The Prodigal Son

Nine

I saw Ronan Bignell frown as the newcomer slipped an arm familiarly around Rose’s waist, but his disapproval turned to excitement as he recognized Anthony Bellknapp.

It was one thing to be told of the prodigal’s return, but quite another to see him in the flesh. That small corner of Ronan’s mind that had retained a vestige of disbelief was now forced to accept the truth of my and his sister’s story. After eight years without a word, the best part of a decade with no knowledge as to whether he was alive or dead, the elder of the two Bellknapp brothers stood before us, bronzed, fit, his dark brown curls well combed, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Well dressed, too, and if his hose and tunic were not the extreme of fashion — and, let’s face it, the extreme of male fashion at that time was enough to make your average citizen laugh himself silly — they were made of good cloth and yarn and had been cut by an expert tailor. His riding boots gleamed with the gloss of the best Cordovan leather. Whatever else had, or had not, happened to Anthony during the years of his self-imposed exile, he hadn’t starved. In fact, he seemed to have done very well for himself. I wondered idly what he had been up to, and made a mental note to ask him whenever the moment seemed propitious.

Rose hurriedly introduced her brother, and immediately Anthony’s manner towards her underwent a change. It became jocular, almost fraternal, as he pinched her blushing cheek and then released her.

‘Ronan Bignell! Yes, I do remember you, even though you must still have been a lad at the time I left Croxcombe. Mind you, I wasn’t much past my seventeenth birthday myself, when I come to think of it.’ He turned back to Rose. ‘As I was saying, Mistress Micheldever, you should have waited for me before riding into Wells. I would have mounted you on a decent horse instead of letting you traipse around the countryside on a donkey.’

‘I didn’t know you were intending to visit the town, sir,’ was the demure reply, ‘and Master Chapman was anxious to speak to my brother.’

Anthony raised his eyebrows at me in a look of enquiry, but I shook my head, sending what I hoped was a warning glance at Rose.

‘Only some queries about old acquaintances of mine.’ I thought quickly. ‘The Actons.’ The name just came into my head, apparently from nowhere, and it took me some seconds before I recollected that it was an Acton who had been my father’s mistress and my half-brother’s mother.

To my astonishment, Ronan Bignell said promptly, ‘Oh, there are no Actons in Wells nowadays, but I know of a couple of that name living out towards Wedmore.’

‘Th-thank you,’ I stuttered. ‘If you’ll be good enough to give me more precise directions, I–I’ll pay them a visit.’

Anthony Bellknapp’s eyebrows rose even higher. He wasn’t deceived. ‘It’s taken you both a long time to establish that fact,’ he remarked drily, then let the matter drop. He offered Rose his arm. ‘Mistress Micheldever, now that I’ve found you, allow me to buy you a favour, some trinket or other, from one of the market stalls.’

Rose hesitated, but only for a moment. She obviously guessed that such a gift would be frowned upon by her husband, but she was unable to resist the lure of some free finery to adorn her person. She took the proffered arm, and Ronan and I followed her and Anthony back under the archway into the hubbub of the marketplace, which was now at the height of the morning’s trading.

Bakers, butchers and brewers, tinkers, tailors and weavers, shepherds and herdsmen, with animals they were hoping to sell, hot pie vendors yelling the attractions of their wares — ‘Pies piping hot! Good meat! No gristle! Come and dine! Come and dine!’ — and vintners shouting, ‘White wine, red wine to wash the food down. A beakerful free with every one you buy!’ made for a crescendo of noise that hurt my ears. I had forgotten how rowdy Wells market could be. It could compete with Bristol’s any day of the week.

The sensation created by news of Anthony Bellknapp’s return, followed by his actual appearance in their midst, seemed to be evaporating. People continued to stare at him as he moved among the stalls, and to whisper behind their hands, but business had resumed with its customary briskness. Ronan went off to join his father, and to receive, by the look of things, a furious reprimand for his prolonged absence. Meantime, I rescued Hercules from a confrontation with an angry goose, an encounter he was in serious danger of losing. As compensation for being again tucked unceremoniously under my arm, I let him share the meat pie I had bought and was eating.

There was a sudden gap in the surging crowd, and I saw Anthony and Rose standing at a little distance beside a stall that sold jewellery. While I watched, Rose slipped a necklace over her head and admired her reflection in the mirror of polished steel that the stallholder held up to her. Anthony passed some coins across the counter and I inched closer, curious to know what price he was prepared to pay for the possible future pleasure of laying his receiver’s wife. For there was no doubt in my mind that that was what he was after; and judging by the smile that Rose bestowed on him, he was already more than halfway to achieving his goal.

Another woman, who until that minute had been just a part of the milling crowd, suddenly stopped in front of Anthony, blocking his progress. Her back view, which was as much as I could see at that moment, in its plain blue gown and linen coif suggested a well-fed, well-built country girl, and her hands, roughened by work and weather, upheld this impression. Her left was on her hip, in that stance a woman adopts just before giving you a piece of her mind (and heaven help you when she does); the right one clasped that of a young boy, some nine or ten years old, who was half turned towards me, and who bore a striking resemblance to the Bellknapp family, particularly to Anthony. I saw the latter’s eyes flicker as he, too, recognized it.

I edged closer, easing myself unobtrusively around the woman to stand next to Rose.

‘Anthony!’ the woman exclaimed, looking him up and down. ‘So, it’s true. You’ve returned at last.’ She glanced down at the boy. ‘Lucas, this is Master Bellknapp. Anthony, this is my son, Lucas Slye.’

Anthony bowed. ‘Dorcas, it’s good to see you again. You … You haven’t married, then?’

‘No.’ She gave him a challenging smile. ‘I resisted all attempts of family and clergy to make a respectable woman of me. My son and I live at home with my parents.’

‘A fine lad. He’s a credit to you.’ Anthony was making a brave effort to return the smile, but I could see he wasn’t finding it easy. It was more of a rictus grin.

‘Dorcas!’ Rose greeted the other woman with a kiss. Then, becoming aware of my presence, she said, ‘Master Chapman, this is the sister of Croxcombe’s chamberlain, Mistress Slye. And this is her son, Lucas.’

Dorcas Slye, as I had already surmised, had the round, healthy looks of the country girl, with the same blue eyes and short neck of her brother, Jonathan. Her skin was like the bloom on a ripe plum and was completely innocent of the white lead that fashionable women would have considered necessary to tone down its high colour. She was very pretty if you have a taste for the bucolic, which, at some time or another, Anthony Bellknapp plainly had had. There could be no doubt that Lucas was his son, even though Dorcas Slye, if I remembered correctly, had refused to name him as the father. Whether or not the resemblance had struck Rose, I had no idea: somehow I doubted it. There was an underlying innocence about her that belied the sharp, acquisitive gaze and predatory smile. But there could be little question that other people would remark on the similarity now that Anthony, whose features must have grown dim in their recollections over the past eight years, was once more before them. The gossip would flare up again; and although it seemed to be of little moment to Dorcas herself, her family would be bound to resent it. Jonathan Slye, the chamberlain, had probably recognized the danger as soon as he clapped eyes on the prodigal. Anthony Bellknapp’s tally of enemies was mounting fast. It was small wonder that George Applegarth had advised him to watch his back.

I became aware that Rose was inviting me to admire her new necklace. ‘Coral and jet,’ she said happily. ‘Jet to ward off evil spirits.’

I wondered if it might also ward off a husband’s jealousy, but saw that no such consideration had disturbed Rose’s peace of mind. Dorcas Slye was regarding the necklace with a mocking smile, doubtless recalling similar gifts in the past and all too conscious of their consequences. Anthony, too, suddenly looked uncomfortable.

‘Master Chapman,’ he said, ‘do you return with us to Croxcombe? I shall take up Mistress Micheldever behind me on my horse. Ronan Bignell will return the donkey to the manor when he brings the next delivery of meat.’

As I had no intention of following behind them like a humble retainer, I excused myself.

‘If you’ll allow me continued use of my donkey, I’ll ride in the direction of Wedmore and find my friends, the Actons. As I said, Master Bignell will give me more detailed directions.’

Anthony seemed a little taken aback, having quite correctly decided in his own mind that these friends of mine had been a hurried excuse to conceal whatever it was that Ronan and I had really been discussing. But my sudden decision to search out the Actons would both allay his suspicions and might also prove to be of some value to myself. Although what, I couldn’t imagine.

Half an hour later, I was jogging along the Wedmore track, on my own at last. Judging by the sun, it was now past noon, and here and there the silver trunks of birch trees rippled like water in the afternoon light. The countryside was looking beautiful. The feathered gold of ragwort caught my eye, white trumpets of bindweed were being crushed beneath the donkey’s hooves, and buttercups and golden-eyed daisies spangled the molehills. (The day’s eye, how well that little plant is named.) Altogether, it was a brilliant scene, the colours glowing jewel-bright under the sun, and making me glad to be alive.

According to Ronan Bignell, Edgar and Avice Acton scraped a living from a smallholding somewhere to the east of Wedmore, watered by a little tributary of the meandering River Axe. Greatly to my surprise, they weren’t difficult to find. Everyone of whom I sought directions seemed to be familiar with their names even if he or she was not acquainted with the couple in person. I gathered that they were an elderly pair who were probably either my half-brother’s grandparents or a great-uncle and great-aunt. As it turned out, the latter surmise was correct.

When I eventually came across them, the two were sitting contentedly outside their cottage, enjoying the sunshine and drinking small beer from horn beakers which were obviously home-made. As I approached, I saw the man take a handful of grain from a bag beside him and throw it into the dirt. With a great clucking and squawking and much flapping of wings, two hens, a goose and a duck went running after it, the duck being at a decided disadvantage because it had to lumber up from the stream that all but encircled the property. In a nearby sty a couple of pigs rootled and snorted; one a heavy-bodied, stumpy-legged creature with drooping, floppy ears, obviously a descendant of the wild boars that had roamed the woodlands for centuries; the other lighter-skinned, longer-limbed, with a pointed snout and bright, intelligent eyes. A Tantony pig as country people called it (or a Saint Anthony pig, if you wanted to give it its full name), the sort of porker most often seen for sale in town and city marketplaces. There were also a sheep, a goat and a cow, turned loose to graze the adjoining meadow.

I approached quietly, the donkey’s hooves making no sound on the lush grass, and was about to alert the Actons to my presence when Hercules did it for me, making a headlong rush at the poultry and scattering them in all directions. I slid from Neddy’s back, yelling ferociously at him to come to heel and startling the rest of the livestock in the process. After such an entrance, I could hardly have been surprised if the Actions had requested me to leave forthwith, but both husband and wife roared with laughter and Hercules, recognizing a couple of well-wishers, went to sit between them, daring me to touch him.

‘Nice li’l dog,’ the man said, tickling the miscreant’s ears.

‘Sometimes,’ I agreed, still advancing threateningly. Hercules barked at me and licked his new friend’s hand. (That animal can be such a sycophant!) ‘Master and Mistress Acton?’ I enquired.

They laughed again.

‘Don’ know about Maister,’ the man answered. ‘But I’m Edgar Acton and this here is my Goody. What can we do for you, young fellow?’

When you are less than two months off your twenty-eighth birthday, it’s not often you’re called a young fellow. I beamed and forgot to be cross with Hercules, stooping myself to tickle his ears. He allowed himself to be placated and condescended to lick my hand as well. Meantime, Goody Acton had gone into the cottage and fetched out another stool and beaker of ale, and before I was allowed to explain the reason for my visit, I was pressed to sit down and refresh myself.

‘It’s a danged hot day!’ her husband exclaimed. ‘Better fetch some water for that there donkey, my old sweetheart. And for this here dog.’

So it was not until the needs of Hercules and Neddy had been supplied that I was at last able to tell my story. I began by asking the couple if they were indeed kin to the Anne Acton who had married first her cousin, Ralph Wedmore, and then an Irishman, Matthew O’Neill.

The old man nodded. ‘Aye, Anne were my niece. My brother’s daughter. Bright, pretty lass, she were. Never could make out why she married Ralph. He were my sister’s son, but took after his father’s family. Miserable lot the Wedmores. Never had much to do with ’em after Jeanne died.’

‘Nor with your great-nephews, Anne’s sons?’

‘We did try once or twice,’ Avice Acton said defensively. ‘But it was soon plain we weren’t welcome. Anne only had the one lad then. John I think she’d named him. After her father, Edgar’s brother.’

‘That’s right.’ The man nodded. ‘I believe there were another lad later on, but we never saw him. Both of us had a feeling there was something not quite right about Anne’s marriage to Ralph. Something being hidden, if you know what I mean. Ralph and his parents didn’t seem to treat the boy like one of their own. Me and Avice, we wondered …’

‘Aye, we did wonder.’ His wife looked at me, suddenly expectant.

‘You were quite right to wonder,’ I affirmed, and proceeded to recount the whole story, leaving as little out as possible.

When I had finished, there was a long silence while the couple digested what I had told them. Finally, Goody Acton heaved a great sigh and Edgar nodded his head.

‘That makes sense,’ Avice said at last.

Her husband added, ‘It do that. Don’t get the pig by the tail, mind! Anne weren’t a flighty piece. Reckon she must’ve been uncommon fond o’ your father to let herself bear his child.’

‘I think my father was probably very fond of her,’ I answered in a low voice. ‘Looking back, I can see now that it caused my mother a lot of grief. He never knew about the child, of course. I think he must have been killed before your niece could tell him.’

Edgar nodded. ‘And now you say John’s in gaol, accused o’ murder?’

‘Wrongly, I feel certain.’ And I went again over the circumstances that had landed John Wedmore in the Bristol bridewell. ‘He insists that he was in Ireland six years ago, living with his family. His mother and younger brother and stepfather.’

‘Do you believe him?’ Goody Acton asked, her shrewd old eyes regarding me thoughtfully.

‘I have no reason not to. Moreover, he’d be foolish to return to this country, to this part of the world in particular, if he was wanted for murder.’

‘Bristol ain’t ’xactly this part o’ the world,’ Edgar objected. ‘’Tis miles away, over other side o’ Mendip. Up country.’

‘No great distance to Dame Audrea,’ I pointed out, ‘with her carriage and her horses. And it was the time of Saint James’s fair. If John had ever been in her employ, he’d have remembered that she always visited the city for that, and to see her kinsman in Small Street. He’d surely have calculated there was a chance of meeting her. He’d have waited.’

‘Not if he were worried about his brother,’ Avice argued. ‘All the same, I think you’m most likely right. This Dame Audrea’s mistaken him for somebody else. They’m not a violent lot, the Actons.’

‘No, we’m allus been reasonable folk,’ her husband agreed. ‘But the Wedmores! They’re a different bucket o’ shit.’

‘But if the pedlar’s telling us the truth,’ his wife demurred, ‘Anne’s eldest ain’t a Wedmore. He’s a bastard of this young fellow’s father.’ She turned to me. ‘Any history o’ violence on your side the family?’ I shook my head. ‘There you are then. There’s been a mistake made, no doubt about it.’

‘Maybe! Maybe!’ Edgar pursed his lips and sucked at his few remaining teeth. ‘But what we can do about it, I dunno. Don’ like t’ think of Anne’s boy wrongfully accused, but like I say, there ain’t nothing we can do.’

‘You couldn’t swear to the fact that six years ago John was in Ireland?’ I asked, but without much hope of a positive answer.

They both sighed regretfully.

‘We told you,’ Avice Acton said, ‘we never had much to do with Anne and her family, not when the boys were young. And we got out o’ the habit of asking after them when strangers stopped by. We did hear Ralph had died, but not for a year nor more afterwards, by which time Anne had got herself married again to some Irishman or other and gone to live across the water. ’Spect we heard both things together, though after all this while I can’t be sure.’

‘Do either of you remember anything about the murder at Croxcombe Manor, six years ago?’ I enquired desperately. (I had guessed this was a wasted journey before I started out.) ‘Did you ever set eyes on the page, John Jericho, during the time he was in Dame Audrea’s employ? When you went to Wells, perhaps?’

‘Lord love you, I ain’t been to Wells since I can’t tell when,’ Edgar chuckled. ‘What do we want to go jauntering around the countryside for? We got everything we need right here. If they want to see us, people come to us.’

‘Six years is a great time to remember anything,’ his wife said. ‘Although, now I come to think of it, something do stir in my mind. Someone — can’t rightly recollect who — did tell us there’d been some trouble over to Mendip way. Robbery or some such thing. But whether that were six year or six month ago, I couldn’t swear to. One day’s pretty much like another, and time don’t mean much here, like it does to city folks. We just follow the seasons round.’

I could well believe that. The peace of the place was profound. There was a kind of enchantment in its silence and isolation. Cares and worries were slipping from me; Adela, the children, the need to earn a living suddenly seemed nothing more than a distant dream. I could stay here for the rest of my life, just myself and Hercules, and no one would ever know what had become of me …

I pulled myself together. It was time I was going before the witches and hobgoblins and woodland sprites that inhabit the wilder corners of this land had me in their thrall. I got to my feet and held out my hand to the dog. ‘Come along, lad!’

‘You’re not going!’ Avice Acton exclaimed, sounding disappointed. ‘We see so few strangers and it’s always a pleasure to hear about the outside world.’

‘Aye, it is that,’ Edgar agreed. ‘And once, it seems someone come asking after us in Wedmore. Or, at least, so we were told, though he never turned up here. Lost his way, I s’pose, or was given the wrong directions.’

‘Some o’ them over t’ Wedmore’s got turnips for heads!’ Avice was scathing of her nearest neighbours. ‘We were that gutted when we heard. Nice young lad, too, by all accounts. Asked in the alehouse, and some fool told him we’d moved away. Danged idiot! Others said no and told him how to find us, but like Edgar says, he never came.’

‘How long ago was this?’ I asked, but neither had the slightest idea, Edgar Acton hazarding anything from one year to ten, his wife offering six weeks, eight months, four years.

Time past; time present; time future; it was all one to the Actons who, within a very short time, would confuse this visit of mine with somebody else’s. I thanked them profusely for their hospitality, remounted the donkey, whistled up Hercules and rode back by twisting paths and barely visible, dried-up tracks to the main highway leading from Wells to Wedmore. I was about to turn eastwards to return to Croxcombe, when, on a sudden whim, I decided to continue in a westward direction, looking out, as I did so, for any alehouse that stood near the road.

This wasn’t hard to find, and beside Wedmore’s market cross I noticed a promising small tavern that looked a likely place for anyone needing directions from the local population. But I was unlucky. In a crowded taproom, no one recalled a stranger enquiring after Edgar and Avice Acton for the past ten years or more. Yes, of course they would remember! Well, someone would, I could be sure of that. In Wedmore the old people prided themselves on their memories. Why, they could recall when …

The landlord touched me on the arm. ‘Try the alehouse a mile or so back, on the Cheddar road,’ he advised. ‘Little, out o’ the way place. No one much goes there, but you never know. If you stay here, you’ll end up buying ’em all free ale while you listen to their life histories.’

I thanked him, paid twice the price for the stoup of ale I’d had, and departed while the storm of reminiscence that my question had provoked was at its height.

The afternoon was by now some way advanced, and the distant hills were slabbed with purple and gold as the sun continued its slow descent towards the horizon. It took me a while to locate this second alehouse, so distant did it seem from any haunt of man. And when at last I found it, it was nothing more than a single-storey daub-and-wattle building devoid of human life except for the surly landlord, standing outside his door surveying the glimmering landscape, and a potboy asleep in the sunshine on a rough-hewn bench. I nearly didn’t bother to dismount. There was certainly nothing to be learned here.

I was mistaken. For a start, the landlord was not as surly as he looked, and, when approached, seemed glad of the opportunity to chat to a stranger. He woke the potboy, shifted him off the bench with instructions to bring us both some cider and water for Hercules, and invited me to sit down.

‘Come far?’ he grunted.

‘Today, from Wells, but I live in Bristol.’

‘Powerful big place, Bristol. I went there once,’ he added proudly.

‘Big enough,’ I acknowledged, ‘though not so big as London.’

My companion regarded me with respect. ‘You been to Lunnon?’

‘Several times. I was there earlier this year.’ I didn’t admit to being on friendly terms with the Duke of Gloucester. There was no point. It would serve no purpose and he probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

‘Cor!’ was all he said as the potboy returned with two beakers of cider. ‘So what brings you here? Not many folk comes this road. A few local shepherds and cowherds. But me and the boy — ’e’s my grandson — we scrape a living o’ sorts. I’ve thought o’ movin’ on, but where’d we go? No, so long as we’m happy, I reckon that’s all that matters.’

‘I imagine you don’t see many strangers?’

‘No. Too far from the beaten track.’ He turned his head and gave me a curious stare. ‘How d’you come to be here?’

‘It was suggested to me by some people in Wedmore. I’m trying to find someone who might remember a young man in these parts some time ago who was looking for Edgar and Avice Acton. I don’t suppose you have any such recollection? I can’t even tell you exactly when it was.’

I was in for my second surprise.

‘Yes, I remember,’ the landlord said. ‘Mind you, I couldn’t say how many years agone it were, but I do recollect ’im.’

‘Can you remember what he looked like?’

‘Oh, aye. Small, dark lad. Thought ’e were a Welshman to begin with. ’E had that look about ’im. Told ’im where the Actons could be found. What’s your interest in ’im?’

‘I’ve been visiting the Actons today. They’d heard about the young man enquiring for them, but it seems he never turned up. They wondered why not.’

The landlord shrugged. ‘Must’ve lost his way. Easy enough done, I reckon.’ Like all country folk, he saw no absurdity in discussing events of the past as if they had happened last week.

‘You … You didn’t discover the young man’s name?’ I asked, and he nodded. ‘What was it? Can you recall?’

I found myself holding my breath. If the answer was John Wedmore, then it might well be that my half-brother was lying and he had returned to Somerset since his mother’s remarriage. In which case, I could go home to Bristol forthwith.

‘What was it?’ I repeated.

The landlord grunted. ‘A queer name. Something out the Bible. Let me see now. Ar. Got it! John Jericho, that were it.’