To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Well, they did, and she’s here now. They will say, if challenged, that the cottage was unsuitable for her and that they brought her here to rear her as a lady and save her soul from heresy, but it isn’t true.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. Oh, I daresay they’ve even convinced themselves that it’s all for Meg’s own good and that they’re devoted relatives trying to do their best for her. They like to look well in their own eyes and other people’s.” I realised as soon as I had said it, that this was probably the key to my aunt and uncle. They had always been good at outward virtue. “The truth,” I said, “is that they brought her here to strike back at me for stealing my cousin Mary’s bridegroom and denying them my unpaid services as a dogsbody. They will make use of her, and in the process make her as miserable as I was. I have the impression that you have some influence over them. Please use it to release Meg.”

  Matthew was bemused. “I was supposing, as a matter of fact, that you would bring your daughter to Withysham. I was going to ask you where she was.”

  “Meg must certainly come to Withysham,” I said, “but not immediately. She has been too much upset and disturbed lately. She can come to me after we are married and I have settled down a little and taken the reins of the household. If I marry you,” I said, “I will do it with the most whole heart that I can. For the moment, I wish Meg to return to the Westwater cottage and to the care of Bridget. Bridget is at the cottage now. She is to be brought here, so that Meg can return to Westwater in her company. Meg,” I said dictatorially, “is not to travel, even three miles, in a stranger’s care.”

  Matthew laughed. “You know your own mind, it seems!”

  “Yes, I do. Are my terms acceptable?”

  “I think I’m relieved that they are so reasonable! Is there anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I agree. Are we now betrothed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I ought to give you a ring,” he said, and pulled at a heavy ring of gold set with rubies, which he wore on his right hand. It resisted, however, and he stopped.

  “No, not this one. I’ll find you something better when we get to Withysham. I won this at cards—Sir Richard Verney had run out of money and he was gambling with his jewellery. Somehow it doesn’t have the right history to be a betrothal ring.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “May I now see my manservant Roger Brockley and tell him of his future?”

  “How much does he know?” Matthew asked.

  “Nothing of my midnight visit to my uncle’s office, and nothing of your fundraising. He knows only that we have been hunting John Wilton’s killers.”

  Matthew frowned, seeing, I think, that controlling the tongues of all three of us might be harder than he expected. “It is safer for him if he remains in ignorance,” he said. He turned to Dale, who was again sitting in her corner, listening, as before, in an amazed silence. “You will keep your mistress’s counsel, I trust.”

  I gave Dale a small nod and she stammered out a nervous: “Oh yes, sir, of course, sir.”

  “Good,” said Matthew. “Tell me, Ursula, what do you propose to say to Brockley?”

  Presently, when Brockley had been summoned, I cleared my throat and declared to him that for the last few days, I had been under a dreadful misapprehension. “I’m thankful to say that it has been proved to my satisfaction that my old servant John Wilton was not murdered, and I can only conclude that he was set upon by footpads as we at first supposed.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, madam.” Brockley was searching my face and I saw him also glance aside at Dale. Dale looked down at the floor. “I’ve been asking to see you, madam,” Brockley said. “I was told you were unwell.”

  “Were you? It was nothing—just a passing indisposition.” I smiled to reassure him. “I have news of much greater importance. Here with me you see Master Matthew de la Roche, with whom I was acquainted at the court, and who visited me at Cumnor Place.” I held out my hand to Matthew and he took it. “He is my uncle’s neighbour, from Withysham, only a few miles away. He called today and we met again. My quest, mistaken though it was, has brought us together. We are to be married.”

  “The day after tomorrow,” confirmed Matthew. “At Withysham. We leave for Withysham in the morning.”

  This came as a shock to me. So soon! I ploughed determinedly on, speaking now to both Dale and Brockley, saying that I hoped they would both go on serving me as always and would be as loyal to Matthew as they had always been to me.

  Dale murmured, “Of course, ma’am, of course,” but addressing Brockley was like talking to a stone. I never saw disbelief so clearly displayed on a human countenance as it was on Brockley’s just then. However, he commanded himself, offered his congratulations and promised fidelity to us both in time to come.

  “Then,” I said, “as Master de la Roche has said, we set out for Withysham in the morning.”

  “Directly after breakfast,” said Matthew.

  • • •

  However, we didn’t set out for Withysham in the morning directly after breakfast, or even after dinner. During the night, within the bedcurtains, I told Dale what I intended, and listened to her staggered exclamations. “Oh, ma’am! Oh, dear. Yes, of course it’s what you must do but oh, dear, how will you ever manage it? I can see how it is between you and Master de la Roche. Oh. ma’am!”

  She was a conventional soul, was Dale, but so was I, at heart. Her reactions mirrored my own. Not only could I not see how to manage it; I was afraid I couldn’t bring myself to try.

  By dawn, the malady of the sick headache which had vanished during my marriage to Gerald, but shown signs of reappearing at Cumnor, had pounced. I woke in agony, with the worst headache I had ever had in my life.

  • • •

  It was as though my brows had been bound in iron and someone was hitting me rhythmically over the left eye with a very large hammer. Aunt Tabitha, marching into the room to fetch me down to breakfast, found me still lying in bed. Being Aunt Tabitha, she wouldn’t believe I was ill, and tried to pull me out of bed, whereupon I was violently sick at her feet, and partly on them, which gave me a certain amount of savage satisfaction.

  She went away in stockinged feet, leaving her contaminated shoes behind, and uttering exclamations of disgust, and called Matthew. He had stayed overnight, intending to escort me to Withysham himself. He came to my bedside and looked at my furrowed brow and green-tinged face with consternation.

  “Ursula! What is it, what’s the matter?”

  “It’s a sick headache,” I said. My eyes were half closed because the light hurt them. “It’ll pass. I have them, sometimes.”

  “What helps it? There must be something!” He rounded on Aunt Tabitha. “Did she have these turns when she lived here? What did you do for them?”

  Aunt Tabitha had never done very much for them, but at Cumnor, Dale had tried with some success a remedy which she had learned with a previous employer who had a similar affliction. “An infusion of camomile might help,” she said.

  “Do you have camomile?” Matthew demanded of my aunt.

  “Yes, we grow it,” Aunt Tabitha said.

  “Then go to the kitchen and get a draught made up!” Matthew snapped to Dale.

  As Dale went out, I said weakly to Matthew, “Has Bridget been sent for?”

  “Yes, she has.” It was Aunt Tabitha who answered, in a very angry voice. “It seems that we must let your child go back to that hovel and that woman. Your uncle insists.”

  She meant that Matthew had insisted and that Uncle Herbert was doing what he was told. I found some pleasure in that.

  “When Bridget comes,” I said weakly, “I must see her. I wish to tell her about us and give her instructions for looking after Meg. There are clothes to be made up for Meg before she comes to Withysham, and a lot of other things I want to point out, too.” I didn’t want to sit up, because the slight
est movement, even the effort of raising my voice, set the hammers pounding at my skull, but I put out a hand and clutched Matthew’s doublet sleeve. “However ill I am, I must see Bridget.”

  “I can tell her to wash, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” said Aunt Tabitha with a sniff.

  “Other things. A lot of things. I’m Meg’s mother,” I said, persisting as best I could through pain and fragility.

  “Surely we could ride to Westwater later, after the wedding, and you can tell her then,” Matthew said. “I assure you that she will take Meg back there today, as you asked.”

  “I must see Bridget!” I whispered frantically.

  “Hush, hush!” Matthew turned once more to Aunt Tabitha. “We must humour the invalid,” he said. “If she wants to see the nursemaid, she shall.”

  Dale was back before long, with a steaming goblet. She also brought a basin, which was just as well, for as soon as I had swallowed the draught, I brought it up again.

  It went on, hour after hour of pain and retching. Bridget arrived and was brought to me, and I explained matters to her and gave her her instructions, and now, looking back, I wonder how I did it, through those waves of pain.

  Meg was brought in to say goodbye, and I kissed her and told her that although I wasn’t well, I would soon be better and that meanwhile, she was going back to the cottage with Bridget and must be a good girl, and I would soon send for her. Then Bridget took her away, and I lay back and suffered.

  Aunt Tabitha and Dale stayed with me. My uncle never put in an appearance, and Matthew left the room, saying that I needed to be quiet, but looked in now and then, obviously worrying about me. I was beginning to be worried about myself. By afternoon I had nothing left in my stomach and was bringing up only a thin, watery stuff, and my stomach muscles were aching as though I had been repeatedly punched in the midriff.

  Finally, Aunt Tabitha went away too. She had stayed, it soon became clear, because she kept on hoping that I would recover, get up and leave the house. She had made a few acid remarks about undutiful nieces who didn’t want their guardians at their wedding, but I don’t think she really cared. She wanted to be rid of me. I would have been equally thankful to be rid of her but it was well after noon before she finally left me and Dale alone.

  Then Dale, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding the basin for me through yet another spasm of retching, sighed with relief and said, “Now I can talk to you freely. Mistress Blanchard, when I went down to get that draught for you, I saw Brockley. I talked to him.”

  “What did you say? I want him to know everything and as soon as possible.”

  “Well, ma’am,” said Dale doubtfully, “I’ve told him all I can. You said last night, after we were left alone, that he’d got to know, whatever you’d pretended to him when Master de la Roche was here, but all the same, I hope I did the right thing, just telling him myself instead of leaving it to you. Only, the chance was there and . . . ”

  “Of course you did the right thing! Oh, bless you, Dale. How did you manage it?”

  “Why, I saw him out in the yard and just stepped out to speak to him. No one stopped me. Master de la Roche was in too much of a fuss over you to think of keeping an eye on me! Brockley was grooming Bay Star and he came straight over to me to ask how you were. He’s very kind. I like Mr. Brockley, ma’am . . . ”

  “Never mind that! What did you say to him?”

  “Why, ma’am, I told him, as quick as I could, everything I could remember of what you’ve told me, about what these men we’ve been following are really about and how your uncle’s mixed up in it, and Master de la Roche too. Ma’am, Brockley says it’s a terrible thing you’ve set yourself to do, but likely you’re doing right and he’ll help if he can. We agreed we’d both help, not just because you pay us, but because we think it’s right.”

  “Thank you, Dale,” I said.

  It was Dale, I think, who cured me, although with words rather than camomile. Presently, the headache and the nausea eased and I found that I could sleep. In the morning, I was well.

  16

  An Eye for Country

  “Yes,” I said to Dale when we woke. “I can get up.” The headache had disappeared completely and I was slightly hungry. I felt a little weak, but I knew from experience that it would pass. My mind now was calm. I remembered Gerald telling me how he had chosen loyalty to Gresham and the queen and to his family, above the interests of those he conscripted into helping him. He had had to choose his loyalties and hold by them. So must I.

  When Aunt Tabitha came with a dish of bread rolls and a bowl of thin meat broth, and enquired sarcastically if I felt equal now to taking some breakfast and setting out for Withysham, I said yes. In due course I came downstairs to find Matthew waiting for me in the hall. The gladness in his eyes when he saw me on my feet was very touching.

  “Meg is safe at Westwater and the three of whom we spoke the other day have left on their errand to the midlands,” said Matthew quietly. “You need not fear an encounter. Are you all right? You’re very pale.”

  “It’s the aftermath of yesterday,” I said. “I shall soon be myself again.”

  Normally, this would have been true, but I knew that my wan looks today were partly fear. The risk I faced was a risk not only to me but to Dale and Brockley as well. The responsibility was heavy.

  Poor Matthew. If I did bring it off, it would be because I had taken advantage of him. Although he seemed so sophisticated, such a man of the world, he nevertheless had in him that curious simplicity, that childlike streak. I saw myself as he would see me, cold and unwomanly. The image was not pretty.

  However, there was no turning back. Our horses were ready, Bay Star, White Snail and Brockley’s fleabitten cob, Speckle. Matthew, concerned for me, made us ride slowly. Just once, Brockley managed a few words with me, unheard by anyone else.

  “You truly mean to go through with this, ma’am?”

  “Yes, Brockley.”

  “God guide you,” he said sincerely. And then, in a practical tone, he said, “When we’re at this place Withysham, we’ll have to survey the country. We must use what we find.”

  “Thank you, Brockley,” I said.

  • • •

  The place which had once been Withysham Abbey was encircled by a ditch, with a ten-foot stone wall on the inner rim, and the entrance was through an elaborate gatehouse, with a short tunnel under the porter’s living quarters and an office to one side, where he sat when he was on duty. The gate was open because carts were going in and out and we rode through behind a load of wine barrels. I looked keenly about me. The place had stood empty when I was a girl and I had been inside the walls before, as a trespasser, climbing over a fallen stretch of wall, but I could remember no details and now I needed to take in as much as I could.

  Inside, the space was quite large. To either side of the gatehouse was a paddock, one harbouring a dozen placidly grazing cows. The path led between these and on across a stretch of grass to what had been the old abbey buildings, now altered to make a house. There was an archway leading presumably to a main courtyard, but a second path branched off to the right and apparently went round to the back, probably to a stableyard. Beside the house, a garden was being laid out, with men digging over beds and putting up trellises, and beyond that were a few ruinous arches and the bases of stone pillars which marked the site of what had been the abbey church.

  “The stone was taken to build the village church, over there,” said Matthew, riding beside me. He pointed to a tower visible beyond the outer wall. “In the old days, the villagers shared the abbey church and had their own entrance. Now they have St. Thomas’s in Withysham village. I keep the law on church attendance and go to the services regularly, but I’ve had a small chapel made inside the house—it’s in what used to be the guest parlour, in the oldest part of the building—and that’s where we shall take our vows later. I arranged the ceremony for today, as I said I would, hoping and praying that you would be well enou
gh in time. Oh, Ursula, I am so thankful that you are better. I prayed for you again and again yesterday. Everything is ready for us. As far as the vicar of St. Thomas’s is concerned, by the way, we were married quietly at Faldene.”

  “I take it that you hear mass in your chapel?” I said.

  “I do indeed. I have a resident priest in the house, an elderly man, who is also an uncle of mine: Armand de la Roche. He celebrates mass for me. Ursula, believe me, before long you will love it as I do.”

  “Perhaps,” I said bleakly, and he said no more. We rode under the arch into what was indeed a courtyard, very neatly kept, and all at once we were surrounded by the usual bustle of arrival at a big house, with barking dogs and scuttling poultry and people coming out to greet us. We were clearly expected; while I lay retching in Faldene’s best guest room, the comings and goings between Faldene and Withysham must have been brisk.

  Brockley led the horses away, while Dale and I were taken indoors. I was introduced to Uncle Armand, who was an aged Frenchman in a black cassock; to a tall, quiet Englishman with stooped shoulders, who was the steward, Mr. Malton; and to the housekeeper, French like Uncle Armand, and known as Madame Montaigle. She was hard of feature, with greying hair and a brisk, businesslike manner, except when she looked at Matthew. Then, the hard lines of her face softened and her pale eyes became sentimental. She clearly adored him.

  I was going to hurt these people, dreadfully.

  • • •

  There certainly had been some comings and goings. The wine barrels I had seen being delivered were for the wedding feast, and a room had been set aside for me in which I could be dressed. Madame Montaigle had found, sponged and pressed a very beautiful gown, which she said had belonged to Matthew’s mother. It was pale blue satin, embroidered with little golden flowers, opening over an underskirt of cream with more embroidered gold flowers. I would be appropriately fine for the occasion.

  Madame’s attitude towards me was a mixture of the doubtful (will this girl make my wonderful Matthew happy?) and the anxious to please (you are Matthew’s bride and I welcome you for his sake). I wondered how he had explained his hurried nuptials to her but suspected he had simply given orders without explanations. Dale regarded Madame with suspicion at first, but Madame just gave my waiting-woman a little push and said, “Silly one—” she pronounced it seely oo-unn—“I am not going to steal your place! But a bride should have more than just one woman to prepare her!”