The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (9 page)

I wrote the letter to Matthew after all, thanking him for his forgiveness, sending him my love, and saying that I would come in May; that the Queen would not release me sooner. Cecil duly provided a messenger. Meanwhile, with Dale’s help, I stitched pockets inside all my over-gowns, in order to carry my lock-picks, and a little slate and pencil for taking notes. I would also carry a small dagger. The open-fronted gown is an elegant fashion which, I am glad to say, has never gone out. From my point of view, it is thoroughly practical.

The court was in process of moving to Richmond. I was informed that I was officially on leave and moved myself to Thamesbank instead, to say goodbye to Meg, and to join up with Rob Henderson.

The Hendersons were good people. Rob was a cheerful, strapping, tow-haired fellow in his thirties, endearingly fond of his wife Mattie. Mattie was a gracious dumpling of a woman, always trying to behave in a manner befitting a wellbred lady, but given on occasion to uncontrollable gurgles of merriment. I had
grown fond of them both. I was glad I would have Rob for company on my journey.

I spent two nights at Thamesbank. I played with my dark-haired Meg, heard of her progress in her lessons, and was delighted to learn that she showed early aptitude on the spinet and lyre.

Early on the second morning I kissed her goodbye and we set off. Rob was debonair, cloaked in green velvet with a matching hat adorned by a kestrel’s feather. He also wore a very practical sword, and he and his men all had the kind of broad shoulders which even thick winter cloaks couldn’t conceal. In such company, we weren’t likely to be attacked by footpads, or anyone else.

It was a pity, I thought, as we mounted, that for some reason, Brockley had chosen to undermine the dignity of the cavalcade by donning some extraordinary garments. His clothes all seemed to be too big for him. His hat was enormous, and when he held my mare, Bay Star, for me to mount, I saw that his doublet was oddly wide across the chest.

He saw me looking at him and gave me his rare smile. Then he raised his hat as if to scratch his head, resettled it when I had had a chance to see beneath it, and opened a button on his doublet to let me see what was under that.

“A helmet and breastplate?” I said quietly.

“And my sword.” He lifted his cloak further back to reveal that he too was travelling well armed. “All left over from my soldiering days, madam. Because we may be going into danger, may we not?”

“I sincerely hope,” I said, “that it turns out to be all a mare’s nest.”

“Is that really likely, madam?”

“I want it to be likely!” I told him.

• • •

I was whistling in the dark, of course, but I was committed now. A good rate of pay was not, after all, a total antidote to fear, but I had better ignore the shrinking sensation which intermittently attacked my vitals, so I put a good face on things, and tried not to pine for Matthew. The work in hand required concentration.

Rob, who was musical, encouraged us to sing as we rode, and I joined in with the rest. We jogged across the flat, wintry ploughlands and meadows round Maidenhead, singing all the way, and it did make me feel better.

We crossed the bridge into Maidenhead, singing a popular roundelay about the street calls of London. Rob took the chimney sweep’s part, and his two men, although they were dragging a lazy packhorse, still found the energy, respectively and hilariously, to vend mutton pies and mousetraps. I sang the strawberry seller, Dale made quite a tuneful attempt at the cry of the milkmaid, and Brockley, whose voice was surprisingly good, was the ballad-monger. In noisy harmony, we arrived at the Sign of the Greyhound in Maidenhead and put up for the night.

• • •

Next day we set out again, in weak winter sunshine, reaching Lockhill later in the morning.

The village was as I recalled it: a dozen thatched
hovels and a couple of slightly bigger houses, one of which was a vicarage attached to a church smaller than itself; an alehouse and a well; a blacksmith, working in a cave-like stone building.

We rode through the village and up a lane, with ploughland on either side, cultivated in strips in the old-fashioned way. Leonard Mason, I knew, had little interest in farming and it was no surprise to see that the banks between the strips needed weeding, and that the ditch beside the track was choked with wintry grass and overgrown bushes.

The lane led to a gatehouse. The gate was open and there was no porter, so we rode straight on into the courtyard.

Lockhill manorhouse was attractive, built of a mellow stone, with a wide porch and a small tower at one end. It had a few modern mullioned windows and decorative chimneys, but it had been built over a hundred years ago, when some manor houses still had to withstand seige, and no one would have dreamed of building one without battlements. The walls and tower of Lockhill were crenellated.

We had little chance to stare, though, for just as on my previous visit, we were greeted by the loud baying of a mastiff on a chain, whereupon the same thickset butler as before hurried out to shout at the dog, and just as before, it ignored him. Rob had to shout to explain that he had brought Mistress Blanchard and believed that she was expected.

The butler quietened the dog at last, and as the baying subsided, we heard voices. Out of the main door came Ann Mason, carrying a baby and accompanied by
five excited, not to say unruly, children. The Mason family surrounded us, all talking at once.

“So here you are! I’m glad to see you. What a long ride for you, at this time of year . . .”

“Are you Mrs. Blanchard who’s going to teach us to dance and sew?”

“Yes, I am. And you are . . . ?”

“I’m Pen and this is Jane and the little one’s Cathy. Cathy, you’re supposed to curtsy!”

“Do you hear that, Phil? Why, the girls are showing signs of manners!”

“And you boys ought to bow! Where are
your
manners?”

“Will you children hush? Why must you always quarrel? I’m so sorry, they really are dreadful, and
where
is Dr. Crichton?”

“Is this the new baby?”

“Yes, this is my little Ned . . . will you children go inside? George, you’re the eldest. Take them indoors and find your tutor! I’m truly happy to see you again, Mrs. Blanchard. And this gentleman is . . . ?”

“Rob Henderson at your service, madam.” Rob doffed his hat, though he had to raise his voice above the continuing uproar of the young Masons. “I’ve escorted Mistress Blanchard here!” boomed Rob. “I will see her indoors and then take my leave. I have two men with me and we wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble . . .”

“But you must stay and dine! Of course you must! Oh, here are the grooms. They’ll see to the horses.”

“Children!” A lanky and unprepossessing figure which I recognised as that of the tutor, Dr. Crichton,
swept out of the door. A dusty black gown swished round his ankles and a dusty black cap was set askew on his head. “What do you mean by rushing out of the room in the middle of a lesson like that? Will none of you ever learn how to conduct yourselves? Ah. Mrs. Blanchard. Good day.” He swept me a rather ungracious bow.

I answered politely, and he at once turned away to collect up his charges and shoo them indoors. I looked round for Brockley, to give me a hand in dismounting.

Look out, Cecil had said, for anything strange or unusual. What happened next was both, although it could hardly be classed as incriminating. Momentarily, a shadow, as of a big bird, passed over us, and then a thing which was indeed shaped like a bird, except that I never saw one with a blunt snout instead of a beak, or with a fin sticking up from the middle of its tail, drifted down towards the cobbles. It was about three feet long, end to end, but nearer ten feet from wingtip to wingtip. Its tail was a huge fan, tipped with feathers, but the rest seemed to be made of wood and paper. It wavered unsteadily through the air, came down on its nose and cartwheeled in front of our horses.

Bay Star snorted in alarm, and several of the others shied. Brockley’s grey cob, Speckle, backed away, and Rob’s tall black gelding let out a whinny of fright and reared.

“What in the world . . . ?” gasped Rob indignantly, from an awkward position astride a saddle which was now slanting upwards at an acute angle. One of the grooms, a gangling fellow, clearly the type who believed
in delegating tasks to others, pushed a young stableboy forward and the lad caught helpfully at Rob’s bridle. The rearing black horse rolled its eyes wildly but responded at last to gentle persuasion and coaxing noises from Rob and the stableboy, and brought its forefeet down again, narrowly missing a trailing wing.

“Careful! Don’t let the horses trample it!” cried a voice from above.

We all looked up, and I saw another face I knew, though in an unlikely place. Master Leonard Mason, Ann’s husband, stood on the roof of the tower, peering down at us over the ornamental battlements.

“I’m coming down!” he announced. He stooped, presumably to a trapdoor, and then disappeared.

A moment later, Leonard Mason, formally gowned like Dr. Crichton but in tawny velvet with fur trimming, and not looking in the least as though he had just come from a windy rooftop, hurried out to join us and rescue his extraordinary plaything. It was evidently not heavy, since he picked it up easily. He beckoned to the butler.

“Take it back to my workshop, will you, Redman? Watch the wings as you go through the porch.”

The butler took the curious device and bore it away, and Mason then turned his attention to his astonished guests.

“Just a little experiment of mine. I am sorry it upset your horses. My apologies. So here you are, Mrs. Blanchard.”

He had a long, serious face, with vertical furrows on either side of his mouth, and as he looked at me, I saw to my disquiet that they had deepened with distaste.

“I trust,” he said, with unexpected sharpness, “that you will not object if we call you Mrs. in the modern style? It is true that in many respects I am old fashioned. I wish my daughters to grow up modest and virtuous, as young women did in times gone by . . .”

I would have loved to remark that judging from what I had seen of his daughters, his efforts hadn’t so far succeeded too well. The thought of Matthew suddenly overwhelmed me. I wanted him with me, so that I could whisper my uncomplimentary opinion of the Mason girls’ upbringing to him, and hear him say, “Saltspoon!” The longing was so great that my head swam, but Mason was still talking.

“. . . In other ways, however, I am trying to bring up my children to live in the modern world, so here at Lockhill, we have adopted modern forms of address. If you agree?”

I pulled myself together. “I am sure you’re wise, Mr. Mason, and I will do my best to help you with your daughters.”

“I trust so,” said Mason, still sharply. “You seem rather young for the task!”

So that was behind my unfriendly welcome. Or was it? Once more, I experienced that uneasy quivering in my guts. Well, I was here now. If something really was amiss in this house, then my best course would be to seem as innocent and harmless as possible, to keep suspicion from arising, or disarm it if it already existed. I was Ursula Blanchard, who had been unwell and had come to Berkshire for a rest, and to help Ann instruct her daughters in needlework and dancing. I smiled sweetly and said I would try to be of use.

“I’m sure you will be the greatest help to me!” Ann’s kind blue eyes were anxious, but I also saw her give her husband a slightly irritated glance, as though wishing he had greeted me more pleasantly. “Please,” she said, “all of you, dismount and come indoors. Mrs. Blanchard, would you introduce your companions to my husband?”

• • •

Little at Lockhill had altered. The children were as wild as ever, their tutor Dr. Crichton as dowdy and harried, with his ragged, greying beard and his forehead as furrowed as the Lockhill ploughland. Mason himself was as long legged, ascetic and obsessed with abstract ideas as I remembered, and I was sorry to see that Ann Mason, who was wearing an old gown, and had tentrils of brown hair escaping from her cap, still seemed tired and worried. The only item missing was the pack of small yapping dogs which, last autumn, had added to the uproar.

We sorted ourselves out, and the luggage and the horses were taken away. Brockley and the Henderson manservants went with the horses to see that all was well with them.

Ann Mason took the rest of us indoors. We followed her through the big, untidy hall where dust lay unheeded on the antlers which adorned the walls and the vast hearth was cold, and on into the parlour. Here, blessedly, a warm fire burned and the atmosphere was hospitable if not orderly, for there was a cradle in one corner, and almost every surface intended as a seat was occupied by something or other: a workbasket, a pile of mending, a sleeping tabby cat. Ann kept
repeating that Rob and his men were not to leave until they had dined.

“Logan can manage, I’m sure. Just a moment.” She put the infant Ned down in the cradle and hurried out of the room. An instant later, we heard her exclaiming because someone called Jennet was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Jennet, for goodness’ sake, what were you doing upstairs?”

“I were just a’dusting the master’s study, ma’am,” said a slow, slightly aggrieved Berkshire voice.

“Oh, for the love of God! Ann, I
told
you!” Leonard Mason must have followed us indoors, but had got no further than the hall. “Jennet is
not
to dust my things. She disarranges them and then I can’t find anything. Only you are to go into my study, Ann. I moved it to an upstairs room just to get it out of the way—of maidservants’ dusters as well as the children’s noise! Really!”

If anything, I thought bemusedly, dogs or no dogs, the house was even more chaotic than before. I heard Ann sending Jennet to the kitchen to fetch us some wine, and then our hostess reappeared, rubbing her forehead with her fingers as though her head ached. “I’m so sorry about all this to-do—what must you think of us?” She shifted the cat and the other clutter so that we could all sit down. “Ah. Here’s Jennet with the wine.”