A Most Unseemly Summer

by Juliet Landon

  He smiled and held out his arm for support down the stone steps. ‘I’m sure you do, my lady. That’s partly why I’ve come, to find you alone.’

  ‘Ask away,’ she said, allowing herself to be seated in a basket chair. She handed him a tall Venetian glass of elderflower cordial that glistened like honey between his fingers. ‘You’ll want to know more about Lady Felice, I expect; this guardianship was a rather hurried business, I take it.’

  ‘An emergency device,’ he said. ‘She’d have abandoned the task if I’d not thought of something drastic. Deventer approves.’

  Lady West nodded. ‘And she doesn’t.’

  Sir Leon seated himself opposite her, facing the early sun. His legs were shapely and well muscled, clad tightly in dark green hose as far as his thighs, his glinting grey eyes well aware of his hostess’s admiring scrutiny. He waited for her to continue.

  ‘Well, you’ve come for some information, though I may not give it, for all that.’

  The grey eyes laughed back at her warning. ‘I’d not expect you to betray any confidences, my lady, but I’d like to know something about Lord Deventer’s chaplain.’

  ‘Then why don’t you ask him yourself?’

  ‘Because he’d want to know of my interest, and I prefer him not to.’

  ‘You’re not one of the queen’s spies, are you?’

  He knew she was not too serious: this woman knew everyone’s persuasions without asking. ‘Did you know the Deventer’s chaplain before the present one?’ he said.

  ‘Before Bart Sedburgh? Yes, Father Timon. He came from the Paynefleetes of Wheatley. You’ll know them, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I know them well enough. Have you any idea who recommended him to Lady Honoria when he left Wheatley?’

  ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why so surprised? Roman Catholics have to stick together in these precarious times, sir. We have to help each other. Hakon Paynefleete knows I have contacts of the same faith, and when he asked me if could find a position for Father Timon, I put him in touch with Honoria. She wanted someone suitable to tutor hers and Deventer’s combined broods. They have a clutch of young lads, you know.’

  ‘I see. Did Hakon Paynefleete give any reason why Father Timon was leaving him?’

  ‘Said he’d been told that if he didn’t get rid of the chaplain he’d be clapped in gaol. Paynefleete, that is, not the chaplain. He’d be hanged, most like. You know what it’s like in London where the Paynefleetes have a house. If you ask me, it was a bit foolish taking him with them; I’d not last long if I lived there; I’m fortunate to be tolerated here.’

  ‘So Hakon told you he was in danger?’

  ‘Correct. But the chaplain wasn’t with Deventer long before he died, you know. Did you know that?’

  ‘I had heard. Sad business. He was well liked, I believe.’

  Sir Leon was staggered by Hakon Paynefleete’s deceit. In spite of the chaplain’s dishonourable conduct with their maid, the Vytterys’ daughter, he was nevertheless allowed to move on to another family. ‘Lady West,’ he said, ‘does Lady Felice know that it was you who recommended Father Timon to her mother?’

  ‘I doubt it. It was not her concern, after all, and we all have to be so careful about giving information on the whereabouts of priests. Why, has she spoken of him?’

  ‘No, not a word. Nor would I like her to know that we’ve been speaking of him, my lady. As you say, it’s not her concern.’ Anticipating her next question, he went on, quickly. ‘I’d like to assist Lady Felice with her purchases for the abbey while I’m here. Would you allow me to call, to take her into town…shopping? I have one or two workshops I’d like her to see.’

  ‘On foot?’

  His smile was audible. ‘I have horses for her and Mistress Waterman. She and my valet have taken a fancy to each other, you see. May I bring them round?’

  ‘If they’re as comely as yourself, sir, Felice and Lydia will not be able to resist them, will they? But don’t head directly for John Skinner’s tapestry workshop, I beg you. That would be exceedingly undiplomatic.’

  If Sir Leon had expected to find the same compliance in this ward as in her hostess, he was to be disappointed. She protested, in private to begin with, at some feeling of betrayal. ‘My lady’ she said, ‘I’ve come all this way expressly to shop without him. I’ll not go through all those arguments again, and one cannot dispute before merchants, can one? He’ll get his own way, no matter what I’ve decided, and I may as well not have any say at all.’

  ‘I think you’ll find, my dear, that away from Wheatley Sir Leon will be quite prepared to accept your choices on most things.’ Lady West had good reason to believe this, having advised him to begin with the household goods with which his tastes counted for little. ‘Begin at the linen-hall on Ceap Street and don’t let them charge you more than three shillings for tablecloths, ten for quilts and four for a pair of sheets.’

  ‘I had hoped to go with you, my lady,’ said Felice.

  ‘You shall, my dear, you shall. For the important purchases, we’ll go together. Plenty of time.’

  ‘This is quite ridiculous,’ she snapped to Lydia later on. ‘It’s bad enough having him here in Winchester without having to be watched over when I’m buying. Can’t we give him the slip, Lydie?’

  She said something very similar to Sir Leon himself as he came into the large terraced garden wearing high riding-boots and looking very sure of himself. ‘No, sir,’ she said, watching two butterflies chase each other around the spikes of lavender. ‘I’m sorry, but today I’ve made other arrangements.’ She had no wish to sound petulant, but this was getting uncomfortably close to the manoeuvring tactics she had striven so hard to avoid, his impeccable courtesy here at Cool Brook House melting no ice with her. It might have impressed Lady West, but she herself knew the cutting edge of his tongue, and his inflexibility.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Sir Leon said, ‘Mistress Waterman was so looking…’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me that!’ she snarled, suddenly angry. ‘Yes, I know Lydia wanted to ride with your Mr Bystander, but we are talking of more important issues than that, Sir Leon, we are talking of making me do something I am determined not to do. Now, I suggest that, to settle the argument, you take the lists and shop on your own. That way at least one of us will be pleased. Here you are.’ She held them out, catching Lydia’s eye as she did so. ‘What’s funny?’ she said, crossly.

  ‘Come,’ said Lydia, laying a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Just come and look at this.’

  ‘Oh, no! If it’s a carriage, forget it.’

  ‘It’s not. Come on.’

  Reluctantly, she was led by the hand through the door in the garden wall and into the cobbled stableyard where grooms talked, holding horses. They spread out as the group approached, bringing one horse forward to meet Felice, a pure white mare with a long mane and tail like unspun silk, dark eyes and muzzle, ears pricked delicately towards her. Its legs were fine, tail held high, coat shining like satin.

  ‘Oh,’ Felice said. ‘Oh, you…you beautiful thing.’ She halted, looking with reproach at Sir Leon’s amusement. ‘This is most unfair,’ she whispered. ‘Most unfair!’

  ‘No. As I said, all’s fair in love and war. Sheer bribery,’ he whispered back. ‘Think you can ride her?’

  The saddle was new pale Spanish leather embossed with a scrolling pattern, the stirrups of chased silver, the bridle studded and patchworked with coloured leathers and silver; the effect was exquisitely delicate.

  Neither of them had seen Sir Leon ride before on his powerful dark bay stallion whose eyes rolled continually towards the two mares, Lydia’s being a pretty light chestnut with a blonde mane and tail. With Adam, they made an impressive quartet but, with three servants bringing up the rear, they turned every head on the streets of Winchester.

  As Sir Leon had said, it was sheer bribery, but it worked, and the next days were unbelievably different from the contentious times at Wheatley when good
relations had been a mere oasis in a desert of conflicts from which Felice had not been able to find an escape except by the easiest route of giving in.

  After the linen-hall they had visited the carpenter on Middle Brook Street to look at designs for bulbous-legged tables, chairs with wider-than-usual seats for ladies’ skirts, massive court cupboards and tester beds with richly carved surfaces, wide enough for a small family.

  ‘When my own carpenter is allowed access to some good wood,’ Felice said archly to Sir Leon as he lifted her up into the saddle yet again, ‘I’ll be able to set him to making some pallets and joined stools. At the moment, he’s using whatever he can scrounge.’

  Sir Leon arranged her skirts over her legs, hardly rising to the bait. ‘At the moment, my lady,’ he said, ‘your carpenter has already made extra pallets and joined stools and is now using my best oak to make a set of shutters for your bedchamber windows.’ He held her eyes, boldly.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You gave orders to my carpenter?’

  ‘Certainly I did. We both felt it was the safer course.’

  Only a few days ago, she would have made a fuss, on principle, but now she was content to let it pass, there being no point to make.

  ‘Where next, my lady? The mercer, is it?’

  ‘No, silverware, if you please.’

  ‘Jewry Street,’ he said to Adam. ‘Isaac Goldsmith’s shop, then home.’

  Felice was tempted to argue, almost to test him. ‘No, not home. To the apothecary, I think, and then the brewer.’

  ‘They’ll be putting up their shutters in another ten minutes,’ Sir Leon said, swinging himself up into the saddle. ‘How long d’ye need with the goldsmith, five minutes?’

  ‘An hour, at least.’

  ‘Well, then, which is it to be?’

  There was something quite delicious in losing an argument one didn’t need to win anyway, a far cry from the unseemly Wheatley squabbles.

  She had thanked him for the beautiful white mare, warmly and sincerely, though each night she wondered what lay behind this amazing change from severity to kindliness. She called the mare Pavane because her movements were graceful, like the dance, and she was allowed to stable both mares in Lady West’s stables which, they said, was another mark of his new trust in her.

  Sir Leon’s new easy manner was the cause of some sleepy discussion at night when the two women lay side by side, tired after the day’s exertions followed by a sociable evening.

  ‘I’d no idea he had a singing voice,’ Felice whispered. ‘It’s rather good.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Lydia said. ‘It almost made me cry when he sang about summer turning to cold December. He was looking at you, you know.’

  ‘Yes, and thinking about someone else, no doubt. But he plays the lute well, too. I loved his duet with Adam. Do you think he’s intentionally showing us his other side, Lydie, or is it just coincidence? He wants us to go and see his house tomorrow; Lady West’s dying to have a look inside.’

  ‘So am I, love. Tomorrow’s Sunday. No shopping.’

  ‘Early church; the little one across the road.’

  ‘She doesn’t attend the cathedral?’

  ‘Once a month to avoid being fined and to see who she can see.’

  They rolled over, back to warm back, and fell into the silent darkness. A muffled question found its way out, before sleep. ‘Hasn’t he kissed you since we came?’

  ‘No. Not once.’

  ‘Not even tried?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you relieved?’

  ‘Relieved. Puzzled. I don’t know, Lydie. Perhaps this is just his new friendly phase. At least I can deal with this. I think.’

  In the dark, Lydia did not see her mistress’s eyes fill with tears, but she felt the sudden spasm, and laid a gentle hand upon her thigh until it ceased.

  In the little church of St Peter Colebrook, which had formerly belonged to the nunnery of St Mary, the changes from Roman Catholic to Protestant were less obvious than in most other Winchester churches. The altar was still where it had always been, the statues and crucifixes, officially banned by the queen, were here tolerated by the town council because of Lady West’s formidable influence, her large donations being responsible for the upkeep of the church and the priest’s stipend.

  The congregation still had a sprinkling of former nuns from both St Mary’s and from Romsey Abbey, most of them living either at St John’s Hospital near the Eastgate or at the Sisterne House in the southern suburbs outside the city wall.

  Lady West introduced Felice to some of them, noisily as usual, promising to find Sister Winifred and Mistress Godden, both of whom had been at Romsey and would be sure to know Dame Celia and Dame Audrey of Wheatley. Sister Winifred was not hard to find after the service, not daring to ignore Lady West’s bellow outside the western door. The elderly black-clad sister turned with an expression of patient exasperation and waited for Lady West’s magnificent black amplitude to bear down upon her like a gigantic magpie.

  ‘Most of them are deaf,’ Lady West yelled at Felice. ‘You have to shout at them, poor things. Winifred, dear, where’ve you been?’

  Good-natured or not, the question came as an extra discomfort to Sister Winifred. The former Romsey nun, unlike the two Wheatley dames, preferred to retain her habit, her name, and her nun-like demeanour, keeping her eyes downcast until the proper introduction had been made. Then she looked up, showing Felice the world-weariness and disillusionment in the drooping eyelids and mouth that she had seen in Dame Audrey’s once-pretty face.

  Contrary to Lady West’s announcement, Sister Winifred was not deaf and so, while the noisy benevolent magpie was discussing the finer points of the sermon with the priest, Felice, Lydia and the former nun strolled towards the little wicket gate that enclosed the cemetery.

  ‘Lady West believes you may remember two ladies I’ve recently met who now live at Wheatley. Former nuns of Romsey like yourself, I believe.’

  ‘I was Mistress of the Novices there until it closed,’ said Sister Winifred in a small disciplined voice. ‘You must be referring to Celia Paynefleete and Audrey Wintershulle, I suppose, though Celia was never a novice.’ There was no joy in her admission, and Felice saw instantly that there had been neither friendship nor close connection between them. She was, after all, a good ten years their senior, and there would be little by way of gossip to be had from this dame’s tight-lipped mouth. ‘Good families, both of them, but that doesn’t count for much nowadays, does it?’ she said.

  In the context of her reduced circumstances at the hospital for poor but well-bred ladies, Sister Winifred’s dour remark was understandable, but Felice suspected another meaning. ‘The Paynefleetes are Dame Celia’s brother and sister-in-law,’ she said, ‘but the name of Wintershulle is not a familiar one. Are they a local family?’

  ‘Well, for all they helped their daughter, they may as well have lived on the moon. Families usually stick together in times of trouble, but not the Wintershulles. They didn’t want to know.’

  Felice’s arms crawled with prickling hairs. She had been mistaken, the tight-lipped mouth was not so much reluctant as bursting from want of a hearing. Discretion told Felice not to encourage her, but the words slipped out so easily. ‘Know what, sister?’

  Sister Winifred gripped the wicket gate with swollen knuckles, also fighting with the habit of discipline but, as she pushed the gate open, the inner defences were breached, breaking through into an outburst that carried more weight than mere gossip. ‘They didn’t want her back when Romsey closed down,’ she said. ‘Celia was all right. She hadn’t taken her vows and she’d kept her nose clean. Not like young Audrey; she should never have been allowed to train as a novice. It was against my advice, though I blame those young priests at Wheatley. It’s always as much the man’s fault, isn’t it?’

  Felice glanced at Lydia, seeing a mirror there of her own horror. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, mechanically. ‘They get away lightly, sister.’

 
Three abreast, they trod the pathway through long mounds, gravestones and bundles of flowers, not far distant from the chatter of church-goers. Go on, woman. Go on.

  ‘That was the trouble,’ Sister Winifred said, bitterly. ‘The nunneries always needed priests to take our services, to instruct our novices, see to our accounts, hear confessions, administer…ah, heaven only knows what they administered. For most of them it didn’t much matter; they knew their days were numbered and many of them were too young, anyway. Far too young. It was not good for those young lasses.’

  ‘There was trouble?’ said Lydia.

  ‘Tch! Trouble!’ Sister Winifred shook her head, hardly looking up. ‘By the time we closed down in the spring of thirty-nine, the young Wintershulle lass was three or four months gone with child and not a soul wanted to know about it. Not even the father.’

  ‘The Wheatley sacristan? Thomas Vyttery?’

  ‘Aye. They had the devil’s own job to get him to admit it and marry the lass. Celia’s father took her in till they were married. He even gave them a cottage to live in and Father Thomas a job in the church.’

  ‘Chantry priest, I believe.’

  ‘Aye, but chantries were closed down soon after—you’ll not remember that—so his job went, too. Life seemed to go sour on them, while young Celia and her family had it easy by comparison. Like mother, like daughter.’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘I’ve said enough, my lady, she being a friend of yours, and all.’

  ‘Well…er, not exactly. Wait, please.’ Felice touched Sister Winifred’s arm, pleading for her to stay, to tell her the rest which she half-knew already. ‘Like daughter, you said? That would be Frances, would it?’

  Lady West’s voice called lustily from the church end of the path, putting an end to further enquiries, though Felice felt that Sister Winifred would have answered, given the chance.

  ‘I’m not the one to be telling you this,’ the sister said. ‘It’s Ellen Godden you ought to be talking to. She and that Wintershulle lass were friends. She’s usually here at church on Sunday mornings, but not today.’