‘And how did she react to this burst of temper?’
‘Very much as you might expect. There were floods of tears and instant denials. But then, that’s Meg’s way of dealing with every unpleasant situation in which she finds herself. Nothing is ever her fault, but always that of some other unidentifiable person.’
‘Did she accept Master Bonifant’s apologies?’
Isolda smiled sadly. ‘Of course not! He had always made his disapproval of her plain, although in his customary austere fashion, and, as a consequence, she had never liked him. She was, I think, even a little afraid of him. But,’ my companion added hastily, seeing the trap into which she was falling, ‘her dislike was not enough to make her poison him, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
I said nothing in response to that. A simple soul like Meg Spendlove was just the sort to harbour a grievance and brood upon injustice. For most of her short life she had been the butt of other people’s unkindness, and it would not be surprising if, one day, a particular act of hostility had proved too much for her. Had she, after weeks of turning the incident over in her mind, found herself, on the occasion of Mistress Perle’s birthday, with the opportunity to get rid of her tormentor once and for all, and taken it? But that posed another problem. Where had she obtained the poison?
That question, however, would have to wait. ‘What were your feelings,’ I asked Isolda Bonifant, ‘about your husband’s uncharacteristic outburst?’
She answered, this time without any hesitation whatsoever. ‘I thought it all part of a general deterioration in Gideon’s health that had been worrying me over the preceding two or three months.’
‘He was ill?’ Master Babcary had mentioned nothing of this. ‘What was the matter with Master Bonifant? Had anyone else noticed that he was ailing?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Isolda answered my last query first. ‘It wouldn’t have been so obvious to other people. But Gideon hadn’t been eating as well as usual. He had always been a hearty trencherman, even though he put on no flesh to show for it, yet for many weeks before his death, he had started to leave food on his plate at every meal. It’s true that Kit remarked on the fact to me one day, asking what was wrong with Gideon’s appetite, but I don’t think he assumed it to be a sign of poor health, only that my husband was preoccupied about something or other.’
‘You thought differently, however?’
‘I might not have done so had it not also been for his broken nights. Gideon had always been a sound sleeper, but quite suddenly, about the same time that he started losing interest in his food, he began to be very restless. I would wake in the small hours to find him gone from my side, and when I went to look for him, he was prowling about the house, unable, he said, to sleep.’ She had a drawn, unhappy look that I had noticed once or twice before during the course of this conversation. ‘But when, on the first occasion that this happened, I begged him to come back to bed and to tell me if there was anything troubling his mind, he answered with such savagery, at the same time raising his hand as though ready to strike me, that I never interfered again. When I woke and he wasn’t there, I just waited until he returned. And I learned to pretend to be asleep when he did so.’
‘Did these nightly wanderings occur very often?’
‘With increasing regularity. To begin with, I suppose I would find him gone perhaps once in a couple of weeks. But later, it was almost every night.’
‘And he never hinted at what was worrying him?’
Isolda shook her head, avoiding my eyes.
‘But I know now, don’t I? Father has told you what Gideon was saying about me.’
‘About you and your cousin Christopher, yes!’ There was another long pause, this time while I plucked up courage to ask the necessary question. ‘Mistress Bonifant,’ I said at last, ‘was there any truth in your husband’s accusation?’
‘Of course not!’ Her tone almost scorched me with its furious denial. She went on, more calmly, ‘Oh, Kit likes women, but not my sort of woman. I agree that he prefers them to be older than himself but, apart from the fact that he has always looked upon me as another sister, he is only attracted by worldly and sophisticated women. They flatter him and persuade him that he, too, is worldly and sophisticated — but I suspect that they make use of him. And behind his back, they’re probably laughing at him.’
I thought she could well be correct. But there was another question, more difficult than the first, that I must now put to her.
‘Were — were there any grounds for your husband’s suspicion that. . that he was being betrayed?’
Isolda turned once more to look at me, and her eyes widened, but whether in anger or astonishment I was unsure.
‘By me? With another man, you mean?’ And when I nodded, she burst into mocking laughter. ‘Master Chapman, are you blind? I’m a plain, some would say an ugly, woman, who had enough difficulty in finding one man who wanted to bed me. Where would I have found another?’
Such candour was endearing — if it were genuine.
‘You do yourself a great injustice,’ I said, repairing my earlier omission, ‘and I will repay your frankness with some of my own. You are not beautiful, not even pretty, but there are many men who would find you easy to love. So I ask you again, did Master Bonifant have any reason for his suspicions?’
Isolda drew a deep breath. Then, ‘No,’ she answered a trifle unsteadily, ‘he did not. I swear to you that whatever grounds he thought he had for suspecting me of infidelity, they were entirely false. Where they could have come from, I have not the least idea — unless some secret enemy of mine, or of his, put them into his head for his or her own wicked purpose.’
Twelve
‘Do you know of such an enemy?’ I asked after a few moments, when Isolda’s last words had had time to sink in.
She shook her head. ‘No, although it’s not for want of thinking about it. But no particular person springs to mind. Of course, it would be foolish to presume that Gideon and I were loved, or even liked, by all our acquaintances, or even by all those who professed themselves to be our friends. Yet I’m unable to think of a single soul who would wish either of us so ill that he or she would be prepared to tell a lie that could result in so much distress and misery.’
‘Nevertheless, somebody did just that.’
She sat forward in her chair, stretching her back as though it were aching. ‘I know,’ she answered quietly. ‘That’s what I find so frightening.’
‘And your husband never mentioned this accusation to you? Did you indeed know nothing of it until after Master Bonifant’s death?’
‘Gideon never said a word to me. Had he done so, I should have been able to refute the accusation. And I hope that I should have been able to set his mind at rest.’ She shivered and held out her hands to the blaze. ‘That’s what disturbs me most, Master Chapman, that he seems to have had such belief in this tale, accepted it so readily, that he never even asked me to prove my innocence.’
I nodded sympathetically. If she were telling the truth, this omission of Gideon’s did appear odd, to say the least of it. But was she telling the truth? I had only her word for what had passed between herself and her husband. I should never now hear his side of the story.
‘What did you do that evening,’ I asked, ‘when you had changed your gown?’
‘I came downstairs, naturally, to this room, to join in the celebration.’
‘And who was here when you entered?’
‘Everyone — except Meg, of course. She was still down in the kitchen.’ Isolda ticked off the assembled company on her fingers, screwing up her eyes a little as she once more conjured up the scene in her mind. ‘My father, Mistress Perle, Gregory and Ginèvre Napier, both my cousins and, of course, Gideon. Oh yes, and our apprentice, Tobias Maybury,’ she added on a faint note of surprise. ‘I recall wondering at the time why he was present.’