After a moment he said, ‘I hear what you say, Mrs Dodd. Perhaps you’re right. But the problem is, it’s not enough. Andy Nixon, I think, is safe, but there is no denying that Mrs Atkinson was in the house at the time and had the opportunity of doing it. Now I’m not saying she did...’ he went on hurriedly as Janet Dodd took breath again, ‘...I’m only saying that she’ll have a hard job convincing the Coroner’s jury she didn’t even if she does withdraw her confession.’
‘Ay,’ said Janet thoughtfully. ‘I see. The jury will a’ be men, of course, and they’ll know naught of washing sheets either.’
‘Quite. And the confession will weigh heavy with them, unless I can convince them she was a woman distraught and unable to help herself. It weighs heavy with me and not only because I’m Barnabus’s master. We did nothing to make her confess, you know, Mrs Dodd, she came to us of her own free will.’
‘She was worriting about Andy Nixon, of course, the silly bitch,’ said Janet.
‘Do you think she should have let Nixon hang for her? He was willing to do it; that’s why he lied to us.’
Janet looked at him as if he were mad.
‘Ay, of course,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man, is Andy, but she’s got her bairns to think of. But then she allus was featherheaded, was Katy Coldale, and allus did think the sun and the moon and the seven stars shone out of Andy Nixon’s... er... face.’
She looked over her shoulder at Julia Coldale who seemed mildly shocked at this ruthlessness.
‘Well, go on,’ she said. ‘Tell him about the sheets anyway, Julia.’
Julia wriggled a bit and told the story of the Monday morning in a breathless voice. She had arrived and been set to make the butter while Mrs Atkinson kneaded the bread. Then Mrs Atkinson had fetched some bread and beer for her husband and gone up with it. She came down in a dreadful state and had sent Mary for Nixon, then gone up with a laundry basket. She brought all the sheets and blankets down and they were dirty with blood. They had put the sheets in to soak in cold water in the big brewing bucks they had in the yard sheds, and Mrs Atkinson had gone up to sweep up the rushes and then come back down again saying it was better to do it later, which had puzzled Julia. At the same time, Mrs Atkinson had told her she had had a sudden issue of blood in the night, though it seemed a bit much even for a miscarriage, and Mrs Atkinson didn’t look ill enough for a woman who had had a miscarriage although she certainly was pale, and she hadn’t sent for the apothecary nor the midwife neither. Then most of the day was taken with scrubbing and soaping and bringing out the triple-strained lye to soak the sheets in again. Julia had been kept busy going to the street conduit with buckets and back again, and once she was sent over to Maggie Mulcaster to borrow another scrubbing brush, but they had done the sheets and blankets by the evening, pretty much, and left them to soak in fair water until the morrow when they had wrung them and hung them out on the hurdles. It had ruined the day completely.
‘Ye see,’ said Janet significantly. ‘Nobbut a man would make so much trouble.’
‘Yes,’ said Carey thoughtfully. ‘Now, Julia, what was it you did at dawn on Monday which you haven’t told us about?’
The effect of this simple question was very interesting. Julia gasped and put her hand to her mouth as if the Deputy Warden had struck her. Janet swivelled round and glared at her.
‘Eh?’ she said.
‘You’ve left something out, haven’t you?’
Julia put her hand down again. ‘No sir,’ she said quite calmly. ‘I told you just as it happened.’
‘How did you know that Mr Atkinson had his throat cut on Monday morning?’
‘It were the sheets,’ she said. ‘I knew from the sheets.’
Carey gave her a very hard stare which she returned, quite recovered, and then lowered her eyes modestly to the rushes.
‘Hm,’ he said. ‘If you saw anything, Julia, I strongly advise you to tell me.’
‘Me, sir?’ said Julia. ‘I saw nothing, sir, only what I told you. I helped Mrs Atkinson with the bed covers and such.’
Doubt crept into Carey’s mind; perhaps he had mistaken her reaction. She certainly seemed scared of him, which was a pity. He sighed, caught Janet Dodd’s expression and tried to hide the thoughts and speculations chasing themselves across the surface of his mind. There was a short awkward silence, of which only Julia seemed unconscious, for she picked up a letter she had knocked off the chest, smoothed it and put it back in a very distracting way.
Deputy, the sooner you’re safely wed to Lady Widdrington the better for everyone, Janet thought to herself, wondering vaguely why there were soft squeaking noises coming from the curtained four-poster bed; and as for you, Julia, you little hussy...
‘We’ll be off and out of your way, Sir Robert,’ she said briskly, rising and waving at Julia to come with her. ‘D’ye know where my husband is?’
Carey shook his head, not really paying attention to Janet at all as Julia went to the door. Janet make an impatient noise and began hustling the girl out, but Carey beckoned her to him.
‘Ay sir?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Send Julia to find your husband,’ he murmured. ‘I want a word with you alone.’
Janet’s expression cleared slightly. ‘Ay sir.’
Julia went with a wiggle of her hips and a toss of her red curls while Janet darkly considered what she would do to the little bitch if she aimed her wiles at Henry while she was fetching him. Carey had a thoughtful expression on his face.
‘Mrs Dodd,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about that girl.’
Me too, thought Janet, but she held her peace.
‘I think she may have seen something which she isn’t telling us because I’ve heard that she went upstairs at the Atkinsons’ house around dawn, to fetch a ribbon, she said, and she hasn’t mentioned that although I invited her to.’
‘She might have forgotten,’ suggested Janet.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘No, I dinna. Where did you hear that from?’
‘From Mary Atkinson, which means I can only wonder.’
‘Ye’ve questioned the little girl?’
‘We had a very long conversation. Dodd was there, he can tell you what she said, but she seemed to me to be a bright child and quite truthful.’
Janet examined his face thoughtfully. It surprised her that he could have coaxed Mary to give him anything like a coherent tale after he had arrested her mother.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said defensively. ‘I’ve no need to bully maids to get them to talk to me.’
