The Saint John's fern

Chapter Four

‘But he did refuse?’ I asked, although it was more a statement than a query.

‘He refused point-blank,’ Mistress Trenowth confirmed. ‘He told his uncle to his face that when he took a bride, it would be one of his own choosing.’

‘And what did Master Capstick say to that?’

My companion shrugged. ‘He didn’t take Beric seriously at first. He thought he was just being awkward and asserting his independence, so he told him not to be a fool.’

‘You heard all this?’

Mistress Trenowth coloured faintly. ‘They were in the parlour and took no trouble to lower their voices. The door was standing wide and so was the door to the kitchen. I couldn’t choose but hear. Indeed, it became impossible not to, when they began to shout.’

‘Master Gifford proved adamant, then, in refusing to accept this Jenny Haygarth as his bride?’

Miss Trenowth sighed. ‘More than adamant! He abused his great-uncle roundly for trying, as he put it, to dictate whom he should marry. He called him a tyrant and other worse names. For a little while, the master still tried to reason with him — I was in the counting-house by this time. Dusting,’ she added defensively.

I inclined my head. ‘These chores have to be done.’

She looked suspiciously at me, but I kept a straight face, which seemed to satisfy her. ‘Indeed, they do. Well, as I say, Master Capstick attempted to reason with his nephew, extolling the young lady’s virtues; her beauty and docility and wealth, and impressing upon him that once he met her, he would be only too happy to take her for his wife. And that’s when Beric really lost his temper. He said he was already promised, and that nothing and no one on this earth would persuade him to change his mind or to give up his betrothed.’

‘Did he say who this young woman is?’ I asked, as Mistress Trenowth paused to draw breath. But, of course, I knew the answer. My companion had already named her.

‘He did. It was his sister’s maid, Katherine Glover.’

‘A choice not approved by his great-uncle, I assume.’

‘Of course the Master didn’t approve!’ The ex-housekeeper was scathing in her condemnation. ‘A common serving girl with neither money nor breeding to recommend her! What future is there in such an alliance for a young man without any fortune of his own?’

‘What happened next?’

‘When he’d calmed down a little, Master Capstick told Beric to go away and think about it. He also told him that if he didn’t return the following day to say that he’d changed his mind and was willing to do his great-uncle’s bidding, then he, Master Capstick that is, would alter his will. “At present,” he said, “my money, when I die, is to be shared equally between you and your sister. But if you persist in refusing to marry Jenny Haygarth, I shall rewrite my will and leave everything to Berenice. She, at least, has had the good sense to betroth herself to a Champernowne.”’

‘And then?’ I prompted, as Mistress Trenowth once again drew breath.

‘And then,’ she said, pressing a hand to her heart as she recalled the fright she had experienced at the time, ‘there was this terrible scream and a gurgling sound. I ran into the parlour, hardly daring to imagine what I should find, to see the Master pinned against the wall with Beric’s hands locked around his throat and his face beginning to turn a bluish colour.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I seized Beric around the waist with both arms, trying to drag him away and yelling at him that he was killing his great-uncle. At first, I don’t think he was even aware of me, he was so furious; but then, suddenly, he dropped his hands to his sides and stood back, just staring at the Master with such malevolence that my blood ran cold.’

‘“Make a new will, and be damned to you,” he said. “I love Katherine and she loves me. We can live without your money.” Of course they can’t, and Beric thought they wouldn’t have to. I’ve no doubt, and nor, I’m sure, had he, that Berenice would have shared everything with him once the money was hers.’

‘What was Master Capstick’s response?’

‘As soon as he’d recovered sufficiently to be able to speak, he told me to go for Master Horner — that’s his lawyer who lives down near the Blackfriars — immediately. “I’ll draw up a new will this very afternoon,” he said to Beric. “And I’ll make it a condition of Berenice’s inheriting my money that she settles none of it on you, so that you’ll have to ask her for every last penny that you need. And once your sister’s married, and her husband holds the purse strings, I doubt if you’ll find it easy to get your hands on any of it. The Champernownes are a high-stomached race. There’s not one of them who’d relish having a serving maid as a sister-in-law.”’

‘And did this threat give Beric second thoughts?’

Mistress Trenowth shook her head. ‘“Do as you please, Uncle,” he answered. “You won’t stop me marrying Katherine. We love one another.” He’d got as far as the parlour door when he turned round and added, “I just hope you won’t live to regret this highhanded attitude of yours.” Next minute, he’d gone and we heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs on the cobbles outside. “Good riddance,” the Master said. But he looked very white and shaken, and his legs were trembling so much that he had to sit down for a while. Beric had spoken with such vindictiveness it had plainly unnerved him.

‘And did Master Capstick alter his will as he had threatened to do?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes. I was sent for the lawyer as soon as Beric had gone, and the new will was drawn up that very afternoon, with myself and Master Horner’s clerk as witnesses. Everything, including the house, was left to Berenice on the condition that Master Capstick had stated, and it was signed and dated the 30th of April. The next day was May Day, and the young people were clattering through the streets and disturbing everyone’s rest very early in the morning, bringing in the may to crown the May Queen. That’s why I remember the date of the quarrel and the making of the new will so clearly.’

I hesitated for a moment before asking as casually as I could, ‘Did Master Capstick leave you anything in his will, Mistress Trenowth?’

‘Oh, no!’ She appeared genuinely shocked at the idea. ‘The Master paid me generously while he was alive. I expected nothing further. Master Capstick was a great believer in the blood tie, and while there was a member of his own family living to inherit his money and property, he wouldn’t have dreamt of leaving anything to anyone who wasn’t kin.’

There didn’t seem to be any underlying resentment in her tone, but I couldn’t help wondering if Mistress Trenowth was simply disguising her true feelings. After more than fifteen years’ faithful service, she might have expected to be left something, however small. I stored away the thought at the back of my mind to be considered later.

‘When did the murder take place?’ I asked. ‘I know it was sometime in May. Mistress Cobbold told me.’

‘Why, the very next day! May Day! I should have thought Joanna would have remembered that.’

‘Maybe she mentioned it, but if she did, then I’ve forgotten. So! Beric returned the following morning, did he? Can you tell me about the murder — if, that is, it doesn’t distress you too much?’

‘No, it doesn’t distress me, not now. I was upset greatly at the time, but after all these months, I find it easier to talk about.’ Mistress Trenowth settled herself more comfortably in her chair, and I got the impression that she was, if anything, rather enjoying herself. ‘That morning, I’d gone downstairs to prepare the Master’s breakfast a bit earlier than usual. As I said, the May Day revellers had woken me and I hadn’t been able to get back to sleep again. I wasn’t the only one who’d been disturbed by them either. It turned out that both Mistress Cobbold and her neighbour on the other side, Mistress Hannaford, were also up and about betimes. Joanna had done her washing and was spreading it out on the fence and the grass to dry when she heard me scream and came rushing in to find out what was the matter …

‘But I’m getting ahead of myself. I went into the kitchen and cooked the Master’s breakfast. He was very partial to a herring fried in oatmeal, and I’d bought some nice fresh, plump ones only the day before. When they were ready, I put them on a plate and the plate on a tray, along with a mazer of ale and the heel of a loaf, and carried it all along the passageway, ready to go upstairs. Imagine my astonishment when I met Beric coming down. I nearly jumped out of my shoes, for I hadn’t heard anyone come in.’

‘How did Beric enter the house?’ I asked. ‘Wasn’t the street door still bolted at that hour of the morning? You said that it was early.’

‘I’d unbolted it as soon as I got downstairs. I always did.’ She shrugged. ‘There was nothing worth stealing in that house. All Master Capstick’s money and bonds and papers and things were kept in a padlocked chest in Lawyer Horner’s cellar. The Master told me so himself.’ She added indignantly, ‘I don’t think anyone in Bilbury Street keeps their door bolted much after sunrise.’

Her manner had grown hostile. Mistress Trenowth obviously thought that I was accusing her of dereliction of duty, and so I hastened to reassure her.

‘Of course!’ I said. ‘Of course! I wasn’t reproaching you; you mustn’t think that. Beric, then, wouldn’t have expected to find the street door locked?’

‘Probably not.’ She was still a trifle antagonistic, so I gave her my most ingratiating smile and she visibly thawed. ‘I don’t really know. Perhaps if he had found it bolted, he would have thought better of his intentions and gone away again, and this terrible murder would never have happened. But trying the latch and finding it open, he just went in and ran upstairs to his uncle’s bedchamber, where … where…’ Her voice began to quaver, then faltered and died.

‘Where he killed him,’ I finished gently. She nodded mutely, her eyes full of tears, and I went on, ‘Do you think Master Capstick was awake when his nephew entered his room?’

‘If he was, he didn’t cry out. Of course, he may not have had time before Beric was on him.’

‘What weapon did his great-nephew use?’

My companion shivered. ‘A weighted cudgel. The head had been split open and molten lead poured in before the crack was resealed with wax and resin.’

I nodded. I had often seen this done to make a truly lethal weapon.

She continued, ‘Beric had made no attempt to conceal it, or carry it away with him, but left it on the bed beside Master Capstick’s body. One of the Sheriff’s men took it.’

‘Joanna Cobbold said that when you met Master Gifford at the bottom of the stairs, you noticed that his tunic was stained with blood.’

‘Not at the time,’ Mistress Trenowth amended, confirming Joanna’s actual words. ‘Well, that is to say I suppose I must have noticed it, mustn’t I, or I shouldn’t have remembered it later on? But at that particular moment, I didn’t realize just what it was. I was so surprised to see Beric, that I couldn’t really take in anything else.’

‘But afterwards, after you’d found the body, it dawned on you that Beric must have been covered in blood?’

She blinked at me, suspicious, without quite knowing why, of my form of words. ‘The front of Beric’s tunic was badly stained,’ she answered. ‘When I thought about it, I knew what it must have been.’

At that moment, the parlour door opened and a woman who might have been Mistress Trenowth’s twin came in.

‘Ah, good!’ exclaimed the Widow Cooper, for it could not possibly have been anybody else. ‘A pedlar! Just the man I’m wanting. I need some laces, if you have any, to replace those in the back of this gown.’

* * *

There was small chance of questioning Mistress Trenowth further after the arrival of the Widow Cooper, who was a voluble woman with a constant flow of small talk that required little more than the occasional nod or murmur of assent. In her favour, it must be said that she not only bought my entire stock of laces, but also invited me to share their dinner; an offer that I accepted readily enough, for I was by then extremely hungry. But although on two or three occasions during the meal I made an attempt to reintroduce the topic of Master Capstick’s murder, I was unsuccessful, the widow seeming to have far more interest in the gossip she had heard along the quayside that morning, and which she wished, in her turn, to impart to her sister.

When we had finished eating, however, Mistress Trenowth accompanied me to the street door and asked in a low voice if I thought there was any chance of catching Beric Gifford and bringing him to justice.

‘I shall do my best,’ I said, ‘but I can’t promise to succeed in finding him where so many others have failed. You’re sure that he won’t have gone far while this Katherine Glover is still living at Valletort Manor? He might, after all, be planning to send for her once he has settled in some other part of the country, where he’s unknown.’

She shook her head decidedly. ‘What would they live on? They have to rely on Berenice for money, and she won’t leave her home, especially not now she’s betrothed to Bartholomew Champernowne.’

We both heard Mistress Cooper’s voice upraised, calling to her sister, and Mathilda Trenowth turned to go. I shot out a hand to detain her, at the same time fishing in my pocket with the other. ‘I have something to confess,’ I said, and told her about my trespass of the previous night. ‘I found this,’ I went on, ‘buried under the rushes in Master Capstick’s bedchamber.’ And I held out the brooch with its entwined initials, B and G, and its pendant, teardrop pearl.

Mistress Trenowth stared at it for a moment or two in silence. Then, ‘Yes, that’s Beric’s,’ she confirmed at last, speaking with difficulty as though the sight of the jewel had brought back too many memories that she would prefer to forget. ‘He … he used to wear it in his hat.’ She seemed upset and drew back against the wall as if for support, her plump fingers knotted together.

Mistress Cooper appeared from the parlour, anxious to join in the conversation and curious to discover what we were talking about.

‘I was telling the chapman,’ Mistress Trenowth said quickly, motioning me almost furtively to put the brooch back in my pocket, ‘that if he should find himself Modbury way, he must visit our sister. She’ll give him a warm welcome and a bed for the night if he needs one.’ She turned to smile tremulously at me. ‘Just ask for Anne Fettiplace. Anyone will direct you to her cottage, won’t they, Ursula?’

‘She’s well known in Modbury, certainly,’ Mistress Cooper cheerfully agreed. ‘Where are you off to now, chapman? I should try Notte Street if I were you. Plenty of money to be made there.’ I thanked her for the advice and was about to take my leave when she added, ‘Wait! I’ll come with you and show you the way.’

‘But you’ve not long come home,’ said Mistress Trenowth, plaintively.

‘Well, and now I want to go out again,’ laughed her sister. ‘We can’t let the chapman get lost, now can we?’ She winked at me. ‘You can wash the dirty dishes if you want something to do while I’m gone.’

The widow, ignoring her sister’s indignant protests, took her cloak from a peg near the door, flung it around her shoulder and preceded me into the street. When we were out of earshot, she asked accusingly, ‘Have you been talking to Mathilda about Master Capstick’s murder?’

I admitted that I had. ‘But it was with her permission,’ I urged. ‘Mistress Cobbold of Bilbury Street gave me the history of the case, but there were certain details I wished to know that I felt only Mistress Trenowth could supply. It didn’t seem,’ I went on in extenuation of my actions, ‘that speaking of the murder at all distressed your sister. Naturally, I shouldn’t have continued if it had.’

‘Yet it does upset her,’ Mistress Cooper insisted. ‘She still gets nightmares and wakes up crying. I tell you this because, having overheard part of your conversation when I came in earlier, I guessed what you had been talking about. And you strike me as the sort of persistent youth who might well return to plague my sister again.’

‘I don’t think Mistress Trenowth would mind if I did,’ I retorted, my temper beginning to rise. ‘It appeared to me that she wanted to discuss what had happened.’

‘So she may, but it doesn’t do her any good,’ the widow replied, with the know-it-all air of someone supremely confident of her own perspicacity and judgement. ‘The sooner she forgets all about the Giffords, brother and sister, and everything that happened in Bilbury Street, the better it will be.’

I didn’t protest that I thought it highly unlikely Mistress Trenowth ever would forget, because I didn’t have time.

Mistress Cooper continued, almost without drawing breath, ‘Not, mind you, that Capstick, the old skinflint, deserves to be remembered by her. Over fifteen years Mathilda looked after that man — and no wife could have looked after a husband better — and then to be left nothing at all in his will! It’s disgraceful, and so I told her, although she pretends she doesn’t care. But, of course, she does. She’s bound to! She has every right to feel resentful, that’s what I say!’

‘Are you acquainted with Beric and Berenice Gifford?’ I asked.

‘I’ve met them on occasions at Master Capstick’s house, when I’ve been visiting Mathilda. And I’ve seen them often enough around the town when they’ve come to Plymouth for other reasons; mostly to buy things here that they can’t obtain in Modbury. They’re both of them fond of fine clothes. Not two groats to rub together, mark you, but decked out like peacocks, the pair of them. But then, that’s typical of such people.’

We had by this time reached the entrance to Notte Street, close by the Dominican Friary. Two rows of houses, rising gently over the headland, faced each other, not one of them then more than twenty years old, their brightly painted façades not yet seriously weathered by the salt-laden wind and rain from the sea. The widow was right. There was money here for the taking, and I could put up my prices without compunction if I had a mind to.

‘Well here we are,’ Ursula Cooper said. ‘This is where I must leave you. I trust I can rely on you, chapman, not to pester Mathilda again, simply in order to satisfy your ghoulish curiosity.’

I did not answer her directly, but asked instead, ‘Do you believe that Beric Gifford has eaten Saint John’s fern?’

She snorted contemptuously. ‘No, I don’t! If he’s any sense, he’s escaped and is miles away by now. Ireland, perhaps, or Scotland! Although France is much nearer, and it wouldn’t be all that difficult to find a boat whose master was willing to take him across the Channel — for a price.’

‘But what about this Katherine Glover? Mistress Trenowth is certain that he wouldn’t stir anywhere without her.’

‘Nonsense!’ The widow was dismissive. ‘He’s only to wait awhile and then send for her when the time is ripe.’

I sighed, thanked her, and stood looking after her as she walked away. A domineering woman, but one whose sole concern was for Mistress Trenowth’s welfare, however mistaken she might be in that sister’s needs. I wondered how long they would be able to tolerate one another before parting company. It was already over five months since the murder, a fair time for two women to share the same house.

As I climbed the gentle incline of Notte Street, I wondered if the Widow Cooper was not indeed correct in her assumption that Beric Gifford had fled to France. And yet, as Mistress Trenowth had pointed out, money would have proved a stumbling block, particularly before Berenice had come into possession of her uncle’s fortune. Later, however, when the money was hers, had he gone then? Yet, according to Mathilda Trenowth, he would never have stirred without Katherine Glover, and she was still at Valletort Manor … Nothing seemed to make sense.

At least I knew now that the house in Bilbury Street belonged to Berenice Gifford. But why had she left it and its furnishings to rot? Before long, once people had overcome their horror of the killing, and when some curious person discovered, as I had done, that the street door was unlocked, the contents would gradually be stolen. If she wished to preserve her property, she would do well to look to it before it was too late.

I paused, my hand, upraised to knock on one of the Notte Street doors, arrested in midair. Perhaps I ought to return to Bilbury Street immediately and alert Mistress Cobbold to the fact that the neighbouring house was wide open to thieves and vagabonds. I should have to admit to how I knew this fact, but I felt that she had a right to be told. Consequently, I abandoned all thought of rich pickings in Notte Street and made my way back to Old Town Ward. But as I approached Martyn’s Gate, I saw that there was a horse, a light-coloured palfrey, tied to the hitching-post outside Master Capstick’s former dwelling.

I was still some few yards distant, when the door of the house opened and a young woman emerged.