Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

27

N ot possible!’ Alice cries. Mistress Kemp’s words have sent her wits flying. ‘I would have known.’ Such a momentous thing, surely a woman knows instantly?

‘Did you not, my dear?’

‘No. Yes. No, I thought… aggravation of humours after my husband’s death.’

‘I am sure that is so, and I suggest it has masked the truth from you. It is probably the last thing you have had leisure to think about. Now, my dear, are you feeling better?’

‘Much better, I thank you.’ The innocuous refreshment Mistress Kemp’s maidservant brought to the private closet as her mistress and Alice talked of Luella and baby Eleanor, was the last straw for Alice, who promptly clapped her reclaimed kerchief to her mouth as her stomach heaved. With a mother’s wits, Mistress Kemp dragged a chamber pot from a cupboard and bent Alice’s head over it, and Alice helplessly vomited up her recent meal. Now, refreshed with a rosewater mouth wash and free of nausea, she is absorbing the tremendous news. Can it be so? Can I dare hope?

They sit together in Mistress Kemp’s small closet leading off a private parlour. The room faces away from the sun and the air is pleasantly cool and fresh. Upholstered back stools surround a small table standing before the empty grate. A shelf carries a mixture of devotional works and household books, and a small wooden workbox, and the room is half-panelled to waist height, plain-plastered above. Again, the single crucifix on the wall.

‘Eat some raspberries,’ Mistress Kemp passes her the dish. ‘They are said to strengthen the stomach.’

Alice gladly takes a few. Their soft, sweet taste is welcome. ‘Everything else I have eaten these past days has left me feeling unwell.’ A sense of calm joy, of responsibility and a new maturity, is stealing over her. ‘I thought it was the city-stench that was the root of my nausea.’

‘It will not have helped if you are not used to it.’

Mistress Kemp in her private closet is a very different woman from the subdued wife of yesterday. Free of the dead hand of her husband’s censure, Mistress Kemp, still soft-mannered and quietly spoken, has much more to say for herself, and a fund of motherly concern which at present is all Alice’s.

‘Has not your mother suggested this possibility to you?’

‘My mother is dead, Mistress Kemp.’

‘At a time like this it is a mother you need, to confide in. I knew Luella was with child almost before she did.’

‘She said to me that Master Goldwoode was delighted beyond measure.’

‘What man would not be, especially such an ancient as he. He thought it was—’ Mistress Kemp stops.

‘He thought it was to be a boy?’ Alice says. ‘What man would not? Yet Luella told me he was overjoyed when Eleanor was born. He must have anticipated the possibility of a son in the future.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Mistress Kemp,’ Alice says. ‘May I please speak with you on this other matter? Of Wat Meredith?’

Mistress Kemp bridles. ‘My husband does not wish it, you understand?’

‘Your husband seems to retain a sense of injury on the subject and I would not wish to vex him again, but did you also dislike Wat, Mistress Kemp?’

‘On the contrary, my husband liked him before he… and naturally I took my lead from that.’

‘But …?’

‘But I could not understand how a man who seemed so honest, who lived in this house and ate with us, could be so disloyal as to steal. Why are you so interested in Wat Meredith?’

Alice carefully picks her way. ‘Can you tell me if you ever suspected Wat might have fond feelings for someone he knew while he was here in Bristol?’

Mistress Kemp looks down at her hands. ‘He would not dare. Luella is an obedient daughter. She would never invite improper advances.’ It is interesting, Alice reflects, that Mistress Kemp has jumped straight to the conclusion that Alice means Luella.

‘Anyone who has met Luella must recognise her for a virtuous and dutiful daughter.’ Alice hopes this is the sort of language that Mistress Kemp is expecting. She pushes a little more. ‘So – excuse my asking – she was not assailed by any particular feelings for Wat?’

‘My daughter could barely be aware of a clerk who worked for her father.’

‘Of course, and I apologise if I appear to have suggested otherwise. It is just that I understand your husband said at the trial that Wat had hurt “my family”, and I did not know if he meant Luella.’

Luella’s mother looks down again as a blush spreads over her face. ‘Naturally, we were all dismayed,’ she says. ‘Having harboured a felon, we all shared in that sense of shame.’

‘I understand.’ Alice rises. ‘I should be getting back to the inn. I still have business to deal with before we leave.’

‘I should like to say to you, stay a few days, come and see me again, but I sense you are set on your course.’

‘A life could depend on it, Mistress Kemp.’

‘And your child’s life depends on you, Mistress Jerrard, so take care of yourself.’

‘I shall. You have been very kind to me and I am grateful. And for giving me this astonishing news.’

Luella’s mother smiles. ‘You’d have guessed it for yourself before long.’ She rises and opens the workbox on the shelf. ‘Here is the letter I have written. Give it to her with my love, won’t you?’

‘Of course, and is it possible her father would wish me to pass on his blessing to her?’

‘My husband… There are difficulties between my husband and Luella. It has not always been so, but as you saw yesterday, he does not presently desire contact.’

Not even a blessing. This is a very sore spot I have tumbled across, Alice realises, to divide a formerly loving father from his daughter.

‘Mistress Jerrard,’ Mistress Kemp hesitates before continuing. ‘I defy my husband’s express wish by giving you my letter. I depend upon your discretion.’

‘You may rely on me.’ Alice tucks the letter into her pocket, pushing it back under her skirt. ‘There. No one need know I carry anything away except my retrieved handkerchief. My regret is that I did not discuss my visit with Luella. I expect she would have charged me with a letter for you, would she not?’

‘I hope she would,’ Luella’s mother says.

‘Ah! You’re back,’ Jay says coming along the passage at The Hatchet as Alice is about to go up to her chamber. He stops. ‘Are you quite well?’

‘Never better,’ she says. Strange how the nausea, the headache, the feelings of oppression have all disappeared. ‘Did you find a place for a drink?’

‘We found just what we wanted,’ Jay says.

‘Is Turner here yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Jay says. ‘I wanted to catch you to let you know we have engaged a parlour for our meeting with him.’

‘I thought we would meet in one or other of the chambers.’

‘We thought it would be more… seemly.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose you’re right.’

‘It’s just along there,’ he adds, pointing down the passage.

‘Excellent, I shall come down when you let me know he has arrived.’ In her new state of mind and body, it is strange how her sense of smell is playing tricks. She cannot detect ale or spirits about Jay, rather something of the stable.

‘Why don’t you… that is, we’d like you to approve the parlour first.’

Jay, she thinks, looks decidedly shifty. ‘I’m sure it will be all that it should be, Jay, it’s only a parlour, after all. You have the sheet for him to sign?’

‘Yes.’

‘And ink and a quill?’

‘Perhaps you should approve the quill.’ As she looks at him in puzzlement, he adds, ‘Robin and me not being lettered, we cannot say if it works properly, can we?’

‘Ink is ink, a quill is a quill.’

‘Please?’

‘Oh, very well. Lead on.’ She follows him along the passage and into the parlour, murmuring, ‘Much ado over a quill—’ and stops dead at sight of the occupant. ‘Sir!’

‘Mistress Jerrard, a pleasure to meet you again,’ says Master Norrys, rising from his chair at the head of the table and bowing.

‘I don’t understand. Forgive me, sir, but what in God’s mercy are you doing here?’

‘I come at the invitation of your companions,’ he says indicating Jay, grinning by the door, and Robin emerging from the corner, equally pleased with himself.

Alice makes her way to one of the stools at the table and plumps down. ‘Someone had better tell me what’s going on.’

Jay closes the door. He and Robin approach as Norrys re-seats himself and starts. ‘Your friends came to solicit my help. They tell me you have traced a man who was paid to perjure himself in court by accusing Wat Meredith of a felony. This man I understand is coming here soon, for another such lucrative commission, but you mean him to sign a confession instead.’

Put like that, the hopelessness of their situation is plain. ‘I know it’s very thin, sir,’ Alice says. ‘I could not think what else to do.’

‘Your friends here felt they could strengthen your hand by calling on my help.’

‘He’s a Justice, you see,’ Robin explains. ‘We’ll get Turner to sign a proper Information.’

‘A Justice? How did you know—?’ Alice is lost for words.

‘He said “my constable” came to check his whereabouts the day after Wat was taken. My, not a constable. Justices have their constables.’

‘I missed it entirely,’ Alice says. ‘What would I do without you?’

‘It was nothing,’ Robin says, studiedly offhand.

‘No it wasn’t, it was a piece of dazzling quick wit on his part,’ Jay argues.

‘So we rode over to Master Norrys while you were with Mistress Kemp.’

‘Rode?’ Alice says. ‘Ah.’ The whiff of stables.

‘We’d never have got there and back in time if we’d walked,’ Robin says. ‘It was Jay’s quick wit to use our horses.’

‘It was obvious. You just hadn’t thought of it,’ Jay tells him.

Robin turns to Norrys. ‘I’m sorry we vexed your manservant by pushing past him, sir, but we were in haste.’

‘He is a prancing fellow, subject to bilious humours,’ Norrys says equably, ‘and if this statement is true, he will shortly suffer much melancholy at my hands. We won’t fret over him.’

‘But, Master Norrys,’ Alice says, ‘how are we are going to persuade Turner to sign?’

They are grouped round the table when Turner arrives. Herself, Robin and Norrys. Reluctantly, Jay has agreed to stay out of sight in order to protect the tailor’s apprentice, whom Turner might have seen talking with Jay at The Ship.

A knock on the door and the tapster opens it. ‘He says you’re expecting him?’ At Robin’s nod, he leaves and Turner shambles in. Abruptly he stops, face full of suspicion. ‘What’s afoot? Who are you?’

‘Good afternoon,’ Norrys greets him. ‘You are Turner, I assume. I am here because of Master Goldwoode’s satisfaction with your services. Your dealings are with me.’

Turner remains by the door. ‘I’m just a simple pointmaker, sir, nothing more.’

‘And a useful man for my purposes,’ Norrys says. ‘Take a seat, Turner, we can do business together.’

‘What sort of business?’ Turner’s eyes dart around the room and back to Norrys.

‘The sort of business in which this lady advises me you have already proved your mettle.’

‘I just make points, sir.’

‘My agents here have been to considerable travail to find the one man in this city who can help.’

‘To make points?’

‘To make yourself pleasant to strangers.’

‘I did nothing outside the law, sir.’

‘That’s exactly what the broadsheet of the trial reports,’ Alice tells him. It called you ‘ An honest pointmaker ’, did you know that?’

Turner’s mouth takes a small upward curve.

Norrys goes on, ‘The city needs to be rid of undesirable elements, Turner, and you can help in that worthy endeavour.’

‘You have a commission for me, sir?’

‘I have. I require a man removed from this city and you shall help me. Take a seat.’

Robin stands up for Turner to take his stool, and retreats to lean his back against the door. The latch clicks closed.

‘Now, Turner,’ Norrys says, ‘tell me the arrangement you had with Master Goldwoode. This lady has given me her understanding of that commission, but I should like to hear it again from yourself.’

‘Of course, sir. Man to man to get the facts right,’ Turner says. He launches into a repetition of how he trapped, caught and accused Wat. It takes no more than a few minutes, and Turner tells it now confidently, stressing the importance of the part he played, the efficiency with which he fulfilled his role. ‘I completed the task just as Master Goldwoode required, and he commended me upon it,’ Turner finishes.

‘And that would be when Master Goldwoode paid you for your services the sum of ten shillings, I understand?’ Norrys asks.

‘Yes, sir. A job well done, he told me.’

‘Quite a handsome amount. Several weeks’ wages.’

‘It’s a just sum for the task,’ Turner insists.

‘And you shall have your just deserts today also, as this lady promised you.’

‘So,’ Turner rubs his hands together, ‘how do you wish this new commission done, sir?’ He leans across the table, winking at Norrys. ‘Who is to be removed from the city?’

‘You are.’

‘Yes, who do I take with me?’

‘No one else. Just you.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. You are the one to be removed.’

‘You said you wanted me to make myself pleasant to strangers!’

‘Indeed. Those strangers being anyone well beyond the bounds of this city because that’s where you’re going. The fact is you’re a slimy little toad, Turner. You knowingly trapped an innocent man, using his good nature to do so.’

‘I was made to do it!’

‘And compounded your offence by repeating your lies in a court of law, resulting in a death sentence for the man.’

‘I didn’t have a choice!’

‘That’s not the impression I had a minute ago when you were telling me how well you ensured his capture.’

‘He threatened me, that Goldwoode, told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t do as he said. I was in terror of my life!’

‘Yet you never thought to come to a Justice like me?’

At the word “Justice”, Turner seems to shrink. ‘You jest.’

Norrys looks at him.

‘I was made to lie! It’s not the same!’

‘In the eyes of the law, it is. Murder by perjury is a felony in foro conscientiae . In all conscience, you knew what your lies would achieve. You know what a felony is, Turner?’

All colour has drained from Turner’s ruddy face. He stares transfixed at Norrys. ‘This is a trap!’

Norrys looks at him in silence for several seconds to allow the full weight of his words to sink in.

‘They can’t hang me for a little lie!’

‘If I had my way…,’ Norrys resumes. ‘Well, never mind that. Fortunately for you, as justice stands today, it is unlikely such a charge would stand up in court.’

Turner blows out a great breath. ‘So I can go?’

‘There are other charges that will stick. Item, falsely charging another with a felony. Item, attempting to pervert the course of justice. Happily for you, we call these misdemeanours, treat them as trifling crimes. But do you know the punishment?’

Turner shakes his head, eyes staring.

‘We have a choice in sentencing.’ Norrys’ voice is conversational, as he might discuss the selection of dishes for a meal. ‘Imprisonment – the food is terrible unless your friends keep you supplied. Do you have any friends? Whipping – painful, and also embarrassing. It’s your bare arse they birch. An hour in the pillory might be your easiest route; after all, mouldy fruit, chamber pot slops, these can be washed off.’

‘I’ll take that,’ Turner says quickly.

‘Not your choice, Turner, though I could recommend it to my colleagues when you are convicted, if you wish.’

‘Yes,’ Turner says, breathless. ‘Yes, you’ll do that won’t you, sir? Not the other. Tell them, I’ll do my hour.’

‘You just have to hope that no one decides to throw stones.’

‘Stones?’ Turner whispers the word.

‘We discourage such practices, of course, but if it’s a market day, you’d be surprised what people in a crowd will conceal in a ball of sheep’s dung. It’s not always possible to control an angry crowd. And they will be angry, Turner. Good English men and women do not like false accusers.’

Turner starts up and turns, to see Robin guarding the door. ‘Let me out!’

‘Uh-uh, Master Pointmaker.’ Robin shakes his head, weighing the stick in his hand. ‘Not until we say.’

‘Crooked little coxcomb. Look at you.’ Turner draws himself up, flexes his arms. ‘You can’t keep me here.’

‘Watch me,’ Robin says.

‘Out of my way!’ Turner lunges, but faster than he, Robin thwacks his stout stick hard on Turner’s thigh.

‘Aghhh!’ Teeth bared and grimacing, the felled pointmaker clutches his numbed leg. ‘Aghhh!’ He rolls away from Robin and slowly raises himself, grasping at the stool he was sitting on. ‘I want him charged with assault!’

‘Shut up, Turner,’ Norrys says.

The pointmaker rounds on Alice, jabbing a finger. ‘It’s your fault! You talked me into coming here. She bewitched me, sir!’

‘Sit back on that stool and stop whingeing!’ Norrys says. Turner breathes hard, eyes watering. He gets painfully to his feet, face screwed up and leaning heavily to his good side. ‘Sit down,’ Norrys repeats, ‘and I will advise you your best way through this.’ Turner gingerly sits, whimpering, and rubs his tender thigh.

From a leather pocket lying on the table, Norrys draws a sheet of paper. Not the sheet Alice wrote earlier. This is thicker, official-looking, the writing bold and authoritative. He unfolds and spreads it flat. ‘This, Turner, is an Information. I shall read it to you, as I don’t suppose you can read? I thought not. When I have read it, you are free to make such minor adjustments as you see fit, on condition I agree they are fair. Then you will make your mark, and I shall counter-sign it as witness to your mark.’ He proceeds to read, ‘This Information witnesseth…’

Turner’s eyes grow progressively rounder as Justice Norrys reads. This version, Alice notes with satisfaction, is far closer to the truth than hers was. Before he reaches the end,

‘I’m not signing that!’ Turner declares. ‘You can’t lay a finger on me.’

Norrys lowers the sheet, looks at Turner. ‘Wrong. If you don’t sign it, the three of us here will each lay our own Information, stating what you have confessed to us, here in this parlour—’

‘Bastard!’

‘— after which I shall indeed have you arrested and charged as I described. What is your preference?’

After a moment’s thought, a gleam narrows Turner’s eye. ‘You said you’d pay me for doing what you want, so I’ll have my money first.’

Norrys ignores that. ‘I am very tempted to charge you on both counts, and full justice has the right to demand it, but time is short and so I give you the chance to slip quietly away and no more said. Count yourself lucky that I am prepared to let you off so lightly.’

‘Where’s my money? You promised!’ Turner wails. He points at Alice. ‘So did she.’

‘I promised you a better deal than you had from Master Goldwoode,’ Alice tells him, ‘and that’s what you’re getting. You don’t have to falsely accuse, nor lie in court, nor take punishment for your past actions. And Justice Norrys is offering you your freedom.’

‘When I have your mark, you are free to go,’ Norrys confirms, ‘and I recommend you remove yourself from Bristol this night. If I ever hear of you in this city again, I shall surely have you arrested and charges will be pressed.’

‘If I cross the city gates, Meredith will murder me!’

‘I don’t see how he can, when he’s over fifty miles away,’ Alice tells him.

Turner explodes. ‘You said he was coming to get me! That he had watchers at the gates!’

‘Oh, yes. I meant to say, I lied.’

Turner swings round to Norrys. ‘You heard that?’

‘Heard what?’