11 - The Lammas Feast (22 page)

‘They make up their own games.’

‘I’ll call for them sometime on Friday,’ I said, stooping to peck her cheek. ‘And I’ll bring the dog to see you.’ She shuddered.

I walked briskly across Bristol Bridge, stopping only to buy Adela a length of ribbon at one of the shops – having sold all my own supply that morning – and was crossing Saint Nicholas Backs towards High Street, when I heard my name called. I recognized Cicely Ford’s voice and paused at once, searching the crowds for her familiar figure. I saw her at last, making her way along the Backs from the direction of the Marsh Gate, and raised a hand in greeting. She smiled in return, but it was a tired smile, and her feet dragged as though she was ineffably weary. It struck me for the first time that she might be ill, or that the life of poverty and self-denial that she now chose to lead was sapping her strength. Her delicate, flower-like face was pale, in spite of the continuing days of relentless heat. Everyone else, including myself, was red and sweating. She looked cold.

As she drew abreast, I proffered my arm. She accepted it gladly, almost with relief.

‘Are you going home?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I’ve been visiting Master Hulin, my lawyer,’ she explained, adding, ‘He must be John Overbecks’s lawyer, as well, because I met Master Overbecks going in just as I was leaving. Master Hulin lives in Back Street.’

‘I know,’ I said.

She didn’t ask how I knew; indeed, I doubt if she heard me. Her weight on my arm was becoming heavier with every passing minute as we fought our way up High Street through the midday crowds. Three seagulls were perched on top of a pile of offal in the central drain, and as we passed, one of them rose up screaming, a piece of bloody entrail hanging from its beak. Cicely jumped and clung tighter still. I could feel her trembling.

‘I–I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘The bird startled me.’

‘Are you unwell?’ I asked, concerned that she might be about to faint. I could already feel a prickle of embarrassment as I visualized the scene. (As my womenfolk will tell you, men are such cowards!)

‘I’m perfectly well,’ she assured me, lifting her face to smile at me. She gave a little chuckle as though guessing my thoughts.

Nevertheless, when we eventually crossed the Frome into Lewin’s Mead, I insisted that she rested a while in our cottage, where Adela fussed over her and gave her a cooling drink of sweet nettle wine and let her nurse Adam until her arms grew heavy. Our son was clean and on his best behaviour, having just been fed and had his napkin cloth changed, ready to delight any stranger discerning enough to admire him and tell him what a beautiful boy he was.

‘You shouldn’t be wearing yourself out in this heat,’ my wife scolded our visitor. ‘It has been a little cooler these last few nights, but now there’s all the din of the fair to keep honest folk awake. Mistress Ford, are you safe in that cottage on your own? Couldn’t the nuns find you a bed until the fair is over? They must have somewhere you could sleep.’

Cicely gave her gentle, tired smile. ‘I don’t notice the heat and the noise,’ she replied softly. ‘I prefer to be on my own. And after all, who would want to harm me?’

‘Plenty of men,’ I told her roughly, trying to disguise my concern. ‘The fairground’s full of evil characters. Adela’s right. You ought to move into the nunnery. Speak to Sister Jerome. She seems fond of you. She’ll do something about it.’

Cicely gave an obstinate shake of her head. ‘I’m all right,’ she repeated.

I said no more, indicating to Adela that neither should she. I could guess what was going on in Cicely’s head. She felt that if anything untoward happened to her, it would simply be what she deserved for abandoning the man she had loved to his fate, for failing him when he had most needed her, for not believing him when he had protested his innocence. I suspected that she might even welcome death as an end to her unhappiness.

She stayed with us for about an hour, maybe a little longer, but it was early afternoon when I escorted her home, taking the long way round in order to avoid the worst excesses of the fair. Even so, we encountered a fight between a party of drunks in Horse Street, just by the Virgin’s shrine, and I had to shepherd Cicely past this lively brawl, keeping my head carefully averted in case one of the contenders decided to take exception to my face. All the same, I saw enough of the warring parties to suffer a jolt of recognition. I felt I knew one of the men, but slunk by so fast, propelling Cicely along with an arm about her waist, that the impression was fleeting. By the time we were approaching Saint Michael’s Hill, I was convinced that I must have been mistaken. And all other thoughts were soon driven from my head by the sight of John Overbecks deep in agitated conversation with his sister-in-law outside the nunnery.

Still acutely conscious of the former’s anger with me over my rejection of his offer, I hung back, although intensely curious, reluctant to intrude and risk a snubbing. It was Cicely, therefore, who hurried forward to ask, ‘Is anything the matter, Master Overbecks? Sister Jerome? Can Roger or I be of any assistance?’

Neither of them had heard us coming, and at the sound of her voice, they both swung round, their faces – one so thin, the other so square and shiny – puckered with concern. They stared at us for a second or two as if they were unsure who we were, then the baker drew a deep breath and passed a hand across his forehead. Marion Baldock, too, pulled herself together.

‘Mistress Ford! You startled me!’ John Overbecks came forward to take her hand. He noticed me and acknowledged my presence with an abrupt nod. ‘It’s – it’s Jane,’ he explained. ‘I . . . I can’t find her. She must have left the house sometime after dinner while I was busy in the shop. I’ve searched everywhere for her. I thought she might have come up here to find her sister. But Marion – er – Sister Jerome hasn’t seen her.’ Again he mopped his forehead, this time with a piece of cloth that he produced from his jerkin pocket.

‘Can we help you look?’ Cicely asked at once, forgetting her own tiredness, or at least prepared to overcome it.

‘No. Certainly not,’ Marion Baldock said decisively, ‘not in this heat. Cicely, my child, you appear to me to be far from well. Go home and lie down. John and I can manage this on our own. Jane can’t have gone far.’ She turned to her brother-in-law. ‘John, have you enquired at the Hodges’ cottage? You know how fond Jane is of Jenny.’

The baker banged his head with his fist. ‘My wits have gone woolgathering. Of course, that’s where she’ll be. I’ll go home immediately to make sure she still isn’t there. If not, I’ll go straight to Redcliffe.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘What would Jane and I do without you? You’re so practical.’

The nun smiled thinly. ‘I’ve had to be.’

‘Well, if Mistress Overbecks is neither at home nor with Jenny Hodges, let me know,’ I volunteered to the baker, ‘and I’ll help you search. It’s too hot to do any more work today.’

‘That’s good of you,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

He didn’t, I noticed, offer to wait for me, although he must have guessed I wouldn’t be long; but he did give me a half smile, a first step, perhaps, to making up our quarrel (if that’s what it was) and coming to a better understanding. He strode away down the hill.

Marion Baldock turned to me. ‘Master Chapman, I’ll see Mistress Ford home.’ Cicely was about to protest, but the older woman silenced her before she could utter a word. ‘I insist. You need to rest. You’re worn out. I shall make you a herbal drink and then make sure that you lie down and have a sleep. You’re a foolish girl. You shouldn’t be trailing around in this heat.’

I could see for myself how frail Cicely was looking, and felt that the ministrations of another woman were probably what she needed. I therefore relinquished my charge into Marion Baldock’s care with a sense of relief. As I was turning to go, however, I recollected something I had been meaning to ask her.

‘Cicely!’ I said. She paused, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘What we were talking about the other day. Have you remembered anything more?’

She wrinkled her brow for a moment or two in an effort of memory, then her face cleared.

‘Oh, you’re talking about the morning the stranger died!’ She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. Only what I told you later in the day. To be truthful, I haven’t really given it much thought since then. In fact, I’d forgotten you’d asked me. But I promise to give it serious consideration, and if I do recall anything else, I’ll let you know at once.’ She held out her hand, smiling shyly. ‘Thank you for seeing me home. And please thank Mistress Chapman for all her kindness. Kiss Adam for me.’

I took her hand in mine and laughed. ‘That boy doesn’t need any more adulation,’ I said. ‘He has too great a sense of his own importance already, young though he may be.’

She laughed in her turn, then walked up the hill, Marion Baldock in attendance, and disappeared with a final wave of her hand into her cottage.

As I walked down Saint Michael’s Hill, I felt, for the first time in more than a week, a faint breeze ruffling my hair and caressing my cheek. On the distant horizon, a few clouds were beginning to pile in from the west. I took heart. Perhaps the weather was about to break. The revellers at the fair could be about to get a dowsing, which might mean a quieter night. At least the two older children were out of harm’s way in Redcliffe. That was one good thing.

I thought briefly about their animosity towards Adam. Adela and Margaret steadfastly refused to acknowledge it, but it was perfectly plain to me. I consoled myself with the reflection that it was probably natural and would pass, given time. Once Adam began to grow and started to incur his mother’s and my wrath for his antics, Elizabeth and Nicholas would realize that we didn’t favour him over them; that our dark, gypsyish-looking little rogue wasn’t, metaphorically speaking, our blue-eyed, golden-haired boy.

I returned to Lewin’s Mead the way I had come, and as I passed along Horse Street and approached the Virgin’s shrine, my mind reverted to the fight that Cicely and I had witnessed earlier. I was again seized with the conviction that I had known one of the protagonists, but however hard I tried to picture the scene again, I failed to visualize the faces of the men involved. I was still thinking about it when I entered the city by the Frome Gate and made my way to High Street to discover if Jane Overbecks had been found.

J
ohn Overbecks was in the bakehouse, shovelling hot loaves, fresh from his oven, into the basket of one of his hucksters. She was a huge woman, nearly as tall as I was and just as brawny. She had forearms the thickness of young trees and hands that would not have disgraced a fairground wrestler. All in all, she was bigger and stronger than most men I knew, and I reflected that I should not be keen to meet her in a dark alleyway at night. Her hair and skin had the sheen of permanent good health, and when she grinned at me, I saw that she also had nearly perfect teeth.

‘Master Overbecks,’ I said tentatively, still unsure of my reception, ‘I’ve come to ask if Mistress Overbecks has returned home. I trust she’s safe?’

The answer, of course, was self-evident. Had she not been, her husband would not now be going about his normal tasks in the bakery. At the sound of my voice, he paused in the act of stooping once more to the oven and glanced round, an odd expression, half surprise, half contrition, on his face.

‘Roger!’ He straightened, sighing with relief and pressing his free hand into the small of his back. ‘It . . . It’s good of you to take the trouble to enquire. Yes, she’s safe enough. She was here when I got home. She said she’d been with Jenny Hodge, and why I didn’t think of that for myself, I shall never know. The truth is, I panicked when I discovered she wasn’t here, and my first thought was to run to Marion.’ He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand. ‘We . . . We’d had a few words, you see, about that bloody dog. Its constant yapping unnerves me.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. ‘You can hear it now.’ A thin, shrill barking was indeed audible from the upper rooms, and the baker gestured impatiently with his pele. ‘Ethelreda, my dear, close that door for me, if you’d be so kind. Thank you,’ he added courteously as the huckster flicked the heavy wooden house door shut with – I swear – the tip of one finger. ‘That’s better. Well, as I was telling you, Master Chapman, we’d had a few words and it always upsets Jane if she thinks I’m angry with her. So, later, when I couldn’t find her anywhere indoors, I was so frightened, I just couldn’t think properly and went rushing off to consult Sister Jerome. But all’s well that ends well, as they say.’ And he bent again to the oven.

‘I’m very glad Mistress Overbecks has come to no harm,’ I said formally and turned to go.

‘Hold hard a minute, lad, if you will.’ The baker tossed the final two loaves into the huckster’s basket, put down his pele and rubbed the palms of his hands on the sides of his breeches. ‘I want to speak to you, if you’ll spare me the time.’

I loitered by the street door, wondering if I should offer to assist Ethelreda to lift the enormous basket on to her shoulder. But any such gallant gesture would have been wasted: she hoisted it up with contemptuous ease, nodding to us both as she departed.

‘A very strong girl, that,’ I remarked, to break an awkward silence, and the baker nodded.

‘Strong as a horse,’ he agreed. ‘Never had a day’s illness in her life.’ He advanced a step or two towards me and held out his hand. ‘Chapman, I just want to apologize for my behaviour last Friday. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. It was unforgivable of me. I just felt so disappointed for you and for myself. I should have liked you and your family as near neighbours. But, of course, it’s entirely up to you and Mistress Chapman whether or not you want to commit yourself to such a scheme. Am I forgiven?’

I grasped his outstretched hand, feeling ashamed of the suspicions I had entertained concerning his motives. ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s a blessing.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, everything’s in a fair way to being settled now. I saw my lawyer and man of business, Master Hulin of Back Street, just this morning and he tells me he knows of several people who might be anxious to buy the property across the street. So that’s all right. Here! You must take some of the children’s favourite buns for their supper.’