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We leave before dawn tomorrow,' said Edward Morland through a mouthful of mutton. He was a tall, gaunt man of uncompromising aspect who had acquired manners too late in life for them to sit entirely easy on him. His movements as he helped himself to supper at the high table had a barely controlled violence about them and, but for his evidently expensive clothes, a casual observer might have been forgiven for thinking he had strayed by accident to the high table from the low.
His son Robert, the only other occupant of the high table since his wife and elder son had died, was quite different. Tall, like his father, and thin, and still with the gawkiness of youth upon him, he yet had an air of refinement about him: a gentler cast to his features, a quietness to his movements, an appearance of ease with the social aspects of eating. He was his mother's son, though he could hardly remember her; Edward Morland more coarsely said that he should sit to the distaff side of the fire—he resented, as far as it was possible to resent the ways of the Almighty, that it was the elder son that had died of the belly-gripes, and not the younger.
And now Robert looked up with that typically vague gaze and said to his father, 'Why such an early start? Where are we going?' 'We take the road to Leicester, my son. We are going south—and you know what the roads are like at this time of year. If we get stuck behind a wool train we'll be a fortnight on the road.'
'South?' Robert said in perplexity. 'South? What for? Not with the clip—?'
Morland smiled sardonically. 'No, not with the clip, boy.
The clip will take care of itself. No, we are going south to get you a wife.'
Robert's mouth opened at that, but he could find no word to say.
'Well may you look surprised, boy,' Morland went on unkindly. 'For all the interest you've shewn in women I might as well have found you a husband as a wife. Why God in his wisdom took my son and left me a daughter I'll never know.' Robert stiffened and clenched his teeth at the familiar, cruel words, but bore them in silence as he must. He wanted to ask a lot of questions, but he was afraid of his father, and could only wait and hope that they would be answered without his prompting. 'You don't shew much interest, boy,' Morland said irritably. He flung a scrap of fat to his dog, but the dog was too slow and the scrap disappeared under a welter of flying, growling bodies. 'Don't you want to know who it is I've managed to get for you?'
'Oh yes, of course, Father—'
'Yes, of course, Father,' Morland imitated. 'You've got a bleat like a eunuch. I hope you can manage to do your duty by this girl at any rate. Perhaps you'd better go and practise on the yows.' He laughed heartily at his own joke, and Robert forced a sickly grin to his face, knowing that if he didn't appear to laugh he would be cursed and perhaps cuffed for being sullen—and being cuffed by his father was rather like being kicked by a horse. 'Well, I'll tell you, since you press me so hard,' Morland went on when he had wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. 'She's the ward of Lord Edmund Beaufort—a girl called Eleanor Courteney. She's an orphan—one brother—estate encumbered.
She hasn't a groat by way of dowry, but she brings Lord Edmund's patronage, and she's cousin to the Earl of Devon. Do you understand?'
'Yes, Father,' Robert said automatically, though he didn't, quite.
'Think, boy, think,' Morland prompted him. 'The girl's got family and patronage. I've got money. It's a fair exchange, isn't it? Lord Edmund's trying to raise money for the wars, and he wants to keep on the good side of me. And I—well, I've got plans.'
Robert understood. It was the way of the world he lived in. Edward Morland had made a lot of money during the wars under King Harry the Fifth, as had so many people who followed the young King into battle. He had bought up land and stocked the land with sheep, and he was now one of the biggest sheep farmers in Yorkshire, and one of the richest. And on the throne was a boy King, while the kingdom was ruled by his uncles, my lord of Bedford, and the good Duke Humphrey.
And amongst the powerful men who helped to rule was the great Beaufort family, also kin to the King. To them had fallen the task of carrying on the war they had inherited from the former King; not a profitable war any more, but a very expensive one.
These great men needed money: Morland had money. It was the Earl of Somerset himself who suggested to his brother Edmund that his young ward would make a suitable wife for Morland's son. The marriage would ally Morland to one of the great families of the land, and would give him the right to the protection and patronage of the Beaufort family—the 'good-lordship' as it was called. On the other side, it would hitch Morland and his gold firmly to the Beaufort wagon, give them the right to his money and service whenever they needed it. That's how bargains were made: that was what marriage was for, as both Robert and the unknown Eleanor Courteney had been aware since early childhood.
'Aye, I've got plans,' Morland went on. He banged his wooden cup on the table and at the signal one of the kitchen boys who did duty as page ran to fill it again with ale. 'I'm a rich man. I've got land, sheep and gold. And I've one son, just one son. What do you think I want for that son, eh boy? Do you think I want to see him a rough country farmer like me? Do you think that's what your mother—God rest her soul—' he crossed himself piously and Robert followed suit automatically—' what your mother wanted? No, lad, no Robert. It's too late for me—but before I die, I'll see you a gentleman.'
'A gentleman?' Robert said.
His father cuffed the side of his head, but gently. 'Stop repeating everything I say. Yes, a gentleman. Why do you think I've chosen this girl for you, instead of a rich farmer's daughter to bring me more land? Because this girl will bring you family.' He mused for a moment, and then said with unwonted gentleness, 'Aye, and maybe it was for the best it was you who lived. You can read and write and play music. Edward couldn't. Mayhap you'll make a better gentleman than he would. Your sons will be gentlemen born. Too late for me—you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Your mother did right to teach you to read.'
'Lots of gentlemen can't read, Father. And lots of yeoman can.'
'Well, well,' Morland said impatiently. He didn't like to be comforted by his own son. 'Anyway, this girl can read, so I'm told. So you'll have a lot to talk about. But never forget where your wealth came from.' Robert knew what was coming next. His father would quote the little rhyming tag dear to the heart of all sheepmen. '"I thanke God, and ever shall; it is the sheep has payed for all".'
'Yes, Father,' Robert said dutifully.
