Chapter Fourteen
I stepped inside a little warily and was immediately embraced about the knees by Nicholas, who seemed as delighted as his mother at my unexpected reappearance. I swung him up into my arms and returned his embrace, but something must have shown in my face, for Adela laughed.
‘Set your mind at rest,’ she said bluntly. ‘As I’ve told you before, a woman can be pleased to see a man without expecting a proposal of marriage.’
I could feel the colour rising in my cheeks. ‘I … I didn’t imagine…’ I began, but being unsure how to proceed, I gave Nicholas a hearty kiss and lowered him gently to the floor.
The brown eyes mocked me. ‘No, of course you didn’t.’ Adela motioned me to a stool and busied herself fetching me a cup of ale from the barrel. ‘How was your journey? What did you discover in Keyford? Is Mistress Burnett’s cousin behind this plot to defraud her, do you think? Or are you still as much in the dark as ever?’
The awkward moment passed, her deliberate spate of questions allowing me time to recover my composure, and I settled down to give her all my news, and to thank her for looking after Elizabeth and Margaret during my absence. This last she dismissed with a wave of her hand and an exhortation not to be so foolish. But for the rest of my story, it was perhaps natural that the arrest and subsequent execution of Ankaret Twynyho should claim the largest share of her interest, for its consequences might well plunge the country into another bout of civil war.
I tried to reassure her. ‘The King has never rounded on Clarence yet, however often Brother George has betrayed him.’
‘But according to you, the men from Warwick think that the Duke is plotting open rebellion, and planning to take the crown for himself.’
I leaned forward and squeezed her hand. ‘In my opinion they’re being unduly pessimistic. King Edward has always been more than a match for his brother. He’s always been able to mollify Clarence before matters went too far, and he’ll do so this time, mark my word. Forget it, and tell me about this man who came looking for Mistress Bracegirdle.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she protested. ‘He was only a minute or two before you, and when I answered the door, his surprise at seeing me was obvious. He asked for Imelda. When I said she was dead, murdered last January, he at first refused to believe me and declared I must be mistaken. Finally, when he’d accepted that I was speaking the truth, he just kept repeating, “She can’t be! What’s he going to do?” Then he saw you coming and moved away. Poor man! I should have invited him in. He seemed completely broken by the news.’
‘And you say that he’s a kinsman of Mistress Bracegirdle?’
‘I think that’s what he said. I can’t really remember now, the whole conversation was over so quickly, but I’m almost sure he claimed to be a cousin of her mother’s. Oh, and he was holding a bundle of something under one arm, wrapped in sacking.’
Now that she mentioned it, I, too, recalled noticing the bundle, although the fact had made little impression on me at the time. I wondered where the stranger had gone and if I could search him out. But the effort of enquiring all over the town and its suburbs for a man whose name I did not even know suddenly proved too much for me, as the lethargy that had held me prisoner for the past ten days renewed its grip.
‘Are you feeling well?’ Adela was regarding me with concern. ‘You seem out of spirits.’
I denied the imputation vigorously, but then, somehow or other – and I still, to this day, have no idea how it came about – I was pouring out the whole sorry story of Rowena Honeyman; my part in her father’s death; how, before he had died, he had charged me with taking her to her aunt’s house at Keyford; my passion for her, which I had nursed all winter; my arrogance in assuming that she could ever return my affection; her patent dislike of me and her betrothal to Ralph Hollyns. Adela let me talk, hearing me out in silence, but when I had finished, she came to kneel beside my stool, putting a friendly arm around my shoulders.
‘You’ll recover,’ she said gently. ‘Believe me, people often do, however heartbroken they may feel at the time. I know that my words sound callous, but unrequited love is very difficult to keep alive.’
I smiled thinly. ‘Do you speak from experience?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ She rose from her knees and fetched me another cup of ale, then drew up a second stool and sat down alongside me. I had never noticed before how graceful all her movements were. ‘I was very much in love with my husband when I married him. My friends and family advised me against going away to live in Hereford with a man I hardly knew, but nothing any of them said could have stopped me. I would have gone barefoot with Owen Juett to the world’s end. He was a kind, gentle soul, the sort of man I’d always dreamed of, and I was certain that he loved me as much as I loved him. Oh, he liked me well enough, I’m sure of that, and he’d never been the object of so much adoration in his life before. Who can blame him if he was flattered? But at heart he was a cold man, a little afraid of all women – as he was of his old harridan of a mother, who was slowly dying of some wasting disease or other. What he really wanted was a housekeeper and a nurse for her, to make her last days comfortable. And when she died within three months of our marriage, his greatest need of me was gone. I’d realized by then, of course, that Owen didn’t love me as I loved him, and I thought I should never recover from the pain. But I did, in a surprisingly short space of time. And so will you.’
Naturally, I didn’t believe her, in spite of a lurking suspicion that she might be right. But just talking to her, just the act of sharing my unhappiness and burdening her with part of my sorrow, had in some strange way made me feel better. And when I eventually took my leave, we parted as friends in the deepest and truest meaning of the word. I kissed her lips, and she returned the salutation in the same passionless manner. Then I set out for Redcliffe and home.
* * *
During the next two weeks, I lay low, avoiding all contact with Alison and William Burnett.
On the first occasion when Mistress Burnett called at the house, I was fortunately from home, and although she left a message with my mother-in-law, requesting me to wait upon her as soon as possible, I ignored it. The second time, I was not so lucky, but Margaret, returning from the weaving sheds where she had deposited her basket of yarn, was able to warn me of Alison’s approach. Elizabeth was spending the day with Adela and Nicholas Juett, so I was able to roll beneath the bed without any fear of my presence being innocently divulged by my little daughter. Mistress Burnett was invited by mother-in-law to enter the cottage and check for herself that I was nowhere to be seen.
Her message was peremptory. ‘Tell the chapman that I want to know when he’s setting out for London. It’s high time he was thinking of going. I’m not in the mood to brook further delay.’
‘You heard that,’ Margaret remarked when the visitor had departed. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Roger,’ she reproved me as I scrambled, dusty and dishevelled, from beneath the bed, ‘but I won’t tell lies for you again. As it is, I shall have to do penance for those I’ve already told on your behalf. If you don’t want to continue poking your nose into Alderman Weaver’s affairs, then just tell Mistress Burnett so and have done with it. You know you’ll have my blessing.’
I hesitated, almost succumbing to an impulse that had become familiar to me over the past fortnight or so. But always, just as I was about to reach a definite decision to have nothing further to do with the case, I drew back from the brink. Even in the moments of my greatest despondency, I could not quite resist a mystery, and particularly not one with which I had been so closely connected in the past. I said, surprising myself as well as Margaret, ‘I shall start for London in two days’ time. But tomorrow is May Day and I’ve promised to go maying with Adela, if you’ll look after the children for us.’
No such arrangement had been made between us, and I should now have to make good my lie in order not to disappoint my mother-in-law, whose delight at the news was palpable. She was immediately off to market to buy all those ingredients necessary for a May Day breakfast; parsley, lettuce, endive and fennel; cider, apples, cream and butter. Adela, when I explained what had happened, earned my lasting gratitude by agreeing to get up at the crack of dawn. She would be happy, she said, to accompany me into the surrounding countryside in order to bring in the branches of hawthorn, birch and rowan that were used to decorate the various maypoles set up around the city.
She and Nicholas slept with us in the cottage overnight, and as soon as the Redcliffe Gate was opened at sunrise, we were two of the first people to venture out into the open fields beyond. As we climbed Redcliffe Hill, William Canynges’s great church rose out of the mist like a milky cloud, and to our right, the snaking line of the river glittered silver-grey in the uncertain morning light. The hem of Adela’s gown was quickly saturated with dew, and my boots were wet almost to their tops. Birds shrilled the dawn chorus from the branches of the trees, daisies spangled the grass like snowflakes, and cobwebs, spun overnight between blades of grass, trembled with a myriad diamond drops. A distant orchard caught the first rays of the rising sun, a froth of pink and white foaming up through the mist to bewitch our eyes; and a flock of sheep, newly released from the fold, turned to watch us with their silly, vacuous faces.
‘I think we must be the oldest couple here,’ Adela protested, laughing, surveying our companions who did indeed seem young; boys and girls for the most part, hardly one of them above the age of sixteen and all in their holiday clothes. They cheered us on as though we were in our dotage, solicitously helping us over the rougher patches of ground and assisting us to gather our armfuls of rowan and may.
The young girl who had been chosen to be their Queen was carried home in triumph on my shoulders – for I, as the tallest man present, had been singled out for this honour – and I was physically exhausted as I settled down to the breakfast that Margaret had prepared. But I also felt curiously content, as though this morning’s jaunt had purged me of the sadness that had plagued me for the past few weeks. While we ate, my mother-in-law decked the house with some of the boughs that we had brought back with us. She also decorated the children’s hoops with garlands of trailing leaves and swags of ivy, adding bows of coloured ribbon and little bells, bought the previous day in the market, so that they flashed and twinkled as they were bowled along. Afterwards, the five of us went to join in the dancing around the nearest maypole, and later still, as the sun began to sink in a blaze of crimson glory, I accompanied Adela and Nicholas home to Lewin’s Mead.
As we crossed the Frome Bridge, the river bloodied by the sunset, I said quietly, ‘You’ve been a good friend to me, Adela. Thank you. I shan’t forget. If I can ever be of service…’
‘You and Margaret have already been of great service to Nick and me,’ she interrupted. ‘You have nothing to thank me for. It’s very little that I’ve been able to do in return.’ She quickened her step as we passed beneath the archway of the gate. ‘Look! There’s Richard waiting for me. He must have finished his spell of duty at the castle.’
Not for the first time, the sight of Richard Manifold’s smiling countenance made my hackles rise. There was nothing about him – not his red hair nor his bright blue eyes, not his stocky figure nor his aggressive stance – that commended itself to me. I had no idea why his appearance so irritated me; no notion why I wanted to wipe the smug, self-satisfied expression off his face each time we met. I gritted my teeth, gripped Nicholas’s hand more firmly in mine, as though to emphasize my right of possession, and reluctantly followed Adela to the cottage door.
But for once, the Sheriff’s Officer had not come to pass the time of day or to reminisce about times past, and he gave me none of his usual disapproving looks when I entered the cottage in Adela’s wake. He was too full of news that had arrived at the castle earlier in the afternoon, while most of the population had been out celebrating.
Adela, ever the careful hostess, plied Richard with ale and offered him a seat before allowing him to proceed with his story.
‘Now, what’s happened?’ she asked, but only when satisfied that he was comfortable.
‘The King has arrested one of Clarence’s household, a man called Thomas Burdet, and he’s to be tried on a charge of attempting to procure the King’s death by necromancy. The Sheriff reckons there’s no doubt but he’ll be hanged. A life for a life, even if it means another rigged jury.’
I sucked in my breath. ‘Brother George won’t stand for it,’ I said, forgetting for a moment my dislike of Richard Manifold in my anxiety for his opinion. ‘Does this mean civil war after all, do you think?’
He nodded portentously. ‘It could lead to that. But the lord Sheriff is in two minds about it. He said it wasn’t like King Edward to be so maladroit.’
‘Nor is it.’ I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully. ‘He’s up to something. But what? How did you come to hear of this development?’
‘An Augustinian friar from All Hallows on the Wall, in London, has come to Bristol on business with his fellows at Temple Gate. This was one of the bits of news, amongst others, that he brought with him, and it was thought to be of sufficient importance, in view of its possible consequences, to pass on to the lord Sheriff.’
‘Is there more to the story than you’ve told us?’ Adela asked quietly, but with an edge of steel to her voice. ‘Or has some poor unfortunate retainer in Clarence’s employ simply been picked upon, as Ankaret Twynyho was picked on by Prince George, to be a scapegoat, in order to satisfy the Queen’s desire for revenge?’
Richard Manifold swallowed the remainder of his ale and glanced hopefully at the barrel on the far side of the room. When Adela ignored this hint, he sighed and continued, ‘He was apparently accused of sorcery by an Oxford clerk, whose name I can’t at this moment recall – Blake, was it? Thomas Blake? – who, in his turn, had been named as a necromancer by another Oxford clerk called John Stacey, a caster of horoscopes. So you see, Adela, this man has not been picked at random by the King and his officers.’
Adela smiled grimly. ‘And what, I wonder, have these other two, this John Stacey and Thomas Blake, been promised if they impeach some poor man of the Duke of Clarence’s household? Will they stand on the scaffold alongside him when he’s hanged, or will they mysteriously be forgiven for their sins?’
Richard Manifold clucked his tongue disapprovingly. ‘You’re becoming far too cynical, my dear. It’s not womanly. You’re allowing yourself to be influenced by others.’ He glared at me; and before a furious Adela could rebut his accusation, he had noticed the still damp, mud-streaked hem of her gown. ‘Don’t tell me you were gathering may this morning! No, no! This won’t do at all! At your age you really should know better.’
The reproof was meant for me. He was angry because he guessed that I had been her companion on an expedition that he would have liked to have shared with her himself. He spoke without thinking of the effect of his words upon Adela, and stared at her in astonishment when she rose wrathfully to her feet and ordered him from the house.
‘You forget yourself, Richard! I am not a child to be spoken to in such a fashion. I am twenty-six years of age, and I ask you to remember that. Nor am I answerable to you for any of my thoughts and feelings. Nor,’ she added significantly, ‘for my friends or the company that I keep. Please leave, and do not return until you are invited back.’
Like all red-haired people, he blushed easily, and the colour surged into his face in a fiery tide. ‘Now look here!’ he blustered, first thumping the table before standing up. ‘There’s absolutely no need…’
‘Please leave,’ Adela repeated in a quieter voice. Nicholas had crept to her side and was holding tightly to her hand, uneasy, as children always are, when their elders quarrel.
Richard Manifold looked like someone who had stepped into a quagmire where he had thought all to be firm ground. Then he jutted his chin belligerently. ‘You were always a stubborn woman,’ he taunted her. ‘If you hadn’t been, you’d never have married that weakling from Hereford, who died on you after only seven years.’ He drew himself up and puffed out his chest to demonstrate his own health and strength. ‘All right! I’m going. But you’ll soon be begging me to come back, see if you’re not!’ And on that valedictory note, he stalked to the door and let himself out into the soft May twilight.
Adela sucked in a deep breath and smiled tremulously at me. ‘I’ve been looking for an excuse to do that for months,’ she said. ‘I never liked him very much, not even when I was young. There was always something about him, some touch of arrogance, of self-importance, that irritated me beyond endurance. I’m not surprised he hasn’t married. No woman could put up with him.’
‘If he bothers you again in the next few weeks,’ I said firmly, ‘let me know.’
She laughed. ‘You won’t be here. You’ll be in London.’
Her words echoed the everlasting complaint of my mother-in-law, but they were uttered in a tone of amusement rather than reproach. Looking at her across the table, I remembered my first opinion of her as a self-contained and self-reliant woman, who, over the years, had taught herself to be emotionally as well as physically independent of other people. She would give her loyalty and her love without expecting too much in return. She would let a man go about the world and still welcome him back with open arms whenever he chose to come home. The man whom she eventually married would be extremely fortunate, and for a moment I felt almost jealous of him.
I only realized that I was staring at her when she lowered her eyes, obviously embarrassed by my steady scrutiny. ‘You’d better be getting back to Margaret,’ she said. ‘She’ll be waiting for you.’ She looked up once more and smiled, having recovered her composure. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll see you again before you set out for London. Take care. And God be with you.’
‘And with you.’ I kissed her proffered cheek and ruffled Nicholas’s hair. When I still hesitated, she laughed good-humouredly, anticipating my question.
‘Of course I’ll keep an eye on Margaret and Elizabeth for you. Nick would miss Bess if he didn’t see her every day, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’
Nicholas nodded vigorously, understanding only the name and the fact that he was being asked to express his approval. ‘Like Bess,’ he affirmed. ‘Like Bess.’
I thanked her and glanced towards the spinning wheel in the corner. ‘All goes well with Alderman Weaver?’
‘Very well. I’ve as much work as I can handle and he’s a kind and considerate employer. I’ve seen him once or twice when collecting my daily supply of wool, and he always remembers my name and gives me a friendly word.’
I was interested. ‘Is his so-called son ever with him?’ I asked.
Adela clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘There! I meant to tell you when I saw you again, and I quite forgot. I met them together one morning while you were away. I’d gone round by the rope-walk in order to get a breath of fresh air and to stretch my legs before returning to Margaret’s to pick up Nicholas. Alderman Weaver was looking very unwell and leaning heavily on the young man’s arm. But in spite of that, I thought how happy and contented he appeared.’
‘How can he possibly be happy and contented,’ I demanded angrily, ‘when he’s prepared to rob his daughter of her rights? How can he allow himself to be taken in by this impostor?’
‘Well, that was the strange thing,’ Adela answered slowly. ‘The Alderman hadn’t noticed me. It was a chilly morning with a nipping wind, and he had his hat pushed forward, over his eyes, against the cold. But the young man saw me. He was looking straight ahead, and as I drew abreast, he said, “Hello, Adela. I heard your husband had died and I’m sorry. You’d best marry a Bristol man next time.”’
I shrugged. ‘There’s nothing in that. He could easily have heard the Alderman talking about you after you’d called to ask him for work.’
‘But he knew me,’ she insisted. ‘He recognized me.’
‘He must have seen you when you called at the Broad Street house. Of course! That would be how he and Alderman Weaver came to be talking about you. “Who was that?” our friend would have wanted to know, and then your history would have come tumbling out.’
Adela shook her head. ‘You’re forgetting,’ she said. ‘I didn’t call in Broad Street. It was Margaret who went on my behalf. If this man is an impostor, we had never set eyes on one another before that morning by the rope-walk, but he knew me at once for who I am. And what is more, although my youthful memories of Clement Weaver are hazy, there’s one thing about him that I do recall. Clement had a habit of looking you directly in the eyes when he spoke, as if everything he said was a challenge that he was expecting you to take up and contradict. This man looked at me in precisely the same fashion. You know, Roger, the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to the view that he could well be who he claims he is.’