When he could at last find his voice, he rasped, ‘I’ve come home to claim my rightful inheritance, and none too soon, by the looks of things. You haven’t changed one jot, my dear little brother. Just the same obnoxious brat that you always were.’ He had sunk down upon the stool and was breathing heavily, but appeared to have his own temper under control in spite of his mauling. But then, suddenly and with absolutely no warning, he heaved himself to his feet with a roar of anger, grasped the unsuspecting Simon by his upper arms and fairly propelled him out through the door, speeding him on his way with a parting kick.
‘You mustn’t let him insult you, George,’ he said, sinking on to the stool again. ‘Nor Jenny.’ He took a shuddering breath, his eyes filling with tears as he reached out a hand to the steward. ‘George! Sweet Virgin! I’ve only just been told. About Jenny, I mean. My God, my God! How did it happen? A robbery, Mother says. All the pewter and silver taken, as well as some of her jewels.’
‘Yes. Six years ago just past.’ George Applegarth was standing very erect, a terrible, lost expression on his face, unconscious of Anthony’s outstretched hand. ‘I found her,’ he went on bleakly. ‘Stabbed through the heart, lying in a pool of her own blood.’
‘Don’t! Oh, don’t,’ the younger man groaned. ‘My dearest Jenny. And the villain who killed her — this page, John Jericho — has never been caught?’
‘Not yet. Although …’
‘Although …?’
‘Dame Audrea thinks she may have found him.’
Anthony was up off his stool in an instant. ‘She didn’t mention that! Tell me!’
They both seemed to have forgotten my presence, so I sat as still as possible, willing myself to be invisible, hardly daring even to breathe, while the steward recounted the recent events in Bristol, including his own doubts on the matter.
‘But why don’t you think this man they’ve arrested is John Jericho?’ Anthony demanded in obvious exasperation. ‘If Mother’s certain …’ It was plain that in his anger and horror over his old nurse’s murder, he wanted a scapegoat and wanted one fast. Dame Audrea’s word would be good enough for him.
But the steward shook his head stubbornly. ‘He’s not the man, Master Anthony. I agree that he could be young Jericho six years older; small, dark haired, blue eyed. But to my mind, there’s something that tells me he isn’t.’ He held up a hand. ‘Don’t ask me what, because I can’t tell you. I just know that the man in the bridewell at Bristol is not the man who killed my Jenny, whatever the mistress says.’
As though on cue, the door to the steward’s room was flung open once again and Dame Audrea entered with an imperious tread, followed by her younger son, wearing his most hard-done-by and aggrieved expression.
Dame Bellknapp was not a tall woman, being something under middling height, but her presence was commanding. It would have been impossible to ignore or overlook her, even if she didn’t speak; the essence of the woman pervaded every corner of the room. I doubted if she had ever been beautiful — her nose was too large and her chin too pointed — but she had a pair of fine clear blue eyes, dark, well-marked eyebrows and, like her sons, a full-lipped mouth that could, doubtless, express softness, but which, at the moment, was shut like a trap while she surveyed us. When at last it did open, it was to express outrage and disapproval.
‘What has been going on here, Master Steward? Simon tells me he was insulted and thrown out of your room. Please explain yourself.’
‘Let George alone,’ Anthony snapped, getting to his feet once more. ‘My precious brother did his best to throttle me. I was the one who threw him out. And I’ll remind you, Mother, that I’m the master here now. You and Simon will both do well to remember it.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Dame Audrea returned coldly. Her eyes fell upon me. ‘Who’s this?’
Before anyone else could answer for me, I dragged myself to my feet, making as great an effort of it as I could without overdoing it, and explained my presence. The lady was not impressed.
‘You may certainly sleep in the kitchen for a night or two until your ankle is better,’ she said, looking me over as if I were a cockroach she had just discovered in the linen closet. ‘We refuse no one in need at Croxcombe. But that is your place, not here in the steward’s room, listening to all our family affairs.’ She addressed George Applegarth. ‘You should know better, Master Steward, than to allow such a thing. I had more confidence in you. Go to the kitchen now, Chapman, and I’ll send my woman later to look over your wares.’
I gave her an ironic bow — well, I hoped it was ironic — and began to edge my way towards the door, limping as I went, when I was stopped by a hand on my arm.
‘Master Chapman and I are acquainted,’ Anthony Bellknapp announced. ‘In fact, we are old friends.’ The man was an accomplished liar, but I have to confess that I liked him none the less for that. ‘He is here,’ Anthony continued blandly, ‘at my invitation and as my guest. He will be housed and treated accordingly by all of you.’
Six
There was a brief silence, during which astonishment was gradually replaced by outrage on the faces of Audrea Bellknapp and her younger son. George Applegarth’s expression was more difficult to read, although I thought I saw amusement and a certain flicker of approval light those slate-grey eyes.
‘Thank you, Master Bellknapp,’ I said gravely. ‘You’re very gracious.’
Anthony just had time to flash me a grin and a barely concealed wink before the full torrent of his mother’s wrath broke over his head.
‘How dare you countermand my orders like that? You absent yourself for eight years — eight years, mark you! — without a word as to your whereabouts, leaving us uncertain as to whether you are alive or dead. You return home with no advance warning to disrupt all our lives, and then immediately assume you can usurp the authority which I hold in trust for your brother. Not only that, but you also have the gall to foist your disreputable friend on us’ — I realized with a shock that she meant me — ‘and then expect us to treat him with the same courtesy as we should use towards one of our guests.’
Dame Audrea paused to draw breath, but Anthony gave her no chance to proceed further. In a voice as coldly furious as her own, he reminded her again that he was now the master of Croxcombe Manor. ‘And so that there should be no doubt on that head, on my way here, I took the precaution of calling on lawyer Slocombe and confirming the contents of my father’s will. Croxcombe is left to me provided I claim my inheritance before Simon reaches the age of eighteen.’ He gave a malicious smile. ‘And as I remember perfectly that I was already past my tenth birthday when he was born, and as I am now twenty-five …’ He didn’t bother to finish the sentence, merely shrugging his shoulders and leaving us to draw the inevitable conclusion for ourselves. Simon Bellknapp was still only fifteen. After a moment Anthony went on, ‘I am therefore the master here, my dear mother, and anything I choose to do must, I’m afraid, be acceptable to you and Simon or you can arrange to make your home elsewhere.’
I heard the steward gasp, and had to admit that I was myself taken aback by such plain speaking. Sons, whatever the circumstances or provocation, did not generally treat their mothers in such a forthright and disrespectful fashion. For her part, Dame Audrea, although trembling with anger, recognized that she was, for the moment, beaten, and that it would be beneath her dignity to brawl openly with her son in the presence of her steward and a mere ‘disreputable’ pedlar. She therefore swung abruptly on her heel in the direction of the door.
‘We shall see you then at supper. You, too, Chapman.’ (She turned the word into an insult.) ‘Come, Simon! There’s nothing you can do here.’
‘You shouldn’t have spoken to your lady mother like that, Master Anthony,’ the steward reproved him as the door of his room shut with a thud behind Dame Audrea and her younger son.