Tombland

Then suddenly he was crying, sobbing like a child. I asked him gently again if he would like something to drink, but he shook his head, wiping his face angrily, and continued, ‘I agreed, for the child’s sake. He will be in his teens now. I don’t even know his name. And when people asked where Mercy was, I said she now worked up in Yorkshire, so far away she could not visit. After a few years, hardly anyone remembered her. Grace was a comfort to me, living nearer she came and visited often. Then, in ’thirty-eight, she went to work for the Boleyns. The pay was good, and needed to be for the family was known to be very difficult. But Grace became attached to Edith Boleyn, more, I think, than she had been to anyone save Mercy and me, despite her strange ways. Edith confided in Grace that she could not give her husband affection, nor any man.’ He looked up at me. ‘She told Grace her own father had interfered with her as a child.’ Nicholas made a sound of disgust, but Peter said, ‘You’d be surprised how often such things happen, in rich houses as well as poor.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed grimly, remembering Thomas Seymour and the Lady Elizabeth.

‘In any case, Grace stayed with the family, despite all the mutual hatreds. Edith said her husband could never understand why his wife would not sleep with him.’

‘Did Edith tell him what her father had done?’

‘No. She was ashamed. She told only Grace. Grace felt sorry for John Boleyn, even if he was liable to outbreaks of temper, and savage over his quarrel with his neighbour. And those twins were already violent and unmanageable, though not yet ten. Perhaps it was partly because Edith felt nothing for them, not since their birth. You’ve probably heard the story of Gerald scarring Barnabas to try and get their mother’s attention. Grace saw that happen. Afterwards, Edith felt guilty and, as she did sometimes, refused to eat. The trouble Grace had then, trying to persuade Edith to take just enough to stay alive.’ He shook his head wearily.

‘Was she mad?’ Nicholas asked.

‘She was punishing herself,’ Peter said in sudden anger. ‘If that is madness, so be it.’

I said, ‘And then came the affair between John Boleyn and Isabella.’

‘Yes. When Edith learned of it through local gossip, she stopped eating again. Grace told me she thought that, too, was from guilt, because her husband had been driven to another woman.’

Peter sighed wearily. ‘Between Edith learning about her husband’s affair with Isabella and starving herself, Grace felt things could not go on. What happened next was her idea. Grace proposed she and Edith leave Brikewell, and come to me in Norwich, where Edith would pass herself off as Mercy come home. Remember, nobody knew she was dead. Grace put the idea to me. I took some persuading, I may tell you, but Grace was –’ he smiled ruefully – ‘forceful.’

I was about to ask whether Edith and Grace were the type of woman attracted not to men, but other women. But such matters did not affect the case, and were not my business.

Peter continued, ‘Edith got what she had never had before, peace and security. And she and Grace were as close as any two people I have seen. And I liked Edith; when she was freed from the bonds of the Boleyn family she blossomed, put on weight, even showed a sense of humour. She worked hard, too.’

I said quietly, trying to keep the tremble from my voice, ‘So Edith did, after all, have people who loved and valued her. I always feared that she never did.’

Peter Bone nodded, his face working.

Nicholas said, ‘Our friend Josephine Brown told us both sisters were alike, dark and buxom. But was not Grace blonde?’

For the first time, Peter smiled openly. ‘When Edith came to us, the first thing Grace did was dye her hair black, as Grace’s was and Mercy’s had been. Then we made her eat – Grace made it a condition that Edith must never starve herself again. She readily cooperated, and soon regained a buxom figure.’

‘And what did you get out of all this, Goodman Bone?’ Barak said quietly.

Peter looked at him steadily. ‘Helping my sister rescue a poor woman who otherwise would probably have died. And with two women in the house again – sometimes it felt almost as though Mercy had returned to life. And, yes, getting one over on the rich masters.’ He laughed. ‘You know what Edith found the most difficult part of her – disguise – even though it was the most necessary one? Wearing the apron and wadmol dress of a poor woman, letting her face get dirty. Wearing cheap shoes. Disguising her accent, that mark of those who rule.’ He looked at me. ‘You have tried to do the same thing here.’

‘Yes, I have. It makes life easier.’ And I thought, That is what the puppet show had brought to my mind, the possibility that in our society a woman might turn into someone different just by changing her clothes. But I had been too tired to think it through, then.