The news that they were to start for Bristol the next day was received by my family with mixed emotions. There was a certain amount of sadness, although the overall feeling was one of relief. The air of depression that had hung like a pall over the house since Celia’s disappearance had inevitably affected everyone’s spirits, and judging from the whispered conversation I overheard between Nicholas and Elizabeth at dinner, they were already looking forward to seeing their own home once more. Even the week’s journey on a jolting cart which lay ahead failed to dismay them, and the fact that I was not to be a member of the party in no way blunted their excitement. It was left to Adela and, surprisingly, Adam, to express dismay at my absence.
‘You come, too,’ my son said, regarding me severely.
‘I’ll follow you as soon as I can,’ I assured him.
He looked as if he didn’t believe me, not without good reason. I was always disappearing from my family’s life and constantly breaking promises to return when I said I would. He had learned to distrust me. Adela felt the same way and urged me to go with them.
‘I should never have involved you in my cousins’ affairs,’ she said regretfully as we took a walk together that afternoon, leaving the children in Arbella’s care.
We followed the track northward, away from the city — where the filthy, clamorous streets ran higgledy-piggledy in all directions and the houses blotted out the light with their overhanging eaves — and into the open countryside; mile after mile of sun-kissed fields, with trees and hedgerows bursting into leaf in the warm spring weather and not a dwelling nor a person in sight as far as the eye could see.
‘Sweetheart, I can’t abandon them now,’ I said, and repeated the old arguments. ‘They’ve been good to us, to you and the boys especially, and they are in desperate trouble. I can’t bring myself to be that uncaring.’
She sighed and rested her head against my shoulder as my arm encircled her waist. ‘No. Oh, Roger, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. Why did I ever allow myself to listen to that evil woman?’
My conscience smote me and I paused to stop her mouth with a kiss.
‘It’s all right,’ I murmured. ‘It’s all right. But you do see that I must stay? For a little while, at least, until I’m convinced that there is nothing more I can do?’
I didn’t add that I might now have another reason for wishing to remain in London that had nothing to do with the Godsloves. Indeed, I wasn’t even prepared to admit it to myself. How could I? Hadn’t I told myself that the Duke of Gloucester’s affairs were nothing to do with me?
‘Yes, I know,’ Adela said miserably, returning my kiss with fervour. ‘And you say that there’s no trace of Celia in Dr Jeavons’s house, not even in the cellar which his sister denied was there? Why do you think she did that?’
I shrugged. ‘I think Ginèvre Napier was right; for no better reason than that Mistress Ireby wanted to be rid of us. Nothing more sinister than that.’ I glanced around, noting that the shadows were lengthening across the grass. ‘We have to go back, sweetheart. It will soon be suppertime and Oswald will be home. I must break the bad news.’
Adela nodded. ‘And my poor legs are aching. We’ve walked a couple of miles at least, I should think. But at least I’ve had you all to myself. We haven’t passed another soul. No one seems to live this way.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Now, why are you frowning?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered slowly. And it was true that I didn’t. But something was suddenly making me uneasy, prodding at my memory, and yet I couldn’t think what. It was the same feeling I got whenever I saw Julian Makepeace.
I said quietly to myself, ‘You’ll have to do better than this, Lord, if you want me to solve this mystery for you. You know very well that I’m just a mere mortal. I can’t be expected to do everything on my own.’
‘What are you saying?’ Adela asked curiously. ‘You were mumbling something.’
‘I was just humming to myself.’
‘Oh well, that explains it.’ My wife laughed. ‘You never could master a tune.’
Oswald was quietly furious that I had kept Ginèvre Napier’s intelligence to myself, and was at first inclined to accuse me of not having inspected the cellar properly.
‘You should have told me and I would have come with you,’ he said with suppressed violence. ‘I wouldn’t have had any hole-and-corner nonsense! I would have forced Mistress Ireby to open up the cellar. I would have threatened her with the law and then I would have made a thorough search.’
‘I did make a thorough search,’ I answered wearily. ‘You have to believe me, Oswald, there is nothing down there except a few barrels of wine or ale and some odd pieces of broken furniture. For heaven’s sake, man, just accept the fact that Roderick Jeavons is not holding Celia a prisoner anywhere in that house. We must look elsewhere.’
‘You have to believe him, my dear,’ Clemency broke in. ‘If Roderick is the culprit, then he is not hiding her there.’
‘And maybe he is not hiding her at all,’ I said. ‘Maybe he has nothing to do with Celia’s disappearance. By the way,’ I went on before Oswald could say anything more, ‘I have made arrangements for Adela and the children to go home tomorrow. Our old friend, Jack Nym, has been disappointed of a load of glass and is more than willing to convey them to Bristol instead.’
Clemency once again expressed suitable regrets while Sybilla and her brother made a half-hearted attempt to echo her sentiments, but without much success. Arbella didn’t even bother, merely reiterating her earlier words that I ought to accompany them as there appeared to be nothing I could do if I stayed.
‘You should go home,’ she said.
‘Hold your tongue!’ Oswald told her roughly. ‘This is nothing to do with you. Roger has promised to help us and he’s a man of his word.’ He took a great gulp of air like a drowning man. ‘I have commitments that I can’t ignore and he’s my eyes and ears while I’m otherwise engaged. Celia must be found.’ He didn’t add ‘alive or dead’, but it was implicit in his tone. He was frightened.
To distract his unhappy thoughts I said, ‘The word on the street is that the Archbishop of York has become disaffected from my lord of Gloucester. Do you know any reason why that should be?’
The lie was successful if only for a moment or two. Oswald even managed a superior smile. ‘Thomas Rotheram’s an ageing, timorous old fool,’ he answered scornfully, ‘who should never have been given the post of Lord Chancellor. Do you know what he did, when he heard about the arrests at Northampton? He rushed to Westminster Sanctuary and gave the Great Seal into the Queen Dowager’s keeping. Dear God!’ His good lawyer’s soul was outraged. ‘The Lord Chancellor should never relinquish the Seal into anybody’s hands but the king’s. Of course, he realized his mistake almost at once and got it back again, but the damage was done. Everybody knows about it. The Inns of Court were buzzing with the news. You can be sure that Gloucester won’t forgive him for it. Rotheram will be removed from the chancellorship as soon as maybe. Of course he’s a Woodville adherent to his fingertips. I’ve always fancied that the stupid old dotard is more than a little in love with the queen.’
So that explained why the Archbishop of York was involved in this plot of Hastings — if plot it was. But the conviction was growing in me that something was afoot. I took a deep breath and put it resolutely out of my mind.
Adela and I put the children to bed soon after supper in spite of their protests that it was far too early and that they would never go to sleep. (In fact they were all three asleep in a surprisingly short space of time.) Nicholas and Elizabeth were still excited and eager to be home. Adam again surprised me by putting both arms around my neck and kissing me.
‘You promised to come home soon,’ he reminded me.