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The Deception of Consequences

Page 16

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil


  “No,” Katherine said. “A dead man. We have come to Tyburn. This is the scaffold, and the corpse is solid with ice.”

  “Then it’s a blessing we can’t see the face.” Katherine hurried away. “But it proves we are on the right road, even if we cannot see the road itself.”

  “But what if,” Katherine could not move, staring at the dark thing suspended before them, “it could be – him?”

  “Don’t suggest such a thing.” Jemima flared and grabbed Katherine’s thickly gloved hand, pulling her on. “That corpse has been there some days. It’s rotten. It’s frozen. We’d smell the stench, except that the snow cleanses everything.”

  “Well,” Katherine whispered, “if this is the Tyburn gallows, then we must walk due south.”

  “It may not be so long before dawn and the rising sun will direct us.”

  “The sun rises late in winter. We have a long, long walk in the dark still to go.”

  Hurrying past the scaffold and its warning of death to miscreants, they kicked the snow from their toes and ran forwards, slowing only when too tired.

  It was sometime before they stopped again, leaning back against a high brick wall to catch their breath.

  Finally she said, “And what if this is another sort of trick? From Cousin Cuthbert, perhaps, to get you alone away from the safety of Wolfdon Hall? What if Cuthbert is the killer?”

  “Papa hated him and hardly ever let him in the house. And where would he have found the ring?”

  They stared at each other through the darkness and the strange half illumination of the snow beneath their feet and the slow dither of snowflakes in the air. “You know,” Katherine said, her voice faltering, “that we are almost certainly in danger, my dear?”

  But Jemima shook her head. “No, not danger. Adventure. Excitement.” She was laughing again, forgetting the shock of the gallows. “The astrologer told me in a few days that something amazing would change my life. Now it has. I didn’t really believe him. I hoped, but I never hoped for this. It was something quite different that I hoped for, and I was a fool to even imagine I could ever have that.”

  “That, my dear?”

  “It’s not important. It was stupid. And this is far, far more exciting.”

  They walked on, kicking through snow drifts and keeping to the slight shelter beneath the thick branched trees or the overhand of house fronts. Narrow streets opened into hedgerows dividing open pasture where sudden bitter wind swept in unhindered. Both women shivered but did not stop or turn.

  Looking up, the sky was a flurried fairy-tale of clouds glowing with moon-dust, the blinking spangle of stars behind and the silent shimmering dance of falling snow. When the winds hurtled into their faces, the snow was flung like handfuls of ice. But when the sudden gusts shrank into damp needles, the snow fell like a silver mist.

  “Adventure?” whispered Katherine. “Perhaps. But adventures can end in disaster.”

  “This one is the best adventure of my life,” Jemima whispered back. “Come on. It’s a long, long way.”

  “Then,” sighed Katherine, “I will trust you, my dearest, to lead us to such happiness.”

  “I promise I shall.” Jemima smiled quickly, hugging her nurse’s arm. “It’s beautiful. Look. Like falling stars. Prettier than a swan, But,” and she laughed softly, “not as beautiful as a peacock.”

  Katherine hugged her back, trying not to shiver. “”One day, my dearest,” she murmured, “and if you wish it, I shall tell you more about your mother.”

  “Yes, you must.” But Jemima’s feet sank, her toes were numb, her gloved fingers felt no sensation as she clasped the crumpled paper in her palm, and her nose was ice. “As long as we don’t go too far and fall into the Thames. I can hardly talk. My lips are quite blue, aren’t they?”

  Katherine managed to smile. “I couldn’t tell, little dove. I can neither see nor feel.”

  “I may faint from the cold. I may freeze to death. We may be attacked by thieves in the night, or we may be utterly lost,” Jemima mumbled to herself, “but I am happy all the same. I hold his ring and the words on this paper are etched into my mind.”

  “My little dove, forgive me if I frighten you. But do not tell a soul. Do not even hint. I am at the Strand House, and I await you. Cuthbert has told me where you are but I dare not come myself. They are looking for me and danger is all around. But I am alive. Come to me, beloved daughter, and all will be well. Your Papa.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Richard Wolfdon awoke early. The snow was thick on the window sills as the body-servant took down the shutters and opened the bedchamber to the strange unreal light of blanketing whiteness over a silent world.

  From the curtained bed shadows, Richard called, “Robert, call a page. My bedrobe and a cup of ale. But I’ll not break fast here this morning, as I’m expecting Thomas Dunn once again. As soon as he arrives, bring him up to me in the larger chamber.”

  The snow lay thick, but no longer fell. Already it was marked across the Wolfdon grounds by the paws of hare, rabbit and fox, those quiet visitors in the first hours of the waking world. Now the bird prints crossed those of the animals, with little black stars of claws visible from Richard’s windows above. The hounds had not yet been released from their kennels for it was too early, but the scullery boys had been out to rediscover the children’s games of Christmases past, with jumping into snow drifts and throwing fistfuls compacted into ice. Dawn was still a hesitant pink halo behind the black trees when Thomas Dunn arrived, fur collar to his nose but his ears numb, and was shown quickly up to the master’s private chamber of study. The pages had lit the fire huge across the hearth almost an hour back, and now the flames were noisy and joyous. Thomas stood before the leaping heat, rubbing feeling back into his hands, and stamping his feet.

  “Forgive the mud and melting slush on the rug, Richard, but it’s vile outside. My breath was in such a mist, I could barely see where to dismount.”

  Richard stretched out his legs beneath the table. His smile was, as usual, imperceptible. “Is it done?”

  Thomas nodded, sitting quickly to face him. “It is, though will take a day or two before the sheriff will order the parchment written and witnessed, and a few days more before he carried out his duty. But yes, it is done and there’s no more I can do.” His own smile was wider and cheerful. “Will you tell the young woman?”

  “Will I?” Richard leaned back in the chair, his hands clasped before him on the table. “Not yet, I think. When it is lawfully concluded, I shall, and will then return her to her own home.”

  Thomas turned smile to grin. “You don’t want to let her go.”

  “I wonder what gave you that impression? Am I so predictable?” Yet Richard seemed unsurprised. “Half true, of course. And half untrue.”

  “Oh, come Dickon,” Thomas said. “Don’t tell me you’ve kept a house full of half-dressed whores for the pleasure of their company? Your investigation barely involves them. Do you even know their names? They are here because you want an excuse to keep Mistress Jemima Thripp as close as you can.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Richard sighed. “But not without other motives which you appear not to have guessed.” His own smile widened just slightly. “Do I ever do anything decisive without a multitude of motives, Thomas dear? And as for not remembering their names, I know each of them in considerable detail.”

  “I thought you avoided them. You take your meals alone. You leave the house almost every day.”

  “I leave,” Richard sighed, “when my king calls for me. His demands are no less tedious than the women in my house.”

  “At least you know your king’s name.” Thomas snorted. “Which is more than I can say for the women.”

  “The youngest,” said Richard, with a small nod, is Elisabeth. Although her lover’s death left her almost destitute, she is an even tempered young woman with more looks than brains. She bears no antagonism to anyone that I know of and likes to keep the peace between her more self-in
dulgent companions. I cannot remember her second name, but it is of no consequence. Pretty with the nose of a kitten and yellow hair.”

  “Good gracious,” muttered Thomas. “Do I need to know this?”

  “Of course not,” Richard told him, unmoving. “Nor do you need to know this, but I shall tell you anyway. The previous mistress, thrown from the house by the old pirate to make space for Elisabeth, is a woman named Penelope Ellis. She is a quiet and grateful woman, and is delighted to be housed on my premises for one specific reason. I do not believe the other women are aware of it, but Penelope, finding herself homeless, penniless and friendless, became a prostitute. First in a small brothel near the Tower, and then working for herself once she could afford one small chamber in a ruined tenement, she worked both day and night until ragged and wretched. You have frequently referred to all these women as whores, but the others are not. As the kept mistress of a wealthy man, each considered herself comparatively respectable, as do the king’s women, and for the same reason. But Edward Thripp made little allowance for each when he cast them off, and Penelope Ellis in particular had no family or other income. I have no objection to giving her a warm shelter and good food. She fears having to return to her previous life which was brutal. Perhaps Mistress Jemima will give her a home once I cease to share mine.”

  “Dickon, how do you know all this?”

  “I know everything, my friend.” Richard unclasped his hands and poured ale from the jug on the table. Both men drank. “Did you believe my investigations to be a whim, and without substance?” He shook his head. “Then there is Ysabel,” he continued. “She is plump and pretty, loves my home and the luxury she considers a sacred and heavenly gift, and would kiss my feet if necessary in order to ensure her prolonged invitation to stay. She once offered herself to me in the hope of becoming a mistress to a rich man once more. But she was unsurprised when I refused.”

  “You should not have refused.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Tom.”

  “And the rest of this clutch of females?”

  Richard again poured the ale. “Mistress Ruth Cobbory dislikes me. She shows good sense. I am not to be liked, and I do not make myself likeable. But she should cease to resent what she believes is offered for suspicious and secret reasons.”

  “Is it?”

  “Naturally it is, but that does not mean I welcome being understood,” Richard said softly. “Ruth is the least beautiful of all the women, one of the more intelligent, but no more likeable than I am myself. She dislikes not only me, but also Ysabel, the woman who supplanted her. Ysabel, however, has no notion of this and if the knife came slipping one day between her ribs, she would not know who held the hilt.”

  Thomas sniggered. “She would no doubt think it was you.”

  Richard ignored him. “Then there is Philippa Barry, a fierce little woman of dark brown hair and eyes, who seems courageous and perhaps even a little clever. There is also the nurse, an elderly and kind woman of common sense but no genuine intelligence, who appears wonderfully loyal to all and in particular to her own charge. When the old pirate was declared drowned, the retired nurse invited the daughter into her own home, though she had not a penny herself. A good woman.”

  “You even watched and judge the nurse?”

  “I judge no one.” Richard raised an eyebrow. “I see. I notice. I do not judge. Although,” and he smiled again, “perhaps I judge the elder of the women. Mistress Alba Vantage is the more intelligent of them all, but the least appealing. She breathes in anger and breathes out fury. She loathes each of the other women who have all, one by one, stolen the interest of the man she wanted only for herself. Perhaps her love for him was genuine. Perhaps it has more to do with pride, but she hates the women he chose instead of her. Naturally this is hidden and she hides it well. They do not know themselves hated. They drift half unclothed around my rooms, believing themselves sweet friends, ready to defend each other against false accusation and the miseries of fate, which they have all faced many times in the past.”

  “This Alba woman sounds more interesting than the others.”

  “Bitterness, anger and jealousy are not in the slightest interesting,” Richard said. “Of all indulgences, they are the most tedious. But the woman has one redeeming attribute, for she adores Jemima, and considers her as though her own daughter, stolen from her as was the man and the home she also considered hers.”

  Thomas waited and then laughed. “You have said nothing of the most important of them all. But I know already, of course.”

  “Yes,” Richard said, half closing his eyes. “You know already. I am in deep and abiding love with Mistress Jemima Thripp. That delicious child fills my thoughts and my dreams. I admit to my own foolishness, I avoid her company but I do not attempt to avoid my own thoughts.”

  Laughing, Tom said, “So unsuitable, Dickon, you must wish you never met the girl.”

  “Certainly not.” Richard blinked, opening his eyes again, then looked down at the polished table and the papers lying there, still speaking quietly. “Love, as I have now discovered, is the arousing of emotions previously asleep. Love leaps and dances. It is the one thing that makes me feel so very much alive.”

  “Not simply the wine?” Thomas finished his ale and set down the cup. “Come on, Dickon. You’re what? Twenty seven, twenty eight years old? You’ve been in love before. It’s a shoddy business. Get the girl into bed, and the passion soon fades.”

  “What a very dismal belief, my dear friend,” Richard said, his voice sinking even further to no more than a murmur. “I have never loved before, not even my parents. I do not love my half-brother, my step-father, my king or my country. But the love for that particular young woman is – forgive my sugar-sweet cliché – the joy of my life. I will certainly not attempt to bed her. But if I did, and the notion is utterly glorious – I am quite, quite sure that the passion would not diminish. It would grow.”

  “After many years of friendship,” Thomas pointed out with slight disapproval, “you’ve turned unexpectedly sentimental, Dickon. The least person I’d have expected – and with the last woman I’d have expected, but at least now I know why you’ve had me working away to disprove the wretched Cuthbert’s claim. A gift, perhaps, to the departing love?”

  “I have a belief,” Richard answered, “in the balance of justice, Tom. My feelings for one woman make little difference to the necessity of justice.”

  “You may even believe that yourself, though I doubt it.”

  “We live in a country where kingship is accepted as a right directly from the hand of God, and where all nobility considers itself blessed and born to a place merited by blood and bounty. Yet our lords loathe each other as some of the women in my house do, smiling and pretending admiration while planning attack. We have a king who orders the boiling alive of those who displease him, almost on a whim. And his temper brings a pervading shadow to his court, where any moment pleasure might turn to pain.”

  “The king likes you, Dickon.”

  “Because I’m useful. He might order my death at any moment.”

  “In that case,” Thomas stood, pushing back his chair, “I should get moving. Besides, I’ve finished the ale and the jug’s empty.”

  But it was as he stood, that the steward entered the room, coming quietly through the open doorway. Richard looked up. “Sir,” the steward announced, “forgive the interruption. But there is a matter which I believe needs your attention.”

  “Then it must be important,” Richard said, and stood, coming around to the front of the table. “Tom, I shall see you out myself on the way down.”

  “I’ll stay,” Thomas announced. “What’s so important?”

  “Come and find out,” Richard said, and they followed the steward to the corridor leading from the kitchens to the small back door. The beggar boy stood snivelling, and shrugging off the heavy hand of the cook on his shoulder. “The child needs feeding,” Richard remarked. “Is this all you’ve called me for, Piers
?”

  “Indeed, no, sir.” The steward pulled the boy forward. “This urchin came to us last evening, with a note of some kind and a message for Mistress Jemima. Being just a grubby brat, sir, I didn’t think it right to disturb you. Then Mistress Jemima, she came down with her nurse and they read the note given by the boy and within no more than half an hour they were both rushing out, even in the snow, sir. Even in the dark. And on foot, for I’ve checked this morning and the litters are both here and not a horse been taken from the stables. Mistress Jemima, she ordered the boy to stay here till she got back. But they’ve not come back, sir. No word. No message. No sign.”

  Thomas began to speak, but Richard raised a hand. “Wait. Have the other women been questioned?”

  “Not by me, sir. I’ve not that right, and I know my place,” the steward assured him.

  “Very well.” Richard took the boy’s arm, nodded to the cook to release him, then led him back along the corridor to the back staircase. Here in the silent shadows, Richard gazed at the child, and indicated for him to sit on the stairs. “Now, he said. “You have time to explain, to redeem yourself, and to help me. All of which will go well rewarded. So tell me exactly what has happened here.”

  The boy sniffed. “I ain’t supposed to tell nuffing, yer lordship.”

  “In which case, you will help no one,” Richard said quietly. “You will be thrown out without food or coin. I will be sadly concerned to the point of considerable worry. And Mistress Jemima may be in extreme danger. I suggest you use common sense, and explain at once.”

  “Oh shit,” sniffed the boy and sank back against the upper step behind him. “I don’t know none of them folk, nor wants to, sir. But I were in them snooty rich houses in The Strand, looking for – well, food, let’s say, sir, being mighty hungry. Not having ate nuffing since I got outta the Fleet.”

 

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