To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court

by Buckley, Fiona

  “It would be most shameful if you did,” said Uncle Armand, signaling Brockley for a little more fish. Doriot and Brockley were continuing to serve as imperturbably as though we were all discussing the weather. “When one considers, after all, that the Seigneur de la Roche is of an ancient, most respected French family while you, madame, although you have served at a royal court, were penniless when you were married to him, and furthermore, cannot put a name to your father.”

  There was a breathless silence. I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. Brockley froze in midfloor, the serving platter in his hands. Even Doriot looked embarrassed and became very anxious to make sure there were enough clean spoons ready for the next course.

  “My wife’s family history is of no importance to me,” Matthew snapped, but if he was glaring at Uncle Armand, he was still glaring when he turned to me.

  “I am beginning to think,” he said coldly, “that perhaps, Ursula, you are once more planning to abandon me—as you have done in the past. Are you? Do you want to go back to England? If so, in God’s name tell me. I’d rather know.”

  It was too much. It all hurt far too much. I had sat down to dine, not happily, but at least in the belief that my domestic world was secure around me. It had fallen to pieces in the space of a few minutes and I didn’t know how it had happened. What I did know was that grief for my dead child and the memory of those horrible hours in the lying-in chamber had flooded over me together, reviving the fear and pain and helplessness, the sense of loss when I called for Matthew and he would not come to me. Even now, he was at the far end of a long table; I could not reach out and touch him.

  I had no words, only a surge of emotion: nameless and wordless but too huge to contain. So I picked up the nearest candlestick, threw it at Matthew, and then leapt from my seat and fled headlong from the dining chamber.

  *

  I went straight to my own bedchamber, collapsed on the bed, and thereupon fell victim to one of the sick headaches which have plagued me for most of my life. When Matthew came after me, as he did before long, he found me groaning in semidarkness, and had the good sense not to try to talk to me, but to send Dale to me.

  Dale did her best for me, but the chamomile potion which sometimes eased the symptoms this time had no effect. The malady ran its usual unpleasant course, and the headache did not subside until late that evening. Then I told Dale to let Matthew know I was better, and once again, he came to me. He sat down on the side of the bed and looked at me gravely, his face a blank mask. He waited for me to say something first.

  There was only one thing I could possibly say. “I’m sorry I threw the candlestick,” I whispered. “But I couldn’t bear it—oh, Matthew, how could you believe I was plotting to leave you? Of course I’m not.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” Matthew told me quietly. “I too am sorry. And Uncle Armand shouldn’t have made those comments about your family, either. As for the physician at your lying-in, he asked me a question and I gave him the answer I knew you wanted. I had heard you crying out for your life. It broke my heart to hear you.”

  “I didn’t want the child to die,” I said. “How could I? I was praying that somehow we could both live. But I was so afraid, Matthew, so afraid, and I felt so helpless.”

  “It’s in the nature of women to feel helpless, but you should know that you can trust me to look after you.” He paused and then said steadily: “But now you are longing for the child you already have, I think. In your delirium, you cried out for your daughter, and for England. You are missing Meg very badly, and you’re homesick.”

  I nodded, with caution. The remains of the headache still throbbed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, miserably. Matthew and I had quarreled before, more than once. We had shouted into each other’s faces and I had wept with rage and despair, and once, when we tried to settle our differences with passion, even our lovemaking had turned savage. But never before had any quarrel gone as deep as this. I wanted no more of it. In venting my rage with that candlestick, I had lanced the worst boil in my unhappy mind. Now, I longed for peace between myself and Matthew. “This is my home now,” I said. “I know that. I ought not to be homesick; women aren’t supposed to be. Aunt Tabitha told me that,” I added. “You know—Aunt Tabitha, who brought me up.”

  “You must be really out of spirits if you’re quoting your aunt Tabitha. I remember her well, and I didn’t care for her at all. What did she say, exactly?”

  “It was when my eldest cousin, Honoria, was betrothed. She was afraid of leaving home because she thought she would be homesick. Aunt Tabitha told her that a woman’s home is where her husband is, even if it’s Cathay or Ultima Thule.”

  “That sounds very like your aunt Tabitha. Poor Honoria.”

  “But most people would agree with my aunt, wouldn’t they? The only one I know who might not is Queen Elizabeth. Her feelings for England run deep.”

  “So do yours, it appears. Oh, Saltspoon.” We both smiled involuntarily, at the sound of the nickname he had given me, years ago, because he said I had such a salty tongue. “It seems long since I last called you that,” he said now. “Dearest Saltspoon, why can’t you love France in the same way as you seem to love England? Would it be easier, I wonder, if we fetched Meg over? I have always said she would be welcome. Didn’t you once say that she should come after—well, after your confinement? Suppose I arrange it? You might feel more settled, then.”

  “I don’t know,” I said restlessly. “She is happy with the Hendersons. They are good people. They write quite often, and so does she. It’s not that I don’t have news of her.”

  I was choosing my words with care. I had spoken my mind at the dining table, but if I wanted peace with Matthew, I must not speak it now. I had hesitated to bring Meg to France because I did not want to separate her from England. I wanted England—the land, the language, the religion—to be hers by right.

  If I said that to Matthew, he would be hurt anew, and he would begin to doubt me once again. He had been surprised to hear me quote my aunt Tabitha, but if my aunt were here now, much as I disliked her, I knew what advice she would give me and she might well be right.

  She would tell me to repair my differences with Matthew by pleasing him, even if it meant hiding my own opinions. (Not that my aunt ever needed to hide hers, since they usually chimed to perfection with those of Uncle Herbert. My uncle and aunt were a pair of righteous bullies who worked together like a team of flawlessly matched coach horses.)

  But Matthew and I were very different from Aunt Tabitha and Uncle Herbert, and very different too from each other. Yes. I would be wise, I thought wearily, to hide what I was thinking. I said no more, and then Matthew made up his own mind.

  “You need more than news of your daughter,” he said. “You need Meg herself.” He stood up. “No more arguments, Ursula. I am sending Brockley over to fetch her.”

  “But he’ll need the queen’s permission and …”

  “No, he won’t. He will stay for a few days at Thamesbank—that’s the name of the house, is it not?—as though to make a full report on her studies and her well-being. The Hendersons will get used to him and so will Meg herself. He can take her out, on the river, or for rides. Then, one day, he will slip away with her and take her to the south coast, where he will find a boat in which to cross the channel. I will give him the names of three skippers who will help if he carries a letter with my seal on it.”

  For a moment, I closed my eyes. It was still going on, then. France had been torn by civil war between Huguenots and Catholics and Matthew had been in the thick of it, but still, it seemed, he had found time to keep up his secret work in England, where he had agents constantly seeking support for Mary Stuart of Scotland, who in Catholic eyes was England’s true queen, and who would bring the Catholic faith back to my country. Along with the Inquisition.

  “I understand about homesickness,” Matthew said. “And women are as prone to it as men. My mother was Engl
ish, and she always missed her homeland. That was why I took her back when my father died. She died too, not long after, but she was glad to be in her own country and to know that she would be buried in her own soil. But I think, Ursula, that if Meg is here, you will feel better. Take some rest now. Your daughter will be with you very soon.”

  He kissed me and went away. I lay there, letting my headache fade, and wondering if he was right. I had lived abroad, in Antwerp, when I was married to my first husband, Gerald Blanchard, who was in the service there of the queen’s financier, Sir Thomas Gresham. I had never felt homesick then. But of course, in Antwerp, I had had both Meg and Gerald.

  Gerald was dead and gone and if he were to come back now, this moment, what would he find? Getting up from the bed, I went to my toilet chest and looked at my face in the little mirror which lay there. I still had the wide brow and pointed chin which Gerald had called kittenish, but there was little of the kitten about me now. The hazel eyes of that mirrored face had seen many things since Gerald last looked into them. Some of those things had been sad and some horrific. Mine were experienced eyes now.

  Gazing more closely, I saw too that there were a couple of silver strands in my dark hair. My youth was passing. The Ursula that Gerald had known had changed. I was Madame de la Roche now, of Château Blanchepierre, by the river Loire.

  One could not go back. But Meg was still part of the present, living and growing, and yes, I needed her, to fill the empty place which my dead child had left. How long, I wondered, would it take Brockley to bring her back to France?

  2

  Lost in the Mist

  I sent Dale to England with Brockley. They rarely had such a chance to be alone together and I knew quite well that Dale was not happy in France. She had once been arrested and had spent several weeks in a cell under the palace of St. Germain near Paris. She had been frightened ever since. Only her affection for me, and Brockley’s loyalty to me, had kept her with me through the two years of the French civil war, which we had spent in Paris, fairly safely, but always with danger prowling nearby. Now that peace had come, I hoped she would settle down, but a visit to England might help her.

  Also, I thought it would be better for Meg if Dale was there, for I doubted if her nurse, Bridget, would come to Blanchepierre. Brockley himself had remarked on it. “She’s a good-natured soul but I don’t see her ever being at home in any foreign land.” Then he made one of his expressionless jokes, “In France, madam, I reckon she’d be like a cat in a dog kennel.”

  After the usual fractional pause while I worked out that despite the blankness of Brockley’s face he was jesting, I laughed.

  “I’ll give you some money for her,” I said. “Then she’ll be free to make a new start without anxiety. I think I can trust you not to embezzle it.”

  “Madam!” said Brockley, in mock reproach. “The very idea!”

  After they set out, Matthew and I quarreled again.

  He had found me a maid to replace Dale for the time being, a competent enough girl, but somewhat unsmiling and, unfortunately, from my point of view, related to Madame Montaigle. When Matthew asked me how I was getting on with Marie, I was unwise enough to say—albeit mildly—that I felt as though she disapproved of me.

  “Now that’s nonsense. It’s not her business to approve or disapprove of you and Marie knows her place.”

  We were in my sitting room, where I often spent the afternoons over a little embroidery, sitting by the window with a view of the Loire below, my workbasket at hand on a small walnut table with a charming inlaid pattern of ivory. I was working on a kirtle which I hoped would fit Meg, embroidering meadow flowers on pale yellow silk, and Matthew, who admired my skill, had come to see how the work was progressing. Marie’s name struck a jarring note.

  “She never says anything out of turn,” I said. “It’s just—her expression. After all, she is a Montaigle and Madame Montaigle dislikes me. You know that. She has her reasons but it’s difficult to live at close quarters with them. I’ll be glad when Dale comes back.”

  “As to that,” said Matthew, sitting down, “there is something I want to say to you. When Dale and Brockley bring Meg home, I would like you to reward them well—I will be generous over this, I promise—and then send them back to England for good. It will be much the same arrangement as you expect to make with the child’s nurse.”

  “Pay them off, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? They’re very devoted servants and I’m as fond of them as they are of me. They’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Why are you so quarrelsome, Saltspoon? I used to like that edge on your tongue but it can be tiring sometimes. Could you not be a little sweeter?”

  “I’m sorry.” Knowing that I would see Meg soon had done something to ease my unhappiness but it was still there, and could easily be reawakened. “But I’m much attached to both Dale and Brockley,” I said. “I would miss them.”

  “I know,” said Matthew. “But that’s just the point. I think you are a little too attached to Brockley.”

  “What? Ouch!” I had been startled into pricking my finger. I sat sucking it and looking at Matthew in astonished indignation.

  “Brockley’s a good man,” he said. “I know that. I gather that he has shown many kindnesses to the elderly people in the village, such as mending roofs and chopping firewood for them. But I have noticed that you talk to him a great deal and often share jokes with him. I’ve heard you.”

  “But there’s no harm in it!” I was truly appalled by this unlooked-for criticism. “And it’s true; Brockley is a good man,” I said defensively. “The old folk down in the village would miss him. He has a liking for them. I know he did his best for his own mother when she was alive.”

  “And it’s a virtue. I recognize that. I also realize that he was a great help to you when you were in Paris and I was away fighting. But now we are together again and you have me to lean on. You no longer need Roger Brockley.”

  “Brockley has never been anything other than perfectly respectful. He’s like Marie; he knows his place.”

  “I’m well aware that he’s respectful. If I thought otherwise, he would have been on his way to England long ago. Nevertheless, as I said, you have me to lean on now and you no longer need a personal manservant. We’ve been married for three years and a half, but we’ve spent much of that time apart, and we’ve only been settled in Blanchepierre since January. However, we are at last arranging the pattern of our real married life. And surely, Ursula, you can see that there is no place for Brockley in it? I already have enough grooms—enough to take care of more horses than I possess—and Doriot doesn’t need Brockley to help him at table and doesn’t like it, either. And also …”

  “Yes?” My finger had stopped bleeding but my hands were shaking and I rested them on my lap rather than try to go on stitching. I could not imagine being permanently without Brockley and Dale. They were part of me. We were a threesome held in a precise relationship to each other by a web of shared experiences. We had worked together, been afraid together, and even saved each other’s lives. Didn’t Matthew understand, Matthew, who was supposed to be the other half of myself?

  “You often say how fond you are of Dale,” Matthew was saying, “but you seem blind to the obvious. Dale loves you, but you know very well that she longs for England, and in addition, you and Brockley often hurt her.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m trying to point out to you that your intimacy with him gives her pain. Didn’t you know?”

  “Of all the things to say! How can you?”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s not true! I can’t bear this. How can you? No, let me pass; I’m going to my room.”

  Here, once again, was something that was too much, that hurt more than I could bear. Throwing my work down on the walnut table, I sprang up, evaded Matthew’s protesting hand, and fled from him. When I reached the sanctuary of my own bedchamber, Mar
ie was there, brushing clothes. She looked at my white face and tear-filled eyes and at once, as a good personal maid should, asked if there was anything she could do for Madame.

  “Yes. Just leave Madame alone,” I said ungraciously. She curtsied politely and went away and I longed to have Dale fussing around me, offering me chamomile possets. I bolted the door to keep Marie from coming back and then threw myself onto the bed and burst into tears.

  Matthew pursued me, of course. He tapped on the door and called to me. “Let me in, Ursula. You solve nothing by running away. Come, unbar the door.”

  I sat up wearily, rubbing my eyes with my palms, and knew that I must not shut him out. I got up and drew back the bolt.

  “Saltspoon, I didn’t mean to upset you.” The pet name brought a fresh flood of tears from me. Standing in his arms, I soaked the front of his doublet with them. My cap had gone awry. He pulled it off and stroked my hair. “You are so sharp-minded,” he said, “and yet sometimes you seem not to know things that anyone else can see with their eyes closed … oh well, never mind. There, there. You’re not strong yet, I know. You have been so very ill, my dear.”

  Since that dreadful, useless delivery, I had not been able to face lovemaking. Matthew’s masculine beauty, which had once filled me with desire so that every bone in my body seemed to lean toward him when he came near me, had ceased to move me at all. Now, however, I felt his need of me and knew I must respond. I let him take me to the bed. It was agony at first, in a way quite new to me. I had never known lovemaking to cause me pain before, not even the very first time, with Gerald. Now I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes closed and could do no more at first than endure.

  Matthew sensed my distress and held his urgency in check, coaxing and caressing, until at last my body remembered what to do, and my juices began to flow, soothing away the pain and letting him move easily. Afterward, I lay curled against him and thinking that one day, soon, all would be as it used to be. We would be happy together again, and I would love Matthew as I used to do. All I needed was to grow a little stronger—and for Meg to come.