The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Read online

  “Sad to say, you are correct.”

  “That’s nothing new.”

  The bishop ignored the bitter comment. “Only with prayers and fervent persuasion at the bedside did I manage to turn him from that course.”

  Phillipe trembled a little, hearing the mellow pulpit voice speak of murder. Francis went on:

  “I could not stand by and permit such bloodshed! But from a practical standpoint—and this is the part distressful to my soul—Roger would, of course, be safe from reprisals.”

  “Safe?” Marie burst out. “He could kill my son and not be punished?”

  “Not even accused or troubled by an inquiry—under the secular law. Believe me, madame, striking at the Amberlys, you have struck very high. Such a family is all but invulnerable. No one in the neighborhood—no one in the realm, I venture to say—would concern himself about your son’s death. As the sparrow falls, God’s eye is upon it. But not, alas, the eyes of a magistrate. However—” Francis hitched forward slightly, his lips and forehead beginning to glisten. “My intercession and prayers showed Roger Amberly and, more importantly, his mother the moral folly of Roger’s desire. True, my restraints may be no more than temporary—”

  Phillipe spoke with a clarity that matched the cold rage he felt inside:

  “Let me understand you, bishop. You’re telling us that because I’m low-born, and Roger a nobleman, he can have me murdered and not be punished?”

  “That is the unhappy fact, yes.”

  In that case, Phillipe thought, then Girard was right. It was indeed time for storm winds to blow away the rotten structure of the aristocracy.

  Said the bishop: “After winning Roger’s assurance that he would not act in haste—and seeing him finally asleep with some of Bleeker’s laudanum—I took counsel with Lady Amberly. As you might suspect, her situation has become intolerably tormenting—”

  “No more tormenting than ours!” exclaimed Marie.

  “Yes, yes, madame, I fully appreciate your state of stress,” he soothed. “But do remember—Lady Jane has not only lost her husband, she has seen her son possibly maimed for life. She is not the sort to accept all that lightly. But she is, we may say with thanks, at heart a Christian woman. Able, ultimately, to overcome her natural instincts and listen to a higher voice—a higher doctrine than the doctrine of Cain.”

  Sweet, flowing words. Almost hypnotic—

  And yet Phillipe kept sensing a trap being set behind the pious, blubbery face.

  “In short,” Francis concluded, “after much soulful struggling, I wrung a concession from Lady Jane. She is prepared to let the past be forgotten—provided you both agree, finally and unequivocally, to certain terms—”

  Phillipe almost laughed aloud. He had suspected before that he and his mother had in their possession the means to force a victory. Now the bishop’s words assured him of it. Relishing the realization, he got a jolt when he heard Marie say:

  “Go on.”

  “In the coach, dear woman, I have a pouch containing notes in the amount of two thousand pounds sterling. Lady Amberly has reluctantly agreed to that sum—and no action against you—” The blue seed eyes focused on Marie, picking up reflections of the candle in their depths. “—if!—if you and your son will renounce all claims upon the family and return to France. Permanently.”

  “Two thousand—?” Stunned, Marie was unable to finish the sentence.

  “I beg you to accept the offer!” Francis struggled to his feet like some purple mountain rising from a tremoring earth. The sausage-fingered hands spread in pleading eloquence. “It’s not only a just settlement but—realistically speaking—handsome. Handsome indeed! Lady Jane is anxious to bring an end to the disputation, the turmoil. Join her in that endeavor! I can see the sad ravages of this wrangling in your face, madame—the toll it has taken. Why harm yourself further? Why risk your safety or your son’s? Depart, and you can live in modest comfort for the remainder of your days! I plead as much for your welfare as for Lady Jane’s—accept!”

  “No,” said Phillipe.

  Marie glanced sharply at her son. Bishop Francis bit his lower lip, teeth sinking deep into the wet pink flesh for a fraction of time. Then he recovered, his melancholy seeming to deepen.

  “Oh, God’s wounds, sir!—is this another Cain who confronts me? I’ve wrestled one already tonight! Haven’t I explained the alternative to acceptance—?”

  “Yes, but the facts are no different than when we first knocked at the door of Kentland. Amberly was my father, the letter is legal, she knows it and apparently she’ll do anything to see that Roger takes the whole inheritance. What if I wait another few hours? Will her price go higher?” Phillipe said contemptuously. “It can’t be high enough unless it’s the amount full due—half!”

  Abruptly Francis faced away, concentrating on Marie:

  “Madame, you are my last hope. I come here with the best of motives—and find Satan’s imps of greed and error have preceded me. Talk to your son, madame. Open his eyes!”

  Looking worn out, Marie said, “We can at least consider the offer, Phillipe—”

  “Yes, yes, madame! That’s being sensible. Besides”—Francis turned back to Phillipe, the skirt of his purple gown belling—“if you wait, as you put it, for the price to go higher, there is no guarantee you will be alive to receive the payment. May I be forgiven in Heaven for alluding to such a grim reality, but it’s the truth.”

  Marie gave a small, humbled nod. To his horror, Phillipe saw that the bishop—and the Amberlys—had broken through her defenses at last.

  His jaw set. “Mama—”

  “Don’t you understand what the good bishop’s saying, Phillipe? I won’t risk your life!”

  “And by accepting, you will save and enrich your own!” the churchman exhorted. “Roger will recover. Lady Jane may waver. I cannot constantly, constantly be in attendance, urging restraint—” He pressed his palm against his eyes suddenly, as if seized by a dizzy spell. And in that moment of postured overstatement, Phillipe knew there must be a trap.

  “Be damned to Roger and his threats!” he shouted. “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “But I am,” Marie Charboneau said wearily.

  She faced the bishop, her shoulders slumping. Phillipe started to argue. She was quicker.

  “Two thousand pounds will last many years—we will accept the offer.”

  “Mama, listen! You’re selling out everything you wanted, everything you—”

  “I will not sacrifice your life. We will accept the offer.”

  Heaving a long sigh, Bishop Francis intoned, “Blessed be God’s holy name. Wisdom and virtue have prevailed.”

  ii

  Phillipe stared at the prelate’s round face. The jowls shone with dozens of tiny diamonds of sweat. The battle of words had been an exertion. He thought bitterly, No, power has prevailed.

  Showing more animation, the bishop seemed to collect himself.

  “I will go down to the coach and bring you the money. I ask only the opportunity to read the document at the heart of the dispute. You’ll recall that when I tried to examine it before, I was not permitted to touch it.” The blue eyes avoided Phillipe’s on that point. “Thus I saw only that the handwriting appeared to be the Duke’s, and that the letter was duly witnessed. Before bringing this matter to its happy conclusion, it would be poor stewardship if I did not assure myself of the letter’s contents.”

  Marie gave a forlorn little nod. “Fetch it, Phillipe.”

  “I don’t see why that’s necessary, Mama. Lady Jane knows the contents of—”

  “Fetch it,” Marie said, her voice hoarse, her eyes exhausted.

  He wanted to refuse. He didn’t. The will to fight had gone out of his mother. Nothing he could say or do would overcome her fear for his safety.

  He left Mr. Fox’s sitting room and returned shortly with the casket. Bishop Francis was removing a tie cord from a pouch that contained a thick packet of notes. As he did so, he said: />
  “On Christian as well as material grounds, madame, I could not be more pleased. This sum will indeed keep you in comfort many, many years—” For the first time, the unctuous smile Phillipe remembered from the first interview tugged up the corners of his mouth. “A moment more and we’re done. The letter—”

  His right hand lifted, palm up. Phillipe saw sweat-diamonds glistening on the fat and in the deep folds. Again he was deviled by his conviction about a trap. Swiftly, he looked to Marie. Tried to explain, plead, warn with a glance—

  She didn’t see. Or did, and chose to ignore it. She turned away.

  Swallowing, Phillipe opened the casket. He removed the folded letter carefully, handed it to Bishop Francis.

  “Thank you, my son.”

  The bishop inclined his head to study the French script. He held the letter in two hands, blinking abruptly—squinting—as if having difficulty with his eyesight. He lowered the letter to waist level, his concentration still fixed. A bead of sweat ran down from his left ear. Phillipe’s mind screamed a wild warning—

  He shook his head, angry. What was happening to him? Bishop Francis was still reading. Nothing was amiss.

  The bishop held the letter only by its right margin now. He turned his flabby body toward the deal table, as if to provide more illumination on the document—

  The bishop’s right hand kept moving.

  Toward the light.

  Toward the candle—

  “Mama!” Phillipe shouted. In that wasted instant, Francis thrust a corner of the document into the candle flame.

  Francis still smiled. But his eyes were triumphant.

  For a harrowing moment, Phillipe was too startled to move. He was mesmerized by that vicious smile. By the thread of smoke rising. By the faint crackling. He drove himself forward, dropping the casket—

  But Marie, her eyes wild as any harridan’s, was quicker. And more savage; she had fallen all the way into the snare.

  She seized the bishop’s right wrist with both hands, jerking the fat arm toward her. Charring at the edges, the letter came out of the flame. Francis’ left hand, an un-Christian fist, rose with startling speed. He smashed the side of Marie’s head, knocking her over—

  Ugly-faced, Francis started to kick her as she went down. Phillipe leaped on him from behind, digging his fingers—his nails—into the folds of white fat at the nape of the bishop’s neck. Francis shrieked like a woman.

  His right hand opened. The letter fluttered toward the floor, still afire. On hands and knees, Marie had presence enough to reach for the burning document, slap out the glowing edges even though she gasped in pain doing it.

  “You stinking, hypocritical bag of pus!” Phillipe howled, whirling the bishop around by the shoulder and hammering his fist into the veined nose. The fat man staggered, upsetting the armchair, then the deal table and the candle. The candle winked out.

  The light of the rainy sky filtering through the shutters turned the bishop’s face gray as rotten meat. He reeled clumsily along the wall, mouthing one filthy oath after another. Outside, Phillipe heard hallooing coachmen, wheels creaking, hoofs clopping away.

  Francis wiped a sleeve across his bleeding nose. Gone was all pretense of piety. The small blue eyes glittered like a snake’s.

  “Impious whoreson!” he spat. “Hell take you for striking a man of the cloth!”

  “As it’s taken you already,” Phillipe retorted. “She sent you here, didn’t she? But never for the purpose you pretended. She sent you with tricks and sweet words to get the letter and destroy it—because we’d never suspect that of a man who pretends to serve God. It nearly worked the first time, so she sent you back again—get out of here before I break your damned neck!”

  Face contorted, the bishop suddenly comprehended the rage that turned Phillipe white. A terrified look flashed over the bishop’s face. He bolted for the door.

  Phillipe took two steps after him, reached down and seized the pouch of money. He threw it after the retreating churchman.

  Snuffling, his robes stained with blood and mucus, Francis picked up the pouch and disappeared down the stairs. Moments later, Marie and her son heard the sounds of a second coach departing.

  Phillipe went to his mother’s side. She was unfolding the burned document. The lower edge, including the last few letters of the right-hand witnessing signature, crinkled to black ash and fell away. A section of the upper edge was likewise destroyed. But the central message remained intact.

  Boots clattered on the stair. Mr. Fox burst in on them:

  “You young madman! What did you do to the bishop?”

  “Hit him,” Phillipe growled, righting the overturned chair and sinking down in it, fingers against his temples.

  “In God’s name, lad, why?”

  “The only purpose of his visit was treachery. He pretended to make a settlement with us—just the way he did on the first occasion. He claimed to be protecting me from Roger’s revenge. All the time, he wanted nothing but that letter. You can see where he tried to burn it.”

  Fox shuddered. “Then the Amberlys are desperate indeed.”

  “He offered us money,” Phillipe raged. “Two thousand pounds if we’d go away—”

  “And I agreed!” Marie said. “I agreed! I never dreamed they could buy a holy man.”

  Sadly, Fox shook his head. “Madame, I’ve tried to give you some notion of the reach of that family. There is nothing they cannot order, or cause to have done. They’ll probably have this place burned to the ground because I’ve harbored you,” he added in a rare moment of self-pity. He stalked to the window, clouted the shutters open to reveal the roofs of Tonbridge under a slanting gray shower.

  Phillipe rushed to his side. “Mr. Fox, you’ve showed us only kindness. We’ll leave at once.”

  “Easier said than accomplished,” replied the older man, staring miserably out over the village. “Didn’t you hear the other coach? The one for London—departing right on schedule? And,” he finished after a moment, “there’s not another till tomorrow morning, same time.”

  He rubbed his eyes, then looked chagrined.

  “I’m sorry I turned on you, lad. I won’t worry about losing this place till it happens. What must concern us is your welfare. I wonder if you dare risk waiting for the next coach?”

  The late summer rain pattered in the silence. From the High Street came the ringing of a bell and the cry of a baker’s boy hawking buns. Finally, Phillipe said:

  “No, I think we’d best go immediately.”

  “Go where?”

  “The country. We can hide in the woods. That way, if they come hunting, you can prove we’ve gone.”

  “Phillipe’s right, Mr. Fox,” Marie agreed. “We can’t let your generosity bring you to harm.”

  Fox licked one of his protruding upper teeth. Then a certain determination sparkled his glance again.

  “I appreciate that, madame. On the other hand, is it fit that a piece of real estate take precedence over human lives? I can compromise my cowardice one more day, I think. I prefer that to feeling like a hypocrite at the Methodist meeting.”

  He tried to give them a show of cheer; an encouraging smile. Phillipe realized how great the effort must be.

  “If you want to chance it,” Fox said, “I’ll offer you the same fine quarters you enjoyed earlier. I mean the stable. Should anyone come inquiring, I’ll say you left the inn this morning—which will be true. Then you can slip aboard the coach at half past eight tomorrow—my offer of fare still standing.”

  Marie Charboneau flung her arms around old Fox’s neck, hugging him and weeping her thanks in French. The landlord looked acutely embarrassed.

  Phillipe said, “I think we’d best pack the trunk and haul it to the stable with no further delay.”

  iii

  Clarence brought them bowls of cold porridge and two mugs of ale an hour later. Then he rolled the door shut and sealed them in again.

  Phillipe was already wishing they hadn’t
stayed. The place grew oppressive with its smell of moldy straw and horse droppings. He watched a spider weaving a web in the corner of the stall. He thought of Jane Amberly, Duchess of Kentland. And wondered whether the poor and powerless of the world were always at the mercy of those in authority.

  Somehow, there should be another way.

  Again he recalled Girard’s talk of the storm winds sweeping the world. No breath of them seemed to reach Kent. Then where did they blow, cleansing the evil of those who manipulated men’s lives to their own ends?

  A small sound from Marie broke into his thoughts. She looked waxen, leaning back against the side of the stall with her eyes closed.

  She put down the ale without drinking. She hadn’t touched the lumpy porridge, either. “I am sorry for this, Phillipe. My ambition for you has led us into a game we had no chance of winning.”

  He touched her hand. “Perhaps there’s still a way when we reach London.” He tried to sound optimistic; inside, he was anything but that. “We might find a charitable, decent lawyer to help us press the case. We could offer such a man a portion of what we finally recover.”

  Marie stared at him a long moment. “I’m glad there is still some hope in you. Those people have all but destroyed mine.”

  He clasped his fingers tighter around her cold flesh. “I swore you an oath, remember?”

  Eyes still closed, she gave a faint, embittered nod. The rain kept up its beat on the roof.

  Phillipe felt troubled again. In attempting to reassure Marie with false words, he came to the unanswerable question again. Did he really want to become like the Amberlys? Did he?

  Tormented by the dilemma, and chilled to drowsiness by the dampness of the stable, he roused abruptly when the door creaked. Mr. Fox appeared.

  “A hired boy brought a message—”

  “Summoning me to an ambush, no doubt.”

  “It’s possible,” Mr. Fox agreed.

  “What’s the message?”

  “There is a lady waiting in a willow grove a half-mile up the river. Her name wasn’t mentioned. But she claims she must see you—it’s most urgent.”