The Best of Men (62 page)

Over supper, he framed his request more directly, but Madam Musgrave must have taken it as a joke. “If I can spare a moment to indulge your whim, sir,” she said, laughing. “I’m short of labourers at one of the busiest seasons, what with the new crops coming in and the sheep starting to lamb.” She then embarked on an agricultural discourse, encouraged by some courteous questions on Laurence’s part.

Meanwhile Kate was pushing her food about on her plate, just pretending to eat. Something was bothering her, Laurence felt sure.

There were no cards after the meal. Madam Musgrave hurried them off to bed, saying that she must rise at dawn to oversee her fields. Laurence retired with her well-thumbed copy of
The English Husbandman
under his arm. “Any landowner should be familiar with it, and you did express an interest in the subject,” she had said, pressing the volume on him as he went upstairs.

In his chamber he flicked through the pages, listening until the house was quiet, and restraining himself for another hour, as an extra
precaution. Then he took off his boots, lit a fresh candle, and slipped out of his room and down the passage, remembering the last time he had prowled about hoping to steal Radcliff’s letter from Kate. But on this occasion he climbed the narrow, winding flight of stairs up to the third floor, where he had never yet been. He could distinguish several closed doors along a similar passageway, and next, to his amazement, a quivering ray of light at the very end; the priest would need no illumination to conduct his nocturnal rounds. Blowing out his own light, Laurence advanced to the last door, which was wide open.

Within he saw a huge bed frame, bereft of its canopy and hangings. All four walls were wood-panelled in a linen-fold pattern. On a carved mantel above the fireplace stood a single lit taper. Kate hovered there, clad in a long white nightgown, her back to him, running her hands methodically over and over the mantel’s decorative knobs and curlicues. Her repeated attempts yielded no result and she uttered a short, frustrated sigh; her taper was guttering, casting sinister shadows across the room. She would soon have to stop searching, he estimated, or else be left in darkness.

He retraced his steps, tried the latch on one of the other doors along the corridor, and entered. Although the door closed quietly, inside he tripped on what he guessed to be a pile of broken furniture, stubbing his toes. He was too late to muffle a yelp of pain: so much for concealment. Then, inspired, he grabbed a heavy piece of wood and let it drop with a satisfying thud to the floor. He picked it up again and struck it at the rest of the pile, producing a clattering sound, after which he groaned mournfully several times. This was enough: he heard a gasp and the patter of bare feet along the corridor and down the stairs. He waited, lest Kate summon up the courage to return, but after a while, hearing nothing more, he emerged.

Without the advantage of his candle’s light, he had to extend both arms just to negotiate the corridor. Once in the other chamber, he felt
along the panelling to the fireplace, and repeated the same motions as Kate. He had no more success than she, and he started to tire from the unwonted exertion.
Reculer pour mieux sauter
, he told himself. Tomorrow he would ask Madam Musgrave again, and if she would not oblige him in his inquiries, at least Kate had supplied him with a vital clue.

The next day he was up before the maidservant could arrive with his breakfast, though too late to corner his hostess; she had long since set off for the fields. He found Kate at table, and judging by her haggard face, she had probably not slept at all. Immediately he was ashamed of the cheap trick he had played on her.

“You look tired, Lady Radcliff,” he said, sitting down beside her.

“I passed a wakeful night, sir,” she admitted, locking and unlocking her slender fingers, and twisting her wedding ring about.

“Here,” he said, and poured her some ale, of which she took a tiny drink. “Is something troubling you?”

He waited for her to speak of the ghost. But what she said next was most unexpected. “How well are you acquainted with my husband?”

“I’ve only met him on two or three occasions, with Ingram,” he said, shrugging.

“Do you recall when you came last October to bring me Sir Bernard’s letter, how it fell and you picked it up for me?” He nodded. “You gazed at it as if it meant something to you.”

“It meant nothing to me at all.”

“I believe it did. At Christmastide, Sir Bernard asked me whether you had read what was written on the cover. When he asked me, I evaded his question, because I remembered yours as you clapped eyes on the script. You asked me pointedly if the writing was my husband’s.”

“It wasn’t a pointed question, just an idle one.”

“I am not sure I believe you. At any rate, I now wish I had opened that letter. Because I think it would have explained why
he
is lying to me,” she finished, with a catch in her voice.

Laurence blinked at her in astonishment. “Lying about what?”

“He claimed he was absent at Longstanton – oh, so many times, to me and to Walter,” she replied, and told Laurence how his steward had informed her otherwise. “I should have confronted him straight out, this Christmastide. I was too cowardly. Instead I implored my brother to ask you what you knew. But he has not asked, has he?” Laurence shook his head. “A Mr. Poole, who is Sir Bernard’s lawyer, called while we were at Richard’s house, apparently to get his signature on some papers to do with the estate. Again he lied before Walter and me, saying he had been there. And he was not the same after Mr. Poole left, as though he had received bad tidings.”

“About the estate?”

“That is one possibility,” she said, darkly. “When Walter brought you to the house a few days ago, I made him promise to demand an answer from Sir Bernard. I have heard from neither him nor my husband since.” She broke off, wringing her hands. “I am in such distress! I would rather my babe be stillborn, if –”

“
If?
”

“If he is hiding from me the truth – that he is in secret league with Parliament!”

Laurence started. “Good God. Why would you jump to such a conclusion?”

“Longstanton has been untouched by the rebel armies, when all the neighbouring households loyal to the King have suffered. Don’t you find that peculiar?”

“Not necessarily –”

“And why was I only to read his letter when I could be certain of his death, if it did not hold some shocking revelation? Oh, if I still had it! But he asked for it back.”

“Why didn’t you read it after you spoke with his steward?”

“It was sealed. Sir Bernard would have found out.” She was tugging
at her wedding ring so violently that it flew off across the table, and Laurence had to retrieve it for her. “Mr. Beaumont, I have a strong feeling that what is in the coffer holds some clue to this mystery. And
that
is why he did not tell me about it! You must help me find it in the priest’s hole, and open it for me.”

“But you don’t need my help,” he said, though what he was about to suggest alarmed him. “Have your aunt fetch it for you.”

“She is so interfering! She will want to know why I asked for it, against my husband’s expressed wish. And what if my fears are confirmed?”

“Lady Radcliff, I don’t even know where this priest’s hole is –”

“Within a bedchamber on the third floor! There’s a device somewhere on the fireplace that you must press to spring the door.”

“Can’t you enter it by yourself?”

Her gaze faltered. “Please,” she begged tremulously, “come. I – I
cannot
do it alone.”

What to say, he thought. Should he refuse to assist her, she might yet screw up her courage and succeed where they had both failed. “Let me consider it,” he told her; he must not sound too eager, since she was already suspicious of him. “I’m a guest in this house, and it does seem a bit dishonourable that I should invade your aunt’s property without her permission. It’s different for you.”

She looked about to protest when, most fortuitously, he heard Madam Musgrave’s loud voice calling his name, and the approaching clump of boots.

“Sir,” his hostess cried, marching into the hall, “I require your help!” She was wearing a skirt of motley red and brown hue and a rough jerkin. The colours on her skirt were stains, of blood and dirt, and her face was streaked with sweat and more dirt. “My birthing skirt,” she said, indicating the garment. “It brings me luck every year. Yet now my finest dairy cow is in calf, poor creature, too early in the
spring for my liking. You must lend a hand – or an arm, to be precise.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about cows.”

“After reading my
English Husbandman
? But that’s of no import. Oh, do make haste, sir,” Madam Musgrave said impatiently, and he had to obey, catching a stricken frown from Kate.

Madam Musgrave hurried him from the house, through the courtyard and into a barn by the dairy, where her cowman and a stable boy stood beside an enormous, supine cow, her belly swollen and heaving. “Nat, Sam, how is she?” she asked them.

“It’s either her or the calf, ma’am – or even both, is what I fear,” the cowman replied.

“We must have the calf out dead or alive. Don’t you fret, Sam,” she added kindly, to the boy, “Mr. Beaumont will reach it. See how long his arms are.”

The cowman murmured approval. “I couldn’t myself, sir.” And he showed Laurence his own short, muscular arm, slimed up to the pit.

Laurence took a step back. He felt dizzy and nauseous, though he did not know why: he had seen far worse sights than a cow in labour.

“I’ll not lose such a valuable beast on account of your squeamish-ness,” Madam Musgrave told him. “Strip to the waist, or your clothes will be dirtied.” Unbuttoning his doublet, he cast it away and drew off his shirt; he was swallowing, in a determined effort not to be sick. She pushed him down on his knees by the animal’s nether parts, and ordered her cowman to lie on the front legs while she and Sam secured the rear ones. “Now, Mr. Beaumont, search for the hooves. Grab them and pull.” He gazed at the cow’s buttocks, filthy with excrement, and its opening, impossibly distended and raw. “Go on!” said Madam Musgrave. “Think of her as you would any woman about to bear a child. It’s only nature, for Christ’s sake.” He shut his eyes and an image flashed before him, of Danvers’ bloody mouth. “Do as I say, sir, or I shall kick your arse to kingdom come!” she yelled.

He curled the fingers of his left hand into a fist and plunged in. Further and further he reached, trying to keep his face from the ordure and to follow Madam Musgrave’s instructions over the agonized lowing of the animal. Then he touched something small and hard, and another, and found a grip on them. He was afraid to pull too vigorously and eased his fingers higher to catch the legs.

“Go to it!” Madam Musgrave bellowed in his ear. “Pull, pull for all you’re worth.”

He pulled. Like a plug stuck in the neck of a bottle, the calf would not budge. He tugged again, his free hand on the cow’s flank to provide resistance. The channel that encased his arm contracted, and he almost lost his slippery hold. There came more contractions and then, as though the plug had finally loosened, a surging motion towards him. Again, he pulled and pulled, and opened his eyes to see his upper arm emerge from the hole, sticky and red, and then his forearm, and his hand clutching a pair of spindly legs; and the calf came out in a massive gush of fluid, the fetal sac broken and glued to its body.

Aunt Musgrave slapped him on the back. “Well done, sir, well done!”

“But it’s dead,” said Laurence, overwhelmed by disappointment.

“Nay,” the cowman said. He gathered the calf up and placed it before its mother, who began to lick it, and it stirred and made a noise. “Strong wee thing, naught wrong with her,” he announced, as Madam Musgrave bent to admire it.

Laurence staggered up and went outside, shaken, and loath to inspect the mess on his arm. Yet when he did, he was not revolted, but foolishly pleased with himself.

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Madam Musgrave, joining him a second later, “I’ve a mind to name that she-calf after you. What is your Christian name? I seem to have forgotten.” Once he told her, she complained, “Can’t make a girl’s name of that. Beaumont’s no better.”

“Then why don’t you call her Kate, after Lady Radcliff?” he suggested.

They began to laugh so much that Madam Musgrave had to wipe her eyes with her birthing skirt, leaving more streaks on her face. “With your aptitude for husbandry, sir, I think I shall put you to work in the fields,” she said. “It will add meat to your bones and colour to your cheeks – and I need all the hands I can find.” She must have seen him hesitate, for she added, with a playful smile, “Although if you think such labour beneath your dignity as a nobleman, I could always pack you off home.”

“Of course it’s not,” Laurence said hastily. “I’ll be glad to assist you however I can.”

Radcliff’s troop was preparing to ride out of Oxford as part of a contingent of about twelve thousand horse and dragoons, seven hundred foot, and carts loaded with six cannon, all under the command of Prince Rupert and Digby. They were to launch an attack on the small, ardently Parliamentarian town of Birmingham, some eighty odd miles away, which had generously provided fifteen thousand sword blades for the rebel army and supposedly still held a cache of plate stolen from His Majesty’s baggage after Edgehill.

As dusk fell, Radcliff walked amongst his men, checking weapons and rounds of shot, noting the condition of their horses, and seeing to any arguments that arose in the distribution of supper. He was feeling oppressed from the sheer burden of what Pembroke had assigned him: to stop the leak, as Pembroke had so bluntly said. It was far too late for that, and Radcliff hoped Pembroke would understand that he was now on campaign, and could make no immediate progress. Meanwhile, Ingram had taken a short leave the week before; to solve a private issue, was all that he had told Radcliff. Since his return he had been oddly
uncommunicative, apart from bringing news of Kate’s pregnancy, which made Radcliff yet more nervous about his own future.