The Fabric of Murder (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 2) (5 page)

Foxe had intended to visit Gracie the next afternoon. It was now obvious that he should postpone that. If Kitty sent word to her sister about the way she had spent this afternoon – as she certainly would – he doubted he would escape Gracie’s demands for equal treatment. He needed a goodly period of time to regain his strength.

T
he Misses Calderwood
had known Foxe since his childhood, and would, as always, be delighted by a visit. He knew that, like many elderly people, they slept little and rose early. Nevertheless, he delayed his visit to them until the most polite time of day. These ladies might be old, and they had never been wealthy, but they deserved as much consideration as any others.

Thus it was that Foxe rose at the usual hour the next day and dressed as elegantly as ever. The ladies still appreciated a well-dressed gentleman with shapely calves. Then he took his normal route to The Swan, coffee and the newspaper. Today, his stay was but an hour before he set off again towards the city’s brooding, Norman castle and the streets between there and the cathedral. The way down to the river was steepest here, but that had not deterred people from building some fine houses along the way. In back lanes and alleys more modest houses survived, crammed into spaces left by the grand dwellings. They crept between the mansions and gardens of the gentry and the clergy who served the cathedral.

It was to one of these that Foxe made his way. Once it must have been a small timbered cottage of the type to be found throughout Norfolk. Now, alas, the thatched roof was dark with moss and damp. The great beams had also lost much of the pitch that had kept out the weather, and the wattled walls stood in sore need of a fresh coat of lime wash.

Foxe banged hard on the door, though he feared it might not withstand such an assault. Both ladies were somewhat hard of hearing. What income they lived on he could not imagine, for their school had closed down more than a decade ago. Perhaps one of the city’s charities provided for them. If he could find out which, he might discreetly add something of his own.

A skinny girl wearing a cut-down dress and an apron that had seen better years, not just days, opened the door then stood silent, as if she could not quite recall what came next. Foxe gave his name. He waited. She waited. At last he asked if he might be allowed to enter and speak with the ladies of the house. The maid considered this for a moment, then stood back and let him pass inside. Then, still in complete silence, she pointed to a room to his left and disappeared further within. In a moment, she was back.

‘They says you must follow me to where they are, sir. They also wants me to tell you they be right glad you’ve come. Few enough comes to visit them now – and never such gentleman as yourself while I’ve bin ‘ere. Then I’m to bring tea, they says, though where I’m to find that I ’as no notion.’

‘Here,’ Foxe said, giving her five whole shillings. ‘Go to the shops in Tombland. Whatever money is left, you may keep for your trouble.’

The girl’s eyes rounded like saucers and she rushed away, afraid he might change his mind.

The Misses Calderwood were just as he recalled them. Older and more shrunken now, but still as alert and excited as they were whenever he managed to visit them. Hannah, the elder by two years, wore an old-fashioned mobcap and huddled in a shawl. Her sister Abigail scorned more than a scrap of lace over her hair, white now where once it had been auburn, and peered at him through a pair of spectacles perished askew on her nose.

‘Ladies,’ Foxe said. ‘I thank you for your condescension and willingness to forgive me coming unannounced.’

‘He always did have pretty manners,’ Miss Abigail said to her sister, speaking as if Foxe was not there. ‘Dresses well too.’ She turned to Foxe. ‘Well, sit you down Ashmole. Stop looming over us like some great lummox.’

‘Of course,’ Miss Hannah replied, ‘None of that counted for much. He might look as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but he was still a naughty child. Sneaky too. He’d look you in the eye and tell you lies enough to make Satan blush.’

The two old women regarded their visitor in a way that indicated he might be older, even richer, but they doubted that his morals had improved.

‘So, what do you want, young Ashmole?’ It was Hannah again. ‘You never did anything without a reason, even if no one else could see what it might be.’

‘Especially then,’ Abigail said. ‘His mind was like a corkscrew for directness. I never knew a more devious child.’

‘Mind you, Abby, the boy wasn’t wicked or malicious. Artful, I grant you. Devious like you said. Naughty too – though I never trusted any boy who wasn’t – but not bad inside. He might never take the highway when he could slip along the lanes unnoticed, but he usually tried to reach some good end.’

‘Remember that time we found him bringing a salve to cure Meggy Wimpole’s boils and putting it on her himself? It would have been a kind act, if he hadn’t persuaded her to take her dress and shift off to make the job easier.’

‘Still, I was sad to see him go to a proper school after his uncle died.’

‘Changed his life, that did. Where did that uncle get all his money, d’you reckon?’

‘No idea. Probably something shady.’

All this Foxe endured with a good grace. He knew they were teasing him, even though all they said was true enough. He had always found cunning superior to fighting as a way to get what you wanted. And though Meggy Wimpole was grubby, none too bright and her boils disgusting, she was unusually well-developed for her age. It was too good a chance to pass over.

By this time, a clattering in the next room suggested the skinny maid had returned and was doing her best to get a kettle to boil for tea. Since that might take some time, Foxe decided he should start before it arrived.

‘Master Bonneviot,’ Foxe said. ‘Do you remember him?’ There was no point in pretending any other reason for his visit. They were far too sharp for that. To dissemble would be to insult their minds.

‘Father or son,’ Miss Hannah said at once. ‘Both were master weavers, you know.’

‘Let’s start with the father.’

The two ladies looked at one another.

‘How would you describe him, Hannah?’

‘You start, Abigail.’ It was clear neither found the topic easy.

‘Well … Jerome Bonneviot was a grown man by the time we knew him, Ashmole. Already a master weaver and quite a successful one. His family had been weavers before him and he’d served his apprenticeship with an uncle somewhere. But he was never an easy man, being a strict Calvinist or something like.’

‘Not only that,’ Miss Hannah added. ‘His life hadn’t been easy, I understand. Daniel was the only child of his marriage to survive to adulthood. By then, old Jerome was an embittered man. His wife had died in her last child-bearing and he was alone, but for the boy. They say he became obsessed with religion towards the end. We’re not so sure, are we Abby?’

‘Odd kind of religion, if you asks me. Jerome Bonneviot gave his son a fine start in the weaving trade, no doubt about that. Then, for some reason, he refused to do more. Once the boy’s apprenticeship was over, he made the lad fend for himself. Old Jerome’s money was all left to charities, not his family.’

‘Daniel, his son, grew up showing most of the worst aspects of his father’s character and few of the better ones,’ Miss Hannah went on. ‘His first wife gave him a daughter, but all the other children she bore soon died. Then she followed them. I call that a merciful release. Daniel was never kind to any woman, as I heard tell. Still, he was quick to marry again and marry well – at least in terms of money. His new wife soon bore him the son he craved. After that, he lost interest in both of them. Young George’s mother suffered poor health for a long time after he was born, so the boy was mostly raised by his older step-sister. Even later, his mother still struggled and needed the step-daughter to help.’

‘That was what Daniel said. Whether it was true was another matter.’ It was Abigail again. ‘His daughter was like his wife: his property and don’t anyone forget it. She was maybe ten years old when George was born. The old man forced her to stay at home until the lad could begin his apprenticeship. About twelve he was then, so she would be in her early twenties. She never did have many suitors. Her father drove them away. Nor was she beautiful enough or rich enough for any of them to want to defy him. The minute young Daniel left home, she went too. Married the first man she could find, though he was perhaps twenty years older than her.’

‘It wasn’t a bad move though, Abigail. Her husband was a good man and they had two – or was it three? – children who survived childhood. When he died, she kept the business on as well.’

‘What business was that?’ Foxe enquired. He knew the answer already, of course, but it was sometimes best to pretend ignorance. If you said you knew the answer, people added nothing. If you pretended ignorance, they might tell you many things to augment your knowledge.

‘Samuel Swan was a mercer and haberdasher, with a shop on Pottergate. His widow keeps it now. That’s Eliza Bonneviot, as was, Daniel Bonneviot’s step-daughter. A good shop, but far above our means. Eliza Swan knows her cloth.’ Foxe made a mental note to warn Kitty of this fact. For the moment, he wanted to hear more about Daniel Bonneviot’s household.

‘So Daniel went as an apprentice at twelve or so,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘He’d come to us before then. His father could have afforded better, of course, but, as dissenters, his family were barred from the professions and the universities. That is why so many became prominent in business. The father had us teach Daniel his letters, reading and writing enough for business and simple arithmetic for casting accounts. After that, off he went to London.’

‘London!’ Foxe was surprised.

‘We told you the Bonneviots were Huguenots, didn’t we?’ Abigail said. ‘Lots of them in London, I heard. Anyway, old Mr. Bonneviot had relatives in London …’

‘In Smithfield.’ Her sister always liked to be precise.

‘Yes, my dear. In Smithfield. A master weaver of great renown. It cost a pretty penny to apprentice the boy to such a master, so we heard, even if he was kin. Still, he taught the lad well. Daniel Bonneviot became a fine craftsman in the weaving way.’

‘What was Daniel like as a boy?’ Foxe asked.

‘Difficult,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Stubborn, cruel and willful. Always fighting with the other boys. If you said or did anything Daniel took amiss, his answer was ever to use his fists. No one wronged him and escaped revenge. There was a great stock of anger inside the boy. Yet he was clever enough and learned well.’

‘Not a likeable boy,’ her sister added. ‘His father could seem grim and withdrawn, but usually treated others fairly enough. The son was scornful and arrogant. He cared nothing for anyone else, so long as he got what he wanted.’

‘So he did his apprenticeship and came back to his father as a journeyman.’ Foxe needed to move the conversation along.

‘Oh no, Ashmole,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘I think he was a journeyman in London … or was it Halifax?’

At this point, the maid came in. It seemed she had at last obtained boiling water enough to bring in dishes – none too clean – and a rather old-fashioned teapot. She placed all on the table and added a dish containing some tea leaves.

‘Tea?’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Where on earth did you find that? I thought we had used our last tea – when was it? August? September?’

‘To my mind, it was August a twelvemonth ago,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘Where was it, girl? It must be quite old.’

‘I sent your maid to buy some,’ Foxe said. ‘Think of it as a small gift.’

The sisters looked at him in amazement. ‘There must be four shillings’ worth here,’ Miss Hannah said.

‘Three shilling an’ thruppence,’ her maid said. ‘Your visitor said as I might keep the rest for going.’

‘Indeed I did. Now, which of you ladies will make the tea?’

‘I will,’ both said together.

Foxe laughed. ‘Miss Hannah is the elder, I believe. Perhaps she should do it.’

When they had made the tea, both sipped at it gingerly – though in truth the water had not been quite at the boil and the dishes cooled it quickly.

‘Thank you, dear Ashmole,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘To be honest, I never though to taste good tea again. It’s too expensive for us. Are you so rich you can give it away as you have?’

Foxe nodded.

’Shall we ask how he came so rich?’ she said to her sister. ‘I warrant there was a trick in it somewhere.’

‘Drink your tea, dear,’ her sister said. ‘It would not be polite to question someone who has given us such a gift, even if I do share your doubts about Ashmole’s way of life. I hear he consorts with the Catt sisters nowadays. There’s a pair of beauties! Gracie runs that terrible house and Kitty shows herself to all on the stage. There isn’t a single scruple or any moral sense in either of them … Do they make good lovers, Ashmole?’

It took several minutes of coughing for Foxe to recover from that question, for his tea had near choked him in his surprise. Fortunately, his confusion and discomfort freed him from the need for an immediate reply.

‘You were saying Bonneviot … that’s Daniel, I mean … served his period as journeyman in London,’ he managed at last. ‘Did Jerome not want his son to succeed him in his business here?’

For a moment, he feared one or other would press him on the other matter, but it seemed they had tired of the game.

‘That was typical of old Mr. Bonneviot,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘He’d started with naught save his skill, so he determined his son should do the same. Before the boy returned, his father had sold his goods and business and, so the rumour went, devoted himself to study and religion. Maybe the father reckoned he’d discharged his duty to his son by giving him a good apprenticeship. They could never have worked together. Jerome might have been the owner of the business, but Daniel wouldn’t suffer anyone to give him orders. Maybe the old man knew what his son was like and wasn’t going to subject himself to that sort of treatment in his old age.’

‘Never left him more’n a pittance when he died,’ Miss Abigail added, ‘and he was quite a rich man. All his other wealth went to setting up his various charities. His son Daniel had to make his own way.’

‘But he did,’ Foxe said.

‘Daniel Bonneviot had a ferocious need to win at whatever he did,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Same when he was a boy. And if he couldn’t win by fair means, he’d still win.’