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The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits

Page 2

by Mike Ashley (ed)


  “Ursula Stannard?” said Shakespeare. “Really?”

  He and Alleyn joined the others at the window. Down below, there was a bustle of welcome for the coach and the riders who had accompanied it. A middle-aged man was handing a woman, probably his wife, down from his pillion and a pretty girl in a stylish riding dress was descending unaided from a good-looking roan horse. Two maidservants had run from the house to unload the luggage and a butler was helping an ageing lady in a dove-coloured dress, out of the coach. Rings flashed on her hands as she shook out her skirts. Another lady, in black, emerged from the coach after her and although she was the older of the two, she went at once to straighten the other’s hat and smooth a straying tendril of snowy hair back into place.

  “Is that Ursula Stannard? But she’s old! Her hair’s white.” Burbage was amazed. “I can hardly believe it, knowing who she is.”

  Ursula Stannard’s unusual past was one of those secrets which had been public knowledge for years. Her mother had been a maid of honour to Queen Anne Boleyn, and had been seduced by Henry the Eighth, with Ursula as a result. As a young woman at the court of her half-sister Queen Elizabeth, she had been employed not just as a Lady of the Bedchamber but also as an agent, helping to seek out plots and traitors.

  She was wealthy, partly because she had inherited money and a fine house from her late husband, but also in her own right, for she had been well rewarded for her services. On one occasion, so rumour said, she had saved the queen’s good name and possibly her throne. She had been given an estate of her own for that. To see her old and silver-haired took all of them aback.

  “I wonder, though,” said Shakespeare, “whether it’s just a coincidence that she’s here at the time of the peace conference.”

  “Surely not. She’s been retired for years,” said Furness. “I understand that the young girl is her granddaughter – the couple must be the girl’s parents – and is to be presented to King James at Whitehall, and then taken to Greenwich to join the queen’s household.”

  “Very peculiar,” remarked Burbage. “The king and queen don’t live together. A sorry example to set to the populace.”

  “I don’t live with my wife, most of the time,” said Shakespeare. “People work out their own ways of conducting their marriages. I have a wife, a son and two daughters and although I’m usually here and they’re in Warwickshire, I’d die for any of them.” His voice took on a tender note. “My daughters, especially. My dear daughters. Furness, can we all have another drink?”

  2

  From the moment my coach entered London on that summer afternoon, I sensed the change. This was not the London I remembered from sixteen years ago, the last time I had been there, when I came to congratulate Queen Elizabeth after the Armada was driven off. Now, it was 1604 and Elizabeth was dead. Her cousin King James of Scotland, ironically enough the son of Mary Stuart who had been one of Elizabeth’s most dangerous rivals, had England’s crown on his head and the change of ruler had, it seemed, infected the world though I, Ursula Stannard, living quietly in my houses in Surrey and Sussex, had not realized it before.

  I saw it now, however. The people in the London streets looked different. Hats were taller, there were fewer ruffs. I saw many folk in the austere dress of the Puritan sect which I had heard was becoming so influential. There were more coaches about, too, modern ones, less clumsy than mine. The very air smelt different. To me, it was unwelcoming.

  The journey had been no pleasure, either. At seventy, I could no longer sit a horse for further than a mile or two, while my friend and personal gentlewoman Sybil Jester was approaching eighty and couldn’t ride at all. I envied my daughter Meg, who at fifty could still manage the journey on the pillion behind her husband, George Hillman. But the unwieldy coach in which Sybil and I had travelled wasn’t much better than a horse. The two-day journey through scorching August weather from Withysham, my Sussex home, had been a purgatory of heat, dust and jolts. Why oh why had I ever listened to my daughter’s persuasions?

  “You know court protocol so well,” Meg had said, flatteringly, when she and George and their youngest girl, Philippa, came to stay with me before taking Philippa to London. “You were so helpful when we presented our elder daughters. Will you come with us again and advise us now that it’s Philippa’s turn?”

  So here I was, itching with prickly heat inside my long skirts and stiffened bodice and starched ruff, feeling my age, and wishing I’d said no.

  I felt better once I was indoors and sipping wine in the little parlour of the house that my steward John Malton had rented for us. The glitter of the Thames beyond the windows was enough to make one’s eyes ache, but the parlour was blessedly dim and cool, and comfortable too, with its cushioned settles and the spinet in one corner.

  “I never expected to see London again,” I said to Sybil. “It’s strange, knowing the queen isn’t here. We weren’t always in accord, but – I loved her, you know.”

  “At least, you’re not here this time to become involved in plots and politics and run into danger, the way you often were in the old days!” Sybil looked round the parlour. “These are good lodgings. They have their own steps down to the river, by the way; have you seen them? John Malton is efficient, I must say. Well, I suppose it’s in his family. Didn’t you tell me that his grandfather was a steward at Withysham, once?”

  “Yes. John joined the army and disappeared to Ireland for a while, but when he applied to me on his return, I was happy to have him.”

  “He’s done well by us,” Sybil said. “And we have the whole house to ourselves except for our landlady and the maids.”

  “Our landlady isn’t likely to be a trouble to us.” I was amused. Mistress Catherine Bennett was a nervous creature in her forties, all stammers and curtseys and we had realized, the moment we arrived, that John Malton had got her thoroughly intimidated. Judging from her unadorned black dress, she was of the Puritan persuasion but she had provided us with a whole list of little luxuries at her own expense, from bowls of Spanish oranges to perfumed hot washing water to the excellent white wine, cooled in her cellar, which we were now enjoying.

  My amusement was brief, though. Talking of Malton had reminded me of other servants, of Roger Brockley and Fran Dale, my companions through so many years and so many dangers. They were long gone now, like the old adventurous days. Like Elizabeth. I missed Elizabeth above all. What sort of court would this be, presided over by the Scottish stranger James? What sort of England would he create? Not one I would recognize, of that I felt sure.

  The parlour door opened, to admit Meg and George and their daughter. It also, surprisingly, admitted a wave of noisy music and masculine laughter from somewhere near at hand.

  “What in the world . . .?” I demanded, starting up.

  “I’m afraid there’s a party next door,” said George Hillman ruefully. He was a most amiable and tolerant man but even he blenched slightly, as the din crescendoed. “He’s a King’s Player called Thomas Furness and today he has guests. The landlady says they’re probably getting drunk. But she also says he doesn’t have gatherings like that very often. She says that normally, we’ll hardly be aware of our neighbours.”

  “I hope not, indeed!” said Sybil indignantly.

  The business of presenting Philippa to King James went well, however. He was more agreeable than I expected. His charming and dangerous mother had plotted to get Elizabeth assassinated and to seize her throne, if necessary with the help of a Spanish army; his dissolute father Henry Darnley had been murdered, very likely with Mary Stuart’s connivance. But King James, though he had a slight physical resemblance to his father, was quiet and courteous. He greeted Philippa kindly and thanked me for my former services to the Crown. He said he hoped for a peaceful reign and a prosperous England. Almost, he made me feel in tune with the unfamiliar new world of his court.

  Now, we had delivered my granddaughter safely to the queen’s residence at Greenwich and were returning by river to our lodgings
. “Well, that’s done,” I said, as our hired boat made its way upstream. “I hope Philippa won’t be homesick. Queen Anna seems kindhearted.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Meg said. “She’s still struggling with the English language, isn’t she? I suppose it’s very different from Danish. At least she isn’t pretentious. When we sent our eldest girl to court, she came back to us with nothing in her head but fashion and scandal.”

  “She also got a good husband,” said George. “Nothing like showing a girl off in the right circles. Philippa will be all right. She has all your common sense, my love.”

  “Well, you two have no more daughters to launch and frankly, I’m relieved,” I told them. I looked up at the sky. The weather had changed from a heatwave to overcast skies and out on the water, the wind was sharp. I pulled my cloak more firmly round me and added: “I’ve rented the house for two more weeks so that Meg and I can do some London shopping but I shall be glad enough when I set off for home, I must say.”

  “You need to rest. We’re nearly back to the lodgings,” said George. “Boatman, those are our river steps, over there. Pull in.”

  “I’ll sleep after dinner,” I said as we climbed the steep steps up to the river entrance of the house, with George lending Sybil a hand. “This evening, Meg, we might try out the spinet in the parlour. We could . . .”

  “Welcome back, Mistress Stannard,” said John Malton, stepping out of the door to meet us. Mistress Bennett was hovering just behind him. “I apologize for troubling you the moment you arrive but there’s a young lady to see you.”

  “She’s just come,” said Mistress Bennett. “And she was that insistent about speaking to you. You were already getting out of your boat and I said to Mr Malton, she looks a decent body, nothing of the hussy about her, so why not let her wait in the parlour; they’ll be here in a moment . . .”

  “Personally, I would have turned her away and told her to come back at a more suitable time,” said Malton. “But, as Mistress Bennett says, she was insistent. I therefore allowed her to wait. She wishes to see you, she says, concerning the Spanish conference, and it’s urgent.”

  “What Spanish conference?” I asked blankly.

  “Did she ask for my mother by name?” Meg enquired.

  “Yes, madam. She also said the matter was of national importance.”

  “Really?” George had raised his eyebrows.

  Sotto voce, Sybil murmured: “Oh, no!”

  “All I want is a good dinner and then a nap in a quiet room with the shutters closed and a coverlet over me,” I said sourly. “But . . .”

  “Mother, you shouldn’t be disturbed like this. George will deal with her. Won’t you, George?”

  “Certainly, if Mistress Stannard wishes.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “If she asked for me, then I must see her. Did she give her own name?”

  “Yes, madam. Eleanor Powell.”

  “I’ve never heard of her or this Spanish conference but I’ll find out what she wants.” I handed my cloak to Malton and nodded to the others. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Mistress Eleanor Powell was in the parlour, seated on a cushioned stool. She was a sturdy girl with pleasant blue eyes and crimped brown hair and she looked both respectable and sensible in her black hat and cloak. Malton, annoyed by her intrusion, had evidently not offered to take them. Her dark green gown was a practical affair of thin wool, and her hands were clasped in her lap. There was a wedding ring on her left hand. She stood up as I came in, but I saw to my surprise that she was trembling.

  “Please sit down again,” I said. “You are Eleanor Powell? I am Mistress Ursula Stannard and I believe you wish to see me.”

  “You are the Ursula Stannard?” She sat down as bidden, but kept imploring eyes on me.

  “I suppose so,” I said, slightly startled. “Yes.”

  “Then it’s you I want. It’s vital.” Her accent was that of an educated Londoner but her voice seemed oddly weak. She shook her head as though this somehow surprised her, or as if she wanted to clear her sight. “The Spanish conference,” she said. “The peace conference. There are those who don’t like it. I know nothing of court folk so I didn’t know who to tell. I’ve heard of you, though. You’ll know who to go to. You must tell someone – someone at court. You must warn them.”

  “Warn them about what?”

  “About someone who wants to ruin the conference. It’s difficult. I . . . I’m sorry,” said my guest. She had gone very pale, “I don’t feel quite myself. I . . .”

  “Mistress Powell, if you could tell me a little more . . . Mistress Powell!”

  Something was horribly wrong. All of a sudden, her eyes had widened and become huge and fixed. I stepped towards her in alarm and as I did so, she fell forward off the stool. Ignoring the creakiness of my ageing knees, I crouched down beside her. “Mistress Powell? What is it?” She had turned her head to one side as she fell and I saw that her eyes were open and fixed. I put a hand on her shoulder and then realized that what had looked like an accidental bunching of the cloak was due to something hard jutting out beneath it. At the same time I felt a dampness under my fingers and when I lifted my hand, I saw the scarlet stain.

  I dragged the cloak aside. From her back, poking through the material of her dress, was the hilt of a little knife, or dagger. It was silver, chased with a delicate pattern. Blood stained the green fabric around it and some had soaked into the cloak which was too dark in colour to show it. There wasn’t much, anyway. The blade of the weapon must be very fine, I thought. And the whole length of it had been driven into her body. Now, Eleanor Powell was dead.

  I had seen violent death before, more often than I liked. I did not scream. Quietly, I stood up and called for the rest of the household. I thought I did so calmly, but something in my tone must have spoken of emergency, for they took only seconds to come crowding into the parlour.

  “Malton,” I said, “she was alive when she arrived. Has anyone else been in here since, between her arrival and ours?”

  “No, Madam. It was only minutes. Mistress Bennett was with me and the maids were in the kitchen. I could hear them chattering and stirring things, all the time. Madam, when I was soldiering in Ireland, we were ambushed at one point and I saw a man, stabbed in the back like this, fight on for quite a while before he collapsed. We drove our attackers off and tried to help him. For a few minutes, he could still speak to us. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He died not knowing he’d got a knife in his back. One of our officers, a very experienced man, told me that a thin blade can slip in almost without pain and may not kill at once.”

  “I’ve heard that said, as well.” George Hillman leant down to take hold of the girl’s cloak and pulled its folds wide. “Look. There’s no rent in this. She was stabbed before she put it round her, or else someone caught at it and lifted it aside. The weight of it as it swung against that hilt might have driven it that fraction deeper, making the wound more lethal. It can’t have happened very long before she got here, but I’d say she had the blade in her when she arrived.”

  “However it happened,” I said, “this was murder. And it’s something to do with a Spanish conference. I know nothing about that, but it sounds important – politically important. Is Sir Robert Cecil at court?”

  “They took me to Whitehall, to be questioned by Sir Robert Cecil himself!” wept Mistress Bennett, clutching my arm as Meg and I, murmuring “There, there,” helped her into her bedchamber and on to her bed.

  “I was never so frightened!” wailed Mistress Bennett. I felt sorry for her. She had been in floods of terrified tears when she was marched out of the house, along with John Malton and the two maidservants and probably hadn’t stopped crying since. All were now back, unharmed, but the maidservants had been weeping as well and even Malton looked pale while Mistress Bennett was still hysterical. “That Sir Robert – his eyes are so cold!” She continued to cling to me, “If Malton and I hadn’t been together the whole time when t
hat girl came here . . .”

  “We could vouch for each other and for the maidservants too, and the maids bore us out.” Malton had come in with a hot wine posset. He took it to Mistress Bennett. “Drink that, mistress. It will make you feel better. I was at hand when Mistress Bennett opened the door; we showed the girl to the parlour together and we went out together to meet you. The maids were both in the kitchen with the door open and could see all we did and I know they didn’t leave their work. No one in this house harmed the girl and I think the authorities are now satisfied.”

  “But they questioned me and questioned me!” shrieked Mistress Bennett. “They kept asking what I knew about this Spanish conference! What Spanish conference, I said; I’ve never heard of it; what are you talking about? I thought I’d be taken to the Tower and put in a dungeon. I thought I’d be going to the block, or worse! The way they looked at me . . .!”

  “Hush, hush!” said Meg kindly. “Drink your posset.”

  “All because I’m a Puritan and my daughter Kate’s wed to one and he does some preaching against fripperies and idle gossip, but he’s a respectable man, is Mr White, and nor, I said, is my Kate the girl that died on my parlour floor. My Kate’s at her home in Chelsea Village; you go there and see!”

  “Dear Mistress Bennett,” I said. “I’m sure no one thinks you had anything to do with it. None of us had. Meg and I and Mr Hillman are to see Sir Robert again ourselves tomorrow, after the inquest. Perhaps he will have news for us. Perhaps we’ll know by then just who this girl is.”

  I had been right to seek an audience with Sir Robert Cecil. One mention of a Spanish conference, and he had seized charge of the enquiry into Eleanor Powell’s death.

  “There are several angles to follow,” he said. He sounded tired, and looked worried. “Who killed this young woman, is someone trying to ruin the conference and if so, who – and who in the world is Eleanor Powell anyway? So far, we have no answers. Thank you, by the way, Mistress Stannard, for arranging her funeral. If her relatives ever appear, I’m sure they’ll be grateful, too. If they appear. She had a wedding ring so Powell was probably her husband’s surname but as you know, no one came forward at the inquest to claim her. If we knew who she was and where she came from, the rest might unravel at once. As yet, the whole thing is a mystery.”

 

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