The Holy Innocents

They had all resented him, this man of whom they knew nothing, but who was so evidently one of their own kind put in authority over them. And Grizelda, who was his superior in every way, had, understandably, resented him more than the others. I straightened my aching back and eased my cramped legs by stretching them out under the table, before harking back to my original request.

‘Tell me about the morning of the children’s disappearance.’

‘Grizelda had gone to church,’ Bridget said, ‘and I was helping Agatha get the breakfast. Master Colet was still upstairs and so were the children. Things hadn’t been easy in the house since the mistress and her baby died. Master was lost without her. He was still bewildered. Still trying to find his feet, not knowing quite where he was or what to do. Most of all, he didn’t know what to do with Master Andrew and Mistress Mary. He didn’t like them, and they didn’t like him. Played all sorts of pranks on him if they thought they could get away with it. Made his life a misery, they did.’

‘Did they play pranks on everyone?’ I interrupted.

‘Master Andrew, he was very high-spirited, and his sister, she followed where he led. But they didn’t mean any harm. It was just their way and we all put up with it. But the master found it hard. Well, as I was saying, I was helping Agatha with the breakfast, which was being laid in the downstairs parlour. It was bread and milk for the children, cold beef and saffron porridge with honey for the master and Mistress Harbourne, ale and small beer for them all. We’d carried the food across from the kitchen and were just putting it on the table, when we heard the master shouting upstairs. Shouting at the top of his voice, he was. Then Master Andrew started shouting back, and Mistress Mary, she began wafting. But the master just yelled louder and louder until both children were crying, and the noise was something dreadful. I looked at Agatha and she looked at me, neither of us knowing what to do for the best. “Ought I to go up?” she asked, but I said no, not to interfere or we might find ourselves turned out of the house.’

‘Could you hear what Master Colet was shouting about? What was he accusing the children of doing? Or not doing?’

Bridget shook her head. ‘I don’t think it was anything in particular. They were always slow getting dressed if Grizelda wasn’t there to chivvy them along, and the master used to get annoyed if they were unpunctual for meals. I think he saw it as a kind of insult to himself, if they came late to table.’

I nodded. A man unsure of his position, aware that he was mocked behind his back, would be sensitive regarding such matters.

Bridget continued, ‘Then Grizelda came in. As soon as she heard what was going on, she just flew up the stairs without even taking off her cloak and began screaming at the master. They must have moved out of the parlour and into one of the bedchambers, because their voices got fainter. But I did hear her yelling that he was a wicked, hard-hearted man to bedevil two innocent children in such a way, and he answered that she was a harpy who should be tied to the ducking-stool. I can’t remember everything that was said. I couldn’t hear a lot of it. But then, suddenly, it all went quiet.’

‘And after that?’ I prompted.

Bridget shivered and wrapped her thin arms around her body.

‘After that Grizelda came to the top of the stairs and asked me to run as fast as I could for Jack Carter. She was leaving, she said, and needed him to carry her box.’

‘Which you did?’

‘Yes. I ran down to his house in the Foregate without even stopping to put on a cloak or pattens. It was a very cold morning, but I didn’t think about it at the time. I was that upset, I didn’t know properly what I was doing. Jack’s wife lent me a shawl and I rode on the cart coming back.’

‘And when you got home?’

‘Mistress Harbourne was standing at the top of the stairs, all white and shaking. She had her box ready, beside her, and Jack and the stableman lifted it out to the cart.’

‘There were no further exchanges between her and Master Colet?’

Bridget shook her head. ‘The master didn’t come down for breakfast until after she’d gone. And the children didn’t come down at all. The master said they were too upset, but I reckon they did it just to spite him, ’cos I heard one of them singing.’

‘Ah!’ My attention sharpened. ‘Jack Carter said it was Mistress Mary. He heard her, too, but couldn’t recall what she was singing. He thought it was a lullaby, with a refrain of “lollay, lullow”, or some such matter. Can you remember?’

Bridget nodded. ‘But I’m not certain it was Mary who was singing. I thought it was Master Andrew. It sounded more like a boy to me.’

‘But did you know the song?’

‘It was a lullaby Grizelda used to sing them to sleep with. I’ve heard her sing it many times, but I can’t recollect the words.’ Bridget paused, thinking hard. ‘There was a refrain, remember, which began “Lollay, lollay, little child, little child, lollay, lullow…”’ A longer pause ended in a regretful shake of her head. ‘No, the words have gone. I was never any good at learning. Grizelda used to try to teach me my letters, but I can’t hold things in my head.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s not important. Go on with your story. You say Master Colet came down to breakfast when Mistress Harbourne had departed? What happened next?’

‘When he’d finished, he said he was going out to see Master Cozin on business. He went upstairs to get his cloak and hat. Agatha had gone back to the kitchen by that time, but I was clearing the table. I heard him talking to the children, asking them if they were sure they didn’t want anything to eat, and heard Master Andrew shout, “We said we didn’t! Leave us alone!” And I heard the latch of the bedchamber door rattle as he banged it shut. Master came down looking very upset, and I can’t say I blamed him. I asked him if I should go up to the children, but he said to get on with my work and let them be. They might be in a better mood when he got back. He wouldn’t be long away. He asked if I knew anyone who might be a suitable nurse for them, now that Mistress Harbourne had gone, and I said I was sure he’d have no difficulty finding someone among the women of the town or the Foregate who would be willing to take on the job.’

‘And then he went out?’

‘Yes. But before he left he called “God be with you” up the stairs, and Mary answered him.’

‘What did she say?’

‘“And with you, too!” I remember being glad, because it showed that one of them, at least, was willing to end the quarrel and not sulk all day’. Tears welled up suddenly in Bridget’s eyes and spilled down the thin cheeks. ‘If only I’d known what they were planning, that I’d never see either of them alive again, I’d have defied the master and gone up to them. The silly, little varmints! Why did they run away?’

‘You do think, then,’ I said quietly, ‘that they escaped and were not, as some people believe, spirited out of the house by witchcraft?’

She shuddered and crossed herself. ‘I… I don’t know,’ she blurted out at last. ‘After the master went, I was in the downstairs parlour, dusting and polishing, from the moment he left until he came back, so they couldn’t have gone that way, of that I am certain. And Agatha was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. She must have seen them if they’d quit the house by either the passage door or the bedchamber door opening on to the gallery. The kitchen door was wide open all the while, she says, because of the steam from the cookpots. But, also, the children must have gone through the kitchen if they wished to reach the outer courtyard, and Agatha swears that they didn’t.’