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helping myself, unbidden, to her ale, but had obviously decided to overlook the impertinence in the interests of harmony.
    â€˜As to where they live in London,’ she said, ‘I believe Adela mentioned that it was out in the countryside somewhere, beyond the Bishop’s Gate – wherever that is. But you’ll likely know, I daresay. It means nothing to me. I’ve never been to London in my life, and don’t want to. Nasty, dangerous place, or so I’ve heard. All those foreigners.’
    Considering that the Bristol wharves and streets fairly teemed with foreign sailors most days of the week, I thought this a decidedly unfair stricture on the capital. All the same, I knew what she meant. It was not only a larger city but also far more populous than any other in the country, which meant more thieves, more pickpockets, more hustling salesmen and more tricksters per square foot than you were likely to encounter anywhere else.
    Margaret continued, ‘I think Adela said the house is called The Arbour, or Harbour, or some such name. From the description of it, it sounds a bit ramshackle; a big, rambling old place. But then it would have to be in order to accommodate all that tribe.’
    â€˜Tell me about the Godsloves, themselves,’ I invited, finishing my drink and fetching myself another one.
    So she did. But there were so many corrections, so much backtracking, such a deal of ‘No, I tell a lie! That wasn’t so-and-so, it was someone else,’ that, for the sake of clarity, I will set down the history of the Godslove family as I eventually came to understand it, once I had sorted out the facts in my mind.
    It begins with Morgan Godslove, who was a cousin of Margaret’s father, William Woodward, and who was born around the year 1400. He married twice. By his first wife – whose name Margaret could not remember – he had four children, three of whom were girls, Clemency, Sybilla and Charity, all born within six years of one another. The fourth child, a boy, Oswald, was ten years younger than the youngest daughter and his mother died in giving birth to him.
    The following year, Morgan married again, this time a widow, Alicia Makepeace, whom he met while in London on business, and who already had two sons from her previous marriage, thus bringing their combined total of children to six. To this tally, Alicia and Morgan added two more in very short order, a boy, Martin, and a girl, Celia, with little more than twelve months between them. When the girl was only three, however, Alicia died leaving Morgan and his brood once more motherless. But this time, the widower decided against a third marriage and, instead, employed a housekeeper.
    â€˜Tabitha Maynard, that was her name,’ Margaret proclaimed triumphantly, after some cogitation.
    But five years later, during the terrible winter of 1455, both Morgan and Tabitha Maynard were drowned when the Rownham ferry capsized in the River Avon during a violent storm.
    By this time, the three elder girls from Morgan’s first marriage, Clemency, Sybilla and Charity, were grown up, all in their early to late twenties, all still unmarried, all still living at home, Oswald was twelve and their half-brother and -sister younger again. As the women appeared to be inclined to the single state, it seemed natural that they should decide to bring up the younger members of the family without calling upon any outside help; an arrangement that suited everybody and which still, apparently, pertained to the present day, even though Oswald was now a man of forty and the half-siblings in their thirties.
    â€˜Doesn’t anyone in the family believe in marriage?’ I had asked at this juncture.
    Margaret had smiled. ‘They were always, to my way of thinking, a very odd family. A very close-knit unit, who all put great store by being a Godslove and were slightly contemptuous of anyone who wasn’t. It’s difficult to explain to