“Good Sister Joan,” he said. He bowed to her. “I would have greeted thee outside, but I knew thee not.”
Joan said. “Thou did’st not know me?” Her voice was sharp, and I looked anxiously at her, but could see naught in her face but peevishness. The Fox turned to look, too.
“I knew you not for that you seem’d so young.”
“Liar,” the Fox said, turning back round to Drayton. “Those four were not knaves at all, but beggars. They asked for alms.”
“Ah, but it makes a good tale,” Drayton said.
“I knew you not. The years have been far kinder to you than to me, Sister,” he said.
“ ’Tis not true,” Joan said, tossing her head. Her ruff groaned. “You look the same as on that day you left for London. Thy wife said on that day she’d not see her husband again. What say you now, Anne?” She smiled with spite at me.
“Thy gown is a most rare fashion, Sister,” he said.
“Is’t?” she said, spreading her skirts with her hands. “I thought it meet to dress in the fashion for your homecoming, brother.” She gazed at my plain gown. “Though thy wife did not. Girls!” she called in a shrill voice that overmastered Drayton’s. “Come meet thy father.”
I had not had the opportunity to speak and say, “Susanna’s gown hath a blue stomacher.” They came forward, Bess holding to Judith’s hand, and I saw with dismay that Judith’s frontlet skirt was blue also.
“Husband,” I said, but he had stepped forward already, limping a little. Joan folded her hands across her doublet, waiting to see what he would say.
Judith stepped forward, holding Elizabeth’s hand. “I am thy daughter Judith, and this Susanna’s little daughter Bess.”
“And this must be Susanna,” he said. She nodded sharply. He stooped to take Bess’s hand. “Is thy true name Elizabeth?”
Bess looked up him. “Who are you?”
“Thy grandsire,” Judith said, laughing. “Did you not know it yet?”
“She could not know her grandfather,” Susanna said. “She was not born and I a child her age when you left us. Why have you come after all these years away, Father?”
“Susanna!” Joan said.
“I knew not how you looked, if you were fair,” he answered quietly, “if you were well and happy. I came to see if there was aught that I could do for you.”
“There’s somewhat you can do for me, Will,” Drayton said, clapping a hand to his shoulder. “Give me a cup of sack, man. I am half-froze and weary and was set upon by thieves. And hungry, too.”
“I’ll fetch it,” Judith said, smiling at the Frill. “ ’Tis in the kitchen, already warmed and mixed with sugar.”
“I’ll help thee,” the Frill said.
The Fox said, “Madam, where shall I put these bags and boxes?”
“In the bedchambers,” I said. “Husband, where would you have your chest?”
“Leave it,” he said. “I’ll bear it there myself.”
Judith brought in the sack in a ewer with a cloth round it and poured it, steaming, into the bowl.
“I smell sweet savors,” Drayton said, holding his cup out to her. “What’s in it?”
“Cinnamon,” Judith said, smiling the while at the Frill. “And sugar. And divers spices. Father, wilt thou drink a cup?”
He smiled sweetly at her. “I would put this in a safe place first.” He raised the chest and turned to me. “Good wife, where would you have me sleep?”
“What’s in the chest?” Elizabeth said.
“Infinite riches,” Drayton said, and drained his cup.
I led the way up the stairs to my bedchamber, he following behind, dragging his leg a little under the weight of the chest.
“Where would you have me put it, Wife?” he asked when we came into the room. “In the corner?” He set the chest down and leant against the wall, his hand upon his leg. “I am too old for such burdens.”
I stood against the door. He stood and looked at me, the lines in his unfamiliar face cut deep and sad.
“Where is my husband?” I said.
“Where is the will?” he said.
I had thought he slept and had stepped quietly to the door to see if John were come. “You must stop this talk of wills and assay to sleep,” I said, folding the sheets under the featherbed that he might not cast them off. The featherbed made a rustling sound.
He started up, then lay back down again. “I thought I had heard Joan.”
“Fear not,” I said. “She’ll not come. She is in mourning.”
He looked as though he knew not what I spoke of. I said, “Her husband died these ten days since.”
“Of the ague? Or overmuch noise?” he said, and smiled at me, and then his face grew sad, the lines deep-carved upon it. “She knew me not.”
“Nay, and ’twere well she did not.”
“Aye, well,” he said. “When they first came to me, I thought not it would succeed. A one would say, I know him by his voice, or by his wit, or by his gait. But none said it. All believed, till at last so did I, and came to think I had a wife and daughters.”
“And so thou hast,” I said.
“Where is my husband?” I had asked, and he had not answered me at first, but let out his breath sighingly, as if he were relieved.
“I knew not that I had a wife and children till his father came to London to tell me that the boy had died,” he said.
“What have you done with my husband?”
He sat down heavily upon the bed. “I cannot long stand on my bad leg,” he said. “I killed him.”
“When?”
“Near twenty years ago.”
These twenty years since, he had lain in his grave. “How came you to kill him? Was it in a fight?”
“Nay, madam.” He rubbed his leg. “He was murdered.”
He answered me as plainly as I asked, more plainly, for my voice was so light and airy, I thought not it would carry the width of the room.
“How came he to be murdered?” I said.
“He had the misfortune to somewhat resemble me in countenance,” he said.
I sat down on the coverlid-drap’d press. Dead. I had never thought him dead.
“I fell into some trouble with the queen,” he said at last. “I had … done her a service now and then. It made me overbold. Thinking myself safe from the fire, I spoke in jest of things that had got other men burnt, and was arrested. I fled to friends, asking their help to transport me to France. They told me to lie secretly in London at a certain house until they had arranged passage for me, but when they came, they said that it was all accomplished. The man was dead, and I was free to take his name for mine own.”
His hand clutched the bedpost. “They had killed your husband, madam, at a little inn in Deptford and said I was the murdered man, not he. They testified that I had fought them over the reckoning of the bill, and they, in self-defense, had stabbed me. They told me this with pride, as of a job well-done.”
He stood, clasping the bedpost as it were a walking stick. “The queen’s anger would have passed. The murder never. Your husband has had his revenge on me, madam. He took my life as sure as I took his.”
I heard a sound from out the room. I waited, listening. I went, treading softly, into the gallery, but there was no one on the stairs, only the sound of laughter from below, and Drayton’s voice. I came back in the room.
“How came my husband to that inn?” I asked.
“They lured him thence with promise of a part to play. He being an actor, they had seen him on the stage and marked his likeness to me. They passed a whole day with him ere they killed him, drawing him out with wine and questions, what were his habits, who his friends, that I might better play the masquerade. He did not tell them that he had a wife and children.” He paced the narrow space between the bed and my skirts, and turned and paced again. “They even coaxed him to sign his name to a paper that I might copy it.”
“And your deception succeeded?”
“Ye
s. The lodgings where I had stayed that fortnight since were his. I had already fool’d the owner of the house and all the neighbors without intention.” There was another gust of laughter from below.
“What happened to your friends?”
“My friends,” he said bitterly. “They were acquitted. Walsingham found me not overgrateful for his help and Poley’s and has not seen me since. Skeres is in prison. Of Frizer, I know not. I heard that he was dead, but one cannot believe all that one hears.”
“And none knew you?”
“No.” He sat him down again. “I have been he this twenty years, and been not found out. Until now.” He smiled a little. “What would you have me do, madam, now you have caught me out? Leave you in peace as I found you? I could away tomorrow, called to London, and not return. Or publicly confess my crime. What would you? I will do what you command.”
“What’s all this?” Drayton’s voice bellowed from the stairs. “How now? The coverlet already off the bed? The host and his wife off to slumber so soon?” He lumbered into the room. “The dinner’s not yet served, though you two feast your eyes upon each other.” He laughed, and his very stomach shook with it, but when he turned his eyes to me, there was no laughter in them. “Good madam, I know we have dallied long upon the road, but tell me not ’tis time for bed so soon, supper missed, and all the trenchers cleared away. Tell me not that, or you shall break my heart.”
He had stood up when Drayton came in, taking the weight of his body on his bad leg as if it were some lesson in pain, but he looked not at Drayton.
“For God’s sake, come, man!” Drayton said, plucking at his arm. “I grow thinner by the minute!”
“Master Drayton, you are a most importunate guest,” he said, looking at me.
“Whatever it is you speak of, sure it bears waiting till after supper.”
“Yes,” I said, “it hath already waited a long time.”
• • •
“I am so cold,” he said. I knelt beside the chest and took a quilt from out it. He raised himself to watch me. “What keep you in that chest now?”
I lay the quilt over him. “Sheets and pillowcoats and candles.”
“ ’Tis better so,” he said. “Hast thou burned them all?”
“Aye, husband.”
“I copied out his name so oft it was almost my own, but they are in my hand. If any come for them, you must say you burned them with the bedding when I died.”
“I hear a sound upon the stairs,” I said. I hastened to the door. “I am glad you’ve come, son-in-law,” I said softly. “His fever is worse.”
John set a lidded cup upon the press and put his hand upon my husband’s brow. “Thou hast a fever.”
“I feel no fever,” he said. He spoke through chattering teeth. “I am as two people lying side by side in the bed, both like to freeze. A little sack would warm me.”
“I have somewhat for you better than sack.” He slid his hand behind my husband’s head to raise him to sitting. I put the pillows behind. “Drink you this.”
“What is it?”
“A decoction of herbs. Flavored with cloves and syrup of violets. Come, father-in-law,” John said kindly. “ ’Twill help your fever.”
He drank a swallow. “Vile potion!” he said. “Why did you not pour it in my ear and be done with it?” His hands shivered so that the liquid splashed onto the bedclothes, but he drank it down and gave the cup to John.
“Would you lie down again, husband?” I said, my hand to the pillows.
“Nay, leave them,” he said. “ ’Tis easier to breathe.”
“Is there naught else I can do to help him?” I said, drawing John aside.
“See he hath warm coverings and clean bedding.”
“ ’Tis freshly changed, and the featherbed on the bed new. I made it with my own hands.”
“The second-best bed,” my husband said, and turned, and slept.
We went downstairs, Drayton between us like a father who has caught his children kissing in a corner, prattling of beds and supper so that we could not speak. “Come, man,” Drayton said, “you’ve not had any sack from your own bowl.”
The board was already laid. Judith was spreading the cloth, Joan bringing in the salts, little Elizabeth laying the spoons. Joan said, “You once again would steal my brother from me, Anne. You never were so affectionate in the old days.”
I know not what I answered her, nor what I did, whether I served the fowl first or the sugar-meats, nor what I ate. All I could think of was that my husband was dead. I had not guessed that, through all the years when no word came and Old John cursed me for a shrew that had driven him away. I had not guessed it e’en when Old John nailed the coat of arms above the door of our new house.
I had thought mayhap my husband had suffered us to be stolen by a thief, as a careless man will let his pocket be picked, or that he’d lost us gaming, staking us all as he had staked my mother’s plate, and the winner would come to claim us, house and all. But he had not. He had been murdered and laid in someone else’s grave.
He sat at the head of the table, Drayton beside him. Drayton would not allow Elizabeth to be sent from table after she said her grace, but bade her sit on his broad knee. He talked and talked, following one story with another.
Joan sulked and preened by turns. Judith sat between Fox and Frill, feeding first one, then the other, her smiles and glances. “Remember you your father?” the Fox asked. “Had he a limp then?”
She answered him, all innocence, the way her father must have answered his assassins. He would have seen only what his desire showed him, ’twas ever his failing. And his father’s, who could not see a stranger’s face, so blinded was he by the colors of his coat of arms. His sister’s failing, too, who could not e’en see over a starch’d ruff. All blind, and he the worst. He would not even have seen the knife blade coming.
When the meal was already done and the dishes carried away, Susanna’s husband John came in, covered with snow, and was sat, and dishes warmed, and questions asked. “This is my grandsire,” Elizabeth said.
“Well met, at last,” John said, but I saw, watching from the kitchen, that he frowned. “I have been overlong at the birth of a cobbler’s son, and overlong coming home.”
Drayton called for a toast to the new babe, and then another. “We must toast Elizabeth’s birth, for we were not present at her christening,” he said. “Ah, and gave her not a christening gift.” He bade Elizabeth look in his ear.
She stood on tiptoe, her eyes round. “There’s naught in there but dirt,” she said.
Drayton laughed merrily. “Thou hast not looked well,” he said, and pulled a satin ribbon from out his ear.
“ ’Tis a trick,” Elizabeth said solemnly, “is it not, grandsire?”
“Aye, a trick,” he said. She climbed into his lap.
“He is not as I remembered him,” Susanna said, watching him tie the ribbon in Bess’s hair.
“Thou wert but four years old and Judith a babe when he left. Dost thou remember him?” I said.
“Only a little. I feared he would be like Aunt Joan, dressed in the fashion, playing the part of master of the house though he did not merit it.”
“It is his house,” I said, and thought of the name on the deed, the name that they had cajoled my husband into signing that he might copy it. “And all in it purchased with his money.”
“Marry, it is his house, though he never saw it till now,” she said. “I feared he would claim the house for his own, and us with it.”
He fastened the ribbon clumsily, tying it round a lock of Bess’s hair. “But he plays not that part,” I said.
“No. Knowest thou what he said to me, Mother, when I brought him his sack? He said, ‘Thy father was a fool to ever leave thee.’ ”
John Hall came and stood beside us, watching the tying of the ribbon. “Look how her ribbon comes loose,” Susanna said. “I’ll go and tie it.”
She went to Bess and would have tied the ribbo
n, but she tossed her head naughtily.
“My grandsire will do’t,” she said, and backed against his knees.
“My hands are too clumsy for this business, daughter,” he said. The lines had softened already in his face. He looked to her, and she, leaning o’er him, told him to loop the ribbon so and then to pull it through. Judith came and stood beside, smiling and advising.
“Notice you aught amiss about your husband?” John said.
“Amiss?” I said. I could not catch my breath. I had forgot that he had been to Cambridge, and to London, a learned man.
“I fear that he is ill,” John said.
Bess ran to us. “Father!” she cried. “Look you at my new ribbon,” and ran back again. “Grandsire, is’t not pretty?” She fairly leapt into his arms and kissed him on the cheek.
“Sweet Bess, ’twas not my gift, but Drayton’s.”
“But you tied it.”
“Is he very ill?” I said.
John looked kindly at me. “This country air will make him well again, and your kind ministrations. Shall we into the hall?”
“Nay,” I said. “I must go up to make the bed.”
I went out through the kitchen. The Fox and Frill stood by the stairs, whispering together. “You are mad,” the Frill said. “Look how his family greets him, his daughters gathering round him. It was an idle rumor, and no more.”
I hid inside the kitchen door that I might hear their conversation.
“His daughters were but babes when they last saw him,” the Fox said.
“The sister says he has changed not at all.”
“The sister is a fool. His wife greeted him not so eagerly. Saw you how she stood as a statue when first we came? ’Tis she should be the subject of our watch.”
I came into the hall. They bowed to me. The Fox would have spoken, but Drayton came and said, “Good mistress, I had missed you in the hall.”
“I’ll follow you in a little. I would make up the second-best bed.”
“No, I’ll accompany thee,” he said. “And you two see to the horses. They’ve not been fed.”
The Fox and Frill put on their cloaks and went out into the snow. Drayton climbed the stairs after me, puffing and talking the while. I went into my room and lit the candles.