The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries)

by Buckley, Fiona

  We listened, motionless in the dark. I was acutely aware of Brockley’s warm, breathing presence beside me. He moved, probably also trying to draw a cloak over him, and momentarily pressed against me. I remained still, very frightened, and was grateful for the presence of another person. I had a terrible impulse to lean against him and press my face into his shoulder.

  Suddenly I went rigid, appalled at myself, and hit suddenly by a new fear.

  I knew very well that if we were caught like this, we were more likely to be suspected of wanting to make use of the couch in Mason’s anteroom, than suspected of spying. Redman would report what he had seen earlier. My reputation would be ruined. Mason would start believing his own lies!

  That wouldn’t be all. After our encounter with Redman, I had had a few reassuring words with Dale, explaining the circumstances. Later, I had warned her of the lies circulating in the household. If we were found like this, though, she might well begin to wonder about her husband and me. Worse! If I had any more impulses like this, I would begin to wonder, too!

  I clenched my teeth, horrified. What was happening to me? What would Gerald say if he could see me now? Perhaps he could! What if the dead watched over the living? But if they did, then he had seen me with Matthew, my current husband, lawful though now absent. He would have seen us . . . I wondered if it were possible to go insane while standing rock-still and completely silent in a dark cupboard with one’s manservant.

  I came back to reality with an unpleasant jerk as purposeful footsteps approached the cupboard. The right-hand door was pulled open. Daylight streamed in. The two halves of the cupboard were divided by a partition which extended from the back to within a few inches of the doors. From where we were cowering, half hidden behind the cloaks, we could see one of Mason’s padded shoulders as he rummaged in the shelves. I had a depressingly good view of his left ear and a patch of my own stitchwork, where I had repaired the embroidery. If he glanced to the left, he would see us. The concealment of the cloaks was inadequate, and our feet would show below them, anyway.

  He did not glance to the left. After pulling impatiently at the books on the right-hand shelves, as if to look behind them, he backed out and shut the door. He also closed the door on our side, leaving us undiscovered but imprisoned in an impenetrable darkness. I doubted if I could pick the lock from this side of the door, and began to tremble.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Brockley’s minute whisper came again. “My knife will open that door catch.”

  Outside, papers were rustling again and wooden trays were apparently being picked up and slammed bad-temperedly down on the desk. Then came a triumphant “Ah!”, and at last, at last, Mason’s footsteps retreated. We heard the study door shut.

  “Wait,” whispered Brockley. “In case he thinks of something else and comes back.”

  We stood still. Nothing happened. My eyes were adjusting to the blackness and I saw that there was indeed a thread of light where the leaves of the door met. Brockley edged past me and steel glinted as he applied the tip of his belt-knife to the join. The catch yielded, sliding back into its socket. Catching hold of the door edge to keep it from opening too much, Brockley peered cautiously out.

  “The study’s empty. Wait.”

  He went out ahead of me and stepped to the door of the anteroom, where he repeated the process of cautiously opening it a quarter of an inch. He came back, looking relieved.

  “All’s clear. I can see right through to the gallery and it’s empty.”

  Emerging from the cupboard, I examined the desk. “I think he wanted his drawings of wings,” I said. “They were in this tray here, though not on top. They’re gone now.”

  “And so should we be,” said Brockley in heartfelt tones. “Did you find anything useful, madam?”

  I shook my head. “No. We’ve taken all these chances and we’ve nothing to show for it. Let’s get away, but not together, in case we meet Redman again, or anyone else.” I felt hot with embarrassment as I said it. “You go first. I’ll wait in the gallery until you’re well away. If necessary, I’ll pretend I’m looking for something I’ve dropped.”

  We escaped this time without being noticed.

  Afterwards I badly wanted time to think, but people seemed to be constantly clustering round me. Ann called me to look at something in the stillroom, and then it was dinnertime. I had to help Ann keep the children in order, for Crichton was having his meal out in the workshop with Mr. Mason. During the afternoon, I felt that I must attend to the girls, and suppertime came before I knew it.

  The men did appear for supper. Mason had changed into his fawn doublet, having no doubt dirtied the other one in the workshop. Crichton wore his dusty, unimpressive old gown, which caused Ann to look at him and sigh, although she said nothing.

  What with one thing and another, all that day I could not settle down to think until at last night came, and I was in my curtained bed.

  Once more, I lay long awake, turning things over in my mind, and once more I was quite immune to my soothing evening draught. I kept the habit up, because I still harboured a vague hope that the gossip in the kitchen while I was making it would one day yield something useful, and the valerian and camomile mixture recommended by Mrs. Logan was sometimes genuinely sleep-inducing. In fact, although Dale had given up taking it with me, because she didn’t really like herbal brews, my bedtime posset was by now an institution. Ann gently teased me about it, and the Logans had given me a special goblet for it, a pewter affair with a small dent in the side.

  That night, as on the night before I went to Thamesbank, when I had lain aching for Matthew and feeling as though my mind were disintegrating, the goblet might as well have held cold water. I stared into the darkness, and went over everything I had done and learned since I came to Lockhill.

  Twice, during my search of Mason’s desk, something had niggled at me. There were things—two of them at least—that I should have noticed, or recognised or understood, but I could not bring them to the surface.

  I turned over restlessly, brooding on tapestries, coincidences, bills for tin and copper, and people who spent money they didn’t possess. I felt haunted by this curious financial theme. Again I asked myself: what were the two fugitive recollections which had stirred in the depths of my mind in Mason’s study? What had I missed?

  • • •

  I did not sleep until nearly dawn, and woke on the Friday weary and low in spirits. I was late arriving in the attic schoolroom, but when I got there, I found that Pen had taken competent charge, although she and her sisters weren’t sewing. Pen had produced a lute and was strumming a melody, not very smoothly but with plenty of verve, while Cathy and Jane sang.

  “Oh, Mrs. Blanchard! This is a song that Mr. Mew taught us, when he used to teach us music. It’s such a pretty song.”

  I had struggled half the night to drag unidentified recollections to the top of my mind, and now that I wasn’t thinking about them at all, one of them emerged, in response to the name of Mew.

  “Begin the song from the beginning and let me hear it all,” I said, and then I sat down and listened with half my mind, while the other half went back to the court, to the day when Barnabas Mew presented his musical box to the queen. Again, I watched while he showed her how it worked, and then, once more, I visualised the mysterious drawing in Mason’s study, the diagram I had taken to represent his new idea of a spinet. It wasn’t a spinet at all. What I had taken for a sketch of a keyboard was the comblike device in Mew’s musical box, with the teeth which tapped musically against the little knobs on the revolving cylinder. The arrows which had seemed so meaningless showed the direction in which the cylinder turned and the way the comb teeth were pushed upwards.

  It still made no sense, but one thing had emerged from the fog of absurdity: there was a link between Barnabas Mew and Lockhill which was not to do with teaching music. A bill addressed to Mew had turned up in Leonard Mason’s doublet; a drawing of Mew’s musical box—which Mason was suppose
d to know nothing about—was lying among Mason’s papers. And Dawson, who had suspected trouble at Lockhill, had been murdered in Windsor, where Barnabas Mew lived.

  I was looking in the wrong place. I ought to be in Windsor. Cecil had told me not to investigate Dawson’s death, but what if that death were so closely entangled with Lockhill’s secret that they couldn’t be separated? What if the same applied to Fenn’s death? He could certainly have been murdered at Windsor.

  The thought of going there myself was frightening, but I wanted to know much more about Master Barnabas Mew. I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but I could begin by looking at Mew in his own territory. Ann had told me that the boys’ prospective schoolmaster was definitely coming to Lockhill next week, and that Mew would return at the same time. She hadn’t mentioned the exact day. I had best make haste, to be sure of catching Mew while he was still at his shop. I would take Brockley and Dale, on an apparently innocent errand and in broad daylight. Surely that wouldn’t be too dangerous?

  Beyond this seemingly harmless step there were others, much less harmless. I knew they were there, but I wouldn’t look at them directly, not yet.

  For the moment, I said to myself, I would simply go to Windsor, to Barnabas Mew’s shop, and order a musical box for Meg.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Gift for Meg

  I had barely returned from Thamesbank, but it couldn’t be helped. I worked the girls hard that Friday and Saturday and wouldn’t let them take their ease even on the Sunday, but made them do a further two hours of embroidery, as soon as mass and breakfast were over.

  I had hoped to see both the Masons at the breakfast table on Monday, but only Ann was there. To her, I said that the girls had earned a short holiday, and that I wished once more to make a short journey on a private matter. “I shall only be gone overnight,” I said.

  “We had better tell my husband,” Ann said. “He broke his fast early and went out again to his workshop. He doesn’t like to be disturbed, you know.”

  “I’m afraid the matter is urgent,” I said. “If you think I shouldn’t go without telling him, then I must see him.”

  “Well, he would expect to be informed,” Ann said, pushing her platter away. “We’ll go together.”

  Though I had been out to the workshop several times, I had only paused to watch for a few moments, never to interrupt, and I had not been out there since I came back from Thamesbank. Now, it gave me a surprise.

  Leonard Mason’s working shed was large, with wide double doors and a roof steeply pitched to give plenty of height inside. Even so, it was hardly big enough for the vast wood and canvas bird which was taking shape within. Ann and I hesitated, wondering how to get ourselves and our farthingales past the wings which blocked our entrance. Ann called, and after a moment, Leonard appeared from the dim inner regions, ducking under a wing and regarding us testily.

  “What is it? I am really very occupied just now. I asked Crichton to help me again before he started work with the boys this morning, but he put his thumb in the way of my hammer in the first few minutes and now he’s gone off in a fit of temper.”

  “Oh dear. Poor man,” said Ann anxiously.

  Her husband merely looked annoyed. “What about poor me? Some tasks are very difficult when one is on one’s own. Now, what is it you want? I can see from here that the house isn’t burning down.”

  Ann explained. The furrows deepened between Leonard’s nostrils and the corners of his mouth. “Another jaunt, Mrs. Blanchard? Well, as I have said before, you are free to come and go. I have to admit that Pen acquitted herself well while you were away. You are evidently training her to take responsibility. For that, I suppose I must commend you. What is the purpose of your journey this time?”

  Clearly, I ought to produce some sort of reason for my sudden departure. I couldn’t pretend to an urgent message, as they knew quite well that no messenger had arrived for me. I fell back on the useful excuse of discretion.

  “It is a matter which arose when I was at Thamesbank. I have been worrying about it and I have come to the conclusion that I need to attend to it personally. Please forgive me for not saying any more. It concerns . . . an errand for Her Majesty.” Well, it did, more or less. “We—her ladies, that is—are taught never to discuss the Queen’s business, even the most trivial matters.”

  “The Queen’s business, is it? It sounds very grand.” Mason shrugged. “Well, travel safely! What more can I say?

  I thanked him, and then, noticing that the huge wood and canvas wing beside me was a curious shape, curved on one side and flat on the other, I made an attempt at politeness and asked its creator why.

  For once, Mason smiled at me, the furrows on his face bending into sharp outward angles. Mason’s work was the way to his heart.

  “Ah! Now, that is to do with a theory of mine. Come into the workshop—just press back your skirts and you’ll find that you can edge through. You too, Ann . . . that’s it.”

  “Oh, Leonard,” said Ann protestingly. “I’m sure Mrs. Blanchard doesn’t want to—”

  “Over here, both of you,” said Leonard, unheeding.

  The interior of the workshop was furnished with a workbench along the back, a small brick furnace, and a brazier. To one side lay a pile of timbers and wooden slats, and on the floor stood a pail of water, fairly clean, and a rusty old bucket full of what smelt like glue. An earthenware jug and basin were on the workbench, along with a set of drawings, assorted tools and a couple of large spoons. A sizeable leaded window at the rear of the shed meant that the light was good.

  Mason dipped a jugful of water from the pail and then pushed back his right sleeve, picked up a spoon and held it pointing downwards into the basin.

  “Now, Mrs. Blanchard. Just take up the jug and pour water very slowly and carefully, down over the spoon, from above, where I am holding the handle. Never mind about getting my arm wet. Observe how the water behaves.”

  I couldn’t imagine what I was likely to observe, but I did as I was told, while Ann watched with an air of patience.

  “There! Do you see?”

  “Er . . . no,” I said. “The water just flows down over the spoon. Doesn’t it?”

  Mason sighed. “Dip another jugful and try again. Very slowly, now. Watch carefully. Does the water flow over the spoon in a thin stream, or does it spread out over the curve at the back of the spoon?”

  I peered at the spoon as I poured. “It spreads out. But it spreads over the inside of the spoon, as well.”

  “Yes, but what if I filled in the inside of the spoon so that it was flat? Then, the water would have to spread over more metal at the back than at the front. A curved surface is bigger than a flat one. When I saw that, I realised that if the wing were curved on top, then the air passing over it in flight would be thinned out, because it would have to flow over a bigger surface than the air flowing below, across the flat underside of the wing. And perhaps that would help the wing to be buoyant. Do you see?”

  “I think so, but would it make so much difference?”

  “Can you really understand it?” Ann asked me. “It all seems so extraordinary to me.”

  I understood it well enough, but I still didn’t think it would work. However, to say so would have been tactless, so I merely repeated to Mr. Mason that I had grasped the point. Almost beaming now, he picked up his drawings and began to show me exactly how he intended to use the structure on the tower roof as a catapult.

  In the end, it was another half an hour before I could get away, but by the time I did, his manner towards me was more friendly than at any time since I arrived at Lockhill.

  What a good thing, I thought, that when he searched his study cupboard for drawings of glider wings, he hadn’t glanced to his left. Thinking of that incident would bring me out in a sweat for the rest of my life.

  • • •

  We set off an hour later. It was a bright, fresh day, with sunshine and racing clouds and sounds of birdsong, but I soon noticed that Da
le and Brockley were very quiet, and before long, I had grasped that they were scarcely on speaking terms. Clearly, they had had a tiff. Well, that was between husband and wife and there was nothing I could do about it. All couples have their quarrels.

  Attempting to distract them I suggested that we sing. My two obedient servants tried, but their efforts were so unenthusiastic that I gave up.

  I was provoked into saying, “Do cheer up, you two. Look what a lovely day it is!”

  All they said was, “Yes, indeed, ma’am,” in flat voices. I stopped trying.

  At heart, I wasn’t too cheerful myself, if truth be told. I was anxious about the task ahead. I had come to the conclusion that I would need Dale and Brockley’s help, and I just hoped that they were willing to give it.

  I wanted to speak to Brockley first, out of Dale’s hearing. Choosing a place where the road was wide enough for two to ride abreast, but not for three, I edged Bay Star alongside Brockley’s cob and began to talk.

  “. . . I need to look at Barnabas Mew on his own premises, and to see the premises themselves. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, but I’ll tell you how far I’ve got.” I described the bill for the remarkable quantities of copper and tin, the discovery on Mason’s desk of a diagram for Barnabas Mew’s music box, and the strange matter of the dining room tapestries.

  “Mason and Crichton say they were left to Crichton by an uncle, but they weren’t. Crichton bought them on Mason’s behalf. Only, Mason can’t possibly afford them. I think someone is paying him secretly for something, and perhaps he is looking for ways to enjoy the money without being too conspicuous. It’s very mysterious,” I said, “but it does look as if Barnabas Mew and Mr. Mason are somehow entangled, and Barnabas lives in Windsor.”

  “And so, madam?” Brockley gazed at me from under the large hat, which I knew, without asking, once more concealed his helmet.