‘Dame Joan,’ I urged, ‘we don’t yet know that anything has happened to your younger son. The fact that he rode to Beckery instead of walking hints that he intended to travel further afield if he got no satisfactory answer from the priest. We cannot know where, or for what purpose, but there is every likelihood that he will return home before dark.’
She smiled tremulously. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Her look became less strained and anxious. ‘But did you learn nothing from Abel Fairchild or the Pennards that could explain what might have happened to Peter?’
‘Nothing more than what you have already told me. I’m sorry.’
‘And Abel remains constant in his story that Peter vanished within moments?’ Once again I nodded. ‘But are you satisfied that there was no other means of concealment anywhere at hand?’
‘Apart from the hut? No, I’m afraid not, and Master Gildersleeve was not inside it. Abel had wit enough, seemingly, to look behind the door, but there was no one there. The interior of the hut is small, with nothing but a pile of sacking in one corner. There is nowhere else anyone could hide in such a short time.’
‘So what is to be done now?’ my hostess demanded tearfully. ‘Tongues are already wagging, and will do so in earnest if Peter’s fate is not discovered soon. And if it should prove that Mark, too, has vanished…’ She did not finish, but let the conclusion go as something too awful to contemplate.
Even Cicely seemed struck by the seriousness of the situation. She rose from her place and went to comfort her aunt, kneeling beside the older woman’s chair, putting her arms around her and kissing the suddenly careworn cheek. Then she raised her head and glared fiercely at me.
‘Can’t you do something, Roger? According to you, you’re so clever at solving mysteries! Why is it that you can’t solve this one?’
‘I only arrived here yesterday evening!’ I protested warmly. ‘You’re unreasonable, Mistress!’
Dame Joan agreed, at the same time smoothing her niece’s hair, anxious to antagonize no one. ‘Roger has done a great deal already, my love. And he has done it out of the goodness of his heart, for he is under no obligation to assist us.’
Cicely gave her aunt a final hug and returned to her place, grimacing at me across the kitchen table. ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ she said, and blew me a kiss.
Dame Joan gave a strangled cry of protest.
* * *
Later, walking with Cicely in the little garden, the scent of blown roses all about us, thick as incense, I took her to task, reminding her of her betrothal to her elder cousin.
‘It was a marriage arranged by our parents. I’m not in love with Peter,’ she whispered, and I was aware of the gleam of tears in those huge violet eyes upraised to mine.
‘And you’re not in love with me either, my girl,’ I answered briskly, ‘any more than I am with you.’
The tears miraculously vanished. ‘You’re horrid and rude, and I hate you!’ she retorted with venom.
I laughed. ‘So you’ve told me once already this afternoon. Just try to remember how much you dislike me and we shall rub along very well together. Your aunt is in great distress. Her burden should not be increased by anxiety about your conduct.’
The violet eyes gleamed again, but this time with pure temper. ‘I’m going indoors,’ Cicely announced. ‘Don’t dare to follow me!’
‘I am yours to command!’
I thought for a moment that she would strike me yet again, but after half raising her hand, she must have decided that a dignified departure would be more impressive; so, gathering up her skirts, she swung on her heel and disappeared inside the house.
I smiled to myself and sat down on the stone bench that ran along the wall beneath the workroom window. From the kitchen I could hear the clatter of pots and dishes as Lydia went about the evening’s work, assisted by her good-natured mistress, and the low rumble of the apprentices’ voices as they discussed, no doubt, this latest development in their hitherto uneventful lives. Their future prospects must look bleak to them at present, I thought, with first Peter, and now possibly Mark Gildersleeve missing.
The westering sun speared through the branches of both the medlar tree and an apple tree that grew in one corner of the garden. The round, reddening globes of fruit nestled against the velvety darkness of the leaves, and the slender trunk rippled like water under the running light. Birds sang in the branches, for it was still far too early for them to go to roost, and just for a moment I let my body slacken and cleared my mind of thoughts, refusing to contemplate the Gordian knot which I had yet to unravel … and in no time at all I was sound asleep.
I awoke with a start to the sudden conviction that something I had said recently, some remark uttered to Dame Joan during supper, had been of great significance. The feeling was so strong that I desperately tried to recall our conversation word for word, but however often I went over it in my mind I was unable to pinpoint anything which seemed to be of any importance. I was still racking my brain, without success, when Dame Joan herself emerged from the kitchen, Lydia hard on her heels. They crossed to the stone bench and sat down, one on either side of me, each emitting those little grunts and gasps which, I have frequently noticed, women give when their chores are temporarily finished and they can take the weight from their feet.
‘Where’s Cicely?’ her aunt inquired in a tone tinged with alarm. It was plain that she found her niece and prospective daughter-in-law both headstrong and wilful.
‘She’s gone indoors. I think she’s very tired,’ I answered, abandoning for the present all attempts to solve my riddle.
‘She’s a good girl really,’ Dame Joan excused her, ‘but at that age, when she’s longing to spread her wings … Poor child!’ And the older woman heaved a sympathetic sigh.
I thought then, as I think now, that it must be hard for women, going as they do straight from the authority of parents to that of a husband. They know so little freedom in their lives — that freedom which allows a man to take charge of, and order, his own existence.
From the other side of me, the quiet shadow that was Lydia gave a half-suppressed cough and muttered, ‘Mistress…’
‘Ah, yes!’ Dame Joan seemed to recollect herself. ‘Lydia has something to tell you,’ she said.
I turned to the little kitchen-maid who, with her hood awry and a smudge on her nose, was impatiently swinging her legs to and fro, her tiny feet some inches from the ground.
‘What is it you wish to say?’
She giggled self-consciously. ‘It concerns this paper you were talking of at supper. I knew about it already.’
‘You knew about it! But surely … surely Master Peter didn’t mention it to you?’
‘Lord, no!’ Lydia gave another giggle. ‘It was Maud.’
‘Who’s Maud, in the name of heaven?’
‘Maud Jarrold,’ Dame Joan explained. ‘Our other maid, who left us two days ago and went back to her parents’ cottage in Bove Town.’
‘But why would your son confide in her?’ I demanded, puzzled.
Lydia was scathing. ‘Master Peter didn’t tell her anything, stupid! She saw it. She wasn’t meant to, and Master Peter was very angry about it.’
‘So how did it happen? How did she come to see it?’
‘Sometimes, at the end of the day, when the shop’s shut, Master Peter will take some of his books and go in there to read and study them…’
‘That’s true enough,’ Dame Joan confirmed from my other side. ‘He says it’s quieter than the solar.’ She grimaced. ‘And I daresay he’s right, for I have to admit I am a bit of a chatterer.’
‘But what about Mark? Doesn’t he go in and out of the shop?’
‘Not once it’s closed for the day. He’s always off to some tavern or ale-house. Mark likes company. He has a lot of friends.’