by Norah Lofts
He divided the wine between the two mugs, making a bid for time. Reaching for the right thing to say.
‘No,’ he said, in a more ordinary voice, ‘it is nothing needing discretion. No bar sinister or anything of that sort. It was simply that by reminding me that I am now her nearest male relative, you brought to mind an obligation which I had forgotten.’
Even in his own ears it sounded a feeble explanation and he was aware that the boy was regarding him with curiosity, almost concealed by good manners but not quite.
Anger with himself, with the world, with this innocent cub, seized him again. He reached for a candle and held it out.
‘You’d better get to bed. You’ve had a long day,’ he said.
The remaining candle, its overlong wick in a puddle of tallow, flared and faded flared again. The fire died down. And still Henry sat with his head in his hands, mulling over the past, thinking of the future. Need she ever know? Would she mind? Did it matter? No. If, as he hoped, she had forgotten that scene in the wood and the makeshift betrothal made across this very table. Forgotten—except in time of need, as when faced with a distasteful marriage. And about that she had been reticent. Why not about all else? And all because he had been blind and stupid. Walter said knaves and fools were punished—fools first.
Once back in London, Lord Shefton did not waste a moment. Even before Maude made her first public appearance as his Countess, he had made his opening move against the Bishop of Bywater.
His teeth had failed him, and he allowed rage and vanity to hurry him into an unsatisfactory marriage, but his memory was good for matters of this kind, his mind still subtle. He could remember a summer, two years ago, when His Grace of Bywater had been in London, trying to arrange the futures of two young people. The girl had not been brought to London, the boy had; a big boy, handsome in a loutish way and surly; apparently quite ungrateful to His Grace for bringing him to London and making efforts to get him into Eton College. Introduced as Richard Tallboys, the boy always added, ‘of Moyidan.’ This apparently trivial business had impressed itself upon Lord Shefton’s mind, partly because he yearned to correct so unmannerly a boy; partly because he had suggested that Sir Barnabas, who owed him money, should take the girl who, later, on his first visit to Stordford, had attracted him so much.
A very short visit to the appropriate office gave Lord Shefton all he needed to know about Moyidan in the County of Suffolk. Later in the day he had a conversation, not with any great official or favoured courtier but with one of the virtually faceless, nameless men, one of several known to have the King’s ear. The word Moyidan was not spoken. Even the crucial remark was made in a most casual manner. ‘I have sometimes wondered,’ Lord Shefton said, ‘if the law regarding young heirs is not often broken, to the detriment of our Lord the King.’ That was all; but enough.
Edward of York, Edward IV, was the richest man in England, just as he was reputed to be the tallest and, in youth, the most handsome. After the victory which set him firmly on the throne, Edward had confiscated all Lancastrian property. But he was a man who loved splendour; his wars were costly; he had faithful adherents to reward and mistresses to please; he also liked to be independent of Parliament which meant managing without the grants which it could give. When the faceless, nameless adviser murmured something about an untapped source of wealth, he had the King’s ear indeed. In theory all heirs under age were the King’s wards. He might never see them, or know their names, but a wardship, like many other things, was a property, to be bestowed as a favour or sold. There was a lively trade in such things.
Wheels were set in motion. A Commission appointed.
Maude must be made to seem the chosen one. In cloth of gold and with all the Shefton diamonds on display, she made three dazzling appearances, all on occasions when little more than appearance mattered. Her mother’s training had fitted her, to some extent, for this puppet role; anybody who, after many failures—sharply punished—could carry a brimming bowl of water on her head could wear a coronet. And before anyone could get beyond this glittering façade and discover that Maude had nothing to say for herself, no spirit, nothing to compensate for her lack of beauty, or even prettiness, she was whisked away to Shefton Castle in the wilds of Shropshire where she enjoyed the first real freedom of her life and in a humble, quiet way, enjoyed herself very much indeed.
In London the rumour ran that she was pregnant and men some fifteen years younger than Lord Shefton looked at him with awe and envy. Life in the old dog yet.
Official wheels could grind slowly but where the King’s express order and a possible source of revenue were concerned they could be speedy. Moyidan and its history was soon under review. It was in the hands of the Church now; but prior to that it had been managed by another cleric—Sir Richard Tallboys, properly ordained, and an M.A. of Cambridge University, presently engaged in one of those pleasant, undemanding jobs at the Chancellory. It might be as well to consult him.
Sir Richard showed no shadow of loyalty to his old friend, the Bishop of Bywater, who had saved him from scandal and procured him his present post. All Richard’s actions, since his boyhood, had been dictated by selfishness and ambition. Ambition never satisfied; even his present post, pleasant enough, almost a sinecure, was in fact a cul-de-sac. But it did enable him to keep an ear to the ground and he had qualified as a lawyer as well as a priest. He could tell, by the framing, the tilt of a question, what answer was desired. He also had charm.
Quite disarmingly, he admitted that while in charge of Moyidan, he had mismanaged it to some extent. ‘But, my lords, with good intention; I may have been mistaken in thinking that in spending money immediately available upon improving the property, I was actually investing for the boy’s future.’
‘His Grace of Bywater knew what you were doing?’
‘Oh yes. And he approved. He visited me often and, when the place was comfortable, stayed.’
All the Commissioners had a vision of a young man being given enough rope while he spent money, not his own, and the Bishop watched, gloating over what he would, at the right moment, take over for himself.
‘The boy was your Ward?’
‘Not officially. His grandmother, my aunt…’ He made quite a piteous story of how poor old Lady Emma had appealed to him to take charge and hold the estate together until young Richard attained his majority. It was one of those shuffling arrangements which, over the years, had leached away revenue that should have gone into the King’s coffers. Not quite typical because in this case the unofficial guardianship had changed hands.
‘The boy, the direct heir, is now at Eton.’
‘That I did not know. I left him at Moyidan with as good a tutor as I could find. I assumed that in taking over the castle and the manor, His Grace of Bywater took charge of him too. If I may stress, my lords, I was never his guardian. I am not even head of the family. I have an elder brother.’
*
Some Commissioners were old and liked to sit in comfort, drawing up charts, comparing figures, while younger, more vigorous men did the riding and the digging for facts. All were busy; for the investigation proved that more young heirs had slipped through the King’s net than anyone would have believed possible. There were some heiresses, too, and would have been more had not self-appointed guardians tended to marry off wealthy girls at an early age, on the principle of the highest bidder being the buyer.
The Bishop of Bywater did not defend his action as regards Moyidan and its heir: to have done so would have been to admit that defence was needed; he simply described the shocking state of affairs which had existed before he took control and explained that only by prompt, firm, remedial action had he avoided a scandal which would have damaged the Church. He mentioned a lawyer, of anti-clerical views, who had been poised to attack Sir Richard Tallboys for gross mismanagement. On the whole he was rather fairer to Richard than Richard had been to him; that was largely because he was more aware of the need for solidarity within the Church. He did not
mention the ugly word embezzlement; he spoke of inexperience, of muddle due to lack of experience. He said that so far from profiting from Moyidan, he had incurred expenses. He rang a bell and asked that every paper relating to the Moyidan inheritance should be brought and displayed; and since he had a passion for detail, it was a formidable pile. The Commissioner, a man better with figures than with written words, flinched a little.
‘Your Grace regarded the boy, Richard Tallboys, as a ward?’
‘A ward? No; of course not. Why should I? I—well, one might almost say that I inherited him, together with other encumbrances. But I did the best I could for him. I secured him a place at Eton College. In fact,’ His Grace said, made irritable and therefore incautious, ‘I did my best for them both.’
‘Both? Two? Co-heirs?’ Such cases had been discovered.
A few early and rather sudden deaths had been revealed, too. In the place where such statistics were reckoned the sinister words, ‘died of the small-pox’, were gradually revealing the fact that unofficial wards were particularly prone to such ailments. Well above average, possibly as much as thirty per cent higher than the death rate even amongst cottagers’ children; fifty per cent higher than the deaths, in similar age groups, in a class which could afford red flannel as wrappings, bed hangings and curtains, sops-in-wine and the attention of a physician.
‘No,’ His Grace said, the ground firm underfoot again. ‘The girl was in no way concerned with Moyidan. She was…’
He told what he knew of Joanna’s story; of the tumbling out of the jewels; of Henry Tallboys, ‘a most ignorant fellow,’ asking advice as to how such wealth could best be employed to the girl’s advantage. And how Joanna’s dowry had been deployed. Roughly two-thirds of the money in Sir Barnabas Grey’s keeping. A third, by the girl’s own wish, invested at Knights Acre, all running about on four legs.
The Commissioner believed that he had inadvertently stumbled across an heiress of whom there was no record; a find indeed! Leaving the pile of papers unstudied, he asked direction to Knight’s Acre and set out at once. He took a list of the livestock entrusted to Master Tallboys.
It was now April and the mild weather had encouraged grass to grow, all the animals were at pasture; lambs were skipping in the fold, the herd of cattle in the meadow included five young calves. Knowledgeable about such matters, the Commissioner noted the healthy look of all these beasts—they had been well-cared for during the lean months.
Master Tallboys had no records to show but everything was clear in his head; he could distinguish the animals entrusted to him on Joanna’s behalf from his own and a man apt at counting soon saw that both flock and herd had increased considerably.
‘I have always regarded the girl’s beasts as separate from my own,’ he said. ‘The fleece money from her flock I have put aside intact. I’ve sold animals from time to time; from what they fetch I take what I think compensates for their food and my labour, I put that aside too. Master Turnbull, the lawyer at Baildon, keeps the accounts and invests the money for her.’ Henry gave the Commissioner his straight blue stare. ‘My better horse is hers, too. As soon as I am able I shall add its worth to the money accumulating.’
‘That, sir, is correct,’ Master Turnbull said. ‘Master Tallboys is the most meticulous man I know. He is honest to his own detriment.’ The lawyer’s trade brought him into contact with many men with varying standards of honesty. His own was high, for he wished to leave to his beloved son not only a comfortable fortune but an unsullied name. But even he felt that Henry, still putting away certain, much smaller sums, to be kept for a boy of whom nothing had been seen or heard for almost eight years, was carrying honesty to the point of folly. ‘You wish to see what has been done with the money?’ For anyone to whom written records mattered fire, particularly in the night, was a threat. However careful one might be oneself, damping down or raking out fires, a neighbour might be negligent. Master Turnbull had faced this hazard by having chests made, so much bound about by iron that they would not ignite easily. They were small enough to be lifted, if not with ease, with sufficient determination by one man and four slept under his roof every night; himself—still able-bodied, two clerks and a man-servant.
From one of these chests, which he did not lift but stooped over, he produced every parchment and paper relevant to the business in hand. He was as dedicated a record-keeper as the Bishop. Here, in black and white—the black his own ink, home-made by rotting walnut husks steeped in vinegar, was evidence not only of Master Tallboys’ exceptional honesty but of Master Turnbull’s financial acumen. Money received; invested; withdrawn; re-invested; mortgages; foreclosures; loans, interest on loans. It was, in fact, a record of ruthlessness as well as of honesty but the Commissioner was not concerned with that. He merely thought that if Sir Barnabas Grey had been only half as clever in handling the major part of the girl’s fortune, this obscure Joanna Serriff would be a considerable heiress. And he had discovered her!
*
Presently another Commissioner, willing to ride and less averse to wading through closely written pages, had discovered a fact which might exonerate the Bishop of Bywater’s over-hasty action in regard to Moyidan. Apparently he had not simply taken the place as a summer residence or a hunting lodge. The Abbey at Baildon was involved. And this was tricky ground. Between the secular Church, as represented by Archbishops and Bishops, and the heads of the great monastic establishments, like the Abbey of Baildon, there had always been a gulf, now widening, just as cracks in a wall almost ready to tumble would widen. The monastic establishments—many of them founded by orders vowed to holy poverty—had become enormously rich and, over the years, increasingly independent. The great breach was yet to come but the climate for it was already building up.
The Abbot of Baildon did not feel that solidarity or the need for it which the Bishop of Bywater had felt. He belonged to a wider community— the Benedictines. Part of an old Order, so old that Charlemagne himself had been their patron, and there were Benedictine houses as far away as Poland.
The Abbot of Baildon was sufficiently self-assured that he dared to keep even the King’s Commissioner waiting for a while. And then, when the confrontation came he, very gently but inexorably, threw His Grace of Bywater to the wolves.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘some suggestion was made and I welcomed it. Purely on account of Moyidan’s situation; Moyidan being nearer the sea. And it is fact that for some people—particularly those born within reach of the sea—the air from it has a recuperative effect. I considered that. Also the fact that it was rusticated and that any member of this community who had transgressed might there, in isolation, meditate and repent. But I soon saw that it was not a workable idea. To put it very bluntly; when His Grace was in residence ill-doers ate too well; and when he was not, convalescents were too meagrely fed. The place was not organised well and I decided to ignore it.’
As one little prop to the Bishop’s well-planned scheme, the Abbot of Baildon had failed absolutely.
*
Down in Bywater, the better weather had eased things for Mistress Captoft. Her money arrived. Shipping began to move; able-bodied men went away—some of them thanking her with genuine tears. ‘Never, never shall I forget you, Madam.’ ‘Madam, I’ll remember you and your kindness, in my prayers, till the day I die.’
She paid her debts but was otherwise careful with money. This harsh winter had taught her a lesson. She supervised the reclamation of the garden. It was hardly likely that two winters in succession could be so savage but she would be prepared. She’d have her own fowls next year.
Articles made by those who had gone, and by those who could never go, looked well, as she had thought, displayed against the red velvet with which David had covered the sloping board; and, now that Bywater was busy again and the market in full swing, trade was brisk. Her little parlour was once again her own but it was also a shop and she derived some amusement from the thought that by all known standards, she had fallen. Trade, as purs
ued by her husband, was one thing; petty shop-keeping another. But she did not care. She was enjoying everything; even a face-to-face row with the landlady of The Welcome To Mariners who, one afternoon in the dead hour, dinner done with, supper hours away, walked down to The Sailors’ Rest and accused Mistress Captoft of reneging on a bargain.
‘You promised me a continuous supply,’ she said. ‘And now I have four pedlars clamouring and nothing to sell them.’
‘The supply is there,’ Mistress Captoft said, indicating the display in the window. ‘Buy what you wish.’
‘Buy?’
‘Buy,’ Mistress Captoft said. ‘I certainly did not promise a continuous supply in return for such things as I was, in a desperate moment, forced to accept. The wine was the worst I ever tasted; the two fowls hardly needed their necks wrung—they were dying of old age. The doves mere skeletons with feathers.’
Allowing for a marginal exaggeration, these were true statements. Mistress Captoft had said to David that she could understand why the system of barter was dying out, it allowed of too much lopsidedness. The truth did not make the accusation more palatable and the landlady lost her temper. She used terms which questioned not only Mistress Captoft’s integrity but her legitimacy and her standard of morals. Mistress Captoft, who with one word had so shocked Father Matthew, contrived to maintain a look of incomprehension and almost had the last word.
She said, ‘I am sorry. I understand only English.’
The landlady drew breath and said, ‘Bawd!’ Then, realising that it was inapt in the circumstances, simply repeated the uncivil word as she retreated. She said it loud enough and often enough that David, hurrying to see who was shouting and why, heard it twice and limped in, expecting—hoping?—to find Madam in need of comfort.
‘It was the landlady from the inn,’ Mistress Captoft said. ‘She objects to our board. Our shelf, David. She wanted a monopoly; but this way we cut out the middle man—or woman in this case.’