The Goldsmith's Daughter

Ten

We spent the rest of the day in the company of the Lampreys, sitting for a while longer, after Master Ford’s departure, over our ale at the Voyager, and then, when the weather improved still further and the afternoon became dry and bright, we went for a walk at Adela’s request.

‘For I shall be nothing but a bladder of wind if I sit here any longer,’ she protested, ‘like one of those footballs that boys kick around in the streets.’ She eyed me with mock severity as she rose to her feet. ‘Here I am, barely three months pregnant, and already this child is causing me more discomfort than Nicholas did in nine. He’s going to take after his father, a restless soul.’

‘As long as he isn’t as nosy,’ Philip said, and I forced myself to laugh, although I could feel my hackles rising. My old friend was becoming a regular source of irritation to me.

We walked the length of Walbrook and down Dowgate Hill to the Baltic Wharf, where the great foreign ships from that northerly region of Europe drop anchor near the Steelyard to unload their cargoes of timber and furs and dried fish. There were plenty of people about, some still dressed in their church-going clothes, ready to be pleased by the unexpected and fragile burst of good weather.

A couple standing near to us on the dockside, and talking loudly enough for the woman’s part in the conversation to be easily overheard, had apparently made the journey to Saint Stephen’s church at Westminster that morning in order to see the little Duke and Duchess of York at Mass. It seemed, however, that the newly-wed children had been the two persons of least interest to the lady, whose discourse was all of fashion and of what had been worn by which dame of consequence, with disparaging remarks falling as thick as leaves in autumn — much to the fascination of my wife and Jeanne Lamprey who had edged closer to the couple in order not to miss a word.

The speaker, although she was at present swathed in the concealing folds of a dark woollen cloak, plainly considered herself enough a woman of the beau monde to pass such strictures, and oozed self-satisfaction. Her companion, whose back was towards me, also seemed happy with her company if his over-zealous attentions were anything to judge by. From where I was standing, I could just make out his companion’s features beneath her hood: a handsome, world-weary face, the thin cheeks too pale even for the January cold, and undoubtedly daubed with the white lead used by the more sophisticated women of our society to conceal the effects of sun and wind on their complexions.

Eventually, Philip and I, weary of contemplating the ships, gestured to our still eavesdropping wives that we should move on and, as they reluctantly obeyed our summons, the couple also decided that they had remained stationary long enough. The man swung round, offering the woman his arm, and I came face to face with Christopher Babcary.

‘Master Chapman!’ He greeted me without enthusiasm, but, at the same time, was obviously gratified to be seen with such a companion. He made no effort to introduce the lady, however, and was beginning to walk away when he paused and turned back. ‘We shall meet again tomorrow then, in West Cheap, unless, that is, you’ve changed your mind.’ Abruptly, he released himself from the woman’s clasp and stepped closer to me, lowering his voice so that only I could hear his words. ‘And wouldn’t it be wiser if you did so? All these questions can do no good: they only stir up trouble for Isolda. She’s had enough to bear since Gideon’s death, with all the hints and whispers and rumours circulating amongst our neighbours.’ He suddenly turned aggressive and added violently, ‘Leave us alone, Chapman, or you may live to regret your interference.’

He spun on his heel and rejoined his companion who had been waiting for him with ill-concealed impatience. She said something to him that I could not catch, but from his hangdog expression, it was plainly a reprimand.

‘Bad-tempered harpy!’ Philip grunted sourly, staring after their retreating backs. ‘But there! If the lad fancies that sort of woman, what can he expect? Who is he? One of the Babcary family I should guess.’

‘You would guess correctly,’ I answered, also watching the couple’s progress towards Dowgate Hill, the lady still visibly incensed and refusing, with much head tossing, to take her escort’s hand. ‘That’s Christopher Babcary, the goldsmith’s nephew.’

Adela came to stand beside me, slipping her hand into the crook of my arm.

‘So that’s the man accused by Gideon Bonifant of cuckolding him, is it?’ she enquired, having overheard my answer. ‘Well, if that’s the kind of woman young Master Babcary prefers, I can’t imagine, at least not from your description of Isolda, that he would entertain anything but a cousinly affection for her.’ My wife went on thoughtfully, ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that Gideon was wrong in his assumption that his wife was betraying him with another man. He might simply have picked on the wrong person. You’ll have to bear that in mind when pursuing your investigations, Roger.’

I bit my tongue and maintained my composure with an effort. First, I had been forced to endure Philip’s jibes about my ‘nosiness’, and now here was Adela telling me how to conduct my business, instructing me in what I should do well to remember. It only needed Jeanne Lamprey to add her mite for my cup of humiliation to run over.

Jeanne was busy keeping an eye on the weather, which was changing yet again, black clouds piling up the Thames from the east, bringing with them a freshening wind and a smell of sleet and rain in the air.

‘We’d better make for shelter,’ she decided, pulling up the hood of her cloak and holding it firmly together under her chin. ‘Adela shouldn’t be out in a storm, Roger, not in her delicate condition.’

I made no answer, except to put an arm around my wife. It seemed that I was not to escape advice on how to be either a solver of mysteries or a good husband, and I found myself looking forward to the morrow when I could once more be my own man.

We parted from the Lampreys on the corner of Bucklersbury, Philip having promised to fetch Adela early next morning and to escort her to their shop. There, in return for all their kindness, she would spend the time before dinner helping Jeanne to sort and mend the old clothes collected by Philip over the past few days and now ready for reselling.

‘And after we’ve eaten,’ Jeanne said, reaching up to kiss Adela’s cheek, ‘provided that Philip can manage on his own for a while, and if you feel fit enough, I’ll take you to see the wild animals in the Tower.’

Adela thanked her, returning the kiss, and a few moments later, we were hurrying along Bucklersbury, making for the inn as fast as we could, the icy spears of rain already beginning to sting our faces. Once within the comfort of our room, we lit the candles and closed the outer shutters against the cold, shaking the dampness from our cloaks and hanging them from the wall pegs to dry.

‘And now,’ said Adela, seating herself on the edge of the bed and eyeing me accusingly, ‘what was Christopher Babcary whispering to you on the quayside, there? And you needn’t think to lie to me, either, Roger. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could see by the expression on his face that he was giving you some kind of warning.’

‘Not a warning exactly,’ I muttered. ‘But I admit he was trying to persuade me to change my mind. He thinks that my questioning could do Mistress Bonifant more harm than good. And he’s right, of course, if she should prove to be guilty of her husband’s murder.’

‘Was that all he said?’ My wife regarded me with her clear, unwavering gaze.

I sighed. I had discovered very early on in my married life that it was almost impossible to lie to Adela. ‘No, he advised me to leave the family alone or I might live to regret my interference.’

‘But you won’t take his advice, of course.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘My dearest, I can’t,’ I protested, sitting beside her on the bed and putting my arms around her. ‘I can’t possibly disoblige the Duke.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’ she asked, but immediately turned to plant a kiss on my lips. ‘Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what’s got into me lately. It must be my condition, I’m allowing myself to become a prey to odd humours and fancies and doing what I said I’d never do. I’m interfering.’

I held her closer, murmuring endearments. I knew that I was at fault, that I should have refused the Duke’s commission. I ought not to be abandoning her in a strange city, dependent for amusement on two comparative strangers. But I was as selfish then as I am today (or, at least, so my children tell me). Once presented with a mystery, I could no more leave it unresolved than I could grow wings and fly.

The next morning, after breakfast, I saw Adela off to Cornhill in the company of Philip Lamprey, and then, with an uncontrollable lightening of the heart and a spring in my step, set out myself for West Cheap.

The sky was leaden grey, there was a sprinkling of snow on the ground and the wind was bitter, but nothing could diminish my spirits at the sheer pleasure of being on my own again, of being my own master, of being able to order my own actions exactly as I chose. The world about me was already humming with activity: church bells were tolling, street cleaners shovelled yesterday’s steaming refuse into their carts, traders took down shutters and opened up their shops, pedlars and piemen shouted their wares, lawyers, in their striped gowns, hurried past on their way to Saint Paul’s. As I was caught up and borne along on this tide of humanity, I was prodded into the realisation of just how good it was to be alive, and I thought with sudden poignancy of those prisoners, like the Duke of Clarence, languishing in prison, many under sentence of death. But it also reminded me of how wrong it is to rob another human being of the life that God has given to him or her; the life that is our pathway to heaven.

I experienced a stab of guilt. Since my brief conversation on Saturday with Christopher Babcary about the murdered man, and now after talking to Master Ford, I had begun to feel a certain antipathy towards Gideon Bonifant, resulting almost in indifference as to the identity of his murderer. But even supposing those feelings concerning him were justified, murder was never warranted, however unpleasant the victim might have been. And all I could reasonably say of Gideon just at present was that he seemed to me an ungrateful, rough-tongued man, with an eye to his own advancement by any means at his disposal. But of how many hundreds of others could that also be said? It did not mean that any one of them could be killed with impunity and nobody care.

The furnace had already been lit in Master Babcary’s workshop by the time that I arrived, and young Tobias Maybury was assiduously working the bellows, forcing the flames to leap higher and higher up the chimney. Christopher Babcary was seated at the bench in the middle of the room, burnishing a golden belt buckle with his rabbit’s foot, and brushing the tiny particles of loosened metal into his leather apron. Master Babcary himself was standing at the long bench, which also served as a counter on which to display the finished goods, thoughtfully rubbing his chin as he alternately scrutinised Saturday’s batch of golden medallions and a lump of amber that either he or one of the other two had begun to chisel.

At my entrance, they all looked up from their work, the apprentice, after a cursory glance, returning to his bellows. Christopher Babcary gave me an enigmatic stare before resuming his polishing, and only Master Babcary evinced any pleasure at seeing me again. He left his bench and came towards me, hand outstretched.

‘Master Chapman! You’ve kept your word and come back to us, then.’

‘Did you doubt that I would?’

‘No, no! At least, I didn’t. However, Kit, there, thought that you might have had second thoughts, didn’t you, lad? I don’t know why.’

His nephew grunted something unintelligible without pausing again in what he was doing, but it seemed to satisfy his uncle. The older man turned back to me.

‘Well, I don’t suppose you need to talk to me for a second time, Master Chapman. You heard all I had to say the day before yesterday. But of the rest of my household, who would you like to speak to first?’

I hesitated about making demands, and had rather hoped that Miles would have made his own suggestion. Having been invited to state a preference, however, I said reluctantly, ‘With your permission, sir, Mistress Bonifant would seem the obvious choice.’

My host nodded vigorously. ‘Precisely my own conclusion. So I’ve told Isolda to hold herself in readiness in the upstairs room. She’s there now, I believe, so you can go up straight away.’ His face assumed an anxious expression. ‘I’m sure she’ll be able to convince you of her innocence.’

I made no answer to this last remark, but with my hand on the latch of the inner door, I paused and turned round.

‘Master Babcary, who do you think murdered your son-in-law?’ I asked.

The question took him by surprise, as I had intended that it should.

‘Wh-what do you mean?’ he stammered.

‘You don’t deny that Master Bonifant was poisoned?’

‘N-no! Of course I don’t.’ He began to fidget uncomfortably. ‘What’s this all about? I don’t understand. What are you getting at?’

‘I’m asking for your opinion — if, that is, you truly believe your daughter to be innocent — as to who you think the real murderer might be. Surely you must have some suspicions of your own.’

‘No,’ he snapped, the good-humoured smile vanishing from his face. ‘I suspect no one.’

‘To suspect no one is to suspect everyone,’ I pointed out gently, ‘including Mistress Bonifant.’

Miles Babcary was no fool: I could see by the expression in his eyes that he was perfectly capable of following my logic, but he was not prepared to admit it.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he shrugged. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’

To continue to press him would have been foolish and only antagonise him further, and as master of the house I needed his goodwill. Besides, I should be no more successful in getting him to admit to his suspicions, if he had any, than I had been on Saturday. I felt sure that he was as uncertain of his daughter’s innocence as he was of anyone else’s guilt, but he was never going to say as much to me. For the time being, I must leave well alone.

‘Forgive me, sir,’ I apologised, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll go up now and talk to Mistress Bonifant.’ But once again I paused and called across to Christopher Babcary, ‘I hope you and your lady got home safely yesterday without either of you getting too wet.’

He replied briefly that they had, while his uncle raised his eyes to heaven.

‘And which lady is this, pray?’ Miles asked. ‘No, don’t bother telling me, boy, for I’m sure I shall be none the wiser.’ He shrugged and turned back to me. ‘I’ve never known such a lad for fancying himself in and out of love every few weeks or so. First it’s one woman, then it’s another. I suppose that one of these days he’ll decide it’s time to settle down and make up his mind who it is he really wants to marry, but not just at present.’ He took a pace towards me, lowering his voice. ‘Which is why that story my son-in-law was putting about in the months before his death was so much moonshine.’

But was it? I wondered, as I climbed the stairs to the first-floor landing. Might not Christopher Babcary, at one time, have fancied himself in love with his cousin? He appeared to like older women, if the lady I had seen him with the previous day was anything to judge by. On the other hand, not only were Isolda Bonifant’s looks against her, but the familiarity of living under the same roof with someone, each day and all day, year in and year out, seemed to me to make this an unlikely possibility.

Yet I knew from past experience that I could rule nothing out, that the improbable happened in life far more often than one imagined. Perhaps young Master Babcary’s fancy had once strayed towards Isolda, and perhaps she had been flattered by his unexpected attentions. On the other hand, she must have known of his reputation for fickleness. How could she not have, living in the same house and watching him grow up? Would she, therefore, have allowed herself to succumb to his charms? But maybe she had genuinely fallen in love with him, and could not help herself.

But as yet there was no answer to any of these questions, and I knew that neither Isolda nor her cousin could be expected to admit to betraying Gideon, even supposing there was any truth in the accusation. Yet why should Gideon Bonifant lie? No man worth his salt wants to appear as the cuckolded husband, and is therefore hardly likely to make up such a story. But he could have been mistaken in the identity of Isolda’s lover, a person in whom I was beginning to believe. Her plain features may well have proved a barrier to the finding of a husband when she was a maid, but five and a half years of marriage could have given her a confidence and an air of invitation lacking in a single woman.

I stood still for a moment at the top of the first flight of stairs, looking at the two doors facing me. The left-hand one, if I remembered rightly, led into Master Babcary’s bedchamber at the back of the house; the other, beside it, opened into the family living-room, where they spent their evenings and the long winter hours of darkness together. Above me, on the second and third floors, the rest of the household slept; close quarters for five people, six when Gideon had been alive, and that was without including the little maid, Meg Spendlove, whose domain, waking and sleeping, was the kitchen.

I walked the few paces along the landing to the second door, then raised my hand and knocked before lifting the latch and going inside.

Isolda Bonifant was seated to the left of the fireplace, in one of the two armchairs, and her cousin, Eleanor Babcary was seated in the other. I was somewhat taken aback not to find my quarry alone, but the younger woman immediately rose to her feet and began to edge towards the door.

‘I’m just going,’ she said nervously.

‘Oh, sit down again, Nell,’ Isolda scolded, half amused, half irritated. ‘Master Chapman won’t eat you, you goose! Besides, he’ll want to talk to you as well as to me. He can talk to us both together.’

I didn’t know what to say. The last thing I wanted was to have the older woman prompting her cousin, putting words into her mouth, which would almost certainly be the case if Eleanor Babcary stayed. I glanced from one to the other, thinking, not for the first time, what cruel tricks nature could play. The Babcary blood, which they both shared, gave them a certain similarity of feature, enough at any rate to suggest that they were related. Yet Eleanor, with her creamy skin, blue eyes and profusion of curly auburn hair, was extraordinarily pretty — some might even think her beautiful — while Isolda could never be described as anything but plain. And the Lambert blood, which bound the latter to Mistress Shore, had also worked in her disfavour. Yet her candid blue gaze, her strength of character, her direct mode of speech, gave her, to my mind at least, an attraction that the gentle, timid charm of her cousin did not. But I suspected that not many men would agree with me.

Eleanor, obviously used to obeying her cousin, but sensing that I wished her to go, hesitated, unsure what to do. Her long, slender fingers played nervously with the pendant that she wore, twisting it round and round on its thin gold chain.

‘Nell, sit down!’ Isolda commanded. ‘And stop fiddling with that thing around your neck. It’s so delicate that you’ll break it, if you’re not careful. Draw up a stool, Master Chapman, and ask us what you want to know.’

I did so reluctantly, as Eleanor Babcary, with equal reluctance, resumed her seat by the fire, but perched on the very edge, as though ready for instant flight. I could see the pendant clearly now, a fragile circle of gold holding a true lover’s knot set with tiny sapphires.

‘That’s very beautiful,’ I said.

‘It was a present from all of us on her seventeenth birthday, last October,’ Isolda told me. ‘My father made it, but we all had a hand in it somewhere. Even I was allowed to help in a very small way, although my big hands are so clumsy that Gideon was doubtful about letting me anywhere near it. He-’ She broke off, staring in dismay at her young cousin’s trembling underlip. ‘Nell! Dearest! What’s the matter? What have I said to upset you?’

She had half risen from her chair and would have gone to Eleanor, but the younger woman was already on her feet.

‘It’s nothing! Nothing!’ she protested, in a voice choked with sobs. Then she fled from the room, and we heard the patter of her feet as she ran upstairs, followed by the slam of her bedchamber door.

Isolda slowly sank back into her seat. ‘Now what on earth’s got into Nell?’ she wondered.