Thomas Kemp’s lips started to move, struggling to make the shapes of the words he needed to say. ‘Ben?’ he managed to rasp.
‘I am here, sir.’
Thomas Kemp turned his head towards the voice and his eyelids flickered as he fought to force them open. Eventually his gaze settled on his son.
‘I am glad you came,’ he breathed. ‘Perhaps now I’m dying you will listen to me.’ He paused as his body tensed against a sudden spasm, his breath quickening. The grip on his son’s fingers closed like a vice: Ben was astonished at the strength that was still in the emaciated hand.
The spasm passed and the grasp loosened, but his breathing came now in great heaving rasps. His eyes fixed once again on his son. ‘I have left you enough to go,’ he whispered. ‘To Holland.’
Ben nodded, and flicked a quick glance of concern towards Alice. She pretended not to be listening, eyes lowered to the shirt she was sewing in the candlelight. He returned his eyes to meet his father’s.
‘You’ve been in prison again,’ Thomas Kemp said.
Alice started in her chair, a small jump of shock, and pricked her finger. Lifting it to her lips to suck at the blood, she got up from her chair, using the movement as an excuse to leave them.
‘They think I don’t know. But they talk when they think I am sleeping …’ He pulled back his lips in an attempt at a smile.
His son smiled in return. ‘I am free now.’
‘Aah. I am glad to see you. But you must use your freedom and go. Go to Holland. Promise me.’
‘I cannot promise.’
‘Promise me.’ Even through the rasping breath and the whispers, there was something of the old determination to have his way. His fingers grasped tightly again, another spasm wracking his frame. He tensed and closed his eyes, shuddering until it had passed. Then he slowly turned his head once more towards his son.
‘Promise me you will go,’ he breathed. ‘Swear.’
Ben swallowed and turned his face away from the searching eyes, as shrewd now in the cadaverous death mask as they had ever been.
‘I want to know you’re safe before I go,’ the old man said. ‘So that I may go to God in peace. Now swear.’
Ben struggled, his own weakness threatening to claim him. He tensed to stop himself from swaying, eyes still averted.
‘Swear,’ his father repeated. ‘And let me die in peace.’
What choice did he have? he thought. In the end he would have to go. They would all have to go, Bancroft’s web all around them, all of them watched, harassed, taken, fined, imprisoned. What was the point when God was offering a place of freedom across the sea?
He turned his eyes back to his father and returned the pressure of the old man’s grip. ‘I swear,’ he said. ‘I will go and be safe as you wish.’
‘Aaahh,’ the old man sighed and the tension left his face, the skin softening across the bones, eyes closing in relief. ‘Aaahh. Thank you, Ben,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
They were the last words he said.
It was almost Christmastide before he died. Though he spoke no more, he often held on to Ben’s hand, grasping, so that they knew his mind was still with them, even if his eyes remained closed and his lips could do nothing more than move in the formation of words that would never be heard.
It was painful to watch, the slow demise of the body, weakened and incapable. But the hold on life was tenacious, and he still accepted the small spoonfuls of broth that they gave him. Even though he had gained his promise from his son, Thomas Kemp still refused to yield quietly. Ben barely left his side. Across from him his mother, his sister and his cousin took their turns at the bedside: they had long since given up urging him to rest.
Alice watched him as he got up from the chair to stretch, limbs aching, strength returning. It would be good to be active again, he thought, his muscles crying out for movement. For something to do he crossed to the fire and squatted before it, tossing on a new log. It was burning low and drawing well, a good warmth against the bitter cold of the December night. Rattling the grate with the poker, he let the ash fall through. The new log caught with the sudden pull of air, crackling loudly in the silent room, and he poked at it more, arranging it to his liking until it was burning evenly and well. Finally satisfied, he stood up, knees cracking, rubbed the dirt from his hands and returned to his place at the bedside.
‘You should go to bed,’ he said to Alice. ‘There is no need for us both to be here all night.’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘It’s warm and comfortable and I don’t like to leave him. It is you who should be in bed. You’ve barely rested since you got here.’
‘I’ve slept in worse places.’
She frowned, focusing her gaze more closely on his face. Then, in a voice that barely lifted above the crackle of the flames, she said, ‘Will you go to Holland, Ben, as he bid you?’
‘Do you think I should go?’ He wondered how much she knew and who had told her, if she had Richard’s confidence.
She slid her eyes away. ‘I think you should come back to the Church.’
He was silent, aware that perhaps he had mistaken her shyness for meekness.
‘But if not,’ she said, ‘then yes, I think you should go to Holland.’
‘You are afraid for me?’
She hesitated. ‘A little,’ she said. Then, ‘And I would have you honour your father’s wishes.’
He gave an equivocal tilt of his head, surprised that she cared: he had thought she despised him for the grief he caused his family. ‘I made a promise.’
‘You’ve been there before, haven’t you?’
‘A long time ago.’ Another lifetime it seemed to him now, before Cecily, before prison. He had been a different man then, barely more than a boy, with big hopes and dreams for a new Church in England. Now he knew it was impossible: the Church would never reform and those who hoped for it would always be hunted and oppressed. What choice did they have in the end but to leave?
‘Did you miss England?’ she asked. ‘I think I would miss it very much.’
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘But I was young and the world was full of adventure.’
She smiled. ‘Tell me.’
‘It was exciting. I was learning the world of trade and meeting men from all parts of the globe. Men with strange-coloured skin, men who spoke many different tongues. Arabs, Turks, Chinamen, Christians, heathens … Amsterdam was … is … a melting pot. And there are many godly and gracious people there.’
Greta stepped unbidden across his thoughts and filled him with the fragrance of the nape of her neck. Strange how after all these years her scent was still familiar. Cecily’s perfume was harder to recall.
‘And now you are older?’
‘I am here.’
She nodded and both of them turned their attention once again to the pale man that lay between them, still just connected to his life by the thin and hard-fought breaths that rasped unevenly. Ben took his father’s hand but there was no response.
‘How much longer, do you think?’ Alice whispered.
‘He is in God’s hands now,’ Ben answered. ‘He will take him when he’s ready.’
‘Should we pray?’
He smiled. ‘We should always pray.’
She lowered her eyes to cover her embarrassment. She had never lost her nervousness around him – it was better hidden now, but there just the same. Ben began to murmur a prayer. Alice half rose from her chair as if to kneel on the floor, but Ben merely bowed his head and so she sat back instead and closed her eyes.
The time of our life is threescore years and ten, and if they be of strength, fourscore years: yet their strength is but labour and sorrow: for it is cut off quickly, and we flee away.
Who knoweth the power of Thy wrath? for according to Thy fear is Thine anger.
Teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Return (O Lord, how long?) and be pacified toward Thy servants.
&nbs
p; Fill us with Thy mercy in the morning: so shall we rejoice and be glad all our days.
Comfort us according to the days that Thou hast afflicted us, and according to the years that we have seen evil.
Let Thy work be seen toward Thy servants, and Thy glory upon their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and direct Thou the work of our hands upon us, even direct the work of our hands.
Later he dozed. Half his mind remained at the deathbed in front of him, aware of his cousin’s watchful gaze, but the rest fell into dreams of imprisonment, a ship leaving harbour without him. As the vessel slid from view across the sea, he fought against the chains that held him and woke up with a start, rubbing hard at his scars. Alice was still watching him.
‘You were dreaming,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should wake you.’
He said nothing. Her constant presence was starting to oppress him and he wished she would go to bed and leave him alone with his father.
‘Was it a nightmare?’ she asked. ‘You seemed … distressed.’
‘Just a bad dream.’
They settled back into silence. The room was warm against the winter night beyond the curtained window and the house creaked and groaned in the quiet, the familiar sounds of childhood nights when sleep had failed to come. But the noises now would hold a different memory.
His father stirred, the slow rasping breath breaking rhythm. He moved his lips as though he would speak, and his fingers twitched in search of human touch. Ben reached out and took his hand between both of his, sitting forward to be closer.
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘And all is well.’
A long voiced breath escaped his father’s lips, a last drawn-out sigh that signified his passing. There were no more breaths to come. Ben bowed his head above his father’s hand and prayed a silent prayer.
At the graveside, Ben stood tense as the minister recited his stinted prayers, a ceremony that still smacked of popish ritual; it grieved him to be part of it. Heartfelt prayers by those who knew his father best would have been more fitting, but his mother’s grief could bear no more heartache and for her sake he had kept his peace.
Beside him, her shoulder almost brushing his arm, Emma Kemp trembled as her husband was lowered into the ground. She was going to be lost without him, Ben thought: with no strong hand to guide and to comfort her she had already begun to falter. A small sob escaped her lips, and with a slight movement of his hand Ben grasped her fingers in his own and squeezed. She stiffened at the unexpected affection, but then she turned a small and grateful smile his way. She was a good woman and he was sorry for all the distress he had caused her. The minister’s voice droned on:
‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ …’
Ben stopped listening, and let his eyes travel over the mourners on the other side of the grave. A lot of people had come – his father had been well loved and respected. They were merchants mostly, a few with their wives, all of them huddled into their cloaks against the biting cold. A cold metallic sun lit behind the clouds but the day was bitter.
Most of them he barely knew, their faces only vaguely familiar from the Twelfth Night revels or from years ago when he had worked with his father for the few brief months between Amsterdam and prison.
Then behind them he noticed Richard Clarke, standing well back from the graveside, his eyes resolutely lowered. Rage flooded him that Richard would dare to intrude with his counterfeit grief for a man whose trust he had so willingly betrayed. Sweat covered him beneath the layers of clothing. He wrenched his gaze away, lowered his eyes once more to the open grave.
The priest fell silent.
Ellyn squatted down briefly and dropped a sprig of rosemary into the grave. His mother let slip a spray of purple heather, but the stalks caught on the dirt at the lip of the opening and Ben stooped quickly to retrieve it, passing it back to her. She stretched out a shaking hand and took it, then stepped closer and let it fall again before she quickly turned away and took her daughter’s arm.
Away from the grave, the mourners approached her. ‘We should get her home,’ Ellyn murmured.
He nodded his agreement and with gentle pressure against her mother’s elbow, Ellyn turned her mother along the path to lead the procession quietly out of the churchyard and back to Thieving Lane for the wake.
The mourners milled in his father’s hall, cups of fine wine in their hands while their eyes appraised the quality of the furnishings, the silks that hung at the windows, the rugs that adorned the walls. Merton would need to be careful with his father’s trade – these men were no respecters of inheritance, whatever their feelings for Thomas Kemp had been.
They spoke to Ben one by one.
‘Your father was a good man, an honest man …’
‘He will be sorely missed …’
‘God knows there are few enough like him in trade …’
‘If there is anything we can do for your mother …’
‘Thank you, you’ve been very kind.’ He murmured the expected responses.
Ellyn barely left her mother’s side through the gathering, and Ben saw through the smile to the weariness behind it. She was close to her time. She should be resting, he thought, preparing herself for what lay ahead. Her husband hovered as close as he could but it seemed it was already known that the Company had come to him: snippets of shop talk peppered the condolences. Then Richard emerged from the group and came towards him. Instinctively Ben braced, pulse quickening. He was appalled that Richard saw fit to show his face.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Richard said. ‘He was a good man. He was always kind to me.’
‘Yes,’ Ben agreed. ‘That he was.’
There was a pause. Richard turned his eyes away from the hostility and clasped his hands together in front of him, working the fingers together tightly. Ben waited, enjoying the other man’s unease until finally Richard looked back to him with nervous hesitation. ‘Can we talk?’ he said.
‘I have nothing to say to you.’ Though if he had not been at his father’s wake and constrained, he would have had words aplenty.
The other man nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But it is not about that. This is a different matter entirely. And it is important or I would not ask.’
Ben tilted his head, considering. It was tempting to say no and give the man nothing, but his curiosity was piqued. ‘Come to my father’s study.’
‘Thank you.’
They went out of the hall and up the stairs to the room that now belonged to Merton. It was unchanged since the days before his father’s death, except for the great ledger which had gone from the desk when Merton took over through the long weeks of illness. Ben stood by his father’s chair, one hand on the smooth wood back of it, but he could not bring himself to sit down. It was his father’s chair, his father’s place, and it was not God’s will that he should ever fill it. The two men stood and faced each other across the neat piles of documents that covered the desk.
‘What have you to say to me?’ Ben demanded.
Richard gave a half-smile, hesitating, and smoothed a hand across his hair. Ben observed him, wondering what might be about to come. He could make no guess, and this coy sheepishness was something new. He said, ‘Well?’
‘Always so impatient.’
‘I have a house full of guests.’
‘Of course,’ Richard said quickly. ‘Forgive me. I will get to the point.’ He smoothed a hand across his hair again. ‘I … wish to marry Alice.’
Ben stared. Of all the things he had imagined Richard might ask for, this was perhaps the most unexpected. He was almost tempted to laugh. ‘You wish to marry Alice?’
‘I think she will be agreeable.’ Richard’s tone suggeste
d he was offended by Ben’s incredulity.
‘And as you are now head of the household it falls to you to approach her father.’
Ben smiled, shaking his head in disbelief. Richard and Alice, husband and wife. It was hard to imagine it. He had come to think that Richard would never marry now, his passions dried out by too many years at study. He recalled him as a young man at Cambridge: they had been different people then, loyal to God and to each other, their friendship ardent and intense. But perhaps a woman would be good for Richard. Perhaps a wife could tease back his humanity. And Alice would suit him: he could imagine them shy and reserved with each other, unendingly polite. She would make a good country vicar’s wife, working hard and uncomplaining, grateful for what God had given her. But it was hard to think there might be passion.
‘I’m not sure why you smile,’ Richard said. His lips were tight with offence. ‘I thought we would wed when the Translation is completed, and Alice can return with me to Kent.’
Ben was silent. He did not know what to say.
Richard continued. ‘I think we will be very well suited.’
‘Yes,’ Ben agreed. ‘I’m sure you will.’
‘I am not asking for your permission. She is of age and we have no need of your permission to marry. We can do it without you if needs be, but I like to do things properly …’
Ben’s lips twitched into the beginnings of another smile.
‘… so I would be much obliged if you would speak to her father.’
The smile faded. He was in half a mind to say no to this man who was his enemy, a defender of an idolatrous church, a betrayer. But then he thought of Alice. She was not so young any more and she had little to recommend her as a bride: a plain face, a small dowry. Richard might be her only chance and it was a match Thomas Kemp would have approved. For once Ben could do something for his father, something that would please him. He only wished he could have done so before his father died.
The King James Men Page 28