A Pair of Sharp Eyes

by Kat Armstrong

Now I see that Miss Lamborne has not really changed from the selfish, sniping creature I first met, and I am glad when she sniffs and says she had better hasten back before her aunt discovers another reason to box her ears and send her supper-less to bed. Even so, Miss Bridget’s spirit is not entirely quenched, for Jonty comes whistling across the yard as she takes her leave, and I see her eyelashes flutter as if she does not fully give up hope of some man rescuing her from scouring slop buckets in Queen-square.

  ***

  Suke Cross comes back from her half day puffed up with malice. She has been to an alehouse, for her breath stinks, and she cannot wait to share the gossip she has picked up.

  ‘I’ll help Cook, Suke Cross. You need to sober up.’

  Suke Cross’s eyes flash, and she sways, proving I am right to think she should not be sharpening knives in her condition. ‘Tell Mrs Hucker who your sister is wed to, Corrie Amesbury. Ha! That’s whipped the smile off your face. I’d be shy too if I was you. A villain like that.’

  I would rather not tell Mrs Hucker that my brother-in-law is Bill Eardley, but better that than she imagine my sister is married to a rogue.

  ‘Mr Eardley is a vermin-catcher, Mrs Hucker. It’s an honest trade.’

  ‘Honest?’ Suke Cross says, scathing. ‘He drinks down at the quays from midday every day. Don’t be fooled by this one, Mrs Hucker. She acts high and mighty, but if Mrs Tuffnell knew her brother sold conies and hares belonging to the farmers who pay him, she wouldn’t be so keen to have Miss here for her maid. Perhaps somebody should let her know.’

  I hold my breath. Suke puts her hands on her hips, waiting for Mrs Hucker to agree.

  If Mrs Tuffnell throws me out without a character I am sunk. Mrs Hucker looks me over shrewdly.

  ‘Well now, Corrie Amesbury is not responsible for her sister’s husband’s faults. Have you proof he steals, Suke Cross? I thought not. Slander is an offence, and I should be sorry if you was fined for spreading evil rumours. Say you’re sorry to Corrie Amesbury for dragging down her name and her family’s name. Go on, let’s hear it.’

  Suke Cross’s crafty eyes flick back and forth between us.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mutters finally.

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  ‘There,’ Mrs Hucker says. ‘Let’s hear no more about it. Suke Cross, you carry up the coals this morning. It is Corrie Amesbury’s turn to put away the knives and spoons.’

  Cook goes off to the storeroom to fetch the bread. The moment her back is turned Suke Cross grabs a knife and points it at me.

  ‘Don’t think you’ve bested me. If you had not seen your chance, and pushed your way in here after Mrs Tuffnell got rid of Hannah, then Nell Grey would have been her maid, and I would have taken Nell Grey’s place. I owe you, Miss.’

  Even though Mrs Hucker is just a few yards from us it takes all my will-power to ignore that trembling knife point and walk away.

  ***

  Tuesday, 20th November, 1703

  It is a fortnight now since George Goodfellow went home. He returns on the carrier’s cart this afternoon, and comes running in while I am hanging laundry to air before the kitchen fire. He throws his arms around me and declares he has missed me every day.

  ‘Of course you did, when you had your mother and father and seven little brothers and sisters to talk to.’

  ‘Don’t tease, Corrie, I did miss you.’ He hugs me again, and I slip a few raisins from the pantry jar into his pocket.

  ‘I believe you have grown an inch since we last saw you, George. Look at these long legs.’

  Even Mrs Hucker ruffles his hair and says she is glad he is back safe. ‘I hope your mother was pleased when she saw your round cheeks. Did she notice your teeth were whiter since you came to live with us?’

  ‘Mother sent you this.’ He produces a small parcel from inside his waistcoat. Mrs Hucker unties it to reveal a neatly worked pincushion stuck with half-a-dozen pins.

  ‘I must say this is kind of your mother, George. Such tiny stitches. It shall go on the dresser here. I always did like a pincushion. The one I had for Christmas a few years back is really in need of replacing. This is just the size and colour I would have chosen.’ Tired of listening, George wanders away to stroke the cat who crouches beneath the table, and next I see him throwing sticks around the yard. Mr Roach returns, and not long afterwards I overhear him ordering the stables to be raked out, a job I fancy has not been done thoroughly since George went home.

  ***

  Later Mrs Tuffnell returns from a tea-party out of sorts, saying other merchants’ wives invite her only on account of her husband and not for her own sake. Meanwhile, she complains, Mr Tuffnell dines out without her, and she is tired of playing picquet and cribbage with fat matrons of fifty, and being told her coach is nothing to this lady’s fine equipage, or that “Houses in Wine-street are sadly old-fashioned, don’t you know?”

  She frets and snaps and sends me away and calls me back, and at last orders Jonty to rearrange the movables in her parlour and her closet, ‘which is beastly dark, and why I have the desk so far from the window I do not know.’

  Jonty is there above an hour, and when I go to ask if Mrs Tuffnell wants her supper, I meet him on the staircase looking livelier than I expected from one who has just been made to shift a tester bed and a heavy desk. He cheerfully salutes me, takes the stairs two at a time, whistling, and when I knock and enter, Mrs Tuffnell’s movables are exactly where they were before.

  When I tell Nell Grey she giggles.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ I say. ‘She must have made him shift them, then move them back.’

  ‘Corrie Amesbury, can’t you guess? What’s sauce for the goose. She likes a kiss and a tickle, same as Master.’

  ‘With Jonty?’

  ‘I ought to hate him, but he swears he only obliges her because she insists on it. They do no more than kiss, he says.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t,’ I say, not wishing to upset Nell Grey, but Jonty looked to me more content than a man teased with kisses, and more than once after that I run into him coming away from my mistress’ closet with flushed cheeks.

  Whatever their conversation, it leaves my mistress no less ill-tempered than usual, so I suppose Mrs Tuffnell pays the price for her dalliance by being uneasy in her conscience.

  She is right to be so. Mr Tuffnell would not see his fumblings with his servant-girls as excuse for a lapse on her part. Mrs Hucker tells many a tale of cuckolds and wanton wives. I shiver to think what revenge Mr Tuffnell would wreak on Mistress Maria, if he knew what she and his footman were about.

  ***

  Later that night George Goodfellow and I sit by the fire, and while the other servants doze, we share a few cobnuts he brought from Keynsham, and he informs me earnestly that he would like to marry a ‘lady’ like me when he grows up.

  ‘Saucy and impudent, you mean? You had better find you such as Nell Grey. She would make a steady wife.’

  ‘Nell Grey is dull,’ he whispers, and we smother giggles as I crack another nut and Mrs Hucker groans and twitches in her sleep. ‘Nell Grey is kind and good,’ I say, looking across fondly to my sleeping friend. Her cap has slipped over one eye, and the kitchen tabby cat is curled upon her knee. ‘I’m sure you missed us all, George.’

  ‘Not old Roach.’ George eyes Mr Roach’s sleeping form resentfully. ‘When he took me to Keynsham he told Father I am lazy.’

  ‘Shh. Speak lower. And did your father believe him?’

  ‘At first, but afterwards my uncle spoke up for me. He worked in Bath one time, and he said he knew Mr Roach. He was plain Pete Roach then, and he used to fight with other men. He was turned away from the house where he was working. Uncle Frank reckons that’s why he’s come to Bristol, where none knows his bad name.’

  I watch for any sign that Mr Roach may be listening, but the coachman’s face is slack with sleep and his breaths are deep and steady.

  ‘Was Uncle Frank certain it was the same man, George? I can’t
think Mr Tuffnell would trust his valuable horses to a rough fellow.’

  ‘I don’t think Mr Tuffnell likes old Roach very much. It is Mrs Tuffnell talks to him the most.’

  ‘Only about her blessed coach.’

  ‘No, Corrie, she always does. She comes out in the yard and they talk low so I can’t hear them. Yet he killed her dog, and when I tried to tell her she struck me and told me to hold my tongue.’

  My flesh shrivels as I remember Abraham’s reference to Mrs Tuffnell’s dog. ‘Killed it?’

  ‘Mr Roach wanted to teach Abraham a lesson. Abraham loved Philo. Abe was playing in the stables, we both were, throwing hay about. I got a whipping, but Mr Roach said he dursn’t whip Mrs Tuffnell’s page so the dog would have to take his punishment. He put Philo in the stall with Mr Tuffnell’s bad-tempered horse, and Philo nipped his hocks and Caesar trampled him until he died. Abe cried, and Mrs Tuffnell was angry because he wouldn’t stop, and Mr Roach told her it was Abraham put Philo in the stall, for sport. So Abe got a whipping in the end from Mrs Tuffnell.’

  ‘I am glad you have the measure of Mr Roach, George. You must be careful to keep on his right side.’

  ‘I dursn’t get on his wrong side. He says if I don’t obey him he’ll have me run over by the coach and horses and tell everyone it was my fault for getting in the way.’

  ‘And we’ll believe him? I hardly think so.’ But George looks at me askance: how would a child’s word trump a man’s? ‘Roach ought to consider that another death in the household might mean the finger of suspicion points at him,’ I add.

  ‘He knows he’s not suspected of killing Abe. He was drinking with Mr Cheatley’s groom the night my friend was murdered. I heard him say so, and then I heard Mr Tuffnell asking Mr Cheatley if it was true. “You’re a rough lot, aren’t you, Roach, but you’re no cutthroat,” Mr Tuffnell said. And Mr Cheatley said, “I can vouch for him, for the rascals stole a flagon of my good perry and drank the lot while we was having dinner.” And they roared with laughter, which I was amazed at, since Mr Tuffnell pulled my ear when I took and ate a horse carrot when I thought he wasn’t looking.’ George touches his ear in memory of the injustice.

  Just then the log slips in the grate, and the noise wakens Mrs Hucker. She starts to cough, and the other servants stir and rub their eyes.

  ‘Oh, I am weary,’ Cook says, as she does every night, ‘time we went up,’ and while Suke carries the pots through and Nell fetches our tapers, George lights the lantern ready to cross the yard. It is a wild night, full of the sound of wind beating the trees, and I am sorry he must go outside.

  ‘Wait, I’ll walk you over,’ I say. Jonty has already gone out to escort home Mr Tuffnell, and Mr Roach has left George to make his own way across the yard.

  ‘I don’t need walking over,’ he says, immediately putting his hand in mine.

  ‘I know you don’t.’ I find a sack and drape it round him. ‘Put this over you.’ We step outside; the frost is sparkling on the flagstones. ‘I hope you have a thick blanket in that loft of yours. Make sure you lock the door from the inside.’

  ‘I always do.’ I listen for the turning of the key and creaks as George climbs the ladder to the loft.

  ‘Good night, Corrie.’ George’s piping voice comes from above my head.

  ‘Good night little chap.’ I say the last words very quietly, so George can’t hear and object.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wednesday, 21st November, 1703

  We waken to one of those November days when the sky never lightens. The intervals between downpours are dark and fleeting, and wind rocks the house like a beast roaring to get in. By silent agreement we keep to our beds ‘til after sunrise, and it is past nine when Mr Tuffnell and his wife call for bread and coffee.

  The horses can be heard stamping in their stalls by then, and still no sign of George Goodfellow or Mr Roach.

  ‘Run over, Corrie Amesbury,’ says Mrs Hucker, ‘hammer on the doors until the lazy devils waken.’

  A minute is too long to stand hatless in the black rain, and my skirts are soaked in mud as I cross the yard.

  The door hangs open, and my first thought is that groom and lad must be at the bottom of the garden taking barrows to the dung-hills. I step inside, puzzled. The barrow is propped inside the door. The pitch-forks are lined up on their hooks.

  ‘George? Wake up!’

  Something tells me the loft is empty as I climb the ladder. I wonder if George can have flit home to Keynsham, his holiday having unsettled him, or perhaps he woke hours ago when the rest of us were slug-a-beds, and went to beg a bite of breakfast from next door.

  I poke my head through the hatch and come face to face with the soles of George’s boots. No child could sleep with his legs twisted that way. I venture closer, and George’s eyes are wide open and staring, Lord bless him; the life is gone from him. The straw beneath his head is dark with blood, and worse of all, the fingers of his small, pale hands are brutally cut about, as if he tried to fight off his attacker.

  My legs turn to water, and I don’t know how I get back down the ladder. I pelt into the house where Mr Roach is in the scullery taking off his boots, and almost fall over him.

  ‘What is it, girl? You been jumped at by a rat? Never mind, I’ll send my boy in there.’ He means his spaniel.

  ‘George is dead. Someone’s stabbed him.’

  The house is thrown into confusion. Mr Roach and Jonty rush to the stable, Nell Grey bursts into tears, and Mrs Hucker dashes upstairs to tell the master and his wife. Suke falls to screaming until I seize her and shake her hard. ‘What use is that? Be quiet.’

  She looks at me in terror. ‘It’s Red John, next he’ll come for one of us.’

  ‘What’s that on your forehead?’ Her hair tumbled to one side when I shook her, and I see a fresh red bruise.

  She flushes. ‘Walked into a door, didn’t I? I shared a jar with Mr Roach last night, after you’d gone to bed.’

  I would like to rat on her to Mrs Hucker, but this is not the time.

  Mr Tuffnell, grim-faced, strides in. ‘Nell Grey? Fetch the constable.’

  ‘Nell Grey and Amesbury will go together, Sir.’ Mrs Hucker tries to give Mr Tuffnell his cloak, for the rain is coming down in arrows, but he brushes her aside.

  Mrs Tuffnell appears in the passage in her night things, her voice high with terror. ‘Ames? Where are you?’

  ‘I’ll go, Mrs Hucker,’ Nell Grey says hastily, and she leaves as quickly as our master, heedless of the rain.

  ‘Come back upstairs, Madam.’ My only thought is to keep her away in case they bring in the body. I put my arm around her waist, and in her distress she lets me guide her from the kitchen.

  ‘It must be Red John,’ she says. ‘It has to be. Why does he prey on us? The house is cursed, we can’t live here. We women will be next. Oh God, I shall never sleep again.’

  Though Nell Grey has assured me Mrs Tuffnell is two-and-twenty she sounds like a child of three. I sit her down and wrap her coverlet round her, and with trembling hands do my best to stoke the fire. The room is dim and cold, and the rain runs down the window-panes, squeezing in around the frame and darkening the panelled walls.

  I hear the men splash through the mud as they carry the body to the house, and I make a clatter with the poker to try and mask the sound. Mrs Tuffnell’s fingers pluck at her coverlet, and her eyes shine with fear. ‘My husband had new locks put on, did he not? The yard was shut as usual and the gates were bolted. Has the murderer unpicked the lock to the stable, Amesbury, do you suppose? Or did he put a ladder to the window?’

  ‘The door was open, Madam. Someone had opened it before any of us was about.’ I do not like Mr Roach, but his surprise at my alarm when I found the body was not feigned. I am certain he knew no more of the unlocked stable than I did.

  Mr Tuffnell’s tread is audible on the stairs. I cannot question his tender feelings for his wife when I see the searching look he gives her.

  �
��Dearest.’ He folds her in his arms. ‘Amesbury? Stay with your mistress today. Bear her up, do your best to keep her cheerful.’

  I stop myself before I suggest Mrs Tuffnell and I take turns reading one of her romances. A romance hardly seems suitable today; besides, I do not care to admit that I can read.

  ‘Madam is almost finished her embroidery of the Garden of Eden, Sir. I will help her with the serpent’s tail.’

  ‘Embroidery, very suitable, Amesbury. Be sure not to strain your eyes, my love.’ He kisses Mrs Tuffnell’s neck.

  Shortly afterwards George Goodfellow’s body is put on the carrier’s cart by Mr Roach, and driven home to Keynsham. Next a magistrate takes a room in a coffee-house on Broad-street, and sends for us to be interviewed one by one. Mr Tuffnell explains we will be asked what we may have seen and heard last night, and who we believe is responsible for the deed.

  As the one who found the body, I am first to be called. Mr Tuffnell says I may be anxious speaking to so eminent a gentleman, and therefore he will go with me.

  The coffee-house is a meeting-place for every kind of gentleman seeking to do business in the city, and the aroma of roast coffee surrounds it from dawn to dusk, but there is none of the usual hubbub today as we draw near, and the proprietor sets down his silver pot at the sight of Mr Tuffnell, and leads us to a back-room where the small tables have been moved to make room for a heavy chair and writing desk. The magistrate wears a long red gown and flowing wig, and is as fat as any miller, though his shoes are elegant and his hands so soft and white that Mrs Tuffnell would admire them. A long-faced clerk stands at the magistrate’s elbow, his lips stained with ink from licking at his quill.

  The magistrate rises and shakes Mr Tuffnell’s hand. ‘I’m sorely grieved, Sir, that such evil befalls your house a second time. Be assured we will sift to the bottom of this matter.’ Then the magistrate adds, in a much more cheerful voice, ‘I believe we are both invited to the Lord Mayor’s banquet seven nights’ hence, Mr Tuffnell. I look forward to seeing you there, Sir, under happier circumstances. I must ask after the health of your dear wife—I am sure all at the banquet will agree with me that so fair an adornment is rarely seen among us, though I would prefer my own lady didn’t hear me say so.’