Lud-In-The-Mist

Chapter XVIII
Mistress Ivy Peppercorn

The tasks assigned to the clerks in Master Nathaniel's counting-house did not always concern cargoes and tonnage. For instance, once for two whole days they had not opened a ledger, but had been kept busy, under their employer's supervision, in cutting out and pinning together fantastic paper costumes to be worn at Ranulph's birthday party. And they were quite accustomed to his shutting himself into his private office, with strict injunctions that he was not to be disturbed, while he wrote, say, a comic valentine to old Dame Polly Pyepowders, popping his head frequently round the door to demand their help in finding a rhyme. So they were not surprised that morning when told to close their books and to devote their talents to discovering, by whatever means they chose, whether there were any relations living in Lud of a west country farmer called Gibberty who had died nearly forty years ago.

Great was Master Nathaniel's satisfaction when one of them returned from his quest with the information that the late farmer's widowed daughter, Mistress Ivy Peppercorn, had recently bought a small grocer's shop in Mothgreen, a village that lay a couple of miles beyond the north gate.

There was no time to be lost, so Master Nathaniel ordered his horse, put on the suit of fustian he wore for fishing, pulled his hat well down over his eyes, and set off for Mothgreen.

Once there, he had no difficulty in finding Mistress Ivy's little ship, and she herself was sitting behind the counter.

She was a comely, apple-cheeked woman of middle age, who looked as if she would be more in her element among cows and meadows than in a stuffy little ship, redolent of the various necessities and luxuries of a village community.

She seemed of a cheerful, chatty disposition, and Master Nathaniel punctuated his various purchases with quips and cranks and friendly questions.

By the time she had weighed him out two ounces of snuff and done them up in a neat little paper poke she had told him that her maiden name had been Gibberty, and that her late husband had been a ship's captain, and she had lived till his death in the seaport town. By the time she had provided him with a quarter of lollipops, he knew that she much preferred a country life to trade. And by the time a woolen muffler had been admired, purchased and done up in a parcel, she had informed him that she would have liked to have settled in the neighbourhood of her old home, but -there were reasons.

What these reasons were took time, tact and patience to discover. But never had Master Nathaniel's wistful inquisitiveness, masquerading as warm-hearted sympathy, stood him in better stead. And she finally admitted that she had a stepmother whom she detested, and whom, moreover, she had good reason to distrust.

At this point Master Nathaniel considered he might begin to show his hand. He gave her a meaning glance; and asked her if she would like to see justice done and rascals getting their deserts, adding, "There's no more foolish proverb than the one which says that dead men tell no tales. To help dead men to find their tongues is one of the chief uses of the Law."

Mistress Ivy looked a little scared. "Who may you be, sir, please?" she asked timidly.

"I'm the nephew of a farmer who once employed a labourer called Diggory Carp," he answered promptly.

A smile of enlightenment broke over her face.

"Well, who would have thought it!" she murmured. "And what may your uncle's name have been? I used to know all the farmers and their families round our part."

There was a twinkle in Master Nathaniel's candid hazel eyes: "I doubt I've been too sharp and cut myself!" he laughed. "You see, I've worked for the magistrates, and that gets one into the habit of setting traps for folk… the Law's a wily lady. I've no uncle in the West, and I never knew Diggory Carp. But I've always taken an interest in crime and enjoyed reading the old trials. So when you said your name had been Gibberty my mind at once flew back to a certain trial that had always puzzled me, and I thought perhaps, the name Diggory Carp might unlock your tongue. I've always felt there was more behind that trial than met the eye."

"Did you indeed?" said Mistress Ivy evasively. "You seem mighty interested in other folks' affairs," and she looked at him rather suspiciously.

This put Master Nathaniel on his mettle. "Now, hark'ee, Mistress Ivy, I'm sure your father took a pleasure in looking at a fine crop, even if it was in another man's field, and that your husband liked good seamanship…"

And here he had to break off his dissertation and listen, which he did very patiently, to a series of reminiscences about the tastes and habits of her late husband.

"Well, as I was saying," he went on, when she paused for a moment to sigh, and smile and wipe her eyes with the corner of her apron, "what the sight of a field filled to the brim with golden wheat was to your father, and that of a ship skilfully piloted into harbour was to your husband, the sight of Justice crouching and springing on her prey is to me. I'm a bachelor, and I've managed to put by a comfortable little nest-egg, and there's nothing I'd like to spend it on better than in preventing Justice being balked of her lawful prey, not to mention helping to avenge a fine fellow like your father. We old bachelors, you know, have our hobbies… they're quieter about the house than a crowd of brats, but they're sometimes quite as expensive," and he chuckled and rubbed his hands.

He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and seemed actually to have become the shrewd, honest, and somewhat bloodthirsty old fellow he had created. His eyes shone with the light of fanaticism when he spoke of Justice, the tiger; and he could picture the snug little house he lived in in Lud - it had a little garden gay with flowers, and a tiny lawn, and espalier fruit trees, to the care of which he dedicated his leisure hours. And he had a dog, and a canary, and an old housekeeper. Probably, when he got home to-night, he would sit down to a supper of sausages and mashed, followed by a toasted cheese. And then, when he had finished his supper, he would get out his collection of patibulary treasures, and over a bowl of negus finger lovingly the various bits of gallows rope, the blood-stained glove of a murdered strumpet, the piece of amber worn as a charm by a notorious brigand chief, and gloat over the stealthy steps of his pet tiger, the Law. Yes, his obscure little life was as gay with hobbies as his garden was with flowers. How comfortable were other men's shoes!

"Well, if what you mean," said Mistress Ivy, "is that you'd like to help punish wicked people, why, I wouldn't mind lending a hand myself. All the same," and again she looked at him suspiciously, "what makes you think my father didn't come by a natural death?"

"My nose, good lady, my nose!" and, as he spoke, he laid a knowing finger alongside the said organ. "I smelt blood. Didn't it say in the trial that the corpse bled?"

She bridled, and cried scornfully, "And you, to be town-bred, too, and an educated man from the look of you, to go believing that vulgar talk! You know what country people are, setting everything that happens to the tunes of old songs. It was two drops of blood when the story was told in the tavern at Swan, and by the time it had reached Moongrass it was a gallon. I walked past the corpse with the others, and I can't say I noticed any blood - but, then, my eyes were all swelled with crying. All the same, it's what made Pugwalker leave the country."

"Indeed?" cried Master Nathaniel, and his voice was very eager.

"Yes. My stepmother was never the kind to be saucy with - though I had no cause to love her, I must say she looked like a queen, but he was a foreigner and a little bit of a chap, and the boys in the village and all round gave him no peace, jumping out at him from behind hedges and chasing him down the street, shouting, `Who made the corpse of Farmer Gibberty bleed?' and such like. And he just couldn't stand it, and slipped off one night, and I never thought to see him again. But I've seen him in the streets of Lud, and not long ago too - though he didn't see me."

Master Nathaniel's heart was thumping with excitement. "What is he like?" he asked breathlessly.

"Oh! very like what he was as a young man. They say there's nothing keeps you young like a good conscience!" and she laughed drily. "Not that he was ever much to look at -squat and tubby and freckled, and such saucy prying eyes!"

Master Nathaniel could contain himself no longer, and in a voice hoarse with excitement he cried, "Was it… do you mean the Lud doctor, Endymion Leer?"

Mistress Ivy pursed up her mouth and nodded meaningfully.

"Yes, that's what he calls himself now… and many folks set such store by him as a doctor, that, to hear them talk, one would think a baby wasn't properly born unless he'd brought it into the world, nor a man properly dead unless he'd closed his eyes."

"Yes, yes. But are you sure he is the same as Christopher Pugwalker? Could you swear to him in court?" cried Master Nathaniel eagerly.

Mistress Ivy looked puzzled. "What good would it do to swear at him?" she asked doubtfully. "I must say I never held with foul language in a woman's mouth, nor did my poor Peppercorn - for all that he was a sailor."

"No, no!" cried Master Nathaniel impatiently, and proceeded to explain to her the meaning of the expression. She dimpled a little at her own blunder, and then said guardedly, "And what would bring me into the law courts, I should like to know? The past is over and done with, and what is done can't be undone."

Master Nathaniel fixed her with a searching gaze, and, forgetting his assumed character, spoke as himself.

"Mistress Peppercorn," he said solemnly, "have you no pity for the dead, the dumb, helpless dead? You loved your father, I am sure. When a word from you might help to avenge him, are you going to leave that word unsaid? Who can say that the dead are not grateful for the loving thoughts of the living, and that they do not rest more quietly in their graves when they have been avenged? Have you no time or pity left for your dead father?"

During this speech Mistress Ivy's face had begun working, and at the last words she burst into sobs. "Don't think that, sir," she gasped; "don't think that! I remember well how my poor father used to sit looking at her of an evening, not a word passing his lips, but his eyes saying as clearly as if it had been his tongue, `No, Clem,' (for my stepmother's name was Clementine), `I don't trust you no further than I see you, but, for all that, you can turn me round your little finger, because I'm a silly, besotted old fool, and we both know it.' Oh! I've always said that my poor father had both his eyes wide open, in spite of him being the slave of her pretty face. It was not that he didn't see, or couldn't see - what he lacked was the heart to speak out."

"Poor fellow! And now, Mistress Ivy, I think you should tell me all you know and what it is that makes you think that, in spite of the medical evidence to the contrary, your father was murdered," and he planted his elbows on the counter and looked at her squarely in the face.

But Mistress Ivy trimmed. "I didn't say that poor father was poisoned with osiers. He died quiet and peaceful, father did."

"All the same, you think there was foul play. I am not entirely disinterested in this matter, now that I know Dr. Leer is connected with it. I happen to bear him a grudge."

First Mistress Ivy shut the door on to the street, and then leant over the counter, so that her face was close to his, and said in a low voice: "Why, yes, I always did think there had been foul play, and I'll tell you why. Just before my father died we'd been making jam. And one of poor father's funny little ways was to like the scum of jam or jelly, and we used to keep some of every boiling in a saucer for him. Well, my own little brother Robin, and her little girl - a little tot of three - were buzzing round the fruit and sugar like a pair of little wasps, whining for this, sticking their fingers into that, and thinking they were helping with the jam-making. And suddenly my stepmother turned round and caught little Polly with her mouth all black with mulberry juice. And oh, the taking she was in! She caught her and shook her, and ordered her to spit out anything she might have in her mouth; and then, when she found out it was mulberries, she cooled down all of a sudden and told Polly she must be a good girl and never put anything in her mouth without asking first.

"Now, the jam was boiled in great copper cauldrons, and I noticed a little pipkin simmering on the heath, and I asked my stepmother what it was. And she answered carelessly, `Oh, it's some mulberry jelly, sweetened with honey instead of sugar, for my old grandfather at home.' And at the time I didn't give the matter another thought. But the evening before my father died… and I've never mentioned this to a soul except my poor Peppercorn… after supper he went and sat out in the porch to smoke his pipe, leaving her and him to their own doings in the kitchen; for she'd been brazen-faced enough, and my father weak enough, actually to have the fellow living there in the house. And my father was a queer man in that way - too proud to sit where he wasn't wanted, even in his own kitchen. And I'd come out, too, but I was hid from him by the corner of the house, for I had been waiting for the sun to go down to pick flowers, to take to a sick neighbour the next day. But I could hear him talking to his spaniel, Ginger, who was like his shadow and followed him wherever he went. I remember his words as clearly as if it had been yesterday: `Poor old Ginger!' he said, `I thought it would be me who would dig your grave. But it seems not, Ginger, it seems not. Poor old lady, by this time tomorrow I'll be as dumb as you are… and you'll miss our talks, poor Ginger.' And then Ginger gave a howl that made my blood curdle, and I came running round the corner of the house and asked father if he was ailing, and if I could fetch him anything. And he laughed, but it was as different as chalk from cheese from the way he laughed as a rule. For poor father was a frank-hearted, open-handed man, and not one to hoard up bitterness any more than he would hoard up money; but that laugh - the last I heard him give - was as bitter as gall. And he said, `Well, Ivy, my girl, would you like to fetch me some peonies and marigolds and shepherd's thyme from a hill where the Silent People have danced, and make me a salad from them?' And seeing me looking surprised, he laughed again, and said, `No, no. I doubt there are no flowers growing this side of the hills that could help your poor father. Come, give me a kiss -you've always been a good girl.' Now, these are flowers that old wives use in love potions, as I knew from my granny, who was very wise about herbs and charms, but father had always laughed at her for it, and I supposed he was fretting over my stepmother and Pugwalker, and wondering if he could win her heart back to him.

"But that night he died, and it was then that I started wondering about that jelly in the pipkin, for him, liking scum as he did, and always having a saucer of it set aside for him, it wouldn't have been difficult to have boiled up some poison for him without any danger of other folks touching it. And Pugwalker knew all about herbs and such like, and could have told her what to use. For it was as plain as print that poor father knew he was going to die, and peonies make a good purge; and I've often wondered since if it was as a purge that he wanted these flowers. And that's all I know, and perhaps it isn't much, but it's been enough to keep me awake many a night of my life wondering what I should have done if I'd been older. For I was only a little maid of ten at the time, with no one I could talk to, and as frightened of my stepmother as a bird of a snake. If I'd been one of the witnesses, I dare say it would have come out in court, but I was too young for that."

"Perhaps we could get hold of Diggory Carp?"

"Diggory Carp?" she repeated in surprise. "But surely you heard what happened to him? Ah, that was a sad story! You see, after he was sent to gaol, there came three or four terrible lean years, one after the other. And food was so dear, no one, of course, had any money for buying fancy goods like baskets… and the long and the short of it was that when Diggory came out of gaol he found that his wife and children had died of starvation. And it seemed to turn his wits, and he came up to our farm, raging against my stepmother, and vowing that someday he'd get his own back on her. And that night he hanged himself from one of the trees in our orchard, and he was found there dead the next morning."

"A sad story," said Master Nathaniel. "Well, we must leave him out of our calculations. All you've told me is very interesting - very interesting indeed. But there's still a great deal to be unravelled before we get to the rope I'm looking for. One thing I don't understand is Diggory Carp's story about the osiers. Was it a pure fabrication of his?"

"Poor Diggory! He wasn't, of course, the sort of man whose word one would be very ready to take, for he did deserve his ten years - he was a born thief. But I don't think he would have had the wits to invent all that. I expect the story he told was true enough about his daughter selling the osiers, but that it was only for basket-making that she wanted them. Guilt's a funny thing - like a smell, and one often doesn't quite know where it comes from. I think Diggory's nose was not mistaken when it smelt out guilt, but it led him to the wrong clue. My father wasn't poisoned by osiers."

"Can you think what it was, then?"

She shook her head. "I've told you everything I know."

"I wish you knew something more definite," said Master Nathaniel a little fretfully. "The Law dearly loves something it can touch - a blood-stained knife and that sort of thing. And there's another matter that puzzles me. Your father seems, on your showing, to have been a very indulgent sort of husband, and to have kept his jealousy to himself. What cause was there for the murder?"

"Ah! that I think I can explain to you," she cried. "You see, our farm was very conveniently situated for… well, for smuggling a certain thing that we don't mention. It stands in a sort of hollow between the marches and the west road, and smugglers like a friendly, quiet place where they can run their goods. And my poor father, though he may have sat like a dumb animal in pain when his young wife was gallivanting with her lover, all the same, if he had found out what was being stored in the granary, Pugwalker would have been kicked out of the house, and she could have whistled for him till she was black in the face. My father was easy-going enough in some ways, but there were places in him as hard as nails, and no woman, be she never so much of a fool (and, fair play to my stepmother, she was no fool), can live with a man without finding out where these places are."

"Oh, ho! So what Diggory Carp said about the contents of that sack was true, was it?" And Master Nathaniel inwardly thanked his stars that no harm had come to Ranulph during his stay in such a dangerous place.

"Oh, it was true, and no mistake; and, child though I was at the time, I cried through half one night with rage when they told me what the hussy had said in court about my father using the stuff as manure and her begging him not to! Begging him not to, indeed! I could have told them a very different story. And it was Pugwalker that was at the back of that business, and got the granary key from her, so they could run their goods there. And shortly before my father died he got wind of it - I know that from something I overheard. The room I shared with my little brother Robin opened into theirs, and we always kept the door ajar, because Robin was a timid child, and fancied he couldn't go to sleep unless he heard my father snoring. Well, about a week before my father died I heard him talking to her in a voice I'd never known him to use to her before. He said he'd warned her twice already that year, and that this was the last time. Up to that time he'd held his head high, he said, because his hands were clean and all his doings straight and fair, and now he warned her for the last time that unless this business was put a stop to once and for all, he'd have Pugwalker tarred and feathered, and make the neighbourhood too hot for him to stay in it. And, I remember, I heard him hawking and spitting, as if he'd rid himself of something foul. And he said that the Gibbertys had always been respected, and that the farm, ever since they had owned it, had helped to make the people of Dorimare straight-limbed and clean-blooded, for it had sent fresh meat and milk to market, and good grain to the miller, and sweet grapes to the vintner, and that he would rather sell the farm than that poison and filth should be sent out of his granary, to turn honest lads into idiots gibbering at the moon. And then she started coaxing him, but she spoke too low for me to catch the words. But she must have been making him some promise, for he said gruffly, `Well, see that it's done, then, for I'm a man of my word.'

"And in not much more than a week after that he was dead - poor father. And I count it a miracle that I ever grew up and am sitting here now telling you all this. And a still greater one that little Robin grew up to be a man, for he inherited the farm. But it was her own little girl that died, and Robin grew up and married, and though he died in his prime it was through a quinsy in his throat, and he always got on with our stepmother, and wouldn't hear a word against her. And she has brought up his little girl, for her mother died when she was born. But I've never seen the lass, for there was never any love lost between me and my stepmother, and I never went back to the old house after I married."

She paused, and in her eyes was that wistful, tranced look that always comes when one has been gazing at things that happened to one long ago.

"I see, I see," said Master Nathaniel meditatively. "And Pugwalker? Did you ever see him again till you recognized him in the streets of Lud the other day?"

She shook her head. "No, he disappeared, as I told you, just before the trial. Though I don't doubt that she knew his whereabouts and heard from him - met him even; for she was always going out by herself after nightfall. Well, well, I've told you everything I know - though perhaps I'd have better held my tongue, for little good comes of digging up the past."

Master Nathaniel said nothing; he was evidently pondering her story.

"Well," he said finally, "everything you have told me has been very interesting - very interesting indeed. But whether it will lead to anything definite is another matter. All the evidence is purely circumstantial. However, I'm very grateful to you for having spoken to me as freely as you've done. And if I find out anything further I'll let you know. I shall be leaving Lud shortly, but I shall keep in touch with you. And, under the circumstances, perhaps it would be prudent to agree on some word or token by which you would recognize a messenger as really coming from me, for the fellow you knew as Pugwalker has not grown less cunning with advancing years - he's full of guile, and let him once get wind of what we're after, he'd be up to all sorts of tricks to make our plans miscarry. What shall the token be?"

Then his eyes began to twinkle: "I've got it!" he cried. "Just to give you a little lesson in swearing, which you say you dislike so much, we'll make it a good round oath. You'll know a messenger comes from me if he greets you with the words, By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!"

And he rubbed his hands in delight, and shouted with laughter. Master Nathaniel was a born tease.

"For shame, you saucy fellow!" dimpled Mistress Ivy. "You're as bad as my poor Peppercorn. He used always…"

But even Master Nathaniel had had his fill of reminiscences. So he cut her short with a hearty good-bye, and renewed thanks for all she had told him.

But he turned back from the door to hold up his finger and say with mock solemnity, "Remember, it's to be By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!"