10 - The Goldsmith's Daughter (13 page)

We emerged into the Stock’s Market to discover that the day had grown brighter, the sun forcing its way through a break in the leaden clouds and diffusing sufficient warmth to dry the slimy cobbles.

I turned once again to my new acquaintance. ‘What’s your answer, then, Master Ford? Will you give us the pleasure of your company at dinner?’

He hesitated, but only for a second: Reynold Makepeace had a well-deserved reputation for serving some of the best food for streets around.

‘Thank you,’ he said in his courteous, rather stately fashion. ‘I should be pleased to accept your kind invitation.’

His tone was still a little wary, but who could be surprised at that? To be accosted by two complete strangers and two known to him only by sight, and, in addition, be pressed into dining with them, must have been a bewildering experience. But I suspected that dinner at the Voyager, even with four unknowns, was preferable to his own lonely table. Besides, it turned out that he was well acquainted with Reynold Makepeace, and the pair of them greeted each other with the easy familiarity of old friends.

By the time we had walked the length of Bucklersbury, it was past ten o’clock, and the long trestles and benches of the Voyager’s dining parlour were already filling up. In deference, however, to the fact that Adela and I were guests at the inn, and that I was known to have some connection with His Grace of Gloucester, the landlord ushered the five of us into a private room overlooking the main courtyard, and saw to it that we received the best and promptest of attention. (The look he gave Philip was a puzzled one, unable, probably, to reconcile this pock-marked, unsavoury-looking individual with my more noble connections.)

We ate boiled beef with buttered vegetables, a curd tart accompanied by a dish of raisins steeped in brandy, and a sweet cheese flan, all washed down with the Voyager’s best home-brewed ale. It was a dinner to remember, as, indeed, I have remembered it down through the years with pleasure and nostalgia. (Food today isn’t what it was. There’s no flavour to anything any more, although my children – quite wrongly, it goes without saying – attribute this fact more to my age and loss of taste than to the inferior quality of the viands.)

During the course of the meal, I was able to talk to Master Ford, who was seated next to me, about Gideon Bonifant and the murder.

‘Gideon was my assistant for only a year before he married Isolda Babcary and went to work for his father-in-law,’ the apothecary said, between mouthfuls of boiled beef and buttered vegetables. ‘The marriage was a great stroke of good fortune for him, and raised his prospects beyond anything he could otherwise have hoped for. Indeed, until Mistress Babcary took a fancy to him, Gideon had no prospects that I could see, and seemed destined to remain my assistant for the rest of his life. After all, it seemed highly unlikely that anyone in the local community of Isolda’s standing and expectations would ever glance in his direction.’

‘On the other hand,’ I interrupted, ‘is it not true that Isolda Babcary had met with no success in finding a husband before she met Gideon Bonifant? I’ve met the lady, and while I should be reluctant to describe her as ugly, she is certainly no beauty. Moreover, as her father was at pains to inform me, she is of a very independent disposition. And the combination of lack of good looks and strong-mindedness seems to have deterred the other men of her acquaintance from proposing matrimony, even though, or so I imagine, she was possessed of a substantial dowry.’

Master Ford, with great dignity, wiped a dribble of gravy from his chin and ladled another helping of boiled beef and vegetables on to his plate. He then turned his head slowly in my direction, staring reproachfully down that long, patrician nose of his.

‘Are you suggesting that Gideon was prepared to overlook these defects in Isolda Babcary in order to avail himself of her fortune?’ he demanded.

‘Well, he wouldn’t be the first man to have done so,’ Philip cut in, waving his knife and spoon excitedly in the air and saving me the trouble of replying. ‘There’s many a poor man who’s improved his lot by marrying for money. And no shame to him for doing so, either! It isn’t something I’d be happy to contemplate, but the poor must look out for themselves in any way they can. That’s my motto!’

‘I daresay!’ The apothecary’s expression grew even more disapproving. ‘But Gideon Bonifant was a very pious, very God-fearing man who told his rosary several times a day and always said his prayers before going to sleep at nights. He was not the sort of person to put financial considerations above all others.’

Philip grimaced. ‘Sounds like a bit of a dullard to me,’ he sniggered.

He was seated opposite me, next to his wife, and I kicked out with my foot in an effort to restrain him. Unfortunately, from the spasm of pain that contorted Jeanne’s features, I realised that I had missed my target. Turning back to Master Ford, I hastily changed the subject.

‘You say that Master Bonifant had worked as your assistant for only a year before he married Isolda Babcary, yet I recall Mistress Shore telling me that he was ten years older than her kinswoman at the time of the wedding. And Isolda herself was twenty . . .?’

‘Twenty-four.’ Master Ford nodded. ‘Yes, you are quite correct. Gideon had turned thirty-four when they married. So you see,’ he added, directing a censorious glance at Philip, ‘he was not a youth to have his head turned by the prospect of wealth and social betterment. He did not marry Isolda Babcary for her money.’

Philip snorted and opened his mouth, doubtless to say what I felt inclined to say myself, that advancing years might have made Gideon more, rather than less, desperate to improve his lot. But I refrained and looked at my friend, silently imploring him to do the same. To my great relief, he got my message and addressed himself once more to his plate.

‘The point I am trying to make,’ I said, turning yet again to our guest, ‘is that Master Bonifant was not a
young
man when he first went to work for you. He must have been at least thirty-two or maybe thirty-three years of age. Do you know anything about his life before that date?’

The apothecary laid his spoon and knife together on his empty plate and, for a moment or two, allowed his attention to wander to the curd tart and sweet cheese flan that one of the inn servants had just placed on the table, together with the brandy-soaked raisins and a jug of fresh ale. Once having satisfied himself of their excellence, he politely gave me all his attention.

‘Gideon was not a native of this city,’ he said. ‘He had lived, until such time as he came to work for me, in Southampton. But the unexpected death of his young wife, some months earlier, had given him a distaste for the place. So he left, and set out for London, in an effort, I imagine, to put the tragedy behind him.’

I stared in surprise at my informant. ‘Master Bonifant had been married before? Neither Mistress Shore nor Master Babcary told me that he was a widower.’

The apothecary looked somewhat nonplussed by this remark, then shrugged.

‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘they saw no need to mention it. After all, it’s hardly relevant to his death. Nevertheless, I feel sure they must have known. I can’t believe that Gideon would have kept the fact a secret.’

‘No, indeed,’ I answered thoughtfully.

Adela glanced up from her plate and laughed. ‘My husband likes to know every little detail, Master Ford, whether it has any bearing on his enquiries or no.’

‘He’s just plain nosy,’ Philip said, ‘and it can land him in a lot of trouble.’ He added feelingly, ‘It can land other people in a lot of trouble, as well.’

‘Each fact, however irrelevant it appears, may be of importance,’ I retorted sententiously. ‘But pray continue, Master Ford. How did Master Bonifant come to be in your employ? Had he been an apothecary’s assistant in Southampton?’

‘So he told me, and I saw no need to doubt his word. He seemed to know the business, and quickly proved to my satisfaction that he could mix lotions and make up unguents as well as I could myself. He knew the properties of all the different herbs, and was good at discussing the ailments, as well as the necessary remedies, with my customers, particularly the older ones. He had, in fact, become invaluable to me during that short twelvemonth, and I was extremely sorry to part with him when the time came for him to marry.’

‘How did you meet him, and what happened to your previous assistant?’ I asked.

Master Ford managed a thin-lipped smile. ‘I see what your friend means about your nosiness. Are such facts really important in attempting to solve the mystery – if indeed there
is
a mystery – of Gideon’s murder?’

‘Probably not,’ I admitted. ‘But as I have already pointed out, I cannot tell what might be of value and what might not. And it’s true, I’m curious by nature.’

‘“Nosy” was what we said,’ Philip grinned.

With an effort of will, I ignored him, but I was beginning to tire of his pleasantries. Leaving my curd tart untouched on my plate, I twisted my head even further in Master Ford’s direction, in spite of the fact that such a posture was giving me a severe pain in my neck. ‘I’d be grateful for an answer to my question.’

The apothecary sampled the sweet cheese tart and it seemed to have a mellowing effect upon him.

‘My previous assistant was my wife,’ he explained. ‘She had inherited her considerable knowledge of ailments and their treatments from her father, who was also an apothecary, and so I had never had need of any other help in the shop. She had been dead only three or four months when Gideon came asking me if I was in want of an assistant.’ Master Ford heaved a sigh. ‘The similarity of our situations, both of us so recently bereaved, may, originally, have inclined me to employ him, but I never had any cause to regret my decision.’

‘Of all the apothecaries in London,’ I asked, ‘how did he come to pick on you? There must be a dozen in Bucklersbury alone.’

Master Ford shook his head sadly, as though he were dealing with an idiot child. ‘I was not the first shop at which he had offered his services. Gideon told me later that he had, in fact, been trudging around the city for several days. It was, oddly enough, the apothecary in West Cheap, in Gudrun Lane, who advised him that I might be glad of his assistance.’

‘Why do you say “oddly enough”? What was strange about the apothecary in Gudrun Lane?’

‘Jeremiah Page was summoned to the goldsmith’s house the night that Gideon died.’

‘Ah, yes!’ I refilled my beaker with ale and finally managed to consume a mouthful or two of curd tart. ‘I remember Master Babcary mentioning that fact.’ I frowned. ‘Why was an apothecary sent for and not a physician?’

Master Ford shrugged. ‘That I cannot tell you. I wasn’t there. You must ask members of the household for an answer. Maybe there’s no physician who lives close enough at hand. Maybe those present weren’t sure that Gideon was really dead, and hoped that an apothecary might have an antidote to revive him. Maybe . . . But I repeat, I wasn’t there. I don’t know what anybody said or thought. I only heard the rumours and the stories that circulated afterwards.’

‘You were shocked by the news of Gideon Bonifant’s murder?’

‘Of course I was shocked.’ Master Ford hesitated a moment or two before continuing, ‘Shocked, but not altogether surprised.’

‘And why was that?’ I queried, although I could guess the answer.

The other three had by now finished their meal and, with nothing else to distract them, were listening intently to the conversation.

Master Ford, who had also eaten his fill, eased his thin buttocks into a more comfortable position on the bench and pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as though considering his reply. At last he said, ‘A few weeks before his death, Gideon confided in me his suspicion that his wife was being unfaithful to him with her cousin, Christopher Babcary.’

‘And you believed him?’

Once again, the apothecary hesitated over his answer. ‘At the time, I thought him completely sincere in his belief, but mistaken.’

‘Why did you think him mistaken?’ Jeanne Lamprey wanted to know.

Master Ford spread his long, thin hands, with their elegant, tapering fingers.

‘I don’t know Christopher Babcary all that well, you understand. I’ve only spoken once to him at any length, and that was at Gideon’s wedding to Isolda. He was some fourteen years of age then, all spots and pimples as such callow youths generally are. But I’ve caught sight of him many times since, when I’ve been in West Cheap, and over the past five and a half years, he’s grown into a good-looking young fellow.

‘Now, it seemed to me, when Gideon first told me of his suspicions concerning him and Isolda, highly improbable that such a man, who cannot lack for female companionship, would fall in love with a woman older than himself by some ten years, and one, moreover, who is so plain that she found it difficult to get herself a husband in the first place.’ Master Ford bit his lip. ‘But I should have had more faith in Gideon’s knowledge of the pair. I repeat, he was a God-fearing man and would never have made such an accusation lightly.’

‘You think then that Mistress Bonifant is guilty of her husband’s death?’

‘Either she alone or she and her cousin together.’ Master Ford turned to stare defiantly at me. ‘Don’t think me ignorant of the details of the murder. I made it my business to find them out. I was fond of Gideon – or as fond as I could be after only a year’s close acquaintance. He was not a man anyone could get to know easily, for he was reluctant to talk freely about himself. His grief at the death of his first wife went too deep for idle prattle, and I honoured him for that. I understood his reticence. I’m just sorry that chance put Isolda Babcary in his way.’

‘How did that happen?’ I asked.

The apothecary shook his head. ‘I don’t know. All I do know is that one day she came into the shop asking for Gideon. I called him from the back room where he was mixing up some lotions for me, and I could see at once that they were no strangers to one another. The only thing that surprised me, as it appeared to surprise Gideon, was that she had come seeking him out. I thought it unmaidenly and forward.’