The Silent Woman (33 page)

‘You told him the truth?’

‘Yes, Nick. Matthew was a hard man but he knew what he wanted. I was to be his wife on any terms. We struck a bargain and I accepted it gratefully. I was confined and everyone was told that I was visiting friends in Crediton.’ She shuddered. ‘Susan came into the world too soon and almost died. She needed constant attention. Joan Deakin had been my own nurse. She took Susan for her own. That is the name you will find in the church register. Susan Deakin.’

‘Then you got married?’

‘As soon as I was strong enough.’

‘And Lucy?’

‘She came along very quickly.’ A defensive note came in. ‘I had to give Matthew that. He was prepared to let my brat live under his roof but only if he could have children of his own. That was the contract and he enforced it. But Lucy was the first and last.’

‘Why?’

‘There were complications. I could bear no more. My husband could never forgive me for that. He had accepted Susan and all I could give him in return was this wounded little creature here. Matthew felt cheated.
Your
child was fit and healthy while his was a deaf-mute.’

Nicholas began to comprehend. Lucy had been brought up as the daughter of the house. Susan Deakin – Mary’s child by him – had been reared as a servant girl. The strong bond between the two of them was now explained. They were stepsisters. Mary provided further clarification.

‘When Joan was dying,’ she said, ‘she told Susan the truth. The girl knew that you were her father. That’s why she came to you in London, Nick. We were in trouble and the one person who could help us was you. Susan idolised you. She stole clothing, took the fastest horse and set out to find you. Can you imagine the risks she must have run? She would only have done such a thing to reach her father.’

Nicholas was sobered. He had fled from Barnstaple but others had stayed to bear the burdens that he had left behind. There was no way that his action could be fully justified, but at least he had been given the opportunity to redeem himself. He did not save Mary from marriage to Matthew Whetcombe, but he had fought off another predatory merchant and rescued her inheritance. To reach Barnstaple, he had put his life at risk: to help Mary, he had even forced himself to confront the father whom he loathed.

He looked down at Lucy as she played with her dolls and he leant over to place a gentle kiss on her head. But his real sympathy was reserved for Susan Deakin. His daughter had been relegated to an inferior position all her life. When she was told the name of her real father, she was given dignity and status for the first time. Susan showed the bravery of a true Bracewell in trying to contact him, but she had died before they could even speak. He felt her loss like a stone in his heart. The girl had been the hapless child of a doomed love. His only consolation lay in the fact that he had been able to avenge her death.

Nicholas did not wish to spend another night in the house where she had lived. His daughter’s spirit hovered there to haunt his conscience. He rose from his seat and began to take
his leave, but the others reacted with alarm. Lucy clutched at his arm and Mary made a heartfelt plea.

‘Stay here with us, Nick!’

‘I may not do that.’

‘What is to stop you?’

‘There is no place for me in this house.’

‘We are making a place for you,’ she said, putting an arm around Lucy’s shoulders. ‘But for you, we would have been driven out of here. But for you, everything that was rightly ours would have been stripped away from us. You gave it all back to us and have a right to share in our good fortune.’ Lucy nodded eagerly, as if she had heard every word. ‘Make a new life here with us. It is what Susan would have wanted.’

‘Is it what
you
want, Mary?’

‘I think so.’

‘After all that has happened between us?’

‘That is dead and buried,’ she said. ‘Now that you have explained it to me, I can understand why you behaved as you did. And I forgive you. In a way, I am as much to blame. If I had told you that night that I was carrying a child, you would have acted very differently.’

‘That is true.’

‘Stay here, Nick,’ she said, softly. ‘We were neither of us able to be real parents to poor Susan. You did not even know that she existed and I had to pretend that I did not care for the child. Let us make amends with Lucy. She can be our daughter now. You will be a real father to her.’

The girl nodded again and held up two dolls. Nicholas recognised himself and Mary, side by side in miniature. It was a powerful image and he was deeply touched. His resolve wavered for a second then he shook his head.

‘It is out of the question, Mary,’ he said, with a glance around. ‘I am not able to support you in this fashion.’

‘You would not need to, Nick. We have money enough to keep us in style for the rest of our days.’

‘I could never live off Matthew Whetcombe’s wealth.’

‘Then use it to produce an income of your own. You are from merchant stock. Buy and sell as Matthew did. There is a ship and a crew at your disposal. Would you not like to have control of the
Mary
?’

It was a great temptation and Nicholas wavered again. To own such a ship would be to fulfil a lifelong ambition, and he could use it to restore some respect in trading circles to the name of Bracewell. Mary Whetcombe was showing true forgiveness in making such a generous offer. Yet he could never accept it. To secure the
Mary
, he had to take charge of the woman after whom it was named, and she brought a troublesome cargo in her hold. As long as he remained in the house, he would be locked in with too many ghosts.

‘Thank you, Mary,’ he said. ‘You show a kindness and a forbearance that I do not deserve. I love you for that. But I cannot stay here with you and Lucy. It is impossible for me to make a new life in a place with so many old memories. For my own peace of mind, I must get away from Barnstaple.’

‘And from me.’

‘From my father, mainly. Everything that occurred in the past stemmed from him. I find it hard to forgive.’

‘Do not be too harsh on him.’

‘His lust for another woman killed my mother,’ he said. ‘He drove her into her grave. He was so obsessed with his own needs that he tried to marry his son into the Hurrell family to give him a legitimate excuse to call more often at
the house. He would never have consented to our betrothal. My father put his own lascivious urges first.’

‘He paid for them in time, Nick.’

‘So did we all.’

‘Do you know what happened to him?’

‘That is evident. He fell from grace.’

‘But do you know how – and when?’

‘I would rather not dwell on it.’

‘But you should,’ she insisted. ‘You cannot judge him until you know the full picture. I had no idea that his relationship with Margaret Hurrell went back for so many years. It did not come to light until after you had fled from Barnstaple. Your father was very discreet. Nobody suspected for a moment that any impropriety had taken place.’

‘Not even Katherine herself?’

‘She was a good match and soon married someone else. They live in Exeter with a large family. They were well clear of Barnstaple when the scandal eventually broke.’

‘And when was that?’

‘Not until a few years ago.’

‘They kept it secret for all that while?’

‘Your father was a clever man,’ she said. ‘He knew how to hide things beneath that bluff manner. And he could be charming when he wanted to be. Matthew liked him enough to do business with him and to invite him here as a friend. They did, after all, have something in common.’

‘Susan?’

‘Nobody told him. Your father guessed for himself. As soon as he saw the girl, he knew that she was yours. He never said anything even when Matthew forbade him to come to the house. He never betrayed us.’ She brushed back a lock of
hair. ‘He was very kind to Susan. He loved her and brought her presents. In his own quiet way, he tried to do right by her. Susan was very hurt when he no longer called here.’

‘And when was that?’

‘When the truth about him and Margaret Hurrell finally emerged. They were caught together by her husband. You can imagine the way that the scandal spread. Robert Bracewell and the wife of a man with whom he did business. It was the end of your father. Barnstaple turned its back on him. Matthew refused even to speak to him. The whole community treated him like a leper.’

‘So he had to leave the town?’

‘In complete disgrace.’

Nicholas found a granule of sympathy for his father. He understood what it must have been like to be ostracised by the world in which a man had spent his whole life. Barnstaple was a narrow-minded and inward-looking community. It conferred great respect on its members, but it was merciless with those who forfeited that respect. Robert Bracewell had been hounded out of a town he had honoured. Nicholas’s sympathy was soon crushed beneath his hatred. By pursuing one woman so relentlessly, his father had broken the heart of another. Having sacrificed a wife to his lust, he was even ready to sacrifice his eldest son.

‘What happened to Margaret Hurrell?’ he asked.

‘Her husband divorced her.’

‘So she was cast out into the wilderness as well.’

‘In a sense, Nick.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She married your father. They lived together.’

Nicholas was stunned. The old woman at the cottage
had not been a servant at all. She had been the wife of a successful merchant and had enjoyed all the trappings of that success. But she had also risked them to be with the man for whom she really cared. Margaret Hurrell had loved Robert Bracewell so much that she was even prepared to share his disgrace and his straitened circumstances. Nicholas now realised why his father had been so hurt by the reference to his mean cottage and his old servant. It was an insult.

Mary Whetcombe became philosophical.

‘We have all been punished,’ she said.

‘Punished?’

‘For illicit love. You and I came together outside marriage and we paid the price for it. What we did was wrong, Nick. We were betrothed to other people.’

‘Only in name.’

‘God punished us in the same way that he punished your father and Margaret Hurrell.’

‘There is no comparison,’ he said, hotly.

‘But there is, Nick. Their case is not so very different from our own. They loved where they had no right to love. Yes, you may call it lust but it must have been more than that. Lust would have burnt itself out long ago. What they have has bonded them together for life.’

It was a chastening thought. The stern father who had tried to bully Nicholas into a marriage for commercial reasons had himself taken a second bride solely in the name of love. It was a crowning paradox. Robert Bracewell had betrayed the values of the mercantile community in which he had made his name. Notwithstanding the enormous cost, he was now ending his days with a woman he had loved for so many years.

Here was a salutary lesson for Nicholas. He had to choose a wife by following his heart and not by seeking any pecuniary advantage. Marriage to Mary Whetcombe would open up a whole new world for him, but it was not one that he had earned. Nor could they ever recapture the infatuation of their youth. He was delighted that they were reconciled and moved by her plea but he could not make a commitment to her.

‘Stay with us, Nick,’ she said. ‘We need you.’

‘I have to leave tomorrow.’

‘But we can make a fresh start together. You, me, and Lucy.’ He lowered his head in apology and she understood. ‘There is someone else.’

‘Yes, Mary.’

‘Is she waiting for you?’

‘I hope so.’

There was no more to be said. Nicholas felt that it would be unwise to spend another night in a house that echoed with so many cruel whispers from the past. He would stay at the Dolphin Inn and sail at dawn on the morrow. Mary Whetcombe threw herself impulsively into his arms and he hugged his farewell. Lucy joined in the embrace and they both kissed her warmly. The girl then broke away and rolled back the piece of material in which she kept her dolls. She sensed that she would never see Nicholas again and she wanted him to have an important souvenir. After stroking one of her dolls with great reverence, she handed it over to him.

Nicholas looked down at the flimsy object on his palm.

It was Susan Deakin. His daughter.

M
argery Firethorn was now a frequent caller at the Queen’s Head. The gentle pressure which she had at first applied had slowly given way to a more concerted shove. Alexander Marwood’s resistance had finally been broken by the joint force of Anne Hendrik, Lord Westfield and that most valuable ally of all, Sybil Marwood, the landlord’s wife. Margery had marshalled her troops like a veteran
siege-master
, and the flint-hard walls of Marwood’s resolve had at last been breached. The theatre company would be allowed to return to his inn yard. Westfield’s Men had a home once more.

‘When will they be here?’ asked a rubicund Leonard.

‘At any hour,’ said Margery.

‘It seems as if they have hardly been away.’

‘A full month, Leonard. And sorely missed.’

‘Indeed. But they come back in triumph.’

‘Yes,’ said Margery. ‘They had difficulties on tour at first
but they prospered in the end. My husband’s letters speak of many glories along the way. They have even written a ballad in his honour. He will no doubt sing it to me.’ She gazed around the refurbished yard. ‘Is all ready here?’

‘The Queen’s Head is in fine condition.’

‘All the carpentry finished, all the thatching done?’

‘We have a new inn, Mistress Firethorn.’

‘And a new play to grace it.’

Leonard took her on a brief tour of the yard to point out each improvement. Repairs had been costly, but the workmen had toiled with spirit and finished well ahead of their projected date. Even Marwood was pleased with the results. A decaying part of his property had been destroyed by fire but it had been replaced by sturdier wood, fashioned by excellent craftsmanship. Westfield’s Men would be thrilled with their renovated theatre and so would their regular patrons. A month without their favourite troupe had left the playgoing public feeling starved and mutinous.

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ asked Leonard.

‘Nothing would prevent me.’

‘I will take my place among the standees.’

‘You have earned it, Leonard. You have done your share towards persuading that idiot of a landlord to see sense. Westfield’s Men will tread the boards again tomorrow. They left the city as outcasts but they return as conquerors.’ A smile flitted across her face. ‘I will give my husband the welcome that is due to a victorious general.’

Nicholas Bracewell soon found the spot to which he was directed in the churchyard. A little mound marked the place where his daughter had been buried. In time, when the earth
had settled, it would be possible to put a gravestone there to mark the place. He now had a name to carve upon it. A bunch of flowers had been set upon the mound, and he knew that they could only have come from Anne Hendrik. He was profoundly touched. Susan’s resting place would not lack flowers from now on. Her father would be there to pay his respects whenever he could. From inside his jerkin, he took out the little doll that Lucy had given him. He scooped a shallow hole in the earth and lay the doll down with the young girl whom it represented. After one last look, he gently covered it up.

Kneeling beside the grave, he offered up a prayer then got to his feet. The rest of the company had gone straight to the Queen’s Head, but he had broken away to hasten to Southwark. Having visited his daughter, he now hurried off to call on Anne Hendrik. Thoughts of her had brightened the journey home. Barnstaple was behind him and she could help to expunge it completely from his mind. When he reached the house, he knocked politely, not sure what sort of a welcome he would get, at once hoping that it would be warm and fearing that it might be frosty.

Anne herself answered the door and smiled in surprise.

‘Nick!’

‘Good day to you!’

‘I heard that the company would return today.’

‘We have something to come back to,’ he said, searching her eyes. ‘At least, that is what we believe.’

‘Come on in.’

Nicholas did not get the kiss that he half-expected but at least he was allowed back into the house. Anne walked around him in excitement and asked him a dozen questions
that he had no chance to answer. When she gave him a hug, he felt all of the tensions between them ease slightly.

‘Margery tells me that you have a new play.’

‘
The Merchant of Calais
. First performed in Bath at the home of Sir Roger Hordley. Lord Westfield is very jealous that his brother saw it before he himself.’

‘I long to watch it myself at the Queen’s Head.’

‘Edmund has written a small masterpiece.’

‘Will you rehearse it there tomorrow?’ she said.

‘No, Anne.’

‘But if it is to be staged that afternoon …’

‘Westfield’s Men may rehearse it – but not I.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it is time they learnt to manage without me,’ he said, airily. ‘I have given my lifeblood to the theatre for too many years. Today, I resigned from the company. Let them find a new book holder.’

She was amazed. ‘You have fallen out with them, Nick?’

‘No,’ he said, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. ‘I have fallen in with you. Westfield’s Men took me away from here. They will not do so again.’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘You asked me to make a choice. I make it.’

‘But the choice was between staying and leaving.’

‘That is all done now,’ he said, briskly. ‘I’ll never visit Devon again. I have no further cause. That part of my life is closed for good. I want
you
, Anne.’

He slipped an arm around her but she broke away and regarded him with a more critical eye. The euphoria of seeing him again was wearing off and serious doubts were starting to emerge. Barnstaple was not just a town that he
could wipe from the map of his personal experience. It held enough significance for him to put it before his commitment to her and she wanted to know exactly why.

‘Tell me all, Nick,’ she said, ‘or I’ll none of you.’

‘Anne …’

‘I want an honest man under this roof, not one who harbours secrets. Who was that girl and why did you go?’

‘To deal with some unfinished business.’

‘Of what nature?’

‘It pains me even to think of it.’

‘No matter for that,’ she said, tartly. ‘What sort of pain do you think I have suffered here? It was beyond measure. You disappeared into a void. The only information I gleaned about the company was from Margery Firethorn, who showed me her husband’s letters. Why did you not write to me?’

‘I was not sure how my letters would be received.’

‘Better than your silence!’

‘It was … too complicated to set down on paper.’

‘Then explain it to me now.’

‘Some things are perhaps best left—’

‘
Now
!’ she insisted. ‘I have waited long enough.’

Anne Hendrik sat on an upright chair with folded arms. Nicholas admired her spirit but he had hoped for less of an interrogation. Information that he had planned to release in small doses was now being demanded in full. He scratched his head and paced the room, not knowing where to begin his tale. Anne prompted him.

‘Who was that girl who brought the message here?’

‘The servant of a house in Barnstaple.’

‘There is more to it than that.’

‘Her name was Susan Deakin.’

‘You are hiding something from me, Nick.’

‘Look, can we not discuss this at a later date?’

‘Who
was
she?’

‘My daughter.’

Anne took a few moments to absorb the shock before she waved him on. Her expression showed that she feared there was worse to come. Having started, Nicholas plunged on with his story. He told it in a plain and unvarnished way and held nothing back from her. He even recounted the offer that Mary Whetcombe had made to him to share his life with her. Anne Hendrik listened to every word without interruption. Her emotions were deeply stirred and her hands played restlessly. Nicholas was uncertain how she was responding to his confession but he did not spare himself. He talked honestly about the mistakes of the past and how he had done his best to rectify them. When he told her about his visit to the grave where she had left the flowers, Anne was moved. She rose to her feet and allowed him to take her hands. Tears began to course down her cheeks.

Nicholas tried to kiss them away for her.

‘We may start a fresh life now, Anne. The two of us.’

‘Wait one moment,’ she said, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘It is not as simple as you imagine.’

‘I have had weeks to think of it and I know my mind.’

‘Then it is time you knew mine.’

‘You were right in your strictures,’ he said, quietly. ‘I took you for granted. When I lodged here and worked for Westfield’s Men, you were a wonderful facet of my life and you enriched it greatly. But I did not pay you the respect you deserved. I did not take you seriously enough.’

‘You have realised that too late, Nick.’

‘I saw you as a friend who could comfort me in times of need,’ he admitted. ‘That is all done.’ He tried to enfold her in his arms. ‘What I want now is a wife who will share my whole life with me.’

She pushed him off. ‘Then I hope you find one, sir.’

‘Anne, I am offering you my hand!’

‘I thank you for that but I have to reject it.’

‘But I love you.’

‘In your own way, I believe that you do.’

‘I love you – I
want
you.’

‘There is too much between us now,’ she said. ‘You may be able to forget what happened in Barnstaple but I may not. The sight of that dead girl in my bedchamber will stay with me for ever. The fact that she was your daughter makes the memory even harder to erase.’ Anne shook her head. ‘I am sorry, Nick. While you were away, I thought a great deal about you and longed for your return but my feelings towards you have changed. After what you have told me, you can never be what you once were.’

‘You asked for the truth, Anne.’

‘And you gave it fairly. I respect that.’ She kissed him lightly. ‘We will always be friends and I will come often to the Queen’s Head but that is the extent of our friendship from now on.’

‘But why?’ he asked in dismay.

‘I have my past and you have yours. I will always be Jacob Hendrik’s widow and you will always be the father of Mary Parr’s child. There is no altering that, Nick. I will never be the wife that you wanted her to be.’

‘I am choosing you on your own merits,’ he argued.

‘No,’ she said, tilting her chin proudly. ‘You spurned me when I called to you. London or Barnstaple. That was your choice. You wanted both. It has made me wish for neither.’

Nicholas was wounded. He had told her everything in the hope that it would explain his behaviour but his honesty had been fatal. When he had kept her in ignorance of certain aspects of his life, she had been happy to share a bed with him. Now that he had confided in her – and made the ultimate commitment of a marriage proposal – she was rejecting him. On the long journey home, he had thought the whole matter through and convinced himself that the only way to close a disagreeable chapter in his life was to wed Anne Hendrik. What he had failed to do was to take her feelings properly into account. It was ironic. When he stood in the hall of the house in Crock Street, Mary had begged him to stay. At that point in time, Nicholas felt that he had to choose which of two women he should marry. In opting for Anne, he had now lost both.

‘It would not have worked, Nick,’ she said, turning to practicalities. ‘How would you have looked after your wife?’

‘I would have found employment.’

‘As a hatmaker? I have workmen enough.’

‘Do not mock me, Anne.’

‘I merely point to the realities.’

‘I would have supported you,’ promised Nicholas. ‘I can turn my hand to many things. I have talents.’

‘Indeed, you do,’ she said with admiration. ‘And they are seen at their best in the theatre.’

‘I was ready to quit that life for you.’

‘I believe you, Nick. But how long would it have been before you pined for it again? You ask for too much from me.
I could never answer all your needs.’ She put her arms around his waist and looked up at him. ‘Go back to Westfield’s Men. There lies your true family.’

Nicholas gave her a long farewell kiss then left.

Raucous patrons filled the yard at the Queen’s Head. The company was back in London with a new play and the crowds thronged to Gracechurch Street. Lord Westfield had offered to underwrite the performance and bestow ten pounds on his company. That made it possible for all the admission money to be given to Alexander Marwood as a first payment towards his fund for fire damage. The innkeeper would never be happy but his trenchant unhappiness was at least partly reduced by the prospect of money. Lord Westfield was there himself with his entourage, seated in his accustomed position and savouring once more the kudos of being the patron of so sterling a troupe of players.

The Merchant of Calais
was a new play on old themes. It dealt with love and marriage as financial transactions. A lone English merchant was pitted against the encroaching French might in Calais. The piece questioned the importance of wealth and celebrated the ideal of self-sacrifice. At the end, the merchant of Calais gave up everything to be with the woman he loved even though it entailed huge personal losses. A forbidden love achieved a happiness that was impossible in the arranged marriages of the mercantile class.

A sprightly comedy shot through with darker tones, it was played with attack by the company. Lawrence Firethorn boomed as the merchant, Barnaby Gill danced and Owen Elias sang. Edmund Hoode turned in a wry cameo performance as an old French shepherd with an Oxfordshire
accent. Richard Honeydew was a winsome heroine. George Dart made four bungled appearances as a foolish constable and was thought by an indulgent audience to be a natural comedian. The afternoon was an unadulterated triumph.

Nicholas Bracewell watched from behind the scenes. The play had a relevance for him that went far beyond its intrinsic worth as a drama. Elements of his own experience were up there on the stage and they caused him to ponder. Lawrence Firethorn might not look like Robert Bracewell but he sounded uncannily like him at times. In the final speech, the merchant renounced wealth and position with fierce sincerity.