Finding Kate

by Maryanne Fantalis

  Father, deep in conversation with Master Greenwood, spied me and clapped his hands. When the assembled company had quieted, he smiled benevolently upon them all and said, “Gentlemen, shall we begin? I believe that with the weather so fine, the girls can have their first lesson out in the courtyard today.”

  Blanche, who had been preening under the men’s glances the entire time, smiled and dipped a pretty curtsy to Father. I mimicked her action a bit less gracefully, a bit more sullenly.

  Together, we crossed the hall and left through the rear doors, pretending not to notice the men, pretending not to notice them watching us.

  The courtyard was half in sunlight, half in shade from the bulk of neighboring houses. I sat down on one of the two stone benches under the apple tree. Blanche, however, chose to stroll in the sunlight near the fountain, trailing a long strand of grass in the water. She made an undeniably lovely picture, but it struck me as unnecessary, as only the teachers would see her, not the gentlemen.

  As though my thought summoned them, they emerged from the house. The odd, fat music master stepped onto the threshold and blinked regretfully at the sunlight. Then he half fell forward onto the path, making me think the language teacher might have given him a shove. Bravo for him! I smiled. This might yet be amusing.

  Both of them, naturally, headed straight for Blanche, elbows jarring one another as they fought for possession of the narrow path. She feigned not to notice their approach, spying something of great interest in the water. I harrumphed a little on my bench.

  “Mistress Blanche,” the handsome language master said, reaching her first and sweeping a low, beautiful bow. Naturally.

  She turned, just so, favoring him with a gradual view of her—profile, then angle, then full-on smile—that had melted lesser men in their tracks. If she weren’t so horribly manipulative, I would have to admire her.

  The music master, puffing under his hat, drew up behind him. His bow was rather like the perilous teetering of a vase at the edge of a table. “Mistress Blanche,” he said, pleading a bit.

  She looked them over, like peaches in a bin at the summer market. Which would she choose?

  As though there was ever a question.

  “Master Cameron,” she purred, fluttering her lashes just a little at that angelic face. “I do believe I am in need of help with my languages. No matter how I try, my tongue trips me up.” To prove her point, she played the tip of her tongue along the edge of her top teeth.

  Did the music master groan? How was the man still upright?

  “Ah, perhaps,” he stammered in a squeaky, unmusical voice, “my lesson for today can be simply to provide a demonstration of the qualities of this beautiful instrument. To accompany your lesson, Master Cameron.”

  The language master wanted to refuse. The way his rigid back blocked Master Lucas on the path made it clear he wanted no part of the portly fellow, but he knew well it would appear ungracious for him to send him away. So he turned, beaming a false smile that lit his beautiful face, and sat beside Blanche on the edge of the fountain with his pile of books. The music master stood over them, making a show of tuning his instrument.

  They took no notice of me, which entirely suited me. I rose from the bench and strode to the gate set in the rear wall of the courtyard.

  I moved quickly through the stinking alley, skipping between seeping piles of refuse, jumping away from anything that slithered or squeaked. I had no intent of going far, only around to the front of the house, where I could slip unnoticed back inside, and thence up to my room. I had no need, no desire to participate in this ridiculous playacting.

  I was looking back over my shoulder, glancing along the street to be sure I was not seen, else I would not have walked right into him.

  The knight stood in the doorway. My doorway, the door to my house, leaning against the jamb with one arm stretched across to the other side, entirely blocking my passage.

  I gave him a thunderous look.

  He smiled, a wealth of knowing in it.

  “No lessons for you today, mistress?”

  His tone, I thought, was overly genial, considering the circumstances. We were not formally acquainted, after all. And why should my presence here, instead of at my lessons, amuse him?

  “What could I possibly learn from them?” I asked dismissively, trying to duck under his arm.

  He shifted to block my way. “Indeed, what could a man of the world possibly have to offer to a fine young lady of a village such as this?”

  I became uncomfortably aware of the closeness of our bodies: the heat of him, on such a warm day. I straightened up and took a deliberate step away.

  “Do you mock me, sir?” I demanded.

  “Do I?” he replied.

  I bit back the words that sprang to my lips—he was a gentleman, and I was supposed to be trying to make a favorable impression—and instead dipped my head and curtsied quickly. “If you will pardon me, sir….”

  He waited a moment, just to show me he could, before dropping his arm. There was barely enough room for me to slip by, with him standing in the doorway, and the fabric of my kirtle whispered as it brushed against his legs. That sound resonated all the way to my toes as I scurried by him, a mouse past an indulgent tomcat, and rushed up the stairs.

  As I reached the landing, my head wanted to turn back, but I held it straight and continued on up the stairs. The sensation of his eyes upon me itched on the back of my neck, and the thought he might be watching me thrilled like sparkling wine in my stomach. But I dared not risk knowing for certes that he was not.

  I sat on my bed, then moved to the chair by the window, then returned to the bed, but I could not remain still. I kept hearing the whisper of my skirts against his boots, kept feeling the touch of his eyes upon me.

  It was like wearing a damp wool cloak. I couldn’t get it off. It clung and itched and would not leave me alone.

  I crept back down the stairs, sneaking past Margaret toiling away in Blanche’s room, avoiding Blanche’s monstrous mother snoozing and rumbling in her lair. At the entrance to the hall, I paused, listening, but it seemed the men had departed for the morning. At least some business was going to get accomplished this day. Out the front door I went, pausing on the front stoop to slip into my pattens. I glanced around quickly, hoping to avoid seeing any of our neighbors, and set off down the street. High Street, on which we lived, was short, with only a handful of houses for the wealthiest of Whitelock’s residents, and cobbled with flat river stones. Once I got close to the inn, however, back at the center of town, the paving stones gave way to dirt scarred by the hooves of horses and cattle, rutted with the wheels of carts, and pocked with mysterious holes that appeared for reasons no one could name. And of course, one had to dodge the piles of filth that had been tossed from upper-story windows.

  In front of the inn was a little patch of grass where two trestle tables stood for use on fine days in spring and summer. When it rained, the tables and benches could be quickly taken apart and leaned under the eaves of the building until the weather cleared. As I approached, Ellen emerged from the front door in her drab gown and broad apron, shaking out a large rag. Not looking up, she leaned over one of the tables and began wiping it down, a lock of fair hair escaping her cap and falling across her brow.

  “Good morrow, Ellen,” I said, walking across the grass.

  She looked up and spied my approach. Straightening, she raised her hand in a little wave, a half smile on her face, but at the same time, I noticed her glancing around. No doubt making sure no one else saw us talking together.

  “What are you doing about?” she teased, flicking her dusting cloth at me. “Shouldn’t you be at home at your lessons?”

  I jerked back to avoid getting my dress dirty from the filthy rag. “Careful!” I snapped, belatedly realizing she meant to be playful. She turned away, swiping at the table with extra vigor.

  I twisted my fingers together. “I-I walked out. I refuse to take part in this sham.”
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br />   “That’s fine, I suppose,” she said. “Only….”

  “Only, what?”

  She straightened. “Do you mean to yield the victory to Blanche so easily?”

  “I don’t— What do you—? How can you say that?”

  She made a noncommittal noise and walked slowly over to the other table. She worked hard, I knew, and she was making the most of her time outdoors. “I mean, you know what your father’s true purpose is, and by walking away like this, you are taking yourself out of the fight.”

  “The fight?” It exploded out of me. She stepped back from the force of it.

  “Think about it. Honestly, Kathryn, you have twenty-one years already. You have a reputation, even you have to acknowledge that, and it’s not every day two unmarried gentlemen come riding into town. If you don’t want to marry anyone from Whitelock, you should certainly think about marrying one of these two gentlemen. Your father is just trying to help.”

  “Help? You think he is trying to help? He is a merchant trying to unload goods that no one wants onto unsuspecting marks.”

  “Kathryn,” Ellen said, riding over my rant. “You don’t want to be me.”

  I had no answer for that. I had stood with Ellen under this very rowan tree as she wept, watching her sister get married, knowing that she would now be the butt of everyone’s jokes because she had failed somehow. Because younger sisters getting married first violated the natural order of things, and so Ellen was doomed to be a spinster. A laughingstock. Almost as bad as being a shrew. I smiled, trying to ease the moment. “Perhaps you can snatch up one of the gentlemen for yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s not very likely.” She snorted a laugh. “One of them’s a knight, you know.”

  A shiver danced up my spine at the mention. “Yes, I do know. Which means I have no chance with him. Blanche will work all her wiles to get him.”

  “Poor fellow.”

  We laughed, a dismal thing.

  “You will tell me everything you learn, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said as I turned away. “What good is it keeping company with the innkeeper’s daughter if you don’t get information from her?”

  I hesitated. What did she mean by that? But I glanced back at her and she was smiling, so I raised a hand and turned back for home.

  On my way home, I walked with my head down, thinking over what Ellen had said. Ought I to be thinking about my father’s plan, distasteful as it was, as an opportunity? God knew, I did not want to stay in Whitelock all my life, but to leap into the arms of a stranger? Would I trade a lifetime of misery of a different sort to escape the misery I faced here? But did it stand to reason that life with Master Lawry or with Sir William would necessarily be bad? How was one to know?

  Arriving home, I considered joining Blanche and the tutors in the courtyard but could not force myself to do it. I went back to my bedchamber and soon enough found cause to regret my choice. The room was hot and stuffy whereas in the yard at least there was shade and an occasional breeze, and as irritating as my sister and the others were, at least they provided some diversion. As I had not planned to sojourn in my bedchamber all day, I had nothing but a small piece of embroidery to entertain me, and it was not long before that lost its appeal. Besides the bed, my room contained nothing but a clothes chest and a small table, and there were no surprises to be uncovered among my dresses. I stared out the window at the street for some time, but on a summer day, the smell of manure and refuse that wafted up from the gutter was less than appealing.

  At length, I noticed voices and masculine laughter coming from the back of the house, drifting up through the open casement in Blanche’s bedchamber. I crept across the corridor to investigate, careful to tread lightly so as not to alert anyone to my presence here in the house.

  Margaret had not had time to finish tidying Blanche’s room apparently, for her beautiful clothes were still strewn all over the floor, ribbons and sashes and sleeves tossed over the backs of chairs, slippers kicked off to lie against the wall or upside down beside the overflowing trunks and chests, her pots of rouge and kohl uncovered and jumbled on her little enameled dressing table, the stool tipped over beside it, the sheets and silken counterpane spilling over the foot of the bed like too much frosting on a cake. What I wouldn’t give for just one of the silken garments she tossed on the floor and forgot… but no one showered me with gifts.

  “Swine,” I muttered, stepping over the stool. “Queen of swine.”

  At the window, the voices were louder, the laughter ringing.

  The music master, standing in the shade of the apple tree, was playing a soft, plaintive tune on his lute. The language master sat on the bench with a large book open on his lap. Blanche sat beside him, holding one side of the book delicately in her hands. Around them were gathered Father and all the gentlemen: Master Lawry, Master Greenwood, Master Holloway and his friend, and that saucy knight. Sir William.

  I kneeled by the window, keeping my head down so they could not see me. Their conversation—portions of the text being read aloud, with their comments and jests flying fast—washed over me.

  No one noticed I was not with them in the courtyard.

  No one wanted me there.

  That was fine. I didn’t want to be part of it. They were only there to worship Blanche.

  I listened. They talked. They laughed.

  But Blanche, for all her lessons, said little. The clever remarks were all from others—the knight, mostly, and the scholar Cameron, and young Master Lawry. Master Greenwood was not quick enough, Master Holloway clearly intimidated, and Father not clever enough.

  And Blanche?

  Blanche was probably bored beyond all reason. But she smiled and laughed because they were men and she was the globe around which their stars danced.

  Why was it impossible for anything—anyone—to dance around me?

  Had I truly ruined my own prospects with my sharp tongue? Had speaking my mind, boldly and brashly, turned the whole world against me?

  I felt something wet on my cheek and brushed at it impatiently.

  I stood up, not caring if they saw me through the window, and went back into my room.

  I lit another candle against the dark that was gathering like wool on a spindle and sank down into Father’s big chair with a sigh. His desk was littered with parchments, letters, books of account. All out of place, all in need of tending. What did he do all day? How was he successful?

  I snorted. He was successful because he was a charming salesman, and because he had me to keep his desk tidy and his ledgers balanced.

  I shifted a pile of what appeared to be correspondence to one side and pulled the main accounting book open in front of me. Most important work first. Head down, Kathryn, and get it done.

  Time passed until the columns of numbers began to swim before my eyes in the flickering light. I stood to light two more candles and was startled as Margaret entered, a steaming cup of a tisane in her hands.

  “Thank you, Margaret,” I said, taking the warm mug from her. “How did you know?”

  She smiled and said, “Your habits are rather predictable, mistress.” She glanced at the desk. “Are you nearly finished? Will you be joining the master?”

  “Joining the master?” I burned the tip of my tongue on the hot liquid.

  “Yes. Sir William has come to call, and Mistress Blanche is sitting with them, so I thought….” She trailed off meaningfully.

  In the spaces between her words, now that I was paying attention, I could hear voices, two I knew and one unaccustomed.

  “No,” I said, rather sharply. “I see no reason to interrupt what I am doing.”

  “Very well, mistress.”

  I scowled at her retreating back. It was not her place to be reproving of me.

  I hesitated, then dashed to the door. I pressed myself into the frame as though I were part of the very wood.

  “I am so envious of your journey to Westminster, Sir William.” Blanche’s voice
was gentle, caressing. It made me cringe, but men seemed to adore it. “I do so long to see the royal court and the city of London too. It must be marvelous. So exciting! Dancing and jousting and fabulous entertainments!” She was nearly breathless with wonder, and I could picture her leaning forward, all of her many excellent features on full display. Perhaps she was even touching his arm, very lightly, just enough.

  Oh, by now he was surely lost.

  There was a pause, then the gentleman said, “The court is rather subdued, as one would expect, mistress. The queen having just died in March, and with the rumors of an invasion this summer by Henry Tudor.”

  “Oh,” Blanche said. I could imagine her, brushed back but undeterred. “Of course. But is there nothing to delight the soul?”

  Again, the pause. “There was a suggestion that the king seeks to remarry.”

  “Well, then.” Briskly. Probably leaning forward again. Reminding the knight of the marriageable bounty there before him. “That is good news. And in that happy event, should you return to court? Would you pay your respects?”

  “I doubt that the king would remember me if he does, and in any event, he will want me here for the time being, in the west, defending against Tudor’s possible arrival.”

  Ah! News! I squished myself tighter against the doorway, if such a thing were possible, and strained my ears to listen. The affairs of the wider world were rarely discussed in this house.

  Blanche made a tiny noise, and Father said, “You will understand, Sir William, that I do try to shelter my daughters from the worst of the world’s concerns. War, rebellion, invasion—these are not proper topics for a young girl’s contemplation.”

  “Yes,” Blanche agreed quickly, and I could imagine her nodding, her beautiful curls shining in the firelight. “I prefer not to think of such horrible things.” Now I imagined a pretty little shudder running over her frame, jostling her breasts just so. “I trust that my father will make the proper decisions to keep me safe… as, someday, my husband will.”