A Fine Madness Alan Judd (beach read book txt) 📖

I thought again it was time I found a wife of my own, some kind soul to keep house for me and comfort me at night. Someone to rear children who would look after us in our old age, as I was already beginning to do with my own father.

‘And what be your business here, sir?’ she asked. ‘And your young friend who was here before you? Will he be coming back?’

‘My nephew,’ I said. ‘He has gone to the university to find a college that will admit him next year. When he returns we will continue our journey to London where we are employed in the custom house.’

Lying is both a natural and acquired facility which comes easier to some than to others. You must have observed this at Court, sir? It was never difficult for me. In those days I always had a cover story at hand to explain myself, except when I could proudly assert that I was on Mr Secretary Walsingham’s business. It came easily then but as I grew older I wearied of it and now I find pretence no longer a pleasure or excitement but a burden, another thing to have to remember. That is why I am unafraid to tell you truth now, sir, no matter what the consequences. But it would help to know the reason for your interest?

No matter. I went to the oak tree that evening and scrabbled around in the bole but again found no note. I was fearing that something might have gone wrong when a voice said, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’

Christopher was sitting above me on a bough shaped as if God had designed it for the reclining human form. He climbed down, dusting off his black breeches. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t slept here all night. But it would be more comfortable than the truckle bed I have in that house.’

‘They accepted you?’

‘They love me.’

They had admitted him reluctantly at first, questioning his background. He had convinced them that he smouldered – that was the word he used – beneath the damp Protestant cloud over Cambridge, which blocked off all light from the old faith. He had heard that Oxford was more enlightened, that there were sympathetic scholars there prepared to preach in private the truths publicly disavowed by today’s dour evangelism. He wanted to hear them. He was helped by the fact that a shoal of Oxford scholars had arrived that morning to see the nuns and to partake of the Mass with Father Campion, they said. Thus he learned that Campion had indeed been there, that he had left at dawn the day Christopher arrived, that the eight nuns present – he had their names by heart – had been so mesmerised by his preaching that they had remained on their knees long after he had urged them to rise.

‘So the bird has flown. Do they know where?’

‘They know that Father Persons had instructed him to ride to Lancashire to retrieve certain documents and then to hide with sympathisers in Norfolk. But they think he will return sooner. They have sent a rider to beg him back for one more night to preach to the multitude now gathered and longing to hear him. He is forbidden by Persons to stay longer but, it being Sunday tomorrow, they hope he will say Mass and preach a sermon before departing again. There are about sixty there, with hardly a floorboard in the house to sleep on. Some will have to sleep in the garden.’

Apart from the nuns, the household comprised two chaplains, Mrs Yate and her staff and a number of other visitors. The influx of local Catholics and scholars had fortunately swamped Christopher’s arrival and he had found himself ignored after initial questioning. He was now simply one of many and could come and go as he pleased. He had taken the precaution of ostentatiously quizzing the scholars about Oxford.

‘Have you any other names?’ I was thinking of Frizer, the Earl of Leicester’s man.

‘None. There are many whose names I do not know and I cannot afford to appear curious. They mention one George Eliot, some sort of sheriff’s man or enforcer who sniffs around, but I haven’t met him.’

‘You must try to stay until Campion returns, if he does.’

‘What do you want me to say to him?’

‘You don’t need to say anything. Just let me know he’s there. Then we can arrest him. Or this George Eliot can.’

‘Arrest?’

‘Of course. What else should we do?’

He nodded. ‘Of course, that is what it must come down to. I’ve always thought Judas deserved more credit than we give him. Why he did it, I mean.’

‘Thirty pieces of silver, was it not?’ Some spy for money openly and shamelessly, others do the same but pretend other reasons. Christopher was being paid but I didn’t know how much and assumed this to be a preliminary to a request for more.

‘I’m not sure thirty pieces was sufficient motivation in his case.’

‘You think he should have held out for more?’

‘No. I think he had another reason.’

‘Loyalty to the scribes and Pharisees, to Judaism?’

‘More complicated than that.’

That was all we had time for. The following day being the Sabbath, I anticipated no message and no Christopher, there being little opportunity to escape from such a religious household on a Sunday morning. But I still went to the tree. It was another fine morning and dappled sunlight filtered through the branches. After checking the bole I lingered, observing the wood anemones and other examples of God’s handiwork. It was too late for bluebells, my favourite, but I suspected there must have been plenty. Then I climbed the tree to the bough from which Christopher had surprised me, intending to rest a while. It was even more comfortable than it looked and I nodded off.

I awoke to hear hooves and men’s voices on the path. I couldn’t see them nor could I hear what they said as they spoke low. I