The Weaver's inheritance

Chapter Eighteen

The May days were growing longer, and it was well into the evening before the three Weaver men returned home from the Portsoken Ward, tired, hungry and none too pleased to find a stranger at their table. John Weaver demanded roughly, ‘Who’s this?’

When all was explained, however, and he and his two sons had blunted their appetites with generous platefuls of stew, I sensed the same sort of excited curiosity in their questioning and general demeanour as their womenfolk had shown, and which, to me, betokened innocence. They were either accomplished dissemblers, with long practice in the art of deception, or they had nothing to hide. Again, as with their wives, there was no momentary hesitation, no surreptitious glance at another member of the family, no feeling on my part that any one of them had been caught out by my unexpected visit. Once more, I dangled my bait of a black frieze tunic, trimmed with budge, and once more it remained untaken.

After an hour or so, I was ready to swear that no one present had been party to Irwin Peto’s masquerade, but was I being too credulous? Was one of their number, after all, the person whom I sought? Lucy Weaver could be exonerated as the instigator of the plot, for she had not known Clement, but there still remained the other five. If, however, either Dame Alice or Bridget were involved, then their husbands must be also, for Morwenna Peto was certain that the person she had seen with Irwin was a man. But I had been offered no evidence of collusion between any of the couples. That left the possibility that one of the men, or maybe two, or even all three of them together, had hatched this evil plan, yet the same objection remained. So far, there had not been a single indication of conspiracy amongst them; not one sign of guilt, however fleeting, on any of their faces.

‘My brother always was a gullible fool,’ John Weaver declared, embarking on a summary of the Alderman’s character that tallied with those I had heard before. ‘Oh, a shrewd enough businessman, I grant you, and not above a few shady dealings where he thought it worth his while. He’s a true Bristolian in not putting God before profit! But my nephew was his weakness: he loved Clement to distraction and the boy’s death hit him hard. I’m not saying Alfred isn’t fond of Alison, leastwise, he always has been until now, but the girl is more of a de Courcy than her brother ever was. Her mother’s blood runs strongly in her veins and now and then makes her a bit imperious. I used to have the feeling that Alfred wasn’t altogether comfortable in her presence, and he certainly grew to dislike her husband; called him a numskull and a popinjay within our hearing when my wife and I were staying with him in Bristol last summer. Didn’t he, Alice!’

‘Yes, my dear,’ the dame dutifully agreed.

‘So I don’t find it at all surprising,’ her husband continued, ‘that my brother has taken this young man to his heart without making any enquiries as to his bona fides. Sort of damn stupid thing he would do. Sort of damn stupid thing anyone who knows him well would know he’d do, if you take my meaning.’

I glanced sharply at my host, but the face, so reminiscent of the Alderman’s, was as bland and as guileless as before. And the subject of Clement, however intriguing, was temporarily played out. The conversation turned to other matters; what had happened that day in the Portsoken weaving sheds and tenting grounds; how well the woollen cloth was taking a new purple dye that used a greater proportion of crushed blackberries to bilberries than heretofore; and, more generally, the growing sense of unease throughout the capital and its suburbs as increasing numbers of the Duke of Clarence’s men took to the streets bearing arms.

‘There’s going to be trouble,’ Edmund Weaver opined, echoing the carter’s sentiments.

‘The King ought to do something about Prince George,’ his father added tersely.

‘It would upset Prince Richard,’ Dame Alice objected. ‘You know how fond they say he is of both his brothers.’

‘He’s a good, loyal lad,’ her husband concurred, ‘but even he won’t be able to keep the Queen’s family from Clarence’s throat for ever. If he’s any sense, he’ll stay on his own estates, up there in the north, and let the rest of ’em fight it out without him.’

There was no way in which I could prolong my stay, and reluctantly I rose from my seat. As I did so, the bells began to ring for curfew. The city gates would now be shut against me, and I must find lodgings for the night outside the walls. To my surprise, the same thought seemed to have struck John Weaver, for he said, ‘You’d better stay here, Chapman, if you don’t mind a bed on the kitchen floor.’

‘Th-thank you, sir,’ I stuttered, and glanced towards Dame Alice for confirmation.

But whatever her husband’s wishes, they were hers also, and she acquiesced willingly, promising to find blankets and a pillow after the dirty pans and dishes had been cleared away. In both these chores she and the maid were assisted by her daughters-in-law, while their husbands remained drinking ale and chatting in the parlour. I tried to make my presence as unobtrusive as possible, but occasionally they remembered that I was there and revived the subject of ‘Clement’ and his reappearance. For the most part, however, they seemed to have lost interest in the matter.

When their wives rejoined them, they sat companionably together until the candles had burned low in their holders and it was time for the younger members of the family to return to their own homes across the street. Goodnights were said and I was shown to my makeshift bed in the kitchen by my hostess, who also indicated the water-barrel, in case I should want to wash my hands and face, and told me that the privy was in the garden. The fire now was little more than a pile of ashes, but some warmth still emanated from both the wall ovens, and the night itself was mild. I took off my boots and jerkin, cleaned my teeth with the piece of willow bark I always carried in my pouch, and lay down beneath the blanket provided by Dame Alice. All the same, I kept my cudgel within easy reach of my right hand, being somewhat suspicious of why I had been invited to stay. My general feeling was that there had been no ulterior motive, and that it was simple good-heartedness on the part of John Weaver, but I couldn’t let myself be too sure.

I lay on my back, staring up into the smoky darkness, and realized that in spite of the less than complimentary pictures painted by Alison Burnett of her kinsfolk, I liked them. More importantly for my purpose, however, was the sense that the six of them made up a strongly united family, and that it was extremely unlikely that they had secrets from each other. In short, I was convinced that if one was behind this plot to palm off Irwin Peto as Clement Weaver, then they would all be in it. And yet the knowledge that I might be wrong kept me wakeful, tossing from side to side, unable to settle. Eventually, I got up and walked around the kitchen, then into the passageway in order to stretch my legs and rid them of the twitchy feeling that always possesses them when I’m restless. It was there, standing beside the stairs, that I saw a chink of light on the upper floor and heard the muted sound of voices. John and Alice Weaver were still awake; so, cautiously, and trespassing against all the rules of hospitality, I crept up the twisting flight in my stockinged feet. As I reached the top, their voices came clearly to my ears.

‘A strange business! A strange business!’ John Weaver was saying. ‘And if the man’s not genuine, as the chapman hinted, then who, in God’s Name, has put him up to it? Who’s made him free of all the facts he needs to know?’

‘I’m sure I couldn’t guess,’ said Dame Alice’s voice, now growing sleepy. ‘But it’s very unfair on Alison.’ She yawned. ‘D’you think you should go to Bristol, my dear, and try to shake some sense into Alfred?’

There was a momentary silence while, presumably, her husband considered her proposition. Then he, too, yawned loudly. ‘My niece has a husband to protect her interests. My interference might do more harm than good, and could well do further damage to her cause.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ Dame Alice murmured placidly. ‘Goodnight, my love. God bless you.’

John Weaver held forth a little longer on the folly of his brother, but as his only answer was his wife’s gentle snoring, he was forced to give up. Silently, I crept downstairs again.

I now felt as certain as I possibly could be that neither John nor Alice Weaver was the person whom I sought. And if not them, then not their sons nor daughter-in-law, Bridget, either. I slid beneath my blanket on the rush-strewn floor, the musty, stale scent of the dried flowers and grasses irritating the back of my nose, and resumed my sightless contemplation of the ceiling. I seemed to have eliminated Baldwin Lightfoot and all John Weaver’s family as suspects, so who was there left?

If, at that moment, I had still been in any doubt as to whether or not Irwin Peto was a fraud, I might very well have decided in his favour; for without someone to coach him in all the aspects of his former life, who could he be but Clement? The trouble was, however, that I now knew him to be an impostor, therefore there had to be someone who had primed him. But who? Who else was there, apart from the Weaver family and Baldwin Lightfoot, who would know enough details about Clement’s childhood to have such information at his, or her, fingertips?

Common sense whispered that of course there were many others. As far as servants went, both Ned Stoner and Rob Short had been eliminated by Mistress Burnett herself, but there was still Dame Pernelle who, on her own admission, had known both Clement and Alison as children and was, moreover, the sister of Alice Weaver. But when would she have had any opportunity for meeting Irwin Peto? What, then, of former servants? What of neighbours? What of friends? My head began to spin as I realized that even if I discounted members of the Alderman’s family, the possibilities were endless, and that my investigation had barely begun. There might be half of Bristol to choose from …

Yet, I could not rid myself of the notion that the answer was there, somewhere, almost within my grasp; a feeling that I had all the pieces of the picture to hand if only I knew how to fit them together. Perhaps if I could get to sleep, I might dream; one of those strange dreams which, periodically, I had experienced from childhood and which, if interpreted correctly, smacked of second sight, a gift that I had inherited from my mother. (Although my mother, conscious of the dangers of such a claim, had always been loath to own to more than womanly intuition.) But when at last I did fall asleep, my dreams were just the usual jumble of worthless nonsense, immediately forgotten on waking, and deservedly so.

* * *

I was roused the following morning by the activities of the little maid-of-all-work as she set about rekindling the fire, putting water on to boil and heating the ovens ready to take the first of the day’s batch of loaves, that had been left standing on a marble slab overnight. I visited the privy in the garden, washed under the pump and then, whilst waiting for some hot water in which to shave, wandered down to the banks of the Fleet.

The gardens of the houses in Golden Lane were separated one from another by nothing more than a few trees and bushes, and all gave access to a footpath that, to the right, led as far as the Holborn Highway, and, to the left, beyond the entrance to Chicken Lane on the opposite bank, dwindled into an overgrown track. It was a quiet, peaceful scene in the early morning light, mist rising from the river and clumps of golden kingcups standing sentinel along the water’s edge. Willows bent to stare at their reflections, and the lilac heads of Lady’s Smock swayed in a gentle breeze. The flowers of the butterbur nestled among their heart-shaped, hairy leaves …

I felt a great shove between my shoulder blades, and the next moment I was in the river. Someone leapt in after me and was forcing my head beneath the water, trying to drown me in the Fleet. I had been taken so completely by surprise that the shock rendered me helpless for several precious seconds; but eventually my senses cleared enough to make me start to fight back. My lungs felt as though they were bursting from holding my breath, but I kicked out violently, at the same time raising my arms clear of the water and, by great good fortune, managing to catch my assailant around the neck. As my fingers tightened about his throat, he was forced to let go of my head in order to prise my hands loose, and I came up, gasping for air.

To my surprise, I did not know him; for in the very few seconds of rational thought afforded me since my unexpected immersion, I had decided that my attacker was either John Weaver or one of his sons. But this was a stranger, a rough-looking man with a tangled, bushy, black beard, broken teeth and of an enormous ox-like strength. ‘What do you want of me?’ I demanded, coughing and spluttering.

He had by now freed himself and lunged at me again. Luckily, I saw the blow coming and managed to seize his wrist in midair, exerting all my own strength to prevent his fist crashing into my jaw and rendering me unconscious. With both of us treading water, it now became a trial of strength, but I suspected my assailant to be even stronger than I was; and how it might have ended I still shudder to think, had not the maidservant come running down the garden, shouting at the top of her voice. The man swore, dragged himself on to the bank and loped away, as fast as his girth and his sodden clothes would permit, in the direction of the Holborn Highway.

With the assistance of the girl and some willow roots, I managed to climb out of the water, and sat for several minutes on the path in order to get my breath. Meantime, John Weaver and his wife, awakened by the noise and still in their nightclothes, had come out to see what was happening, and, when they knew, to inveigh against the prevalence of footpads in the area.

‘It used to be such a respectable neighbourhood,’ lamented Dame Alice.

They accompanied me back indoors, leant me some of John Weaver’s clothes to put on while my own were drying and invited me to remain beneath their roof for as long as was necessary. I assured them that with the good fire now blazing on the kitchen hearth, I should have no need to trouble them for more than an hour or two; and indeed everything except my boots was dry well before the ten o’clock dinner hour. I was just wondering if I could impose on Dame Alice for another meal, when there was a knock at the back door. The maid went to answer it and returned with Philip Lamprey at her heels.

‘Someone to see you, Chapman.’

I rose from my stool by the fire. ‘Philip! How on earth did you find me?’

‘Never mind that.’ He gripped my arm. ‘I’m not the only one out looking for you, but thank God it seems I’m the first who’s run you to ground. Word has it that Morwenna Peto’s men are still searching for you, and I wouldn’t give a fig for your chances if one of them finds you. Get out of London as fast as you can.’

When Philip gave such advice it was not to be taken lightly. I knew that ‘word has it’ meant that some of his old Southwark friends had been in touch with him and issued a warning.

‘I’ve already had one encounter,’ I said, and told Philip what had occurred that morning.

‘Then go now! This instant!’ he urged. ‘You’ve not a moment to lose.’

I began pulling on my boots, although they were still damp and squeaked a little in protest when I walked. ‘Won’t Morwenna send her bloodhounds after me to Bristol?’

Philip shook his head. ‘It’s doubtful. These people don’t like venturing so far outside their own territory.’

‘And you?’ I asked, stamping my feet to make the boots fit more comfortably. ‘Will you and Jeanne be safe?’

‘We’ll be all right,’ he assured me confidently. ‘Morwenna will have forgotten what I look like by now, and there are plenty of people who’ll stand my friend. Come on, lad! Come on! Grab your pack and cudgel and get on your way!’

I said a brief farewell to John and Alice Weaver, tendered my thanks for their hospitality and went; an unceremonious departure that must have left them thinking me ungrateful and extremely impolite. But there was no time to worry about such niceties. I parted from Philip at the bottom of Golden Lane and turned westwards along the Holborn road.

* * *

For the first few days of my journey, I walked at a steady pace, not stopping to sell the remainder of my wares, and staying as far as possible on the open highways, where I was able to keep an eye on the road at my back. I also travelled in the company of others whenever I could, and being late spring and the weather fine, there were many people, clerks, friars, pardoners, troops of mummers and jongleurs, out and about. Close to London, and heading towards it, I encountered more companies of armed men, all wearing the Duke of Clarence’s livery; and on one occasion, a wet evening when I felt extravagant enough to take a bed at an inn, I fell in with a courier of Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was returning home after carrying a message from his master to His Grace of Clarence. And once again, I reflected on how often the names of those two malcontents seemed to be linked.

As the days passed, however, and the number of miles between myself and the capital increased, I began to feel safe, seeking out the more remote villages and hamlets in order to sell my goods. Consequently, the month of June was well advanced by the time I reached Bristol, to receive a warm welcome from my mother-in-law and daughter. It so happened that Adela Juett and her son were paying them a visit on the afternoon of my arrival home, and I was astonished at the pleasure I felt on seeing them both again, so much so that I was moved to slip an arm about Adela’s waist and kiss her thin, pale cheek. Nicholas, I threw up into the air, catching him as he fell, rough treatment which delighted him and which Elizabeth immediately clamoured to share.

‘No, no!’ I protested. ‘I must wash and change my shirt and then be off to see Master and Mistress Burnett.’

As usual, my mother-in-law was inclined to be offended by my going out again almost as soon as I had come in, but Adela only laughed. As I went outside to the pump, I overheard her say, ‘It’s no good being cross, Margaret. Surely you must know by now that Roger’s not the man to be kept on a chain. It’s one of the reasons why I like him.’ And suddenly, as I ducked my head beneath the pump’s clear jet of water, it seemed not enough that Adela should merely like me. I realized that I wanted more than that.

* * *

‘So!’ Alison Burnett’s eyes glittered feverishly in a face that was now a skeletal mask. ‘You say you know this Irwin Peto to be an impostor, but you have no evidence that would convince my father. Also, by reasoning that I find flawed and feeble in the extreme, you have decided that Uncle John, Aunt Alice and all my cousins are innocent of concocting this plot to rob me of my inheritance. The same goes for Baldwin Lightfoot.’ The clawlike hands tightened on the arms of her chair and her voice grew shrill. ‘How dare you come back here to report a job half done! Why didn’t you stay in London and search for proof against my uncle and his family?’ She beat her hands together and rose abruptly, pacing the floor. She was plainly growing hysterical, and I glanced anxiously at William Burnett for guidance.

He got up and went to his wife, trying to soothe her. ‘If the chapman says there’s no proof to be found, then there is none, and at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are right as regards to this impostor and your father wrong. Let us be satisfied with that. After all, we have no need of his money.’

‘No need? What has that to do with anything?’ Alison Burnett was growing yet more frenzied, lashing out at her husband and beating him about the face and head. ‘Why are you all against me?’ she screamed. ‘First my father and now you! What have I done to be treated like this? Your stupidity deprived me of all my inheritance instead of only half, and now you say that it doesn’t matter! Why should I be forced to give up what’s mine just because my father’s a wicked old fool and you’re an incompetent nincompoop?’

William opened the parlour door and yelled for Dame Pernelle to come to his assistance, but Alison, biting and kicking and scratching, now seemed beyond all control. It was obvious that during the months of my absence her emotional state had sadly deteriorated, and I decided that it was high time I left. I could return another day when things might be quieter, and Mistress Burnett less agitated. I therefore slipped unobtrusively out of the room and crossed the hall, letting myself out though the front door.

The afternoon was still warm, the sun riding high in the sky. I guessed that Adela would have returned to her own home by now, for she had been talking of going before I left, and I was seized with a sudden, seemingly irrational desire to see her again. I therefore walked down Small Street, turned right into Bell Land and made my way under Saint John’s Arch, across the Frome Bridge and out by the Frome Gate into Lewin’s Mead. As I glanced across at Adela’s cottage, I thought I saw a slight movement in the shadows cast by one wall, and the hairs on the nape of my neck began to rise; but after waiting several minutes in the shelter of the Gate, I could detect nothing further and told myself not to be a fool.

I advanced rapidly across the open space in front of the row of cottages and had raised a hand to knock on Adela’s door when someone gripped my shoulder. Without even glancing behind me, I bunched my right hand and swung about, smashing my fish into the unknown’s face and felling him to the ground with a single blow.