The Best of Men (5 page)

By early evening, he arrived at his father’s property. He chose to avoid the gatehouse, and went around to a lower part of the surrounding wall that his horse could jump easily. The sun still gave out surprising warmth, drying his mud-splattered clothes. He reined in, and looked over the expanse of the park. Some of the older trees had
been cut down or polled, and others that had been saplings when he left had matured and filled out their boughs. In the distance he could hear the cooing of wood pigeons, while the air around him was heavy with the monotonous chirrup of crickets.

Gradually he was overwhelmed by a sickening apprehension: all this was his birthright. If he could not accept it, with the responsibilities it entailed, he should never have come back to England. He knew, far better than before, that he was no more suited to be his father’s heir than he was to military life, though not for the reasons he might have given six years ago. Then, his natural indolence and a blithe spirit of rebellion against authority had caused him to reject the world into which he was born. Now, he feared that he had witnessed too much to settle within its confines, and had done too many sordid things to be worthy of its respect. But he had to think of his father, whom he had missed terribly and often, in self-reproach after committing the basest of deeds, and in sorrow when he had been most lonely or miserable.

Lord Beaumont’s mansion might have been unremarkable beside a Venetian canal or on some Umbrian slope, yet it obtruded amongst these English hills like an exotic beast at a country fair. It impressed Laurence as larger and more extravagant than he recalled, with stables and outbuildings grander than most other men’s dwellings. As he rode up the elegant, winding path that led to the courtyard, he saw liveried grooms unharnessing a pair of horses from the family coach, while a small boy vigorously polished the Beaumont coat of arms emblazoned on its door.

The boy glimpsed Laurence first, and shouted, “Who’s he?”

One of the men silenced him with a cuff on the ear. Then an old, dignified fellow emerged from the stables: Lord Beaumont’s Master of the Horse.

“Why, it’s Master Beaumont, back from the wars!” he cried. “We never thought we’d see you again, sir. What a great day for us all, and a blessing for his lordship your father. Praise God you’re whole!”

“And you too, Jacob,” Laurence said warmly, dismounting to clasp the man’s hand.

“Glad you haven’t forgotten my name, sir, though that’s as should be,” Jacob affirmed. “I gave you your first riding lessons, when you could scarcely walk.”

Laurence would have taken his horse into the stables, but the grooms insisted on doing this for him, and as one of them unloaded his belongings, Jacob accompanied him to the house, talking all the way.

“We had the coach out for your brother’s wife, sir. She went to visit her mother at Winchcombe. Her ladyship wasn’t pleased at all, but the girl was pining for her own folk, with Master Thomas off in Oxford. You didn’t get a wife while you were in those foreign parts, did you, sir?”

“Oh no,” Laurence replied, somewhat amused as he thought again of Juana; what a scandal it would have caused had he brought her back with him.

At the top of the flight of stone steps stood a manservant whom Laurence did not recognise. He was dressed in a suit of velvet, his hair pomaded and curled, his expression curious beneath a veneer of professional haughtiness. “Welcome home, sir,” he said, bowing. “You will find his lordship and her ladyship in the great hall, with Mistress Elizabeth and Mistress Anne.”

Laurence thanked him, climbed the stairs, and went in. The entrance to the hall was flanked by two marble statues that his father must have acquired while he was away. They were as tall as he: a naked youth wrestling with a serpent and a nymph clad in a light vestment, her perfectly shaped breasts exposed, her sculpted hand holding out a cluster of grapes. He stood gazing at them dumbly until the servant came up behind him.

“Is something amiss, sir?” Laurence shook his head. “Allow me to announce your arrival, if it please you,” the man said, with a friendlier air. “It might be as well to prepare them.”

“I wish you could prepare
me
,” Laurence muttered.

The man gave him a quick grin before resuming his previous demeanour and entering the hall. Walking more slowly behind, Laurence had a view of his two sisters poring over a book, his father in a padded armchair, and his mother at the window, half turned, looking out towards the gardens. For a moment he wished he could leave them precisely as they were. But before the servant had finished speaking, Lord Beaumont leapt up and came hurrying towards Laurence, arms outstretched. He wept openly as they embraced, and Laurence found himself blinking away tears. When his mother greeted him, however, she merely brushed his cheek with her lips, not quite touching him. She had not aged, apart from a hint of grey in her hair. As for the girls, they had grown into women, and they hung back from Laurence shyly until he gave them both a hug.

Once Lord Beaumont had recovered his composure, he called for his special Malaga to be brought out, and ordered a barrel of ale for the servants, in celebration of his son’s return. As they were served, he kept grabbing Laurence’s hand and squeezing it forcefully, exclaiming, “It is no dream – you are truly here.”

The Malaga was finer than any wine Laurence had tasted in months, yet it did not alleviate the sinking in his guts. He felt oppressed, as much by his father’s generous affection as by his mother’s reserve. Meanwhile, his sisters were absorbing every detail of him with fascinated eyes.

“I hear you’re getting married,” he said to Elizabeth.

“Who told you that?” Lady Beaumont interjected, before her daughter could respond.

“Ingram.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I passed through Newbury on my way here.”

“Did you,” she said. He caught the rebuke: he should have come straight home. “Elizabeth is to marry at Christmas,” she went
on. “I trust you will attend. That is, if you are better disposed to the institution of matrimony than you were six years ago. Don’t rush to his defence,” she told her husband, who was about to interrupt. “In all that time we had almost no communication from him. Here he sits, without a word of apology for the distress he caused us, as if he has forgotten that he stole out of the house like some petty thief, on the eve of his own wedding. Are you not ashamed of it, Laurence?”

“I should be,” Laurence said, hiding a smile. He had genuinely detested the girl to whom he had been betrothed, though Lady Beaumont was right that he could have exited more gracefully from the arrangement.

“Have pity on him, my dear,” Lord Beaumont said. “By a miracle he has been restored to us. Let the matter pass.”

“I shall hope for some future explanation,” she murmured.

Lord Beaumont turned to his son. “Walter Ingram must have given you an account of our country’s desperate ills. Some think that war cannot be prevented, though many are still trying to settle affairs peacefully. Thank God there are moderates on both sides – in Parliament, the Earls of Holland, Northumberland, and Pembroke, and on the King’s side, the lawyer Edward Hyde and Lord Falkland, of course. Did you hear that his lordship has been made His Majesty’s chief Secretary of State?”

“Falkland is Secretary of State?” Laurence repeated, surprised. Falkland’s house at Great Tew was not far away, and he had been a frequent guest at Chipping Campden, as Lord Beaumont’s close friend and not Laurence’s, although he and Falkland were only a couple of years apart in age. They had met on just a few occasions, for after finishing his university studies Laurence had been living mostly in London. “Isn’t he too virtuous for public office?” Laurence added, on reflection.

“What is wrong with virtue in public office?” Lady Beaumont queried.

“Nothing in theory, but everything in practice.”

“Would His Majesty do better to choose self-serving rogues as his ministers?”

How little she had changed, Laurence noted; she was as sharp as ever. “No,” he said, “although he may already have plenty of those in his Council. What I meant is that it’s more difficult for men like Falkland to reconcile their consciences with political necessity.”

“Falkland did not seek out the honour,” Lord Beaumont said. “And in truth, I believe he may be somewhat torn between his conscience and his devotion to the King.”

“His conscience should inform him of his duty, which
is
to the King,” Lady Beaumont retorted, to her husband.

“Yes, though we must admit, His Majesty has made errors, as a result of bad advice, naturally. Not to excuse the treasonous behaviour of the radicals, but the country was ruled too long without a Parliament. All manner of resentment was bound to emerge, over religious differences and taxation and God knows what else. Parliament would reset the limits of royal power, and His Majesty is unwilling to bend on that issue.”

“He bent on others, my lord. He let one of his most faithful ministers go to the scaffold.”

“So he did,” Lord Beaumont acknowledged, turning to Laurence. “I attended the Earl of Strafford’s trial, and he defeated every charge Parliament laid against him.”

“As well he would!” said Lady Beaumont. “What crime did he commit, in urging a stern response to the disorder breaking out in this kingdom?”

“Strafford was too much hated by the people to survive. The King had no option, though I know it tore at his heart and he bears the pain still. Laurence, has Ingram enlisted yet in His Majesty’s service?” Lord Beaumont asked next.

“He has, yes,” Laurence said.

“He visited us often while you were away, hoping for some news of you. Thomas saw him in Oxford not a week past.”

“Thomas is raising a troop under the family colours,” said Lady Beaumont. “You will be eager to join him, Laurence.”

Laurence made no comment, fidgeting with the glass in his hand.

“My dear son,” Lord Beaumont said, perhaps reading his dis comfort, “what terrible things you must have seen happen abroad. I have been blessed to live thus far in a time of peace, and the thought of bloodshed appalls me no end. It has been nigh on two hundred years since this country was last devastated by civil war, though we came close in the past century. But if some violence cannot be avoided, at least we can anticipate a short engagement, an affair of gentleman. We shall not suffer here the atrocities you doubtless witnessed in the Low Countries. And now, no more talk of war.”

“And no more wine, my lord,” said Lady Beaumont, as her husband was about to call for another round. “I must insist that you go to your chamber and bathe before supper, Laurence, and make yourself presentable.”

“Please excuse me, then,” he said, and obeyed, feeling their eyes upon him as he walked from the hall. On his way upstairs, other eyes followed him, painted and inscrutable: those of his ancestors whose portraits lined the walls. As he reached the door to his chamber, the same manservant was there to open it for him, also regarding him intently, ready to set out clean clothes for the evening. Laurence had to confess that he had brought with him only a dirty shirt. When the bath had been drawn the man lingered, waiting in attendance rather like one of Lord Beaumont’s statues, with a pile of towels draped over his arm. Laurence wanted to laugh at the absurd luxury of it all. Instead he asked the man to leave him, not out of modesty, but because he wanted to be alone.

The second day after Laurence’s return proved sunny and humid, so Lord Beaumont had retreated to the cool of his library, where he sat over a volume of Petrarch. From the garden directly beneath his window came the sound of voices, those of his son and daughters; and as he listened, it occurred to him that Laurence was spending most of his time with them and very little with his parents, as though he were wishing to avoid any serious discussion of his years abroad, or of his future plans.

“Tom will arrive tomorrow,” Lord Beaumont heard Elizabeth declare. “Geoffrey went to Oxford this morning to fetch him. Laurence, will you join his troop?”

Lord Beaumont sat forward, to listen more keenly.

“Not if I have a choice,” Laurence said, after a small pause.

“Why would anyone choose to fight!” she said. “I am so weary of politics. Ormiston talks of nothing else when he visits.”

“John Ormiston is her betrothed,” Anne explained.

“I hope he knows how lucky he is,” Laurence remarked, in such a protective, brotherly tone that Lord Beaumont felt touched to the heart. “So tell me all about him.”

“Where to begin,” sighed Elizabeth. “He’s eight years older than I am, and was married before but his first wife died in childbirth. His father left him property near Hereford, where his mother lives with his two spinster sisters. Mrs. Ormiston is a shrew blessed with unnatural good health.”

“Isn’t that always the case. What about Tom’s wife? What sort of person is she?”

“She brought in a huge dowry,” said Anne. “And she worships Tom.”

“She does indeed,” Elizabeth giggled. “I must admit she irritates me no end. She keeps making such tiresome comments to me about my wedding night, as if it is all a complete mystery to me.”

Lord Beaumont caught his son laughing. “
Is
it?”

“Not entirely, but I do have a few questions that you might be able to answer.”

“You can ask me whatever you want. The less of a mystery it is, the more you might enjoy it.”

Lord Beaumont set aside Petrarch and rose from his chair, alarmed lest his wife might also be within earshot of the garden. He was about to call down an admonition, when there came a knock at the library door. A servant had arrived bearing his afternoon glass of fruit cordial.

“Please summon my son,” Lord Beaumont told the man, and waited, pacing up and down, until Laurence strolled in.

“Sit down, sir.” Lord Beaumont regarded him sternly. “Laurence, you must be more prudent in what you discuss with Elizabeth and Anne. They are innocent creatures.”

“Ah, so you overheard us,” he said, with a smile.

“They may be upset by your candour on certain subjects.” Lord Beaumont hesitated. “Marriage, for example.”