The Deception of Consequences

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

“I cannot see through walls, mistress,” sniffed Master Macron. “But there is passion to come for those of Pisces in ascendant. Love Mistress Thripp. Love, danger, excitement, and love once more.”

  In fact it was nearly two hours later when they collected Katherine, still sitting meek in the corridor outside. They then left in a hurry. Already the rain had slackened but the twilight had slipped over the rooftops and the waiting horse and litter outside were sluggish. The driver had fallen asleep.

  “’E’s bloody hungry,” muttered the driver, heaving himself awake.

  The women assumed he meant the horse, and tumbled themselves inside and under the awning. The road home seemed far shorter than it had when setting out, since the horse was keen to get back to his warm stable and a bucket of oats.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The litter wheels hit a stone, Jemima jolted, jerked upwards, and finished her bounce with both hands to her headdress. “I don’t want to go back to the house,” she said. “It will seem so dull, after being so amazing.”

  Philippa stared through the shadows. “I thought you were so frightened. You thought he was telling you how you’d drown.”

  “I wasn’t that bad,” sniffed Jemima. “He said about fishes and oceans and I didn’t understand at first. Besides, there’s no excitement worth having if you don’t act scared. You need danger, don’t you, and all those threatening whispers. Excitement needs risk.”

  Elisabeth sniggered. “So you weren’t really frightened at all?”

  “Perhaps a tiny bit at the beginning. But just as someone else said to me recently, life can become very tedious without adventure. Now I love having an adventure. It seems I’m my father’s daughter after all, and it was fun being,” eyes bright, “ – at risk.”

  Clasping one tight gloved hand to her charge’s arm, Katherine nodded. “Very right and proper, my dear, to be a little frightened in the face of such strange wizardry. Astrology is not something to laugh at.”

  “I nearly did.”

  “I,” Philippa said, frowning slightly, “am Gemini, you know. The twins. I can see in both directions at the same time which I consider a great benefit. Astrology explains so much.”

  Elisabeth shivered. “I love adventure too. But some of what that man said was quite scary, and after all, he was no help with solving the puzzle of the bodies in your attic.”

  Philippa turned, glaring at Elisabeth. “Master Macron can charge a good deal for what he did today. He charged us nothing out of friendship for me.”

  “And since he had not a single customer, and would never get one either, not in that storm.”

  The arrival of the litter, now dark with a sluggish cloud covered moon, was met by the other women, rushing downstairs to the front door and demanding to know every word which had been spoken.

  “And every word it shall be.”

  They clustered into the smaller hall which had become their habitual gathering chamber, sat beside the already blazing log fire, breathed in the warmth and the wood scents, and told their story. Alba was at first the only woman who did not crowd around or push closer, demanding explanations. Jemima looked up and back into the far chamber, saying, “But Alba, my dearest. Have we been so wicked? It was all great fun, you know, and nothing much was said in the end.”

  “Nothing? All that trouble and excitement for – nothing?”

  “Not exactly,” Philippa interrupted, a little cross. “We had an interesting two hours and I so very much enjoyed seeing my old friend again. He is quite important, you know, and has predicted important events for many courtiers and notables.”

  “He told us,” Jemima said gravely, “that in only a few days something terribly important will happen. And soon after that, something more. And more. And then even more.” She smiled, snuggling closer to the fire until her face was scorched. “Of course, how a man that has never met me before can suddenly tell my past and my future just from being told my birth-time, is hard to imagine. And it’s even harder to believe that anything much can happen while we’re all guests here. It’s comfy and cosy and I love being with you all. But we are so restricted.”

  Ruth looked up. “Exactly, my dear friends. Haven’t you realised? We are virtually prisoners.”

  “Locked up and manacled?” sniffed Elisabeth. “How shocking. Which is why we went out and had an exciting time this day, going exactly where we wished and not even at our own expense.”

  Ruth stood suddenly, standing before them all. “But we have hardly ever left these premises, and when we do, we are such a long walk from London that we only have the litter for our travels. Which means our host will always know exactly where we go, and can stop us if he wishes.” She paused, and with a voice of doom continued, “What if this Richard Wolfdon is the true wolf? He could be. He is old enough.”

  “He was never in that house,” Jemima decided softly. “And his father sold it to my father when Richard was just a child.”

  “But as the son of original owner, would he have returned?” Ruth stared at Jemima. “Did he ever visit your father, little dove? He could have come saying possessions were left behind that he wished to claim.”

  “In the attic?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Dragging three dead bodies behind him?”

  “I don’t trust our host.” Ruth subsided, sitting back on one of the cushions and stretching out her legs. “There’s something about him I don’t like. The arrogance. The air of superiority.”

  “He’s one of the richest men in the land and advises the king and queen both.” Jemima blushed, lowering her voice. “So surely it would be rather odd if he behaved like the local butcher.”

  Katherine stood in a hurry, bustling Jemima up and taking her hand. “Well, my dearest, the story is told and the evening is getting late. You have few gowns, and those you have need conserving. There’s mud on the hem, which will need a good brisk brushing tonight before I hang it on its peg. So, little dove, upstairs with you and let’s have your grand gown off your back.”

  Dutifully, Jemima obeyed, waving to the other women. “I wish I had a prettier bedrobe to wear all the time,” she sighed.” But in shift and bedrobe, since no one else will see me, I shall meet you all for breakfast.”

  Within the hour she was in bed and sleeping deeply. But she dreamed of murder, and fish in the deep ocean, arms reaching up through the foam to grasp her father’s body as his ship tossed in the storm, and the winged Mercury stretching out to grab her.

  Outside the rain had slowed to a heavy mist, with a hazy silver echo through the tree tops. Richard Wolfdon stood at the base of the old oak tree, speaking softly to himself. He was almost indistinguishable from the shadows as his great mahogany velvet cloak disguised him from hood to toes. But, boots silent on the worn wet leaf mould, he was clearly seen by the golden eyes of the tawny owl sitting in the tree’s hollow cleft, its feathers as invisible in the dark as the man below.

  It had, as usual been a day of tedium. He had attended court and the long ride there and then back again in the foul weather, was tiring in itself. Speaking with the king had been no more diverting, but one moment had conjured its own small smile.

  The royal summons concluded, he was striding across the great stable courtyard, having previously called for his horse to be saddled and brought to the entrance, when a tall thin man dressed in cumbersome blue brocade hurried from the adjacent building.

  “Sir, a lucky encounter.”

  At first Richard was not sure who spoke. “Sir?”

  “We are not well acquainted,” Lord Staines admitted, “but we have met before, sir, on more than one occasion. Lord Staines, at your service. And I feel it my duty, having bumped into you at such an auspicious moment, to warn you of certain matters which I can only presume you are unaware.”

  Richard shook his head. “I’ve no interest in court gossip, my lord.”

  “Ah, but this,” Staines told him softly, “might be a matter of life and death, sir. I have it as a fact an
d quite beyond the pointless level of gossip or rumour. It concerns – the duke. Norfolk, you know.”

  Dropping his horse’s reins, Richard pushed Staines back against the high wall into the deepest shadows. “Fool. This is the quickest way to get us both executed.”

  “On the contrary,” Staines whispered, pulling away. “And I ask you to remember that I warned you, sir, when the time comes for allies to be counted. It is Norfolk, I tell you, who is planning the king’s divorce, and means to put the queen aside. There will be the devil to play and her majesty to pay.”

  For a moment Staines was unaware that the cold steel of a small knife blade was cutting one side of his neck above his ruffled lace collar. “If,” Richard spoke through his teeth, “you speak of this to me or to anyone again, my lord, I shall ensure that the power-game you hope to start here, is utterly trodden into the dust. And I shall indeed remember who told me. Make sure you tell me nothing else.”

  He had laughed on the long ride home, but the momentary diversion was now forgotten as he stood in his own grounds, gazing patiently at the old bent oak and its bare spreading branches.

  “Well, Socrates,” the man said very softly, “am I right, do you think, to refuse myself in this way? Or is it absurd for a man who cares nothing for the opinion of others, to care so much for the opinion of one, and deny himself the only thing he yearns for, simply because it would be wrong?” Receiving no answer, he continued, “But wrong is a moral judgement requiring opinion, which only the church claims to know truly. And if I care nothing for such an opinion, do I myself have any right to any opinion at all?” His voice was a little more than a whisper. “And so I speak of ‘wrong’ and whether I have the ‘right’, yet no man can choose to judge one or the other if he can then hold no opinion after judgement. And if I have no right to judge, then how can I tell what is wrong or what is right?”

  Turning then, he looked up into the mist. A vague glitter murmured of stars beyond the dark clouds. Richard shook his head and began to walk back to the house.

  He did not hear the owl take flight, its wing stretch utterly silent above him. Instead he returned to his own chamber, kicked the page who was half asleep against the door, told him to go to his own pallet, threw off his cape and let it lie where it fell, damp and creased in its own widening puddle, shrugged off the bedrobe he wore beneath it and finally climbed into bed. It had been well warmed for his comfort, but it was a very long time before he slept. He thought of many things but Socrates was not one of them.

  He was still somewhat tired the following morning when Thomas Dunn came to him early, with interesting news. The young lawyer had, he declared, proved to his own satisfaction, the duplicity of the lawyer in Cuthbert Thripp’s pay, who had pronounced on the new legal ownership of the Strand property once Edward Thripp’s ship had been sunk, and the captain deceased. Richard and Thomas settled immediately to discuss what should next be done. But they did not go down to the smaller hall. They went into the huge chamber next to Richard’s bedchamber, which he used as his own private haven.

  Richard did not declare the situation to any other person. Personal proof was not yet public proof.

  Master Michael Macron’s promised events of unexpected excitement began not during the middle of December as he had predicted, but on the twenty second of that month. It was a dark evening and it was snowing when the scribbled note arrived.

  Clutching both the scrap of paper and a heavy gold ring, the beggar boy crept into the forested grounds of Wolfdon Hall on Holborn Hill, and squeaked loud when apprehended by the cook, two scullery boys and the steward close behind.

  The women had not long finished supper, and the table was still being cleared. They had gone almost directly up to their bedchambers, since their small rooms, each with its own bright log fire, were cosier than the larger spaces downstairs. Cuddled into bed they whispered to each other for those last half dozing moments before sleep, being the more welcome choice, followed by deep breathing as the flames from the heaths played out their games of light and shade up into the ceiling beams.

  But downstairs, no one slept and everyone was still busy. A small raggedy boy peeping in through the main door was noticed at once. “You comes to the kitchen door and begs for scraps like any proper Tom o’Bedlam,” insisted the cook, grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt.

  The steward stared. “Leave him to me. I shall throw him out.”

  “Poor little bugger,” objected the cook. “Looks half starved.”

  “There’s pork jelly and turnip codlings left over,” one scullery boy piped up. “Let him eat sommintt afore you chucks him out.”

  “But I ain’t begging,” squeaked the beggar boy. “I got a message for a female, what’s living here and was promised two pennies if I delivers it.”

  “Show me,” demanded the steward.

  “Shan’t,” muttered the boy. “Only to the right female, I were told. ‘Tis secret. And for two pennies, I’s gonna do right.”

  “The name of this female?” asked the steward, carefully not mentioning that the house, as far as he was concerned, was entirely full of suspect and unnecessary females, all needing fire, food and far more care than even his master usually required. “Come on, boy. Which woman are you looking for?”

  “Mistress Jemima Thripp,” announced the boy with considerable care. “And only her. Naught else.”

  The steward frowned. “Stay here,” he ordered, “and I will see if Mistress Jemima will see you.”

  The steward marched off to find one of the personal maids, and the boy, half frozen, sat on the cold tiles just inside the front door. It was sometime before Jemima appeared, shivering, both flustered and puzzled, and wrapped in her increasingly threadbare bedrobe. There was no one, as far as she was concerned, who could possibly send her a message of importance at any hour of the day and particularly not at approaching night. She thanked the boy, told him to wait, and took the crumpled sheet of paper.

  It was as she unscrewed the paper that she found the gold ring secured inside. She recognised it at once, gasped, and moved away to read whatever had been written.

  Watched intently by the steward, the cook, two intrigued scullery boys, the beggar boy himself and additionally by Nurse Katherine who had followed her out and had insisted on bustling down the stairs behind her, Jemima stared at the note, and wondered if she might faint.

  “I have to go out,” she whispered.

  Katherine grabbed at her hand, took the note, and read it, peering closely. She looked up, staring at Jemima, who stared back. “I shall come with you, my dearest,” she said. “But we tell no one else. No one at all.”

  “Not even Alba? Nor even Ysable, who will see me leave?”

  “No one.” Katherine grasped her elbow. “Upstairs, quick and quiet. Ysabel sleeps through thunder storms and everything else except the smell of cooking food. But we need warm clothes and pattens, cloaks and hoods. And courage, little dove. We need that most of all.”

  Jemima turned to the steward. “Keep that boy here, if you please,” she asked. “I might need to question him afterwards. Feed him. Sit him by the fire. Don’t hurt him.”

  “I wants my two pennies,” wailed the boy.

  “I shall give you three,” Jemima assured him with exaggerated confidence, although her purse was woefully empty, “so wait for me. And speak to no one else about this message. It must be kept utterly secret.”

  It continued to snow. There was no blizzard and little wind, but the snow filled the air like tiny wafting feathers, and the thin white covering across the ground thickened, almost surreptitiously, until snow banked walls and roadsides and the great cold grew. Turning into minute icicles hanging from the bare branch tips, it muffled all sound. Muffled themselves against the freeze, both women crept from the house by the back door that Jemima had used in the past to meet with Richard Wolfden. Now it was escape. At first they held hands and ran, although stumbling and managing little haste, whispering to each other, but not
daring to speak aloud until they were some distance from the house. Then Jemima stopped to catch her breath.

  “We are trying to be so secret,” she said, breathless, “but in the morning everyone will know we’ve gone.”

  “They won’t know where.”

  “As long as the boy doesn’t tell anyone else.”

  “How can he know what the message read? He won’t know his letters, poor little scrap. And we have the paper so he can’t show it nor tell what it says.”

  “He will still have a story to tell,’ Katherine insisted. “Of who he met and how he came by the message.”

  “He won’t tell – not with the promise of a threepence bribe.” Jemima’s eyes were bright in the shaded strands of moonlight.

  Katherine shook her head within the copious blue hood. “Threepence, you promised him? But you don’t have a single ha’penny, my girl.”

  Jemima laughed. It fell hushed by snow, like a stone into water. “But,” she said, grabbing her nurse’s arm, “don’t you see? We are about to have – everything we want.”

  “If this is all true and not some terrible trick.” Katherine had grabbed at Jemima’s hand again. “We know it can’t be true, don’t we? And the ring? Was it the right one?”

  “I know that ring. I’d never mistake it.” Jemima threw off her nurse’s clutch. “Ever since I was in nethercloths, the hand that helped me stand, that warmed and caressed me, wore that ring.” They had started walking again, but now Jemima stopped abruptly with a gulp and stepped back in horror.

  Katherine rushed back beside her. “My dear, whatever is the matter?”

  Jemima moved further back, pointing forwards, her voice unsteady. “I bumped into something vile. Something frozen solid. Something hanging – that spun when I knocked into it.”

  Both women hurried to the side, holding tight to each other. As they moved into a small stripe of moonlight glimmering between the bare tree branches, they saw the shape more clearly. It was utterly black beneath its crust of white, and seemed both lifeless and suspended. Katherine reached out one trembling finger. The thing swung again, lurching backwards, then forwards, then hanging in silence. “A stone? A dead bird?” Jemima whispered.