"Do you know where he is, Mrs Morgan?" asked the priest.
"Ah... he often stays at Westminster when a court case sits late or is likely to begin early because a boat is no more expensive than a bed at an inn." She was improvising wildly. "He would certainly be annoyed at me for coming home so late if he were here."
"So would I, ma'am," said the priest, "If you were my sister. The world alas contains wicked men."
"Hm," she said, looking narrowly at him through the holes of her mask. "So were you hoping to stay the night again?"
He nodded, looking miserable.
"I have not found any Catholics to help me," he said, "It seems Mrs Crosby has blasted my name among them as a traitor."
Now that was interesting. So the idiot priest was loose and friendless in London. Unfortunately, thanks to her ridiculous impulse of the night before and the terrifying stand off in the small hours, he now held her safety in his mouth. If he was caught and tortured, no doubt he would put James Enys among the first names he gave up.
"I'm sorry, mistress," he said again, his shoulders sagging, "I understand. I was hoping to impose on your brother's kindness but I can't..."
"But didn't my brother tell you to leave London?"
"He did," said the priest, "but every time I tried to hire a horse or get a boat upriver, I saw some kind of pursuivant or tunnage and poundage man on the watch."
Portia bit her lip to stop herself asking him why he didn't simply walk. Since the new Armada in the summer and more Jesuits caught in the spring, London had been full of informers and watchers and it would only be good sense to keep a watch on boats and livery stables. Probably he had just hunkered down somewhere, too frightened to move.
"My brother spoke well of you," she said, slowly and hesitantly. For God's sake, she had to do something, they couldn't stand here gossiping on the landing, her neighbours would talk. "He didn't tell me what to do if you came back but I think he would wish me to help you if I can."
"Your reputation..."
"Is already in your hands, isn't it, Father? I'm a married woman, a widow, you a priest. Surely I can trust you?"
It didn't necessarily follow but she smiled and then remembered he wouldn't see it. She had to take the chance.
Decision made, she unlocked the door and waved him in. She looked carefully down the stairs in case someone had been listening, but they were dark and empty. She just had to hope that Topcliffe wouldn't bother to raid her chambers twice.
She had not had time to set any pot of food among the banked coals and so had nothing ready. Still. There was something pleasant about playing the hostess again, without having to remember to speak deep and do things carelessly. And Mr Briscoe had kept his promise to send her a load of coals so she had plenty in the coal scuttle, even if she didn't like the smell and dirt they made. Wood was much nicer but impossibly expensive.
Young Father Bellamy came in and looked round. Just as he did she saw her cloak and sword still hanging on the hook, which James would certainly have taken with him. It was in shadow, had Felix Bellamy seen? She wasn't sure.
"Do you have a jordan, ma'am?" asked priest in a strained voice, "I fear..."
Thank God, she thought. "Under the bed," she said, pointing, shut the door of the bedchamber behind him and quickly grabbed the sword, cloak and – oh Jesus - worse still, her brother's hat from their pegs on the wall. She stuffed them quickly in the clothes chest, probably denting the hat but no matter.
By the time Felix Bellamy had come back she had got the fire restarted and the flames were leaping up in the luxurious Newcastle coals, she had the dish-of-coals by the fireplace to warm up, she had looked in the food safe and found that the bread had gone mouldy but there were a couple of sausages and a couple of slices of bacon, more apples which had been on special offer because bruised at one of the market stalls, butter and cheese. She thanked the Lord she had laid in plenty of supplies when she had been paid. Fr Bellamy came out of the bedchamber looking a little less tense, followed by a certain miasma of bad bowels which she thought she would leave to clear before she investigated.
She ushered him into the chair with carved arms and fetched ale for him which he drank in the manner of one who hasn't drunk all day. She poured him more and he sighed.
"Ma'am, you are too good to me to be a Protestant. Are you sure you are not a Catholic and your brother mistaken?"
"I was baptised one in Cornwall," she said, "It was early in the Queen's reign, bless her, and everyone thought she would surely marry the King of Spain and we would all go back to Mother Church."
"And now?"
"I go to church when I can bear it," she said quietly in a voice that forbad further probing. At least he came off that tack.
"Do you wear your mask always?" he asked.
"When I am with people I don't know and when I go out of the house..." Oh Jesu, what could she say? He had worn her mask himself last night when she had ostensibly been out... "I have several, in case I lose one. For months and months I couldn't stir at all and my brother did everything for me and then... Well then cirumstances led to wearing a mask which answers well." Had she bought it as herself or as James? She couldn't remember? She'd better buy another one soon.
"Perhaps I could say a Mass for you and your brother as a small thanksgiving for your kindness to me?" asked Felix Bellamy. She felt herself colouring but with temper not modesty. Could he not get the point?
"I'm sorry Father, I dare not. I don't worry myself with the niceties of religion and I dislike going to church as often as I should because the place is full of people who stare at me – that is, I'm sure they don't, but I feel they do and it makes me ill and faint. I am not a recusant; my brother would hardly be able to practise as a barrister in her Majesty's courts if I were, I think."
Bellamy shook his head and tutted. God damn it, what could she do with him? She really didn't care about his precious religion since all the varieties of them she had ever heard of served the God who had robbed her of her children, but she did care about his safety since on it rested her own.
Perhaps he could be educated in logic a little?
"Did you wonder why the woman you were staying with before, why she spread it around that you were the traitor that brought Topcliffe down on the congregation?"
Felix shook his head. She used the tongs to pick out the hottest of the red coals to put in her dish-of-coals and shut the grill lid. "I was so shocked at the injustice of it," he said sadly.
"Hm. Well perhaps the traitor was Mrs Crosby herself, trying to get rid of you, especially as you say she wasn't there when the raid took place?"
He nodded. "I wondered if it was her, though I tried to be more charitable." She shook the coals and laid the sausages on the grill.
"Somebody's got to take the blame and it might as well be you. You're on your own and unofficial to boot."
"She did say she was waiting for five of my colleagues when I came, in fact she thought I was their harbinger."
"There you are then, it was Mrs Crosby sold you for a certainty and blasted your reputation to protect her own."
He scowed at that and Portia fel the beginnings of a plan stir in her. Or something similar. She had to concentrate on cooking as the sausages started sizzling and she took out the bread and cut the bits of mould off, then sliced it and buttered both sides. The meaty smell rose up and she stood to open the window but young Bellamy forestalled her and opened it himself, staying well back as he did. Maybe he wasn't that young, he just seemed young.
"Perhaps you could go to Mrs Crosby," she said slowly as she set pewter plates by the fire to warm up. Those had been the first out of pawn. "Perhaps you could talk to her and say that you know she betrayed you and that you'll have to do likewise to her in the matter of the other priests coming to stay."
He frowned. "Why?"
"So she'll give you money, help you out of London to get rid of you?"
"Might she not betray me again?"
"Ye
s, she might. Make her give you three different routes and then choose one at random and take it immediately."
"Tonight?"
"Very early tomorrow morning," said Portia. "At least get some money from her so you can eat without coming back here."
"I don't know," said Bellamy and his whole round face drew down with unhappiness. "I don't think I should stay..."
"Phooey. Seeing my whole life is in your hands now... and my brother's, you may as well stay the night and I'll have to trust to your vows."
He inclined his head to her. She started the bacon and found a pan to put on the dish-of-coals to make a mess of eggs from some of the preserved ones Ellie Briscoe had insisted on giving her. With the fried bread as sippets there was enough for both of them.
He caught her out again when he said a Grace over his food. She had completely got out of the habit. She waited and when he had picked up his knife and spoon again, she poured him ale and smiled. It was actually a pleasure to sit over food with another human being, since the grey tabby cat had limited conversation. She almost said this before she caught herself. After all, according to the story she wanted Felix Bellamy to believe, she sat like this with her brother almost every night, didn't she – as she had when her infuriating brother had been here and in a way she had become his ghost. Even as a ghost, his existence had given her amazing confidence.
Well it was clear the boy hadn't managed to eat that day either, so she was glad she had the food. Poor little unshorn lamb, it was a pity his God didn't see fit to temper the wind to him. But perhaps he would see it as a salutary testing of his faith. And perhaps she was part of that Godly tempering which if true, she found irritating. She wanted no part of God's schemes.
In the candlelight as he concentrated on his food, she thought to her own surprise, he's a good-looking man. It was true his face was round and boyish and he wasn't big or strong or her stratagem of yesterday could not have worked. His brown hair was cut close though he obviously hadn't visited a barber recently and his beard was growing past the confines of its goatee trim. But he had a charming diffident smile and a dimple in the middle of his chin which she suddenly thought of putting her finger on.
She coughed and looked down at her food, stopped eating. She was a little shocked at herself. Since her husband had died, she had not really looked at a man in that way at all. It wasn't a forced chastity of principle, it was a chastity born of ... well, a lack of interest. And time.
He was clearly struggling to think of a way of opening some polite conversation, but of course, as she remembered from before, he knew she was a widow so he couldn't ask about her husband, and she had no living children so that was not a good thing to ask about.
She had taken her mask off to eat which she had done so naturally it only just occurred to her. She shifted back a little, more into the candle shadows. So where was he going to start with a question? Never mind, she would help him out.
"Tell me about your poor sister," she said to him, "James told me she had suffered terribly for her faith."
It wasn't an easy subject for him, of course, but at least it was a subject that he could just about discuss with a woman and it would be better than giving him nothing to do but look at her face and possibly make comparisons.
"My family was sheltering Father Robert Southwell in our house. Someone laid information and they raided the house. They didn't find Fr Southwell in his hiding place so they arrested Ann my sister, who was then a virgin and wanted only to serve God." He paused and she nodded, full of sympathy. She knew how terrifying it must have been for Ann, only too well.
"Topcliffe had her in his keeping for three months by which time she must have known she was with child for she wrote to my mother." Portia nodded encouragingly. "That was bad enough," Bellamy's young face was twisted with pain, "but the next thing I heard was that Topcliffe had raided the house again and this time he had a full plan showing where all of our priestholes were, including the one where Fr Southwell was hiding. Nobody else could have known, other than the man who built them who is utterly reliable."
"So Ann sold Father Southwell for..."
Bellamy shrugged. "For marriage, for Topcliffe's protection. We don't know. My parents will have nothing to do with her, my father has disinherited her, for her lewdness."
"James says you think differently."
"I know my sister," he said, "She is not a lewd woman. Whatever happened was not what she wanted."
"Of course it wasn't," scowled Portia, the anger rising in her again, ""How could it be? She was a prisoner, at the mercy of a man who has no mercy."
"Yes. I thought so but my parents will not listen. They say she should have held firm and died rather than be defiled."
"Hard to do when you're bound or chained and strong men are assaulting you," said Portia trenchantly, "Don't you think?"
He was staring at her wildly. "You think they did that?" God, he was naive.
"Of course they did. Why wouldn't they, when they enjoy it? Trust me, there was no scene of seduction."
"My parents say she must have been willing if she..."
"...fell with child. My brother approved the logic of your point on unwilling marriages. Are you not convinced yourself, Father?"
"I... sometimes I wonder."
She could have shaken him by the throat. "A woman only needs to be...er... bedded to fall with child, she doesn't need to enjoy it. Which is just as well, really, or there would be very many fewer children born."
He flinched back at her vulgarity. "I thought..."
"Nonsense. Your poor sister! And I expect once she knew she was with child, she only wanted to protect the baby – no doubt Topcliffe threatened to kill it. Perhaps he even threatened to call in a witch and kill the baby in her womb."
Bellamy's eyes were like saucers. "Good God," he said and put down his spoon and knife. His eyes were full of tears.
"I would imagine she sold Robert Southwell for the life of her child," said Portia, who had tried to make some terrible bargains with God when her children were dying. "I know mothers are ruthless that way, with themselves and everyone else." God, however, had proven more ruthless still.
Bellamy nodded. "Yes, I see. I'm afraid you must think me and my family very naive."
"Yes," she snapped, then softened a little. "Well, no. I think you're a man who has not had many dealings with evil."
"And you have?" he asked, gently cutting through her patronage.
She looked down at her meat which she no longer wanted. "I suppose I have," she said after a careful pause, "Unwillingly... As a kind of clerk to my brother, I know some of what he has to deal with. And I know that as a woman with no man to protect her, no money, no property, I would be many men's prey, who would turn their lustful greedy eyes on me and then blame me for it."
"And yet you are still chaste?" said the boy, quite reverently.
"By luck and by what the smallpox did to my face," she told him tartly, "What happened to your sister was the fault of the man who did it, not your sister's. The superstition that a raped woman does not quicken and so if she quickens she was willing - is it not a very convenient lie for whoremongers and defilers like Topcliffe who can then turn a good and virtuous woman's family against her." To her astonishment, Portia found she was actually shaking with anger on the unfortunate Ann Bellamy's behalf. It was why she had been stupid enough to let the priest in the night before.
The boy's face relaxed. She chided herself – he must be about her age if he was a Jesuit, since it took extra study to join Loyola's Society of Jesus, she shouldn't lecture him, men didn't like it.
"That's what I believed," he said simply. "That's why I came, breaking my vow of obedience."
"Oh?"
He flushed a little. "My Superiors told me not to come and try and find her," he said, "But I have."
She toasted him with the last of the ale and they tapped beakers together. Then she found she was gripping his hand with hers.
"I hono
ur you for it, your sister needs you desperately," she said.
His face suddenly creased with distress. She let go his hand quickly before he could misinterpret her.
"Yes, but where is she? What is she doing? How can I find her?"
"Your only link to her is Topcliffe himself," she said slowly, "You have to get close to him or his men."
"But without ending up in his dungeon."
"Ideally," she agreed drily.
They talked over how it could be done for an hour but they came up against the same blank wall each time.
"You need to be respectable," she said, "You need to be what you are not, a man of unimpeachable Protestant loyalty."
Finally he suddenly sat back and laughed. "Well, I can't solve it. I'll have to leave it to God, his holy angels and perhaps a saint or two."
"Ah,"
"Yes, I'll make an appeal to... oh.. St Jude should do the trick, the patron saint of lost causes."
She laughed too.
"At least sleep on it," she agreed as she rose to clear away the plates and remains of the food. She left her unfinished meat where the cat could find it – he liked eggs and bacon and his rough tongue made scouring the plates easier.
Fr Bellamy had already gone into the bedchamber and was pushing the truckle bed into the main room. "I had the best bed last night, thanks to your very hospitable brother, but I got not a minute's sleep last night for the pestering of a demon in disguise as a small grey cat."
"Ah," she said, "Yes. But he also kills mice."
"Splendid," said Felix, "You have him." Their eyes met briefly and she smiled at his wry expression. And they stopped for a moment as if somebody had stopped the world so that they could see the colour of each other's eyes. And then Portia shook herself and started digging in her blanket box.
The candle was burning down to its end and she had found a spare blanket for Bellamy to wrap himself in. She went into the bedchamber to change for bed and as she used the remarkably ugly-smelling jordan, she saw her furry minion sitting on the windowsill blinking at her as he waited to be let in.
Do We Not Bleed Page 24