by Anya Seton
“When you were a capering fool, my pretty,” he said smiling, “I swore to obey you. I can do no less for a fair woman.”
Celia ran to him, knelt and kissed his hand. “You’re not angered with me for the trick I played?”
Anthony stroked the soft shining hair. “’Twas a richly merry jest and proves your wit. Edwin is lucky! Now, Celia, dress yourself properly, join the company i’ the Hall. On the morrow you shall see how well I keep my promise.”
Sixteen
QUEEN ELIZABETH WAS crowned on January 15, a date picked by Dr. John Dee from meticulous calculations in Elizabeth’s horoscope. During Mary’s reign, Dee had fallen into disfavor; he was even briefly thrown in the Tower for suspected connivance with Elizabeth. But his forecast and Julian’s had come true. Mary died, Elizabeth reigned, and rewarded her new Astrologer Royal with many promises of preferment, few of which materialized. The new Queen was adept at fostering loyalty by hopes alone.
Julian di Ridolfi did not receive similar favors. He and Dee drifted apart after Julian’s marriage, and on Mary’s death the Italian physician found himself as subtly but firmly ousted from the new Court as Anthony was, though for different reasons.
Elizabeth, who knew that her popularity with her country was based on her fully English blood, copied her late brother and evinced distaste for foreigners. She had learned many a lesson during the Spanish occupation.
Julian’s marriage was brief and immediately regretted. Gwen Owen’s Welsh properties turned out to be a few acres of barren mountainside; her house near St. James’s Palace was not only riddled with dry rot but partly owned by her brother, who installed there his parcel of brawling brats for the Ridolfis to endure. Gwen herself, though young and comely, was a black-browed Celt given to melancholy. She had long periods of moaning to herself in Welsh, and after a year, Julian was forced to recognize symptoms of true dementia. He tried on her all the remedies he knew, without success. He even consulted Gwen’s kinsman, the great Earl of Pembroke, one day at Queen Mary’s Court, and received his answer. “Oh, that branch of the Owens’ve always been mad. I seem to remember that your wife’s father fancied himself a dog, and lived in a kennel.”
To Julian’s great relief Gwen bore no children, and after the Earl’s information, he ceased to share the marriage bed. One day in 1556, Gwen caught the virulent smallpox, and died. Julian was left with half a dilapidated house in London, some useless property in Wales, and a bitter memory which he sweetened with philosophical readings in Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.
Occasionally he wondered what had happened to Ursula or Celia. He saw Anthony at Queen Mary’s funeral banquet and was gratified by the invitation to Cowdray. Though saddened to find that Ursula was dead, he was pleased when Magdalen invited him to stay on for her confinement in April. They had used to meet often at Court, and Julian had once treated Magdalen for a whidow on her finger. He knew that in the unlikely circumstance that she should have trouble birthing a child, he could supply far more skill than the midwife. He was also pleased to be near Celia, who had grown radiant and assured.
Anthony had eased all the difficulties attendant upon the marriage to Edwin. It was set for Sunday, April 10. Squire Ratcliffe had given in quite easily, and after Edwin was released, he spent most of his time at Cowdray. The wedding would be held in its chapel, a trifle before completion of the conventional year of mourning for a widow, but Magdalen, following her husband’s lead, took a warm interest in the proceedings, and wished them put early enough so that she would not be in childbed and unable to attend.
Spring came fast during the lengthening Lenten days. The first swallows returned to their old nests, mauve windflowers bloomed in the copses, tender gold catkins hung from the hazel trees which gave Cowdray its name. The air grew soft and fragrant. A few new-dropped lambs frisked beside the Rother. From the lords of the manor down to the lowliest scullion, the smell of spring released the ancient joy.
Celia lived in exultance. All that she had wished for, willed for, was coming to pass, without any invocations to saints, without prayer. By her own efforts. She attended Mass politely and shut her ears to the Latin dronings. She felt strong, triumphant and apart. She greeted Edwin affectionately when he was there; she vouchsafed him kisses and gentle words. She forgot him when he returned to his manor. She played with Taggle; she hawked on Juno, galloping over the Downs. Edwin was teaching her the rudiments of falconry.
Once he took her to his manor where she dined with his parents. She captivated the Squire as quickly as Edwin had foreseen. Her demure, downcast looks, the poignancy of her black velvet garb, her soft admiration of the mansion’s elegance, its size, its deer park—completed the Squire’s capitulation. Mistress Ratcliffe was not so beguiled. She was a peak-nosed matron, always on the sniff for trouble.
“The woman’s too fair,” she said irritably to her husband. “She’ll lead Edwin a dance, the besotted clodpole. I’d not trust her far as ye can fling a rat. Oh, I know my Lord Montagu’s giving her a piddling dowry, I know she’s his protegee, and for why? She’s not kin to him. Depend on’t. There’s more here than meets the eye. ’Twouldn’t be the first time a great lord fobbed off his leman when ’twas convenient.”
Her husband was accustomed to her suspicions and grumbling. He ignored them except for a perfunctory “Hold your tongue, Lady.”
He had decided to reinstate Edwin’s full inheritance, and be damned to the Westons. They must find another husband for their whey-faced little Anne.
On the Thursday afternoon before her wedding, it rained. Celia sat with Magdalen and her ladies in the private parlor where Celia was now welcomed. All of the old friendship had returned. Magdalen was near to term and lethargic. She sat heavily in her cushioned chair. Her belly was huge, even on so big a woman, and she caressed it often, pleased by the lively kicks inside. Her younger lady in waiting played a plaintive old tune on the virginals; the elder cut swaddling bands. Celia sewed on Ursula’s wedding dress lengths of gilt embroidery Magdalen had supplied to replace the tarnished ones. There was contentment. Celia was even aware of it. I’m happy, she thought. All is well.
She was, therefore, dismayed by a tremor, a sense of warning. Like the moment in her Lincolnshire chamber so long ago, she heard voices. They seemed to mingle with the gurgling of Cowdray’s leaden gutters. There was a woman’s voice, choking with grief. It cried, “Sir Arthur, I can’t stand this! She seemed better, now she’s losing ground fast. I don’t care what Akananda says. As for Richard, he’s shut up in that room. Won’t eat. Nanny’s so frightened. She listens at the door, and says he raves and mutters about those stupid Simpsons, and mortal sin. What’s happened to those two?” The voice broke. “It’s tragic—tragic.” There was some kind of masculine murmuring in response, then silence.
Celia put down her needle and gazed vaguely around Magdalen’s parlor, puzzled rather than frightened. The anguished voice had not sounded like Ursula, it had a flatter, drawling intonation. Yet, she thought of Ursula. But all the names in the woman’s speech were meaningless.
Magdalen sipped from the cup of dandelion wine Julian had ordered for her. She looked at Celia and laughed. “What ails ye, hinny? Rabbit run o’er your grave?”
Celia shook herself, and laughed too. “I must’ve been dozing, ’tis a sleepy afternoon. I thought I heard a woman’s voice, most doleful and lamenting.”
“Och . . .” said Magdalen, “it’ll be a cow down i’ the byre, bawling for her calf. The sounds travel up at times.”
“Look at the dogs!” said Celia, catching her breath.
Not only Taggle, but Magdalen’s favorite hound had retreated stiff-legged to the part of the room furthest from Celia. They both were whimpering.
“Mayhap they’ve seen a ghaistie,” said Magdalen crossing herself perfunctorily. “We had plenty at Na’orth. But they meant na har-rm. I’ve seen none her-re. O’ course, ye might, with ye’re Bohun blood.” She yawned deeply. “I’d lay doon a wee bit,” she added, “
but that my lord’ll be back this neet fra Lunnon. Sech a broil ther-re with the Parliament, an’ all the daft changes the Queen’s Grace wants.”
“Changes?” said Celia, glad to see that Taggle had returned to lie at her feet.
“Weel,” said Magdalen, “she wants t’ put us back to King Harry’s day. Or Edward’s, rather. Englished Mass an’ Prayer Book, Communion in two kinds. She wants to be supreme head o’ the Church. Daft! ’Tis a lot o’ folderol to please the Commons. Though I’m bound ta admit the Queen’s a cannier lass than I thought.”
Celia was not much interested. She had renounced religion in any of its forms on the night in Ursula’s chamber. Let them squabble! She was unable to see any threat to her new security, whatever the Queen might decree.
The Ratcliffes were Catholic, but they would doubtless conform to compromises, as would Anthony. Celia vividly remembered the deception at Cowdray during King Edward’s visit. The denuding of the chapel, the hiding of the priest.
The priest. Brother Stephen. She thought of him calmly, sadly—as one long dead. The feelings she had suffered, even those brief moments of forbidden love in the priory had happened to another woman. To a foolish child. She picked up her needle, began stitching, and thought resolutely of Edwin. Three more days and she would be his bride. A dear lad. A gay lad, courteous and accomplished—his only fault that he doted on her so excessively that sometimes he wearied her.
This fault, she knew from observation, would soon pass. Then would be comfortable years, babies, residence in a charming manor, one far larger and more impressive than Skirby Hall. And she would be near Magdalen and Anthony. She would be received at Cowdray as an equal. She felt gratitude towards Edwin for his infatuation. Her happiness—only momentarily disturbed by the eerie voice of an Ursula who was not Ursula—rushed back. She had no premonition, no foreboding. When the young lady at the virginals began to sing “The Hawthorn Tree” in a small weak Celia sang with her, strong and clear, “O, She marveled to see the tree so green, Hi ho—the leaves so’ fresh and green.” Magdalen hummed a little, and yawned again.
It was Celia’s last placid day.
Anthony came home late. Though the rain had stopped, the Sussex spring mud had delayed him. He sat down to supper in silence. They ate in the privy dining room upstairs to which Celia had recently been promoted on occasion. So had Julian, and both were invited tonight.
Magdalen, though too deeply absorbed in her fecundity to be much perturbed, nonetheless could not help noticing her lord’s dejection.
Anthony ate roast lamb, drank his sack and spoke not a word.
His children were brought in, little Anthony and Mary. They knelt for the paternal blessing. Anthony looked at them somberly, said, “God be wi’ ye,” patted them on the head and waved them away.
“Soon ye’ll have anither one,” said Magdalen, trying to lighten the gloom. “An’ ’twill be a laddie fra the way he rampages.”
“Aye—?” said Anthony scowling. “May heaven help him, for he’ll have none in this world.”
Julian had been watching; he understood the situation better than the women did, and his curiosity was far greater.
“They passed the Oath of Supremacy, my lord?” he asked softly. “The Queen is now head of the Church?”
Anthony lifted his mug and put it down again. He looked at Julian. “So it be. Queen Elizabeth has transformed herself into His Holiness the Pope.” He shrugged, then gave a sudden bitter laugh. “I was the only dissenter. I, Viscount Montagu, alone amongst the forty-three lords, gainsaid this monstrous shift.”
Magdalen gasped. “Ye alone,” she whispered. “Anthony—ye shouldna. What o’ the other Catholic peers—Arundel, Norfolk?”
“All voted ‘aye,’” said Anthony through his teeth.
His wife’s cheeks paled until the freckles stood out.
“But the bishops?” interjected Julian, who saw even more danger than Magdalen was beginning to.
Anthony grunted and shrugged again. “Oh, the bishops! They voted nay,’ and much good it’ll do ’em—in the Tower!”
Magdalen repeated, “The Tower . . .” in a horrified tone. “Oh, Anthony, what made ye act agyenst the Queen! It marked ye oot sa clear. Could ye na ha’ cozened her, or kept mum?”
“I could’ve . . . I meant to . . .” admitted Anthony slowly. “’Twas that stiff-necked monk!”
“Who . . . what monk?”
“Brother Stephen. He prayed at me all one night. Like he was ousting the devil. He exhorted. He prodded my conscience. He told me the curse o’ Cowdray would strike us all, fire to burn and water to drown—did I not hold out. He said ’twas the only way I might avert punishment for my father’s grievous sin in taking Easebourne, the priory, and Battle Abbey from the Church.”
There was a long stunned silence, broken at last by Julian. “It would seem our good friend Stephen has grown persuasive as a Jesuit. I congratulate your courage, my lord. Is the Queen very wroth with you?”
Anthony frowned. “I believe so, though I’ve not seen her. That smooth-tongued Cecil spoke to me yestermorn. He implied that Her Grace was much displeased, yet for the love her father bore mine, and the esteem in which she held me, she would take no harsh measures at present.”
Magdalen expelled her breath on a long relieved sigh. “I told ye she had a merciful heart, also, she’s no truly a Protestant.”
“That may be,” said Anthony. “However, she’s sending me out o’ the country. To Spain and King Philip with a trumped-up mission to retrieve his Garter.”
Magdalen paled again; she moistened her lips. She thought of the St. George’s Day when Mary had invested Philip with the Order of the Garter as her consort. She looked down at her belly where the babe had given a mighty kick. “When . . .?” she said. “When mun ye gan, my lord? Blessed Jesu, not afore this wee one’s born!”
“I hope not,” said Anthony shaking his head. “Cecil gave me a month to prepare. Poor wife, don’t look so doleful. This is better than the Tower, whence so few return.”
Magdalen was unconvinced. The long sea voyage seemed to her as dangerous. Moreover she perceived that Anthony was not wholly displeased by the venture, which promised excitement. Her fears broke out in anger. “God blast that meddlesome monk, where’er he be! He’d no reet to sway ye, I wish I’d him her-re—I’d show him what I feel!”
Anthony gave a small tight smile, and said something to the yeoman who hovered behind his chair. The man bowed and disappeared into the passage behind the arras.
“That is a wish I can grant, Lady,” said Anthony. “Would other wishes were so facile.”
Celia had been listening in considerable dismay, though relieved that Anthony would not be leaving before her marriage. Suddenly she took the full meaning of his last speech. Her heart gave a great lurch, her hands went clammy. “Nay . . .”she whispered. “Nay, I don’t want . . .” She stiffened, holding on to the table edge as Stephen walked in.
“Benedicite,” he said quietly. He looked into Magdalen’s startled face and said, “My lady, I understand why you might have cause to hate me. I trust that with God’s help I may soften your displeasure.”
Celia could not look up. His voice, deep, resonant, found a long-disused channel, and seemed to race into her breast where it churned up such turmoil that she shuddered. Julian, who sat next to her, glanced at her sidewise, and saw her whitened knuckles gripping the table. Per Bacco, he thought, can it still be thus with her? He shook his head and examined Stephen. Bello, bel uomol Tall, broad-shouldered under the black habit. Must be past thirty, yet his dark, lean face had not altered, except perhaps the hazel eyes. They showed more assurance, even a gleam of humor. The mouth would be sensual on another man. The full ruddy lips under a deep cleft to the long straight nose. When the monk smiled, as he now did at Magdalen who was obviously thawing, the mouth indented at the corners, the sternness vanished and was replaced by a composed charm. Behind the exterior Julian felt masculine strength. La virilitá,
he thought, hardness of stone, heat of fires well banked. This man should never be a monk, nonetheless . . . Julian paused and chided himself. “Tuttavia e realmente dedicato.” Dedication, a rare and wondrous quality, one he himself had lost during the stultifying years of Court life. He had not been near St. Thomas’s Hospital, he had made no experiments after leaving John Dee’s. He was setting old jaded and used to easy berths like this one at Cowdray.
He was roused by his name.
“Ye knaw Doctor Julian, don’t ye, Brother?” Magdalen was making introductions.
“Aye,” said Stephen smiling. “He cured me once of rat bite. God’s greeting, sir, you look hale.”
“And perchance ye’ve met M’lady Hutchinson?” pursued Magdalen, who began to see why her lord had been convinced by this tall impressive monk.
Celia had shrunk so far back in her chair that Stephen observed only a widow’s coif, and assumed that it belonged to one of Lady Montagu’s ladies. He started to make a courteous disclaimer. Then Celia raised her face.
Their eyes met in a prolonged fulminating gaze.
Stephen’s mouth quivered, his intake of breath was audible to Julian who felt a shattering through the air, like a thunderclap. He saw the tremors which seized Celia. Dio mio! he thought. Everyone must notice this, they are drowning in each other’s eyes. And Julian quickly upset his goblet of wine.
The small mishap, and hurried mopping by the yeoman, gave Stephen time for control. “Ah, yes,” he said, sitting down in the chair indicated by Magdalen. “Mistress Celia and I have met before, when I was chaplain to my lord.”
