‘I promise you, Goody Purefoy, I’m not the law,’ I repeated. And just at that moment, with a grating of wood against stone that set every tooth in my head on edge, the hovel door was opened wide enough to admit me. I slipped inside, enduring a repetition of the screech as the door was closed. ‘Thank you,’ I uttered gratefully.
‘Little varmints!’ my saviour muttered, jerking her head in the direction of the street, where, to howls and yells of disappointment, my small persecutors were trying to hammer their way in.
‘They’ll get tired of it in a minute,’ I said, ‘and go away.’
Jane Purefoy gave me a scathing look. ‘I know that, don’ I? I lives here.’
Reproved, I humbly bowed my head. A brief glance around the single room had told me there was very little to see. The floor was simply beaten mud with no covering of any sort, while the basics of table, two stools and a shelf holding a couple of pots and pans took up what space there was. A rolled-up mattress in one corner suggested that sleeping arrangements were equally primitive, and a meagre fire on a raised hearthstone belched more smoke than flame. Over all hung a pervasive smell of urine, and such light as there was came from an unshuttered window at one side of the room, opening on to the wall of the next hovel, only a foot or so away. The knowledge that this was the lot of so many of my fellow citizens suddenly made me ashamed of the comparative comfort I and my family enjoyed, and engendered in me a (short-lived) resolve never to complain about anything again.
‘Well?’ my hostess demanded. ‘What is it you want? You’re working on behalf of Mayor Foster you say.’
I started to repeat what I had already told her, but Jane Purefoy stopped me with an impatient wave of her hand.
‘I’m not daft, young man, nor am I deaf. I don’t need telling everything twice. I know I looks stupid, but I ain’t.’
‘No, no!’ I agreed eagerly. ‘Of course you’re not. I never thought so for a minute. It’s just that … What I mean is, I’d be grateful for anything you can tell me about Isabella Linkinhorne. You were her maid, Mistress Virgoe informs me.’
Jane Purefoy sniffed. ‘You been to see her, have you, as well as the old master? She was never a friend to the young mistress. Hand in glove with the old folks, she was.’
I nodded. ‘Mistress Virgoe did admit that her sympathies lay with the parents rather than the daughter.’
A faint smile lifted the corners of her thin lips. ‘My, my! You do talk fancy! A funny sort of chapman you be, if that’s your real calling, like what you say it is.’ She paused, waiting for my affirmation, but I merely nodded again, saying nothing. I had no intention to delve into my life history: I had done it too many times in the past and the constant repetition had long since begun to pall. When she realized that she was not about to get an answer, Goody Purefoy shrugged and waved me to one of the stools, perching herself on the other. ‘Well, what do ’ee want to ask, then?’
‘These three swains of hers — at least everyone seems to think that there were three — did she ever talk to you about them? Or was she as secretive with you as she was with everyone else?’
My companion grimaced. ‘Oh, she were secretive all right. Didn’t trust no one. Not even me. And I dessay I was as near to a friend as she ever had. She didn’t like women as a general rule. But then, she didn’t like no one, really. Hated her parents. I told her once she was lucky to have a mother and father who were so fond of her and gave her everything she asked for.’ Jane scratched her head through her hood. ‘I’ve never forgotten her answer, nor the look on her face when she made it. “Having everything you want’s no good,” she said, “if you’ve got to give your soul in return.” I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about, and that I’d never known my ma and pa. I was an orphan, brought up on charity and sold on to anyone ’oo’d have me. That’s how I went to live with the Linkinhornes.’
‘And what did she reply to that?’
‘Said I was a fool. Ignorant, Stupid.’ The woman broke off, staring into space, musing resentfully.
‘Did she ever tell you the names of these three men?’ I asked eventually. ‘Or even of one of them?’
‘No, not that. But she told me some things.’
‘Such as?’
‘That there were three of ’em, like you say. She used to laugh about the way she had to be so careful not to arrange a meeting with two on the same day. “They all think they’re the only one,” she’d say. And when I’d ask her if she didn’t think it was unfair on them, she’d answer she hated men, and deceiving them was all they were good for.’
‘Did she tell you where she met them?’
‘Over in Westbury village. She used to ride that way ’cause Master had a cousin who lived in that direction. She used to tell her parents that she was visiting Mistress Jeanette.’
‘Master Linkinhorne vows that he and his wife knew nothing of these three men. No, that’s not quite right. They got to know of them through other people, but Isabella always denied their existence to him and Mistress Linkinhorne. Assured them the talk was nothing but vicious rumours and lies.’
Jane Purefoy nodded. ‘True enough.’
‘But why did she not wish them to know? Did you ever ask her?’
‘I did. She said lying to them was part of her revenge. When she did, at last, admit the truth, or when she finally went off with one of those men, it would be so much more terrible for them to realize they’d been hoodwinked.’
There was silence for a moment or two while we both contemplated the depth of Isabella Linkinhorne’s loathing for her parents. I thought of my own children and the pitfalls, the great yawning chasms that can open up between the generations. I felt the sweat start to prickle across my skin. Eventually, finding my voice, I said, ‘She may not have told you their names, but did Isabella confide in you anything else about these three men?’
‘She told me one o’ them were a goldsmith, and she showed me some of the jewellery he’d given her. Said he lived in Gloucester and came down this way now and then to visit one of the manor houses north o’ Westbury, where he had a customer. As far as the other two go, one lived in Bath and t’other in Bristol. And it’s no good you asking me more about them; that’s all I know. Who they were or what they did for a living, she never mentioned. Nor how she came to meet them. Nor why Westbury was their trysting place. Well, I can see why it might have been for the goldsmith, but as for the others — ’ she shrugged ‘- your guess will do as well as mine, I dessay.’
I was a little further on with my enquiries. Jane Purefoy had confirmed what Alfred Humble had told me; that one of the men had lived in Bath. And I also knew now that it was the goldsmith who had lived in Gloucester. Concerning the one reported to have lived in Bristol, I was little the wiser.
‘Did Isabella ever describe the men to you?’ I asked. I was feeling desperately thirsty, but suspected that I was unlikely to be offered any refreshment. Money was tight and did not run to free ale. And I was wary of drinking the water, even though there was a small water barrel beneath the shelf. It might not come from the local well, but be taken straight from either of the rivers. I swallowed hard and repeated my question.
‘I told you before, I’m not deaf,’ was the tart response. When I apologized, my companion continued, somewhat appeased, ‘Young mistress did say as how one of ’em was very good-looking. But no, she never said which one. Did remark once that looks ain’t everything. You can make o’ that what you like.’