I went home, confident that the weight of my purse would guarantee me the warmest of welcomes. Not that Adela was mercenary, you understand, but with the midsummer festivities almost upon us, there were bound to be extra expenses. But although I received a kiss and several words of commendation for my day’s efforts, there was a hint of coolness in Adela’s general attitude that I found difficult to explain.
Difficult, that is, until she said frostily, ‘She’s been waiting to see you. I’ve put her in the parlour. I’ll bring you both in a drink.’
‘Who’s waiting to see me?’ I asked. But suddenly I could guess. My wife’s chilly demeanour suggested only one name.
‘Mistress Hollyns. She called about half an hour ago. I told her I didn’t know how long you’d be, but she insisted on staying in the hope of your early return.’ Adela gave a small, tight smile. ‘It seems she’s in luck.’
‘I didn’t ask her to call,’ I protested.
‘No?’
The monosyllable conveyed a world of disbelief. I could see that it would take time and skill to appease my wife and convince her of the truth. But my first priority was to get rid of Rowena.
The parlour was a smaller, snugger room than the hall, but both were considerably less well furnished than when the house had belonged to Edward Herepath. In the hall, the only thing of any opulence was the big, open hearth with its intricately carved stone mantel, picked out in shades of red and blue paint. Otherwise the room remained empty. But for the parlour we had managed to buy a carved armchair – second-hand – and rescued a flat-lidded linen chest from the central drain in High Street, where it had been thrown to rot along with the maggot-infested meat and decaying vegetables. Some people have always had more money than sense. Adela had brightened up both pieces with hand-woven green and yellow tapestries, and made sure that the floor rushes were changed daily. The broad window seat was clean, but bare. I could still remember a time when it had been adorned with velvet cushions, and when the floor had boasted rugs, not reeds.
As I entered, Rowena rose from her perch on the very edge of the chair and made me a slight, formal curtsey. She gave no indication that we had ever met before, either in the distant or the more recent past.
‘Master Chapman?’ she asked.
My patience snapped. ‘You know very well who I am. I was talking to you only the ten days or so ago. You didn’t seem to have any difficulty recognizing me then.’
The colour surged up beneath the delicate skin.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t … I mean …’ She broke off and, to my horror, the blue eyes brimmed with tears.
‘No! I’m sorry,’ I apologized. ‘Forgive me! That was unpardonably rude. Please …’ Almost without realizing what I was doing, I stepped towards her and embraced her gently. ‘Don’t cry,’ I murmured.
It was inevitable that Adela should walk into the parlour at that precise moment, carrying a tray with two beakers of her elderflower wine.
I stood there like the miserable fool I was, knocked sideways by the realization that I had just put my marriage in jeopardy, and that my long-dreamed-of ambition to hold Rowena Honeyman – Hollyns – in my arms meant absolutely nothing to me now that I had finally achieved it.
Adela made no comment. She put the tray down on top of the chest and left, closing the parlour door quietly behind her. She hadn’t looked directly at me or our visitor, but she could not have avoided seeing us, nevertheless.
Rowena angrily released herself and refused my offer of refreshment. She had stopped crying, and now had her emotions well under control. I didn’t delude myself for a second that I was responsible for her unhappiness, but undoubtedly my abruptness had been the immediate cause of her distress.
‘So? What can I do for you, Mistress Hollyns?’ I asked, motioning her to take a seat again.
She declined, standing stiff and straight beside the chair, one hand resting lightly on its arm.
‘I am here merely as an envoy for Mistress Alefounder,’ she said. ‘She would be pleased if you would call on her this evening, sometime after supper and before curfew. She feels she owes you an explanation.’
‘And you? Do you feel that you owe me an explanation, also?’
She stared. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I sneered. ‘Not so honest as your mistress, eh? Very well! Tell Mistress Alefounder I’ll wait upon her after supper, between five and six o’clock, at Master Avenel’s house in Broad Street.’
There seemed nothing more to be said, so I escorted her to the street door and stood watching as she turned in the direction of Bell Lane. Then I went back inside and made my way to the kitchen in search of Adela.
W
e made our peace, after a fashion.
I grovelled. Adela admitted that she had not been as affectionate as she might have been of late. In short, we both blamed ourselves rather than each other.
Supper was in preparation. Adam, seated in a corner, was unusually quiet as he investigated his bare feet with studied concentration. Elizabeth and Nicholas were upstairs re-enacting the Battle of Hastings, if the shouting and stampeding feet were anything to judge by.
‘So what did Mistress Hollyns want?’ Adela asked, dropping chopped vegetables into a pot of boiling water. But when I told her of Mistress Alefounder’s invitation, she turned to look at me, genuinely worried. ‘You won’t go, of course,’ she said.
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because it’s obviously a trap of some sort.’ She came across and put her hands on my shoulders, giving them a little shake. ‘For heaven’s sake, Roger, the woman has tried to kill you once already.’
‘She isn’t going to murder me in her brother’s house!’ I protested. ‘Especially when she must realize that I would have told you where I’m going.’
‘She could have you waylaid somewhere. Bell Lane, perhaps? The houses there are closer together than most.’
‘In that case, I’ll go by Corn Street. There’s always plenty of activity there of an evening on account of the Green Lattis.’ I put my arms around her, half expecting a rebuff. But none came, although she made no move to respond. ‘I have to find out what she wants, sweetheart. You must see that.’
Adela sighed. She would not attempt to dissuade me further. That was not her way of doing things. She was far too shrewd for that.
Supper was a quiet meal, the two older children having exhausted themselves with playing. Adam, tied into his little chair, was niggly but not obstreperous, as he so often was. And Adela and I were both preoccupied with our own concerns. The memory of Rowena Hollyns, and of my arms about her, still lay between us.
We discussed the coming festivities of the next two days, and my wife reminded me that we had to be up before dawn the following morning, Midsummer Eve, in order to gather the necessary herbs with which to ward off midnight’s evil spirits. I groaned inwardly, as I frequently did, at the practice of these ancient customs, whose origins were lost in the misty past of our Saxon and Celtic forebears. But I acquiesced meekly, knowing how much their observance meant to Adela.
It was well past five o’clock before I made my way to Broad Street and knocked on the door of Robin Avenel’s house. While I stood waiting, I reflected it would once have been Marjorie Dyer, then Dame Pernelle, Rob Short or Ned Stoner who answered my summons, or perhaps even Alison Weaver herself. But Marjorie and Alison were both dead, Rob and Ned had found new masters and Dame Pernelle had gone to live with her sister, Alice, in London. This evening the door was opened by a young maid who was a stranger to me.
‘I wish to see Mistress Alefounder,’ I said politely. ‘She’s expecting me. I’m Roger Chapman.’
The girl eyed me up and down, rather suspiciously I thought. Then she sniffed and held the door wide.
‘You’d better come in,’ she conceded reluctantly.
I reflected that I must be losing my touch; my irresistible boyish charm had failed to work its magic.
I was left to kick my heels in the hall while the girl went in search of Mistress Alefounder. I looked about me. How familiar it all was; the windows, giving on to Broad Street, shuttered below but the top halves fitted with rare and expensive glass panes; the doorposts and the ends of the roof beams carved in the likenesses of birds and flowers and picked out in red and gold; and the beautifully carved staircase spiralling upwards to the floor above. The two armchairs, which had stood on either side of the fireplace, had given way to a single, elaborately decorated, high-backed settle, while rushes and dried flowers had been discarded as floor covering in favour of crimson and blue woven rugs.
‘Oh! It’s you!’ exclaimed a voice. ‘What are you doing here?’
I spun round to confront Marianne Avenel. She was dressed for going out, with a light cloak clasped around her shoulders over a dress of emerald-green sarcenet and a jewelled belt that served to emphasize her slender waist and hips. Her winged headdress and veil were also made of silk, and I noticed for the first time that her eyebrows had been modishly plucked. Unlike her husband, however, she was sensible enough to avoid the extremes of fashion and had refused to shave her forehead or to ruin her complexion with applications of white lead.
‘I’m waiting for Mistress Alefounder,’ I said. ‘She’s asked to see me. Mistress Hollyns brought the message this afternoon.’
Marianne looked puzzled and would plainly have liked to question me further, except that she was in a hurry to be gone. She hesitated for a second or two, then wished me a hasty, if somewhat unwilling, farewell and vanished through the door.
She was not a moment too soon. As it closed, Robin Avenel descended the stairs, shouting, ‘Marianne!’ He pulled up short at the sight of me.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, echoing his wife.
I was growing tired of this.
‘Why don’t you ask your sister?’ I snapped. ‘She’s the one who sent for me.’
‘Oh.’ He seemed as nonplussed as his wife had been, but a great deal more worried by the information. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea.’
We stared at one another, me in my dirty working hose and jerkin, he a particoloured vision in orange and white. It made my eyes hurt just to look at him.
‘Oh,’ he said again, then enquired, ‘You haven’t seen Mistress Avenel by any chance?’
‘She’s just gone out. Didn’t she tell you?’
‘No,’ he answered with a scowl that boded no good for the absent Marianne.
‘Gone to visit a friend,’ I suggested.
I could guess which one. And by the look on his face, so could he. But then Master Robin proved me wrong by exclaiming angrily, ‘It’s that Jenny Hodge! I’ve told Marianne, I won’t have her associating with the low-born wife of a tenter. I warned Burl Hodge about it, too. Told him to put a stop to it, but all I got was a mouthful of abuse. Said his wife was quite good enough to be the friend of a brewer’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of a sudsman. He called my father a sudsman!’ Robin strode towards the door. ‘I shall go and see Hodge at once to know why he hasn’t obeyed my instructions.’ Then he paused, remembering that I was there to visit his sister. He turned, anxiety once again creasing his face. But he was saved the trouble of interrogating me further.
‘Ah! Master Chapman!’
A voice sounded behind me, and Elizabeth Alefounder emerged from the kitchen quarters, as cool and unruffled as ever.
‘What do you want with the pedlar?’ her brother demanded before she could speak again.
She gave Robin an icy stare. ‘That is between him and me. Come into the parlour, chapman. We can be private there.’
She was evidently fully at home in her brother’s house and had no compunction in acting as though she were its mistress. I could see by Robin’s expression that he resented this attitude, but also that he was afraid of her – or afraid of what she had dragged him into. His voice rose squeakily when he addressed her.
‘I’m entitled to know what’s going on in my own home. I won’t be ignored. If it’s about—’
‘Be quiet, you fool!’ Elizabeth Alefounder spoke quietly, but her tone would have chilled Lucifer in his inferno. ‘Leave this to me. You’d better go and look for that wife of yours. The saints alone know what she’s up to.’
But her brother was not to be fobbed off so easily. His overstretched nerves suddenly broke and he screamed, ‘This is all your fault, do you hear me?’ And he threw himself at her, violently pummelling her shoulder.
I was so astonished by such infantile behaviour in a grown man that it was a second or two before I moved to go to her assistance. But Elizabeth Alefounder had no need of help from me. She reacted so rapidly that I could not really see how she managed it, but the next moment, Robin’s right arm was twisted up behind his back and he was whimpering in pain. She was a very formidable woman. But then, I already knew that.
Mistress Alefounder released her brother and he fell to the floor, sobbing wildly. She gave him an enigmatic glance that I found hard to define; a considering look, as though she were coming to some sort of a decision about him. I found it quite unnerving.
She turned to me. ‘This way, Master Chapman, if you please.’ And she led me into the parlour.
Here again, the furnishings had changed since the last time I had stood in this room, but it was still the same stuffy and airless little chamber that I remembered, especially in summer. I could feel the perspiration starting to course down my back.
My companion indicated a joint stool with a carved, acanthus-leaf edging, so I folded up my tall frame and sat down, feeling awkward. She herself took the armchair opposite. She was now higher than I was, putting me at a disadvantage, which, of course, was what she had intended. I stared at her defiantly, waiting for her to begin.
This, to my surprise, she was finding difficult to do.
‘You’re … You’re not a rich man, Master Chapman. Or so I believe,’ she managed at last.
‘No,’ I answered coldly, ‘but I’m a live one. No thanks to you and Mistress Hollyns.’
She looked startled at first, presumably by my plain speaking, but then smiled with relief that I had brought the subject into the open. She lifted a green satin purse that I had noticed earlier, dangling from her girdle, and shook it. It chinked richly, and when the drawstring was released, a stream of gold coins cascaded into the palm of her hand.