by Jane Jakeman
It was not till later that evening that Belos and I had an opportunity to speak.
He was uncommonly close about the matter, yet, as I discovered, there were two subjects on which there were disclosures to be made, one that affected him very closely, the other less so.
The evening was warm; the curtains had been left undrawn so that from the library I might look out on the vast sweep of the lawns, leading down to the great trees around the lake. The greens and blues of the day were fading to wraithlike misty grays, the branches black outlines against the gray. Lady Jesmond had been in an exhausted and distressed state, and she and Mrs. Romey had begged to retire early; Elisabeth was changing for dinner.
“It is time for some truth, my lord.”
The serious tone in Belos’s voice surprised me, and I began to have some forebodings.
The black cat, Cordillo, had followed him into the library and leaped on my knees, peering out of the window with his amber eyes.
“Truth, Belos? Are you sure?”
“My lord, I must tell you this; it came to me from a close friend. One whom I trust.”
I was surprised at this. Since our return from Greece, Belos and I had lived in seclusion. I had not thought he had made any close friendships in the neighborhood; he went occasionally to the alehouse, it is true, but merely to pick up a little local gossip now and again.
“Well, I suppose I must bear it, if you really will not desist.” But, looking at his face, I dropped my flippant manner and grew serious. The fur of the cat was warm and thick under my fingers.
“This information comes, my lord, from the…the person I met at Edmund Kean’s funeral.”
“The actor friend? I remember you mentioned him. An old comrade from the Theatre Royal in Bristol, was it not?”
“Yes, and I have been in correspondence with him since. A letter came while you were away at Jesmond Place. I have been expecting your return daily and did not wish to write to you there about this subject in case my letter should be intercepted.”
“The puzzle becomes more and more intriguing, Belos. What did your friend have to say?”
“That he had heard a strange tale in the theater, my lord. You see, I had mentioned to him that you were intending to visit Sir Antony and Lady Jesmond. It seems that he heard that name again, from an elderly actor who was playing Polonius…my friend was Horatio.”
He seemed pleased when I commented that his friend must be a success upon the boards, for Horatio was quite an important role.
Thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing:
A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hath ta’en with equal thanks…
…And then something about ‘Give me that man that is not passion’s slave…’ Is that not what Hamlet says to Horatio?”
“Yes, my lord. But what I have to tell you is not about Shakespeare—it is about an actress. I think that it is time for the whole truth to come out.
“It seems that Mrs. Romey was a very beautiful young actress at the Theatre Royal in Bristol, some twenty-five years ago, who left the stage because she had an illegitimate child, a daughter. That was the last piece in the puzzle, was it not? The father could not marry her, but he set her up in business as an inn-keeper, to make provision for her and the child.”
Light was fading in the real world.
“Belos, yes, that accounts for many things!”
“If Clara Jesmond is Mrs. Romey’s daughter…”
“Yes, I had already thought that might be the case. There is a physical similarity between them, but even more than that, Mrs. Romey has a clear and confident voice—and I recollect Miss Anstruther saying that Clara Jesmond was very apt at learning languages, so I suppose she has inherited some of her mother’s ability to imitate accents.”
I was turning toward Belos as I said all this, recollecting various small things that had transpired at Jesmond Place: the familiarity with which the housekeeper addressed her mistress, the way in which she had drunk from her cup. The unusual intimacy between Clara Jesmond and Mrs. Romey to which Sir Antony had so objected was explained as the natural affection between mother and daughter. Antony Jesmond had no doubt feared that if the housekeeper were treated like a member of the family, then the whole story of his wife’s low background might come out.
Elisabeth had entered the room as we were speaking, and I added as she came and sat beside me, “I did think at one moment that the landlord’s wife Naomi might have been the lady with the theatrical past.”
“Goodness, Ambrose, what made you consider that possibility?”
“She had damned fashionable shoes.”
Elisabeth looked pityingly at me.
“Oh, Ambrose. Their feet are the same size!”
This seemed a gnomic statement.
“No, I suppose you would not have noticed that. But it explains the connection between Lady Jesmond and the landlady. You still do not see the point? Clara Jesmond used to pass on her old shoes—and her clothes sometimes, as well. She is a kind-hearted woman.”
She stopped suddenly and I saw that the door of the library was partly open, and a woman was standing there.
“Mrs. Romey—”
“I believe the lady’s stage-name was Suzanna Bellinger,” and Belos bowed to the erstwhile Mrs. Romey as she came hesitantly into the room.
“So you have found out our secret, Mr. Belos. Well, we could not keep it forever; indeed, I would not have wished to keep it at all, for I have no shame concerning my late profession. It was Sir Antony made Clara and me swear to keep it from the world, for he was ashamed of having a wife from such a background. He said all the gentry would consider it utterly disreputable and they would not receive Clara in any of their houses. We must hide the fact that she came out of an inn, let alone what had gone before. And he said I could live as their housekeeper—but I must know my place.”
This was said with an edge of hatred which I could well excuse, remembering how ruthlessly Sir Antony had crushed any signs of affection which his “housekeeper” had shown to his wife.
The woman continued: “Of course, I could have stayed behind in the inn after their marriage, but he said that I would never see my daughter again, if I chose to do that. So I had to go with her to Jesmond Place.”
“And will you remain silent about your past? You need not fear that we will expose your history, if you wish for secrecy still.”
The woman shook her head. “No, my lord. I’ll speak to Clara, but I think she will follow my inclination. Now that Sir Antony is gone, we have no reason to hide our past. In any case, Clara has never been accepted by the other county families; we would hear them murmur sometimes, about her lack of breeding, or her vulgar manners! It was so painful, when Sir Antony made us keep up that pretense in public—we were never permitted to acknowledge that she was my daughter. That was the hardest part I have ever had to play—and it seemed I would have to play it forever. Thank God it’s all over.”
As she went out, I saw a strange look crossing Belos’s face. “That is something I, too, wish to say.”
“What, are you returning to the stage too? Are you planning to tread the boards again? Am I to lose my entire household to the damned theater?”
“No, my lord, I meant that I don’t wish to play a part any more.”
He walked across to the window so that I could not see his face and stood looking out as dusk was falling.
“Not just the role of your butler, my lord.”
I had a presentiment of what was coming. Although he had given no sign, no word, in all those long months when he had tended my wounds and run my household, yet I knew what lay unspoken there, in the evening, in that long library where the cases of gilded spines glimmered away into the darkness. “My lord, did you ask yourself why I was in Greece?”
“No. Never!”
“But surely, you must have had some curiosity, some notion as to why—”
“As to why
you came to be lying in a malaria-ridden Levantine attic, reciting Hamlet in your fever? What you were doing in Greece in the first place? Why you were beyond the reach of our particularly savage laws and our gross British moral hypocrisy? No, Belos, I most carefully did not ask myself those questions. And do not now answer them for me. Some other time in our friendship, I beg you.”
“Very well, my lord. But I wish to return to Bristol.”
“I understand that perfectly, Belos. I will not inquire your reasons for doing so; are they—are they connected with the person you met at Richmond?”
“Yes, my lord. I wish to be with him.”
This was spoken very quietly, but with a clear determination and courage.
“I am sorry, Belos, that our household here at Malfine seems to be diminishing, but you have repaid any debt you owed me a thousand times or more.”
“I should have died in Greece, if it was not for your lordship. I was sick and starving when you found me there.”
“And I should have died of my wounds—or of my doctors’ advice—had you not stopped them bleeding me and brought me home to tend me here. So our scores are even. You owe me nothing, Belos. Will you take anything with you? I can let you have funds.”
“No, there is nothing I need from you, my lord. Let the boy, young Crawshay, have the pony; he is a quiet old beast and must live out his days in peace. He is no Barbary, after all!”
But there were tears in his eyes later on, and not, I am sure, an actor’s fakes.
The black cat, Cordillo, was clinging to Belos’s shoulder as he walked through the gates of Malfine the next day. I watched as his figure, clad in nondescript brown, grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Belos did not look back.
“Open up the house, Ambrose. The ballroom, your mother’s rooms.”
Elisabeth was behind me.
“It is time for an end to the old life.”
I could see Belos no longer. I turned round to her.
EPILOGUE
“So you’ll take him?” I said.
Professor Daubeny nodded his head.
“You have persuaded me, Malfine, though I have some misgivings. The young man’s qualifications for entry to Oxford are somewhat unusual.”
“Yes, I fancy he knows nothing of whoring, nor of gambling—”
“I assure you Oxford is becoming a far more serious place than it was in your young day.”
“Nor of psalm-singing, neither—”
“But I’ve talked to him,” continued Daubeny, hardened by the irrelevant interruptions of a thousand undergraduates over the course of his long career, “and I find he has a little learning. He knows some natural science—something of many minerals and elements—and Henderson taught him Greek and Latin, and even Arabic science as well. We can build upon that, if we can clear all this alchemical nonsense about creating gold out of his head. It was a tragedy that Henderson went the way he did, but something can be salvaged, if we give this boy a chance.”
Opening the door of his laboratory, Daubeny called out to the lad who was sitting on a wooden chair in the hall outside—a dark and solemn place, full of varnished wood and smelling of chemicals. Nervously, Charnock came in, his hair sticking up at the back of his head. Now it could be seen how young he was: no older than most of the students in Oxford, if the truth be known. The perverse training which Henderson had given to his mind, and the greedy demands which Sir Antony Jesmond had laid upon him, had made him seem older than his years.
“Now, young man,” began the Professor, “Lord Ambrose and I have decided that we can enter you as a student here at Oxford, if you will apply yourself to serious study under my tuition.”
There was a brightness in young Charnock’s eyes that told us he was eager to begin. Yet he hesitated still, looking back and forth from Daubeny to myself, ruffling his hair with his hand, as he stood against a bench covered with retorts and tubes.
Daubeny sensed the difficulty.
“Come, young man. Lord Ambrose here has said that he will pay your college fees and living expenses, so that you can learn some rational science. What do you say?”
Charnock seemed suddenly to come to life.
“Oh, yes, sir!” he said. “Yes, please!”
He went out accompanied by Simon, Daubeny’s apprentice, whose scholarly young face I remembered from my previous visit.
“One moment, Professor,” said I.
I went out and slipped them a guinea apiece.
“Keep clear of Mother Louse, but an evening at the Blue Dog will do you no harm.” Simon looked shocked, so I added hastily in my severest tones, “But you are to pay attention to your studies, mind, Charnock.”
I think he will. What was there left for him in Combwich, after all? He had seen most of what he had learned there collapse in a heap of flaming rubbish. And he had learned too much to be content to remain there in the depths of the countryside, yet not enough to do aught else.
There is a well-known quotation: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” But people rarely go on to quote the next line: “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
Oxford will give Charnock his chance to drink deep. Well, we are a nation of soft-minded gulls who will believe in all sorts of nonsense from parsons and prestidigitators alike, but if Daubeny makes a rational man out of a sorcerer’s apprentice, at least I shall have plucked one brand from the burning.
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