The Anchoress of Chesterfield

by Chris Nickson

  ‘That’s the way it appears. Why? Last night you didn’t know what to think.’

  ‘I’m still confused. I won’t make any bones about that,’ Jeffrey agreed. ‘But when I was trying to fall asleep, I kept going over everything they said to me. I can’t explain it, but there was something that kept troubling me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered in frustration. ‘I had a feeling that there were pieces of the truth missing.’

  ‘You mean they were lying?’

  ‘Perhaps. I can’t be sure. I’ve told you before, I don’t have your way with people.’

  ‘They would never have been willing to speak to me,’ John reminded him.

  ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But what do we do now?’

  ‘Can you look into the things they told you about their money? Very carefully and very quietly. But quickly, too.’

  ‘I can try,’ Jeffrey replied. ‘We’re lucky people are gathering for the fair. I’ll be able to ask a few discreet questions.’

  ‘As soon as you can.’

  ‘What about you?’

  That was a good question. So much of this took place in the kind of realm where he would never be allowed.

  ‘I’ll see if I can learn anything from Lady Gwendolyn’s servants. They always know more than people think. Where are they staying?’

  ‘They have a house on the road to Newbold. Do you know where it turns to the left?’

  ‘I do.’ John had once known someone who lived there, the widow of the master carpenter who’d been killed just after he arrived in Chesterfield.

  ‘About a quarter of a mile further along there’s a house that stands back along a drive. That’s theirs.’

  He could picture it in his mind. He’d passed the place many times, sometimes seeing people working in the garden. But he’d never been curious who owned it, and the name would never have meant anything to him before all this.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ten years of being known in town as a carpenter possessed some advantages. Even if he’d never spoken to the servants in the house owned by Lady Gwendolyn and Sir Roland, they recognised his face and didn’t turn him off as a stranger and a beggar. He carried his tools in the leather satchel, and a worker took him to see the steward.

  ‘Do you need any jobs done, Master?’ John asked. The man had a long, sharp nose and small, button eyes; far from handsome, but he had power in the household and revelled in it.

  ‘No,’ he said at first. A short, abrupt answer. He turned away, then back again. ‘Yes, I suppose there is something you could look at. Tell me how much you’ll charge to mend it.’ He raised his voice. ‘Elspeth, come and show him the window frame that’s rotting in the kitchen.’

  She had a shy smile, a woman about the same age as Katherine, but with a face that looked beaten down by life and service. The woman kept her shoulders stooped, as if she constantly expected people to shout at her. Maybe they did. There was no warm feeling in this house; he had the sense that the place ran on fear and anger.

  ‘Where is it?’ John asked as she led him down a corridor, past the buttery. The house was larger than he’d imagined. A covered path connected to the kitchen in the garden. Far enough away in case of fire, yet still protected as servants carried in the dishes.

  The kitchen was sagging. Any fool could see it. One corner had sunk a good two inches into the ground. The post might be rotten and crumbling, or the ground could be giving way. Without a proper examination, he couldn’t tell.

  ‘This is the window the steward mentioned, Master.’

  The whole frame felt soft under his fingers. The shutters closed when he moved them, but there was too much play. He’d need to replace every scrap of it with good, weathered oak that would last. The plaster all around crumbled as he rubbed it. But the entire kitchen needed to be rebuilt.

  ‘How long has it been like this?’ he asked the woman.

  ‘The cook started complaining two years ago,’ Elspeth answered. ‘But no one thought it was worth the worry or the expense.’

  ‘It would have been easier to do back then,’ he told her with a smile. ‘Cheaper, too.’ She’d given him the opening he needed. ‘There must be plenty of money in a house this size.’

  She shook her head. ‘They’re always arguing about it.’ As soon as she spoke, she put a hand over her mouth. ‘Please, I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t tell anyone, I’ll lose my position here.’

  ‘I won’t say a word, Mistress,’ he promised. ‘What are they like, the master and Lady Gertrude?’

  She glanced around, enough to be certain no one could hear them. She’d spilled one secret, now she seemed willing to give him the rest, John thought. God be praised for that, it made this visit worthwhile.

  ‘They go at each other hammer and tongs about money. Every day. You met the steward, he handles the house and their manors. They’re all ill-kept places. Just look for yourself, Master. It needs money, but they won’t spend it because they don’t have it.’

  ‘Do they treat you well?’

  Elspeth shook her head ‘They give more attention and care to their horses. The steward beats us if we don’t do our work fast enough.’

  ‘You could leave.’

  ‘How?’ She stared at him, helpless. ‘They own land. My Lord l’Honfleur is the lady’s father and she keeps reminding us of the fact. Who’d employ us if they said we were troublemakers?’

  The plight of the poor, he thought. He might not have money, but at least he was his own master; his future didn’t depend on the graces of a family. Even as the thought came, he shook his head. Stupid. He was here because he wanted to earn the money from my lord, and trusted that he’d be a man of his word and pay.

  ‘Lady Gwendolyn’s sister was killed lately, wasn’t she?’

  ‘They talk about that, too. But they keep the doors closed and their voices low when they do it.’

  Well, well. As the conversation continued, he examined the kitchen. Elspeth didn’t know too much and didn’t understand what it might mean. She didn’t like her master or mistress, but she didn’t see them as murderers. By the time she finished, John had heard all she had to say on the matter. She turned to him, red-faced.

  ‘Please, Master, don’t say a word to them. I try to be a good Christian woman, but it all overwhelms me sometimes.’

  ‘The only things you told me involved the damage to the window,’ he assured her, and Elspeth’s grateful smile was all the reward he needed.

  She vanished as he waited for the steward. From somewhere in the solar he heard a woman’s voice raised in anger, but he couldn’t make out the words. The noise subsided and, shortly after, the steward entered. The man looked flustered and uncomfortable. He listened as John explained the work that needed to be done, grimacing at the list.

  ‘How much, Carpenter?’

  The steward blanched as he heard the amount.

  ‘Do you think I’m a fool?’

  ‘No, Master, and that’s an honest price. It’s good, solid work that will last.’

  ‘There are people who will do it for less.’

  ‘I daresay there are,’ he agreed, seeing the surprise in the man’s eyes. ‘And they’ll have to do it all over again in twelve months or two years. This will last you two decades or more. Good wood and proper craft. But I’ll tell you this, too, Master, and not because I want more work. Anything I do on that window will only serve you so far. The whole kitchen needs attention. New plaster, and you must have seen the corner that’s sinking.’

  ‘No doubt you could take care of that, too.’ His voice was withering.

  ‘I could. But you asked about one job and I’ve given you a price on that.’

  ‘That’s not a price,’ the steward told him. ‘That’s lining your pocket.’

  ‘If that’s how you feel. Master, I’ll wish you good day. May God be with you.’

  He walked down the road back to Chesterfield with his jaw clenched. He was angry a
t being dismissed for a charlatan, for rising to the steward’s bait. Finally he stopped and laughed at himself. He hadn’t wanted the job. Asking about work had only ever been a pretext – why should it bother him?

  Still he’d learned enough to leave him suspicious of Sir Roland and Lady Gwendolyn. Was it enough to go back to l’Honfleur and try to change his mind? Could you ever alter a man’s attitude when it came to his own family, the children he’d raised? Would he listen if someone came and tried to turn his mind against Juliana or Richard or Martha? Of course not. He’d defend them.

  But not all children turned out so well.

  His feet took him to the coroner’s house, but the man wasn’t expected back until dinner. Another hour. At least it gave him time to think about what he needed to say and the best words to use. Jeffrey might praise his way with people, but John wasn’t a man of words; he never had been. Survival was always more urgent than speaking. Perhaps that was the reason he’d always worked well with young Alan; the lad had learned to communicate without his voice.

  At home he drank a mug of small beer to take the edge from his thirst. Too much talking this morning, too many things to consider. Martha came to him, wanting to play, and the distraction was welcome. He drew in Juliana and eventually left his daughters together, stopping to kiss his wife before he returned to the coroner’s house.

  ‘You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, husband,’ she said with a loving smile.

  ‘Sometimes I feel like it.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe it’ll ease after I talk to Strong.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘I hope so.’ John pulled Katherine close. Her hair was neatly hidden, pinned under the wimple, and she smelled of the autumn, fresh and bright. ‘I should go and talk to him before his dinner.’

  • • •

  But the man was already eating by the time he arrived, pork and stewed apples piled on his trencher. A pair of dogs sat at his feet, watching carefully for scraps. Strong listened as he cut his meat, chewing slowly and tossing the gristle down into the rushes for the animals.

  Outside the glazed window, John could see the breeze stirring the leaves that had fallen on the grass.

  ‘I went to the stable,’ Sir Mark said. ‘That man still hasn’t returned the horse. If he’s not back by dark, the ostler will swear a complaint.’

  There could be an honest reason why the man hadn’t returned, but he doubted it. At least they knew.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘I believe you’re right.’

  ‘Jeffrey talked to Lady Gwendolyn, and I went out to the house and listened to the servants.’ He told the coroner everything he’d learned.

  ‘You have your doubts about the couple,’ the man said when John had finished.

  ‘Many of them, Master.’

  ‘And you feel my lord won’t want to know because Lady Gwendolyn is his daughter.’

  ‘I do.’

  Sir Mark used a fingernail to push at a piece of meat caught between two teeth.

  ‘I’m not sure I agree, Carpenter. I’ve known him a long time. Believe me, he has few illusions about her. Even fewer about Roland, that man she married. He always was a wastrel, never settled to a thing in his life.’

  ‘Then why won’t he listen?’

  Strong rounded on John. ‘Because no father wants to hear that one of his daughters was responsible for the death of the other. Especially from someone else. He had two children. He has one now. If Gwendolyn really is behind this, she’ll die and he’ll have no one at all. Stop and think about that.’

  It was true enough. To consider the possibility meant he could lose his whole family. Everything. But it might not be true, all the suspicions might come to nothing.

  ‘I have to keep on looking,’ John said. ‘If he wants the truth.’

  ‘Deep down, he does. Even if it will wound him. He needs to know,’ the coroner agreed. ‘But he might fight it.’

  ‘What about you, Master?’ He took a deep breath. ‘Will you back me?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Strong asked after a long moment.

  ‘To take my side if my lord tries to stop me.’

  ‘If you can find the evidence, then yes, I’ll back you.’ Strong paused. ‘If you find enough of it, he’ll believe you. I’m sure of that, Carpenter.’

  That was all he could ask, all he could hope. He left feeling brighter. A little further out from town, all the vendors and entertainers were preparing for the fair. The field was fully laid out into streets now, all of them noisy and colourful, filled with different accents and tongues, enough to take away the breath. But there would be time for that when he found Gertrude’s murderer. He turned away and as he walked through the market square, he saw Jeffrey.

  ‘You look like a man who’s lost his last farthing through a hole in his scrip.’

  The young man shook his head. ‘Not at all. Just wandering in my thoughts.’ He gave a bittersweet smile. ‘What about you, did you come up with anything?’

  ‘Rumours and shadows,’ John said once he’d explained. ‘But they’re all worth following.’

  ‘If we can. I had a word with Roland and Gwendolyn’s man of business.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘He wasn’t about to let too much slip. Have you eaten?’

  He hadn’t; he’d left home before dinner and Strong would never ask him to share a table. At the thought of food, his stomach began to gurgle.

  ‘Come on,’ Jeffrey said, jingling coins. ‘A pie from the cookshop and we’ll talk.’

  The food went down well, he couldn’t deny it. Meat of some kind, still hot, plenty of thick gravy, and pastry that flaked on his tongue. They ate in silence, enjoying every last bite. When he was a single man, John had often eaten like this. Now it felt like a rare, guilty treat, something to keep hidden from his family as they had their bowls of bean pottage.

  ‘Their man of business…’ John began as he wiped crumbs from his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic.

  ‘I’m not a fool,’ Jeffrey said. ‘I’m not about to press someone like that for too many details. I know him, I’ve had dealings with him. He’s an upright man, very honourable.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I could see the look in his eyes as soon as I mentioned Roland and Gwendolyn. He became worried and anxious.’

  ‘How much did he tell you?’

  ‘Very little,’ Jeffrey said. ‘But there was enough, with his hints and silences, for me to think that they owe a great deal of money.’

  ‘How can you tell, if he didn’t say so?’ He didn’t understand. ‘And what does it mean, that they owe so much?’

  ‘You know I work with figures. When I speak to someone else who does the same, I can learn things from everything they say and don’t say. Isn’t it the same in your business?’

  ‘No.’ Wood was straightforward. It might hold its secrets, but it never lied or misdirected. And there were few untruths carpenters could tell about their trade. What they made stood there for everyone to see.

  ‘Ah.’ Jeffrey nodded, as if he’d expected a different answer. ‘Well, you can make figures lie, as long you know what to do. But there are limits. From what I can tell, Sir Roland and Lady Gwendolyn have reached them.’

  ‘And the money they owe?’

  ‘It won’t vanish.’ He shrugged. ‘With so little coming in, they’ll need to borrow more and more. They’ll have nothing left to leave their children, if they ever have any. No dowry for a daughter. Their lives will be completely controlled by the moneylenders.’

  ‘But they’ll still live well, you told me that.’

  He nodded. ‘Well enough, yes.’

  ‘None of this proves anything, does it? What you’ve learned, what I saw at the house. There’s nothing we can point to and say it makes them guilty.’

  ‘No,’ Jeffrey agreed. ‘But it all mounts up.’

  ‘That’s not enough. I need proof to take to my Lord l’Ho
nfleur. She’s his daughter, he’s not going to accept anything less.’

  • • •

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ Katherine said after he told her all they’d learned.

  He turned his head sharply. ‘Why would you think that?’

  She spread more flour so the dough wouldn’t stick to the wood, and continued kneading the bread. No rich man’s white loaf for them; instead they had the coarse dark grain, the same as most people.

  ‘You have a collection of rumours, you have this and that. But there nothing to say they’re guilty, is there?’

  ‘No,’ John admitted.

  ‘Maybe the reason is that they have nothing to do with it.’ She held up a finger. ‘I’m not saying it is that way, but it’s possible. And the more you pursue this without looking elsewhere, the less chance of you finding other things.’

  ‘But—’ he began, then stopped himself. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You know I don’t want you to be a part of this at all.’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice. You saw that.’

  She dipped her head in agreement. ‘Then you need to look at everything with open eyes. You have the idea of this couple fixed in your mind.’

  ‘You know why, I’ve told you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, and slammed the dough down heavily on the wood. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re right. Keep looking around, husband. It’s not just you; it’s Jeffrey, too. You think you’re both so clever, but you’re like a pair of boys.’

  Were they? He didn’t think so. But maybe she was right. Katherine could stand on the outside, looking in. He needed to think. Time was slipping away from him if he was going to find a true solution before the fair began. He didn’t want to watch the money slip through his fingers because he’d been fixed on the wrong thing.

  ‘Take a walk,’ she told him. ‘Consider it all.’ She stared at him. ‘But do it honestly. You know I’m saying it because I love you.’

  ‘I do.’ He kissed her gently, wiping a smudge of flour from her cheek. ‘I love you, too. You keep my feet on the ground.’

  • • •

  He walked and wondered. Very carefully, he separated facts from ideas, what he knew from what he hoped or imagined. Katherine was right. He was too willing to believe Gwendolyn was guilty, to build suspicion into fact.