A Crowning Mercy (23 page)

'It seems that in addition to the man my son killed, a priest also died. A strangely named man called Sobriety Bollsbie. I assume he officiated at your wedding?'

'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

'Let me look at you, child! If you stare at the floor you can't expect me to grovel to see your face. Chin up! Higher! And look at me. I'm not so old and ugly that you'll turn to stone.'

The clipped, authoritative voice matched the woman Campion now saw in front of her. Margaret was tall, with an aquiline nose, and blue eyes that looked on the world with an expression of inquisitive challenge. Toby had inherited his mother's firm line of jaw and mouth, and taken from her, too, a tall, upright body. She was, indeed, far from old and ugly. Campion knew that Lady Margaret lacked two years of fifty, yet, apart from the full, grey hair, she could have been ten years younger.

'Take off the cloak, child. Let me see you.'

Campion felt shabby. Lady Margaret was dressed in a gown of pale yellow, embroidered with gillyflowers. There were strange specks of paint on the bodice, paint that was also on the right hand which raised Campion's chin higher. 'Take the bonnet off, child.' Mrs Swan had brought Campion's clothes with her, including her last, black, Puritan bonnet.

'You're not ugly, are you, child? I can see why Toby went to such inordinate lengths for you. He said that killing a man was unpleasant. Did you find it unpleasant?'

Campion nodded. 'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

'I'm not sure I would find it unpleasant. Turn round.'

Campion obeyed.

'All the way round, child, I don't want to talk to your back.' Campion faced Lady Margaret again, who sniffed. 'I see the Slythes did raise a rose among their unprepossessing thorns. Did you think my son was justified in his slaughter and destruction on your behalf?'

Campion swallowed and thought quickly. 'I would have done it for him, Lady Margaret.'

To Campion's surprise, Lady Margaret laughed. 'He can be precipitate, Toby. I don't understand where his enthusiasms come from. Certainly not from us. I don't understand, either, where his red hair came from. It's tasteless. I assume it was because he was conceived at the full moon. I made a note of it in my journal. George kept his boots on.' This was all said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if Lady Margaret was talking of everyday household things. She went on in the same manner. 'Are you a virgin, child?'

Campion gaped, then recovered herself. 'Yes.'

'You're sure?'

'Yes.'

'You're twenty?'

Campion nodded. 'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

'You're certainly clinging to it for a long time. I suppose those are the clothes your family provided?'

'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

'Quite horrible. I met your father once in Shaftesbury. He was a disagreeable man. I remember he had scurf on his shoulders. I asked him if it had been snowing.' She elaborated no further, but turned to a small table, covered with her work, and picked up a letter. She read it aloud.

'"The girl is, bye Tobie's owne Account, quite Unlettered except in the Scriptures." Is that true?'

Campion nodded miserably. 'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

Lady Margaret looked at her with what seemed to be distaste. 'Which is your favourite reading in the scriptures?'

Campion wondered what book of the Bible would most impress Lady Margaret, but settled on the truth lest she paused too long before her reply. 'The Song of Solomon, Lady Margaret.'

'Ha! You have some taste then. George is quite wrong, of course, in implying that birth and breeding are the only begetters of elegance and taste. You haven't met my son-in-law, Fleet. He's an earl, but in his armour he rather resembles a pig in a leather jerkin. If that's what birth and breeding does, then perhaps we're better off without them. You're small in the bust, child.'

'I am?' Campion, to her surprise, was beginning to enjoy Lady Margaret. There was an excitement in never knowing what would be said next.

'A few children will fill you out. Love-making does too. Fortunately my eldest daughter was generously endowed before she met Fleet, otherwise there'd have been small hope for her.'

Lady Margaret suddenly pointed to the ceiling. 'Tell me what you think?'

Campion looked up. The cornice of the long gallery, like the landing outside, was heavily decorated with elaborate plasterwork. Yet unlike the landing, which had been an orthodox representation of harvest's bounty, the long gallery was decorated with a shameless array of half-clothed gods, goddesses and grotesques. Half-clothed was an exaggeration. Most of the heavenly beings were almost totally naked, chasing each other in permanent riot about the long room. Above the huge, marble fireplace and a painting of Lazen Castle from the north, was the dominant figure of the plaster extravaganza. A naked woman, erect in a chariot, held a spear in her right hand. The woman's face was uncannily like Lady Margaret's.

'Do you like it, child?'

'Yes.'

'Why?' The question was a challenge.

Campion did not know what to say. She was not educated in such things, had never before seen such mouldings. She thought, briefly, of the great picture in Sir Grenville Cony's room, of the naked boy stooping over the pool, yet these plasters were quite different. There had been something sinister in Sir Grenville's picture. These naked romps were altogether more innocent and joyful.

'Well?'

Campion pointed to the woman in the chariot. 'Is that you?'

Again Lady Margaret was pleased. 'Of course it's me. The Italian master-plasterer did it as a compliment. He guessed my figure, and guessed remarkably well.' Lady Margaret was paying herself a compliment. The figure in the chariot was splendid. 'Do you know who it represents?'

'No, Lady Margaret.'

'Diana the huntress.'

Campion smiled. 'She was worshipped in Ephesus.'

'Of course.' Lady Margaret sounded sour. 'I forget that you know your scriptures. Does the nakedness not shock you?'

'No, Lady Margaret.'

'Good. Prudery is not an attribution of the godhead.' Lady Margaret spoke as if she was privy to the deity's secrets. 'So, you know nothing, you dress badly, yet you are in love with my son. Are you in love?'

Campion nodded, embarrassed. 'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

'And George tells me that there's some nonsense about ten thousand pounds a year. Is it nonsense?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, tell me.'

Campion told the story of the seal, of her meeting with Sir Grenville Cony, of the letter she had found in the secret compartment of her father's chest. At first she was hesitant, but soon she forgot her nervousness and discovered in Lady Margaret a surprisingly sympathetic listener. The older woman snorted when Sir Grenville's name was mentioned. 'The frog-king? Little Grenville! I know him. His father was a boot-maker in Shoreditch.'

She demanded to see the seal and was impatient as Campion took it from about her neck. 'Let me have it! Ah! Venetian.'

'Venetian?'

'It's obvious, isn't it? Look at the workmanship. No London clodpole could have made this. It unscrews, you say?' She was fascinated by the small crucifix. 'A recusant's cross!'

'A what, Lady Margaret?'

'A secret crucifix, child. The Catholics wore them once their religion was decreed unlawful, the crucifix disguised as jewellery. How very fascinating. Did Sir Grenville's have the same?'

'No.' Campion described the silver naked lady and Lady Margaret burst into loud laughter.

'A naked woman!'

'Yes, Lady Margaret.'

Lady Margaret still smiled. 'How singularly inappropriate. Sir Grenville wouldn't know what to do with a naked lady if he rolled on one in his bed. No child, Sir Grenville's tastes go the other way. He likes his naked flesh to be male.' She looked up at Campion and frowned. 'You haven't the first idea of what I'm speaking about, have you?'

'No.'

'Such innocence. I thought it disappeared with the Fall. You know about Sodom and Gomorrah, child?'

'Yes.'

'Well Sir Grenville would have been happy as the frog-king of Sodom, dear. I'll explain it all to you when you're ready.' She rejoined the two halves of the seal and gave it to Campion. 'There. Keep it safe. George didn't believe you, but then he can be very foolish at times. I've no doubt his principles will fall along with the tiles of the old roof.'

Campion, by now, was scenting success. It was not just the ten thousand pounds, each of them an excellent reason for her birth and breeding to be overlooked; she was enjoying Lady Margaret's company and felt the enjoyment to be reciprocated. She had noticed when Lady Margaret suddenly addressed her as 'dear', though Lady Margaret had seemed oblivious.

The older woman frowned at her. 'You have no means of knowing if this money is to be yours?'

'No.'

'Well, that's truthful of you. You say you're a virgin?'

'Yes.'

'Promise me?'

Campion smiled. 'Yes.'

'It's important, child. Good Lord, don't you realise how important?'

Campion shrugged. 'For marriage?'

'For marriage!' Lady Margaret scoffed. 'George deflowered me in a hayrick weeks before the marriage. He was noisy and clumsy, though I'm glad to say he's improved over the years. No, you foolish child, not for marriage, but for the law courts.'

'The law courts?'

'I assume you do not wish to stay married to Mr Scammell?'

Campion shook her head. 'No.'

'Then the marriage may have to be annulled. To achieve that you will have to prove that he never consummated the marriage. Do I have to explain what that means?'

Campion smiled. 'No.'

'Thank God for that. The priest doesn't marry you, child. When George and I married, the bishop was quite splendid and very impressive, but God didn't take a blind bit of notice till George had taken me to bed. Not that he hadn't anticipated a little, but what happens between the sheets, child, is just as important as the priest's ministrations. I shall send Toby away.'

Campion dared not protest.

Lady Margaret nodded to herself. 'He can go to Oxford and fight for the King. It will do him good, though whether the King will be grateful is another matter. That way I will remove him from temptation and we shall keep you in one piece, so to speak.' She looked sternly at Campion. 'I'm not saying you should keep yourself in the hope of marrying Toby. He's bound to meet far more suitable girls than you in Oxford, and some of them not without prospects. No. But I think I like you, and I need a companion. You know what a companion does?'

'No, Lady Margaret.'

'A companion amuses me, serves me, reads to me, obeys my whims, anticipates my desires and never, child, never bores me. Can you manage?'

'I shall try.' Campion was rising on wings to a heaven of happiness, even if it meant being apart from Toby. She had found her refuge, a place of safety, and she liked this tall, abrupt woman in whom she could see a wealth of hidden kindness.

Lady Margaret, for her part, had seen things she liked in Campion. She recognised the girl's transcendent beauty, a beauty that was remarkable, and she understood that Toby was captivated by it. So, she thought, he ought to be. Any man ought to be. Yet a few months apart would do them no harm.

Whether her son would, or should, marry Campion was not in her thoughts. As long as the girl was legally married to another then the occasion did not arise, and as long as her virginity must be preserved, so long would Toby be tested. He could go to Oxford and there, Lady Margaret guessed, he might meet someone else. Yet if he did not, if his love endured the absence, then the girl's inheritance, if it came to her, would be more than an acceptable dowry.

Yet above all, Lady Margaret had found her new enthusiasm. She liked this girl. She had found in her an innocent slate, a virgin page, and Lady Margaret would write what she willed on that page. She would educate Campion, she would open her mind, fill it with beauty, and she would turn a Puritan maid into a lady of elegance. Sir George would protest, of course, but Sir George had never seen her. One sight of this beauty and Lady Margaret knew her husband would be as docile as a lamb. She smiled.

'Come here, child. What are you called?'

'Toby calls me Campion.'

'So he says. A fanciful name, but it suits. Very well. Come here, Campion.'

She pointed to her work table. In the centre of it, amongst a litter of paints, brushes and smeared papers, was a tiny, tiny portrait. It was Lady Margaret's current passion; the painting of miniatures. This one, done from memory because the servants had learned to make themselves scarce when Lady Margaret prowled for sitters, was of Sir George. Campion did not know that. She saw what seemed to be a picture of a doleful egg, eyes crooked and mouth lopsided, with what seemed to be a speck of bird dropping on its bald pate. Toby, when his mother had asked his opinion, had said just that; that it was bird dropping. Lady Margaret thought it was one of her husband's distinguished, greying temples. 'What do you think, Campion?'

'It's lovely. It's beautiful.'

'So you've learned to lie, as well?'

Campion laughed, a lovely sound, rare in her life. 'I think it's beautiful.'

Lady Margaret smiled. 'I think we shall get along splendidly. We shall clean you up, child, then pack Toby off to Oxford. Come along.'

She led an imperious path through the furniture of the long gallery, beneath the naked romps of the deities who paid homage to the erect, slim Diana in her chariot.

'I think it's very clever of Toby to have killed for you. George never killed for me. I shall demand that he does so as soon as he returns. I shall expect slaughtered suitors to pave the road between Lazen and Shaftesbury. Come along, child, don't dawdle. And put your shoulders back, you're in Lazen now, not grovelling in Werlatton. You'll sleep in there, next to my room. That's Caroline's room, Toby's younger sister. She's sixteen now and time she was married. What are you wearing on your feet? You sound like a carthorse. Good Lord, child, do you call those shoes? Take them off instantly, I shall have them burnt. And why are you smiling? You think you're here to enjoy yourself?'