The Pale Companion (17 page)

Adam Fielding
: Thank you for agreeing to see us.

[
A slight inclination of the head from Elcombe, a small smile from Lady Elcombe
]

Adam Fielding
: Master Revill is here in my service.

Lord Elcombe
: Master Revill and I have already met. He was generous enough to instruct me in the true meaning of Master Shakespeare’s
Dream.

[
Master Revill blushes furiously and wishes he could hide himself under the rich carpet which covers the floor
.]

Adam Fielding
: May I remind you, my Lord, that you requested my presence at Instede in order to enquire into the death of he that was called Robin.

Elcombe
: What have you discovered, sir? Enough to put to rest the whispers and rumours that run about the place? Hm?

Fielding
: With your permission, I will come to that in due course. First, I would like to establish one or two things about the dead man.

Elcombe
: I will answer if I can.

Fielding
: Who was Robin?

Lady Elcombe
: A man without a master. A man without a place to house his head.

Fielding
: I mean, my Lady, where did he come from? He was not born in your woods, surely? Master Revill says he was a man who had once been something . . . different.

Lady Elcombe
: Then perhaps Master Revill should be answering your questions, since he knows so much.

[
She looks at me with a cold look and I wish to burrow further under the carpet. But Lord Elcombe puts out a placatory hand in his wife’s direction
.]

Elcombe
: I can satisfy your curiosity to an extent, sir.

Fielding
: No mere curiosity, my Lord. I speak with the weight of the law on my shoulders. A man has died and I am charged with discovering why.

Elcombe
: So be it. Robin was the son of a woman who was born on the estate in my father’s time. She was not strong in the head. She hardly knew herself. She was tolerated here out of charity.

Fielding
: What happened to her?

Elcombe
: She moved away from here. She is in another country.

Nick Revill
[
under his breath
]: And besides the wench is dead

Elcombe
[
who evidently has sharp ears
]: The young player knows his Christopher Marlowe. Master Revill is probably right. She is doubtless dead. She left this place many years ago.

Fielding
: While Robin remained behind, to fend for himself in the woods?

Elcombe
: No. She vanished from here when he was not full grown. So did he. Merry must have taken the brat with her.

Adam Fielding
: Merry?

Elcombe
: So she was called – on account of her ever-laughing countenance.

Fielding
: She was a cheerful soul.

Elcombe
: A simple one. I said that she was weak in the head. She gaped for any reason, or none at all.

Fielding
: And Robin? Her offspring. He must have come back to Instede at some point.

Elcombe
: When he returned nobody knows, but it was as a grown man. I did not discover that he was here until he had been dwelling in the woods for some time . . . perhaps a matter of years.

Fielding
: But someone in your household must have known?

Lady Elcombe
: Of course. Do you think that we are aware of everything that goes on in the holes and corners of this estate?

Fielding
: Why did he return?

Elcombe
[
with a kind of sneering smile
]: Perhaps he thought that he was coming home. I do not know, sir, and he who could have told you has now gone out to make his home in the dark.

Fielding
: Who was Robin’s father?

[
Lord Elcombe looks abashed at the question. My Lady merely looks – daggers
.]

Elcombe
: When I said that Merry gaped I was referring to her mouth, permanently open in mirthless mirth. But it could as well have been said about her other parts. Why, man, any fellow on the estate might have covered her, or any passing vagrant for that matter.

[
Nicholas watches Lady Elcombe carefully to see how she responds to her husband’s coarseness but she is too busy staring at Fielding’s reaction
.]

Fielding
: I see.

Elcombe
: I am not sure that you do, sir. The plain fact is that I know next to nothing about this individual. I merely required you to come to Instede and quieten the more foolish gossip about his death. No more than that.

Fielding
: The requirements of the law may not be consonant with your wishes, my Lord. Have you ever picked at a fraying thread on a sleeve . . .?

[
The noble Lord and Lady regard Fielding and each other with bafflement and then irritation
.]

Elcombe
: To the quick of the matter. What have you discovered that makes you so riddling? Hm?

Fielding
:Nothing.

Lady Elcombe
: Nothing?

Fielding
: Because there is nothing to discover. My opinion is that Robin the wood-man was as you have described his mother, that is, somewhat addle-pated. I believe that a period of many years living in the woods curdled whatever few wits he was born with, and that one fine morning he slipped a cord about his neck and so slid into the next world. Be assured that I shall do my best to spread this version of events among the more impressionable members of your household, my Lord.

Revill
: But –

Fielding
: Yes, Master Revill?

Revill
: No matter.

Elcombe
: So there was nothing out of the way in this person’s death?

Fielding
: That is my opinion.

Lady Elcombe
: Could you not have told us this direct, sir? Did we have to be troubled with your questions?

Fielding
: I wished only to clear my mind, and now I see that I have cleared yours as well. However, I must apologize for having taken up your time, especially at this delicate and propitious moment for your family.

Lady Elcombe
[
with the merest touch of graciousness
]: Now that you are no longer our inquisitor, perhaps you and your beautiful daughter, Justice Fielding, can revert to being our guests.

Elcombe
: And Master Revill can go back to his playing, hm.

Fielding
[
standing and half-bowing
]: My Lord and Lady.

[
Nicholas Revill also stands and does a small bow before following the Justice of the Peace from the chamber. He says nothing. He can think of nothing to say
.]

As soon as we were outside the door and out of earshot of the hovering manservant, I turned to Adam Fielding.

“Sir, Adam, did you mean all that?”

“All what?”

“How can you say that there was nothing out of the way about Robin’s death? After I showed that he could not have tied a knot in the halter. Or climbed the elm most likely. And after we found that case of papers.”

“Steady, Nicholas, steady. You are growing heated.”

“But you left several things unexamined.”

In my urgency I forgot the normal courtesies due to this grey-bearded man.

“No, it is you who are leaving things unexamined,” said Fielding. “Tell me what happened with Robin.”

“Well, I don’t know – ”

“Ah, you don’t know. Why not, exactly?”

“I wasn’t there when he died.”

“You weren’t there when he died,” Fielding repeated with irritating deliberation. “Just so. Tell me what you think happened, then.”

By this time we’d emerged into the open. We continued to walk, in the direction of the lake. The day was like all the days of that June, warm, fresh, untarnished.

“I . . . well . . . all right. I believe there was foul play in this matter, I believe that Robin was helped to slide into the next world, as you expressed it in there.”

“You understand Latin, Nicholas? But of course you do, you’re the parson’s son from Somerset. So I ask you in that tongue:
cui bono?”

I could not understand the question – not its meaning, which was simple – but the purpose of it. Also, I couldn’t understand Master Fielding’s rather distant, even mocking manner. Had I spoken so much out of turn during our interview with the Elcombes?

In case he should think my Latin was feeble, I quickly said, “You ask me ‘for whose good is it?’, ‘to whose advantage?’”

“When we’re looking at an apparent crime, we must ask not merely how it was done, what instruments were used, who might have carried it out and so on, but one question above all the rest:
whose good does this serve?
Who might benefit from it?”

“And since nobody benefited from Robin’s death, there was no motive for anybody to do away with him.”

“You’ve said it for me.”

“But . . .”

“You must admit, Nicholas, your own reasoning has a certain force.”

“Have you considered another possibility, sir?”

“I have considered many. Go on, though.”

“That he was . . . murdered . . . to silence him, to shut his mouth for good.”

“What was he going to say that was so dangerous? From your own account, when he did talk he didn’t make much sense. And if you’re hinting that he was in possession of some mortal secret, which I think you are, was there anyone to listen to him and, if there was, then why did he remain so long alive and untouched in the woods? Why put an end to him now at what is, to say the least, an inconvenient moment?”

“What about the evidence of the halter and the knot? Or the papers in the box?”

“Which were smudged and unreadable.”

“There was one word left on them – mercy.”

Fielding laughed, to my discomfort. “Oh, mercy. Well, you can’t build a house out of a single brick. The papers were spoiled and will never be restored and therefore must be left out of the question. As for the rope, you said yourself that you weren’t there when he died. How can you know precisely what he was capable of doing? Men may achieve extraordinary feats if driven to them by despair – or any other great passion.”

“Well . . .”

“I think we really must leave this now, Master Revill. Kate and I can revert to being ordinary guests at this wedding while you – ”

“Can go back to playing, I know,” I said, unable to keep a touch of asperity out of my reply. We had arrived at the margin of the lake and the stone seat where I had so pleasantly dawdled away the time with Kate a couple of days before. “Only one more thing, your worship. At the beginning, when I first came to tell you of my suspicions and concerns in this business you seemed to share them. And when you came with me to examine the place in the wood where Robin’s life was ended you acted as if you too believed there was something unexplained in the matter.”

“Oh, there is always something unexplained if you look hard enough. As for what I was doing in the woods and before . . . it is called keeping an open mind.”

“And now?”

“If your mind be open too long, Master Revill, anything may fly into it. Beware.”

W
e were invited to a marriage feast. But of course we had to sing for our supper. The feast preceded the
Dream,
the evening performance of which was the reason we were at Instede. And a great feast it was, even if it was meant to be no more than a prologue to greater post-nuptial ones.

The early evening sun streamed through the ample windows of the Instede banqueting hall, and the wax candles which had been placed in silver holders at regular intervals down each table remained unlit – no doubt they were there in case of a sudden eclipse. We of the Chamberlain’s occupied a low to middling position in the hall, from which we were permitted to glance up at the high and mighty beings on the dais, who included bride, groom, their parents &c. Below us were the lesser folk from the estate and its environs. As I’ve noticed in the playhouse, however, nobody wastes time inspecting his inferiors. All eyes were fastened upwards. So large was the number of important guests that the high table was, in fact, three tables: the main one many yards in length and with two shorter ones angling out from it at either end. The diners occupied one side only so that they might gaze over the rest of the hall, something which they did from time to time but in an abstracted, distant way.

This was our first opportunity to study the bride, and – given what we’d heard about Lord Harry Ascre’s unwillingness to grasp his fortune (in any sense) with both hands and the consequent speculation about the reasons for his reluctance – study her we did. Our questions about Marianne’s appearance were soon answered.

Questions such as:
Had she two heads?
No.

Did she squint?
Not that one could see.

Was her complexion as pocked as a nutmeg-grater?
From a distance, she looked to have a fetching mixture of red and white in her cheeks, with the latter as predominant as it should be in a young lady of good breeding.