The Christmas Wassail (15 page)

‘What was he wearing? Apart, that is, from the mask.'

She stared. ‘What men usually wear. Boots, hose …'

‘A cloak, perhaps? It was very cold yesterday afternoon.'

The old lady considered this suggestion. ‘I don't remember a cloak,' she said at last. ‘But then, I don't remember anything much except the mask. Maybe one of those thick coats that workmen wear. Not that I'd be sure about that.'

I could see that I should get little more out of her in the way of a description, so I changed the subject.

‘Dame Marvell,' I said, ‘do you know about the murder of Alderman Trefusis on Christmas Day?'

‘Of course I know about it,' she snapped. ‘I'm not that deaf! No one's talked of anything else since it happened.'

‘Do you also know that the last word he uttered before he died was the name Dee? Does that mean anything to you?'

If I had not been watching her so intently, to make sure that she was reading my lips, I might not have noticed the slight tell-tale flicker of her eyelids. As it was, it was so brief that I almost missed it.

‘No, the name means nothing to me,' she said sharply and with a shake of her head. ‘I know of no one called Dee.'

A sudden inspiration came to me, and I wondered that the thought had not occurred to me before. ‘It might, of course, have been just the beginning of a longer name; one merely starting with the letters D-E-E,' I suggested.

This time, she shook her head even more vigorously. ‘No!' she exclaimed, banging on the carpet with her stick. ‘I've told you! Now, go away! You're upsetting me!'

She reached for a little handbell that stood on a table beside her chair, but before she could ring it I heard the bedchamber door behind me open and someone tread heavily across the floor.

‘Aunt Drusilla,' said Cyprian Marvell, bending to kiss her cheek. ‘I've come to give you some disturbing news.'

‘I know it already,' she snapped, ‘thanks to this man.' She again stabbed at me with her stick. ‘None of my family thought it necessary to inform me that my brother is missing. Oh, no! It takes a stranger to do that.'

Cyprian Marvell turned and, somewhat hesitantly, held out his hand. ‘Master Chapman, is it? Yes, I thought so. You've been pointed out to me.'

I explained hastily that I was supposed to be a member of the search party looking for Sir George. ‘I called on you first, sir, but everyone being out, it occurred to me that Dame Drusilla might have some information that could be useful.'

He smiled pleasantly. ‘I don't suppose she has.'

‘You would be wrong.' I returned the smile. ‘Dame Drusilla did see something yesterday afternoon. But I'll leave her to tell you all about it. I've trespassed enough on her time already. Now I must go and join in the search. I assume Sir George has not been found yet?'

Cyprian shook his head. ‘I'm afraid not.'

He didn't strike me like a man who was very worried by his father's mysterious absence, but then, I reflected, appearances can be deceptive.

The steward was summoned to show me out and, once in the street, I stood for several moments deep in thought. Then, instead of hastening to rejoin the search party, I turned my feet in the direction of Margaret Walker's cottage.

M
y knock was answered almost immediately.

‘Oh, it's you,' my former mother-in-law grunted, and with this unenthusiastic greeting turned back into the cottage. She added over her shoulder, ‘Come in then and close the door. You're letting in all the cold air.'

I did as she bade me. ‘You don't sound very pleased to see me. Are you expecting someone?'

‘I thought it might be Bess or Maria with some news.' She picked up a sharp knife from the table and went on with her task of splitting the skins of a dozen or so apples which she was preparing for the evening's wassailing. ‘I'm taking these round to the baker's in High Street in a moment or two and he'll bake them in his oven for me. You can't get a really good baked apple over an open fire. What does Adela do with hers?'

‘I don't know,' I admitted. ‘I've never thought about it.' She snorted and muttered something under her breath about ‘men never do'. ‘Margaret,' I went on, ignoring the provocation, ‘can you remember the name of the man you told me came courting Dame Drusilla a few years back?'

Her head jerked up at that and she paused in her work to look hard at me. After a long moment's consideration, she slowly shook her head. ‘No, I can't. I don't think I ever heard it. Why? Is it important?'

‘I don't rightly know. It might be,' I said cautiously.

‘To do with Alderman Trefusis's murder and now with Sir George's disappearance?'

‘Perhaps.'

She handed me her knife and indicated the remaining fruit. ‘Finish slitting these apple skins for me.' She twitched her cloak from its peg. ‘I'll be back in a few minutes.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘To fetch Bess and Maria, if I can find them.' The door banged to behind her and the latch clicked into place of its own accord.

Margaret was as good as her word and, before I had time to add the last apple to the basket waiting to be taken to the baker's, the latch clicked again as she and her two friends entered the cottage.

‘What's this all about?' Goody Watkins asked peevishly, while Bess Simnel's beady eyes darted around the room in search of sustenance. ‘Don't tell me you've interrupted my after-dinner nap to talk to him.' She gave a scornful jerk of her head in my direction. ‘He doesn't know any more'n we do. Less, I expect.'

‘Got 'nything to eat, Margaret?' Bess whined. Her small, bird-like frame seemed to need constant nourishment.

Impatiently, Margaret handed her a stale oatcake, left over from her breakfast, then turned to address Maria. ‘Roger wants some information,' she said, ‘and I can't give it to him. He says it could be important. I thought one or the other of you might know.'

At these words, both women came to attention, quivering like a couple of dogs scenting a bone. The challenge was a clarion call to arms. Their very honour was at stake.

‘What information?' Maria and Bess demanded in chorus. (At least, it would have been in chorus if the latter's mouth had been empty. As it was, she made a kind of champing, gurgling noise, but its meaning was obvious.)

I repeated my previous request to Margaret. ‘Did either of you ever know the name of the young man who wanted to marry Drusilla Marvell three years ago?'

‘Not so young a man as all that,' Goody Watkins retorted. ‘He were about your age as I recall.'

‘'S'right,' Bess Simnel agreed. She ran her tongue around her almost toothless gums, trying to find the last remnants of oatcake. ‘That were stale, Margaret,' she accused her hostess before bending her mind to the problem in hand. A look of deep disappointment contracted her little features. ‘I can't say for sure I ever heard it, did you, Maria?'

But Goody Watkins wasn't going to admit defeat so easily. She chewed her lips, paced up and down and breathed heavily through inflated nostrils.

Finally, in desperation – not having wished to give them a lead of any kind – I said, ‘Could it have been Dee? Or could it have started with Dee?'

At these words, Bess Simnel choked over a crumb she had just discovered lurking behind one of the few ancient teeth remaining in her mouth. But as soon as it had been dislodged by a good back thumping from both her friends, she gave a hoarse, triumphant cry.

‘Deakin! That were his name! Miles Deakin! Fancy me rememberin' that, and at my age, too!'

It was plainly a victory she would not let the others forget, and their sour expressions told me that they knew it. I was hard put to not to burst out laughing.

‘You're a wonder, Bess,' I said, leaning over and kissing one withered cheek. She gave a little scream and skip of pleasure.

‘Behave yourself!' Maria Watkins admonished her.

‘You, also, Roger,' Margaret told me sharply. ‘Why did you want to know?'

‘About the young man's name?' I laid a heavy emphasis on the word ‘young'. ‘Because the last thing Alderman Trefusis said before he died was the word Dee. No one I've spoken to seems to know of anyone in the city called that. And then it occurred to me that it might just have been the beginning of a name.'

‘So why did you think of old Drusilla's beau?' This was Margaret, hot on the trail of what could prove to be a truly fresh piece of gossip.

I hesitated. The information I had culled that afternoon should first have gone to Richard Manifold or Sergeant Merryweather, but I was grateful to the three women for their help, so I told them of my visit to Dame Drusilla and of the man she had seen staring up at her brother's house. I also explained how my suspicions had been aroused by the dame's reaction to my mention of the name of Dee.

I finished by asking, ‘You don't happen to know where this man, Miles Deakin, hailed from, I suppose?'

‘He weren't from the city,' Maria Watkins said positively.

‘Maybe he was from Clifton,' Margaret suggested. ‘That's how he knew about Drusilla and her money.'

‘Not necessarily,' I said. ‘If he was staying with kinfolk in the town – an aunt, uncle, grandparents – they could as easily have given him the information. Did Alderman Trefusis have any connection to this story? Might this Deakin have had a grudge against him for any reason?'

‘I think Trefusis were always a friend of Sir George,' Maria said at last, and the other two nodded.

‘Soldiers together they were, in the French wars,' was Bess's contribution. ‘Leastways, so I've allus been told. P'raps he were the one who let Sir George know what was going on. Sir George lived up in his big house in Clifton in them days.'

‘That's likely enough,' Margaret agreed. ‘That would give the young man a grudge against him.'

‘And you never heard a word as to where Miles Deakin came from?'

Margaret shook her head regretfully. ‘No, never. Not so much as a whisper. What about you, Bess? Maria?'

But neither woman could throw any further light on the subject. All three looked a little shame-faced at this important gap in their knowledge and were inclined to excuse the lapse as if, somehow, they had failed me. Soon, however, they were anxious to be gone, eager to spread their newly acquired information amongst friends and acquaintances. Long before nightfall there would hardly be a soul anywhere in Redcliffe who had not heard of the stranger in a bird mask who had been seen staring up at Sir George's house the afternoon before he disappeared.

I arrived home to find Richard Manifold seated in our kitchen, but no sign of Adela; an absence soon explained by a message left with the sergeant that she had taken her apples to be baked at Master Cleghorn's bakery in St Leonard's Lane.

‘Any news of Sir George?' I asked, sinking down on to the second stool and pouring myself a beaker of ale. Overhead, I could hear the three older children playing.

Richard gave me a curious glance. ‘Weren't you present when I made my announcement at the High Cross half an hour ago?'

I shook my head. ‘As you can see, I've only just got back.'

‘Where have you been? Didn't you get my message that I was calling off the search until tomorrow? Jack Gload and Pete Littleman thought they'd spoken to most folk. And everyone was asked to pass the message on to those who might not have heard. I requested people to assemble at the cross so that I could give them instructions for Tuesday.' There was a short pause while he eyed me speculatively. He was naturally suspicious of me. ‘Where did you look? I don't recollect having seen you.'

He was at his most irritatingly self-important. His manner was that of a pedagogue questioning an errant pupil and I was disinclined to say anything of my discovery. I had no proof that this Miles Deakin was in any way involved in the crime. Instead, I mentioned my visit to Margaret Walker and her friends.

He snorted. ‘Why, in heaven's name? Those three old biddies won't know anything. All they'll give you is tittle-tattle and gossip.'

‘They have some very interesting information sometimes,' I answered defensively. ‘Bess Simnel in particular has an excellent memory for her age.' I must remember to warn Margaret and her friends to say nothing to anyone in authority of what I had told them. Not that they would be listened to if they did.

Richard made a dismissive noise but calmed down a little, although he still had a heightened colour. I realized that his anger was really about the fact that I had been ferreting out information on my own and not accompanying the rest of the search party as directed.

‘I must go and report to the sheriff on our lack of progress,' he said with a sigh, hauling himself to his feet like a man wearied to the bone. I felt momentarily sorry for him. His Christmas was turning into a nightmare.

‘Will you be wassailing tonight?' I asked, following him out to the street door and for once not having to make a pretence of being civil.

He grunted something about chance being a fine thing and went off up Small Street at a rapid pace, meeting Adela coming in the opposite direction. He stopped to speak to her, and I could tell by the way his head kept turning in my direction that he was unburdening himself of his woes.

‘What have you been doing to upset Richard now?' she demanded with a sigh as I held the door wide for her to enter. She had a basket on one arm covered with a white cloth and I could smell the fragrant scent of baked apples. With her opposite hand she pulled the little cart on wheels that I had made for Adam and in it Luke sat bolt upright, smiling at everyone. She added, ‘We'd better have supper early. As soon as it's really dark, the wassailing will begin.'

By mid-evening I, like most men and quite a few women, was reeling drunk. ‘Lamb's wool' is a potent brew and I had had more than my fair share.