It would all, Jemima sniffed and blinked, be lost to her.
“If you expect me to leave my beloved home this quickly, cousin,” she said but without looking at him, “then you’re mistaken, Cuthbert. The news of my father’s death is bare two weeks old. I need more time. Much more time. Do you expect me to sleep on the street?”
“Really, Jemima, don’t exaggerate,” drawled Cuthbert Thripp, slurping his wine. “You’ll do as I tell you, miss, and you’ll remember your place. But as yet I haven’t said one word about throwing you onto the street, although it’s a temptation. Since those who don’t know what a spoiled brat you actually are, might dare criticise me for cruelty to an orphaned girl and my cousin at that, I’ve no intention of gaining a horrid reputation simply because of your idiocy in becoming destitute. So we must surely come to a sensible agreement. I see no reason to delay beyond reason.”
Finally she turned. “Agreements? Since when did you ever take anyone else’s opinion into consideration, Cuthbert? But I prefer to make it plain from the beginning, that I need time. A month, I think. And I should point out,” she stared at her toes, “that a good amount of the furniture belongs to me. I shall need to organise its removal to my nurse’s residence.”
“What drama. A theatrical nonsense, Jemima.” He finished his wine, winced, spluttered, “And this is the most atrocious malmsey. So you mean to say your father drank this shit? My uncle clearly had neither refinement nor taste,” and set down the small cup on the table. When she turned pink and did not answer, he continued, “You behave like some child in a Christmas play. Grow up, cousin. You know perfectly well I won’t throw you to an alms-house or a convent.” He tapped his fingers on the table top, impatient. “I care for my reputation, as I’ve already informed you , though that’s considerably more than my appalling uncle ever did. Or he’d be alive now.”
She looked away again, her hands clenched but diplomatically hidden beneath the folds of her skirts. “You’ve the manners of a pig, Cuthbert. This is still my home, you’re a guest in it, and you’re talking about my father, whether you respected him or not. And it’s his home, his wealth and his comforts you’re about to profit from.”
“I beg to differ.” He smiled, half sneer. “Your father was an itinerant adventurer and little more than a pirate. His fortunes fluctuated. He bought this house with stolen gold, taken at sea, probably from the Spanish although he never admitted it. And then lost almost all of it through gaming, unwise shipping ventures, and extravagance. He finished by owing my family a great deal of money. This house is now mine by rights, as well as by inheritance, and I could have had you evicted the very next day after we heard your father’s ship had gone down and all aboard lost.” His smile was a little twisted. “You can keep your paltry possessions. I’ve no need of trumpery baggage and a few stained silks. But I intend taking over this house before the month is up.”
“You can’t.” She breathed deep and gulped on the exhale.
Cuthbert Thripp stepped forward, staring at her, eyes narrowed. “I can do exactly as I wish,” he said with careful menace. “And I warn you, cousin, not to try and thwart me. I do as I wish and you’ll obey without question. I intend moving my entire household in here by mid-October at the latest. Nor do I have the slightest intention of sharing the space with you. You’ll be long gone. Move in with your shabby old nurse and live in that hovel in the city. Find yourself a husband, if any man will have the daughter of a penniless and notorious pirate. I’ve no interest in your future as long as it remains well away from my boundaries.”
“You’re – vile.”
His small plump mouth pursed tighter. “I carry the family name, though I’m not proud of it since your father dragged it through the gutter shit. But this house is now mine, any coin the fool had left is mine, and I can only be grateful that the man died at sea, and there’s no occasion for an expensive funeral.”
She wanted to hit him and wondered if she dared. “A commemorative service. A memorial.”
“Find one that suits him. Stand alone by the cesspit outside, and say your own goodbyes.”
Nineteen years as daughter and confidant of Edward Thripp had taught Jemima curses, blasphemies and swear words that a young woman should never have known, but she bit her lip and remembered dignity.
“I shall be gone by the fifteenth day of October,” she said, eyes cold, face expressionless. “And since you have no need of my so-pathetic belongings, I shall take everything with me even if I have to knock a wall down in order to get the bed out. But,” her voice shook slightly, “if you dare show yourself here before I have left, I shall order my steward to shut the door in your face.”
He had started to answer but Jemima turned abruptly and strode from the hall without looking back. On the stairs, she called for Steward Mansett and ordered him to escort her cousin from the premises. The house might already be his, but she was still mistress of it.
Chapter Two
The shadows began to fade and shrink into the old panelling. Light now entered where it had long given up hope. New gardeners were employed, stared at the overgrown hedges with contemptuous sighs, and sharpened their shears. The new chef regarded his cramped kitchens and demanded an explanation of why the pantry was minute, why there was no spicery, no dairy, an oven too small for baking pies or bread and no Italian style torno-rosto spit for the expert roasting of the meat.
“Antiquated. Old fashioned. Bare worth the position,” grumbled the chef. ”Why have I been given a kitchen worthy of a menial scullery boy and not for the master cook that I assuredly am, sir.”
Orders had been given by the new master that before taking up residence he required the building to be scrubbed from attic to cellars. Buckets of lime wash passed buckets of soap suds up and down the principal staircase. The squeak and creak of boards swelled from rhythm to desperation and the plaster shone, flaked, and dripped.
As the buckets finally retreated, Master Cuthbert Thripp’s possessions were hauled in through the open doors, and deposited according to the steward’s instructions. Benches and the great trestle table were set up in the hall, a chair and smaller oak table in the one tiny side chamber, utensils clanked into the kitchens and laundry, beds up the stairs with much puffing and complaining from the two grooms, three pages and one personal manservant who had been forced into the heavy work.
Scrubbing out the cellar was exhausting work and since no warmth drifted down the back stairs into the windowless dark, it remained damp. Only a half empty tun of old malmsey squatted there, and Master Thripp declared it undrinkable and fit only for the household or unwanted guests.
But the attic, the steward decided, needed no cleansing. It was neither chamber nor storeroom and had remained long unused. It was therefore without importance.
“I’ll not have that female’s mucky dust and beetle droppings gathering mice and rats’ nests above my head,” announced the new owner. “You will do as I say, when I say it, and without exercising your own small brain on arguments. Scrub out the attic immediately.” He paused. “But if anyone dares spill dirty water to leak through the floor into my bedchambers, I shall have them thrashed.”
It was some time later that some attempt was made to fulfil this order. No one spilled water, but the scullery boy screamed and fainted, knocking a small round hole through the thin floorboards as he collapsed.
There was an immediate scramble on the ladder as those who had seen, attempted to escape downwards, while those who had not yet seen anything, pushed up to have a look. Grasping fingers were trodden flat by the hurrying feet descending, each squeal louder than the one before. Master Cuthbert Thripp was in the grand hall inspecting his newly acquired Turkey rugs, but stopped, mouth open, listening to the echoes of something he did not at all understand and did not at all wish to. He remained where he stood.
Sunshine explored the dust clogged cavities and danced over the three little corpses, turning their remaining tufts of hair freshly golden. Their sunken
cheeks appeared less hollow. The patches along their arms and legs where the mummified flesh had discoloured with little rotten pits of decay, seemed strangely exotic, as though part of a silken embroidery on a gown. Although quite naked, the women did not exhibit shame, but crouched where they had been placed through the long years.
The steward, finally having been called upon to investigate and announce the terrible truth, shrieked, “Witchcraft. Slaughter. Heresy. Murder. Call for the Constable. Call for the sheriff. Call for Master Thripp. And fetch me a cup of strong beer.”
Cuthbert Thripp decided it was time to discover whatever had happened. He yelled up the stairs, “Mansett, what the devil’s going on? Are you mad?”
The steward stood reluctantly before his new master, and cleared his throat. “I am sorry to have to inform you, sir,” he said with deliberation, “but there’s bodies in the attic what should not at all be there.”
Thripp was puzzled. “Then tell them to get out.”
“I could do that, sir,” the steward admitted. “But I doubt as how it would do much good. Being as how these bodies is deceased.”
Cuthbert gulped. “Dead rats? Dogs? Cats? Badgers?”
“Sadly no, sir.” Piers Mansett shook his head. “I’d say they was young ladies, from what can be seen. Not that I wish to look too hard, that is. Females. Three of them. And would seem they came there quite some time ago.”
“Dear God.” Thripp sat down in a hurry and the chair shuddered. “Call the authorities.”
Mansett sent a page. Young Harry was delighted to be entrusted with the most scandalously interesting message he had ever delivered in his life, and set off for the Sheriff’s chambers. His sense of importance increased as he led the way back with the sheriff himself beside him, and behind him the assistant sheriff, the Constable, his assistant, and a young lawyer who had been talking to the sheriff when Harry turned up to relate the story.
Their small bones cracked as the girls were carried down the ladder, the stairs, and eventually into the waiting barrow. Strands of dust-grey hair floated, detached. Fragile fingertips broke away, rattling loose in the barrow’s shadows. A sheet was taken from one of the beds, and the bodies were covered. Empty eye-sockets once more stared into the darkness after those sudden moments of sunshine. Pushed by one of the Thripp grooms, the barrow was then wheeled over the cobbles to the Constable’s chamber. Behind trailed every member of Cuthbert Thripp’s household and every official who had been informed.
“But I’m in the middle of moving house,” Thripp objected. “I need my servants back. This is nothing to do with me. Clearly it was that wretched girl’s father who did these vile deeds. But he’s dead too, so call the girl. Throw her into gaol. Hang her. Press her. Do whatever you like, but I want nothing more to do with it.”
“I shall send each member of your household back to you once I’ve finished my investigation,” announced the sheriff coldly. “Many of them worked for the previous owner, I understand. And your disclaimer, sir, is of little interest at this time. You are, after all, a member of the same family?”
He reluctantly admitted it.
“Then I need to question you too, Master Thripp.”
Thomas Dunn stroked the wrinkled cheek of the corpse stretched on the table before him. “She was beautiful once,” he said.
He spoke to himself, but the large man standing beside him answered, “Reckon you knew her once, did you, Dunn? Don’t see how. There’s mighty little of her left.”
The young lawyer shook his head. “I have no idea who she was. But the bone structure – look closely – a narrow face with a pointed chin – small and pretty. You, as an assistant constable, must have seen corpses enough to judge, Master Browne.”
“Don’t look. Don’t care. Being as they’re dead.” The assistant constable yawned. “I fought at Stoke when I were a young man. Little more than a child, I was, and ran the breadth of the field delivering arrows to the archers on the ridge. Bloody bits of bodies were all around. Got accustomed. There’s nothing shocks after that, I can tell you.”
“A battle,” decided the lawyer, “is a matter of loyalties, mayhem, unnaturally raised excitement and following orders.” He turned away, then walked slowly towards the door. “Planned and intentional murder is something else altogether and indicates a man of hidden evil.” He nodded, opening the door to a small rush of daylight. Striped in sunbeams, the three crumpled corpses appeared suddenly more pathetic. Thomas Dunn sighed. “I know someone who may be interested in this unusual situation. I shall see him this afternoon, and he may wish to accompany me back here.”
“Dunno,” complained the assistant constable. “I was thinking – depending on what the sheriff and the Constable says, them bones should just be throwed to the rubbish dump outside the gaol down by The Fleet.” He scratched his bald head. “Old, aren’t they? These ain’t recent kills. Could be – well – bloody ancient.”
“Don’t dispose of them yet until I’ve spoken to my friend,” frowned Master Dunn. “When was that house built? Not in ancient times, I’ll warrant. These murders might be more recent than you think. Ten years – or less – fifteen at the most.”
This idea did not impress. “Still too far gone to investigate. Fifteen years? We don’t stand no chance of working out culprits from last year, let alone fifteen past.”
“But you will not, for all that,” instructed Lawyer Dunn, “discard these bodies, or mistreat them. I intend informing Richard Wolfdon, and if he decides to take an interest and then finds the bones thrown to the river, then he will most certainly be displeased. You know what that would mean.”
“Dickon the Bastard,” gulped the assistant constable. “I heard of him. But why would he want to look at corpses? A bit strange, is he?”
“He is the greatest investigator this epoch has seen,” said the lawyer with fading patience. “As a gentleman of a noble family – his step-father works closely with his majesty – Master Wolfdon does not call himself a lawyer nor offer his services to the sheriff’s chambers. But he is, and you of all people should remember this, the one who pulls the puppet’s strings, even when the puppets of this country have no notion of his existence.”
Instructed to take the business seriously, the assistant constable informed the Constable, who proclaimed that he had never had any notion of discarding the corpses to the fish, and immediately sent his assistant to discover the whereabouts of the relevant property’s previous owner.
It was not the size of her new home in the little cottage that dismayed Jemima. The tiny space was cosy and it was clean for she had helped clean it herself. She cherished being so close to Katherine, loving her old nurse’s kindness, and did not crave lost privacy. It was the darkness both within the tiny home, and within her mind and heart that closed her into a prison of dejection and lost hope.
She was huddled by the small hearth, and crying, when they found her. Having been directed to the tiny tumbledown home of Nurse Katherine Plessey where Jemima Thripp now lived, the sheriff’s assistant banged on the door hard enough to make it shake.
It was more than an hour later when Jemima sat on the edge of a small wooden chair in the sheriff’s chambers, stared over the little table at the man whom she vaguely recognised as the sheriff of the Ward where she had lived most of her life, clasped her hands tightly in her lap, and tried to make some sense of what she had been told.
“Your father bought the house exactly when, Mistress Jemima? Please try to be precise.”
“I was three years old. That’s not precise, is it? But I was very young, you see, so I cannot be sure of the exact date. The year 1518 or 19, I’d guess. Of course the house was already built. My father intended to enlarge it, but he never got the opportunity.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know how old the house was when he acquired it. But I’m sure he never bothered climbing into the roof cavity to see if there were any horrid things left in it from the previous owner.”
“And the previous owner was – ?�
��
“I have no idea. I told you, I was three years old.”
“We can look up the records, mistress. Documentation will exist.” The sheriff paused, waiting for signs of female agitation, even guilt, and some indication that this woman knew or suspected more than she was admitting. But Jemima’s shock was apparent and her expression was of simple amazement. “You must know,” he continued, raising his voice, “that if your father bought this property in the year ‘eighteen or thereabouts as far as we can ascertain, then these horrendous slaughters were perpetrated during your father’s tenure.”
She winced. “Impossible.”
“Our expert, a gentleman of considerable experience, believes that the human remains discovered in your attic cavity, mistress, cannot be of more than fifteen years kept in storage.”
“Storage?”
“Hiding. Secrecy. Fifteen years in your own family attic.”
“I’ve never been up into that space.” Jemima shook her head rather wildly and the pearl pins of her small headdress clicked together. “There’s no stairs that lead up there. Only a ladder. There was never any need to climb into the roof. Why would we? No one went up there. And if you think my dearest Papa – ”
“I’ve accused no one, mistress. How odd that your immediate assumption concerns your father.”
Jemima had been accompanied by Katherine. Nurse Plessey stood behind her chair, and had kept her silence until now. But the implied suspicion of guilt now aroused her and her cheeks blushed ruby. Those bright red cheeks swelled. “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your stupid head, Master Knowles,” she said with an infuriated squeak. “You know perfectly well who Mistress Jemima Thripp is, and who her father was. You know neither would ever have done harm to a soul, and you know you’re talking silly nonsense. I’m shocked, Master Knowles. I never knew you to be so rude.”
The Deception of Consequences Page 2