“I didn’t mean it that way,” I explained hurriedly. “I mean that your aunt, your London aunt, looks happier with life than your country aunt.”
“Her husband Knowles is most devoted to her.”
She left unsaid – didn’t need to say – that Lord Elcombe had, by contrast perhaps been not so devoted to his wife.
“But you never said, about Lady Elcombe,” I said reverting to the subject and probably trying Kate’s patience.
“The reason I don’t refer to her as my aunt is not deliberate. Just that I don’t see her in that light. She is a great lady, with houses and lands at her disposal, and she has . . . well, to be round with you, she has always had a distant air with me ever since I was a child. Perhaps it was because my father had once been a favourite with her.”
I must have started slightly because Kate added, “Long ago, before he married my mother.”
“You know this?” I said, surprised that a daughter should be so familiar with her father’s amours or preferences.
“My mother occasionally mentioned it,” said Kate. “It was a joke between them, my parents. I mean, a pleasant joke. To show that, we were often enough at Instede and I would play with my boy cousins. I received few nods or smiles from Lady Elcombe though. So it’s no wonder that I prefer my aunt Knowles.”
There was so much here that I hardly knew what to take first. Cousins. Cuthbert and Harry. Trawling through my mind I remembered that she’d called Cuthbert “coz” at some point. After the play, was it?
“We? You said, we were often at Instede.”
“My mother and father, of course. And me. I passed the time with Cuthbert and Harry, well Cuthbert especially. Harry was always rather moody and solitary.”
“Therefore your mother is – was the sister of Lady Elcombe and Mrs Knowles.”
“Well, of course, Nicholas. Would you like me to draw you a family tree to make things easier?”
“It might be useful,” I said before realizing the absurdity of the remark.
Kate looked at me curiously. She’d been making a joke, of course. We were sitting at opposite ends of a garden seat, our usual position in relation to each other. At opposite ends. There was a statue in the nook, Cupid with his bow and arrow and a scarf wrapped about his eyes, to signify that he had no idea who he was shooting his love-darts at. The presence of this little marble darling was apt (and predictable) but at that moment I didn’t quite feel in the mood for flirtatious banter – not that I’d ever got very far with Kate in this respect. At the moment the only parallel between myself and the blind boy was just that: blindness.
“So your mother . . . was the youngest of the sisters?” I said tentatively.
“The middle one. Aunt Knowles is the oldest while my Lady Elcombe is the youngest.”
“You told me you remembered your mother?”
“Oh clearly, even though she died many years ago. My mother and father were very close and I was included in that closeness, not shut out from it as childen sometimes are.”
Adam Fielding had said about his wife, about Kate’s mother: “We were blissfully happy.” As often, when the subject of her father cropped up, Kate’s face softened, and I reflected on what an unusually close and happy family hers had been and still was.
Then I spied another familiar figure approaching from the region of the house, and it was as if by referring to him, by thinking of him, he’d been conjured up. It was the Justice of the Peace. I had said farewell to him in Salisbury only a few days before and he had given no inkling that he was coming to London with his daughter – but then, I told myself, why should he have done? He noticed the two of us sitting in the roosting-place and came over.
“Well, Nick, it’s good to see you again,” he said, grasping me warmly by the hand.
“You too,” I said, looking at the man who’d saved my life on Salisbury plain.
“I have just now heard that young Harry Ascre has been restored to Instede,” he said. “The indictment against him has been annulled.”
“So justice has been done,” I said.
“It would seem so,” said Fielding, stroking his spade beard thoughtfully and gazing appraisingly at me.
“And all is clear as day.”
Fielding said nothing but continued to regard me
“Has Cuthbert arrived?” said Kate.
“Why yes,” said her father. “It was he who brought the good news about Harry up from the country. He is even now talking to his aunt.”
Obviously the house in Finsbury Fields was turning into a gathering-place for the members of the Fielding and Ascre families. I felt a little, well, excluded. And other things were weighing on my mind. So I made to leave at about the same time as Kate smilingly indicated that she was going indoors to say hello to her cousin. Once again, we kissed chastely – but what else could it have been under his cool grey gaze? – and I held her hand between mine for a couple of instants longer than was necessary.
“We are going to see Master Revill and our other friends from the Chamberlain’s tomorrow,” she said. “You are playing in, what is it?”
“Love’s Disdain.”
“Love’s Disdain, then,” she said
“At the Globe,” I said to her departing back. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
When she’d left there was a short silence between me and Justice Fielding. A breeze shivered the tops of the garden trees. Cloud was building up to the north-west.
Finally he said, “You’re going back to London, Nick?”
“This very moment.”
“You would not object if I accompanied you some of the way?”
“I would be glad of it.”
We paced out of the garden without speaking and turned together into the path which led back across Finsbury Fields. In the distance was the city wall, and beyond it the chimney-stacks and church spires glinting in the morning air. Being summer, the road was relatively dry. Occasional carts trundled past, forcing us to step onto the grass verges.
We’d still said nothing. I sensed that Fielding was waiting for me to break the silence.
I took a deep breath.
“Did you rely on my finding that – that document – in Robin’s den? Mary’s last ‘confession’. Or were you going to go and search for it yourself? Play at searching for it, that is.”
Fielding was too shrewd a man to pretend not to know what I was talking about. The only sign of his unease was that he avoided glancing at me as we walked side by side.
“It was chance that you found it so soon – I’d only put it there that afternoon,” he said quietly. “When you went off in pursuit of Oswald Eden I’d no idea he’d lead you into the wood or that you’d end up in Robin’s hole. And to answer your question, Nicholas, no, I had not then decided exactly how I was going to recover the confession. Perhaps I would’ve asked you to go and have one final look down there, so that you were the one to bring it to light. Perhaps I would have ‘found’ it myself. In the event, you did it without being prompted, though rather earlier than I’d planned.”
“Hence your hurried conference with Lady Elcombe and all the rest of us. Now the papers had been discovered, you didn’t want to waste any time in making use of them.”
“Yes. My one concern was to help poor Harry Ascre. To keep him away from the assize. I knew that once he’d been tried, his execution was almost certain to follow.”
“Innocent men have been hanged before and will be again.”
I was being deliberately harsh.
“But I am a Justice,” said Fielding, simply and sadly. “I – I could not allow that to happen if it could be averted.”
“You could have owned to the killing yourself,” I said.
“I could,” said Fielding. “Yet it was no true killing.”
“Surely that is for a jury to decide?”
“Of course it is, Nick. You are right to be so rigorous. Well, a jury may still decide on the question.”
“How was it not a true kill
ing, then?”
“Elcombe’s death was pure accident – almost pure accident. Yet the death which took place earlier that evening was not. That was murder, impure as it could be. I mean the murder of Henry Ascre, the poor simpleton, the natural, the figure in white.”
For the first time, Fielding’s voice rose above a soft, sorrowful note. This time there was anguish in his tones – and anger.
“There was indeed a meeting between Elcombe and Henry Ascre in the middle of the night. Not that the poor boy knew anything of times and meetings and engagements. It was rather that at some period during the night he was accustomed to creep out from his hiding-place in the woods and gaze at the splendours of Instede House. Perhaps there was some confused idea in his head that this was where he belonged, even though – as we heard – his wet-nurse had removed him from the scene when he was little more than a year old.”
“According to her ‘confession’,” I said, “which you wrote.”
“I wrote only what was true or, at the least, likely,” said Fielding. “I knew a little of what happened to Mary and was able to find out more. The rest I pieced together.”
“Using reason and imagination.”
“Just so. There is no conscious lie in the whole account.”
“One can still deceive without lying.”
“Suppressio veri,” said Fielding. “Yes, by suppressing the truth rather than spreading an outright falsehood one may still deceive. I will not add to my other crimes by being disingenuous in front of you, Nicholas. Even so, it is the case that Mary did leave Instede with the young Ascre and her much older son. He returned and became Robin the woodman. Henry waited many years until the wet-nurse’s death. Then he too came back to haunt the place of his birth.”
“And was it the case that she lived and died piously?”
“I have it on good authority from one who knew the woman and her story. From a cleric who was once in Cheshire.”
“Oh holy authority. You can’t controvert that,” I said, thinking of Parson Brown. He’d come from the north. He’d known Fielding.
“I tell you,” urged Fielding. “I wrote only what was true – even if it was meant to mislead.”
“You told the story which she couldn’t tell herself. Because she was unable to write.”
“Just her name and one or two things more.”
“Even her name she couldn’t write properly,” I said. “It looked like ‘MERCY’ but what it actually said was ‘MERRY’.”
“Henry had brought back those papers with him and given them to Robin the woodman for safe-keeping. There must have been a trust between them, not enmity. The papers were Henry’s nurse-mother’s last remnants. But they said nothing of value.”
I thought of the discoloured, smeared documents which I’d found in Robin’s lair. I thought of how my Nell had writen “hell” instead of her own name, or rather of how I’d misread her hand.
“I couldn’t use those documents, the ones you retrieved from Robin’s lair,” said Fielding. “They were worthless. So I had to supply new ones. I disguised my hand slightly, but it’s hard to cover your traces completely. Your hand gives you away, willy-nilly.”
“It wasn’t only that,” I said. “You hardly gave anyone a chance to look at the ‘confession’. You were very quick to take it out of my hands when I brought it to you that evening and nobody else was permitted to examine the papers. But it wasn’t just that. It seemed . . . unlikely . . . that a woman would have gone from being a simple wench on an estate, gaping and grinning, to being someone who could pen her life-story. I could believe in her conversion, believe that she was overtaken by piety. That’s easy enough, or not uncommon anyway. But I cannot believe that she suddenly learned to read and write. Or anything more than her name. ‘Merry’. Why should she learn to write? Cui bono? you said to me once.”
“You are in the right,” said Fielding.
The image of Nell flashed through my mind again. For sure, she was learning the art of writing. But then she was young and bright and ambitious, not silly and gaping like an unlettered wet-nurse.
“I saw what happened that midsummer night,” said Fielding. “Or had glimpses of it anyway, like you, only perhaps a little less obscure. I was out and about, couldn’t sleep. Elcombe and Oswald knew that the poor natural was in the habit of coming out to gaze on the moonlit splendours of Instede. Elcombe decided once and for all to put an end to this witless threat to his estate. One – or both of them – rushed at Henry, overpowered him, smothered him. Some of this I saw, as you did.”
“Then they took him down to the lake,” I said.
“I didn’t realize that. They had a body but I didn’t know what they’d done with it,” said Fielding. “Not until you and Kate described what you’d witnessed by the shore. The white object floating up to the surface then sinking down again. I understood that it must be Henry’s body, and I couldn’t rest until it was recovered.”
“You confronted Elcombe over this. You were the one who approached him in the hornbeam garden.”
“I couldn’t find him for a time. I was wandering, sleepless, about the house and grounds, pondering on what I’d seen and what to do about it. Eventually, as it was getting light, I saw Elcombe again. He must have returned from the lake. He and his steward had finished their dirty work. Oswald was nowhere in sight. I said nothing to Elcombe but my eyes and face must have told the whole story because as I advanced on him he backed away in alarm. He looked ghastly. Even ghastlier than I looked, most likely. He stepped back and stepped back, and then fell onto the sundial. I was within a few paces of him. Even if I’d wanted to do anything to help him, it was too late. He writhed and struggled but the point had pierced him through. I saw, and could not be sorry. He was not a good man.”
“He deserved to die?”
“We all deserve to die,” said Fielding. “Or none of us deserve to die. Some days I incline to the latter, but not often. No, Elcombe was an especially vicious example of his species. He would kill to safeguard his wealth and standing. He would compel his other son into a marriage he didn’t want. He would do everything necessary.”
“Including the killing of Robin?”
“Yes, I am, almost certain that he and Oswald between them strung Robin up. Perhaps to scare Henry away. Like a farmer who dangles a line of dead crows to frighten off the others. Elcombe and Oswald knew of the link that bound Robin and Henry. They got rid of the one, then when they found that the other was still there they moved to destroy him too.”
“You were content to blame Henry for that,” I said.
“Not content, no. But it – it seemed the most convenient story to tell at the time.”
“Convenient for yourself,” I said, rigorous again.
“I accept that too,” said Fielding. “After Elcombe had fallen on the dial, I hardly knew what I was doing. I wandered about the Instede grounds like the first murderer. When I eventually returned to the spot it was to be told that young Harry had been discovered and – and caught.”
“Whereas he had been out and about early on his wedding day,” I said, applying my own reason and imagination to the situation. “A sensitive and solitary young man probably pondering on the tyranny of fathers. And then he had stumbled across his father’s corpse pinned to a sundial, gone close to it, got covered in blood and staggered off speechless.”
“Yes. So from that moment it became my prime concern to exculpate Harry Ascre.”
“Even at the cost of implicating his unfortunate namesake, his brother, the first Henry.”
“He was already dead by then,” said Fielding roughly. “What harm could it do him?”
“His memory?” I ventured. “It harmed his memory. Did he have no name to preserve?”
“A lack-wit’s name,” said Fielding.
“A person,” I persisted.
“I suppose a father may be allowed a greater latitude than others in this matter.”
There was a pause while I misunderstoo
d him. Then it grew clear, and I felt myself go a little weak in the legs. All the time the walls of the city drew nearer. We were now traversing the marshy area of Moor Fields, with its greenmantled ditches and sweet smell of rot. Clouds covered more than half the sky. The afternoon would not be fine after all.
“You know?” I said, and the question struck me as strange even as I put it, because he should have been saying it to me. “You know it for certain? He was your son.”
“Oh yes, there is no doubt about it.”
Adam Fielding stopped on the path for the first time since we’d set off from his sister-in-law’s house. He looked direct at me.
“I went to look at him after you and your fellows dragged him out of the water. When he was laid out in that little room. If a mother may know her child by instinct but infallibly, I suppose that a father may as well. It was our son. I told you once that I had a moment of rebellion when I was young. I wished to marry Penelope before – before she became Lady Elcombe. We would have married too, if my father had not stepped in and directed that I should marry her sister Elizabeth instead. And the aftermath of that . . . was a happy marriage. Brief but blissful perhaps, as I said to you. Besides, Kate came out of our union and she would redeem anything. My father knew better than I did. Or more likely it was luck or fate, I don’t know. Whatever the sequel, I went to my wedding-day an unhappy man, like Harry Ascre.
“But before that day, some time before, Penelope and I had done what youngsters will generally do if they’re left to themselves. She found herself big with child. By then she was married as well – to Elcombe. She too had a father to direct her in her choice of spouse. The child came a little early, if not as early as she pretended to her new husband. He never knew. He thought it was his, she believed it wasn’t but of course said nothing. And the rest you know. Their discovery that the baby was not . . . normal. I think that Penelope saw it as a punishment for our sin and for her deception of her husband. And then there was Elcombe’s decision to farm Henry out to a wet-nurse who would be negligent, even murderous. What he hadn’t reckoned on was the child actually being well cared-for and growing up strong and healthy enough to return one day to the family home. When he did and Elcombe realized the full extent of the danger – well, my lord took what he would see as a justified action to protect his interests.”
The Pale Companion Page 28