A Rustle of Silk: A new forensic mystery series set in Stuart England (A Gabriel Taverner Mystery)

by Alys Clare

  I sat in my study that night, long after my servants had retired. I had finally given up the struggle to persevere with my studies, accepting that my powers of concentration had temporarily deserted me.

  I also had to accept something else: I couldn’t go on pretending this ongoing, insidious attack on me and my household was not happening. Much as I disliked the thought, I was going to have to do something to stop it.

  Wearily I stood up, made a desultory attempt to put my books and papers into order and blew out my candle. By the gentle glow of the moonlight I took Flynn outside so that both he and I could empty our bladders. I watched as he padded off to his straw-stuffed sack in the corner by the kitchen hearth and turned round a dozen times to make himself comfortable, then I went to bed.

  TWO

  My resolution to begin a subtle investigation into who might be responsible for the series of little surprises left at my door had to be postponed. In the morning of the next day, Samuel summoned me with what for him passed for a state of urgent anxiety: the house cow and her calf had forced a way out through a weak place in the fence and he needed more intelligent help than Tock could provide to persuade the beasts to return to their pasture and then to effect a repair to the fence.

  And then, early in the warm, still afternoon, I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves in the open space in front of the house and a voice called out my name. I knew that voice, and as I hurried through the house to the door, all thoughts of pursuing my persecutor pushed to the back of my mind, I was already smiling.

  My sister Celia gave me a regal wave. She was mounted on a rather fine grey mare, and she rode astride. She’s won that battle, then, I thought.

  At least two of the men in Celia’s life – her husband and our father – considered it unseemly for women to ride in any fashion other than side saddle. But Celia liked to ride fast, and far, and, whenever she was allowed to, alone. As she had frequently pointed out, sitting on a side saddle with your feet on a little ledge was only efficient – only safe – if you rode at a walk and a groom or other attendant led your horse. You had no contact with your horse, and therefore no control.

  She was wearing a sumptuous silk gown in a deep red shade, puffed out by layers of underskirts, with a fitted velvet jacket of the same colour. Her long fair hair was braided, covered with a light and almost transparent veil and wound up under a pretty little hat. I crossed the yard and held my hands out to her. She slid her feet out of the stirrups, swung her right leg over the pommel and flung herself into my arms. As my hands closed round her waist, firmly held in the embrace of stiff buckram, she winced, drawing in a sharp breath, and just for an instant she leaned against me. Or, at least, I thought she did … I guessed she’d turned an ankle as she landed.

  But I must have been mistaken, for now she had extricated herself from my embrace and stood looking up at me, light blue-green eyes dancing and a bright smile on her lovely face.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea if you’re expecting me or not,’ she declared. ‘You’re horrified in case you invited me and have forgotten all about it, or if I’m the first out of a whole band of guests who imagine they are coming to dine with you.’

  Oh, Lord. Was she teasing, or was there really some function I was meant to be hosting that had slipped my mind?

  ‘Er …’ I began.

  ‘And here you are looking like a field hand and in no fit state whatsoever to entertain guests,’ she went on, eyeing me critically, ‘dressed in your oldest hose, a stained shirt and that scarred leather jerkin that you cling to as if it were a second skin. You’re in need of a haircut’ – she raised her voice over the start of my objections – ‘and you’re still wearing your earring!’ She shook her head as if despairing of me. ‘Do you want all the wealthy sick people hereabouts to think you’re nothing better than a pirate and take their custom to some conservative type who dresses as a doctor should?’

  ‘I never was a pirate,’ I protested. And, I might have added, my earring will stay in my ear till I’m in my grave and beyond, if I have any say in the matter.

  I wear it in memory of a very important day in my young life. I was serving on the Mandragora, under Captain Pemberthy, and we were engaged by an attacking fleet of Spaniards in a brief but very fierce action. Mandragora was a lumbering old craft and we were at a distinct disadvantage, so Captain Pemberthy encouraged us by offering a series of rewards. I killed my first man that day, and the captain gave me a solid gold doubloon to celebrate the fact. He told me it had been minted in Nueva Granada from plundered treasure and I had it made into a heavy earring by a clever, nimble-fingered Jewish jeweller in Havana. It is the size of a broad wedding band and it took me a month to get used to its weight.

  My sister took pity on me. ‘No, I know you weren’t.’ Taking my hands in hers, she said with a laugh, ‘And there’s no need to look so horrified, Gabriel. You haven’t forgotten about my visit because I didn’t tell you I was coming and, since I’m planning to enjoy a long, uninterrupted chat with my favourite brother, I’m hoping as fervently as you are that you’re not expecting anyone else.’

  ‘I’m delighted to see you, you’re always welcome under my roof for as long as you wish to stay, and I’m pretty sure Sallie would have told me days ago if I was expecting company,’ I said. ‘Come in. I’ll summon Tock to see to your horse.’ I reached up to the big, strangely shaped leather pack tied behind the saddle, already unbuckling the restraining straps.

  ‘Don’t touch that!’

  I stepped away from the mare, mildly surprised at Celia’s sharp tone.

  ‘I’m not staying so I won’t need my pack,’ my sister went on with a sweet smile. ‘I’m on my way back home to Ferrars – I’ve been home to Fernycombe to see the family.’

  We went into the parlour and Sallie brought refreshments. Very adequate refreshments: Sallie grumbles frequently and repetitively that the house needs a mistress’s touch, and in the absence of any sign that I might be about to marry or even courting, she gives a particularly fulsome welcome to my sister, my mother and any other female friend or relation who calls. Dainty lace-edged cloths were spread on two little tables, and Sallie laid out a variety of pretty sweetmeats in small glass dishes and a selection of tartlets, the cheesecake filling flavoured with rosewater or honey. To drink there was Sallie’s own home-brewed ale, its somewhat mundane nature offset by being served in fine pewter goblets. When everything was arranged to her satisfaction, Sallie bobbed a curtsey to my sister – she never did that for me – and left us alone.

  Celia caught my eye. ‘Phew!’ she exclaimed.

  I grinned. ‘She isn’t usually like that. She wants to impress the lady visitor, but she doesn’t bother when it’s just me.’

  ‘I imagine she knows you wouldn’t notice,’ my sister said crushingly.

  I asked after my parents and my elder brother Nathaniel, and Celia brought me up to date regarding my family’s doings. Mother and Father were well, Nathaniel – who in effect ran the farm now, although my father had not been persuaded of the fact – was, as usual, grumbling about the livestock, or the crops, or bullfinches attacking his apple blossom, or it might have been the pears. ‘I confess I don’t pay much attention,’ she concluded. ‘Nathaniel’s always moaning about something, but everyone knows he wouldn’t have any other life but that of a farmer.’

  I nodded. Then I said, ‘And how is Jeromy?’

  Celia married Jeromy Palfrey two and a half years ago, while I was still in London learning to be a physician. She was nineteen, her bridegroom twenty-eight. I hadn’t witnessed their courtship, but apparently Celia had been besotted by the handsome, flamboyant and wealthy man who had come to woo her. Although nobody had ever said so, I had the impression that my parents – my father, to be exact – had entertained one or two reservations about Jeromy. According to my brother Nathaniel, Celia had threatened all sorts of reprisals if she didn’t get her own way, and she’d shouted at my father that she was nineteen and far too old
to be unmarried and unwanted.

  My father gave in. The September wedding was at Fernycombe, and I’m told the bride wore flowers in her hair and a gown of aquamarine silk specially chosen to match her light sea-coloured eyes. The bridegroom – elegant and sophisticated in deep crimson silk and rich purple velvet and, according to my brother Nathaniel, looking like some wily, flamboyant courtier – bore his new wife off to his beautiful, richly furnished old house near to the river, high on a rise above a slow bend where once a ferry used to operate. There they had been ever since, living, as far as anyone could tell, in lavish comfort and connubial delight.

  ‘Jeromy is well, thank you,’ Celia said. ‘Busy, as always.’ She flashed me a smile. ‘A trip to Exeter, then, two or three weeks after he comes home, another to Dartmouth. His work necessitates so much travel, as you know, but he says that is less of a hardship now he has the new gelding.’ She bent forward, brushing a tiny drop of liquid from her beautiful silk skirt, and I could no longer see her face. I could imagine her expression well enough, however. I’d often noticed how, when speaking or thinking about Jeromy, she seemed to go off into a trance. It was as if, just for a few moments, she absented herself and withdrew to the space within that she shared with him. That was, I surmised, what a great love did to you. It was quite moving, really.

  Jeromy was a merchant. Perhaps it is more accurate to say he was in the employ of a merchant. Nicolaus Quinlie was known throughout the county and far beyond – even as far as London – for he imported silk. He was hugely wealthy and a shrewd and successful businessman with very good contacts and highly placed patrons; he was reputed to have supplied the late Queen Elizabeth, and wild tales were flying around to the effect that he was already in negotiation with the new King’s staff regarding the provision of fabrics for the coronation. Quinlie silk, as Jeromy often said, was the best.

  Nicolaus Quinlie’s speciality was not the everyday stuff but the finest, most luxurious Venetian fabric known as seta reale, or true silk, that resulted when the cocoon of silk was placed in hot water and unwound intact, producing a long, strong, continuous thread. I knew quite a lot about silk, for my brother-in-law, having taken on too much of my father’s brandy one Christmas, had lectured me for what felt like most of the afternoon.

  I had a sudden, vivid image of that day. It had been the Christmas before last; the penultimate, as it turned out, of Elizabeth’s long and glittering reign …

  ‘Of course, Nicholas can afford to pick and choose when it comes to customers,’ Jeromy said in my memory. He wore a scarlet doublet and a pure white silk shirt, its extravagant cuffs and neck ruffles spilling out and moving with a life of their own, beneath a strange sort of half-cloak which covered only one shoulder and was tied with heavy gold cords under the opposite arm. He sat on the settle by my father’s hearth, one arm around my sister’s delicate waist, the other clasping the heavy-based, stemmed glass, green-tinged, in which my father habitually served brandy. ‘Not that any but the wealthiest and most important of men can afford our prices!’ He laughed, turning to drop a tender kiss on Celia’s cheek. She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder. Eyeing her gorgeous gown – she too was dressed in silk; violet silk, the sleeves cleverly shaped so that a little puff of fabric stood up on the shoulders – I reflected that a considerable yardage of the wares in which Jeromy traded had found its way home.

  My father had overheard. Shooting Jeromy a frowning look, he said, ‘Only the wealthiest and important would want it.’ His eyes moved to the generous folds of Celia’s violet gown, then, taking on a look of disdain, to Jeromy’s silly little cloak. ‘Hardly practical, that stuff, for anyone with a day’s work to get through.’

  ‘The best silk is actually surprisingly durable,’ Jeromy said equably. He smiled up at his father-in-law.

  ‘For proper work? For ploughing? For muck-spreading? For shoeing a restless horse? For sweating in the forge all day beside the furnace?’ my father returned sharply.

  Celia roused herself from her post-prandial semi-stupor. ‘Oh, Father, when did you last spread muck?’

  ‘I’ve done my share!’ my father countered. ‘And—’

  But just then my mother came to stand beside him. Leaning close, she whispered something in his ear, and whatever it was seemed to have the desired effect. I watched, amused, as my father’s better nature struggled to control his urge to have the last, crushing word. His better nature won: with a very obvious effort, he forced a smile and said, through painfully obviously gritted teeth, ‘Well, the silk looks very fine on the pair of you.’

  Then he shrugged off my mother’s hand and went to fill up his glass.

  He’d been right, I thought now, about Celia and her husband looking good in the expensive silk. My sister would look lovely in a sack, or so I’ve always thought. As for Jeromy, he was handsome, charismatic, charming and sophisticated; born, or so it would seem, for costly fabrics. Not above average height, he was slim – he gave the impression of a man who took good care of his elegant body – and moved like a dancer. He was almost androgynous in appearance and he presented himself immaculately. He had silky, well-styled hair in a shade of pale brown and light blue eyes, and was always most beautifully, expensively, fragrantly and stylishly dressed in the height of fashion. He was, in short, a wonderfully attractive, walking advertisement for Nicolaus Quinlie’s wares.

  I sometimes wondered why else Nicolaus Quinlie needed Jeromy, for, despite his superficial charms and his undoubted good looks, he lacked wisdom and he wasn’t very intelligent. I’d concluded that it was for Jeromy’s connections with the world of the rich and influential: the men and women who were Quinlie’s potential customers. Jeromy came from old money and a long, well-established family, and the doors of the best houses in the county were always open to him.

  Now, the afternoon sunshine flooding the parlour, I studied my sister. She was pale, I observed, and her lovely eyes were shadowed in grey. ‘You must miss him when he’s away,’ I said. ‘Ferrars is an isolated house, and you have no one but servants for company.’ This, no doubt, was why she’d been staying at Fernycombe with our parents.

  ‘I don’t mind!’ she said quickly. She flashed a glance at me, smiling. ‘In truth, life is so hectic when Jeromy is home, you have no idea. We entertain a great deal, you know, for Ferrars has become a showplace for the stuff in which Nicolaus and Jeromy deal, and he – Nicolaus – says that seeing it in place, in the form of upholstery, curtains and, naturally, garments, is the best way to display fine silk, so that everybody who sees it is mad to purchase some for themselves. Ferrars has silk everywhere, although I’m not complaining, I love the very luxury of it.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Why, when Jeromy is travelling, I am in truth quite glad of the respite!’ She laughed again, as if to demonstrate the absurdity of the very idea of being glad for any reason that her husband was absent.

  I went on looking at her. ‘Are you well?’ I asked.

  She gave a brief sound of exasperation. ‘Yes, Gabriel. Please don’t act like a doctor with me.’

  ‘I am a doctor.’

  ‘Only just,’ she flashed back, ‘and you’re not my doctor.’ She drew a breath. ‘Anyway, it annoys me. I’ve told you.’

  ‘You look a little pale,’ I persisted.

  She sighed gustily. She’s done that since we were children but, back then, this expression of her irritation with me was usually followed by a hard thump. ‘What do you expect when I’ve just come from a few days at Fernycombe!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know how it is – they put such rich food on the table, and in such quantities, and Mother persists in telling you to eat up, and then she ladles even more on your plate, and it’s so delicious that you find yourself gobbling it up. I have a touch of dyspepsia, if you must know.’

  I studied her critically. Now she mentioned it, she looked a little plump; the inevitable aftermath of a succession of meals taken at my mother’s table. I opened my mouth to say so, but managed just in time to hold back. I’ve never
met a woman yet who receives the comment you’ve got fatter with any sort of pleasure.

  It occurred to me that she might be with child. Married more than two years, and still no baby? It happened, of course it did, and, as Celia had just said, Jeromy was often absent from home. But no: I recalled the firm, hard feel of her stomacher as I’d helped her down from her horse. No woman, surely, would constrict her body so tightly if it housed a developing foetus. On the other hand, though, it mattered a great deal to Celia to look good, so perhaps that was just what she had done …

  There was silence between us for a while. I raked around to think of some other comment that would allow Celia to speak of her husband – she never seemed to tire of the subject – but, since I did not know my brother-in-law all that well, and, to speak the truth, wasn’t over-impressed by what I did know, I raked in vain. We chatted about the weather, about my work, about what, if any, effects the accession of a new monarch would have on our quiet life in Devon. Then Celia stood up, reached for her gloves and announced she ought to be on her way.

  I accompanied her outside into the yard, calling Tock to fetch her mare. She thanked him prettily, then, looking round, asked, ‘Where’s Samuel? I ought to say goodbye to Samuel.’

  I couldn’t really see why, but nevertheless I sent Tock to find him, and watched as my sister bid him farewell. ‘I always enjoy staying here at Rosewyke so much,’ she added, ‘and you all make me feel very welcome.’

  Samuel looked a little puzzled. Tock just stood there with his mouth hanging open, bafflement written all over his face. Bafflement, however, was his usual expression. I was about to point out that she hadn’t actually stayed, although she’d certainly done so in the past and was always welcome to do so again, but she brushed me aside and reached for the reins.