To Shield the Queen (8 page)

I
curtsied at once. “Ursula Blanchard, at your service, Lady Dudley.” Rising, I found her still regarding me with that look of fear. Her first words were both startling and pathetic.

“My husband sent you, did he not? Are you his creature? Have you come to kill me?”

There was a paralysed silence, except for another intake of breath from Dale. Mrs. Pinto stared at me with something close to triumph, as if to say, Aha, you see, you haven’t deceived us.

I spoke gently. “No, Lady Dudley, I have not. Your husband did send me, but my purpose is only to help and comfort you, to assist Mrs. Pinto in any way I can—” better try to smooth the bristling Pinto down a little—“and to amuse you if I may. I can play the lute and the virginals and sing a little.”

What I said next was probably not at all what Dudley had had in mind when he gave me my orders, but it seemed right.

“I will also,” I said, “taste everything you eat or drink and—in Mrs. Pinto’s presence—handle every garment you are to wear, before you put it on. I will do all in my power not only to convince you that you are not in danger, but to keep it at bay if, by chance, I am wrong. I said I was at your service. I mean it.”

• • •

In time I would look back across the years, and see my younger self at Cumnor Place, standing at the window of Amy Dudley’s best parlour, on the first floor, looking down into the courtyard. I have come to think of her as Amy rather than Lady Dudley, for the name suits her youth and helplessness better than a solemn title.

The parlour, like everywhere else in Amy’s quarters, is inadequately furnished. Stretches of bare floor lie between the scattered tables and chairs and the one settle; acres of bare stone wall between the only two pieces of tapestry. They cover the two doors and are meant to keep out draughts. There are plenty of those. Cumnor Place whispers with them, and all of it, not just Amy’s bedchamber, is shadowy. The house is at least two and a half centuries old. There is a pervading smell of old stone and sometimes I almost fancy that the building, like a living thing, can remember the monks who once dwelt here, or that their shades still inhabit it. At night, by candlelight, it is eerie.

I know what she means by ills. I have now been here for a week. Under Pinto’s cold eye, I help Amy to dress and undress. Cecil had claimed that when he saw Amy there was nothing wrong with her, but he had only seen her dressed. I have seen her naked. Her left nipple is scarlet and discharging and beside it is a bulging lump which seems to have consumed all the natural glossy plumpness of a young woman’s breast. Her physician, Dr. Bayly from Oxford, has warned her that she is dying.

He sounds a tactless man but I wish he still called, for Amy trusts him. However, he fell out with Anthony Forster. Amy told the doctor that she feared her husband was trying to hurry her out of the world by poison and thought Forster might be arranging it. Bayly believed her, accused Forster to his face, and was ordered off the premises. It was after this, as far as I could tell, that the rumours that Amy feared she would be murdered, began to spread across the country.

I had been waiting for a natural opportunity to ask what had aroused Amy’s suspicions in the first place. When she told me of the quarrel between her doctor and Forster, it seemed to be the moment. It was my second morning and Amy, who had woken feeling weak, was taking breakfast in bed. I was sitting beside her, having eaten a slice of her toasted bread and drunk one of the two wine caudles which I now insisted should be supplied. Pinto was looking on, coldly (mainly, I think, because she hadn’t thought of this precaution herself).

“My lady was sick,” said Pinto aggressively. “Three or four times, a while after dinner but not after any special dish. Oh, she was so sick! It was pitiful to see her! It was a blessing that she has so little appetite, in my opinion! Whatever was in her food, she didn’t eat enough to do her harm.”

I had noticed how little appetite Amy had. At that moment she was nibbling her toast as though even that were too much for her. “I am glad you’re here to taste my food,” she said to me. Her brow clouded. “When I was sick, as Pinto says, I had pains in my limbs, too. Forster said that such things can happen to people with maladies such as mine, but Dr. Bayly was puzzled. The trouble stopped after he had it out with Forster. It was a few months ago now.”

I was conscious of a queasy feeling in my own stomach. I didn’t like the sound of this.

“Mrs. Blanchard,” Amy said earnestly, “I live here, out of the world, but the news of the world still reaches me. The queen is enamoured of my husband, and he—well, if he were free to marry her, he would be king of England. I know my husband. He is ambitious and proud, and he ceased to care for me long ago. He has placed me here, in Forster’s power—and I don’t like Forster. He controls this household. He doles out money for me, grudgingly, and people visit him who don’t visit me, but they talk about me. Ask Pinto there.”

“Pinto?” I said.

“Tell Mrs. Blanchard,” said Amy.

Pinto shrugged. “It was some while ago. I was going to Forster’s wing to look for one of the maids who was doing work over there when she was needed here . . . ”

“Well, I was hurrying along the cloister when I heard voices through a window. Forster was talking to visitors in there. I heard Lady Dudley mentioned. That’s all. I didn’t hear anything else. Only I didn’t like the tone, somehow.”

“And I don’t like Forster’s eyes,” Amy said. “There is something in them. He says reassuring things to me but his eyes say something different.”

“He made out to be as shocked as could be about the idea of poison,” Pinto put in, “but my lady
was
sick, several times, earlier this year, and for no good reason.”

“I ached and my stomach hurt,” Amy added. “Forster may say, as much as he likes, that my illness was the reason and that I am prey to melancholy fancies, but I am still afraid.”

The young Ursula whom I see in my memory, surveying the summer sky, is pretending to wonder whether the fine weather will hold. Young Ursula, actually, has stalked to this window to conceal her face because, today, when Amy began her pitiful prayers, she was overtaken by such anger that she feared she would burst.

Just as I was angry with God for letting the smallpox take Gerald, I was angry with him for letting this hideous disease attack poor Amy. I was also furious with Dudley, for peacocking about at court, playing the lover to Queen Elizabeth when he not only had a wife, but a wife in such extremity. And not only that. He had virtually deposited Amy in a human glory-hole. Whether or not it harboured schemes against Amy’s safety, I had never seen such an incredible household in my life.

In fact, Arthur, although he was Amy’s brother, had actually declined one such invitation. Though he seemed fond of his sister, he spent little time with her. I thought he found her company depressing. I could understand that, for I too was oppressed by the atmosphere of fear and malaise in Amy’s rooms. When he did come, I was glad to see him, for he brought jokes and songs with him, even if briefly. He would be going home soon, and I told him I would miss him.

But if the heads of the households kept their lives more or less separate, the way the servants were organised was a complete muddle. Each wing had its own staff, but that merely meant that each servant was on the payroll of either Lady Dudley, Mr. Forster or Mrs. Owen. Lady Dudley, however, as the bearer of a title and the wife of the queen’s Master of Horse, had a stipulated right to give orders to anyone in the house. However, it didn’t stop there, for Anthony Forster, who actually owned the property and paid all the farm workers, clearly considered that both he and the chilly-eyed widow, his sister-in-law Mrs. Odingsell, were free to do exactly the same thing, a belief shared also by the indolent Mrs. Owen.

The result was chaotic. People were regularly stopped when on their way to perform one errand, and sent in the opposite direction to perform another. As Amy had observed, across her breakfast tray, it was an old grievance.

Pinto—one of the few people who seemed clear about her duties and determined not to be enticed away from them—still regarded me with suspicion as a possible assassin sent by Dudley. However, she and I were positively shoulder to shoulder on the day when one of Amy’s maids came and said that she’d been bringing the fresh sheets for Lady Dudley’s bed as asked, but Mrs. Owen had met her as she crossed the courtyard from the wash-house, and told her to take them to her room instead. Pinto and I got them back with difficulty, and almost formed a partnership in the process, although it didn’t last.

As for the kitchen, things there were even worse than I had imagined, since the cooks not only squabbled over who was to use which spit and which cauldron, but half the time weren’t sure whose meals they were cooking in the first place. If Forster really had tried to poison Amy, he’d be taking a risk, I said to myself cynically. The doctored dish might well turn up accidentally on his table instead of hers, and as the cuisine was usually dreadful, he might not notice if it tasted cold.

In my one week at Cumnor, I had been prostrated twice by violent headaches which ended in attacks of nausea. I had suffered from them at Faldene, but when I was with Gerald, they had stopped. Now, the effort of getting things done at Cumnor, mingled with my fury at this impossible and unkind situation, had brought them back.

The possible answer to that was detestable. It would mean that I was here as his shield, not as hers. My appointment would be something he could claim as proof that he cared for his wife’s welfare. He would suppose, no doubt, that I could do nothing much in the way of protecting Amy effectively. This thought made me angrier than ever.

I was still standing at the window, brooding on these things while I gazed out, when a horseman came into the courtyard. I stood rigid, eyes widening. I put out a hand to open the window so that I could lean out, and then hesitated.

Behind me, Amy rose from her devotions and called to me. “Mrs. Blanchard! Would you help me, please? I would like to dress. Master Blount and my half-brother are to dine with us. It’s the last time. They’re leaving the day after tomorrow and tomorrow they’re engaged to dine in Abingdon. And I would like some mulled wine.”

I turned to her at once. It was better like this, anyway. Better not to appear too eager. I must not seem to promise what I might never perform.

The man who had just ridden in was Matthew.

• • •

I did not see who greeted him or brought him inside, but one of the maidservants approximately attached to Forster’s staff appeared when Pinto and I were helping Amy into her farthingale and gave her a note from Forster. Amy read it and then looked at me.

“I . . . yes, of course, Lady Dudley. How very kind of him to call.”

“Who is he?” Amy enquired. “A connection?”

“No. He . . . he’s someone I met at court.” Pinto and Amy were both gazing at me with interest. I felt myself turning pink.

“A suitor?” said Amy in a wistful voice.

“Well, yes,” I said. “But I am still in mourning and as yet he is no more than an acquaintance. I shall not desert my post with you, Lady Dudley. I promise you that.”

I was so very sorry for her. She was no more than a couple of years older than I was, but her blossom-time was already gone. She had been courted by Dudley, had married him and lost him, and for her there would be no new beginning. I too had had a husband and lost him, but I was strong and well and now being offered fresh opportunities. If she were resentful, I could not blame her.

Pinto was resentful, all right. I saw it in her eyes, but Amy said, “If Dr. Bayly was right, then I shall not hold you back for very long, Mrs. Blanchard. If Robin is patient just for a while, nature will set him free, and save him, and possibly Forster, an unpleasant task.”

Dutifully, I said what I was being paid to say. “Lady Dudley, I assure you, I promise you, that Sir Robin wishes you no ill and . . . ”