Margaret laughed and shook her head. 'He'll do you no good. He could have had nothing to do with Father's disappearance. Oh, yes, he hated him all fight, and possibly with good reason, but Miles Huckbody is too frail now to do more than eke out his days huddled over the fire in winter, or seated beneath the trees of Gaunts' orchard ha summer.'
'Nevertheless, I shall visit him this afternoon,' I insisted.
Mistress Walker shrugged. 'You must do as you please, but I warn you, you're wasting your time.' Lillis laid down her spoon, put her elbows on the table and propped her chin between her hands. 'And did you meet Mistress Ford?' she asked, with something so like a sneer in her voice that I felt my colour rising. 'Ah, yes! I can see you did, and have already fallen under her spell, like every other man. You are ready to spring to her defence if I so much as utter a word against her.'
'She is a lovely young woman,' I answered carefully, anxious to conceal my feelings for Cicely Ford from Lillis's mocking gaze. 'Lovely in every respect, for she obviously has a gentle and loving nature.'
Lillis's face grew ever more cat-like as she slanted another look at me beneath half-lowered eyelids, lips parted to reveal small, even front teeth. 'Not like me, then,' she spat. 'My nature's neither loving nor gentle, but I'd fight tooth and nail for anyone I thought I loved. They'd not hang any man of mine without me moving heaven and hell to prove him innocent. And if I couldn't do that, I'd still try to save him by planning his escape. But these pious, prissy misses cave in at the first sign of trouble.'
'You talk like a child!' I exclaimed hotly, and noted with satisfaction how the blood stung her normally pale cheeks.
'Be quiet, Lillis,' her mother ordered. 'Roger is right. Cicely Ford is a lovely girl. Everyone knows it except you.'
'Including Roger himself, it appears.' Lillis got up and flung away from the table, going to sulk in a comer. Her eyes glowed redly and her mouth was set in a jealous pout.
'Take no notice of her,' Margaret told me. 'She gets these ill-humours now and then, and has done since she was a baby. Finish your soup and then you can be off, if you've still a mind to. As for me, I must get on with my spinning.'
Chapter Ten
The Gaunts' Hospital stands outside Bristol city walls and on the opposite bank of the River Frome, close by St Augustine's Abbey. Behind it, the ground rises steeply in the first of that series of hills which leads, eventually, to the high plateau above the great gorge, whose bed is that of the River Avon. The hospital itself consists of the church of St Mark, surrounded by hall, buttery, kitchen, dormitories and outbuildings. Its famous orchard stretches eastward until it almost abuts the land of the Carmelite friars, whose huge cistern has helped supply Bristol with its water for several centuries, piped across the Frome Bridge to the conduit by St John on the Arch. In spring, the orchard is a mass of foaming blossom, and in autumn the apples glow like round, red lamps among the leafy green; but on that cold January afternoon, the branches were bare and black, the grass at their feet yellowing beneath drifts of last year's leaves.
The porter at the gate listened courteously to my request before handing me over to one of the brothers, who conducted me to the hall, where many of the inmates were to be found. A fire burned cheerfully on the big hearth, flames roaring up the chimney, and stone benches, built along the other three walls, together with stools and trestles, provided seating for the fragile and elderly. Fresh rushes, mingled with dried summer flowers, were scattered across the floor, and helped to counteract the more unpleasant smells associated with extreme old age.
The man I sought, Miles Huckbody, pointed out to me by my guide, was not so very old, although I could have been forgiven for thinking him so on first acquaintance.
His hair was almost white, the long, narrow face seamed and wrinkled. Before my arrival, he had been playing fivestones with one of his fellows, and I noticed how his hands shook as he rolled the pebbles. Having removed my cloak, I crouched down beside him and made myself and my business known. At the first mention of William Woodward's name, his features were contorted with hatred.
'That devil!' he exclaimed, and spat in the rushes. 'He had me and my family turned out because we'd fallen behind with the rent. He told me it was on Master Herepath's orders, but it weren't. Master Herepath knew nothing about it. William called in the bailiffs hisself.'
'You're sure of that?' I questioned, even though it tallied with Edward's own story. 'Without Master Herepath's authority, I doubt William could have done so much.'
'After I returned to Bristol, I saw Master Herepath in the street one day, and I caught at his bridle. I thought as you do, that William must've bin acting on his orders, but 'e denied it. Said 'e knew nothing about it 'til we were gone. Said William must've got him to sign the necessary paper by false preterites. Said as how William were over-zealous on his behalf.'
'And you believed him?'
'Why shouldn't I? He got me this place in the hospital because he's a friend of the Master Chaplain. Reckoned 'e owed me that much when 'e learned my woman and child'd died. I'd taken to begging in the streets and had this cough which 'as never left me.' He paused to give a demonstration, and indeed, the cough was bad, rattling in his chest and shaking his emaciated frame. "E'd not have done that if he'd had ill intentions to'ards me in the first place.'
'But you were behind with your rent. Few landlords will tolerate that for long.'
'I'd never done such a thing afore. Always paid regular, but that quarter I'd bin ill and not able to harvest the crops, and the pig'd died.' He shrugged. 'My woman did her best, but she'd bin ill, too, and the little 'un was crying for food. What there was, we ate, so there was nothing left to sell.'
'You blame your misfortunes on William Woodward then, and no one else?'
'At, I do. That bastard!'
'You wanted revenge?'
Miles Huckbody eyed me askance as he suddenly realized where my probing was leading. 'I was glad to know someone had given 'im a beating, and gladder still to hear that he were dead, but 'twere nothing to do with me. Oo are you, coming here, asking me questions? I didn't prop'ly hear yer name, when you said it.'
'Roger,' I answered. 'I'm a friend of Mistress Walker, William's daughter. She's anxious to find out what really happened to her father during the time everyone thought him murdered.'
'Well, 'twere nought to do with me, but he were up to no good, you may be sure o' that. An evil man, if ever there was one.'
I made allowances for his antipathy towards William.
It was natural that he should hate the man he regarded as responsible for the deaths of his wife and child; but I could not reconcile myself to the belief that William had had the Huckbodys evicted without orders from his master. And when, later, Edward Herepath had found himself confronted by the avenging figure of Miles, probably desperate enough by that time to commit violence, what more natural than that he should seek to lay all the blame on his rent collector? Conscience, too, sharpened no doubt by his growing love for Cicely Ford, may have spurred him on to make amends and obtain Miles a place at the Gaunts' Hospital. I sighed. Any faint hope I had nurtured that the man beside me had been in any way responsible for William Woodward's disappearance had been dispelled the moment I saw him. Margaret Walker had warned me that I was wasting my time, and she had been right.
I straightened myself and stretched my cramped legs with a regretful sigh. Miles Huckbody could not help me.
His companion, who had moved a little distance from us when we began speaking, now came closer again, still holding the five stones in his hand.