“I would have left him some token of my friendship. And thee some token of my love. You know why I could not bequeath the property to you.” He took hold of my hand with his own burning one. “If it were found out after my death, I would not have men say I bought your silence.”
“I have my widow’s portion, and Susanna and John will care for me,” I said, loosing his hand to dip the cloth in the bowl again and wring it. “She is a good daughter.”
“Aye, a good daughter, though she loved me not at first. Nor did thee.”
“That is not true,” I said.
“Come, Mistress Anne, when did you love me?” he said. I laid the cloth across his brow. He closed his eyes and sighed, and seemed to sleep.
“The very instant that I saw you,” I said.
We made a slow progress into the house, he leaning on me as we stepp’d over the threshold and into the hall. “My leg grows stiff when I have ridden awhile,” he said. “I need but to stand by the fire a little.”
Joan crowded close behind, her farthingale filling the door so that the others could not follow till she was through. Master Drayton followed upon her skirts, telling Judith and Susanna in a loud and merry voice of what had passed upon the road from London. “As we came across the bridge, four rogues in buckram thrust at me.” Drayton gestured bravely. Elizabeth stared at him, her eyes round.
The young men, Fox and Frill, entered the hall, bearing bags and the metal chest. They stopped inside the door to hear the tale that Drayton told. Frill dropped his sacks with a thump upon the floor. The Fox set the casket beside it.
“These four began to give me ground, but I followed me close.”
“Husband,” I said under cover of his windy voice, “thou must needs compliment thy sister Joan Hart on her new ruff. She is most proud of it.” He gazed at me, and still I could not decipher his look. “Thy daughters, too, have new finery for this occasion. Susanna hath a blue—”
“Surely a man knows his own daughters,” Joan said ere I could finish speaking, “though he hath not had a chance to greet them. Thy wife would keep thee all to herself.”
“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?”