At last the lawyer rose from his seat. ‘I’ll see you some time soon, Frederik, and we’ll sort out the details.’ He turned to Margriet. ‘I won’t detain you from your activities any longer, Miss Vandergroene. It has been a great pleasure meeting you and I am always at your service.’ He gave her a courtly bow of his head, his hand to his chest.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m much obliged.’
Frederik gave an indulgent smile and shook hands with Webster, who murmured ‘Charming’ as he left them.
Frederik turned to his daughter. ‘Shall we continue our walk, Margriet, or are you tired?’
‘Oh, no,’ she assured him. ‘I want to know what comes next.’
They walked away from the pier with their backs to the estuary, and Margriet felt the cool wind at her neck. Soon they came to Market Place, where the gleaming statue of William of Orange, or King Billy as he was affectionately known in the town, sat astride his horse.
‘What you have to imagine, Margriet,’ her father said, ‘is that in the olden times, before these buildings were here, this was open land. When King Henry came on a visit he liked what he saw and took Suffolk Palace for himself, renaming it the King’s Manor House and laying out elaborate gardens with fish ponds, flowering bushes and trees that stretched all the way down here.’
‘And did the king walk in the gardens?’ she asked, her voice rising in wonder. ‘Did he come down here where we are now?’
‘I expect he did, along with his advisers and noblemen, and perhaps noblewomen too.’
‘I expect the ladies liked the gardens more than the gentlemen did,’ she said. ‘Mama would have liked them.’
‘Mmm,’ her father said. ‘Perhaps so.’ He was thinking that Rosamund had never shown any interest in visiting the tulip fields of his home country. Entertaining or being entertained was what she liked most of all.
‘Can you see them in your mind’s eye?’ he asked her. ‘The gentlemen dressed in doublets made of the finest material, and linen shirts with wide sleeves, with gold chains round their necks and rings on their fingers to indicate their wealth, and the noblewomen wearing so many layers of petticoats under their velvet gowns that it would have taken them hours to get ready before being seen in public.’
‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘I wouldn’t have liked that. It takes Florrie a long time to dress me before I go out with Mama. I have to wear three petticoats. I much prefer it when I stay in for lessons and only need to wear one. And I expect those ladies wouldn’t have wanted to get their lovely gowns dirty if the weather was wet, but how uncomfortable they would have been if the days were hot!’
They continued along Market Place, past the stalls near Holy Trinity Church where the traders were calling out their wares, their voices mingling with the squawks of caged hens and the bleating of goats and the rattle and rumbling of wheels on the cobbles, until Margriet said abruptly, ‘But what about the poor people?’
‘The poor people?’ Frederik’s thoughts had turned away from the past to the present day and his conversation with Webster. He had made a will in Rosamund’s favour, with provision for Margriet and any other children they might have – although he considered that highly unlikely – but he hadn’t given any thought to Rosamund’s position if by chance he should die suddenly and she should marry again.
He recalled the sinking of a passenger ship only the previous year, when a sudden storm had blown up in the German Sea and many people had drowned. He spent a considerable time travelling overseas, he thought, and the worst could happen. Rosamund was not yet thirty, and she was not wise enough to look after her own interests. Just like poor Mrs Smithson and her daughters, she and Margriet could be in a very precarious position if she should marry a bounder.
Margriet was pulling at his sleeve. ‘Papa! What about them? Were there any, or was everyone rich?’
He gazed vaguely at her. ‘Ah, the poor who are always with us. They would rub along as usual, I suppose,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘They would try to keep alive by whatever means possible. Work, if they could find it.’ He wondered whether there were workhouses in those far-off days, and considered it unlikely. ‘In order to buy their bread and lodgings,’ he added.
‘Well, that would be very unfair,’ Margriet said indignantly, ‘especially if there were rich people who could have helped them.’
Frederik sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it was always so. It is an unfair world.’ He looked down at her sweet little face, which was wearing an unaccustomed scowl. ‘So how do you know about poor people, my dear Daisy? Who has told you?’
‘I’ve seen them from my window. They come to the workhouse at the end of the street and wait outside the gate to be let in; and when Mama goes shopping they hold out their hands to her.’
But, she thought, Mama says, ‘Don’t look at them. Come away, come away, don’t look at them,’ and never gives them a single copper, unlike Florrie when she comes with us to carry the parcels. She slips a coin into their hands, especially the old beggar women who are dressed in rags and can barely walk in their torn boots. Mama says I mustn’t touch them as they are probably diseased, and Florrie nips her mouth up very tight when she hears that. She doesn’t say anything in front of Mama – she’s afraid to, I expect – but she tells me afterwards that they are to be pitied for having fallen on hard times.
‘I have one more place to show you,’ her father was saying, ‘but if you’re tired we can cut across in front of the church and go home.’
‘I’m not tired,’ she said quickly, even though she was, but she didn’t want the outing to end. ‘I’d like to see it.’
He led her on until they reached the top of Silver Street once again and were looking down the length of Whitefriargate, within minutes of home.
‘Down here is a street that you might have passed without noticing,’ he said, ‘and there are many stories of how it came to be named.’
Margriet looked up at him quizzically. ‘Mama says we must hurry past all the little streets – entries, she calls them – for fear of robbers and ne’er-do-wells hiding in them. I can see one of them from a window at the back of our house. Florrie says it’s called Winter’s Alley. I hadn’t been down the passage to Duncan’s Entry before, but sometimes if I go on an errand with Florrie we cut through some of the others.’
She hesitated, fearing she had been indiscreet and might have got Florrie into trouble, but her father simply smiled and said that he was quite sure Florrie would not let her run into danger. A moment later he pulled her to a halt. ‘Now, do you know where we are?’
Margriet looked round. ‘I do know this street,’ she said, ‘but not its name.’
‘Then look up and find it, and then tell me what you think of it.’
Margriet gazed up at the high walls on either side. It was an unremarkable street with an inn on the corner, and it was not as elegant as their own Parliament Street; most of the buildings had tall doorways leading straight off the street, and she saw that what she had thought was a small lane led into a courtyard and the narrow passage they had come down earlier. She spun round and saw Bowlalley Lane behind her, then lifted her gaze again and saw the name he was referring to.
She drew in a breath and mouthed, ‘Oh.’ On a grimy metal plaque, too high for her to have noticed before, she read, Land of Green Ginger.