any more. If she’s still alive, she’ll be forty or a little over. The same age that Isabella would have been had she lived. Indeed, the age I have always assumed she was until a day or so ago.’
‘And of course she – Jane – might have married,’ I added gloomily.
‘There is that,’ my hostess concurred, ‘but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. She was not a prepossessing girl. On the other hand,’ Emilia added with a certain amount of bitterness, ‘good looks aren’t necessarily everything. I’ve known some very odd-featured women who have not only captured husbands, but who have been the object of those husbands’ adoration.’
I guessed from this that Emilia Virgoe had never married. As a young woman she must have been very pretty, but for one reason or another had failed to ensnare a man. It had plainly galled her to see other, far less attractive females experiencing no difficulty in finding mates. Perhaps her attitude to love explained matters.
I thanked her again for her patience and time, adding, ‘You see, you have been of great help to me, after all. If I can only find this Jane Honeychurch, I might discover the names of Isabella’s beaux.’
‘I wouldn’t pin your hopes on it,’ the nurse advised me. ‘Even if you do find the woman, there’s nothing to say that Isabella ever told her anything more than she told anyone else. Where will you go now?’
‘To Westbury village, in case there is anyone still living there who can recall seeing Isabella on the day she disappeared and can add anything to what I already know.’
‘And that is?’
‘That it was a cold, wet and windy March day and both Isabella and her companion had the hoods of their cloaks pulled well forward to conceal their faces.’
The nurse smiled and said, ‘I wish you luck.’ She nobly refrained from repeating a warning about the length of time involved or from adding a rider concerning the general unreliability of people’s memories over a span of twenty days, let alone the same number of years. But she did wonder aloud, as I had wondered to myself, about the advisability of searching out the truth. ‘After so lengthy a period, does it really matter now?’
I spoke sternly, partly to appease my own conscience.
‘Where murder is involved, isn’t it everyone’s duty to bring the murderer to book if he can?’ I asked. ‘The taking of human life is surely the most heinous of all crimes.’
Emilia Virgoe laughed shortly. ‘It depends, doesn’t it, whether you are taking life for your own reasons or for those of your overlord, who commands you to do so on his behalf.’
I decided it was definitely time to go. We were getting into deep water; on the borderline of treason. I thanked my hostess yet again and left.
I had been to Westbury once before and knew it to be little more than a scatter of cottages along the River Trym and grouped around the college, which dominated the area. There had been a monastery there in Saxon times, under the control of the then Bishop of Worcester, who had brought over twelve Benedictine monks from Fleury in France. By the time of the Conquest, however, it had fallen into decay and the monks had long gone, leaving one solitary priest to carry on God’s work. Thirty years later, another Bishop of Worcester, Wulfstan, had restored the building and re-instated the brotherhood, but further on in its history it had become a college, with secular priests who went out among the people, the control of the establishment passing into the hands of a dean and canons instead of an abbot. Its most famous – or infamous – son had been the heretic, John Wycliffe, who had held a prebendary stall there sometime in the preceding century. In recent years the building had been greatly enlarged under the auspices of Bishop Carpenter and due to the patronage of Bristol’s own William Canynges, who, before his death twelve years ago, had become first a canon and then dean of the college.
But my
‘And of course she – Jane – might have married,’ I added gloomily.
‘There is that,’ my hostess concurred, ‘but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. She was not a prepossessing girl. On the other hand,’ Emilia added with a certain amount of bitterness, ‘good looks aren’t necessarily everything. I’ve known some very odd-featured women who have not only captured husbands, but who have been the object of those husbands’ adoration.’
I guessed from this that Emilia Virgoe had never married. As a young woman she must have been very pretty, but for one reason or another had failed to ensnare a man. It had plainly galled her to see other, far less attractive females experiencing no difficulty in finding mates. Perhaps her attitude to love explained matters.
I thanked her again for her patience and time, adding, ‘You see, you have been of great help to me, after all. If I can only find this Jane Honeychurch, I might discover the names of Isabella’s beaux.’
‘I wouldn’t pin your hopes on it,’ the nurse advised me. ‘Even if you do find the woman, there’s nothing to say that Isabella ever told her anything more than she told anyone else. Where will you go now?’
‘To Westbury village, in case there is anyone still living there who can recall seeing Isabella on the day she disappeared and can add anything to what I already know.’
‘And that is?’
‘That it was a cold, wet and windy March day and both Isabella and her companion had the hoods of their cloaks pulled well forward to conceal their faces.’
The nurse smiled and said, ‘I wish you luck.’ She nobly refrained from repeating a warning about the length of time involved or from adding a rider concerning the general unreliability of people’s memories over a span of twenty days, let alone the same number of years. But she did wonder aloud, as I had wondered to myself, about the advisability of searching out the truth. ‘After so lengthy a period, does it really matter now?’
I spoke sternly, partly to appease my own conscience.
‘Where murder is involved, isn’t it everyone’s duty to bring the murderer to book if he can?’ I asked. ‘The taking of human life is surely the most heinous of all crimes.’
Emilia Virgoe laughed shortly. ‘It depends, doesn’t it, whether you are taking life for your own reasons or for those of your overlord, who commands you to do so on his behalf.’
I decided it was definitely time to go. We were getting into deep water; on the borderline of treason. I thanked my hostess yet again and left.
I had been to Westbury once before and knew it to be little more than a scatter of cottages along the River Trym and grouped around the college, which dominated the area. There had been a monastery there in Saxon times, under the control of the then Bishop of Worcester, who had brought over twelve Benedictine monks from Fleury in France. By the time of the Conquest, however, it had fallen into decay and the monks had long gone, leaving one solitary priest to carry on God’s work. Thirty years later, another Bishop of Worcester, Wulfstan, had restored the building and re-instated the brotherhood, but further on in its history it had become a college, with secular priests who went out among the people, the control of the establishment passing into the hands of a dean and canons instead of an abbot. Its most famous – or infamous – son had been the heretic, John Wycliffe, who had held a prebendary stall there sometime in the preceding century. In recent years the building had been greatly enlarged under the auspices of Bishop Carpenter and due to the patronage of Bristol’s own William Canynges, who, before his death twelve years ago, had become first a canon and then dean of the college.
But my
Similar Books
