Concern for his safety, however, was not the same as an urge to see him again. She still felt hurt by the cause and the nature of their estrangement. Given the choice, Nicholas rejected her and went off to Devon, and he did so without giving any real justification for his action. Years of love and trust between them had been vitiated. She respected his right not to talk about his past life, but Anne had certain rights herself. When events from that past came bursting in to disturb the peace of her home and the happiness of her existence, she deserved to be told the truth. Why was it so shameful for him to confess?
Margery saw her wrestling with the contradictions. Fond of Nicholas — and in his debt for a hundred favours — she tried her hand at stage-management on his behalf.
‘I called at the Queen’s Head,’ she said.
‘Did you speak with the innkeeper’s wife?’
‘Sybil Marwood and I are of one mind where husbands are concerned. They need to be rescued from their mistakes.’ She grinned broadly. ‘I worked so craftily on her that she now looks more favourably on Westfield’s Men and thinks that her squirming beetle of a husband has been too hasty to expel them from the inn. She will need more persuasion and I’ll do it privily. Convince her and we convince him. Here is no Alexander the Great. This Alexander is great only in stupidity and fear of his wife.’
‘Westfield’s Men may yet return to the Queen’s Head?’
‘That “may” gives us long difficulties for a short word but I’ll strive to master them. We have hopes, Anne, let us aim no higher. All is not yet lost.’
‘That is good news.’
‘It would bring Nick back to London.’
‘If he still lives …’
‘He lives and breathes,’ said Margery confidently, ‘and he’ll want to come back to Bankside. Will you see him?’
Anne was candid. ‘I do not know.’
‘Will you not at least hear the man out?’
‘He had his chance to speak,’ she snapped.
‘Do I hear harshness?’
‘I asked him to stay here with me, Margery.’
‘Was that a fair demand?’
‘I needed him.’
‘I needed Lawrence but he still rode off with them. What pleasure is there for me with my husband away and his creditors banging on my door?’ She gave a resigned smile. ‘They love us, Anne, but they love the theatre even more. Each play is a separate mistress who can charm them into her bed. Accept that and you will learn to understand Nick. If you think you can tear him away from the theatre, then you are chasing moonbeams.’
‘Westfield’s Men are not my complaint.’
‘Then who is?’
‘The person who calls him to Barnstaple.’
‘What person is that?’
‘He will not say and that is the root of my anger.’
‘Nick will give a full account when he returns.’
‘I may not wish to listen.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the insult cannot be borne.’
‘What insult?’
‘The worst kind, Margery. He turned his back on me. When I most needed his reassurance, he walked away. He preferred someone else.’ Bitterness tightened her mouth. ‘That is why I do not want him back. He put her first.’
‘Her?’
‘The one who sent for him.’
‘Who is that?’
‘The silent woman.’
Lucy Whetcombe had the heightened awareness of a child who is deficient in other senses. Her eyes saw much more than those of other people, her hands could read everything they touched, her nose could catch the merest scent of any kindness or wickedness. Her silent world had its own peculiar sounds. The girl lived a simple and uncomplicated life, inhabiting the very fringe of parental love and keeping well away from the communal turmoil of Barnstaple. Self-conscious about her disability, Lucy Whetcombe spurned, and was spurned by, other children. Since loneliness was forced upon her, she made a virtue of it. Her father had been a man of great substance who was respected by all in the town. Visitors were always calling or dining at the house in Crock Street, but Lucy kept out of their way. She resented adults for pitying and patronising her. She resented her mother for other reasons. Susan was her only real friend, and Susan had now vanished. Each day deepened Lucy’s distress. The girl sensed a terrible and irreplaceable loss.
‘We have still heard nothing, Lucy,’ said her mother.
Deft fingers translated the words for her daughter.
‘They will keep searching until they find her.’
A dozen questions hung unasked on the girl’s lips.
‘Susan loves you. She would not go away for good and leave you alone. Susan will come back one day.’ Mary wanted to get rid of her. ‘Go and play with your dolls. They will remind you of Susan.’
Though she could not hear her mother’s voice, Lucy could feel its lack of conviction. The hands, too, gave signals that had more hope than authority. Her mother did not know the whereabouts of her young servant and she was too preoccupied to care. Mary Whetcombe had always had a strange attitude to Susan, at once liking and resenting her, showing her favour only to withdraw it again, using the servant to look after Lucy and keep her daughter out of her way. Lucy despised her mother for the way she treated the girl’s one true friend. Mary Whetcombe had finally stirred out of the fore-chamber and brought herself down to the hall, but the physical move was not accompanied by any emotional change. She was still bound up in a grief that her daughter could not understand. All that Lucy knew was that it excluded both her and Susan.
There was a tap on the door and a maidservant conducted Arthur Calmady into the hall. He looked disappointed that he was no longer to be received in the fore-chamber but soon recovered his composure. Calmady had been through his daily litany of questions before he even noticed the child.
‘How are you today, Lucy?’ he enquired.
Pretending not to understand, she shook her head.
‘You look very pretty.’
She stared at him with concentrated distrust.
‘Your mother and I are going to read the Bible,’ said Calmady. ‘Though you have no ears to hear, the sound of Holy Writ will echo in your heart.’
His clumsy gestures got nowhere near a translation.
When he picked up the Bible, the girl took her cue to leave. Dropping a curtsey, she ran to the door and let herself out. She then went into her father’s counting-house and edged slowly forward until she could peep out.
The two of them were still there. One stood in Crock Street itself while the other lounged against a wall around the corner. The men kept the house under casual but constant surveillance. They could see everyone who came and went. Lucy did not know why they were standing there, but it gave her an uneasy feeling. She was imprisoned in the house. Susan would know what to do in this situation but Susan was not there to guide her and to be her voice. The servant had disappeared one night and taken the fastest horse in the stables. Where had she gone and why did she not take Lucy with her? They had talked before of running away together. Lucy had found the way to talk to her friend.
Leaving the counting-house, she ran along the covered gallery, which connected the hall with the rooms over the kitchen block. It was here that Susan slept. Lucy used a key to let herself into the cramped, airless chamber, which caught all the pungent smells of cooking from below. It was a bare and featureless room, but she had spent some of the happiest moments of her life there. Susan had learnt to laugh in silence like her. Lucy locked the door behind her, got down on her knees and lifted the truckle bed with one hand. The other reached in to pull out something that was bound up tightly in an old piece of cloth. Lucy placed the cloth on the scuffed floorboards and slowly unrolled it.
The dolls were all jumbled together, clinging to one another with their tiny arms and turning their faces away from the sudden light. Lucy lifted them up one by one and laid them gently apart. They were all there. Her mother, her father, Lucy herself, Susan and the other members of the household. Fashioned out of old pegs or twigs, they were no more than a few inches high with miniature suits and dresses made out of scraps of material. Lucy picked up the vicar and sniggered at the sombre face that Susan had painted on him. Lucy had done the sewing and given the most colourful attire to Gideon Livermore. The lawyer’s garb had been much easier to make. Susan’s brush had dotted in the neat little beard of Barnard Sweete.