Death at St. Vedast

by Mary Lawrence

  With toes stinging from the chill floorboards, Bianca went to the window to look out over her new neighborhood and view the moon. She retrieved her stockings from near the hearth and pulled them on beneath her smock. The layer helped, but she needed more. She dropped her kirtle over her head. Soon she was dressed and wide-awake. She threw a wool cape over her shoulders and headed out the door.

  Quiet reigned in the hour past midnight. The scurry of a rat along the lane drew her eyes, and somewhere down the road, a shutter slammed. What was ignored by day was noticed at night.

  Her new neighborhood was composed of small shops, with a few residences wedged between. A handsome change from the derelict area of Gull Hole in Southwark. For such an agreeable street, the road itself was in serious disrepair. Loose and missing cobbles turned her ankle when she failed to take care where she walked.

  Standing opposite St. Vedast was a second church, St. Leonard. The two were of comparable height and architecture. Was there a reason the woman had died specifically at St. Vedast? Bianca gave the bread master’s complaint a moment’s thought. Had the choice even been a consideration?

  Bianca stood in front of St. Vedast, running her eyes along the angled roofline up to its tower. Had someone thrown her from the belfry? Or had the woman purposely taken her life? Perhaps her ghost might inform. Bianca didn’t fear the wandering of a restless soul, so long as she didn’t beckon her from the crypt of hell.

  The churchwarden had claimed he had unlocked the belfry passage. In his distraction, had he forgotten to unlock the door, or had the door been unlocked and in his preoccupation he mistakenly turned the wards to secure it?

  A gust of wind blew her cape open, and Bianca pulled it closed. The woman must not have been in her right mind to be out on such a night wearing a thin smock. Either that or she was forced against her will. Had someone else been involved? Had someone chased her?

  No one knew who the woman was or from where she had come. Perhaps in time Meddybemps might hear of a maid who had gone missing. Someone searching for a lost daughter or lover.

  Bianca went into the side yard where the body had been. A stain of blood still darkened the cobbles where the woman had lain. She looked up again at the tower and the roof.

  There in the sharp shadows of moonlight, a window faced the peak. Perhaps the woman had climbed out the belfry and dropped onto the roof. Bianca followed the ridgeline, then lowered her eyes to the beech tree beside the building. Or could the woman have climbed the tree?

  The first branch was just out of reach. Curious to see if it could be done, Bianca jumped and grabbed on to the limb. She dangled, trying to swing a leg up to hook her foot on the limb, but dropped off.

  “How could a pregnant woman manage this?”

  Brushing off her hands, she focused on the limb. On her second try, she dug her heel into the bark for purchase. Just as she started to hug the branch and pull herself up, hands gripped her waist.

  “Leave off!” she protested. Her arms and legs being occupied, she had no recourse but to curse whoever had grabbed her. “You cankered maltworm. You’ll wish you never laid hands on me. . . .” But she was pulled off the branch.

  Unprepared for her squirming weight, her captor tumbled backward. Bianca landed on top of a foul-smelling tosspot who struck the frozen ground with a lung-jolting thud.

  She rolled and got to her feet. She would have run well away if the man had looked to do her harm. Instead, he lay flat on his back, blinking up at her.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, straightening her twisted bodice and pulling her cape closed.

  The man answered in a wheezy voice. “You looked to be climbing the tree.”

  “I was!”

  He lay there a moment before struggling to one knee. He placed his hands on his thigh and, with considerable difficulty, pushed himself to standing. “St. Vedast is cursed,” he said as he found his cap and put it on.

  “Why, say you?”

  He shook his head. “Have you not heard what happened here last night?”

  “Nay,” lied Bianca. “Tell me.” The drunk may have been informed only by gossip, but Bianca wondered why he was out at this hour. How had he noticed her climbing the tree? It was dark in the side yard, and if one were walking by on the road, she would not have been noticed—unless she was heard. Or unless she was being watched.

  “It hasn’t been a day since a woman took her life here—a woman with child.”

  “Probably hearsay.”

  “Nay. It is not.”

  “Why? Did you see her?”

  The man looked away and did not answer.

  “Say you, did she take her own life?”

  “She fell.”

  “From the roof?”

  “From the steeple.”

  “How did she get to the steeple?”

  “She climbed the tree.”

  The thought of a pregnant woman accomplishing the feat seemed incredible. “And did she leap?”

  The man shook his head. “Nay, I told ye. She fell.”

  “Was she pushed?” Bianca watched his face carefully.

  “Nay.”

  “But how could a woman in her condition climb the roof to the tower?”

  “You know not how it vexes me,” he said, hitting his palms against his forehead. “The sight of her haunts me. She will never leave.”

  Bianca stepped closer and lowered her voice. “What haunts you? What did you see?”

  The spiffled beggar dropped his arms to his sides and blew out his breath. “I have never seen such strangeness in a woman. I came upon her near Friday Street, growling at a dog. Mind you, ale from the Crooked Cork can affect people that way. The two were baying at each other. Such gnarling I’ve never seen. I stopped to watch. The cur took a fright. It ran off, tail between its legs.

  “I called to her and she turned to look on me. Her hair was all about her face, quite like yours, but she was a beauty in spite of her wildness. She were only wearing a thin night smock. And her feet were bare. It was terrible cold and I thought maybe she needed someone to help her home. But she would not talk to me. She . . . danced up the street, like it were a lovely summer eve. All the while she was screeching like a hawk. She had a funny step about her, a stiffness. She didna’ even notice her feet were blue.”

  “Then she was a stranger to you?”

  “I’d never seen her before last night.” The sot sniffled from the cold and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I tried to reason with her. Granted, me gut sloshed with a few pottle pots, but I wouldna’ let a woman freeze. She ran ahead and disappeared down this side yard.” The man looked around and then back at Bianca. “I followed her, wondering what she was about. Then I heard her scramblin’ up the tree.” His expression mirrored his distress at the memory. “I called after her to come down. She just laughed and kept singing.”

  “She was singing?”

  He nodded. “A song of nonsense.”

  “Was she daft?”

  “She was not right. I wondered if she were possessed—lured by the devil or some demon. I could not see that she had any sense. She was peculiar as ever I have seen. I went after her. I climbed the tree, tryin’ to get her to come to me. ‘Give me your hand!’ I keeps sayin’. But she just laughed. She leapt onto the roof. ‘Goosey, goosey, gander,’ she says. ‘Where shall I wander?’ Over ’n’ over. ‘Goosey, goosey, gander . . .’” The man clapped his hands to his ears. “I canna’ stop hearing it!”

  “Did you follow her onto the roof?”

  A look of shame fell over his face. “I have no stomach for heights. ’Tis a long way down from the roof to the ground.”

  Bianca nodded. “Go on. Tell me everything you saw that night.”

  “I watched her. She had no fear, running like a squirrel, scampering up the roof, running along its peak. I couldna’ hardly watch.” He glanced at the ground and shook his head. “But neither could I drag my eyes away. She went for the tower with no thought and started climbing it.
I don’t know what she grabbed on to. She hugged it, shinnied up as far as it was tall. Then with the moon shining silver all around, she reached over her head. Stretching her arm like she was tryin’ to touch it. She tried inching up the steeple, almost to the tip.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Bianca pulled the neck of her cape under her chin. She stared at the stain of blood on the cobbles, visible in the shifting light of the moon.

  CHAPTER 7

  Odile Farendon remembered her mother saying, “La culpabilité punit devant Dieu ne.” Guilt punishes before God does. The sentiment wormed through her conscience until she could no longer ignore it.

  Rather than be escorted, Odile walked to St. Vedast alone. The road was overly pocked, but it was not far; even in the worst cold she could manage it without discomfort. Besides, she had not slept well. Her agitation ran with thoughts of the young woman with child. The walk would give her time to think. She donned her fox-lined cape and hat and found her betrothed eating porridge and quail eggs.

  “Odile, permettez-moi de vous accompagner?” Boisvert asked, watching her pull on her gloves.

  “My love, I wish to go alone. I need to clear my head.” She bent and kissed the top of his balding crown, then patted her spaniel, who was shamelessly begging for food next to Boisvert. “I shall return after I have seen Father Nelson.”

  Only a few were out on Foster Lane when she turned down it, walking toward St. Vedast Church. She passed the Goldsmiths’ Hall, looming silent and dark—a bitter reminder of her dead husband and the power he’d once had.

  An attendant of Lady Anne Boleyn, she had met Lionel Farendon at court. Odile had come from France, and she became a favorite of Anne’s—a friend and confidant. Anne did not trust easily, but Odile managed to serve and protect her lady while remaining neutral in court politics and gossip. Still, Odile saw the treachery there and secretly wished to be done with keeping secrets and dupery. When offered the chance to wed, Odile seized the opportunity, and Anne regretfully gave her blessing. But the two remained in contact.

  Lionel Farendon was two decades Odile’s senior. Perhaps it amused him to parade a woman on his arm who was younger than the rest of the guild wardens’ wives. Like the king, he hoped his virility and allure were understood. A wife who had died while pregnant and another two dying in childbirth had left the master goldsmith without an heir. As a result, Lionel had no beneficiary. No other living soul could claim a familial connection to the man—not even a distant cousin or illegitimate issue. It was his great hope that Odile would change his misfortune. But a man suffering from the consequences of a lascivious youth should not hope that maturity would heal his disease-riddled pipe.

  As he grew older, his inability to father a child became his embarrassment, and then it became his vexation. He blamed Odile. He told others she was barren. “She does not please me in bed,” she’d overheard him say to a fellow goldsmith. Odile suffered in silence, but she was wise enough to know this was a blessing. She was saved from the danger of childbirth. And she was saved from mothering a child that was of his blood.

  If his denunciations were all she had had to endure, she would not have despised him so. A daily diet of humiliation was not what she had hoped for in life. She had escaped Queen Anne’s unpredictable behavior for her husband’s more abusive one. The missing tooth and purple eye were more difficult to conceal than her bruised pride.

  Why did she submit? In England, only the king divorced.

  Solace came in two ways. The relief of seeing her husband grow infirm was one. Peace in prayer was the other. Eventually Lionel Farendon died, releasing Odile from their unhappy marriage, but her spiritual suffering had not ended. She sought Father Nelson for help with her guilt.

  Stopping in front of the double oak doors of St. Vedast, Odile read the inscription etched in its pediment above. “Qui enim ingressus est in requiem corde”—peace be to those who enter with a pure heart. “And if your heart is not pure?” she asked aloud. She glanced around to see if anyone had overheard, then crossed herself before hauling open the door.

  Odile preferred St. Vedast to St. Leonard and St. John Zachary, also on Foster Lane. As Odile had mentioned to Oro Tand, she took some comfort in the church being named in the memory of a French saint and the connection to her homeland. When King Henry made himself the supreme head of the Church of England, St. Vedast’s image was removed and his lamp extinguished. A saint, particularly a French one, had no privilege under Henry’s reforms.

  The stripped interior stood in stark contrast to Odile’s memory of St. Vedast from even six years before. In spite of its shabby appearance, Odile would not forsake her beloved church. Nor would she forsake her belief that the pope was God’s appointed representative on Earth. But such opinions she kept to herself. Only Father Nelson and Boisvert could be trusted to keep that secret.

  Her footsteps echoed through the sanctuary as she neared the chancel screen. Odile could see her breath in the cold air. The rood still hung high above on the candle beam, though St. John and the Virgin Mary had been removed. Their impressions were still visible against the surrounding darker wood. She knelt for a moment of prayer.

  When she finished, she was startled to see Henry Lodge watching from the rear of the nave. “Bonjour, Henri,” she said, walking toward him.

  The expression on Lodge’s face was as cold as the air inside the church. No sign of acknowledgment or even civility was forthcoming. When she got within a few feet of him, he turned and walked away.

  Odile sighed. She wished him peace. Sixteen years is too long for any man to resent a woman.

  She found Father Nelson sitting at his desk, reading. He looked up on hearing her light rap upon his doorjamb.

  “Will you hear my confession, Father?”

  Father Nelson closed his book. “Of course. I shall be but a minute.”

  Odile crossed the nave to the confessional booth, removed her fur hat, and knelt before the screen. She heard the steps of another and assumed them to belong to Henry Lodge performing his duty as churchwarden. She made no attempt to call to him a second time. Presently, Father Nelson arrived.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a year since my last confession.” Odile hesitated before going on. “My husband, Lionel, died thirteen years ago. I feel no grief for his death. I never have.” Odile crossed herself, then continued. “Father, I ardently wished for his demise. If heartfelt thoughts are the stuff of prayer, then I fervently prayed for his death.”

  “Did you resist these selfish thoughts?”

  “Alas, I did not. I chided myself for feeling grateful when he died. But as his chest grew still and his final breath escaped his lips, my heart became light. Is it a sin to feel relief from my burden?”

  “And you regarded your marriage a burden?”

  “Oui, I did.”

  “It is a sin to take comfort in the demise of another. If you wished him dead, if you held hatred in your heart, you are as culpable as if you had murdered him.”

  Odile sucked in her breath. “I do not wish to die without absolution.”

  “Of course you don’t,” said Father Nelson.

  “I fear I shall never know peace. My soul is doomed to be tormented in purgatory for all of eternity. Is there nothing I can do?”

  “My child, repent your sins with sincerity. But you must not repent for fear of a prolonged purgatory. God sees your intent.”

  “So I shall suffer the pain of purgatory?”

  “Assuredly.” Father Nelson paused. “However, there are ways to shorten your soul’s torment.”

  “Father, what must I do to hasten my soul’s journey?”

  “Ask for God’s mercy in prayer. Pray ten Paternosters and ten Hail Marys. Pray that your soul’s passage is made easy and straight. Fast today and return here tomorrow. But you must also do good works. Without restitution, you cannot return to God’s grace.”

  “Oui, oui, Father. Certainement.”

  “
God looks favorably on those with a charitable heart. If one is blessed with wealth, that gift has come to you through God. For it is written, ‘Sell your possessions and give to the poor.’”

  “Oui, Father.”

  “One must support and sustain one’s church. Without a fold of wealthy Samaritans, St. Vedast will not survive.” Father Nelson leaned close to the screen and lowered his voice. “The king seeks to intercept those monies for his own use. He glories in the preparation for war against France. He has forgotten what matters to God. It is not war.”

  “Father, I should not like to see St. Vedast fail. My wealth is more than I shall ever need. Your good works must not be undone.”

  “I will intercede on your behalf, but for a place on the bede roll, you must bequeath a gift.”

  “Oui, Father. I shall make it be. Is there more I can do?”

  Father Nelson did not hesitate. “If you wish, a mortuary mass may be said on the day of your farewell. The day of your burial can be marked with a mass. Or the day after your burial and seven days later could be commemorated. Even a mass of intercession can be scheduled a month or two months later.” Like a lapidary laying out his assorted gems, the priest was not content with showing just a few. “Perhaps more to your liking—an intercession upon the anniversary of your decease?” He paused a second; then, not waiting for even a grunt of reply, he rambled off several more choices . . . surely something might appeal to the woman. “I can do this for as many years as you have money.”

  Odile listened intently.

  “Ultimately, the best assurance to hasten your soul’s disposition is to endow a chantry.” By the time Father Nelson had absolved Odile of her sins, she would leave absolved of all her money.

  The priest walked Odile Farendon past Henry Lodge, who was speaking with James Croft, master of the Brown Bakers’ Guild. The two men stopped talking at the sight of Odile and Father Nelson. Croft nodded respectfully, whereas Lodge stiffened at the sight of Odile.

  “I shall see my solicitor, and he can take care of the matter,” she told the priest as he saw her out the door. “Now is the time to make these arrangements. Not after I have married.”