Kate Sedley - The Burgundian's tale

Lionel’s mouth had thinned to an almost invisible line. His face was bleak. ‘I’ve never seen anyone become so completely enslaved in so short a time. Oh, he was a handsome devil, all right. And it wasn’t just Judith who was a victim of his charm. All the women seemed to go down before him like ninepins. Alcina — that’s Alcina Threadgold, Judith’s stepdaughter from her second marriage — was as good as betrothed to Brandon Jolliffe, but once she’d clapped eyes on Fulk, poor old Brandon thought himself lucky if she so much as gave him the time of day.’ Lionel spoke with a bitterness that made me eye him suspiciously. Did he harbour secret feelings for Alcina?

‘Who’s Brandon Jolliffe?’ I asked.

‘The son — the only child — of Lydia and Roland Jolliffe. They’re friends of Godfrey St Clair and live in the Strand, next door to him and Judith.’

‘They weren’t happy then with Fulk’s arrival?’

Lionel looked even grimmer. ‘Well, Roland Jolliffe certainly wasn’t. But if you ask me, it wasn’t simply on account of his son being jilted.’ I raised my eyebrows and he went on, ‘I’ve always suspected — although I’ve no proof, you understand — that there was more than common friendship between Fulk and Mistress Jolliffe.’

‘You mean she was his mistress?’

‘I’m not saying that. But I’m very sure she would have been willing enough had he asked her. I’ve seen the way she looked at him when she thought her husband wasn’t watching.’

‘And you think Roland Jolliffe suspected his wife’s feelings for this Fulk Quantrell?’

‘I can’t be certain, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised. He’s not nearly such a blockhead as people take him for. Not nearly so complaisant, either.’

‘A jealous husband then, you reckon?’

Lionel nodded. ‘Roland Jolliffe’s one of those big, quiet men who doesn’t say much about anything. Doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, as the old saw goes; but he’s devoted to Lydia. And he’s the sort who’d never blame her if she ever did play him false. In his eyes she’d have been seduced, led astray, by the man.’

I smiled. ‘You seem to know a lot about someone who, according to you, doesn’t say much or show his emotions.’

‘I keep my eyes and ears open,’ Lionel retorted briskly. ‘I know, for instance, that there were quarrels between the two women, Alcina and Lydia Jolliffe.’

‘About Fulk?’

‘That would seem the obvious answer. They were quite friendly before he arrived — well, as friendly as a girl of eighteen and a woman of forty are likely to be. But after a few weeks of his company, whenever they were in a room together it was worse than a couple of cats tied up in a sack.’

‘What about Mistress St Clair? Did she notice nothing of all this?’

Lionel paused to scratch himself in various intimate places. The warmth of the afternoon was making his fleas active. Mine began hopping about in sympathy.

‘Judith was so besotted by her nephew that even if she did notice, she didn’t care. He could do no wrong in her eyes.’

‘And her husband and stepson? What were their feelings, do you know?’

My companion gave a short bark of laughter. ‘They didn’t like it. Of course they didn’t! Especially Jocelyn. When Judith married his father, she more or less adopted him, just as she had Alcina. They were her co-heirs and she treated them as if they were her own. Mind you,’ he added reflectively, ‘Alcina may have had her nose put out of joint. She was sixteen when Judith married Godfrey two years ago, and she’d been the only heir since she was eight. But if she resented Judith’s adoption of Jocelyn, she never showed it. In fact, the pair of them seem to be the greatest of friends — more like brother and sister than many true siblings.’ Lionel pursed his lips. ‘Although I fancy that doesn’t please Godfrey. I feel sure he’d like them to marry, then they and their children would inherit all Judith’s money when she dies. He was always complaining that Alcina is far too good to throw herself away on Brandon Jolliffe.’

‘So Fulk Quantrell proved a stumbling block to his plans, as well?’

Lionel shrugged. ‘Possibly, if I’m right about what he wants. And I think I am. Alcina made no secret of her passion for Fulk.’

There was a moment or two’s silence. Then I asked abruptly, ‘And you? What grudge did you bear him? Surely you expected to inherit something if your father’s cousin should die?’

He reddened and I thought he was going to bluster and make denials. But he seemed to think better of it, and grinned instead. ‘I had Judith’s promise that if she died before me — which, mark you, is by no means certain with only nine years between us — the workshop would be mine. She told me it was the least she could do after I had run it so successfully for her all these years. And I know for a fact she meant what she said. She showed me her will. Her old will, that is.’

‘She made a new one?’

‘Oh, yes! Within a fortnight of Fulk’s arrival. Everything — all her money and the workshop — was to go to him. She said nothing, but he made no seceret of the fact. Why should he? He was cock of the dunghill and he couldn’t stop crowing.’

‘Did Mistress St Clair give any of you any reason for what she’d done? Or didn’t you ask?’

‘Jocelyn and I both tackled her and both of us got the same answer. Fulk was her nephew. She’d nursed him as a baby, when he and his mother lived with her and my cousin. His mother was her twin. He was her own flesh and blood. I pointed out that he always had been, but she hadn’t let it worry her for the past twelve years. She said she hadn’t seen him since he was six. Now that she had, her feelings towards him had been reanimated and she realized how much she loved him. The truth is,’ Lionel added viciously, ‘he buttered her up and told her anything she wanted to hear almost from the first day he arrived: how young she was for a woman of thirty-nine — his mother, her twin, hadn’t aged half as well; how often and how fondly his mother and Duchess Margaret had talked about her and wished she were with them in Burgundy; how his mother had spoken of her sister with her dying breath. Oh yes! He quickly realized that Judith would swallow any lie that flattered her and bolstered her ego.’

‘And what were Mistress Alcina’s feelings about her stepmother changing her will?’

‘Oh, she didn’t care. She thought Fulk was going to marry her, you see. She counted on inheriting everything through him.’

I stirred in my chair and sighed. With so many people to suspect of murdering Fulk Quantrell, it was a relief to be able to rule out Alcina Threadgold as well as Judith St Clair.

But I wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easily. A voice spoke scathingly from the parlour doorway. ‘He wasn’t going to marry her! You know very well he wasn’t! You were present when he told her so!’

‘Mother!’ Lionel rose from his seat and hurried across to give his parent a dutiful peck on her cheek.

Dame Broderer, I thought, as I, too, got to my feet, was not at all what I had expected. I had envisaged a much older woman, not the fashionable, well-preserved dame I saw in front of me. She must have been little more than a child when she gave birth to her son.

She seated herself in Lionel’s chair and waved me back to mine.

‘Now,’ she said, eyeing me up and down, ‘who is this? Apart, that is, from being a pedlar and an extremely handsome young man.’ I did my best to look modest. ‘Lal! An explanation, please! You know I don’t like strangers in my house without knowing who they are or what they’re doing here.’

Lionel told her as briefly as he could, helped by the fact that she refrained from interrupting him with pointless questions or exclamations. She simply sat, regarding me steadily with a pair of fine blue eyes, of which her son’s were a pale and smoky copy.