‘Sir John,’ she said softly, curtsying low. ‘It is Tabitha. I am leaving soon and wanted to see you.’
She set the tray down and approached him. It was a blow to see the old man laid low like this.
‘I want to thank you for speaking in my favour to Parson Dilks. I am sorry – I should have answered your messages.’
His gaze was fixed upon her and his lips worked anxiously, the spittle collecting at the corners.
‘You cannot speak?’ she whispered.
Sir John’s purplish eyelids slowly closed, then opened, in a slow and deliberate blink.
Of a sudden, she unburdened herself of all her worries, convinced that Nat’s father must have at least a fraction of the affection that she felt for his son.
‘I have seen Nat in Chester gaol. Pray forgive him, but I forced him to tell me his secret. I know he is your son. I am doing all I can to free him, for I swear to you that he is innocent. But God help me, this snow has confounded my plans and I am at my wits’ end.’
Suddenly all her heartfelt feelings burst out of her. ‘I love him, Sir John. He’s a fool at times, too clever for his own good; but Lord help me, I love him with all my soul. He must not be hanged. He is innocent.’
To her dismay, Sir John’s eyes filled with tears, and two glistening tracks rolled down from the creased corners of his eyes.
‘I am sorry,’ she said again. ‘You care for him too.’
She produced a handkerchief to gently wipe the tears away. ‘Well, I swear to you that I will do my utmost to save him,’ she said, sniffing hard.
Fearing that Lady Daphne might interrupt them, she offered him a spoonful of plum pottage, which he took as meekly as an infant. When he had taken all he could, she held the glass of ratafia to his lips, but Sir John was growing sleepy, and would take none of it, compressing his mouth in a stubborn line.
The cherry-scented liquor smelled sweet and appetizing and she was tempted to take a restorative sip. On hearing a movement on the stairs, she put the glass down and squeezed Sir John’s great red fist and wished him a Christmas blessing.
She was distracted with sorrow as she emerged on to the passageway. From all she knew of the sick and dying, Sir John had the look of a man who would never recover his health. She finally comprehended the full force of guilt that Nat carried; that having so recently met his true father, he had caused this apoplexy, and perhaps brought about his imminent death.
‘Tabitha?’ She looked up to see the doctor leaning on his cane. ‘You visited my brother?’
She curtsied. ‘Yes, sir, I wanted to see him before I leave Netherlea. To say farewell.’
‘Ah, I am sorry you are leaving. Well, my pharmacopoeia is in better order than it was before – and you and Bess have cheered an ailing man. Let me know if I can assist you, in any way at all. When is it you leave?’
‘I leave as soon as the road to Chester is open. And – sir, perhaps you might help me.’
She set the tray down and surrendered to her sudden impulse. There was nothing for it; trapped here in Netherlea, she must try any possibility to save Nat.
‘I have a curiosity I need to sell. A pocket watch of solid silver. It is a memento mori, engraved all over with mottos and Bible scenes. I’m told it once belonged to Mary, the Scottish Queen.’
The doctor lifted his grey brows and pursed his lips, nodding sagely. He was still flushed from the wassail cup; it had given his eyes a new, intoxicated glitter. ‘Do you, indeed? I have heard tell of such a curious relic; engraved with mottoes from Horace and Ovid. I have a fascination for these vanitas objects. And you wish to part with it?’
‘I must.’
‘Do you have it here?’
‘No. I would need to fetch it.’
He remained thoughtful, tapping his finger against his cheek. Finally, he looked up at her with a wan smile. ‘I should like to give you a fair price, for friendship’s sake – but to do that, I must discover more of the object’s history. What say you to calling on me tomorrow? I will give you something for it, even if it is not of the provenance you hope.’
Tabitha hesitated; if the road were clear in the morning, she might be wasting precious hours with the doctor.
‘I need at least fifteen pounds,’ she said, not troubling herself about being so forthright.
The doctor narrowed his eyes as if deliberating hard. ‘If the object is as you describe it, that price is certainly achievable. Tomorrow, being Christmas, I dine here at Bold Hall again. But if you will call upon me at my own house, I shall return at two o’clock.’
FORTY-THREE
A Riddle
Sometimes upright I am found,
As often laid along,
I’m also found on sacred ground
Amid a numerous throng.
Those whom I serve are cold as I:
No wages I receive,
But stand beneath the open sky,
To make their memory live.
In church I’m often placed more high,
With mournful trophies dressed:
Then speak in Latin frequently,
And wear a marble vest.
The 24th Day of December 1752
Christmas Eve
Luminary: Moon rises 4 minutes after 9.
Observation: Venus is an occidental evening star.
Prognostication: The minds of the people are filled with ambiguous forebodings.
On Christmas Eve morning, Nat had taken such steps as he could to prepare himself for a rapid departure; he had paid for his face to be shaved and his hair to be dressed. Then there was nothing for it but to wait. He found himself repeatedly dragging the noisy leg iron back and forth to the window, hoping to gain his first glimpse of Tabitha. The snow in the castle yard had been mostly swept away by breakfast time, and he could see nothing beyond the high turreted walls. When a carriage rolled in through the gateway, however, its roof was white with snow. To his dismay, he saw the sheriff dismount from it, and beside him walked Constable Saxton, bearing his staff of office. They disappeared into the sheriff’s lodgings while Nat continued to fret at the window.
The constable was in Chester devilish early; he envied him travelling with Tabitha from Netherlea. He told himself that Tabitha must even now be making her way to the Goldsmith’s Fair. He had no doubt that she was as sharp as a razor, but still he wished that he could have accompanied her. Those merchants would try to swindle her – he silently urged her to hold out for as much as twenty guineas.
When might she come to the gaol – as early as noon? The castle bell rang out midday, then one, then two, and then three. An unpleasantly hollow feeling grew inside his ribcage; he feared that she had tried to sell the watch to someone who suspected it had been stolen. He sank his head into his hands and wondered how his conscience could bear it if he had delivered her up to the law, too.
Night had fallen by four o’clock. Torches were lit against the walls in the courtyard and he could just see moving silhouettes and hear drunken shouts. Heavy steps rang out on the stone stairs leading up to his cell; then the door opened, and the soldier he knew as Jansen pushed a drunken youth inside.
Nat sprang up. ‘Have you seen Tabitha?’
Jansen busied himself attaching the drunken youth to a chain upon the wall.
‘Looks like our lady has brought no Christmas gift, for me nor for you,’ he said in a gruff undertone.
‘Something must have gone wrong,’ Nat hissed. ‘She promised to be here. Some trouble must have delayed her.’
Jansen looked quizzically up at him, through his tangled hair. ‘More’s the shame if she don’t come. The apprentice boys are out holidaying; there are fights on every street corner. I could have smuggled you out in all the hubbub.’
‘Give her time,’ Nat begged.
‘Aye, but hark you, my watch ends at six – and I won’t be back here till your trial day. I’m right sorry. I did my best.’
‘If she comes before six?’
‘If she
has the money I stand by my word.’
For the next hour Nat stood upon the stool at the darkened window, conjuring a vision of Tabitha running up to his door, laughing about some foolish delay and spiriting him off to a coach that would speed them down the dark highway. He glanced over at his new cellmate, who was lying upon his stomach, groaning miserably from a surfeit of drink. The lad would not even bear witness to his escape.
The bells rang out six o’clock, and Nat collapsed back upon the stone ledge. His ignorance of Tabitha’s whereabouts was the most appalling thing of all. For a long time he closed his eyes, confronting a series of horrific possibilities. The worst – and, it seemed to him, the most likely – eventuality was that De Angelo had seized her. He remembered her bold good sense, her loyal heart. He longed for brandy, or even a large black tablet such as Reuben Pearce had possessed, to consign himself to oblivion.
Striving to control his fears, he lit a candle, and for the first time grew concerned that the apprentice boy was gasping in a loud and painful fashion. Nat dragged himself across the chamber and prodded him then, reluctantly, heaved him over on to his back, and gave an involuntary cry. The freckle-faced lad was not drunk, but insensible from a wound to his chest that had stained his woollen coat dark with blood.
Nat shouted at his door, but no one answered. He hollered again before remembering Jansen’s warning that most of the soldiery would be taking a holiday tonight. He felt quite empty of ideas; no one would call on him until at least seven the next morning. He made an attempt to staunch the lad’s wound but had no doubt he was too badly injured for anyone but a surgeon to save. He raked his fingers through his hair and despaired. All his plans were confounded.
Forcing himself to grow calmer, he picked up the paper Tabitha had brought him, which bore the transcription of the De Vallory monument. He smiled indulgently over Tabitha’s sketch, for, in truth, she was not the most skilled of artists. He could just identify what appeared to be a figure of a man with a sheet cast over his head, something like an All Hallows’ ghost; certainly, the features of the effigy were entirely obscured. He could not at once think which god or character from the classical world this was meant to represent. Beneath the figure’s raised foot lay a skeleton attempting to rise upon its elbows, twisting its skull to stare upwards at its conqueror. Nat read the inscription:
Francis John De Vallory,
Only Son of Sir John Lawrence De Vallory by Lady Daphne, the daughter of Clement Fifield,
departed this life August fourth 1752, in the twentieth year of His Age.
Only son, was he? Nat sighed, resigned to his own claim being never substantiated. He was truly sorry, however, that Sir John’s only legitimate heir had died in such a violent manner. He had seen the despair in Sir John’s face and would wish such pain upon no parent.
Below were inscribed a dozen lines of Latin. Nat’s eyes speedily picked out a number of conventional and platitudinous words: sleep, truth, gentle. Well, he had the whole oppressive evening before him, so he supposed he might as well translate it from start to finish.
Behold the Veiled One,
Bringer of Truth
He was about halfway through the verse when it struck him, with a tiny thrill of interest, that he was reading a riddle. The effigy had to be a classical figure, for the Golden Age described by Ovid and Hesiod was clearly referred to; he racked his brain but could not find a solution. He caught his breath in excitement as the eighth line was revealed to him:
The sickle-bearer,
Reaper of men.
He dismissed his suspicion; surely this was a conventional description of Death, or Time, who traditionally carried a sickle. There were a number of jarring lines, however:
The serpent-twined staff
Of victorious sleep …
As quickly as he could, he completed the last few couplets.
My wandering twin,
Be-ringed with light,
Devourer of kin
Reaper of years.
Nat leaned back against the chilled wall of his cell and tapped his pen rhythmically against the rickety table. What the devil was this? It was a mighty odd funerary inscription, for it spoke nothing of Francis’s qualities. Instead, it appeared to be a laudatory verse about the veiled figure standing above the inscription, and whoever had composed it had been extraordinarily free in his theme. Surely this was more than a personification of Time or Death? The figure also carried a serpent upon a staff and bore a ring of light. It had to be Saturn, he decided, remembering Ovid’s lines about the god who had ruled a mystical Golden Age before the foundation of the world. And Saturn was another name for Chronos, or Time, and the twin was the planetary wanderer, Saturn, which also sported a ring of light.
Nat squeezed his eyes tight shut and tried to remember all he knew about Saturn. He had once seen a ghastly painting of Saturn destroying his own kin by eating them, thereby forbidding them dominion over himself. He was a cruel god, a forerunner of the grotesque figures of skeletal Death himself.
Nat shook his head in astonishment. Was he correct, to think this described Francis’s murder by means of a reaping scythe, and the bringing of eternal night to Netherlea by use of poison? And a serpent carried upon a staff – why, the solution to the riddle was really rather easy.
Easy, but also terrifying. Where in Heaven’s name was Tabitha? Both his mind and his body were suddenly so agitated that he felt he might scream if he could not at once go and search for her. If he had been cold before, he now found himself shivering like a plague victim.
For now, he had uncovered the identity of De Angelo. And the certainty grew like ice upon his limbs that the longer he was kept apart from Tabitha, the sooner De Angelo would strike.
FORTY-FOUR
A Riddle
I will always pursue you, although I am blind,
The more of me you take, the more follow behind,
There is only one means to escape me I’ve found,
And that’s to evade me by taking hard ground.
The 24th day of December 1752
Christmas Eve
Luminary: The Yule Moon three days old.
Observation: Aldebaran south 30 minutes after midnight.
Prognostication: Many subtle and unlawful actions contrived among men.
It was dark again when Tabitha and Bess set off home from Bold Hall. All around them, the snow shone in the moonlight, like a frozen fairytale world. It was a lonely journey dragging the sled, once they had crossed the icy highway of the river. Bess was wakeful, alert to the sounds of creatures stirring in the woods. Through the clear night air they heard a vixen barking and, closer at hand, unseen birds rustled in the trees sending falls of snow cascading to the ground. To keep both their spirits up, she kept up a litany of stories that her mother had told her: of how the dormouse was sleeping in a furry knot in the hollows of the bank, and the spiked ball of the hedgehog slumbered on through the winter in his dell. She related how below the ice, on the river’s floor, frogs crouched yellow-eyed and motionless. And deep in the soil, buried seeds stirred and dreamed of quickening in the springtime.
Afterwards, she remembered that both she and Bess had been uneasy, even before she noticed footsteps leading towards the cottage. The moon did not reveal them with the clarity of daylight, and Tabitha could distinguish no details. She paused and set her own booted foot beside the shape in the snow. These newer prints were larger and heavier than hers. She could see the marks that she had left earlier that afternoon very clearly, between the twin lines of the sled’s runners.
For a moment she hesitated, unsure whether to turn back to the hall. The doctor had announced that any tenant who chose not to venture out into the freezing night might sleep by the Yule fire. It was tempting; yet she could already see the two squares of the cottage windows gleaming golden-red from the remains of the fire. No, she was almost home – and besides, she felt curiously reluctant to turn back.
The prints continued up the path to
the cottage door. She stopped halfway and inspected them, shushing Bess, who was making excited noises of pleasure to be home. To Tabitha’s relief, she discovered that the footprints first led to the door and then turned back and away down the path. Now that she guessed there was no intruder waiting in the cottage, she considered other possibilities. With a jolt of excitement, she wondered if Nat had somehow broken free. Perhaps he had persuaded Jansen that she would pay him after Nat’s release? Or maybe it was Joshua, returned from Chester up the newly opened road. Whoever it was, they had ventured out to call on her, and had then gone on their way.
Tabitha was therefore off her guard when she reached the wooden door and saw something square and pale had been fixed upon it. She pulled the paper down and, after beating away the excess snow from her clothes, she pushed the door open and carried Bess inside. It must be from Nat. Perhaps he was waiting for her at Eglantine Hall? Nevertheless, before reading the message, she made a rapid search of the cottage; so far as she could tell, no one had ventured inside since she had left. Bending low over the fireplace, she stoked the embers with the poker and peered at the message, making out the letters in the dim reddish glow.
To Tabitha
We have played the game to its merry end.
You long have amused me, my clever friend,
As a vain and dogged adversary;
’Tis a shame you are my enemy.
Only one of us can conqueror be,
So your death must crown my victory.
De Angelo
In a spasm of fright, she ran to the front door and, with fumbling fingers, succeeded in bolting it tight. Yet had not her mother relied on that frail barrier of wood and still been attacked in this very same cottage? She stood very still, listening for any movement from outside; then she dragged her mother’s chair towards the door and jammed it hard against the latch. Next, she placed the heavy oak table behind the chair. It would not prevent a strong man with a hammer from entering the cottage, but she would have fair warning of an attacker’s arrival.
The Almanack Page 28