A Divided Inheritance (16 page)

Elspet had written to Joan that morning. She imagined her sister’s sad face when she received the news. And she knew she must write to Zachary, Father would wish it, but at that time she
felt she could not bear it. Besides, there was no urgency. Zachary was surely in France by now and could not have been reached in time to see Father laid to rest.

It was slow progress to the church with their sprigs of laurel and ivy. Of course the sun shone mercilessly that day. There were not enough men turned out to carry the bier, Father’s
coffin being made of walnut and heavy. Wilmot, the overseer from the warehouse, stepped forth, as did Greeting, Father’s lawyer friend. Embarrassed, she went to ask Broadbank the groom and
Greeting’s manservant to act as the other pallbearers, unsuitably apparelled though they were.

Martha hurried to give them black gloves. They struggled to carry him forth, as Greeting had some infirmity and kept saying it really needed six, and they had to rest awhile every hundred yards.
She thought they would never get there.

At the church, Hugh was waiting in coal-black velvet with ribbons and a ruff starched to a knife-edge. He looked askance at the hastily assembled bier and the struggling pallbearers, and steered
her down the aisle into the cold damp belly of the church. He opened the wooden gate and they slid into their family box pew, the pew they were obliged to keep by law.

He whispered to her, ‘So few?’

She whispered back, ‘The memorial service for Bainbridge’s crews.’

‘Oh. I see.’

The service was mercifully brief. She suspected it would have been longer had there been more in the pews. The sermon passed in a daze. She felt exposed in her front box with Hugh and she could
almost feel the whispers on the back of her neck. She was under no illusions – the colleagues and servants who had pulled out their black wool and weepers to see Father buried were really
there to get a glimpse of her future husband who would soon be in control of his estate.

When they arrived home, Martha had arranged full mourning duty so there were black gloves for all, which lay unused in a large heap on the hall table. Cakes and ale filled the board in the
dining hall, yet even fewer came back to West View House for the repast. Mr Tenter, the mercer, had gone, and of Greeting there was no sign. The handful of mourners hovered around the laden tables
picking at the food. No other relations were present, and few neighbours. Father would have been distressed to see it.

Hugh approached Wilmot, whom he had met already. The conversation naturally turned to business, but she was too preoccupied to want to join their talk. She took a seat at the end of the table,
feeling like a ghost herself.

Finally, Wilmot approached and said, ‘I have closed the warehouses today as a mark of remembrance. You will wish the trade to carry on tomorrow as usual, will you?’

‘I expect so. Do what you think is best. My father trusted your opinion.’

‘You are most kind. I take it you will wish trade to continue – under your orders, or those of your future husband of course.’

‘Yes, yes.’ It was as though she was thinking underwater. She agreed simply because it was easier than to organize her thoughts.

‘Good. We will carry on exactly as if Mr Leviston were still there, until you are ready to instruct us. Greeting seems to be in somewhat of a hurry – he has invited all the
beneficiaries of your Father’s will to assemble at his chambers, so I will see you the day after tomorrow. As executor, he tells me he has written to your cousin already to inform him of your
father’s death.’

‘How kind,’ she managed. Wilmot continued to look at her, so she said, ‘It is a shame Mr Greeting could not stay, for I see we have enough biscuit here to feed half the
city.’

‘Then if you don’t mind me saying, why not do so? I know the custom of funeral dole is a little out of favour, but it would be better than it going to waste. And it would show
generosity on your part and increase your father’s good name.’

‘I suppose so, it’s just –’

‘I know. It’s too much to think of. Don’t worry, I’ll organize it. Show me to the kitchen.’

Elspet gave a nod to Martha, who led him below stairs.

Whilst he was gone, Hugh came to say his farewells for he was to travel that night for some business in York. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’ll manage,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry to leave you, but I’m afraid I cannot delay. It took my father six months to set up this meeting with the furrier’s guild.’

She was disappointed he was leaving. She needed someone there, for what exactly she did not know, just someone to be there.

‘I will come back as soon as ever I can,’ he said.

She went to the hall with him and he embraced her, holding her tight to his chest. She was aware that the whole assembly was looking at them through the open door from the dining hall, so she
pulled away. ‘Send a message when you have met with Greeting,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the day after tomorrow, so I’ll write perhaps the day after that. Soon, anyway.’

‘God bless and keep you.’ Hugh kissed her hand.

She took her handkerchief from her chatelaine, feeling somewhat tearful, and watched him head out of the front door to his waiting carriage. The chief of the mourners then made their excuses to
be gone, seeming to take Hugh’s departure as a cue.

But Wilmot was as good as his word. Before long, a trestle draped in black had been erected outside on the green with black escutcheons and drapes hastily pulled from inside. Great torches were
lit against the impending dark. The servants, clad in their black gloves, cheerfully dispensed the dole to a great crowd, who had been drawn by the ringing of a large handbell. Even the poorest of
them feasted on spice cakes and tit-bits of dried fruits washed down with burnt claret or Malaga sack.

Elspet saw the servants’ flushed and merry expressions from the window, as they jested with their wives and neighbours in the light of the setting sun. Why do they never show me those
faces? she thought.

As she watched, a straggle-haired woman from the widow-house nearby raised up her cup and shouted, ‘A toast to Mr Leviston, a fine and generous gentleman as ever there was!’ And she
set to dancing, hitching up her skirts and persuading the next person to cling to her apron, till all were dancing in a long snaking line.

Elspet looked out, troubled. Pray God the stone was pressed safely down on the grave in the chancel, for if not, Father would surely be turning in it.

‘So sorry, my dear.’ Greeting pointed vaguely in the direction of the vacant chair in front of him.

Elspet dipped her head to the assembled gentlemen and made her way past the knot of chairs and curious glances. She knew her eyes were still red with crying, but hoped the veiled cap shadowed
her face.

There was little room to stop to exchange a word, for there were already a number of others bottled together in the stuffy upstairs room for the reading of the will. Why, half of
Leviston’s Lace must be there. Mr Wilmot raised his hat to her as she passed to take the chair at the front near Greeting’s desk. Behind her, Martha sidled to the back of the room
squeezing past the chairs to sit with the other servants.

Greeting made a eulogy to her father in which he portrayed him as a big-hearted, affable companion; ‘as genial a fellow as one could hope to meet’ – a portrait which she
uncomfortably failed to recognize. Father’s virtues were more subtle than that, one had to look hard to find them, buried as they had been under his books and his Latin and his somewhat
laconic exterior. How he would have raised his eyebrow, had he heard himself described as a ‘fellow’! It bothered her that Greeting should have presumed to know her father in this
way.

‘Well, gentlemen – and Mistress Leviston – we’ll proceed,’ he said.

He cracked open the well-sealed document before him. There were a lot of legal pronouncements at the beginning, and she half listened with impatience, waiting for him to reach the nub of it.
Obviously, Father would have made provision for Wilmot as his second-in-command and, possibly, he would have left portions for the masters of his trading vessels. She knew, however, that he would
not have thought to remember Goodwife Archer from Norwich who organized the English lacemakers. Men were apt to forget the women piece-workers whose craft skills underpinned their trade. She began
to compile a list in her thoughts, tallying those deserving folk who served Father’s interests and who should be rewarded.

A sudden hush in the room as Greeting’s voice stopped talking. She looked up. He was staring at her with a quizzical expression on his creased face. He wiped his balding forehead with his
sleeve. She glanced around the room. Martha had her hand over her mouth and a frightened look in her eyes. Everyone else was looking at her.

‘Pardon me,’ she was alerted by a quivering tension in the air, ‘but would you be so good as to repeat that?’

Greeting’s eyes flicked down at the document before him. Wilmot pressed his hand on her arm. ‘Leviston’s Lace goes to his son and you both,’ he said gently. ‘The
estate entire. To you and to Zachary Deane.’

She heard the words, but could not make meaning from them. The bafflement must have shown on her face for Wilmot mouthed the words very slowly as if speaking to an infant. ‘Mistress
Elspet, you understand – Zachary Deane is not your cousin. He is your brother. Your half-brother. Wish it were not so, but there it is. The business is to go to you both. But not the house.
Your father knew you were provided for, see. Read her that sentence again, won’t you, Greeting, about her wedding?’

Elspet leaned forward to catch Greeting’s voice. He read in a sing-song tone which made her father’s words sound even less like they had issued from his pen. The room was totally
still, everyone appeared to be holding their breath.

‘. . . as my daughter Joan has no need of worldly goods. My daughter Elspet is provided for by her marriage to Hugh Bradstone, so I bequeath to her the personal things as found in my
chamber and twenty pounds as a gift to go to my first grandchild. The business is to be shared equally between said daughter and my only son, Zachary Deane. West View House to go to my son entire,
in fitting recompense. May God forgive me for the wrongs I did him and his mother.’

Martha gasped in the corner of the room. Elspet turned to look and Martha pulled out a kerchief and pressed it to her eyes.

She must have misunderstood. ‘Are you saying that I am to share my inheritance with my cousin?’ Her voice echoed in the room.

‘My condolences, Mistress Leviston, I can see this is another shock,’ Greeting said, ‘but I am sure your cous –’ he paused and licked his lips, ‘your brother
– will be delighted when he hears of his good fortune, and that you will be able to come to an amicable arrangement together . . .’ His voice tailed away as he struggled to find
something else to say.

She smoothed her skirts on her knee with a habitual gesture. She noticed her boots protruding from under her hem, the pattern of stamped holes in the leather. Everything was normal. And yet. She
licked her lips, but no words would form. Her mouth was dry as tinder.

‘We have sent letters to Mr Deane,’ Greeting said hurriedly. ‘As you are aware, he is on a Grand Tour. We have sent to France and also to Spain, where I am told he is next due
to arrive . . . I am sure he will return as soon as he knows what a terrible misfortune has befallen your father, as a good son should.’

‘A good son?’ She almost choked on the words. Anger rose in her chest, as suddenly as a wound that spurts blood. She stood up. ‘Oh yes, I am sure he will be back, like the bent
penny he is.’

She approached the desk and was annoyed to see Greeting step back away from her. ‘You had better fetch him home,’ she spat, hardly aware of what she was saying, ‘because I will
fight this. I am not giving away my home to some bastard brother.’

Greeting shook his head. ‘It is watertight, Mistress Leviston. It cannot be revoked.’

‘Who signed it?’ She lunged for the paper, but he was too quick and swiped it away from her reaching hand.

‘It was I. I and your father’s friend, Mr Tenter.’ He held the parchment aloft.

‘Tenter.’ She almost choked on his name. He was sitting behind her. She turned to him, ‘You and Greeting cooked this between you. Why? Why in God’s name? I thought you
were a family friend. How could you have stood there and let my father sign this?’

‘’Tis not our business to interfere in a man’s wishes. We must abide by what he thinks fitting, if he is the one with the purse, as well you know.’ Tenter nodded around
the room as if to garner support from the assembled men.

She rounded on them all. ‘When was this? This is Zachary’s doing. My father would never have agreed to such a thing without coercion. He pressed him, did he not?’

‘On the contrary,’ Greeting said, ‘your father told me he was to know nothing about it. I regret to say, I think you will find it is all in order. He altered it only a few
weeks ago. Your father was not to know his death would be so sudden. He thought you would be already wed to Mr Bradstone by the time the will would be needed, and that your assets would be enjoined
to his. He felt it was a good alliance for all three. And I’m afraid it is binding. At least, as far as the law is con—’