









                        Chapter XVIII

                   Mistress Ivy Peppercorn


The tasks assigned to the clerks in Master Nathaniel's
counting-house did not always concern cargoes and tonnage. 
For instance, once for two whole days they had not opened a
ledger, but had been kept busy, under their employer's
supervision, in cutting out and pinning together fantastic
paper costumes to be worn at Ranulph's birthday party.  And
they were quite accustomed to his shutting himself into his
private office, with strict injunctions that he was not to
be disturbed, while he wrote, say, a comic valentine to old
Dame Polly Pyepowders, popping his head frequently round the
door to demand their help in finding a rhyme.  So they were
not surprised that morning when told to close their books
and to devote their talents to discovering, by whatever
means they chose, whether there were any relations living in
Lud of a west country farmer called Gibberty who had died
nearly forty years ago.
   Great was Master Nathaniel's satisfaction when one of
them returned from his quest with the information that the
late farmer's widowed daughter, Mistress Ivy Peppercorn, had
recently bought a small grocer's shop in Mothgreen, a
village that lay a couple of miles beyond the north gate.
   There was no time to be lost, so Master Nathaniel ordered
his horse, put on the suit of fustian he wore for fishing,
pulled his hat well down over his eyes, and set off for
Mothgreen.
   Once there, he had no difficulty in finding Mistress
Ivy's little ship, and she herself was sitting behind the
counter.
   She was a comely, apple-cheeked woman of middle age, who
looked as if she would be more in her element among cows and
meadows than in a stuffy little ship, redolent of the
various necessities and luxuries of a village community.
   She seemed of a cheerful, chatty disposition, and Master
Nathaniel punctuated his various purchases with quips and
cranks and friendly questions.
   By the time she had weighed him out two ounces of snuff
and done them up in a neat little paper poke she had told
him that her maiden name had been Gibberty, and that her
late husband had been a ship's captain, and she had lived
till his death in the seaport town.  By the time she had
provided him with a quarter of lollipops, he knew that she
much preferred a country life to trade.  And by the time a
woolen muffler had been admired, purchased and done up in a
parcel, she had informed him that she would have liked to
have settled in the neighbourhood of her old home, but --
*there were reasons*.
   What these reasons were took time, tact and patience to
discover.  But never had Master Nathaniel's wistful
inquisitiveness, masquerading as warm-hearted sympathy,
stood him in better stead.  And she finally admitted that
she had a stepmother whom she detested, and whom, moreover,
she had good reason to distrust.
   At this point Master Nathaniel considered he might begin
to show his hand.  He gave her a meaning glance; and asked
her if she would like to see justice done and rascals
getting their deserts, adding, "There's no more foolish
proverb than the one which says that dead men tell no
tales.  To help dead men to find their tongues is one of the
chief uses of the Law."
   Mistress Ivy looked a little scared.  "Who may you be,
sir, please?" she asked timidly.
   "I'm the nephew of a farmer who once employed a labourer
called Diggory Carp," he answered promptly.
   A smile of enlightenment broke over her face.
   "Well, who would have thought it!" she murmured.  "And
what may your uncle's name have been?  I used to know all
the farmers and their families round our part."
   There was a twinkle in Master Nathaniel's candid hazel
eyes: "I doubt I've been too sharp and cut myself!" he
laughed.  "You see, I've worked for the magistrates, and
that gets one into the habit of setting traps for folk...
the Law's a wily lady.  I've no uncle in the West, and I
never knew Diggory Carp.  But I've always taken an interest
in crime and enjoyed reading the old trials.  So when you
said your name had been Gibberty my mind at once flew back
to a certain trial that had always puzzled me, and I thought
perhaps, the name Diggory Carp might unlock your tongue. 
I've always felt there was more behind that trial than met
the eye."
   "Did you indeed?" said Mistress Ivy evasively.  "You seem
mighty interested in other folks' affairs," and she looked
at him rather suspiciously.
   This put Master Nathaniel on his mettle.  "Now, hark'ee,
Mistress Ivy, I'm sure your father took a pleasure in
looking at a fine crop, even if it was in another man's
field, and that your husband liked good seamanship..."
   And here he had to break off his dissertation and listen,
which he did very patiently, to a series of reminiscences
about the tastes and habits of her late husband.
   "Well, as I was saying," he went on, when she paused for
a moment to sigh, and smile and wipe her eyes with the
corner of her apron, "what the sight of a field filled to
the brim with golden wheat was to your father, and that of a
ship skilfully piloted into harbour was to your husband, the
sight of Justice crouching and springing on her prey is to
me.  I'm a bachelor, and I've managed to put by a
comfortable little nest-egg, and there's nothing I'd like to
spend it on better than in preventing Justice being baulked
of her lawful prey, not to mention helping to avenge a fine
fellow like your father.  We old bachelors, you know, have
our  hobbies... they're quieter about the house than a crowd
of brats, but they're sometimes quite as expensive," and he
chuckled and rubbed his hands.
   He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and seemed actually
to have become the shrewd, honest, and somewhat bloodthirsty
old fellow he had created.  His eyes shone with the light of
fanaticism when he spoke of Justice, the tiger; and he could
picture the snug little house he lived in in Lud -- it had a
little garden gay with flowers, and a tiny lawn, and
espalier fruit trees, to the care of which he dedicated his
leisure hours.  And he had a dog, and a canary, and an old
housekeeper.  Probably, when he got home to-night, he would
sit down to a supper of sausages and mashed, followed by a
toasted cheese.  And then, when he had finished his supper,
he would get out his collection of patibulary treasures, and
over a bowl of negus finger lovingly the various bits of
gallows rope, the blood-stained glove of a murdered
strumpet, the piece of amber worn as a charm by a notorious
brigand chief, and gloat over the stealthy steps of his pet
tiger, the Law.  Yes, his obscure little life was as gay
with hobbies as his garden was with flowers.  How
comfortable were other men's shoes!
   "Well, if what you mean," said Mistress Ivy, "is that
you'd like to help punish wicked people, why, I wouldn't
mind lending a hand myself.  All the same," and again she
looked at him suspiciously, "what makes you think my father
didn't come by a natural death?"
   "My nose, good lady, my nose!" and, as he spoke, he laid
a knowing finger alongside the said organ.  "I smelt blood. 
Didn't it say in the trial that the corpse bled?"
   She bridled, and cried scornfully, "And you, to be
town-bred, too, and an educated man from the look of you, to
go believing that vulgar talk!  You know what country people
are, setting everything that happens to the tunes of old
songs.  It was two drops of blood when the story was told in
the tavern at Swan, and by the time it had reached Moongrass
it was a gallon.  I walked past the corpse with the others,
and I can't say I noticed any blood -- but, then, my eyes
were all swelled with crying.  All the same, it's what made
Pugwalker leave the country."
   "Indeed?" cried Master Nathaniel, and his voice was very
eager.
   "Yes.  My stepmother was never the kind to be saucy with
-- though I had no cause to love her, I must say she looked
like a queen, but he was a foreigner and a little bit of a
chap, and the boys in the village and all round gave him no
peace, jumping out at him from behind hedges and chasing him
down the street, shouting, `Who made the corpse of Farmer
Gibberty bleed?' and such like.  And he just couldn't stand
it, and slipped off one night, and I never thought to see
him again.  But I've seen him in the streets of Lud, and not
long ago too -- though he didn't see me."
   Master Nathaniel's heart was thumping with excitement. 
"What is he like?" he asked breathlessly. 
   "Oh! very like what he was as a young man.  They say
there's nothing keeps you young like a good conscience!" and
she laughed drily.  "Not that he was ever much to look at --
squat and tubby and freckled, and such saucy prying eyes!"
   Master Nathaniel could contain himself no longer, and in
a voice hoarse with excitement he cried, "Was it... do you
mean the Lud doctor, Endymion Leer?"
   Mistress Ivy pursed up her mouth and nodded meaningfully.
   "Yes, that's what he calls himself now... and many folks
set such store by him as a doctor, that, to hear them talk,
one would think a baby wasn't properly born unless he'd
brought it into the world, nor a man properly dead unless
he'd closed his eyes."
   "Yes, yes.  But are you *sure* he is the same as
Christopher Pugwalker?  Could you swear to him in court?"
cried Master Nathaniel eagerly.
   Mistress Ivy looked puzzled.  "What good would it do to
swear at him?" she asked doubtfully.  "I must say I never
held with foul language in a woman's mouth, nor did my poor
Peppercorn -- for all that he was a sailor."
   "No, no!" cried Master Nathaniel impatiently, and
proceeded to explain to her the meaning of the expression.
   She dimpled a little at her own blunder, and then said
guardedly, "And what would bring me into the law courts, I
should like to know?  The past is over and done with, and
what is done can't be undone."
   Master Nathaniel fixed her with a searching gaze, and,
forgetting his assumed character, spoke as himself.
   "Mistress Peppercorn," he said solemnly, "have you no
pity for the dead, the dumb, helpless dead?  You loved your
father, I am sure.  When a word from you might help to
avenge him, are you going to leave that word unsaid?  Who
can say that the dead are not grateful for the loving
thoughts of the living, and that they do not rest more
quietly in their graves when they have been avenged?  Have
you no time or pity left for your dead father?"
   During this speech Mistress Ivy's face had begun working,
and at the last words she burst into sobs.  "Don't think
that, sir," she gasped; "don't think that!  I remember well
how my poor father used to sit looking at her of an evening,
not a word passing his lips, but his eyes saying as clearly
as if it had been his tongue, `No, Clem,' (for my
stepmother's name was Clementine), `I don't trust you no
further than I see you, but, for all that, you can turn me
round your little finger, because I'm a silly, besotted old
fool, and we both know it.'  Oh!  I've always said that my
poor father had both his eyes wide open, in spite of him
being the slave of her pretty face.  It was not that he
didn't see, or couldn't see -- what he lacked was the heart
to speak out."
   "Poor fellow!  And now, Mistress Ivy, I think you should
tell me all you know and what it is that makes you think
that, in spite of the medical evidence to the contrary, your
father was murdered," and he planted his elbows on the
counter and looked at her squarely in the face.
   But Mistress Ivy trimmed.  "I didn't say that poor father
was poisoned with osiers.  He died quiet and peaceful,
father did." 
   "All the same, you think there was foul play.  I am not
entirely disinterested in this matter, now that I know Dr.
Leer is connected with it.  I happen to bear him a grudge."
   First Mistress Ivy shut the door on to the street, and
then leant over the counter, so that her face was close to
his, and said in a low voice: "Why, yes, I always did think
there had been foul play, and I'll tell you why.  Just
before my father died we'd been making jam.  And one of poor
father's funny little ways was to like the scum of jam or
jelly, and we used to keep some of every boiling in a saucer
for him.  Well, my own little brother Robin, and *her*
little girl -- a little tot of three -- were buzzing round
the fruit and sugar like a pair of little wasps, whining for
this, sticking their fingers into that, and thinking they
were helping with the jam-making.  And suddenly my
stepmother turned round and caught little Polly with her
mouth all black with mulberry juice.  And oh, the taking she
was in!  She caught her and shook her, and ordered her to
spit out anything she might have in her mouth; and then,
when she found out it was mulberries, she cooled down all of
a sudden and told Polly she must be a good girl and never
put anything in her mouth without asking first.
   "Now, the jam was boiled in great copper cauldrons, and I
noticed a little pipkin simmering on the heath, and I asked
my stepmother what it was.  And she answered carelessly,
`Oh, it's some mulberry jelly, sweetened with honey instead
of sugar, for my old grandfather at home.'  And at the time
I didn't give the matter another thought.  But the evening
before my father died... and I've never mentioned this to a
soul except my poor Peppercorn... after supper he went and
sat out in the porch to smoke his pipe, leaving her and him
to their own doings in the kitchen; for she'd been
brazen-faced enough, and my father weak enough, actually to
have the fellow living there in the house.  And my father
was a queer man in that way -- too proud to sit where he
wasn't wanted, even in his own kitchen.  And I'd come out,
too, but I was hid from him by the corner of the house, for
I had been waiting for the sun to go down to pick flowers,
to take to a sick neighbour the next day.  But I could hear
him talking to his spaniel, Ginger, who was like his shadow
and followed him wherever he went.  I remember his words as
clearly as if it had been yesterday: `Poor old Ginger!' he
said, `I thought it would be me who would dig your grave. 
But it seems not, Ginger, it seems not.  Poor old lady, by
this time tomorrow I'll be as dumb as you are... and you'll
miss our talks, poor Ginger.'  And then Ginger gave a howl
that made my blood curdle, and I came running round the
corner of the house and asked father if he was ailing, and
if I could fetch him anything.  And he laughed, but it was
as different as chalk from cheese from the way he laughed as
a rule.  For poor father was a frank-hearted, open-handed
man, and not one to hoard up bitterness any more than he
would hoard up money; but that laugh -- the last I heard him
give -- was as bitter as  gall.  And he said, `Well, Ivy, my
girl, would you like to fetch me some peonies and marigolds
and shepherd's thyme from a hill where the Silent People
have danced, and make me a salad from them?'  And seeing me
looking surprised, he laughed again, and said, `No, no.  I
doubt there are no flowers growing this side of the hills
that could help your poor father.  Come, give me a kiss --
you've always been a good girl.'  Now, these are flowers
that old wives use in love potions, as I knew from my
granny, who was very wise about herbs and charms, but father
had always laughed at her for it, and I supposed he was
fretting over my stepmother and Pugwalker, and wondering if
he could win her heart back to him.
   "But that night he died, and it was then that I started
wondering about that jelly in the pipkin, for him, liking
scum as he did, and always having a saucer of it set aside
for him, it wouldn't have been difficult to have boiled up
some poison for him without any danger of other folks
touching it.  And Pugwalker knew all about herbs and such
like, and could have told her what to use.  For it was as
plain as print that poor father knew he was going to die,
and peonies make a good purge; and I've often wondered since
if it was as a purge that he wanted these flowers.  And
that's all I know, and perhaps it isn't much, but it's been
enough to keep me awake many a night of my life wondering
what I should have done if I'd been older.  For I was only a
little maid of ten at the time, with no one I could talk to,
and as frightened of my stepmother as a bird of a snake.  If
I'd been one of the witnesses, I dare say it would have come
out in court, but I was too young for that."
   "Perhaps we could get hold of Diggory Carp?"
   "Diggory Carp?" she repeated in surprise.  "But surely
you heard what happened to him?  Ah, that was a sad story! 
You see, after he was sent to gaol, there came three or four
terrible lean years, one after the other.  And food was so
dear, no one, of course, had any money for buying fancy
goods like baskets... and the long and the short of it was
that when Diggory came out of gaol he found that his wife
and children had died of starvation.  And it seemed to turn
his wits, and he came up to our farm, raging against my
stepmother, and vowing that someday he'd get his own back on
her.  And that night he hanged himself from one of the trees
in our orchard, and he was found there dead the next
morning."
   "A sad story," said Master Nathaniel.  "Well, we must
leave him out of our calculations.  All you've told me is
very interesting -- very interesting indeed.  But there's
still a great deal to be unravelled before we get to the
rope I'm looking for.  One thing I don't understand is
Diggory Carp's story about the osiers.  Was it a pure
fabrication of his?"
   "Poor Diggory!  He wasn't, of course, the sort of man
whose word one would be very ready to take, for he did
deserve his ten years -- he was a born thief.  But I don't
think he would have had the wits to invent all that.  I
expect the story he told was true enough about his daughter
selling the osiers, but that it was only for basket-making
that she wanted them.  Guilt's a funny thing -- like a
smell, and one often doesn't quite know where it comes
from.  I think Diggory's nose was not mistaken when it smelt
out guilt, but it led him to the wrong clue.  My father
wasn't poisoned by osiers."
   "Can you think what it was, then?"
   She shook her head.  "I've told you everything I know."
   "I wish you knew something more definite," said Master
Nathaniel a little fretfully.  "The Law dearly loves
something it can touch -- a blood-stained knife and that
sort of thing.  And there's another matter that puzzles me. 
Your father seems, on your showing, to have been a very
indulgent sort of husband, and to have kept his jealousy to
himself.  What *cause* was there for the murder?"
   "Ah! that I think I can explain to you," she cried.  "You
see, our farm was very conveniently situated for... well,
for smuggling a certain thing that we don't mention.  It
stands in a sort of hollow between the marches and the west
road, and smugglers like a friendly, quiet place where they
can run their goods.  And my poor father, though he may have
sat like a dumb animal in pain when his young wife was
gallivanting with her lover, all the same, if he had found
out what was being stored in the granary, Pugwalker would
have been kicked out of the house, and she could have
whistled for him till she was black in the face.  My father
was easy-going enough in some ways, but there were places in
him as hard as nails, and no woman, be she never so much of
a fool (and, fair play to my stepmother, she was no fool),
can live with a man without finding out where these places
are."
   "Oh, ho!  So what Diggory Carp said about the contents of
that sack was true, was it?"  And Master Nathaniel inwardly
thanked his stars that no harm had come to Ranulph during
his stay in such a dangerous place.
   "Oh, it was true, and no mistake; and, child though I was
at the time, I cried through half one night with rage when
they told me what the hussy had said in court about my
father using the stuff as manure and her begging him not
to!  Begging him not to, indeed!  I could have told them a
very different story.  And it was Pugwalker that was at the
back of that business, and got the granary key from her, so
they could run their goods there.  And shortly before my
father died he got wind of it -- I know that from something
I overheard.  The room I shared with my little brother Robin
opened into theirs, and we always kept the door ajar,
because Robin was a timid child, and fancied he couldn't go
to sleep unless he heard my father snoring.  Well, about a
week before my father died I heard him talking to her in a
voice I'd never known him to use to her before.  He said
he'd warned her twice already that year, and that this was
the last time.  Up to that time he'd held his head high, he
said, because his hands were clean and all his doings
straight and fair, and now he warned her for the last time
that unless this business was put a stop to once and for
all, he'd have Pugwalker tarred and feathered, and make the
neighbourhood too hot for him to stay in it.  And, I 
remember, I heard him hawking and spitting, as if he'd rid
himself of something foul.  And he said that the Gibbertys
had always been respected, and that the farm, ever since
they had owned it, had helped to make the people of Dorimare
straight-limbed and clean-blooded, for it had sent fresh
meat and milk to market, and good grain to the miller, and
sweet grapes to the vintner, and that he would rather sell
the farm than that poison and filth should be sent out of
his granary, to turn honest lads into idiots gibbering at
the moon.  And then she started coaxing him, but she spoke
too low for me to catch the words.  But she must have been
making him some promise, for he said gruffly, `Well, see
that it's done, then, for I'm a man of my word.'
   "And in not much more than a week after that he was dead
-- poor father.  And I count it a miracle that I ever grew
up and am sitting here now telling you all this.  And a
still greater one that little Robin grew up to be a man, for
he inherited the farm.  But it was her own little girl that
died, and Robin grew up and married, and though he died in
his prime it was through a quinsy in his throat, and he
always got on with our stepmother, and wouldn't hear a word
against her.  And she has brought up his little girl, for
her mother died when she was born.  But I've never seen the
lass, for there was never any love lost between me and my
stepmother, and I never went back to the old house after I
married."
   She paused, and in her eyes was that wistful, tranced
look that always comes when one has been gazing at things
that happened to one long ago.
   "I see, I see," said Master Nathaniel meditatively.  "And
Pugwalker?  Did you ever see him again till you recognized
him in the streets of Lud the other day?"
   She shook her head.  "No, he disappeared, as I told you,
just before the trial.  Though I don't doubt that *she* knew
his whereabouts and heard from him -- met him even; for she
was always going out by herself after nightfall.  Well,
well, I've told you everything I know -- though perhaps I'd
have better held my tongue, for little good comes of digging
up the past."
   Master Nathaniel said nothing; he was evidently pondering
her story.
   "Well," he said finally, "everything you have told me has
been very interesting -- very interesting indeed.  But
whether it will lead to anything definite is another
matter.  All the evidence is purely circumstantial. 
However, I'm very grateful to you for having spoken to me as
freely as you've done.  And if I find out anything further
I'll let you know.  I shall be leaving Lud shortly, but I
shall keep in touch with you.  And, under the circumstances,
perhaps it would be prudent to agree on some word or token
by which you would recognize a messenger as really coming
from me, for the fellow you knew as Pugwalker has not grown
less cunning with advancing years -- he's full of guile, and
let him once get wind of what we're after, he'd be up to all
sorts of tricks to make our plans miscarry.  What shall the
token be?" 
   Then his eyes began to twinkle: "I've got it!" he cried. 
"Just to give you a little lesson in swearing, which you say
you dislike so much, we'll make it a good round oath. 
You'll know a messenger comes from me if he greets you with
the words, *By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples
of the West!*"
   And he rubbed his hands in delight, and shouted with
laughter.  Master Nathaniel was a born tease.
   "For shame, you saucy fellow!" dimpled Mistress Ivy. 
"You're as bad as my poor Peppercorn.  He used always..."
   But even Master Nathaniel had had his fill of
reminiscences.  So he cut her short with a hearty good-bye,
and renewed thanks for all she had told him.
   But he turned back from the door to hold up his finger
and say with mock solemnity, "Remember, it's to be *By the
Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!*"
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