A Divided Inheritance (2 page)

‘But why? I don’t want him as a father. He’s dull and smells of old clothes. Why does he think that? He’s not my father.’

‘He was one of my gentlemen friends. He paid me for my company.’ She brushed lightly over the truth. ‘I’m sorry, pigeon, but I had your brothers to think of.’

‘I know, Mama. I know what you are.’

‘I had to do something. Spain and England were at war, nobody in London wanted a tutor any more, or to learn the Spanish tongue. I had to make a living somehow. Leviston liked the fact I
was a Catholic. That’s why.’ She paused. ‘You will listen to him, and let him help, won’t you?’

Zachary was mute.

She touched him on the arm. ‘Did you hear me?’

No answer, just stubborn silence.

‘He’s a respectable man – despite me. When I am gone I hope he will father you if he can.’

Zachary still said nothing. It was as if she had extinguished a light in him. Of course she knew that dry Uncle Leviston was no sort of father in a young boy’s eyes. Not any sort of hero
– not handsome, or dashing, or easy-natured. But he was wealthy, and more decent than the rest, that at least.

Zachary turned to look at her just once, his expression so full of hurt and grief it made her wince. ‘Don’t leave us, Mama.’

She could not answer so she just shook her head. Zachary rolled on to his side and his back came between them like a wall. She reached out to wind an arm round his waist. Just enough time to
feel his skinny ribs through his shirt before he leapt from the bed and ran off without a word.

‘Zack!’

She would have liked a kiss, a moment of tenderness as a keepsake. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. The effort to talk had sapped her willpower and finally she gave in and reached out
for the opium. The pain was worse, she could hardly take a breath. Had she made him understand? She did not know. Pray God it would end soon.

Dreams came, of her childhood in Granada, of the red-hot sun and her mother’s fragrant rabbit stew. Of the noise of the cicadas, and the smell of burnt earth, and the braying of donkeys.
Of when she was a child the same age as Zachary, light and free and dancing on her bare brown feet. Through these pictures the opium did its work and she slept.

The clang of St Mary’s bells woke her. There were pale-breasted swallows lined up on the eaves preparing for their flight. She had seen them in Spain, admired their red
throats, their swooping, elegant dances. She wondered where these English ones flew to in the winter. Someone had told her they buried themselves in the mud at the bottom of the lakes until
spring.

The cold had spread through her flesh now, as if she lay buried in dark silt herself. She remembered her dream and imagined what it must be like to have Zachary’s legs, his energy, his
whole life stretching before him like an untrodden road. There was no sign of him still, but she listened out for him with every ounce of her strength, even though each little sound made her bones
ache.

The door banged open. The noise of two pairs of boots. There was a smell of strong liquor as Kit bent to look over her.

‘Mama.’ And then a whisper. ‘I think she’s worse.’

‘No, she’s not. She’s the same,’ she heard Saul say. Even over this they contradicted each other.

‘Please don’t argue.’ She propped herself up on her elbow a moment and croaked to Kit to fetch the quill and ink. He grumbled and then clattered about the room searching for it
until Saul snapped, ‘Not over there, you bumpkin, in here.’ She heard the scrape of the desk drawer opening. The room was blurred, as though she looked through a fog.

‘She hasn’t written to anyone for weeks. It’s a bad sign,’ Kit whispered. Then loudly, next to her ear, he said, ‘Shall we send for someone?’

She shook her head. Finding a willing priest could take time, and be dangerous, though she knew she would need one soon enough.

‘If you’re sure?’

‘No, no one.’

‘Mama, what do you need the writing things for, then?’ Saul asked.

‘Just put them by me in case I have need of them.’

Saul was still insisting to Kit, ‘If she’s well enough to write she’s better than yesterday.’

She had thought to draw them both into an embrace, like when they were babes, to feel the warmth of their bodies against hers, but now she knew she had not the strength. They seemed too big for
the room with their bluster and argument.

Just go, can’t you? She willed them to leave, feigning sleep.

‘She’s sleeping again,’ Saul said, from close to her face, his breath damp on her skin.

A sudden cool disturbance of air brushed her cheek, and she heard Kit hiss, ‘What’s that you’ve got?’

‘A cloak. Rat-face must have got it for her. A fine one, too.’

‘Hey, let me look.’

‘Let go!’

‘She’ll notice. And we’ll get into trouble.’

‘Nah, she won’t. Look, she’s asleep.’

And so it was with relief she heard them stumble to their beds. The new cloak had gone. She imagined Zachary’s disappointed face and it made her angry. The anger seemed to light a fire
inside her. She must make him understand. She hauled herself up to lean on the wall behind her and took the quill to write. Over the next quarter-hour she pressed the parchment against her knees,
applied the quill to it in determined but querulous strokes.

It was almost five bells when she felt Zack slide in next to her, wind his arms around her waist and nuzzle into the back of her neck. She was floating with the effects of the opium and could
barely move to embrace him, but she let out a long sigh of pain and joy. Her boy had come home. Her letter to him was under the pillow. It was as though those few scrawled words contained the last
of her heat and warmth, the last of Andalusia. She clasped hold of his hand and wound her fingers into his.

When morning came, his hand was still in hers.

Too cold; the thought drifted by, too cold now to move. The chill crept into her bones until it rattled the windows of her breath.

On the opposite roof the line of swallows clustered together, dark shapes edging the eaves. She was as light as they; all feather and bone. All at once they took flight, wings beat past her
window, the flash of pale belly and black forked tail. So it was time, time to go home. She let something in her lift, and wheel, and soar into the sky.

May 1609

Elspet Leviston leaned over the desk, squinting at the reference she was writing for the lacemaker’s girl who wanted to become a housemaid. Her quill scratched over the
paper in brisk efficiency for she had several more letters to write for Father after this one, and she wanted to get them done. She hummed a madrigal as she did so, enjoying the hiss as she stamped
the seal into the hot wax. Every now and then she sighed and said, ‘Give over now,’ good-naturedly to the two dogs at her feet who were thumping their tails on the ground, demanding her
attention.

Finally, she succumbed, and went to get her cloak and hat along with the leads. She rang the bell for Martha the housemaid to accompany her, and called the dogs, although there was no need
– they were already panting beside her, ready for their afternoon outing.

‘Come, Jakes.’ The setter jumped up at her skirts, his ears flapping. The other one, the terrier, tried to chew her feet, tail batting back and forth, little barks escaping in his
excitement. ‘Diver, you little tinker, leave go!’

Finally, she had the clips fastened on the pair of them. Both dogs began to bark excitedly and to pull at their leashes. ‘Stop it,’ she chided them. ‘We’re going. Just
wait whilst I get my gloves.’ She handed both the leads to Martha and put on her gloves.

At last they were off, the dogs scampering ahead on the familiar path alongside the wall of the Convent of Westminster, and away from London town. Elspet and Martha passed the brewers, screwing
up their noses to each other at the smell of yeast, and then tugged on the leashes so that they could peer in the window of the little silk-weaver’s with his guild sign of the silk-flies and
loom. He waved at them through the window before they headed out into the countryside. Once the track gave way to grass they let the impatient dogs off the leads and they sprang away.

Elspet watched the dogs nosing in the verges and inhaled the smell of the pasture, glad to be away from the city stink. ‘It’s such a lovely day, isn’t it, Martha?’ she
said.

‘It is that, mistress.’

‘And nice to be outdoors. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to stretch my legs. And this is the only time I will have this week to get out into the air. Father will expect me to
go into the offices with him again to write up the ledgers. One of the clerks gave notice.’

‘Is that so, mistress?’

‘There’s always something. But at least it is not some infection. Not like when the business nearly went under and they had to burn the lace for fear the plague would spread. It was
six years ago next week, Father was saying. Can you believe it?’

‘I didn’t think it was that long since,’ Martha said.

‘And what a waste. No wonder he was so ill. Thank goodness those days are past. And he’s doing very nicely now, everyone wants his Flanders lace, it’s so pretty. Oh
look!’

Jakes was scrabbling and growling at the underside of a hedge, his liver-coloured flanks shaking. He was strong as an ox when he caught sight of any small creature – cats, rabbits, mice or
birds – if it moved, he would chase it.

‘Is it a rabbit?’ Martha asked.

Jakes emerged with a stick between his teeth, his tail wagging furiously.

‘Some rabbit!’ They laughed as he dropped it right in front of Elspet’s feet.

‘He knows, doesn’t he?’ Martha said. ‘Sometimes I think he’s almost human. Shall I throw it?’ She lifted it and hurled it down the path, and they both watched
as he sped off like a flying shuttle with Diver the little terrier bounding after him, yapping excitedly.

After an hour they were back at West View House, unlacing muddy boots in the hall. Elspet hung up her cloak, and heard the door creak open behind her. She paid it no mind, accustomed as she was
to the servants coming and going with coals for the grate. But a hand on her shoulder made her swivel round, startled.

‘Father!’

He was never back from work this early. From the corner of her eye she saw Martha dip a ragged curtsey; both dogs were growling and barking and pulling at her.

‘What a din,’ Father said. ‘Martha, take those wretched dogs out the back, to the stables.’

Martha bobbed and pulled the dogs away. Elspet heard Jakes barking all the way to the back door.

‘Elspet, may I introduce your cousin, Zachary Deane.’ It was only then that she saw him, the stranger hanging slightly back in the doorway, his eyes casting quick, sidelong glances
about the hall.

‘Oh,’ she said, pulling off her muddy gloves in haste and putting them aside. ‘I wondered what was the matter with the dogs.’

‘You’re too soft with them,’ her father reproached.

‘They look like fine animals,’ Zachary, the young man, said. He placed one hand on his sword as he made a small bow.

Father’s fingers pulled nervously at the edge of his robe. The newcomer was still bent over and she saw his hair was tangled and damp with perspiration. He swung back to upright with a
brisk wave of his hat.

Father nodded to her to prompt a response.

‘Oh – your servant,’ she murmured, dipping her head first to the newcomer, and then to her father, ‘Forgive me, Father, you caught me by surprise.’

She tried to catch the young man’s eye and smile, but he glanced away, finding something of interest in the yard.

‘Zachary is my sister’s boy,’ Father said in a rush. ‘But Magda—’, he broke off. ‘I mean to say, Zachary’s mother and I have been estranged for
some years. Unfortunately, she has passed away.’

Zachary smiled thinly at Father, his lips compressed, and then looked at the ground.

‘I did not know she was gone,’ Father said, ‘and Zachary and I have only just found each other.’

‘My condolences, Cousin.’ Elspet’s first impression was that Zachary did not look like a man in mourning – not wearing that shoddy rust-coloured doublet and cloak worn to
grey at the hem. She wondered if he was ill-fed; his hose sagged at the ankles.

‘With his mother gone, it is right and fitting we do our duty and look to our own,’ Father said. ‘Zachary will lodge in the lower chambers, and I know you will make him
welcome.’

In the distance Diver was yapping. Elspet gathered herself. She regretted not being warmer or more welcoming, especially as her cousin had been bereaved. He must think her lacking in courtesy.
She smoothed her ruffled hair and said, ‘What a terrible thing. I am so sorry to hear of your loss, I hope you will feel at home here.’

Father turned to him. ‘The lower chambers are not much, but—’

‘They will be better than I am used to, I’m sure,’ Zachary interrupted him. ‘Do not go to any trouble on my account.’ His voice was pleasant and neutral, though his
eyes darted restlessly round the hall.

Father patted him on the arm sympathetically. An unusual gesture, for he was never much given to outward shows of affection. He must be trying hard, Elspet thought.