Witness of Bones Read online

  “Who are you, Joan Stock, and why have you come?”

  Realizing that there was no point in obscuring further her purpose, Joan decided to be blunt and take whatever consequences followed.

  “My husband is Matthew Stock of Chelmsford. A clothier and constable of the town. It is he who is charged with your brother’s murder, but he is as innocent as a lamb, though he now finds himself in the company of wolves.”

  In the few seconds it took to convey these facts, Elspeth Morgan’s expression changed from suspicion to amazement and then to anger. If her severe features were unwelcoming

  before, they were more so now and Joan felt almost afraid of what her honest admission had wrought.

  “If you are who you say you are, you have your gall to come here. What, has your husband not done enough, but you are come to do worse, to aggravate my grief with your husband’s name?”

  Joan said, “He is innocent, falsely accused.”

  “So say all malefactors when they are called to account for their crimes.”

  “And is it not sometimes the truth, even though they declare it themselves and none believes them but God?”

  “Not often, I should judge,” answered the young woman after considering Joan’s rebuttal. “Please be good enough to leave. See, my children know you now, the wife of a murderer. You’re frightening them.”

  Joan glanced over to the doorway where the children were still looking in. Neither appeared to be terrified, only made curious by their mother’s anger at a seemingly inoffensive stranger.

  “Will you hear my husband’s side of the story?”

  “Why should I? He’ll be heard before a magistrate.”

  “Yes, but will you be there to hear it?”

  “I have my children to look after. My husband’s master of a ship.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was told by a certain great lord, my husband’s master.” Joan was careful not to mention Cecil’s name although she was sorely tempted. She knew she needed a passage through Elspeth Morgan’s hostility and was at a loss to know what it might be.

  “It’s an easy thing to refer to a nameless lord—to claim a connection,” Elspeth said. “I have known many such servants, and have found none to be worthy.”

  “Please, please listen,” Joan said. “Suppose my husband is all he is claimed to be and more. Yet I am no more my husband than you are yours. If your husband were to turn pirate, the sin would not fall upon your head. You would

  remain yourself, as 1 am myself. We twain are wives of husbands and women too, sisters—you a daughter and a mother as I am.”

  For a moment Elspeth seemed to take this in although her hostile expression did not soften. Then, suddenly, she turned her face toward the kitchen. With a wave of her hand she sent her children away from the open door and in a few seconds Joan could hear them teasing the cat again.

  Elspeth said, “I am preparing supper for my children. I have little time for conversation. If you have something to tell me, pray be quick, and then go. You appeal to our common womanhood, and women we are indeed. Being that we are so, I will listen, but don’t expect me to believe just because we are women. Men tell lies and women are no better, though they be sisters, mothers, and whatever else.”

  “Well said,” Joan replied, gratified that Elspeth was prepared to be reasonable. She began telling the young woman how a man had come to Chelmsford claiming to be her brother, a man who told the Stocks all about the so-called resurrection of Christopher Poole but she was not far into her tale before she noticed the skeptical cast of Elspeth’s gray eyes, as though Joan were some vagabond come to the door hawking cheap goods.

  “My brother was sick abed the day you say this fellow came to Chelmsford, using his name.”

  Joan considered this. She caught no sign of the lie in Elspeth’s expression. Why should she lie about a thing like that? Joan remembered her own suspicion of her visitor’s character. So that was it. Yes, an imposter. “It was another man, not your brother. But my husband and I had no way of knowing.”

  It was Elspeth’s turn to consider. She studied Joan’s face, her own less hostile than before, as though having come upon a common truth the women now could relate to each other in a different way. Elspeth said, “You say he wanted you to come to the city and disclose the fraud?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why you? Why should he seek help elsewhere?”

  “My husband is constable of the town. He has some skill in discovering that which others would fain keep to themselves for want of honesty. We thought it nothing strange that your brother—or the base fellow pretending to be he— might want his help. So we came to London, my husband to your brother’s church, to be falsely accused of his murder.” For a few moments Elspeth sat very still studying Joan, as though in the older woman’s countenance alone the truth could be had. Then she said, “What manner of man was it who said he was my brother?”

  Joan described the imposter the best she could, including the manner of his dress, his posture, his expressions.

  “Good God,” Elspeth said, when Joan was finished. “You have described Humphrey Stearforth.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A servant to Lady Elyot. My brother s living was in her gift. Stearforth was intercessor between her and him. He was often at the church and at least twice stood within this house. By your description and the knowledge you say he had of my brother’s business, your visitor could have been no other.” “But why would he represent himself as your brother?” Joan asked.

  “Why should Satan have tempted mother Eve?” Elspeth said, her expression darkening. But Joan could tell this new antipathy was not directed at her but at Lady Elyot’s servant. Joan urged Elspeth to tell her more about Stearforth.

  “He is, as you describe, a well-spoken man of goodly appearance. About thirty, I think, with neatly trimmed beard and good suit. Indeed, the doublet and jerkin you describe he wore himself during his last visit in this house.”

  “You likened him to the devil.”

  “A good likening, to my mind.”

  “Apparently, he betrayed your brother.”

  “No surprise there,” Elspeth said.

  “He came to your house?”

  “Accompanied my brother, before he was sick. Stephen went to carry something to an old friend in the neighborhood. Stearforth remained here. Stephen was no sooner

  gone from the house than Stearforth comes into the kitchen where I am, throws his arms around my waist, and tells me he bums for my love.”

  “But he knew you were a married woman!”

  “That means no more than one bean in a stew to him, for he thinks he’s a great courtier. He began to woo me despite my protests and had my little son not come into the kitchen at the moment he would have had me on the floor.”

  “I hope he did you no harm,” Joan said.

  “None to my body, yet I was mightily offended and told him so. I reminded him of my marriage vows. He laughed and said vows were silly stuff, made to be broken if opportunity presented itself. He claimed such a philosophy was all the rage at court. He said there women took lovers as a matter of course; their husbands knew of it and were too occupied with their own mistresses to care. He argued that marriage was no sacrament and that priests invented it to maintain power over the laity.”

  “How did the matter end?” Joan asked.

  “I slapped his face with all my strength and threatened him with a poker, which he seeing, it straightway cooled his ardor.”

  “I wonder he was not afraid of what you would tell your brother of all he did.”

  “So I threatened, but he mocked that too. He said I might tell Stephen all I liked but if I did, he would tell a different story. That it was I who seduced him, being as I was a wife whose husband was long at sea and naturally ripe to be plucked. He said I was a plain woman and that it strained belief that he, a gentleman and handsome, would risk his honor on such a drab as
I.”

  “This man is beneath contempt,” Joan said frowning. “Would that he were here as we speak. I should give him leave to hang. Did you tell your brother?”

  Elspeth’s face colored. “I meant to, not willing to give Stearforth the satisfaction of showing that I was afraid. But afraid I was in truth. I reasoned that even though Stephen believed me there would always be a place in his mind that

  wondered if Stearforth hadn’t told the truth—that I was the temptress and not he. It was more than I could bear, the thought that he might suppose me a whore in wife’s apron. So I kept silent and thank God Stearforth never came again.” “Pray he never does,” Joan said. “The man is a blasphemer and lecher too—and from what you have said it is not unthinkable that he is your brother’s murderer.”

  Despite her hatred for Stearforth, Elspeth seemed taken back by this suggestion. “But why would he kill my brother? Stearforth is no Papist. He seems to have no religion at all. What could he gain?”

  “I don’t know—at least not at present,” Joan said. “But tell me, did your brother have enemies?”

  “Well, the Papists hated him because he told the truth, because he said Poole’s body had been taken by them to make a miracle where none was.”

  “What of his own flock? Pastors sometimes offend by their preachings.”

  “Not Stephen. He was the soul of gentleness. He never offended one, save he was of Rome. There he spoke with thunder and lightning. It was for that reason when Master Hopwood came from the church to give me word of his death and said that a Chelmsford clothier was arrested for the crime I took the clothier to be a Papist or his tool."

  “Ah,” said Joan. “Matthew never was a Papist, but a solid member of the queen’s own church. Even his father was none of Rome, and he lived in Queen Mary’s time.”

  Elspeth said she believed all that Joan had told her and smiled a little. Then she beckoned her two children in from where they played and introduced them to Joan. The boy was Simon, the girl Catherine, and they were six and seven. Joan blessed each child and said the boy would grow tall surely and the girl be as fair as any and the children looked less severe than before.

  Joan asked Elspeth once again if she could remember anything her brother said while he stayed with her that might serve to clear her husband. Elspeth was silent for some time; she seemed deep in her thoughts while Joan prayed Elspeth

  would retrieve some word or token useful to her purpose. At length, Elspeth said, “Stephen kept a book, a diary, which he wrote in from the time he was a small boy. Even when he was sick in the bed yonder he had it with him and would write in the midst of his very fever. I was often curious to know what he wrote there but he said it was private— between him and God. He asked me to destroy every page should he die before me.”

  “And did you?”

  “I don’t have the book. He took it with him when he went back to the parsonage. It must be there yet. Master Hopwood said he would deliver my brother’s books and other possessions unto me, I being his sole heir since he had neither wife nor child.”

  “When did Hopwood say he would do this?”

  Elspeth shrugged. “He said in due course. I told him there was no need to make haste. This is a small cottage and there is little room. To be truthful, I planned to sell his books and give his clothing to the poor of the parish.”

  “You must have that diary,” Joan said. “It may contain a clue.”

  “Clue?”

  “To his murderer.”

  “But he never intended for me to see it. He asked that it be burned.”

  “That was when he didn’t know he would be murdered,” Joan said. “As I see it, that alters the matter.”

  Elspeth said she wasn’t sure. “He was most definite about it. ‘Bum the diary after I am dead.’ ”

  “After I am dead, not after I am murdered, '’Joan insisted. “Look, Elspeth, did your brother not love justice?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “Would he wish it frustrated by ignorance?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then surely he would not mind his diary perused by one who loved him if in doing so his murderer’s name might be brought to light.”

  Elspeth considered this, then said she would do it. “It’s late

  today. I have my children to care for. I’ll go the first thing in the morning.”

  Joan thanked her, promised to return at noon the next day, and rose to go. Elspeth apologized for her inhospitableness and pressed Joan to take a cup of ale and some sweetmeats before leaving. But Joan said she really must be gone, for she hoped to go to Lady Elyot’s house before day’s end. She wanted to see the man Stearforth herself, confront him, and confirm for herself that he was the same flattering rogue that stood in her kitchen telling her one lie after another.

  She walked out into the sunlight and turned her face toward the city. At the same time she noticed that while the cows still grazed in the pasture opposite Elspeth’s cottage the cowherd was no longer to be seen.

  Late in the afternoon, Joan located Elyot House. It was built in the shape of the letter H, of two stories with many mul-lioned windows reflecting the pale March light. Undismayed by either the size of the house or a gate locked against her, she went down the alley beside the house and soon found the postern gate, which stood agape as though it had been left open purposely for her, an impression she took as a good omen. Across the gravel courtyard she politically avoided the main entrance and the great likelihood of being turned away and came around to the rear where there was an entrance to the kitchen.

  She mounted a half dozen steps and knocked firmly.

  It was a while before anyone answered although she could hear voices within and a good deal of rattling of pans and scuffing of feet. She gave the door another round of knocks and presently it was opened by a lanky horse-faced man in livery whom she assumed by his age and air of authority to be the butler or steward.

  She told him she was looking for Humphrey Stearforth

  “For what purpose?” asked the man brusquely. Behind him a gravelly female voice cried out for Haws. The tall man twisted his head around and answered that he would return

  anon and then turned back to Joan with an expression to suggest he really didn’t have time to stand in the doorway talking to strangers.

  Joan said that she had an important message for him.

  “What sort of message?”

  “A personal one,” said Joan, beginning to grow annoyed at the imperious butler, if that’s what he was.

  “I can give it to him,” said Haws.

  “That I prefer to do myself.”

  Haws looked at her narrowly. “Well, he’s not here anymore.”

  “If you had told me earlier we would both have spared ourselves pains,” Joan replied sharply. Haws smiled but not pleasantly. His teeth were large and yellow and they protruded from his mouth. She had never seen a man who so reminded her of a horse, with his very long face and jaw and wide-set eyes that seemed to challenge the viewer to choose one to meet.

  “Can you tell me where I can find him?”

  Haws made no reply. He leaned against the doorpost and folded his arms in a gesture of refusal. Joan sighed and reached into her purse, explored its contents with her fingers and made contact with a coin of the heft she thought would open the mouth of the miscreant before her. “For your memory,” she said looking at him stonily to show how much she detested bribery and at the same time pressing the coin into his outstretched palm.

  He flashed another horsey smile. “I’ll tell you what I know. That’s all I can do. Stearforth was employed here until a fortnight past when the mistress discharged him.”

  “Why?”

  “Light fingers,” Haws said, manipulating his own as though the sign had universal significance. “I heard he had made himself free with her private letters and told tales out of doors. Lady Elyot dislikes that in a servant, as what gentlewoman would not. And so she booted him out. Last
Wednesday I saw him in the Strand. He looked very prosperous. I

  asked him how he did—for form’s sake, you understand, for I hate the man with all my heart.”

  Joan didn’t bother to inquire the reason for Haws’s professed antipathy. She supposed him the kind of man who hated a great number of people and was hated in turn, but she was curious about Stearforth’s present business. Had he found a new employer, perhaps somewhat less scrupulous about her privacy?

  “Ah,” said Haws, nodding his head up and down. “He was mysterious about that. Of course I asked him how he did and what he did. He answered that he did very well but would say only that he had a new master, of more substance than his last. That he was busy about his master’s business and discretion forbade him to say else about it.”

  “You say you saw him at Paul’s.”

  “By the bookstalls.”

  “Examining books?”

  Haws laughed. “Talking to several other men.”

  She wanted to ask what men. In her mind’s eye she was already at Paul’s herself, watching for Stearforth, thinking that if she didn’t see him she could ask one of these other men Haws mentioned. But the strident female voice that had called from within earlier repeated the demand that Haws was wanted. Now by the mistress of the house herself, and Joan knew her interview with the butler was over.

  Haws closed the door without another word. The rudesby, she thought. She regretted now that she had been so generous in her bribe. He really hadn’t given her that much information. And yet if Stearforth did haunt Paul’s, he might not be that difficult to find. His face was engraved upon her memory.

  She had been feeding her children and when Elspeth answered the door she thought it might be Joan Stock returning with a question she had forgotten to ask. But he who was standing there when she opened to him pushed the door so she couldn’t close it.

  “Good day, Goody Morgan. Don’t be so quick to be inhospitable. I’m no stranger to your house. Surely, if you can entertain a murderer’s wife you can abide my company.”

  Stearforth was dressed in an old cloak and smelled of the field and cattle. She noticed he had mud on his boots. The next thing Elspeth thought of were her children. They had come into the room in response to the knocking, just as their mother had and were standing there looking up at the towering man they had seen before. Sensitive to their mother’s apprehension, they regarded Stearforth warily as he strode into the room with his muddy boots and took the best chair for himself, stretching out his long legs, making himself comfortable in a way their father did when he came home from the sea.