Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

38

A welcome interruption to all five ranged around the hall table at a subdued supper is the arrival of a messenger. Sir Thomas regrets he is unable to travel to Hillbury, and requests the attendance of Mistress Jerrard at Woodley Court on an urgent matter.

‘What can he want me for?’

Ursula does not answer. Instead, ‘Have the coach prepared immediately,’ she tells the serving man. ‘Mistress Jerrard and I go to Woodley Court.’

The sultry heat has dispersed since the storm and downpour yesterday, and it has been a clear day, the air warm and fresh, the pools of water on flagstone and cobble have turned to vapour. The evening promises to remain bright for a few hours yet as they bump away from the mansion to take the direction for Woodley.

‘This is kind in you, but I could have seen Sir Thomas on my own,’ Alice says. ‘You don’t want to turn out, surely?’

‘I have no intention of seeing you browbeaten,’ Ursula responds. ‘If he has heard that it was you who found the proof of Wat’s innocence, I intend to set him straight on any doubts he may have. You still think someone attacked Wat? Have you thought more about who?’

‘Wat seems to be generally liked. I don’t know him well enough to formulate ideas on enemies.’ Alice is unwilling to mention the gossip that Sir Thomas insinuated, that Wat has his eye on marrying Ursula for her riches, that Ursula is “keeping him on”. Now even Luella has heard it. What depth of resentment has it spawned?

Ursula is saying, ‘What makes you think someone did it deliberately?’

‘You don’t fall and sting your whole chest when your shirt is only open at the neck. When Esther ripped apart his shirt to treat him, the stings went right across. If you fall, you don’t roll to and fro to sting all over your face and your neck from one side right round to the other. To say nothing of the swellings inside his mouth. Ursula, someone deliberately pulled open his shirt and thrust nettles all over his chest, neck and face, and stuffed them into his mouth.’ As Ursula’s fingers fly to her face, Alice goes on, ‘Which means there must have been two of them, one to restrain him while the other did that. That was no accident, they intended pain and injury.’

‘As soon as he can speak he can tell us,’ Ursula says. ‘Meanwhile, we keep a guard about him at all times. I have released Robin from his watch so that he can return to the madder house and help them catch up. One of the stable boys is taking Robin’s place.’

‘Esther tells me your apothecary has been very good, changing the dressings on each visit. And apparently the swellings are nearly gone.’

‘He wants to take the pipes out as soon as Wat can breathe without them. The cut can be sewn up, and Wat should be able to speak again. Tell me, Alice, do you think this attack on Wat is connected with the death of Master Goldwoode?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing we discovered in Bristol suggests it. And I certainly don’t propose to put that idea in Sir Thomas’s head. He tends to latch onto convenient conclusions.’

‘I am interested to see how he goes on with his injured shoulder. I tell you, Alice, I was never more surprised than when the coach came to pick us up at Sherborne, and Esther told me that Sir Thomas was bedbound and you and Jay were gone to Portland!’

‘What good fortune that we met them on the road,’ Alice says remembering. ‘Another five minutes and we should already have turned off… it does not bear thinking about.’

‘One thing you have not told me in all this, Alice, is why you went to Bristol at all.’

‘Something Sir Thomas said to me the day after we supped at Woodley Court made me concerned that if he could not find a culprit for Master Goldwoode’s murder, Wat would be in the frame – literally – the frame of the gallows. And I found an old broadsheet from Wat’s trial. It didn’t ring true from what I knew of Wat.’

‘A broadsheet? Where?’

‘I confess I searched your late husband’s chamber.’

‘You knew Rupert was involved in this?’

‘I guessed it. He brought Wat from Bristol after his conviction, and I wondered if he had written anything down about it which indicated why.’ Alice’s promise to Wat about his destruction of Cazanove’s chamber keeps her from telling Ursula of the threat he held over Wat’s head. ‘I think I should give you all the papers I found, Ursula. I wanted to throw them on the hall fire but I have no right. It is your decision what to do with them.’

At Woodley Court, they are led without pause through the hall and into the Great Parlour where Sir Thomas rises from the long table. ‘Ursula! Bid you good evening. Ah, Alice, I thank you for coming.’

‘How does your shoulder, Sir Thomas?’ Ursula indicates the sling.

‘Painfully, but it is back in place and has taken no great harm, I thank you.’ He turns to Alice as they sit down. ‘Firstly, Alice. I want to thank you, and also your man, Ursula, for taking on the task that should have been mine.’

‘We were relieved that we arrived in time,’ Alice says. ‘But I assume that was not the reason you wished to see me, Sir Thomas?’

‘No indeed. I need to ask you about the young man you saw outside the inn. I believe you said he was wearing unremarkable garments, but you recalled his hat.’

‘It was a sort of maroon colour and had tucks in the crown.’

With his good arm Sir Thomas reaches to the chair next to him and brings up a man’s hat which he places on the table. ‘Like this one?’

Alice takes it up to inspect closer. ‘I’d say it was the same, Sir Thomas, except that it was better kept, not dusty, and certainly the brim was not bent as this one is.’

‘How was he wearing it? Flat on the top of his head? Pushed back? I take it he was wearing it, not carrying it?’

‘He was. I cannot recall the exact angle but tilted forwards. I remember he bent down to brush dust off his breeches as I passed.’

‘So you would not be surprised to hear that the owner of this hat is Bart Johnson?’

‘Bart? It was certainly not he who was wearing it that evening, Sir Thomas. I would know Bart Johnson anywhere.’

‘You are sure about that?’

‘Assuredly. The young man I saw was much slighter than Bart, and taller. It was unquestionably not Bart.’

‘Interesting.’ Sir Thomas takes back the hat, absently pressing on the dent in the brim. ‘That’s what he says too.’

So Sir Thomas has already put Bart Johnson to examination. She asks, ‘How does he account for someone else wearing it?’

‘He says Dick Winter borrowed it that night.’

‘Not unless Dick Winter also wore more sober articles of dress than he usually sports.’

‘He also claims Dick was outside the inn and that the two met when Bart went out to the midden. But Dick Winter says he was nowhere near the inn and didn’t borrow the hat.’

‘So one or other is lying.’

‘Quite likely both. But you cannot swear it was not Dick Winter you saw?’

‘I am as certain as I can be it was not. He is taller than Bart, it’s true, and less solidly built, but why would he dress in another’s clothes and pretend to be a stranger in the village by avoiding the back way into the inn?’

‘Those are the very questions I shall be putting to him.’

‘Sir Thomas,’ Ursula says. ‘Do you suspect that Dick Winter murdered Master Goldwoode?’

‘So far he has said nothing intelligible to Constable Nutley. Only denies being anywhere near the inn at all, but won’t say where he was, denies wearing the hat, denies everything he can deny, in fact. I’m keeping him under lock overnight. If that doesn’t make him lucid, I’ll get him to Dorchester gaol and we’ll see if that loosens his tongue. Johnson has already been taken there. They’ll examine him first thing.’

‘What possible motive could those two have to murder a man they didn’t know?’ Ursula asks.

‘We are assuming they didn’t know Goldwoode,’ Sir Thomas replies. ‘But Goldwoode was well known to your husband, had previously visited him at the dyeworks. It is conceivable Winter or Johnson became involved with him in some way. We’ll find out, given time.’ He turns to Alice. ‘Thank you, my dear. That was all I needed to consult you on.’

Ursula is fingering the hat on the table. ‘They have used cheap dyes to mimic an expensive purple called Tyrian blue,’ she muses. Alice looks round at her. ‘A vibrant colour, exceeding arduous to achieve. This has been dyed a crude red, weakly overlaid with woad. My dye master would say it belongs to a man who craves a higher station than the one he inhabits.’

‘And Bart Johnson is the owner,’ says Sir Thomas. ‘No surprise there, then.’

Alice follows her friend along the paths of the walled herb garden. ‘The morning air here is always so refreshing,’ Ursula comments, breathing in deeply. They turn a corner into another path.

‘Was that the apothecary I saw arriving earlier?’ Alice asks.

‘It was. His disapproval of you, Alice, has been suspended for the nonce. What is it, barely two days, and already Wat looks stronger.’

‘I am relieved my transgression is somewhat mitigated,’ Alice says wryly.

‘Don’t take it to heart,’ Ursula advises. ‘Denigration is a common weapon in cases of jealousy.’

‘So why am I reprieved?’

‘He has discovered that Alexander the Great apparently used a sword to perform the same procedure on a soldier whose throat was blocked.’

‘Successfully?’

‘Unfortunately, history does not say.’

‘Ursula,’ Alice says, stopping. ‘I have not said this earlier, and I should have done. Without you, Wat would have died. I panicked and you remained level-headed, helped me take control of my fears.’

‘I reminded you of your capability, Alice, nothing more.’

‘And your level-headedness over the papers we brought back from Bristol, you were right about that also.’

‘I suppose there are different types of composure, Alice. Yours, to take on that surgery, was of another sort.’

‘So where do I stand in the apothecary’s estimation?’

‘He sits on the fence,’ Ursula says drily, ‘pending Wat’s recovery.’

‘Is Wat able to speak yet?’

‘Jay tells me they have been communicating. He asks questions that Wat can reply to by Yes or No hand movements.’

‘Has he learned anything of the attack on Wat?’ Alice asks.

‘He hoped to, but Wat will not tell him anything in that respect. He won’t write it down for me, either. He had to admit it was not an accident but will reveal nothing more.’ They move on together, stopping here and there to discuss a plant’s virtues, or brush leaves for their perfume, strong in the morning sunshine. ‘And Jay has discovered that Wat wants to see Luella.’

‘Ah,’ Alice says. ‘That is problematical.’

‘What is the matter with the girl?’ Ursula asks, unwonted irritation surfacing. ‘First she accuses him, then she throws herself distraught at him, now she refuses to see him. What on earth is going on in her head, Alice? Is this some form of twisted guilt that she deceived Master Goldwoode?’

‘There is guilt that he died knowing her secret. She is refusing to entertain the idea of any fraction of the inheritance. And she also says Wat would only declare he wishes to marry her out of obligation, because of Eleanor.’

‘It would have been better, perhaps, if the Will had arrived sooner, before Wat’s condition disordered her humours,’ Ursula comments with unaccustomed pragmatism. ‘It might have persuaded her to think more clearly, for her daughter’s sake if nothing else.’

‘Why did the Will take so long to arrive? You sent Oz Thatcher to Bristol long before I went.’

Ursula sighs. ‘Oz Thatcher is a good man with horses, but I fear he is over fond of his drink. He was weaving and unfocussed when he got back and I suspect he spent many an hour in ale houses when he should have been riding.’

They turn down another path of the herb garden, silent for a few moments. Ursula runs her fingers over the pale blue daisy-like blooms of a tall plant. ‘I do so look forward to the colour of chicory flowers at this time of year,’ she says, and suddenly bursts out, ‘She gives Wat no chance to be a father to his own child, when both of them surely want that?’

Alice is mute. For all her previous recommendations to openness, she hesitates to explain Luella’s suspicion of Wat’s intentions regarding Ursula. Somehow Luella has heard the rumour first started by Cazanove. The message scratched on the windowpane has only served to bolster that.

Her friend reaches out to another tall plant, this one with pale green, three-pronged leaves, its yellow sprays of flower heads shooting up above her head. In a calmer voice, she says, ‘This is lovage. Do you have it in your herb garden?’

‘I don’t, though I believe it is good in some meat dishes, or to flavour a pottage, perhaps.’

‘I shall give you a root when you return, or a flower head to ripen into seeds. One or other should take.’ They continue on, up and down the radiating paths of the herb garden, pointing out herbs to each other, comparing their uses, silvery green sage, emerald parsley, horseradish, soapwort, rosemary. Then Ursula stops. ‘I read the packet of letters you found in Rupert’s chamber.’

‘The few I opened make distressing reading,’ Alice comments.

‘Come, let us sit over there. I’ve something to show you.’ The two women take their seats on the stone bench warm from the sun. Ursula pulls a sheet from her pocket and passes it over. ‘I think you did not see this one, or you would have mentioned it?’

The signature at the bottom is Jeremiah Goldwoode. Alice scans down lines of fulsome thanks to the main paragraph…

It was meet that you put him away. My suit did not Prosper until this mean sort was removed. Thus has your counsel proved True, that compliance in a woman is gained by subduing her heart. She has come to Obedience and we shall be married without delay. I send you by this hand the bales of full grain Kermes of a quality to produce a most Esteemed bright Scarlett.

Alice gasps. ‘So Goldwoode was involved!’

‘You knew it?’

‘I suspected. This proves he was just as deep in this. The two of them conspired to get Wat out of the way, so that he could marry Luella!’ So Cazanove did do his business acquaintance a favour after all.

‘Paying for her with bales of the most expensive scarlet dye,’ Ursula says. ‘I wonder how many bales he thought she was worth?’

‘Or perhaps – how many bales did your husband exact as payment for entrapping Wat? And Luella believes Goldwoode waited patiently for her.’ Alice shakes her head in disbelief. ‘He lay in wait, more like. He was a monster! They were both monsters! I see it now, Goldwoode mentions his predicament over Luella to your husband, who agrees to help. You realise this letter of thanks marks the start of his blackmail of Goldwoode?’

‘I’m beginning to,’ Ursula says. ‘Rupert must have planned from the start to implicate Goldwoode for that very purpose.’

‘That’s what I think too. Those two confessions we obtained, both men described a tall, grey-haired, rich man calling himself Goldwoode. There was just enough similarity between Goldwoode and your husband that no one was likely to question it. Robin, bless him, kept digging and it was clear it couldn’t beGoldwoode.’

‘How could Rupert be so certain he wouldn’t be discovered?’

‘He wasn’t certain. I believe your husband kept the living Wat as bastion against the possibility of future investigation. To demonstrate that he had “saved” Wat from the noose. For who would suspect such a kind, compassionate man of putting Wat there in the first place?’

‘I am still astounded at the depths of his cynical cruelty.’ Ursula sighs. ‘Poor Wat. God forgive me for saying this, but I am glad that my husband—’

‘Don’t say it!’ Alice thrusts out a warning hand. ‘Never say it, Ursula. Walls have ears.’

The two women look at each other in silence. They both know who did away with Rupert Cazanove. Then, ‘There is a postscript to this, Alice.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know we had a problem with some mull madder here recently?’

‘Yes, it put you behind with your orders.’

‘Goldwoode fulfilled an order we sent for madder this spring. Around the time he would have discovered that Eleanor was not his child. He expressed surprise when he received my complaint; he hadn’t heard Rupert was dead.’

‘He thought to take his revenge on your husband by offloading inferior madder?’

Ursula nods. ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’

‘How ironic. Probably the one thing your husband was unaware of was Luella’s condition.’

Ursula accepts the letter back from Alice. ‘I shall show this to her, it should ease her guilt.’

But Alice is not hopeful that it will change her mind.

Esther comes to find Alice to ask her to take Ursula’s place at Wat’s bedside until Jay arrives. There is someone to see the mistress, Esther says, and Alice is glad to be one of the number to keep watch by him.

The apothecary has finally removed the pipes from Wat’s throat and stitched up the opening, applying another of his cleansing salves and bandaging it lightly round with strips of fabric from Esther’s linen store.

Wat’s voice will take a little while to return, they all reckon, but he is breathing easily, managing to swallow without undue discomfort, the swellings have gone down and the last of the redness is disappearing. Alice talks of this and that, matters of small moment, to amuse him and pass the time, while Ursula attends to her visitor.

Jay walks in, followed by Robin, while she is telling Wat of Sam’s attempts to write, and he is smiling one of his rare smiles at how she entirely misread Sam’s message.

‘Don’t go, Alice,’ Jay says. Since that journey to Bristol, the race to Portland, there is no more Master this and Mistress that.

‘We have some news you will be interested to hear,’ Robin adds, and the two pull up stools round Wat’s bed. ‘There has been a slight accident at the dyeworks,’ he says, and Wat pushes himself up on one elbow. ‘Oh, nothing that will not pass, but we thought you’d like to know, Wat old fellow.’

‘It seems that two of the workmen got themselves in drink last night,’ Jay starts.

‘Indeed, they must have been very drunk,’ Robin says, ‘for they left all but their nether hose on a sink at the rinsing sheds.’

‘Can you imagine that?’ Jay says. ‘And then to go wandering into the fields.’

Alice recognises the to and fro style of dialogue from the Bristol journey. She waits in anticipation.

‘Perhaps they were hot,’ Robin suggests, ‘the weather being so very warm, even at night.’

‘I expect that was it,’ Jay says. ‘Anyway, they woke up on the edge of the copse in the middle of some nettles, and can you believe it, they had got their wrists tangled in a piece of nettle cord. Behind their backs.’

‘Can’t imagine how they did that,’ Robin says. ‘But there they were, near babe-naked, hand-tied to each other, of all places in the middle of the nettles.’

Alice winces. Wat looks intently at the brothers.

‘Which was pretty stupid of them,’ Jay says. ‘But there, Slank and Messer are pretty stupid men. Aren’t they, Wat?’

Slowly Wat nods, and Alice realises he is answering more than one question. Slank from the madder house, and Messer, the nettle porter.

Robin picks up the narrative. ‘Funny how word gets round. Most of the dye workers came out of doors to see the two get safely out of the nettles.’

‘Nobody could go and help them, of course,’ Jay says, ‘for fear of being stung.’

‘They got a nice cheer when they made it out, though,’ Robin says.

‘And the women were so helpful. Welcomed them back by lining the way to where they had left their clothes, didn’t they, Rob?’

Wat gives another of his rare smiles.

‘Festive, it was,’ Robin agrees. ‘The women were particularly merry.’

Alice says, rising. ‘I’d call that a happy ending, and now I must go and find Sam.’

Behind Alice the door opens and Ursula walks in as Robin is adding, ‘The women told me that a certain person said “Accidents. You just never know when they’re going to happen.” How right he was.’

‘Why did they do it, Robin?’ Alice asks as she returns outside with him. Jay has stayed with Wat and Ursula, but Robin has to get back to the dye works. ‘Was it the old rumour?’

‘You’ve heard that one, I suppose,’ Robin says.

‘Jay told me in Bristol.’

‘Some still suspect Wat of seeking to raise his station here. Slank and Messer are too stupid to see the falsehood. My wife says they rejoiced with sly looks when the constables came to arrest Wat. When he returned unscathed, they decided to take matters into their own hands.’

‘They certainly intended injury and pain, but do you think they intended to kill him?’

‘What do you intend when you hold a man down and force a bunch of nettles in his mouth?’ Robin demands, the anger beneath the earlier banter briefly bursting forth. ‘Well, they’ve had a lesson in the power of nettles. Especially as the women all declare they are too busy to make nettle juice for their relief.’ And Robin swings away on his crooked legs to mount up and ride back to the dye works, leaving Alice pondering the lesson in the power of nettles. And the lesson in the power of neighbours.