The Saint John's fern

Chapter Twelve

She did not see me at first. Her eyes were fixed upon her mistress.

‘The horses are growing restless. You’ve been a long time,’ she said.

‘I stayed behind to pray after the rest of the congregation had left,’ Berenice replied. ‘I lit a candle for Great-Uncle Oliver.’

I saw Katherine Glover’s unguarded look of astonishment and her open mouth, as if she would make some remark. But then she noticed me and her expression turned to one of shock, then of resentment.

‘What are you doing in Modbury, chapman? Are you following me about?’ Without waiting for my answer, she turned to Berenice. ‘This is the pedlar I told you of. The one I met at the Bird of Passage Inn. The one who’s so inquisitive concerning our affairs.’

Her mistress regarded me quizzically. ‘So you’re the man, are you?’ The dark eyes were filled with sardonic amusement. ‘But you omitted to tell us, Kate, how extraordinarily handsome he is.’

I felt the beginnings of a blush, and in order to change the subject I said quickly, ‘When you refer to “us”, Mistress, I take it that you mean yourself and your betrothed, Master Bartholomew Champernowne.’

The laughter vanished and the strongly marked eyebrows rose. ‘Now how do you know that?’ she asked.

‘As far as your betrothal goes, I was told by someone in Plymouth that you and he were to marry. And because of what happened afterwards, I’m sure that he was with you when Mistress Glover returned home after our meeting at the inn.’

This time the eyebrows drew together in a frown.

‘What happened afterwards?’ Berenice demanded, and listened intently to my explanation. ‘The fool!’ she burst out angrily when I had finished. ‘If any of this — the suborning of witnesses, attempted murder — comes to the Sheriff’s ears, Bartholomew will be in very deep trouble indeed.’ She glanced anxiously at me. ‘Can I rely on your discretion, chapman, not to mention this story to anyone else?’

Wishing to conceal the fact that I had already confided in Anne Fettiplace, I prevaricated.

‘I wasn’t the only person involved, Mistress, as I’ve told you. But I assure you I have no intention of approaching any officer of the law.’

She mulled this over for a moment or two, before asking, ‘What do you know of this man in whose cottage you were staying? This … This…’

‘Jack Golightly,’ I supplied.

Berenice nodded. ‘This Jack Golightly. Is he likely, do you think, to make a report to the Sheriff’s officers next time he visits Exeter or Plymouth?’

I shook my head. ‘I should deem it highly improbable. The truth is that although, in general, he bears a grudge against all Champernownes, and wouldn’t be averse to doing one of them a serious mischief if he could, he would be far happier committing that mischief himself. If you wish to keep your betrothed safe from harm, you’d do well to advise him to steer clear of Jack Golightly.’

‘I shall certainly do so,’ she answered. ‘And I shall make it plain to him how exceptionally foolish his behaviour has been. Thank you for telling me.’ Unexpectedly, she held out her hand. ‘Will you come to visit us at Valletort Manor? Katherine and I are always ready to spend our money on ribbons and combs and all other such aids to vanity as I’m sure you carry in your pack.’ The deep brown eyes were alight once more with mockery. ‘And you can satisfy yourself that my brother is not in hiding there, which is what, I’m sure, you and half the rest of the world believes.’

I was taken aback by this frankness, and also by the fact that her proffered hand seemed to indicate that Berenice Gifford was prepared to treat me almost as a friend. But I did not trust her. She was laughing at me, secure in the knowledge of her ability to protect Beric from all prying eyes such as mine. Even Katherine Glover had shown no agitation at her mistress’s invitation; and their confidence was a challenge that I could not refuse.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I shall be happy to visit you sometime within the next few days. I won’t trouble you for directions, as I’m sure there must be someone who can tell me how to find Valletort Manor.’

Berenice Gifford threw back her head and laughed, this time seeming genuinely amused.

‘Dozens,’ she said. ‘If our whereabouts were unknown to people in the past, you may be certain that there’s not a person in Modbury and the surrounding countryside who doesn’t know where to find us nowadays. Isn’t that so, Kate?’

Katherine Glover grimaced sourly, pulling awry that little, flower-like face.

‘Oh, they all come poking around,’ she sneered, ‘hoping to find Beric and claim the reward. None of our assurances that he’s safely in Britanny manages to persuade them that he’s not in hiding somewhere close at hand.’

‘Nor,’ added Berenice warmly, can they be persuaded that Katherine and I are not protecting him in this imagined concealment. And a few make it plain that they believe I egged my brother on to commit that heinous crime, so that I could inherit Great-Uncle Oliver’s money.’ She shuddered eloquently. ‘It’s true that we’d had our differences, the old man and I, but beneath that crusty manner, he was a kindly soul who’d been good both to me and to my brother. I had no reason to wish him dead: he was pleased with the news of my betrothal to Bartholomew and would have treated me well when the time comes for us to marry.’ She sighed deeply and pushed back a lock of almost jet-black hair that had strayed from beneath her hood. ‘Neither Kate nor I had any idea what Beric was plotting when he left home on May Day morning.’ She turned to her companion for confirmation. ‘Isn’t that so, Kate?’

Katherine Glover nodded. ‘Quite true. If we had had so much as an inkling, we should naturally have tried to prevent him, to reason with him, to discover the cause of his murderous rage. We should even have attempted to confine him to the house if persuasion had failed.’

‘You don’t think, then,’ I suggested, ‘that Master Gifford’s anger had the same cause as his rage of the previous day, when he tried to strangle his uncle? You don’t believe that he was still incensed by Master Capstick’s refusal to contemplate you as his nephew’s wife?’

She flushed uncomfortably and her look of resentment palpably increased.

‘If you want the truth, yes, I think it did. But, given a chance, I might have been able to convince Beric that the old man’s opinion was of no concern to me. That I was not offended by it.’

The tone of her voice was so sincere that I couldn’t help wondering why I didn’t believe her. I tried not to let my doubt show in my face, however; and, as her mistress was at last displaying some signs of wishing to be on her way, I bade both women good day and moved off in the direction of the churchyard gate, where their horses were tethered. The palfrey I recognized. The bay, with the two white front stockings, must therefore belong to Berenice.

Just at that moment, the lady herself called after me, ‘Don’t forget! We shall expect to see you soon, when you’ve finished selling your wares here in Modbury.’

I stopped and waved my acknowledgement, before walking on down the hill.

* * *

I did not return at once to Anne Fettiplace’s cottage, but waited until I was certain that I had not been followed. I had no clear idea why I felt this to be necessary, but for some reason I did not wish to draw the attention of either Berenice Gifford or Katherine Glover to my hostess, even though common sense suggested that I was being overcautious. On the other hand, although both women appeared to have been open and frank in their dealings with me, I knew for a fact that they were lying; that one of them, at least, had had recent contact with Beric Gifford, and that he was not in Brittany, but very much closer to home.

When I described the encounter to Anne Fettiplace and told her of my invitation to visit Valletort Manor, she looked worried.

‘Will you go?’ she enquired, serving me up a dinner of bacon collops and gravy, followed by apple fritters and goat’s-milk cheese.

‘Of course,’ I answered, clearing my mouth with a swig of her home-brewed ale. ‘I would have gone, in any case. To be asked can only be a bonus.’

‘Then you must take great care,’ she advised me. ‘Will you go straight away?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I’ve told Mistress Gifford to expect me within a day or two, but not immediately. She thinks the reason is because I wish to do some trading here, in Modbury, before setting out for Valletort Manor. But, in reality, I want to visit Burrow Island and the fishing villages along the coast.’

My hostess looked even more anxious, if possible, than she had done before.

‘Then don’t go asking too many questions,’ she admonished me. ‘Keep your eyes and ears open by all means, but stick to selling your wares. They’re queer folk, the fishers, and don’t take kindly to interference from the outside world. They protect their own, and Katherine Glover’s one of them. Don’t forget that!’

‘I shan’t forget,’ I promised. ‘I’ve had experience of what they’re like. I had dealings with them once before, some years ago.’

‘Well, remember that there are monks living on the island,’ Mistress Fettiplace reminded me. ‘They’re Cistercians from Buckfast Abbey, and Abbot Kyng, so they say, is strict with his flock. If you do run your head into trouble, they’ll protect you.’

I was dubious about this. Although I did not say so, it was my experience that monks separated from the Mother House tended to grow lax after a while, and disliked interfering in the entrenched ways and customs of the local community. But I had no intention of doing anything foolish. I was a married man now, with responsibilities, and I hoped that God would remember that as well as I did.

‘Will you remain there long?’ my hostess persisted, obviously still uneasy. ‘My menfolk will be back from Exeter tomorrow. They’d always come to your assistance if you needed them. You’d only have to send me word.’

I thanked her, laughing, and took both her hands in mine.

‘Mistress Fettiplace, I mean to be careful, but God bless you for your concern. As for how long I shall stay there, a day, perhaps two at the very most, is the limit of my expectations. The monks, if I recollect rightly, have a small hostelry on the island where I can sleep. At the end of that time, if I’ve not already discovered where Beric Gifford is hiding, I shall go on to Valletort Manor and see what I can find out there.’

When we parted, she reached up and shyly kissed my cheek.

‘My lad’s about your age,’ she said. She patted my shoulder. ‘Look after yourself and don’t try anything foolish. Do you hear me, now?’

‘I hear you,’ I grinned, returning the kiss. ‘I promise you I’ll try to take care.’

With this she had to be content, and stood at the door of her cottage to wave me off.

It was still some while to noon, and I had the rest of the day before me; a beautiful October day, warm and sunny, but with a little breeze that fanned my cheeks and made walking easy and pleasant. The path that I had chosen was like its fellows on that peninsula of land between the rivers Erme and Avon; sometimes it led across open heath and at others plunged deep into dense patches of woodland; sometimes it led me uphill and at others, down. In several places, the track almost disappeared amongst great tangles of undergrowth, where long, snaking briars coiled around my legs as though loath to let me pass; and now and then, the trees drew back to leave a grassy space, their branches arching overhead, their trunks forming a circle like the pillars of some pagan temple. Little sunlight penetrated to these clearings, but on a fine day they were filled with a greenish, bronze-tinted, subaqueous gloom.

It was in one of these circles that I sat down to rest and eat the apple that Anne Fettiplace had insisted I take with me for the journey.

‘You’ll need something to sustain you,’ she had said. ‘You can’t be sure when you’ll get your next meal.’

So, blessing her thoughtfulness, I sat on a fallen log and bit into its bitter-sweet crispness. I was tired, for, by my reckoning, I had walked more than three miles by then and the going had been rough. The log was at the foot of a tree, and, when I had finished my apple and thrown away the core, I leant back against the bark, closing my eyes for a moment, letting my thoughts drift, dreaming of Adela and home …

I must have fallen asleep, for I was suddenly jerked awake by a violent bodily convulsion, and found myself possessed by an inexplicable sense of dread. I was sweating, but at the same time shivering with cold. I started to my feet, reaching for my cudgel, which I had propped against the tree-trunk, convinced that someone was in the clearing with me. But when I glanced around, there was no one to be seen. At first, I refused to accept the evidence of my eyes, and grasping my stick firmly in my hand, with two strides I was in the centre of the clearing, where I spun round and round on my heel, shouting, ‘I know you’re there! Come out from wherever you’re hiding and show me your face!’

But nothing happened. There was neither sign nor sound of movement; no blurring on the edge of my vision to suggest that someone was trying to creep away unnoticed; no sudden snapping of a twig nor rustle of the last year’s leaves that lay rotting beneath the roots of ancient, wind-blasted oak and beech. Finally, persuaded that I had been mistaken and that I had been awakened by possibly nothing more sinister than my head falling forward on to my chest, I lowered my cudgel and took a deep breath. The sense of dread had abated. I had ceased both to sweat and to shiver, although my skin was still cold and clammy to the touch, and a lingering sense of uneasiness continued to hold me in its grip.

Leaving my pack beneath a bush and screwing up my courage, I decided to investigate the margins of the clearing. Taking as my starting point the coast-bound track that I was travelling, I prowled cautiously among the thick belt of trees and undergrowth that surrounded the circle of stunted grass. All was silent as the grave, and by the look of the ground no one had passed this way for several days. But halfway round, I suddenly came across yet another track, leading away from the clearing in a westerly direction; although this was more the ghost of a newly created trail, made simply by the trampling down of ferns and saplings.

On impulse, I followed it, my not inconsiderable weight cutting a deeper defile through the brushwood and leaving a more clearly defined pathway in my wake. I had not gone far, however, when I emerged into a small glade where the trees grew less densely, and where a little sunlight filtered through the foliage, shedding warmth and light into an otherwise desolate spot. But I had barely registered this fact before my eyes were caught and held by the sight of a crude tent, made by pegging down the lower branches of a tree and swathing them with a length of tarred cloth.

Cautiously, I advanced towards it, calling out, ‘Is anyone there?’ and, at the same time, raising my cudgel ready to defend myself, should the need arise. But there was no answer to my challenge and indeed, I already had the feeling that the tent was empty and that there was no one else about. Just to make sure, however, I bent down and peered inside, then, on hands and knees, crawled through the opening. It was dark within and smelled of rotting vegetation, and the grass was extremely wet. It must once have been used as a shelter of some sort, but all signs of habitation were gone. Not so much as a frond of bracken or a wisp of straw indicated that there might once have been a mattress to lie on.

I wriggled out again into the dappled sunshine, glancing around for anything else that I might have missed. But there was nothing, except for a more clearly defined continuation of the track on the opposite side of the little glade, wending its way down behind the makeshift tent and losing itself amongst the crowding trees.

Having come so far, I felt I had no choice but to discover its final destination. So, treading softly in order to make as little noise as possible, I pushed on through the undergrowth where last year’s leaves still festered, where toadstools and puffballs sprouted between the roots of trees, and where saplings turned pale and sickly for want of light and air. I only hoped that I would eventually be able to find my way back again to the original clearing, and offered up a brief prayer for guidance when the time came.

By now, the ground was going rapidly downhill, and suddenly shelved away, bringing me up short on the edge of a steep ravine. Swags of ivy and other trailing plants poured down the rock face, while young trees clung on desperately by fragile roots, embedded precariously in the shallow soil. And some twenty feet below me on the valley floor, nestling in the lee of this miniature cliff, was a solid, granite-built house, surrounded by its outbuildings. Even as I watched, I saw a foreshortened Katherine Glover emerge from one of these to cross a cobbled courtyard and enter another.

Quite by chance, I had stumbled across Valletort Manor.

* * *

Quietly, almost stealthily, I made my way back up the slope and moved out of sight of the house as quickly as possible. Mistress Glover had not seen me; she had not glanced up and had obviously had no presentiment that she was being observed.

I found no difficulty in following the track back to the little glade where the tree-tent was, and reflected that the path to and from Valletort Manor must have been more frequently trodden than its counterpart on the other side, the track that led to the clearing. Whether this had any particular significance or not, I was uncertain, for I could not imagine that the crude makeshift shelter had ever been used by Beric Gifford. It was far too close to the house, and would easily have been found by the Sheriff’s men during one of their many searches of the manor and its environs.

As far as Valletort Manor itself was concerned, it was plain that there had to be another approach to it on leveller ground. The rock face that backed the hollow in which it had been built afforded it protection, but not access. How to reach it from the front, I hoped to discover all in good time.

Before returning to the clearing, I explored the glade and the tree-tent yet again, just to convince myself that neither contained any clue to Beric Gifford’s present whereabouts that I might previously have missed. But I could see nothing except the heavy, broken-off branch of one of the trees, lying half-concealed amongst the grasses. The shelter had been made for some purpose long since abandoned, and I guessed that no one had been near it for many months.

After one or two false starts, I found the trail I was looking for, and began pushing my way through the undergrowth, back towards the clearing. It took me some ten minutes or so to regain the perimeter of trees surrounding it, marked by the fallen log and my discarded apple core, now turning brown where it lay on the grass. I had been halfway round that circle when I had been lured away by the path leading to the glade, so I decided to complete the walk that would bring me once more to the shore-bound path and my pack, hidden under one of the bushes.

But there was only more scrub, more drifts of dead leaves, more beech and oak saplings growing up between the trees, and I was beginning to smell, faintly, the salt tang of the sea. I guessed that within five or six furlongs, this woodland, with its tangles of undergrowth, would give way to the flat open spaces of the downs that sloped down to the shingle and rocks of the shore.

This proved to be the case, but there was still a mile or so to go before I heard the distant hushing of the sea, and yet another half-mile and a steep descent to negotiate before I finally stood on the strip of sand that skirted the base of the cliffs. The track I had followed from Modbury had eventually brought me to a little bay opposite Burrow Island, the latter now in the process of being cut off by the tide. This swept around the rocky outcrop from both directions until the breakers merged and rolled shorewards together, the sand vanishing slowly beneath the waves. At present, however, a narrow strip of causeway still remained, although submerging fast. If I were quick, I could just make the shelter of the monks’ rest-house and beg hospitality for the night. Once there, it was true, I should be unable to return to the mainland until the tide again began to ebb, but after my long walk I was tired and, above all, hungry. After only a few moments’ indecision, I settled my pack more comfortably on my back and started across what remained of the sandy causeway towards the island.