Plague Child (13 page)

Chapter 13

Hell is not knowing. Not knowing where voices are coming from, what they are saying. Hell is burning fire and soaking sweat, pain you eventually do not want to end, because if it does, you know it will start again, and waiting is the worst thing. No, that is not true. The scar is the worst, just as Matthew told me. That was why I shut my eyes, feigning sleep when people came into the room.

There was the scar, and another man. There was a doctor who put a splint on my arm and bandaged it. He would have bled me, but the scar said I had bled enough, for God’s sake. There was a girl in black they called Jane, who drew the curtains with quiet hands, lit the fire and left food, which I began to eat when the fever slackened a little, but only when I was left alone.

One day I was sipping the pottage she left me when a short, fat man walked, or rather rolled, into the room. From his well-turned calves to his plump cheeks, everything about him was warm and genial, except his eyes, which sat upon a second pair of cheeks and were shrewd and watchful.

‘Caught!’ he said, rubbing his hands gleefully. ‘I told my learned friend you are like the little mouse who only comes out to eat when the trap has been laid.’

There was something in the way he said ‘trap’ I did not like. My hunger banished, I dropped the spoon back on the plate. ‘Am I in Newgate?’

‘Newgate?’ He broke into fits of laughter. ‘Much worse than that. You are in my house near Lincoln’s Inn. I am a lawyer. People can escape from prison, but they can never escape from the law. Is that not right, Mr Eaton?’

I turned to the wall as the man with the scar entered. ‘Awake, is he, Mr Turville? I was hoping he’d never come round, and that would be the end of our problem.’

Needles of pain shot through my shoulder as he gripped me to pull me up. I screamed, sweat breaking out over my whole body. The scar was a livid flickering wound which seemed about to eat my face before I twisted away.

‘That’s enough!’

There was a new note in the other man’s voice. He sat on the bed, which sagged under his weight. He had a heavy smell of musk. ‘Come – you are not in prison, nor going there.’

‘More’s the pity,’ the man he called Eaton said.

Turville ignored him and spoke gently, soothingly: ‘Come, Mr Tom, sit up. We must all have a good talk together, mmm? Sit up, there’s a good boy.’

He touched my shoulder. It was nothing to the pain of Eaton gripping it, but I was as much afraid of his gentle manner as I was of Eaton’s violence. I was exhausted, worn away by not knowing, while people made knowing remarks such as ‘my dear Tom’ or ‘Mr Tom’. I sprang up, almost knocking him from the bed, screaming at him, pointing to Eaton.

‘He’s tried to kill me! He wants to now – look at him! I can’t bear him near me, I can’t bear to look at him!’

The outburst took what little energy I had and I fell back on the bed. The smell of musk nearly overwhelmed me as Turville pulled the blankets back over me. ‘That’s nonsense, Tom. Mr Eaton brought you here – he saved your life! His man shot Crow as he was about to shoot you!’

If my body was exhausted, that took away my sanity. I raved at them. Saved my life? The man with the scar? Who had driven Matthew away and whose men, I believed, had killed Susannah? The fat man got up and had a whispered conversation with Eaton.

‘Wear a scarf, man! He’s had nightmares about your scar. We’ll never get anywhere like this.’

My fever became worse. The next time I saw Eaton he had a high scarf knotted round his neck, covering the worst of the scar, but still I saw it: in the coals that warmed the room, in the branches of a tree outside the window. I even imagined a man with a scar was measuring me for the drop from the gallows.

When Eaton stopped coming I gradually recovered. Turville would not explain why he was keeping me there. He insisted I was not imprisoned, although I was locked in. It was for my own safety, he protested, because I was so disturbed. When I asked for my clothes, he said they were ruined and he had ordered others; but they never appeared. I discovered from Jane that Turville was Lord Stonehouse’s lawyer, and Eaton his steward.

Now I was totally bewildered. Was I, suddenly, in Lord Stonehouse’s favour? Or was there a more sinister motive? Politely, unctuously, Turville evaded all my questions.

Jane nursed me back to health slowly, although I remained so weak and lethargic I could scarce get out of bed. I knew from the familiar way Turville touched her they slept together. I saw her flinch from him and when I remarked on it she broke down and told me her story.

She was a maid at Highpoint, Lord Stonehouse’s country seat, until a gentleman – she refused to say who – had ruined her. Her mother, Mrs Morland, who was the housekeeper, had disowned her. Jane had lost her position. Eaton, who dealt with such problems, had placed her in Turville’s household.

A strange bond grew between us. She had had a child who had died. She knew from what she had overheard that I came from a similar liaison in the past, but could give me no details. In a curious way, I believe she took me for the child she had lost. She told me that the sweet posset I enjoyed contained opium and other herbs to keep me drowsy until they had completed their plans for me. I stopped taking it, throwing the posset into the chamber pot. She heard Turville telling Eaton I was love-sick, but would be cured by the end of the week.

‘Cured? What did he mean?’

‘I don’t know. But Mr Turville said it when Mr Eaton was drawing extra money for Mr Black.’

‘Extra money? For what?’

She shook her head, her hand trembling as she fumbled in the pocket of her apron, brought out a key for my room, and pressed it into my hand.

‘His bedroom is the first room you come to on the next floor. Your clothes are in a chest near the dressing table. Leave the key in the lock. They will think I’ve been careless.’

‘They won’t believe that!’

She shrugged. ‘Turville is meeting Mr Eaton tomorrow at nine o’clock. His study is on the first floor. As soon as you hear them go in, dress. There is a passage in the hall leading to the back stairs. Before you reach the kitchen, turn right down another passage. The door there will be open.’

I pleaded with her to come with me, but she refused, saying she would never find another place. But I could write a letter for her to her mother, who was very ill. She wanted her mother to forgive her for what she had done.

For what she had done! But I wrote it and promised to send it to Mrs Morland. Or perhaps, I thought, as I fell asleep that night, I could deliver it. Mrs Morland had been involved with the consequences of one liaison with a gentleman. I wondered if she had been involved with another . . .

Next morning I waited by the door until I heard Eaton’s harsh voice, Turville greeting him and the closing of what was presumably his study door, before opening mine. I could see right down the well of the stairs, to a small portion of the black-and-white floor tiles of the hall. I took another couple of steps and caught my breath. On the stairway was a magnificent picture. It was of a great house, with a sweep of turrets and Dutch gables, and, above the columns of a stone porch, a three-tiered clock tower and belfry. There were tiny figures in parklands and fields running down to a river: labourers working, a lady taking the air. In one corner of the picture was a signature,
P. Lely
; in the other,
Highpoint
,
Oxon. 1635
.

I crept down another flight. From below I could hear a murmur of voices, coming from what must be Turville’s study. A heavy smell of musk drew me to Turville’s bedroom. The door was open. His four-poster bed took up most of the room. He was fond of red; crimson silk curtains hung from the tester and scarlet cushions were piled on white rugs. I skirted the bed to reach a chest of drawers, opening the first. Linen. In the next I found my jacket, looking at it in dismay. It was crusted with dark, matted blood, and the sleeve had been ripped off, presumably by the doctor in order to extract the ball from my arm. I searched frantically, but could find neither britches nor shirt. Turville’s breeches would go round me two or three times.

It was in the bottom drawer that I found them. The breeches and doublet were an austere dark blue, but the material was a rich velvet even Luke could not afford. The linen shirt with its fine lace cuffs was something I could only dream of. I tried on the shirt. It fitted perfectly. So did the doublet and breeches. By the dressing table there was a new pair of boots. When I slipped on the soft leather an eerie shiver passed down my spine. Never had my large, clumsy feet found such an elegant, comfortable home.

I stared into the dark, lumpy Venetian glass and started back. The dour Puritan had gone. My fiery red hair had returned. Had I been ill for so long, or had the dye been washed out? I did not know. My beard had grown. The clothes might have been tailored for me, yet I remembered no tailor. I sat down abruptly on the bed. Another shiver ran through me as I recalled, when thrashing about in delirium, believing I was being measured for the gallows. I clearly had been measured for something else. These were not the clothes of an apprentice, nor even a businessman like Mr Black. They were the clothes of a gentleman.

Even my hands had changed. The ink had disappeared from my palms and fingertips. Perhaps they had been scrubbed. Only traces of ink remained in the cuticles and the fleshy part of the palm. These were not my hands, any more than the reflection was that of Tom Neave. I felt a pang, a sense of loss, as I stared at them. Since I had graduated only from the pitch of Poplar to the ink of Farringdon, I had never seen these strange pink palms before.

I jumped as the clock in the hall struck the half hour. As I slipped down the stairs, keeping to the edge where they were less likely to creak, I could hear someone pacing restlessly in the study. There was a strong smell of tobacco. Another flight and I would be in the hall. A board cracked. I froze. In the silence it sounded like a pistol shot. I thought I heard someone in the hall. I ducked behind the banisters then crept down a few more steps and peered into the hallway. I could see no one.

‘I should have let them shoot him!’

Eaton’s voice exploded so suddenly I fell down a step, clutching at the banister rail.

‘And lose everything?’ Turville said sharply. ‘Patience, Mr Eaton, patience! Wait until today’s over . . .’

Wait until today’s over? His voice dropped into a soothing murmur and I could hear no more as I crept downstairs. There were no other sounds now but the tick of the clock in the hall and the distant clatter of pots in the kitchen. I passed the clock and turned into the passageway. Leaning against the wall, pipe in hand, was the tall man, rangy as a greyhound, who had chased me through the crowd the night I was shot. There was a pistol in his belt. He took a puff at his pipe and smiled at me. I ran for the front door. It was locked. The man came up behind me and grabbed me. I kicked and struggled but, still weakened by my illness, could do nothing more than break his pipe. Still with a smile on his face he picked me up as if I was no more than a baby, carried me back upstairs and dumped me outside Turville’s study before knocking on the door.

Chapter 14

Eaton flew into a rage. He knew nothing of the clothes, and thought that Turville and I had planned this together. Only when I assured him I had stolen the key from Jane and found the clothes for myself, and Turville in his oily manner said that they were ‘a contingency’ I was not meant to see, was Eaton reduced to a glowering silence.

On the wall behind Turville’s desk was a map, which from the picture outside I could see was of the Highpoint estate, with the house dominating forests, water meadows, villages and churches. Turville prowled round me as if I was a thoroughbred horse for sale at a fair. Far from being angry at my deceit he seemed so pleased I felt increasingly uneasy. What would have led to a beating from Mr Black, here seemed to meet with approval. Even Eaton could not stop staring at me. And the most remarkable thing of all was that he – the man with a scar, the source of all my nightmares – was frightened. Perhaps that is too strong a word. But he was certainly agitated, pacing, cracking his raw knuckles, gazing out over a large garden, before swinging back to gaze at me.

‘The clothes are a stroke!’ Turville rubbed his plump hands. ‘They make him, Mr Eaton!’

‘He is like,’ Eaton muttered.

‘Like? He is very like!’

They were looking at a picture in the centre of another wall, which I now know was a Van Dyck. At first I did not recognise Lord Stonehouse. It was only partly that he was so much younger. Mainly it was because he looked so happy. This was painted long before his hair had greyed and the lines on his face deepened into the penetrating frown I had seen in the royal procession. The picture was a family group with Highpoint House in the background. Next to Lord Stonehouse was a modest-looking woman with features that bordered on the plain, but whose face was touched into beauty by happiness. What might have been too idealistic was made real by the restlessness of the older boy trying to pull a stick from a spaniel’s mouth, and the younger boy clutching fretfully at his mother’s skirt.

‘He has the Stonehouse nose,’ Turville said. ‘Aquiline.’

Aquiline? Suddenly the nose I had always despised had the bleak arrogance of an eagle. Or a falcon. Perhaps it had given rise to the family symbol. I could see it – or fancied I could – repeated in the faces in the painting.

Turville put his hand on my shoulder. ‘If he continues to be in the dark, how can he see the dangers?’

‘Are you saying I should tell him?’ Eaton said.

‘An edited version, Mr Eaton, an edited version. And I am not
saying
– I can only advise. He is your responsibility.’

His responsibility? Eaton was not wearing a scarf and as he came towards me, preparing to speak, the scar quivered like a second mouth. I flinched involuntarily. Turville lost patience.

‘You,’ Turville said to me, with a severity he tried to make playful by wagging his finger, ‘owe Mr Eaton a very great debt.’

‘Like a Tyburn prisoner owes his hangman,’ I said bitterly.

Eaton jumped up. ‘I’m taking no more of this, Turville!’

‘Please, Eaton – let the boy speak! It has been difficult enough for us, God knows – think what it must have been like for him. Start at the beginning. Why did you run from Mr Black, when he was only trying to protect you?’

Protect me! I thought the answer to his question obvious enough, but as I gave it Turville shook his head, pulling a handkerchief from his cuff and wiping his brow and his hands. When I came to the letter from Lord Stonehouse saying I was a ‘great Folie’ who must be got rid of, Turville groaned out loud.

‘You see, Eaton, you see?’ He turned to me. ‘Lord Stonehouse is not trying to kill you – that letter was not from him! It was from Eaton, warning Mr Black you were in danger from Richard. It is
Richard
, not Lord Stonehouse, who sees you as a great Folie who must be –’

‘Have a care, Turville, have a care!’

Now Eaton certainly was frightened. He jumped up with such speed he sent his chair careering backwards. My eyes were not drawn to his scar now but to his hands, which gripped the back of another chair. He could pass for a gentleman but for those hands. They were the deeply weathered hands of a countryman who worked the land, not just rode over it. His knuckles were like knots of wood and his nails bitten. I suddenly saw my hands, in years to come, if I stayed a printer. He pointed a finger with a yellowed misshapen nail at me.

‘He is an act of charity, Turville! Nothing else. That is what my lord told me. And that is what he is until my lord tells me otherwise. I know when to keep my mouth shut. I have done it for thirty years and I am not going to throw everything away now for this little brat!’

‘The war changes everything, Eaton!’

‘War, what war?’

‘The King is in Oxford, raising an army.’

‘An army! Both sides have sent letters to the lord lieutenants of all counties. Parliament orders you to send your soldiers. The King commands you to send your troops to his army.’ Eaton snapped his fingers in contempt. ‘Some have been stupid enough to take sides. Most are shitting themselves. Nobody has declared war. Nobody will.’

Turville kept trying to interrupt, snatching his handkerchief from his cuff, filling the air with musk, wiping his forehead. ‘Suppose they do? And the wrong side wins? You would lose everything then. As would I.’

‘Which is the wrong side?’ I asked.

They stared at me as if they had completely forgotten about me. From being almost at each other’s throats, they were thrown off balance. Turville recovered first. ‘Ah, Tom, there you have it. Which is wrong and which is right? Mmm? The boy has a head on his shoulders. Come, Eaton, it is time we got off the stool. Otherwise we will by caught with our breeches down.’

In the hall the clock chimed eleven. Both of them looked towards the sound, and then at each other. I remembered overhearing Turville telling Eaton to wait until the day is over. And the puzzling words Jane had picked up about me being cured of love when the week was out came back to me.

‘What is happening today?’ I asked.

Again they glanced at one another before Turville spoke. ‘Why, Tom, this is happening – this auspicious meeting. A little earlier than we, er, planned – but that’s of no consequence, is it, Eaton?’

Eaton looked from me to Turville and back again. Then, as the last chime of the clock echoed into silence, he seemed to reach a decision. He came over to me, lowering his face into mine, speaking with a frightening intensity. ‘I wrote the letter, part of which you saw. It was a warning to Mr Black that you were in great danger. It is Lord Stonehouse’s son, Richard, who sees you as a “great Folie”, not his father.’ He pointed to the boy in the picture, trying to wrest the branch from the dog’s jaws. He gave me a bitter smile. ‘It is that delightful boy, whom I have rescued from whores and gambling debts, who has been trying to kill you, while I have been entrusted by his father to see that not a hair of your precious head is harmed.’

The scar quivered. There was a rank animal smell about him which brought acid to my throat. I fought a desire to back away. ‘Not harmed? Is that why you have a prig downstairs, ready to shoot me if I leave?’

This amused Turville, who flung up his hands in delight. ‘You see, Eaton – he’s as suspicious as you are. Understandable, understandable! The poor boy was frightened.’

‘Gibson shouted at you to warn you,’ Eaton said. ‘We knew you would be at the Guildhall. So did Gardiner. Gibson lost you, but saw Gardiner and followed him. He shot Crow. Unfortunately, Gardiner got away.’

‘Then Eaton carried you here, at some danger to himself . . .’ Turville put in.

‘More to my coat,’ Eaton said resentfully. ‘Ruined it. You were bleeding like a pig.’

‘A charge to the estate. I’ll warrant you’ve not missed charging that one, Mr Eaton,’ Turville said, with a wink at me.

I stared stubbornly at them. ‘When I ran into the royal procession I saw Lord Stonehouse ordering Richard to kill me.’

‘Saw! Saw!’ Eaton clenched his fists in rage at me.

Much more composed, Turville sat at his desk and linked his fingers together. ‘Did you hear Lord Stonehouse say that?’

I said nothing.

‘He told Richard not to harm you. I have it from his lordship.’

‘He came at me with his rapier!’

‘Of course he did!’ Eaton turned away from me as if could not bear the sight of me any longer. He looked at the boy in the picture wrestling with the dog, mimicking a gentleman’s voice surprisingly well. ‘I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t hear you. My one thought was to protect you!’ He turned back to me. ‘I had to apologise to Lord Stonehouse for that. He blamed me, of course. I have nearly lost my position because of you!’

I trusted neither of them, for with every truth they told me, I felt they kept another one back. If anything, I preferred Eaton’s testimony, for it was drawn from him with such bitter reluctance I felt it must be true. And, as he went on, it seemed incontrovertible that Eaton had indeed saved me from Gardiner and Crow.

‘I am very grateful to you, sir,’ I said, as if a tooth was being drawn from me.

‘Well done, Tom!’ cried Turville. ‘Now, shake hands with your guardian.’

My guardian! The twisted world that I had fallen into got worse and worse! This raw, brutal creature who had driven the man I believed to be my father away in terror, and who inhabited my nightmares – my guardian! The thought of shaking hands with him made me sick to the stomach, but I felt I owed my life to him and forced myself to hold out my hand. He took it with a hand as hard and rough as rusted iron and with a smile – I took it to be a smile – that held much more of distrust and caution than friendship.

Turville rang for Jane, who came in trembling, and looked at the scene in amazement. He told her to bring drink to celebrate what he called this happy reconciliation, smiling at her as she put the glasses in front of us.

‘Does Mr Tom not look a perfect gentleman, Jane?’

‘He is a gentleman,’ she said, the blood rising in her cheeks.

‘Oh, mark the roses in her cheeks, Eaton! If only I were young again and I could grow such flowers there, like our young poet Mr Tom.’

She stared away from me, growing rigid as he patted her flaming cheeks. I jumped up, unable to stop myself. ‘Leave her! She does not like it!’

There was a silence. Turville lost all his joviality and his eyes blazed with anger at me. Eaton grinned. Jane completely lost her usual composure, twisting her hands in agony. ‘I – I am sorry, Mr Turville.’

Turville regained his joviality as quickly as he had lost it. He told her he understood perfectly, with a wink at Eaton which made me want to strike him, but I knew I was only making things worse for her. She left without looking at me and I cursed myself for opening my mouth.

The wine was a sweet sack. Trusting nothing in that house I scarcely touched mine, even when Eaton swallowed a second glass. I told them it made little sense to me that Lord Stonehouse did not want a hair of my head harmed, while his eldest son was trying to kill me.

‘D’you hear the logic in that, Eaton!’ Turville cried. ‘The money on that education was well spent.’

‘Logic?’ Eaton stared at the painting gloomily. ‘You need more than logic to deal with that family. His lordship has no idea his eldest son is trying to have you killed.’

‘Why don’t you tell him?’ I asked in amazement.

Eaton looked at me not with anger now but contempt. His outburst seemed to have exhausted him. He dropped on to a chair back to front, as if he was riding it, lowered his chin on to his clenched hands and stared broodingly at me. Turville smiled benignly.

‘Innocence, Mr Eaton,’ he said, ‘is a quality to be treasured not despised.’ He coughed, drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow and hands. His voice became suddenly sharp. ‘You are not to repeat any of this until and unless we give you permission to do so. Is that clear?’

It was perfectly clear, but I said nothing. Turville wiped his brow again, although there was no sweat on it. Eaton smiled. They seemed to enjoy each other’s discomfort.

‘I will deny this conversation. So will Eaton. Do you understand?’

I said nothing. He clenched his hands, thrust his handkerchief in his cuff, pulled it out again and continued to speak in sharp, clipped tones. ‘Lord Stonehouse would not believe us. We have no firm evidence it is Richard who is trying to have you killed. Even with evidence it would be a risk. Lord Stonehouse is . . . unpredictable. Richard is his eldest son. Lord Stonehouse knows his faults, but I would not want to be the person telling him that Richard is attempting the cold-blooded murder of –’

Eaton sprang up. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Turville!’

‘– of someone to whom his father has extended such a great, indeed an unprecedented act of, er, charity.’

Reluctantly accepting this legal description of me, which was as clear as London fog, Eaton slowly sank back into his chair while Turville told me that, at the age of sixty, and in indifferent health, Lord Stonehouse had one urgent, overwhelming concern in life – the succession of his great estates. Richard should inherit them. He expected to do so. But at the age of thirty-six his main achievement in life had been to lose a small fortune on a non-existent sugar plantation. And another on whores and gambling, muttered Eaton. Even more unfortunate from Lord Stonehouse’s point of view, Turville continued, Richard’s wife had died leaving him two daughters and no sons.

Slowly, the fog began to part in places. I began to form a picture of the family. Lord Stonehouse’s wife, Frances, had had a rare combination of sweet benevolence and shrewdness that held together not only the family but the whole estate. Turville and Eaton both concurred on that. She knew everyone in every farm and village, knew and cared about every birth and death. She would listen, advise and, if she felt help was merited, give it. Her way of saying no made even the most disappointed feel they had been given something. Five years before I was born, Frances had died. The happiness that filled the painting disappeared. Richard became arrogant and head-strong. In spite of a generous allowance, and constant promises to reform, he was so heavily in debt his father feared that, under him, the estate would rapidly disintegrate.