Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

15

Y ou smell nice, Alice,’ Sam tells her as she tucks him into bed.

‘It’s the lavender oil in my hair,’ she says. ‘To make it shine.’

‘And you look very pretty.’

‘Dearest Sam.’ She holds him close.

‘Why can’t you have supper here, with me?’ Since she found him orphaned and starving in last year’s plague, Sam has hardly known a time when Alice was not nearby, day and night.

‘Because Sir Thomas and Lady Harcourt have very kindly invited your Aunt Cazanove and me to Woodley Court,’ she explains. ‘I shan’t be away long, Sam, and Esther will be near if you need anything. When you wake in the morning you can come to my chamber and I shall be there.’

At that, Sam sits up. ‘Can I get in your bed now, Alice?’

It seems a sound idea. He will sleep the easier in this house that is still a little strange to him. She turns back the coverlet. ‘Come on, then,’ and he hops delightedly out of bed and follows her to the next chamber. She has just settled him when there is a knock at the door and Esther enters.

‘Ah, I see Sam is with you,’ she says.

‘He will be here for tonight, Esther,’ Alice tells her. ‘Is it time to go?’

‘My mistress is going down to the coach now.’

Alice kisses Sam, and leaving Esther to see him to sleep, picks up her cloak and makes her way downstairs.

If Sam thinks Alice pretty, she wonders what he would say of his Aunt Cazanove. Ursula has had her hair dressed in the French style of Queen Henrietta, she answers to Alice’s admiring question, as the coach sways along. Most of her dark hair is drawn up into a ball at the crown, and around the hairline curls have been teased out to sit flat on her temples and cheeks, contrasting with the pale sheen of her skin. The late sunlight brings out the shadowed planes of her long face. A low-cut wine-red velvet gown sets off her slender neck adorned by a single long string of pearls.

‘Asking me to supper was naught but a ruse by Sir Thomas to get you to his table, Ursula,’ Alice compliments her.

‘I thank you but I’m sure as soon as he knew you were here he would have asked you anyway as a neighbour,’ Ursula says, ‘and it is only fitting that he wishes to pay his respects to the memory of Henry.’

‘Whose name he could not quite recall until I prompted him. A short memory is so convenient when you need to consider future matrimonial alliances.’

But either Ursula does not wish to speculate on the ambitions of Sir Thomas and Lady Harcourt for their sons, or she chooses to take the invitation as no more than a neighbourly gesture. Alice keeps to herself the reflection that a man who can meet her unexpectedly, learn of her husband’s death and concoct an invitation to supper, all within minutes, might not be simply the friendly neighbour Ursula appears to believe.

It is about a half hour later that the coach pulls up at the manor, lit superfluously on this sunlit evening by torches either side of the door. Menservants leap to open the coach door, aid the ladies to descend, and conduct them without mishap the three paces to the wide porch entrance.

Stone-built Woodley Court is nowhere near the size of the Cazanove mansion, but it has a distinctly mossy beauty that Alice recognises is lacking in Ursula’s modern brick pile. The house is said to be around one hundred and fifty years old, gifted by Henry Tudor along with its lands to a former Harcourt in recognition of arms and fighting men on the field of Bosworth. A few generations of indolent Harcourts left things pretty much as they were for a century. Then Sir Thomas, rising man in the county, made it his business to rectify that, paving the courtyard at the back, updating the kitchen facilities, setting out new gardens, making repairs and adding various comforts. One of those comforts, Alice has heard, is a closet for Lady Harcourt’s devotions, or perhaps, she thinks, to escape the demands of a busy household. Alice used to visit with her parents for harvest suppers and suchlike, when there were always upwards of three dozen guests in the great hall. She has never felt comfortable in its church-like space, unable to see outside. It is a relief as they are conducted within, to note that the long table is not laid for a meal; apparently, they will be dining elsewhere.

Lady Harcourt steps forward to receive them. She has a look of robust capability, bolstered by her stout form and commanding air. Ursula she greets with words like ‘great pleasure’ and ‘honour’, but with no hint of subservience. Alice she calls, ‘my dear’. These are the forms she habitually uses, gauging rank to a nicety. Alice has seen her greet a Lord in one way and his housekeeper-turned-wife in quite another, courtesy with a squeeze of lemon. This evening she is in mellow humour. ‘We have no need of state,’ she says, ‘and we shall be more comfortable in a smaller space.’ In a bustling, shepherding way, she leads them through the hall to the Great Parlour, Sir Thomas and their two sons following. Tom Harcourt, slim and comely, has recently passed his twenty-first birthday; his fifteen-year-old brother Harold still displays a childhood plumpness. Alice can see Lady Harcourt’s influence in the boys’ well-cut doublets and breeches, lace at neck and wrist, silk hose and plain black shoes.

Lady Harcourt gives Alice into the care of her younger son. ‘Harold, you will conduct Alice.’ She herself escorts Ursula to a seat on Sir Thomas’s right. Tom waves away the manservant and holds Ursula’s chair for her, before taking his place alongside. Alice, pointed by Harold to a chair next to his, watches Sir Thomas following all with a noticing eye.

The floor to ceiling panelling in the Great Parlour is the latest improvement Sir Thomas has made, as he explains to them. ‘It holds the warmth,’ he says, ‘and the little double porch we came through in the corner there keeps out the draughts. It is a device they have at Montacute, you know.’

Alice has never been to Montacute, but Ursula nods agreement, adding, ‘Yes, I recall the family parlour there has two doors. One can enjoy the warmth of the fire without one’s back freezing.’

The ceiling is lower in the Great Parlour than in the hall, there being a chamber above, and this room is infinitely more welcoming. It is a wise move, Alice thinks, to dine us here and not think to impress Ursula in the stony splendour of the Hall.

‘Much ado over this killing,’ Lady Harcourt comments as wine is served. ‘I hear the widow is under your roof now, Ursula?’ She chuckles. ‘You didn’t plan on housing a merchant’s wife, I don’t suppose?’

It occurs to Alice that Lady Harcourt, with her strict sense of rank, has managed to erase the late Rupert Cazanove, merchant, from her notice, and sees only his widow, the baron’s daughter.

‘If I had not,’ Ursula answers without demur, ‘Constable Nutley would have put her to the question there at the inn.’

‘In the taproom I shouldn’t wonder,’ Lady Harcourt scoffs through a mouthful of pigeon mortis. ‘Nutley’s a prying little woodcock.’

‘Oh come, Lady Harcourt, he’s only doing his job,’ Sir Thomas argues.

‘That, and much more,’ Alice says. Both Sir Thomas and his lady regard her with raised eyebrows; it would appear she was invited for decoration, not for discussion. ‘He made her stand before him in Ursula’s hall, and virtually accused her of complicity, simply because she knew how her husband was despatched. Of course she knew, Margery Patten had to tell her!’

‘Alice had the wit to divert Master Nutley until I arrived,’ Ursula adds, ‘and I believe no great harm was done, but I fear Alice has placed herself out of favour as a result.’

‘Oh, has she?’ Lady Harcourt looks afresh at Alice. ‘Well, to be out of favour with Nutley is no disgrace, my dear.’

‘This rival merchant you speak of, Father,’ Tom says. ‘Have they taken him yet?’

‘He’s gone to ground but we’ll catch up with him.’

‘What was a rival doing in Hillbury?’ Alice asks.

Sir Thomas shrugs. ‘He’ll have been intending the crime. Several at the inn saw a stranger, he stuck out like a sore thumb.’

‘Would this be a young man I saw who wasn’t local, coming out of the stables?’ Alice asks.

‘Probably. He didn’t stay all evening, and his horse was gone by the time Nick closed the stables. That’s one thing we have to go on, a great beast, apparently, black as your hat.’

‘Forgive me, but how do they know who this man was?’ Alice asks. ‘Did Master Goldwoode mention him, did he have speech with him?’

‘We can put two and two together,’ Sir Thomas says. ‘He had to be a rival, no point killing, otherwise. He’d have known it would be easiest at the inn. With a pot or two of ale inside him, Goldwoode would sooner or later go out to the midden.’

For Alice it is frightening sort of circular thinking that a young man visiting a strange inn can have malice, forethought and intent assigned to him by simply linking his presence at the inn with Goldwoode’s death at the inn. If he had not been there, she thinks, who would they be accusing instead? As though she has spoken aloud, Sir Thomas goes on,

‘He’s not the only one we are looking at, of course.’ He glances at Ursula.

‘Your Wat, Ursula,’ Lady Harcourt says. ‘He’s been a naughty boy in the past. You’ll be aware of that, of course.’

Perhaps the shock that others have doubts about Wat’s past lends blank surprise to Ursula’s expression. Alice watches her stare dumbstruck at Lady Harcourt.

‘Ah, mea culpa .’ Lady Harcourt puts up a hand in apology. ‘Thought you knew, Ursula. Thievery. And not petty thievery either. Money, and a horse, in Bristol, wasn’t it, Sir Thomas?’

So Luella did not lie. The things I have done.

‘Let us not discomfit Ursula any further, my lady,’ Sir Thomas gently admonishes. ‘I apologise for announcing it so bluntly, Ursula, but we assumed you knew. I suppose your late husband wished to spare you the knowledge.’

‘You’re telling me Wat is a felon, Sir Thomas?’

‘I fear so. Your husband told me he had saved him from a hanging by agreeing to take him on as a clerk.’

‘Could he do that?’ Ursula’s face has taken on a gauntness Alice well knows.

‘Any gentleman may do so. It’s a Damocles’ Sword. Effectively, he owns the felon for life. If the man ever re-offends, he may be returned to justice and will hang forthwith.’ Sir Thomas smiles his satisfaction. ‘A noble pattern for the control of behaviour. And saves the cost of another trial.’

‘Hold Damocles’ Sword over a few more miscreants’ heads, I say,’ Lady Harcourt adds with gusto. ‘That’ll soon bring them to heel!’

‘I wonder if it may not be a licence to treat a man as badly as you please without reprisals,’ Alice counters.

‘He shouldn’t have offended in the first place,’ Lady Harcourt responds.

‘Ah, Alice, your soft heart,’ Sir Thomas says. ‘Do not waste your pity on a malefactor, my dear.’

‘You are saying Wat stole, Sir Thomas?’ This from Ursula. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Rupert mentioned it to me; it will be on the court rolls in Bristol. I don’t suppose anyone in these parts knows of it. Rupert happened to be there. I suppose he would go to Bristol periodically in the course of business?’

‘Rupert had dealings with several merchants there,’ Ursula agrees.

‘There you are, then.’ For Sir Thomas, the thread is ended. He goes on, ‘Now, Alice, what was that you were saying about a young man?’

‘By the stables,’ she says. ‘Probably in his twenties, slight, average height for a man.’

‘That’s how they described him in the taproom,’ Sir Thomas says, nodding. ‘Did you see this black horse?’

‘No, I only saw the man as he crossed the yard,’ Alice says. ‘He wore a tucked hat of dull maroon, I remember that. Flat plain collar, dark doublet and breeches, unremarkable.’

‘Clearly not so unremarkable. You notice a lot,’ Sir Thomas commends her. ‘When was this?’

‘I was returning to the inn from Mistress Ford’s house on Baker’s Row around sunset. I passed him as he came out of the stables to go round to the front. That’s how I knew he couldn’t be from these parts. From the stables, locals go through the back door and along the passage to get to the taproom.’

‘My, what an enquiring way you have, Mistress Jerrard,’ Harold says, laughingly entering the conversation. ‘You should be constable in Nutley’s place, I declare! You could dress up in breeches and creep around, noting all the things men do—’

‘Harold!’ Sir Thomas breaks in on his son’s fancies. Across the table, Ursula’s eyes have widened at the advocated use of men’s intimate wear. Sir Thomas fixes his son with a look. ‘You are very interested in the husbandry methods at Hill House, I believe, Harold? I am sure you have questions to ask Mistress Jerrard.’

As the conversation beats a hasty retreat from nether garments, Alice turns to the younger son. ‘Which particular aspects of husbandry interest you, Harold?’

‘Oh, all aspects. Yes, very interested. Um… sheep?’

‘Ah, sheep. Daniel tells me our wool clip was good this spring,’ Alice tells him. ‘But it will be down somewhat next year. We lost several new lambs in the winter.’

‘Oily feel to them, the fleeces, don’t you think?’

‘I hadn’t thought much about it. I suppose you are right,’ Alice says.

After a pause, ‘And do tell me about your pigs.’

‘In truth, we have no pigs,’ she tells him. ‘Perhaps I should think about that, there is the copse they could forage in. How are your pigs here? You have a goodly number I believe?’

‘Oh yes, quite a lot,’ Harold agrees. ‘But they smell so, I have never got near enough to count them.’

‘How unfortunate for your interest, that they so repel you,’ Alice sympathises, watching Harold shovel in mouthfuls of meat. She wonders if the entire evening will be spent ploughing through Harold’s professed interest in husbandry.

Harold reaches out for some bread, and just in time remembers the courtesies. He offers the dish to Alice. Have a manchet. Now bread,’ he goes on, helping himself. ‘I like bread.’

‘Alice makes very fine bread, Harold,’ his mother intervenes. ‘You should have seen the baskets of loaves she used to take round on her poor-visiting. They all said how good it was.’

‘Brown, I suppose,’ Harold says.

‘Mostly,’ Alice confirms. ‘It takes less time than white as you don’t have to bolt out the bran, and for working people it’s more satisfying.’

‘We only eat the finest white here, of course. You wouldn’t catch me eating brown! You make white as well, I hope?’

Mildly irritated, Alice yet feels sorry for this awkward fifteen-year-old son of no particular talent who is destined, if his parents have their way, to be palmed off on the neighbour who makes good bread, knows how to run her own land, and has enough of it to keep him comfortable for life.

Across the table, Tom Harcourt is in animated conversation with Ursula about the Poor House at Woodley. ‘A worthy endeavour,’ he says. ‘My father wished me to become involved and I am grateful for his foresight.’

‘I believe we have between us caught at the breeze of reform,’ Ursula says, her face infused with eagerness. ‘The arrangement of the quarters, separating the men from the women, will be of great benefit…’ The talk rolls on; the Poor House, Tom’s interest in music that coincides with Ursula’s, the growing Harcourt lands, the business of dyeing, while Alice wades through an explanation of the proving of dough, in which Harold declares great interest through mouthfuls of cheese tart.

‘Alice visited the dye houses today,’ Ursula says, and Alice grasps her opportunity.

‘It was an education,’ she says. ‘A very different matter from dyeing a collar or caps at home.’

‘You actually went into the dye houses?’ Lady Harcourt asks, and snorts. ‘Saw a thing or two there, I’ll be bound!’

‘I advised Alice beforehand what was likely to confront her,’ Ursula says, ‘but she determined to brave it.’

‘Not a place for a lady,’ Tom comments, and Harold says, ‘No, not at all.’

‘I found it very interesting,’ Alice says, ‘the way dyeing is handled on a large scale. Very instructive.’

‘Yes indeed, very instructive,’ Harold agrees, while his mother looks as if she would like to make a pun on the word ‘instructive’.

‘Shouldn’t have allowed it, Ursula, you know,’ Sir Thomas says mildly. ‘Tom’s right, no place for a lady.’

‘No indeed,’ Harold says, nodding.

The evening rolls on. More than once, Alice declines further wine, only to be overruled by Sir Thomas’s insistent hospitality, and she ends up simply leaving it in her glass. A pity, she thinks, a good wine wasted in excess.

As they rise to leave after the sweetmeats, Sir Thomas’s and Lady Harcourt’s polite farewells manage to snare Harold and herself between them in the Great Hall while Tom escorts Ursula out to the coach. Alice bites her lip to conceal a smile.

‘Well, Harold, it’s a pleasant evening we’ve had, is it not?’ his mother says.

‘Very pleasant,’ Harold responds.

‘And it was very good of the ladies to favour us with their attendance, was it not?’

‘Yes indeed, very good,’ Harold agrees.

A note of exasperation creeps into his mother’s voice as she continues, ‘And you would like to call on them tomorrow, no doubt, to assure yourself that they are well?’

Before Harold has time to agree again, Sir Thomas makes that proprietorial circling motion with his arm, effectually cutting Alice away from his wife and son. ‘Alice, come and see a little artefact I unearthed in the attics.’ She turns, and a glancing movement catches her eye as Lady Harcourt places a staying hand on Harold’s arm.

She walks with Sir Thomas to the end of the hall where they stand regarding a rusty halberd fixed high above the hearth, which Sir Thomas explains was for ceremonial purposes only, naming as owner one of the indolent Tudor Harcourts. Alice duly admires and waits.

‘This is a serious matter regarding Meredith,’ he says in a low voice.

‘It is, Sir Thomas.’

‘I wondered if Ursula had spoken of it with you?’

‘Do you not think that was the first she has heard of it?’ she asks.

Sir Thomas does not answer that. ‘And you? Perhaps you have heard of it elsewhere?’

It is useful to play the modest woman and lower her eyes, while she parries Sir Thomas’ attempts to trap her. ‘I cannot help you, sir. I am not privy to the affairs of Ursula’s household.’

‘Of course not, Alice, of course not. However, it leaves me with something of a difficulty, in which you can help. I have a great respect for Ursula, and this news has not been easy for her to receive; she is not robust.’

‘I believe, sir, anything you have to say regarding Wat Meredith is best addressed to Ursula herself.’ The thought revolves in her head that Sir Thomas would be surprised to know that Alice has first-hand knowledge from last winter of just how robust Ursula is.

A note of irritation ruffles his tone. ‘Well, you may help your friend if you wish, or you may choose to walk away and leave her to face this alone.’

‘If I walk away, it is because this is not my affair, Sir Thomas. Ursula would be mortally offended if she felt her business had been discussed behind her back.’

‘Oh, come now, Alice, I am hardly engaging a Cryer to noise it abroad.’ As she shies uncomfortably, he adds, ‘You do not deny it has been a blow to her to discover this about him.’

The things I have done .

‘It is poor Wat I am thinking of also.’

‘Poor Wat had his life given back to him,’ Sir Thomas reminds her.

‘And by whom? Everyone knew what Rupert Cazanove was.’

Sir Thomas smiles, displaying a row of straight, small teeth. ‘You bring me neatly to my point,’ he says, ‘which is this; now that Rupert Cazanove is no more, why does a body servant like Wat Meredith remain?’

‘That is not my concern, Sir Thomas.’

‘Is he lying in wait?’

Alice looks him in the eye. ‘I believe, sir, there may be many men in this county lying in wait,’ she says, ‘but I have no reason to believe Wat Meredith is one of them.’

‘Perhaps I should have said, why is he being kept on?’

She reins in the angry retort that rises to her lips and takes a deep breath before she answers, slowly and clearly. ‘Mistress Cazanove can brush shoulders with kings, sir, and those who whisper without foundation would do well to remember it.’

‘Well-a-day, Alice, we are fierce, aren’t we? I commend your loyalty to your friend but do not let her be gulled into a mistaken affection for this gallows bird.’

‘As I said, I do not interfere in Ursula’s affairs, Sir Thomas.’

‘Because it may be,’ he goes on as though she has not spoken, ‘I shall be obliged to name Meredith to Coroner Dallier as a possible suspect in this regrettable murder.’

‘You have no reason to suspect him, sir, unless there is something you have not told us?’

‘His past, Alice. It rather speaks for itself, you must admit. Robbery, horse theft. What else might he not do?’

More circular assumptions? ‘It is not evidence, Sir Thomas.’

‘Not yet, it isn’t,’ he says.