The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (24 page)

“Hoped is the wrong word!” I said. “But otherwise, well, yes. Dale, I asked you to counterfeit illness in the shop, but for your own peace of mind, some things have been kept from you. I’ll tell you now. Listen.”

I filled the gaps in for Dale. She sat quite still, seeming to shrink inside her cloak. She did not speak.

Brockley said, ominously. “You took it upon yourself, madam, to trail a lure for him. You have exposed not only yourself, but me and my wife to a terrible danger, without asking our consent.”

“I know,” I said bleakly, “but I felt that I had to do something.”

“Was it really necessary, madam,” said Brockley, “to do something quite as mad as this? Just what have you proved? And how could you bring yourself to take such a risk?”

“It wasn’t so very easy,” I informed him dryly.

Nor had it been. I wouldn’t have done it, but for one thing. As we slowly rode on, I told them of the weaver and his daughter, and what I had been forced to hear from Uncle Herbert. I made myself repeat some of what he had told me. I watched their faces as I spoke, and saw them trying to understand.

“Queen Mary’s times were terrible,” Brockley said, “but even so . . .”

“They were so terrible that they must never happen again!” I almost blazed it at him. “I meant only to drawn danger on myself! I was forewarned: I hoped that would protect me. I didn’t expect him to risk attacking all three of us!”

We jogged on for a little way in silence. “What I did,” I said at length, “I did as a matter of principle, if you like, but I didn’t mean to harm my companions. As for what I’ve proved—well, if, as you put it, I trail a lure for the enemy, and footpads promptly attack us with arrows, it’s too much of coincidence, don’t you think? I feel that I’ve proved Mew is up to something discreditable. We need that proof. We need real evidence, so that Cecil can act.”

“We’ve got evidence: I recognised Wylie,” said Brockley.

“The back view of a man all bundled up in clothing?
He has only to roar with laughter and deny it.
Now,
however, all we lack are the details of what this discreditable business actually is. I’d like to know. I’d like,” I said, “to hunt down my quarry and bring it to bay. If you can understand that.”

There was a further silence. Steadily, I said, “You are both, of course, at liberty to leave my service at any time. I would in that case give you the best possible references and enough money to see you through for some time. Do you wish to leave me?”

That took them by surprise. I awaited their answer, forcing myself to be cool and remote, to maintain my authority, despite my few years and female sex. If they decided to abandon me, I could hardly blame them. In the eyes of most servants, I had become a quite impossible employer.

However, they were good metal, those two. At last, in a trembling voice, Dale said, “We only want to keep you safe, ma’am. I’m frightened, and that’s the truth, but I won’t leave you unless Brockley bids me to.”

“Brockley?” I said.

“I have no wish to leave you, madam, and I understand why you felt obliged to take this dangerous step. I think it was a mistake, though: he may try again and succeed, and what use will that be to the Queen or anyone else? You should have consulted me, madam.”

“What would you have suggested, Brockley? I wish,” I said thoughtfully, “that I could have seen Mew’s cellar.”

“Did the shop have a cellar?” Brockley asked. “There was a staircase, but it only went up, not down, as far as I could tell.”

“I saw the deeds of the place, in the box I opened. It mentioned cellars, and I think there was a door to behind that wallhanging in his office. That could be the way to them.”

“If you believe,” said Brockley, “that there is something worth seeing in Mew’s cellar, then searching it is a much better idea than turning yourself into the cheese in a mousetrap, madam. When we get to Lockhill, I’ll take a fresh horse and start back to Windsor.” He looked up at the sky. “The weather’s clearing and there should be a moon. I can ride by night well enough. If I can get into the house, I’ll search that basement. What am I looking for?”

I had hunting instincts. I knew I had them, and Rob Henderson had recognised them too. Now, Brockley seemed to be developing them. Dale, however, was not, and gasped, “Oh, Roger! Please, no!”

“Brockley, I don’t expect you to do this alone. I will come with you. It’s my duty. I—”

“You most certainly will not come with me, madam. I’ll make sure of that even if I have to knock you unconscious,” said Brockley, emerging briefly from his disguise of the perfect servant and sounding for once like the soldier he had once been. “I’ll search that basement on my own, and that, believe me, is that.”

“I don’t see how you could get in,” I said. “Mew probably lies over the shop, and I saw for myself that all his doors have bolts on the inside. The place would be secure at night.”

Brockley produced his rare grin. “I didn’t notice the door behind the wallhanging, madam—there you were the one with the sharp eyes—but I noticed one or two
other things: for instance, that that back room had a window on a kind of garden and that the garden was a disgrace.”

“I know,” I said. “He seems to be cultivating dandelions and thistles, but I don’t see—”

“It wasn’t only the garden. The fence at the back was ramshackle. If I can’t get through or over it, my name isn’t Roger Brockley. I also noticed that although the front windows of the building have shutters, the back room window has not, and the window frame is warped. A sharp knife blade pushed in there would lift the catch very neatly, I should think.”

Just as it had lifted the latch of Leonard Mason’s cupboard. I felt myself grow hot.

Brockley, however, went smoothly on. “He’s a silly, careless man, is Mew. He puts shutters on the front windows, because they open on to the street, but thinks the garden and its fence are protection enough at the back. Foolish! Oh yes, I fancy I can get into that house, but on my own, madam.”

“Roger, please! Please don’t go!” Dale implored him.

“I must,” Brockley said. “Madam is right. It’s Sir Thomas More’s principles all over again, Fran. The purpose behind this is worth taking risks for. Now, once more, madam—what am I looking for?”

I had gone on thinking: all the way down the river to Thamesbank and all the way back, and during the night in between. I still didn’t see where the musical box came in, and I still couldn’t call to mind that second fugitive memory which had worried me as I searched Leonard Mason’s study. However, Mew’s curious dealings in
metal and Mason’s secretive purchase of tapestries he couldn’t afford, had made a pattern in my mind. It wasn’t the kind of pattern I expected, for I couldn’t see what Mary Stuart could have to do with it. This looked like plain straightforward crime, yet the idea kept on coming back to me. At least it would do no harm to share it with Brockley.

“You’d better do your searching with an open mind,” I said. “The idea that I have doesn’t fit in at all with what I’m looking for, but for what it’s worth . . .”

W
e went on walking the horses while we talked the details over, even going aside into a field to finish our discussion while still out of sight of Lockhill. We made sure that there was open ground between us and any prowling bowmen, but we saw no sight of any. The afternoon was all but gone when we finally rode under the gate-arch.

“I’ll slip off quietly,” Brockley said. “I’ll say goodbye here, madam.” I half drew breath to speak, but he shook his head at me. “The job needs doing and it needs a man to do it. Is there anything further that I should know?”

“No, Brockley. I can only say good luck, and take care. Take great care.”

“I’ll be home by morning, madam,” Brockley said.

I left Dale with him, to make her own farewells, and went into the house alone.

As so often at Lockhill, I was at once enveloped in chaos. The first sight to greet my eyes was Edwin Logan, the gardener-cum-butcher, wrapped in a bloodstained white apron, grasping a meat cleaver and
informing Ann Mason that he was that sorry, ma’am, and no offence, he hoped, but he had enough to do, carving up that pig carcass, and he couldn’t put up with that there Dr. Crichton walking in on him and complaining that the topy-airy, or what you may call it, needed attention.

“And what’s it got to do with him, I’d like to know?” Edwin demanded. “They b’ain’t his yew trees!”

“Oh dear,” said Ann worriedly. “I do apologise. Of course you must get on with cutting up the pig. The boys’ future schoolmaster is here as a guest, with a friend, and they must have a good supper. I shall speak to Dr. Crichton. The children have upset him today. I saw him striding round the yew garden. Perhaps he took out his annoyance by criticising the topiary. I’ll see he doesn’t disturb you again.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m sorry!” At the moment, Edwin looked like nothing so much as an assassin with an exceptionally blatant
modus operandi,
but he was normally a polite enough, though solemnly young man. “But things being as they are . . .”

“Yes, well, all right. Please go back to your work. You won’t be worried again, I promise.”

Edwin and his cleaver retreated into the back regions, and Ann, turning, saw me on the threshold.

“Ursula! Oh, I
am
so glad you’re back. Everything is topsy-turvy. Not the girls—they’ve been angels—but Dr. Crichton says that the boys have been
fiends.
And when their father took them to task, all they would say was that Crichton provoked them by finding fault over nothing—I can hardly believe
that!
Dr. Crichton flung
out of the house in a rage, and when I saw him in the yew garden, he wasn’t just striding round it, he was
stamping
round it! And earlier, we had a message to say that Mr. Mew won’t be joining us after all, and Leonard’s annoyed about it because he particularly wanted to show Mr. Mew his progress in the workshop. What with Leonard in a bad temper, and then Crichton, and now Edwin Logan being difficult, I hardly know whether I’m coming or going. Was everything all right? Have you concluded your . . . business or whatever it was?”

“Thank you, yes. I had better change my dress. I must look well for supper, since you have guests.”

“We’ll sit in the gallery beforehand. I must get the fire lit! Leonard is in his workshop showing that horrible gliding thing to our guests instead of to Mr. Mew. Oh dear. I’m sure Leonard and Crichton wouldn’t be so cross now if they hadn’t been in bad humours even before we heard about Mr. Mew, and before the boys started misbehaving. You were there, weren’t you, when Leonard said he’d hammered Crichton’s thumb by accident? Well, the nail turned black, and Crichton was angry about
that,
and this morning he said he wouldn’t help Leonard any more, which made
Leonard
angry. And now the little ones are crying. Oh, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another!” Poor harassed Ann rushed away to cope with an outbreak of infant wails, and I went to my room.

I was shivery. We had all come close to death in that ambush. Was some emissary from Mr. Mew still lurking in the neighbourhood, waiting for a second chance?

What if they were lurking here in the house? I could assume that I had enemies under this roof, but they would be foolish to attack me actually in Lockhill. I hoped that this wasn’t wishful thinking, but I’d better believe it, or I would flee from the place in fright.

My room felt safe enough. Candles were set ready and a fire laid. I called Jennet to light them. Presently, Dale joined me, and we set about preparing me to sup with company. I asked if Brockley had gone yet, and she said yes, and told me how he had picked a good horse and pretended that he had permission to take it. However, her voice faltered, and as she combed my hair, I felt her fumble. I met her eyes in the mirror and saw that she was crying. She looked away, but I reached up gently to take the comb from her.

“Dale?”

Her reply was a gulp and a quick brush of the hand across her eyes.

“Are you anxious about Brockley?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I know it’s not my place to say so, but what he’s doing might be dangerous—that’s true, isn’t it?”

“Never mind about your place.” I swung round on my stool and looked her in the eye, woman to woman. “Yes, it’s dangerous, and yes, the peril should be mine and not his. If that’s what you’re thinking, Dale, then I agree with you. But he wouldn’t let me take the risk myself.”

“No, I know, but why,” wailed Dale, “does there have to be any risk at all? A lady like you shouldn’t be tangled up in such things—it’s not right!”

She buried her face in her hands. I had taken the
comb but she still held the hairbrush, and the bristles caught the edge of her headdress, pushing it back to release a straggle of greying brown hair, pathetic and absurd.

“Dale,” I said gently, “it’s for the Queen, you know. We are all the servants of Elizabeth.”

“Is it for the Queen?” Dale sobbed. “Is it really? Has he gone into danger for her sake, ma’am, or for yours?”

“For both, I suppose,” I said. “Dale, I’m worried about him, too, but Brockley is a capable man. He’ll be back by dawn, you’ll see. I think you need some supper. You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.”

“I had something, ma’am. With Brockley, before he left,” Dale hiccuped, between a sob and a laugh.

“I’m glad he was wise enough to eat before setting out. Well, you’ve supped,” I said, rising and making for the door, “but you are to have some wine with me now. We both need it.” I put my head out of the door.
“Jennet!”

• • •

The merchant Bernard Paige had criticised my cream and tawny, and implied that green was a difficult colour for me. Up to then I had liked my tawny and my pale green ensembles, but his remarks had dampened my enthusiasm. However, I had let him sell me some golden yellow damask, and while sewing with the girls before I left for Windsor, I had made it up into a bodice and overskirt which looked much better over the cream kirtle than either of the others did. This evening, I would wear the golden yellow for the first time.