The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (4 page)

“I must wed someone, the council tell me,” she
remarked sweetly, “but how shall I choose? I fear to take a foreign prince who may bring foreign swordsmen to English soil, but even if I marry an Englishman, who is to say that he won’t do the same?”

The playful cat had put out its needle claws and scratched both Dudley and de Quadra. De Quadra’s face remained impassive though his body stiffened, but Dudley’s cheekbones visibly turned crimson. They must both be wondering how Elizabeth had learned that if she were to marry Dudley, and the country rebelled because of the gossip about his first wife’s death, he was prepared to invite Philip of Spain to bring a Spanish army to support him, in exchange for a promise to restore the Catholic religion. They must also be wondering if she knew that Dudley had even gone to the lengths of asking de Quadra to put the notion to the Spanish king.

Well, if ever Elizabeth had been prepared to consider Dudley as a husband (though I had reason to believe that this was not so, despite appearances), this latest discovery must surely have destroyed his hopes for good. He might remain her favourite, like a household pet, but the title of King Consort could never now be his.

I did not pity him. To me, his offence was too great. My Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha had always followed the old religion, and once, when I was a girl, they had attended one of the first burnings ordered by Queen Mary Tudor. I refused to go with them and they didn’t force me (my aunt said afterwards that they feared I would embarrass them by showing sympathy to a miscreant), but on their return, they forced me to listen to a description. When I tried to block my ears,
Aunt Tabitha tore my hands away. I had never forgotten that, and I would never forgive it.

If, to further his ambitions, Robin Dudley was prepared to bring those terrible days back, I would never forgive him, either.

Many of the Queen’s ladies sighed over Dudley, but not I, which was not very reasonable of me, for Matthew too had plotted to bring Mary Stuart and the old religion back to England. In what way, I asked myself as I stood there on the dais, was he different from Robin Dudley?

For a moment, I wavered, wondering if I should have written to Matthew, asking myself if it would be wrong to leave Elizabeth’s court and travel to France to ally my fortunes to one of Mary Stuart’s adherents. In that moment, I wished with all my heart that my first husband, Gerald Blanchard, Meg’s father, still lived, but he was gone, and my husband now was Matthew.

To think of Matthew was to conjure him inside my head: tall, bony, wide of shoulder, long of chin, with diamond-shaped dark eyes under dramatic black eyebrows. To think of him was to lean towards him, as though my spirit were trying to leap from my body and vault over land and sea to join him in the Château Blanchepierre in the valley of the Loire.

No. My choice was made. I would give up the court, cease from spying into other people’s secrets. I would not be betraying England, or the Queen, as Dudley had been prepared to do; only retiring into private life with my husband and my daughter. That, surely, was not wrong.

The Queen had ceased to speak and seemed to be
waiting for something. Cecil made an impatient movement, then Mew, as if remembering a lesson, went down on one knee and offered the shining thing to the Queen. “If Your Majesty would be p-pleased to accept this, I would be honoured.”

Over Mew’s bent head, Elizabeth caught Cecil’s eye and he nodded. “With pleasure, Master Mew,” Elizabeth said, and taking the casket with one hand, she gave Mew the other to kiss.

The page, who had been hovering in the background, came to escort Mew out of the room. Cecil also prepared to take his leave. Before doing so, however, he caught my eye, and while Elizabeth, at the behest of Katherine Knollys and Jane Seymour, played the musical device again, he came to speak to me.

“My wife sends her good wishes and looks forward to seeing you at dinner tomorrow, Ursula.”

I thanked him. Some of my fellow ladies smiled, because they knew that the Cecils had found my daughter her foster home and supposed that there was some long-established friendship between my family and the Cecils. There were also a few sour looks, because some of the Ladies of the Privy and Bedchambers thought it in poor taste for a mere Lady of the Presence Chamber to be on dining terms with the Secretary of State.

Elizabeth, who knew the purpose which lay behind the invitation, glanced at me and wished me a pleasant time. I looked from her to Kat Ashley.

“Ma’am—Mistress Ashley—there is a matter, a . . . a very private matter . . . of some urgency . . . on which I need to consult Her Majesty. May I have a private
interview?” I met Elizabeth’s eyes and tried to signal the degree of urgency with my own. I wanted that interview before I went to dine with the Cecils. If all went well, I would not dine there at all.

“We will have to see,” said Kat Ashley repressively, but Elizabeth recognised my silent signal and gave me a small nod in reply.

“We will send for you,” she said.

K
at Ashley fetched me to the Queen’s private rooms later on that day. Elizabeth was in her study, where she often sat to examine correspondence or reports, or read the books on history and philosophy and political theory which interested her so deeply. At the Queen’s bidding, Kat left us. I executed my deepest curtsy and made my request. While I stood waiting, there was a long, long silence, and my heart grew heavy.

The weather had turned wet. Rain blew against the tall, diamond-leaded windows behind Elizabeth’s carefully coiffured red head, and the afternoon was so overcast that she needed a cluster of candles on her desk in order to read. A fire blazed in the hearth, but even so, the Queen wore a shawl.

“And so,” she said at last, “you want to desert us, Mistress Blanchard.”

“Not exactly, Your Majesty. I am sorry to leave you, but . . . I want to be with my husband.”

Elizabeth said bluntly, “Although he is an enemy of our person, and this realm?”

Matthew didn’t think of himself that way, since to
him, bringing Mary Stuart and the old religion to England was the friendliest thing he could possibly do for the land where his mother was born. I did not of course agree with him, nor did I attempt to explain him to Elizabeth. To Elizabeth, I discovered, I could not even speak of love. In her presence it felt for some reason like a confession of weakness. It was hard to know what to say, so in the end I fell back on a simple declaration.

“Ma’am, he is my husband. I took vows.”

Elizabeth seemed tired. She had changed out of her formal white and silver; the shawl was draped over a loose gown of ash-grey silk. She had taken off her jewellery, too. The mischief was all gone. Her pointed white face was older than its years, grave and withdrawn.

“And what,” she asked me, “if I say no?”

I didn’t answer at once, and the Queen’s eyes, golden brown under faint, arched brows, grew sharp. Elizabeth could be formidable. One remembered then whose daughter she was. This morning I had thought of her as a playful cat, but that was to underestimate her. She was no house-cat, but a lioness, cub of that Tudor lion King Henry.

“I asked you a question, Ursula,” she said presently. “What is your answer?”

“Your Majesty, I have no wish to displease you in any way, but . . . I beg you to release me from your employment and allow me to take my daughter to the Loire valley to join my husband there.”

Rain blew against the windows again, harder. The wind was getting up. I had looked at maps of France
and knew that the valley of the Loire lay much further south than anywhere in England. The weather might be warmer there, the winters less harsh.

“Your first husband, Gerald Blanchard,” said the Queen thoughtfully, “was engaged in—shall we say, secret work?—in the Netherlands, assisting my financier Sir Thomas Gresham. You were there with him and I fancy it was from Gerald that you learned the skills which have proved so valuable to us. Am I right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I said valuable and I meant it. Your services have been very useful indeed, Ursula, and I am loth to dispense with them.”

“Ma’am . . . I plead with you.”

Elizabeth turned away from me, lost in thought. The silence deepened. I waited, hoping desperately, until she sat back in her ornate chair, and gave me her judgement.

“The time of year is bad for sea travel. I would not have you risk yourself on board ship just now. Tomorrow, you are to see Sir William Cecil and receive from him instructions in a task which he and I wish you to perform. You have been having lessons from Master Bone, I believe, to prepare you for this duty.”

“Yes, ma’am, but surely I am not the only person . . . ?”

“We need a woman,” Elizabeth said, “and you are the only one on Cecil’s payroll, as far as this type of work is concerned. Spying isn’t popular as a livelihood for young ladies. It doesn’t appeal to them and still less does it appeal to their parents.”

The golden-brown eyes lit briefly with laughter, but she was sober again almost at once. “I said just now that I would not have you risk yourself on board ship but . . . well, Ursula, Cecil and I do not wish you to take risks, of any kind, but there may be unavoidable danger in what you will, tomorrow, be asked to do. We—Cecil and I, that is—hope that you will still undertake it. Much may depend on it and you will be well paid if you consent. If not . . .”

“Ma’am?” My hands were clasped in front of me, my fingers hidden in the folds of my cream and tawny gown, gripping each other fiercely.

“You may as well undertake it,” said Elizabeth. “We give you permission to join your husband and take your daughter, but not until May, when the spring gales have subsided. Until May, you must remain here. And you will of course keep your appointment with the Cecils tomorrow. Hear what Sir William has to say to you. I ask you, Ursula—most earnestly—to consider passing the time between now and May by doing the work he asks of you.”

But I’ve finished with all that! I wanted to cry it aloud. I want to go to Matthew.
Now!

Elizabeth studied me searchingly, as though she were reading my mind. “Ursula, listen. I can’t tell you much about the task that Cecil and I have for you. He has the details. I know only that there is a hint abroad, a rumour—but it could mean that something serious is afoot, something that could endanger me and therefore England. Do you understand? I am just one person,” Elizabeth said. “Just one life. I have my councillors, like Cecil, and they are a bulwark to me, but in
turn, I am a bulwark to England. Most of the time, I am happy to have it so. I was born for this. Sometimes, however, just now and then, I see myself in the mirror and what do I see? Just a slender, brittle young girl. Not much of a bulwark, when all is said and done. Then I feel afraid. I feel afraid, too, when it is brought home to me that there are those who not only wish me replaced, but are willing to plot to bring it about. Last year, and again in the last few weeks, you have uncovered schemes which could have endangered me greatly. The second one was a greater shock than the first. You know well enough why. I am asking for your help just once more. Go now, and talk with Cecil.” She turned away, picking up her pen. I was dismissed.

I wanted to cry out in protest, but for complicated and contradictory reasons, I could do nothing of the kind. I couldn’t do it because it meant abandoning this slender, brittle girl who was afraid and needed my help; and I couldn’t do it because the same girl was also Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and I could not shout, “No, no, I can’t. May is a lifetime away—I want to be with Matthew now!” at the Queen of England.

I did pause for a moment, but she did not look at me again. I had to go. I left the chamber, heartsick, silently pitying her, and raging at her, and wondering by what means I could manage to collect my child and get out of England without Her Majesty’s consent.

• • •

When Sir William Cecil wished to speak to me privately, he sometimes summoned me discreetly to his study at whichever residence the court happened to be using. The Queen continually shifted from one palace
to another, back and forth along the river between Greenwich, Whitehall, Richmond, Nonsuch, Hampton Court and Windsor, and to save constant travel up and down the river by barge, often in the rain, Cecil had rooms set aside for his use in each. He found this convenient even at Whitehall, which was so near to his house in Canon Row that when the Queen was at Whitehall, Cecil went home each evening to Lady Mildred.

It was in those Whitehall rooms that I had met Alexander Bone, but Cecil had not then been free to talk to me and I must not make such visits too often. Hence the invitation, issued quite openly, to dine in Canon Row.

Cecil must have had a message from Elizabeth regarding my unwillingness, as he sent an escort to make sure I came.

“Paul Fenn, at your service, Mistress Blanchard,” said the young man who had presented himself at the nearest street entrance and enquired for me. He was about eighteen, handsome, with splendid teeth, except that two at the front were slightly crossed, and the beginnings of a moustache. He was smartly dressed, with a dashing blue velvet cap on his thick fair hair, and a matching cloak. I vaguely recognised him as a recent addition to the Cecil household. He was attentive and courteous, with the self-confident deference which you so often find in young men from families of standing. I may be only a boy as yet, his manner seemed to say, but one day I shall be Secretary of State myself.

I therefore set off for Canon Row with Fenn as well as Dale and Brockley. I was mildly amused, for of
course I had had no thought of failing to keep my appointment. I was doing so under false pretences, but fifty Paul Fenns could make no difference to that.

After leaving the Queen’s presence, I had seethed for an hour and then realised that my decision had taken itself. Somehow or other, I would take Meg and go, without permission or passport, to France. It could be done: the highway of the Thames carried plenty of vessels whose skippers would take anyone anywhere for a suitable consideration. Brockley would find one for me.