Читать книгу The Knot - Jane Borodale - Страница 21

Chapter XIV.

Of ARCHANGEL, or dead-Nettle. Is of temperament like to the other nettles.

IT IS NEVER GOING TO BE GOOD NEWS when an urgent letter arrives on horseback in the late evening. Henry has not yet retired for bed and is already halfway across the hall when he hears the knock, a familiar dread already tight in his stomach when one of the kitchen boys opens the great door. As soon as he has it he recognizes the hand – it is from Nicholas Dyer, his father’s friend.

He thanks the messenger, who is sweating and thirsty and covered with dust from the late summer roads in riding from Marlborough at speed, and orders his horse be watered in the yard. Henry waves him into the kitchen for a drink and bite to eat, and still does not read the letter for some moments because he has a sudden urge to urinate, and goes hastily up to his room to use the close stool. Frances is sitting in bed sewing in the hot July dusk.

‘What was that rapping?’ she asks, pulling her thread through its length, and tucking the needle in again. The sound of the thrush’s song from the ash outside drifts in through the open window.

‘A letter from London. I haven’t read it yet, but I know what’s in it.’ He does up his breeches and sits down on the end of the bed with a creak of rope. The evening has taken on a horrible significance. He knows he will remember forever the particular sight of the loose weave of the bedcover, the smell of the half-used washing ball on the form by the bed, the ordinary aftertaste of the wine from supper in his mouth.

He breaks the seal and the stiff paper unfolds unwillingly for him, and then he reads the scant, crabbed lines three or four times over, as if there was not enough there on the page to tell him what he already knows.

He puts the paper aside and lies flat on the bed with his shoes still on.

‘What? What is it?’ Frances says.

‘He is dead. My father is dead.’

Silence. Frances puts her sewing in her lap. Outside even the thrush is quiet. Henry can hear no noise from any quarter. Not a whistle, not a breath, not a creak of anything. Then he hears his heart, going on beating.

‘What is the date?’ he asks.

‘July the thirtieth. The eve of St Neot.’

‘As I thought. I cannot even pay my due respects because today they buried him at the church of St Botolph without Aldersgate. But I must ride to Sherborne to help tie up his affairs. There will be the inventory to sort out, and many papers …’ There is no air in here.

‘If Joan lets you set foot over her threshold.’

Henry sits up abruptly and swings round to face his wife. ‘That woman may think she has a life interest but my father’s business is my own. It should all be made clear to her at the reading of the will.’