Page 34 of Linenfold (The Alice Chronicles #4)

M aureen is determined to make the breakfast pottage as wet as possible.

It goes further that way, she tells Alice.

No Maureen, it gets left in the bowl because it’s tasteless.

The two French girls are up and waiting by the hearth, trying not to get in the irritable cook’s way.

Occupied with persuasion, Alice has ignored Allan hovering in the kitchen.

Finally she sends Maureen to the still room for more oatmeal.

‘Just add a handful or two and it will take up the excess water, Maureen. And by the way, Justice Egerton is coming this morning and might be here for midday meal so perhaps we should have another of His Lordship’s pies.

’ Instead of more oven-floor scrapings .

‘Now, Allan, is there something you need me for?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well … tell me?’

‘I’ve been sawing up the bits of that fallen beech tree that I can reach, and I thought I’d check the trees out to the road for fallen branches.’

‘Yes?’

‘To collect wood that’s good for logs or other uses.’

‘Good. That sounds useful. I was doing the same the other day, looking for kindling.’

‘I’d like you to come and see what I’ve gathered.’

‘Allan,’ she smiles, ‘I feel sure you’re collecting what can be useful, and it’s all ours, so no dispute over your gleanings.’

Allan, unusually, is persistent. ‘I’d like you to come and look, mistress.’

The piles of collected branches lie just within the door of the woodshed, but Allan crosses to the other side. ‘Sorry, mistress, that was a ruse.’ He reaches behind some stacked planks and brings out a bundle. ‘It’s about these. I found them in the woods.’

Alice unfolds a linen-lined tawny brown cloak in which are wrapped various garments. ‘These are good clothes,’ she says, ‘I don’t understand.’ She takes up a plain but well-cut reddish russet wool doublet with a diagonal pattern in the weave. ‘You found them? When?’

‘Day before yesterday, mistress, but when I came to tell you, Sir Malcolm was here and then you were closeted with Master Sewell, and then there was the duke’s visit yesterday and then you were gone to Freemans.’

‘Where in the woods?’ She is turning over a slim pair of breeches in the same russet cloth, a soft hat of felted wool.

‘They were stuffed under a bush, that way,’ he says pointing towards town. ‘Not very far from the road. I thought, like, they’ve been stolen and the thief being pursued, he hid them. Maybe he purposed to come back later.’

‘Maybe so.’ A thought occurs to her. ‘Allan, why could you not tell me this in the kitchen?’

‘Oh …’ He shuffles his feet. ‘Maureen’s been snooping around this past week or so poking her nose into everything.

I don’t want her seeing these and telling her friends in town so’s one of them can claim them, being able to describe.

I thought, if no one claimed them, mayhap I could have them.

They’re about my size, you see? Grace says she’d like to see me in them of a Sunday. ’

‘I’ll have a word with Master Egerton,’ she says. ‘He’ll be here soon and will be able to find out if anyone has reported a theft.’ She points to the windfall wood. ‘Very suitable finds, by the way.’

‘I was lucky, I found Townsend in,’ Jack says on his return from town.

He, Alice and Philip are seated by the fire in the hall.

‘None of the constables has reported any theft of clothes. No one is claiming to have chased any thief near here. If nothing comes of it in a day or two, he’s content for Allan to keep them. ’

‘That will be good news for Allan,’ Alice tells him. ‘Particularly as Grace is looking forward to seeing him wearing them. Those two are sweethearts, after all. Perhaps this will nudge them towards a union.’

‘About time too,’ Jack says. He is aware of the rift back in the spring between Allan and Grace. ‘Can’t think what they’re waiting for.’

‘Why does Allan wait?’ Philip asks. ‘Doesn’t he know life is short?’

‘I think he still wishes he could find the money to finish his apprenticeship,’ Alice tells him, ‘but small hope of that.’ She goes on, ‘Has Jack seen your uncle’s body, Philip?’

‘I have,’ Jack says. ‘There is certainly something very suspicious in those bruises.’

‘The jury won’t have seen the bruises – Philip and I found them when we cleaned the mud off. By then, Sir Malcolm had already left.’

Jack sighs and shakes his head.

‘I’ve arranged to collect the coffin and bring it back here,’ Philip tells her. ‘Cranley will accompany my uncle’s body back to London. I’m staying. I’m going to find his killer.’

‘I’ll give you whatever help I can,’ Jack offers.

‘Philip, have you decided what to do about the trenchers?’

‘I have them in my chamber at the moment. I’m thinking when I get back to London to present myself at Somerset House in all innocence and deliver them to the Queen because they bear her mother’s crest.’

‘I can hold them at Freemans until you leave for London, if you like,’ Jack offers. ‘You wouldn’t need to worry about their safety while you continue your business here.’

‘I’d appreciate it, Jack.’ It is no longer ‘sir’, or ‘Master Egerton’. These two have quickly formed a bond of friendship that bodes well to last beyond their current common cause.

‘Philip,’ Alice says on a whim, ‘before Master Cranley leaves, would it be possible to talk with him? Quietly, in the winter parlour?’

‘Yes of course. I’ll fetch him now if you like.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’ Jack asks Alice as Philip heads for the stairs.

‘Not at all. It’s just a question in my mind. There’s probably nothing in it. I don’t want to frighten him. You might be able to reassure him as someone in authority. He will respond to you, whereas I am despised and even Philip does not yet hold his full confidence.’

It is a few minutes later that they hear Philip and Cranley approaching the winter parlour where she and Jack have moved. ‘I know nothing of this affair, my boy, that is, My Lord,’ the secretary is saying.

‘Then why did I find you in my bedchamber? Trying the lid of the linenfold box. What were you doing?’

Alice pricks up her ears.

‘There were some letters I had scribed and left with him for his signature.’

‘ Four days ago?’

‘Perhaps I was mistaken.’

‘There were no letters amongst his papers.’

‘Oh … it has been a toilsome time … I forget.’

‘Well, now you can toil to remember something else. This is Justice Egerton, the husband of Mistress Egerton.’ Philip closes the parlour door and indicates. ‘Do you sit here by the fire. Mistress Jerrard has questions for you and she wants the truth, mind.’

‘I’m very busy,’ Cranley says to her, ‘there is much to do in preparing for a journey. I cannot stay long.’ His tone is irritable, dismissive.

Jack intercedes. ‘I’m sure you will stay long enough to set Mistress Jerrard’s mind at rest, sir.’ The secretary tightens his lips.

‘I should like you to cast your mind back three days, to the morning when I came with your master here to advise you that His Lordship had been murdered,’ Alice commences. ‘You were very shocked—’

‘I did not swoon!’ he insists. ‘I told you, I did not swoon!’

‘I understand. You were, then, fully in your wits?’

‘Wholly in command.’

‘Yes. Your response was disbelief that such a thing could have happened. “My Lord, murdered?” you said or some such. And then you said, “My Lord of …” before you became, should I say, dumbfounded, when we thought you had swooned.’

‘Anyone would be dumbfounded at such news,’ the secretary defends himself.

‘Indeed, sir,’ Alice concurs. ‘But the words “My Lord of” puzzle me. Because if you were referring to Lord Hardcastle, you would say “My Lord”, not “My Lord of”. I wonder if you were thinking at that moment of My Lord of Buckingham.’

There is a breathless silence as the colour rises to Cranley’s face and he stares at Alice.

His mouth works. Then, ‘You have naught to do with me! You suggest, you accuse and what are you?’ He looks round at Philip and Jack, ‘Sirs, this is naught but a woman. She cannot know what she is talking about!’

‘It’s a reasonable question,’ Jack responds. ‘One I myself might have asked in the same circumstances.’

‘I recall you saying it,’ Philip says, ‘though I thought nothing of it at the time. Why did news of my uncle’s death bring the duke to mind?’

Alice can feel sympathy for the frightened secretary, eyes darting here and there, a rabbit amidst ferrets.

The admission comes in a welter of words, strange and piteous and all too easily credible. He seems to shrink as he makes his confession. Occasionally he looks at Jack who remains impassive though not hostile. More often he glances at Philip but finds no comfort in the set face.

‘Before we went to France, one day we were all three in one of the anterooms at Westminster Hall. His Lordship and you had business there at Court,’ looking at Philip.

‘While I waited for you, I was approached by two gentlemen who drew me to one side. They told me that His Lordship was in danger and that I could help avert the hazard. A confidential document had gone astray and urgent action was needed to recover it.’

‘What sort of document?’ Philip asks.

‘They did not elaborate, save to say that it implicated His Lordship amongst others and that I was best placed to retrieve it. I imagined a letter of some sort.’

‘Who were they?’ Alice asks, but the secretary shakes his head.

‘I never saw them before.’

‘Who were the others who were implicated?’ Philip asks.