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 ribbon, 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.
He looked about him. “A great reckoning in a little room,” he said in a gentler voice than before. “I advised against his coming. I said it was not safe while any still lived who knew him, but he would see the daughters. Does the sister know?”
“Nay,” I said. I laid the coverlid upon the bed and looked to put it so that it hung straight. I set the bolsters at the head of the bed. “Who is he?”
He sat upon the press, his hands on his stout knees. “There was a time I could have answered you,” he said. “I knew him long ago.”
“Before the murder?”
“Before the murders.”
“They killed others?” I said. “Besides my husband?”
“Only one other,” he said. His voice downstairs had been loud and bold, an actor’s voice, but now it was so low I could scarce hear him, as though he spoke to himself. “You asked me who he is. I know not, though he was but a young man when first I knew him, a roguish young man, full of ambition and touched by genius, but reckless, overproud, taking thought only for himself.” He stopped and sat, rubbing his hands along his thighs. “Walsingham’s henchmen killed more men than they knew that wicked day at Deptford. I saw him on the street afterwards and knew him not, he was so changed. I would show you something,” he said, and raised himself awkwardly. He went to the chest in the corner, opened it, and proferred me the papers that lay therein. “Read them,” he said.
I gave them back to him. “I cannot read.”
“Then all is lost,” he said. “I thought to bargain with you for his life with these his plays.”
“To buy me.”
“I think you cannot be bought, but, aye, I would buy you any way I could to keep him safe. He hath been ill these two winters past. He has need of your refuge. The London air is bad for him, and there are rumors, from whence I know not.”
“The young men you brought here have heard them.”
“Aye, and wait their chance. I know that naught can replace your husband.”
“No,” I said, thinking of how he had stolen my honor and my mother’s plate and run away to London.
“You cannot bring your husband back from the dead, if you tell all the world. You will but cause another murder. I’ll not say one man’s life is worth more than another’s.” He brandished the papers. “No, by God, I will say it! Your husband could not have written words like these. This man is worth a hundred men, and I’ll not see him hanged.”
He lay the papers back into the chest and closed the lid. “Let us go back to London, and keep silence.”
Elizabeth ran into the room. “Come, granddame, come. We are to have a play.”
“A play?” Drayton said. He lifted Elizabeth up into his arms. “Madam, he has no life save what you grant him,” he said, and carried her down the stairs.
“The decoction will make him sleep,” John Hall said.
He slept already, his face less lined in rest. “And quench the fever?”
He shook his head. “I know not if it will. I fear it is his heart that brings it on.”
He put the cup into the pouch he carried. “I give you this,” he said. He proffered me a sheaf of papers, closely writ.