The Pale Companion (27 page)

The Elcombe funeral and its aftermath had none of this spiritedness. Parson Brown presided in tones of the utmost solemnity. There was obviously something about his straightness and plainness which appealed to my Lady. There was some thin singing and whispered prayer. But little noise otherwise. No sob escaped from under the widow’s veil, no cry issued from her lips. Cuthbert and three of the most important mourners carried Elcombe’s mortal remains into the family vault, next to the chapel. The priest and a few others, including Lady Elcombe, processed into the vault while the rest of us waited mutely. When the chief mourners had again emerged into the body of the chapel, the doors of the vault were closed with a ponderous clang as if they were the marble jaws of death itself. I shivered.

The wake took place in the same banqueting hall where the wedding had been celebrated and at the same time, late afternoon. But it was a subdued shrunken business, without that lifting mood which, as I’ve noted, often follows on from a country funeral. No one present could have forgotten that earlier wedding-feast, or failed to realize the painful contrast with the present. And I suppose that, while it might be acceptable enough to lose a husband (as the widow Blakeman lost no time in showing), it must add greatly to the family’s sorrow to know that the son of the household so loathed or feared his father that he had been driven to kill him. There was a double grief here, for a sudden death and for the treachery at the heart of the family.

Of course, I knew that Justice Fielding, convinced of Harry Ascre’s innocence, had set himself the task of discovering the actual killer. The reason he’d required me to gather a little band of players was, I assumed, connected to his investigations. But I couldn’t for the life of me see where these investigations were headed. Nevertheless, trusting Fielding and his judgment, I had done what he asked, by enlisting Jack Wilson and Will Fall, both strong young fellows. I hinted at the mysterious mission in which we were involved, knowing that a hint is often more potent than a fact. (I didn’t let on to them that I didn’t know anything myself.) Will’s preoccupation with Audrey seemed to be on the wane, perhaps because he didn’t consider that bit of country worth ploughing again, otherwise he might have pleaded more urgent business.

Michael Donegrace, who’d played Hermia to my Lysander in the now-distant
Dream,
was sitting close by us and immediately volunteered himself. I was about to tell him that he was too young but this would have been a pointless rejoinder. Too young for what? – since I was ignorant of what Fielding required of us apart from sinews. Apprentices are tough and wiry. They have to be, to take up the women’s parts. So Michael made one of our number. I said that they were to await a signal from me while I, in turn, looked for a word from Adam Fielding during the latter part of the feast.

But first I had to listen to some unexpected words from Cuthbert Ascre, who suddenly loomed up at our table, black-suited, white-faced. We hadn’t talked together since the the night of the
Dream,
when he claimed that he’d willingly throw everything over in order to join a playing company like ours. I still remembered the bitter way in which he’d said his father would never have permitted it. This, I quickly discovered was the very thing he wanted to talk of. He leaned forward confidentially.

“Master Revill, you will remember the last time we spoke?”

“Indeed . . . my lord. It was after your triumphant personation of Demetrius.”

“It pains me to remember that – in the heat of the moment, in all the, er, excitement of playing – I may have said some things which would have been better left unsaid.”

“About turning player?”

“Yes.” A slight twinge crossed his face. “And about my father not allowing it.”

“I remember. And golden cages and so on.”

He winced again.

“Well, Master Revill, perhaps you would do me the favour of forgetting I ever made such foolish remarks.”

“What remarks?”

“Thank you. I am grateful.”

Cuthbert turned back and made his way towards the high table where the chief mourners were sitting. Naturally, the effect of his words was to make me remember – and wonder about – something which I had in fact almost forgotten. In any computation of winner and loser in this situation, it was easy to see that Cuthbert Ascre came out ahead. He might not have been able to follow his dream of becoming an actor, but with his brother in gaol (and as good as dead) he stood to realize a rather more substantial dream, that of inheriting Instede, debt-ridden as it might be. As widow, Lady Elcombe would have a life interest in her husband’s property but the ultimate control of it would fall to Cuthbert.

So, picking at the funeral baked meats, I sat and wondered.

There must have been something dark and fertile in the Instede air, for all its sweet and summery qualities, which caused these suspicions to take root in one’s mind. For, to suppose that Cuthbert Ascre welcomed the family fortune which was about to fall into his lap was also to suppose that he acquiesced in the idea that his brother was a murderer. I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I possessed a brother, would I consider a fine estate to be sufficient recompense for the family dishonour – the personal grief, even – which that brother’s execution would bring? I wasn’t naive enough to imagine, of course, that every family is alike. Not all are bound by ties of duty and affection, especially perhaps in the airy regions inhabited by the Ascres and their like. Nor is there any law which says that brother must love brother. In fact, for some, fraternal hatred must grow from the very cradle. That line from the story of the first murder popped into my head, the one where Cain inquires of God:
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And now I looked down the table to where Laurence Savage was tearing into his food and drink, perhaps driven by the desire to make inroads into the stores and lay a little waste to his enemy’s house. Even though that enemy was dead.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Laurence had tried to be his brother’s keeper, hadn’t he? His little brother Thomas. And failed. I saw suddenly that part of his anger, as he recalled the tragedy, was directed against himself for not keeping young Thomas safe.

So absorbed was I in these reflections that I almost missed the glance from Justice Fielding as he passed our table. He’d told me to make it look like a casual exit, so the four of us – Jack, Will, Michael and I – ambled outside at intervals as if for a serial piss. But there was enough coming and going of guests and servants to make our departure unremarked. As Fielding had explained to me, without explaining exactly what it was we would be doing, it wasn’t so much that he required secrecy as that what he wanted would be more easily accomplished without curious bystanders. From this aspect, the funeral feast provided a good distraction.

Once outside we made our way eastwards across the lawns in the direction of the lake. For the first time since our arrival at this great and melancholy house, clouds had started to blot up the sky and there was an edge to the air. Adam Fielding was waiting for us by the lake-edge. He nodded in acknowledgment as I introduced the others, then swiftly explained what he wanted us to do. The expectant look on the faces of my fellows showed that, for them, this was a big adventure. Probably I looked the same.

Anchored close inshore was a frail rowing-boat, rocking gently as the breeze ruffled the water. Some canvas sacking lay on the bottom of the boat, which scarcely looked large enough for two. I was all for staying on the bank while my fellows pushed off into the waves, but it was evident that Fielding had appointed me captain to this little crew. Why is it that I’m always fated to end up on water? Or in water? Those same fates must surely know I have a cat-like aversion to this treacherous element – which is the reason why it happens, of course.

What made it worse was the facility with which the other three clambered into and then made themselves easy on the boat. They might have been Thames ferrymen (and you can’t offer a more serious insult than that). I slipped and almost plunged underwater while I was scrambling over the side – or gunnel, as I believe it’s called. The boat grew no larger while I established my dripping and spluttering self in its back end – or stern, as even landlubbers know to call it. The crested surface of the water seemed to stretch out to the horizon.

Jack lifted a corner of the canvas sacking to display several coils of rope and a collection of hooks and grapnels. Will, our company carter, picked up the oars as delicately as a pair of reins. Michael Donegrace perched up at the front end. I hadn’t thought to ask Fielding how he’d obtained the boat. Presumably, objects needed salvaging from the Instede lake from time to time, and the authority of a Justice was sufficient to commandeer craft and equipment.

We waited, bobbing on the water, while Fielding stayed on the bank, glancing over his shoulder rather anxiously. After a time my heart beat a little faster to see Kate walking across the grass towards us. Resolving to act the part of an experienced sailor and glad she hadn’t seen me tumble in the water, I sat more upright in the back end. I intercepted one or two knowing glances between my fellows. Well, what did I care who knew my feelings? Kate smiled at the four of us in the rowing-boat, though to my mind she singled me out for a particular beam. Then, clutching her father by the arm, she led him off round the margin of the lake.

Without a word, Will dug in the oars and we slid out into the open water, rocking alarmingly. Our overfraught little craft kept up with the brisk pace of father and daughter. A brace of duck clattered up from the rushes and we all started in surprise. The wind blew cold on my neck and the wet hose clung to my shivering shanks, which, I now saw, were garlanded with bright green weeds. High above all of this, stately argosies of cloud traversed the sky. We skirted several patches of water-lily and reedy clumps before our beautiful guide halted on the bank and pointed in our general direction. I told Will to stop rowing.

“Here?” said Jack Wilson.

“It’s not so easy to see when you’re down at water level,” I said.

“It is here, Nicholas, isn’t it?” said Kate Fielding. Her voice carried clear across the few yards of water. “We were sitting talking yonder, under those trees.”

More covert glances among my friends.

“Yes, I think so.”

“You know what to do?” said Adam Fielding.

For answer, I took one of the grapnels which Jack had already fastened to a length of rope and threw it over the side with landlubberly carelessness. The boat rocked violently and we nearly overturned. Water slopped across the side. I grimaced at the others, as if to say: don’t worry, I know what I’m about. Will Fall cast up his eyes in heavenly appeal. Meanwhile Kate’s hand flew to her mouth and she cried out between splayed fingers, “Oh take care, Nick!” Believe me, that gesture and those words would have been worth a ducking.

“What about the rest of us?” said Jack, quite loudly. “We may go drown, I suppose.”

“What fish are you hoping to get, Nick?” said mischievous Michael Donegrace.

“Dead human ones,” said Will, “by the time our master mariner in the stern has finished with us.”

“So what should I be looking for?” said Michael. “All the Justice said was to search.”

“A white thing,” I said.

Jack looked curiously at me.

My friends had been told only that we were going to try and retrieve something sunk in the bottom of the lake. Not that I’d been told much more myself. The single difference was that I (and Kate) had actually glimpsed that mysterious item which, for reasons best known to himself, Fielding considered it necessary to salvage – if we could.

“Row a little more, Will,” said Jack, hoisting up the rope that held the grapnel so as to give it some play. “Go in a small circle and then a larger one. We shall see whether this snags.”

My little foray with hook and line had nearly sunk us, so I was happy enough to leave the mechanical business to him. Better to do nothing since, above all else, I desired to avoid looking foolish in the eyes of Kate Fielding. Will plied the oars expertly as we went round in widening circles. Michael Donegrace craned forward like a female figurehead. Jack lofted the rope, trying to keep the hook off the lake-bed. I sat there, picking weed from my hose, glancing down occasionally, and wondering how deep the water was. From captain I had been demoted to cabin-boy.

Suddenly the boat stopped and rose up as if arrested by a giant, invisible hand. Jack Wilson was near pulled off-balance as the rope went taut in his grasp. There was some gasping and cursing before quick-thinking Will reversed his strokes so as to get some slack back into the line. At first we thought it must be a fish but this was not so, because the line hung down limp in the water where a fish would have been pulling away and making it taut. Kate and Adam Fielding watched attentively from the bank.

Jack tugged at the cable, not hard. Nothing. Tugged again, more forcefully. Nothing, except for a scatter of air-bubbles breaking the surface and a dank, rank odour which kept them company. The nape of my neck went chill. But I took command of my fear and of the boat again.

“Michael, Will,” I said, “lean over to the other side for weight, and then pull again, Jack. I will help.”

I took hold of part of the greasy rope while Jack kept his grip and together we pulled. Concentration on the task eased my fear. I had a sense, too, that whatever was on the other end of the cable, whatever was attached to the grapnel’s hook, would sooner yield to gentle persuasion than violent jerks. Just as some persons – and animals – can be coaxed but not bullied, so this “thing” would offer itself up to us if were gentle . . . but insistent. Or perhaps my telling myself this was no more than a peculiar way of soothing my nerves.

“She’s coming,” grunted Jack.

I too had felt the line give. There was less resistance down there now, less resistance and more weight.

A column of bubbles whooshed to the surface and glittered malevolently in the sunlight.

“Well done, lads,” called Justice Fielding, and his voice and presence were oddly reassuring.