Page 19 of Linenfold (The Alice Chronicles #4)

‘This murder could have been committed by any of Lord Hardcastle’s party. I’m sorry to say it but even Master Sewell.’

‘Or mayhap it was an outsider.’

She is stilled for a moment, wondering. ‘Indeed, but until we know more, we must all be careful in our dealings with these guests. I shall have my hands full with the coroner and his jury coming so I will trust you to do as I ask.’

‘Yes, mistress.’

‘And since our guests will not be leaving this morning after all, I shall be glad of your help at table and suchlike, while we lodge them for a few more days.’

The black-clad man who rides into the kitchen court is unknown to Alice. ‘Maureen, who’s that out there?’

Maureen glances, shrugs. ‘Don’t know.’

Betsy comes out of the still room with some lye soap.

‘Let’s see, dear,’ she says, joining Alice at the window.

‘That’s Master Townsend.’ She pulls open the door and makes her way across the court as the man dismounts and asks a question.

Betsy points indoors and when the man holds out his reins to her, she points to the stables, turns and goes into the wash house.

So Jack was not at Freemans, and Joe had no choice but to seek out Justice Townsend instead.

The man’s plain black straight-brimmed hat sits level over a face that might once have been well-fleshed but now has sunken, leaving sagging folds under eye and cheek.

The mouth turns down at the extremities, as though weighted by the flesh that droops below the jawline.

The whole gives him a cheerless appearance.

Even his thick eyebrows seem to dip over eyes sunk deep in shadowed sockets.

The unrelenting black of his doublet, breeches, cloak, hose and shoes is relieved only by a plain white collar and white cuffs.

From all she has heard of Justice Townsend, this is a man of strict puritanical persuasion.

She remembers also a remark Henry once made, which gives her particular dismay.

“He has too much respect for a title, even a bought knighthood like Wipley’s. ”

With sinking heart she watches the lugubrious man emerge from the stables and holds the door for him to enter. ‘Master Townsend, I believe?’ She dips a curtsey. ‘Give you good morning, sir. I am Mistress Jerrard. Do you step inside.’

‘God give you a good morning also, mistress,’ he replies, halting to nod in token salutation. ‘Though I am advised there is one here who will no longer receive His blessings on this earth.’

‘Sadly that is so, sir,’ she replies. ‘Do you wish to view his body now or would you prefer to wait until Sir Malcolm arrives? I have sent a messenger.’

‘I will see the body now. Perhaps one of your men would conduct me to the place.’

‘I shall show you there myself.’

He pauses to address her. ‘Mistress Jerrard, your senior manservant is the correct one to act where there is no head of High Stoke house.’

‘Master Townsend,’ she counters, ‘I am the head of High Stoke.’ She indicates the kitchen court, ‘Do you follow me, sir.’ He treads several paces behind, as though to point her impropriety.

At the vegetable garden, she directs Ned and Allan to remove the stones holding the sheet in place and stand at a distance.

‘I should warn you, sir,’ she addresses the justice, ‘he has been shockingly done to death.’

‘God’s creatures are never shocking, mistress.

’ The tone is sententious. Well, so be it.

She draws back the sheet, hears his quick indrawn breath.

He stands so still that after a moment she turns to look.

His eyes are closed, head bowed over clasped fingers.

The moving lips suggest prayer. From their distance Ned and Allan gaze at him, then at each other with puzzled looks.

Alice wonders, is she expected to wait while he completes his prayer?

Join him in prayer? Uncertainty inhibits action.

Hesitating, it is in this moment of quiet that she can think about the man who was her guest. The man who chafed at the disruption to his journey, who insisted on his possessions being unpacked and placed safely in the house, who was kind to his elderly secretary in vaguely irritated fashion.

The man she despised for his ugly gift, the same who offered safe passage to two frightened Frenchwomen.

The man who joked his young nephew and spent time in converse with him last evening.

Her low opinion of him she now feels to have been a smallness on her part.

He was not easily likeable, was a man of unpredictable humours, albeit a man much like any other, varying only in the degrees of good and bad.

She wishes her ungenerous thoughts unthought, wishes she had not lectured Rose when she falls so short herself.

In her musings she has forgotten all about Townsend. She starts as he asks, ‘What mischance brought this poor creature here?’

‘He was travelling to London,’ she says. ‘His nephew and his secretary were with him. His coach went into the ditch by the road outside and was damaged, so I offered shelter while arrangements were made for his onward journey. Sir, may I cover his body now?’

‘The gentleman had his own secretary, did he?’ Townsend muses.

The fact has clearly impressed him. ‘Yes, yes, cover him.’ He moves aside as Alice draws the sheet to cover the body again, waits watching as she bends awkwardly to take up a stone to weight the sheet.

The stone is taken out of her hand by Allan. ‘We’ll do this, mistress.’

‘Thank you, Allan.’ She rejoins the justice. Together they return to the house and she conducts him to the hall to wait for the coroner.

‘I take it the damaged coach was his private one?’ he says.

‘It was. He had two, in fact. The other contained—’

‘Two? This was a man of some substance, then, a prominent man? By name … ?’

‘Lord Hardcastle.’

‘ Lord Hardcastle!’ Something in Justice Townsend’s bearing straightens and his jaw, despite the drooping flesh, seems to tighten. ‘Has Sir Malcolm been advised of the urgency of this case?’

‘He has been advised that a man is murdered, sir. I imagine that in itself indicates urgency enough.’

‘A peer of the realm, mistress!’

‘He is being advised of the name also, sir.’ If it had been a mere Master Hardcastle, she wonders, would Justice Townsend have come to attention in that way? Urged greater haste in summoning the coroner? And will the coroner’s response also depend on the victim’s standing?

In the kitchen, back from his walk to Poyle, Angus lingers, waiting for her.

‘He were abed, mistress,’ he tells her, ‘so I had to wait until he donned a gown and come down to hear me, although I already told the maid the message that His Lordship is done to death. He was none too pleased to be roused, I thought, but I told the tale all over and said that Joe is sent to fetch Master Egerton.’

‘And you gave him the name Lord Hardcastle, Angus?’

‘I did, mistress, though he looked sideways, demanded to know if I thought to make May-game of him. No, Sir Wipley, I said to him, I would not do such a thing against my mistress’s command.

’ His indignant tones stir her own irritation.

At the slightest opportunity Sir Malcolm tries to offend her people, accuse them of wrongdoing and, through them, herself.

‘All that you did was right, Angus,’ she assures him, and adds sweetly, ‘Perhaps Sir Malcolm fell out of bed and stubbed his toe and was out of sorts as a result.’

Angus’ slow thoughts resolve into the hint of a smile. ‘I do surely hope that is so, mistress.’

The coroner’s jurymen start to arrive and gradually the numbers swell to a round dozen.

They wait in murmuring groups, accepting Alice’s offer of poker-warmed, rich October ale.

After half an hour, Townsend is showing signs of vexation.

He takes Alice to task for sending the wrong message, being unclear as to the name, giving confused directions to Angus.

‘But sir,’ she counters, ‘these jurymen here have all been sent for and that could only have been by the coroner’s direction. Perhaps,’ she adds, wide-eyed, ‘Sir Malcolm had a late night.’

There are one or two barely concealed smirks, innuendo well understood in exchanged glances behind Townsend’s back. Sir Malcolm’s visits to the ladies of a certain local inn are well if wordlessly known.

Sir Malcolm makes his appearance just as Alice and Rose are carrying the empty mugs back to the kitchen. To Alice’s formally polite greeting he pays no heed.

‘May I take your cloak, sir?’ Rose asks, tripping behind.

‘Are they all here?’ he asks Alice.

‘I believe so, Sir Malcolm.’

‘And your friend Egerton, I suppose?’ Casting whip, gauntlets and cloak at Rose.

‘No, your friend Townsend, as it happens.’

‘That’s a blessing, at least.’ He has scant liking for Jack Egerton, especially in the light of Jack’s support for Alice after Henry’s death.

He pushes open the door to the hall and makes smooth apologies to Townsend for keeping him waiting, which the justice receives with a smiling bow.

‘Sir Malcolm, pray do not regard it. I feel sure any slight delay was fully justified in your busy life.’

‘Master Townsend has already viewed the body,’ Alice declares, adding, ‘He can conduct you there,’ thus forestalling any expectation of ale for the coroner. She makes her curtsey to justice and jury, ‘Gentlemen,’ and ushers Rose back to the kitchen.

‘Do you not want to go with them, to hear what they say, mistress?’ Rose asks her after the last of the jury has passed through on their way to the drying bushes.