Kate Sedley - The Weaver's inheritance

I looked at her, half in annoyance, half in admiration.

My mother-in-law shifted uneasily. Although an acute woman herself, and inclined, on occasions, to be acid-tongued, she was nevertheless unshakeable in her belief that a single man should be flattered and complimented until he proposed marriage and the knot was tied — after which, of course, there was no further need for prevarication.

‘I’m sure Roger is always eager for the truth,’ she reproved her cousin. ‘Aren’t you, my dear?’

I smiled a little shamefacedly. ‘I’m afraid that in this case Adela may be right. I’ve always been so certain that Clement Weaver is dead that I’m not anxious to be proved mistaken.’ I added another log to the fire, watching the resin as it caught and spluttered. I sat for a moment or two, staring into the flames, before straightening my shoulders and once again addressing my mother-in-law. ‘But there must be something more than his looks to persuade the Alderman that his man is his son. He must know something of Clement’s childhood; of the years before that ill-fated visit to London. Has Goody Watkins anything to say on this head?’

‘Only that he seems to have enough knowledge to satisfy Alderman Weaver.’

‘But not Mistress Burnett and her husband?’

‘Ah!’ Margaret rose and fetched three wooden cups from a shelf near the door, carefully filling them with ale, milk and spices which she had been mulling over the fire for the past half-hour. ‘According to Maria Watkins, there lies the nub of the matter.’

‘What nub? What does she mean? And how reliable is her information?’

My mother-in-law answered my second question first. ‘In all that relates to the Weavers, I think you may trust her. Haven’t you ever noticed that Goody Watkins is very friendly with Dame Pernelle?’ When I shook my head, Margaret sighed. ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t. You’re so often absent.’

‘Who is Dame Pernelle?’ asked Adela.

‘She’s housekeeper to Alderman Weaver, and the third such since his wife died, more than seven years ago now.’

Adela sipped her posset. ‘It must be,’ she agreed. ‘I remember you sending me a message that Mistress Weaver had died at Michaelmas, a few months after I married Owen. A kinswoman of the Alderman, Marjorie Dyer, you said, had moved in to take care of him and the children.’

‘Of course!’ my mother-in-law exclaimed excitedly. ‘What’s the matter with me? I’m forgetting that you knew the Weavers! You’ll be able to give your opinion as to whether or not you think this person really is Clement.’

‘No.’ The younger woman was emphatic. ‘My memory, after all this time, simply isn’t good enough. However hard I try, I can’t recall either of the Weaver children in any detail.’

‘Mother,’ I said, interrupting with some impatience, ‘what does Goody Watkins mean by “the nub of the matter”?’

Margaret looked confused for a moment, then recollected.

‘Well, according to Dame Pernelle, who told Maria, who told me, this young man who says he’s Clement Weaver does indeed know quite a lot about the family, and also about incidents in his childhood. That’s one of the reasons why the Alderman is so sure he’s his son, and accepts so readily the story of the lost memory and its sudden restoration. But Alison and William Burnett are convinced that he has been well informed by someone with intimate knowledge of them and their history. The question is, by whom?’

‘And also why?’ The mulled ale and milk slid down my throat like satin, and the aromatic scent of the spices teased my nostrils. ‘As Alison became her father’s sole heir on the death of her brother, what could anyone else, apart from the young man himself, possibly have to gain from such an imposture? Who would take the trouble to find and prime a stranger in a masquerade that could have no benefit for him — or her? How do Master and Mistress Burnett explain that?’

My mother-in-law stared at me blankly for a moment, then shrugged.

‘I never thought to ask, nor Goody Watkins to tell me. You’ll have to make those enquiries for yourself — I’ve told you everything I know. Adela, my dear, you look worn out, not surprisingly after such a journey. We mustn’t keep you up talking any longer. Come along, we’ll retire and leave Roger to settle himself when he pleases. Quietly now, we don’t want to wake the children.’

Adela was only too willing, being more tired, I fancied, than she cared to admit, and both women disappeared behind the faded red and green curtain. I took myself outside for a breath of fresh air after making up my bed on the floor, not too close to the fire for fear of falling sparks. The rain had stopped, but a bitter wind was still blowing across Redcliffe from the Backs which lay either side of the encircling arm of the River Avon. My mind was racing as it struggled to absorb the strange event related to me by my mother-in-law.

I took shelter in the narrow alleyway beside the cottage, which led to the privy and the pump, shared by Margaret and her nearest neighbours. I could sniff the salt smell of the sea and picture the ghostly outlines of ships riding at anchor outside the city walls, moored close to the banks of Frome and Avon. I was glad I had put on my cloak, and pulled it closer around me against the January cold. It was not very late, and although the gates were now shut, people were still abroad, in the ale-houses and taverns or visiting one another in their houses. Someone close at hand was laughing — a high-pitched, exultant peal of feminine glee, joined almost at once by the deeper tone of the man who accompanied her. They passed the end of the alleyway, their forms entwined, two shadows merging into one. I suddenly felt lonely and a little desolate, yearning after a girl with golden hair and soft blue eyes, living retired with an elderly aunt in Keyford on the outskirts of the township of Frome. I promised myself that one day soon I would go to visit her, but not just yet. It would be a while before I was welcome, and not an intruder on her grief.

I wrenched my mind back to the problem of Clement Weaver. Surely this man had to be an imposter, hoping to claim the Alderman’s fortune for himself. But who had schooled him in the details of Clement’s former life — and why? What could that person hope to gain? The answer, when it came, was simple, as these things so often are. He hoped to gain the same as the pretender; a share of the spoils.

I had no idea how rich Alderman Weaver really was, but I guessed his fortune to be considerable. Not only was he generally accepted to be one of the wealthiest merchants in a wealthy city, but I had reasons of my own for suspecting that he was also involved clandestinely in the illegal selling of slaves to Ireland. This was a trade generally thought by the world at large to have been stamped out several centuries earlier, but which, to my certain knowledge, still throve in secret. It was the way in which Bristolians disposed of their unwanted kinsfolk or enemies, shipping them off to that other island across the water; and it was rumoured to be a lucrative business, for the Irish were prepared to pay well for their servants. Alderman Weaver had once tried to justify the trade to me by claiming that, in general, the Irish treated their domestics as friends, everyone sitting down to meals together and eating from the same dish. He had also claimed that many Bristol men, women and children who had been sold into slavery, found a happiness in Ireland that they had not known at home. Not, he had added hastily, that he could condone something which was a crime against both Church and State, even though its consequences were not always to be deplored.

I had not believed him then, and I still did not. Alderman Weaver was undoubtedly involved in the trade and, consequently, was far richer than he acknowledged himself to be. It was likely, however, that the full extent of his wealth was known to, or at least suspected by, those closest to him. I remembered Alfred Weaver as I had last seen him, in late December; a very sick man, if I were any judge. Perhaps there was someone, the Alderman’s brother who lived in London, for example, who, quite by chance, had stumbled across a stranger bearing an uncanny resemblance to Clement Weaver — a poor man, a desperate man, down on his luck, one with no qualms, easy to persuade into wrongdoing — and seen a way to use him to his advantage. All this lookalike had to do was to convince a dying man that he was his long lost son, live in ease and pampered luxury until the Alderman eventually died, inherit his half of the money and then share it with his fellow conspirator.