‘Well, we know that, of course,’ Margaret agreed hastily. ‘I’m only trying to warn you what others might hint at, that’s all. I don’t believe it, of course.’
‘What don’t you believe, Margaret?’ I asked bluntly. ‘That Cicely Ford and I were lovers?’ Adela tried to hush me, glancing across at the children, but they were absorbed in their game. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that anyone could really think such a preposterous thing?’
‘They might. That’s all I’m saying. Be warned.’
I realized with a sinking heart that she could be right. Envy makes people unreasonable. I was beginning to wish that Cicely had willed the Small Street house elsewhere. So, obviously, was Adela.
‘Perhaps the Church court won’t grant probate,’ she said, almost hopefully. ‘There may be some kinsman of Mistress Ford or the Herepaths that we know nothing about, who might successfully contest the will.’
Margaret snorted angrily. ‘You mean you’d rather be a laughing stock than lose a few friends who aren’t worth keeping anyway? Incidentally, what’s happening to all the money Edward Herepath left her? It was a tidy fortune, by all accounts.’
‘I haven’t asked, nor do I intend to,’ I answered shortly. ‘I expect Mistress Ford has left most, if not all, of it to the Magdalen nuns. Master Hulin did not see fit to confide in me, nor did I expect him to. But if we ever do move into the Small Street house, at least we have money enough to furnish it. I have the two gold pieces the Duke of Gloucester sent me for the service I rendered him in London last winter.’
Margaret had barely time to frame an indignant protest that this was the first she had been told about any such money, before she was interrupted by the appearance, one on either side of my stool, of Nicholas and Elizabeth. They had obviously been paying more attention to our conversation than I had thought. Their faces were creased into worried frowns, and a small pair of hands pressed urgently into each of my thighs.
‘Won’t we have a new house?’ Elizabeth demanded. Although still something over three months short of her fourth birthday, she was showing every sign of being as sharp as her mother had been, and as her grandmother still was. Little escaped Nicholas, either: in intelligence, he was Adela’s son. He fixed me now with his brilliant, dark eyes.
I put an arm around each child.
‘We hope so. But we might not,’ I answered gently. ‘It will rest with the decision of the Church court in the end.’
‘Why? Does it matter?’ Adela asked them.
Neither replied immediately, but I saw two pairs of eyes flicker towards the sleeping Adam. Elizabeth, who was closer, surreptitiously kicked his little cart.
‘In the new house, we wouldn’t have to sleep in the same room as him, would we?’ she enquired.
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Probably not.’
‘What’s wrong with sleeping in the same room as your baby brother?’ Margaret Walker wanted to know. ‘People like us, my girl, should be thankful to have a roof over our heads, let alone separate rooms. I’ve never heard such nonsense.’
‘He screams,’ Elizabeth muttered rebelliously, and aimed another half-hearted kick in Adam’s direction, while her stepbrother nodded vigorously in agreement.
‘We could put him out with the rubbish,’ Nicholas suggested, earning himself a stinging slap from his mother and the promise of a whipping if she ever heard him express such sentiments again.
Later, as we walked home together through the jostling crowds of late afternoon, pulling Adam and a reluctant Hercules behind us, my wife remarked sombrely, ‘You were right, after all, sweetheart. Bess and Nicholas do dislike Adam. What can we do about it?’ She was plainly upset.
‘Just give them both time to get used to him,’ I answered. ‘We have to be honest and admit that he does scream a very great deal. I must say that, on occasions, I find the noise he makes more than I can bear myself. Have patience. There’s nothing else to be done that I can see.’
Adela sighed and took my arm with her free hand. ‘I suppose we can also pray that we get the house; that probate will be granted.’ She gave my arm a squeeze. ‘Would it be wrong of us to walk down Small Street, instead of Broad Street, and take a look?’
‘At the house, you mean?’ She nodded. ‘Why not? We’re as free to look at it as anyone else, provided we don’t try to go inside. And as we haven’t a key, we’re unable to do so, anyway. There are tenants living there at present.’
It was strange, standing on the opposite side of the street, and looking again at Edward Herepath’s old home, where so much grief and pain had ruined so many lives during that first winter I had spent in Bristol. It was four and a half years ago now, and the story had begun long before my arrival. .
Robert and Edward Herepath, Lillis, all dead who were living then. And now Cicely. .
Grief is a strange emotion. You can keep it at bay, forget it almost, for hours at a time, only for it to strike when you least expect it. Cicely was dead! It was as though I was hearing the words for the very first time. They echoed round and round in my head and I could feel myself beginning to shake, racked by the effort of trying to control a desire to burst out crying. I was also filled with self-disgust. That sweet, gentle creature had been wantonly murdered and all I could think about was whether or not I might profit by her death, whether or not a Church court would eventually grant me the right to inherit her house, when what I ought to be doing was trying to find her murderer.
‘Come home,’ whispered Adela, pressing my arm again, conscious of my distress.
I nodded, unable to speak. She was right. It was time to go home; time to apply my mind seriously to the whole sorry sequence of events that had culminated in Cicely’s death.
Eighteen
That night, Adela and I comforted one another. I was grateful for her generosity, because I knew in my heart of hearts that she had not fully recovered from Adam’s birth. But when I would have said something, she hushed me, kissing me into silence and holding me so tightly that I guessed she was still shaken by the events of the morning and the realization that I could, even as we made love, have been in prison, facing a charge of murder. A charge, moreover, that, but for Philip Lamprey, might have been difficult to disprove.
For once, Adam slept the night through, a circumstance so unusual that both Adela and I became restless. I woke at least four times, twice to use the chamber pot, and on each occasion was conscious that Adela was either awake or tossing from side to side in her sleep. Towards morning, I found myself fully conscious, sitting up in bed and muttering, ‘Fougères is in Brittany.’
‘What? What’s that, sweetheart?’ Adela asked sleepily. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing.’ I snuggled down beside her again. ‘Nothing of consequence.’
Faintly, in the distance, I could hear a cock crowing and, not long after, the rumble of the day’s first load — of meat? vegetables? ironmongery? — being driven towards the Frome Gate. The fifth day of Saint James’s Fair was also getting under way. From the open ground around the priory came echoes of shouts mingled with laughter and the inevitable arguments that punctuated most such gatherings. Soon it would be time to get up — there were slight stirrings and rustlings from Adam’s cradle — but I might be able to snatch a few extra moments of slumber.
They refused to come, however, as my tired brain puzzled over the odd thought that had roused me. Why was I so sure that Fougères was in Brittany? Because Philip Lamprey had told me so, of course, and although there were many subjects on which I would never trust his judgement, his knowledge of the hows and particularly the wheres of the late wars was greater than most men’s. But why had it come as a revelation to me that Fougères was in Brittany? Again the answer came pat. Because I had previously believed it to be in Normandy.