I smiled and, suddenly moved by a kind of tenderness lot her, kissed her careworn cheek. 'Nor I to sound churlish. But I meant what I said. A little honest toil will do me good.'
She sighed. 'You'll need a permit, lad, to trade within city limits, or you'll have members of the City Commune on your tail. Bristol money stays in Bristol pockets, that's something you'll have to learn. And I doubt if they'd grant permission to a stranger. Now, if you were going to make your home here, or were married to a Bristol girl…' Her voice trailed away into silence, but it was a silence that shouted aloud an unspoken question. She regarded me, her head on one side.
I slipped the pack from my shoulders without giving her an answer. 'That's that, then,' I said dejectedly. 'But I must walk to clear my head. I shall be back before it's dark.' And I went out, leaving her standing in the middle of the room, a defeated look in her eyes.
I walked quickly, swinging my cudgel, trying, with my purposeful strides, to shake off a sense of frustration; a feeling that events were closing in on me; of being caught in a snare. It was not that I did not wish to get married one day, to have children and a home. The words of the Carmelite friar in the barn near Salisbury came back to me. 'The best thing you can do, my son, is marry. Find a good woman who will make a home for you to go back to every winter, and who will maintain it while you are away each summer.' Sensible advice if I could find the right woman, but that woman was not Lillis. There was something wild and fey about her which frightened me.
And, as so often lately, my thoughts turned to Cicely Ford.
But I had no illusions. She was too far above me even if she had loved me, which she did not. How could she? We had only met once; yet it was not that. No man now would ever obtain the heart of Cicely Ford. Her hand, maybe, but her heart was in the grave with Robert Herpath, and her life, however long or short it was, would be an atonement to his memory for doubting him.
I had been so engrossed in my thoughts that I had not noticed where I was going. I was half conscious of the people around me, of blindly bumping into someone every now and then, of being cursed and told to watch my step. But I had walked down Broad Street and was half-way across the Frome Bridge before a gentle voice, calling my name, made me aware of my surroundings.
'Master Chapman.' A hand was laid on my arm as a slight figure barred my path. 'Where are you off to in such a hurry?'
l blinked, like a man in a dream, for there before me was Mistress Ford herself, wrapped in a blue woollen cloak, the silk-lined hood framing her charming face, into which a delicate colour had been whipped by the wind.
Behind her, a disapproving frown marring her pleasant features, stood her companion, Dame Freda.
'I… I don't know,' I answered stupidly. 'I… I was just walking.' I felt myself blushing. She must think me the biggest fool in Christendom.
But she gave no sign of being aware of my discomfiture. She simply smiled her sweet, grave smile and said, In that case, would you be kind enough to turn back and give me your support as far as Small Street? I'm rather tired, and Dame Freda, as you see, is weighed down with the basket.'
I barely registered her companion's outraged expression or her breathed remonstrance of 'Cicely!' My heart was beating too fast to have thought to spare for anything but my own turbulent emotions. Would I be kind enough? Kind enough! Did she not realize that I would go with her to the world's end?
'O-Of course,' I stuttered, and she laid one hand on my proffered arm.
'Dame Freda and I have been visiting the House of the Magdalen Nuns,' she confided as I retraced my steps back across the bridge to St John's Gate. She indicated the full basket carried by the older woman. 'As you see, they always load us with gifts. Today it's wine and winter vegetables from their garden.' A faint sigh reached my ears.
'They have been so good to me, particularly Mother Superior, since… since…' Her voice broke and she was unable to finish. After a moment, she continued more cheerfully: 'The hours I spend there are such happy ones. It is a house of retreat, you know, for women, and also a seminary for young ladies who can afford it. The young girls are so gay and carefree.' She spoke as though she were fifty at least, instead of the seventeen or eighteen summers I took her to be. She added, almost to herself, 'There must be great satisfaction in the religious life.'
Dame Freda, however, had caught her meaning if not her words. 'As great a piece of nonsense as ever I heard!' she exclaimed angrily. 'You were made for marriage and children. Sorrows fade, believe me. You'll fall in love again sooner or later. There are plenty of good fish in the sea.'
I thought Cicely Ford might take umbrage at being addressed in such round terms, but she merely turned her head to smile at her companion. Her tone, when she answered, was even amused. 'And Master Avenel, I suppose, is leader of the shoal! Dear Dame Freda, I appreciate your concern for me, but I shall never love Robin Avenel.'
She said no more on the subject; but, as an outsider able to see the truth more clearly than those closer at hand, I realized at once that Cicely Ford had already made up her mind. She may not have known it herself just then, but her future lay in the cloistered calm of a nunnery and a life devoted to helping others. She would become a Bride of Christ, but of no earthly man. I think my wild and ridiculous passion for her started to fade from that instant. In my eyes, she began to assume an aura of sanctity which ordinary love could only despoil.
We had passed beneath the arch of St John's Gate and turned right, along Bell Lane.
'We will use the back entrance,' Cicely decided. 'We'll take the basket directly to the kitchen, and Mistress Hardacre can then dispose of our plunder as she sees fit.' A dimple peeped as she glanced up at me, smiling. 'Master Chapman, I have imposed on you shamefully. There is no need for you to come any further. Leave us here and go your way.'
I shook my head. 'I shall accompany you to your gate,' I insisted. 'The back lane is stony, and in your present state of fatigue, you might well stumble and hurt yourself.'
She accepted my offer with gratitude, and we directed our feet along the narrow alleyway behind the Small Street gardens. We were a few paces from the third gate in the wall, when it opened and a figure emerged; a man's figure, shrouded in a heavy brown frieze cloak, tom and muddy about the hem, the hood pulled well forward across the face. I must have exclaimed, for his head turned briefly in our direction before he walked swiftly away from us towards the other end of the alley, which opened into Corn Street.
'Who was that?' Dame Freda demanded indignantly.
Cicely Ford was untroubled by the stranger. 'It will be one of Edward's supplicants. No one who comes to him is ever denied help. The net of his charity is cast wide. Master Chapman.' She took her hand from my arm.
'Thank you for your assistance. I shall remember you in my prayers. Come, Dame Freda, we must go in. Edward will be wondering what has happened to us. I stayed longer with the nuns than I meant to.'
With another grateful smile, she and her companion passed through the gate which I was holding open, and vanished inside. I closed the weighty, iron-studded, wooden leaf behind them and leaned against the wall, my heart thumping excitedly. The hooded man had at last provided me with another link, besides the obvious one of master and man, between Edward Herepath and William Woodward.
Chapter Fifteen
So rapt was I by this discovery, that it was several moments before I realized that I was allowing my quarry to escape. I set off immediately along the alleyway as fast as my legs would trot, in the direction of Corn Street.
Emerging into this busy thoroughfare, I stopped and looked about me.