Green Darkness (68 page)

Her husband was accustomed to her suspicions and grumbling. He ignored them except for a perfunctory “Hold your tongue, Lady.”

He had decided to reinstate Edwin’s full inheritance, and be damned to the Westons. They must find another husband for their whey-faced little Anne.

On the Thursday afternoon before her wedding, it rained. Celia sat with Magdalen and her ladies in the private parlor where Celia was now welcomed. All of the old friendship had returned. Magdalen was near to term and lethargic. She sat heavily in her cushioned chair. Her belly was huge, even on so big a woman, and she caressed it often, pleased by the lively kicks inside. Her younger lady in waiting played a plaintive old tune on the virginals; the elder cut swaddling bands. Celia sewed on Ursula’s wedding dress lengths of gilt embroidery Magdalen had supplied to replace the tarnished ones. There was contentment. Celia was even aware of it. I’m happy, she thought. All is well.

She was, therefore, dismayed by a tremor, a sense of warning. Like the moment in her Lincolnshire chamber so long ago, she heard voices. They seemed to mingle with the gurgling of Cowdray’s leaden gutters. There was a woman’s voice, choking with grief. It cried, “Sir Arthur, I can’t stand this! She seemed better, now she’s losing ground fast. I don’t care
what
Akananda says. As for Richard, he’s shut up in that room. Won’t eat. Nanny’s so frightened. She listens at the door, and says he raves and mutters about those stupid Simpsons, and mortal sin. What’s happened to those two?” The voice broke. “It’s tragic—tragic.” There was some kind of masculine murmuring in response, then silence.

Celia put down her needle and gazed vaguely around Magdalen’s parlor, puzzled rather than frightened. The anguished voice had not sounded like Ursula, it had a flatter, drawling intonation. Yet, she thought of Ursula. But all the names in the woman’s speech were meaningless.

Magdalen sipped from the cup of dandelion wine Julian had ordered for her. She looked at Celia and laughed. “What ails ye, hinny? Rabbit run o’er your grave?”

Celia shook herself, and laughed too. “I must’ve been dozing, ’tis a sleepy afternoon. I thought I heard a woman’s voice, most doleful and lamenting.”

“Och . . .” said Magdalen, “it’ll be a cow down i’ the byre, bawling for her calf. The sounds travel up at times.”

“Look at the dogs!” said Celia, catching her breath.

Not only Taggle, but Magdalen’s favorite hound had retreated stiff-legged to the part of the room furthest from Celia. They both were whimpering.

“Mayhap they’ve seen a ghaistie,” said Magdalen crossing herself perfunctorily. “We had plenty at Na’orth. But they meant na har-rm. I’ve seen none her-re. O’ course,
ye
might, with ye’re Bohun blood.” She yawned deeply. “I’d lay doon a wee bit,” she added, “but that my lord’ll be back this neet fra Lunnon. Sech a broil ther-re with the Parliament, an’ all the daft changes the Queen’s Grace wants.”

“Changes?” said Celia, glad to see that Taggle had returned to lie at her feet.

“Weel,” said Magdalen, “she wants t’ put us back to King Harry’s day. Or Edward’s, rather. Englished Mass an’ Prayer Book, Communion in two kinds.
She
wants to be supreme head o’ the Church.
Daft!
’Tis a lot o’ folderol to please the Commons. Though I’m bound ta admit the Queen’s a cannier lass than I thought.”

Celia was not much interested. She had renounced religion in any of its forms on the night in Ursula’s chamber. Let them squabble! She was unable to see any threat to her new security, whatever the Queen might decree.

The Ratcliffes were Catholic, but they would doubtless conform to compromises, as would Anthony. Celia vividly remembered the deception at Cowdray during King Edward’s visit. The denuding of the chapel, the hiding of the priest.

The priest. Brother Stephen. She thought of him calmly, sadly—as one long dead. The feelings she had suffered, even those brief moments of forbidden love in the priory had happened to another woman. To a foolish child. She picked up her needle, began stitching, and thought resolutely of Edwin. Three more days and she would be his bride. A dear lad. A gay lad, courteous and accomplished—his only fault that he doted on her so excessively that sometimes he wearied her.

This fault, she knew from observation, would soon pass. Then would be comfortable years, babies, residence in a charming manor, one far larger and more impressive than Skirby Hall. And she would be near Magdalen and Anthony. She would be received at Cowdray as an equal. She felt gratitude towards Edwin for his infatuation. Her happiness—only momentarily disturbed by the eerie voice of an Ursula who was not Ursula—rushed back. She had no premonition, no foreboding. When the young lady at the virginals began to sing “The Hawthorn Tree” in a small weak Celia sang with her, strong and clear, “O, She marveled to see the tree so green, Hi ho—the leaves so’ fresh and green.” Magdalen hummed a little, and yawned again.

It was Celia’s last placid day.

Anthony came home late. Though the rain had stopped, the Sussex spring mud had delayed him. He sat down to supper in silence. They ate in the privy dining room upstairs to which Celia had recently been promoted on occasion. So had Julian, and both were invited tonight.

Magdalen, though too deeply absorbed in her fecundity to be much perturbed, nonetheless could not help noticing her lord’s dejection.

Anthony ate roast lamb, drank his sack and spoke not a word.

His children were brought in, little Anthony and Mary. They knelt for the paternal blessing. Anthony looked at them somberly, said, “God be wi’ ye,” patted them on the head and waved them away.

“Soon ye’ll have anither one,” said Magdalen, trying to lighten the gloom. “An’ ’twill be a laddie fra the way he rampages.”

“Aye—?” said Anthony scowling. “May heaven help him, for he’ll have none in this world.”

Julian had been watching; he understood the situation better than the women did, and his curiosity was far greater.

“They passed the Oath of Supremacy, my lord?” he asked softly. “The Queen is now head of the Church?”

Anthony lifted his mug and put it down again. He looked at Julian. “So it be. Queen Elizabeth has transformed herself into His Holiness the Pope.” He shrugged, then gave a sudden bitter laugh. “I was the only dissenter. I, Viscount Montagu, alone amongst the forty-three lords, gainsaid this monstrous shift.”

Magdalen gasped. “Ye
alone,
” she whispered. “Anthony—ye shouldna. What o’ the other Catholic peers—Arundel, Norfolk?”

“All voted ‘aye,’” said Anthony through his teeth.

His wife’s cheeks paled until the freckles stood out.

“But the bishops?” interjected Julian, who saw even more danger than Magdalen was beginning to.

Anthony grunted and shrugged again. “Oh, the
bishops!
They voted nay,’ and much good it’ll do ’em—in the Tower!”

Magdalen repeated, “The Tower . . .” in a horrified tone. “Oh, Anthony, what
made
ye act agyenst the Queen! It marked ye oot sa clear. Could ye na ha’ cozened her, or kept
mum?
”

“I could’ve . . . I meant to . . .” admitted Anthony slowly. “’Twas that stiff-necked monk!”

“Who . . . what monk?”

“Brother Stephen. He prayed at me all one night. Like he was ousting the devil. He exhorted. He prodded my conscience. He told me the curse o’ Cowdray would strike us all, fire to burn and water to drown—did I not hold out. He said ’twas the only way I might avert punishment for my father’s grievous sin in taking Easebourne, the priory, and Battle Abbey from the Church.”

There was a long stunned silence, broken at last by Julian. “It would seem our good friend Stephen has grown persuasive as a Jesuit. I congratulate your courage, my lord. Is the Queen very wroth with you?”

Anthony frowned. “I believe so, though I’ve not seen her. That smooth-tongued Cecil spoke to me yestermorn. He implied that Her Grace was much displeased, yet for the love her father bore mine, and the esteem in which she held
me,
she would take no harsh measures at present.”

Magdalen expelled her breath on a long relieved sigh. “I told ye she had a merciful heart, also, she’s no truly a Protestant.”

“That may be,” said Anthony. “However, she’s sending me out o’ the country. To Spain and King Philip with a trumped-up mission to retrieve his Garter.”

Magdalen paled again; she moistened her lips. She thought of the St. George’s Day when Mary had invested Philip with the Order of the Garter as her consort. She looked down at her belly where the babe had given a mighty kick. “When . . .?” she said. “When mun ye gan, my lord? Blessed
Jesu
, not afore this wee one’s born!”

“I hope not,” said Anthony shaking his head. “Cecil gave me a month to prepare. Poor wife, don’t look so doleful. This is better than the Tower, whence so few return.”

Magdalen was unconvinced. The long sea voyage seemed to her as dangerous. Moreover she perceived that Anthony was not wholly displeased by the venture, which promised excitement. Her fears broke out in anger. “God blast that meddlesome monk, where’er he be! He’d no reet to sway ye, I wish I’d him her-re—I’d show him what I feel!”

Anthony gave a small tight smile, and said something to the yeoman who hovered behind his chair. The man bowed and disappeared into the passage behind the arras.

“
That
is a wish I can grant, Lady,” said Anthony. “Would other wishes were so facile.”

Celia had been listening in considerable dismay, though relieved that Anthony would not be leaving before her marriage. Suddenly she took the full meaning of his last speech. Her heart gave a great lurch, her hands went clammy. “Nay . . .”she whispered. “Nay, I don’t
want
. . .” She stiffened, holding on to the table edge as Stephen walked in.

“
Benedicite,
” he said quietly. He looked into Magdalen’s startled face and said, “My lady, I understand why you might have cause to hate me. I trust that with God’s help I may soften your displeasure.”

Celia could not look up. His voice, deep, resonant, found a long-disused channel, and seemed to race into her breast where it churned up such turmoil that she shuddered. Julian, who sat next to her, glanced at her sidewise, and saw her whitened knuckles gripping the table.
Per Bacco,
he thought, can it still be thus with her? He shook his head and examined Stephen.
Bello, bel uomol
Tall, broad-shouldered under the black habit. Must be past thirty, yet his dark, lean face had not altered, except perhaps the hazel eyes. They showed more assurance, even a gleam of humor. The mouth would be sensual on another man. The full ruddy lips under a deep cleft to the long straight nose. When the monk smiled, as he now did at Magdalen who was obviously thawing, the mouth indented at the corners, the sternness vanished and was replaced by a composed charm. Behind the exterior Julian felt masculine strength.
La virilitá,
he thought, hardness of stone, heat of fires well banked. This man should never be a monk, nonetheless . . . Julian paused and chided himself. “
Tuttavia e realmente dedicato.
” Dedication, a rare and wondrous quality, one he himself had lost during the stultifying years of Court life. He had not been near St. Thomas’s Hospital, he had made no experiments after leaving John Dee’s. He was setting old jaded and used to easy berths like this one at Cowdray.

He was roused by his name.

“Ye knaw Doctor Julian, don’t ye, Brother?” Magdalen was making introductions.

“Aye,” said Stephen smiling. “He cured me once of rat bite. God’s greeting, sir, you look hale.”

“And perchance ye’ve met M’lady Hutchinson?” pursued Magdalen, who began to see why her lord had been convinced by this tall impressive monk.

Celia had shrunk so far back in her chair that Stephen observed only a widow’s coif, and assumed that it belonged to one of Lady Montagu’s ladies. He started to make a courteous disclaimer. Then Celia raised her face.

Their eyes met in a prolonged fulminating gaze.

Stephen’s mouth quivered, his intake of breath was audible to Julian who felt a shattering through the air, like a thunderclap. He saw the tremors which seized Celia.
Dio mio!
he thought. Everyone must notice this, they are drowning in each other’s eyes. And Julian quickly upset his goblet of wine.

The small mishap, and hurried mopping by the yeoman, gave Stephen time for control. “Ah, yes,” he said, sitting down in the chair indicated by Magdalen. “Mistress Celia and I have met before, when I was chaplain to my lord.”

Celia was incapable of saying anything. She continued to clutch the table edge. She felt sick; bitter fluid rose in her throat.

Magdalen and Anthony were unaware, too much shaken by their own troubles. Anthony’s fleeting thought of the priory scene years ago seemed so trivial and long past that it had no application now to these two. Stephen had spent much time in France, much in Westminster’s Benedictine Abbey as Abbot Feckenham’s able junior and was now a man of such suavity and yet rectitude that Anthony had submitted to his judgment. As for Celia, she would be married Sunday to the man of her choice, and showed pleasure at the prospect. It did not even occur to Anthony that this meeting might be embarrassing. Youthful follies came—and went. There were many really pressing matters.

“Stephen,” he said, “you’ll come with me to Spain, as my confessor? I need you. You’ve the Latin and the French, you’ll pick up the Spanish in a trice. ’Tis a dolt’s errand. But ye got me into it, and if I acquit myself well the Queen’s Grace may be mollified.”

The young monk shook his head. “Perhaps . . .” he said. “’Twould be an agreeable diversion, but there are stauncher ways for me to serve my faith. And though the abbeys are dissolved again, Abbot Feckenham is still my superior. He has other plans for me.”

“Bah! Cotsbody!” cried Anthony, annoyed. “He wants company i’ the Tower, where he’s surely bound. What good’ll that do your faith?”

“It
may
yet be the Tower,” said Stephen flushing. “At present he wishes to send me into Kent, to Sir Christopher and Lady Allen who have great need of a chaplain, and who have applied to him direct.”