Face Down In The Marrow-Bone Pie Part 10

Grim-faced, Jennet ignored him. She stood again, took up a rag and bucket, and started the cleaning. An hour pa.s.sed. In spite of her best efforts, Jennet remained all too aware of Mark's nearby presence. The pull of pa.s.sion was there, no doubt of it. The practical side of her nature urged her to encourage him, too. If Lady Appleton left him in charge at Appleton Manor when she returned to Leigh Abbey, he would doubtless become an important member of the local community.

Jennet tried, briefly, to imagine a future here together. A third aspect of her character, a deep-rooted superst.i.tiousness, kept interfering. Lady Appleton thought she had proof the ghost was contrived, but Jennet was not convinced. A bit of cloth lying beneath a litter of kittens did not settle anything. It might be, as Lady Appleton claimed, a piece of the apparition's veil. Or it might be something else entirely.

Everyone knew there were ghosts. Why, old King Henry's fifth bride-or was it his sixth?-was said to run shrieking through the corridors of Hampton Court, begging them not to cut off her head.

The cleaning progressed while Jennet's imagination roamed freely. At last, careful not to disturb Dame Cat, she came to the final ch.o.r.e and stuck her rag beneath the altar to clean out the acc.u.mulation of dirt. To her surprise, her fingers encountered the sharp corner of a solid object. Perplexed, she drew out an oddly shaped box.

"What have you found?"

Jennet looked up, surprised to find Mark at her elbow. He had to have been watching her closely indeed to appear so quickly. The thought pleased her.

"I cannot tell," she said, "but I do think it was deliberately hidden here."

"Open it," he suggested.

Jennet needed no urging. Curious, she lifted the lid to reveal a small, mottled object nestled on a pad of velvet. With instinctive distaste, she recoiled, thrusting the box away from her. "What is this thing?"

Mark frowned, then took the case from her to examine its contents more closely. Slowly a sardonic smile crept over his features. He removed the mysterious object and offered it to her. Reluctantly, she let him place it on her palm.

"What is it?"

"It seems Sir George had papist sympathies." Mark chuckled at her confusion. "The box is a reliquary, and that appears to be a knucklebone."

Jennet hastily dropped it, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n as she made a low sound of distress.

Mark laughed outright. "What? No respect for a saint's relic? 'Tis said such things have miraculous powers."

His mockery irritated her so much that her fear vanished. "I do much doubt that," she declared. "If it were so, then papists would still rule England. 'Tis more likely this is a fraud sold at some fair." With as much dignity as she could muster, Jennet got up off her knees, dusted her skirt, and turned her back on Mark, leaving the bone where it had fallen. "This chapel is clean enough," she declared. "Add fresh rushes and we are finished with our task."

When she got no answer, she glanced over her shoulder. Mark had retrieved the relic and was placing it almost reverently back inside the box. Jennet frowned. All of a sudden she felt as chilled as she had been by the sight of the ghost. Was this discovery an ill omen? Try as she might, Jennet could not shake off the premonition that worse discoveries were yet to come.

Chapter Eighteen.

"Join us," Euphemia Denholm invited.

Susanna hesitated, not because she objected to the chance to talk to her near neighbor, but because she could not sit without taking up a needle to help in the embroidery of a particularly complex piece of tapestrywork.

The entire distaff side of the household at Denholm had been recruited to complete the project. Next to Mistress Denholm sat her daughter, Catherine, and then, in descending order of importance, all the maidservants, Grizel included. The invitation was meant to include Susanna's maid, as well. Susanna could only hope that young Bess had more skill with embroidery than she did, else Effie was going to have to pick out and rework a great many st.i.tches after they left.

"I am not known for my needlework," she warned as she took the place made for her on the bench, between Effie and Catherine. Bess settled herself farther down the line, smiling shyly at Grizel, as if she already knew the other girl.

Did she? Susanna wondered, but she left that question for later. It was well she'd decided to leave Jennet at home, she thought. This was not the time for distraction, and Jennet, for all she meant well, did not go unnoticed long, even when she was in the company of her betters.

Her own fault, Susanna realized. She'd encouraged the younger woman to express herself freely. Like Mark, Jennet would do anything for her, and for both of them Susanna felt an almost sisterly affection. To those who believed in a strict hierarchy, in separation of the cla.s.ses and the superiority of gentle or n.o.ble birth, such behavior was nigh unto treasonous.

"This is to be a gift," Effie informed her as they sat and wrought. "For a wedding. You'll not know the bride, but the family is an ancient one in these parts. Connected to the Stanleys."

Susanna let her hostess rattle on, all the while looking for an opening. She ran idle fingers over the silken textures, hesitant to spoil such a masterpiece with her own inept additions.

She had questions to ask, but she knew the interrogation must be done subtly. She took the first st.i.tch, uncertain whether she would mention Jane's name at all. Or Edith's. She did not want Effie to think she'd been investigating the past, not if there was even the slightest possibility that someone at Denholm was involved in murder.

With a skeptical glance at the section of tapestry beneath Susanna's hands, Effie cleared her throat and hesitantly asked, "How do you occupy your time in Kent if not in needlework?"

"With my herbs and potions, and the compiling of a cautionary herbal."

Effie looked puzzled. "Do you mean to say you are a writer of books?"

"Not yet, but my goal is to produce a complete compendium of the dangerous side effects of plants. My sister died many years ago from eating banewort berries, which she mistook for cherries. Such deaths can be prevented if every gentlewoman and goodwife's training in the preparation of herbal remedies includes detailed descriptions of harmful herbs."

"Banewort? What is that? I do not know it."

"In these parts it is called dwale. I have seen it growing by the highway, and henbane, too. There are thimbleflowers under a good many hedges, and cowbane grows in ditches and stagnant water. Another poison, tansy, grows hereabout as a roadside weed, for it thrives on peat land. Monkshood does not grow wild in England, but I fully expect to find it in some gardens, as it also has so many medicinal uses."

"I am sure Randall permits no poisons to grow in our herb garden." Effie drew herself up a little straighter and sniffed, as if she'd just been insulted.

"Ah, but that is the point, you see. Everyone does, sometimes without realizing it. Poisonous plants almost always have benign uses one would be loath to do without. My herbal will be a warning to housewives, a clear indication of how much is safe and what to avoid. And, as far as may be known, what course to follow should accidental poisoning occur."

Every ear was now c.o.c.ked in Susanna's direction, but it was, surprisingly, Catherine who spoke. "Father warned us about cowbane."

Susanna's interest quickened. "What did he say?"

"That some poor fool in Red Bank had mistaken it for smallage and boiled it in a sallet for supper and was found dead the next day."

Effie looked disapproving. "Enough of this dismal talk. Let us speak not of deadly herbs but of those that heal."

Mischief sparkled in Catherine's eyes as she addressed a question to Susanna. "Then tell us, Lady Appleton, what antidotes do you recommend should one be accidentally poisoned?"

"That is difficult to answer. At home I keep many ingredients at hand. In case of accidents." Unable to resist the chance to educate a young gentlewoman, Susanna offered up her opinion on the efficacy of universal cures. "Some claim any poison can be expelled from the system by ingesting wormwood. Others swear by a dose of unicorn's horn. Or they recommend swallowing a toadstone. I believe it is necessary to know what poison has been consumed before selecting a likely cure. And any such remedy must needs be administered quickly if it is to have any chance of success. Cures are effective only a fraction of the time and some poisons simply work too fast. In those cases nothing can be done."

"So, you account yourself a skilled herbalist," Effie mused. "Mayhap you'd be willing to make a suggestion or two to help my dear husband's condition."

At her side, Susanna felt Catherine tense, but she kept her attention on the girl's mother. "I will be delighted to try. Deafness, if caused by accident, apoplexy, or a fall, can sometimes be restored in part by a mixture of gall of hare and grease of fox. Warm it to the temperature of blood and dip black wool in it and put that in the ear. Another remedy, though I cannot vouch for its effectiveness, advises using the black wool to apply juice of wormwood tempered with the gall of a bull."

"Randall's deafness does not concern me as much as another ailment."

Stiff knees, Susanna recalled. She searched her memory for cures. "Have you tried a poultice of rue and borage mixed with honey? That does well to reduce swelling."

"It is greater swelling I desire." Effie had bent over her work, making it difficult for Susanna to hear her next mumbled words. "It availed me nothing to apply an unguent compounded of castor oil, spikehead seeds, earthworms, and fermented goat's milk."

For a moment Susanna thought she had misunderstood. Was the problem gout? For that there were several possibilities. "Populeon ointment," she mused aloud, "made of poplar buds. Or stag's marrow, or one can also lay on the affected part a paste compounded of styrax, bitumen, sandarac, myrrh, and camphor. Or, an alternative might be cantharides paste, made from the dried, crushed bodies of beetles, but that can also be a poison and must be used with care."

"Cantharides?"

Something in Effie's tone made Susanna aware that she had erred. Jennet's report had included deafness and trouble with the knees, it was true, but she had also said Randall Denholm was impotent. She gave Effie a sharp look. Had they been talking at cross purposes? "There are some who think that cantharides is also an aphrodisiac."

There were some who thought eryngo was, as well.

"I knew I had heard of it before. 'Twas in that connection. But a poison, too? What a pity. Love potions always seem to have some negative aspect. I have heard one method certain of success is for the man to eat the genitals of a c.o.c.kerel, but Randall refuses to cooperate."

The compound of earthworms and goat's milk made perfect sense now, and Susanna had difficulty holding back a chuckle. It was apparently a local cure for male . . . difficulties. To judge by Effie's reaction, it had not been a success.

"He might find the candied root of sea holly more palatable," she suggested. "Eryngo, it is called."

"I have never heard of it. Is it difficult to obtain?"

"It would seem so."

Certes no one in Manchester would confess to selling any to John Bexwith. Could Randall Denholm have grown and candied his own in hope of a cure? He might have offered to share his success with his neighbor. Except that if Effie was to be believed, he'd not met with success. It was a puzzle Susanna could not solve. Not yet. There were too many pieces missing. And, in truth, it might have no bearing on Bexwith's death at all. She had to keep reminding herself of that. The old man might simply have died, for no reason save that his time on this earth was finished.

Slowly, Susanna became aware that her hostess was staring at her, a peculiar look on her face. It seemed prudent to drop all discussion of sea holly for the present. Susanna did not want anyone to guess that she suspected Bexwith's pie had been poisoned, especially when it was equally possible it had not been.

"I know no sure cure for impotence," she told Effie, "although another possibility I've heard suggested is a powder made from the heel bones of a pig." She could not hold back a small smile at the lengths to which some people would go in their search for a cure. They appeared to work just often enough to keep hope alive.

"I have been told that if a man's member is curved or crooked it may be made straight again by the application of compresses containing an ointment of fresh b.u.t.ter, linseed oil, and sweet almonds," an elderly maidservant said.

Conversation became general then, since nearly every woman received some instruction in the use of herbs during girlhood. For all Effie's disinterest, Susanna was certain she'd been properly trained in the distilling and decocting of medicines. 'Twas likely she simply had as little apt.i.tude for that as Susanna did for needlework.

Another maid offered up her grandmother's recipe to cure chilblains.

"A tasty list of ingredients," Susanna remarked, her voice so low only Catherine heard and responded with a m.u.f.fled giggle. "Did it fail to remedy the chilblains, 'twould also make a fine sauce for a roast."

Chapter Nineteen.

An hour later, Susanna excused herself from the needlework to visit the privy. She could not bring herself to go back. Of their own volition her feet took her toward the herb garden, a much more natural environment than the confines of the house.

Did Effie know anything about Bexwith's death? Susanna asked herself that question as she wandered among the rows of plants, recognizing many of them from her own garden even though at this time of year, nearly the end of October, most had gone by. Only bare stalks remained.

Effie had misled her about Edith, but that could be no more than a mother's desire to deflect attention away from her own daughter, Jane. Or that she really believed Edith had disappeared and was thus a likely prospect to haunt the manor.

It was odd she still wore mourning for her eldest child after all these years, but mayhap their relations.h.i.+p had been especially close.

What else? At their first meeting, Effie had neglected to mention that Grizel had found Bexwith's body, that she'd been in service at Appleton Manor before coming to Denholm Hall. But Susanna had not asked.

"Good day to you, Lady Appleton," said a whispery voice. Randall Denholm rose unsteadily from behind the hedge that bordered the garden. "Fumes," he said.

Approaching him with caution, Susanna peered at the small plot of open ground where he'd been working. Randall Denholm had been laying out roots to dry in the sun. "Monkshood?" she asked, speaking more loudly than usual.

"Aye. In three or four days I will grind these to powder."

'Twas clear his hearing loss was only partial. "For what purpose?" she asked.

"To kill rats . . . and other vermin." He chuckled and looked sly.

"You have a fine garden." Susanna edged away a few steps. "How came you to have so great a knowledge of herbs?"

A faraway look came into his faded eyes. "Once long ago I was a novice in a monastery. I had no great calling for the religious life and gladly left it when my elder brother died and I became my father's heir, but during the time I was cloistered, I was put to work in the herb garden and discovered I had a rare talent for making things grow."

Surprised by his candor, Susanna gave him a hard look. Perhaps he was as addlepated as he sometimes appeared. Surely no sensible man would speak so openly of papist roots.

"A garden soothes a man's soul," he said.

With that Susanna had to agree and for a few minutes they chatted amiably enough of herbs and their uses. All the while, she continued to catalog the contents of his garden. She found but one other deadly poison-mandrake. A quick glance from the plant to the man caught a crafty look in his eyes before he made his expression carefully blank again.

"Work to do," he told her and shuffled off toward a patch of rosemary that needed covering before the first frost.

Mandrake. Susanna closed her eyes, trying to remember all she knew of the herb. Like the root of the sea holly, the mandrake's root was also said to cure impotence. Had the root of one been subst.i.tuted for the other? A frown wrinkled her brow as she tried to make that theory work. Mandrake was a poison, it was true, but its effects would not be consistent with what she knew about the way Bexwith had died. For one thing a man poisoned by mandrake should have taken much longer to expire. As much as a whole day. And he'd have had to eat a great deal of the plant.

Frowning, Susanna considered Randall's explanation for growing monkshood. No doubt he had reasons for mandrake, too. But when she looked around, thinking to ask a seemingly innocent question about the use of mandrake oil to remove warts, Randall Denholm was gone. She finally caught sight of him halfway across the orchard, hobbling away from her as fast as his walking stick would let him.

Robert would say she was making much of nothing because she was looking for real-life examples to use in her herbal, that she thought this must be a case of poisoning because that interpretation would be more useful to her than the death of an old man from natural causes. Perhaps Robert would be right, but Susanna could not shake the sense that everyone she'd met since coming to Lancas.h.i.+re was hiding something from her.

Even Robert was holding information back, she realized. In truth, his behavior had been suspicious from the start. He had not wanted her to make this journey.

One explanation for her husband's reticence came readily to mind. He doubtless had once kept a mistress here in Lancas.h.i.+re. He did not want them to meet.

Foolish man, to think he must hide such a thing from her. Someday, Susanna decided, she must find a subtle way to tell him she already knew all about Alys of Dover.

Chapter Twenty.

Navigation along the Loire River was well organized and swift, and boatmen bragged that they could journey all the way from Orleans to Nantes in but six days. There were a number of royal chateaux in the Loire Valley, among them Blois.

Woods stretched to a depth of several miles along the river in the vicinity of the village beneath the castle, forests filled with oak and beech, poplar and chestnut. Sir Robert Appleton came by way of Saint-Die and approached from a direction that gave him a spectacular view of the royal chateau where it perched on the cliff. The place had a hybrid appearance, a facade of white stone in one wing, one in the Gothic style in another.

As he came closer, Sir Robert was amazed at how absurdly easy it was to approach. He went unchallenged until the very last moment, when royal guards in striped uniforms of blue, red, and white stepped forward holding halberds. Even then, their manner made the weapons appear more ceremonial than warlike.

The papers Sir Robert carried led to an invitation to stay the night and sup with the court. He was shown to lodgings across the courtyard from the white stone wing. On closer inspection, he noted a profusion of tiny, diamond-paned windows and narrow doorways there. The doors were small where he was, too. He had to duck to avoid striking his head as he pa.s.sed through them.

Contriving to lose his way en route to supper, Sir Robert managed to explore a number of little galleries. From the many windows and balconies he got a sense of the plan of the place, but he also found himself taking simple enjoyment from his glimpses of wide terraces and formal Italian gardens.

The meal, when at last he reached his place at table, was elegant and very refined, with napkins changed after each course, service dishes of silver, and forks as well as meat knives at every place.