Ellis Peters - The Sanctuary Sparrow

“My husband is out on an errand, sir, I’m sorry. In half an hour or so he may be back.”

“No matter,” said Hugh truly, “I can speak with him later. And you may well be able to speak for both, and save the time. You know on what business I’m engaged. Master Peche’s death seems likely to prove no accident, and though he was missing most of the day, yet the night is the most favourable time for villainies such as murder. We need to know what every man was doing two nights ago, and whether he saw or heard anything that may help us lay hands on the culprit. I understand your chamber is the second one, back from the street, yet you may have looked out and seen someone lurking in the alley between the houses, or heard some sound that may have meant little to you then. Did you so?”

She said at once: “No. It was a quiet night, like any other.”

“And your husband made no mention of noticing anything out of the way? No one out and about on the roads when law-abiding people are fast at home? Had he occasion to be in the shop late? Or any errand outside?”

Her rose and white countenance flushed very slowly a deeper rose, but her eyes did not waver, and she found a ready excuse for her colour. “No, we retired in good time. Your lordship will understand—we are only a few days married.”

“I understand very well!” said Hugh heartily. “Then I need hardly ask you if your husband so much as left your side.”

“Never for a moment,” she agreed, and voice and flush were eloquent, whether they told truth or no.

“The idea would never have entered my mind,” Hugh assured her urbanely, “if we had not the testimony of a witness who says he saw your husband creeping out of the house and making off in haste about an hour after Compline that night. But of course, more’s the unwisdom, not all witnesses tell the truth.”

He made her a civil bow, and turned and left her then, neither lingering nor hurrying, and strolled back up the garden path to the house. Margery stood staring after him with her underlip caught between her teeth, and the basket of eggs dangling forgotten from her hand.

She was waiting and watching for Daniel when he came back from Frankwell. She drew him aside into a corner of the yard, where they could not be overheard, and the set of her chin and brows stopped his mouth when he began to blurt out loud, incautious wonder at being thus waylaid. Instead, he questioned in an uneasy undertone, impressed by her evident gravity: “What is it? What’s the matter with you?”

“The sheriff’s deputy has been here asking questions. Of all of us!”

“Well, so he must, what is there in that? And what, of all people, could you tell him?” The implied scorn did not escape her; that would change, and soon.

“I could have told what he asked me,” she spat, bitter and low, “where you were all night on Monday. But could I? Do I even know? I know what I believed then, but why should I go on believing it? A man who was out of his bed and loose in the town that night may not have been bustling to another woman’s bed after all—he could have been battering Baldwin Peche over the head and throwing him into the river! That’s what they are thinking. And now what am I to believe? Bad enough if you left me to go to that woman while her husband’s away—oh, yes, I was there, do you remember when she told you, all nods and winks, the shameless whore!—that he was bound away for several days! But how do I know now that that’s what you were about?”

Daniel was gaping at her, white-faced and aghast, and gripping her hand as if his senses at that moment had no other anchor. “Dear God, they can’t think that! You can’t believe that of me? You know me better…”

“I don’t know you at all! You pay me no attention, you’re nothing but a stranger to me, you steal out at night and leave me in tears, and what do you care?”

“Oh, God!” babbled Daniel in a frantic whisper, “What am I to do? And you told him? You told him I went out—the whole night?”

“No, I did not. I’m a loyal wife, if you’re no proper husband to me. I told him you were with me, that you never left my side.”

Daniel drew breath deep, gawping at her in idiot relief, and began to smile, and jerk out praise and thanks incoherently while he wrung her hand, but Margery measured out her moment like a fencer, and struck the grin ruthlessly from his face.

“But he knows it is not true.”

“What?” He collapsed again into terror. “But how can he? If you told him I was with you…”

“I did. I’ve perjured myself for you and all to no purpose. I gave nothing away, though God knows I owe you nothing. I put my soul in peril to save you from trouble! And then he tells me smoothly that there’s a witness who saw you sneak out that night and has the hour right, too, so never think this was a trick. There is such a witness. You’re known to have been out roving in the dark the night that man was murdered.”

“I never had ought to do with it,” he wailed softly. “I told you truth…”

“You told me you had things to do that were no concern of mine. And everybody knows you had no love for the locksmith.”

“Oh, God!” moaned Daniel, gnawing his knuckles. “Why did I ever go near the girl? I was mad! But I swear to you, Margery, that was all, it was to Cecily I went… and never again, never! Oh, girl, help me… what am I to do?”

“There’s only one thing you can do,” she said forcefully. “If that’s truly where you were, you must go to this woman, and get her to speak up for you, as she ought. Surely she’ll tell the truth, for your sake, and then the sheriff’s men will let you alone. And I’ll confess that I lied. I’ll say it was for shame of being so slighted, though it was truly for love of you—however little you deserve it.”

“I will!” breathed Daniel, weak with fear and hope and gratitude all mingled, and stroking and caressing her hand as he had never done before. “I’ll go to her and ask her. And never see her again, I promise you, I swear to you, Margery.”

“Go after dinner,” said Margery, securely in the ascendancy, “for you must come and eat and put a good face on it. You can, you must. No one else knows of this, no one but I, and I’ll stand by you whatever it cost me.”

Mistress Cecily Corde did not brighten or bridle at the sight of her lover creeping in at the back door of her house early in the afternoon. She scowled as blackly as so golden a young woman could, hauled him hastily into a closed chamber where they could not possible be overlooked by her maidservant, and demanded of him, before he had even got his breath back, what he thought he was doing there in broad daylight, and with the sheriff’s men about the town as well as the usual loiterers and gossips. In a great, gasping outpour Daniel told her what he was about, and why, and what he needed, entreated, must have from her, avowal that he had spent Monday night with her from nine of the evening until half an hour before dawn. His peace of mind, his safety, perhaps his life, hung on her witness. She could not deny him, after all they had meant to each other, all he had given her, all they had shared.

Once she had grasped what he was asking of her, Cecily disengaged violently from the embrace she had permitted as soon as the door was closed, and heaved him off in a passion of indignation.

“Are you mad? Throw my good name to the four winds to save your skin? I’ll do no such thing, the very idea of asking it of me! You should be ashamed! Tomorrow or the next day my man will be home, and very well you know it. You would not have come near me now, if you had any thought for me. And like this, in daylight, with the streets full! You’d better go, quickly, get away from here.”