The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (16 page)

A gallery, reached by a slatted spiral staircase, allowed close examination of items hung high up, and there was a counter on one side of the room, with stools ranged beside it, where customers could look at the wares in comfort.

The building was mostly timber, though the floor and the surround of the fireplace were of stone. In the
few places where the walls were visible, they were of pale gold wood which added to the glow of colour. The floor was well swept and a grey daylight fell from the windows. Lamps hung on lamp-stands and there was a small fire in the hearth, watched over by a young apprentice.

“My goods must not get damp,” said Master Paige. “The river is a blessing in one way since it carries ships, but a curse in another, since it breeds these pestilential mists.
Christopher!
Where are you?” He raised his voice, and a young man who was almost a youthful edition of Bernard himself, except that he was much thinner, appeared as if conjured, hurrying down the spiral stairs from the gallery.

“This is my son,” said Paige. “Christopher, here are Mistress Ursula Blanchard and Master Robert Henderson, friends of Sir William Cecil.” Christopher bowed courteously, and his father beamed. “Now, shall we begin with the damasks? They are for you and your daughter, you say, Mistress Blanchard. What is your daughter like?”

“Not yet six,” I said. “With dark hair.”

“She must take after you, Mistress,” said Christopher Paige politely.

“Mainly after her father, I think. He, too, was dark haired, and her eyes are brown, like his.” My own were hazel. “Her complexion is like mine, though,” I said.

Bernard Paige was studying me, not rudely, but with impersonal assessment, as though I were a tapestry which had to be hung in the best light. I realised that behind the endless cascade of words was a rockface of sound knowledge.

“Good clear colours,” he said thoughtfully. “Rose or crimson; golden yellow or emerald green, but if green, the shade
must
be jewel-bright. Best avoid green, perhaps. That cream and tawny you are wearing now, mistress, is made of fine material but does not do you justice, in my opinion. Now, I have some excellent materials at only twenty-six shillings a yard.” Being accustomed to court standards, Dale and I received this news stoically, but Brockley’s eyebrows rose. “Bring out examples of the shades we have mentioned, Christopher, excepting only the green. Master Henderson, can I show you anything? Something for your wife, perhaps?”

Rob asked to see some brocades. Christopher, who clearly did the most active work, set about keeping any inherited obesity at bay by hurrying to fetch out rolls of material and bringing a ladder to reach a row of shelves just below the gallery. While he was thus engaged, I asked if Master Paige would show me the tapestries.

“Master Henderson can choose his brocades meanwhile and Dale can select some damasks for me to look at presently. If that’s all right, Master Paige?”

“But of course!” said Paige, beaming anew. “Here, lad!” He called to the boy tending the hearth. “Come along and listen. Learn something about tapestries. That’s how they learn,” he added to me. “By hearing me talk to customers. Now, let me show you what I have.”

He led the way towards some hangings on the far wall of the display chamber, and I followed, feeling like a fraud. The money he thought he was going to
make out of me was fairy gold, but I must keep up the pretence.

“I particularly wanted to see
you
,” I said, “because lately, in the house of Sir William Cecil, I noticed some copies of the
Unicorn Hunt
series of tapestries. I believe he bought them from you and I wondered if you had any more like them. The weaver was a man named Hans van Hoorn and the workshop was that of Giorgio Vasari, in Florence.”

“Ah. Yes, I remember Sir William buying those. Alas, van Hoorn has been making readymades for only a short while, and even he, skilled though he is, cannot produce more than a limited amount of work in such a short time,” Paige said. “Though I took all he did make, and those of the other weavers employed at the same time on similar tapestries. In fact, as far as the workshop is concerned, the readymades scheme is as much mine as theirs. When I was in Florence two years ago, I presented the idea to the workshop manager and we made an arrangement under which they would hire weavers and copy some famous works—we agreed on a list—and I would buy up the results. That way, I would carry most of the risk.

“The poor merchant always has to take the risk, Mistress Blanchard. Such is life! A wrong guess about customers’ preferences, and we’re left with goods that must be sold at a loss. A ship goes down in a storm and we have no goods at all, so our customers go elsewhere and maybe don’t come back! I’ve seen a reverse or two in my time, and my father before me. So will Christopher, when he takes over. And you, very likely, my lad,” he added to the apprentice.

“Did you guess right this time, Master Paige?” I asked.

“So it seems! All the van Hoorns have gone and I will have no more until next year. I still have some of the other weavers’ work, however. For instance, observe these pretty single wallhangings in the millefleurs style.” He pointed to a heraldic fantasy, showing a young woman in armour, Joan of Arc fashion, riding a unicorn and escorted by flying gryphons, against a background of little red and yellow flowers. A similar panel beside it had a white stag standing poised against a pattern of tiny pink and azure blooms.

“Those are by a man quite as good as van Hoorn, and if you prefer narratives—you mentioned narratives, did you not?—well, up in the gallery I have a delightful series of five panels by this same weaver, depicting the story of the Wedding at Cana. How many rooms do you want to provide with wallhangings? How much wall is to be covered?”

I hadn’t thought this out. Clearly, I had much still to learn about lying and imposture. I murmured something vague about a dining room, anteroom and bedchamber and hastily invented dimensions which I hoped sounded reasonable.

“And where is your house?” Master Paige enquired as we climbed the spiral stairs, which bounced under his massive tread. “In London? Do I know it? Or would it be in Sussex? The Blanchard family live in Sussex, I believe.”

He was knowledgeable all right. He was a successful merchant dealing in domestic fabrics, and probably
had a map of England in his head, with little flags marking every big house and the name of the owner inscribed beside it. He was right about the Blanchards: they did live in Sussex. I must produce a good reason for not doing so myself.

“I have been widowed, Master Paige,” I said, and it was not difficult to sound sad. “I wish to begin life again amid fresh scenes. My new house, if all goes well with the arrangements for the lease, will be in Oxfordshire.”

“My dear Mistress Blanchard, I do apologise if I have said anything tactless!”

“It’s quite all right,” I said politely, but in a faintly distant tone which would discourage any further awkward questions. “It was some time ago,” I added, forgivingly, as we stepped on to the gallery. “Are these the five panels you mentioned?” I had better sound as though I meant business. “Oh yes, I see. Here we have the bride and groom, seated together, and here—yes, this is clever—we have the host spreading his hands in regret because the wine has run out. Very expressive!”

Playing my part industriously, I made a few more comments about
The Wedding in Cana,
and listened while Paige, as much for the benefit of the apprentice as for me, expounded on weaving techniques, and went on to extol the virtues of some Brussels verdures. I was carrying my slate, and I brought it out and made some notes about prices, remarking that the verdures might suit my imaginary bedchamber very well.

As we descended the spiral stairs, I said casually, “If
you are the sole importer of the tapestries made by Hans van Hoorn since he joined his present workshop, I believe one of my future neighbours has been your customer recently, just like Sir William Cecil. His hangings depict the prodigal son’s return. Did you supply them to him?”

Down on the ground floor, Christopher Paige had brocades and damasks all over the counter, spilling from their rolls in silken rivers. Brockley was standing politely back, but Rob Henderson and Dale were feeling fabrics with finger and thumb. Paige caught his son’s eye, and Christopher, excusing himself, came to meet us.

“
The Prodigal?
” Paige was saying. “Yes, I sold that last November. I can’t remember the customer’s name offhand, though. Christopher, can you remember who it was that bought van Hoorn’s tapestry of the Return of the Prodigal, towards the end of last year?”

“My future neighbour’s name is Mason,” I said.

Unexpectedly, the apprentice piped up. “I remember! Mr. Leonard Mason! But he didn’t come himself: he sent some kind of servant to buy for him. A funny man, like a scarecrow, all in black!”

Christopher instantly shot out a hand and cracked the apprentice across the back of the head, though not unduly hard.

Bernard Paige said in scandalised tones, “That is no way to speak of our customers, young Dickon! Customers are to be respected!”

“Customers,” said Christopher, “can come here walking on their hands like tumblers, or dressed in motley. We still don’t make fun of them!”

“Get back to watching the fire, boy!” Paige barked. “I’ll have more to say about this later! Though he’s right, of course,” he added to me, as soon as he judged that the chastened Dickon was out of earshot. “Mason did send an intermediary to make the purchase, a dominie, judging from his clothes. He was a trifle odd to look at—well, dusty, if you know what I mean—” I did—“but he recognised quality when he saw it.”

“And he paid without haggling,” Christopher said. “He had a purse of sovereigns and gold angels with him. He chose what he said his master would want, and paid the bill then and there. No argument about the price and no waiting for the money to be fetched from a bank. If only all customers were as obliging!”

“The man you saw sounds very like the fellow who tutors the Mason children and sometimes conducts business for Leonard Mason,” I remarked. “What is his name, now? I’m sure I’ve heard it, but . . .”

They shook their heads. “I put the purchaser in my ledger as Mason,” Bernard Paige said. “I remember now.”

Raising my voice, I called to Dickon and he came back. “If you can remember the name of the fellow all in black, whom you thought looked so odd,” I said, “maybe you won’t get into trouble after all for calling him a scarecrow.” I cocked an eye at the Paiges, father and son, and although clearly puzzled, they nodded. I was a customer and therefore must be humoured. I looked enquiringly at Dickon.

“It was Dr. something, madam,” he said. “It was a funny . . .” He caught Bernard’s disapproving eye.
“I mean a strange name. Sad. Cry something. Cry . . . ton! Yes, madam, that’s it! Cry-ton.”

“Dr. Crichton! Of course! Thank you, Dickon. You’ve a very good memory!” I said.

Dickon went back to tending the fire, and the Paiges gazed at me in a puzzled fashion, as if wondering why I was so interested.

“He seems a pleasant lad,” I said. “I wanted to give you an excuse to let him off whatever you had in store for him for being so cheeky.”

“Ah. You soft-hearted ladies. Well, he will escape with a warning this time,” Bernard Paige said good humouredly. My curiosity was explained, and I had learned what I wanted: Crichton had bought those tapestries, and on behalf of Leonard Mason.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll come back to buy the tapestries when my lease is signed, but could I see the damasks now?”

• • •

Bernard Paige would be disappointed of a tapestry sale, but we bought several costly lengths of brocades and damasks. I had been paid rather well for my prying into de Quadra’s document case, and could afford it, but if I could persuade Cecil to count it as expenses, I would.

The transactions over, we parted from the Paiges with many bows and expressions of thanks on both sides. We dined at an inn and caught the tide for home, rowing upstream through the cold, sharp-smelling fog.

This time, I went into the little cabin with Dale. There were rugs there and we sat together, muffled under them. Dale dozed, but I was trying to think.

My question had been answered, but where did it lead?

I tried to work it out. I had suspected that Mason, or Crichton, or both, had been lying about the origins of the tapestries in the Lockhill dining room, and while talking to Jennet in the parlour and hearing how Crichton ran his employer’s errands, I had begun to wonder if the tutor had been sent to London to buy them for Mason. I had been right.

Yet Leonard Mason was a man who worried about the expense of lighting fires in the long gallery and hesitated to replace a spitboy. Good God!

But what did it mean? Did it necessarily mean anything sinister? And where did Crichton come in? Was he involved or was he only Mason’s cat’s-paw? No, he had to be involved. He evidently disliked my presence at Lockhill as much as Mason did, and he was a Catholic priest who regularly held illegal masses.

I had hoped that finding out the truth about one mystery—in this case the provenance of the prodigal son wallhangings—would somehow lead to fresh discoveries; that it would be like a pulled thread which, if tugged, unravels a knot. However, it had done nothing of the sort.

I was still fretting uselessly when I heard sharp exclamations from Henderson and Brockley, who were outside, standing in the bows. Dale did not stir, but I went out to see what was happening.

The weather was clearing. There was a wind now and the fog was lifting away, swirling like smoke past the face of a pallid sun. The exclamations I had heard were nothing to do with the weather, however.
Brockley was leaning over the bow to the port side, and as I emerged from the cabin, Henderson was picking up a boathook and ordering the barge to change course.

“What is it?” I asked.

Brockley pointed, and leaning over the bow beside him, I saw something rolling in the wash from our vessel. I glimpsed pale fabric, like soaked linen, and strands of something like weed, or hair; and then, most horribly, a face, greenish white. It was a body, still partly clad in a shirt and breeches. The breeches had held some air and kept the corpse afloat.