The Best of Men (57 page)

“You know very well that she is Digby’s friend,” Diana said, trying to catch Isabella’s eye; and finally Isabella noticed her and smiled, but with a peculiar lack of assurance.

When the feast drew to an end, the dancing began. His Majesty’s partner was a lovely young brunette as pregnant as Diana. “My Lady d’Aubigny,” Robert informed her. “She was married to His Majesty’s late cousin who was killed at Edgehill.”

“How very sad that he will never see his baby.” Diana was looking elsewhere: Isabella had just left the hall. “Pray excuse me, sir. I must go and find the privy offices.”

“Why now? They are playing the pavane, which we may join in without harm to your health, if Lady d’Aubigny is any example.”

“I cannot wait,” she insisted.

“Oh, go, then, and hurry back. We might catch the last of it.”

Threading her way through the crowd, Diana felt a pang of nostalgia as she remembered slipping away from another state occasion on that hot summer evening when she and Beaumont had first made love. Then her child stirred a little within her, as though issuing a mute reproof, and she forced herself to dismiss the memory.

At the doors, Isabella was talking with a blond man, tall and slim, of martial bearing. They were obviously in some argument, yet drew apart when Diana approached. Isabella looked pale and harassed. “Lady Stratton, may I present Captain Milne,” she said. “She is a friend from Court, whom I have not seen in an age,” she told Milne, who bowed, then inspected Diana with rather too bold an interest. His face, although otherwise comely, was marred from the smallpox.

“Captain,” Diana said, “would you be so obliging as to permit us ladies a moment together?”

“Only if I may claim Mistress Savage for a
dance
later this evening,” he replied, as though the word had some special significance, his gaze on Isabella. “I believe you said you owed that to me, madam, for my services.”

“Yes, sir,” Isabella said, in a strained tone. “I always keep a promise.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Milne said, and after giving Diana a last swift appraisal, he walked away.

“Of what services was he speaking?” Diana asked.

“He is being of assistance in a … ah, well, a political matter.”

“Isabella, how
could
you disappear like that from Wytham?” Diana reproached her. “It caused us such trouble!”

“Robert must think very badly of me, even more so than before.”

“I’m afraid he does, though it has not changed
my
opinion of you.”
Diana hesitated. “Have you by chance heard the news about Mr. Beaumont?” she asked next, without exactly knowing why. “Laurence Beaumont, that is.”

A veiled expression came into Isabella’s eyes. “What news?”

“He is to be married. Sir Robert learnt of it while he was at Chipping Campden last month.”

Isabella frowned, as if digesting this information, then smiled gently at Diana. “You were in love with Beaumont, weren’t you.”

“Who told you –”

“No one had to. I guessed from you, who are as open as a book.”

“It was no more than a … a youthful flirtation,” Diana murmured, caught out.

“I see. My dear, you are blessed with so much, in your husband and your children. Never forget that,” concluded Isabella; and she glanced towards Captain Milne, who was watching them from the doors.

“Is he importuning you?” Diana asked, disliking the man’s predatory air.

“He is one of many nuisances that I must contend with. But nothing in life is perfect. Now you should go back to Sir Robert, or he will be worried.” With the same gentle smile, Isabella gave her a kiss on the cheek and they said goodbye.

In the hall, the pavane had ended, and the musicians had struck up a more vigorous tune. “What kept you?” Robert complained, as Diana returned to her seat.

Annoyed by his tone, she answered frankly. “I encountered Isabella Savage on my way. I could not be so rude as to ignore her.”

At once he reddened and seized Diana by the wrist. “As your husband and master, I forbid you absolutely to associate with that – that
whore
ever again!”

“Sir Robert, please! You may detest her, but you have no justification to insult her so.”

“My wife,” Robert retorted, “I should perhaps have mentioned to you before – it was
she
who Mr. Beaumont had in his chamber, on the night of his sister’s wedding.”

Diana could not look at her husband. Suddenly she recalled Isabella’s questioning her about Beaumont at Wytham, asking whether she found him handsome, and then the tender counsel of a few moments ago. How long had Isabella and he been lovers, she wondered to herself, agonized, inadvertently brushing her cheek as though to wipe away Isabella’s kiss.

Laurence felt too muddled to calculate how many days had gone by since his return to the cell, where he no longer noticed the stink. He leant his head against the slimy wall, taking shallow breaths through his nose to stop himself from coughing, which was excruciating to his broken ribs. As waves of fever passed through him, he shivered, wrapped in his inadequate blanket, teeth chattering. Dreadfully thirsty, he reached for the bowl of brackish water that Wright delivered to his door each morning, but it was dry.

Then he heard the familiar tromp of boots outside, and shrank back in his corner as the door opened. Hoare stood in the entrance flanked by his guards; with the light behind him, his face remained in shadow. “How are you faring, Mr. Beaumont?” he inquired, his tone courteous.

“How do you think,” Laurence whispered back.

“Not too well, I’d imagine. I have a surgeon waiting to attend to you, and then I shall release you – if you will only answer my questions.” Laurence shook his head. “Dear me,” Hoare said quietly, “and I considered you an intelligent man.”

He motioned to the guards. Laurence could not suppress a cry as they bore him once again down the stairs.

This time he was stripped of everything but his breeches and
strung him up by the ankles. His chest burned so much that he could hardly draw breath. The soles of his feet were subjected to Hoare’s whip while the guards beat him about the body. With the blood rushing to his head and stinging his eyes, he was entering what seemed to him a new dimension of consciousness: very little mattered except where the next blow would land and how he could endure it. Hoare’s repeated questions were drowned out by his own yells. Then the beating stopped and he saw Hoare’s face upside down, pushed up against his.

“Look at you now, Mr. Beaumont,” Hoare said. “Drenched in your own sweat and blood and piss. I doubt Mistress Savage will fancy your sorry arse by the time
I’m
finished with you. That’s good for today,” he told the guards; and Laurence felt the rope slacken.

Lord Beaumont strode into his wife’s office, a letter in his hand. “I must go at once to Oxford,” he announced.

She looked up from her account book with a startled frown. “Why, my lord?” He gave her Dr. Seward’s letter, which she scanned in dismay. “What mischief has Laurence done this time,” she murmured as she read on. “But there is no explanation here as to why he is under arrest!”

“Seward will tell me when I arrive, as he says. I doubt he would alarm me unnecessarily, my dear. Our son is in trouble, and my presence is requested. That should be sufficient reason for me to go.”

She set aside the letter, still frowning. “Why not write first to Dr. Seward and ask what offence Laurence has committed before you involve yourself? My lord,” she continued, “you know how wayward he has always been, keeping low company and drinking, and brawling – and God knows what else that we did not hear about. On his last visit, he showed us that he has not altered one whit over the years. Such a shameful scandal he caused! In that instance he did not pay as he should have, and yet again he has disappeared without so much as a
word of apology to us. Now he may be receiving his just deserts for some other misdeed, the nature of which Seward is probably too ashamed to disclose on paper. But may I remind you that our son is a grown man, not a child to be rescued by his father! He must learn to take responsibility for his actions.”

“I see your point,” Lord Beaumont admitted, though he was not fully convinced. “Very well, my dear, I shall write. It will mean only a day or two’s delay, in any case, if he truly needs my help.”

“I thank you.” Then she went on, as though she could not stop herself, “I have never liked that Dr. Seward. If Laurence had been more strictly governed during his years at College, he would not have turned out as he did.”

“Madam,” said Lord Beaumont, “pray remember that Seward was my tutor, also, and Thomas’ for a while. I believe that disproves your argument.”

She studied him, her expression less severe. “I know how much you love Laurence, and please do not think me uncaring towards him. Yet he still has no respect for the privileges and duties that life has granted him. I was hoping that service abroad might have changed his character. Clearly it has not. So tread with caution in this matter, my lord. We cannot afford any further disgrace to our family name, nor can we allow the arrangements for his marriage to be prejudiced again.”

“Quite so,” Lord Beaumont agreed; and he went off to his library, to pen a letter to Seward. But deep in his heart, he feared that he was making a mistake.

Laurence stirred dizzily, aware of some unaccustomed warmth against his bare skin. As he opened his eyes he saw Danvers beside him, crammed into the small space.

“Beaumont,” Danvers said, “I’ve been arrested by Hoare.”

“No you haven’t,” Laurence told him, in a croaking whisper. “He just put you in here for the same reason he let you visit me.”

“I wish that were so, but it’s not. He’s received some news that set him on edge. I couldn’t find out what it was, but he’s in a hurry now to make you talk. And I’ve got something to tell you that may persuade you to change your mind,” Danvers babbled on frantically. “Just before Hoare took me in, I heard from a fellow at Court that His Majesty has secret plans to support a revolt of the Royalists in London this spring. And Falkland will be in charge of it.”

Laurence tried to make sense of this, his wits slowed by pain and fever. Danvers must be lying, he thought; Falkland would never take part in any plan that would compromise his negotiations with Parliament, if not doom them altogether.

“So you see,” Danvers began again, “Falkland’s the same as everyone else, pursuing His Majesty’s interests, whether openly or covertly. I don’t understand myself why he’d be communicating with Parliament at the same time, as Hoare maintains. Maybe to disguise the plans for the revolt, which would be clever, wouldn’t it?” Laurence said nothing, still following with difficulty. “Yet the fact remains, he’s not what you believed him to be, so you might as well do as Hoare asks, and he says he’ll free us straight away. If not, he says he’ll beat us both! And you can’t take much more.”

“No, I can’t,” Laurence murmured.

Danvers did not speak for a long while, during which Laurence closed his eyes, trying to sleep. “After the things we’ve done, Beaumont, where would we go if we were to die?” Danvers asked next. “I mean, to heaven or … or to hell?”

Laurence dragged open his eyes and squinted at him through the gloom. “This is much like hell, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t you believe in a life after this one?”

“No.”

“I pray you’re wrong.” Danvers’ mouth contorted into a wobbly grin; he looked about to cry. “I had a letter yesterday from my wife. We’d been living apart, even after I ended with Mrs. Sterne. She – she wrote to me to say she wished to – to make up.” He dashed a tear from his cheek. “If I get out of this place, I – I swear, I’ll change. A man can change, can’t he, Beaumont?”

“I suppose.”

“Oh God, oh God,” Danvers sobbed. “Why am
I
here? What have I done to deserve this? All I’ve ever tried to do is please people! Where’s the sin in that, I’d like to know?” When he got no answer to his rhetorical questions, he began banging on the cell door, shrieking for Private Wright. “I can’t bear it! Let me out! Let me out!”

Laurence stuck his head in his arms to dim the noise, as Danvers cursed and implored, and continued to proclaim his innocence in the face of injustice. When at last he quietened, keening to himself, Laurence was able to drowse off to the sound, as if to a lullaby.

Then Laurence felt hands seize him roughly by the shoulders, to carry him out. Danvers followed, a guard behind him. In the downstairs chamber, Hoare was waiting. He drew Danvers aside and asked him something that Laurence could not hear, to which Danvers replied in the negative.

“More’s the pity for you,” Hoare muttered, and he had both Danvers and Laurence bound by the wrists and hoisted aloft, not a foot apart from each other. “Mr. Beaumont,” he said, “do you know that old rhyme about the telltale? Allow me to remind you. ‘Telltale tit, your tongue shall be split, and all the dogs in town shall have a little bit.’ Your brother was a telltale, wasn’t he, and Danvers here has told a few tales in his time. Now it’s your turn. I’ve just discovered that you are conspiring against me, and that you have an informant who’s been talking to Lord Falkland – yes, and even to the King – trying to paint me as a traitor to his lordship. Who is he?” He unfurled the whip and
lashed it across Laurence’s jaw and cheekbone. Laurence yelped, blinking away the water that sprang to his eyes. Hoare turned to Danvers. “Can’t you give him a little encouragement?” And he sent the leather strap flying again, grazing Danvers’ face, which provoked an immediate result.

“I did, sir, I did!” Danvers cried. “I told him Falkland wasn’t worth protecting! And I’ve news for you – if you’ll –”

“Be quiet! I want to hear from Mr. Beaumont.”

“But sir, I beg of you, take me down and I’ll give you valuable information!”

“Let him go,” Laurence pleaded, mistakenly, for Hoare’s expression changed, as if he had indeed received news, and he tossed aside the whip. From his belt he pulled out a knife with a curved blade, which he started to whet on a leather strap. “Mr. Beaumont, I am going to slit his tongue and make you eat a piece of it if you will not reveal who this informant is,” he said, approaching with the knife; Danvers was now wailing incoherently. “Boys, make sure he watches.” The guards grabbed Laurence’s head and pried his eyes open, so he had no choice. “Well, sir? Who has been spreading tales about me?”