Face Down under the Wych Elm (20 page)

"You blacken a good woman's name."

Kennison's inebriated chortle drowned out Norden's sputter of protest. “You are a fool if you think that one virtuous. And you should know better. You lived amongst them in that household, once upon a time."

Damascin? And did he mean Peter Marsh when he spoke of Garrard's previous messenger? Stunned by the possibilities, Susanna turned to stare at the two men. The small scraping noise her stool made caught Norden's attention.

"Lady Appleton!” Eyes wide, he stared at her. “You. Here."

The urge to slap some sense into the fellow was strong, but she managed to restrain herself. Instead she addressed Kennison. “Where has your master gone?"

"Know not. Care not."

Cup-shot, he was no good to her, but even as she came to that conclusion, Hugo Garrard himself entered the common room of The Ship. He looked startled to find Kennison, Norden, and Susanna together but was quick to recover himself.

"Lady Appleton. Well met. I understand you have some knowledge of healing herbs. My cousin has need of you, for she is grievous sick."

"Constance?"

"Nay. Lucy. I have just been to see her in Maidstone gaol and though I know little of fevers and such, it seems to me that she is like to die."

The fever had come on during the night and by noontide Lucy was raving. Constance had bathed her forehead and forced her to gargle with ale to cool her mouth, and to drink liquids, but nothing seemed to help.

"She needs medicine,” Constance shouted at the guard.

He ignored her, as he had all along.

She prayed Hugo would send help but dared not rely upon his good will. When they were first arrested, she'd thought he believed in her innocence. She'd trusted him to help them, but in truth he'd done as little as possible. He could not quite abandon them to their fate, being head of the family, but after his long silence, his visit earlier that morning had surprised her. Until then, he'd seemed content to use Adrian Ridley as his go-between.

As soon as he'd realized Lucy was ill, he'd beat a hasty retreat, fearing infection. ‘Twas not gaol fever, Constance told herself. She hoped it was not Lucy's old malady returning, either.

The previous winter, after a similar fever, Lucy had experienced great trouble breathing. There had been a terrible wheezing sound in her chest. Without a stillroom, without Lucy's own remedies, Constance feared that this time her cousin would not recover. Even with them, Lucy had not been herself again for months after that last fever finally abated.

Constance replaced the damp cloth on Lucy's brow and wondered if she had it wrong. Would it be a blessing, since they appeared destined to die on the gallows in a few days’ time, to cheat the hangman?

The door creaked open behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, Constance saw that Susanna Appleton had arrived.

She was not alone. Adrian Ridley came in behind her, as did the servant, Jennet, carrying a basket. Lady Appleton wasted no time. She examined the feverish woman, then reached into the basket, which contained an assortment of herbs and fresh water. With a dexterity Constance could only envy, the gentlewoman measured and mixed and held the result to Lucy's lips.

"When Hugo described Lucy's symptoms to me,” Lady Appleton said as she worked, “I went direct to the apothecary and the grocer for supplies. Centaury with water for fever.” She helped Lucy to swallow the tonic by rubbing her finger on the older woman's throat. “Later I will send sage steeped in boiling water and a little betony and she can drink that."

"Father!” Lucy cried. Her fevered eyes were wide open but there was no sense in them.

"She often calls out to her father when she is out of her mind with fever. She also shouts curses at her brother.” In spite of her anxiety, Constance felt a slight smile curve her lips upward. “I do not think they were over-fond of each other."

"Tell me about them.” Lady Appleton continued to minister to the sick woman. “What do you know of Lucy's family?"

"There is not much to tell. I never met them. I scarce knew mine own parents. I have heard that Lucy's father was indulgent, her brother indifferent. He ignored her for the most part after her return from Canterbury, taunting her with the fact that she was less suited than he to run Mill Hall. He may have been right. She never showed any interest in housekeeping."

"Is this the same illness you nursed her through last winter?"

"Not so serious. Not yet.” Constance described Lucy's symptoms and the treatment, which Lucy herself had directed in her lucid moments. “We were after more of the herb that cured her the night Peter Marsh died."

Constance would have continued to hover while Lady Appleton ministered to her cousin had Adrian not taken her by the arm to lead her a little apart, away from the smells of the herbs and the stench of the sick woman's sweat.

"Let her tend Lucy for a time. We are only in the way."

"
You
are in the way. Why are you here? If she dies, you cannot give her last rites."

"Would you want me to?"

Exasperation and exhaustion combined to make Constance careless of her words. “Yes! Why not give comfort? There was a woman in Lady Northampton's service who clung to the old ways, though the Northamptons were most assuredly followers of the New Religion. Since this woman did not have the good fortune to die during Mary Tudor's reign, Lady Northampton herself arranged to bring a Roman Catholic priest to her. Was that wrong?"

To judge by Adrian Ridley's shocked expression, it had been very wrong indeed.

Driven to madness by his manner, she shouted at him. “I have done worse things than that!"

"What things?"

"I fornicated with a married man."

Appalled, he backed up a step.

Belatedly remembering whose husband Robert Appleton had been, Constance flushed.

"How many others?” he demanded. “How many other men have you seduced?"

She was tempted to say a hundred. A thousand. Instead she told him the simple truth. “There was no other man after that one. For all his flaws, I loved him and was faithful to him."

"She speaks the truth, Sir Adrian,” Lady Appleton said. “She'd have married him if he'd had the strength of character to defy his overlord and refuse to wed me."

"Your husband was—?"

"Constance's lover. Yes. And I have long since looked past that fact, as you must, Sir Adrian.” She gave a wry, self-deprecating laugh. “Why not? Constance was not Robert's only mistress. And at least she did not present him with a child."

Constance felt her mouth go dry. A child? Robert had a child?

"Lucy will have no need of last rites.” Lady Appleton stood and began to return items to her basket. She spoke, no doubt of medications, but Constance no longer heard a word of it.

Adrian had taken both her hands in his. “Do you swear to me that you did not lie with Peter Marsh?"

"Why should I? He could not compare to Robert Appleton. No man can. And I did not kill him, either. Nor did Lucy have any reason to want Clement Edgecumbe dead."

"I have been told he loved her once but that she rejected him, reviling him for stealing the property of mother church."

"Love and hate, Sir Adrian, are ofttimes difficult to distinguish from one another. Lucy and her former suitor did both enjoy their quarrels. She lamented his death."

Constance had not previously thought of the relationship between Lucy and Edgecumbe in quite that way, but ‘twas true. They had engaged in spirited debates, sparring with each other on any and all topics, never in agreement.

Not unlike the way she and Adrian clashed.

Tuesday, July 8, 1567

Nick had ridden hard, thanking his stars that his mother had not been born and bred in Cornwall or Northumberland. But even to reach Croydon in Surrey, some thirty miles from Maidstone, he'd dared not delay, not even long enough to stop and talk to Susanna before he left. Not if he was to question Phyllis Wynnington and return in time to do anyone any good. The Assizes began on Thursday with civil cases. The witches and other felons would be tried on Friday.

His horse had thrown a shoe, delaying him so that he'd been obliged to spend the previous night at Kenton, some miles short of his goal. In the early morning he'd ridden on and now, just past noon, it seemed his luck, at last, was in. Ahead was the cottage of Mistress Wynnington, now Mistress Comstock, mother of five and grandmother of dozens. She still lived in Croydon.

The tiny, birdlike woman was at first reluctant to admit she had once been a nun. Nick understood. There were many who felt a lingering prejudice against Catholics after Queen Mary's blood-soaked reign.

"Everyone in Croydon must know your history,” he reminded her.

"The question I ask is how you came to know it."

"My mother is a native of this place. Her name was Winifred Marley before she wed my father."

"Winifred Marley! I thought she died years ago."

"She is alive and well and living, for the most part, in London."

"Tell me all,” Mistress Comstock demanded. “I would have a full account of your mother's life after leaving Croydon."

"In return, will you tell me all you remember about Lucy Milborne?"

The deep lines in her face became still more starkly incised as Mistress Comstock tried to call Lucy to mind.

"She came from Kent. Near Hythe. A place called Mill Hall."

"Near Aldington?"

"Aye."

Fear flickered across Mistress Comstock's features. She studied Nick's face with intent, beady eyes. “Why do you want to know about her?"

"She is accused of a crime. It is possible she was charged not because she is guilty but because of something that happened long ago, when she was a nun. Anything you can recall about her could help save her life."

Trust came hard, but at length Mistress Comstock admitted she did remember one thing—Lucy had reacted to every crisis with an excess of emotion most unseemly in a nun.

"She was prostrate with grief for weeks afterward when word came that Elizabeth Barton was dead."

The Nun of Kent. Nick knew the story. Elizabeth Barton had been convicted of treason, executed not for her religion, or even for claiming to have had visions, but for daring to tell the king he had sinned. It would not have been safe back then to seem to sympathize with her, or to mourn her. Even now, a kind word about her might be taken the wrong way.

"Lucy must have been distraught when they evicted her from the priory."

"Oh, yes,” Mistress Comstock agreed. “I do remember that. Well nigh raving, she was. Foolish talk. Claimed they'd ruined us.” She chortled. “Throwing us out into the world was the best thing that could have happened to us, I say. Look at me, Master Baldwin. Do I look ruined?"

"Indeed, madam, you seem both prosperous and happy."

"And so I am."

Nick knew only what little Susanna had been able to tell him of Lucy's life. He had not met her. He had no idea if she was a madwoman or a witch or an innocent victim of circumstances.

"Tell me, Mistress Comstock. If Lucy Milborne got it into her head that some one person was responsible for the ills that have befallen her, would she be the sort to attempt to avenge herself upon him?"

"I do much doubt it. Weeping and wailing, not action, that was her way. Now, tell me about your mother."

When he was satisfied that there was no more Mistress Comstock could tell him about the former nun, Nick obliged as best he could. In truth, he knew little more about his mother's early days in London than he did of Lucy Milborne's life. As the wife of Bevis Baldwin, she'd acquired a good business sense and she was careful of money, but he did not think those facts would interest her old acquaintance. He related the essentials—her marriage to his father, the ventures both husband and son engaged in, the property in London and Northamptonshire and Kent. When he stopped speaking, Mistress Comstock regarded him in silence for a long moment.

"Good for her,” she said at last. “Got what she wanted."

"And what was that?"

"Wealth. Respectability. Pity she did not see fit to share."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you cannot deny that she left the rest of her family here to die in poverty."

There must be some mistake, Nick thought. He was certain his mother had told him, when he was just a lad, that she had no kin living.

Mistress Comstock, having decided to speak, could not be stopped. In considerable detail, she described the conditions under which Nick's grandparents and aunts, people he'd never known, had lived and died. The life his mother had lived until she was fifteen years old.

"Falling to ruin, next thing to a hovel,” Mistress Comstock said of the family house. “Winifred slept in the garret, where the roof was in such disrepair that snow and rain came in on her and her sisters in the night. Still, ‘twas a great surprise to folk hereabout when she ran away to London. I was already in Canterbury by then, but my kinfolk were happy to provide the details. She had a great blazing row with her father when she told him what she meant to do, and the next day she was gone. He warned her she'd end a whore, you see, if she went there all on her own. When he never heard from her again, everyone supposed she had."

With these remarkable revelations still reverberating inside his head, Nick bade Mistress Comstock farewell and left Croydon. If what she'd told him was true, his mother was not the woman he'd thought she was. The Winifred Marley Mistress Comstock had described had put her own comfort, her own concerns, above everything and everyone else. That she'd not reconciled with her father he could understand, but how could she not have tried to help her sisters?

Worse, she had lied to him, her own son, about her family. His family.

Had she lied about other matters, as well?

She wanted Susanna out of his life. Hated her, in fact. He'd not wanted to admit that to himself, but the truth was forced upon him now. That his mother had met with Chediok Norden boded ill. Had she lied about what transpired at their meeting? ‘Twas all too possible.