by Norah Lofts
In fact, the Bishop had aged in a way which only he knew about, in the last couple of years; it was no longer hard to be celibate, it was difficult, impossible, to be anything else. Joanna had been the last female to rouse the least response in him; and his fulsome letter to Lord Shefton, dictated by self-interest, had been written with a feeling of envy and some cynicism; what the fellow was getting was something pretty to look at and something to warm his old bones in bed. No more. His letter to Lady Grey had been far more sincere. To have extracted such terms from a man with a reputation for miserliness was indeed an achievement.
‘We seem to have wandered from the point,’ he said, taking charge of the interview again. ‘I asked you if you had knowledge of a previous betrothal?’
Henry seldom acted on impulse; most of his behaviour was governed by good sense or, as when he took Moyidan Richard and later John and Young Shep into his home, by a recognition of responsibility. He felt responsible now. He must save Joanna and could see only one way of doing it.
‘Yes. I knew of it.’
Colour that almost matched that of the ruby on his finger began at His Grace’s jowls and ran upwards.
‘And you did not see fit to inform me? By such deception, Master Tallboys, you have placed Lord Shefton, Lady Grey and myself in a ludicrous situation. When I was exerting myself to find a home for the girl, an attempt to find her a suitable husband was part of the bargain; Lord Shefton’s proposal was made in good faith and Lady Grey had done her utmost to arrange a marriage settlement of exceptional generosity. Now this!’ In anger he rose and began to walk up and down behind the table, the silk of his gown rustling. ‘Why the secrecy? Tell me that.’
Henry, trained by Sybilla—one did not sit while one’s elders or superiors stood—rose, too, with the now familiar twinge.
‘She was so young at the time,’ he said. ‘Too young to know her own mind. Ignorant, too. I thought it likely that she might change.’
‘Which she has not.’
‘So it seems.’
His Grace saw a glimmer of a possibility of doing Lord Shefton a singular service. He dropped back into his chair and Henry re-seated himself.
‘A betrothal, as you know, is a solemn ceremony. But it may be annulled—by mutual consent. The girl may be unaware of this; but if the man concerned would withdraw, it is possible that she could be persuaded to do so. As you say, she was, still is, very young. Then this most desirable marriage could be brought about.’
Desirable? A man nearing seventy at least. And how would she feel, poor child, having made that last, desperate stand, only to be deserted and betrayed.
‘He will not withdraw, my Lord.’
‘How can you be so certain? A little money often works wonders. And money would be available. As I say, Lord Shefton is very rich…’
‘He’s not a man to be bought,’ Henry said.
‘How do you know? Most men have their price. Who is he?’
‘Myself, my Lord.’ There; now I am definitely committed. His Grace of Bywater sat silent for a moment, fighting his rage. In the Bible there was a very cogent question: Doest thou well to be angry? The answer was: No! You did ill to be angry, especially as age crept on. And quite apart from the physical risk which men past their prime ran by indulging in anger, there was the fact that rage made one splutter, choose the wrong words. Choosing his very carefully and speaking in the cold, distant way in which he would have rebuked a clerk who had made an error, he said, ‘I perceive that I was mistaken in thinking you different from your brother, that rogue and thief whom I most misguidedly protected. Deceit and deviousness are plainly characteristic of the Tallboys family.’
Henry stood up—that twinge again—and said, with more edge to his voice than even the experienced, sophisticated man on the other side of the table could produce, ‘I cannot sit here and listen to insults levelled at my family. Richard was plainly in the wrong. But your protection of him was well-rewarded, I think. You now have Moyidan, have you not? As for my deceit. What was it except that I kept silent over a betrothal I thought premature? All right, I said a suitable marriage. That was what wanted for her. And had one been proposed—and she agreeable—I should have welcomed it and withdrawn, wishing her happiness…’
He could have said much more, challenging the Bishop to go to Baildon, or anywhere else where the name of Henry Tallboys was known, and ask if, on a single occasion, he had ever acted deceitfully or deviously. But he knew that if he stopped to say this, he would be dismissed, ordered out of the place which had once been one of his childhood’s homes.
‘I have answered Your Grace’s questions and ask leave to withdraw,’ Henry said, and bowed—that hurt, too—and made for the door, leaving His Grace more annoyed than ever. He controlled himself and sat brooding. He must, of course, write to Lady Grey and say that the girl was right and that nothing could be done. But he must also think of a way in which to get even with that insolent, arrogant, homespun-clad fellow who had flung Moyidan into his teeth. He rang his bell sharply and of the clerk who came, hasty and willing, demanded that every paper and parchment concerning Moyidan and Intake should be brought to him immediately. What had once been a single, rather faded document, a deed of gift—with conditions—granted to a few serfs, giving them leave to go and hack themselves holdings out of the forest and to call themselves freemen had now, over the years, gathered accretions as a ship’s bottom gathered barnacles. All in order. Even the one thing which His Grace had hoped not to find. For as Henry withdrew, the Bishop had thought of the venery laws—who might or might not shoot a deer in Layer Wood. It should have been possible to catch Henry Tallboys there. But it was not; for written sideways along the margin of the oldest parchment was an addition. Henry’s Uncle James had been a meticulous man and he had made a note of the fact that he had granted his brother—Sir Godfrey—his heirs and assignees, permission to take a certain number of animals, at the right season. Even in his wrath the Bishop realised that it would be unwise to question that clause now when ostensibly Moyidan was being held in trust for the young heir and he was merely a custodian.
Later, when his rage had subsided a little, he puzzled over Henry’s motive for behaving as he had done. It certainly was not money, for he had had the girl’s person and her fortune completely in his own control. To enter into a betrothal, then send the girl with the better half of her dowry away, never mentioning the betrothal, practically inviting other marriage offers… turn it which way you would, it made no sense at all. In the end His Grace found himself forced to accept the man’s own explanation; he was betrothed to the girl but felt it to be premature, had sent her away so that she might learn more of the world, meet other people, and would have been prepared to withdraw, to release her should occasion arise. In fact, Henry Tallboys of Knight’s Acre was what the Bishop had, until today, judged him to be; a man of exceptional integrity. The honest man whom he had accused of deceit and deviousness! Regretting the words, now, but almost immediately justifying himself; chagrin speaking, the flash of anger provoked by the thought of those congratulatory letters, His Grace of Bywater, who was far from stupid, reflected that honest people were so rare that there were no well-tried rules for dealing with them.
Perversely, now that he had regained calm, it pleased him to think of the dignity with which the honest man had taken leave. Neither hurt nor humbled.
Henry was neither hurt nor humbled. Plain, downright, damned angry. He’d stipulated a suitable marriage and the fools had tried to rig up a match between a girl who wouldn’t be fourteen until June of next year and some old man doddering on the verge of the grave. Disgusting! Disgusting, too, that suggestion that another man could have been bought off; that every man had his price. It simply was not true. He thought of Walter. Of his own father, whose story had to be patched together since he was a man so unhandy with words; but Henry knew that his father, offered riches and honours as a reward for betraying his own kind, had chosen slavery instead. For the first tim
e in his life, Henry felt a fleeting wish that he could have known his father better, admired him more, been less critical. Too late now.
Mistress Captoft did not observe that Master Tallboys was even more silent than usual on the ride home. She was happy, ebullient and talkative. She did not even bother to ask him what his errand had been or what had been urgent about it.
‘I found exactly what I wanted. It was there, waiting for me, as I knew it would be. A big house, and old, at the upper end of the harbour.’
Pulling himself out of his brooding, he said, ‘The Knights’ House? A vaulted hall, like a church?’
‘The very one. How did you know?’
‘I went there once or twice with my father. Long ago when I was young and the war was at its height. Invasion from France was expected and knights were stationed there. My father was in command.’
He hadn’t given the place a thought for many years but he remembered it vividly now. The atmosphere, men young and not so young, all, Sir Godfrey included, merry. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. Shining suits of armour, swords, lances ready against the wall. Vast amounts of food and wine on the table and no sparing of candles. Perhaps even then his father, taking him there, had hoped to woo him into knighthood, away from the farm. And if he had been thus cajoled, joined that boisterous, glittering company, where would he be now?
Dead. And Knight’s Acre gone to ruin; fallow for a year with grass and pretty little flowers, sappy, expendable; and then, longer neglected, developing the tougher growths, going back to the wild.
‘Yes,’ Mistress Captoft said. ‘It still has that name. The Knights’ House. So similar to Knight’s Acre that I was immediately aware of the significance and, of the several vacant places on offer, decided to see it first. Of course, I was guided.’ She smiled happily and then ran on. ‘Of course, it is in a state of sad disrepair but the fabric is sound enough. Nothing wrong which a little money and labour cannot restore.’
It was in fact a stone building, built—though nobody now remembered this—to house a new Order of nuns who had come to England just after the Conquest. The Order had been short-lived and the design of the building had made it unsuitable as a family dwelling; the huge hall, intended for refectory and living place, the one sizeable parlour, briefly occupied by the Abbess, the many small rooms which that particular Order preferred to the communal dormer. During most of its long lifetime it had been used for non-domestic purposes, fish-curing, wool-storage, flax-retting, the making and mending of sails.
‘It could have been built for my purpose,’ Mistress Captoft said, ‘and I have hired it on very favourable terms. The owner is an old man and said he favoured short tenancies. I could see why, with each change of tenant he can raise the rent. A short lease would not have suited me at all; I should just have got things ship-shape. So I offered him five years’ rent in advance—with an option of buying at the end of that period.’
She did not feel it necessary to add that she had callously reminded the old man that at his age money in the hand was better than expectations in the future and that the final disposition of the property was, to put it mildly, unlikely to concern him very much. She had done so, however, and that reminder of mortality, added to the unfamiliar business of dealing with a woman, a woman who used words like tenure, had unmanned him.
‘Finding the house took no time at all; but I thought it wise to go along to a lawyer. Then I had to find a carpenter and a plasterer. That is why I am a trifle late. I should like to open the doors on Christmas Eve. It would be apt, would it not?’ More than apt, she thought happily; the anniversary of the day when at Bethlehem there was no room at the inn.
‘Most apt,’ Henry said, politely breaking away from his own preoccupation. ‘And I hope that everything concerning the house will go as easily as the finding of it.’
Not a word about missing her. He was one of the ungrateful.
‘I shall leave you in good hands, Master Tallboys. I shall take David with me and leave Katharine with you. She was an able cook when I found her and now she is trained to my ways. She will keep you comfortable.’
The decision to leave Katharine at Knight’s Acre had been taken, as usual, on impulse but for two excellent reasons. It would have worried Mistress Captoft to ride away and leave a man and a boy with no woman to care for them; the other reason was more worldly. Men straight from the sea or from destitution were hungry for other things besides food and Katharine, though no longer in the full flush of youth, had a certain comeliness which might lead to trouble. Most sailors could turn their hands to practically anything, as David had proved, and some cooking was done aboard ship. Mistress Captoft did not doubt that she would find two men, like David slightly disabled, capable of manning the huge kitchen which had two hearths and one oven. They, she had decided, would be permanent, so that they could learn her ways. Fully able-bodied men could stay only for a limited time, dependent upon circumstances; that was a thing which she must discuss with David—as also she must discuss the name the house would bear. Knights’ House was completely wrong.
The idea that she herself, one female amongst many men, might constitute a disruptive element in the happy family that she had planned never once occurred to her; she would walk among them, benefactress, nurse, hostess, Madam. Invisibly armoured.
The news that she was to be left behind dealt Katharine Dowley a shattering blow; for nothing but gratitude to Mistress Captoft, and dread of being thrown out into the world again, had kept her in this—to her—sinister house.
At first, being basically a woman of good sense, she had tried to explain herself to herself by saying that it was the quiet. She had gone from the Lanes—six to a room—to the inn, again six or seven to a room, an attic with a rough canvas screen between men and maids. As cook, eventually she had been given a little room of her own but not isolated; seven steps up the other servants, six down the guests. Never before had she known silence or that it could, in itself, be menacing.
She was often alone in the house and at such times the feeling became so acute that she’d drop what she was doing and run out into the yard with some made-up excuse to talk to David and, if possible, get him to come back inside with her; she wanted him to taste something or help her to lift something. She hated being in the hall alone; she dreaded the stairs. She went to enormous pains to time her comings and goings so as to be within the range of another human being. Her bedtime was never of her own choosing.
Mistress Captoft, always considerate, would sometimes say ‘It’s a beautiful day, Katharine. You should take the air. Go for a walk in the woods; the bluebells are in flower.’ After just one such walk Katharine never ventured into the woods again—if anything they were worse than the house. Quiet and dim and full of nameless threat. After that she never went further than the garden, where some job could always be found, or made, and even there she was aware of the wood, as though some hidden watcher had an eye on her. Not a friendly eye.
So when talk began about the move to Bywater, Katharine was filled with joy: and correspondingly downcast when she learned that the move was not to include her. She wept and implored. She had never mentioned her fears to anyone, they would have sounded so ridiculous put into words, so Mistress Captoft interpreted the tears, the near-hysteria, as devotion to herself.
‘I cannot possibly take you with me. What would Master Tallboys do?’
‘He could get another woman.’
‘Doubtless he could. But not one trained by me, capable of running this house so smoothly that I shall hardly be missed.’
Missed! Katharine thought of the days, no David clattering about in the dairy or whistling in the yard, sitting by the dying fire in the evening. Joseph, the shepherd, came to eat his dinner and then went away; Jem left at sunset; earlier on market days. Imagine a market day with Master Tallboys and the boy just a little late, dusk falling and she alone here with whatever it was that watched and waited, still watching, still waiting, ready to close in.
She’d be alone with the dog and although a big fierce dog should be a comfort to a woman alone, Guard had proved otherwise to her. She did not doubt that he would tackle a robber or a wolf but, with fear-sharpened sensibility, Katharine had seen that he, dumb, four-legged beast that he was, knew. In the hall on the stairs and at one place in the yard, down went his tail, up went his hackles.
‘I implore you, Mistress. Take me with you.’
The chastisement of servants was common practice but Mistress Captoft, even in her husband’s house, had never agreed with it. A man or a woman who must be struck in order to be made to work, or to behave properly, was not worth employing. So now the hand she laid upon Katharine’s shoulder was kindly though, because impatient, gripping.
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Bywater is not the end of the earth! When I have things in order there—and the days lengthen—I will come to see you. To see how well you are managing. And perhaps Master Tallboys, when he has business in Bywater, will ride you down, so that you can see me. We are not parting for ever.’
This well-meant but mistaken remark merely produced more sobs, more hiccupping pleas.
‘If you can’t do with me in your new place, Mistress, just let me come along with you and stay, till I find another job.’
Exasperated, Mistress Captoft gave Katharine a little shake.
‘Be sensible, woman! Who would employ you? Without a good word. The landlady at the inn would not give it. And how could I? If you leave, without reason, an easy place, a comfortable home and an undemanding master. Mop your eyes and nose and let’s get to work. There is the mincemeat to make. What with this and that, I am so busy as to be almost distraught.’
No sympathy, no understanding. Glorying in her busyness which, so far from driving her distraught, was a stimulant, Mistress Captoft jogged down to Bywater, harassed the workmen, complained and wrung her hands over the delays. Sometimes she lodged at the inn—for days were short now. There was a time when one step forward looked like two steps backward; boards which looked sound proving rotten as pears, old, leprous-looking plaster which broke away as soon as new was applied. The well in the courtyard behind the house took two men a day and a half to clear of the rubbish which various transient tenants had flung into it and another two days for the sullied water to be wound out. She had furniture to buy. All but the sick, she decided, must lie on straw-stuffed mattresses on the floor; the sick must lie higher to save stooping when they were being attended. For them beds were needed. She must have a long solid table and some benches for the big room; she must have mugs and platters and cooking pots, and blankets, and stores of such things which—experienced housewife as she was—she knew might be obtainable now, just before Christmas and then, later in dead winter, either not for sale at all or costly beyond belief.