‘Marjorie sent for us, for me and Edmund,’ said Lisa. ‘We arrived two hours ago and Edmund went straight up to see him. Edmund said it was a chance for a fraternal reunion. They’re both upstairs now. Neither of us have seen George since our wedding day and that was nearly a quarter of a century ago. He was invited, in spite of what he’d done, and he came, but I only saw him that once.’
Aunt Tabitha cocked her head. ‘I think I hear someone coming down the stairs. Perhaps it’s them.’
The door opened. ‘Yes, here they are,’ said Thomas as he and his sister once more came respectfully to their feet.
Marjorie, in a strangled voice, introduced the brothers. They were a striking pair. Edmund was a big, square fellow with pale brown eyes and a high colour. He had a prominent, aquiline nose, a thick curled mouth and a tangle of curls, greying from their original sandy. He reminded me of a statue I had once seen, of some Roman emperor or other. Edmund wore a fine wool doublet and matching hose in a violet shade but he would have looked at home in a toga. If he had spent his boyhood on an unproductive smallholding, he had clearly prospered in adult life. I glanced at his hair and its sandy traces and then looked at Thomas and thought that one day, the boy would closely resemble his father. He already had the aquiline nose and he was even developing the same shape of mouth.
The errant George, who was visibly the elder of the two, was taller and thinner than his brother, with jutting cheekbones, though he had the same sensual mouth and the same light brown eyes. His clothes were certainly good but they were well-worn. The pale green doublet and the puffed breeches were of lightweight velvet, suitable for summer, rippling softly and gleaming like water in the light, but there were signs of scuffing on the elbows and a small darn on the left hip of the breeches. His knitted stockings and the satin slashings on his sleeves were deep blue but again, there was a darn on one stocking. Yet his big shoe buckles were silver and he wore a handsome pendant. Amethyst, I thought, in a silver setting. Yes, this was a man who had once prospered but had lately fallen on hard times.
After Marjorie’s stiff introductions, greetings were exchanged. An uneasy silence fell.
With George in the room, his wife could hardly ask advice on how to rid herself of him. Aunt Tabitha, however, always a stickler for the proprieties, broke the hush by enquiring after George’s health, learned that he had lately suffered from a cough, and began to recommend remedies. ‘Horehound is one of the best, I find, and the most effective way to prepare the linctus is …’
The recipe was fully described and then Lisa gallantly added a contribution. ‘Mullein is a useful remedy too. You can make an infusion of it, or an ointment to rub into the chest. The way to do it …’
The words useful and chest came out as utheful and chetht, and as she spoke, I saw George’s glance light on her with a curious intensity. It was noticeable, enough to make her stop speaking and return his glance with a puzzled look.
He answered the unspoken question. ‘Sister-in-law, I have only seen you once before as far as I know, at your wedding – when you were a slender lass in a blue dress rather too big for you – but I could almost swear that I saw you once in Cornwall, though I didn’t realize who you were. It was some years ago, in Penzance, at an auction of rare furs from the New World. I have long been in the habit of travelling there from time to time to bid when consignments come in. There are a couple of ships plying out of Penzance that bring skins in regularly. I have an arrangement with a friend there, to let me know when auctions are to be. It’s well worth the trouble of journeying to Cornwall.’
‘I’m thure it is,’ said Lisa. For some reason, she sounded nervous.
‘Indeed,’ George said, still studying her in that oddly intense fashion. ‘It’s amazing, the kind of furs those ships bring in. There are glorious skins from some creature rather like a leopard, only the pelts are bigger and the spots are differently patterned. They come from the central part of the New World, where there are jungles. And there are tawny skins from some animal like a small lion, and skins from bears and a multitude of sleek, glossy little animals … oh, it was a good many years ago, but I am sure I saw you at one of those sales. You were interested in one very beautiful black bear pelt. I am sure I heard you say that it would make a fine rug for a hearth, perhaps as a gift for someone. You had a man with you who bid on your behalf, successfully, I believe.’
Lisa turned slightly pink and looked uncomfortable. ‘You are mistaken, I think, George.’ Her lisp made her stumble over the word mistaken, which sounded more like mithtaken. ‘I have indeed been to Cornwall on occasion. We have a small property there, Rosmorwen. But I can’t recall that I ever attended an auction of furs. In fact, I can’t recall that I ever went to Penzance. Rosmorwen is some distance from it. You saw someone who resembled me, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps I am wrong,’ said George. He stared thoughtfully at the crumb-strewn rug in front of the hearth and then turned to his wife. ‘But my dear Marjorie, that rug was surely made from a bearskin.’
Lisa glanced at Marjorie and I could have sworn that it was a look of appeal. At any rate, Marjorie said smoothly: ‘So it is, but Cat and I bought it together, in London. It was imported from somewhere in the heart of Europe.’
‘Ah,’ said George. And then remarked that the room was cold. ‘This spring weather is so treacherous. Marjorie, my dear, could we not have a fire in here?’
That was the beginning. Admittedly, it was sheer chance that caused me to be there at that significant moment, although of course I didn’t know of its significance. But yes, that was when it started, when the deadly seed was sown. Which ultimately flowered into murder.
FOUR
Love in the Air
Neither my aunt nor I were of much if any help to Marjorie during our short stay, for there was nothing that we could suggest. The same applied to Lisa and Edmund. Edmund, indeed, was blunt about it. The law was all on George’s side, he said roundly. Marjorie would be wise to make the best of things. George, after all, was her husband. ‘No one can order a man to leave his own house!’ he said.
Afterwards, when Aunt Tabitha and I talked privately to Marjorie, in her room, Marjorie sobbed out her resentment of this advice.
‘It’s like the end of everything. How dare Edmund say that this is George’s house? He hasn’t been near me for years and years. Whatever the lawyers may say, it’s my house. Cat left it to me. I miss Cat so and now I have to endure this instead! George expects me to look after him. Well, I don’t want to! What has he been to me, all this time? Cat and I were so happy together! Have you seen our garden at the back of the house? We made it so pretty. And Cat brought a spinet with her. We used to make music together in the evenings. If only she were here!’
‘It may not be so bad,’ said my aunt bracingly. ‘After all, George may not be much trouble …’
‘He’s trouble already! Meals on time – he says when. His choice of dishes! Shirts to wash and press, his shirts! He goes away and then comes back after all this time and thinks he has a right to demand my services! Robert’s as bad. I haven’t heard from him for years, either – he’s in France, that’s all I know, working for a vineyard owner, I think, but George is in touch with him and it seems when his red-headed whore died, he wrote to tell Robert and whine that he’d been left all alone with no one to cook his meals or wash his linen, and it was apparently Robert who wrote back advising him to come home and batten on me!’
I said: ‘Oh, dear,’ and my aunt tut-tutted, neither of which was very helpful. Marjorie raged on.
‘They’re selfish, both of them, they seem to think a woman is just there for them to use when it suits them and ignore the rest of the time, as if she were something put away in a cupboard when not wanted and do you know, I said that to George, when he first walked in, and he laughed, yes he did, he just laughed and said, yes, that’s it exactly, that’s what women are for! When I said I could kill him, I meant it!’
I hoped that George wouldn’t f
all ill and die in the near future. I would never feel quite sure that Marjorie hadn’t helped him to it.
‘But there it is. He is still your husband, Marjorie.’ Aunt Tabitha was not unsympathetic but spoke an air of simple realism. And indeed, she spoke the truth.
I was sorry for Marjorie, though. Even during the short time since our arrival, her plumpness seemed to have fallen in, as though she were shrinking inside her skin. She struck me as a woman made by nature for a placid domestic life, of caring for a home, doing fine sewing – I now knew that the pretty cushions in the parlour had been embroidered by Marjorie and Cat – playing the spinet, entertaining friends and shopping. From now on, Marjorie would be a servant to a man whose demands threatened to wipe these calm pleasures from her world. And there was no help for it.
My aunt and I and our companions did stay for a few days. We spent the nights in the Running Horse inn, a pleasant gabled black-and-white hostelry by the river Mole. Here we hired bedchambers, but we spent the daytimes with Marjorie, I think in the hope of somehow encouraging her, steadying her against the demands of her altered future.
Lisa and Edmund and the twins, who had been staying in the house, left after two days, a little to my regret, because I liked the twins. They were very quiet in the presence of their parents but otherwise they were lively enough. Jane was a feminine girl, fond of pretty dresses and particular about having clean white ruffs; Thomas, boylike, was interested in horses and helped their groom to care for the horses and the pack pony they had brought with them from their home.
The house seemed oddly quiet after they had gone, and three days after that, realizing that we were of no more use, Aunt Tabitha and I also made our farewells. Once back in Sussex, I took the Brockleys back to Withysham and we stayed there for two weeks, visiting Faldene often, but Aunt Tabitha was as far beyond the reach of help as Marjorie. My company gave her, I think, a little relief; I was someone to talk to, a distraction when Uncle Herbert was particularly grumpy, and that I had come to her at all perhaps gave her a feeling of family support. But at the end of the fortnight, having accomplished nothing much, I took my party back to Hawkswood.
Once there, other things arose to occupy me. Most were to do with the house and the stud of trotting horses that I was building up, to be Harry’s inheritance. To accommodate it, I had rented some land from a farmer whose fields marched with ours (he was getting old and was glad to make money out of his land without having to work it), and I’d had stabling built there. The work of the stud was getting beyond my own grooms and I needed to find a couple more, whose duties could be exclusively with the stud. In addition, Joseph’s courtship of Tessie had ripened. There was a wedding to plan.
But in early July, a friend of mine from court, Christopher Spelton, arrived, bringing news which would take me away from home once more. Christopher was officially a Queen’s Messenger but also acted as a secret agent, as I sometimes did. This time, though, he was simply a Messenger. He had a letter for me, from Lord Burghley, Sir William Cecil, the queen’s Lord Treasurer and her most loved and trusted adviser.
He gave me the letter in the larger Hawkswood parlour, usually known as the east room because it received the morning sun. It was also quiet, being well away from the kitchen end of the house. If anyone in the east room wanted to call for service, they had to step out through the adjoining music room and the overflow linen store beyond, and shout.
After some conventional enquiries about my health and well-being, Cecil’s letter asked me, in the near future, to come to court and stay for a while.
The old idea of a marriage between her majesty and a member of the French royalty has been revived. This would be a means of strengthening a treaty we hope to make with France, under which the two countries would come to each other’s aid if threatened. The most likely source of a threat, of course, is Spain, and that will be so, I fear, as long as Mary Stuart of Scotland is here in England and yearning to find support for putting her back on the Scottish throne. Her majesty’s marriage might also, God willing, bring the country an heir. There is still time. Her majesty’s physicians have confirmed this.
But her majesty is ill at ease with the plan and I confess that along with some other Council members, I too have doubts. The suggested bridegroom is Francis, Duke of Anjou, though the queen is still apt to speak of him by his former title, the Duke of Alençon. He is said to be not handsome, and at twenty-three, he is of course much younger than her majesty. However, he is also said to be cultured and witty, which may well appeal to her. Like the queen, he needs an heir, since his brother King Henry III of France seems unlikely to get one. Francis of Alençon is the heir at the moment and needs a posterity.
The final decision must be hers, but for the moment she is not decisive. She blows hot and cold. I think she feels she should – even must – consent to this marriage, but she has always seemed to fear the thought of matrimony. Her ladies try to encourage her, but you are her sister and have an understanding of her that is bred in you, and she both loves and trusts you.
I am writing, in fact, at the behest of her majesty, to ask you to come to court as soon as you may find convenient and do what you can to advise her majesty wisely. She may well require you simply to keep her spirits up and her resolution steady, until Alençon can come to England to speak for himself. He is expected next month. She will agree to nothing anyway until she has seen him. His servant Jean de Simier has been to England with gifts, to start the courtship, but it can go no further until the principals have met …
‘You know what is in this?’ I asked Spelton.
‘The gist of it, yes. It’s an order, disguised as a request, I fancy.’ Christopher was a stocky man with a balding head and nice brown eyes, which now smiled at me with full understanding. He knew all about my secret activities. ‘But at least, as an assignment, it’s fairly safe!’ he said.
‘For me,’ I said. ‘But in other ways, it’s alarming! What is the Council thinking of? The queen is in her mid-forties! And she has always feared marriage, for good reasons! Yet, if she asks it, I am – at least, I think I am – expected to encourage her? That’s what this letter seems to be suggesting! And I think the whole idea is madness!’
‘I understand,’ said Christopher, ‘that the queen feels the marriage may be necessary. Does the letter say that she is seeking your help herself? Because I believe that that is the case.’
‘Yes, it does. Though what form that help is to take … well, really, it isn’t clear. Well, I had better go. Am I needed instantly, do you think? The letter does say as soon as you may find convenient. I have things to do here. Two of my servants – my groom Joseph and Harry’s nurse, Tessie – are to marry in four days’ time. I want to be here for that.’
‘I think that would be all right. I intend to ride on to pay a brief call on the Lakes before going back to court. I can come through Hawkswood again on my way back and escort you to Hampton Court. That’s where the court is just now.’
‘Have you any special business with Eric and Kate?’
Christopher looked abashed. ‘Not really. It would be a social call. Eric is my cousin, after all. I helped to arrange for him to be introduced to Kate! God, if only I’d known! I’d hardly noticed her before, though I’d travelled with you both, for days. It wasn’t till I saw her on the day they were introduced to each other, dressed so beautifully, the centre of attention, as though a strong light were playing on her, that I saw … and by then, I knew how brave she’d been when you were both in danger. What I’ve missed! I can’t help myself. I just want to see her, to make sure all is well with her. I’ll do no harm. I just want, now and then, to be in Kate’s presence. I think of myself’ – his eyes were rueful – ‘as a knight in one of those old romances, worshipping his lady from afar, but ready to serve her if at any time she has need of me.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘No,’ said Christopher candidly. ‘But as I said, I can’t help myself.’
‘Between
the queen, and my Joseph and Tessie, and now you, love seems to be in the air,’ I said. ‘Though not all of it in the happiest way.’ I looked at him with kindness. Once, he had proposed marriage to me and I had declined. It had been a somewhat practical proposal; we liked each other, but he hadn’t pretended to be in love. Later, I began to think that nevertheless it could have been a good marriage for me. Only by then he had fallen genuinely in love with Kate. Who was married to Eric Lake and had no idea of the longings in the breast of a stocky, balding Queen’s Messenger with friendly brown eyes.
‘I will come with you to see Eric and Kate,’ I said. ‘As long as your visit really is short. I’ve seen nothing of Kate for months; I’d like to call on her. We can be back here in good time for the wedding, and directly after that, I’ll come to court and you shall be part of my escort, along with the Brockleys.’
FIVE
Catastrophe
Eric Lake was of yeoman stock and West Leys, his home on the other side of Guildford, although we often referred to it as a manor, only just qualified for the title. It was a pleasant half-timbered dwelling on a hillside, facing west, as its name implied, with the higher part of the hill sloping gently above it towards a saddleback. A path from the back of the house ran up to the saddleback and Kate had told me that it was a walk that she and Eric liked to take on summer mornings.
‘The rising sun hovers over the dip as though it were there to greet us as we reach the top,’ she said. ‘We love it.’
The farmland that went with the house spread in front of it, down the hill and into a valley with a river running through. When I arrived, escorted by Spelton, on a warm July afternoon, I thought that the land looked in good heart, and I noticed that the cows grazing there were glossy and healthy.
A Deadly Betrothal Page 4