The Silent Woman (25 page)

‘Bless you, sir, yes. Like her mother before her. Susan followed in Joan Deakin’s footsteps.’

‘Is her mother still alive?’

The maidservant shook her head. ‘Dead, sir. Years ago.’

‘And was Susan a reliable girl?’

‘None more so,’ she said. ‘Susan worked as hard as anyone in the house and took care of Miss Lucy. We were so surprised when she ran away from the house.’

‘Ran away?’

But the maidservant had said enough and retreated into a watchful silence. The stranger would not be received. She had given her message and must show him out. Nicholas Bracewell was a name she had heard often but it was evidently not welcome there. The arrival of the visitor had had such a powerful effect on Mary Whetcombe that she had needed time to recover, and Barnard Sweete had been equally discomfited. The maidservant judged the newcomer to be the son of Robert Bracewell, and the father was no longer allowed into the house. A man who could cause upset simply by calling there must be shown the door.

‘You must go, sir,’ she insisted.

‘Commend me to your mistress,’ he said. ‘Tell her that I will lodge at the Dolphin in the High Street. It is but a small step from here and I can easily be reached.’

‘Good day, sir.’

‘Remember the name. Nicholas Bracewell.’

The maidservant remembered it only too well as a cause of mild panic in the hall upstairs. She was anxious to hear about Susan Deakin but feared the tidings were not good. Nicholas was ushered to the door and out into the street. As he walked slowly away, he was conscious of being watched,
and he turned around to gaze up at the house. Faces moved away from the windows of the hall but one remained at the window in the upper storey. Lucy Whetcombe waved to him again and held something up to him, but he could not see what it was. From that distance, the tiny wooden object was just a vague blob in her little hand. It never even crossed his mind that her doll might be Nicholas Bracewell.

Ellen was propelled by a mixture of envy and daring. Though she had enjoyed all she had seen of the work of Westfield’s Men, the role of the apprentices troubled her. Young boys could never be true women. Wigs and dresses only took the impersonation so far. It stopped short of completion. She had watched Lawrence Firethorn play a tender love scene with Richard Honeydew in one play then seduce the lad with equal skill in another, but on neither occasion had they kissed properly. Words took the place of embraces. Passion was distilled into blank verse. If she were on the stage, she believed, the feeling between the lovers would strike a deeper resonance, and it pained her that she would never be given the chance to prove it.

What she could not do in public, however, could perhaps be accomplished in private, and it was here that envy made way for daring. She had simpered and smiled as Judith Grace to lure him to her bedchamber, but a very different net was needed to land her catch this time. Firethorn would be on his guard. If her performance faltered in any degree, he would unmask her. Ellen’s daring, however, had another level to it and it was one she kept even from her husband. Firethorn was a dupe, but he was also a handsome, virulent man who gave off a shower of sparks whenever he stepped onstage.
She would not have to dissemble on one score. His attraction for her was real. Ellen was confident of her ability to draw him to her bedchamber but she was less certain about what she would do then. Her task was to distract him while her husband was searching Firethorn’s room at the Jolly Sailor. There was one sure way to distract any red-blooded man.

There was a respectful tap on the door.

‘Are you ready?’ asked a voice.

‘Come on in and judge for yourself.’

The door opened and a coachman lumbered in. Israel Gunby was transformed by his hat and long coat. He gaped in astonishment when he saw his wife. Ellen had undergone a metamorphosis. The winsome daughter who was such an effective shield behind whom to hide had now become a lady of aristocratic mien. She wore a dress of dark blue satin that was padded and quilted at the shoulders, stiffened with whalebone, lavishly embroidered with a paler blue and slashed to reveal an even richer lining of pure silk. The shoes, which peeped between the low hem, were silvered. The wig, which swept her whole face upwards, was auburn. Make-up had turned an attractive young woman into a stunning one. Israel Gunby would not have recognised her at first glance.

‘He will throw himself at your feet, my love,’ he said.

‘I will expect no less.’

‘This is our greatest triumph, Ellen.’

‘Then let it begin.’

They sallied forth and made the short journey to the Jolly Sailor. An assignation had already been set up that afternoon. During the performance of
Love and Fortune
, she had established such a rapport with Lawrence Firethorn from her carefully chosen seat that it needed only a note to fix the time
and place. Though they possessed no coach, her coachman nevertheless conducted her into a private room at the Jolly Sailor then bowed his way out. Firethorn was enraptured. For several seconds, he could do nothing more than gaze in wonderment at her and inhale the bewitching fragrance. He wore doublet and breeches of black velvet. Both were embroidered and slashed to show a blood-red satin lining. He removed his hat and gave a low bow then held her hand to bestow the softest kiss on it.

Ellen felt an exhilaration that fuelled her daring.

‘You were majestic this afternoon,’ she complimented.

‘I dedicated my performance to you.’

‘It earned my deepest appreciation.’

‘My sole aim was to please such a beautiful woman.’ He beamed at her. ‘Lawrence Firethorn is at your service. May I know the name of the angel who has deigned to visit me?’

‘Penelope, sir.’

‘Penelope,’ he said, caressing the name with his voice. ‘Penelope, Penelope, Penelope! It is engraved on my heart hereafter. Sweet Penelope of the Jolly Sailor.’

‘This is no fit place for me, sir,’ she said with crisp disapproval. ‘I agreed to meet but not to sup with you. Westfield’s Men are below in the taproom. I would not stay alone with you up here while they joke and snigger. I demand privacy, Master Firethorn. I require discretion.’ She gave him a slow smile. ‘I am married.’

‘Put your trust in me.’

‘Consider my reputation, sir.’

‘I will.’

She crossed to him and issued her orders in a whisper that stroked his ear with such delicacy that it brought a beatific smile to his face. Ellen savoured each moment.

‘Come to the Black Swan in Wine Street an hour from now,’ she instructed. ‘My husband will not return until late. Use the rear entrance of the inn so that you will not be seen. Wait for my coachman. He will bring you to me.’

‘Life can afford no higher state of joy.’

‘An hour, Master Firethorn.’

‘Lawrence,’ he corrected.

‘Lawrence,’ she repeated dreamily. Then she permitted a light kiss on the cheek and withdrew. ‘Farewell, kind sir.’

‘The Black Swan.’

‘I will be there.’

She opened the door and flitted away like a ghost.

Nicholas Bracewell was shattered by her rejection of him and he could find no explanation of this behaviour that would soothe his hurt feelings. Mary Whetcombe was in serious trouble of some kind and she had sent a message to Nicholas as a last resort. He had responded. Throughout a long and hazardous journey, he was sustained by the idea that she desperately needed him and he put his life at risk to get to Barnstaple. He had assumed from the start that Susan Deakin, as he now knew her to be, was a servant in Mary’s household, and the short voyage from Bristol had both reinforced this assumption and given him a valuable insight into her domestic circumstances. If Mary gave a cry for help, why did she refuse to see the man who answered it at such great personal cost? Since she sent Susan Deakin to London, why was she so uninterested in the girl’s fate?

The visit to Crock Street had produced one result. Lucy Whetcombe seemed to know him. During a momentary encounter at the house, he felt a bond being forged without
quite daring to believe what it might be. Was Lucy part of the reason that her mother refused to admit him? Whose were the other faces at the window? What had the girl been holding when she waved to him? Why did her hair and complexion remind him of someone else? Who
was
she?

There was a possible way to unravel that mystery. Nicholas left his room at the Dolphin Inn and came out into Joy Street. Turning down the first lane, he went through to the open land on which St Peter’s Church stood. It had altered since he had last seen it but it still had the same power to wound him. He let himself into the churchyard and went first to his mother’s grave, running an affectionate finger over the name that was carved in the moss-covered stone. There was no doubt about the date and cause of his mother’s death. His hatred of his father momentarily stirred, but he put the death from his mind. It was a marriage and a birth that had brought him there.

Nicholas went into the church and other memories flew around him like carrion crows. They pecked so greedily at his mind that he lifted an arm to brush them away. A young curate came over with pop-eyed curiosity and welcomed him. Nicholas asked a favour and the curate was happy to oblige. The visitor was soon poring over a ledger that was kept at the rear of the building. The leather-bound volume had its counterpart in every church in England. Henry VIII, father of the present Queen, had decreed that all births, marriages and deaths in a parish had to be scrupulously recorded. Nicholas flicked over the pages with gathering emotion.

He found the date of the wedding first. Mary Parr had married Matthew Whetcombe on a Saturday in June. Nicholas was shocked that it seemed so soon after his flight
from the town. He could not blame Mary for marrying someone else when he was gone, but she might have waited a decent interval and she could certainly have chosen someone more worthy of her than Matthew Whetcombe. The merchant was an industrious man with a flair for trade but he was otherwise a highly unattractive character. Mary had sworn she would never wed a man like that, and it bruised Nicholas to see how easily and how soon that vow had been broken.

Nicholas turned to the front of the parish register and read the sonorous words that chimed out like a great bell.

The commandment was dated 1538. Nicholas spared a fleeting thought for Thomas Cromwell whose name enforced the edict. Two years later, he had fallen from favour and was executed with barbarous inefficiency. Somewhere in England was a parish register in which his own death was recorded. But it was the start of a life that fascinated Nicholas Bracewell now and he turned the pages with a trembling hand until he found the correct one. His finger went down the list until he saw her name. Lucy Whetcombe. The girl had been christened barely ten months after the wedding. Matthew Whetcombe was named as the father but her date of birth suggested a startling possibility.
Nicholas thought of Lucy’s hair and complexion. He thought of those eyes. He recalled the stab of recognition he felt when he first caught sight of her. He remembered something that Mary had been trying to tell him on their last night together. It had all happened so long ago that he could not be certain of dates and times, but an idea now began to gnaw at him. The girl might have just cause to respond to him. Though he was flying in the face of recorded fact, he asked himself if there was a special bond between them.

Could Lucy Whetcombe actually be his daughter?

Gideon Livermore’s anger was all violence and bluster but Barnard Sweete did not submit to it this time. He replied with an acid sarcasm that stung the merchant hard.

‘Nicholas Bracewell is dead,’ mocked the lawyer. ‘And even if he lives, there is no way that he will get within ten miles of the town.’

‘He will never leave it alive, I know that!’

‘Where are your men, Gideon? Still waiting under some tree to jump out on him? Still chasing every shadow?’

‘Leave off, Barnard.’

‘You stop him by road so he comes by sea.’

‘Leave off, I say!’

‘Lamparde will kill him. What happened to Lamparde?’

‘He failed.’

‘There is nothing else but failure here, Gideon!’

They were in the lawyer’s chambers and he was not mincing his words. Barnard Sweete had been rocked when the name of Nicholas Bracewell had been brought into the hall. At the very time he was securing Mary Whetcombe’s approval of the will, the one man who might repudiate it
had come knocking on the door. Partnership with Gideon Livermore was highly productive but it rested on a division of labour. Sweete handled the legal side of things and he left the more disagreeable work to the merchant. The latter had clearly not fulfilled his side of the bargain.

Gideon Livermore tried to reassert his authority.

‘My men will take care of him at the Dolphin.’

‘Are you insane?’ said the other. ‘Nicholas Bracewell is no stray poacher you catch on your land and whom you kill to save the law the trouble of prosecuting him. This man is
known
in the town. He has a family here. He has been seen on the quay, at the house, at the church and at the inn. This is not work for another of your Lampardes. We’d have the whole of Barnstaple about our ears. Call off your dogs. It must be handled another way.’

‘Teach me how.’

‘I’ll speak with him.’

‘We buy him off?’

‘No, Gideon,’ said Sweete with exasperation. ‘Money will not tempt this man. We first find out how much Bracewell knows. Then I will reason with him.’

‘What if he speaks with Mary?’

‘She turned him away and will do so again.’

‘How can you be so sure?’