‘So my lady told me. The owner is a cousin of a dependant of the Duke of Clarence, and with the Bullivants’ royal connections…’ She broke off, her eyes encouraging me to laugh with her at the pretensions and conceits of our betters.
But I was too preoccupied with my thoughts. ‘Would you know if this inn is situated in a place called Crooked Lane, off Thames Street?’
Bess wriggled round to face me, tucking her wet feet beneath her skirt, regardless of the grass and mudstains they were making.
‘That’s right. I’ve heard my lady mention it often enough since her husband’s disappearance. Sir Gregory finally went himself in pursuit of his son-in-law — a fact which is generally held to have hastened his death — and they were discussing it the night before he left. I distantly recall my lady saying: “Crooked Lane off Thames Street.” Why, do you know it?’
‘I know of it,’ I answered slowly. ‘And of the Crossed Hands inn. So, Sir Gregory was unsuccessful.’ It was not a question as she had already told me the answer, and I went on: ‘Do you think you could persuade your lady to see me?’
‘Why? What has it to do with you?’
‘I might have some information in which she would be interested. Oh, I don’t know what’s become of Sir Richard any more than you do, but I’d like to hear the story from her own lips.’
‘You’d like to hear …’ Bess was beginning with an incredulous smile, but something in my face must have given her pause, because she stopped smiling and regarded me thoughtfully for several moments. ‘I might be able to persuade her,’ she agreed at last, ‘if, of course, I know the whole story and what it is you have to say.’
I hesitated, but only for an instant. There was no reason why she should not know, and anyway, it was obvious that satisfied curiosity was the price of her cooperation. And I owed her something. I patted the grass beside me, where she had been sitting before edging nearer to the water. ‘Come here,’ I said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’
The manor house which had been the home of Sir Richard Mallory, and where his wife still lived, was a little way outside the city walls, south, on the Dover road. I approached it the following day, towards evening.
A message had reached me at the Eastbridge Hospital early that morning, brought to me by one of Lady Mallory‘s servants, a circumstance which had profoundly impressed my fellow borders.
‘My lady says you’re to come this evening, after supper.‘ The man had then proceeded to give me directions, although, as he said, anyone could tell me how to get there. Tuffnel Manor was well known in the locality.
It had been another glorious day, warm even for mid-September. Only the yellowing leaves and the sudden sharp bite in the air night and morning hinted that winter would soon be upon us. Overhead, the sun still rode high in the sky, with some way yet to go before reaching the horizon. I had again done well in the market-place, and would soon have to replenish my stock. I had money in my pocket, a full stomach and was feeling pleased with myself; so pleased and contented that I wondered, as I strode along, why I was allowing myself to be embroiled once more in this affair of the Crossed Hands inn. But I knew the answer to that. God had spoken.
The knowledge didn’t, of course, prevent me querying God’s intentions, nor even His wisdom, from time to time; still another reason why I had felt it necessary to leave Glastonbury, and why Abbot Selwood had not tried to discourage me.
‘Faith,’ he had told me severely, ‘must be absolute.’
But for me, it never has been. I’ve always found it necessary to argue with God on occasions — even if He always wins the argument in the end.
Tuffnel Manor was surrounded by three great open fields, divided into strips by balks of sod and ploughed by the serfs and peasants who worked the holding. As I passed their huddle of cottages two men were returning home, leading a scrawny pig down from the woods where it had been turned out to forage for the day, rootling among the mast and fallen beech nuts. The Manor itself was two storeys high and encircled by a moat, which I crossed by means of a drawbridge. The walls were not completely castellated, but presented narrow, shot-hole windows which overlooked the water. Inside, they enclosed a courtyard, where Bess was waiting impatiently to greet me.
‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I was afraid you weren’t coming, and after the trouble I took persuading my lady to see you, I should have looked a fool if you hadn’t turned up.’ She switched her attention to the steward, who came fussing across the open space from a distant lighted doorway. ‘It’s all right, Robert. My lady’s expecting the chapman.’
The man sniffed, looking down a long, aquiline nose and eyeing me with suspicion. ‘I wasn’t told,‘ he protested.
‘My lady doesn’t tell you everything,’ Bess answered pertly. She flashed the steward a smile, but her wiles were plainly lost on such a man.
‘If you’re certain, you’d better follow me. My lady’s in her solar.’
‘I know. She has been since supper-time. And there’s no need for you to accompany us. I’ve instructions to take the chapman to her myself.’
Robert looked affronted, but, to his credit, he did not argue, merely standing aside with a shrug of his shoulders and allowing us to pass.
Bess giggled and took my hand. ‘He fancies himself, does that one. Fancies my lady, too; and his hopes have risen since Sir Richard’s disappearance.’
She led me indoors, across the great hall and up a flight of narrow, twisting stairs to Lady Mallory’s solar in the upper storey. In spite of the evening sunlight and the continuing warmth of the day, there was a fire burning on the hearth, and the scent of the flowers strewn among the rushes was almost overpowering. An old wolfhound, lying near the window, raised his head at my entrance and sniffed hopefully; then, realizing that I was not, after all, his master, lowered it again with an air of sorrowful resignation.
Lady Mallory also raised her head to look at me, but with a good deal more hostility than the hound. It was plain that although she had agreed to see me, she resented being indebted to anyone as lowly as a chapman.
Her face, now that I could see it properly, without the veil of two days since, was thin and discontented. Its pallor above the black gown was startling; but I suspected that it was not merely grief for her father that made it so ashen. She was a naturally bloodless creature, and in addition whitened her skin with cosmetics. Her eyebrows were plucked to a thin, single line, and the hair was shaved well back from her forehead so that not a wisp escaped from inside its cage of stiffened gauze beneath the brocaded cap. The effect was curiously masklike, but then, that was the fashion among great ladies and distinguished them from their inferiors. It was the effect that Alison Weaver had not quite managed to achieve.
I noted, too, during those long moments while I was kept shuffling my feet in the rushes, that Lady Mallory’s robe was of silk, and that the ends of her girdle were tipped with gold set with rubies and sapphires. The rest of her jewellery — brooch, rings, bracelet, rosary — were all of jet as became her state of mourning, but she had been unable to resist the lure of wearing some precious stones about her person. I judged her to be a high, proud, stiff-necked woman, who put great store — more than was warranted, probably — by her tenuous royal connections, and, as a corollary, by ostentatious display of wealth and position. And no doubt her husband had been of a similar nature, hurrying up to London to offer his congratulations to a king who was more than likely unaware of his existence. Sir Richard may only have travelled with one servant for speed and convenience, but he would have left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was a man of substance. And, in his own eyes at least, a man of some importance.
I thought once again of Clement Weaver, lower in the social scale than Sir Richard Mallory, Knight, but with a father just as wealthy, and carrying a large sum of money on his person. And both men had disappeared after having contact with the Crossed Hands inn. Sir Richard had stayed there, according to Bess, and Clement had alighted from his uncle’s waggon outside it. Surely it must be more than just coincidence.