by J. D. Davies
'English law,' said Cornelia dismissively. 'I will never understand it. The plainly guilty go free and become rich while the plainly innocent are hanged.'
'That is why it is called common law, my dear,' I jested, 'for it is applied only to the common people.'
My wife was evidently in no mood for such humour, and cast me the blackest of looks.
'Let us consider what we now know about the lady,' Tris said. 'Imprimis, the matter of her first marriage to Sir Bernard De Vaux, in the year forty-five. Now, this Sir Bernard was a staunch cavalier, whose seat lay at Billringham in the county of Lincoln. A remote and blasted place, I'm told by the young exhibitioner of Bourne who has made enquiries for me in those parts. Forty-five was the bloody climax of our civil wars, of course—the year that claimed my dear brother, the late earl.' My father, in other words, fallen in glory upon Naseby field. And yet in the midst of all that slaughter, Sir Bernard De Vaux, a lifelong bachelor aged fifty-nine, discovers for himself a new bride, and a bride of no more than sixteen or seventeen summers at that. De Vaux had been a notable commander for the King in the south, where he harried Dorset quite mercilessly, and had returned to Billringham to recover from wounds. He brought the girl with him—several thereabouts can recall the day—and they were wed within a week.' Tris paused and took an exceptionally long draught of wine, even by his catholic standards. 'A strange thing, then, that no record of the marriage exists. No entry at all in the parish register, for the page for that year has been torn out. A pity, for the then vicar of Billringham was most assiduous in providing details of a bride's parentage, and of her native parish if not an inhabitant of his own.'
'What was she hiding?' cried Cornelia. Answer me that!'
'It need not be suspicious, and it need not be her doing' said Francis reasonably. 'It was the height of the war, and many such records were mutilated or lost when the fanatic brethren turned their wrath upon the churches.' That had certainly been true at Ravensden, where some rude Puritans of Bedford had smashed the ancient stained glass and shot at the wooden angels on the roof. 'But the matter can be addressed easily enough. A transcript of the register should have been sent to the bishop at the end of each year, and even during the war, the record-keeping of this diocese was exemplary. I shall visit the archive at Buckden before I come down to join the ship—it will be easy enough for me to find a pretence to pay a respectful farewell to the Bishop.' Like every incumbent of Ravensden since the Conquest, Francis Gale was a clergyman of the vast Lincoln diocese: a territory so extensive that its palace had to be at Buckden, not far from us, as the Lord Bishop had cause to regret whenever my mother's coach passed through his gate.
Cornelia accepted Francis's argument with good grace; she both trusted and respected the soon-to-be chaplain of the Seraph.
Tris bit into a slice of cake, looked at it disapprovingly and put it down. 'Quite so. The matter of the marriage entry might be all or nothing. But the law might take a rather keener interest in the death of Sir Bernard De Vaux. It seems that this valiant cavalier was ignominiously hacked to death on the common highway in the winter of forty-seven, an event followed in short order by the disappearance of his grieving young widow, still no more than twenty years old or thereabouts.'
Musk whistled loudly to himself, but I remained sceptical. 'The winter of forty-seven,' I said. 'I can just remember it. Was it not a time of dearth? Of the disbandment of much of Parliament's army? Of desperate men roaming the country, seeking a way to sustain themselves?'
'Aye, what a precocious and observant seven-year-old you were,' said Tris, who had most of the credit for making me so.
'Then,' I said, 'is it not probable that Sir Bernard was fallen upon by such men, and done to death for his purse?'
'Of course, husband,' snapped Cornelia, 'but it is also quite possible for a soon-to-be-rich widow to hire the men who bring her husband to his fate!'
'Not so rich, it seems,' said Francis. 'Sir Bernard had been punished most severely for choosing the losing side. Fines, compounding, sequestration of many of his lands—the full panoply of godly Parliamentarian wrath against a known malignant, as they termed us who loved the king. True, the lady was sole heiress of the estate, and true, she eventually exercised her right to sell what was left of it. But it would have brought her but very little; a hundred or two, perhaps.'
'Two hundred,' said my wife. 'The dress she wore at the reception cost more than that, I'll wager. Whither, then, comes the thirty thousand of which your mother speaks so often and so loudly, husband?' Cornelia enquired triumphantly.
'Ah yes, the lady's allegedly great income,' said Tris. 'My good-sister, your mother, seems fixated by that lustrous figure of thirty thousand, but it seems to me to have been conjured from thin air. Your mother was ever a calamity when it came to money, Matt—and she has the gall to blame my father for squandering the family fortune!' Tristram Quinton sighed. 'Though she has money, that much is certain; how much, and from what source, remains a mystery. We have many more enquiries to pursue in this regard—if the heir to Ravensden permits it, of course.' A tactful nod in my direction, which I acknowledged in a way that could have been construed as consent. 'Which brings us to the rather peculiar matter of her second marriage. Francis?'
Francis Gale took up another paper from the table, and began to paraphrase. 'For almost ten years, the Lady De Vaux disappeared from the face of earth. We have no reports of her. She was not with the royalist court-in-exile, that much is certain. But there seems to be no word of her in England either. The intelligence reports gathered by Mister Thurloe's agents are entirely silent on her doings—' Tris, the likely source of that information, was impassive—'until, that is, she suddenly appears in the year fifty-six as the new wife of Major-General Uriel Gulliver.'
'Gulliver?' I gasped. ' That Gulliver?'
'Quite so, Matt,' said Tris. 'That Gulliver. The man who ruled much of the Thames Valley in the name of the Lord Protector. Cromwell's right hand man, some said. Cromwell's likeliest successor, others said. In any event, the Gulliver who banned Christmas and closed most of the alehouses from Oxford to Richmond.'
'A most judicious change of sides by the Lady Louise, then,' I said.
'A most prodigious change of beds, rather, husband,' said Cornelia. 'She moved from a stout cavalier to a foul rebel to advance her own vile ambitions. Yet her general knew of her previous marriage, and accepted her. Who would credit it?'
I did not speak the thought in my head, which was that most men probably could credit it; the sight of the Lady De Vaux in the gardens of Ravensden Abbey would surely have melted the heart of even the sternest Puritan. It was certainly not a thought that the husband of Cornelia Quinton could utter in her presence.
'So it seems,' said Francis. 'The reports from the time make much of her previous title. Indeed, she seems never to have ceased to use it. She must have had a certain curiosity value, at the very least, at the Protector's court.' He picked up the paper again, squinting at its contents in the fading light. 'Like most of Cromwell's generals, Gulliver did notably well out of our late troubles; a bleacher's son who ended up with a large slice of Wiltshire to his name, largely due to appropriations from honest cavaliers and the generous patronage of the Lord Protector. It would have not been unlikely for him to be worth thirty thousand.'
'Well, perhaps four or five years ago, at any rate,' said Tris. 'But as we all know, the Lord Protector did not last, and neither did his major-generals. The restoration of the present king's fortunes brought down in turn the fortunes of many of those who had depended upon the old regime. And that is where we come to the next of the curious matters in the career of our countess-to-be. For it appears that an arrest warrant had been issued against the very much former Major-General Uriel Gulliver, but not served, on the day that he died. Of an apoplexy, the coroner's jury decided, although there seems no evidence that the body was ever subjected to proper medical examination. Thus rather than being forfeit to the crown, the estate of Lyndbur
y passed to his grieving widow.'
'A damnably convenient apoplexy for his widow, then, I'd say,' said Musk, scratching himself in the far corner of the room and seemingly bored by the entire business.
'Very much so, Musk. Very much so indeed,' said Tris.
'Well, is this not evidence fit to lay before a judge?' Cornelia demanded impatiently.
'Alas, I think not, Mistress,' said Francis gently. 'No judge or jury in England would reopen a case that was closed three years ago, and in which the only evidence has been rotting in earth all that time.' Tris nodded vigorously at that.
'Then at the very least,' said Cornelia, 'is this not evidence that we should lay before the Earl?' She was relentless now. 'Two suspected murders—who is to say there will not be a third? If a child is born, what need then of the tenth Earl of Ravensden? Without Charles, this bitch could control the estate for near twenty-one years, and God knows what will be left of it at the end of that time.'
Tristram's face indicated his concurrence; the same unspoken fear had been present in his letter that first brought me the news of the marriage. Deep in my heart I shared that fear, but publicly I had to be more circumspect.
'Cornelia, my dear love,' I said gently, 'we have no proof of anything. Tristram's discoveries create suspicions, but that is all they are. We all seek to defend my poor brother and the honour of our ancient House, but do we really serve any purpose by trying to poison his heart against his bride even before they are married? Aye, let us try and answer the mysterious questions that lurk in this lady's past—but let it be done discreetly, so that Charles does not know of it! If there is nothing to be found, then let him not know even that such finding was attempted. After all, Goodwife Quinton, what if some third party had investigated our lives before we wed, and revealed their discoveries to us?'
Cornelia blushed, for I doubted she had been a young nun in Veere, and I had certainly been no monk in England, France, or Spain. Or Flanders. Or Holland.
'Nevertheless,' said Tris, 'we have a number of enquiries to pursue. A most promising young man graduated from Mauleverer last summer, and he is now a curate in Wiltshire, not far from Lyndbury, the estate currently owned by the Widow Gulliver, alias the Lady De Vaux, alias the Countess-to-be of Ravensden. He informs me that there are many dire rumours of the true worth of the estate. The rentals have been devastated by the wars and General Gulliver's mismanagement, it's said, and there is much talk of great mortgages upon the land. Of course, that sort of tittle-tattle can be heard in every ale-house in the realm, especially among rude yeomen and farmers who covet the fields of the great estate next door to theirs. But I shall make establishing the truth or otherwise of these claims my particular task, my friends.' Tris beckoned to Musk to light another lantern; this day that had never been was dying in a grey death-shroud of fog. The lantern had but little effect, and the room remained dark, cold and smoky. 'It will take time, of course, for there is no business more damnably opaque in England than establishing the worth of a great personage. That way lie countless rogues and charlatans, notably lawyers and those devils incarnate who own the banking-houses, so I'll wager I am embarking upon a journey nearly as perilous and prolonged as your forthcoming voyage, Matthew.'
I thought upon the quest for the mountain of gold, the warning from Venner Garvey and the grinning, arrogant face of Brian Doyle O'Dwyer, and somehow I doubted it. Yet the thought of leaving Cornelia and Tristram behind, fighting a battle on what they believed to be my and my brother's behalves, troubled me deeply. Moreover, it was a battle that ran the risk of offending the most high, for I could still hear my king's words in my ears: trust me.
I looked about me, and saw thoughtful, resigned faces. Cornelia's was the gloomiest, evidently seeing no way now of preventing the marriage and thus the ascendancy of the Lady Louise. Francis's eyes were closed as though in prayer. Tris was staring deeply into his jug of wine as though seeking inspiration in the dregs. Only Musk was active, shuffling nervously from one foot to another and endeavouring to attract my attention. No doubt he wished to leave this eccentric, unsettling place as quickly as possible.
'Yes, Musk?' I said.
'There's that other matter, too,' he said.
We all looked at him curiously. Another matter?' said Tris.
The old scoundrel shrugged. 'Her daughter,' he said levelly. 'The one she had by Sir Bernard. Sorry. Thought you knew...'
Tris coughed violently. Cornelia stared open-mouthed at Musk. Francis and I exchanged astonished glances.
I was the first to recover my voice. 'How in the name of Heaven did you come to know of a daughter, Musk? Does she live? Where is she, man? Why did we not know of this—'
'I did,' said Musk sheepishly. 'A man learns things in all sorts of places. Hears all sorts of things. Especially a man in my position, a mere servant.'
Tris scowled at him and said, 'Mere servant is the last thing you will ever be, Phineas Musk. Thus you were to my father, even at his end and your beginning—a brazen, secretive rogue, by damnation!'
'You overheard a conversation,' I said tentatively. 'Between my brother and either his lady or my mother. It could only be one or the other.' Unless Charles had told him directly—but if so, why Musk ahead of his closest family?
'But this could be the key to all!' cried Cornelia. 'What became of the child, Musk?'
'Don't know everything, do I? Haven't got a degree or two, have I?' He cast a hostile glance at Tristram. 'But I'll tell you this gratis, that I will. Seems to me you've all been barking up the wrong trees. Maybe the lady killed her husbands, maybe she didn't. Maybe she's as rich as Croesus, maybe she isn't. But seems to me the questions you should be asking are these—why are the Earl, the Dowager and the King all so keen on this marriage, and why are they all so convinced it'll produce a child? Seems to me that if there's proof she produced a living child before, it could explain why they all think she'll do so again. Proven breeding stock, and so forth. But if that's so, why is nobody trumpeting it? Why's the lady hidden the child's existence all these years?'
Once again I heard my king's words: trust me.
There, in the gloom of Skelthorn, I looked upon Tristram's rows of skulls, their blank eyes seeming to stare back at me, their mute mouths seeming to utter the names of Louise de Vaux and Brian Doyle O'Dwyer. Thus I came at last to a realisation of the shocking truth. Matthew Quinton had reached a place where no cavalier could in honour abide.
Trust me?
No, Your Majesty. That, I do not.
Some days later, I stood on the quarterdeck of the Seraph, watching intently as we inched our way toward the open gates of the Deptford wet dock. Of course, we had no sail aloft; two of Master Attendant Cox's boats were towing us, and we also had cables attached to both shores, warping us toward the open river beyond. It was another bitter day, but dry, and for the first time, nearly all of the officers of the Seraph were together aboard the ship, along with most of our crew. The only two missing were Francis Gale, delivering his final Holy Communion at Ravensden before going on to pay his farewell call upon the Bishop of Lincoln (and using the visit to examine the transcripts for Billringham); and Martin Humphrey, the surgeon, a young Londoner who was due to come to the ship in a day or two. Three of the officers were below decks, attending to their various responsibilities. Ludovic Harrington, the purser, was an old Cavalier who looked upon the son of the martyr-hero James, Earl of Ravensden, almost as an object of veneration. More importantly, he was competent and honest; a rarity indeed in a purser. Bradbury, the cook, was a maimed seaman, as were most of his breed. His meals proved to be most terribly overcooked. Only I, who had grown up with the cuisine provided by Goodwife Barcock at Ravensden Abbey (who opined that meat was edible only if cremated), could eat Bradbury's fare with some degree of enthusiasm. Then there was Tom Shish, the carpenter, who might or might not have been related to the Master Shipwright of Deptford. This Shish seemed an enthusiastic, open young man, determined to make his way in his profession
so that one day he could build a truly great ship to outdo even the vast Sovereign herself, the mightiest man-of-war in all the world. He had already reported to me earnestly that for a new ship, the state of the chain pumps fell far below his expectations. Of course, I was not then such an ignoramus that I did not know the ship used pumps to expel the water that would otherwise fill her (for with the best will in the world, even the best-caulked ship in the world leaks); but my knowledge of how chain pumps worked was not necessarily complete. But in the same breath that he brought me the problem, Shish also brought me the solution; would that the same could be said of every subordinate I have ever commanded. He would go to the great storehouse at once, he said, and procure an additional supply of spare esses, these being the links used within the chain mechanism. I nodded in approbation as I would to an amenable but incomprehensible Chinaman, while also realising once again how many more leagues I had to travel to master this unfathomable sea-business.
I looked down upon the relatively few men who were actively engaged, attending to the warping cables or our end of the tow ropes. Very soon, we would have to divide this crew into the obligatory naval equivalent of the sheep and the goats, that is, by rating them as able or ordinary seamen. This was one of those arcane naval mysteries in which I had not previously participated. Indeed, it seemed even to my young and ignorant self to be a very pinnacle of perversity, for the new general instructions of the Lord Admiral to his captains, issued but a few months before, followed time-honoured tradition by insisting that men should be rated at once upon joining the ship. Now, even at the tender age of twenty-three, and with less experience at sea than many a fishwife, I wondered how it was possible to judge whether a man was fit for helm, lead, top and yards, the definition of an able seamen, long before the ship put to sea at all. Kit Farrell, bustling about the forecastle with the unconfined happiness of a man returning to his natural element, had told me that the practised eye of the veteran mariner made the task as easy as judging men from women, but I found this analogy a little too carefree for my comfort.