A Most Unseemly Summer

by Juliet Landon

  ‘I don’t want to listen to you.’

  He held her back against the wall, making a cage of his arms. ‘Listen! I was not making excuses. It was an amazing meal, considering how—’

  ‘There! There you are! Considering! It was an amazing meal by anybody’s standards, including hers. Perhaps you think she could do better.’

  ‘What is it, lass? I can see you don’t much care for each other, but you’ve only met her once before. She’s harmless enough. Plenty of show, I grant, but that’s only a cover. Don’t take it all so seriously, sweetheart.’

  ‘That you and she have been lovers for years? Is that something I’m not supposed to take too seriously? That she wants a room near yours? That, too? That she’s spent all evening ogling you, her uncle and Marcus in turns? Truly, I don’t know whether that’s serious or ridiculous. What say you?’

  He sighed. ‘What I say is this, if you’ll hear me. She and I had a brief affair two years ago, and since then I’ve seen very little of her except in public. Deventer has always believed I should make an offer for her, and I suppose that’s why he took the chance to bring her down here with him.’ He would have continued, but Felice was in no mood to hear the rest.

  ‘Well, then, don’t waste another moment here with me, Sir Leon. You’ve explained to me already how you have to please my stepfather. He pays you, you reminded me once. And I have some old wounds to lick, remember? Now, let me pass. I’m tired.’ She pushed against his arm, freeing herself and leaping away into the darkness towards the arch where, on the stable block, a torch burned and waved crazily in the gusting wind.

  Having previously schooled herself to say nothing of that to him, to refuse any kind of competition with the outrageous Levina and, most of all, to refrain from any mention of her own recent wounds, she stood for some time in the darkness shaking with vexation at her own stupidity and lack of control. If anything could be guaranteed to send him into Levina’s company more quickly, it was her revelation of jealousy. And after that, how could she expect that he would come to her that night, as he had said he would?

  His excuse, if one could call it that, was that Lord Deventer had wanted to talk with him and had kept him up until the early hours of the morning. It was perfectly reasonable, Lydia told her, but Felice was not open to reason and preferred to torture herself with other explanations. Coolly polite, she had thanked him for coming to tell her, making it impossible for him to share an intimate caress in front of the servants who had brought her breakfast up from the kitchen, a bowl of porridge and a beaker of weak ale.

  Her next visitor of the morning was Marcus, who sat beside her on the chest and scooped a fingerful of her porridge into his mouth, his stillness suiting her mood.

  ‘Sleep well?’ she asked, moving her bowl towards him.

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Four men snoring in the same room, all in different keys and not one of them could keep time.’

  Felice’s guffaw was most unladylike. ‘Oh, dear, Marcus,’ she said, licking splutters of porridge off her hands, ‘I’m sorry. I was so busy with the other two that you were left to fend for yourself. Do forgive me. I’ll find a better place for you, I promise.’

  ‘Last time I was here, you offered me the big chamber up there…’ he pointed to the plaster ceiling ‘…where I was painting your portrait. Is that offer still open?’

  On the face of it, there was no reason why it should not be, yet there had been developments since then which he clearly knew nothing of and which were in a state of flux that she could not predict one way or the other. But it was not so very unusual for people to sleep wherever there was a space, and she had already offered it to him once. Why not again?

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t offer it to you yesterday. I’d rather you used it than anyone else.’

  ‘Thank you, m’lady.’ He kissed her cheek and took another fingerful of her breakfast. ‘I’ll move my things across later on. My lad can stay too, I take it?’

  ‘Does he snore out of key?’ she said in mock severity.

  ‘Soundless. I’d not employ him otherwise, believe me. And while I’m here I could finish off your portrait. I expect Leon and the amazing Levina will want time to themselves, so why don’t we do the same? Would you like that? Lady Honoria was pleased with hers, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, so you said. I’m glad. He still admires her, then?’

  ‘Who, Leon? Well, if his attentions last night were anything to go by I’d say they’ll be resuming negotiations almost immediately.’ He laughed at his witticism. ‘But let them get on with it. She’s a determined lady, that one. Hey, have you finished with this already?’

  Felice nodded, feeling her stomach revolt at the thoughts.

  ‘Then you don’t mind if I finish it up for you?’

  After he’d gone to collect his belongings, she sat for a long time pondering over what Marcus had implied, not only regarding the resumption of the old love affair but also that neither he nor the other guests had been made aware of the new relationship between herself and Sir Leon, neither by hint, gesture or declaration. What was she to read into this but that he intended to keep it secret, that it was not intended to last? Like Timon.

  Chapter Ten

  At any other time, Felice would have seen it as essential that Sir Leon should spend most of his time with his employer, on the site, and in discussion with the master craftsmen who were not being paid to stand around idly. Whatever time was left over, he would be expected to pay some attention to his guests. But being unsure of herself as well as him, in fact being unsure of everything, Felice felt unable to see things without a strong bias, consequently overplaying her hand and making matters worse at the same time. Every look, word or smile in Levina’s direction was noted; every advance in her own direction was received as coolly as before their visit to Winchester, and Sir Leon was given no opportunity to put matters to rights. His anger at Marcus’s new lodging added yet more fuel to her resentment.

  ‘What the hell d’ye think you’re doing, woman,’ he snapped at her later that day, ‘inviting him to sleep up there? Give him half a wink and he’ll be down those stairs and into your bed. Is that what you want?’

  ‘What does it matter to you, sir, who I have in my bed? I don’t care a damn who you have in yours.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Think about it, Sir Leon. Your room is as close to Mistress Deventer’s as mine is to Mr Donne’s, so presumably you have only to give her half a wink and she’ll be—’

  ‘Felice…stop it! This is ridiculous. Come back here!’

  Her efforts to escape were this time halted by Lord Deventer, who had lagged behind his surveyor to speak to the master plasterer. With a mixture of curiosity and amusement, he caught Sir Leon’s words and the defiant expression on his stepdaughter’s beautiful but angry face.

  ‘Now then, lad.’ He laughed. ‘You told me it was working out quite well, this new guardianship. Is this a good day for it, or a bad one? Perhaps it’s not suiting you as well as I believed, young lady.’

  ‘I don’t know what you were led to believe, my lord, but I was never asked for my approval of the arrangement, nor have I ever accepted it.’ Boldly, she gave back stare for stare, ignoring the warning in Sir Leon’s eyes. ‘Sir Leon seems to believe he can order my life, but he’s mistaken. I’m perfectly able to choose a guardian of my own whose interests are less complex than his.’

  ‘Complex?’ Lord Deventer bellowed. ‘Doesn’t sound all that complex to me. Well, never mind that now; we’ve more important things to settle, like clearing this mess up before her ladyship comes down. Ye’ve still plenty to do in the New House, lass. It’s coming together, but it’ll take a while yet.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ Felice said with acid sweetness. ‘Your praise is as unstinting as ever, like your appreciation.’ She marched off calling sharply to Fen and Flint whose loyalties were, as usual, divided.

  ‘Unstinting?
’ Lord Deventer said. ‘Is that good? Never did understand the lass’s high-falutin’ words.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do either, sir,’ said Sir Leon, watching her go.

  Levina Deventer did not appear on either of the two following days until after a light dinner in her room at midday, after which she had no difficulty in commanding Sir Leon’s and Lord Deventer’s attentions without even setting foot out of the New House into the messy realms of workmen. To this predictable pattern of behaviour Felice could only ascribe one thing, giving herself every reason, or so she thought, to make her appearance there at mealtimes and then to disappear on her own business.

  Sir Leon had not thought fit to visit the Abbot’s House on any pretext at night, and on the one daytime occasion had found her sitting for the limner in his large sunlit room upstairs. He had not stayed long, and Felice had had to strain every muscle to avoid running after him to beg him to take her in his arms.

  Suppertime was a formal meal taken together in the large hall for convenience, where all the workers gathered and where the glorious Levina could entertain the whole company simply by her airs and graces. Her loudly caustic remarks, usually at someone’s expense, and her dazzling clothes were like the moon to a swarm of moths beside which Felice’s quieter hues could not compete. Good manners and graciousness being the duty of every hostess, she began to wonder if perhaps the roles were being reversed when Mistress Deventer issued orders to the servers to remove some of the dishes and bring in others, to tell the musicians to play more softly so that she could hear herself speak. Felice would have stayed on, as etiquette demanded, but this time she doubted whether anyone, except perhaps Marcus, would notice her absence. The atrocious Levina’s domination of the scene was getting out of hand.

  She slipped away into the kitchen passage and out through the back door into the cloister, stumbling over slabs in the wrong direction and eventually coming to the door leading into the church. Dim lights burned here and there as she closed the door quietly and made her way towards them, fighting the pain in her breast. She stopped to listen, not sure whether what she heard was the wind or voices, but a fine line of light appeared under the heavily studded door on her right, the door to the sacristy and, knowing no reason why anyone should be there at that time of night, turned the iron ring to lift the latch. Silently, the door opened, the flickering light of a single candle illuminating the pale and horrified faces of Thomas Vyttery and his wife Dame Audrey.

  Their combined stares compelled her to take in the scene and comment on it, to put them out of their misery. The small room had recently been cleared of its contents, ready for demolition, but the one remaining item was the cope-chest, far too large to remove until the wall was knocked down. Shaped like a quarter-circle, it stood massively on several small feet, its iron-bound lid being used as a table for its previous contents, a mountain of embroidered and jewelled vestments worn by the old abbots of Wheatley Abbey, their colours glowing richly, winking with jewels and gold thread, priceless on the continent where Roman Catholicism was allowed.

  The steady glare of Thomas Vyttery’s animosity was more potent this time than it had been at their first meeting when even his mastiff had deserted him, but now the candlelight showed up something she had not seen before, a terrible sadness in the pale watery stare. Beads of perspiration stood out on his brow and his hands listlessly tidied papers that had been set out before them. ‘Come inside, my lady,’ he said, tiredly. ‘You followed us, I suppose?’

  ‘You supposed wrongly, Mr Vyttery. There is no reason why I should follow you, but now I’m here you may find it more convenient to tell me what you’re doing with vestments that should by now be in the king’s treasury. I’m bound to reach the wrong conclusions otherwise. Is there a stool for me, Dame Audrey?’

  The steward’s wife had avoided Felice’s eyes, so far, but now blinked in surprise at the request. ‘Yes, of course.’ She placed the stool at Felice’s feet, sliding away a pile of velvet and silk stoles and a jewelled mitre thick with gold thread, as if to keep it out of her reach.

  But Felice could not resist touching it. ‘The gold alone must be worth hundreds of pounds,’ she said. ‘There must be a good reason why you’ve chosen to—’

  ‘There was no choice, my lady,’ the steward almost spat through his beard. ‘There was no choice!’ His hands shook over the papers and Dame Audrey looked away, acutely embarrassed by her husband’s sudden outburst.

  ‘Please, Thomas!’ she whispered. ‘Don’t!’

  He turned to her, snarling. ‘I have to, woman! Can you not see that she knows? I expect she knew it all before she came. She looked as if she did.’

  ‘Know what, Mr Vyttery? I wish you would tell me so that I can understand. You’re a man of God, so you can hardly have been breaking the law with a light heart all these years, I’m sure. Nor your wife.’

  ‘My wife!’ The words came out with a venom that stopped Felice’s breath and made her glance at the poor woman who stood opposite.

  Dame Audrey had turned white, her eyes round with horror. ‘Don’t say any more, Thomas, I beg you,’ she said, forgetting her previous mincing accents.

  ‘Well, you tell her, then,’ Thomas snapped. ‘She’s come here to find out, so she may as well have the whole story. Tell her, woman, and be damned to the lot of ’em. He’s gone now, so it’s hardly going to damage his reputation, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know how to start,’ Dame Audrey whispered.

  ‘Start at the beginning. Go on, tell her every sordid detail. Let’s see if she’ll understand as much as she thinks she will.’

  ‘Was it blackmail? Tell me, Dame Audrey,’ said Felice.

  The poor lady shook her head, her face transparent against the creamy-white linen of her coif. ‘You knew I’d been a novice at Romsey Abbey, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, Dame Celia told me that.’

  ‘See?’ Thomas muttered.

  ‘And you knew that…’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Thomas’s interruption startled them both as he turned to face them. ‘From the beginning, Audrey, not halfway: the beginning is with Abbot John Aycombe, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps you should tell me, Mr Vyttery,’ said Felice, laying her fingertips upon his sleeve.

  He looked down at them and began quietly to talk. ‘When the old abbot died, m’lady, John Aycombe and myself were the next choice, but he was the old abbot’s favourite. Always genial, John was, and mightily ambitious. John was elected by a whisker, though by that time we all knew that the end was in sight for the abbeys. We also knew that whoever was abbot at the time would be sent off with a good pension and enough perquisites to keep him comfortable, once he was out in the world, and that the rest of us would have to fend for ourselves any way we could.

  ‘John made me sacristan, but he could have done much more, m’lady. He chose not to. But then he suddenly needed my help.’

  ‘Thomas…no!’

  ‘We’re telling her everything,’ he said to his wife. ‘Clever John Aycombe, Abbot of Wheatley, got a young novice from Romsey Abbey in the family way. A bright, vivacious sixteen-year-old called Audrey Wintershulle. No, it was not me, my lady,’ he said, taking in Felice’s shocked expression, ‘it was John Aycombe who fathered a child on Audrey. I don’t blame her. I never have done. I blame him. He knew full well what he was doing and he knew how to wriggle out of it, too.’

  ‘Merciful heavens!’ Felice said. ‘Why did he not accept responsibility?’

  ‘Because,’ Thomas continued, ‘by that time he’d made his plans for the inevitable retirement, even though he was only young. Audrey’s parents refused to take her back once they discovered she was pregnant so she had no dowry and no home, and that was no good for John Aycombe because by that time he’d set his sights on Celia Paynefleete, who was fifteen at the time, a pupil with the nuns at Romsey. Well-connected, wealthy, friends of the former abbot and a much better catch than a Wintershulle.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’
Felice said. ‘I’m so very sorry. I’d no idea it was like that. What happened to you?’

  ‘Celia’s family took me in,’ Dame Audrey said, looking down at her hands, ‘but John never told Celia that he was the father of my child, and to this day she still doesn’t know. He wanted nothing to do with me,’ she said. ‘I had nothing to offer him.’

  ‘A child?’

  ‘He didn’t want that. It would have done his reputation no good.’

  Thomas Vyttery continued the story. ‘Well, whether for good or evil, Sir Paul Paynefleete, Celia’s father, discovered John’s misconduct at Romsey, and although Celia persuaded her father to let her marry John, he withheld his permission until a father had been found for the child Audrey was expecting. He didn’t want any scandal rubbing off on to his family, you see. So John had to find somebody to marry his…’

  ‘Thomas!’

  ‘Yes, well. Anyway, he came to me with the proposal. Me, of all people. He didn’t mind my reputation being tarnished.’

  ‘But you agreed, out of charity,’ Felice suggested.

  ‘Out of greed. And necessity. Because I didn’t know how I was going to live otherwise. He got me the job of chantry-priest here at the church, which paid very little, but he’d got himself the position as Paynefleete’s chaplain and vicar, a wealthy patron, a future wife and dowry, and a pension from the crown. Not bad, eh? He offered me, if I would help him out, the treasure from the church and the abbey that we’d hidden from the king’s receivers. Oh, we let them have some of the stuff, enough to keep them quiet, but we were a very wealthy abbey and only I knew what we had down there—’ he pointed to the floor ‘—in the vault and in that great cope-chest. He told me I could have access to all of it if I’d marry Audrey and foster their child as my own. And I agreed.

  ‘Celia’s father let us have our cottage rent-free, and Audrey had Frances there. And John Aycombe never once recognised her as his, even though he baptised her.’