Claire Letemendia - The Best of Men

Lord Beaumont’s mansion might have been unremarkable beside a Venetian canal or on some Umbrian slope, yet it obtruded amongst these English hills like an exotic beast at a country fair. It impressed Laurence as larger and more extravagant than he recalled, with stables and outbuildings grander than most other men’s dwellings. As he rode up the elegant, winding path that led to the courtyard, he saw liveried grooms unharnessing a pair of horses from the family coach, while a small boy vigorously polished the Beaumont coat of arms emblazoned on its door.

The boy glimpsed Laurence first, and shouted, “Who’s he?”

One of the men silenced him with a cuff on the ear. Then an old, dignified fellow emerged from the stables: Lord Beaumont’s Master of the Horse.

“Why, it’s Master Beaumont, back from the wars!” he cried. “We never thought we’d see you again, sir. What a great day for us all, and a blessing for his lordship your father. Praise God you’re whole!”

“And you too, Jacob,” Laurence said warmly, dismounting to clasp the man’s hand.

“Glad you haven’t forgotten my name, sir, though that’s as should be,” Jacob affirmed. “I gave you your first riding lessons, when you could scarcely walk.”

Laurence would have taken his horse into the stables, but the grooms insisted on doing this for him, and as one of them unloaded his belongings, Jacob accompanied him to the house, talking all the way.

“We had the coach out for your brother’s wife, sir. She went to visit her mother at Winchcombe. Her ladyship wasn’t pleased at all, but the girl was pining for her own folk, with Master Thomas off in Oxford. You didn’t get a wife while you were in those foreign parts, did you, sir?”

“Oh no,” Laurence replied, somewhat amused as he thought again of Juana; what a scandal it would have caused had he brought her back with him.

At the top of the flight of stone steps stood a manservant whom Laurence did not recognise. He was dressed in a suit of velvet, his hair pomaded and curled, his expression curious beneath a veneer of professional haughtiness. “Welcome home, sir,” he said, bowing. “You will find his lordship and her ladyship in the great hall, with Mistress Elizabeth and Mistress Anne.”

Laurence thanked him, climbed the stairs, and went in. The entrance to the hall was flanked by two marble statues that his father must have acquired while he was away. They were as tall as he: a naked youth wrestling with a serpent and a nymph clad in a light vestment, her perfectly shaped breasts exposed, her sculpted hand holding out a cluster of grapes. He stood gazing at them dumbly until the servant came up behind him.

“Is something amiss, sir?” Laurence shook his head. “Allow me to announce your arrival, if it please you,” the man said, with a friendlier air. “It might be as well to prepare them.”

“I wish you could prepare me ,” Laurence muttered.

The man gave him a quick grin before resuming his previous demeanour and entering the hall. Walking more slowly behind, Laurence had a view of his two sisters poring over a book, his father in a padded armchair, and his mother at the window, half turned, looking out towards the gardens. For a moment he wished he could leave them precisely as they were. But before the servant had finished speaking, Lord Beaumont leapt up and came hurrying towards Laurence, arms outstretched. He wept openly as they embraced, and Laurence found himself blinking away tears. When his mother greeted him, however, she merely brushed his cheek with her lips, not quite touching him. She had not aged, apart from a hint of grey in her hair. As for the girls, they had grown into women, and they hung back from Laurence shyly until he gave them both a hug.

Once Lord Beaumont had recovered his composure, he called for his special Malaga to be brought out, and ordered a barrel of ale for the servants, in celebration of his son’s return. As they were served, he kept grabbing Laurence’s hand and squeezing it forcefully, exclaiming, “It is no dream — you are truly here.”

The Malaga was finer than any wine Laurence had tasted in months, yet it did not alleviate the sinking in his guts. He felt oppressed, as much by his father’s generous affection as by his mother’s reserve. Meanwhile, his sisters were absorbing every detail of him with fascinated eyes.

“I hear you’re getting married,” he said to Elizabeth.

“Who told you that?” Lady Beaumont interjected, before her daughter could respond.

“Ingram.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I passed through Newbury on my way here.”

“Did you,” she said. He caught the rebuke: he should have come straight home. “Elizabeth is to marry at Christmas,” she went on. “I trust you will attend. That is, if you are better disposed to the institution of matrimony than you were six years ago. Don’t rush to his defence,” she told her husband, who was about to interrupt. “In all that time we had almost no communication from him. Here he sits, without a word of apology for the distress he caused us, as if he has forgotten that he stole out of the house like some petty thief, on the eve of his own wedding. Are you not ashamed of it, Laurence?”

“I should be,” Laurence said, hiding a smile. He had genuinely detested the girl to whom he had been betrothed, though Lady Beaumont was right that he could have exited more gracefully from the arrangement.

“Have pity on him, my dear,” Lord Beaumont said. “By a miracle he has been restored to us. Let the matter pass.”

“I shall hope for some future explanation,” she murmured.

Lord Beaumont turned to his son. “Walter Ingram must have given you an account of our country’s desperate ills. Some think that war cannot be prevented, though many are still trying to settle affairs peacefully. Thank God there are moderates on both sides — in Parliament, the Earls of Holland, Northumberland, and Pembroke, and on the King’s side, the lawyer Edward Hyde and Lord Falkland, of course. Did you hear that his lordship has been made His Majesty’s chief Secretary of State?”

“Falkland is Secretary of State?” Laurence repeated, surprised. Falkland’s house at Great Tew was not far away, and he had been a frequent guest at Chipping Campden, as Lord Beaumont’s close friend and not Laurence’s, although he and Falkland were only a couple of years apart in age. They had met on just a few occasions, for after finishing his university studies Laurence had been living mostly in London. “Isn’t he too virtuous for public office?” Laurence added, on reflection.

“What is wrong with virtue in public office?” Lady Beaumont queried.

“Nothing in theory, but everything in practice.”

“Would His Majesty do better to choose self-serving rogues as his ministers?”

How little she had changed, Laurence noted; she was as sharp as ever. “No,” he said, “although he may already have plenty of those in his Council. What I meant is that it’s more difficult for men like Falkland to reconcile their consciences with political necessity.”

“Falkland did not seek out the honour,” Lord Beaumont said. “And in truth, I believe he may be somewhat torn between his conscience and his devotion to the King.”

“His conscience should inform him of his duty, which is to the King,” Lady Beaumont retorted, to her husband.

“Yes, though we must admit, His Majesty has made errors, as a result of bad advice, naturally. Not to excuse the treasonous behaviour of the radicals, but the country was ruled too long without a Parliament. All manner of resentment was bound to emerge, over religious differences and taxation and God knows what else. Parliament would reset the limits of royal power, and His Majesty is unwilling to bend on that issue.”