The Goldsmith's Daughter

Eight

Keeping close to a row of three-storeyed houses that made up the left-hand wall of Gudrun Lane, I crept forward, my cudgel at the ready, my feet squelching through puddles and piles of garbage. Once, a thin cat, disturbed from its scavenging by my approach, shot across my path with a screech of fury, making me start back and almost knocking me off balance, my heart pounding so hard that I was scarcely able to breathe. Another time, a dog, as wet and bedraggled as I must have looked myself, came sniffing and snapping around my ankles, until I kicked it away with a curse. But apart from these two incidents, nothing broke the silence except for the drumming of the rain and the gusting of the wind.

I was beginning to doubt the existence of this alley that connected Gudrun and Foster Lane — how did I know about it, anyway? I must, at sometime or another, have been this way with Philip Lamprey during one of our forays into the city — when suddenly, there it was, to my left, as narrow and as noisome as memory had painted it. I hesitated for a long moment before turning the corner, every muscle tensed in readiness for a sudden assault upon my person. But nothing happened. No one was lying in wait for me, and the wet cobbles stretched away into the darkness, lit by the pallid gleam of a torch fixed to the wall of one of the cottages and set in a sheltered nook, out of reach of the wind. The piles of rubbish were even higher here than in West Cheap, and I had to step with extreme caution so as not to lose my footing.

Beyond the range of the torchlight, I paused again, convinced that I had heard a noise some little way ahead of me: a cough, perhaps, or a sharp intake of breath.

‘Who’s there?’ I called, but there was no reply. Seconds later, a huge rat scuttled close to one of my boots and disappeared into another mound of offal and rotting vegetables a few yards behind me.

Three or four more paces brought me into Foster Lane. I turned left towards the looming bulk of Saint Vedast, and within moments was back in West Cheap, standing outside Master Babcary’s shop. I could hear voices from within raised in cheerful conversation, and the sudden peal of a woman’s laughter, but the shutters were up and there was nothing, no movement of any kind, to suggest that anyone was lurking in the surrounding shadows. Either whoever had come after me, with the intention of warning me off, had then thought better of it, or I had been a victim of my own overheated imagination. I was reluctant, however, to admit that it might be the latter.

The storm had abated somewhat, and I was gripped by a burning desire for the warmth and safety of the Voyager — its ale, its excellent food and the company of my wife. Moving as far into the centre of the thoroughfare as I dared without danger of stumbling into the open drain, I strode out as fast as I could, looking straight ahead of me and ignoring as much as possible all the black, gaping mouths of the streets and alleyways on either side of the road. Ten minutes later, I reached the Great Conduit and the entrance to Bucklersbury.

‘You’ve had a long day,’ Adela observed.

She was curled up on the bed, watching me devour a huge, steaming hot meat pie, together with a bowl of dried peas and onions. Both dishes had been served, on the orders of Reynold Makepeace himself, in the warmth and comfort of our room. My wife, who had eaten her supper before my arrival, assured me that she was feeling a great deal better, and insisted that we talk about the rigours of my day — although I fancied that there was an unusual touch of acerbity in her tone.

‘As a matter of fact, I have had a very tiring few hours,’ I answered defensively. ‘First, if you remember, I had to visit Mistress Shore at her house in the Strand-’

Adela, who had indeed forgotten this fact, immediately interrupted. ‘Tell me all about it!’ she commanded.

And I was allowed to go no further with the account of my doings until I had described my meeting with the King’s mistress in the the minutest detail. Adela was particularly taken with my description of the old dog on his red satin cushion, and at once pronounced Mistress Shore to be a woman very much after her own heart.

‘Jeanne Lamprey tells me that she’s popular both with the common people and at court.’ Adela tilted her head to one side. ‘So why doesn’t the Duke of Gloucester care for her, do you suppose?’

I stared consideringly at my plate. It was a question that had been nagging away at the back of my own mind ever since my meeting with the King’s mistress and the realisation that she was, in truth, as kind and as merry and as unassuming as her reputation made her out to be. Why then did the man I admired — worshipped, almost — above all others obviously have so little liking for her?

‘I think,’ I said at last, raising my eyes to my wife’s, ‘that Duke Richard regards Mistress Shore in the same light as he regards members of the Queen’s family, the Queen herself, Lord Hastings and so many others who surround the King. He sees them all as responsible in their various ways for his brother’s physical and moral decline. Oh, Edward’s handsome enough even now, I grant you, but seven years ago, around the time of the battle at Tewkesbury, he was magnificent; lean as a greyhound, strong as an ox and with a mind sharp enough to outwit all those powerful barons who had robbed him of his throne and driven him into exile.

‘But now, while he’ll never be fat on account of his great height, he’s growing corpulent, he has a double chin, he’s a pensioner of King Louis of France — a fact of which the Duke of Gloucester bitterly disapproves — and, if the gossips are to be believed, he devotes more time to pleasure than the Council Chamber. And to top everything else, he seems, finally, to have turned against his brother, George of Clarence.’

‘Your Duke sounds to me a rather puritanical young man,’ Adela observed dryly, wriggling into a more upright position on the bed, her back supported by the banked up pillows. ‘Almost a prig, but not above overlooking Mistress Shore’s faults — real or imagined — when he needs to make use of her and of her influence with the King.’

I resented any criticism, however oblique, of the Duke of Gloucester.

‘He’s trying to save his other brother’s life,’ I protested vigorously. ‘Surely a compromise with his conscience is justified under such circumstances.’

‘It depends what the Duke of Clarence has done to turn the King so irrevocably against him at last.’ Adela gave her sudden, disarming smile. ‘But don’t let’s quarrel when I haven’t seen you all day, and when I’m unlikely to see much of you for as long as it takes you to resolve this mystery. What happened at the goldsmith’s? Do you have any idea as yet whether or not the daughter really committed the crime?’ She patted her stomach. ‘Tell your son and me all about it.’

‘It might be another daughter,’ I said, somewhat rattled by her insistence that the child she was carrying was a boy. ‘What I want is a girl who looks like you.’

‘It’s a boy,’ was the confident answer. ‘And Margaret agrees with me.’

‘I don’t see how you can possibly be so sure,’ I retorted, and was rewarded with what I called her ‘knowing’ expression — a slight smile of contempt for my male ignorance, accompanied by a look of pity. A shake of her head implied that it would be fruitless to continue a discussion in which I was so plainly at a disadvantage.

As I had come to realise over the years that all pregnant women, however rational in other ways, adopt this omniscient attitude towards the mysteries of childbirth, especially when addressing a man, I let the subject drop and launched into a recital of everything that had happened at Master Babcary’s shop.

‘So you see,’ I said when I had finished, ‘there are still many enquiries to make before I can offer an opinion as to Mistress Bonifant’s guilt or innocence. To begin with, apart from the family and servants, there were three other people present in the house on the night of Gideon’s death — three neighbours to whom I have not even spoken as yet.’

Adela reached over and took the bowl containing the remains of the dried peas and onions from the tray on my knees, and began scooping the vegetables into her mouth with the wooden spoon provided.

‘I can’t help it,’ she laughed, noting my raised eyebrows, ‘I’m hungry all the time. The trouble is that, although I know peas and onions will probably give me a violent colic later, I can’t resist eating them. But go on. What do you make of the story that Gideon Bonifant was spreading just before his death? The story that Isolda was unfaithful to him with her cousin, this — this-’

‘Christopher Babcary,’ I supplied. I propped my chin on my hands and stared into the heart of the small sea-coal fire where the flames burnt blue and yellow, and for whose warmth and light and comfort we had agreed to pay the landlord a small extra daily charge. ‘Why would a man spread such a story if it weren’t true, particularly as he and his wife seem to have spent five reasonably contented years together?’

Adela put the now empty bowl back on the tray and shifted her position in order to make herself more comfortable.

‘On the other hand,’ she said after a moment or two, ‘even if we accept that the story is true — and, as you say, a man doesn’t claim to have been made a cuckold without good reason — infidelity doesn’t necessarily turn a woman into a murderess.’ She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘You say that both Isolda and her cousin deny the charge that Gideon levelled against them?’

‘Yes, but they have to, don’t they, unless they wish to brand themselves poisoners in the eyes of the world? They’d be fools to admit it.’

‘But if Mistress Bonifant did kill her husband, how did she hope to get away with it if he had already told people about her infatuation with Christopher Babcary?’

‘Because she had no idea that he’d done so. Her father confirms that he never mentioned Gideon’s accusations to Isolda. And the other people in whom her husband confided — his old master, the apothecary, and Master Napier — were hardly likely to have confronted her with the story.’

Adela rubbed her stomach and grimaced. ‘That’s true,’ she agreed. ‘But what about this cousin? Was he never suspected of being the murderer?’

‘He might have been, I suppose, in due course. But Mistress Shore seems to have implored the King for his intervention too rapidly for the Sheriff’s officers to have levelled accusations at anyone, or for any kind of investigation to have got under way. King Edward, not wishing, I imagine, for his chief leman to be implicated, even by association, in anything so sordid as murder, halted all enquiries immediately. But it’s not so easy, of course, to stop the whispering of neighbours and erstwhile friends, as it is to give orders to officials. And so here I am, once more embroiled in what, in a very roundabout way, has become the Duke of Gloucester’s concern.’

Or God’s, I added silently. For it wasn’t Duke Richard who had brought me to London at this particular time. It was the Almighty yet again, manipulating my thoughts and desires; or, at least, if not mine, then Adela’s. But I was learning at last not to feel resentful — well, not too resentful — for I had come to appreciate that I might find my day-to-day existence very humdrum without these adventures of mine.

I emerged from my brief reverie to realise that Adela was speaking, echoing something of my own uneasiness.

‘. . but you mustn’t lose sight of the fact, Roger, that somebody committed that murder, whether it was Isolda Bonifant or no. And whoever it is, is probably very frightened by your investigation and the possibility that you might discover the truth.’

‘Only “might”?’ I protested, quizzing her and laughing at her discomfiture. ‘No, no! You’re quite right, my love! It would never do for a wife to be too confident of her husband’s abilities, or she would cease to have the whip hand.’ Then, seeing that my teasing was genuinely distressing her, I plunged, without thinking, into an account of what had occurred on my way back to the inn.

But this, of course, only served to worry her even further, as I ought to have known it would.

‘Do you really believe that you were being followed?’ she demanded anxiously.

I shook my head. ‘I honestly don’t know. I could find no evidence of it, and yet-’

‘And yet?’ she queried, her voice trembling a little.

‘And yet, at the time, I was certain that I had heard or seen something suspicious. And when I remembered that connecting alleyway between Foster and Gudrun Lane, I was conscious that anyone from the Babcary household could have caught up with me without following me directly from the shop. But I might have been mistaken. There are sufficient cats and rats foraging among the rubbish to account for any number of apparently mysterious movements and noises. I mustn’t let my imagination run away with me.’

But my wife remained unconvinced. Once it had dawned on her that a murderer was still at large, and that I might pose a danger to him or her, she was unable to be easy in her mind. I could see her wrestling with the urge to demand that I disoblige the Duke of Gloucester and give up my enquiry into the killing of Gideon Bonifant. But Adela was also wise enough to know that even if she prevailed this once, she was unlikely to do so the next time — or the next.

So she contented herself with giving me a wintry smile and saying, ‘Take care! You already have three, and will soon have four, people dependent on you for their daily bread. None of us can afford to lose you.’

I rose to my feet, stretching and yawning. ‘It’s nice to know that I’m appreciated as a breadwinner, if nothing else,’ I grinned.

I was rewarded with a look of deep hostility. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’

‘Of course I do.’ I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my arms around her.

‘What will you do tomorrow?’ she asked, slewing round to kiss my cheek. ‘You said you’ve promised the Babcarys that you won’t disturb their Sabbath peace.’

‘Neither shall I.’ I returned her kiss. ‘But I’ve a fancy to see this Master Ford, the apothecary who was Gideon Bonifant’s former master. Undoubtedly, he will go to church. But which one does he favour, I wonder.’

There were at least four churches of importance in the area, any one of which Master Ford might attend, although none in Bucklersbury itself.

In adjoining Needlers Lane stood the churches of Saint Pancras and of Saint Benet Sherehog. Walbrook, at the eastern end of Bucklersbury, boasted Saint Stephen Walbrook, while Saint Mary Woolchurch served the inhabitants of the Stock’s Market and the Poultry.

‘Where does Master Ford, the apothecary, worship of a Sunday?’ I asked Reynold Makepeace after breakfast the following morning.

He scratched his nose while giving the matter his full consideration.

‘Now there you have me, Master Chapman, for I don’t know, I’m sure. Wait here a moment and I’ll enquire in the taproom. Someone there might be able to help you.’

He returned a few minutes later, however, shaking his grizzled head.

‘I’m afraid no one seems to know for certain, although Peter Paulet, who lives in Soper Lane, thinks he remembers that the late Mistress Ford used sometimes to worship at Saint Mary Woolchurch.’

I thanked him for his trouble and enquired about the exact location of Master Ford’s shop.

‘Now that I can tell you,’ my host said with satisfaction, wiping his hands on his best Sunday linen apron. ‘You’ll find it on this side of the street, at the Walbrook end, almost directly opposite a large stone-built house on the southern side, called the Old Barge. A strange name for a house, you might think, but ships used to tie up there before that part of the Walbrook was paved over. But Master Ford’s shop won’t be open today, if, that is, you’re needing any remedies from him.’ The kindly face clouded with anxiety. ‘It’s not Mistress Chapman, is it? If there’s anything wrong, you must let me send for the local midwife. She’ll be by far the best person to advise you.’

‘No, no! My wife is in excellent health,’ I assured him, which was true except for a somewhat disturbed night, the result of Adela’s craving for dried peas and onions. ‘I just wanted a word with Master Ford about — about something,’ I finished lamely.

Fortunately, Reynold Makepeace was not a curious man, and made no attempt to discover why I had this sudden urge to speak to one of the Bucklersbury apothecaries, or, indeed, how I even came to be aware of his existence. He simply nodded and hurried away to attend to his customers in the taproom, one or two of whom were vociferously demanding his services.

Quarter of an hour later, my wife and I left the inn, walking eastwards towards Walbrook. The storm of the previous evening had, thankfully, blown itself out, giving way to a cold, but not frosty, morning, and a thin sun struggled to break through the leaden clouds. Adela, wrapped in her thick woollen cloak with its fur-lined hood, a garment purchased especially for this visit to London, assured me that she was as warm as it was possible to be in January, while her pattens kept her feet out of the mud and rubbish. (For being Sunday and a day of rest, there were no street cleaners to remove yesterday’s accumulated filth. Cleanliness and godliness, alas, do not always go hand in hand.)

The clamour from the bells was deafening, for London, or so I’m told, has well over a hundred churches within its walls, not to mention those proliferating outside its pale. Adela had to raise her voice to make herself heard.

‘Why do you wish to speak with this Master Ford?’

‘If Gideon Bonifant was once his assistant, he must know something about the man. Anything he can tell me might prove useful. Wait!’ I paused, gripping her arm and pointing to the opposite side of the street where Bucklersbury ran into Walbrook. ‘That big house must be the one that Landlord Makepeace mentioned. And Master Ford’s shop, he said, is almost directly opposite.’

This information, however, was not as valuable as it at first seemed, for the frontage of the Old Barge was the width of at least four or five shops on the northern side of the street, three of them belonging to apothecaries. But even as we watched, people began leaving home for church in answer to the bells’ summons. A family of six — father, mother and four children — emerged from one of the apothcaries’ shops, setting off westwards, in the direction of Needlers Lane, while from another, a middle-aged couple headed for Saint Stephen Walbrook. Minutes later, a tall, thin man appeared in the remaining apothecary’s doorway, turned smartly to his left and had vanished round the corner into Walbrook before I had time to gather my wits together.

‘That must be him,’ Adela hissed, nudging me painfully in the ribs. ‘Reynold Makepeace told us, if you remember, that Master Ford is a widower, and both of the other two men had wives.’

‘I think you’re probably right,’ I nodded. ‘And that’s the way to the Stock’s Market and Saint Mary Woolchurch, where, again according to Master Makepeace, the late Mistress Ford sometimes worshipped.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ my wife demanded, slipping her hand once more within my arm. ‘In that case, that’s where we shall worship.’

‘And we’ll probably have the added pleasure of seeing Jeanne and Philip as well,’ I said.

For I had recollected that Saint Mary Woolchurch was also adjacent to the old clothes market, and consequently was the church most often attended by the Lampreys. (Although they did occasionally honour Saint Benet Fink, on the corner of Fink’s Lane, with their presence.)

Adela’s step quickened at the prospect of a possible meeting with our friends, even though she expressed doubt about finding them very easily amongst the attendant congregation. But in this she was wrong, for almost the first people we encountered in the crowded nave, standing at the back near one of the pillars, were Jeanne and Philip Lamprey, both of whom greeted us as if they had not seen us for a month, instead of only the previous day.

Once the Mass had started, and I could whisper in Philip’s ear without being overheard by all around us, I asked him if he knew Master Ford, the apothecary. Philip nodded.

‘Is he here?’

My friend craned his neck and stretched up on his toes in an effort to see over the heads of all those in front of him. Finally, he gave a grunt of triumph.

‘I can just see the top of his hat. It’s the one he wears every Sunday. I recognise the feather coiled around the brim. Why do you want to know?’

I countered with a another question of my own.

‘Are you well enough acquainted with Master Ford to introduce me to him when the service is over?’

Philip rolled suspicious eyes towards me. ‘Not really, but that needn’t stop me. However, that’s all I’m doing. I’ve already told you once, Roger, you’re not involving me in any of your schemes. They’re usually far too dangerous.’