16

14th August 1580

Dowry for Mary Fitton at your lordship’s beneficence ten pounds

Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582

It is a time of whispers and rumours, thanks to the wagging of Agness’s tongue. The Reverend Matthew Waldren, her own brother, gave a lesson upon the dangers of spreading malicious rumours that kept even Lord Anthonie awake. It left the men of the manor whispering, and I am afraid to say, gazing at Mistress Isabeau. The seamstress always worships with the rest of the household, sitting aside from the men and with my lady’s waiting women, as is proper. She makes all the right responses and gives no hint of popishness, yet she must have been brought up a Catholic, being a Frenchwoman raised in the heart of Queen Catherine de’ Medici’s court. She quietly performs her duties, working in the sewing room on exquisite gold embroideries and embellishments. There are more whispers in the village, I hear.

So I take myself to the alehouse, and there make myself comfortable by the empty fireplace. I buy a few jugs of beer and we toast our fine harvest until no man is steady of foot or tongue.

As the landlord pours more cups of his strongest ale, the men begin to speak. They turn to me to ask if the French maid be a papist and they tell me rumours of a priest hidden at a manor near Newport. I disclaim all knowledge of any such, but the men and boys at the manor are like to make a spark into a bonfire. I chide them, as the seamstress is closely chaperoned by Lady Banstock’s waiting women. They tell stories of her creeping out of doors after dark, when my Lady Flora and I were in London with Lord Anthonie. The tittle-tattle told of lights seen at the ruined abbey, late at night. This gave me a little disquiet, but I rubbished such talk, and if it were after dark, how could anyone see who attended such meetings? But I admit, I was worried. There is, they say, no smoke but from fire, and gossip is blowing on those embers.

I finish my ale when the servant Kelley from Well House enters. Voices die away, as they are wont to do before a stranger on the Island. I take pity on the man, and wave to him, a little curious myself.

‘Master Vincent.’ He touches his cap, but does not remove it.

‘Fetch young Master Kelley one of your fine cups of ale, Beatrice,’ I call out. ‘How go your master’s experiments?’ I ask him.

The youngling, for he seems barely a boy and has little beard, bows his head respectfully before he seats himself upon a bench. ‘More questions arise than answers, Master.’

‘Then tell me of your travels, for you are not an Islander, with your fair speech.’

‘I am lately from Cambridge, sir,’ he says, nodding his thanks at the landlord’s wife for the ale. ‘I was assisting a Lord Robert Dannick with his studies and gained my education there. He introduced me to Master Seabourne.’

While he drinks of his ale, I wonder at his cultured words. ‘And of what stock do you come, Master Kelley?’

He hesitates, glancing into his cup before he looks up at me, very direct of gaze. ‘I am the youngest son of an Irish landowner recently fallen upon hard times, sir.’ Catholic, I imagine, and reluctant to recant. ‘My family name is Talbot, but I go as Kelley, which was my mother’s name.’ Ho, I think to myself. A bastard making his own way upon the world, no doubt, and I like him more for it.

My gaze is drawn again to his hat, and the ale loosens my tongue. ‘What do you hide beneath that cap, young man?’

He colours quickly, with a comical look between embarrassment and anger. ‘Vanity only, sir.’ He drains his cup, stands, and bows to me. ‘A baldness that is unseemly in one of my youth.’

I know he is lying. In truth, I suspect almost every word he speaks, yet I like him. One such as he, born with the stain of bastardy, must necessarily make his own story. But I still wonder about the hat.

Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir