The Midsummer Rose

Three

Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal.

I was in a foul mood and the children, sensing it, tiptoed round me with unusual caution. Margaret stated her intention to return to Redcliffe forthwith before lapsing into guarded silence. Even Hercules slunk off to some distant corner of the house that he had made his own. Only Adela made a brave attempt at conversation, although she soon gave up.

She had urged me to stay in bed, warning me that I would feel extremely weak after more than a week’s inactivity. But I knew better. Of course I did. I was a man — one, moreover, who had experienced very little sickness in his life and who prided himself on his strength and resilience to any kind of illness. But Adela was right. Lying in bed I had felt fine. Getting dressed, washing at the pump in the tiny yard behind our house and forcing myself to swallow oatcakes and a thick collop of bacon, had been an altogether different matter. Quite apart from the fact that my legs didn’t want to do as they were told, my head still swam from the effects of the potions administered to me over the past few days by Adela. But I wasn’t going to let bodily weakness get the better of me.

When I announced I was going out after breakfast, my wife didn’t argue. She merely advised: ‘If you’re going to Rownham Passage, hire a nag from the livery stable in Bell Lane. You’re in no fit condition to walk all that way.’ I scowled and Adela burst out laughing.

Her spontaneous merriment relieved the oppressive atmosphere and the children began to giggle. Even Margaret Walker managed the travesty of a smile. Adam, excitable as ever, flicked a spoonful of porridge in my direction and scored a bullseye on my nose. I forced myself to smile at him reassuringly.

‘You don’t mean to go as far as Rownham Passage in your state of health, do you?’ Margaret demanded, jeopardizing my newly restored good humour. ‘Not just to prove this ridiculous tale of yours is true?’

‘Roger must do as he sees fit,’ my wife said warningly. ‘He is the head of the household, after all.’

Margaret gave a derisive snort. ‘If he believes that, he’ll believe anything. And he’s not the head of my household. I can tell him the truth.’

‘Not under this roof,’ Adela answered quietly, before adding, ‘Besides, there just might be something in his story.’

‘What do you mean? What’s changed your mind?’ I stuttered.

‘You’re humouring him,’ Margaret accused.

‘Nothing’s changed my mind, and I’m not humouring him. But …’ She paused long enough to encourage the children, who had finished eating, to run away and play. The elder two thundered upstairs, where they charged around like stampeding horses. The noise did my headache no good at all, but I did my best to ignore it. Adam performed his crab-like crawl and shuffled off to a corner of the kitchen, where he beat out a tune on the stone-tiled floor with his spoon. I ignored that as well.

‘But?’ I encouraged my wife, while Margaret looked sceptical.

‘It’s nothing, really.’ Adela took a deep breath and clasped her hands together on the table. ‘It’s just that a week ago, while you were still on the road, Robin Avenel’s widowed sister came to stay with him …’

Here, Margaret interrupted, anxious to fill in details which someone who had had the misfortune not to be born in Bristol might not know.

‘Bess Avenel married into the Alefounder family. Her late husband’s uncle is Alderman Gregory Alefounder. Well, you can’t help but know who he is. Owns the biggest brewery in the city. But, more than that, her sister-in-law, that little fly-by-night Robin Avenel married, is Gregory Alefounder’s daughter. Jeffery, Bess’s husband, wasn’t interested in the brewing business. He preferred to lead the life of a country gentleman. His father, Gregory’s older brother, indulged him and let Jeffery live at home on the family manor near Frome. When he died, Jeffery inherited the house and lands, and Bess, in her turn, inherited them from him. She still lives there, no doubt queening it over her tenants and the local peasantry.’ Margaret’s tone was acerbic. Elizabeth Alefounder was plainly no favourite of hers.

‘Thank you, Mother-in-law,’ I said gravely and raised my eyebrows at Adela. ‘So, what about this Bess Alefounder, sweetheart? What does she have to do with me?’

‘As I was saying, she arrived in Broad Street to stay with Master Avenel while you were away. I think it was the Saturday before you were brought home. Her maid came with her and they must have been there now for almost a fortnight. I’ve seen Mistress Alefounder around on several occasions. It was Richard who first pointed her out to me.’

‘Go on.’ I nobly refrained from enquiring what she was doing in the company of Richard Manifold. (A chance meeting, of course. Really, I knew that without being told.)

Again, Adela hesitated. ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ she exclaimed at last, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s just that your description this morning of the woman in brown sarcenet reminded me a little of Elizabeth Alefounder.’

‘Aha!’ I shouted, disturbing Adam, who stopped banging his spoon on the floor and shuffled across to embrace one of my legs in an iron grip.

‘There’s no “Aha!” about it,’ my wife reproved me. ‘I said it reminded me a little. Now, sweetheart, please don’t go leaping to conclusions.’

‘I should think not, indeed!’ Margaret protested. ‘What on earth would a respectable woman like Bess Alefounder be doing mixed up in a murder? What nonsense it is! Why don’t you admit you were delirious, Roger, and simply dreamed it all?’

I could tell from Adela’s expression that she was reluctant to say anything further that might bolster my belief in my story, but her natural instinct to see justice done made her go on.

‘You forget, Cousin,’ she said gently, ‘that for the past year, ever since last summer, the Sheriff’s men have been keeping a close watch on Robin Avenel’s household. He was suspected, if you remember, of Lancastrian sympathies. If it had ever been proved that the man we all thought was a Tudor spy really had been one, then there’s no doubt, according to Richard Manifold, that Robin Avenel would have been arrested. As it was, with the stranger being murdered like that, nothing could be proved against him. Against Master Avenel, I mean.’

‘But what has that to do with his sister?’ Margaret demanded, rising from her stool. ‘I’m surprised at you, Adela, encouraging that great oaf in this piece of arrant folly. He was exposed to too much sun. He fell in the Avon. And in his delirium, he dreamed he saw the re-enactment of an old murder, which he had recalled while passing the house where it happened. That’s all there is to it. Now, I’m going upstairs to collect my things, and then I’m going home. You don’t need me any longer, not now that Roger is up and about once more. And I’ve been away from Redcliffe for far too long. Goodness knows what’s been happening in my absence. Maria Watkins and Bess Simnel will have been having things all their own way.’

Adela made a half-hearted attempt to persuade her cousin to stay, but I think, secretly, she was as anxious as I was to see her go. Margaret Walker was a woman with a heart of gold, an excellent friend in times of trouble, totally to be relied upon. But she was also domineering and liked to be in charge, whether at home or in someone else’s house. A wearing woman whose strength of will necessitated constant combating with one’s own.

I barely registered her decision to leave, I was so busy mulling over what Adela had said. I abandoned all thought of visiting Rownham Passage for the present. My first priority now was to try to catch a glimpse of Mistress Alefounder. I freed myself from Adam’s hold and got unsteadily to my feet.

My wife observed me with a jaundiced eye. ‘Still determined to go out?’ she asked.

I grunted. ‘But not so far. At least, not yet.’

Adela smiled. ‘Only as far as Broad Street, is that it?’

‘The next woman I marry,’ I retorted darkly, ‘won’t be able to read my mind. It’s too unnerving.’

She laughed and gave me a swift kiss on one cheek. Friendly, but no more than that. ‘Sweetheart, there’s not a woman born who couldn’t read you like an open book.’

I returned her kiss with interest and suggested there was nothing so urgent that it couldn’t be postponed. But I was out of luck. She swore she had too much to do. When she had cleared the breakfast dishes, she must sit with the two older children in order to teach them their alphabet and numbers from one to ten. Their lessons, she said, had been sadly neglected during my illness. I sighed and began to pull on my boots.

‘Tonight?’ I whispered suggestively.

She shrugged and muttered something that sounded like ‘maybe’. I was hurt, but said nothing. I cleaned my teeth with willow bark and found my jerkin, for although the sky beyond the open shutters gave every indication of another warm day, the early June morning was still chilly. And as one who had so recently been an invalid, I could take no chances.

‘If you’re really going round to Broad Street,’ Adela said, ‘would you call in at Saint Giles’s and light a candle for me?’

I had a suspicion that some date around this time was the anniversary of her first husband’s birthday, or his death, or some such thing, but I didn’t enquire and she volunteered no explanation. We are all entitled to those secret places of the heart, those shrines to memory which are ours, and ours alone.

‘Of course,’ I said, kissing her cheek.

Until seven or eight months previously, when Adela and I had rented a cottage in Lewin’s Mead, we had naturally worshipped at Saint James’s Priory, the church being our landlord. Since the upturn in our fortunes and the move to Small Street, however, we had many more to choose from. Within a few minutes’ walk were the churches of Saint Giles, Saint Stephen, Saint John, Saint Werburgh, Saint Lawrence, Saint Leonard and Saint Ewen, while slightly further afield were Christchurch and All Saints. Inside the city walls, between the rivers Frome and Avon, there were more churches than taverns, which should have made Bristol an exceptionally godly place. It wasn’t. There was as much crime stalking its streets as in any other town in England.

Saint Giles lay at the Bell Lane end of Small Street, in the direction of the river Frome. These days, and for many years past, it had shared a priest with both Saint Leonard’s and Saint Lawrence’s, which meant that for much of every day it was deserted, except for the occasional private worshipper. The main entrance was on the quay side of the building, in Jewry Lane, but there was another, smaller door giving access from Bell Lane, and it was this, being the nearer, that Adela and I always used.

Saint Giles was not an old church compared with many others in the city. It had been built, so I had been informed, about a hundred and fifty years ago on the site of the old Bristol synagogue, which had fallen into disrepair following the expulsion of the Jews from England in the reign of the first Edward. Thrifty Bristol citizens had used much of the stone from the Jewish temple to construct Saint Giles; appropriate, perhaps, for a building in honour of a man whose life was dedicated to thrift, dwelling as he did in a cave and living on roots and the milk of a friendly deer.

The door creaked slightly as I pushed it open. The church was empty. I waited a moment for my sight to clear, then I cautiously made my way towards the altar where stood the saint’s effigy, painted plaster hand resting on the head of a golden doe whose body was pierced by a silver arrow, the huntsmen of King Flavius, as you will recall, having tried to shoot it. Whoever had carved the face of poor old Giles — a mentor of Charlemagne — had made him appear very bad-tempered. But then, who wouldn’t be, living on a diet of roots and doe’s milk?

I made my obeisance, then searched around until I found a small store of candles on a shelf near the sacristy. I placed one among the previous day’s dead offerings at the foot of the statue, but when I came to light it, I discovered I had left my flint and tinderbox at home in my pouch. Cursing, I was preparing to return to Small Street when a voice enquired, ‘Do you need a light?’

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had heard no one enter the church, in spite of the creaking door, nor noticed anyone’s approach. Yet here was this young man standing beside me, smiling, genuflecting and offering me his flint and tinderbox at one and the same time.

‘Where … where have you sprung from?’ I asked, wishing there was something to sit on. My legs felt like jelly.

The young man laughed, but gave no explanation as to his sudden appearance.

‘Is this your candle?’ He nodded at the only fresh one amongst its burnt-out brothers, and, without waiting for my reply, proceeded to light it. ‘There! Now you can say your prayer.’

I thanked him. I could see him better in the glow from the candle flame. He was, I judged, about nineteen or twenty years of age, of middling height — the top of his head barely reached two inches above my shoulder — with the straightest hair I had ever seen. Straw-coloured, there was no vestige of curl or even a kink anywhere in it, and it fell, like the proverbial yard of pump water, to just below his ears and was cut in a fringe across his forehead. His skin was as pale as his hair, but he was saved from anonymity by an enormous pair of sapphire-blue eyes, sparkling with life. Looking into them, I was suddenly and vividly reminded of what it meant to be young, to be just starting out on life’s great adventure, when anything was possible, danger non-existent; when the words ‘responsibility’, ‘wife’, ‘children’ and ‘family’ were as alien as the moon; when these things belonged to other people, unfortunate souls; when the world lay before you for the taking.

Fighting down a surge of envy and nostalgia, I asked, ‘What’s your name?’

He bowed mockingly. ‘Luke Prettywood, and I’m chief assistant to Alderman Alefounder at the Newgate brewery.’

Now there was a coincidence! Too much of one for comfort. I was seized with a sneaking suspicion that God was meddling in my affairs again.

‘And what brings you to Saint Giles, Master Prettywood, so early in the morning?’

He was entitled to tell me to mind my own business, but he only laughed and said, ‘I know who you are. You’re Roger Chapman, the pedlar, who was left the old Herepath house in Small Street by Cicely Ford. You have a reputation for being nosy.’ Which, of course, was just another way of saying the same thing.

The Bell Lane door creaked open again and we both turned to see a woman’s figure outlined in the doorway. The noise and bustle of the street momentarily intruded on the quiet of the church; the sounds and smells of the nearby livery stables assaulted our ears and nostrils. Whoever it was hesitated for a second, as though taken aback by our presence, before stepping inside and closing the door. She drifted towards us across the rush-strewn floor, the skirt of a pale silk gown billowing in the draught, and I could see her eyes blink as they adjusted to the gloom of the nave.

‘What are you doing here, Luke?’ she asked in a light, fluting voice. ‘I thought you’d returned to the brewery ages ago.’

I recognized her at once. Marianne Avenel, she who had been Marianne Alefounder before her marriage, had become a familar figure in the immediate vicinity since her marriage to Robin Avenel some sixteen months earlier. The couple had taken up residence in a house I had once known well, the late Alderman Weaver’s house in Broad Street, bought for them by Robin’s father, Peter Avenel, a soap manufacturer and one of Bristol’s richest citizens.

Marianne was the sort of girl who would always be known as ‘a pretty little thing’ even when she was nearing thirty. At present, I guessed her to be a good ten years short of that, but her kittenish, heart-shaped face with its soft, pouting lips, wide-set, luminous grey eyes and peach-like cheeks would alter very little with the passage of time. Nor would the air of faint dissatisfaction that clung to her like a second skin. I’ve met many women like her throughout my life; women who think that their looks entitle them to the admiration of the world in general and of men in particular. I have never pandered to their delusion, however attractive they might be, and I had no intention of doing so with Marianne Avenel.

Consequently, I gave only the briefest of bows in answer to the brilliant smile she bestowed upon me, and remained unmoved by the seductive flutter of her charcoal-darkened eyelashes. Huffily, she turned back to my companion.

‘I asked you what you’re still doing here, Luke. My father will be wondering where you are and he’ll blame me for delaying you. You have my answer to his message.’

‘I came to say a prayer for the repose of my sister’s soul,’ the brewer’s assistant answered, assuming a pious expression. ‘You’ll recall, mistress, that she died last year.’

I doubted this. Oh, not that his sister had died. He would hardly risk a lie if Marianne Avenel knew better. But his response had been altogether too glib, and I had so far detected no sign of any grief in his demeanour. Moreover, his thin, mobile mouth twitched with amusement as he clasped the little hand, impulsively extended to him, and raised it to his lips.

‘Oh, Luke! I’m so sorry! How thoughtless of me not to remember! She’s buried here, isn’t she, in the crypt?’

He nodded, his pleasant face sobering as if he were indeed beset by memories of the dead girl.

‘Would you … Would you care to see her coffin?’ he asked tentatively. ‘Would you let me escort you down to the crypt? The stairs are rather dark, but I have my tinderbox. I can light a candle.’

I half expected Mistress Avenel to refuse. I doubted if the crypt and the stairs leading to it were very clean, and she was wearing a gown of pale yellow sarcenet. Her little feet were shod in cream leather. But she nodded good-naturedly.

‘Yes, of course, if you’d like me to.’

Luke smiled and once again bent over her hand, while she peeped up at him from beneath her long lashes. Her compliance, I reflected meanly, was easily explained. Her father’s assistant was a good-looking young man and she couldn’t resist adding him to her list of conquests — if she hadn’t done so already.

Luke Prettywood fetched and lit a new candle, pocketed his tinderbox and gallantly offered her his arm.

‘I’ll wish you good day, then, chapman,’ he said. ‘I daresay you want to be off.’

It was almost as if he were anxious to see me gone. It made me wonder. Had the little scene recently enacted by the pair been solely for my benefit? Was there something more between them than I had so far suspected? Margaret had referred to Marianne Avenel as a fly-by-night, with an underlying suggestion that she was not as dutiful — or as faithful? — a wife as she should be. Or was I adding two and two together and making five?

I watched Luke Prettywood and Marianne Avenel disappear down the steps leading to the crypt, but made no attempt to be on my way. Instead, I lit another candle, gave the couple a moment or two’s grace, then followed them.

The crypt of Saint Giles was an oppressive place, with a smell of damp and decay much more noticeable than in the church above. I was not normally so sensitive to atmosphere, but I suddenly had an overwhelming impression of unhappiness and suffering. I put it down to my weakened state and told myself not to be foolish. I looked around for my quarry, but saw nothing except tombs and rows of stone coffins lined up on shelves.

I held my candle higher, but its wavering light revealed only the dead. There was no sign of the living.

I moved forward cautiously, and as my eyes again grew accustomed to this greater gloom, I realized that the vault immediately below the church was not the full extent of the crypt. Ahead of me loomed an archway, and beyond that lay a second chamber, the only difference being that it was used, not as a repository for the dead, but as a storeroom. A number of chests, old and covered in cobwebs, were ranged against the walls, together with planks of wood and numerous pieces of furniture that had seen better days. I hazarded a guess that the priest was running a profitable little business on the side, augmenting his stipend by renting out space to those of his parishioners who had items they were loath to throw away, but no longer had room for in their houses.

To my astonishment, yet another archway beckoned, and I walked forward to find myself staring into a third, equally dusty chamber. This one, however, was empty. Empty, that is, except for the pale gleam of two figures at the far end, locked together in what was obviously a passionate embrace. Luke Prettywood and Marianne Avenel, without a doubt. Who else could it be?

I was uncertain whether I should announce my presence or withdraw discreetly. In the end, as they seemed not to have noticed me, discretion won. I tiptoed back the way I had come and was just about to mount the steps to the church when the amorous pair reappeared, looking hot, dishevelled and, when they clapped eyes on me, distinctly guilty.

‘Ch-Chapman? I … We … What are you doing down here? I thought you’d gone.’ Master Prettywood was plainly disconcerted.

I assumed my blandest expression. ‘Once I’d finished my prayers, I decided that I, too, would like to pay my respects to your sister.’ It sounded a pretty lame excuse, so I hurried on. ‘But when I got down here, I couldn’t find you anywhere. Where were you?’

I saw Marianne Avenel glance sideways at Luke as she surreptitiously let go of his hand. But her swain, having regained his composure, was up to the challenge.

‘Mistress Avenel,’ he lied smoothly, ‘has never been in Saint Giles’s crypt before, but of course she’s heard of the great cellars that run beneath the church, almost as far as Saint John’s-on-the-Arch. She asked me to show them to her.’

I was intrigued to know about these cellars myself. ‘I did peep into the next chamber,’ I admitted, adding innocently, ‘Are there others beyond that?’

Luke, taking this as proof that I had seen nothing that I shouldn’t have done, gave me a relieved smile.

‘There is a third one. These are the cellars of the Jewish synagogue that once stood on this site. Do you know about that?’ I nodded. ‘Well, when Saint Giles was built, the cellars were left. But only the first room, this one, is needed as a crypt. So local people have always used the second as a storeroom. The third one’s empty.’ He laughed. ‘My grandfather told me that his grandfather, as a boy, used to come down here with his friends searching for a way into the secret vault that people swore had been built by the Jews in order to house their hoard of gold and silver. In those days, everyone thought that as the Jews had been forced to leave in such a hurry, they must have gone without their treasure.’ Luke laughed again. ‘But no one ever found it — the entrance to the secret vault, I mean. If, that is, it ever existed outside of people’s imaginations.’ He turned to his companion. ‘And now, Mistress Avenel, I must get back to the brewery. Thank you for coming down to see my sister’s coffin. It was kind of you. But first, may I have the pleasure of escorting you home? Broad Street is on my way.’