Queen Without a Crown

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  He had already asked me if I had told Pen or the Masons about Hawkswood and the chance of payment from Mark. I had not; not so much out of delicacy of feeling, but out of the certainty that none of them, however sympathetic towards Hugh and myself, would countenance what they saw as an undesirable marriage for Jane in order to rescue us. From what Jane had told us concerning Mark’s letter to her, he hadn’t mentioned money at all. I felt it would be better if I didn’t, either.

  Without Brockley, however, Pen was better able to stand up to me. ‘It isn’t the same thing,’ she said protestingly. ‘The young man we have in mind for Jane is decent, from a respectable home. You’d like him. So would Jane, if she would give herself a chance.’

  ‘Pen,’ I said patiently, ‘give Mark Easton a chance. Or give me a chance at least to search all the avenues that might lead to the truth. Try to see things from Jane’s viewpoint.’

  ‘She is being foolish, just as I was when I was a girl,’ said Pen, to my annoyance. Opponents who surrender a point to you and then somehow turn the surrender into a weapon are very annoying indeed.

  Once more, as on the day of our arrival, I drew on the strength of old authority. ‘Pen, as your former guardian, to whom I think you owe some respect, I ask you to hold back on this matter of Jane’s betrothal until you hear the outcome of my quest. As soon as I return to the south, I mean to search for the woman who claimed to have recognized Gervase Easton as the culprit. Give me time. If Gervase’s name can be cleared,’ I said, ‘would you and your mother and brother then object to Mark as a suitor for your sister?’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t,’ said Pen, fairly enough. ‘But with this shadow . . .’

  ‘And if I remove the shadow?’

  ‘As I said, everything would be different then.’

  ‘Then give it a chance to be different. Let me complete my enquiries.’ I spoke with all the assurance I could muster, but even as I did so, I remembered the left-handed man in the portrait at Ramsfold. A sinking in the pit of the stomach told me that, at heart, I now feared that Gervase, after all, was guilty.

  Pen must have seen something in my face, for she said: ‘But you’re not sure of the outcome, are you?’

  ‘I want to be sure. One way or the other.’

  ‘If Mark’s father had fought this man that he believed had cuckolded him and killed him in a duel, Clem and I, and mother and George too, would accept that as honourable. But poison is another matter.’

  ‘I know.’ In this, I had to admit that Pen was right. To trick a man – in this case, an ailing man – into eating poisoned food was a hateful deed, and there were no motives to excuse it. ‘But that,’ I said, ‘is precisely why we need to know the truth.’

  ‘Is it? If it’s the wrong answer, will it help Mark to know it? Does he,’ said Pen acutely, ‘really want to know for sure that his father did such a thing?’

  ‘He has asked me to find out.’

  ‘But he doesn’t believe you’ll find that his father was guilty. He talked to us about it, you know – when we first taxed him with being the son of a notorious man. You could give him a terrible shock if, after all, you prove him wrong.’

  She had become a very dangerous opponent, had my Pen. She had lit up my own innermost doubts and fears.

  At length, I said: ‘While there is still a chance that the answer may be the right one, I must go on. Mark is not a fool. In fact, for years – before his uncle died and Mark found that letter – he did think Gervase was guilty. He has lived with that knowledge before. He started me on my quest, and he will have to deal with anything I find. And I ask you, Pen, to leave Jane be until I send word to you – to say either that I have discovered the truth and here it is, or that the truth can’t be found. Then you must decide whether it is right to bind the father’s guilt on to the innocent son.’

  It was a fine, noble note on which to end, and it had an effect on Pen. She said: ‘Very well. I agree. But there must be a time limit. Three months?’

  ‘All right. Three months.’

  I didn’t add what I was thinking: that if I found no answer, or the wrong one, I sincerely hoped that Mark and Jane would somehow, after all, find the courage and the ingenuity to elope. They would have a chance then of happiness. Even if Hawkswood . . .

  I didn’t want to think about that.

  ‘A pretty Pope,’ said Elizabeth bitterly, striding angrily about the private room in Windsor Castle where she had given me audience. ‘A fine Christian, this Pope Pius the Fifth. Without a twinge of conscience, he is prepared to torment honest men and women by telling them that they must be either cut off from the love of God or else turn traitor to their lawful queen. Who does he think he is, I wonder, to speak with such assurance on behalf of God? If I were God,’ said Elizabeth with fury, rounding a table and spinning to face me, her satin train sweeping the rushes like a broom. ‘If I were God, I would strike Pope Pius dead with a lightning bolt! What was the wording again?’

  I have a good memory, but I had taken the first opportunity I could to write down what I remembered of the appalling letter I had found among Anne of Northumberland’s papers. I had read those notes through several times before coming into Elizabeth’s presence and had them at my command. With reluctance, I embarked once more on the recital.

  ‘The letter said that if the restoration of Mary of Scotland did not soon take place, and if Mary should not be made your heir, then a Bull would be issued freeing all English Catholics from their duty to obey the Crown. It added that true believers should not obey your laws and any who did would be excommunicated. It said that the one true church would . . . formally . . .’

  Here I faltered, as I had done during my first recital, and Elizabeth, who had now halted facing me, regarded me in an ironical fashion. ‘Go on, Ursula. I told you the first time – I won’t chop your head off. It isn’t your fault.’

  ‘Would formally depose you,’ I said in a low voice.

  ‘It means,’ said Elizabeth, ‘that the Catholics in England, whether they wish it or no, may not look on me – or even refer to me – as their sovereign and also remain Catholic. Bah!’

  She began to stride furiously about once more. However, although the table had a number of small objects on it, and although my royal half-sister was quite capable of throwing things at people who had aroused her wrath, she had never yet thrown anything at me and didn’t do so now.

  ‘I see,’ she said, halting in front of me once more. ‘Yes. I do see. Dear God. I have striven to look after my people. At one of my first Council meetings, I told my Councillors that corrupt judges must be dealt with; that I would not seek to peer into men’s minds and question their most private beliefs. And I have cared for my people. I have! And now, many who trusted me, whose welfare I have safeguarded, are to be told that their trust is a mortal sin in the eyes of the Almighty. And many innocent, ignorant souls will believe it!’

  ‘Perhaps not so very many,’ I said, in an attempt at reassurance.

  ‘I have made this land solvent. I have kept it – until now – a land at peace. I have given my people a country in which they can live; in which they can marry and rear their children; work at their trades, enjoy their sports; entertain their neighbours with good food and music and dancing; sleep in safety; sleep, at the last, in quiet and hallowed graves. Pius, it seems, puts no value on these things. He would prefer a land where blood streams in the ditches and people who chance not to agree with him, on this or that, scream in the flames. A fine Christian!’

  ‘I would kill him if I could get my hands on him,’ I said.

  ‘I shan’t send you on that assignment, Ursula,’ said Elizabeth, ferociously humorous. ‘There is trouble ahead, my sister, but I hope to hold it at bay. I will see that my vengeance for this last rebellion makes it clear to my subjects that Elizabeth, here and now, is more to be feared than any invisible God. As for that Northumberland woman; she did well to flee to Scotland. She’d be wise to flee further still in case I snatch her out of
her refuge even yet! I and my Council will discuss this proposed effusion from Pius, and we will be ready for it. Proclamations will be prepared, to warn anyone against thinking that they owe him more allegiance than they owe me; I shall have land and sea forces ready in case of risings here or attack from outside – from Spain, for instance. More, I cannot do. As it is, we have been caught wrong-footed in one respect.’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Oh yes. Your warning to Regent Moray was carried north with all speed, but still, it wasn’t swift enough. Lady Northumberland’s message to the Archbishop of St Andrews must have got through the snow and arrived first. Regent James Stewart, Earl of Moray, was assassinated ten days ago. He was shot with a musket from an upper window. The news came yesterday.’

  ‘I think he was shot to clear the way for Mary Stuart’s restoration,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth bitterly. ‘I think so too. Well, Mary Stuart shall have no crown: not Scotland’s, and not mine. Crownless she is, and crownless she will stay. Mewed up in England, in Tutbury Castle, is where she will stay as well!’

  Beneath the fury, I detected a great hurt. It is hurtful, to strive hard to give justice and protection and to have these things dismissed as worthless, and that by a man who had never set foot in England and yet apparently considered himself more its ruler than its own queen. I looked at my half-sister with compassion, and she looked back at me with a small half-smile.

  ‘You have done well, my Ursula. You have carried out, excellently, the errand on which I sent you. I will give you your reward personally. I have it ready.’

  There was a box on the table, and from this she took a purse. ‘Four hundred pounds, in sovereigns,’ she said. ‘It will be useful, I hope.’

  I curtsied and thanked her. It was not a disappointment, for though I knew that I had earned a good fee, I also knew that she had had to break into the assets in her treasury to finance the campaign in the north and the preparations to defend the south, and that my careful sister would probably be only moderately generous to me.

  We had made sure that she did not know about Hawkswood. I wished for a moment that we had told her, but at heart I knew it would have made no difference. Hugh had said she would not be sympathetic towards someone who had been as unwise as he had been. This payment wouldn’t save us. It would be useful, of course. We would not have to open our coffers to pay for Meg’s portrait, and we could use the rest to improve her dowry. For that, I could be grateful.

  Elizabeth, saying that she wished to confer with those of her Council who were to hand, dismissed me with a kiss. I left her and went to our rooms. Brockley and I had arrived at the castle only an hour before. As yet, I had done no more than greet my household, see with thankfulness that Hugh was safe and indeed seemed better than when I saw him last, and let Dale help me change my dress. I hadn’t even looked at the finished portrait of Meg, though Hugh said it had been delivered.

  I found them all anxiously awaiting me. ‘Brockley has told us nearly everything,’ Hugh said as he drew me in. He closed the door with one hand and hugged me with the other arm while the Brockleys tactfully gazed out of the window, Gladys poked the fire with great attention, Dr Lambert drew Meg’s attention to something in a book he was reading and Sybil sat serenely smiling. ‘What a time you have had! Thank God you are safely back!’

  I looked thankfully round at them all. I had never been so relieved to see Hugh, never so glad to be safely among my own again. Meg, I could swear, had grown a little, and from Dr Lambert’s cheerful and approving mien, she had been attentive to her studies in my absence.

  ‘I’ve been paid for my work for the queen,’ I said. ‘For eavesdropping on treason, being beaten and locked in a cellar and riding for my life through the snow.’ I handed Hugh the purse.

  He examined it with a sigh, but then laughed. ‘We expected no more,’ he said. ‘Well, we needn’t look on that as an extravagance now!’

  He pointed. Against the wall at the far side of the room, standing on wooden legs but with a cloth cast over the top of it, was what looked like some kind of frame. Hugh went over to it and whisked the cloth away.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Oh! That’s . . .!’

  Arbuckle had performed a wonder. However strange his methods, with his screens and mirrors and his extraordinary lenses, they produced astonishing results.

  There was Meg, seated at a desk, quill pen in hand, face grave. Behind her, an open window gave a glimpse of green trees and distant hills, but it was Meg herself who commanded one’s gaze. Unquestionably, the portrait was that of a girl of fourteen, untouched and vulnerable as only the young can be vulnerable, and yet with a latent maturity. I already knew that Meg possessed it; I had recognized something similar in Jane Mason. But Arbuckle, lacking my knowledge of my daughter, had nevertheless sensed her unusual quality and illustrated it in paint. The woman that Meg would become was there, her petals folded in the bud but revealed through the wealth of fine detail: the tiny lines and mouldings; the light and shade of her face; the subtle shape of the young body beneath the orange-tawny material of her gown.

  Her betrothal to George Hillman had never been made formal, but Hillman had asked for her and Meg herself had said that she liked him, the little she had seen of him, and would be glad to know him better. Hugh and I approved of young Hillman and would gladly welcome him as our son-in-law. He lived in Buckinghamshire, but when we could, we meant to invite him to visit us and further his acquaintance with Meg. When he saw that portrait, I thought, he would see for himself not only what Meg was now, but what she would be like when she was his wife.

  And he would surely be delighted with the prophecy. I hoped he wouldn’t change his mind because the loss of Hawkswood had made Meg’s family poorer, and I was thankful that her dowry, at least, would now be more than adequate.

  ‘It’s . . . beautiful,’ I said. ‘Hugh, whatever you paid Jocelyn Arbuckle, you should pay him extra. We can afford that, thanks to the queen! I can hardly believe it. It’s Meg, and yet it’s more than Meg. What do you think of it, sweetheart?’ I added, turning to my daughter herself.

  ‘I scarcely recognize myself, Mother, and yet it is me! I think it’s wonderful, too, and Stepfather has already paid Master Arbuckle extra. We thought of that ahead of you!’ said Meg, laughing.

  We were all still admiring the picture when a tap on the door interrupted us. Sybil opened it, and Brockley said: ‘Madam, while you were with the queen, I went to the kitchen and asked Sterry to come here. He was busy but said he would come shortly. I think he’s arrived.’

  ‘John Sterry?’ I said. ‘You asked him to come here? Why?’ But then Brockley’s eyes met mine, and it seemed that the extraordinary linking of minds which had taken place that night in the hall of Ramsfold House was still there.

  I knew the answer to my question even before he said: ‘We have to trace Susannah Lamb, madam.’

  Then John Sterry was standing before me. ‘I believe, Mistress Stannard, that you want to ask me something?’ His voice, as ever, was brisk and clipped. Sterry, I thought, was a man who disliked wasting time. He would go on being brisk until the day he died, and he would probably do that with despatch, as well.

  ‘I . . . yes.’ After that audience with Elizabeth, it was a wrench to make my mind concentrate on Gervase Easton and his son’s thwarted romance. During the last month, indeed, I felt as though I had been bounced like a tennis ball between the very public crisis in Elizabeth’s realm and the private ones in the lives of Mark and Jane and ourselves. ‘Master Sterry,’ I said, pulling myself together, ‘you remember that before Christmas, I asked you questions about the death of Peter Hoxton, and asked who the women were who saw a man put an extra dish on the tray intended for him.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress. Madge Goodman and Susannah Lamb.’

  ‘You said that Susannah Lamb had left five or six years ago.’

  ‘Yes. So she did.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where she might have gone
? Surely she had plans of some kind and told someone? One of the other women? I know you said she wasn’t popular, but even so . . .’

  Sterry said slowly: ‘After you came to the kitchens, Mistress Stannard, I did some thinking. It’s odd. When you really try to think about the past, you do find yourself remembering things. Since you came to my kitchen to talk to Madge, mistress, I’ve often called Susannah to mind, and I’ve talked further to Madge myself. She’s the only one who was here in Susannah’s day. All the women who worked with Susannah have left, same as she did. People come and go, at jobs like the pestle and mortar. We often find ourselves short-handed. That’s how we came to take Susannah on. She was big and strong, and I’d have employed her even if I’d known that there was talk that she’d left her last employer because she’d been caught out in some sort of dishonesty. I didn’t know – not then. Madge told me that two days ago. It was women’s gossip, you see, that I don’t listen to, but Madge did, of course.’

  ‘Dishonesty?’ I said. ‘What kind?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nor does Madge. Madge said it maybe wasn’t true, that Susannah was big and noisy and enough to make any employer tire of her. According to her, Susannah had a sharp tongue as well as a loud one and it was likely enough that people might gossip unpleasantly about her. None of the gossip need be true – it could be just spite repaying spite. She left here of her own free will, anyhow.’

  ‘And when she left, she never said where she was going?’ I persisted.

  ‘No, she didn’t. Madge says she never heard a word about that, but she does have an idea about where Susannah came from, if that’s of any use. She says Susannah came from Abingdon. She was widowed, and the story among the other women was that she had to find work after her husband died and came to Windsor as a servant in the household of some well-to-do family who moved about between one home and another. According to Madge, once Susannah was in Windsor, she left that family and found another post but was dismissed – perhaps for dishonesty, perhaps not – and then her next post was here.’