Green Darkness (49 page)

Ursula turned on her. “What are
you
blubbering for? There’s naught wrong wi’
you!
I vow y’ must ’a kept Master Julian from coming!”

At this injustice Mabel stopped in mid sob, her brown eyes snapped. “How dare you talk to me that way! ’Tis only by my brother’s charity that you’re here, Lady
Southwell,
ye’ve no more right here than a church mouse, you and your precious meaching Celia you’re so besotted over!”

Ursula stiffened, then slapped Mabel’s plump cheek. They stood aghast, staring at each other.

Mabel had been used to her stepmother’s tantrums, and had always despised Lady Ursula’s control, which she put down to weakness. Slaps, pinches, even beatings were expected from one’s elders, and this slap—so unforeseen—served to jolt her from dejection. She tossed her head slightly, then walked to the center table where there was a platter full of candied apple slices. She took one and crunched it greedily.

With Ursula it was different. She found herself trembling, and her eyes were full of scalding tears. “Forgive me, Mabel . . .” she said after a moment. “It’s true that we owe everything to Sir Anthony.” She looked down at the bed where Celia still slept. It was useless to explain the terror Celia’s incomprehensible ramblings had provoked, especially that one sinister reference to Stephen; useless to explain that Master Julian’s refusal to come to them had hurt her and frightened her into fury.

This day was all awry, she thought, as her common sense gradually returned. She sat down on a stool, and drank some of the mead. The sweet liquor heartened her tired body. She reached out and put her hand on the sleeping girl’s arm. The flesh was warm and softly vibrant. She called me “Mother,” Ursula thought, while love gathered itself into a wave and flowed down to the girl’s arm. For the first time Ursula thought about Alice Bohun, the real mother who had borne this child alone in a tiny attic at the Spread Eagle. And knew that it was jealousy which had prevented the natural mention of Alice to Celia, and had discouraged Celia’s few attempts to talk about her mother after Ursula had, last year, brought the girl to Cowdray.

Ursula sat long on the stool, clinging to contrition and guilt to counteract the eeriness of Celia’s semiconscious words. She had said, “Must it happen? Can’t we stop it?”

“Stop what?” Ursula whispered, then shook herself. The ramblings of an overwrought girl after a day of great excitement. Ursula rose and went to the little alcove where the crucifix and
priedieu
had been replaced. Tapers lit this morning for the intention of Queen Mary had long since burned out. Ursula looked at them and then, under Mabel’s curious eyes, brought an ember from the fireplace and lit two fresh candles. She knelt on the
priedieu
and bowed her head. No set words came. No
Paters
, no
Aves
 . . . nothing but a tremendous surge of invocation. She tried with all her strength to draw down some comfort, some assurance. She stared at the tiny silver figure nailed to the cross until it shimmered, blurred and went blank.

While she knelt, St. Saviour’s rang out for Compline. Her weary mind listened carefully to the melodious bongs of the old bell.

I’ll go to Mass at six, Ursula thought, I’ll find comfort there, but at once the momentary solace was canceled by dismay. Brother Stephen would be celebrating the first Mass tomorrow. She had heard Sir Anthony suggest it, since the Bishop of Winchester himself had requested Stephen’s presence in the Abbey for the coronation.

I’m going mad, Ursula thought, my brain softens to mush! She got up off the
priedieu
and began to unhook her bodice with firm sharp tugs. She had seen Brother Stephen celebrate Mass a thousand times at Cowdray. That he was now becoming immersed in the great world, and had won instant favor with Bishop Gardiner, the new Chancellor, diminished any threat to Celia. There was no threat. It was wicked, blasphemous to think so. Ursula undressed without calling for the chamber-woman, then lay down carefully beside Celia.

Mary was crowned next day, on October 1, by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, since no other loyal Catholic prelate could be found. Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been imprisoned for heresy the instant Mary gained control. Nobody blamed the Queen. Old Cranmer had inveigled for her mother’s divorce, he had declared the validity of King Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn—thus bastardizing Mary—he had written the Prayer Book, he had renounced the Pope, and finally, signed Edward’s Devise, proclaiming Lady Jane Grey as Queen. He was, forthwith, sent to join Lady Jane and her husband Lord Guilford in the Tower, which was now packed with Protestant faces.

Yet there were no more executions after Northumberland. Those close to Mary considered her temperate, the people called her “Merciful Mary” and continued throughout October to give her admiring support. Her first Parliament was a benign sun of clemency and justice. Her father’s outrageous penal laws were greatly softened, especially when Mary herself realized that there had been 72,000 executions during his and Edward’s reigns—hangings and beheadings for offenses ranging from an unproven whisper of treason to the stealing of a hawk’s egg. Her reign began with festivals and rejoicings. The more fanatic Protestants sailed unhindered for Lutheran or Calvinistic centers on the Continent; most of those who remained bowed to the restored regime and waited hopefully for the prosperity Mary promised her country.

She forbore to persecute her enemies; even the unwilling usurper, Jane Grey, might hope for pardon. She forgave Henry Sidney at once when he penitently rushed to join her at Framlingham; she forgave Lord Clinton his defection, depriving him only of his post as Lord High Admiral.

During this month, the little household at the priory in Southwark enjoyed itself. Anthony came home nightly from attendance at Court, and he brought company with him. There was music and dancing; his supper tables were almost as lavish as at Cowdray. Ursula and the two girls savored a gaiety they had never known. Celia had entirely recovered from her attack on the night of the procession; she did not even remember it. She bloomed, while discovering the delights of airy dalliance. Every man who came to the priory showed his admiration; Celia was always sought first as a partner in the galliard, or La Volta, though she ignored coarse advances with the ease born of her tavern years.

Mabel might well have been jealous, except that her stars also turned favorable. On the feast of All Saints, November 2, Anthony brought new guests home. Amongst them was Gerald Fitzgerald. Anthony had had the brotherly kindness to warn Ursula before the young Irishman arrived. “Tell Mabel to wear her best gown, forbear pourings, and speak softly. I’ve invited her young sprig, Lord Fitzgerald, who is no longer disgraced.”

“Mass!” cried Ursula. “Here’s a surprise! I thought he’d fled to Ireland! Didn’t he sign for Lady Jane Grey?”

“Aye,” said Anthony shrugging, “but our gracious Queen is pardoning ’em all, or most. Especially the Catholics. And the ‘fair Geraldine,’ after suffering sharp pangs of dread as the result of a wrong guess, is now plotting even more cannily on behalf of her brother and husband.”

“Indeed,” Ursula nodded thoughtfully. “So you no longer oppose Mabel’s inclination?”

Anthony laughed. “I don’t oppose the inclination, but I doubt very much that Fitzgerald will rise to
that
lure. If it could be Celia, now—a thousand pities that she’s not better born.”

Ursula flushed. They both looked at the girl, who was sitting on a cushioned window seat, and laughing at her mistakes as the Kentish knight, Sir Thomas Wyatt, tried to teach her correct fingering on the lute. She wore the lilac gown Mabel had discarded after the royal procession. Celia was so much slimmer that the sweat stains could be completely cut out. She wore a new French-style white lace cap, stiffened and dipped in the front. It framed her little square-chinned face. The golden hair waved loose, and she kept tossing it back out of the lute strings, and also away from Wyatt’s caressing fingers.

“Can’t you bring some man here who isn’t
married?
” Ursula asked irritably, for she noted a narrowing of Sir Anthony’s eyes, and heard his indrawn breath. “Surely Celia’s beauty, her sweet nature and her Bohun lineage make her a proper match for some gentleman?”

“Aye, aye—” said Anthony hastily, “I’ll look to the matter. I’ve not forgot my promise—there are doubtless many esquires could be found; no hurry, is there?”

Celia felt them looking at her from beside the door. She raised her cleft chin in her own pert, half-teasing way, smiled, showing the beautiful small teeth and the dimple beside her rich mouth. She gave them an affectionate wave with a hand no longer roughened and red, but of a velvety whiteness.

Anthony swallowed. “She grows daily in charms,” he said in a harsh voice which he redeemed by an uncomfortable laugh.

Ursula glanced at him sidewise. Was it
possible?
Widower of four months . . . yet no new wife in contemplation . . . at least she’d heard none mentioned, and no eligible young women had as yet appeared at his parties. Anthony’s attitude, the look he had sent the girl, surely there was love in it—stranger matches
had
been made. After all, Anthony was not a nobleman, he was again rich enough to forgo a dowry.

Ursula’s thoughts were ever mirrored on her face; though she dared not speak, her spurt of hope showed itself plain to Anthony who was both touched and vexed at the naiveté. He drew off his gold embroidered gloves and tossed them to a hovering retainer. He adjusted the set of his jeweled sword belt. “The Queen’s Grace,” he said gravely, “has promised me a peerage, to be conferred upon the occasion of her marriage. A viscountcy, for which I will select the title of Montagu, in deference to my paternal grandmother’s family. I shall thereafter ponder well before I choose a wife suitable to be Viscountess Montagu, mistress of Cowdray—and mother to my babes.”

Ursula understood that she had been rebuked, but all of Anthony’s speech was so startling that she was distracted from its reason. She spoke quickly. “Aye—should have guessed—Master Julian
said
Her Majesty’d reward you, sir, and you deserve it—but what marriage—the Queen’s, I mean—to whom? Is’t decided?”

Anthony’s face darkened, he bent his head for his servant to adjust the black velvet hat with its sable mourning feather. “It is decided,” he said, “though not generally known.”
Jesu
—but there’ll be an uproar, he added to himself. He gave the puzzled Ursula a polite nod, then went to the head of the stairs to meet new arrivals.

The priory’s small Hall, which had once been the monks’ refectory, was jammed that evening with the assortment of guests Anthony had invited, ostensibly to attend a revel in honor of the Feast Day. He had hired extra minstrels and commissioned John Heywood to be master of the revel. Heywood’s zealous Catholicism had brought him great danger in the last reign. He had fled to Europe but was now returned to a warm welcome from Queen Mary, who had been delighted by him in her girlhood when he had been something of a court jester to her father. Heywood, a robust man in his fifties, was a wit. He could also sing, write masques or eulogies, and his merry eye and ready tongue disguised a shrewd intelligence. Anthony had selected him for an experiment this night. They had together, most carefully, determined on the method.

Sir Thomas Wyatt remained near Celia as the guests drifted in. He had drunk a great deal of Anthony’s best Canary, and was becoming a trifle maudlin as he took the lute and began to sing madrigals which had been composed by his father. “Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain, Thou shalt but gain a constant pain,” he sang, and tried to squeeze Celia’s waist. Since it was well armored with bone stays she merely laughed at him. He was in his thirties and seemed old to her, especially as his fashionable crimson velvet hat could not conceal the sparseness of his hair. She knew vaguely that he had a wife in Kent and lived in a castle called Allington. She enjoyed his compliments, and kept an eye on her aunt, for Ursula was, however fleetingly, acting as hostess for Sir Anthony. Celia, anxious to please her, was watching for the signals which meant “Important guests—get up and curtsy!”

“Ah . . . cruel maiden,” said Wyatt, stroking her arm. “You’ll not listen . . . I know another song for you.” He tightened a lute string and began in a loud tenor, “O Celia, the wanton and fair, hath ne’er the need to despair, she hath used shameless art . . . to inveigle Love’s dart . . .” He broke off as Celia stiffened. He saw with annoyance that what little attention she had been according him was now withdrawn. He looked around towards a commotion near the door, bowings and hat-doffings to a very tall youth whose curly blond hair foamed around a violet satin hat, pearl-embroidered in the shape of a coronet.

“Aye, forsooth—” said Wyatt, putting down his lute. “His ‘majesty’ deigns to grace our company. We must all make obeisance.”

Celia was not looking at Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire; she was staring at the Benedictine monk who had suddenly appeared from the chapel and was staring at her enigmatically—in fact, so dark and piercing was his gaze that it was as though he had never seen her before.

Wyatt left Celia to greet the Earl. She gave a nervous little laugh as Stephen walked up to her.

“Celia—the wanton and fair—?” he said in an acid tone. “The willing target for Thomas Wyatt’s adulterous musical darts? You’re learning London ways apace, my dear. Soon you’ll paint your mouth scarlet and whiten your paps like the other fine ladies.”

Celia’s mouth tightened, the pupils widened in her azure eyes. “You look as though you detested me,” she whispered. “Brother Stephen . . .” she added half in plea, half in resentment.

Stephen shook himself, but his dark frown continued. “Lady Ursula wants you,” he said coldly. “She’s beckoning. There’re great folk here tonight and
you’ll
find the revel far merrier than they will.”

“Ah, you
know
them now—the great folk—” cried Celia angrily. “You’ve been with them daily since we got here. You too have altered, Brother Stephen. You no longer think solely of the offices, and the spiritual care of our household. I note your new gold crucifix. ’Tis a pretty thing.”