Act of Oblivion, page 18
‘People ask me about you all the time,’ he muttered.
Then let the damned fools ask, but leave me be!
The voice was so real he felt the hairs rise on his scalp.
He folded up the paper and left the study. He wondered if he was going mad.
But the following afternoon he was back, and this time he did not hesitate, but charged full tilt at his objective as if he were leading a cavalry troop against the enemy.
I was born in the Year of Our Lord 1598, the second son of Sir Richard Whalley of Kirkton Hall, Nottinghamshire, of which county my father was the Member of Parliament, and brought up in the Puritan faith. My mother, Frances Cromwell, the younger daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdon, was sister to Robert Cromwell, the father of Oliver, who was born in the same year as myself.
He paused. So far, so good. These were plain facts, indisputable. He liked facts. As long as he was dealing with facts, he was comfortable. He dipped his pen in the inkwell. The nib scratched across the page.
The closeness of our families, our shared religious beliefs and the nearness of our ages made possible a familiarity of relations that began in boyhood and lasted for more than fifty years.
Again: facts. But now it became harder. To set down the long summer days at Hinchingbrooke – fishing, climbing trees, playing ball and hide-and-seek with the cousins – seemed trivial, and he decided to skip over them. It was some time before he felt able to continue.
I am often asked what he was like. In body, he was tall – only two inches below six feet – well compact and strong; I have seen him carry an anvil for twenty paces and lift a cart trapped in a rut, such feats of strength as he liked to demonstrate when he was younger. His head was large, his complexion ruddy, his eyes bright, his hair thick and long. For books in those early days, he cared but little. His interests lay all outdoors – riding, hunting, hawking, wrestling. He knew more of horses than any man I ever met. His temperament was fiery but mixed with an odd tenderness for any creature in distress, be it animal or human. He wept often and was prone to melancholy.
That would do well enough. Time for more facts.
When I reached the age of sixteen, in the Year of Our Lord 1614, I was sent by my father to study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, renowned for its Puritan learning, and the following year Oliver became an undergraduate at Sidney Sussex College, barely half a mile away, also most devout. I saw him often.
Various scenes came into his mind: Oliver fighting with some town boys in the marketplace, Oliver gambling in an upstairs room of the Rose Tavern, Oliver lying with a local girl on the banks of the River Cam while Ned kept watch . . . But none of that must ever be mentioned, otherwise he would do the work of the scurrilous royalist pamphleteers for them.
His pursuit of his studies was not always diligent. After a year, he left Cambridge without taking his degree, although this was not for any want of application. Rather, his father had died, and it was necessary for him to return to his family to support his mother and his sisters. I stayed at Emmanuel and graduated. It was not until several years later that I discovered that my father – whose profligacy and lack of judgement had squandered our family’s fortune – had borrowed £600 from Robert Cromwell and was unable to repay it. It was this debt, and the deficit it left in Robert’s estate, that required Oliver to give up his degree and take charge of the family’s farm. Yet never once did Oliver mention it, and when I discovered the true situation, and swore to him that I would repay the sum, he refused my offer absolutely, saying the debt was my father’s, not mine.
He had never told anyone this story before. Even now, forty years later, writing it down, he felt his face burn with shame. But if the reader was to understand Oliver’s character – why men would follow him, no matter what – it was too revealing an episode to exclude.
He proposed next to describe how after Cambridge, in their early twenties, he and Oliver had lived in neighbouring streets in the same parish of the City of London. But when he dipped his pen in the inkwell, he found he had drained it. Where would he find more?
There was none that he could see in the small compartments that lined the back of the desk. The pair of drawers above his knees was locked. However, by chance one afternoon as he was passing the open door, he had seen Davenport hide the key, tucking it between two volumes on the nearby shelves. He saw no reason to trouble him about a mere pot of ink, so he retrieved the key. The first drawer contained nothing except paper and sealing wax. But the clink of glass when he started to pull open the second was more promising. It was crammed with coloured bottles, of dark green and dark blue, neatly labelled. There was also a little wooden box containing a very thin brass tube, about six inches long, with a small funnel at one end. A catheter, was it? Curious, he held the bottles up to the window. They were not ink. Some of the names he did not recognise, but two he did: mercury and guaiacum. There could hardly be an officer of any army in Europe, obliged to deal with rampant soldiers during a campaign, who would not have recognised the standard treatment for gonorrhoea.
He stared at them. The sickly son, the absence of other children, the separate rooms – all was suddenly explained. Davenport must have contracted the disease many years ago, before he even came to America, either in London or The Hague.
Quickly he put the bottles back, locked the desk and replaced the key. Gathering his manuscript, he checked the passage was clear, then hurried back to his room.
Man was born in sin. He struggled. He erred. He fell. All this Ned understood.
And often – he understood this too – those who inveighed the loudest against the temptations of the Devil turned out to be those who had most grievously succumbed to them; indeed, they preached so loudly precisely because of their knowledge of human weakness. Such examples were perhaps more complicated than mere hypocrisy. In any case, he had seen too much to be shocked for long.
Still, he found it hard to meet Davenport’s eye when he met him the next afternoon for their Bible study. And he detected a corresponding unease in the minister. He wondered whether in his haste he could have failed to return the key to its exact hiding place, or perhaps he had left the medicine bottles slightly out of order. Whatever the truth, it was plain that Davenport suspected his secret had been discovered, because soon afterwards he suggested that the time had come for the colonels to leave.
‘You have been here nigh on eight weeks,’ he explained, sounding uncomfortable but determined, ‘and while we would be happy to entertain you for as long as you wish, questions have begun to be asked at the store regarding the amount of food we are ordering – nearly twice what it was before. I have spoken to William Jones, and he is happy to take you under his roof for a spell. Hannah is heavy with their first child, but they have many rooms they do not use. Then you may either return here or take a turn at Mr Street’s.’
So much for the offer to stay until the Second Coming.
‘We understand,’ said Will, although he could not conceal his surprise, ‘and we thank you for your hospitality. It is a debt we can never repay. When do you wish us to leave?’
‘We thought tonight.’
Will looked even more taken aback. ‘As soon as that?’
‘If it is to be done, it is best done quickly, and tonight there will be little moon, so there is less risk you may be seen when you move across the street.’ Davenport did not look at Ned.
After he had gone, Will said, ‘It seems a mighty rush. Have we done something to offend him?’
‘But there is logic in what he says,’ replied Ned. He was not sorry to be moving. He had not been able to bring himself to tell Will of his discovery: his son-in-law took a less forgiving view of human frailty. ‘He is right about the moon. It will only get brighter over the next fortnight, and if rumours are already spreading, the danger increases the longer we remain.’
Sunset was at eight, but light lingered in the sky till nearly ten, which was the hour when Jones appeared. No one in the household had stayed up to see them off, apart from Davenport, who shook their hands and told them he would visit them in a day or two. They picked up their bags and stepped outside. The door closed behind them. Their departure was very different to their welcome, Ned thought.
Will whispered, ‘This is very handsome of you, William.’
‘Think nothing of it. Are you ready? It is only a short walk, a few hundred paces.’
They stumbled in the darkness into the road and turned left. The massive Eaton residence, with its profusion of chimneys, was dimly silhouetted by the sliver of a crescent moon. Suddenly Jones stopped. A lamp was weaving along the track towards them. He whispered a warning, crossed the road and opened the gate to the nearest house, and steered the colonels through it. ‘Lie low.’
They crouched down on the grass behind the fence and listened as Jones greeted whoever was carrying the lamp.
‘Dennis Crampton, is it?’
‘Mr Jones. You’re out late.’
‘I’ve been with Mr Davenport.’
‘Is that so?’ Crampton hawked and spat. ‘Now there’s a man you’re welcome to!’ He sounded drunk.
‘You’re far from home, Dennis. Are you fit to travel?’
‘I’m lodging with John Thorp. Will you share my light? I can see you to your gate.’
‘Thank you, no. I’ll linger here and take the air a little longer.’
‘As you like.’
Crampton moved on. A minute later, Jones leaned over the fence. ‘That was bad luck.’
Will said, ‘He does not care for Mr Davenport.’
‘He ordered him a whipping for his drinking. I thought he had moved to Guilford.’
They came out into the road. Ned glanced over his shoulder and saw the lamp again, bobbing to and fro. ‘He’s coming back.’
Jones swore. He seized one of Ned’s bags. ‘We’d best make a dash for it.’
They half walked, half ran, almost falling, until they reached the mansion’s gate. Jones pushed them into the yard. Ned was wheezing, had a pain in his side; he doubled over to catch his breath. ‘Has he seen us?’
‘I reckon not,’ said Jones, ‘but it’s no matter. He’s a fool and a drunk and nobody pays him any account.’ He opened his front door. ‘You’ll be safe here.’
Chapter Eighteen
THERE WERE TIMES, especially at the start of their journey, when Nayler felt the vastness of America would defeat them. No sooner had they traversed one endless vista of forests and mountain ridges, plains and lakes, than another opened up before them. How were two men determined to hide ever to be discovered in such a silent, unpeopled wilderness? But by the second day, he began to view it differently; not so much as a land but as an ocean, with an archipelago of tiny settlements stretched across it: stepping stones of civilisation surrounded by hostile nature. Unless the colonels proposed to live with the Indians – unthinkable, surely – their hiding places were peculiarly limited, and the risk of exposure correspondingly much greater than it might appear. The Christian population of New England was only some thirty thousand; London’s alone was nearly half a million. The regicides might have done better to have stayed at home.
If he was to succeed, what he needed most was the element of surprise. His abiding worry was that Endecott might have dispatched a messenger to warn the regicides a few hours before he and his party set out. It was never far from his thoughts, even though John Chapin, their guide, assured him there was no other trail to the Connecticut River except the one they were following, and that none of the Indians they had met had reported a lone rider ahead of them. He nevertheless insisted they go on each day until after sunset, to cover every last possible mile, despite the protests of Captain Kirke that it was too dark and dangerous to continue. Wherever they stopped, however remote, he pinned up a copy of his reward handbill – DEAD or ALIVE – reasoning that some hunter or traveller might see it and spread the word. At dawn, he was always the first to rise, going round the camp and shaking the others awake. He was aware of the resentment building against him among the Scotchmen, whom he overheard complaining that they had merely exchanged one form of slavery for another, and even in the mild-mannered Kellond and Chapin, who warned that their horses were becoming exhausted.
Still, they obeyed, that was all that mattered to him, and in the middle of the afternoon of Friday 10 May – only three days after setting out from Boston, having ridden more than a hundred miles – they reached the Connecticut. Rather than let the men briefly rest and savour their achievement, he consulted Chapin as to what lay ahead and announced that they must move on immediately to the ferry at Windsor. Wearily they saddled up again. An hour later, they were across the river, and sitting with wooden beakers of ale in the cramped downstairs room of a little inn beside the general store – all apart from Kellond and Kirke: Nayler had sent them with the warrant to find some figures of authority to question about the regicides. While he waited for them to return, he pinned up two of his reward notices in the store and the inn, and handed more out to the customers.
Kellond and Kirke reappeared around six o’clock to report that neither the minister nor the church elders would admit to having seen Whalley or Goffe but conceded that they had heard rumours of the pair being observed in Hartford.
‘How long since?’
‘Two months,’ said Kellond, ‘or thereabouts.’
‘You believe them?’
‘I do,’ replied Kirke.
‘And you, Mr Kellond?’
‘I agree.’
‘Good.’ Nayler drained his ale and stood. ‘Then Hartford it is.’
A loud chorus of complaint arose from the Scotch, especially John Ross, the former graphite miner and the most sullen of the four.
‘But there are rooms here, Mr Nayler,’ objected Kirke, with an eye on the jug of beer, ‘and only a couple of hours of daylight left. Rather than sleep another night in the open, we could rest the horses and move on in the morning.’
‘We must move on now. Otherwise you may be sure some Puritan spy will be speeding down the road ahead of us.’
For a moment nobody shifted, and Nayler wondered if he had a mutiny on his hands, in which case he wasn’t sure what he would do, so far from home in this alien land. But then Chapin spoke up in his support. ‘We shall have to walk the horses, Mr Nayler. Another hard ride would finish them.’
‘Very well, we shall walk the horses,’ he said gratefully, ‘and we shall spend the night in Hartford, where I promise you we shall seek food and shelter – and wine,’ he added, with a look at Kirke.
The captain held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. The crisis passed. Five minutes later, they were on the road again.
John Winthrop the Younger – fifty-five years old, a man of science and business as well as of faith, three times annually elected governor of Connecticut Colony – was seated at the kitchen table in his house in Hartford with his wife, Elizabeth, and the five youngest of their nine children: Mercy, Sara, Margaret, Martha and Anne. They had just finished supper, and Winthrop was reading to them from the New Testament when he heard the sound of horses coming to a halt in the street outside. He glanced at the window. A soft, dark purple light. Dusk.
Loud knocking came at the door.
Elizabeth said, ‘Who can be calling at this hour?’
‘I wonder.’ He knew, though; he knew even as he rose to his feet. He had been expecting this moment for weeks. ‘Why don’t you take the girls upstairs?’
And when he opened the door, he saw at once that he was right: two men on the step with their hats removed politely; a third standing behind – Indian blood, by the look of him – holding their horses’ reins; five others mounted, staring down at him, all filthy and unkempt from long days’ travelling, all armed.
‘Good evening, Governor,’ said the elder of the two men. ‘I am Captain Thomas Kirke, and this gentleman beside me is Mr Thomas Kellond. We are sorry indeed to disturb you at so late an hour, but we have come from Boston on urgent business.’
Winthrop stalled for time. ‘Not so urgent that it can’t wait till morning, surely?’ The pair hesitated. ‘Come back tomorrow – as early as you like. We’ll speak then. I’m just away to my bed.’
But as he started to close the door, one of the men on horseback called out, ‘We’ll speak now, Mr Winthrop, if you would be so good.’
‘And who are you, sir?’
‘My name is Richard Nayler.’
‘And are you from Boston also, Mr Nayler?’
‘No, Governor, I have come from London.’
‘From London?’ Winthrop detected authority in his voice and manner, and a certain menace. Now it was his turn to hesitate. ‘Well then, Captain Kirke and Mr Kellond,’ he said reluctantly, ‘you had best come in.’ He opened the door wider. ‘And you too, Mr Nayler.’
They spread out their documents on the kitchen table – the warrant, the King’s order with the royal seal, the letter from Endecott. It was more serious than Winthrop had anticipated. He had considered the matter for more than two months, had prayed to God for guidance, and had made up his mind what to do. ‘So, you are in pursuit of Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe?’
Kirke said, ‘We have intelligence that they were seen in Hartford at the beginning of March.’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘They may have been travelling under false names – Richardson and Stephenson.’
Winthrop made a pretence of trying to remember. ‘Richardson and Stephenson . . . Yes, now I think of it, I believe those do sound familiar.’
‘You met them?’
‘I recollect I did.’
‘They stayed in Hartford?’
‘No, they merely passed through.’
‘On their way to . . . where?’
God forgive me, thought Winthrop. ‘I believe to New Haven.’
The man from London, Nayler, who had plainly been longing to speak for some while, could contain himself no longer. ‘Come now, Governor.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Do you expect us to believe you had no notion who they were? The most wanted men in America, with a reward of a hundred pounds apiece on their heads? They come to see you, in flight from justice, and you allow them to proceed on their way? Wittingly or not, you were aiding and abetting traitors.’
