London - Edward Rutherfurd [284]
Dame Barnikel frowned.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re trying to find your father a nice mistress.”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking if I might know of anyone?”
“I know your judgement is good, Dame Barnikel.” Tiffany paused. “Actually,” she said, “I think he’s always had rather an admiration for you.”
It was not her first port of call. Dame Barnikel was in fact the third woman with whom Tiffany had had a similar conversation. She probably would not have ventured into so vulgar a place as Southwark if she had met with better luck so far. But she had heard her father in the past refer to her, albeit with a laugh, as a fine woman. By now she was ready to try anything. As to her strategy, it was very simple. “He must either marry a woman past childbearing, or find a mistress he can’t marry. Which means she must be married already,” she had told Ducket. And when he wondered aloud if she could bring it off, “I’ve got to,” she said.
“You’re thinking of me?” Dame Barnikel asked.
“It just crossed my mind.”
“You couldn’t let him find his own woman?”
“I’m so fond of him. I don’t want him to get hurt.”
Dame Barnikel looked her straight in the eye.
“Lot of money at stake?” she said.
“Yes.”
And now Dame Barnikel laughed.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve got a perfectly good Bull of my own.”
And so the two women parted, the one to tend to her husband, the other to her inheritance.
Tiffany’s problem was solved not by her own efforts, but by help from another quarter.
Of all the members of the Commons who had gathered by the start of October for the opening of the new session, few were more quietly distinguished than one of the knights of the shire chosen for the county of Kent. For it was in this capacity that Chaucer, wool comptroller, soldier, diplomat, poet, Justice of the Peace and now representative of his county made his one appearance in that hallowed institution. Though he had not actually received the accolade of knighthood, he was, by convention as a county representative, referred to as a knight of his shire.
Upon this notable occasion, it was entirely natural that Richard Whittington, mercer and gentleman, should have given a small feast in his honour at his house. It was also natural that he should invite their mutual friend Bull to be one of the party. And it was typical of his character that, as he considered what other guests to invite, he should have borne in mind the grave problem currently faced by his friend and erstwhile colleague Geoffrey Ducket.
So it was a rather pleasant surprise for Bull to find himself sitting next to a woman whose quiet and subtle sensuality, as the evening progressed, he could not fail to appreciate. He was flattered also that she seemed to take an interest in him.
“I believe,” Whittington murmured to him at the end of the evening, “she’s quite unattached at present.” While to Ducket the next morning he remarked with a laugh: “The beauty of it is, they certainly can’t marry.”
There was no small excitement when it was rumoured that Bull had been seen purchasing a posy of flowers which, they had reason to think, he intended to present to Sister Olive.
1422
As the new century had begun, it was generally agreed in London that few families were more fortunate than that of Ducket. There were seven healthy children; Ducket himself continued to increase his own considerable fortune; and Tiffany became a far greater heiress than even she had hoped to be.
For in the year 1395, first the heir to Bocton and then his grief-stricken father had died. The lovely old Kent estate had passed to Gilbert Bull, the surviving brother, who became the richest member of his family who had ever lived. Since, as he pointed out, he could not have very many years to enjoy the place, he quit the house on London Bridge,