Queen's Ransom (11 page)

“
Maman,
you should eat in your chamber. It is too much for you to come to the dining room,” Henri exclaimed, scolding affectionately, as the maid settled her in her chair.

“I desired to see our guests, especially the Seigneur Luke,” said Madame Antoinette. “I see that although he is so distant a cousin, there is nevertheless a likeness. I am pleased. We Blanchards are a handsome family.” Here, she gave my father-in-law a glance that verged on the coquettish, and briefly, I glimpsed the pretty and flirtatious Antoinette of half a century ago. She also added, with the outspokenness you often find in aging people: “Well, usually handsome,” and shot a glance at Helene. Poor Helene, I thought, didn’t fit into this household. Perhaps she would find her feet among the Faldenes. I had been miserable there, but Helene was very different from me.

I saw now that there was indeed a resemblance between Luke and his cousin. Luke Blanchard’s aquiline profile was not unlike Henri’s. Only, in Henri, it just looked strong and masculine, whereas in Luke, it seemed arrogant. I wondered what the female version would be like. Marguerite’s little girls were not yet old enough to display it, and Helene certainly hadn’t got it. Her nose was straight, pointed, and, alas, too long.

We had all changed our clothes. I had put on a favorite rose damask overgown, with a cream kirtle and sleeves and a fresh ruff. Luke, for once, was not in black but in dark blue slashed with crimson. Helene wore black velvet relieved by a deep violet kirtle and sleeves, and a white ruff edged in Spanish blackwork. I supposed that this represented mourning but it was so well done that it was also ornamental. I detected the hand of Marguerite in Helene’s choice of dress.

The fare was Lenten, but luxurious in its own fashion: grilled pike steaks with sorrel sauce, and a fish pie, tangy with verjuice. The conversation was in French. Luke was already being avuncular toward Helene and seemed to approve of her. He and Henri had made friends, and had apparently been talking together at some length.

“I hear that your guardian actually stayed at St. Marc on the way here,” Henri said to Helene. “Now, had I known he would come by that route, I would have left you in your convent and asked him to fetch you. St. Marc has stayed peaceful, so far. You could have spent a little longer with your nuns. Helene,” he added to Luke and to me, “greatly misses her schoolfellows and her teachers.”

“I was fetched away so suddenly,” Helene said in meek tones, with her eyes on her plate. “I hadn’t time to say a proper farewell to the nuns and the other girls, or to my confessor. I wish I could see them all again, just once.”

“Well, we will think about it,” said my father-in-law jovially. “But we hope soon to give your thoughts a new direction. Before leaving for England, we are to go to Paris, where Ursula has an errand. Ursula is a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth and has been asked to visit the French court to present her queen’s compliments. We carry diplomatic protection. We shall take the opportunity to present you at the court of your own land, too, Helene.”

Watching him, I wondered if he did after all have sympathy for Helene, as well as regarding her as a source of profit. Probably he had. How could one not sympathize with an orphaned girl who was about to be wrenched away from all she had ever known?

“You would like to see Paris, would you not?” I said to Helene. “I am looking forward to it myself.”

I certainly was. I longed to be rid of that letter.

“May you have a safe journey,” Henri said. “There will be open war soon, I fear. We are not in much danger here. Douceaix is very defensible. But these are shocking times. I have no wish to take up arms against my neighbors but I may have to, unless the trouble subsides soon. I have a younger brother who has already gone to Paris to offer his sword to the queen mother on behalf of the Catholics.”

Helene raised her eyes. “I wish I could go back to St. Marc and take vows. Even if the abbey were attacked and we were all killed, I would so gladly die for the faith.”

Both Henri and Marguerite looked irritated, as if they had heard all this before and found it tiresome. I opened my mouth to say: “I’m sure you wouldn’t be glad when it came to the point,” but Marguerite said it first, or more or less.

“You have never faced death, my dear. You don’t know what it would be like. Your future has been wisely settled, Helene. If your guardian is willing for you to visit St. Marc briefly, just once more, well and good. But you should be thinking ahead, not back. Imagine it! A visit to Paris and the court! Then there will be the journey by sea, to England—that will be exciting, will it not?”

Luke caught my eye and for a moment, recalling the horrors of our recent sea voyage, we were almost at one.

“And then,” Marguerite persisted, “you will have a new home, and a marriage to prepare for, and you must get to know your bridegroom. Much lies before you, Helene, and you are very young. You will be amazed how life will reach out to you and take you over.”

“Yes, madame,” said Helen, lowering her eyes again.

Henri made a jovial attempt to catch her interest. “The English are great travelers and traders, Helene. I admire that. At the moment, I believe there is an English merchant trying to reach a trade agreement with the Shah of Persia, so that goods from Persia can reach theWest without going through middlemen in Turkey and Venice. Is that not so, Cousin Luke? If they succeed, then the English, and perhaps the French, too, will be able to buy carpets and fine brocades at much lower prices than at present. You will be able to put Persian carpets in your house without emptying your husband’s purse, Helene!”

“I would never wish to empty my husband’s purse,” said Helene seriously. “It would be better to have bare floors and walls than to do that. I prefer simplicity, anyway. The nuns say that luxury corrupts the soul.”

“Nonsense. People of position must have certain standards in the way they live, if they are to be respected by others,” said Marguerite. “The nuns taught you to read and write and embroider, Helene, but you must also learn how to recognize and value household goods of quality. I am certain that Madam Ursula will be able to advise you.”

“As far as Persian carpets go, all this is very premature,” said Luke Blanchard dryly. “I have shares in the Muscovy Company, which is trying to set up this new agreement with the Shah, and I have some knowledge of the matter. The company sent a man called Anthony Jenkinson to Persia to negotiate last year and nothing has been heard of him since. But information has leaked out of Venice, to the effect that a group of Turkish and Venetian merchants have sworn that Jenkinson will not be allowed to get back to England. And so far, he hasn’t.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” Marguerite exclaimed. “One thinks of merchants as serious men of business, not engaged in plots! Surely they are not planning to murder poor Master Jenkinson?”

“There would be a lot of money at stake,” I said thoughtfully. “I remember hearing, last year, something about this scheme to set up direct trade with Persia. But it will take a lot of trade away from Turkey and Venice. They certainly won’t like it.”

Helene raised her head and gazed at me in astonishment. Marguerite smiled.

“Madame Blanchard is knowledgeable in the ways of the world, Helene, and it is in the world that you must live henceforth. Religion is not everything. Although in these days,” Marguerite added severely, “far too many people think it is. I never dreamed that here in France we would find ourselves at war over it.”

Whereupon, Helene startled us with a sudden outburst.

“But of course we are at war with heretics! My confessor used to say that heresy was the wickedest thing in the world and that the souls of heretics are cast into the eternal fire. For their own sakes and for the love of God, we must fight them. If I were a man—”

“Helene, be quiet. A girl of sixteen does not speak so to her elders. I think,” said Marguerite, “that Madame Blanchard requires the sorrel sauce. Kindly pass it to her.”

“If Helene were a man, she would be already in Paris, along with my brother Philippe, offering her sword to the cause as well,” Henri said. “However, you are not a man, Helene, nor are you likely to turn into one.”

“Oh, it is all such a business.” Marguerite sounded exasperated. “We have even had to lay in stores of weapons and food in case of a siege!”

“I, too, may have to go eventually,” Henri said. “Though I am holding back for a while, hoping that peace will be restored quickly. Philippe went because he has no household to protect and we decided that it was his duty. But we are civilized people and we detest these extreme attitudes.”

Helene bent her head again and made no reply. I concentrated on my food. My sympathies were veering Marguerite’s way. Helene was an extremely irritating girl.

My father-in-law began to talk to Helene about England and his home, Beechtrees, where Helene would live until her marriage. There was this much meadow and that much woodland; there was a nice little brown cob for Helene to ride; Ambrose’s wife was fond of hawking, with a merlin, and Helene could have one, too . . .

Helene made polite, flat responses. There was a feeling of relief when the meal ended. Dusk was coming down as we rose from the table. Marguerite announced that a fire had been lit in a west-facing gallery. “It receives the last of the daylight. There is a spinet, and I will myself entertain you with music.”

The maids had withdrawn to eat separately, but came to attend us at the gallery. Marguerite was served by a pretty young woman, very elegantly dressed, but Helene’s maid Jeanne was older, gaunt of build, and rather hard of feature, I thought, until I saw her smile as Helene came in. Here at least was one person who liked the girl and I was glad for Helene’s sake. But Jeanne, I knew, did not want to come to England. Helene would have to part from her, too, and make do with me.

The evening had turned cool. There was a little flutter as seats were moved nearer to the hearth, and Marguerite called for candles to augment the sunset and light the music for the spinet. Henri, who had gone out briefly to take the air by the moat, came in again, glanced at me just as I had taken my seat, and scooped up a fat red cushion from a bench beside the door. He carried it over to me.

“You will surely need another cushion on that settle, madame. That oak is very hard to sit upon. No, no, I will look after your mistress.” He waved a hovering Dale away. “If you would get up for just a moment, madame . . .”

I stood up again and he said: “If I place it just so . . .” in a tone that obliged me to turn in order to see what he was doing. For a moment, we were facing the settle, our backs turned to the company, my farthingale brushing his hip. With one hand, he shook the crimson cushion and set it in place, and with the other, using my wide skirt as a shield, he slid a folded piece of paper into my grasp.

“When I went out to take the air just now, madame,” he said quietly, as I sat down once more, “I met the youth from the inn at St. Marc, just coming across the bridge. I know him by sight. I asked him his errand and he said he had a note for you. I said I would take it and he was too much in awe of me to argue, but he begged me to give it to you discreetly. I promised, and I have kept my word. I ask no questions.” Henri gazed gravely down at me. “But I hope it is not political. If you need any help or advice from me, I will gladly give it.”

I looked at it and my insides somersaulted. I felt the blood rush into my face. I tried to keep my voice steady as I said: “It is not political. It is from . . . an admirer.”

“Oh, indeed! So the wind sits there! I should have guessed. Our French gallants are not backward and you are both charming and unattached. If I were not married already, I would just be sorry that someone else had got in ahead of me.”

“That is a compliment. Thank you,” I said. I tried to sound gracious and I smiled as I spoke, but there was turmoil within me.

For the writing on the letter was like the sweep of a sword, cutting me away from the civil war, the strange behavior of Luke Blanchard, Queen Elizabeth’s letter. I still knew that they existed, but I could no longer see them or feel them. I could see only my name, in that familiar writing.

The letter was addressed, wisely, to Madame Blanchard. But the writing was that of my estranged husband, Matthew de la Roche.

Rendezvous

“Le Cheval d’Or, madam?” said Brockley. “You wish me to escort you there? And without Master Ryder or the Dodd brothers?”

“That dreadful place, ma’am!” said Dale fervently. “I thought we’d seen the back of it for good. What’s wrong with here?”

“Well, as to that,” said Brockley, “there’s a fair amount wrong with here. A popish abbey is no place to be with a religious war on the point of breaking out. If Master Blanchard had said that Mistress Helene could have her way and visit her old friends at St. Marc’s once more, that would have been his business. But for you to urge it, madam, when you’ve said over and over that we should make haste to Paris; and even to offer to bring her without Master Blanchard—well, I said at the time that I couldn’t understand it!” He had, at length. “And now this!” he said. “This, on top of all else!”

“If you will let me finish, and not interrupt,” I said, “you may begin to understand!”

At Douceaix, I had said that I saw no reason why Helene should not make a last visit to the Abbey of St. Marc. There was no unrest in the immediate area, and I had pointed out to Luke Blanchard that I wished to make friends with Helene and that this might help me to do so. I had also urged him to remain at Douceaix himself “to make sure you are completely recovered from your illness, dear father-in-law, before we take the road again.”

So despite the religious conflict and the amount of Huguenot influence in the area, here we were in the guest house of St. Marc’s Abbey: myself, the Brockleys, Helene and Jeanne, and Cecil’s three men, Ryder and the Dodds.

But my wish to return to St. Marc had had nothing to do with Helene, who was merely an excuse; and my wish, now that we were here, to pay a visit to Le Cheval d’Or had nothing to do with the amenities or the safety of either hostelry or abbey. I looked exasperatedly at my two servants. They were loyal and at times very brave, but now and then I longed to seize them, in turn, by the shoulders and shake them. They were lamentably ready to conclude that I was an idiot.