I made no comment, guessing that Anthony had failed to persuade Thomas Bignell to use his influence with his daughter. I reflected that, in spite of his winning ways, Anthony was an unprincipled rogue with fewer scruples than most men, which prompted me to ask Humphrey how his master had amassed his fortune.
Humphrey shrugged. ‘As far as I know, there is no fortune. He lives by his wits mainly. Games of chance and hazard. Sometimes we’re in pocket, sometimes not. I’ve only been with him three years, but I assume he’s always lived the same way. Which is why he needed to come back and claim his inheritance as soon as he learned about it.’ He jerked his head. ‘I must go or I shall be bawled out for dawdling. Are you coming?’
‘In a moment. I’m not at Master Bellknapp’s beck and call. I’m away home tomorrow morning, early.’
The servant grimaced. ‘You’ve not stopped long, then. Not three days. Your ankle’s mended now, has it?’
‘My ankle? Oh … Yes.’ I had forgotten my injury. ‘It was only a twist. Nothing serious. By the way, do you happen to know if your master got up early this morning and went to Croxcombe woods?’
Humphrey gave me an odd look. ‘He got up early, but it’s not my business to ask him what he does or where he’s been. Ask him yourself if you want to know.’ With which sound advice, he took himself off in the direction of our bedchamber.
I hung around in the kitchen for a few more minutes as a matter of principle and to prove my independence, exchanging goodnights with the cook and the maids. I listened to the former’s pithy description of Anthony’s character, and how she didn’t expect to remain at Croxcombe for very much longer, before taking myself off to bed.
My host was already under the coverlets, but sitting up and drinking some of the wine from the ‘all-night’ and chewing on a crust of bread. Humphrey, who had stripped and was seated on the edge of his truckle-bed, was also munching. Anthony waved a hand at the tray, which had been placed on a chest beneath the window. ‘Help yourself,’ he invited, as he had done the previous two nights, but without the same joviality.
Humphrey was right: his mood was surly and he seemed anxious to be left in peace to think his own thoughts. Something had upset him, so I undressed in silence, poured myself wine from what remained in the jug, swallowed it quickly and tumbled into my half of the bed. Just as I was dozing off, however, Anthony asked abruptly, ‘You’ve found out no more, then?’
I forced myself awake. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled stupidly. ‘Found out about what?’
‘About this page, John Jericho, of course. You boasted to me what a wonderful solver of mysteries you are, but you don’t appear to have got very far with this. And tomorrow you go home … Well? Have you discovered anything?’
‘No,’ I admitted, wishing to high heaven that I’d kept my mouth shut concerning my past successes. No good has ever come to me by blowing my own trumpet: it invariably leads to dire humiliation and makes me regret that I didn’t hold my tongue. Some people can do it; some people can glorify themselves with impunity, but not me. I’ve always suspected that God gets annoyed when I take all the credit, most of which should rightly be His. So I just grunted and turned on my side, presenting my back view for Anthony’s consideration and almost immediately drifting off to sleep. I thought I heard him laugh in that particularly mocking way of his which reduced poor Sir Henry to a stuttering, quivering jelly, but I couldn’t be sure. I was already on the borderline of sleep.
When I opened my eyes again, it was already growing light. The bedchamber shutters were still closed, but haloed with brilliant sunshine. Somewhere a cock was crowing, king of all he surveyed and eager to make the world aware of the fact. I was lying on my back and continued to do so for several minutes, conscious of a dull ache behind my eyes and a throbbing head. If I had experienced these symptoms at home, I would have said — or, most likely, Adela would have said — that I had drunk too much the night before, but although I searched my memory, I could not recall having consumed much wine either at supper or afterwards. Indeed, for the whole of the previous day, I had been unusually abstemious. Perhaps, I thought, cautiously lifting my lids, I was sickening for something. Perhaps God was going to keep me at Croxcombe after all.
I sat up carefully and felt a little better, glancing across at Humphrey, huddled beneath his blanket and snoring with his customary vigour, then sideways at my sleeping companion. But to my surprise, Anthony’s half of the bed was empty. For some reason, he had risen betimes. He might, of course, simply have gone to relieve himself in the garderobe, but we had a piss-pot in the bedchamber so it seemed unlikely. (On Friday, the first night of my three-night stay, we had actually had a contest to see who could pee the farthest distance without missing the pot. I had felt certain I would be the winner, but it was Humphrey who had won.) Oh well, I thought, easing my legs out of bed, I was not his keeper. It was his own house and he could do as he liked.
By the time I had dressed and checked my pack, to be sure that no one had pilfered its contents, I felt less unsteady on my legs, but had a raging thirst. I made my way to the kitchen and drank deeply from the water-barrel, then went outside to wash under the pump. By the time I returned to the kitchen, the cook had appeared and was boiling water for me to shave with.
‘Eggs?’ she asked, preparing to crack a couple into a pan of spitting fat.
But my stomach rebelled and, as much to my own surprise as hers, I shook my head.
‘Bread and cheese will do,’ I said, and drank more water. ‘Master Bellknapp’s up early,’ I added.
The woman shrugged indifferently. ‘Is he? I haven’t seen him.’
Hercules had come sniffing round me in the hope of scraps, so I offered him cheese which he contemptuously declined. The cook took pity on him and fed him some of yesterday’s meat. I watched him wolf it down with a queasy feeling in my insides.
The maids arrived from whatever corner of the house they slept in, rubbing their eyes and yawning, but rousing themselves sufficiently to insist on kissing me goodbye. The cook enquired if they had seen the master anywhere about as he apparently wasn’t in his bed, but no one had. One of the girls noticed that I wasn’t eating my usual hearty breakfast and asked the reason. When I explained, she volunteered the information that she had been awakened twice in the night by the sound of people moving about, and wondered if there had been anything amiss with the food at supper. The cook was so outraged by this suggestion, however, that the girl hurriedly denied any such possibility and said that she had probably been dreaming.
I was beginning to feel better, so I once more took my leave of the women, generously allowing Hercules to accept all the hugs and kisses and honeyed phrases that I flattered myself were really meant for me. Then, picking up my pack and cudgel, I went out of the back door, past the stables and animal pens, admired, as always, Dame Audrea’s formal flower garden and headed for the bridge across the moat, where the keeper was busy unlocking the gate. Suddenly I remembered the Bignells and wondered if they were all three all right. I presumed they were. No commotion had announced any great catastrophe, and I was more than ever convinced that Edward Micheldever was probably correct when he accused Anthony of being the author of the plot; of wanting extra time to persuade the butcher to use his influence with his daughter. Thomas was to see the advantages of Rose becoming the mistress of a wealthy man …
I paused in my tracks, glancing back at the manor. There was something not right about any of this. There was something I was missing. No man, not even one as set up in his own conceit as Anthony Bellknapp, would conceive of such a plan. Surely not! And yet, there was a kind of audacity about him, something amoral as though he had long ago ceased to live by anyone’s rules except his own, that made me revise this opinion almost as soon as it was formed. I had sensed from our first moment of meeting that he had the sort of egotism that borders on hubris; and if the late Cornelius Bellknapp had been as stiff-necked and proud as his wife, it explained why they and their elder son had never got on.