The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (16 page)

“I know. I’m sorry. But”—since Hugh was not there to be questioned, I unloaded the responsibility onto his shoulders—“my husband was very firm about the matter.”

“I understand. Well, if you are to be with the Ridolfis for a while, we shall no doubt meet again. That will be a pleasure.”

“Indeed it will,” I said, conventionally.

I had come on foot from the Green Dragon, attended by the Brockleys, who were waiting for me in the entrance hall. Brockley raised inquiring brows as I joined them, and I nodded. “It’s done. He wasn’t pleased,” I added in a low voice, since we were still on Norfolk’s premises and Dean probably close by. “But it’s over now and finished.”

“I think you’re quite right, ma’am,” said Dale. “We both do.”

“We must go back to the inn and pack,” I said. “The Ridolfis expect us later today.” The Brockleys were to accompany me. The Ridolfis saw me as an equal, and entitled to have my own servants.

We returned to the inn through the warm spring weather, threading our way amid the crowds. In the innyard, the first thing I saw was Hugh’s coach, with its shafts in the air, and one of our sturdy brown coach horses tethered to a stable door while John Argent wisped its coat to a shine with a handful of hay.

“Hugh’s back!” I said. I sped at once up the outside staircase to the gallery that ran in front of the bedchambers and pushed our door open. “Are you there, Hugh? I’ve just been to Howard House . . . ”

I stopped short. Hugh was on the window seat reading. He
looked up as I spoke, his expression uncharacteristically hangdog.

On a stool close by, mumbling to herself over the work, sat Gladys Morgan, mending one of his shirts.

The Brockleys, who had followed me, now caught up. I heard Dale whisper: “Oh dear!” and as for Brockley . . .

Brockley hardly ever swore in the presence of women. He considered it impolite. This time, however, he forgot himself. “I can hardly believe it,” said Brockley’s voice in my ear, low but shaking with outrage. “It’s that bloody old hag again!”

 • • • 

“Hugh, I can’t take her to the Ridolfi house. I just can’t.”

“It’s the only way. I’m sorry, Ursula, but I can think of nothing else to do with her. I got Sybil to make sure she was decently washed and dressed and provided with good spare clothing before we left. I
had
to bring her away. The feeling against her is running so high in Hawkswood that we daren’t keep her there and Withysham is just as bad.”

“But, Hugh,
how
can I take her with me to the Ridolfis?”

“There’s no prejudice against her there and . . . ”

“She’ll soon create some! Besides, she made a few enemies in Norfolk’s house and the two households see a lot of each other. Their servants meet and talk.”

“It still won’t be nearly as bad as in Hawkswood or Withy-sham and there ought to be ways of making sure it doesn’t get worse. You can tell Madame Ridolfi that Gladys is not quite in her right senses and that nothing she says should be taken seriously any more than the tantrums of a child—and you can ask the Brockleys to watch her. I doubt if Roger Brockley will have much work to do; being Gladys’s keeper can be an occupation for him.”

“He won’t be pleased! He felt kindly enough toward her when she was a persecuted old woman on the Welsh border, but since he’s had to live in the same household, he’s much less tolerant!”

“You pay him to do what you want, not what he wants,”
Hugh pointed out. Hugh always won. He never insisted on being obeyed but by force of personality and a knack of producing reasonable arguments, he usually was.

We had stepped out to the gallery to hold our conversation in private, after leaving the Brockleys with Gladys. We now went back. Dale had begun to pack my clothes while Brockley held pannier lids open for her. He was shooting unfriendly glances at Gladys, who was where we had left her, on her stool, sewing. I saw that she was indeed clean and neatly dressed in a dark red gown with a small white ruff. At first sight, Gladys seemed like an ordinary, quite dignified, elderly serving woman. If only, I thought, she could be relied on to behave like one!

But there was nothing to be done. “How is Meg?” I asked. Meg, after all, mattered more to me than Gladys or even an assignment for the Secretary of State.

“Lovesick, as Sybil told us,” Hugh said, “but she is young. She’ll recover. She sings love songs when she thinks no one’s listening, and roams in the garden at Hawkswood, sighing romantically. Sybil found the name
Edmund
carved into the stem of one of my rose trees! I told Sybil to arrange a routine, with regular hours for studying and riding, music and stitchery, and keep to it, and I myself gave Meg a Latin translation to do and told her that I expected to see it finished by the time I came back. She’ll be all right.”

 • • • 

“Oh, my dear, of course I have no objection!” said Donna Ridolfi in French. It was late in the afternoon of the same day. Hugh had stayed at the inn and would leave next morning to return to Hawkswood. I and my entourage (which now included Gladys), had arrived at the Ridolfi house after dinner. We had been shown our quarters and I was at present in a downstairs parlor with Donna, who was plying me with wine and confectionery. Both were oversweet for my taste but I supposed I would have to adjust myself.

“Difficult old servants are a problem everyone has!” Donna said. “My husband wishes he were not saddled with that terrible topiary gardener, Arthur Johnson. Not that Johnson’s wits have
anything amiss with them but, well, when you came to our dinner, did you see the yew garden that he made?”

“Yes, I did.” Brockley had been grumbling because if we were all to live in the Ridolfi house, Dale would be sure to see it too.

“I need hardly say more,” said my hostess sadly. “Have another sweetmeat, my dear. I eat too many, I know.” She looked down with regret at her ornate brocade dress. “My husband is amused by the topiary garden, but he still considers Johnson a foul old man. He ogles the maidservants and says things that embarrass some of the shyer ones. Roberto has spoken to him but Johnson pretended he couldn’t understand my husband’s accent.”

“I will try to help. That’s why I’m here, after all,” I said, seeing a way to make myself useful, though it was a moot point whether Johnson would take any notice of me, either.

“You are very kind, my dear. We’ll leave it a day or two, while you settle in . . . oh, yes, Master Hillman?”

“Excuse me,” said the young man who had just come along the terrace and stepped in through the garden door of the parlor. He had a cloth-wrapped package under his arm and an air of looking for someone. At the sight of us, he politely removed his hat.

“The windows are open,” he said, “and I accidentally overheard you, Madame Ridolfi. I wonder if you would let me take a hand in this matter of Arthur Johnson.” His French was fluent but the English accent was unmistakable. He smiled at me. “You must be Mistress Stannard. My name is George Hillman. But Madame Ridolfi should do the introducing, of course. I am just a new employee. I am sorry, Madame.”

“This is my husband’s new secretary and courier,” said Madame Ridolfi. “He has come to replace that poor fellow Gale, who was murdered. Master Hillman, if you can curb Johnson’s tongue for us, we would be only too grateful. Can you?”

“I can speak to him, saying that I have your authority, if you so wish. A man might have more influence over him and he won’t be able to pretend he doesn’t understand
me.
I have heard him making suggestive remarks to the maidservants and I agree that he should be checked.”

“Please try!” said Donna. “I’m sure Mistress Stannard doesn’t really want the task.”

“No, I don’t,” I said.

I was looking carefully at Master Hillman. He was in many ways very like Julius Gale—less stocky and taller by a couple of inches, but similar in his red-brown coloring, in the square shape of his good-looking face, and in the frankness of his expression. He sounded educated and his clothes were good, as though he came from a well-to-do family. His hat was a mildly dashing brown velvet affair with an amethyst brooch in it. The brooch looked costly. I wondered what his background was.

A movement outside caught our attention, and we all turned to see Johnson going into the topiary garden with his shears. He was not alone. At his side was a small, slightly bent female figure in a dark red dress.

“Who is that with him?” Hillman asked.

“One of my servants,” I said. “Gladys Morgan. She’s a trifle . . . ” I tapped my forehead. “She does plain sewing and little jobs like that. My other servants are supposed to keep an eye on her—she sleeps on a truckle bed in their room, in fact—but she’s obviously eluded them. So she’s making friends with Arthur Johnson! They’ll make quite a pair. Nothing he says is likely to embarrass
her.
”

“It isn’t the moment, perhaps, to pursue Johnson with strictures on his behavior,” said Hillman. “Indeed, I have another errand, which must come first. Madame, where is your husband? This package has arrived for him, from a City merchant. A messenger delivered it just now.”

“You’ll find him in his study,” said Madame Ridolfi.

Master Hillman withdrew. He passed close to me as he did so, and I had a brief but close look at the cloth-wrapped package. Whatever was inside the cloth had sharp corners and was probably a box.

I did more than just look at it. I heard it. Faintly, but definitely, it clinked. More money was being passed to Ridolfi, and privately, not at his business premises.

Interesting.

It wasn’t the first time I had entered a stranger’s household in order—to put it crudely but honestly—to spy on the people there. I had once entered a respectable manor house allegedly to teach the daughters embroidery, while poking into their father’s private correspondence; another time, I had worked in a pie shop, gutting poultry, rolling pastry, serving customers, and trying to discover whether my employer was plotting against the life of the queen. I had learned how to go about the spying business.

Above all, to avoid suspicion, one must perform the duties for which one is ostensibly there. I actually did improve the embroidery of the Mason girls, and I had sweated through hot summer days in that pie shop, doing the work for which I was being paid, albeit inadequately.

In the Ridolfi household, therefore, I tried to be genuinely useful to Donna, which wasn’t difficult, for she was a delightful young woman. It was no lie that I wanted new gowns for myself and Meg, and Donna wanted new clothes too. Also she was interested in the details of her household. She liked sometimes to buy supplies in person, rather than leave it to her servants. She was serious for her age, which was indeed only twenty, and though she was so shy, she was still very aware of her position as mistress of the house. The portly butler, Greaves, respected her and fortunately they could converse because Greaves’s previous
employer had taken him to France, where he had acquired some French (“and my round belly,” Greaves admitted to me. “The French cook so well!”).

I took Donna to markets and merchants, interpreting for her, but also encouraging her to try out her English and speak for herself. Under my guidance, she learned the English names of materials and garments, foodstuffs and household goods; soon she was able to ask for cuts of meat and specify spices and could order candles or lamp oil. She learned to request weights or quantities and arrange for their delivery.

I walked in the grounds with her, discussing the plants in the knot garden and telling her their English names, and I established a daily hour of formal English instruction for her. She was a quick learner and I was used to teaching, having helped Meg with her studies. Before I left the Ridolfi household, I decided, Donna would be at home in London.

She seemed to like me, which was helpful in one way, though it created a difficulty in another because it was hard for me to get away from her. Her husband was out, attending to business, for most of the day and she depended on me for company. If we were not shopping, or supervising in the kitchen or garden, or studying English, she wanted me to sit with her, to talk and sew, or to practice music. She could play both spinet and lute and when she found that I could do the same, was eager to try out duets with me. If she had a fault, it was a tendency to cling. If I asked for time to myself, she did not refuse it, but she would pout, just a little.

In addition, she expected me to attend the Mass that their chaplain, Father Fernando, said each morning in the upstairs parlor, and also to come to the same parlor before supper, to listen while Fernando read passages from devotional works. Ridolfi was usually present on both occasions and I would watch him covertly. I could tell, by the ardor with which he prayed and listened, how intensely he believed. It could have been touching, but in a man who could be sending cipher letters to Mary Stuart, it was alarming.

Ridolfi, in fact, displayed more ardor in his religious observances
than his chaplain did. Fernando was elderly, a pink-faced little man with a white tonsure who, I think, just wished for a quiet life. I rather liked him, but these regular sacred observances were horribly in my way, for they were just one more obstacle to snooping.

However, this too was something I had learned to overcome. Once you know a household’s routine, you also know the chinks, the gaps during which stealthy investigation can take place. The middle of the day was always busy, with dinner to be served both in the dining room and, as a rule, in Ridolfi’s study. He usually came home for the meal but ate it at his desk, before hurrying back to the City. But when he returned home in the evening, he and Donna generally spent an hour or so in private, in their chamber or in one of the parlors, and then I was free.

I had to be wary of the servants, of course, but at that time of day, the cleaning work of the house was finished, and the servants would usually be in their own part of the house unless summoned by their employers to bring refreshments or carry messages. With caution, it was possible to do a good deal of prowling then, looking in closets and presses, and even into locked document boxes. I had once more taken to wearing divided overgowns with pouches stitched inside the opening, and in those pouches, I carried my old lockpicks.