‘That’s right.’ The man nodded. ‘I believe there were another lad later on, but we never saw him. Both of us had a feeling there was something not quite right about Anne’s marriage to Ralph. Something being hidden, if you know what I mean. Ralph and his parents didn’t seem to treat the boy like one of their own. Me and Avice, we wondered …’
‘Aye, we did wonder.’ His wife looked at me, suddenly expectant.
‘You were quite right to wonder,’ I affirmed, and proceeded to recount the whole story, leaving as little out as possible.
When I had finished, there was a long silence while the couple digested what I had told them. Finally, Goody Acton heaved a great sigh and Edgar nodded his head.
‘That makes sense,’ Avice said at last.
Her husband added, ‘It do that. Don’t get the pig by the tail, mind! Anne weren’t a flighty piece. Reckon she must’ve been uncommon fond o’ your father to let herself bear his child.’
‘I think my father was probably very fond of her,’ I answered in a low voice. ‘Looking back, I can see now that it caused my mother a lot of grief. He never knew about the child, of course. I think he must have been killed before your niece could tell him.’
Edgar nodded. ‘And now you say John’s in gaol, accused o’ murder?’
‘Wrongly, I feel certain.’ And I went again over the circumstances that had landed John Wedmore in the Bristol bridewell. ‘He insists that he was in Ireland six years ago, living with his family. His mother and younger brother and stepfather.’
‘Do you believe him?’ Goody Acton asked, her shrewd old eyes regarding me thoughtfully.
‘I have no reason not to. Moreover, he’d be foolish to return to this country, to this part of the world in particular, if he was wanted for murder.’
‘Bristol ain’t ’xactly this part o’ the world,’ Edgar objected. ‘’Tis miles away, over other side o’ Mendip. Up country.’
‘No great distance to Dame Audrea,’ I pointed out, ‘with her carriage and her horses. And it was the time of Saint James’s fair. If John had ever been in her employ, he’d have remembered that she always visited the city for that, and to see her kinsman in Small Street. He’d surely have calculated there was a chance of meeting her. He’d have waited.’
‘Not if he were worried about his brother,’ Avice argued. ‘All the same, I think you’m most likely right. This Dame Audrea’s mistaken him for somebody else. They’m not a violent lot, the Actons.’
‘No, we’m allus been reasonable folk,’ her husband agreed. ‘But the Wedmores! They’re a different bucket o’ shit.’
‘But if the pedlar’s telling us the truth,’ his wife demurred, ‘Anne’s eldest ain’t a Wedmore. He’s a bastard of this young fellow’s father.’ She turned to me. ‘Any history o’ violence on your side the family?’ I shook my head. ‘There you are then. There’s been a mistake made, no doubt about it.’
‘Maybe! Maybe!’ Edgar pursed his lips and sucked at his few remaining teeth. ‘But what we can do about it, I dunno. Don’ like t’ think of Anne’s boy wrongfully accused, but like I say, there ain’t nothing we can do.’
‘You couldn’t swear to the fact that six years ago John was in Ireland?’ I asked, but without much hope of a positive answer.
They both sighed regretfully.
‘We told you,’ Avice Acton said, ‘we never had much to do with Anne and her family, not when the boys were young. And we got out o’ the habit of asking after them when strangers stopped by. We did hear Ralph had died, but not for a year nor more afterwards, by which time Anne had got herself married again to some Irishman or other and gone to live across the water. ’Spect we heard both things together, though after all this while I can’t be sure.’
‘Do either of you remember anything about the murder at Croxcombe Manor, six years ago?’ I enquired desperately. (I had guessed this was a wasted journey before I started out.) ‘Did you ever set eyes on the page, John Jericho, during the time he was in Dame Audrea’s employ? When you went to Wells, perhaps?’
‘Lord love you, I ain’t been to Wells since I can’t tell when,’ Edgar chuckled. ‘What do we want to go jauntering around the countryside for? We got everything we need right here. If they want to see us, people come to us.’
‘Six years is a great time to remember anything,’ his wife said. ‘Although, now I come to think of it, something do stir in my mind. Someone — can’t rightly recollect who — did tell us there’d been some trouble over to Mendip way. Robbery or some such thing. But whether that were six year or six month ago, I couldn’t swear to. One day’s pretty much like another, and time don’t mean much here, like it does to city folks. We just follow the seasons round.’
I could well believe that. The peace of the place was profound. There was a kind of enchantment in its silence and isolation. Cares and worries were slipping from me; Adela, the children, the need to earn a living suddenly seemed nothing more than a distant dream. I could stay here for the rest of my life, just myself and Hercules, and no one would ever know what had become of me …
I pulled myself together. It was time I was going before the witches and hobgoblins and woodland sprites that inhabit the wilder corners of this land had me in their thrall. I got to my feet and held out my hand to the dog. ‘Come along, lad!’
‘You’re not going!’ Avice Acton exclaimed, sounding disappointed. ‘We see so few strangers and it’s always a pleasure to hear about the outside world.’
‘Aye, it is that,’ Edgar agreed. ‘And once, it seems someone come asking after us in Wedmore. Or, at least, so we were told, though he never turned up here. Lost his way, I s’pose, or was given the wrong directions.’
‘Some o’ them over t’ Wedmore’s got turnips for heads!’ Avice was scathing of her nearest neighbours. ‘We were that gutted when we heard. Nice young lad, too, by all accounts. Asked in the alehouse, and some fool told him we’d moved away. Danged idiot! Others said no and told him how to find us, but like Edgar says, he never came.’
‘How long ago was this?’ I asked, but neither had the slightest idea, Edgar Acton hazarding anything from one year to ten, his wife offering six weeks, eight months, four years.
Time past; time present; time future; it was all one to the Actons who, within a very short time, would confuse this visit of mine with somebody else’s. I thanked them profusely for their hospitality, remounted the donkey, whistled up Hercules and rode back by twisting paths and barely visible, dried-up tracks to the main highway leading from Wells to Wedmore. I was about to turn eastwards to return to Croxcombe, when, on a sudden whim, I decided to continue in a westward direction, looking out, as I did so, for any alehouse that stood near the road.
This wasn’t hard to find, and beside Wedmore’s market cross I noticed a promising small tavern that looked a likely place for anyone needing directions from the local population. But I was unlucky. In a crowded taproom, no one recalled a stranger enquiring after Edgar and Avice Acton for the past ten years or more. Yes, of course they would remember! Well, someone would, I could be sure of that. In Wedmore the old people prided themselves on their memories. Why, they could recall when …
The landlord touched me on the arm. ‘Try the alehouse a mile or so back, on the Cheddar road,’ he advised. ‘Little, out o’ the way place. No one much goes there, but you never know. If you stay here, you’ll end up buying ’em all free ale while you listen to their life histories.’
I thanked him, paid twice the price for the stoup of ale I’d had, and departed while the storm of reminiscence that my question had provoked was at its height.
The afternoon was by now some way advanced, and the distant hills were slabbed with purple and gold as the sun continued its slow descent towards the horizon. It took me a while to locate this second alehouse, so distant did it seem from any haunt of man. And when at last I found it, it was nothing more than a single-storey daub-and-wattle building devoid of human life except for the surly landlord, standing outside his door surveying the glimmering landscape, and a potboy asleep in the sunshine on a rough-hewn bench. I nearly didn’t bother to dismount. There was certainly nothing to be learned here.