Eloise glanced up from drying her face and hands, and smiled at me with a surprising amount of sympathy. ‘Roger, I don’t know,’ she answered gently. ‘Until this wind drops is all I can say. I did overhear the landlord telling Master Armiger that there is a ship at anchor in the harbour, ready to sail to France once the weather breaks. The Sea Nymph, I think he said she was called. And once we’re aboard, the crossing to Calais doesn’t take long. A few hours. Now, if you’re ready, shall we go downstairs? I don’t know about you, but I could do with my supper.’
The Armigers and William Lackpenny were already in the inn parlour when Eloise and I entered. Jane Armiger was looking pale and slightly tearful, while her husband’s face was blotched with angry red patches, as though they had been having a quarrel. Will Lackpenny, on the other hand, was his usual bumptious self, setting out to jolly everyone along and restore harmony to the evening ahead. He did cast an anxious glance at Jane Armiger once or twice, as though solicitous for her welfare, but he could hardly call Robert Armiger to account, as he would no doubt have dearly liked to do.
The inn had grown noisier since our arrival as those locals who had left the shelter of their own firesides and braved the weather were joined in the ale room by sailors from The Sea Nymph and another ship lying at anchor in the harbour. Only a narrow passageway, leading to the front door, separated the parlour from the ale room, and it seemed at times as though the general rowdiness — the guffaws, the shouting, the singing of bawdy songs — would drown out our own conversation. Robert Armiger, I could tell, was growing more incensed by the minute, and only the arrival of supper prevented his storming into the other room and presenting its occupants with a piece of his mind. A most ill-advised action had he done so, but fortunately a truly appetizing pigeon pie, followed by equally delicious apricot tartlets, the whole washed down with a light, amber, slightly musky-tasting wine, put him in a better humour. At any rate, he restricted himself to demanding, somewhat peremptorily it’s true, but perfectly politely for all that, that the landlord bolted the outer door to discourage further incursions into the inn.
The landlord, a sensible fellow who plainly had no intention of carrying out this order, said nothing, merely muttering something under his breath that could have been mistaken for acquiescence. He was removing the last of the empty supper dishes, and had just instructed one of his assistants to make up the fire from the pile of logs at one side of the hearth, when a sudden lull in the noise from across the passage enabled us to distinguish the drum of hoof-beats on the slippery quayside cobbles. Immediately afterwards, a man’s voice was raised, cursing and shouting for the stable boy, before being lost again in the howl of the wind and a crescendo of singing from the room opposite.
In spite of this, however, Jane Armiger’s head jerked round, her whole body rigidly at attention, one forefinger slightly raised. ‘That was Oliver’s voice,’ she said.
Her husband looked up from his book — a handsome folio bound in pale blue silk with silver tassels — and answered scathingly, ‘Nonsense!’
For once, she felt strong enough to argue with him. ‘It was, I tell you!’ She had risen to her feet and was listening intently, but the uproar from the ale room made it impossible to hear anything else.
‘Sit down, you silly child!’ Robert Armiger snapped irritably. ‘What on earth would your brother be doing here? He’s snug somewhere inside Baynard’s Castle, playing at dice, if I know him.’
He spoke, I thought, rather scathingly of his brother-in-law, decidedly at variance with his tone when he had first mentioned that worthy, the inference then having been that the young man held a position of some consequence in the Duchess of York’s household.
‘It is Oliver, I tell you,’ Jane Armiger persisted, braving her husband’s displeasure.
‘Oh well! We shall soon find out,’ William Lackpenny said peaceably, stepping nobly into the breach to protect his lady from another scolding.
Even as he spoke, the sound of the inn door being flung open, to be sent crashing back against the passage wall by the force of the wind, made further speculation useless for the moment. The landlord hurried from the room to greet the newcomer as someone possibly of importance and certainly from a distance. No local or sailor would be arriving on horseback.
Eloise turned her head. ‘You are expecting your brother to join you, Mistress Armiger?’ she enquired.
It was Robert who replied. ‘No! She is not!’
It struck me that he was very put out by the notion and I wondered why.
Eloise ignored this outburst. ‘Jane?’ she queried.
Jane fluttered a nervous glance in her husband’s direction. ‘As-as a matter of f-fact,’ she stammered, ‘Oliver d-did say he. . he might try to. . obtain leave of absence from Master Steward to. . to come with us to Paris.’ She drew a deep breath and plunged on, ‘He hasn’t seen our aunt and cousins for several years now. He thought it would be a good opportunity for us to travel together. But when we left London, he still wasn’t certain that he would be granted permission. He said if he were, he would ride hard and try to catch us up.’
It was obvious from Robert Armiger’s face that this was the first he had heard of any such arrangement between the brother and sister. Throughout his wife’s hesitant recital, his expression had been growing steadily more thunderous. There was alarm there, too, and unease. It occurred to me that he was ashamed of this Oliver, who was possibly of a more lowly status in the duchess’s household than pleased the high and mighty Master Armiger.
This explanation had barely crossed my mind when the landlord came bustling back into the parlour, rubbing his hands in the manner of someone who has pleasant news to impart. He addressed Jane.
‘Mistress Armiger!’ He was smiling broadly. ‘A happy surprise for you.’ I saw Robert Armiger’s expression stiffen with dismay. The landlord continued, flinging out his hands in what he was sure must be a shared delight, ‘Your brother is here. He has caught you up.’ He stood aside, beckoning to someone behind him to come in.
The doorway seemed suddenly blocked, all light from the passageway shut out, filled with an enormous specimen of humanity. Then the man stepped forward into the parlour, his arms held out to Mistress Armiger, dwarfing her. Dwarfing all of us, if it came to that, with his girth and height.
I recognized him at once.
It was the Duchess of York’s master cook.
It was Goliath.
My first thought was that he would recognize me, and I stepped back into the corner shadows of the room.
Eloise had recognized him as well, from her brief glimpse of him as he had manhandled me into the common hall last Wednesday evening, but I was confident Goliath would not remember her: he had not, to the best of my recollection, even seen her. At the moment of my humiliation, she had been sitting some way away from the kitchen door. He had disappeared by the time she came to my rescue.
Second thoughts persuaded me that he was unlikely to recognize me, either. Looking back on our unfortunate encounter, I realized that he had scarcely accorded me much real attention. He had been too anxious to be rid of me. He had simply picked me up and propelled me through the door, rather like swatting an irritating fly. It was unlikely that he would associate the poorly dressed menial with my present seeming affluence. I was worrying unnecessarily. I stepped forward again, full into the light. He turned towards me as Jane Armiger began to introduce us all. Now was the moment of truth.
‘And this is Master Chapman,’ she was saying, ‘whose party Robert and I have joined. He is a haberdasher, travelling to Paris on business. And this is Mistress Chapman, his wife. Please allow me to present to you both my brother, Master Oliver Cook.’