A hurt bow. ‘I apologise profusely.’
‘Even the best horse stumbles.’
Putting an arm around his wife, Stanford took her into the room and closed the door behind him. Pendleton’s minor triumph had been turned into defeat. It did nothing to endear him to a woman whose presence in the house he resented on a number of grounds. He stalked away to tend to his wounded dignity.
Walter Stanford, meanwhile, had conducted his wife to a chair and stood swaying over her with paternal fondness. She started to recover some of her animation.
‘Oh, sir, we have had such a merry afternoon.’
‘I am delighted to hear it.’
‘William took me to another playhouse.’
‘I cannot have my son leading you astray,’ he said with mock reproof. ‘Where will this levity end?’
‘It was the most excellent comedy, sir, and we have not stopped laughing since.’
‘Tell me about it, Matilda. I could do with some physic to chase away my seriousness. What play was it?’
‘Double Deceit, performed by Westfield’s Men at The Theatre. Such fun, such frolic, such fireworks!’
She tried to outline the plot but got so hopelessly lost that she exploded into giggles. Her husband was a kind listener who was much more amused at her obvious amusement than at anything in the drama itself. When she had finished, she jumped up to seize his hands in hers.
‘You have not forgotten your promise, sir?’
‘Which one? There have been so many.’
‘This comes first. I want a play.’
‘You have had two already this week.’
‘A play of my own,’ she said, dancing on her toes. ‘When you become Lord Mayor, we must have a drama written especially for our entertainment. It will set the seal on a truly memorable day. Say you will oblige me, sir.’
‘I will honour my promise.’
‘And since it is a happy occasion, I would have a sprightly comedy performed. It will crown the whole event for me. I will be in heaven.’
‘With me beside you, my love.’
He gave her a fatherly kiss on the forehead and assured her that he had the matter in hand. Her curiosity bubbled but he would say no more on the subject. Walter Stanford wanted to keep an element of mystery about his plans and this threw her into a paroxysm of pleasure. When her second bout of giggles was over, she remembered another person who would enjoy the projected play.
‘William has told me all about his cousin.’
‘Has he?’
‘I like the sound of this Michael.’
‘He has his good points, certainly.’
‘William says that he is so blithe and sunny.’
‘Indeed, he is,’ conceded Stanford, ‘and they are good qualities in a man. But only when they are matched by responsibility and conscientiousness.’
‘I hear a note of disapproval in your voice.’
‘It is not intended. Michael is very dear to me. He is my sister’s pride and joy but he has brought much heartache to his mother.’
‘In what way?’
‘This merriment of his,’ said Stanford. ‘It has blighted his young life — except that he is not so young any more. Michael put idle pleasures before honest work and has spent the best part of his inheritance already. Were his father alive, it would never have happened but my sister is a soft, forgiving mother who has no power over her wayward son. Things came to such a pass that she asked me to take Michael to task.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘All that was necessary — and in round terms, too, I do assure you. He laughed uproariously but I got my way with him in the end.’
‘William told me that he joined the army.’
‘That was his final fling,’ said her husband. ‘He felt that service in the Netherlands would satisfy his spirit of adventure and send him back a more sober man. That is why I have made a place for him.’
‘Here?’
‘He must learn the rudiments of a real profession.’
‘There is not much jollity in business affairs.’
‘Michael is resigned to that.’
‘Oh!’ Her enthusiasm was punctured. ‘I knew nothing of this. William spoke so well of his cousin. I was hoping for another cheerful companion to escort me to the playhouse.’ She looked up. ‘When is he due home?’
‘His ship should have docked by now.’
‘Has he left the army?’
‘So his letters proclaim.’
‘Do not take all the merriment out of him, sir.’
Stanford chuckled. ‘No man could do that. Michael is a law unto himself. We may check or control him but we can never subdue his spirit entirely. Nor should we wish to do so because it is the essence of the fellow.’ He slipped a fond arm around her shoulders. ‘Have no fears on his account. Michael will prance gaily through life until the day he dies.’
The corpse lay on its slab beneath a tattered shroud. It kept grisly company. Other naked bodies were stretched out all around it in varying stages of decomposition. The charnel house was a repository of human decay and not even the herbs that were scattered around could sweeten the prevailing stink. A flight of stone steps led down to the vault. As soon as Nicholas Bracewell entered the dank atmosphere, he felt the hand of death brush across his face. It was not a place he would have chosen to visit but he had been drawn there by curiosity. A few coins put into the hands of the keeper gained him entrance.
‘Who did you come to see, sir?’ asked the man.
‘The poor wretch brought in two nights ago.’
‘We had four or five delivered to their slabs.’
‘This creature was hauled out of the river,’ said Nicholas, coughing as the stench really hit him. ‘His face was battered, his leg smashed most cruelly and there was a dagger in his throat.’
‘I remember him well. Follow me.’
He was a thin, hollow-eyed wraith of a man whose grim occupation had given him a deathly pallor and an easy indifference to the cadavers with whom he spent his day. Moving between his prostrate charges like the curator of a museum, he led Nicholas to the slab in the corner and held up his torch to shed flickering light. With a deft flick of the wrist, he pulled the shroud off the corpse. The book holder blenched. Though the body had been washed and laid out, he recognised it immediately as the one that he had dragged out of the Thames. The facial injuries had been hidden beneath bandaging and the dagger had been extracted from the throat but the right leg was still a tortured mass of flesh and bone. For the first time, he noticed something else. There was a long, livid scar on the man’s chest, a fairly recent wound that was just starting to heal. Nicholas examined the hands.
‘What are you doing?’ said the keeper suspiciously.
‘Looking at his palms, sir. They are quite smooth and the fingernails are well pared. These are the hands of a gentleman.’
‘Not any more. Death treats all as one.’
‘This body was strong and upright while it lived.’
‘The grave is wide enough for anyone.’
‘He would have been able to defend himself.’
‘Not any more, sir.’
Nicholas took a last, sad look at the corpse then indicated that it should be covered over again in the name of decency. He headed for the exit with the man shuffling along behind him.
‘Will you see anyone else?’ said the keeper.
‘I have gazed my fill.’
‘But we have more interesting sights here.’ He plucked at his visitor’s sleeve to stop him. ‘A young woman was brought in but yesternight. Some punk that was strangled in her bed. She is no more than sixteen with a body as soft and lovely as you could wish. One more coin and I would gladly show you.’ He nudged the other. ‘If you have money enough, I will let you touch her.’
Nicholas turned away in disgust and stormed out before he gave in to the impulse to hit the man. He vowed to report the incident when he appeared at the Coroner’s Court on the following Monday. No matter who they were or what they had been, the dead deserved the utmost respect. He came up into the fresh air and inhaled it gratefully. Light was fading and so he hurried in the direction of the river before it went completely. From the wharf where he had been picked up by Abel Strudwick, he looked out across the water and tried to estimate the point at which they had encountered the body. It was somewhere in mid-stream and he wondered how far it had drifted in order to reach them. He decided that the dead man had been put into the Thames under the cover of darkness but the swift current could still have brought him some distance.