The Prodigal Son (10 page)

‘But why don't you think this man they've arrested is John Jericho?' Anthony demanded in obvious exasperation. ‘If Mother's certain …' It was plain that in his anger and horror over his old nurse's murder, he wanted a scapegoat and wanted one fast. Dame Audrea's word would be good enough for him.

But the steward shook his head stubbornly. ‘He's not the man, Master Anthony. I agree that he could be young Jericho six years older; small, dark haired, blue eyed. But to my mind, there's something that tells me he isn't.' He held up a hand. ‘Don't ask me what, because I can't tell you. I just know that the man in the bridewell at Bristol is not the man who killed my Jenny, whatever the mistress says.'

As though on cue, the door to the steward's room was flung open once again and Dame Audrea entered with an imperious tread, followed by her younger son, wearing his most hard-done-by and aggrieved expression.

Dame Bellknapp was not a tall woman, being something under middling height, but her presence was commanding. It would have been impossible to ignore or overlook her, even if she didn't speak; the essence of the woman pervaded every corner of the room. I doubted if she had ever been beautiful – her nose was too large and her chin too pointed – but she had a pair of fine clear blue eyes, dark, well-marked eyebrows and, like her sons, a full-lipped mouth that could, doubtless, express softness, but which, at the moment, was shut like a trap while she surveyed us. When at last it did open, it was to express outrage and disapproval.

‘What has been going on here, Master Steward? Simon tells me he was insulted and thrown out of your room. Please explain yourself.'

‘Let George alone,' Anthony snapped, getting to his feet once more. ‘My precious brother did his best to throttle me.
I
was the one who threw him out. And I'll remind you, Mother, that I'm the master here now. You and Simon will both do well to remember it.'

‘We'll see about that,' Dame Audrea returned coldly. Her eyes fell upon me. ‘Who's this?'

Before anyone else could answer for me, I dragged myself to my feet, making as great an effort of it as I could without overdoing it, and explained my presence. The lady was not impressed.

‘You may certainly sleep in the kitchen for a night or two until your ankle is better,' she said, looking me over as if I were a cockroach she had just discovered in the linen closet. ‘We refuse no one in need at Croxcombe. But that is your place, not here in the steward's room, listening to all our family affairs.' She addressed George Applegarth. ‘You should know better, Master Steward, than to allow such a thing. I had more confidence in you. Go to the kitchen now, Chapman, and I'll send my woman later to look over your wares.'

I gave her an ironic bow – well, I hoped it was ironic – and began to edge my way towards the door, limping as I went, when I was stopped by a hand on my arm.

‘Master Chapman and I are acquainted,' Anthony Bellknapp announced. ‘In fact, we are old friends.' The man was an accomplished liar, but I have to confess that I liked him none the less for that. ‘He is here,' Anthony continued blandly, ‘at my invitation and as my guest. He will be housed and treated accordingly by all of you.'

T
here was a brief silence, during which astonishment was gradually replaced by outrage on the faces of Audrea Bellknapp and her younger son. George Applegarth's expression was more difficult to read, although I thought I saw amusement and a certain flicker of approval light those slate-grey eyes.

‘Thank you, Master Bellknapp,' I said gravely. ‘You're very gracious.'

Anthony just had time to flash me a grin and a barely concealed wink before the full torrent of his mother's wrath broke over his head.

‘How dare you countermand my orders like that? You absent yourself for eight years – eight years, mark you! – without a word as to your whereabouts, leaving us uncertain as to whether you are alive or dead. You return home with no advance warning to disrupt all our lives, and then immediately assume you can usurp the authority which I hold in trust for your brother. Not only that, but you also have the gall to foist your disreputable friend on us' – I realized with a shock that she meant me – ‘and then expect us to treat him with the same courtesy as we should use towards one of our guests.'

Dame Audrea paused to draw breath, but Anthony gave her no chance to proceed further. In a voice as coldly furious as her own, he reminded her again that he was now the master of Croxcombe Manor. ‘And so that there should be no doubt on that head, on my way here, I took the precaution of calling on lawyer Slocombe and confirming the contents of my father's will. Croxcombe is left to me provided I claim my inheritance before Simon reaches the age of eighteen.' He gave a malicious smile. ‘And as I remember perfectly that I was already past my tenth birthday when he was born, and as I am now twenty-five …' He didn't bother to finish the sentence, merely shrugging his shoulders and leaving us to draw the inevitable conclusion for ourselves. Simon Bellknapp was still only fifteen. After a moment Anthony went on, ‘I am therefore the master here, my dear mother, and anything I choose to do must, I'm afraid, be acceptable to you and Simon or you can arrange to make your home elsewhere.'

I heard the steward gasp, and had to admit that I was myself taken aback by such plain speaking. Sons, whatever the circumstances or provocation, did not generally treat their mothers in such a forthright and disrespectful fashion. For her part, Dame Audrea, although trembling with anger, recognized that she was, for the moment, beaten, and that it would be beneath her dignity to brawl openly with her son in the presence of her steward and a mere ‘disreputable' pedlar. She therefore swung abruptly on her heel in the direction of the door.

‘We shall see you then at supper. You, too, Chapman.' (She turned the word into an insult.) ‘Come, Simon! There's nothing you can do here.'

‘You shouldn't have spoken to your lady mother like that, Master Anthony,' the steward reproved him as the door of his room shut with a thud behind Dame Audrea and her younger son.

Anthony grimaced. ‘I'm sorry, George.' Although I couldn't say that he sounded very apologetic. ‘But I have to make my position clear. I know my mother. She's a high-stomached woman. I have no doubt she'll have had things all her own way since my father died – and I can tell by your expression that I'm right. As for that brother of mine, he needs putting in his place. He's a vicious, mean-minded brat, spoilt from the moment of his birth. And dangerous, too. You saw how he went for me. But for you and the chapman here, he might well have throttled me.' He turned towards me, holding out his hand. ‘I owe you something for that, my friend. I'm holding by what I said. You must count yourself my personal guest for as long as you wish to stay here. And you must certainly remain at Croxcombe until that ankle is stronger. Now, George, tell me in detail this terrible story of the robbery and Jenny's murder.'

The steward's account of events that night six years previously differed little in essentials from the version I had pieced together for myself from the various scraps of information that had come my way. John Jericho had entered Dame Audrea's employ some two years before. No one knew much about his past or exactly where he had come from. He had simply wandered into the kitchen at Croxcombe one day, half starved and looking for employment.

‘An orphan, he claimed, and no other family.' George Applegarth spread his hands and pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘That was all we ever learned about him, though I felt in my own mind it wasn't the truth. And the name Jericho … I was always suspicious of that. But for some reason, the mistress took a strong fancy to him and made him her page. The master told her she was being foolish. Mistress Ursula – Lady Chauntermerle, I should say – when she came on a visit, told her mother the same. Sir Damien, too. But she wouldn't listen.'

‘Mother never took anyone's advice about anything,' Anthony interrupted with a laugh. ‘If people gave it, it only made her the more determined to go her own way.'

The steward nodded. ‘But, of course, two years later, when everyone seemed to be proved right, her bitterness against young Jericho was extreme. He'd made a fool of her, and that she could never forgive. Her hatred of him is unrelenting.'

‘This man who is now in the bridewell in Bristol,' I said. ‘This man she has accused of being John Jericho, you don't agree with her, Master Steward. Or so I understand.'

He glanced sharply at me. ‘Now who do you understand that from?'

‘Before I left Bristol, everyone was talking about it. Sergeant Manifold, the arresting officer, is a friend of mine.' (Well, sort of.) ‘This man, John Wedmore, declares he was in Ireland at the time of the murder.'

The steward nodded. ‘He's not the guilty man,' he said.

‘But can you convince Dame Audrea of that?'

‘She won't make me testify to the contrary.'

Anthony Bellknapp clapped his old friend on the back. ‘Good for you, George. If, that is, you can hold out against her. But unless she's altered greatly during the past eight years, my mother can be a formidable enemy if she doesn't get her own way. You'd do well to take care.'

‘And you'd do well to heed your own advice,' the steward retorted with a smile. ‘Your return has upset all her plans for the future. She intended to go on ruling this household even after Simon came of age.'

‘He might take a wife,' I suggested.

‘Only a girl chosen by his mother.' George Applegarth smiled. ‘Oh, Simon won't realize it, but the mistress has always been able to twist him around her little finger.'

‘Lord, yes!' Anthony agreed. ‘That was my misfortune, that I'd never let her. She set my father against me from the moment I lisped my first word of defiance. Otherwise, I believe that he and I might – just might – have been friends. He obviously tried to make some amends to me when he knew he was dying.' My host paused, staring into space as though reflecting on the past, but then continued, ‘Anyway, if you can bear it, George, tell me about the night of the murder. Why hadn't you and Jenny accompanied my parents on their visit to my sister?'

The steward shook his head. ‘I can't rightly remember now.' He sounded impatient. ‘There was some good reason. Jenny wouldn't have gone, in any case. Master Simon was nine by then, and declared himself too old to have a nurse.'

‘And why had the page remained behind?'

Once again, George Applegarth made a gesture of dismissal, as though the pain of recollection was almost too much for him to bear. ‘Toothache, earache … some ailment of that nature.'

‘But, of course, whatever he said it was, was faked,' Anthony protested. ‘He only pretended to be sick in order to stay behind at Croxcombe so he could steal the silver.'

‘Yes.' George's voice was barely audible, and I could tell that while he must inevitably relive that night over and over in his mind, he would prefer not to talk about it.

Whether or not my host shared my perception I had no idea, but he persisted with his catechism. ‘You didn't hear Jenny get out of bed? She didn't try to wake you?'

‘No.' The steward took a deep breath. ‘Or if she did try to rouse me, she didn't succeed. I blame myself. Too much ale with my supper. It always makes me sleep like the dead.' He clamped a hand to his mouth as he realized the infelicity of this remark, and made a little mewling sound like an injured cat.

It was not my place to say anything, but I glanced at Anthony in an attempt to convey that it was time to stop this questioning. He continued relentlessly, however, apparently oblivious to the other man's distress in his quest for the facts.

‘So you knew nothing of what had happened until the next morning, when you got up and found her dead and the family treasure and John Jericho gone?'

George Applegarth nodded mutely, unable to speak. His face was the colour of parchment and had a waxy sheen to it. I thought he was going to faint, but to my relief, Anthony saw it, too, and bit his lower lip in contrition. He put an arm around the steward's shoulders and, as I struggled out of the armchair where I had been sitting all this while, lowered him into it. George began to shudder.

‘My dear old friend, what a crass fool I am! Why in heaven's name didn't you tell me to shut up?' The younger man thumped himself on the forehead with his fist. ‘Why am I such an unthinking blockhead? Chapman, why didn't you kick me on the shin? No, no! That's not fair. The fault is mine.
Mea culpa
. George, can you forgive me, bringing it all back like that? If you want to kick my arse, I'll bend over willingly and let you do it.'

That produced a faint smile and a shake of the steward's head. He forced himself to his feet again.

‘It's only natural you should be curious, Master Anthony; that you should want to know what happened. It's just that I think I've got over it,' he added apologetically, ‘and then when I'm reminded, I discover that I haven't. My dear Jenny … We'd no child nor chick of our own and she loved you two lads like she was your mother.' He made a determined effort to speak more cheerfully. ‘Take no notice of me, my dear boy …' He choked, coughed, then drew back his shoulders, bracing himself to resume his duties. ‘Now I must go and oversee the laying of the supper table. Your first meal at home, I want everything to be as you would wish it.'

‘Of course you do.' Anthony grinned, still looking a little shamefaced; but his natural resilience – or natural insensitivity? – was already convincing him that George Applegarth could not really be as upset as he had seemed. ‘And mind those idiot place-setters put me where I belong, in the centre seat on the dais.' He added grimly, ‘I'm bound to have my mother and brother one on each side, I suppose. But the seat of honour is mine.'