To Shield the Queen (17 page)

It seemed that Roger Brockley shared not only John Wilton’s honesty, but also his willingness to remonstrate with people who were doing things he didn’t approve of.

“Is your mother still alive?” I asked.

“No. I rented her a cottage in another village, but it was strange to her and she pined. She was gone in three months, but in her bed, quietly. It could have been worse. Never mind that now.” We had left the hamlet and now he pulled up at the roadside. Dale and I stopped beside him, and that was when he said, “It’s absurd.”

“What is?” I asked.

“What that poor old woman told us. A week last Saturday, she said. That was the fourteenth of September. But John Wilton was attacked on . . . ” he did a quick calculation on his fingers “. . . on the third. Where were they in between? Somewhere hereabouts, most likely. But where? And why?”

Dale said tiredly, “I suppose they stopped with someone. They didn’t go to an inn, so they must have.”

“That’s possible,” said Brockley thoughtfully.

I looked about me. This was quite a well-populated stretch of countryside. We had called at farmhouses and cottages near the roads, but there were plenty more, down side lanes. I could see roofs in the distance, in all directions, and hearthsmokes climbing into the sky. “They could have stayed anywhere!” I said.

We hadn’t called at any of them. We had been thinking of our three gentlemen as travellers, who would have pressed on along the road. It simply hadn’t occurred to us to turn off to the large houses whose gables and chimneys we had only glimpsed once or twice since they were all well back from the main routes.

“We can’t just ride up to strange houses and push our way in and start asking questions about their guests,” I said. “It’s not like asking innkeepers or blacksmiths about passing strangers.”

There was a silence. In the middle of it, Dale gave a sigh, and for the second time that day, slid gently out of White Snail’s saddle and sank into a heap on the ground.

Brockley handed me his reins and dismounted. Dale sat up, apparently unhurt, but there were tears in her eyes. “I’m that stiff and sore. I can’t abide to go on riding, day after day, like this. I just let go, I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t.”

“Dale’s worn out,” said Brockley, “and this morning, madam, you complained of your ankle. We passed one of those big houses not a mile back. Let us go and ask for hospitality and make some enquiries at the same time. You’re one of the queen’s ladies, madam. It’s more natural for you to go to a manor house, than to an inn. If we learn nothing there, we can go back later to the other big houses we’ve passed.”

“Up you get, Dale,” I said. She looked at me miserably, but Brockley held out his hand to her and she came slowly to her feet and let him help her back into the saddle. “It’s not far,” I said, “and then you can take your ease.”

• • •

She was older than I, perhaps in her thirties. Her dark red dress had no farthingale and over it she wore an apron stained with what looked like fruit juices, but her cap and her small ruff were white and clean. She had the mature, tranquil features of a woman happy in marriage and secure in things material. She smiled at us. “I am Kate Westley, and this is Springwood House, the home of my husband Edward Westley. You are travellers in trouble, I hear. Please dismount and come inside.”

As Dale and I got down, I explained, nervously, “We are on a journey to Sussex, but I have twisted my ankle and my woman, Dale, is unwell. We need to rest, if we can trespass on your kindness. I am Mistress Ursula Blanchard, widow, and although at present I have leave of absence, I am one of the queen’s Ladies of the Presence Chamber.”

Just inside the door was a wide vestibule, much lighter than Amy’s entrance hall at Cumnor Place, with a floor of polished boards, and some well-kept panelling. The doors out of the vestibule were set wide. To the left there was a parlour and the door to the right led into a dining hall, with a long table and a sideboard and fresh rushes strewn on the floor. I smelt beeswax polish, strong and sweet, mingled with a faint trace of something more exotic and elusive, some rare strewing herb, perhaps. The queen would like this house, I thought. Elizabeth detested unpleasant smells and it was clear that here, every effort was made to please the nose and not offend it.

Within moments, both Dale and I were seated in a large parlour and our hostess had sent a maid to fetch restorative doses of herbs mixed into wine. Dale was invited to loosen her stays and Mistress Westley examined my ankle. I was relieved to see that it was genuinely puffy.

“I’ll get a cold compress for that. Dear me. Have you been riding with it like that? Ah, here comes Madge with the wine. You had better both have some of this. It is a recipe of my own. It contains a tincture of marjoram and camomile—I grow the herbs myself—and it both calms and refreshes. It’s quite palatable, too,” she added. Kate Westley had a delightful smile. It was difficult to imagine this well-ordered house sheltering questionable people.

“I am sorry to impose on you like this,” I said, as I sipped at my goblet. The mixture was indeed palatable. “We are really most grateful.”

“You are very kind, Mistress Westley.” I glanced at Dale, who was sipping wine with her eyes closed. She would be glad of a full day’s rest, I thought. A house of any size was, of course, supposed to welcome wayfarers, but at Faldene, the greeting was usually more dutiful than warm. Aunt Tabitha could learn from Kate Westley. “I hope,” I said, “that we are not causing you any difficulty. If you have other guests . . . ”

“We haven’t, and my husband would be horrified if I didn’t look after you properly. He will be home soon; he is going round his fields. I often go with him, but I have been making preserves today. We have had a fine fruit crop this year. You must taste some of our apples and cherries. They are quite famous in the district.”

I laughed. “Do people make excuse to call at this time of year? Perhaps we’re very lucky that you have no other chance guests at present.”

It wasn’t a very good way of asking the question but I could hardly just say, “Who else has stayed here lately?” I must not be too blunt. I felt that even this sounded a little obvious, and to my stretched nerves it seemed that Kate Westley paused half a second too long before she said, “We haven’t had anyone to stay for weeks. You are a welcome change—though I am sorry for your ill health. Now, I’ll bandage this for you, and then I think we must get you and your woman there upstairs to a bedchamber to rest quietly until supper.”

“You are indeed kind,” I said.

• • •

Hot water was brought so that we could wash away our travel-grime, and our panniers were borne upstairs. After a couple of hours, Dale, restored by sleep, did my hair and helped me into a fresh gown before we joined the family at table.

The master of the house, Edward Westley, had returned by now and proved to be a beaming, thickset individual, tanned by weather and full of concern for the welfare of his unexpected guests. The children were at supper too: two little girls of perhaps four and seven; a boy of about nine and his elder brother, who must have been twelve or so, and was already leggy with approaching manhood. The girls were accompanied by a young nursemaid, little more than a child herself, and very much inclined to bob respectful curtsies to me. A tutor, middle aged, quiet spoken and inky fingered, came in with the boys.

The children showed no fear of parents or tutor. When their father asked the boys how their Latin studies had progressed, they chattered freely of how Arthur had mastered the ablative absolute, and when the tutor interrupted to regret that Paul, the older boy, had not had the same success with the gerund, he did it kindly and Edward Westley laughed.

“Never mind. It will exercise your brain and you won’t need gerunds anyway when you’re full-grown and I’m in my dotage, and you’re running the farm for me,” he said unconcernedly.

The table almost creaked under the weight of the food; the maids who waited were deft and willing. I had never been in a more pleasant household.

However, that night, the memory of that fractional pause when I asked Kate Westley if any other guests had been there lately, came back to me. In the morning, I asked Dale if she would like another day out of the saddle, and on receiving a hearty “Yes, please,” I asked Mistress Westley if we could accept her offer and stay for a second night.

“But of course! As long as you need to—just as I said. You are more than welcome!”

I thanked her and after sending Dale upstairs again to rest a little more, I made for the stableyard where I found Brockley. He had White Snail outside, tied to a stable door, and was rubbing the gelding down with a wisp.

“I’ve arranged for us to stay another night. I just might find something out.”

Brockley continued to work, with sweeping strokes of the wisp. “Very well, madam. I’ve been cultivating the grooms. They go out of an evening for a jar of ale in the village near here. I’ll go with them tonight if I can. Maybe they’ll gossip.”

• • •

“I wonder,” said Kate Westley, when I went back to the house, “if you’d like to help me this morning. I’m preserving cherries and making an apple syrup. We’ll be in the kitchen, and there are plenty of stools to sit on, if your ankle is worrying you.”

I said, truthfully enough, that my ankle was improving but would be all the better if I kept my weight off it for a little longer, but that I would be delighted to work in the kitchen with her and chat.

We did. The kitchen was sunny, with a vaulted stone ceiling and a generous hearth. There was a cook and a spitboy and a couple of maids but it was clear that they were all accustomed to having the mistress of the house among them, and that they worked as a team, on friendly terms. While Kate carefully boiled cherries with red wine, sliced apples and sugar, I perched on a stool by the hearth with a long-handled spoon and stirred a simmering pot of apples. When the apples were fluffy, they had to be simmered again, with sugar, until the mixture thickened and it was time to spoon the syrup into jars.

With Gerald, I had mostly lived in town lodgings, in London or Antwerp, and we didn’t grow things. I had helped often enough in the kitchens at Faldene but I couldn’t remember ever being shown how to preserve fruit.

“I’m learning something new,” I said to Kate.

I stirred and poured and then peeled apples for another potful, and as the quiet domestic morning wore on, I became convinced that, after all, this house was as innocent and happy as it seemed. What I had thought was Kate Westley’s suspicious hesitation yesterday, could only have been my imagination. I was glad that my quest had brought me here. I needed this. Working here amid these pleasant, normal women, breathing in the heavy sweetness of simmering fruit, I found an unexpected peace, a sense of healing. I had not realised, until now, how the fears and sorrows of the last few weeks had lacerated my spirit.

I was no further on with my search and perhaps I never would be, but perhaps, after all, it didn’t matter as much as I had thought. Brockley was probably right. It was not a lady’s business. Ladies made apple syrup, or attended to their children . . .