I stretched my legs and eased my shoulders, aware that I had been sitting in a hunched position, leaning forward on my knees, for far too long. My companion’s appreciative glance made me ask hurriedly, ‘When Eris failed to turn up, Maud Lilywhite says she came up here and roused the household. Your nephew, the elder one, got up and dressed and went with her for another search of the pasture and woods.’
‘That’s true. Poor Ned! But at least he’d had a few hours’ sleep when Maud came hammering on the door, and the storm had abated a little by then. We all got out of bed and went down to see what the matter was. Except Tom, of course. He hadn’t come home. Goodness knows where he spent the night; he’s never told us. I think Nathaniel hoped that it was Eris knocking: if I’m honest, I’m sure the rest of us were hoping that it wasn’t. Well, we had our wish. Although Ned went out with Maud again that night and searched, and again with other men from the village all the next day and the day after that – in truth, for the best part of a week – we never set eyes on Eris Lilywhite again. She’d run away and thank God for it, say I! Oh, it didn’t end there, naturally. Nathaniel had people looking for her as far afield as Gloucester and Dursley, but her whereabouts were never discovered. So, there you are, chapman. I’ve kept my side of our bargain. That’s the story of Eris Lilywhite and the night she vanished. She was ashamed of herself and ran away.’
‘You don’t believe that,’ I said.
She challenged me with a look. ‘Don’t I? What do I believe, then, my know-it-all friend? You tell me.’
‘All right! I will.’ I leaned forward again, holding those deep-set eyes with my own, daring her to drop her gaze. ‘You think Tom killed her. He was the only one out there in the dark when Eris said she was going home and ran out into the storm. He’d already attacked her once and he must still have been in a murderous rage. He’d been made to look the most goddam fool, not just in front of his family, but, as soon as the news became general knowledge, in front of the whole village, as well. How Rosamund Bush and her parents were going to sneer at him! He’d be the laughing stock of Lower Brockhurst and beyond. It would be too good a story for the villagers to keep to themselves. Everywhere they went, they’d be repeating it. A young man robbed of his sweetheart by his father, who’s twice his age … Oh, yes. I feel sure you think your younger nephew killed her. It’s the obvious thing to think. He was still loitering near the farmhouse when Eris left. The temptation to finish what he had been prevented from doing inside was too great. That’s certainly what they believe happened in Lower Brockhurst, judging by what I saw and heard yesterday evening.’ And I described the scene in the Roman Sandal when I had first clapped eyes on Tom Rawbone.
‘I wouldn’t give a groat for anything that rabble down there think!’ Jacquetta declared scornfully. But her eyes had shifted away from mine and refused to look back. ‘And if Tom did kill her,’ she added triumphantly, ‘where has he concealed her body? Because it’s never been found, as you must know.’
‘I didn’t say that I believed your nephew murdered Eris Lilywhite,’ I corrected her. ‘I said you did. And in spite of the mystery as to where the body is hidden, you still do.’
‘Nonsense!’ she answered stoutly, then glanced at me curiously. ‘Why don’t you think Tom killed her?’
‘I’m not saying he did or he didn’t. I’m keeping an open mind. But in my experience, things are often not as simple as they seem. On the face of it, allowing for possibility and probability, for motive and the opportunity to commit the crime, your nephew, Tom, appears the most likely person to have done it. But apart from your brother, everyone in this house would have liked to see her dead.’
‘Not liked,’ Jacquetta protested. ‘But … Very well! I agree that, except for Nathaniel, we’re all glad that she’s gone. And I think even my brother is beginning to realize that he might have had a lucky escape. Life is quieter without her.’
‘The old well in the woods – the one belonging to Upper Brockhurst Manor – was searched, so Mistress Lilywhite informed me.’
‘The Brothers’ Well? Yes, that’s so.’ And Jacquetta confirmed Maud’s story. Ned had climbed right down into the well the following morning, using the iron ladder and watched by a group of men from the village, including Father Anselm. The others didn’t bother going down after him, because they could see by peering over the rim that there was nothing there. A foot or two of brackish water, but that was all. ‘The well dried up,’ Jacquetta explained, ‘when, some years after the great plague the villagers of Lower Brockhurst diverted the course of the Draco to flow directly downhill in order to augment their own supply of water, that stream at the bottom of the pasture. I’ve always understood that before the plague, the Draco meandered in a curve through the main street of Upper Brockhurst. But sometime in the latter half of the last century, men from the lower village cut a new straight channel, so that the Draco flowed faster and more efficiently into the stream below, thus giving a better head of water for the mill race.’
I asked, ‘Do you know anything about the murder of two men that took place in the woods around Upper Brockhurst, just before the outbreak of the plague?’
My companion laughed. ‘My word, you have learned a lot about this place in less than twenty-four hours, chapman. I congratulate you. And I thought I was nosy! But in this case, I’m going to disappoint you. All I know is probably what you’ve been told already. Two wellers from Tetbury, who’d dug a well for the Martin brothers, the owners of Brockhurst Hall, were found battered to death in woodland not far away. But the story goes that they hadn’t been robbed. If true, it would seem to have been a motiveless killing. But before anything could be discovered concerning the murders, the plague arrived in Upper Brockhurst and, within weeks, everyone, including the Martins, was dead. But that was all a hundred and something years ago. It has nothing to do with Eris Lilywhite. Has it?’
Seven
Jacquetta was looking puzzled, as well she might by this sudden change of direction in my questioning.
She asked again, ‘What has this to do with the disappearance of Eris Lilywhite?’ but got no further before a woman I recognized as Petronelle Rawbone entered the room.
‘Ned and Nathaniel have returned,’ she said. ‘Tom and the boys are with them.’
The words were hardly out of her mouth, when the front door was flung wide on screeching hinges and the Rawbone men surged into the hall on a great tide of energy, all talking at once. A strong smell of ale hung in the air, and it was no surprise to learn that they had all met up with one another in the Roman Sandal. (Presumably, as far as William Bush was concerned, business was business and resentment on his daughter’s behalf did not extend to turning away so much custom.) They were all heatedly debating the truth, or otherwise, of a rumour concerning a murrain of cattle in neighbouring Wales, and the possibility of it spreading across the Severn into Gloucestershire. Jacquetta and Petronelle were inevitably drawn into the conversation, firing off worried questions at their menfolk until Nathaniel roared for quiet.
‘You’re behaving like a lot of hysterical women, the pack of you!’ he shouted. ‘It ain’t likely a disease’ll cross water, but if it does, we’ll deal with it when it happens. And you can be sure that I’m not killing off my sheep for anybody.’