Queen Without a Crown (11 page)

‘I’ve brought Mistress Stannard to see you,’ said Sterry. ‘Finish that panful and then show her what you showed me this morning.’

‘I’m sorry I had to ask you to come all the way down here to see me,’ Madge said to me. ‘But it’s that hard for me to get away, with all this to do, and besides, like before, it’s best if I show you what I mean.’

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Sterry drily. ‘I’d better make sure that ninety boxes of peppercorns aren’t accidentally listed as ninety-five. A real disaster that would be. We might find ourselves a few boxes short in ten years’ time!’

He went away. Madge removed her pan from its hook, wiped her hands on her apron and then took me through the kitchens, back to the little room from which, over twenty years ago, Hoxton’s manservant Edwards had collected his master’s fatal dinner.

‘See, mistress, it was just here that the table stood where the tray for Master Hoxton was put ready.’

She moved into the little room and with spread arms indicated the size and position of the table. ‘It’s the queerest thing,’ she said to me. ‘Even at the time, I made nothing of it. I never thought to mention it. I had a picture in my mind of the man I saw come in here and put something on that tray, but everyone kept asking me what did he look like, so I only thought about that. I only talked about that. I never thought—’

‘Never thought what?’ I asked. She was rambling, and it made me impatient, but I used a gentle voice because I could see that she was nervous of my position with the queen and she didn’t have Sterry to support her this time. ‘Come, tell me.’

She came back to stand beside me. ‘I was coming from the kitchens when I saw him. I’d got to about here, where we are now, when I saw this man standing by the table. He was facing this way. I couldn’t see his face very well, but like I told you before, he took a bundle from his satchel, unwrapped a cloth from it and there was the pie in its dish. He put it down on the tray.’

I was at a loss, but still carefully patient as I said: ‘But what exactly is it you’ve remembered?’

‘Well, it’s funny, but after you came to see me the other day, I kept thinking back and seeing the picture in my mind, of what he was doing, and it came up so clear; it was as though I were living all through it again, and then I saw!’

‘Saw what?’ I said, crushing down quite a strong urge to seize Madge by the shoulders and shake her until she talked sense.

‘Well, mistress, that he did nigh on everything with his left hand. I can
see
it in my head. He had the satchel on his
right
hip. He pulled out the bundle and put it down with his left hand and unwrapped it with his left. It’s as clear as clear, what I remember, like a picture, only moving. Then he pulled the tray nearer and put the pie on it neatly, like, and all that with his left hand too. And then he folded the cloth up and put it into the satchel with his left hand as well. He was a left-handed man. As sure as I’m standing here or there’s a God in heaven, he was left-handed. So if you were trying to find out,’ said Madge, ‘whether it was one man or another that did it, well . . .’

‘Find out which was left-handed,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Madge!’

I didn’t shake her. I gave her a sovereign and a kiss. It seemed that my first visit to the kitchens had planted a seed which had borne an unexpected harvest. At last, at last, a fact. A fact that might, just, help.

A Picture of the Past

T
o use my new knowledge, I needed to talk to someone who had known Gervase Easton well. I told all the others what Madge had told me. Bowman might help, I thought, and I suggested that Hugh and I should call on him again.

We could not go that day, for I was on duty with Elizabeth. I had to attend her at a series of audiences which broke off for dinner but resumed afterwards. When they finally finished, Elizabeth decided to study her books. She was in the habit of maintaining her Italian and her Latin by reading works in these languages. I hoped for release, but none came. Elizabeth sometimes studied on her own, but on other occasions she liked to have her ladies close by.

However, there was to be another council meeting the following morning. Hugh and I could go to see Bowman then, I thought. When the next morning came, however, he woke feeling unwell.

He looked ill, too, very grey of skin and very sunken-eyed. Gladys, on hearing his symptoms, at once said she would brew some medicine for him. Gladys was clever with medicines and always had a box of dried medicinal herbs with her. Her remedies were often effective.

He was improving by evening, but Gladys, who said she had seen such illnesses before, insisted that he should remain abed.

‘And you’re not to visit Bowman without me,’ Hugh said. ‘Send Brockley! He can ask a simple question, can’t he? We only want to know if Easton was left or right-handed.’

I sent Brockley. He was back within an hour, looking put out. ‘Bowman, madam, was as useful as a cooking pot made of butter.’

‘He can’t remember?’

‘No, he can’t. He has not the least idea. Neither, by the way, has Sterry. I went to the kitchen to see him, too. Oh, I brought you this, madam.’ He was carrying a package, wrapped in thin paper, and held it out to me. ‘It’s a gift from Master Bowman.’

‘A gift?’ I looked at the package in surprise, while Hugh sat up sharply against his pillows. ‘What is it?’

‘Gloves, madam. He said he noted the size of your hands during your visit to him and hoped you would like these.’

‘Oh.’

I took the little parcel from Brockley and began to undo the cord, but Hugh said: ‘Give that here!’ and when I went to hand it to him, fairly snatched it out of my hands. ‘You don’t accept gifts from Bowman.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, startled. ‘But . . . can’t I even look at them?’

‘No,’ said Hugh. ‘Brockley! Take this package and burn it. Then leave us.’

Obediently, Brockley put the package in the fire and left the room. I stood by the bed, gazing at Hugh in amazement. ‘I’ve never known you jealous before,’ I said.

‘I love you! And I’m not young and I don’t know how long I will still be here to go on loving you. But while I’m here,’ said Hugh, ‘I’ll have no nonsense from the Bowmans of this world.’

I could hardly believe my ears. Hugh was aware of the secret link between Brockley and myself and had never shown the slightest anxiety about it. The only time he had ever worried about my faithfulness had been the previous summer, when, quite by chance, we had learned that my second husband Matthew, who was supposed to have died of plague while I was visiting England a few years ago, hadn’t died at all. The queen and Cecil had deceived me because they wished to keep me in England.

Understandably, Hugh had wondered then if I would stay with him or try to return to Matthew. Elizabeth, as head of the Anglican church, had declared my second marriage void, because it had been forced on me, and the ceremony was conducted by an unlicensed priest. Also, since Matthew had been similarly told that I was dead, he had, I had learned, married again and had a son. But the bond between us had been passionate. Hugh had not been sure.

I was sure, though. Passion or no, I had had no peace with Matthew. He was for ever scheming against Elizabeth and on behalf of Mary Stuart. I told Hugh that I wished to remain Mistress Stannard, that I valued the life we had built together and that I wouldn’t dream, anyway, of intruding like a ghost into Matthew’s new marriage.

The link between myself and Brockley, though quite different in its nature from the union of myself and Matthew, was the stronger of the two, had Hugh only known it. Not that it mattered, for neither Matthew nor Brockley were any threat to him. My husband and the safe marriage he had given me were precious, and I would never let them be imperilled. I had believed that Hugh was now certain of this. Apparently, he was not.

‘How could you possibly think I would be even remotely interested in Jonathan Bowman?’ I said indignantly.

‘I don’t,’ said Hugh. ‘But I’m ailing and it makes me feel – lessened. I feel as though I am imprisoned in a failing body, while you are still young and men can be drawn to you. Please try to understand.’

‘You have nothing to fear,’ I said gently. ‘You
know
that.’

‘I think I do. But,’ said Hugh, ‘just keep away from that man. That’s all.’

The following day was a Sunday. There was a long chapel service and then I had to ride in the park with the queen and accompany her to an archery competition in the afternoon. Lately, Cecil’s man John Ryder, Brockley’s friend and mine, had joined his employer at the castle. He and Brockley both won prizes at the contest, which gave me pleasure.

I had told Lambert that on Monday he need not come to teach Meg until after dinner, because she had a sitting with Arbuckle in the morning. That morning, for once, I had some time off. ‘Today,’ I said to Sybil, ‘I’ll take her.’

Master Arbuckle was as scruffy and paint-splattered as before, but still exuded the force of character which his unkempt appearance should have wrecked, but didn’t. The picture was advancing well. The screen had been folded away, and he seated Meg at a table near the street window, with books and a sheet of paper in front of her, and a pen in her hand. The painting was up on the easel. Arbuckle gave me a seat where I wouldn’t get in his way, and the day’s work commenced.

For the moment, he had apparently completed Meg’s face and was concentrating on her headdress and the upper part of her clothing. He had mixed a range of tints for her gown: hot orange-tawny where the folds were in the light; darker shades for the shadows in between. He was now putting the last touches to these and with a fine brush was dealing with her little white ruff. The lower part of the picture was a matter of faint pencil lines, which I could hardly make out. I was interested, though, in the part which he had virtually finished: the detail of her face.

Detailed it certainly was, down to the tiny shadows under her cheekbones and nostrils and the moulding of her ears and mouth. There was something else, too. It was as though Arbuckle had seen things in Meg which I had not. The face on the canvas was not quite the Meg I knew, but the difference was so subtle that I could not define it. I thought he had made her look a little remote, as though she were thinking thoughts which she would not share with others.

I remembered him saying that some of his clients had resented his work because he had seen things they would rather he had not.
When my brush is in my hand, I cannot lie.
What had he seen in Meg which had found its way out through his brush-hand? Her future maturity, her womanhood, beginning now to surface?

I sat watching with interest, while Meg, with great patience, posed for him. He chatted to her, very pleasantly, about her studies and about hawking, which was a sport she enjoyed. They seemed to be the best of friends.

I sat on my stool, letting my mind drift, until, unexpectedly, something in the style of Arbuckle’s work, and the memory of something that Hugh had said, prompted me to ask a question.

‘Master Arbuckle,’ I said, ‘may I ask – was it by any chance you, a long time ago, that painted a miniature of a lady called Judith Easton? It would be over twenty years ago now. My husband told me that the portrait you did recently of one of the ladies at the castle reminded him of that miniature. Judith Easton was very beautiful.’

‘She was indeed,’ said Arbuckle, delicately placing what looked like a brush-load of bronze into his rendering of Meg’s dark hair. I looked at the canvas intently, and then at Meg, and saw that he was right; the sunlight on her hair did create that bronze streak. It is the kind of thing that artists see but other people easily miss. ‘Yes, I was the painter,’ he said. ‘She had a face like a star. Sparkling, bright. Her husband had the miniature made. I wasn’t as expensive then as I am now, but he had a job to pay me, I remember. His payment came in bits and pieces, and some of it was in cabbages.’

‘Cabbages?’

‘He worked in the royal kitchens. Gervase Easton, that was his name. He had perks, and he took them in cabbages that time, for my benefit. I painted him as well, a little later. He didn’t pay for that – he had a brother who made a journey to see him now and then. The brother saw the miniature of Mistress Easton and hired me to do a portrait of her husband – a proper portrait, not a miniature. There was trouble in their family, I think, but the brother wanted to keep friends with Gervase and wanted a picture of him. I heard roundabout that Gervase was accused of some sort of crime later and took his own life. You know something of these people? What became of his wife?’

‘She remarried, but she died too, soon after that.’

‘I am sorry. Very sorry.’

‘Master Arbuckle,’ I said, ‘the son of Gervase and Judith has lately been trying to clear his father’s name. It seems that it may be important whether he was right or left-handed. Can you remember?’

‘I can’t say I ever thought about it.’ Arbuckle, intent on his work, showed little interest. I sighed disappointedly, however, and he paused to please me by considering the matter. ‘I can’t remember, but the portrait showed him as a clerk, with a pen in his hand,’ he said. ‘That’s why pictures are precious; they preserve times gone by, people who are dead, or have changed. That’s why your mother is having
you
painted,’ he added to Meg. ‘So as to keep the memory of you as you are now.’ He turned back to me. ‘Every portrait becomes a picture of the past. That would give you the answer. The brother may have the picture still.’

Mark would know, I thought. Mark had taken over his uncle’s house now; very likely the portrait was still in it! I must ask Mark. I thanked Arbuckle and once again let my mind drift.

This time, it glided towards Bowman and the threats he said he had heard Gervase Easton make against Hoxton. Ancient threats; words thrown off in temper when a man was in his cups and had been provoked – and the enemy wasn’t actually there. How much did such things mean?

And how very odd of Hugh to be so jealous.

At this point, a chill unhappiness settled within me. Hugh was not in good health and kept saying disquieting things, such as
I don’t know how long I will still be here to go on loving you
and
I feel as though I am imprisoned in a failing body.