The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries)

by Buckley, Fiona

“Exactly. Has Cecil made enquiries, do you know?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rob said. “I would have told you, before many minutes had passed. You’ve forestalled me. The enquiries have been made and the results were interesting—but not very useful, I’m afraid.”

  “Really? How do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Rob, “that we think there was an informer in Cecil’s household. You’ve met him. I believe he collected you from the court the last time you dined there. Cecil thought of him at once. A well-spoken youth called Paul Fenn. His father is dead now, but he was known to be a Catholic sympathiser.”

  “Paul Fenn!” I remembered him well: the thick fair hair under the dashing cap; the mixture of respect and complete self-confidence; the handsome young face; the beautiful teeth, and the one front tooth that overlapped its neighbour.

  “We think so,” Rob said. “Cecil began by questioning other members of his household about Fenn’s movements at certain times. The very first thing to emerge was that Fenn had been seen walking in the street with a Dr. Ignatius Wilkins. Lady Mildred’s maid knew Wilkins by sight because she was with her mistress when the Cecils met Wilkins in a merchant’s warehouse. It appears that Sir William has certain suspicions about Wilkins.”

  “Yes, he has. He told me so.”

  “It also appears,” said Rob, “that some of the correspondence between Lady Mildred and the Masons, arranging for you to go there, was left about on various occasions. Of course, it said nothing of your real mission to Lockhill, but if Fenn saw it and was impolite enough to read it, he might have wondered why Lady Mildred was taking great care to imply that the Cecils didn’t know you well, when, of course, they do.”

  “Members of Cecil’s household would know that I was on visiting terms in Canon Row,” I agreed. I began to think aloud. “If the letters contradicted that, it would certainly look odd. And if Fenn somehow had knowledge of a conspiracy in Lockhill—or was even part of it—and if he spoke of this to Wilkins, and Wilkins is part of it too . . . What did Fenn himself say? I take it he was questioned?”

  “No,” said Rob. “That’s why I said that the enquiries haven’t been very useful. He’s disappeared. We assume that he heard that his fellow servants were being asked about him. When Cecil sent for him, he couldn’t be found. The quarry has escaped and taken his knowledge with him.”

  “Which leaves us no further on,” I said. “And I’ve so far failed to examine Mason’s papers. Well, well. All mystery and no solution; that’s how it seems. But I do have one other idea, though I can’t be sure that it will be any use. That’s the other reason why I’m here, Rob: I need your help. I believe a certain untruth has been told and I want to know by whom and why. What I need is . . .”

  • • •

  There was a mist on the Thames. From the centre of the river, the banks were mere shadowy outlines, and grey moisture had beaded thickly on our clothes and on the fair hair showing beneath Rob Henderson’s hat. The cold was intense. Although we wore thick cloaks and gloves and fleece-lined boots, our noses were mauve and I could hardly feel my feet.

  The Hendersons’ barge had a tiny cabin amidships, and in sheer mercy to Dale, I had sent her to shelter there, and sent Brockley with her. Rob and I, however, remained outside. The rowers’ oars dipped and swung in unison, and Rob glanced round at them, making sure that he couldn’t be overheard, before remarking, “I hope I did right to arrange this. Cecil could have had Bernard Paige interrogated.”

  “I doubt if Paige is guilty of anything,” I said “and besides, it’s all so vague as yet. In any case, it might get known, if he were questioned. We mustn’t scare the game away.”

  “Is that a pun?” Rob asked, surprising me. “You don’t want to scare the game, you say. Do you look on all this as in some measure—a game? An amusement?”

  “Of course not!” I said, and then wondered if there wasn’t some truth in it. There was a part of me which did enjoy the hunt. Would I, could I, ever, really, be the Ursula I wanted to be, Matthew’s wife and Meg’s mother?

  Kingston lay behind us, and as we passed Richmond Palace we began to feel the silent power of the ebbtide. I could make out the vague outline of the palace on the right bank, and the flicker of candlelight in some of the windows. In such weather, candles were as necessary by day as by night.

  “I’m just doing what I have undertaken to do,” I said. “I’m doing it for the Queen. I only wish I were doing it more competently. At the moment,” I said, “I feel as though I’m sailing into a mist, in more senses than one!”

  • • •

  It is a long journey by river from Hampton to London Bridge. We slid past Whitehall, and there, too, candlelight glinted through the fog. The place wasn’t empty just because the Queen wasn’t in residence: it was being cleaned. An army of maids and scullions with brooms and buckets was busy in there. There were also supervisors and guards, sanitary engineers emptying out the cesspits, clerks to issue wages to everyone and query the bills of the sanitary engineers, and cooks to cater for them all.

  After the palace, came the backs of the big houses along the Strand, with private jetties jutting into the water. We glided on past Westminster Abbey, going more slowly and bearing to port, taking care, for there was traffic on the river now. A lighter carrying livestock was waiting to go upstream when the tide turned, and assorted vessels were moored at the banks. Tall timber buildings appeared.

  We came to rest beside a massive landing stage, under the bows of a merchant ship already berthed there. The tide was well down, and the supports of the stage, dripping wet and green with weed, stood skeletally clear of the water. Wooden steps, also wet but clear of weed, led upwards.

  Rob put his hands round his mouth and halloo’d, and figures appeared at the top of the steps. “Master Robert Henderson and Mistress Blanchard and party!” Rob shouted.

  One of the vague figures on the stage called for the painter to be thrown up, and another, with a more authoritative voice, bade us make our way up the steps, and to take care with our footing. Dale and Brockley came out of the cabin and we all climbed up to the landing stage.

  A big, auburn-bearded man announced himself volubly as Bernard Paige, in person: what a cold, abominable day this was; come in, come in, that way, along the landing stage and through the door straight ahead; rowers in at that door to the left, please.

  Paige was clad in a thick mulberry velvet gown with three heavy gold chains across his chest, and a mulberry velvet cap with a huge emerald brooch in it. The door through which he whisked us led to a warm reception room in one of the tall riverside houses, and only when we were out of the weather did he allow Henderson to introduce us. He offered us seats and called for wine for everyone. I had beckoned Dale and Brockley to come with us and not go in by the rowers’ entrance, and goblets were provided for them, too.

  “You must all be cold,” Paige declared. “You’ve come a long way on the river, and in this chill mist! Make yourselves at home!”

  The reception room had a coal fire, candles, numerous padded stools and settles, tapestried walls. The tray the manservant brought held chased silver goblets, with wine in a matching flagon and cakes on a matching dish. Our host poured the wine himself and told the manservant to take charge of our outdoor cloaks.

  Rob sat down beside me and I said into his ear, “I wonder if he gives all his customers this kind of welcome? I know I’m pretending to be rich, but most of his customers are. Anyone would think from this that I was Queen Elizabeth in disguise!”

  “If he thought that, the landing stage would be covered in blue carpet! No. The man I sent to make the appointment didn’t only say you were wealthy, he also stressed that I am a friend of the Cecils. I expect the name of Cecil worked most of the magic.”

  Paige, settling himself in a carved armchair, raised his own goblet. “To your very good health, my friends. And as soon as you’re warmed through and refreshed,” he added, “we will go through to the warehouse where I have my best mer
chandise on display. Meanwhile, tell me precisely what you are looking for.”

  Smoothly, I said, “I have more than one errand. To begin with, I require a few lengths of damask to make gowns for my daughter and myself. These, I hope to choose today. But I am also considering a much bigger purchase. I am shortly to lease a property and will need some new furnishings. I shall not actually buy anything until the lease is signed, but I want to see what is available. I should like, Master Paige, to examine some tapestries.”

  • • •

  Cecil had said that Paige virtually lectured people about his wares, and Cecil was right. While we ate and drank, our host held forth with enthusiasm on his merchandise. He had damasks and brocades from Florence, Venice, the Levant. Did we know that not all silk, these days, came from the East? The Sicilians had a silk industry second to none. As to tapestries, did I wish to commission new designs or buy readymades? For new designs, he could make arrangements for me with the best workshops in Flanders or Italy, but if I cared to look at his unrivalled stock of readymades . . .

  Getting a word in with some difficulty, I said, “Commissioning new work takes up so much time,” and tried to look as though time, and not a severe shortage of gold, were the reason why I wasn’t ordering custom-made wallhangings by the furlong. “I am quite prepared,” I said, “to purchase readymades of good quality. I think—”

  Master Paige, aglow at the prospect of a major sale, broke in to assure me that I had come to the right place. Nothing in his warehouse was of any quality but the best. What had I in mind? Narrative designs? Some pleasing verdures, all leaves and greenery, perhaps, for the bedchambers?

  “Narrative designs,” I said firmly, interrupting in my turn. “I have recently seen a couple of very fine narrative tapestries, copies of—”

  “But you must see for yourself. Have you finished your wine? Then come through to my display room,” Master Paige exclaimed. “Come!”

  The room to which he led us, by way of a creaking wooden passage and a low door, was startling. It was as wide and lofty as a church and as colourful as a rainbow. It had a fireplace and a row of high windows, and a set of wide doors which presumably gave on to the river and were the entrance through which newly arrived goods could be winched up from ships. Otherwise, the walls were largely hidden by shelves packed with fabrics in all the colours God ever invented, and with whole façades of tapestries and carpets, some of them partly furled on rollers, some fully displayed.

  A gallery, reached by a slatted spiral staircase, allowed close examination of items hung high up, and there was a counter on one side of the room, with stools ranged beside it, where customers could look at the wares in comfort.

  The building was mostly timber, though the floor and the surround of the fireplace were of stone. In the few places where the walls were visible, they were of pale gold wood which added to the glow of colour. The floor was well swept and a grey daylight fell from the windows. Lamps hung on lamp-stands and there was a small fire in the hearth, watched over by a young apprentice.

  “My goods must not get damp,” said Master Paige. “The river is a blessing in one way since it carries ships, but a curse in another, since it breeds these pestilential mists. Christopher! Where are you?” He raised his voice, and a young man who was almost a youthful edition of Bernard himself, except that he was much thinner, appeared as if conjured, hurrying down the spiral stairs from the gallery.

  “This is my son,” said Paige. “Christopher, here are Mistress Ursula Blanchard and Master Robert Henderson, friends of Sir William Cecil.” Christopher bowed courteously, and his father beamed. “Now, shall we begin with the damasks? They are for you and your daughter, you say, Mistress Blanchard. What is your daughter like?”

  “Not yet six,” I said. “With dark hair.”

  “She must take after you, Mistress,” said Christopher Paige politely.

  “Mainly after her father, I think. He, too, was dark haired, and her eyes are brown, like his.” My own were hazel. “Her complexion is like mine, though,” I said.

  Bernard Paige was studying me, not rudely, but with impersonal assessment, as though I were a tapestry which had to be hung in the best light. I realised that behind the endless cascade of words was a rockface of sound knowledge.

  “Good clear colours,” he said thoughtfully. “Rose or crimson; golden yellow or emerald green, but if green, the shade must be jewel-bright. Best avoid green, perhaps. That cream and tawny you are wearing now, mistress, is made of fine material but does not do you justice, in my opinion. Now, I have some excellent materials at only twenty-six shillings a yard.” Being accustomed to court standards, Dale and I received this news stoically, but Brockley’s eyebrows rose. “Bring out examples of the shades we have mentioned, Christopher, excepting only the green. Master Henderson, can I show you anything? Something for your wife, perhaps?”

  Rob asked to see some brocades. Christopher, who clearly did the most active work, set about keeping any inherited obesity at bay by hurrying to fetch out rolls of material and bringing a ladder to reach a row of shelves just below the gallery. While he was thus engaged, I asked if Master Paige would show me the tapestries.

  “Master Henderson can choose his brocades meanwhile and Dale can select some damasks for me to look at presently. If that’s all right, Master Paige?”

  “But of course!” said Paige, beaming anew. “Here, lad!” He called to the boy tending the hearth. “Come along and listen. Learn something about tapestries. That’s how they learn,” he added to me. “By hearing me talk to customers. Now, let me show you what I have.”

  He led the way towards some hangings on the far wall of the display chamber, and I followed, feeling like a fraud. The money he thought he was going to make out of me was fairy gold, but I must keep up the pretence.

  “I particularly wanted to see you,” I said, “because lately, in the house of Sir William Cecil, I noticed some copies of the Unicorn Hunt series of tapestries. I believe he bought them from you and I wondered if you had any more like them. The weaver was a man named Hans van Hoorn and the workshop was that of Giorgio Vasari, in Florence.”

  “Ah. Yes, I remember Sir William buying those. Alas, van Hoorn has been making readymades for only a short while, and even he, skilled though he is, cannot produce more than a limited amount of work in such a short time,” Paige said. “Though I took all he did make, and those of the other weavers employed at the same time on similar tapestries. In fact, as far as the workshop is concerned, the readymades scheme is as much mine as theirs. When I was in Florence two years ago, I presented the idea to the workshop manager and we made an arrangement under which they would hire weavers and copy some famous works—we agreed on a list—and I would buy up the results. That way, I would carry most of the risk.

  “The poor merchant always has to take the risk, Mistress Blanchard. Such is life! A wrong guess about customers’ preferences, and we’re left with goods that must be sold at a loss. A ship goes down in a storm and we have no goods at all, so our customers go elsewhere and maybe don’t come back! I’ve seen a reverse or two in my time, and my father before me. So will Christopher, when he takes over. And you, very likely, my lad,” he added to the apprentice.

  “Did you guess right this time, Master Paige?” I asked.

  “So it seems! All the van Hoorns have gone and I will have no more until next year. I still have some of the other weavers’ work, however. For instance, observe these pretty single wallhangings in the millefleurs style.” He pointed to a heraldic fantasy, showing a young woman in armour, Joan of Arc fashion, riding a unicorn and escorted by flying gryphons, against a background of little red and yellow flowers. A similar panel beside it had a white stag standing poised against a pattern of tiny pink and azure blooms.

  “Those are by a man quite as good as van Hoorn, and if you prefer narratives—you mentioned narratives, did you not?—well, up in the gallery I have a delightful series of five panels by this same weaver, depicting
the story of the Wedding at Cana. How many rooms do you want to provide with wallhangings? How much wall is to be covered?”

  I hadn’t thought this out. Clearly, I had much still to learn about lying and imposture. I murmured something vague about a dining room, anteroom and bedchamber and hastily invented dimensions which I hoped sounded reasonable.

  “And where is your house?” Master Paige enquired as we climbed the spiral stairs, which bounced under his massive tread. “In London? Do I know it? Or would it be in Sussex? The Blanchard family live in Sussex, I believe.”

  He was knowledgeable all right. He was a successful merchant dealing in domestic fabrics, and probably had a map of England in his head, with little flags marking every big house and the name of the owner inscribed beside it. He was right about the Blanchards: they did live in Sussex. I must produce a good reason for not doing so myself.

  “I have been widowed, Master Paige,” I said, and it was not difficult to sound sad. “I wish to begin life again amid fresh scenes. My new house, if all goes well with the arrangements for the lease, will be in Oxfordshire.”

  “My dear Mistress Blanchard, I do apologise if I have said anything tactless!”

  “It’s quite all right,” I said politely, but in a faintly distant tone which would discourage any further awkward questions. “It was some time ago,” I added, forgivingly, as we stepped on to the gallery. “Are these the five panels you mentioned?” I had better sound as though I meant business. “Oh yes, I see. Here we have the bride and groom, seated together, and here—yes, this is clever—we have the host spreading his hands in regret because the wine has run out. Very expressive!”

  Playing my part industriously, I made a few more comments about The Wedding in Cana, and listened while Paige, as much for the benefit of the apprentice as for me, expounded on weaving techniques, and went on to extol the virtues of some Brussels verdures. I was carrying my slate, and I brought it out and made some notes about prices, remarking that the verdures might suit my imaginary bedchamber very well.