‘And I suspect, Miss Hart, that you are more than what you seem.’ He tapped his lips with one long finger as if considering hard. He lowered his head and whispered, ‘I heard a man needed five hundred pounds to keep you for himself.’
She did not often blush – but to hear this in Netherlea was not at all welcome.
‘Keep that to yourself,’ she hissed. And then, recovering herself, ‘It is different here. Here, I am without even fifty shillings.’ As his roguish grin warned her she had been too forward, she gabbled, ‘That is not an offer of my services!’
He tossed his head, laughing. ‘So you do not remember me?’
She shook her head.
‘Try this one, then – ’tis a puzzle or, technically, a conundrum. The place I saw you is “Where horses’ fodder is traded”.’
She bit her lip, confounded. His expression was eager, willing her to comprehend. ‘I cannot think. Tell me.’
But the rascal only shook his unkempt head. ‘Not now. Call again. Alone.’
Joshua came in then and strode over to the bed. ‘Roused yourself at last, Mr Starling? Where were you yesterday morning?’
‘For goodness’ sake, man, I was here. What is your business?’
‘You know Francis De Vallory?’
‘No,’ said Nat defiantly. ‘I do not. Why would I be interested in that young cub?’
‘Where are the clothes you wore yesterday?’
‘What do you suppose those articles are?’ asked Nat, indicating the clothes upon the line.
‘So where have you hidden the bloodstained garments?’
Nat stood quickly, on the defensive. ‘You will find no bloodstained garments here.’ Then he added, in a low but clear voice, ‘Unless you produce them yourself.’
Joshua’s colour was deepening to the colour of plums. ‘I have seen you. At night, in the woods. I am a witness to your prowling.’
‘I take exercise. It is common land, I believe.’
‘Not common to you, Starling. You are under suspicion.’ Joshua banged his constable’s staff against the floor. ‘The woods are out of bounds to you. I’ll set a watch.’
‘And do you also watch that youth Darius? He lurks about the pathways at night making threats. Is he a suspect too?’
Ignoring this, Joshua turned to Tabitha. ‘Your questions?’
Damn him. She had questions, but none suitable to ask before her old friend. She searched her wits. ‘Mr Starling, if I might ask – how long have you been here in Netherlea?’
Tight-lipped, he glanced quickly at the constable. ‘About six weeks.’
‘So you were not here at Easter-tide?’
He shook his head.
‘And what did you know of Francis De Vallory?’
‘Only that he was Sir John’s son and heir – young, conceited, badly-dressed.’
She shook her head at him. ‘Whatever your opinion of him, Mr Starling, an innocent youth has been murdered.’
‘Forgive me, Miss Hart. I did not mean to be uncivil.’
He sounded suddenly so contrite that she had a startling desire to console him. Mercifully, Joshua interrupted them, bearing a sheet of paper inked with a crude design. ‘What do you call this?’
Nat took it. It was an old-fashioned picture of a corn stook, around which young men in doublets and feathered hats were throwing sickles in a species of contest.
‘I believe it’s called throwing for the neck,’ he said casually. ‘It’s an illustration for a chapbook I’m writing on country customs.’
‘Balderdash,’ said Joshua coldly. ‘You got the notion to kill Francis De Vallory from this trash. I’m taking this to the magistrate. And I’ll be back with a warrant, you may be sure of that.’
He turned away to the door, and Tabitha cast an exasperated glance back towards Nat, who shook his head in amused exasperation.
‘Take care,’ she warned, with silent lips. Then she forced herself to follow Joshua.
FIFTEEN
A Riddle
There is a gate we all know well,
That stands ’twixt Heaven, Earth, and Hell,
Where many for a passage venture,
Yet very few are fond to enter:
Both dukes and Lords abhor its wood,
The prospect of it chills their blood.
Yet commoners with greatest ease
Can find an entrance when they please.
The poorest hither march in state
While drums are beat and parsons prate –
Yet e’en the gravest persons who advance
Cannot pass through before they dance.
The 21st day of August 1752
St Athanasias
Luminary: Today sun and clocks run correct together.
Observation: Conjunction of Venus and Mars.
Prognostication: There will be such fightings and slaughterings as are not usual.
The crowds at Francis De Vallory’s funeral were vast, for the whole county knew that much of the harvest feast had been kept back for the wake. For almost a week, the youth remained above ground, embalmed in a lead coffin in the hall’s private chapel; the coroner’s inquest pronounced him to have been murdered by persons unknown. Instead of the expected summons from the constable, Nat had instead received a lavish invitation to the funeral, along with a black arm ribbon and hat band. Thus clad, he had waited, as po-faced as he could manage, as an extravagant procession passed out of the gates of Bold Hall, led by nobles in black velvet and culminating in a hearse pulled by six ebony thoroughbreds dressed in waving plumes.
Once he was seated next to a young farmer in the sweltering Great Hall, its walls muffled in a king’s ransom of black crepe, he found he had quite lost his appetite for all but wine. He was soon benumbed, both with his neighbour’s conversation and the quaffing of spiced claret; his mood brightened only when the sweetmeats were served and he sighted Tabitha Hart sauntering about the room.
‘Would you care for a biscuit?’ she asked demurely.
He looked up, tipsily flummoxed by her proximity, and took a morsel wrapped in black waxed paper. The motto stamped into the confection read: ‘Our Time is At Hand.’
He showed her the legend and smiled. ‘Is it, truly? In which case, may we not talk somewhere in private?’
‘Oh, sir, not now,’ she said, though she looked disappointed. ‘I have to get to Chester by six, and it’s a good two-hour walk.’
‘I see. Are you not fearful of walking alone after such an outrage?’
‘Aye, there is a savage murderer at large,’ interrupted the young farmer, a single man. ‘I have a gig I might place at your—’
‘Ride with me to Chester,’ Nat broke in rudely, in his turn. ‘Meet me at the stables in a quarter-hour. I’ll have you at the market cross well before six.’
For a moment, she looked from him to the farmer, then silent laughter seemed to brighten her eyes.
‘Very well. In fifteen minutes.’
He waited fretfully, with Jupiter pacing, until Tabitha arrived with a bundle in her arms. ‘Oh, Lord! That is a very high horse you have there.’
As he sat well forward in the saddle, she mounted clumsily from the block, sitting farm-boy fashion behind him, with her legs astride – and, from what he could glimpse, her skirt raised up almost to her knees. Though she couldn’t ride for pie, it felt good to feel her sitting warm and ungainly behind him, her arms clasping his waist.
He turned the horse out of the yard. Ahead of them, standing by the gates, a gaggle of women stood watching their approach; Zusanna, the bane of his tavern hours, stood red-cheeked and grim. He had an uncomfortable notion that the dairymaid might cry out some impertinence as they passed.
‘I’ll take the back roads through the farm,’ he decided, leading Jupiter down a bridle path behind the highway instead. The church bell chimed four o’clock as they trotted onwards through the final glory of the afternoon, through stubbled fields and glades that had just begun to wear the yellow tints of summ
er’s passing.
‘You didn’t come to the harvest feast.’ She sounded almost sorry, speaking so close to his ear that her breath tickled him.
‘I was avoiding your friend the constable.’
‘No mind. All who came said it was the poorest harvest they ever saw, what with there being no merriment on account of Master Francis’s death. Sir John was hid away, so there were no healths drunk to the master. But who could blame him, with his only son just murdered? Some said it was an ill omen for Netherlea to have blood spill on the corn. What do you say?’
‘Did not the old pagan rites welcome blood at harvest time? It augurs fertility and so on, does it not?’
‘Do you believe that?’ She angled her head to watch him. He twisted to look at her, with a mocking grin.
‘I am sure you think me a dunderhead, but truly? Do not insult me, Tabitha. I do have some sense.’
They came to the orchard, where neat rows of trees bearing perfumed lady apples and cowslip-yellow pippins stood as still and silent as Pomona’s grove. He walked the horse up to a heavy-fruited tree, plucked a shining green apple and offered it to Tabitha. With a snort, she discarded it after one bite.
‘You are too early, unless you want to fetch a ladder and take one from those nearest to the sun.’
‘Ah, the higher the tree, the sweeter the fruit. There is truth to those old sayings. We talked of such matters at Cambridge.’
‘Aye? And in which Cambridge tavern was that?’
‘At Trinity College, you saucy jade. My professor often talked of it as an allegory. Do you know that there is such a thing as a tree of time?’
He felt her head resting against his back as they trotted on and it pleased him. ‘And you are going to tell me all about it.’
‘I am. Picture a great tree in your mind. The solid trunk is the past. The past, of course, cannot be changed.’
He felt her nodding, pictured her clear brow, the unruly hair that fell from her cap, and two sparkling eyes that missed nothing.
‘The present moment, the ‘now’, moves like sap up the trunk. The future is represented by branches, the different possibilities ahead of us. Unlike the tree’s rigid trunk, our future is malleable and we can choose which branch to take. But the branches we do not choose – the schooling we reject, or the suitor we disdain – those branches no longer exist once time has passed. Indeed, they wither and fall off our tree.’
‘So we must make wise choices to pluck the best fruits?’ She was quick to grasp the idea.
‘Yes.’
‘But how do we know which branch to take?’
‘Ah, if only we knew. We must be as wise as we can; for as time keeps moving upwards, our branches grow fewer.’
She craned forward to look at him, a perplexed look on her face. ‘What is the name of these notions you studied at Cambridge?’
‘Philosophy. My professor knew the great Newton himself.’
‘Perhaps I was wrong about your being a dunderhead, after all.’
He chuckled but was silenced by her next remark. ‘But why do you live as you do, Nat? If you know all these clever things?’
He sighed. ‘Well, why do you live as you do?’
‘That’s cheating. I asked you first.’
‘But the answer is surely contained in both of our reasons.’
‘And that is?’
‘I deduce that we are not yet wise.’
‘And by God, may we never be!’ She repeated the common London toast to folly but added, in a plaintive voice, ‘Truly, why do you live as you do at Eglantine Hall?’
‘Because I confound myself, Tabitha. Those scribblings and quips I produce are mere shadows of my ambition. I long to be a writer, a poet, but it seems I have only the shabbiest sort of talents. I disgust myself, selling the outpourings of my pen for coppers.’
He told her then of his being reared in Cambridge, in a noble household; his mother was a woman of Netherlea, but she had had the good sense to leave the place and take up a post as Lord Robbins’ housekeeper and marry his steward. His Lordship had favoured Nat as a lad, given him access to his great library, and even arranged for his studies at the university. But Nat, like a prize booby, had fallen in with false friends and failed at his studies; a weakness for liquor had undermined his will. Fleeing debt, he had headed for London, still sure of the great literary career awaiting him. Alas, the only work he could sell had been on Grub Street – the riddles and dream books and lewd pamphlets from which he now made a paltry living.
‘It is my ambition to write in the new style,’ he told her. ‘Have you read much of that fellow Defoe, beyond Robinson Crusoe? He was an upstart, of course, but truly he overturned the whole business of writing; he wrote in a manner for common people to enjoy, but there is a modern singularity to his work. Do you know, he used to go into Newgate and converse with the felons? Then, in his pamphlets he transports the reader directly into the jail and reports the authentic words of scurrilous villains like Jack Shepherd.’
He could not help but run on, now he had started.
‘I believe it is more than just a fashion, this attempt to understand the world we live in – not by creating fantastical conceits about gods and kings but looking unflinchingly at what is here all around us, the poor, the criminal orders, the pimps and whores … Oh, forgive me. I suppose you must despise me now,’ he concluded, suddenly horrified by his own frankness.
‘There is no tree but bears some kind of fruit,’ she quipped, sounding not at all insulted. ‘Nat Starling, how old are you?’
‘Five and twenty.’
He heard her happy, ringing laugh. ‘So old? And so educated and well connected. You handsome lump; there are rich branches aplenty dangling above your head. You just cannot see them yet.’
He protested, but was cheered, at least, by that epithet ‘handsome’, whether he was a lump or not. ‘And you, Tabitha? What lies ahead for you?’
‘Well, I have no fruitful branches to pick from, as you have. But you are not the only one with regrets. Perhaps I must also leave some deadwood behind me.’
He recalled the curse that Darius had purported to cast in her direction. ‘And you are well? Allowing for the sad loss of your mother, naturally.’
‘I believe I am improving every moment,’ she answered cheerily.
They had arrived by now at the top of Moss Hill, looking down on the valley of the Dee, where a herd of brown-and-white cattle drowsily splashed through the water.
‘I shall walk down the hill,’ she said, ‘if you will help me dismount.’
Together they strolled down the slope, he leading Jupiter by the reins. He glanced at her sideways, trying to guess her thoughts.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘I guessed it. Did you come to the cottage one night?’
‘I did. Well, more than once perhaps.’
‘Why? I hope you are not the murderer.’
He grinned at the ridiculous idea.
‘No, I wanted to speak to you. I liked your mother very much, she was a friend to me.’
For some time they talked of the widow and he was touched by the regrets they shared; the difficulties of combining a life of liberty with the duty to one’s parent.
‘The last night of your mother’s life she was distracted,’ he confided. ‘And once I had left her, I saw Darius close by.’
‘You called on my mother?’
‘If I had only stayed longer she might still be alive. I cannot forgive myself.’
Though they walked on in silence he caught her watching him.
‘It is I who need forgiveness,’ she said at last. ‘I was tardy on the road and too late to save her. Nonetheless, take my advice, Nat. Don’t tell Joshua you were with her. He is a solid thinker and needs a scapegoat. Perhaps you will soon return to London?’
With some apprehension, he noted that they had come already to the bend in the river, very close to Chester and its walls.
‘I still have busines
s here. I can’t leave yet. And … if I could make amends? I have written of a great many crimes and indeed it is my pleasure to unpick the puzzle of them. In every inquiry there is the gathering of intelligence, the detecting of past events and following the criminal’s trail. I would be most happy to assist you. Whoa, Jupiter. What is this?’
He slowed to stroke the horse’s neck. They had arrived at the highway to find a crowd massing towards the city. Purveyors of cakes and hawkers of liquor stood along the road, while sellers of ballads and last confessions shouted their wares. A thrilled murmur rose from the rabble as a band of soldiers overtook them, guarding a rough-hewn cart. Inside it stood a parson chanting from a prayer book and behind him crouched a youth no more than fourteen years of age, his face crumpled and slick with tears. Nat saw, with disgust, that the lad’s scrawny limbs were weighted with chains. There above them stood the city gibbet on Gallows Hill, the topmost beam in grim silhouette against the sky. As the cart trundled past them, they could hear the poor lad’s sobs.
‘Look at that!’ he cried. ‘“The little thieves hang while the great thieves sit on the bench.” Where is justice in this land?’
To his surprise, Tabitha slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.
‘Poor little runt,’ she agreed. ‘He has had no life yet. But do you, with all your knowledge of such matters, wish to join him on the end of a rope? Don’t make an enemy of Joshua. The gallows is not a pretty end, especially when the corpse is innocent.’
She looked towards the turrets and towers of Chester, rising against the softening golden sky. Across the still air came the tolling of the great cathedral bell.
‘Six o’clock. We’ve been dawdling. Your friend will be waiting.’
But instead of hurrying, Tabitha slowed and stood before him. ‘Where are you going tonight?’
He looked down into her eyes that met his with fierce intent. The sun had turned her cheeks a pretty pink. ‘Nowhere of consequence. I’ll find an alehouse in Chester.’
‘Don’t,’ she said, taking his fingers in her own. Her hand felt very soft and slight inside his. ‘Stop throwing your life to the dogs, Nat. Go back to Netherlea tonight.’
The Almanack Page 10