The Silent Woman (28 page)

He felt curiously offended. When Nicholas was a boy, his father had been a successful merchant with a wife, two sons and three daughters, all of whom lived in a large town-house in Boutport Street. They had respectability and position. Robert Bracewell had no social standing now. He was a virtual outcast from Barnstaple. A man who had once rubbed shoulders with Matthew Whetcombe and the other leading merchants was now banished to the oblivion of a country cottage. It was a poor reflection on the family name but Robert Bracewell deserved no sympathy. Nicholas reminded himself of that as his knees nudged his horse forward.

Dismounting at the gate, he tethered the animal and went up the path to the front door. The goat did not even look up from its meal of grass and nettles. Nicholas did not need to knock. The door swung open and the suspicious face of an old woman emerged. She was short, stout and wearing a plain dress. Grey hair poked out from beneath her mob-cap.
Her hands were a network of dark blue veins. After staring at him for a moment, she seemed to half-recognise him and it made her shrink back. She called to someone inside the cottage then disappeared from view. Nicholas waited. A small dog came scampering out and barked amiably at him. The goat aimed a kick at it then resumed its browsing.

The front door opened wider and an old man in a faded suit glared out at him. Nicholas at first took him for a servant, like the woman, but it slowly dawned on him that this was his father. The years had eaten right into the man. The tall figure had shrunk and the powerful frame had gone. Hair and beard were grey and the face was etched with lines. It shook his son. Robert Bracewell was a wreck of the man he had once been. He seemed too small and insignificant to bear the weight of all that hatred of him that his son carried.

A touch of his old belligerence still clung to him.

‘What do you want?’ he growled.

‘I’ve come to see you.’

‘We want no visitors. Who are you?’

‘Nicholas.’

‘Who?’

‘Your son.’

Robert Bracewell glared at him with more intensity then waved his hand. ‘I have no son called Nicholas,’ he said. ‘He sailed with Drake and was lost at sea. Nicholas is dead. Do not mock me, sir. Go your way and leave me alone.’

He stepped back and tried to close the door but his son was too quick for him. Nicholas got a shoulder to the timber and held it open. Their faces were now only inches away. The belligerence turned to an almost childlike curiosity.

‘Nicholas? Is it really you?’

‘We must speak, Father.’

Robert Bracewell became suddenly embarrassed and began to apologise for his humble circumstances. He led Nicholas into the long, dank room which occupied almost the whole of the ground floor of the house. The old woman lurked at the far end. When she saw them coming, she sneaked off into the scullery and shut the door after her. The furniture was better than such a dwelling could have expected and Nicholas recognised several pieces from the old house in Boutport Street. A cane-backed chair kindled special memories. His mother had nursed him in it. Robert Bracewell now dropped into it with the heaviness of a man who did not mean to stir from it for a very long time. Nicholas had already caught the aroma of drink. He now saw that his father’s hands had a permanent shake to them.

‘Sit down, sit down, Nick,’ said his father.

‘Thank you.’ He found an upright chair.

‘Why have you come to Barnstaple?’

‘I was sent for, Father.’

‘Mary Whetcombe?’

‘I called on her yesterday.’

Robert Bracewell nodded and appraised his elder son with mingled pride and fear. They had parted in anger. There was still a sharp enmity hanging between them.

‘Where do you live now?’

‘London.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I work for a theatre company.’

‘Theatre?’ His nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘You belong to one of those troupes of strolling players? Like those we used to see in Barnstaple in the summer?’

‘Westfield’s Men are a licensed company.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It would take too long to explain,’ said Nicholas.

‘Actors? No. That’s no fit way for a man to live.’

‘Nor is this, father.’

The rejoinder slipped out before Nicholas could stop it and it clearly hurt Robert Bracewell. He drew himself up in his chair and his jaw tightened. He waved a trembling hand.

‘This is my home, lad,’ he warned. ‘Do not insult it.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘Had you stayed, I might not now be in this state.’

‘You drove me away.’

‘That’s a lie, Nick!’

‘You drove Peter away as well.’

‘Your brother was different.’

‘We were ashamed of you.’

‘Stop!’

Robert Bracewell slapped the flat of both hands down on the arms of the chair. Anger brought him to life. His back straightened and his head was held erect. The resemblance to his son was suddenly quite strong and it disturbed Nicholas to be reminded of it. The old man’s yell made the door to the scullery open for the woman to peer in before withdrawing again with a hurt expression. His father was shaking with quiet fury now and that would not further Nicholas’s purpose. He tried to placate the old man with a softer tone.

‘We need your help,’ he said.

‘
We
?’

‘Mary Whetcombe and I.’

A note of disbelief. ‘You came back for
her
?’

‘A messenger summoned me from London.’

‘Mary would never even look at you now.’

‘Yes, she would.’

‘After the way you let her down …’

‘We talked for a long while at her house.’

‘She despises you!’

Robert Bracewell had always been forthright and it was a habit that made him few real friends. Nicholas and his brother had an abrasive upbringing. Their father loved them after his own fashion, but he was blunt about what he considered to be their faults. Nicholas wondered how his mother had put up with her husband for so long. Robert Bracewell had not spared his wife. She had suffered the worst of his cruel candour. She had also endured his other vices until their combined weight had crushed the life out of her. Nicholas thought about her lying in the churchyard and resolved to get through the business of his visit before riding away from his father for ever.

‘What brought you, Nick?’

‘Matthew Whetcombe’s will.’

‘That is no concern of yours.’

‘I have made it so.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the messenger who came to London was murdered before the message was delivered to me. They tried to stop me from getting to Barnstaple. I was attacked by the same man.’ Nicholas paused. ‘He now lies dead in Bristol.’

‘You killed him?’ The old man was shocked.

‘Defending myself.’

‘Who was the rogue?’

‘His name was Lamparde.’

‘Adam Lamparde?’

‘You know the man?’

‘I did at one time,’ recalled his father. ‘Lamparde was a sailor. A Tiverton man by birth. A good seaman, too, who could have looked to have his own vessel one day. But he was too fond of a brawl. A man was killed in a tavern one night. Lamparde disappeared. They say he made for London.’

‘Which ship did he sail in?’

‘The
Endeavour
. She was only twenty tons, but she flew between Barnstaple and Brittany like a bird on the wing.’

‘Who owned the vessel?’

‘Two or three. Gideon Livermore among them.’

‘His name guided me here.’

The old man snarled. ‘Livermore is offal!’

‘He stands to inherit the bulk of Whetcombe’s estate.’

‘Let him. What care I?’

‘You were a witness to the man’s will.’

‘Yes,’ said the other with a sigh of regret. ‘I could speak to Matthew in those days, visit his house, discuss all manner of business, mix with his friends.’

‘You saw that will, Father.’

‘I would not have signed it else.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That is a private matter.’

‘You may save Mary, if you can tell us. She is cut out by the new will. Gideon Livermore seizes all. I do not believe that that was Matthew Whetcombe’s true wish.’

‘He was a deep man, Matthew. A very deep man.’

‘What was in the first will?’

‘Ask the lawyer!’

‘You
read
it, Father!’ shouted Nicholas. ‘For God’s sake, tell us what was in it! Did he leave the ship to Gideon
Livermore? Did he leave the house in Crock Street? Did he all but disinherit his wife and child? Tell us.’

Robert Bracewell pulled himself forward in the chair as if to strike his son, but the blow never came. Nicholas was instead hit by a peal of derisive laughter that made his own fists bunch in anger.

‘So that’s your game, my lad,’ said his father with weary cynicism. ‘That’s why you came back here. For her. You wanted Mary Parr then and you want her even more now that she is Mary Whetcombe and a wealthy widow. That’s what my son has turned into, is it? A privateer! Drake has taught you well. Hoist your flag and set sail. Seize the richest prize on the seas. No wonder you want her. Mary Whetcombe is a treasure trove.’ The laughter darkened. ‘But she’ll never want you. She’d sooner look at a rogue like Livermore!’

Nicholas was so incensed that it was an effort to hold himself back from attacking his father and beating him to the ground. The speech had opened up old wounds with the ease of a sharp knife ripping through the soft underbelly of a fish. Nicholas closed his eyes and waited for the pounding in his temples to cease.

Robert Bracewell was typical of the merchant class. He was a practical man, toughened by a harsh upbringing and by the struggle to survive in a competitive world. Marriage was essentially a business proposition to him. Merchants’ sons married merchants’ daughters. A prudent choice of wife brought in a widening circle of friends and relations who could improve a man’s prospects considerably. The dowry, too, was important. It could save many a poor credit balance. That was a factor that weighed heavily with Robert Bracewell, and he had selected a bride for his elder son partly on that basis.

Fathers struck bargains. Katherine Hurrell was selected for Nicholas Bracewell in the same way as Mary Parr was the designated wife of Matthew Whetcombe. Love and happiness were a matter of chance. The commercial implications of the match were far more important. Paternal pressure on all sides was immense, but Nicholas and Mary resisted it. They rejected their chosen partners. They wanted each other, no matter what their fathers decreed. Robert Bracewell had been adamant that his son should marry Katherine Hurrell. His preference for her family had become an obsession.

Nicholas remembered why and his loathing intensified.

‘You stopped us!’ he accused.

‘I had to, Nick. You must see that.’

‘You killed our hopes.’

‘I had no choice.’

‘Mary was waiting for me,’ said Nicholas. ‘She would have run away with me sooner than marry
him
. She hated Matthew Whetcombe. He had nothing to offer her.’

‘Yes, he did,’ said his father. ‘He offered something that nobody else could match. There was more to Matthew than you might think. A deep man, believe me. Hidden virtues.’

‘Mary had no time for him.’

‘That is not true.’

‘She couldn’t bear the fellow near her!’

‘Yet she married him.’

It was offered as a simple statement of fact, but it had the impact of a punch. Nicholas recoiled. Matthew Whetcombe had indeed married Mary Parr, but only because Nicholas had deserted her. His one impulsive action all those years ago had committed a woman he wanted to a loveless relationship with a man whose death she could not even mourn. By
extension, it had also thrust her into the humiliating situation that now faced her. Guilt pummelled away at Nicholas again but the real culprit was sitting calmly in front of him. His father was enjoying his son’s discomfort.

It had been a mistake to come. Robert Bracewell would not help a son who ran away from him or a woman who ruined his marriage plans for that son. The old man would take a perverse delight in obstructing them. Nicholas got up abruptly and moved to the door. His father’s voice halted him.

‘I witnessed that will,’ he said, ‘but I am not able to tell you its contents. They are confidential. If you insist on seeing it, apply to Barnard Sweete. He should have a copy of the first will.’

‘He has destroyed it.’

‘Matthew had a copy drafted.’

‘That, too, has disappeared.’

‘Find it, Nick.’

‘The house has been searched from top to bottom.’

‘Search again.’

‘Was Livermore the main beneficiary of the first will?’

‘Find it and you will know the truth.’

‘Will you give us no help at all, Father!’

‘What have you done to deserve it?’ said the other with scorn. ‘Get out of my house! Get out of my life!’

‘A crime is being committed here!’ urged Nicholas. ‘You can prevent it. We need you!’

But Robert Bracewell had said all that he was going to on the subject. The interview, which had been a torment for his son, had been an ordeal for him as well. All the strength had drained out of him and the pouched skin quivered. The
woman came in from the scullery to stand behind him in case she was needed. They looked once again like two old servants in a farmer’s cottage. Nicholas was saddened.

He went quickly out but paused a few yards down the path, turning to call a question through the open door.

‘Why did you go so often to Matthew Whetcombe’s house?’

Robert Bracewell got up and lumbered towards him. One hand on the door, he stared at his visitor with a mixture of nostalgia and dismay.

‘Why did you go?’ repeated Nicholas.

‘To see my granddaughter.’

He slammed the door shut with echoing finality.

His mind was an inferno as he rode away from the cottage. Past and present seemed so inextricably linked that they had become one. Mary Whetcombe had reminded him of the young man he once was and Robert Bracewell had warned him of the old man he could become. Both experiences had torn at his very entrails. He rode at a steady canter and vowed never to return to the house. Seeing his father again had laid some ghosts to rest but awakened too many others. The picture of two aged people side by side in a run-down cottage stayed in his mind. Robert Bracewell had once lived with a handsome woman of good family who loved him devotedly and who bore him two children. That wife was sent to an early grave with a broken heart. All that the merchant had left now was a shuffling servant to fetch and carry for him.