‘The iron ore gets brought in, in our case from a little further upriver where the ironstone outcrop lay, and you put it in the furnace with the charcoal. The iron melts out of the ore and falls to the bottom. You see?’ he repeated, in a schoolmasterly manner.
‘I think so. Another beer?’
He nodded gravely. ‘Thank you.’
I fetched two more beers and set them on the table. ‘What was Master Fettiplace like?’
Wilf shook his head sadly. ‘William Fettiplace wasn’t a lucky man. Rolfswood furnace never did very well, the quality of the ironstone was low, and with the competition from the new blast furnaces the price of charcoal kept going up. Then his wife that he was devoted to died young, leaving him with a young daughter. And he died in the fire, with my friend Peter Gratwyck. That mysterious fire.’ Wilf was looking at me keenly now.
‘Mysterious? I would have thought there was always a risk of fire in such places.’
He shook his head. ‘It was summer, the furnace wasn’t even working.’ He leaned forward. ‘This is how it was. The furnace was an enclosed area, a courtyard inside a wooden wall. The enclosure was mostly roofed over, except for the centre – it got very hot when the furnace was working. Inside the enclosure was the main building with the furnace at one end, and the big bellows connected to the water wheel. The rest of the enclosure was storage space – ore and coke and building materials. It was a small, old-fashioned foundry. Master Fettiplace hadn’t the money to build a blast furnace. There were only a few workers. We worked our lands during the summer, and in the winter did the casting. See?’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone always had to be there during the summer, to take deliveries of coke and ore ready for the winter, and keep an eye on the mill pond and the wheel. Peter usually did that, he lived very close by. But that summer – it was 1526, the year before the great dearth when the crops failed through the rains. That August I remember was cold and windy, like October—’
‘And the fire – ’ I prompted.
He leaned in very close, so I felt his warm beery breath. ‘That summer Peter was living at the furnace. His wife, who was a vicious old shrew, had thrown him out, saying he drank too much. I suppose he did, but never mind that. Peter asked Master Fettiplace if he could stay at the furnace for a while, and he agreed. There was a little straw bed there, people often stayed overnight during the winter campaigns, but he was the only one there that night.’ Wilf took another draught of beer and sat back. ‘Ah, sir. It hurts me still to remember.’ He sighed. The dog looked up at him and gave a little whine.
‘Towards nine that night I was at home here in the town. A neighbour came banging at my door, saying the furnace was on fire. I ran out. Lots of people were heading for the woods. As you came close to the furnace you could see the flames through the trees, the mill pond all red, reflecting the fire. It was dreadful, the whole enclosure was ablaze from end to end when I got there. It was built of wood, you see. Ellen Fettiplace blamed Peter afterwards, said he had lit a fire in the foundry building to warm himself and started the blaze.’
‘Ellen? The daughter?’ I had to pretend not to know.
‘That’s right. She was the only witness. She and Master Fettiplace had gone for an evening walk to the furnace – Master Fettiplace wanted to check that an ore delivery had come – and found Peter drunk by the fire. Master Fettiplace shouted at him, he jumped up and somehow his clothes caught light. He fell over on the straw bed and that caught light too. There was a lot of coke dust about and the whole place went up. Peter and Master Fettiplace were burnt to death; only young Ellen got out, and it drove her mad. Too mad to appear at the inquest, a statement from her was read out.’ I remembered Ellen screaming. I saw his skin melt, turn black and crack! He tried to get up but he fell!
‘That was the end of my work there,’ Wilf said. ‘Me and half a dozen others. The foundry was never rebuilt, it didn’t make enough profit. The ruins are still out there in the woods. The following year the harvest failed, we had a hard time making it through.’ He looked round the empty parlour. ‘Peter Gratwyck was my best friend. The nights we’ve sat here drinking when we were young men.’
‘Do you know where the daughter went?’ I asked.
‘The night of the fire she ran to the local priest, old John Seckford that’s still curate here. Her reason had gone. She wouldn’t leave the vicarage. After the inquest she was taken away, to relatives in London they said. But your friend’s never come across her?’ he asked curiously.
‘No.’
I thought, this is not what I expected, there is no rape in this story. ‘This Ellen, what was she like?’
‘A pretty enough girl. About nineteen then. But spoiled by her father, full of her own opinions. The sad thing was, at the time of the fire there was talk of her getting married.’
‘To whom?’
‘Master Philip West, his family have lands here. He went to serve on the King’s ships after.’