presented it to Mistress Margaret, and he even drank some himself, which further amazed Lucy since he had been for some months denouncing wine as the Devil’s spittle. Anne saw deeper into her brother. From childhood he had been prone to sudden variations of mood, but it was the time he had spent at Trinity College in Cambridge and met many gentlemen under Puritan influence which had given these moods so strong a religious tinge. That and the deaths of his two wives, of course, thought Anne sighing. Suddenly she looked at her brother and Mistress Tyndal with sharp attention.

Margaret and John had seated themselves on a cushioned bench, and they were talking gravely. The gravity did not preclude another element no discerning woman could have missed. John’s long, rather harsh face showed an unmistakable desire to please, while about Margaret there was a suggestion of coquetry. Her plump cheeks were pink, her fingers twisted a little scented pomander she wore at her girdle and her round bosom beneath the scarlet taffeta rose and fell more rapidly than recovery from the dancing would explain.

“Is it possible?” Anne murmured . . . “so soon and so quickly . . .?” And knew that it was. John had not loved Mary Forth, his first wife, whom he had married at seventeen, and who had been some years older, but for little Thomasine Clopton, his second, he had shown affection and grief. Had felt them too, she knew - John was no hypocrite. It was simply the practical way of men, she thought bitterly. A wife is needed - as house directress, as mother to the children, as purveyor of yet more land and property, as ... ah yes, as the fulfiller of one role above all. She looked at the sensual red curves of John’s mouth between the russet moustache and beard, at the thin flare of his nostrils. It is better to marry than to burn, she thought, and how willingly John would again follow that woman-despising apostle’s advice.