Lady of the Butterflies (67 page)

I had told Dickon that as soon as I had watched him depart, I would be leaving London to return to Tickenham, and he was so happy in his work now, and with James, that he did not mind at all. “You have a good day,” I said, hugging him tight, before he climbed down to the boat. “I hope it is a successful one.”

“I’d rather be spending my time with patients, instead of plants,” he said artlessly.

“Well, keep your eyes open and who knows, you might find something that’ll help your patients. A plant nobody’s ever found before, one that can cure cankers, or start a heart again when it has stopped.”

He looked dubious. “I am going to Tickenham, Mama, not off to the New World.”

I laughed. “Even so.”

“I’m happy to leave all the exploration and experimentation and the making of new discoveries to the likes of you and Mr. Petiver. I’ve no ambition to have an herb named after me, or have my name in the annals of the Royal Society. I’d rather just take all the knowledge that others have collected and put it to good use.”

I touched his soft cheek with the back of my hand. “You are a good boy, Dickon. You will be such a wonderful doctor.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. I am so proud of you.”

He looked down at his polished shoes, embarrassed, as if he did not believe me. “So long as I do not have to go and fight in a war,” he said. “You would not be so proud of me then. I am not like your father. I am not like my father, or my brother. I would not be able to face a musket, or wield a sword.”

I had not realized Richard’s criticisms of him had cut so deep.

“Listen to me.” I put my hand under his chin and lifted his face to mine. “To my mind, there is something wrong with a world that rewards women only for being modest and pretty, and men for their courage on the battlefield. I once met a fine physician, who had led the cavalry, but decided he would rather save lives than take them. You tell me which is the more heroic.”

“Thank you, Mama.” He kissed my cheek, smiled. “I have the worst of fathers, but the very best of mothers.”

And yet his father, the man he called the worst of fathers, had just such a smile, gentle and charming and utterly adorable, and I missed seeing it, I missed having him smile that smile at me, even though I feared he was a murderer.

I grabbed Dickon and hugged him tight again, so that he would not see that I was crying, and he went off, happy and excited, down the river steps, to join James and the others on the barge. He sat toward the back of the boat, behind the raised, crimson damask–covered chair that was reserved for the master of the company, and he turned and lifted his hand in farewell to me, as the drum started to beat a rhythm that sounded to my ears very somber and ominous. The rows of watermen took up their oars and started to pull out onto the swirling gray water. They were sailing with an incoming tide and the barge moved swiftly upstream and away. I stood and watched, long after Dickon had stopped waving, long after his face was just a pale shape against the gray of the river. I gripped the railing at the jetty and strained my eyes, dreading the moment when he would disappear entirely. I watched the barge grow smaller, until it was as tiny as a toy boat and the expanse of water between us seemed wider than the widest ocean.

I had the strangest superstition that I had said good-bye to Dickon forever. That I would never see my son again.

IT HAD TURNED COLD, and as the coach rocked through the village of Nailsea and into the mire of the Tickenham Road, ragged curtains of thick fog whipped passed the windows. It was so thick as to almost obscure the other travelers on the road, the ubiquitous fishermen, a woman with a brace of duck and a boy on a scraggy skewbald nag. I could not really see their faces, and so I was not particularly perturbed that they did not trouble to smile or wave or doff their caps when the coach swayed by and they caught a glimpse of my face at the window, half hidden in the dark hood of my cloak.

Down on the moor, at the edge of the floodwater, they were finishing building the Gunpowder Treason Night bonfires and I could hardly believe the fires would be lit in a few hours, that it was November already. In London, with James and the butterflies, winter had seemed so very far away.

The ghostly figures, moving to and fro in the mist, looked almost sinister as they carried branches and armfuls of brushwood and fagots to add to the shadowy skeleton of sticks.

Maybe it was time we stopped celebrating the Gunpowder Plot. It happened nearly a century ago, after all. Though I had loved the festivities once, when it was the only celebration Oliver Cromwell did not ban. He forbade Christmas and the May Revels, but he had encouraged this dark festival that bred hatred against Catholicism. It was a gruesome celebration though, when one thought about it, centered as it was around the burning of an effigy.

I had left my daughters in the care of Catholics, the kindest-hearted people I had ever known.

I saw the church tower dimly in the mist. To the right was the lane that led to Folly Farm, at the foot of Cadbury Camp. We were almost there now, and as if she guessed my anxiety, I felt Dickon’s hound trembling against my legs. At Hackney, Cadbury had sensed my imminent departure and had attached herself firmly to my skirts. In Dickon’s absence she seemed to have transferred all her slobbering and unconditional devotion to me and I was glad that I had brought her with me, was glad of her company now. I reached down to stroke her floppy ears and let her lick my fingers. “There, girl.” I patted her side. “I promised Dickon I would care for you, and I shall. There’s no need to be afraid,” I said, thinking how her blindness was a fate almost worse than death, confining her to the terror of perpetual darkness.

The coach lumbered into the cobbled yard but nobody came out to greet me; not even the groom was there to attend to the horses. Smoke was rising from the chimneys, but otherwise the house had a strange, abandoned air about it. I was surprised that everyone had been given leave to attend the bonfire before the festivities were properly under way, and it was with a sense of foreboding that I walked up to the heavy door leading into the great hall and opened it.

Will Jennings, the footman, was coming out of the cross passage, with a salver of steaming roast pike.

“Where is everyone, Will?” I asked. “Where is my husband?”

He hesitated, looked right through me. He carried on through to the parlor, as if he had not heard me, as if I were a ghost. I stared after him, dumbfounded, followed him into the parlor, with Cadbury trailing at my heels, and when I saw that there was nobody there, I turned and ran up the spiral stone stairs to my chamber. The clothes chest had been removed, I noticed, and the washstand had been shifted to the opposite corner of the room. A man’s shirt was tossed on the bed, not one of Richard’s.

“If you’re looking for him, you’ll not find him here.” I spun round to see Forest, leaning lazily, with his arm braced against the door frame, his stockinged ankles casually crossed. “Richard has left me in charge,” Forest said, using his stepfather’s given name, as if they were equals, as if the two of them were accomplices. My husband, whose claim that I was mad could enable him to wrest control of my estate, and my son, heir to that estate, who would inherit it all once I was gone.

Forest was head and shoulders taller than me now, and he had grown a soft black beard and mustache. In a new tailored coat and fawn breeches, tight over his muscular thighs, he was no longer a boy. It did not seem so long ago that he was a babe in arms and I was sitting with him under the apple tree and whispering to him how I wanted him to grow to be a good, kind man, who made me proud.

“Why are you not still in Flanders, Forest?”

“I asked Richard to pay my passage home and he did.”

“You saw no reason to tell me that you were back?”

“You should not have left him,” Forest said with startling passion. “It is not right. You are his wife. You are supposed to love him. But you don’t care about him at all, do you?”

I could not help but be moved by such ardent loyalty, even while it unnerved me. I knew Forest had always been almost slavishly devoted to Richard, but until that moment, I don’t think I understood just quite how much he loved him. I could not blame him for taking his side now, when he had not been here to witness what had passed between us.

“Forest, please understand that I had no choice but to go. Your stepfather made . . . allegations against me, allegations that made it impossible for me to stay.”

“He said you were mad,” Forest said flatly. “I know. And I agree with him.”

It felt as if my legs would give way beneath me, and I put my hand out to the bedpost to support myself. “How can you say that?”

“I speak only as I find.”

I turned my back on him, went to the window, pressed my hands down against the ledge and took a deep breath. “Your real father was such a good man, Forest. I wish you could have known him.”

“Well, he is dead,” Forest spat. “And you are as dead to me as he is. I no longer have a mother. And in future I will thank you not to come into my chamber uninvited.”

I spun back to face him, felt the blood surge up into my head, pounding behind my eyes, so that I could almost see it, a haze of red. “I am very much alive, Forest. So help me God, you do have a mother. This is my chamber, my house, and it will remain mine until I do die, and unless you are willing to murder me, there is nothing at all that you, or your stepfather, can do about it.”

“Oh, isn’t there?” He pushed himself into an upright position and his face was hardened in a cunning and steely resolve.

“I could ride to Bristol right now and draw up a will to disinherit you.”

“You could.” His tone indicated I would be wasting my time. He smirked, unperturbed, as if he knew something that I did not, as if nothing I did could make any difference, as if nothing I did could stop them.

“Where is he, Forest? Where is Richard?”

His smile was full of malice. “You will know soon enough where he is.”

THE KITCHEN WAS a hive of activity, everyone busy in preparation for the great bonfire feast. Pots bubbled over the fire, above which hung rabbits, ducks, geese and fish, waiting to go in them. The vast room was warm with aromatic steam. On the long table there were puddings and pies, bowls of sugar and spices and great slabs of butter. Trenchers were already set out with roast pike and trout and baked eels. The maids chattered gaily as they chopped piles of apples and rolled pastry, scurrying to and fro from oven to table, while Mistress Keene shouted instructions above the din.

They all stopped when they saw me, frozen in motion like a tableau.

“I’d like a plate of bread and cheese,” I ordered. “And some warmed ale.”

For a moment nobody moved, and then they resumed their tasks and their chatter, as if I had not spoken. Nobody even acknowledged my demand. Only Mistress Keene looked at me, still standing there. She wiped her liver-spotted hands on her apron, grabbed a loaf of bread and came bustling round the table. She thrust the bread at me, as if I was a beggar.

“You should go,” she mumbled aside. “While you still can.”