‘And you say that he’s a kinsman of Mistress Bracegirdle?’
‘I think that’s what he said. I can’t really remember now, the whole conversation was over so quickly, but I’m almost sure he claimed to be a cousin of her mother’s. Oh, and he was holding a bundle of something under one arm, wrapped in sacking.’
Now that she mentioned it, I, too, recalled noticing the bundle, although the fact had made little impression on me at the time. I wondered where the stranger had gone and if I could search him out. But the effort of enquiring all over the town and its suburbs for a man whose name I did not even know suddenly proved too much for me, as the lethargy that had held me prisoner for the past ten days renewed its grip.
‘Are you feeling well?’ Adela was regarding me with concern. ‘You seem out of spirits.’
I denied the imputation vigorously, but then, somehow or other — and I still, to this day, have no idea how it came about — I was pouring out the whole sorry story of Rowena Honeyman; my part in her father’s death; how, before he had died, he had charged me with taking her to her aunt’s house at Keyford; my passion for her, which I had nursed all winter; my arrogance in assuming that she could ever return my affection; her patent dislike of me and her betrothal to Ralph Hollyns. Adela let me talk, hearing me out in silence, but when I had finished, she came to kneel beside my stool, putting a friendly arm around my shoulders.
‘You’ll recover,’ she said gently. ‘Believe me, people often do, however heartbroken they may feel at the time. I know that my words sound callous, but unrequited love is very difficult to keep alive.’
I smiled thinly. ‘Do you speak from experience?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ She rose from her knees and fetched me another cup of ale, then drew up a second stool and sat down alongside me. I had never noticed before how graceful all her movements were. ‘I was very much in love with my husband when I married him. My friends and family advised me against going away to live in Hereford with a man I hardly knew, but nothing any of them said could have stopped me. I would have gone barefoot with Owen Juett to the world’s end. He was a kind, gentle soul, the sort of man I’d always dreamed of, and I was certain that he loved me as much as I loved him. Oh, he liked me well enough, I’m sure of that, and he’d never been the object of so much adoration in his life before. Who can blame him if he was flattered? But at heart he was a cold man, a little afraid of all women — as he was of his old harridan of a mother, who was slowly dying of some wasting disease or other. What he really wanted was a housekeeper and a nurse for her, to make her last days comfortable. And when she died within three months of our marriage, his greatest need of me was gone. I’d realized by then, of course, that Owen didn’t love me as I loved him, and I thought I should never recover from the pain. But I did, in a surprisingly short space of time. And so will you.’
Naturally, I didn’t believe her, in spite of a lurking suspicion that she might be right. But just talking to her, just the act of sharing my unhappiness and burdening her with part of my sorrow, had in some strange way made me feel better. And when I eventually took my leave, we parted as friends in the deepest and truest meaning of the word. I kissed her lips, and she returned the salutation in the same passionless manner. Then I set out for Redcliffe and home.
* * *
During the next two weeks, I lay low, avoiding all contact with Alison and William Burnett.
On the first occasion when Mistress Burnett called at the house, I was fortunately from home, and although she left a message with my mother-in-law, requesting me to wait upon her as soon as possible, I ignored it. The second time, I was not so lucky, but Margaret, returning from the weaving sheds where she had deposited her basket of yarn, was able to warn me of Alison’s approach. Elizabeth was spending the day with Adela and Nicholas Juett, so I was able to roll beneath the bed without any fear of my presence being innocently divulged by my little daughter. Mistress Burnett was invited by mother-in-law to enter the cottage and check for herself that I was nowhere to be seen.
Her message was peremptory. ‘Tell the chapman that I want to know when he’s setting out for London. It’s high time he was thinking of going. I’m not in the mood to brook further delay.’
‘You heard that,’ Margaret remarked when the visitor had departed. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Roger,’ she reproved me as I scrambled, dusty and dishevelled, from beneath the bed, ‘but I won’t tell lies for you again. As it is, I shall have to do penance for those I’ve already told on your behalf. If you don’t want to continue poking your nose into Alderman Weaver’s affairs, then just tell Mistress Burnett so and have done with it. You know you’ll have my blessing.’
I hesitated, almost succumbing to an impulse that had become familiar to me over the past fortnight or so. But always, just as I was about to reach a definite decision to have nothing further to do with the case, I drew back from the brink. Even in the moments of my greatest despondency, I could not quite resist a mystery, and particularly not one with which I had been so closely connected in the past. I said, surprising myself as well as Margaret, ‘I shall start for London in two days’ time. But tomorrow is May Day and I’ve promised to go maying with Adela, if you’ll look after the children for us.’
No such arrangement had been made between us, and I should now have to make good my lie in order not to disappoint my mother-in-law, whose delight at the news was palpable. She was immediately off to market to buy all those ingredients necessary for a May Day breakfast; parsley, lettuce, endive and fennel; cider, apples, cream and butter. Adela, when I explained what had happened, earned my lasting gratitude by agreeing to get up at the crack of dawn. She would be happy, she said, to accompany me into the surrounding countryside in order to bring in the branches of hawthorn, birch and rowan that were used to decorate the various maypoles set up around the city.
She and Nicholas slept with us in the cottage overnight, and as soon as the Redcliffe Gate was opened at sunrise, we were two of the first people to venture out into the open fields beyond. As we climbed Redcliffe Hill, William Canynges’s great church rose out of the mist like a milky cloud, and to our right, the snaking line of the river glittered silver-grey in the uncertain morning light. The hem of Adela’s gown was quickly saturated with dew, and my boots were wet almost to their tops. Birds shrilled the dawn chorus from the branches of the trees, daisies spangled the grass like snowflakes, and cobwebs, spun overnight between blades of grass, trembled with a myriad diamond drops. A distant orchard caught the first rays of the rising sun, a froth of pink and white foaming up through the mist to bewitch our eyes; and a flock of sheep, newly released from the fold, turned to watch us with their silly, vacuous faces.
‘I think we must be the oldest couple here,’ Adela protested, laughing, surveying our companions who did indeed seem young; boys and girls for the most part, hardly one of them above the age of sixteen and all in their holiday clothes. They cheered us on as though we were in our dotage, solicitously helping us over the rougher patches of ground and assisting us to gather our armfuls of rowan and may.
The young girl who had been chosen to be their Queen was carried home in triumph on my shoulders — for I, as the tallest man present, had been singled out for this honour — and I was physically exhausted as I settled down to the breakfast that Margaret had prepared. But I also felt curiously content, as though this morning’s jaunt had purged me of the sadness that had plagued me for the past few weeks. While we ate, my mother-in-law decked the house with some of the boughs that we had brought back with us. She also decorated the children’s hoops with garlands of trailing leaves and swags of ivy, adding bows of coloured ribbon and little bells, bought the previous day in the market, so that they flashed and twinkled as they were bowled along. Afterwards, the five of us went to join in the dancing around the nearest maypole, and later still, as the sun began to sink in a blaze of crimson glory, I accompanied Adela and Nicholas home to Lewin’s Mead.