Green Darkness (25 page)

She had passed through diverse torments last night. Her healthy youth rejected more misery. Nonetheless, she could not bear this.

Master Julian was doubtless still occupying her attic. In any case, the Spread Eagle had become distasteful to her. She crept up one of the many old stone staircases, and climbing into Ursula’s bed, tried to sleep.

At the Spread Eagle that evening, Julian was enduring the company of the Allens from Ightham Mote in Kent. Mistress Allen had quite recovered from her attack of illness last night. Squire Allen was still grateful for Julian’s timely appearance and the bloodletting. Julian, though bored by both of them, felt moderate gratitude for the half-crown, and was willing to endure anything which would prevent him from wondering where his future lay, or brooding on the shattering of his hopes.

They sat at supper in the back parlor away from the taproom, which was as noisy as last night. The Kentish squire had ordered the special shepherd’s pie, and ale. They chatted. Or rather, Julian and her husband listened, while Emma Allen held forth.

Julian—melancholy, distraught, his moment of glowing warmth for the two women at Cowdray quite dissipated into unbelief that he had ever had it—listened, almost uncomprehending, paying more attention to the pain in his cheekbone and the extreme stuffiness of his nose than to the woman’s talk.

Emma Allen was thirty-eight and quite comely now that she had recovered from her drunken fit, of which she remembered nothing. She was full-bodied—yet appropriately dressed in a maroon velvet gown over a buff satin underskirt, her waist constricted by a leather corset, her bust concealed by a gold chain and pendant, she did not look stout.

Her plump cheeks were beet red, her hair still a glossy black, her mouth full-lipped and shiny, though her teeth were crooked and she smiled seldom. Her eyes were remarkable, not for size or symmetry—they were set rather too close to her nosebridge—but for their brilliance, like polished jet beneath a thick, slanting fold of eyelid. They had a reptilian quality—the eyes of a lizard, or an Oriental—Julian thought on first seeing Emma today. There had been a slave girl from Cathay at the Medici court in Julian’s youth, whose eyes had been set like that. Odd in an otherwise English face, exotic.

Emma’s manner and speech were not in the least exotic, as she recounted her life history and the reason for the Allens’ presence in Midhurst.

Emma Saxby had been born at Hawkhurst in Kent, just over the Sussex border. The Saxbys were of prosperous yeoman stock, and had relations throughout the two counties. One distant cousin was Thomas Marsdon of Medfield, who had married Emma’s younger sister Nan.

A good marriage, Emma said, in her flat Kentish twang, though she complacently indicated that her own had been better. Recently, a matter of inheritance had arisen between them. Their father had made an unfair will, certain holdings were left away from herself, the eldest daughter. Vexing financial questions were further complicated by uncertainty as to the exact disposition of Emma’s former dowry at Easebourne Priory, where Emma had been a novice at the time of the Dissolution.

“
Easebourne,
ye’ know, Master Ridolfi . . .” interjected her husband, placidly assuming that the physician would be as interested in this coil about lost dowries and inheritances as the Allens were. “Easebourne, t’other side the river past Cowdray, founded by Bohuns, and though small, one o’ the best nunneries in England, ’twas considered.”

Julian sighed. He had heard neither of Easebourne, nor Medfield, nor Hawkhurst, nor the Marsdons. He moved his legs uncomfortably, and wondered whether sneezewort yarrow grew in some nearby pasture. A few sniffs often cleared the nose and eased the ache in his cheek.

Emma continued her tale, which was punctuated by Christopher’s approving nods. She had had a vocation, no doubt of that—though the scheming wicked prioress, Margaret Sackfield, had dared to doubt.

The summer before Emma was to take her vows, the monastic world was shattered by King Henry’s thunderbolt. The priory was dissolved; all its property given to the Browne family; the nuns ejected. The dowries, which had been sent long ago with the novices, then disappeared. During the confusion, nobody knew where. Dame Margaret, the prioress, also disappeared.

So the Allens had decided on a journey of investigation. They would brave Sir Anthony Browne himself, since he must have his father’s records of Easebourne, and on the way they stopped at Medfield to see which way the wind blew as to demanding the inheritance. The wind blew stormy. Tom Marsdon had refused to discuss the fairness of Nan’s legacy. Law was law, and wills were wills. Furthermore, he averred that anyone who owned the rich manor and lands at Ightham Mote should take shame to be so grasping. Relations were strained at parting, but the Allens had gained additional information which might be helpful at Cowdray.

“Tom Marsdon’s got a younger brother—Stephen,” said Emma awesomely, as though announcing a miracle. “He’s
house priest
at Cowdray! Fancy the luck of it! We were wondering how to get Sir Anthony’s ear—though we’re well known in our own county and Ightham’s a goodly manor—but a house priest, closely connected by marriage to
us,
and monk o’ Bennet’s Order like Easebourne was—oh, he’ll see justice is done me!”

Julian’s attention was at last riveted. “But, my dear madam—” he protested, “the Brownes, indeed all of Cowdray, are Protestants!” He knew this from Cheke, from the King’s messenger, even from the Irishman who called himself “Lord Gerald” in private. “They wouldn’t have a Benedictine monk as chaplain. It’s preposterous. Besides, the King . . .” he paused, “the King is at Cowdray
now,
”

“Aye, to be sure . . .” said Allen, looking startled, for he was no deep thinker and left worldly matters to his wife. “Mayhap ye spoke too freely, m’dear . . .?”

Emma’s black eyes took on an opaque look. “I’m no fool,” she said contemptuously. “I’ve been speaking wi’ the landlord here. He was mealymouthed, wouldna say this nor that, but
I
trapped him. They’ve a priest, all right, but he’s hid for the nonce. We must wait ’til the King’s gone. It’s simple.” She took a deep breath and squared her jaw. “When
I
intend a thing, ’tis good as done. And when
I
want a thing, I’ll get it. Soon or late. I have means. God heeds me when I speak.”

Julian looked at her sharply. His perceptions quivered. The arrogance was not so surprising, nor the apparent piety in a woman who had almost become a nun. The abnormal flavor came more from a sudden ruthless note in her flat voice, the flexing of her large hands with their thick doubled—back thumbs. And the narrowing of those slanted eyes. Whatever it was, he was reminded, not this time of the oriental slave girl, but of a lunatic he had once seen chained to the wall in Bedlam.

The impression passed at once, for Emma got up, smoothing her skirts.

“Now that we happen here, whilst the King is, we must try to get a glimpse of him,” she said chuckling. “That’ll be something to tell our little Charles, won’t it, Kit?” She touched her husband’s arm.

“Our son,” she explained to Julian, “six years old, come Christmastide, and the apple of our eyes, since he looks to be the only one!”

So natural and maternal a remark convinced Julian that his own predicament was inspiring him to overwrought fancies. Mistress Allen was only an ordinary provincial manor lady, bent on nothing more sinister than retrieving money of which she felt defrauded, and in the process either quarreling with or using people. He had met dozens just like her.

He bade them good-bye, thanked them for the meal, and went out to the inn stables to confer with the ostler, who asserted with conviction that there was not a horse for hire today in the whole of Sussex.

“Furdermore,” said the ostler gloomily, “King’s train ’as et up all the fodder an’ pasture fur miles, ye’ll no find an oxcart eider to carry ye to Lunnon, Marster.”

Julian went upstairs to Celia’s hot attic room, and took from his bag the book he had carried with him. It was the
Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius and his favorite nonmedical reading, but today the Roman Emperor’s aphorisms did little to lift his despondency.

On the next morning the King left Cowdray, bound south to Lord de la Warre’s Halnaker House, near Chichester. The Allens were amongst the hordes lining the highway to watch the King go by at the end of an hour’s file of laden carts and mules, of mounted knights and equerries.

Edward responded gallantly to the cheers of his people. He waved and he smiled. He caught a bouquet of roses a little girl threw to him, and tucked it under his pommel.

Only Henry Sidney and the yeoman of the privy chamber knew that Edward had been sick in the night with belly gripes, which kept him for an hour straining on the close stool, and that when he finally lay in bed exhausted, he had begun a queer little hacking cough and spat a trace of blood into a silk handkerchief. Later, when Edward suddenly began to sweat, Henry had been sufficiently alarmed to mention the Italian physician.

“He may yet be near, your grace, since there is no way, I believe, of leaving Midhurst at present.”

But Edward, like his father, was given to obstinate whims. He cried out that the fellow was a Spanish spy, that he hated foreigners, that Henry was no true friend to harass his King with outrageous suggestions.

So distraught and tearful did Edward become that Henry spoke no further, and was relieved to see the boy fall into a natural sleep. Edward had recovered by morning. Henry again forgot his fears, yet determined to restrict the excessive entertainment and wearisome banquets during the rest of the Progress.

At Cowdray, the tension gave way to general laxness. Even the steward ceased his anxious supervisions, and retiring to his room, ignored the appalling mess which the servants must be chivvied into cleaning up.

Anthony and Lady Jane waited by the gatehouse until the last flourish of trumpets faded after the turn into the highway, then he put his arm around her and crossed himself. “Blessed St. Mary,” he said softly, “it went well, my dear, and it is over.”

She gave a sob, leaning her face on his shoulder. “Now our babe . . . he can be brought down to the chapel . . .”

Anthony nodded. “And that wretched monk released. I vow I scarce thought of him, or the child, during this visit—for which God forgive me.” He gave a gigantic yawn, and said, “But, we’ve still got the Dacres. And
Clinton.
I’m not sure of the latter. He might go peaching to Northumberland—and by cock’s bones I’m so weary I’d forgot the plot! I
daren’t
release the priest until I sound out Clinton!”

Jane did not comprehend, except that here were more unnatural delays. She looked piteously at her husband, saying, “Anthony, I can bear no more . . .” and fainted on the flagstones.

Anthony, though concerned as Jane lay on their bed in a half-swoon, inert, refusing food, praying in snatches, was nonetheless grateful for a respite.

Lord Clinton and his retinue left the next day en route to Greenwich, where the Lord High Admiral had urgent business.

Geraldine produced floods of tears on parting with her betrothed. The wedding was planned for September. She had the betrothal ring on her finger—held with thread—and she was so content with her good fortune that she became kinder to everyone, and immediately took charge of Cowdray as she had used to do. Anthony was constrained to admire her aptitude, as she roused the steward and bullied the servants. Her every act proclaimed that she was no longer the neglected dowager, a knight’s widow, but the future Baroness Clinton and would, when the Dudley plans matured, be one of the leading peeresses in the realm.

On the day after Clinton’s departure she directed Anthony to release the house priest. “Let him bury the babe,” she said, “then get rid of him. I dislike the man and do not wish him in a house I am associated with. I think him bigoted and dangerously pigheaded. You can find someone else more conformable.”

Anthony had been dazed by Geraldine’s sudden emergence. But he took exception to this command, and his baffled irritations exploded.

“My lady,” he said coldly, “I’m grateful for your interest, since my wife is ailing. I rejoice in your changed prospects, and wish you well. There are many matters I don’t fully understand. Nor perhaps wish to. Whatever your secrets may be with my Lord Clinton, I wish no part of them.”

Geraldine’s eyes narrowed, she tilted her brassy curled head and looked up at him. “Are you
certain
you don’t, Anthony?” she asked softly. “I know you well, you’re ambitious, I think a coronet would please you. You would like to be called ‘my lord,’ to receive the Garter. You might enjoy a place in the Privy Council . . .”

“
Whose
Privy Council?” said Anthony roughly, “And by what huggermuggery? There’s
one
I’ll never bend to, I despise him.
And
his so-called religion.”

“So
virtuous
. . .” murmured Geraldine, her lips quirking, “so upright, so honorable . . . yet you plunged Cowdray into sham these last days, you toadied the King!”

“I respected the King’s known views and wishes,” Anthony cried, furious at the partial truth and her sardonically raised brows. “But, I’ll make no further concessions, and I’ll
not
discharge my chaplain.”

Geraldine shrugged. “As long as I am under your roof—andbear your name I, too, must make concessions . . . 
later . 
.
 .”
she let the word hang in the air, fraught with meaning and subtle threat.

Damn the bitch, Anthony thought as his stepmother glided from the privy parlor where they had been talking.

He started through passages towards one of the old stone stairs in the south wing, bent on releasing the priest at once. His route took him past lesser chambers and storerooms where he seldom penetrated. He paused at the sound of laughter coming from a room he knew vaguely to be Lady Ursula’s. The door was ajar, and he looked in.

He saw first two redheaded Dacres, Magdalen and her brother Leonard. Their size, their fox-colored hair, dominated the room. Then, he saw the cocky little Fitzgerald, Geraldine’s brother. The two young men were playing primero, slapping down the cards, throwing half-crowns on the table while Magdalen egged them on impartially. Magdalen was a handsome wench, Anthony thought, as he watched for a moment unseen. Healthy and wholesome as an oak. What an armful in bed though; she was as tall as he, and his height was greater than most.