13 - The Midsummer Rose by Kate Sedley Page A

as the passenger who had been waiting for the ferry on the day of the storm – the fat woman with the basket of eggs. When I asked if this were indeed the case, she acknowledged the fact with a cheery, gap-toothed grin.
    ‘And well soaked I got,’ she complained, ‘old Tyrrwhit pushing off to the alehouse like that. Although, to be fair, there wasn’t much else he could’ve done, the storm was that bad. So I came home and dried myself, then went across later. Anyway, who are you? And why do you want to know?’
    I explained that I was the man Jason Tyrrwhit had rescued from the river and she was immediately all concern, inviting me in and offering me a seat at her table.
    The cottage was of the single-roomed variety that I had been used to for most of my life. A mattress was rolled up against one wall, a pillow on top of it. A hearth, on which a small fire burned, occupied the central floor space beneath a blackened hole in the roof, while a table and two stools stood close to the tiny window. A spinning wheel, a water barrel and a cupboard, where, presumably, she kept her meagre store of food, comprised the rest of the furnishings. A solitary shelf was sufficient to hold her tinderbox, a couple of tin plates, a knife and two beakers. These last, she reached down and filled with elderberry wine, which she poured from a cracked pottery jug.
    ‘So,’ she said, seating herself on the second stool, ‘you’re the young man Jason pulled out of the river, are you? We thought you were dead. You’d hit your head a nasty blow on something or other when you fell in.’
    ‘
I
thought I was dead,’ I answered with feeling. ‘But I hadn’t hit my head on anything. Someone did it for me. Tell me,’ I added, ‘from where you were standing, did you see anyone else on the shore before Master Tyrrwhit fished me out of the Avon?’
    ‘What are you saying?’ she asked. ‘That someone deliberately threw you in?’ I nodded. ‘That’s a very serious accusation.’
    ‘It’s a very serious crime,’ I retorted, ‘and one I take great exception to. Let me explain what happened.’
    She listened carefully to my story, which was patently new to her. It was obvious that Richard Manifold hadn’t paid her a visit; had probably not even been aware of her existence. He had accepted the ferryman’s assessment of my condition – a touch of the sun – and enquired no further. Typical!
    ‘And you say that all this happened in the old Witherspoon house?’ Goody Tallboys sounded doubtful. ‘Impossible! That place has been empty these fifty years and more. Ever since Silas Witherspoon was murdered by his wife and daughter.’
    ‘I know that,’ I said, irritated. ‘But that’s not to say the house couldn’t have been occupied for a night or two. Or even for a few hours. Who does it belong to now?’
    My companion rubbed her cascade of chins. ‘I think it was the nephew who inherited. Old Witherspoon’s brother’s son. What was he called, now? John? James? That was it. James Witherspoon. He was a young man back then, but he must be getting on by now. Might even be dead, for all I know. He was an apothecary, if I remember rightly. Had a shop in Bristol, near the castle somewhere. Never came to live in Rownham Passage. Said his wife couldn’t bear the thought of the house, not after what had happened there. Or so my mother told me. Tried to sell it, but no one would buy it. So it’s just stood empty, rotting away.’
    I thought about this. If James Witherspoon was married, he might well have a son who had continued in his father’s calling. It was a long shot, but worth a try. An apothecary’s shop near the castle, if there was one, shouldn’t be hard to locate. But I still hadn’t had an answer to my original question.
    ‘Do you recollect seeing anyone on the shore before I was rescued from the river?’ I persisted.
    Goody Tallboys shook her head. ‘Let’s see now. I recollect the storm coming on. I was taking a basket