The Town House (55 page)

I realized, with a faint start of surprise that that was true. Mild and quiet as he was, this whole great business with its many aspects ran smoothly under his absolute authority; only within doors, with his family, did anything displeasing to him continue for longer than it took for him to notice it. He had given in to Maude’s whim, Walter’s waywardness, Mistress Reed’s insobriety, not from weakness, but from kindness of heart.

Well, I thought, all power go with you. I helped him into his saddle, and then stared at the evidence of his confidence in himself, another horse, saddled with Maude’s own saddle, and wearing a leading rein was led out. Master Reed took the rein, said ‘Come up, then,’ and they trotted out of the yard.

When I went in to dinner one of the maids was thumping about in Maude’s room, making it ready.

And faith, we are told, can remove mountains.

While we were at dinner there was a short sharp shower; but immediately after, just as I was leaving the house the sun came out. I stood for a moment beside a lilac bush which had thrust a branch over the garden fence; it shimmered with buds, wetly green. Somewhere in the depths of the garden a bird was singing with passionate joy and the golden light lay everywhere like a blessing. I was suddenly certain that Maude would come home that afternoon, and that everything would be well. Anticipation ran, with the tickling thrill of a finger touch, all the way from my thighs to my throat.

Half an hour later it was snowing lightly, and when, in the premature twilight, my master rode home, alone, he was furred all over with white, even his eyebrows bore their little load.

I had imagined, from the length of his absence, that Maude had packed her goods, and that the return journey had been made with laden slowness. But the led horse’s saddle was empty except for the snow.

Master Reed replied to my unspoken comment,

‘I went on to Minsham and took a look at the sheep. Had to do something to settle my mind.’

He dismounted stiffly, and instead of pushing away my proffered arm, took it and leaned on it heavily.

‘It’s been a bad day, my boy. And a fine fool I made of myself, as you shall hear.’

I had made a good fire in the office and a pint of well-spiced ale in a pewter mug waited on the hearth. I’d had the poker in and out of the heart of the fire for the last two hours, and now I pushed it home again.
By the time I had helped him to shuffle off his wrappings it was glowing red and I plunged it into the ale.

‘That’ll warm you, sir,’ I said, handing him the steaming brew.

‘It’s cooling I need. Feel that if you doubt me.’ He reached out his free hand and touched mine. ‘You’ll understand, if I can bring myself to tell you.’

My curiosity was lively; but the hand he had laid on mine was unnaturally hot and I remembered what the doctor had said about the danger of his being upset. I said as soothingly as possible,

‘I can see for myself that you are disappointed. Beyond that you can tell me as much or as little as you like.’

‘That’s right! Now you begin to talk to me as though I were a baby. That’s all I need after the day I’ve had.’

He sipped his ale and I saw the sweat break out on his forehead. He pulled at the neck of his jerkin, exposing his stringy throat. Another thought struck me.

‘Mistress Maude… she is well, I hope.’

‘How can I know? I tell you I never even… But I’d best begin at the beginning.’

Clevely had altered; he’d spotted the change as soon as the place came in sight. Upwards of fifty ewes gathered in a field for lambing, with a shepherd and a boy in charge; another man in the house-yard, and not a nun to be seen anywhere. And the old kitchen door was now fenced off and a new one made at the far end of the house, with a deep porch in front of it and a portress to answer the bell. He’d asked for the Prioress, which was mere courtesy, since everyone knew that she was now bed-fast; but it was not our old friend Dame Cecily Bracy who came into the cold little room where he was bidden to wait; it was a new nun young, not more than thirty, who said she was the Prioress, so favouritism must have been at work to set her so high at that age.

He explained the situation and asked to see Maude. The Prioress, in a manner as smooth as cream, commiserated with him of the loss of his grandson and the indisposition of his daughter-in-law, but said that it was impossible for him to see Maude.

‘Nicholas,’ he said, leaning forward a little,‘when she said that it was like being hit over the heart. I thought she’d taken the veil without a word to us and I might never set eyes on her again. Come to my senses just too late, I thought, and for the rest of her days the poor silly child will come and go, eat or fast, sit or stand according to the word of this high-handed, mim-voiced bitch. And that roused my blood. I said even a nun was allowed to
see her grandfather; I said she could stand by and hear every word that was spoken; I told her they weren’t an enclosed order and if she didn’t let me see Maude I’d complain to the Bishop. She wouldn’t be ruffled; she said Maude was still a novice, free to see me or anybody else she’d a mind to, but I couldn’t talk to her today because she wasn’t at Clevely.’

He hadn’t believed that. He thought the Prioress quick-witted enough to have guessed what he wanted of Maude; and he thought of his five pounds a year; and he thought that maybe the Prioress had already seen that Maude was in two minds about the matter. So he as good as called her a liar to her face and accused her of not daring to let him talk to his grand-daughter.

‘So then, Nicholas, she said, “Daren’t is a strange word to use to me. What have I to fear? That you remove her from this house? I assure you I could fill her place ten times over and with girls well-dowered.” Dowered is a word I hate the sound of. Before she could toddle it was dower, dower, dower. Hearing the word then, on top of all else, maddened me. I said, “Then, if you’ve nothing to fear why daren’t you let me see her?” And she said,“If you suspect me of hiding her in this house, search it. It is unusual to make a man free of the house, but if it will set your mind at rest, you may have my permission to go anywhere and conduct your search.” And I thought to myself, there’s been ample time for that woman at the door to carry warning and have the girl hidden somewhere. So I said,“I thank you, Madam. That I will do.” And I did.’

He drained the mug and set it aside and began to twist his hands together. He had big hands, calloused and seamed with ingrained dirt which no amount of scouring would ever remove; but they were oddly skilful; he could splice a broken thread on a loom as neatly and delicately as any of the weaver who made the care of their hands an excuse for never handling a tool. Now he moved his hands as if he were trying to wrench out his fingers one by one.

‘I went everywhere, not once only, twice, three times, turning back in my tracks in case they had Maude on the move. My boy, if she’d been the size of a bobbin I couldn’t have missed her. Dorter, storeroom, chapel, cellar, everywhere. And it all so poor; I swear our bed in Squatters’ Row was softer and warmer than any in that house; and as for their storeroom, it was pitiable, braxy mutton and weevilly flour such as I wouldn’t offer any seaman of mine to eat. And in the end back I was in the little cold room and she waiting for me, saying “And now will you perhaps accuse me of spiriting the girl away?” Then she said she’d tell me what she
would have at first if I had asked her. According to her the singing at Clevely is an offence to the ear and an insult to God, so Maude and one other – the only ones that can carry a tune – are sent to Ramsey to learn better and come back and teach the rest.’

‘Enough to make any man angry,’ I said. ‘But why blame yourself? Your suspicion might have been correct. You acted rightly.’

He moved one eyebrow.

‘You think so? I felt all in the wrong. And I apologized. She took advantage of that. She talked about Clevely, all the improvements that must be made; how in the past it had not been a nunnery in the real sense of the word, just a place where women lived and worked together and went to chapel when the milking was done or the butter made. She’s going to alter all that; and her great need is money. Five pounds a year, she was good enough to say, was generous enough when Maude lodged there and worked to earn her keep, but since then, as I, a business man should know, money had lost some value and the noble was worth but six shillings nowadays. She talked to me like a huckster. What did I propose to do for Maude when she took her vows? And there’s Maude thinking that all the world outside has gone awry through love of money. And me, that always called a dower a bait for knaves. I’d have done better, Nicholas, to have sent her to Beauclaire with the promise of a dower on a tag about her neck. A knave would at least have seen that the bed he had to share with her was soft and warm.’

‘What did you promise?’

‘Nothing. I’m not that much of a fool. I tell you, we bargained like a couple of stockfishmongers. I said I wanted Maude to come home and see the state her mother was in, and I wanted one last good talk. Then, I said, if I could be sure that her mind was made up and no hope for it, I’d give a dowry they’d talk about for years. And so I will, but I must be sure first. She said that was fair enough and Maude will come home as soon as she’s back from Ramsey.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Oh, that depends on the singing.’ His voice took on a sardonic note and then changed. ‘And she did say one other thing, whether to set much store by it or not, I don’t know. She said the visit to Ramsey would do Maude good, aside from the music, to let her see a properly conducted house, because that was how Clevely would be in future and discipline must be accepted meekly. That sounded to me a bit … but there, they have such a way of wrapping things up, half the time they mean something other than you’d think.

He shuddered suddenly and held out his hands to the fire.

In the morning he woke with a cold, of which he made light; the Minsham shepherd, he said, had a much worse one the day before and was out in the snow making a lambing pen. Giving this as an excuse for not keeping to his bed, he sneezed through the day, saying after each bout of sneezing, ‘There, that cleared it.’ He went to bed early with hot brick to his feet and a basin of onion gruel inside him. He’d budged many a cold with such simple remedies.

This one refused to be budged. It resisted even the curative measure of a day in bed, and by the third day had settled on his chest. He drew his breath with a wheeze and a rattle, and spoke with a hoarse croak. But he held that it was nothing but a cold, he’d had many worse. A linseed poultice was what he needed; surely to goodness somebody in the kitchen could make a linseed plaster.

The cook made it; and also a concoction of honey, vinegar, horehound and cinnamon, upon whose virtues she was prepared to stake her own.

I took upon myself the application of the poultices, since, with Phyllis minding Mistress Reed they were short-handed in the kitchen. When I put it on hot that evening for the last time and settled him for the night, he seemed easier, and still most resolutely cheerful. But his cough, a rattling, ineffective effort to clear the clogged rheum from his chest, kept me awake most of the night. Three times I made a fresh plaster, plied him with the mixture, warmed a cup of milk.

‘I shall get the physician to you in the morning,’ I said. He made no protest. Surprised and a little frightened by this I thought that perhaps I should fetch the priest, too.

I wished that that could have been done in a more casual, less ominous way. But the Old Vine was not a house where the priest was a visitor; we had nothing to do with Baildon, our parish was Flaxham St. Giles, and the church, and the priest’s house were three miles away. Sir Andrew, the priest there, was elderly. To send for him was to hint that things were in a bad way.

I might have spared myself these cogitations, for in the grey dawn of the fourth day, when my master roused from an uneasy restless doze, he stared at me for a moment as though he did not recognize me and then said, his voice more hoarse and weak than ever,

‘It’s beat me, my boy. I want the priest. Make my confession and my will at the same time.’

‘Sir Andrew?’

‘Yes. Send a good horse … pillion.’

‘I will. But you mustn’t lose heart, you know. You’ve got a stubborn cold and you can’t throw it off as you did when you were younger. I’ll get the doctor to you, too.’

He wheezed out something about a waste of time, and something I didn’t quite catch, about a hawthorn tree. Then he coughed and hawked and spoke more clearly for a moment.

‘You mustn’t fret. I’ve had my day; and it’s a long time since Kate went.’

That name, as much as anything, convinced me that he was dying; dying men look back over their lives, they say, back to their very beginnings. And Kate, whoever she was, must have belonged to his youth; I had never heard anyone mention her, though in the yard there were one or two who claimed to remember his wife, ‘a queer body’ who’d never settled down in Baildon, but gone to her own people and then come back to have her baby and died when it was born. Her name was not Kate, I’d heard it, once, I think, and it was outlandish.

The thought that Martin, my master, was about to die fell on my mind and clove it in halves, like an axe coming down on a billet of wood. On one side there was all concern for
my
future. He had no heir except a girl in a convent; I understood the business, he trusted me, and liked me. Surely I must be provided for. But he had spoken of giving Maude a dower which would be talked of for years; and if he thought he was dying it would matter very little to him whether she stayed at Clevely or not. Blood, when the test comes, is thicker than water and I could well imagine him saying that it was all to go to Maude.

On the other side of my mind there was no material consideration at all. I just realized how much I held him in respect and esteem, how much, whatever happened, I should miss him, quiet, solid and sensible. True I deceived him a little and robbed him a little, sometimes railed at him in my mind for being slow and stubborn and old-fashioned and fussy over details, but I knew his worth; and although his honesty had not made me honest, and his kindness had not made me kind, he had shown me a standard against which I myself and any other man I ever met, would measure very small.