‘That was a fine performance yesterday,’ the doctor said, with great warmth in his jaundiced eyes. ‘What an extraordinary story you told. And my brother was so eager to claim that little maid as Francis’s child. A lesser woman might have tried to deceive him and claim a birthright for Bess.’
‘I am not a fraudster, Doctor.’
He courteously inclined his grey head. ‘And you have helped me greatly in my work. I will not forget that. It is this Starling fellow I need to discuss with you – I have heard alarming news of him. I speak only as someone with a great regard for you, Tabitha, as I hope you will believe. I cannot repeat a confidence, but I believe he exploits you.’
Tabitha’s chin jerked up. ‘How is that, Doctor?’
‘It is hard to speak and at the same time keep my promise. I do not simply mean he exploits you only as a – a very handsome woman.’
She felt unnerved. ‘Then how?’
‘Has he told you why he is here in Netherlea?’
His words could not have hit a more sensitive target. Crestfallen, she shook her head.
‘Ask him. And whatever he tells you,’ the doctor said, ‘consider this. What can his true reason be for all those impertinent speculations about who killed poor Francis?’
She answered stiffly, ‘I am sure there is a very good reason.’
Soon after, she made her excuses and left the doctor with a promise to return to her duties the following week. Resentment propelled her swiftly along the High Street. She had broken her vow to her mother, had been forced to confess that she had lived as a common whore in front of Sir John and his boorish cronies. But as for Nat – why, he still kept his cards mighty close. Must she forever be the last to know of his schemes? If he did love her – and for the first time she pondered the distinction between love and feverish lust – he owed her his trust, and, above all, the truth.
One final incident rattled her entirely. As she hurried past the blacksmith’s yard, she passed by the same bonfire-building youngsters she had first seen near the church, now begging for pennies around their guy. In all the bonfire celebrations that Tabitha could remember, only a narrow compass of characters had been represented; the most usual was a feather-hatted Guy Fawkes, or an effigy of the pope in crimson and gold. But this year the effigy’s face was daubed with round demonic eyes, its body hidden beneath a black coat tricked out with rags of gold. A tuneless but enthusiastic song reached her ears:
Guy Fawkes, Guy,
Poke him in the eye,
Shove him in the chimney pot
And there let him die.
Her eye was caught by a printed pamphlet pinned to the effigy’s coat, and she snatched it up, despite the lads’ protests – but she had read only the title, A Noble House Cursed by a Curious Bloody Almanack, before a thuggish youth whipped it away.
‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded.
‘The tavern. Landlord had heaps of ’em, but they all sold out. He says they’re the work of that writer fellow, Starling.’ Then, smirking at her, he said, ‘Ain’t you ‘er what’s in it?’ He opened it up beyond her arm’s length, tantalizing her with a crude woodcut of a woman. Her own name, Tabitha Hart, was inked below it as clear as day.
She picked up her skirts and ran breathlessly home, trying to close her ears to any hints of laughter.
With a strong apprehension that her whole existence was about to change forever, she approached Eglantine Hall. Skin him alive, what had Nat done? She would give him such a tongue-lashing when she found him, true love or not. As she stumped up the stairs she rehearsed a stream of insults beneath her breath. He had behaved like a hired hackney, a poxy pen, a money-grubbing louse!
But the bitter words did not leave her lips, for Nat sat hunched over his desk, and when he raised his face it was gaunt with hopelessness. She could see at once that fate had struck him some great blow and, forgetting her anger, she rushed to comfort him.
‘What is it, my love?’
‘Tabitha,’ he said, like a lost boy. ‘I have betrayed everyone. And you, especially.’
‘The pamphlet? I saw it. But I’ve not yet read it.’
He pushed a copy towards her across the desk, gingerly, as if it were dipped in poison, and her gaze flitted swiftly over the text. It was extraordinarily strange to read of Netherlea as if it were a town in a chapbook; as if she, Sir John and Francis and all the rest of them, were wooden puppets gallivanting on a painted stage. Then she turned the page and saw again the idiotic woodcut of a long-haired siren, with two spherical breasts protruding from a gown not fashionable since the days of Queen Anne. Beneath it was printed a caption: The fair village searcher, Miss Tabitha Hart.
‘Dammit, Nat, I look like a ship’s figurehead carved from oak, and twice as old besides,’ she quipped, as lightly as she could. Next she saw an engraving of Sir John and Lady Daphne, done many years earlier, when they must first have been married.
Nat’s voice was husky with sorrow when he spoke. ‘Sir John has read it. He knows I wrote it. And, God forgive me, he fell to the ground in horrified surprise. An apoplexy, they say. He may die. The doors of Bold Hall are closed to me. I have brought everything to ruin.’
Tabitha took note of the bottle of brandy on the floor beside him, and of the sing-song lilt of his voice. Her anger, which had cooled a little, hardened now like metal ore – she was ready for a fight.
‘So I see. You have done the murderer’s work for him.’
‘I need to find De Angelo. We need to unmask him.’
She raised her brows. ‘Why, so you can earn a fee for writing about that, too?’
He shook his head wildly, as if a wasp had landed in his unkempt hair.
‘No. I want to help you. And to catch this monster. But most of all – I need your good opinion.’
The greater consequences of what Nat had done were beginning to play out in her mind. ‘La, it’s my good opinion you seek, is it? Well you have already abused that with the absolute disdain you have shown me.’ This time she was unable to disguise her hurt. ‘Did you think I would be flattered at being paraded in public like this?’ She threw the pamphlet down on the table, the sight of her own printed name burning in her mind.
The dismay in his face momentarily checked her. Then she remembered the doctor’s remarks, and her words surged hotly from her mouth before she could restrain them.
‘Have you used me, Nat? Did you befriend me only to write this scurrilous pamphlet?’
Her sorrow seemed to wake him from his fug. He stood, unsteadily, and threw his arms around her. For a moment she hoped that time could revert to a happier day; to yesterday, perhaps.
‘No, never. I love you. I merely … I had a sudden hankering to write of these extraordinary matters and was possessed like a lunatic. I am heartily sorry. But I know the fate of these newspaper pieces – it will soon be forgotten.’
That was too much.
‘You think so? Here, in Netherlea? Where any slight is remembered from a century back, and more? You have paraded me and all these others as an entertainment for the whole nation!’
‘Damn me, then.’ He sank his face against her shoulder. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he whispered.
‘No.’ She pulled back from him, keen to observe the effect of her words. ‘Listen. No one here will ever freely speak to you again; and maybe not to me, either. Our pursuit of this villain is ended, for good and all. And the worst of it is that many folk out there believe now that you committed these murders, having written in such neat and nice detail of them. I felt it out there in the village – and I saw it, too. That damned pamphlet was pinned to the guy they will burn. The effigy in the almanack verse is meant to be you.’
‘I wanted to keep this from you, Tabitha – but there’s something else.’ He staggered up and rifled through his mess of papers, handing her a neat page of verse. ‘This was pinned on the door after you left.’
I observe how you meddle
My schemes to ensnare,
; My wit has unmasked you,
Sir John’s son and heir;
But you’ll never unmask me
And fool, if you do
’Tis not me who will swing
By the neck – it is you.
De Angelo
Nat’s hands shook as he set the paper down.
‘Dear God.’ Tabitha snatched it up and read it again. Sir John’s son and heir.
Of course. Hannah Dove, a defenceless orphan, must have been given such generous parish assistance because she was carrying a child. Her move to Cambridgeshire was simply a means to rid Sir John of the nuisance of his merry-begotten child – who had grown up to be Nat.
‘And what this says is true?’ She searched his face, finding only a faint trace of the full De Vallory lips and high brow. ‘You are Sir John’s son?’
Nat groaned.
‘His natural son. He got my mother with child when she was a fifteen-year-old in the care of the parish. I only learned the truth of it last year, after my stepfather died. Before you ask, I am here with my mother’s blessing.’
Consequences, like a perilous pile of stones, seemed to be rising carelessly above her head. Tabitha looked at Nat with dawning horror. He had come to Netherlea, and met Sir John, in utmost secrecy; perhaps, having received no assurances from his father, he had sought to take his birthright by force. That was what any lawyer in the land would argue. The villagers and Joshua were all convinced of his guilt, even before they knew aught of this final damning fact.
‘And when,’ she said coldly, ‘did you think to tell me this?’
He looked at her and shook his head, as if in pain.
Tabitha found she had risen from her chair. Now there were two Nat Starlings – her darling sweetheart and this other man, so secretive and sly. While she had confessed her every flaw and frailty, he had kept this dangerous secret hidden till it was forced from him.
‘I must go,’ she said weakly, and turned on her heel, feeling little spurs of fear speeding her away into the night.
THIRTY-FOUR
A Riddle
In young and old I do excite,
Painful sensations and delight.
All men me as their servant prize;
But when I’m wild, I tyrannize:
I can be seen, and heard, and smelt,
Yea, more, I’m at a distance felt,
There’s but one death in nature found
For me, and that is to be drowned.
The 5th day of November 1752
Gunpowder Treason Day
Luminary: Night 14 hours and 42 minutes long.
Observation: Saturn in conjunction with Venus and Mercury.
Prognostication: Secret plotters exert their malice.
Tabitha moved back to her mother’s cottage. She wrote to Nat and begged him to leave at once – to go to London, or Cambridgeshire, or anywhere else in the world. Yet each day, when she walked to the river, she saw smoke still rising from the ornate chimneys of Eglantine Hall. Jennet had proved a loyal friend; she had solemnly taken both Tabitha’s hands and, with the simplicity of youth, pronounced that from what she had heard at the Manor Court, she and her mother were two of the bravest women in the land.
Joshua was less generous when he called, though he had, at least, seemed unaware of Nat’s secret relation to Sir John. Instead, he grumbled at how he had been hoodwinked by Tabitha and her mother. Like Mr Dilks, he took the view that any falsehood in the parish records should be punished, and the culprit made a public spectacle.
‘Go to it, Joshua,’ she taunted, lifting her arms up high. ‘Hang, draw and quarter me, won’t you? Is not that pamphlet sufficient entertainment?’
He scowled. ‘Has Starling gone yet? Jennet told me you have given him his marching orders.’
She banged down the wooden spoon she was using to mix a hasty pudding that was too much water and too little oatmeal.
‘As constable here, Joshua, you should know that a verse from De Angelo was pinned to Nat’s door. Nat will be his next victim.’
‘You ain’t fallen for that old trick?’ Joshua adopted his most annoying country drawl. ‘He’s wrote that himself. To garner sympathy from you, I should say.’
Had Nat indeed tried to deceive her? How simple it would be for him to compose a threat against himself …
‘And what of November’s prediction in the almanack – that “traitors will burn”? Don’t you care about catching this villain in our midst?’
Joshua calmly spat into the fire. ‘Oh, I do, Tabitha. You will soon see how much I do.’
By the time the evening bell rang out five times on Bonfire Night, the smell of wood smoke had drifted over to where Tabitha stood, captivated by the coral glow the fire cast into the darkening sky. Bess was sleepless, her small hand fidgeting in Tabitha’s whenever she heard occasional shouts or snatches of song.
‘Come on then,’ Tabitha said at last, bundling the child inside a knitted shawl. ‘If Nat truly is to be burned in effigy, we shall see it done.’
They halted in the shelter of the trees, well back from the crowd. Even from a stone’s throw away, the blaze warmed her, the air taut and primed as a musket. Now the man-sized guy was being carried in triumph to the fire, then with the aid of hooks and poles, it was hoisted on to a stake at its apex. She eyed it carefully, needing to be sure it was only a straw-stuffed sack, not a pliable slender body. No, it was a crude likeness only, its ghoulish eyes round and staring. Hanging from its belt was what looked like a silver harvester’s sickle.
A roar rose from the tankard-swilling revellers as the guy’s body caught on fire and blossomed into flames, then the crowd watched in rapture as the effigy was transformed into a burning man-shaped brand. It was a sickening, yet exhilarating sight. First, the pamphlet pinned to its costume blazed; then the demonic face ignited and drifted away in tinsel sparks. Finally, the sickle combusted, revealing nothing but a piece of lath painted silver. Even Bess stood rapt, her round eyes filled with crimson reflections, and her arms raised in mute worship of the fire.
Soon it was over. The guy was only a man of straw, and rapidly consumed. The villagers began to move back from the fire; some to leave, while others poked the ashes for embers in which to bake food. One of those was Jennet, larking about happily with a boy who showed off to her, leaping across a burning log. Suddenly Jennet caught sight of Tabitha, and, without hailing her, walked over.
‘That was a bonfire no one will forget,’ Tabitha said as she approached. Jennet stayed silent, twisting her hair as she always did when uncertain how to speak her mind.
‘I shouldn’t tell you, but Father is out to get Mister Starling tonight.’
‘No,’ Tabitha groaned. ‘Has that dunderhead still not left the hall?’
‘He’s been at the tavern all afternoon. That’s where Father’s gone to fetch him from.’
Jennet’s reward for turning informant was to have sleepy Bess thrust in her arms while Tabitha trotted down the road to the tavern. She could have gladly slapped Nat’s stupid, handsome face. What was his game? Courting the gallows for sport? Damn him!
As she hurried, she wondered why she still felt an ounce of loyalty to him.
Reaching the tavern, she shrunk back from its windows that cast lurid shapes into the darkness. From inside the walls, she could hear men singing like yawling cats. Now she would have to pass through that door of shameful memories – all to save a blockhead poet from himself. God in heaven, would she never learn?
‘Damn you, Nat,’ she whispered into the black air. Then, lowering her head, she strode quickly in through the door, and looked around. The front parlour was exactly as she remembered it as a timid nineteen-year-old: scratched blackened tables and rickety stools, gloomy from tallow candles that spread soot across the walls. Only the dregs of Netherlea’s inhabitants slumped over their pots on Gunpowder Night. A half-dozen of them looked up with fuddled faces, until one red-faced toper cried, ‘Look who it is, lads!’
‘Where
is Nat Starling?’ she asked the landlord – but the insolent fellow only smirked as he wiped his pewter.
‘What you want wi’ him, Tabitha?’ a voice bellowed from across the room. ‘There be plenty of lusty lads hereabouts. Fancy a drink, do ye?’ A chorus of drunken approval rose around her.
‘Aye, and more ‘n’ a drink over here, my lovely!’
‘She allus’ liked ’em saucy, I hear.’
‘No, she likes ’em rich.’
The landlord was laughing into his double chins, enjoying her discomposure. Where in Hell’s name was Nat? Devil roast him, she would make him suffer for dragging her here.
A barmaid trudging past, foot-weary and well used to such straw-heads, whispered as she passed. ‘He be outside, dearie.’
With as much dignity as she could muster, Tabitha headed for the inn-yard that had blighted her younger days. It was only a few steps, but they cost her dearly. At once she breathed in the stink of mildew, of ale lees, and the pails used to collect the beery piss that was sold as washing lye. If any smell evoked the dismal death of hope, it was this one.
Nat was slumped outside on a bench, his chin drooping to his chest, seemingly unaware of both the needling cold and his imminent danger. Tabitha halted out of sight, standing very still in the shadow of the wall. How could she get him to safety in such a state? Put gunpowder beneath him, perhaps? If she had not known him so well, she would have felt naught but contempt for such a drunken sot. His fine clothes were dishevelled; his hair untied, he wore no hat. She sighed, releasing a cloud of white vapour.
Another figure appeared from a side door, and walked uncertainly towards Nat, carrying two tankards with exaggerated care. The woman reached Nat’s side and nudged him, giggling.
‘Sup up now, Nat,’ she said in a voice that Tabitha knew only too well. ‘Budge up and tell me all about them stars and notions of your’n.’ She set the tankards down and, swaying, teetered down upon his knee, throwing her arm around his shoulders.
Tabitha felt something far colder than the frost creep over her. She stood as still as a winter statue.
The Almanack Page 23