The Fatal Fashione: An Elizabeth I Mystery (Elizabeth I Mysteries)

by Karen Harper

  “I think so much water mixed in would weaken the power of the herb. I warrant it does not poison instantly. Yet it’s strong enough to chafe skin and turn it red, like a laundresses’s hands.”

  “Yet Hannah’s hands and skin look as smooth and white as carved ivory under that glaze of starch,” Rosie observed. “Maybe it’s because she was already dead when put in there, and dead skin won’t chap.”

  “I don’t know for certain how fast it even works on a living person’s skin,” Meg admitted. “I can ask a laundress or a whitster about that. This area teems with them, and I’m sure I could find you one who—”

  They all jolted at the muted yet shrill sound of a woman’s voice. The queen’s stomach cartwheeled. For one wild moment, she thought the corpse could be exhaling one last breath to produce the sound.

  “Sounds like much ado downstairs,” Meg muttered as they laid Hannah on her back again. “Jenks’s voice, too.” Ned and Clifford rushed toward the steps, but the queen motioned them back. Below, at the bottom of the dark staircase, she could barely make out Jenks with his arms around a struggling woman.

  Chapter the Fifth

  “WHAT GOES?” ELIZABETH CALLED DOWN TO JENKS.

  “Caught this one trying to sneak up the stairs.”

  “Hold her, and we will come down.”

  “I just had a thought,” Meg whispered behind Elizabeth. “Hannah was real tight with her money. What if her work-women rebelled at their wages or some such, and an accident happened? More than one woman could manage to lift her. Then they felt guilty about leaving her in the vat because they knew what it would do to her skin.”

  “Hold all that for later,” Elizabeth said. “For now, we must speak with that woman. Men, put the body back on the shelf, then continue your search for anything unusual. Rosie and Meg, with me, for I will speak with Jenks’s captive.”

  Meg took the second lantern and, as the queen ordered, preceded Her Majesty down the staircase, lighting their way. Lady Rosie, who seemed only too relieved to depart the loft, hurried behind them.

  “Unhand me, you great oaf!” the struggling woman cried, and landed an elbow in Jenks’s solid midriff.

  Meg noted she was nearly as shapely a blonde as Hannah. With one arm around the woman’s narrow waist and the other over her bouncing breasts as she tried to wriggle free, Jenks looked as if he were actually enjoying himself.

  “I’ll not loose you. Hold there!” he ordered. Bates hovered a short distance off, scanning the alley.

  The wench was hardly a goodwife but a laborer in brown homespun with a well-worn apron. She looked ready to cry. Her long hair spilled from her cap in such disarray it reminded Meg of poor Hannah’s.

  “Stop struggling!” the queen ordered, though she kept her voice low. “I would but ask you a few questions, mistress, and my man will not harm you.”

  Evidently at the sound of a woman’s cultured voice and tone of command, Jenks’s prisoner went still in his arms. Reluctantly, Meg could tell, he released her but for one hand on her forearm.

  “Who are you, then?” the queen asked the disheveled woman.

  “Ursala Hemmings, whitster, that’s me, and live nearby, a friend to the starcher what works here,” she said in one long, ragged breath. “Thought you be night thieves or anglers breaking in and these your spotters, that’s what. I meant to send out a hue and cry for the night watch, but this basecourt codpiece grabbed me—”

  “Hold your tongue!” the queen ordered. “We came to see the starcher ourselves, for we do business with her.”

  Ursala gasped, then blurted, “Hey then, you ladies from the queen’s court come to fetch the royal starched goods? But where’s Hannah? Heard she’s ill. Or she been hurt?”

  “Yes, I regret to tell you she’s been hurt.”

  Ursala broke into tears. “That one, there,” she accused, pointing past Jenks at Bates, “been guarding her door and wouldn’t let me pass to see or help her earlier. Thought I’d sneak in at night,’cause Hannah’s not in her room near mine, and—something else gone amiss, hasn’t it? Something’s dreadful wrong!”

  Meg could always tell when Her Majesty had decided on someone, that is, whether to trust the person or not. She could see the queen was going to take this plucky woman into her confidence, at least to get out of her anything she could.

  “Yes, I regret to tell you, Mistress Hemmings,” the queen said quietly, “that Hannah has died, and not of her own hand.”

  “Murder?” Ursala screeched before Jenks clapped his hand over her mouth and held her tight again.

  “Meg,” the queen said, “run upstairs to tell the men to douse their lantern, uncover the windows, and follow us to the mews forthwith. Jenks, bring Mistress Hemmings along where we can talk more privily and quietly than shouting bloody murder in the night streets. Hie yourself now, before someone summons the night watch and we must explain more than just a whitster’s skulking about.”

  “I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Cecil told Elizabeth as they sat in the royal withdrawing room the next morning over mulled wine and partridge pie that had long gone cold. “A young woman, a starcher, of all things, murdered,” he went on, taking some sort of notes—Cecil was always writing something. “A great tragedy and a mighty mystery, I admit, Your Grace, but why not allow the ward constable and the coroner to deal with it?”

  “Because they might not be able to deal with it.” She pushed back her chair and went to look out the window. “Sad to say, some of this country’s constables reason things out on a level with my dear Jenks—’s blood, you know what I mean. Oh, for certain, they inquire of neighbors if anything was noted amiss, but if no one saw the murder directly, they close the books on it. Besides, I just have an inkling that this death might have ramifications.”

  “Are you worried, as Ned suggested, that clues and suspicions might lead straight to your master starcher and her husband?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Meg and Jenks may have gotten something out of the hysterical Mistress Hemmings by now, but I intend to pay a visit to the van der Passes’ starch house this morning. At the least, I will observe closely how they react when I give them the news of Hannah’s tragic death.”

  “You could summon them here.”

  “That might alarm them and give them time to hide something. Now that I’ve seen Hannah’s shop, I want a good look at theirs.”

  “Do you intend to search their residence as you did Hannah’s?”

  “A lot of good that did us,” she muttered. On the way back to the palace last night, the queen and Clifford had gone one street behind Hannah’s shop to her small single room, which Ursala had described. They’d found it stripped of whatever garments, personal effects, or money she might have had there. Someone had been in a big rush but had, once again, been clever enough not to leave clues to his or her own identity behind, besides the fact they were dealing with someone obviously dangerous and desperate. Elizabeth meant to have Ned inquire if those neighbors heard or saw anything strange, too.

  “If the van der Passes are to blame,” Cecil said, “I doubt you’d find one thing in their starch house or privy chambers to cast guilt on them.”

  “Yet I keep hoping,” she told him, her voice trembling, “that if we turn over enough rocks—or, in this case, stir up enough starch—a clue will turn up.”

  Frowning, she gazed over the broad Thames as it sprang to life with horse ferries, barges, and wherries plying the white-capped waves. The dawn sky tinted the water a pewter hue, and she thought again of the starch bath that had held poor Hannah.

  Elizabeth knew that she herself could have been killed in her youth, her future obliterated by her Catholic sister, Queen Mary, when she sent her to the Tower for her supposed part in a Protestant rebellion. Through a slit of window, she’d glimpsed the Thames and wished she could escape on it. Mary had wanted to execute—to murder—her. For more than justice’s sake in her realm, Elizabeth felt compelled to discover and pun
ish whoever was guilty of Hannah’s horrible death. Murder was always an immoral act, but murder of a clever, ambitious young woman in her prime was intolerable.

  She turned back and walked toward Cecil, who had become as silent as she. Neither of them had gone to bed last night; he looked normal, but exhaustion drained her. As she glanced down, she saw that, as if from a bird’s-eye view, he’d sketched a huge neck ruff with an open circle in the center, the outer part in sections like a pie cut in wedges.

  “I was fearful I’d see starched ruffs in my sleep,” she admitted, “but they obsess you, too? And why only six sections in it instead of many?”

  “Because, Your Majesty,” he said as he scribbled something else in, “that has oft been the number of guilty parties we must investigate when your privy plot counselors probe a murder.”

  She steadied herself with her hand on the back of his chair and leaned over his shoulder. As she watched, he made a big question mark in the center of the ruff where the wearer’s neck would go. He’d left three sections of the ruff itself blank, but he’d written in three others: Competitors Dirck and Dingen v. d. Passe? Lover? Disgruntled worker?

  “It bolsters me to know, Cecil, that your mind is already at work on this, too. I warrant we shall have additions to that chart, and hopefully deletions, for, yes, it could lead to economic chaos with our tailoring and textile commerce if our fledgling starch industry collapsed. If, that is, the van der Passes are somehow involved with the murder, so that I would lose Dingen as well as Hannah.”

  “Please, Your Grace,” Cecil said, jumping to his feet, evidently when he realized she stood while he sat, “just see that in all this, in addition to your regular royal duties, you don’t collapse.”

  “As dreadful as this is, I’ve been through worse,” she assured him. “I just pray God this investigation will not come near the throne or those I must rely on to rule and reign. Who would have known,” she added under her breath as she turned away to call for her coach and cloak, “that starch could become a fatal fashion?”

  “Can’t thank your lady and you both enough for your help,” Ursala Hemmings told Meg and Jenks for the fourth time since they’d awakened.

  Last night the woman had become nearly incoherent when she’d learned her friend had been murdered, so Her Majesty had asked the two of them to take her home and stay the night with her. As of yet, Meg realized, Ursala did not know the one she called “your lady” was England’s queen.

  Ursala Hemmings lived in two back rooms near St. Martin’s fields with her sister and sister’s husband, whom they had not roused. When Meg, Jenks, and Ursala finally became exhausted, they curled up for fitful sleep in big baskets of sheets amid washtubs and smaller soaking vats and barrels. As daylight crept into London’s narrow streets, only now, Meg judged, did Ursala Hemmings seem calm enough to question.

  Meg herself didn’t feel calm, though, and not only because she was anxious to get back to her daughter. Meg feared that if she hadn’t been sent along to watch him, Jenks might have comforted Ursala in more ways than one. The man was obviously smitten with this—this laundress, when Meg had never known him to be one bit fond of any woman but the queen and herself.

  And what if it turned out that Ursala was racked by guilt instead of grief? More than one woman—even purported friends—had murdered another over something or other, usually a man, which reminded Meg that she’d have to ask Ned privily if he had ever tried to entice Hannah with his charms. That’s all she’d need, Ned involved personally with the dead woman when the queen was hell-bent on solving this crime.

  As light seeped into the room to replace the glow of two tallow candles, Meg realized the laundry room’s vats and barrels of liquids reminded her of the starch tub in Hannah’s loft. Shelves lined two walls here, and Ursala had long wooden stirring sticks.

  “What’s all this liquid besides wash water?” she asked as the woman started to open the two small front street shutters. Though he wasn’t needed, Jenks scurried over to help. Meg glared at him behind Ursala’s back.

  “That first tub’s for soaking stubborn stains,” she explained, pointing. “Got alkaline water of lye in it. We buy wood ash from ovens, strain and mix it here. Real good to take out grease, tallow, and fat stains, sure is.”

  “And this?” Meg asked.

  “Oh, that’s just powder from ground sheep’s hooves for treating grease spots. Lots of those on tablecloths. Lemon juice takes out iron stains, and we rub fruit stains with butter, then wash them quick in hot milk. Fur pieces like those hanging over there just get brushed through with bran.”

  “Sounds like,” Jenks put in, “you’ve got everything in store we’d need for breakfast. But what are those big hooks on the wall?”

  “Oh, those,” she said with a slight smile his way. “Twisting hooks to wring water out’fore drying things outside. We reuse as much water as we can,’cause it’s such a burden, hauling it from city cisterns.”

  Meg hoped Ursala would answer questions about Hannah with the ease and equanimity with which she was talking now. “And this barrel is hard cider?” Meg asked, staring down into a potent-smelling vat.

  “Oh, that’s just sheep urine for soaking sweat-stained shirts. Then we wash them in hot water.”

  “That would cover up the sweat smell, all right,” Jenks said in a wry comment worthy of Ned. Meg jumped away from the vat, but the hint of another wan smile at Jenks lit Ursala’s tear-streaked face and tilted her blue eyes.

  “Mistress Hemmings,” Meg said, trying as much as she could to sound like the queen as she steered the woman over toward the big worktable, “I must ask you several questions about your friend Hannah. Do you know why her workers weren’t with her yesterday after midmorn?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, nodding vigorously as she sat and gripped her hands on the table. “Saw one of them, Dorothy, in the drying fields, said Hannah gave them a holiday after they came in. Surprised they were, every one of them.”

  “So that was unusual?” Meg prompted as Jenks came over to sit silently by Ursala on the plank bench.

  “You think the likes of us can afford giving our girls time off?” Ursala cried. “She promised them pay, and Hannah was close with money, too.”

  “But she didn’t give her women a reason for their impromptu holiday?”

  “Their what holiday? Was yesterday some saint’s day?” Ursala demanded. Jenks patted her shoulder. Meg reminded herself to ask the queen not to send him back to Ursala, but then, the queen should never have sent Ned to visit Hannah, either.

  “No, not a saint’s day,” Meg explained. “But you were in the fields across the way after Hannah let her women go?”

  “With my sister and our workers,” she said, nodding. “In that stiff wind, things dried fast, but we have to guard them. Lose a sheet or tablecloth sets us back a pretty penny.”

  “I can imagine. So you saw nothing at all unusual that day?”

  “Nary a thing. But—I just’membered a young lady what got lost, kept standing’bout, was mayhap mute or simple. Come to think of it, she kept looking up toward Hannah’s windows, she did.”

  Meg’s and Jenks’s gazes met.

  “So, mistress,” he said, “how was this young lady attired?”

  Propping her elbows on the table, Ursala put both hands over her eyes. “Keep only seeing her scairt face. Ah … she wore a blue cloak, had fine shoes on, with soles not worn much, neither.” She looked at Jenks, then Meg, in turn. “I tried to feed her, but she warn’t hungry. Can I get something then for the both of you?” she said, popping up as if her interrogation were over.

  The idea of having breakfast in a room with vats of lye and urine didn’t appeal to Meg, though Jenks looked as if he’d happily jump in one of them if he could please this woman.

  “We need to go speak with the lady that sent us,” Meg said, and stood before Jenks could answer.

  “But we’ll be back to be certain you’re well,” Jenks assured her, and reached over
to squeeze her shoulder. As Meg took Jenks’s arm to propel him along, the door at the back of the workroom opened. Another woman, the very image of Ursala, stood there with an older man behind her.

  “Who’s these folks, Lally?” the woman called out, but Ursala just followed them to the door.

  “My sister Pamela,” she explained as they stepped out into the street. For the first time, Meg saw that Ursala’s sweet face was dusted with light freckles. “Born the same day,” she went on, “but I’m older by a bit, and people always mistake us. We’re not close, though,” she whispered, “not since she wed. That’s Peter, her husband, what owns this place and her now, too. Hannah and I”—her blue eyes clouded with tears again and she sniffed hard—“she took my sister’s place when I kind of lost her, but now—she’s gone … Hannah had a twin sister, too—we had that in common …”

  Sensing Jenks was tempted to take Ursala, alias Lally, into his arms and wipe away her tears, Meg gripped his iron-muscled arm hard with her fingernails and steered him down the street. As they passed Hannah’s starch house, they saw Bates in front of it, earnestly speaking to the red-coated constable the queen or Secretary Cecil must have sent for.

  Dingen van der Passe’s starch establishment was at a similar distance from the palace as Hannah’s, but, considering what Elizabeth hoped to accomplish, she knew it was no good trying to sneak there in disguise. Simply informing her servants that she wanted to see the van der Passe starch house, she went in her coach with Lady Rosie out the main palace gate and down the broad Strand toward Holywell Street. As ever, when she appeared with an entourage, townfolk, especially children, followed along or huzzahed as she passed.