The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries)

by Buckley, Fiona

  Unless I were much mistaken, the newest Lockhill maidservant was spurning the advances of Thomas the groom, not so much because she didn’t like him (though I could understand it if so), but because she was wildly in love with Leonard Mason, whose mental processes were as far beyond her grasp as the moon in the sky, and to whom she was merely an inefficient menial who muddled up his desk.

  Poor Jennet.

  • • •

  The Masons returned at dusk, and I joined them in the gallery, where we were to sit that evening and take supper. It was candlelit and reasonably warm by now, as long as one had plenty of stout clothing, sat within six feet of the hearth and didn’t venture into any of the window bays. These were almost little rooms in their own right, and in summer must be pleasant, since they looked outward, not into the yew garden between the wings, but over a knot garden with geometric flowerbeds enclosed by low hedges of box.

  That evening, I had my first social encounter with Dr. Forrest, the short, plump vicar of Lockhill and occupant of the vicarage which so overshadowed the tiny church of St. Mark’s to which it was attached. He had given a brief, comforting sermon on Sunday, and I had taken to him.

  Dr. Forrest was dressed in a formal gown of charcoal-coloured velvet; in fact, we were quite a smart gathering. I was in my pale green damask, and Ann in a becoming shade of rose. She must have used the same roll of material for the girls, for they were dressed to match their mother. The boys wore their black velvet Sunday breeches and doublets, which made them look older. George was on the verge of manhood, I saw, growing into adult proportions, and with a faint down on his upper lip. He would, I thought, become more of a challenge to his tutor’s authority every day, and Philip wasn’t far behind. I almost pitied Crichton.

  I had finished Mason’s fawn doublet in time and he came to supper wearing it. He unbent enough to thank me for what he called my exemplary work. I didn’t know whether either of the Masons had spoken to Crichton about his clothes, but he too had made an effort that evening. Instead of his usual ancient black gown, he had put on a dark brown doublet and hose, sombre and quite well worn, but neat. His attitude to me, however, remained acid. Ann remarked on my skill at both dancing and embroidery, and Crichton replied that dancing was of course a required accomplishment at court. His tone implied that this naturally made it questionable.

  Forrest was amused. A broad grin appeared on his round face. “Brave of you!” he said to me. “I understand that George and Philip are your pupils for dancing, as well as the girls. I hear that they are a wild lot, apt to rush headlong out of the schoolroom if their studies bore them, and the boys are the ringleaders. I hope they don’t serve you in such a way, Mrs. Blanchard.”

  Crichton looked annoyed and I realised that Forrest had intended this. They represented opposing Churches and therefore they were rivals.

  Goblets of wine had been set out for us and I took one, calmly. “Dancing is an amusement. I expect that makes a difference,” I said.

  “I am tired of hearing about the misdemeanours of my offspring. I long for the day when they are grown up and know how to behave,” said Mason. “Now, how about some music before we eat?”

  “Mrs. Blanchard,” said Ann, “can we persuade you to play the spinet for us?”

  There were two spinets in the house, one in the gallery and one in a music room downstairs. According to Ann, the instrument downstairs had been built by Leonard Mason himself, helped by his friend the former music master. I had tried it and found it poor in tone. The gallery spinet, however, was good. I was only a moderate performer, but being anxious to please, I played a piece which I had learned at court, a sparkly tune, but with comparatively simple fingering.

  “Oh, I did like that!” Pen exclaimed. “It was merry.”

  “You could learn it,” I said. “It’s well within your compass. You’ve had a good grounding. I believe,” I added casually to her parents, “that Pen has talent. Tell me, have you considered arranging for her to visit other households, perhaps places where she might hear really excellent playing, to give her a standard to reach for?”

  “We have thought of it,” said Ann. Never idle, she was working on some coarse darning, the sort which could be done by candlelight. Her hands moved competently, drawing the wool in and out. “But we do not have a wide acquaintance, you know. We are not fashionable people.”

  “A visit to France could benefit her,” Crichton remarked. “A stay in a convent there, for instance. The best nunneries offer music and needlework to a high standard. There is an abbey near Orléans which has a very good name. The young widowed queen is at Orléans just now. If you were to go there this summer, you might catch a glimpse of her.”

  “She’ll have gone home to Scotland by then,” said Forrest coolly. “There are indeed many fine sights to be seen in France, but Mary Stuart won’t be one of them for long.”

  “I don’t want to go to France,” said Penelope mutinously, “and I don’t want to stay in a nunnery. I want to go to court when I’m old enough.”

  “Mrs. Mason,” I said, cutting across this, “I have only just arrived and it is ridiculously soon to talk of going away again, if only for a short time, but it occurs to me that I might do so, with advantage to both myself and to Penelope.”

  Ann lowered her work to her knee. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You are aware,” I said, “that I have a small daughter, boarded at the moment with Master Henderson, who escorted me here, and his wife. They live near Hampton—”

  “You have a child, then, Mrs. Blanchard? How charming,” Dr. Forrest broke in. “And you are one of the Queen’s ladies, so Mrs. Mason has told me. The Queen should marry soon and follow your example. The sooner she has an imp of her own, the better for us all.”

  He beamed round at Crichton and the Masons, none of whom looked as if they agreed with him. There was definitely more to Dr. Forrest than met the eye, I thought.

  I smiled. “Well, my imp—her name is Meg—is in an excellent household. The Hendersons are cultured and kind, and their house, Thamesbank, is beautiful. They often entertain good company.”

  “Are you asking if you may visit your daughter?” enquired Mason. “But of course. You are free to come and go, just as you wish.”

  “I did, however, undertake to help instruct your girls,” I said. “I have a sense of obligation. I could hardly descend on the Hendersons with three little girls, but I might do so with one not so little one—in this case, Penelope. I could make a visit to Meg part, as it were, of my course of instruction for Pen. If Penelope came with me, she would hear the best music, and see for herself how life is conducted in a house of high social standing.”

  “The Hendersons,” said Mason, “are no doubt Anglican. I beg your pardon, Dr. Forrest, but you are familiar with the beliefs held in this house.”

  “Oh, quite, but I take it that the visit would be brief. I doubt,” said Forrest, “if Pen would come to much harm. It isn’t like measles,” he added, his voice bland, although his face was creased with laughter. “You can’t catch it.”

  “I should like to go,” said Penelope, joining in on my side and gazing at her father with pleading eyes.

  “Most decidedly not,” said Mr. Mason. “I couldn’t think of allowing it. That is my last word.”

  It cast a blight over the evening, and especially over me. I had hoped that the excuse of furthering Pen’s education would get me back to Hampton and then to London, without arousing the interest of anyone at Lockhill who might be watching me. I might then pursue the curious idea which had occurred to me while I was talking to Jennet. I had failed so far to investigate the study. It was high time that I achieved something!

  Admittedly, thinking about it, I couldn’t see how any plot could become dangerous very quickly. As long as the Queen did not marry Dudley—which I knew she wouldn’t do—then no rising against her was likely to succeed. All the same, I was very aware of Mary Stuart, over there on the other side of the Channel—and
if she came to Scotland, she’d be even closer.

  When the door at the end of the gallery opened to admit a little procession consisting of Redman, Mrs. Logan and Joan with trayloads of supper, the chill draught which entered with them was like a cold reminder of the outside world.

  I looked round at our little gathering near the hearth. We sit here, I thought, in what looks like a cosy domestic world: Ann Mason is darning stockings; Forrest is making little digs at Crichton and his host; Crichton and Mason allude openly to their beliefs—they feel safe here. Anyone would think the wider world, with its perils, its temptations, its hungry ambitions and its ghastly power of bursting into quiet private lives and wrecking them, didn’t exist.

  I sipped my wine, glad of its warmth, knowing all too well how real that wider world was, and brooding about it until my reverie was broken by Leonard Mason, asking Redman to put a fresh supply of candles in his study.

  “I shall be in and out of it a good deal over the next few days, by night as well as by day, I expect.”

  “You’re designing a new version of your gliding engine, I believe,” said Dr. Forrest.

  “Not only that,” said Leonard. “I’m also designing a catapult with which to propel it off the tower roof.”

  Ann gave one of her sighs. I sighed too, for a different reason. Even if I could find the courage to attempt once more to search Mason’s study, my chances of doing so seemed, for the next few days, to be nonexistent.

  • • •

  That night, I was sorry I had sent Dale to spend the night with Brockley. As I was going to bed, I experienced a most terrible surge of jealousy. The maid was going to sleep with her husband while I, her mistress, must lie alone and yearn, uncomforted. I could have hated her for it.

  I settled myself in bed and tried to push these thoughts away, but I couldn’t sleep, even though I had taken my usual soothing posset. For one thing, I was feeling guilty. I had failed to examine Mason’s study properly, and because I had escaped being caught only by a narrow margin, I had let myself be frightened out of even trying to create a new opportunity. I had given way to fear, in a manner most inappropriate for a professional spy.

  Last year, I had convinced myself that I was brave. I had ridden boldly into danger then, on a quest of my own, and carried it through. But I had done it in hot blood, angry because a manservant of mine had been killed in my service. Now I was learning that action in hot blood is one thing, and that to walk into danger in cold blood is quite different, especially when one is longing to be somewhere else, anyway.

  Suddenly, I sat up. This would not do. I must overcome my fears and do the work I had come here for. Surely, I thought, surely, Leonard Mason would not go to his study tonight? He had been out all day and entertained guests in the evening; even Mason must be human enough to need sleep sometimes. I groped for the tinderbox on the table by my bed, lit a candle and put on my slippers and bedgown. I would brave the darkness and investigate that study forthwith.

  My hand was on the latch of my door when I heard, once more, the sound which had woken me on my first night here. Somebody in sloppy footwear was approaching from the wing where the Masons slept. Holding my candle well away, so that its light would not show, I opened my door a crack.

  Leonard Mason, also carrying a candle, dressed just as I was in a loose bedgown, and with his feet in a pair of ancient, down-at-heel slippers, walked past my door and went into the schoolroom, only a few feet away, shutting the door behind him. I stepped out and listened, and heard the door to the gallery open and close as well. I knew where he was going: straight through the gallery to his anteroom and the study beyond. He had gone to his desk after all. Never was there a man more devoted to his intellectual interests than Leonard Mason. I had once more avoided being caught only by a hair’s breadth.

  I went back to bed, shaking.

  How I was ever going to get into that study now, or even dare to try, I couldn’t imagine. I might as well go back to the court, for all the use I was at Lockhill. The only thing I could possibly do was follow up my idea of the afternoon, even if I couldn’t use Pen’s education as an excuse for visiting Thamesbank so soon. Could the idea lead anywhere? Was it worth trying?

  I tried to think it out, but found my mind drifting waywardly off on another path. I had a weird feeling that events were pulling me in too many different directions and that I was no longer sure who I was. I had been sure enough in the past: I had been the lovechild of my mother, brought up on sufferance in Faldene; later I had been wife to Gerald Blanchard, rising young man in the employ of Sir Thomas Gresham; and in due course, I had added to that the joy of being Meg’s mother.

  Now, I was . . . who? Well, Meg’s mother still, but Gerald was dead and gone. Now, I was a Lady of the Queen’s Presence Chamber, a temporary governess to the Mason children and the estranged wife of Matthew de la Roche, an exiled enemy of the realm. I was also an agent paid by Sir William Cecil to hunt out the likes of Matthew here in England—as well as being someone who had been inveigled by a muffled-up and unrecognisable boatman into a deserted boathouse and left there. I was too many different people, some of them quite irreconcilable.

  It was time to finish with all this, I said to myself. As soon as I could, I must collect Meg and go to Matthew and become just one person: Ursula de la Roche, lady of the Château Blanchepierre in the Loire Valley. If I did not, my mind would somehow come apart.

  I wondered if Queen Elizabeth, torn between her duty as queen and her own longings as a woman—between the urgings of her council, who wanted her to marry, and certain horrors engendered by her terrifying childhood—ever felt like this. To think of Elizabeth, I found, was steadying. My task here in Lockhill was for her, and when I thought about her, it was as if I had been groping my way down a steep staircase in the dark, and had suddenly put my hand on a secure rail. Where Elizabeth was concerned, I knew who and what I was. I was in her service and must not fail her.

  With that, my muddled ideas clarified. I could not go to Matthew yet, and it wasn’t safe to invade the study just now, either. I would go to Thamesbank. I would take the opportunity of seeing Meg. I would find out whether Cecil had carried out the enquiries I had suggested, and I would follow up this other idea of mine. I might be chasing shadows but I could only separate shadows from reality by making the attempt.

  I slept.

  CHAPTER 10

  Tapestries and Angels

  I wasted little time the next morning on making excuses. At breakfast, I simply announced that I had decided to visit my daughter Meg anyway and would be away for a few days.

  “Oh dear,” said Ann. “Will you be coming back, Mrs. Blanchard? I’ve been so thankful to have you. Jane showed me some of her embroidery yesterday and you’ve done wonders with her already.”

  “But of course Mrs. Blanchard must visit her daughter if she wishes,” said Leonard Mason severely. “And she must not be pressed to come back against her will.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking her to come back against her will, but I’ll certainly be glad to see her if she wants to come,” said Ann, quite sharply, making me wonder if she wasn’t perhaps a stronger character than she usually seemed.

  “I intend to return, and quite soon,” I said. “I’ll set tasks for the girls before I go and ask Pen to see that they are carried out. Pen is old enough to take responsibility now. It will be good for her.”

  “I can’t understand,” remarked Crichton, “why, since I believe you are here in order to rest from your court duties, Mrs. Blanchard, you are not staying with the Hendersons, with your daughter.”

  I had wondered whether anyone would think of asking that. “One cannot impose,” I said. “The Hendersons have shown great kindness in fostering Meg, and there is little I can do in return. Here, at least, I can help teach the children. Call it pride, if you will. Also, it is best for Meg not to grow used to my company for long periods at a time. She will so rarely be able to have it.”

  “Oh, how sa
d it is that you have no proper home in which to rear your daughter yourself!” Ann exclaimed.

  “No doubt Mrs. Blanchard finds compensations in the interest and freedom of court life,” said Mason in a frigid voice. I would be glad to be away from that coldness for a while, I thought.

  I took Brockley and Dale, Dale initially riding Mouse, the brown gelding which Rob had lent her and had left at Lockhill for her to use if necessary. We took small amounts of clothing, in saddlebags, and no packhorse, and we travelled post, changing horses at Maidenhead. We reached Thamesbank easily that same afternoon.

  Mattie and Rob were pleased, if surprised, to see me and I found Meg in splendid health, playing with the Henderson children in their big nursery, under the eye of the Henderson nurse and Meg’s nurse, Bridget. My daughter ran to me excitedly when I entered the room and then, remembering her manners, stopped short just as she reached me and curtsied. I scooped her up for a hug. “My lovely girl.” Never had I wished so much that I could be simply a mother visiting her child.

  But I was here on darker business, whether I liked it or not. Mattie Henderson left me in the nursery, saying I should join her in the parlour when I was ready, and for an hour I played with Meg, asked about her lessons and heard her sing a song she had been learning. But at last, perforce, I had to return to my hosts. Promising to return at bedtime and hear her say her prayers, I kissed her and then went to the parlour where the Hendersons awaited me, with Dale. Mulled wine and a filling dish of eels in a herb sauce were brought in for myself and Dale, and Rob Henderson, sitting relaxed on a settle and watching us, asked the question I expected.

  “Something to report?”

  “No, not that. But I am anxious to find something out,” I said. “Two things, in fact. To begin with, I sent word to Cecil a few days ago, saying I thought someone at Lockhill might be suspicious of me and asking if anyone at this end could have been . . . indiscreet.”

  “Or acting as an informer?” enquired Rob.