To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “Ma’am!” said Dale in a staggered voice.

  “I know. Outrageous behaviour! Bolt the door, will you, Dale?” I said.

  • • •

  I didn’t sleep at all that night. I lay there open eyed as the hours went by, and grieved because I knew that Arthur had been right. I saw the truth now. I did want Matthew. When he was near me, my bones shook.

  There are no sane explanations for it, the way that a certain set of features, a certain build, the laughter lines at the corners of a particular pair of eyes, the timbre of a special voice, can overwhelm one’s senses. He had a long chin and a strong nose; his eyes were dark and narrow, his bones long and loosely jointed, his voice deep. All these things are commonplace, but added together they made Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Now my eager body and my hungry heart shouted at me to forget religion and Gerald and Amy Dudley, and marry Matthew at once.

  But he had gone away and I didn’t know where. He had said he would come back although he hadn’t said when. For all his protestations, he might meet someone else or simply change his mind; might stroll out of my life as Arthur had just done.

  I had had my chance. I might well have thrown it away, too.

  6

  The Scent of Danger

  I have been five weeks at Cumnor Place, I thought. Five long weeks. Amy is as ill and as nervous as ever she was and I am no nearer learning the truth. Are her fears soundly based or not? I don’t know. And oh, how I wish I could hear from Matthew.

  It was a month since Matthew had left, and Thomas Blount and Arthur Robsart had left early the next day. For all I had heard of Matthew since, he might never have existed. I had had no message, no letter. There was nothing I could do. I could not go back to court to seek word of him. I had not left Cumnor Place once; not even for a walk round the home farm or a short ride. Amy needed me too much. Duty and compassion (not to mention the feeling that I must earn my pay) bound me within the walls of Cumnor as firmly as their vows bound the monks of bygone days.

  I crossed the parlour to pause, as I often did, at the window. If only Matthew would ride in again. But the courtyard was empty.

  In the parlour, just behind me, Amy and Pinto were sitting, Amy trying listlessly to do some embroidery, and Pinto mending some garment or other. I had got nowhere with Pinto. She still feared that I was Dudley’s creature and her suspicious eyes watched me all the time. I had continued to taste Amy’s food, and I often felt that Pinto wished someone would poison it, for my benefit. I was sure that she would love to see me fall down in convulsions. And as for that man Anthony Forster . . .

  At that moment, the short, square figure of Forster emerged from his own door. He looked up, saw me, and beckoned.

  I turned to Amy. “Lady Dudley, Mr. Forster seems to want me. He’s in the courtyard. Shall I go down?”

  “Yes, oh yes. See what it’s about.”

  I had expected her to say that. She was intimidated by Forster and his sister-in-law and anxious not to displease them. I sometimes wondered whether Forster and Mrs. Odingsell had any closer relationship but I thought not. To begin with, Mrs. Odingsell was one of the rigid breed of Protestant and it was difficult to imagine her enjoying carnal relations even with a husband, let alone a lover. The vicar of the nearby church apparently saw nothing strange in their household, and regularly dined with them, and Forster played the organ in church every Sunday.

  However respectable they might be in that sense, I still considered them odious. I didn’t actually believe that the upright Mrs. Odingsell was plotting against Amy’s life, although Forster might be, but they both bullied Amy in subtle ways. Forster starved her of money, and their habit of using her servants and encouraging Mrs. Owen to do so as well, was becoming slowly more marked, and more insufferable. I now understood that Forster (whose stingy streak put me strongly in mind of Uncle Herbert) followed a deliberate policy of keeping his own wing understaffed so that he could get work done for nothing by purloining the services of Amy’s people, while she was too timid to stand on her rights and give orders to his.

  Lately, he and Mrs. Odingsell had even taken to purloining me. I had a maid and manservant of my own and was still officially one of the queen’s ladies, but I had several times been called into the Forster wing, even when Amy needed me, to help out with female tasks such as setting a table, or helping to turn a mattress. John Wilton had also found himself being used as an odd-job man. He was displeased and had once taken it upon himself to remonstrate with Forster, although it made no difference. To Forster, this sort of thing just meant economic sense. What, I wondered crossly, did he want now?

  I wasn’t needed to lay a table this time. “Ah, Mrs. Blanchard,” he said, as I joined him. “Mr. Hyde is here. He has been with me all morning, and now he wishes to pay his respects to Lady Dudley. Can she receive him?”

  Mr. Hyde. I stood there, using one hand to keep a capricious wind from blowing my skirts about and the other to keep it from whisking my cap off, and thought how very pleasant it would be to jump up and down on the cobbles with both feet at once, shake my fists in the air and scream.

  Thomas Blount, Arthur Robsart, Matthew de la Roche, had all gone but we did not altogether lack company. Mr. Hyde was Forster’s brother-in-law, another of the relatives by marriage who seemed, with Forster, to fill the place more usually occupied by blood relations. He lived in Abingdon and had visited Cumnor several times in the past month. He came to see Forster, but he always wanted to “pay his respects” to Lady Dudley. Mr. Hyde’s idea of paying his respects made him into a menace.

  Mr. Hyde, in fact, was a rotund and amiable nitwit who firmly believed that if someone were ill or anxious, nothing would do them more good than to be regaled with juicy pieces of gossip. Once, he brought us a lurid tale of an Abingdon woman who had died suddenly, and whose husband had been arrested on suspicion of having poisoned her. A neighbour had seen the husband kissing somebody else’s wife and now everyone believed the worst. The second time, he brought a further instalment of the story, to the effect that the man had been released for lack of evidence, but no one round about had any doubt really that he was guilty.

  Pinto used to make the most vituperative remarks about him and on these occasions I had every sympathy with her. Dale’s comments on the subject of Mr. Hyde were also a pleasure to hear. Dale was welcome to say she couldn’t abide him.

  However, Amy’s distress was heartrending. After both of these visits she went to her prie-dieu the moment Hyde was gone, prayed for a long time that her husband might not be faithless and that no one should try to harm her, and then burst into tears and had to be helped to bed. Another visit from Mr. Hyde was exactly what she did not need, and Mr. Forster, I thought savagely, ought to know it. He’d been present throughout all the previous visits.

  “I didn’t hear him arrive, no,” I said. “I was looking at Lady Dudley’s furnishings, earlier. She has quite a generous allowance from her husband. Surely she could have more tapestries in her rooms and some new furniture? Some of her chests and tables are very old and quite badly scratched. I’ve worked out what replacements would cost, and I’m sure they could be provided.”

  Forster’s knowing eyes fairly sparkled with amusement at the idea of a young female like myself working out figures. “You can cipher well enough for that, can you?”

  “Oh yes,” I informed him, for once blessing Uncle Herbert, who had taught me to maintain his ledgers. I wished I could get a glimpse of Forster’s. If the unused money hadn’t found its way into his coffers, my name wasn’t Ursula. I smiled at him limpidly. His expression turned faintly uneasy.

  “It seems a little pointless,” he said. “I am the household treasurer, after all. You can safely leave such matters to me, Mrs. Blanchard. About Mr. Hyde. Can he see Lady Dudley now? He and I then intend to ride back to Abingdon where I am to dine with him. I don’t want to come up myself; I have one or two things to do.”

  Pinto and I, in one of our rare moments of agreement, had
offered, after Hyde’s last visit, to refuse him admittance, but Amy had said no. “It will offend Forster,” she had said.

  “I’ll ask her,” I said. “If she says yes, I’ll come and fetch him to her. But, Mr. Forster, please ask him, this time, to be a little discreet in what he says. Lady Dudley is not well and she is easily upset.”

  “Of course,” said Forster.

  Amy, predictably, said that Mr. Hyde could come to the parlour and Forster probably did say something to him, because Hyde’s first words were: “I’m sorry to hear you’re not so well today.” However, if Forster had warned him to watch what he said, he either hadn’t been convincing, or Hyde had a short memory. Within five minutes, our maddening visitor had launched into his latest piece of gossip, which concerned a gipsy woman who had been taken up for saying that the queen was pregnant. He didn’t mention Dudley, of course—even the maladroit Mr. Hyde wasn’t as foolish as that—but he hardly needed to.

  The moment he left, just as Pinto and I knew she would, Amy slid to her knees beside her little altar and began to pray aloud that her husband might come back to her, and that the tales of his obsession with the queen were lies.

  “You can see why she’s frightened,” Pinto said to me in a low, fierce voice. “If that story’s true, then what?”

  “It can’t be true,” I said. “The queen lives her whole life virtually in public.” On this subject I felt sure of myself. “It isn’t possible.”

  “. . . let it not be so, oh Lord. Let his heart turn to me again . . . ”

  “And how would you know? You weren’t a Lady of the Privy Chamber. I’m not ignorant; I know how these things are arranged. You were just one of the women that go about with the queen when she’s out in public,” said Pinto, rather as though she were saying, “You were just a worm.”

  “. . . but if it is true,” said Amy, hands gripped together before her, “then, oh God who succours the helpless, let both of them be . . . be . . . ”

  We turned, alarmed, as Amy not only burst into tears, but began to pound upon the altar with her linked hands. They looked as frail as though the bones were only dried twigs, and yet she hammered so hard with them, on the prie-dieu, that one of the candlesticks jolted to the floor.

  “My lady!”

  “Please, Lady Dudley . . . !”

  We ran to her. Pinto put a hand on her mistress’s shoulder but Amy ignored it. She shook her head from side to side and her voice rose.

  “. . . If it’s true then let them both be damned for it!”

  She put her head down on those skeletal hands and began to wail. Again in partnership, Pinto and I helped her up. She couldn’t stand. We half-carried her, still wailing, across the intervening anteroom to her bedchamber. Two of her maidservants, alerted by the noise, came running to us, and Dale hurried from our quarters, a clothes brush in her hand.

  “It’s all right. Lady Dudley is distressed, that’s all.” I waved them all back. “Someone bring a soothing draught. The usual one—tell the kitchen!”

  We got Amy into bed and the draught was brought. I remembered to sip from it before giving it to Pinto to hand to Lady Dudley. Pinto put an arm round Amy and helped her to drink, very tenderly. I always felt more kindly towards Pinto when I saw how good she was to her mistress, but Pinto did not feel more kindly towards me. As soon as Amy was settled, she called for a maid to sit with her, took my arm and almost dragged me back to the parlour.

  “Now then,” she said, as she shut the door after us, “did you know about this story before you came here?”

  “What story?”

  “That the queen is with child, of course! We all know who the father is, if so. Did you know what is being said?”

  “No, I did not. And I tell you, it is not true. Junior lady I may be, but I assure you once again that the queen’s life is so arranged that such a thing would be impossible without the whole court knowing.”

  Pinto looked me up and down, unpleasantly. “Why should I believe a word you utter? He sent you here, didn’t he? If he’s got the queen with child, he’s got no time to lose and nor has her virginal majesty.”

  “Pinto, if I were to report what you have just said, you would find yourself before the magistrates in a very short space of time.”

  “Then report me! And break my mistress’s heart. Or is that what you want? It might help her on her way, and if this rumour’s true, helped on her way she’ll have to be, won’t she? The two of them daren’t wait for God to call her. So why shouldn’t I believe you’re here to jog God’s elbow?”

  “You’ve thought that from the start,” I said wearily. “How do I convince you? The queen and Dudley are not lovers; there is no child; I am here only to give Lady Dudley comfort, and how do you think you’re helping her, Pinto, by quarrelling with me? Do you think Lady Dudley needs an atmosphere of strife and suspicion all round her? You stupid woman!” I found I was losing my temper. Amy’s outburst, the worst I had experienced yet, had shaken me badly. “The only threat to her is from her illness,” I said loudly, “and if you loved her as you claim to do, you wouldn’t want her to think otherwise!”

  Her flinty eyes didn’t change. I uttered an infuriated noise which even to my own ears sounded animal—somewhere between an exclamation and a growl—and flung myself away from her, out of the door and down the stairs, making for the open air. I marched out into the courtyard, into which John Wilton was escorting two horsemen who had evidently just arrived. Lately, one of the jobs Mr. Forster had found for John was to put him on duty in the gatehouse.

  “Here’s Mistress Blanchard,” said John as I neared them. “Very likely she’ll know. Ma’am, these gentlemen are enquiring after Mr. Forster. I know he’s gone to Abingdon but I don’t know when he’ll be back. Maybe you can tell them.”

  “He’s dining with Mr. Hyde,” I said. “I suppose he’ll be back for supper. May I know your names, gentlemen?”

  However, the man on the goodlooking and probably very expensive chestnut gelding, the tall man with the good clothes and the haughty profile, I had already recognised. He was Dudley’s retainer, Sir Richard Verney. The other, who introduced himself as Peter Holme, was the man de Quadra and I had seen in Richmond Park, talking to the Earl of Derby and Sir Thomas Smith.

  “Would you like to see Lady Dudley?” I asked. “She is—er—resting at the moment, but after dinner she may be able to receive you. Can I take her any message?”

  “Lady Dudley is unwell, is she not?” said Verney. “We really have no need to trouble her. Our business is only with Master Forster. By all means transmit our respects to her.”

  Forster’s butler, Ellis, had come out of the house now, and was advancing towards us. As I handed the visitors over, I glanced upwards and saw Amy’s face at her bedchamber window. She made signs at me to come to her. I made my excuses and hurried indoors.

  Pinto was still in the parlour. As I reached the top of the stairs, I glimpsed her through the door, stitching at something, her face sulky. I slipped across the anteroom and into Lady Dudley’s bedchamber. Amy was sitting on her front window seat, clutching her wrapper round her. Her cheeks were stained with her recent tears and the eyes she turned towards me were full, once more, of the fear I had seen on the day that I first came to Cumnor.

  “That was Verney, wasn’t it? My husband’s man.”

  “Yes, Lady Dudley. Look, I don’t think you should be out of bed. If I straighten the sheets for you . . . ”

  “Never mind about the sheets! Is Verney coming to see me?”

  “No, I understand his business is with Master Forster. He sends his respects.”

  “The time Pinto overheard Forster and some visitors talking about me,” said Amy, “the visitors were Verney and that other man who was with him just now.”

  “Peter Holme,” I said.

  “Is that his name? I don’t know him, but he’s come with Verney before, and they talked about me to Forster. Verney comes from my husband. What are they doing here this t
ime, Ursula? Have you any idea?”

  “No, no, I haven’t. But, Lady Dudley, surely it’s natural that people calling here and seeing Master Forster, might mention you. Why should there be anything sinister in it? I feel sure there isn’t.”

  “Do you? I don’t,” said Amy. I offered her my arm and she let me guide her back to bed, but her frightened eyes did not leave my face.

  “I want to know why they’re here,” she said. “Don’t ask them outright, because if you do, you’ll just be given some harmless excuse. I want to know their real purpose. You’re clever, Ursula. Can’t you find out?”

  7

  Private Conversations

  Soothing her by promising to do my best, I settled Lady Dudley and retreated to my own room to think.

  On the face of it, her instructions were absurd. Except by saying to Verney, “Lady Dudley wants to know what your business is,” how could I possibly find out? And what was the point, anyway? There couldn’t be anything wrong about it. Why should there be? I struggled to work it out. Dudley couldn’t be the queen’s lover, not without the whole court knowing, and therefore Elizabeth could not be carrying his child. Even if he did want to marry her, he must know perfectly well that Amy was dying, which in due course would release him. He had no need to injure her, although Amy firmly believed that somebody had tried and her story of attacks of nausea, which had stopped after Dr. Bayly became suspicious, was uncomfortably suggestive.

  Verney was Dudley’s man and Forster was Dudley’s treasurer. This visit was probably something to do with Dudley’s finances.

  Peter Holme, evidently, was Verney’s servant. I had no idea why he should have been talking in Richmond Park to the Earl of Derby and Sir Thomas Smith, but what had that to do with Cumnor or Lady Dudley? All these gentry had interests in common: they gambled, hunted, bred horses and dogs, and sold each other young animals or stud services. They often communicated by sending a servant along with a message. There were half a hundred perfectly innocent reasons for that conversation in the park.