Margaret Walker raised a hand to her forehead and held it there for several seconds, her eyes closed, as though trying to block out the events which followed. But at last, she lowered her hand again and went on: 'A strange kind of madness seemed to grip the town. Robert Herepath had made too many enemies in his time, for he was arrogant as well as spendthrift, and now suddenly everyone saw a chance for revenge; all those he had deliberately insulted or simply offended by his thoughtlessness, all those he owed money to and had never repaid, and all those young men who wanted Cicely Ford for themselves and saw a possibility of getting her if once Robert was out of the way. I don't say that people set out to tell lies, but they began to convince themselves that they had heard and seen things which we now know they couldn't have done.
At Robert's trial, there were witnesses who swore to hearing cries and moans coming from Father's cottage the night he disappeared; one of them declared he had looked from his window in the small hours of the morning and was convinced that he had seen a shadowy figure fumbling at the wicket gate next to St John's Archway which gives on to the Frome Quay. Even Cicely Ford turned against Robert and refused to see him while he was in prison or even before he was hanged.' Margaret shuddered. 'I tell you, it was as though some evil possessed us all, willing Robert Herepath's destruction. There was no body, yet the jury found him guilty. No one heeded his protestations of innocence.'
She was growing agitated and I leaned across and gently squeezed her arm. 'You are speaking with the knowledge of hindsight,' I said. 'At the time, the evidence must have pointed strongly to his having murdered your father. If your father's body had been pitched into the Frome, as the evidence suggested, then it could have been borne down-river into the Avon and thence out to sea on the tide. And Robert had admitted to taking the money; the rest followed naturally. In addition, there were witnesses who persuaded themselves they had seen and heard things which you now know they could not have done.
But the jury did not know that at the time.' There was a pause before I asked, 'After your father came back, what happened?'
Margaret bit her lip. 'I was sitting here, spinning. It was the Day of the Assumption of Our Lady and a beautiful, warm August afternoon. I was alone because Lillis had gone to fetch more wool from the dyer's, and I recall that I was humming a tune. I was beginning to get over what I believed to be Father's death and the subsequent horror of Robert Herepath's trial and execution. Life was getting back to normal again. The door was open as it was so hot, and I remember the noise of some children playing in the street; half a dozen boys trying to kick a blown swine's bladder between two posts.' She drew a deep breath. 'I was watching my wheel, teasing out a snag of wool from the spindle, when a shadow fell across the threshold.'
She had thought nothing of it; many people called at the cottage in the course of a day, and she had glanced up, smiling a welcome. But the smile had turned to an incredulous stare, which had rapidly changed to one of horrified disbelief. For standing in the open doorway was her father. William Woodward, for whose murder another man had been tried, found guilty and hanged, was still alive.
Or half alive. According to Margaret, her father was a mere shadow of his former self; a broken man whose memory played him constant tricks, the result of some great blows to the head, the healed scars of which were plainly visible on his forehead and on the scalp beneath his thinning grey hair. He never again recovered his former good health or wanted to set foot out of doors, spending the short time remaining to him sitting crouched over the fire, which he seemed to need whatever the weather.
'But what did he say had happened to him?' I asked.
'Where had he been for those missing months between March mid August? Was he able to tell you?' Margaret shrugged despairingly. 'All that I or the sheriff's officers could get out of him, after many hours of questioning, was that he had been captured by slavers and carried to Ireland. Beyond that, there was no sense to be had of him.'
'But might that not have been the truth?' I knew that the slave trade between Bristol and Dublin had been outlawed for many centuries, but it was still carried on. Like the smuggling of other contraband merchandise, it throve in the dark.
Margaret raised her head and looked me full in the eyes. There were shadows beneath her own. 'He was an old man,' she said, 'past sixty. Why would slavers bother with him, however strong and hearty, a man with a respectable family and an employer who would raise the hue and cry if he vanished, when there are so many younger people who either have no home, or whose parents are willing to sell them into slavery? Young people give good value for money to the purchaser. An old man like my father would hardly be worth the cost of his passage to Ireland.'
Chapter Five
A profound quiet settled over the room, in which the sudden cry of the Watch from an adjoining street sounded as loudly as if they had been in there with us. I know Margaret and I both jumped, but there was never a stir from Lillis.
It was she, however, who broke the silence, referring back to her mother's last remark. 'It's what everyone thinks, including the sheriffs men and the sheriff himself, for all I know.'
Margaret shivered. 'It's true. No one believed my father's story, and although some had the sense to accept that he was not responsible for what he was saying — that he was confused and befuddled in his wits — there were many more who thought that he was covering his tracks for some evil doings of his own.' She once more pressed a hand to her forehead. 'And who's to condemn the poor souls if they wanted to shift their own guilt on to Father? When people remembered what their words and testimony had done to Robert Herepath, even if they had not actually borne witness at his trial, is it any wonder that they needed someone else to blame?'
'That may be so,' Lillis responded drily from among her blankets, 'but when he died, they began looking askance at us, as though we too are not telling them all we know.'
'Is this true?' I inquired of Margaret.
She nodded. 'Oh, we have friends, real friends like Nick Brimble, to see we come to no harm. But there are those who won't give us the time of day, and shopkeepers who refuse to serve us.'
I snorted contemptuously. 'What of Edward Herepath and Mistress Ford? How do they treat you?'
'Well enough,' Margaret conceded. 'What bitterness and anger they feel, they don't lay at our door, although Edward Herepath could never bring himself to visit Father. But Mistress Cicely came on several occasions, latterly bringing him broth from the Small Street kitchen when she saw how ill he was. She blames no one more than she blames herself for denying belief in Robert's story. She has grown so thin and pale and silent these past few months that it breaks my heart to see her.' Lillis mumbled something under her breath which I was unable to catch, nor did I wish to. She would have little sympathy with anyone's sorrows but her own and, to do her justice, even those would receive short shrift. She was not a girl who indulged in self-pity. Any display of sympathy on my part for the two women's predicament would be ill-received by her, but I felt that Mistress Walker was in need of friendship.
'I can see that things are difficult for you,' I said. 'People find it hard to blame themselves for any tragedy, and need a scapegoat. But can you think of no reason for your father's absence? A reason which would take into account the bloodstains you found in the Bell Lane cottage? It still seems to me that his story is the only one which explains all the circumstances.'
I was not looking at Lillis, but I heard the sound of an indrawn breath, as though she were about to speak.