He spun on his heel and rejoined his companion who had been waiting for him with ill-concealed impatience. She said something to him that I could not catch, but from his hangdog expression, it was plainly a reprimand.
‘Bad-tempered harpy!’ Philip grunted sourly, staring after their retreating backs. ‘But there! If the lad fancies that sort of woman, what can he expect? Who is he? One of the Babcary family I should guess.’
‘You would guess correctly,’ I answered, also watching the couple’s progress towards Dowgate Hill, the lady still visibly incensed and refusing, with much head tossing, to take her escort’s hand. ‘That’s Christopher Babcary, the goldsmith’s nephew.’
Adela came to stand beside me, slipping her hand into the crook of my arm.
‘So that’s the man accused by Gideon Bonifant of cuckolding him, is it?’ she enquired, having overheard my answer. ‘Well, if that’s the kind of woman young Master Babcary prefers, I can’t imagine, at least not from your description of Isolda, that he would entertain anything but a cousinly affection for her.’ My wife went on thoughtfully, ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that Gideon was wrong in his assumption that his wife was betraying him with another man. He might simply have picked on the wrong person. You’ll have to bear that in mind when pursuing your investigations, Roger.’
I bit my tongue and maintained my composure with an effort. First, I had been forced to endure Philip’s jibes about my ‘nosiness’, and now here was Adela telling me how to conduct my business, instructing me in what I should do well to remember. It only needed Jeanne Lamprey to add her mite for my cup of humiliation to run over.
Jeanne was busy keeping an eye on the weather, which was changing yet again, black clouds piling up the Thames from the east, bringing with them a freshening wind and a smell of sleet and rain in the air.
‘We’d better make for shelter,’ she decided, pulling up the hood of her cloak and holding it firmly together under her chin. ‘Adela shouldn’t be out in a storm, Roger, not in her delicate condition.’
I made no answer, except to put an arm around my wife. It seemed that I was not to escape advice on how to be either a solver of mysteries or a good husband, and I found myself looking forward to the morrow when I could once more be my own man.
We parted from the Lampreys on the corner of Bucklersbury, Philip having promised to fetch Adela early next morning and to escort her to their shop. There, in return for all their kindness, she would spend the time before dinner helping Jeanne to sort and mend the old clothes collected by Philip over the past few days and now ready for reselling.
‘And after we’ve eaten,’ Jeanne said, reaching up to kiss Adela’s cheek, ‘provided that Philip can manage on his own for a while, and if you feel fit enough, I’ll take you to see the wild animals in the Tower.’
Adela thanked her, returning the kiss, and a few moments later, we were hurrying along Bucklersbury, making for the inn as fast as we could, the icy spears of rain already beginning to sting our faces. Once within the comfort of our room, we lit the candles and closed the outer shutters against the cold, shaking the dampness from our cloaks and hanging them from the wall pegs to dry.
‘And now,’ said Adela, seating herself on the edge of the bed and eyeing me accusingly, ‘what was Christopher Babcary whispering to you on the quayside, there? And you needn’t think to lie to me, either, Roger. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could see by the expression on his face that he was giving you some kind of warning.’
‘Not a warning exactly,’ I muttered. ‘But I admit he was trying to persuade me to change my mind. He thinks that my questioning could do Mistress Bonifant more harm than good. And he’s right, of course, if she should prove to be guilty of her husband’s murder.’
‘Was that all he said?’ My wife regarded me with her clear, unwavering gaze.
I sighed. I had discovered very early on in my married life that it was almost impossible to lie to Adela. ‘No, he advised me to leave the family alone or I might live to regret my interference.’
‘But you won’t take his advice, of course.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘My dearest, I can’t,’ I protested, sitting beside her on the bed and putting my arms around her. ‘I can’t possibly disoblige the Duke.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ she asked, but immediately turned to plant a kiss on my lips. ‘Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what’s got into me lately. It must be my condition, I’m allowing myself to become a prey to odd humours and fancies and doing what I said I’d never do. I’m interfering.’
I held her closer, murmuring endearments. I knew that I was at fault, that I should have refused the Duke’s commission. I ought not to be abandoning her in a strange city, dependent for amusement on two comparative strangers. But I was as selfish then as I am today (or, at least, so my children tell me). Once presented with a mystery, I could no more leave it unresolved than I could grow wings and fly.
The next morning, after breakfast, I saw Adela off to Cornhill in the company of Philip Lamprey, and then, with an uncontrollable lightening of the heart and a spring in my step, set out myself for West Cheap.
The sky was leaden grey, there was a sprinkling of snow on the ground and the wind was bitter, but nothing could diminish my spirits at the sheer pleasure of being on my own again, of being my own master, of being able to order my own actions exactly as I chose. The world about me was already humming with activity: church bells were tolling, street cleaners shovelled yesterday’s steaming refuse into their carts, traders took down shutters and opened up their shops, pedlars and piemen shouted their wares, lawyers, in their striped gowns, hurried past on their way to Saint Paul’s. As I was caught up and borne along on this tide of humanity, I was prodded into the realisation of just how good it was to be alive, and I thought with sudden poignancy of those prisoners, like the Duke of Clarence, languishing in prison, many under sentence of death. But it also reminded me of how wrong it is to rob another human being of the life that God has given to him or her; the life that is our pathway to heaven.
I experienced a stab of guilt. Since my brief conversation on Saturday with Christopher Babcary about the murdered man, and now after talking to Master Ford, I had begun to feel a certain antipathy towards Gideon Bonifant, resulting almost in indifference as to the identity of his murderer. But even supposing those feelings concerning him were justified, murder was never warranted, however unpleasant the victim might have been. And all I could reasonably say of Gideon just at present was that he seemed to me an ungrateful, rough-tongued man, with an eye to his own advancement by any means at his disposal. But of how many hundreds of others could that also be said? It did not mean that any one of them could be killed with impunity and nobody care.
The furnace had already been lit in Master Babcary’s workshop by the time that I arrived, and young Tobias Maybury was assiduously working the bellows, forcing the flames to leap higher and higher up the chimney. Christopher Babcary was seated at the bench in the middle of the room, burnishing a golden belt buckle with his rabbit’s foot, and brushing the tiny particles of loosened metal into his leather apron. Master Babcary himself was standing at the long bench, which also served as a counter on which to display the finished goods, thoughtfully rubbing his chin as he alternately scrutinised Saturday’s batch of golden medallions and a lump of amber that either he or one of the other two had begun to chisel.