C. Sansom - Lamentation

The old servant nodded and continued, ‘The children loved their father. When he died they were both so sad. I remember coming across them, crying in each other’s arms. It was the only time I saw that.’ He looked up at us. ‘Since my mistress died and this argument over the painting began, I have not known what to do or say. It has been a burden, sirs — ’

‘Then let us help you,’ Philip said quietly.

Vowell sighed deeply. ‘Mistress Johnson, as she was then, perhaps remarried too soon, only a year after Master Johnson died. But it was hard for her to keep the business going on her own, some people didn’t like trading with a woman, and the children were too young to help. But her new husband, Master Cotterstoke, he was a good man. My mistress knew that. The children, though — ’

I spoke quietly, remembering Barak and his mother. ‘Perhaps they thought it a betrayal?’

He looked up. ‘Yes. It was not — nice — to see them then. They would sit giggling and whispering together in corners, saying and doing — ’ he hesitated — ‘bad things.’

‘What sort of things?’ Philip asked.

‘Master Cotterstoke had a fine book of Roman poems, beautifully written and decorated — it was all done by hand; most books then were not these blocky printed things we have nowadays — and it disappeared. All the servants were set to look for it, but no one found it. And I remember the children watching us as we searched, smiling at each other. Other things of the master’s would go missing, too. I think the children were responsible. Yet Master Cotterstoke and especially the mistress thought it was us, careless servants. We always get the blame,’ he added bitterly.

‘The mistress and Master Cotterstoke were much preoccupied with each other then; the mistress had become pregnant. They barely noticed the children.’ He shook his head. ‘That angered them even more. I think Edward and Isabel had become much closer, united in their anger. Once I overheard them talking together on the stairs. Master Edward was saying they would be disinherited, everything would go to the new baby, their mother scarcely looked at them any more. . And then — ’

‘Go on,’ I urged gently.

‘Sometimes Master Cotterstoke worked at home in the afternoon, going over his accounts. ‘He liked a bowl of pottage mid-afternoon. The cook would prepare it in the kitchen and take it up to him. One day after eating it he was violently sick, and very poorly for several days after. The physician thought he had eaten something bad. He recovered. But one of my jobs then was keeping down vermin, and there was a little bag of poison bought from a peddler that was good for killing mice. I remember just after Master Cotterstoke was ill, getting the bag from the outhouse to put a measure down in the stables and noticing that some had been taken — it had been almost full.’

‘You mean the children tried to poison him?’ Philip asked, horrified.

‘I don’t know that, I don’t know. But when I spoke to the cook she said the children had been round the kitchen that day.’

Philip’s voice was stern. ‘You should have spoken up.’

Vowell was looking at us anxiously now. ‘There was no evidence, sir. The children were often round the kitchen. Master Cotterstoke recovered. And I was just a poor servant; making an accusation like that could have cost me my post.’

‘How did the children react to Master Cotterstoke’s illness?’ I asked.

‘They went quiet. I remember after that, their mother looked at them in a new way, as though she, too, suspected something. And I thought, if she is suspicious of them, she will look out for her husband, there is little point in my saying anything. Yet it pricked my conscience, that I had not spoken.’ He added sadly, ‘Especially after — what happened next.’ He hunched forward again, looking at his feet.

I said, ‘The drowning?’

‘The coroner found it was an accident.’

‘But you doubted it?’ Philip said sternly.

Vowell looked up at that. ‘The coroner investigated everything, it is not for a servant to contradict him.’ I heard a touch of anger in his voice now. ‘There were enough unemployed servants trailing the road even back then.’

I spoke soothingly. ‘We have not come to criticize you, only to try and discover what caused the quarrel. We understand Master Cotterstoke went down to the docks on business that day, and you and another servant accompanied him and the children. And then after a while the children came back, saying they had been told to wait with you beside the customs house till he returned.’

‘Ay, that is what happened, as I told the coroner.’

‘How did the children seem when they returned?’

‘A little quiet. They said their stepfather wanted to look over some goods on a ship newly come in.’

I thought again, there was only the children’s word for that. Anything could have happened when they and Cotterstoke were alone. The children could have pushed their stepfather into the water. They would have been fourteen and thirteen then.

I asked Vowell, ‘Was Master Cotterstoke a big man?’

‘No, he was short and slim. One of those fast-thinking, energetic little men. Not like my first master.’ He stared up at the wall painting, where Edward and Isabel’s father, in his smart robes and tall hat, looked out on us with patrician confidence.

‘What were things like in the family after the drowning?’ Philip asked.

‘Things changed. They were told of their stepfather’s dispositions, I imagine. That he had left his estate to his wife, and to all his children equally if she died first. In any event, Edward and Isabel seemed to alter. They had become close while Master Cotterstoke was in the house. They didn’t go back to quarrelling like before, but they — avoided each other. And oh, the fierce looks they would give one another. Mistress Cotterstoke’s attitude to them seemed to change as well, even before she lost the baby she was carrying. She had been sharp with them before, but now she almost ignored them. She sold the business, and arranged for Edward to start clerking at the Guildhall, which meant he had to live out. That was just a few months later.’

‘So he did not inherit the business after all.’

‘No. And though Isabel was only fifteen her mother seemed keen to marry her off; she was always inviting potential suitors to the house. But Mistress Isabel, as ever, would not be brought to do something against her will.’ Vowell smiled sadly, then shook his grey head. ‘There was a horrible atmosphere in this house, until at length Isabel agreed to marry Master Slanning and left. Afterwards Mistress Cotterstoke seemed to — I don’t know — retreat inside herself. She didn’t often go out.’ He looked over at her empty chair. ‘She spent much of her time sitting there, sewing, always sewing. Kept a strict house, though, kept us servants on our toes.’ He sighed deeply, then looked up at us. ‘Strange, is it not, with all the sad things that happened here, that she never moved, even when she was alone, the house far too big for her.’

I looked at the wall painting. ‘Perhaps she remembered she had once been happy here. I notice her chair faces the picture.’

‘Yes. She was sitting there when she had her seizure. Edward and Isabel seldom visited, you know, and never together. And the mistress didn’t encourage them. It saddened me to see how they were with each other when they came here for the inspection. And that strange Will — ’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps I should not have told you all this. What good can it do? It was so many years ago. Whatever happened, it cannot be mended.’

Philip stood pondering, fingering his bearded chin. Vowell gave a despairing little laugh. ‘What will happen, sir? Shall I remain as caretaker of this empty house till I die? I don’t like being here alone.’ He added in a rush, ‘At night sometimes, when the wood creaks — ’