Havoc, in Its Third Year

by Ronan Bennett

“Is that where you came upon her?”

  “I was with my brother Exley and two others who were then our companions, returning from Hampshire where we had work for a season, when we came upon her. She was in a most pitiful condition, starved and in a raging distemper of mind, roaring and railing, her tongue hanging to the side out of her mouth, so that even Exley, who is stouthearted and fears no man, would not approach her, saying here is the Devil come among us, but threw her scraps of bread as though to a dog which, she being in a great distraction, did not even eat.”

  “Did her children accompany her?”

  Starman gave him a pleading look, begging not to be coerced in this of all things, but Brigge was stern with him.

  “No, your honor,” Starman said at last.

  “What had become of them?”

  Starman drew breath before continuing. “I knew nothing of any children until after we had made her calm and prevailed on her to eat,” he said. “Then she cried for her children, calling them by name, and some times thinking she heard them call to her, or heard their cry, she would start off, hurrying into fields and forests saying she had heard them. In this manner I first learned Deborah to have two children, a boy and a girl, aged six years and four, as she later related to me.”

  “What happened to them?” Brigge asked, though he knew the answer.

  “They died, your honor.”

  “How?”

  “I did not ask of her then, and have never since.”

  Starman stared at Brigge directly on saying this, maintaining his voice firm to announce, as it were, that he had come to the end of what he would say, though his master would whip him for his silence.

  Brigge watched the sheep. The sky was streaked with red and darkening. His own silence now made him complicit, not in the concealment of murder or misprision of felony, but in the ways of those of Starman’s society. By their rule, a poor mad starving woman had ended the misery of her children. No murder had been done, no crime committed.

  “How did she come to have milk when she first came to the house?” Brigge asked.

  “She fell pregnant by one who ravished her in a field. The child was born in the wastes at the new bridge and lived two days before it died.”

  “Did she kill this child also?”

  “No, sir. I am sure of it.”

  Brigge considered what he had been told. “She may stay as long as she wishes,” he said.

  He got to his feet and went to where his mare was tied to a bramble bush.

  “Your honor must be careful in the promises he makes,” Starman called to him.

  “You think I would not keep them?” Brigge asked sharply.

  “To feed and clothe the poor is beyond the capacity of a single man,” Starman said.

  Twenty three

  THAT NIGHT AS BRIGGE AND HIS FAMILY SAT DOWN TO TAKE their supper, they heard a horseman approach. The light was fading and they did not see who the rider was until he dismounted.

  “Nathaniel,” Elizabeth, turning to her husband, whispered, asking with a glance what this visit portended. Brigge had no answer.

  There was a moment’s awkwardness at the door, then Brigge bade the Master enter.

  The tenseness in Challoner’s comportment betrayed his urgent need to talk, but he was too mannerly and modest to forget all civility. He complimented Elizabeth on the fare she set before them. The pottage was flavorsome and hearty, he said, though he scarce took a spoonful, and her beer was as good as anything he ever tasted in London. He remarked on the pretty Apostle spoons which she had from her father and on the painted cloth hanging on the wall behind the long oak bench. Looking over the poor plates, trenchers and cups, he said that latten and pewter were as serviceable as silver and in any case less likely to tempt dishonest servants. Then, noticing there was silver in the house, he picked up the cup Elizabeth’s mother had given her when she was betrothed.

  “But this is very beautiful,” he said. He set the cup at arm’s length the better to admire it; in truth it was ordinary, particular only to Elizabeth and Brigge for the occasion it was given them. “Beautiful,” he said again, smiling at Brigge, a rich man pretending to envy the simpler domesticity of his poorer neighbor.

  There is no better way for a man to get an advantage over another than by seeing him in his house with his wife. Abroad, even the humblest laborer can counterfeit himself a lord. Indoors, men are observed for what they are: children, with their favorite cups, and their chairs which must be this way or that, and everything just so. But there was no advantage to be had when Samuel cried and Deborah brought him to his mother. Challoner was plainly discomfited, not knowing how to look or where, or what to say. He admired the baby when Elizabeth presented him, but it was with half a heart that not even his perfect ceremony could make whole. Challoner had no son, nor would have. Even Elizabeth, rapt in her child, noticed the uncomfortable shift in the Master’s demeanor.

  After some insincere discourse about ordinary things the Master could no longer conceal his agitation. Brigge asked Elizabeth if Samuel was not fatigued. She said how happy she was to see Nathaniel again after so long, sending anxious glances to her husband as she did so. Brigge affected not to see them, but tickled Samuel in his chest and shoulders and gazed lovingly at his son until Elizabeth, the proprieties observed, took him and went from the room.

  “You are a very fortunate man,” Challoner said aloud before Elizabeth was out of earshot. “You have been blessed with a virtuous, discreet and dutiful wife.”

  Brigge understood his intent was to flatter Elizabeth further, a little trick to be thought of well by her, for men put greater value on reports of them given to others than related to their own faces.

  “Elizabeth is a good wife to me,” he answered.

  “And now she has given you a son. Such faithful diligent women must be cherished.”

  Brigge said nothing; he was impatient for the Master to arrive at his meaning and wanted no more of formality and platitude, or of subtle disparagement. Challoner gazed at the table and played his fingertips over the grain of the rough wood.

  “You disobeyed me, John,” he said without looking up; he maintained his voice low, but his tone was sharp. “I sent letters commanding you to present yourself before the governors.”

  “And I wrote to you, Nathaniel, saying I would attend as soon as I was able.”

  “You left me no choice but to dismiss you from your office of gover-nor.”

  “It was an office I no longer desired to possess, as you know,” Brigge said. “Certainly my removal appears to have been a boon to my former clerk. I trust Adam is well?”

  “Adam has already proved a most diligent governor.”

  “The vagrants at the new bridge swear to it,” Brigge said.

  “I had been told you were taking an interest in their condition,” Challoner said. “I must confess it seems to be a strange preoccupation.”

  Brigge thought for a moment, then said, “When I first came upon them—it was as I was coming to the town to hold the inquisition on the Irishwoman Shay—I told them they could not put up cabins, that the land was not theirs to settle. One of them, a froward fellow named Exley, a dangerous seeming, bold spirit, stepped up and answered me that they were Englishmen and must live somewhere. I could think of nothing then to counter his argument, nor can I now.”

  “The settlement is unlawful—that is the only argument you needed. I am surprised you were unable to find it. Exley and his band of vagrants must be removed from that place.”

  “Adam will doubtless see to it.”

  “Adam will do his duty.”

  “It is strange. When did Adam fall under Favour’s spell? Why? No one in this house ever encouraged such vehemence and fanatic thinking.”

  “I dare say he grew so dismayed at the looseness he found here that he could stand it no longer.”

  “Looseness?” Brigge said with a tense smile.

  “You know what I mean, John. You were ever one for turning a bli
nd eye to the faults and sins of men.”

  “Yes,” Brigge conceded. “Yes, you are right, Nathaniel. I learned it from my mother, I think. Do you remember her? You were always very respectful when she spoke. And what she said was that men must have mercy, for without mercy we are savages.”

  “Without law we descend to the level of the beasts. The law shall decide when mercy is to be given and when it is to be withheld.”

  “No!” Brigge said quickly. “The heart decides. The heart informed not by law but by sympathy and love. I am now more than ever convinced that an eye that is sometimes blind sees more justly than one that is sharp.”

  The Master made an expression of his plain disagreement, and also his despair at his friend’s recalcitrance, pursing his lips and shaking his head slowly. He said, “You need look no further than your own words to understand why Adam chose to go from this house and come to join us in the town.”

  “I wish Adam and his new wife well,” Brigge said.

  “He will act as clerk when the assize comes on.”

  “When will that be?”

  “The work is most urgent, but I have postponed it,” Challoner said; he paused before continuing, “I did so because of you.”

  “How so?” Brigge asked, attempting to keep the smile on his face, yet made anxious by the directness of the Master’s tone and answer.

  “I wanted to give you time to save yourself,” Challoner said.

  “From what must I save myself?”

  “You have spurned me at every turn, John,” Challoner said, making his voice passionate, “notwithstanding the great affection in which I hold you and which I have always shown you. Do not spurn me now. Your life depends on it.”

  The self-pity and torment in the Master’s voice were more than Brigge could bear. “Enough!” he cried out. “If I am to be undone, it is by your hand, Nathaniel!”

  Challoner looked at him as if he was the most resentful ingrate in the world. “You know nothing of how I have striven to protect you,” he said harshly. “When Doliffe first came to tell me of reports against you, any one of which would have merited an ordinary man’s apprehension and examing nation, I told him I would not sanction anything against you until the evidence was clear. Had it not been for my care for you, you would long ago have found yourself languishing in the jail.”

  “What reports were these?”

  “Be very careful in what you ask, John, for you may receive answers you do not like to hear.”

  “Am I to be one of Fourness and Lister’s acolytes? Is that what Doliffe charges against me?”

  “You know that is absurd.”

  “Tell me then, what are these reports Doliffe informed you of?”

  Challoner glanced at the door to the passage. “You spoke of the duty you owe Elizabeth,” he said slowly.

  Brigge narrowed his eyes. “What has this to do with Doliffe?”

  “Does that duty extend to fidelity?”

  Brigge drew in air through his nostrils. His chest swelled and he felt his heart quicken. Shame welled up in him, but anger too. “A good husband is faithful to his wife,” he said.

  “It has been alleged you are an adulterer.”

  “Who alleges this?”

  “Is this true?”

  “Who charges me with this?”

  “Adam. He claims you seduced Dorcas.”

  Brigge stared at Challoner. “What does Dorcas say?” he asked.

  “Is it true?”

  Brigge said quietly, “I have failed in many things, Nathaniel, and will answer for my lack in due time.”

  “You confess then?”

  “I confess nothing. I say only that my private acts belong to my own conscience. It is for me to make amends, not for you—or Doliffe or Favour or Adam—to judge me.”

  “No, John, you are wrong. That is the old way of thinking, your mother’s way of thinking. Our society is not the sum of people but the sum of acts, and every act, however trivial, however private, has meaning and consequence for the rest. You will be judged for your acts, and you will answer sooner than you think. No man is above sanction when he has broken the laws of the land.”

  “Moses’ law has not yet been brought in,” Brigge answered him, “unless it was done so very quick. He who has broken his marriage has not yet severed himself from life only to be regarded, as Favour had it, as a dead human being.” Brigge brought his fist down on the table, rattling the plates and cups. He stared at Challoner. “Is this how you deal with a friend, Nathaniel? Is it the practice now to condemn men by gossip and calumny? Will you not answer me, Nathaniel? Not even to tell your friend whom you hold in such great affection that his very life is endangered by the revengefulness of a wretched mechanic of tyranny like Doliffe.”

  “No man, whatever he think of Doliffe, can impugn his sincerity.”

  “There is today too much pleading of sincerity,” Brigge said. “Let me have men who are doubtful, who struggle with their consciences, who sometimes are confused by right and wrong, whose perceptions fail, whose troubled minds lead them this way and that and even to dark places they should not go. I do not care for these certain men who insist that what they feel is the truth as though their sincerity alone were enough to excuse their fanatic hearts. Doliffe’s virtues bring suffering and agony in their wake.

  His sincerity is neither here nor there.”

  “What Doliffe does, he does honestly in the execution of his office and for justice’ sake,” Challoner said with exaggerated patience; then he added, “John, I must tell you there is something more, something that if proved will make you a dead human being as sure as if Moses’ law were now enacted.”

  The Master’s voice had more of pity and torment in it, but this time Brigge discerned his distress was without artifice.

  “I have come to tell you that your neighbor Mr. Lacy and his wife were arrested tonight. They are infamous for their recusancy, having appeared before the justices and been fined on many occasions. However, they now stand accused of harboring a priest and for that they will pay with their lives.”

  Brigge was taken aback. “Was the priest apprehended?”

  “Do you know this priest?” Challoner asked. “Have you kept him here at the Winters?”

  Brigge said nothing. He felt like the prisoners he had interrogated who were so benumbed by their guilt and circumstances they could not think what to answer.

  Challoner repeated the question, quietly, sternly, just as Brigge would have had he been the interrogator. When he made no answer, Challoner sighed and said, “Your silence will not save you. Lacy will confess. He will tell us what we wish to know.” He spread his hands on the table and dropped his gaze. “I think you are a dead man, John.”

  “Get out!”

  The men turned to find Elizabeth in the doorway.

  “Get out!” she cried again. She went up to the Master. She trembled with rage and dread. “Leave us! Depart!” she cried. “You are not welcome in this house!”

  Challoner, who had never shown himself capable of understanding or meeting the anger of others, who had always used his diffusing charms and appeals to reasonableness to arrest the progress of passions he found bewildering and undignified, was caught like an attorney without his brief. Speechless and made suddenly helpless by Elizabeth’s wrath, he grinned foolishly and uttered some sounds to try to convey his amazement at what he had provoked and would have collected his hat and cloak to be gone but Elizabeth, who had told him so vehemently to depart, stood between him and his escape.

  “I see you very plainly, sir,” she said. “I see you for the hypocrite you are. You make your voice solicitous and sympathetic, but your heart is hard and unforgiving. You have won men over by saying they can be better men and love one another, but better men for you are the better sort, the rich and mighty who have all in their hands and yet want more. These are the men who have your love. Those who are truly in need of love and grace and pity, they go disregarded and reviled. From your rich fri
ends you demand only that they continue as before, keeping all and sharing none. From the rest you demand that which they cannot give. You demand of them sobriety, thrift, truth, prudence, order. You demand industriousness and fidelity. You demand chastity and virtue, piety and obedience. You demand respect, discipline, hard work and prayer.”

  The Master began to recover something of his wits. “For this you indict me?” he said, incredulous. “Is sobriety a vice in your estimation, mistress?

  Chastity? Discipline? Why should such things not be asked of men?”

  “Because men cannot give them!” Elizabeth cried. “Not in the measure you require. They are frail. And when they cannot answer your demands, you judge them and condemn them. But whip and prison all you may, you will not change men. They—we—cannot live to the rule you lay down. We cannot. We are not made thus.”

  “Your wife would make excuse for sin, it seems,” Challoner said to Brigge. “You must find this quality in her most convenient.”

  Brigge said nothing to this jibe, but Elizabeth would not be bettered by sarcasm. “I acknowledge weakness,” she said.

  “Then you will never be strong!” Challoner cried back at her. His shout, his own high angry voice, the unruliness of his own passions, seemed to shock him.

  “I confess it most readily,” Elizabeth said. “We are frail, we are frightened, we are weak.”

  “Do not paint me with this brush.”

  “I do not,” Elizabeth said. “You are plainly a supreme governor of your passions, Nathaniel, though I do not know whether to envy or pity you for it.”

  “Do you think I have not heard these objections before? I have listened to them many times. On every occasion I have asked a simple question.

  There are abroad in the land legions of beggars, there are delinquents and criminals of every sort, there are traitors and spies, there is vice, corruption, heresy and sin. My question is: what would you do? I have asked it of your husband. I have asked it of men a thousand times. Still I have had no answer. So, mistress, tell me what you would do.”

  “Forgive,” Elizabeth answered him.

  “This is your answer?”