Kate Sedley - Wheel of Fate

Her face, as I had seen it in my dream, flashed suddenly and vividly before me. She was holding up her left hand, a small, triumphant smile curling the sensuous mouth. ‘Do you like my ring?’ she had asked. ‘Do you like my ring?’

And it was at that moment that I had recognized it. It was Adela’s ring, the one I had bought for her from Master Jollifant’s silversmith’s shop. The one that had been stolen from the Arbour. It was the shock of that recognition that had wakened me, bringing me out in a sweat.

I opened my eyes again, accustomed now to the darkness and able to make out the lineaments of the furniture and the faint grey light around the shutters. What was it that Julian Makepeace had said when I had quizzed him about its purchase? ‘I bought it as a favour from an old friend of mine who was in need of ready money, that’s all.’ But who was the old friend? And what was he or she doing with a stolen ring? Was he or she the thief? Or had this person come by it in all innocence? Well, I had only to visit the apothecary’s shop again to find out, and I would most certainly do that first thing in the morning, after breakfast.

I found I was shaking with excitement, and tried to calm myself by eating a little of the bread and drinking some of the water which Arbella, ever mindful of her domestic duties, had placed beside my bed for my ‘all-night’. I had just reached for the water bottle a second time, when a slight noise made me push back the bed curtain and look towards the door. The latch was being very slowly and cautiously lifted, but it was stiff with age, like so many others in the house, and had to be dealt with firmly. It resisted all attempts to treat it gently.

I eased myself out of bed as silently as possible, intending to station myself behind the door when it opened and thus surprise the intruder. But as I returned the water bottle to the tray, my hand shook and I dropped it on the floor where it rolled a little way before fetching up against the clothes chest with an almighty thud. Cursing, I called out, ‘Who’s there? Who is it?’ and in getting out of bed, slipped in one of the puddles of water left by the bottle’s contents and sat down heavily, giving my spine a nasty jar in the process.

I forget which particular profanities issued from my lips; suffice it to say that they were not for repetition and would have provoked Adela’s censure had she been there. I wrenched open the door with a fury that almost broke the latch and stepped out into the passage.

Needless to say, it was empty. I glanced to right and left, but no sign of life disturbed the shadows. The house was as quiet as the grave, not even a faint snore breaking the silence. I went back to bed and, hopefully, to sleep, persuading myself that I had been mistaken. But I dragged the chest across the doorway, all the same.

Bucklersbury was its usual busy early morning self as I picked my way through the overflow from the common drain and entered Julian Makepeace’s shop for the second time in twenty-four hours. He was busy at the counter, selecting pills from a large tray in front of him, and counting them into little boxes. Absorbed in his task, he did not immediately look up as I entered.

‘. . six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And what can I do for you, s. .?’ His voice tailed away as he recognized me and he made a comical grimace. ‘Master Chapman!’ he exclaimed, but was too polite to utter the word ‘again’. Nevertheless, I could hear it in the inflection of his voice. He smiled resignedly. ‘Have you by any chance come to buy something this time?’

I regret that I didn’t even bother to reply to this soulful query, so anxious was I to get an answer to my own question. ‘Master Makepeace, who sold you that ring?’ He looked so affronted, angry almost, that I was forced to explain the circumstances and the reason for my enquiry. ‘So you see,’ I finished lamely, ‘why I need to know.’

‘If you are correct, yes,’ he said gravely, and going to the door at the back of the shop which opened into the living quarters, called, ‘Naomi, my dear, please come here and bring the ring I gave you.’ There was a moment’s pause before she appeared. ‘Show it to Master Chapman,’ he instructed.

The pretty face assumed a mulish expression. ‘Why should I?’

The apothecary sighed. ‘Just do as I say.’ And before the girl realized what he would be about, he had grabbed her left wrist and forced her hand towards me. ‘Is that your wife’s ring, Master Chapman?’ Naomi gasped in protest and tried to pull free, but Julian Makepeace’s grip remained firm. ‘Is it?’ he repeated.

I nodded, adding, ‘I’m sure the silversmith, Adrian Jollifant, will, if necessary, confirm that it’s the one he sold me.’

‘No!’ Naomi put her hands behind her back and turned to her lover (I felt certain Julian was that). ‘It’s mine. He shan’t have it. He’s lying. You heard what she said. She said it had been given to her when she was a young girl and she hated having to part with it.’

‘Who said?’ I demanded urgently.

The apothecary pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘Where did you say your wife lost the ring, Master Chapman?’

‘She didn’t lose it. It was stolen from the Arbour. Someone must have got into the house.’

Julian Makepeace shook his head sadly. ‘I doubt that, my friend. You see it was Arbella Rokeswood who offered it to me.’

‘ Arbella? ’ For a moment or two I stared at him incredulously, but then things began to fall into place. For a start, who of the Arbour inmates would have been the most likely to try to enter my bedchamber the previous night? Not Oswald or his sisters: they would have no reason to do so. But if Arbella. . My heart was pounding again and I had to grip the edge of the counter. If Arbella were really Lucy Maynard and was beginning to fear that I suspected the truth, might she not make an attempt to silence me? She would surely not balk at another murder, having killed, or helped to kill, a number of times already. .

But was she Lucy Maynard? Perhaps her story that she was in need of money had been the truth. Maybe she had taken Adela’s ring for just that reason. On the other hand, I had little doubt that she was paid well enough by the Godsloves; her food and shelter were supplied and, as far as I could see, she had few wants of her own. And what of her apparent passion for Oswald? Was that just simulated as an additional part of her disguise, if she were indeed the long lost Lucy? Or had she, at some point in her masquerade genuinely fallen in love with him?

I suddenly became aware that Naomi was screaming the most unladylike obscenities at Julian Makepeace, and that he was offering me the ring which he seemed to have prised from her finger by force.

‘Take it, Master Chapman,’ he was saying. ‘I believe you. It’s yours. Why should you lie about it? It will teach me not to do old friends a good turn in future.’

‘Master Makepeace,’ I said, leaning towards him and raising my voice, ‘you say Mistress Rokeswood is an old friend. How old? What do you know about her?’

It was his turn to look startled. ‘I–I’ve known Arbella for several years now. She’s always come here to buy the family’s medicines when they were needed. And other things like fleabane for keeping the fleas at bay, and alkanet for colouring cheeses and a mixture of my own — gall nuts and iron and alum — for dying hair. A pleasant woman, pleasantly spoken, politer by far than my stepsisters’ previous housekeeper, who-’

I interrupted him unceremoniously. ‘She’s only kept house for the Godsloves for the past year or so, then?’

‘Three years. Maybe four. I can’t remember. Does it matter?’

‘Perhaps.’ I held out my hand. ‘Master Makepeace, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you believe my story and for returning Adela’s ring. I suppose. . I suppose Mistress Rokeswood didn’t mention why she needed money so urgently?’