Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

21

T hey make another early start the next morning, splashing through the meandering river Yeo that fringes the town of Ilchester, and following the Fosse Way as it rises gently northward. Jay seems to have an instinct for their direction, never faltering as he leads them through the landscape of this part of Somersetshire. He was one of his mistress’ outriders last winter, he tells Alice, when they fled to the Cazanove house at Wells to escape the plague, so he is familiar with the route north.

His brother sits his horse differently, stirrups short and a slight twist in his body to accommodate his knee, and yet the animal moves straight as a die. When they canter he is invariably in front. Although Alice knows herself for a capable horsewoman, the constant haste is tiring. She can see it is the same for Robin and Jay, neither owning a horse. But the pace she has set is essential if they are to make this journey and be back within the week. She does not even slow when they round a spur of hillside to see on their right a high conical hill topped by a tower. In the flat country around, it is an unnatural sight, this tor of Glastonbury as Jay calls it. The tor is riddled with mythical tales from ancient times, he says, and suggests dryly that the stories were probably thought up by the monks on the hill when pilgrims arrived, purses clinking. Something was needed to make their effort of climbing that hill worthwhile.

By the time they reach Wells in the early afternoon, she is more than glad to dismount and ease her back and legs as they walk the horses for a while through the hot city streets. Jay is jumpy. The Cazanove house is near the market square, he says. The last thing they need is to be seen by somebody he knows, and for that to get back to the mansion. They give the market a wide berth and take a hasty meal at an inn north of the cathedral. Within half an hour they are remounted and on their way, pushing themselves through the afternoon and into the long evening until the shadows darken the Mendip hills to their left and they are many miles north of Wells.

Alice does not even register the name of the village where Jay selects an inn. She declines supper and goes straight to her chamber. Weary as she is, thoughts of Sam constantly intrude. What is he doing, does he miss her as much as she is missing him? He wanted to come with her, but she managed to divert him with the promise that Margaret the kitchen maid will take him to see Daniel.

After hours awake, she falls into exhausted sleep until roused, sick, heavy and unrested, by the chambermaid at dawn. Once more, they fill their leather flasks with ale, wrap bread and cheese in cloths and set out.

To the west, swelling grey clouds lurk on the horizon, tracking their ride north, but once the haze burns off the sky is clear and the heat builds steadily through the morning. Only the breeze of their movement brings relief, scant at that. The fields on either side have browned where the hay has been cut, or are turning golden where wheat or barley stands. When they stop at Pensford to rest and allow the horses to drink at the stream, the very air seems to cling damp and Alice’s clothes hold the heat captive against her skin. Men sit smoking, drinks to hand, in the shade of the inn. Even the children playing tag under the trees do so in desultory fashion. Robin and Jay wade fully clothed into the stream and splash themselves and each other, but for Alice that would be seen as wanton. The only relief is to rinse hands and face, slip off her shoes, kilt her skirts and stand for a few minutes in the shallows before they remount.

In the stifling afternoon the heat gets to both men. Robin several times questions his brother’s route as the city of Bristol fails to show on the horizon. Jay snaps back, ‘Just ’cause you can’t see it yet doesn’t mean it’s not there!’ A taut silence stiffens the air. Each speaks only to Alice, occasionally asking her if she is all right, does she need to stop, is she fatigued? ‘No more than yourself,’ she answers. She feels sure Robin is suffering, from the way he periodically eases himself in the saddle. She keeps quiet that the sun on her back is giving her a constant nausea. As their dogged pace slows, they change horses more frequently, but even the horses droop, both riders and beasts stifled in the clammy heat.

At a small hamlet he calls Whitchurch, Jay does not even bother to stop. There are no inns to speak of, he tells Alice, and they are within a couple of miles now. Minutes later they breast a slight rise and there suddenly at the end of a long incline the shimmering city of Bristol stretches right and left further than Alice ever imagined, buildings upon buildings, and a river running through, visible here and there between tall houses. She thinks, can London possibly be larger?

As they approach down the hill the houses gradually sink behind the high wall of the city. At this time of the afternoon, the traffic entering the city is light, more are leaving than arriving, having delivered or sold what they brought. All traffic south of the city has to pass through this one Temple Gate and the three work themselves into a thin line with a few others, to squeeze past the empty carts, the sagging wains and drays, and thread their way past tinkers, piemen with trays, coaches, women with baskets, riders, all filtering under the great arch, like sand though an hourglass.

The three edge past the flow, spreading out on the other side to continue towards a bridge over the wide, sluggish river Avon and so into the heart of the great city of Bristol.

‘Is it true that city people empty their chamber pots out of the windows?’ Alice asks Robin. She has retreated under the house jetties, where they exist, and has kept a weather eye upwards where they don’t. The centre of the way between the houses is awash with ordure. I thought Guildford was bad enough, she thinks, with its town ditch stinking all the way down Lower Back Lane, but this is close, confined. How do they bear it?

‘Some empty it in the cellars, if they’ve got cellars,’ Robin says. ‘But using the windows is easier, saves carrying it downstairs.’

‘Ugh! So they just open the window and pour?’

‘Only if they don’t like the look of you,’ Jay says, and both men laugh at Alice’s expression. ‘All right,’ Robin relents, ‘usually they shout a warning, but not always. Follow the locals, they’ll know where to tread.’

‘Or where not to,’ Jay suggests.

I shall never live in a city, Alice thinks. She wishes she had thought to bring a cartload of lavender sticks with her. The odour started as they approached the gates. Now she wonders if that is why many of the women in the city wear kerchiefs tied over the lower part of their faces. You can scent a kerchief and it will mask the worst of the stench.

Jay selects a small inn in a narrow street not far from the winding river, set next to an alley where they take their horses to be stabled. As in Ilchester, the best place they can sit and talk privately is outside. Jay pulls a bench into the shade of the wall and brings ale.

‘There are three people we need to talk to,’ Alice says. ‘First, Mistress Goldwoode’s father Master Kemp; second, this Master Turner whose horse Wat is supposed to have stolen. And we should try to find the merchant Norrys he had business with.’

‘How are we going to find Turner?’ Jay asks. ‘He’s a pointmaker, didn’t you say? There could be dozens of pointmakers in the city.’

None of them has any idea about that.

‘The man Norrys,’ Robin says. ‘Given that Kemp and Norrys were doing business, if we find one we should find the other through him.’

‘I couldn’t ask Mistress Goldwoode, given that no one knows we are here,’ Alice answers. ‘But as we are close to the river and her father is a ship merchant, our best hope is to find him first. I suggest we start on the quay.’

She does not voice her thought that for a man who trusted Wat enough to assign him an important task with a lot of money, it is very strange that Kemp berated Wat in the way he did at the trial. Even allowing for the sensational style of the broadsheet, his condemnation must have carried considerable weight in the jury’s minds. So what makes me think I can walk in there and persuade him to change his attitude?

The name of Kemp, it appears, is well known in that part of Bristol. At their first enquiry, they are directed to a stretch of the quay where a dozen or more men roll barrels hand to hand from the hold of a berthed ship to carts waiting alongside, while another ship of similar size stands anchored a little apart, waiting its turn for unloading. A little fishing boat, heavily laden and low in the water, sluggishly rounds its hull, rowing for the shallows to beach and unload its catch.

Their second enquiry amongst the porters directs them to Master Kemp’s house. Situated on a rise overlooking the river, it is a long haul up the steep lane, and Alice is not sure that the restricted view from the top was worth the effort.

At their knock, Alice makes her prepared request, giving her acquaintance with Luella as the reason for her call on Master Kemp. Robin and Jay, assumed to be her menservants, are directed to the nether regions of the house, while Alice is shown into a dining parlour. A dark wooden table with straight, lightly carved legs occupies the middle of the room. A gleaming polished chair with carved back and arms stands at its end and four-legged stools are tucked neatly under the board on both sides. No other furniture ornaments the space, and only a plain wooden crucifix adorns the plastered wall. The parlour has no fireplace; clearly the Kemp family does not linger over meals.

The manservant who answered the door does not invite her to sit, but there is not long to wait. Barely has she taken in her stark surroundings before a ponderous tread approaches and the door opens. As soon as she sees his ingrained frown, Alice can vividly picture the broadsheet story of Wat’s trial. Before her stands the stern reality of that account, the man who so utterly condemned one who had served him faithfully for years. He is all in black, save for the plain white collar and cuffs, starched, uncreased, as distinct from his face which is drawn compass-like into tight radial lines meeting between his brows. Here is a man who knows he is always right.

Alice makes her curtsey, to which he gives no responding bow. Bluntly he demands, ‘Where is your maidservant, madam, that you come here alone?’

Alice thinks fast. ‘I deeply regret, Master Kemp, that I am pressed for time, but my maidservant is severely indisposed and unable to rise from her bed.’ The lie, she hopes, may be forgiven in the light of her mission to gain information.

‘Wait.’ He turns and leaves the room, pulling the door smartly closed, and his footsteps recede. Alice is reminded of the days when her parents were alive. In a similar situation, her father would have asked a lone female caller how he could be of service, not why she had failed to observe the proprieties.

Again, she has not long to wait. He precedes a woman into the parlour and stands, feet together, hands clasped behind his back, regarding the ceiling until she has closed the door. Luella’s mother, for the likeness declares it, is something of a surprise. Alice was expecting a formidable helpmeet to the column of disapproval that is her husband, a matron well versed in keeping her daughter in subjection. Matronly she is, with the comfortable waistline of middle age, but Alice is taken aback by the meek creature who places herself, eyes downcast, a step behind her husband.

‘This person,’ Master Kemp indicates Alice, ‘claims to know Mistress Goldwoode.’ Not Luella , not even our daughter .

The woman looks up eagerly ‘Is she well? And little Eleanor?’ Her voice is soft, anxious.

‘Quiet!’ Kemp orders her. ‘Madam,’ he addresses Alice, ‘my wife will act as your companion for this interview.’

Alice drops a quick curtsey to the wife. ‘I thank you, Mistress Kemp. Sir, the reason for my call is one that concerns you closely.’

His displeasure deepens his frown. ‘I do not know you, madam. Why should I believe you know my concerns? Or even that you are acquainted with Mistress Goldwoode?’

‘I met her a few days ago in a village in Dorset,’ Alice tells him. ‘She and I are, for different reasons, guests at the house of one Mistress Cazanove.’

The name prompts no loosening of the lines in his face. For Mistress Kemp’s benefit, she adds, ‘And her baby Eleanor is with her.’

He gives no sign of pleasure, no thanks for news of Luella. ‘I assume Goldwoode is not permitting her to disport herself alone in strange regions.’

‘He is in the village,’ Alice says, trying to choose her words carefully. Luella has clearly not yet written to her parents. But there is no point in stringing this out. ‘I regret to say he is dead. Your poor daughter is a widow.’

‘Goldwoode! Dead? Can this be true?’ She finds it hard to understand how this man shows no interest in news of his daughter and yet immediately latches onto news of Goldwoode. Has Master Kemp not yet forgiven Luella for her “pride” in taking so long to agree to marry the man? As she hesitates, his eyes narrow at her. ‘Are you here to beg money for her?’

‘No such thing, sir!’ Outrage at his accusation robs her of subtlety. Baldly she declares, ‘Master Goldwoode has been murdered! Out of compassion, Mistress Cazanove took Luella into her house, has appointed a nurse for the baby and is looking after both while they seek Master Goldwoode’s killer.’

‘Oh, my poor child!’ Luella’s mother has become increasingly perturbed, wringing her hands, pacing the room. ‘Poor Luella! How can this be?’ until her husband commands,

‘Be still, woman!’ He reverts to Alice. ‘Goldwoode is a particular friend of mine, both business and personal, of long standing. No right-thinking sort would want to make away with him. Are you telling the truth?’

Alice takes a deep breath, recalls the crucifix on the wall. ‘Gods truth, sir. The coroner and the local justice are working together to determine the circumstances.’

It seems to answer. ‘Then what are you here for? Does she imagine she will come back home? Is that what she sent you to say?’

‘Sir, I…’ At this extraordinary reaction, Alice flounders. ‘I carry no message from your daughter. She has been deeply shocked by these events. She is in no state to be sending out messengers.’ These constant charges are getting her nowhere. Kemp is not going to impart anything of importance.

Master Kemp drumming long fingers on his thigh, demands, ‘If you are not here to speak of Goldwoode’s demise, what is your business, madam?’

She takes a deep breath. Try one last time. ‘It concerns a man who was once in your service, who was accused last year of stealing money and a horse, am I right?’

Alice has not imagined the lines on his face could tighten any further. Master Kemp’s features take on the look of drought-stricken earth. His voice borders on outrage. ‘You refer to the felon who was my clerk?’

‘To Wat Meredith.’

‘We do not speak that name in this house.’

‘I regret if it causes distress, sir, but Wat Meredith is slightly known to me and I have reason to believe—’

‘Is known? Is ?’ Mistress Kemp places a tentative hand to her husband’s arm. ‘But surely he was hanged?’

Kemp sends her a quelling look and she turns questioning eyes on Alice who avoids a direct answer. Instead, ‘Tell me, Master Kemp, am I to understand the name Rupert Cazanove means nothing to you?’

He looks blank. ‘Who is this Cazanove?’

‘When Wat was reprieved, a man called Cazanove took him into his service,’ Alice tells him.

Luella’s mother stares. ‘Reprieved?’

Kemp says to Alice, ‘This Cazanove does not live in Bristol. I would know if he did.’

‘You have the right of it, sir, he does not.’ Alice does not elaborate. ‘I have come to Bristol to gain information regarding Wat Meredith. Your daughter mentioned the events leading up to his trial. Until then, I did not know Wat’s background.’

‘And now you wish to pry into what he did in my house?’

‘Indeed no, sir! His friends and I have wondered whether there might have been misunderstandings in the case, whether Wat Meredith is not the felon he is generally supposed to be. You would surely be glad to know it, sir?’

‘I would not! No one has supposed . The matter was proven in court. I myself was a vital witness, so who are you to wonder otherwise?’

A knock falls on the door and Master Kemp barks, ‘Enter!’ A soberly dressed clerk peers short-sightedly at his master and says, ‘You wished to be informed as soon as the Irene is sighted, master. One of the porters has been sent up to say she is listing to starboard but—’

‘Has he alerted the tallyman?’

‘He says the dockmaster is doing that, sir.’

‘I want to know every item on the list is there and in good condition when it reaches the dock side, or he may tell the tallyman the dues will not be paid. Go.’

The man hovers. ‘The dockmaster requests your copy of the shipping list, sir.’

‘Then give it him!’

‘Sir, you have it under key.’

Master Kemp turns. ‘Wait here with her,’ he orders his wife. He steps out, followed by the clerk closing the door. Their footsteps recede.

At last! Alice seizes her chance. ‘Mistress Kemp, may I ask you a question? I understand Wat Meredith’s errand on the day he was taken was to a Master Norrys.’

Luella’s mother whispers as though her husband can hear from down the hall. ‘It was. The Norryses are good friends of ours. Meredith never went there that day.’

‘I should be glad to know Master Norrys’ direction if you can tell me.’

Mistress Kemp describes the way to the Norrys residence in another quarter of the city. Her eyes darting nervously between Alice and the door, she adds, ‘And you must do something for me. I shall write to Luella. You must call tomorrow for my letter.’

‘Forgive me, but I have commissions to undertake in the city, and little time. I am staying at the sign of the Hatchet; can you have your letter taken there, today or tomorrow?’

‘No… that is,’ Mistress Kemp falters, ‘I am not sure my waiting woman would know where to go.’

For a woman who can direct Alice across the city, it is a strange claim she makes. ‘It is just off the main thoroughfare, Mistress Kemp, not far from the cathedral. I feel sure your waiting woman would know it—’

‘No! She would not. And you must not mention this to my husband. Please.’ Another hurried glance at the door. ‘Call on me tomorrow.’

‘Very well, if that is the only way. I shall call tomorrow morning.’

‘Just ask for me. Do not mention a letter as the purpose of your visit.’

Recognising the need if not the reason for secrecy, Alice delves in her pocket and draws out her kerchief. ‘Take this. I shall call tomorrow and ask for you, as I believe I dropped a personal item here today. And for your part, please do not mention the Norryses.’ Luella’s mother nods with averted eyes as they hear the footsteps returning, and hurriedly pushes the scrap of fabric into her sleeve. The door opens. Master Kemp stations himself by it. ‘You have imparted the news of poor Goldwoode’s death, madam. I thank you for that and I shall not detain you further.’ The hint is clear.

‘Master Kemp,’ Alice says, ‘I ask only whether you have any message I may carry to your daughter?’

Luella’s father states, ‘Mistress Goldwoode is at liberty to write to whomever she chooses.’