Green Darkness (57 page)

Ursula drooped, “Bitter shame . . .” she whispered. “I can make no excuse—” She saw that Anthony was seized by one of his rare rages, and did not blame him. She left the hall with dragging feet.

Celia was married to John Hutchinson on February 22, in the church porch of St. Saviour’s, by the parish priest. There were no guests. Her only attendants were Ursula and the giggling, rather contemptuous, Mabel. Anthony, stiff lipped and curt, acted as guardian and gave Celia away.

Sir John had brought across the river a fellow merchant, elderly as himself, to be groomsman. Since Sir John had flatly refused to attend the usual nuptial Mass, there was none. The little party trailed back into the priory, where Anthony had ordered a wedding feast to be set forth. His anger waned—after he had talked to Stephen—and his natural generosity and sense of decorum prompted his to some of the observances due any maiden married from his house, even at such a sorry huggermugger wedding as this.

There was, however, cause to rejoice that matters weren’t worse, Anthony thought, as he ceremoniously installed Celia in the high chair, next to his.

Sir John had accepted Celia’s hand with such trembling joy that it was embarrassing to see. He had asked no questions and obviously attributed Celia’s silence, her blind faraway look, to maidenly modesty.

Nor was Celia forced into the marriage by threats or actual punishment, as Anthony had feared. She had shown indifference, remote acquiescence. “Aye, sir—” she said when Anthony informed her of the wedding. “Sir John seems kind, and I shall be glad enough to live in Lincolnshire. ’Tis all one to me.”

Anthony suspected, and Ursula knew, that Celia’s behavior resulted from a note Stephen had sent her through one of the Bishop’s pages before he left Southwark for France. A final interview with Stephen, though brief, had assuaged Anthony, who found it impossible to utter the outraged accusations he had meant to. The young monk’s face was a granite wall, his eyes were iron-cold. “I am sailing, sir,” he said, “from Dover on the morrow. I go to Marmoutier with letters from Bishop Gardiner. The Queen’s Grace wishes to reinstate the Benedictines at Westminster Abbey. I shall start arrangements and retire to the cloister.”

“But I
need
you, Stephen,” Anthony cried in dismay, forgetting his wrath and the cause of it. “You’re more than chaplain to me, you’ve become my secretary, my friend . . . and now that . . . well—”

He had meant to say that now Celia would be safely out of the way, there was no need for Stephen to leave, but against the stony look in Stephen’s eye he found that he could not speak the girl’s name.

“Whether I ever return to you as chaplain or no will be my superior’s decision,” said Stephen. “I
have
indulged a particular attachment to you, not the least of my many sins. Farewell, sir—May our Blessed Lord and His Holy Mother hold you in Their keeping.” He was gone.

Anthony felt sharp personal loss. It was natural that he should resent Celia and the trouble she had caused, nor could he forgive her frivolous disloyalty in siding with Thomas Wyatt. Old Hobson, after a week of spewing blood, finally died. They had buried him yesterday in St. Saviour’s churchyard. Anthony had directed that Celia be present at the grave. She obeyed with the same doll-like blankness that she now showed at her wedding feast, though her little face held uncanny beauty, like moonlit marble. She had stared down at Hobson’s shrouded corpse as though it were no more than a bundle of soiled linen readied for laundering.

“Your niece is wi’out heart or conscience!” Anthony had said angrily to Ursula. “
She
caused this poor soul’s death!”

“She suffers—” said Ursula, and turned on Anthony in a quick flash. “And did you think her heartless when
you
suffered last July when Lady Jane died? I saw how Celia tried to comfort you!”

“Aye,” said Anthony slowly. Jane’s death seemed years ago.

He glanced at the silent bride beside him. Celia had no new gown, but Ursula had provided her own yellowed lace bride veil, and twined a chaplet of ivy and gilded wheatears—the only coronet possible in February.

Anthony looked down his table at his subdued guests.

Ursula made no pretense of eating, she politely inclined her head towards Master Babcock, Sir John’s groomsman, but showed no other response. She had aged these last days, her bony shoulders sagged, her generous mouth was drawn to a tight line. She did not even talk to Master Julian whom she had suddenly asked to the feast, saying that she and Celia knew nobody else in London. Anthony suggested Magdalen Dacre, and eagerly wrote the invitation himself. But the girl was on duty with the Queen that day. She had sent back startled congratulations, a hamperful of French sugarplums and a pair of embroidered gloves for Celia.

Mabel was fidgeting, she expected to meet Gerald at the Earl of Arundel’s supper party later. The groom himself did not speak, he stared fixedly at his new wife as though she were an apparition, a beatific vision.

St. Mary! what a celebration! Anthony thought, pushed back his chair with a loud scraping, shouted to his minstrels and raised his goblet. “Wassail to the bride, wassail to the groom!” He turned to Celia, bowing deeply. “Come, my lady, we’ll begin the dance. A Coranto? We’ll make merry!”

Celia started. She looked around and behind her in astonishment. Anthony understood and laughed. “Tis
you
are ‘my lady’—you’ve wed a goodly knight, Celia—think on it! And now that
I
do—Ho! Sir John!
You
come dance wi’ your bride!”

The clothier rose majestically, he came forward and took Celia’s hand. The fourth finger now wore a heavy golden ring made of two hands clasping a large amethyst heart.

Sir John pulled Celia tight against his stout velvet chest. He bent and whispered in her ear. “No need for fear, my dearling. I treasure ye more than all the gold of the Indies, and this is the happiest day o’ my life.”

She heard his words as through a torrent of rushing water, and clutched his arm.

“There, there, poppet,” said Sir John. “Ye’ve no wish to dance? I’m not so apt at it myself. We’ll drink the loving cup together, shall we?”

Her bridegroom hefted the great silver punch bowl filled with mulled claret and containing many sprigs of rosemary, sovereign herb for virility and always included at bridals.

They drank with arms entwined as was customary, then passed the bowl to the others.

“Long life together—may your union prove fruitful, eh?” cried Anthony. He nudged the groom and winked at Celia in an effort to capture the jovial bawdry weddings should evoke. “Eat hearty of the oysters, Sir John, they fortify a bridegroom!”

Nobody laughed but Master Babcock. The bridegroom himself seemed to wince. His bright blue eyes shifted, the tiny veins reddened in his cheeks.

“We thank’ee, Sir Anthony, for this splendid wedding feast,” he said bowing. “My little bride seems a-weary, we’d best be leaving now.”

Anthony protested for the sake of politeness, though he was relieved. There was no hope of squeezing merriment from this gathering. His musicians, unheeded, strummed and tootled through the music of a galliard—even a rousing rendition of “Back and side go bare, go bare” caused nobody to join in the chorus. Besides Anthony was as eager to attend the Arundel supper party as was Mabel; it was hoped that the Queen would be there. She might bring Magdalen, but in any case there would be many members of the powerful Catholic nobility, eager to celebrate their escape from the danger of Wyatt’s Rebellion.

Sir John Hutchinson had hired a chariot to convey his bride across the river to his London lodgings. “They’re not as fine as I could wish for her,” he said to Ursula, as they all stood in the priory courtyard, “though my servants have done their best. And soon she’ll have all comforts, at my manor near Boston. You’ll visit us some day, Lady? I know you’ve a fondness for her, e’en though she’s been scarce two years in your charge.” He smiled kindly, with only a trace of condescension.

He perfectly recognized Ursula’s position in Sir Anthony’s household, as useful dependent, temporary chatelaine, for which John considered her most suitable. He assumed that she had done her duty by Celia from a belated recognition of the blood tie and its obligations, and must be relieved to get the girl so well off her hands. In fact, he did not really see Ursula at all, and looked on with impatience when his bride touched her beautiful mouth to the widow’s white cheek. He thought Lady Southwell’s response a bit excessive—a desperate clutch, a stifled noise like a sob, but no words were spoken, and Celia came with him docilely, permitted him to seat her in the place of honor in the waiting chariot. The coachman flicked the horses. The heavy vehicle lumbered through the portal towards Borough High Street and London Bridge. Master Babcock mounted his horse and rode after them. The porter clanged shut the great oaken door.

“
Il cuore lacerato sempre riparase,
” said Julian to Ursula, who was still standing where she had been when Celia kissed her good-bye, staring at the shut portal and pressing her hand to her left breast. She turned and looked at him.

He had instinctively spoken to her in Italian, now he translated in a brisker tone. “The lacerated heart always repairs itself, my poor lady—you will see her again. Come, the marriage is not what you hoped for, yet no tragedy either.”

“You don’t know . . .” said Ursula. “I forced her into it, she hates me now. And had I been her true mother I would’ve had more wisdom. I’ve tried to pray—I can’t. The words click and rattle like the beads—no meaning. And now she’s gone.”

“This happens to real mothers, too,” said Julian. He examined her with a quick professional eye. Her skin looked gray, bluish around the lips. She pressed on her left breast so hard that the knuckles stood out. “Have you pain there?” he asked quietly. “Is there pain, too, in your arm?” She looked down at her arm in surprise.

“Aye, I believe so.”

He put his fingers on her pulse. “You will lie down,” he said. “I’ve no remedy with me, but will get one from the apothecary on the High Street.”

Ursula permitted Julian to help her upstairs where she lay panting a little on a bench in the Great Hall, while the bustling servants were clearing away the wedding feast. Julian took the cushion from Anthony’s armchair and put it under her head. She shut her eyes, feeling very weak. She dozed a little, as empty tankards raided on trays, and two of Anthony’s hounds snapped and snarled over a fish head which had fallen into the floor rushes.

Julian came back with a glass vial. “Swallow!” he commanded. She obeyed without question while he kept his finger on her pulse, but she looked her question, which he answered promptly.

“Tincture of foxglove,” he said, “Digitalin, but clumsily distilled. I’ve some that’s better at Dr. Dee’s laboratory and will send it tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Julian,” she said. She put her thin white hand on his sleeve. “Could you . . . could you not bring it yourself?”

He looked down at her hand, its raised veins showed purple, but the well-kept nails were as smooth and rosy as a girl’s. He knew that her use of his Christian name had been unconscious, just as she was unaware that her physical heart, responding to the wound dealt to what the poets called “the heart,” had suffered a slight failure of function.

He steeled himself with exasperation against pity and a recurrent sense of guilt. She was gaunt, she was quite old—lying there in her black velvet robes she seemed a very effigy of mourning.

Her faded blue eyes looked into his face, then turned towards the corbel on the rafter. “Aye . . .” she said, “I know I’m not comely.” Her hand fell from his arm.

“
Sancta Maria!
” Julian snapped, rising abruptly. “You will rest now. I fear I can’t come tomorrow, though I will try to soon. Turn to your religion, Lady—that’s what it’s for, I suppose? And make yourself useful! I told you earlier to go back to Cowdray! You didn’t heed me, though possibly nothing would have prevented this wedding you pushed, and now regret. You may find the satisfaction of duty by caring for the twin babes Sir Anthony seems to forget. He’s gnawed by ambition—and so,
per Bacco,
am
I!
”

“You?” she stiffened and looked at him again.

“Aye. I’m now quite certain of my appointment as a Court physician. Furthermore, I’ve found favor in the eyes of a young lady. Mistress Gwen Owen, a toothsome widow of twenty who is kin to the Earl of Pembroke. She owns bountiful lands in Wales besides a goodly house near St. James’s Palace.”

“I see . . .” said Ursula after a moment. “I see clearly, Master Julian. And I congratulate you. It seems you’ve no cause to search for the philosopher’s stone or the
elixir vitae
. You achieve what you want without them. Or is success foretold by your stars?”

“I don’t know my horoscope,” said Julian curtly. “I’ll make my own destiny, and without being hampered by sentiment—that fool’s opiate!”

Ursula bent her head. “Perhaps so. And now, farewell . . .”

“
Addio, ma donna
. . .” he patted her shoulder, pulled his squirrel-lined robes close around him and left the Hall.

Ursula shut her eyes and remained lying on the bench as the servants finished clearing the tables, extinguished the tapers and left the fire to smolder into ash.

In Sir John Hutchinson’s lodgings on Leadenhall Street, Celia was dismaying her bridegroom by the amount of mead she was drinking. His servants had prepared a festive little supper which included breast of chicken and spicy sausages sent from Lincolnshire. John observed Lenten fasting only because it promoted the fishing industry, and saw no reason to follow any papist rule on such an evening. His parlor was decorated with holly branches and a vase of “Christmas roses” to welcome Celia. He had also ordered a flask of vintage claret. Celia shook her head and asked for mead.

“But, sweeting—” John said anxiously, “’tis an old-fashioned drink, and very strong, I’ll have to send out for it, and not sure which tavern . . .”

“I’d like some mead,” said Celia. She sat down in an armchair near the fire and folded her hands on her lap. Her unbound golden hair rippled over the carved oak armrest, the firelight sparkled on her new wedding ring.