Wheel of Fate (3 page)

‘Where's Adela?' I demanded, wasting no time on pleasantries.

But it was a question not destined to be answered immediately. For a start, Hercules's thirst would no longer be denied and he began barking on a high, shrill, begging note, pawing the ground and refusing to let up until his need was attended to. He had been very patient, but enough was enough.

‘He's thirsty,' I said in reply to Margaret Walker's impatient glance, and Elizabeth, her sobs turning to giggles, wriggled to the ground, found an old bowl of her grandmother's and filled it from the water barrel. Hercules fell on it, slopping water in all directions and noisily drinking his fill.

‘Where's—?' I began again, but was not allowed to finish.

‘It's gone ten o'clock. It's dinner time,' Margaret announced, moving towards the fire over which hung an iron pot full of what smelled like rabbit stew. ‘Bess, my sweetheart, put out the spoons and bowls. I daresay your father will be eating with us. I've never known him when he isn't hungry.' She added with some asperity, ‘As for you, Roger, just make yourself useful and move that basket of wool out of the way and pull the table clear of the wall.'

‘Where . . .?' I tried for the third time, keeping a grip on my temper.

But Margaret had turned her back and was busily stirring the stew, and I knew her sufficiently well to realize that repeated questioning would only lead to further delay. She would answer me in her own good time and not before, so I turned my attention to moving the basket of unbleached wool that stood beside her spinning wheel and shifting the table so that it could accommodate three instead of two. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was running between it and the cupboard with bowls and knives and spoons, touching me every so often to reassure herself that I really had returned and stooping occasionally to pat Hercules on the head. (He, of course, having slaked his thirst, had smelled the stew and was busy ingratiating himself with the cook by rubbing himself against Margaret's legs.) Finally, I drew up two stools to the table, fetched Margaret's low-backed sewing chair from its corner and sat down to wait, containing my impatience as best I could.

Margaret brought the pot to the table and began ladling out the hot, delicious-smelling broth. I realized suddenly how hungry I was, tore a crust from the loaf and fell to with a will. My daughter filled another bowl for Hercules and for a moment or two there was no sound but the chomping of our jaws.

‘You've heard the news, I suppose?' Margaret asked eventually, and I nodded, my mouth too full to speak. ‘Well,' she continued, ‘I daresay we shall survive and things will settle down just so long as the queen's family don't make too much trouble. But His Grace of Gloucester will no doubt keep them in check.'

‘He'll have to be quick, then,' I mumbled, trying to clear my mouth. ‘He's up north, in Yorkshire, and according to the Town Crier, the Woodvilles are already making their move. But for God's sake, Mother –' she still liked me to call her that even though Lillis had been dead for more than eight years – ‘enough of that. Where are Adela and the boys? And why have they gone?'

Margaret laid down her spoon. ‘As to where they are,' she said, ‘they're in London, with the Godsloves. I've had one letter from Adela since they left, brought to me by Jack Nym, to say that they arrived quite safely – Jack took them in his cart, along with one of his loads – and that they were made very welcome.'

‘London?' So my neighbour had been right. ‘And who in the name of Jesus are the Godsloves? I've never heard of them.'

Margaret answered placidly, ‘They're relatives of mine and Adela's on my father's side. Adela, if you recollect, was a Woodward before she married Owen Juett. She used to visit the Godsloves as a child, before they moved to London. I visited them, myself, although not frequently. They lived near Keynsham Abbey, a whole great tribe of them. It would seem – surprisingly, I must admit – that Adela has kept up a correspondence with them over the years, first while she was married to Owen and also after she married you. Not a very regular correspondence, I imagine, or you would have known about it.'

‘Did you know? And why wouldn't she mention the letters to me?'

‘I suppose because she didn't think you would be interested. There's no reason why you should be. She wasn't very interested in the family, herself. She did give me news of them from time to time, but it was dull stuff. When you haven't seen people for years and years, you've nothing in common with them, and more often than not you're reduced to talking about the weather.'

‘Then why did she go on writing to them?' I demanded, upset to discover that my wife, who, I believed, had no secrets from me – I had secrets from her, of course, but that was different – had been writing to people I had never heard of. ‘And why did she never show me the letters?'

Margaret sighed. ‘I've told you why. They were dull, uninteresting and you didn't know the people concerned. I daresay if you'd ever been present when she received a letter, she would have told you who it was from. But you are so often away from home that I suppose, by chance, that never happened. As to why she's kept in touch with them, I can only guess that she feels lonely. I'm her sole kinswoman apart from the Godsloves, and I know Owen Juett had no family. He was the only child of only children. Adela, I suspect, is a woman who likes to belong. Anyway,' she added, a steely note creeping into her voice, ‘the Godsloves have proved their worth. They have obviously taken her in and provided her with a home while she decides what to do.'

‘Do about what?' I demanded aggressively. At last we were getting to the crux of the matter. ‘Why does Adela need a home apart from the one she shares with me? Why has she gone?'

Margaret's lips set in a thin, straight line. ‘Does the name Juliette Gerrish mean anything to you?'

My stomach gave a nasty lurch. ‘J-Juliette Gerrish?' I repeated, and even to my own ears my voice came out far too high-pitched and loud.

My companion nodded. ‘Yes, I can tell that it does.'

‘I-I've met her,' I conceded, ‘in the course of my investigation into the death of Isabella Linkinhorne for Alderman Foster. Why? What has she to do with the matter?'

‘She came here some weeks back, not long after you'd gone on your travels again, looking for you. She had a child with her. She said it was yours.'

‘She told me she couldn't have children,' I gasped, then could have bitten out my tongue.

‘So!' Margaret uttered sourly. ‘There
was
something between you. I told Adela that she was probably lying, but this Mistress Gerrish obviously knew enough about you to convince your wife.'

I was aghast. ‘It was only once,' I pleaded frantically. ‘And besides—'

‘Besides what?' was the uncompromising reply.

‘Besides,' I repeated, my mind racing frantically. Then I remembered something my neighbour had said about a woman carrying a baby. ‘How old was this child?' I asked.

Margaret Walker shrugged. ‘According to Adela four months or thereabouts.'

I gasped again, but this time with relief. ‘Then it can't possibly be mine,' I said. ‘It's two years ago that I was in Gloucester and made that bitch's acquaintance.'

I had always, until now, thought of Mistress Gerrish with a certain nostalgic affection, but no longer. She had to know – no one better – that it wasn't my baby, so what had been her purpose in coming to Bristol to find me? The answer could only be a desire to create mischief. Or, alternatively – and this explanation was a little more flattering to my ego – she had suddenly found herself, against all belief and expectation, the mother of a child and had decided that, of all her male acquaintance, I was the man she would most like to be its father. If that were so, perhaps I should feel proud that I had made such an impression on her during our brief night's pleasure, but the emotion uppermost in my breast was anger.

After a moment or two, however, my anger veered in another direction. ‘What in God's name was Adela thinking of,' I burst out, ‘to give credence to that harpy's tale? To believe it enough to take my sons and run away without even waiting to hear my side of the story?' I jumped up from my stool and began pacing furiously around the floor. ‘And she knew . . .' I turned on Margaret, pausing only to thump the table so that the bowls and spoons rattled and jumped. ‘She knew that all last year I was in the company of my lord of Albany and Duke Richard, in Scotland!'

‘All the year?' Margaret queried, regarding me straitly. ‘You took a mighty long time coming home from Scotland, my lad. The Scottish war was over by the end of August – at least, that was my information – and we didn't see hide nor hair of you until nearly Christmas. For all Adela knew, you might have visited Gloucester on your way back and spent the autumn with Mistress Gerrish.'

I stopped my pacing and stared at her, appalled.

‘Adela couldn't have thought that, surely?'

‘Why not?' Margaret looked down her nose. ‘On your own admission, two years ago you did have a liaison with this woman.'

‘It wasn't a liaison,' I shouted. ‘One night, that was all! And it was a mistake.'

‘Men always say that when they're found out,' Margaret sneered, then looked quickly at Elizabeth, who was regarding us both with a round-eyed interest tinged with uneasiness as she tried to follow a conversation that was, for the present, beyond her understanding. ‘Well, that's as maybe,' she went on, ‘but it might help matters if you could tell Adela where you were during autumn of last year.'

‘I told you both where I was. Making my way home from Scotland. Once the army had been officially disbanded, it was every man for himself. And my usefulness had finished once Albany had been left behind at his brother's court. Scotland, I might remind you, Mother, is a very long way away.'

Margaret raised her eyebrows and chewed thoughtfully on a piece of meat which she had just prised loose from one of her teeth. ‘Of course, if you won't say where you were . . . Adela and I did wonder where you got those smart new clothes that you brought back with you. Not off any market stall, that's plain. Good material, and a hat with a jewelled pin.'

‘The “jewels” are glass,' I protested, but she ignored me.

‘So when this Mistress Gerrish turned up, neither she nor the child exactly dressed in rags, Adela did wonder . . .' Margaret broke off, shrugging.

‘If she gave them to me?' I demanded, horrified.

‘Why not? Women have been known to reward their lo—' She again glanced towards my daughter. ‘Men who please them,' she finished lamely.

‘Dear, sweet virgin!' I exclaimed, flopping down on my stool and burying my face in my hands. ‘A nice little tale you've concocted between the pair of you! I swear I've been nowhere near Gloucester for the past two years, nor so much as set eyes on Juliette Gerrish. If you must know, and I don't suppose it will matter if I tell you now, I was in France on a mission for Duke Richard. But mind you, Margaret,' I continued, lowering my hands and looking directly at her, ‘I don't want that information passed on to Maria Watkins or Bess Simnel or any other of your little band of gossips.' Margaret started to protest, but I cut her short. ‘And don't think I'm going to tell you what that mission was about, because I'm not. I've only told you as much as I have so that you can see I was out of harm's way.'

Out of harm's way! The words mocked me even as I uttered them. I might be able to prove my innocence as far as Mistress Gerrish was concerned, but what about Eloise Grey? I shuddered inwardly. Was she, too, going to turn up on my doorstep some time in the future, threatening me with my past misdemeanours?

My erstwhile mother-in-law heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Well, it's no good telling
me
all this,' she said briskly, rising from her chair and beginning to clear the table. ‘Not that I'm not relieved to hear it, but Adela's the one you want to tell. And if I were you,' she added, much to my surprise, ‘just tell her what she needs to know and no more. You met Mistress Gerrish two years back while enquiring into the disappearance of Isabella Linkinhorne and that's all. The woman plainly has a vicious streak in her, trying to break up your marriage and saddle you with a baby that isn't yours, but she hasn't been back since Adela sent her away with a flea in her ear. Oh yes! She didn't for one moment let the woman know she believed a single word of her story, and I think that at the time she probably didn't. It was only afterwards, brooding on things, lonely and unhappy, that she began to think the tale might have some substance to it. In the end, she convinced herself of its truth and felt she must go away. I did try to persuade her to wait until you returned and hear what you had to say, but by that time there was no reasoning with her. She got Jack Nym to take her and the boys to London when he took up a load of withy slats and baskets, and went to the Godsloves while she thought things out. That was about three weeks ago, at the end of March. So!' She addressed me, arms akimbo. ‘What do you intend doing about it?'

I accepted Margaret's account of events at their face value, but it did cross my mind to wonder how hard she had tried to dissuade Adela from leaving. She was fond of me, but had never quite trusted me. She could never bring herself to believe that it was Lillis who had seduced me and not the other way around.

‘Do?' I said in answer to her question. ‘I'm going to London, of course, to persuade her to come home. And I'll take your advice,' I added, ‘about not telling everything. I'll go right away and speak to Jack. With luck, he might be carting another consignment of goods that way fairly soon. If not, I'll start walking and hope to come across other carters who'll give me a ride.'