To Shield the Queen (23 page)

“Helping to . . . ? Murder Amy Dudley?” I had obviously disconcerted him. “What are you talking about? I came to Cumnor Place to see you! I know nothing of Lady Dudley’s death except of course that the news of it has reached me. The verdict was accident, or so I heard, and if the verdict’s wrong then I assume that Dudley had her killed, with an eye on becoming King of England.”

“Well, he didn’t,” I told him. “I can assure you of that. I’ve known that for some time, never mind how, and since then, I’ve believed it was accident or suicide. Now I’m beginning to wonder!”

“What are you saying?” Matthew shouted. “I repeat: I came to Cumnor Place to find you,
you!
Do you think I, or any of us, would murder an innocent, sick woman!”

“Your cousin and his friends murdered an innocent and honest man!”

“I tell you they had no choice!”

“And what,” I asked him, “if I had turned out to be one of Uncle Herbert’s other nieces—he has half a dozen by marriage, the daughters of my Aunt Tabitha’s sister and brother—instead of being myself? What would you have done to her?”

“It is easier to control a woman than a man. I would not have let her be harmed, either,” Matthew said angrily. “But we must protect ourselves, yes, of course. We take risks too!” He saw my angry eyes, and he caught my shoulders and shook me. “Yes, we do and you know it! Tell me, if you get the chance, will you go running to the authorities with all this information? Would you like to think of me under the disembowelling knife?”

“Matthew, Matthew, can’t you see that Mary Stuart can’t be put on the throne without bloodshed and destruction; that this true faith of yours can’t be restored without . . . without
horror,
the sort of horror that makes even John’s death look kindly? I told you, I never saw a burning, but Uncle Herbert described one to me and Aunt Tabitha made me listen . . . ”

“My heart, it need not be like that. It will all be different. Philip of Spain was here then. The English hated him because he didn’t belong here, but Mary Stuart is of the true Tudor line, and people will follow her. Ursula, listen to me. I will not harm you, and I did not murder John or want him murdered. I promise you . . . ”

Round and round and round. Someone brought yet another meal and I believe I ate some of it although I can’t remember what the dishes were. Another hour and I was as exhausted as though I had gone three successive nights without sleep and ridden fifty miles on every day in between.

“Ursula, it is simply a matter of what is true. People must not, for the sake of their own souls, be left in error. I would be the most loyal of subjects to Elizabeth, if only she would change her ways and bring back the old faith but . . . ”

“But she can’t, Matthew, even if she wanted to. In the eyes of the Catholic world, her parents weren’t legally married and therefore she is not lawfully queen.”

“I’m sure that after all this time some sort of status quo could be agreed.”

“No, it couldn’t,” I said, remembering my first day at court, when Elizabeth had stamped up and down a gallery, afire with rage because of Mary Stuart’s pretensions, and remembering too Elizabeth’s own ruthless reading of the situation. “It couldn’t,” I said, “because such people as Mary Stuart, and probably Philip of Spain, too, don’t want to take England over just for the sake of God. They want it because the grass is good and the sheep and cattle thrive and because we have tin and iron. You are so innocent!”

“No, Ursula, you are too cynical.”

“I am not. What would happen to Elizabeth if Mary Stuart were to take the throne?”

“Honourable captivity, I suppose.”

“While those who still supported her plotted on her behalf? Her honourable captivity, Matthew, would be in a prison two yards long and six feet underground! Oh, God, why can’t you see . . . ?”

And this, like his anger, only made his attractiveness greater. I wanted to hold and comfort that child; I wanted to kiss the wound better. There was no aspect of him that I did not want to take into myself and hold there for ever.

At last I came to what, after all, was for me the major point at issue. “Matthew, what happens to me now?”

He ran a hand, a strong, long-fingered hand, through his hair. “Ursula, if you were to walk free from this house today, where would you go? What would you do?”

I said nothing. The answer was obvious, and hideous. He made it for me.

“You would go straight to the court of Queen Elizabeth and report what you know. What good do you think that would do? It would place me—and I believe you have some feeling for me—in danger of a traitor’s death. It would bring down peril on the heads of the Westleys and the Masons, and you say you don’t want to do that. It would be all quite useless, for I am only one of many who are engaged in this fund-gathering. I have volunteered to take charge of one little group. There are others, although I don’t know who they are. It would make no difference to anything in the end.”

“It might bring John’s murderers to justice.”

“You are prepared to sacrifice the Westleys and the Masons—and me—for that? I understand how you feel about him, but nothing now can bring him back.”

On the edge of hysterical laughter, I hiccupped, “No, nor do I!”

“And nor,” said Matthew calmly, “can I set you free. However, there are other alternatives. One is simply to keep you at Withysham for the time being. You would have to stay until I could finish my work in this country for Mary Stuart and could sell Withysham and get away to France. You would be well treated, but not allowed to leave until it was safe for us. That is one possibility. It’s what I would have done had you been one of your uncle’s other nieces. However, for you, there is another.”

“Is there? What?”

“Again, it means coming to Withysham, but in order,” said Matthew simply, “to marry me.”

“Marry
you?”

“Why not? Didn’t we begin to talk of just that, at Richmond and Cumnor? Then we could go to France together. I think I must give Withysham up either way, but then, I only came to England and bought it to please my mother. I’ll be happy enough to exchange it for a home on the other side of the Channel. Especially if it’s a home I can share with you.”

“Marry you? But what difference would that make?” I asked wearily. “I’d be a prisoner for life instead of only for a time, that’s all.”

I said nothing at all. He repeated it, lovingly, his anger all gone, and drew me tightly against him, nuzzling into my hair. I did not resist. I was dizzy with the swift change in my fortunes. From the prospect of imprisonment or even death—yes, I had feared it could come to that—to the prospect of marriage was a big reversal on its own.

I was confronted with more still, however. I could not yet quite grasp it.

“I must think,” I said at last. “I can’t answer you just like that.”

“Shall I leave you alone to think? There is a man on guard outside your door. You have only to knock when you want to speak to me again.”

I nodded. He took my face between his hands and kissed me before he left the room and I didn’t stop him. The choice was already made, was inescapable, and this delay was only for the sake of appearances.

And to gather strength. For what lay ahead seemed impossible, as impossible as throwing myself off a cliff.

• • •

I threw myself on to the bed and told Dale not to disturb me. I lay there for hours, thinking.

Then, when with Dale’s help I had made myself as presentable as possible, I asked to see Matthew. He came in with his usual long, swift stride, and this time sat on the window seat, facing me. His own face was drawn. “Before you say anything,” he said, “I want to say this. I love you. Truly. Please believe that. Now, Ursula, my very dear love, say what you want to say.”

“I’ll marry you,” I said. And then, before the relief and joy which at once appeared in his eyes could entirely take him over, I added, “But there are conditions. Unless you can meet them, there can be no wedding.”

He tensed warily. “What are they?”

“I never want to set eyes on Johnson, Brett or Fletcher again. They are not to be, ever, under the same roof as myself. Send them off to collect some more money, if you like, but get rid of them. The further they go, the better I’ll be pleased.”

“It had occurred to me that you would not want to have Johnson or the others near you,” Matthew said. “They are leaving Withysham at dawn tomorrow, for the midlands.”

“Good,” I said. “That’s not all. The second thing is that my uncle and aunt must not be at the wedding, either.”

“I wouldn’t think of it! I’ve been talking to your uncle. I fear that you are right and that he really wouldn’t be unduly surprised—or shocked—if I made away with you. Is there anything else?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Well, they did, and she’s here now. They will say, if challenged, that the cottage was unsuitable for her and that they brought her here to rear her as a lady and save her soul from heresy, but it isn’t true.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. Oh, I daresay they’ve even convinced themselves that it’s all for Meg’s own good and that they’re devoted relatives trying to do their best for her. They like to look well in their own eyes and other people’s.” I realised as soon as I had said it, that this was probably the key to my aunt and uncle. They had always been good at outward virtue. “The truth,” I said, “is that they brought her here to strike back at me for stealing my cousin Mary’s bridegroom and denying them my unpaid services as a dogsbody. They will make use of her, and in the process make her as miserable as I was. I have the impression that you have some influence over them. Please use it to release Meg.”

Matthew was bemused. “I was supposing, as a matter of fact, that you would bring your daughter to Withysham. I was going to ask you where she was.”

Matthew laughed. “You know your own mind, it seems!”

“Yes, I do. Are my terms acceptable?”

“I think I’m relieved that they are so reasonable! Is there anything else?”

I shook my head.

“Then I agree. Are we now betrothed?”

“Yes.”

“I ought to give you a ring,” he said, and pulled at a heavy ring of gold set with rubies, which he wore on his right hand. It resisted, however, and he stopped.

“No, not this one. I’ll find you something better when we get to Withysham. I won this at cards—Sir Richard Verney had run out of money and he was gambling with his jewellery. Somehow it doesn’t have the right history to be a betrothal ring.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “May I now see my manservant Roger Brockley and tell him of his future?”

“How much does he know?” Matthew asked.

“Nothing of my midnight visit to my uncle’s office, and nothing of your fundraising. He knows only that we have been hunting John Wilton’s killers.”

Matthew frowned, seeing, I think, that controlling the tongues of all three of us might be harder than he expected. “It is safer for him if he remains in ignorance,” he said. He turned to Dale, who was again sitting in her corner, listening, as before, in an amazed silence. “You will keep your mistress’s counsel, I trust.”

I gave Dale a small nod and she stammered out a nervous: “Oh yes, sir, of course, sir.”