A Perilous Alliance

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  She had more than once been arrested as a witch. Sometimes, I suspected that there was truth in that.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Saving Kate

  I slept for a while in the chamber to which I had been carried, and woke with another blinding migraine. Sybil, however, had brought the recipe that Gladys used to relieve me, and Ambrosia had the ingredients. Before night had fallen, the pain was receding. It didn’t, for once, end in nausea and before nightfall I was even able to drink a little broth. However, I spent the next two days in bed.

  On the third day I was able to get up and go out into the salt-scented spring sunshine. On the fourth day, we made our farewells and started for England: Spelton, Sybil, Kate and myself. The maid Annie, who had been sent to Scotland along with Ambrosia, had decided to stay. She and Ambrosia, surprisingly, since Annie had originally been almost her jailer, had made friends and Ambrosia wanted to keep her.

  There were tears at the parting of Sybil and Ambrosia, but not bitter ones. ‘I am glad you’re happy but I wish you weren’t so far away!’ Sybil mourned, holding her daughter tightly.

  ‘But we shall meet again. One day perhaps we shall come to Hawkswood!’

  ‘That we will. I’ve heard that much about it!’ said James. He had a Scottish accent but it was not overly strong and he was easy to understand. Even during the short time I had spent in the house, I had realized that my first impression of him was right. Ambrosia had found a good man.

  ‘Maybe there’ll be new grandchildren for you!’ Ambrosia said to her mother.

  ‘I hope so. I hope so. And if there are, I pray that they shall come easily and safely. I shall pray for you every day.’

  ‘And I for you. Here are the boys, come to say farewell …’

  They tore themselves apart eventually. The journey home began.

  We were bound first for Dover, to take Kate home. Spelton’s privileged travelling arrangements proved a blessing, as ever, as did his purse. Our money was running low but he was well supplied and had no hesitation about spending it. We took it more easily this time, and took eight days. By late afternoon on the last day, under cool cloudy skies and a whirling canopy of crying gulls, we arrived at Whitefields.

  All day, Kate had been very quiet. As we turned in at the gate, she said: ‘Mistress Stannard, I’m frightened. My father is going to be so angry; I know it.’

  ‘I’ve worried about that all along,’ I said. ‘But I had to bring you home. I’m here, Kate. I will try to smooth things for you. Don’t be afraid. Even if he is angry, he’ll probably be thankful to see you safe.’

  ‘He knows I’m safe. You wrote to him before we left your house at Hawkswood.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘What a lovely place it is! But,’ she added as the brightness faded, ‘he’ll have had time to feel relieved and then get over it and start wondering how he should treat me when I come home – and when I do, he’ll be more angry than glad. I know. I know him.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said.

  ‘We all will,’ said Sybil.

  We were expected, for Christopher – he and I were comfortably on first-name terms by then – had sent a courier ahead of us. Mr Hamish Ferguson was on the doorstep to meet us. Grooms came out to unharness the horses and push the coach into shelter, and the butler Morley was hovering with a couple of minions to take our cloaks and carry our baggage inside, but Mr Ferguson was standing rigid, like one of the Norman pillars in Hawkswood parish church, and he didn’t smile.

  He merely nodded an acknowledgement of our arrival, and then he turned and went in, leaving us to follow him. He led us to the hall, where a fire was crackling in the hearth, and where his wife and the younger girl Sheila had evidently been told to wait. There was no sign of Duncan.

  Mrs Ferguson rose to her feet as we entered, and stood stiffly for a moment, but Kate’s sister fell upon her instantly with hugs and kisses, and after a moment, Mrs Ferguson stepped forward and pushed her out of her way while she took her errant daughter in her arms. Until a peremptory command from Hamish made her step back.

  ‘That’ll do! Didn’t I tell you? No tears!’ There were tears, I saw, on Mrs Ferguson’s harsh countenance. ‘If ever a daughter betrayed her family, defied her parents, behaved in fact as though she had never heard of family honour, then it is this Kate you’re clasping to your breast and sobbing over!’ He glanced round at the rest of us. ‘Well, come along in, come to the hearth, all of you.’

  Mrs Ferguson let go of Kate, but stood close to her and did not wipe her tears away. Sybil and I accepted the invitation to warm ourselves, though nervously. Christopher Spelton also moved towards the hearth, and he showed no sign of nerves. When he shed his cloak and gloves at Morley’s behest, he had done so with the air of one who has no doubt of a friendly welcome in this house and he brought the same air into the hall. He warmed his hands for a moment, and then, as two maids brought in the obligatory tray of refreshments, turned to smile at them and helpfully pushed a small table into a more convenient position for setting the trays down.

  After which, he turned his smile on to the stark figure of Hamish Ferguson and said: ‘Well, Mr Ferguson. We have brought your daughter home to you at last. Aren’t you going to give her a kiss of greeting? I would, if she were mine. She has been through such terrors; more than you can imagine. She has been as brave as a lioness through it all. You have surely told him of Kate’s bravery, Ursula. I understand you wrote to him when you first got home to Hawkswood.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘Mr Ferguson, during the anxious time when we were travelling towards Lundy, all the time afraid that the crew would lose patience and give our plans away, Kate smiled through her fear, to keep our spirits up as much as her own, and we were grateful. And when we were escaping from Lundy in a small boat, and the pirate captain tried to board us, flourishing a cutlass, it was Kate who struck him down with an oar, just as he was about to climb aboard! She was truly valiant!’

  ‘I read your letter, madam. I must say that the thought of a daughter of mine behaving in such a way, fighting, hitting out with a weapon as though she were a man herself, shocks me deeply.’

  ‘The pirate captain had followers just behind him and they intended to seize us all and take us to North Africa to be sold as slaves!’ cried Sybil.

  Christopher said: ‘If I had a daughter in such danger, I would be very proud of her if she defended herself so well. And not just herself. She saved her friends too.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He could have used that cutlass to take one of us hostage while his followers rowed the boat back to the jetty.’

  That silenced Ferguson for a moment, and then he let out a deep sigh.

  ‘The world has gone mad, it seems to me. I cannot endure it. Kate, I will give thanks to God that you are safe but I still cannot accept the things you have done, whatever your reasons. To run away from home, to a man like Garnett, to behave like a hoyden …! Your room is ready for you. Your mother would have it so for I yielded to her coaxing. But you will not occupy it for long, you may rest assured of that.’

  ‘Are you going to send your elder daughter to Scotland as well? Just wash your hands of her, like Pontius Pilate? Just hand her over to someone else?’ Mrs Ferguson’s voice was bitter. ‘Perhaps your cousin won’t care to have another inconvenient person foisted on him!’

  ‘What I do with a daughter who has misbehaved like this one is my business, madam. I yielded to your motherly weakness by saying that yes, she can stay here for a while, until I decide what best to do with her. But I will yield no further. The final decision is mine. I am master here.’

  ‘And I am mistress!’ Suddenly, we were in the midst of a savage domestic dispute. ‘How dare you? I carried our daughter within me for nine months and bled and cried out and risked my life to bring her into the world. And you say her fate is not my business!’

  ‘I shall ask if my cousin in the north will take her on, but if he won’t, and I shan’t blame him if so, then she can go out and ear
n her living alongside Bessie in the Safe Harbour!’ thundered Hamish. ‘I certainly won’t try any more to marry her off. She’s no fit wife for any man!’

  ‘I’ll marry where you wish, Father,’ Kate said pleadingly. ‘I’ll do anything …’

  ‘I daresay you would, my girl, but it’s too late. You’ve gone too far, much too far. I am disowning you!’

  ‘I see. You are shocked when your daughter defends herself from defilement and slavery! But you can tolerate the thought of her working as a tavern maid! What kind of father are you? And though you are ready to send Kate to work in a tavern, you won’t accept a decent innkeeper’s girl as an honest daughter-in-law! You are unreasonable!’ shouted his wife. ‘When will I make you see it?’

  It sounded as though this was a continuation of a quarrel that had been begun before we arrived. Mrs Ferguson now wrenched the conversation – if one could call it that – in a new direction. ‘If anyone is wondering where Duncan is, he is on the way to Italy. But if and when he can come safely home again, I shall urge him to marry his Bessie as soon as she’s willing – if she hasn’t found someone else by then. He shall bring her home, and I’ll see she’s made welcome! And Kate will not be banished to the inn to replace her. I’ll see to that, too!’

  ‘I don’t advise you to attempt anything so rash, madam.’

  ‘Don’t madam me! I have a right to protect my children.’

  ‘I will protect them myself!’

  ‘By casting your daughter off to serve ale and rabbit pie to all and sundry? By denying your son a man’s right to choose his own bride?’

  ‘My son will be fortunate if he is ever able to come home!’ Ferguson turned angrily to me. ‘Have you reported the way Count Renard died to the authorities? Will I soon have officers here, wanting his body exhumed so that there can be an inquest? He is buried, of course, here in my grounds, with Catholic rites provided by Morley, as I think you know was my intention. But where will that leave my son?’

  ‘I have made a report of sorts,’ I said. ‘But I did not give your name. I did not identify Duncan. What I did do was describe the circumstances. Duncan issued a challenge, though he has no title – but the titled man he challenged was a murderer and a traitor to a country that had shown him kindness when he was exiled from his home. I doubt if there is very much for your son to fear, even if his name does come out. No jury with even normal common sense would condemn him for that, even if it ever came to trial. And as I said, I did not identify him.’

  ‘I should hope not!’ cried Mrs Ferguson.

  ‘You sent Mistress Wilde to Scotland, hoping thereby to prevent her from ever reporting him to the law,’ I said angrily to her husband. ‘But we were merely despatched to France. Or was it merely? Did you know what Captain Garnett’s intentions were?’

  Garnett himself had already exonerated Hamish Ferguson, but I said it to take some of the aggression out of Hamish and it worked. He reacted with a mixture of horror and wrath.

  ‘I certainly did not! When I received the letter that your grooms brought me when they fetched your horses, the letter that told me of his perfidy, I was appalled! Of course I didn’t know! I simply wanted to get you off to France and out of the way while I got Duncan out of danger! The Lucille was there in the harbour and I knew Garnett would take you. I’d sometimes wondered if he did a bit of piracy on the side but I didn’t know and if I’d had the least idea that …!’ Words failed him.

  We all murmured understandingly and his stiffness seemed to ease. ‘I am glad that according to the letter your courier brought, Mrs Wilde is now contentedly remarried and is no threat to Duncan. I never wished her harm! I only wished to protect my boy. But now,’ said Mr Ferguson grimly, ‘we must return to the matter of my daughter Kate, except that I can no longer regard her as a daughter!’

  ‘Father …’ said Kate tremulously.

  ‘Please!’ Spelton intervened. ‘Surely we can find an amicable settlement. If we could all sit down and talk this over …’

  Kate was trembling from head to foot and now she looked at me piteously and said: ‘Mistress Stannard, please help me!’

  And I knew what to do. Suddenly, it was obvious. ‘Mr Ferguson! Please listen to me. I like your Kate. It is quite usual for families to send their daughters to learn about the world in the households of others, who thereafter are responsible for their well-being and in due course their marriages. I have in the past cared for other girls, in that way. I will be happy to take Kate in, on those terms. If you wish her to leave your home, then could she not come to mine?’

  Kate’s unhappy face lit up with hope. Her mother said: ‘Will you be kind to her? Will you promise to be kind to her?’

  It occurred to me that Mrs Ferguson’s air of harsh rigidity was probably a defence against her husband’s even more rigid mind. I had seen such things before.

  ‘I promise,’ I said. ‘Kate has suffered enough. Mr Ferguson, have you not grasped that Captain Garnett meant to sell us to the corsairs on Lundy? We would never have come home again and the fate in Algiers of a young girl such as your daughter doesn’t bear thinking about. We have all been terrified, but Kate most of all, I think. And it was she, in the end, who saved us.’

  There was a silence. Ferguson had after all more or less put himself in the position of a man who, when painting a floor, has found that he is now in a corner, standing on the only bit of floor still free of paint, and unable to escape without leaving footprints all over the work already done. He didn’t really want to alienate his wife for ever, and probably didn’t really want to throw Kate out of his house either. He had lost his temper and gone too far to turn back. I had offered him a way out.

  Sheila said timidly: ‘Father, it could be a solution. Couldn’t it? It’s true that people often do send their daughters to other houses as part of their education. No one would think it strange. There wouldn’t be any talk.’

  ‘There’d certainly be talk if people we know went into the Safe Harbour and were handed their ale by our Kate!’ said her mother vigorously.

  ‘Kate is a Catholic,’ said Hamish. ‘You, Mrs Stannard, are not. How will you deal with that?’

  ‘The Safe Harbour isn’t a Catholic household either!’ snapped Mrs Ferguson.

  ‘I will not interfere with Kate’s religion,’ I said. ‘There is a decent Catholic servant in my house, a Master Flood, who can arrange for her to hear Mass now and then. Please don’t worry about that.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘We would all wish to be on our way tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Kate can come with us. I miss having a daughter at home, since my Meg was wed and went to live in Buckinghamshire. Kate will be most welcome, and perfectly safe.’

  ‘Well …’ said Mr Ferguson, again.

  Kate opened her mouth as if to say please but I gave her a tiny shake of the head. Pressure of any kind might annoy her father. Silence, while he considered, was more likely to work.

  It did. ‘Don’t unpack, Kate,’ he said to her. ‘Or not more than you need for the night. You will leave with Mistress Stannard in the morning. Express your thanks to her!’

  Kate, for once, was obedient to him. She thanked me, on her knees. I raised her up, smiling at her. Kate, with that ferociously wielded oar, had truly saved us all. Now, I hoped, I had saved her in return.

  In the morning, when the horses were harnessed and everyone else was in the coach, literally half a minute before departure, I said my farewells to the Fergusons. I kissed Mrs Ferguson goodbye and promised again to take good care of Kate. Then, to his visible astonishment, I kissed Mr Ferguson.

  And whispered into his ear: ‘I have met Bessie from the Safe Harbour. She is a good girl. If you let your son marry her when he comes home, I don’t think you’ll regret it.’

  Then I stepped away, got quickly into the coach, closed the door, and tapped on the roof to tell Christopher to start. I didn’t want Ferguson to take sudden offence and try to snatch his daughter back. As it was, when I waved a last fa
rewell through the window, he was merely standing there, looking astonished.

  I could only hope for the best.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Shaping the Future

  Christopher was acquainted, I think, with nearly every town in England and certainly with Dover, and he knew where in Dover to find a courier service. Before we ourselves set off in earnest, he had hired a man to ride at speed for Hawkswood, to let my people know that I was on my way home, and then go to the court, to bring Walsingham and Cecil up to date with what I had been doing, and my whereabouts. Then, at the slower pace dictated by a coach, we took the road ourselves.

  Many times, I had returned to Hawkswood after frightening adventures. This was just another, and yet it felt more intense than any that had gone before. The first sight of the chimneys was like a glimpse of Paradise. And not only to me. It brought tears to Kate’s eyes, too, and a whispered prayer of thanks. I suppose that to Kate, as much as to myself, Hawkswood represented safety and also more kindness than her father had given her. By most people’s standards, I knew, he had been a perfectly responsible father, even indulgent in some ways, but that harsh streak had been there all the same, and she had feared him. They would be better apart for a while.

  ‘Take heart,’ I said to her. ‘Your father will come round one day, I’m sure of it. How Gladys will preen herself, after being proved right when she said we were going to Scotland for nothing. Good God!’

  My exclamation had nothing to do with either Kate or Gladys. We were now entering the Hawkswood gateway and the courtyard before us was astonishingly congested, with two ornate coaches and a crowd of people, some of whom were heaving baggage about, and several saddle horses including a fine blue roan stallion, which was snorting and tossing his head as a groom I didn’t recognize strove to remove his bridle.

  ‘I know the coat of arms on those coaches,’ I said. ‘Walsingham! And that blue roan belongs to Sir Robert Dudley. We have distinguished visitors waiting for us!’