‘Yes,’ he replied mechanically. ‘I know what must be done.’
On the way home it rained, vicious drops that spattered into the mud, drowning out all other sound. He bent his bare head against it and kept his eyes on the road, slippery underfoot. Water seeped through the leather of his boots; within moments the rough wool of his stockings was bunched and squelching underfoot. He ignored it as best he could and kept walking. Lanterns swayed bravely on their hooks but their light made little inroad into the darkness. He was glad it was a familiar path.
At the house in Thieving Lane an argument was in progress. He could hear it from the front door as Alice let him in, Ellyn’s voice raised against her father’s in the hall. He looked to Alice for some explanation but she gazed back blankly, features carefully set to give nothing away in an expression that was becoming habitual.
‘What’s happened?’ he was forced to ask.
She shrugged, then held out her hand to take his cloak. He swung it off his shoulders and gave it to her, sodden and heavy, before touching fingers to his hair, flicking drops of rain onto the rush mats at his feet. She held the cloak in her arms, apparently oblivious to its wetness against the front of her dress.
‘Why are they arguing?’ he asked again.
The shouting stopped in the hall and he thought perhaps they had stopped because of him, because they had heard his voice. But rapid footsteps sounded on the hall’s wooden floor and the door was slammed open, quivering on its hinges with the force, and Ellyn ran towards the staircase. If she noticed him she gave no sign, skirts hitched as she took the stairs two at a time.
Alice handed back his cloak and hurried after her cousin. Richard stared after her for a moment, holding the dripping cloak away from his body until more footsteps from the hall drew his gaze that way. Thomas Kemp appeared in the doorway outwardly calm except for the way he clasped his hands before him, knuckles showing white with the tightness of his grip. His gaze lit on Richard.
‘Ah, Richard,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘My apologies. A family disagreement. My children will be the death of me.’
Richard did not know what to say.
‘Come in, come in,’ Kemp continued. ‘Have some wine and get dry by the fire. It is a filthy night.’
He draped his cloak across the end of the banister and followed his host into the hall, where Emma Kemp sat motionless on a low stool close to the hearth. In her hands was a half-finished piece of embroidery, a shirt perhaps, but her gaze was directed into the flames and the sewing had been forgotten. He wondered if the stoniness was on his account, features schooled to composure.
‘Claret?’ Thomas Kemp stood by the cupboard, his hand on the jug.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
They stood together at the fireside, nursing their wine in the tense silence his presence had caused. Finally Emma Kemp looked up from the fire to her husband.
‘You must talk her round,’ she said. ‘She must marry someone.’
‘She’s as stubborn as her brother, and twice as unreasonable.’
Richard stared into his wine.
‘It’s a good match,’ Emma Kemp said. ‘And she is the right age. She cannot put it off any longer.’
‘She has an aversion to the whole idea of it. She remembers Cecily.’
Emma Kemp said, ‘We all remember Cecily.’
How could they not? Richard thought. Ellyn had been a young girl then, but the whole household had heard Cecily’s cries growing weaker as the night progressed, all of them helpless against her suffering. At least God in His mercy had spared Ben the long, drawn-out sounds of his wife’s slow death, facing daemons of his own in gaol.
‘It is the fear of all women,’ Kemp replied, ‘the curse of Eve to bring forth children in sorrow. But life must continue. Women marry and bear children. It is as God ordained and she has been indulged long enough.’
‘Let her meet him. She may like him,’ Emma Kemp said.
‘She will marry him, like him or no. If we wait on her likes any longer she will never be off our hands. I’ve spoken to his father and it’s all but arranged. Now,’ he said, turning to Richard, who was still looking into his wine, embarrassed to have heard the conversation. ‘Let us talk of other things.’
‘Forgive us, Richard,’ Emma Kemp said with a smile. ‘But you are almost family.’
He forced a smile in return. Her words were meant as a kindness but he felt them as a reproach. It was not just Ben he would hurt, but these good people who trusted him.
‘I must go to my bed,’ he answered, draining the dregs of the wine. ‘It has been a long day.’
He bid them goodnight and climbed to his chamber. Then he kicked off his boots and knelt in the darkness to pray.
Chapter 8
November 1604
O LORD my God, if I haue done this; if there be iniquitie in my hands: If I haue rewarded euill vnto him that was at peace with me: (yea I haue deliuered him that without cause is mine enemie.) Let the enemie persecute my soule, and take it, yea let him tread downe my life vpon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah.
(Psalms 7:3–5)
* * *
It was still raining when Richard woke the next morning, squalls drumming against the windowpanes, a lashing torrent that made him think of the gopher-wood ark. He lay awhile and listened to the spatter on the mud of the road, and a pounding on some piece of metal left out in the street. His head felt heavy and he had no desire to leave the comfort of his bed.
Eventually he found the will to get up, tipping himself reluctantly from the warmth. He stood up and shivered, dressing hurriedly. Then he crossed to the window to see the rain: he could barely see the road below. A pity, he thought. He would have liked to work at the Abbey today, away from the house, where his task oppressed him most. In the peace and solitude of the library he could immerse himself in God’s Word, and nothing else existed.
But the rain was a deluge: he would have to be a fool to go out without good reason. He would work in his chamber and train his mind to focus. He took a hurried solitary breakfast downstairs and asked for someone to tend the fire in his room. A churlish boy he hadn’t seen before came up a while later and set out the fire with clumsy red hands while Richard stood at the window and waited. Watching the storm, he rubbed his fingers together to keep them warm. The boy was slow at his task and Richard could feel the irritation rising. It would be harder to write once his fingers were cold – they would be stiff for the rest of the morning.
A memory pierced his thoughts: an image of his father on the farm in rain like this, wrestling the sheep in the mud with rough, strong hands, fingers raw from hard labour and the cold. He turned to watch the boy, suddenly grateful for his own warmth and comfort, someone else to tend to his fire. It was a luxury his father had never even dreamed of.
Finally the fire took hold, wood catching and crackling, the first warmth creeping through the room. The sullen boy went away without a word. Richard stood by the fire awhile, warming his hands with a strange reluctance to begin his work. Mostly he was eager to start, but today he had to force himself to the desk, his mind drifting away almost at once.
He rearranged his books and papers, flicked through the pages he had done the day before, trying to ease his mind towards its task. But the words seemed to slip away from him, refusing to be pinned down and offer any meaning. Characters in the story, people he knew as well as friends, confused him – Abram, Sarai, Lot – so that he had to keep checking back to what had come before in order to remember their role in the tale.
The Hebrew made no sense, even after he had checked in the lexicon, often more than once. Sentences failed to cohere into meaning, persisting in their stubborn groups of unrelated words. The work had never been so hard. He felt like his father, searching for lost sheep in deep drifting snow. He persevered through the morning, hoping that in time the meanings would come clear, but the day’s verses remained obstinate in Hebrew. When the Abbey bell tolled noon at last, j
ust audible over the dying dregs of the storm, he stopped trying and got up from the desk to stretch the stiffness from his body.
He stood by the fire and held out his hands to it, more a gesture of comfort than a need for more warmth. It was still burning well – the boy had done a good job after all – and the chamber seemed merry in its light. He had never lived in such comfort before. Sliding his eyes from the flames, he looked round the room as if seeing it anew. The painted wall hanging appeared different from what he remembered, the woodland images shimmering, and the curtains around the bed had become darker, thicker, warmer. The bed itself caught his eye and seemed inviting, so he peeled off his jacket, hauled off his boots and climbed beneath the covers.
He drifted.
He was at the farm again, with Ellyn this time, and her lovely hands were red and chapped like his father’s. His family was there, all of them wet from the lashing rain and covered in a thick, gelatinous mud that he kept trying to wipe away. His father stood at the farmhouse door, a sheep tightly held in his long, strong arms, fingers twisted in the wool to keep a better grip.
He examined his own hands, holding them out in front of him, turning them this way and that. They were pale and soft – the hands of a woman, his father used to say, useless on a man – and the rims of the nails were black from the ink of his calling.
He remembered the Translation. Figures from Genesis traipsed out of order across his thoughts – the ark grounded in the Garden of Eden, the serpent around Abraham’s neck, Moses interpreting the pharaoh’s dream. How was he supposed to understand such a puzzle? And why had such a task been given to him?
He woke up with a start, disorientated and uncertain of the time of day. At the window the rain had calmed to a drizzle, and the house seemed quiet beyond the door. He wanted to get up and get back to work but his head was too heavy to lift from the pillows and his limbs seemed unwilling to move. He experimented, wriggling his pale woman’s fingers, but his arms proved too weighty, so he gave up the effort and let himself drift back into his dreams.
The door opened. A man entered and stood at the foot of the bed. Was it Lancelot Andrewes braving a sickroom? Surely not. He must still be dreaming. Or was this reality now? He tried to speak, forming the words with his lips, but no sound came out. The Translation will take longer than we thought, he mouthed. Someone has mixed it up and made a puzzle of it. Andrewes smiled his indulgent smile. Fear not, Doctor Clarke, he said. All will be well. With or without your help we will root out this canker in the Church. He didn’t understand. He thought that they needed him, he thought his work was important.
The figure of Andrewes translated into Ben and abruptly it all became clear. It was Ben who had mixed up the words, a ploy to keep the scholars busy so he could slip past them all unnoticed.
‘Ben?’ he whispered. A voice answered. Not Ben’s. Ellyn? No. Alice? Maybe.
He struggled to focus. The face moved closer and the voice said, Drink this. He felt his head being lifted, something cool and wet against his lips and throat. It tasted pleasant, like cool wine on a hot summer’s day.
A physician came. He could see him standing next to the bed, peering down and prodding with a hard and bony finger. If he could have moved away from the man’s intrusive reach he would have, but his body no longer seemed to be his to command, so he was compelled to stay put and endure it. Finally the man stepped back from the bed and talked to the person who was Ben or Ellyn or Alice.
When he opened his eyes again the physician had gone. He must have slept. Someone lifted his head to give him a draught of a foul-tasting liquid. Drink this, the voice ordered. It will make you feel better. He drank and the bitterness made him cough so hard he thought his head might burst with the pain of it. But when the coughing fit had passed he thought it might have helped him after all. He closed his eyes and floated once again into sleep.
He was in a prison cell, Ben’s prison cell at the Fleet, exactly as he remembered it in his waking thoughts. He could smell the evil river outside the walls, and the rank and foetid stench that originated inside them. Ben was manacled, hanging on the wall, filthy black and naked. There was hatred in his eyes. This is your doing, Richard Clarke, he hissed. And may God forgive you in His mercy because I never will, you false and faithless friend.
Richard fell to his knees at the feet of his friend. Forgive me, Ben, he whispered, over and over. Forgive me. Forgive me, Lord, forgive me. But no answer came, and he was drowning, weighted down, Hell opening up to claim him. There would be no more forgiveness and he was damned.
Doctor Clarke? A voice called him back, a hand reaching down to haul him from the depths. A woman’s voice, gentle and caressing. Perhaps he would be saved after all. Doctor Clarke? He fought to open his eyes, but in the moment he succeeded the light in them was searing, so he let them fall quickly closed. The prison cell had gone and there was only darkness. He wondered if he had met his death.
Richard?
He placed the voice. Alice. Noticed the weight of her hand on his forehead, smooth and cool against the heat of his fever. A human touch. He was still alive. ‘Alice?’
‘It’s going to be all right, Doctor Clarke,’ she promised. ‘You’re going to be all right. The fever has broken now and the worst is behind you.’
He tried to nod and smile to show he understood but instead he tumbled back to sleep. The room spun and twisted and became the vicarage in Kent. It was a pretty house with a well-kept garden. He would like to raise a family there. It would be a good place for a family. Peaceful. Quiet. No prison.
He heard Alice’s voice again. ‘Try and drink some of this.’ Cold liquid touched his lips and in the dream he was kneeling at the stream behind the vicarage, lifting the clear water in his hands to drink. He swallowed gratefully, the fluid soothing the dryness of his mouth.
Sleep took him again but there were no dreams this time, his mind finally quiet and resting until he woke again. Forgetting about the brightness he opened his eyes, but the room was darker now, candlelit, and the light did not hurt him. He blinked, adjusting to a world that seemed unfamiliar.
‘Where am I?’ he whispered.
Something touched the skin of his forearm, something cool and soft, and he turned his head towards it. A face appeared, small and pale, framed by mousy hair. He puzzled for a moment, trying to place it, trying to remember. A familiar face. Alice.
‘You’ve been very ill,’ she said.
He struggled to focus. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, and holding his hand in hers. If he could have found the strength he would have turned his hand to grasp her, to hold flesh and blood, human warmth to keep the nightmares away. But his body still seemed to belong to someone else so instead he tried to speak.
‘How long?’ he managed to breathe.
‘Almost a week,’ she answered. ‘We thought we were going to lose you.’
‘You were here all the time.’
‘For all the good I did. There was nothing I could but wipe your brow and pray.’
‘You gave me drink.’
‘You remember?’
‘A little,’ he said. But clearer was the memory of Ben against the wall in chains and the hatred in his eyes, his own damnation.
He shifted himself a little in the bed, trying to sit up, and Alice leaned in close to help him, arranging the pillows at his back to prop him up. A scent of lavender breathed around her skin and he remembered the lavender his mother used to grow beside the kitchen, the image vivid and bright.
‘I’ll fetch you some broth,’ she said, standing up. ‘Rest now. I won’t be long.’
He nodded but he wished she would stay. Her presence was a comfort and her touch a bulwark against the image of Ben that was still clear behind his eyes. He watched her go and when she returned again he had fallen back asleep. She woke him and spooned the warm broth to his lips, and though he could probably have managed by himself he let her do it, finding that he liked the intimacy.
‘You talked
in your fever,’ she said.
He swallowed too fast and almost choked. The spasm wracked his whole frame, pain in every part of him. Alice sat back and waited for the fit to subside and when he could trust himself to speak again, he said, ‘What did I say?’
‘You talked to Ben, mostly.’
‘What did I say to him?’ He was almost afraid to hear the answer.
‘You kept begging his forgiveness.’
He closed his eyes and the image sheared again across his thoughts. He steeled himself against it. It was a dream, he told himself. Nothing more. The fevered ramblings of a sickened mind. Alice observed him, peering close with her short-sighted eyes.
‘Do you remember?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I don’t remember that.’
She nodded. Then, getting up from the bed with the half-empty bowl of broth, she said, ‘Rest again now. I’ll come back in a little while.’
He would have liked her to stay but he said nothing, and by the time the door had closed behind her he was already once more asleep.
It was another week before he was back on his feet and ready to work again. He began working more at the house after his illness: it was easier to rest when he needed, his body still weak, and he found that he could shut out the bustle and distractions after all. He still rose before the dawn, stirring the fire into life himself before he worked in the light of candles in the early-morning peace before matins. He did his best work in those early hours when his mind was fresh. Sometimes he found the answers had come to him in his sleep, his mind waking still in the world of the Holy Land, as yet undisturbed by the more venal world of London that lay just beyond his window.
He worked steadily through the morning. Verses from Genesis and the building of the Tower of Babylon, his mind turning on the fact of different languages, God confounding the people so they would no more overreach themselves, having to find instead their unity in their faith.
The King James Men Page 10