Treason's Daughter (5 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

E
DWARD CHALLONER WISHES HE HAD NOT BROUGHT HIS
friend to meet the family. The coach rumbles towards his uncle's house, and already he regrets his diffident suggestion to Will that they might escape their college for a few days. He sits backwards to the direction of travel, watching his father and Will on the opposite seat talk too companionably, too easily.

His father's coarseness, his joviality, the way his belly trembles when he laughs at his own jokes – all are too much to be borne. Ned feels the embarrassment so acutely it manifests itself as a physical squirming, a twisting away from the joke, from the innuendo, from whatever jollity his father has dreamt of now.

Will, the dear fellow, appears not to be showing the distaste he must feel. He is all affability. Yet what must he think? The ripeness of the atmosphere, compared to the austerity of their college life, is too much. Even the shock of switching from Latin to English, with all its possibilities for vulgarity, all its twists and imprecisions, is grating on Ned. Surely it must irritate Will?

He runs a hand across his pumiced face, feeling for the tender spots where the stone decapitated his pimples. Fewer now
than last year, perhaps. The travelling covers are down against the late spring rain, and it is unbearably hot in the carriage. He feels the sweat prickling down his back, an itchiness across his whole body. He has visited the house before, and knows the spot where he will swim in the river later, and he thinks on it with joy. Is it sinful, to anticipate pleasure with such relish?

The rain draws off, and the coachman opens the covers, letting in a delicious lick of cold air as they trundle on. They pull up, at last, and the sound of their approach has brought assorted dogs and children yapping into the driveway. He sees his aunt holding herself stiffly on the steps, and his uncle planting his feet in a wide proprietorial stance. And here is Henrietta, rounding the house, arm in arm with Cousin Anne. There are flowers in their hair, and grass stains on their dresses, and their laughter carries above even the crunch of the wheels on the gravel. Ned knows he should disapprove of their disarray, of their clear frivolity, but he finds an unexpected smile on his face as they run towards the carriage, whooping like children.

Uncle Robert's booming cry greets them as they step down from the coach: ‘What news, what news?'

‘Parliament is dissolved, Uncle,' says Ned, after the introductions. ‘And the apprentices rose. Attacked Laud's palace. All the university talks of little else.'

This is news to be dissected. It comes like an arrow into the isolated house. News to be pored over and pondered. Only Anne seems indifferent, rolling her eyes impatiently as the evening's conversation twists and turns back to the same feverish speculation. What will the king do next? What will the godly peers do? What of John Pym and John Hampden? Will there be
more riots? Will we be safe?

At last, Anne and Hen go to bed, leaving the men in their philosophical mood with a brandy bottle near drunk and the fire down to embers. What use a king? Where is God in all this maelstrom? Where does duty lie?

Hen would have stayed to listen, but she sees Anne twitching with impatience. She can sense her cousin's boredom burning brighter and fiercer, until at last it is no longer impolite to leave, and they flee upstairs. It is cold for May, and they undress quickly, race through their prayers, and leap into bed, Anne mock screaming into her pillow, making Hen laugh.

‘Who cares? Ship money this and prerogative that – who cares, Hen? Why do they go on and on? Why, why?'

‘It's different here. You can't see why it matters, because here it probably doesn't. The king's anger won't make your river stop running or your grass any greener. But at home it matters. What the king does infects everything. There are riots and fights and fires to worry about. And Father's business. You heard Ned – the apprentices have been on the riot in Lambeth.'

‘It comes out now,' Anne says. ‘We're provincials, and we don't understand.'

‘I didn't mean it like that.'

In the three weeks she has been in Oxford, their friendship has grown – close and fierce. But this tone is something new; something unwelcome.

‘Then how did you mean it?' asks Anne, pugnacious as a street-boy.

‘Do you not care about the king, about his dealings with MPs?'

‘Why should I?' Anne's voice is hostile, the words tumbling
out. ‘What are they to me? News, my father calls it, and falls on it like a dog on carrion. Rooting about in the entrails. Pulling travellers into conversation. “What news, what news?” he shouts. Yet when Mother and I talk of our neighbours, he scolds us for being gossips. What else is news of the court and Westminster but gossip about people you don't even know?'

‘But yet,' says Hen, meeting Anne's hostility with control, ‘to be connected to the wider world. Even if, out here, you cannot see the direct consequences of the doings of the great men, does that matter? D'you think that when King Henry fought for the true church, or the witch Mary sought to destroy it, there were women out here who shrugged? Thought, Pshaw, not for me? Did they do the same when the Normans came, or the Romans left? The news, it's just…' She looks around, as if for inspiration. ‘Just history as it's being forged.'

‘But time filters what's important. All this talk, all that passes as news, is all so much noise.' Anne sticks her fingers in her ears and mouths nonsense. Hen hits her with a pillow. Yet under the mock fight there runs the shock of disagreement.

The next morning, when Hen wakes, Anne is already gone. She heads downstairs and finds her father, incongruously still in the bustling kitchen. She kisses the top of his head, and he reaches round, pulling her onto his lap.

‘Are you still little enough to give your old man a cuddle, little puss?' She laughs, and pretends to struggle against his arms.

Suddenly Will Johnson walks in, yawning. She hadn't spoken
to him much the night before. He had been passionate when talking, mainly with her father, his arms waving wildly to illustrate his points. Sometimes, turning quickly, she had seen him looking at her, before hastily glancing away on being discovered. He probably thought her a fool. Looking at her, thinking how could she be related to the pretty, vivacious one. Seeing him now, she pushes her father's arms down in earnest and stands up quickly.

‘Good morning,' she says.

He looks startled to see her, and runs a hand through his heavy, dark hair.

‘Will, my boy,' says her father, levering himself out of the chair.

‘Good morning, sir. Miss Challoner.'

‘Did you see anything after I left?'

‘No, sir. The cloud remained. It must have rained in the night, as it's clear enough now.' Will pours out some of the small beer on the table at her father's wordless invitation, and drinks deep. He sets the mug down and clears the sleep out of his eyes.

‘Are you planning to stay tonight, Will?' Her father's tone is one reserved for those few he really likes. Normally it would take a longer acquaintance for its honey colours to soften her father's usual abruptness.

‘I am, if your brother has no objections.'

‘None, I am sure.' He looks towards the open door, out towards where the cook is throwing seed at jostling hens. ‘You are in the right about the weather, Will. It looks set fair.' He rises to his feet, and Hen can tell that one of her father's enthusiasms has settled on him.

‘A picnic!' he shouts. ‘We shall have a picnic.'

Hours later – hours spent by her father in the study, a book open on his lap and dribble leaking from his sleep-slack mouth; by the cook in a frenzy of chopping, packing and muttering; and by Aunt Martha in convulsive, whispered rages to her husband – they set off to follow the river upstream. The little ones are first, abuzz with excitement, then a cluster of adults, Richard Challoner and his brother at its centre, talking loudly of some merchant's disgrace on the Exchange. Last come Hen and Anne, wordlessly reconciled, arm in arm. Their suspension of hostilities is unspoken, but manifest in the way they walk even closer, their arms entwined tighter than usual.

Hen watches as Will helps Aunt Martha over a stile. Her aunt turns back and smiles at the boy from the stile's summit, and Hen thinks how strange it is that a sudden, careless smile can conjure the child in the most resolutely middle-aged of women. How kind he is, she thinks. Why, you turnip, Ned would have done the same. With such grace, though? Now you're arguing with yourself. Fool.

‘Why fool?' Anne asks. ‘Who's a fool?'

‘Did I say it aloud? I'm the fool. Come, honey. Let's run. Let's chase the littleys.'

They arrive, thirsty and tinged with that irritable happiness reserved for hot days, at the picnic spot. The river curves in a wide arc, and a company of willows stands guard over the shining water. The littleys run through the hanging shields of leaves, to paddle and poke things with sticks at the water's edge. Linens are spread on rampant grass, baskets unpacked, and wine wedged between
rocks in the river to cool. Then, at last, they are settled and still, the heat heavy on them, with only the laughter and shrieking of the little ones to splinter the summer silence.

Aunt Martha's voice, querulous, breaks the spell. ‘Your face is in the sun, Anne dear. All this excitement is all very well, but I'll not have you looking like a peasant.'

‘Nothing wrong with peasant girls, eh, brother?' says Hen's father, watching Martha sideways.

Ned blushes. ‘Never mind my father, Will,' he says. ‘He likes to tease.'

‘He's pure Benedict,' says Will, grinning.

‘You puppy. Quit your yapping, boy,' says Challoner. ‘Pass me a piece of that cheese before I whip you for impertinence.'

Will rolls over onto his front, his hair falling over his eyes. He tucks it behind an ear as he cuts a slice off the cheese. Hen finds herself mesmerized by his ear; the way it curls and tucks in on itself, the delicate peach of the lobe's skin. Why have I never thought about ears before, she wonders, about how miraculously odd they are? Were William Prynne's ears so beautiful before they cut them off for writing that pamphlet about the queen?

Fearful that he will catch her looking, she pulls her eyes away to stare at the grass. But they stray back again, as far as his hand where it grips the knife. Big hands, capable hands, with bitten, ink-rimmed nails. She traces the veins on the back of his hand, up to his wrist. A strong wrist, with fine hair on his arms visible up to where his shirtsleeve is pushed back.

As he passes the cheese to her father, Will looks up and catches Hen watching him. Both look away quickly, both turning red, neither seeing the other's confusion. But Richard Challoner sees.

With more than usual tenderness, he says: ‘Ah, my pudding cat. Look at you there. All grown up. Where has my life gone that you, my baby, are all grown?'

‘Lost in wine, brother?' Uncle Robert passes him a glass with the mockery.

‘Indeed, brother.'

‘Will? Ned?' Uncle Robert asks, holding out the wine.

‘No, Uncle, thank you,' says Ned, as Will holds his hand out.

His father bristles. ‘None for you last night, Ned? Are you turning temperance on us?'

‘If I say yes, you will mock me.' Ned picks a daisy, pulling at the petals.

‘So say no.'

‘I cannot lie to please you, Father.'

‘Clearly. Where, boy, does it say in the Bible that you should renounce pleasure? When our good Lord turned the water into wine, did he put a cork in the blasted bottle?'

Ned says nothing. The silence spins out over the company, until Will clears his throat and says, with precision: ‘Forgive me, Mr Challoner, but I have not yet invited you to come to the college and view our new telescope.'

‘A telescope, boy! What a thing, what a boon. I will come, most definitely.'

Hen finds herself speaking before she can stop herself.