The Weaver's Inheritance (11 page)

‘And why do you think the Alderman has done so?’

‘Because, secretly, he’s never ceased to blame himself for Clement’s death, for allowing him to carry so much money on that visit to London. In the years following his son’s disappearance, whenever Alfred visited the wine shop, he often used to speak of Clement as if he were still alive. Then he’d pull himself up short with a terrible, lost expression on his face. It broke my heart to see it. A doting father.’

‘Not so doting,’ I answered drily, ‘if he can disinherit his own daughter. First he halves her inheritance, then deprives her of it altogether.’

‘Oh, he’ll change his mind, given time,’ the housekeeper assured me warmly, but there was, nevertheless, an underlying uncertainty in her tone. ‘He doesn’t care for his son-in-law very much, that’s the trouble, and takes pleasure in giving him a fright. I think he liked William well enough when Alison first married him, and his father was one of Alfred’s best friends; but over the years, he seems to have lost his fondness for Master Burnett.’

I found this understandable, but not to the extent of punishing his daughter for it. However, there was no point in my saying so, and instead I asked, ‘Have you had any word from your sister in London on this subject?’

Dame Pernelle smiled. ‘Alice can’t write and I can’t read. We were never taught our letters. I did send word to her of what had happened by a carter who was London-bound, but it’s too soon to expect a message in return.’

‘Well then, has the Alderman written to his brother?’

‘Now that I don’t know, nor is it my place to enquire. He may have done, but he won’t be bothered with anything that takes him away for long from Master Clement’s side.’

There was a knock at the door and one of the maids put her head around it. ‘Beg your pardon, Dame Pernelle, but the master wants to see the chapman. He came looking for you in the kitchen, and then realized that Roger was here. He saw his pack on the table.’ She glanced towards me. ‘He wants you now, at once.’

The housekeeper rose hurriedly and smoothed down her skirts. ‘Is he displeased, Mary?’ she queried.

‘He didn’t sound it. He sent Jane upstairs to fetch down Master Clement.’ Mary obviously had no difficulty in calling the newcomer by the name he had, rightly or wrongly, appropriated to himself.

‘Where is the Alderman now?’ I asked, likewise getting to my feet and straightening my jerkin.

‘He said he’d be in the parlour. It’s warmer than the hall.’ And Mary withdrew her head, leaving Dame Pernelle and me regarding one another thoughtfully.

A moment’s delay, however, was all that the housekeeper allowed herself before returning to her duties. ‘You’d better not keep him waiting, lad. As for me, I must go and see about the supper. Master Clement’s very fond of rastons, and what he fancies he must have, on the Alderman’s orders. That’s what you could smell cooking in the oven. When they’ve been hollowed out, he likes the crumbs mixed with butter and honey.’ She added thoughtfully, ‘It seems that he always has done. They used to be made frequently for him, I’m informed, when he was a boy.’

‘Who told you that?’ I asked, as we moved towards the door.

‘He did, himself, and the Alderman confirmed it. And so did Alison.’ Her tone was bland and matter-of-fact, but she could not resist glancing at me as she said it.

I made no comment, but followed her into the hall, where Mary was still hovering anxiously. Dame Pernelle hurried off to the kitchen to attend to her baking.

Alfred Weaver, who rose civilly from his chair as I entered the parlour and held out a hand in greeting, looked a little healthier than he had done when I had last seen him a few days before the start of the Christmas festivities. There was a sparkle in his eyes, and he was a little fleshier about the cheeks and jowl. ‘Come in, come in, my boy,’ he invited jovially. ‘You’ve heard my good news, I expect? Of course you have! There can’t be anyone left in Bristol who’s in ignorance of it.’ He waved me to a chair. ‘Sit down. I’ve sent for my son.’ He uttered the last two words with pride. ‘I want you to meet him. After all, who has a better right than the man who brought those murdering rogues to justice?’ He dug me playfully in the ribs before resuming his own seat. ‘But you were wrong about Clement. Oh, not about what happened to him. They tried to kill him all right, as they killed the others. But in his case, thanks be to God, they bungled it and he survived.’

‘You’re … You’re sure of that, sir?’

The Alderman laughed, showing his blackened teeth. ‘People have been getting at you, have they? Planting doubts in your mind? Take no notice of them, boy. Take no notice! Give me credit for knowing my own child when I see him.’

I smiled weakly, unsure what to say; unable to share in his certainty, but afraid of causing distress by voicing my misgivings. I tried once again, however. ‘Our murderers were very thorough people.’

‘They were – I won’t quarrel with you about that – in every case but one. But Clement will be here in a moment and then you can see him for yourself.’

‘I never knew your son, Alderman. I never saw him, not even in death.’

‘How could you, when he was never dead?’ He gave a bark of laughter.

I heard the parlour door open behind me and slewed round in my seat. The Alderman surged to his feet again, arms outstretched, a look of utter joy suffusing his face. ‘Clement, my boy, I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest, but there’s someone here I want you to meet. I’ve spoken to you at length about Roger Chapman, and now’s your chance to shake him by the hand.’

Chapter Eight

The young man who took my hand and gave me a wary smile bore a resemblance to both Alison Burnett and Alderman Weaver, without being strikingly similar to either one of them. The hazel eyes lacked their distinctive flecks of green; his hair, although brown, was of a lighter shade; the mouth, equally wide and mobile, was so thin that the lips almost disappeared, and the nose was less well-defined. Yet these were the normal discrepancies of feature between brother and sister, parent and child, and the most telling impression was of an overall family likeness.

If he were an impostor, whoever had chosen him had chosen well, with a sharp eye for the similarities between him and the two supposed to be nearest him in blood. This was the more percipient because the mantle of the poor, the hungry and the dispossessed hung about him, largely obscuring what lay beneath. The man was plainly in ill-health. The emaciated flesh was loose on his bones, robbing him of his natural bulk; sores and scabs peppered his scalp, and I could see two large weeping pustules behind his left ear. No doubt the rest of his body was similarly marked (although good food and rest should quickly restore him to full vigour). Either this man was Clement Weaver, or I was looking for a puppet-master of some cunning.

‘Master Chapman, I’ve been hoping to meet you.’ The voice had an unmistakable West Country burr to it, with the hard ‘r’s and the diphthonged vowels of our Saxon forebears, but anyone could be taught to speak in such a fashion. ‘My father’s told me how you went to London, searching for me, and laid those villains by the heels.’

‘The credit was not all mine by any means,’ I disclaimed hastily. ‘Indeed, I was nearly a victim myself. I owe my life to the good sense and watchfulness of another.’ I resumed my seat in obedience to a peremptory gesture from the Alderman and the young man sat opposite me, on a joint stool. ‘Tell me of your own experience,’ I begged him. ‘How did you manage to escape with your life?’

Once again came that disarming smile. ‘That’s the trouble. I’ve no idea. I remember being given some wine to drink – and I’ve only been able to recall that in recent months – but otherwise, all’s a blank until I came to, lying stark naked on the banks of the Thames, on the Southwark side of the river. I couldn’t even remember my name. I didn’t know who I was or where I was or how I got there. There was blood oozing from a wound over my left eye – you can still see the scar if you look closely – and my head felt like it was home to a swarm of bees.’

‘The wine, of course, was drugged,’ I said.

The young man nodded. ‘I realize that now, but at the time, I remembered nothing, and assumed it was because of the blow to my head. I’d been struck violently on the left temple, and reasoned that I’d got it from whoever it was that had stolen my clothes. My tunic was of good camlet trimmed with squirrel fur and must have earned the thief a pretty penny. Not, of course, that I knew this at the time, or had any knowledge of ever having owned such a garment. This is one of the things that has come back to me, you understand, over the past few months, as my memory has gradually returned.’

I frowned. ‘So can you recall now how you managed to escape from the Thames?’

‘Not really.’ He glanced at the Alderman, who gave him an encouraging nod, and then went on, ‘I can only think that the drug must have begun to wear off sooner than had been intended, so instead of drowning, I recovered consciousness and managed to strike out for the shore. My father tells me that even as a small boy, I was a prodigious swimmer.’

‘And you’re sure it was the thief who wounded you? You didn’t hit your head on something?’

‘I can’t be certain, but I don’t think so. Nor do I think that I was stripped before being thrown into the river.’ The hazel eyes met mine with a puzzled stare. ‘I have a … a sensation, no more than that, of still being fully clothed while I was in the water. So it’s my opinion that the thief discovered me lying there and hit me with something. Perhaps I stirred or groaned, and he was afraid that I was about to recover my senses. In his anxiety, he dealt me a blow which not only rendered me unconscious again, but also robbed me of my memory for six long years.’

On the face of it, it was a plausible enough explanation and one with which I could find no immediate quarrel. Everything could have happened exactly as he said it did. ‘So where have you been all these years?’ I asked curiously. ‘Where did you live? What name have you been using?’

‘I lived among the beggars and felons of Southwark,’ he answered simply. ‘I was befriended by a woman called Morwenna Peto, a Cornishwoman by birth who had run away from home when she was young and journeyed to London, where she found work in the Southwark stews. But her whoring days are long past, and nowadays she runs a thieves’ kitchen, where those down on their luck or seeking shelter from the law are always welcome. She found me and took me in. She’d had a son once, who’d ended his life on the gallows, and she said that I reminded her of him. So, when she found I had no knowledge of who I was or where I’d come from, she called me Irwin in his memory.’ The young man smiled, but there was, I fancied, a hint of defiance in his expression. ‘And that’s who I’ve been for the past six years; Irwin Peto, thief, pimp, pickpocket … My father knows the whole story.’

‘I do indeed,’ the Alderman confirmed, ‘and I don’t condemn the boy. Nor will anyone else in my hearing.’ He thrust out an aggressive lower lip.

‘And how, finally, did you recover your memory?’ I asked this young man who might or might not be Clement Weaver, and who, for the time being at least, I decided to think of as Irwin Peto.

‘Strangely enough, by another blow to the head. Several months ago now, one day last October, when it had been raining and freezing both together and the cobbles were very treacherous, I was trying to escape from a man whose pocket I’d just picked, when I slipped and fell heavily, cracking my skull. I was half-stunned, but managed to haul myself to my feet and make off again. I eluded my would-be captor and reached home, where Morwenna bound me up and told me to get some sleep.’ Irwin drew a deep breath. ‘I did, and it was after I woke up that, very slowly, memories of my past life, my real life, began to come back to me; a little piece here, a brief glimpse there until, at last, by the beginning of December, I knew who I was, where I came from and some of the circumstances which had led me to be cast up, robbed and left for dead on the Southwark strand.’

He sounded like a child, reciting something he had been taught, his intonation unemotional and flat because he was intent only on speaking the words in their proper order and making no mistake.

‘So you decided to come home,’ I prompted.

‘Yes. I had to let my father know that I was still alive. A week or so before Christmas, I said goodbye to Morwenna and set out for Bristol.’

‘You walked all the way?’

‘I got a lift now and then from a passing carter.’

‘You didn’t consider going to your uncle in Farringdon Without and asking for his assistance?’

Irwin shoot his head. ‘It seemed only right to confront my father first with my story. Until he believed me, and accepted me for who I am, I felt I had no claim on other people’s understanding.’

Once more, there was nothing to quarrel with in this answer, and if it again sounded like something carefully rehearsed, perhaps the fault was with me and my unspoken wish – for my own sake as well as Mistress Burnett’s – that he should be lying.

‘Well, Chapman!’ Alderman Weaver leant across from his chair to mine and clasped my shoulder. ‘Are you satisfied with my son’s account? Is there anything which couldn’t have happened as he says it did? Tell me honestly if you think he’s lying.’ But his glowing countenance testified to his conviction that I could have nothing detrimental to say.

I glanced towards Irwin Peto and detected a look of apprehension in the hazel eyes. Or did I? The expression was so fleeting that it was gone before I could be certain, and the confidence of innocence was all that remained. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it could have happened exactly as Master Pet– as Master Weaver has explained.’

The Alderman clapped his hands to his thighs in a gesture of satisfaction, his face beaming, the years of misery and ill-health seeming to slip away before my eyes. And I realized that if there had been a doubt that this really was his son lurking in any corner of Alfred Weaver’s mind, then my admission had laid it to rest. He seemed not to have noticed my slight slip of the tongue, or if he had, he regarded it as being of so little importance that it was already forgotten.