The Manner of Amy's Death (23 page)

       “Come, Mistress
Katherine,” says Sir Anthony, who has just walked in to witness Amy’s outburst of temper, “There is nothing you can do when someone is in such a mood except to leave them to their own ill humour.  But it is most unlike Lady Dudley, I have to remark.  Maybe we will find her changed when we return and I fear that any further attempts at persuasion will only make her more passionate.  Come and enjoy the fair with everyone else.”

       The servants have recovered from their
embarrassment at Amy’s behaviour and I guess that Sir Anthony is quite right and that we will find Amy’s mood has lightened by the time we return.  I’ll buy her something pretty to cheer her and perhaps she’ll go to the fair tomorrow with Mrs Owen and Mrs Odingsells.  The carriage is brought and Sir Anthony’s wife, Mrs Picto and I get inside.  Mr Bowes is mounted on his own horse as is Sir Anthony, who has allowed the servants to share rides on our two other horses and a mule.  The rest walk on foot until it is their turn to ride.

       So our little procession winds its way down the hillside and turns south towards Abingdon.  The servants laugh and sing as we go along, Sir Anthony smiles benignly at his little family
anticipating the fun of the day ahead just as so many small children would do.

       At the fair there’
s a lot to see and, if you have enough money, to buy.  Fruit tartlets and spiced hams, eggs and cheeses, sweet meats and fresh fruit, spices and herbs all displayed in a tempting fashion.  Sir Anthony lingers over the plants, asking questions – how will this bush stand up when the Cumnor wind blows strong and what colour will the flowers be on this one and will it attract the bees and provide good honey.  He is in his own private paradise. 

      
There are acrobats too, jugglers and trained animals, hawks and dogs and, sad to see, a poor old bear that is forced to dance by vicious prods from a cane in its handler’s fist.  The man with the bear looks like a gypsy and is surrounded by some equally dark and swarthy companions and I make up my mind to keep my distance. 

      
There are pretty things to buy, ribbons and pomanders, caps, bonnets and slippers.  And then there are the musicians and the men performing stories and masques, fascinating to watch.  We buy cherries from the baskets of the fruit sellers and stand to enjoy each performance. 

       Suddenly, while I am enthralled by an enactment of the adventures of Guy
of Warwick, I feel a light touch on my shoulder.  It is none other than Owain, the farmer, musician and story teller for whom I’d felt such sympathy the previous Christmas when I’d heard of the death of his wife. 

       “Well, Mistress
Katherine, I do believe; and how have you been faring this long time since we last met?”

       I blush deeply and manage to stammer an incoherent reply.  Owain is even
more handsome than I remember.

       He smiles and asks where Lady Dudley is and when I reply that I am here without the pleasant company of my dear friend, Owain
offers his arm and suggests that we explore the fair together.  He is all smiles and courtesy as he ignores the amiable jibes and teasing of his friends who grin annoyingly as they watch me take his arm.  When we reach the place where Sir Anthony is still pondering which plants to take home, the good gentleman gives me an old fashioned look and raises his eyebrows in such a way that I can’t help laughing.  I’m so happy and comfortable in Owain’s company that I completely forget my poor friend in her lonely and miserable state at Cumnor Place.

       All too soon the afternoon draws to a close a
nd I suddenly remember that I’d promised myself that I would buy a present for Amy.  But what to buy?  There’s so much to choose from.

       “I know the very thing,” says Owain and leads me to a table where an old woman is selling pomanders.  Here we choose an orange stuck all over with cloves except for a cross
where a velvet ribbon encircles it, like an orb carried by a queen.  The smell of the citrus and the cloves is divine and I know that Amy will love such a treasure.

       “It will protect her from disease too,” says Owain with a hint of practicality that makes me laugh. 

      I board the carriage again with the gentlewomen and my gallant Welsh story teller helps me up and promises to come to see me at Cumnor before very long.  And at this stage I have no idea just how quickly his promise will be realised.

       As we travel home we’
re a very merry company.  When we reach the hill leading to Cumnor Place, I get out of the carriage to give our poor horse an easier task and walk along with the servants laughing and singing.

       “Oh dear, Mistress
Katherine,” says Sir Anthony jokingly as he rides past us, “You will never make a fine lady of the court.”

      No, I think, and I never want to be.  I want to be the wife of a farmer, a farmer called Owain!

       We trundle slowly past the churchyard and into the courtyard at Cumnor where Mr Bowes and the servants take the sweating horses round to the trough for a well earned drink and then to the stable yard to enable them to cool off before they’re turned out onto the field.  The boys take old rags to rub them down so they will not get a chill in the cool air of evening.

       The serving girls and I go to the Great Hall to see whether Amy, Mrs Owen and Mrs
Odingsells have enjoyed the cold meats the girls left out for them but finding the two older ladies playing cards and no sign of my friend, I make my way with Mrs Picto to the door leading to Amy’s chamber.  But I begin to have a strange feeling; why was Amy not in the Great Hall with the other two?  They said they had not seen her all afternoon and assumed she was taking a rest upstairs.

       As we walk across the now empty courtyard I have a sense of impending doom, an uneasy feeling that lies in the pit of my stomach.  Mrs Picto
, ahead of me, reaches the door leading to the stairs that go up to Amy’s chamber, opens it and gives a piercing scream.

       Over her shoulder I see my
dearest friend lying at the bottom of the steps, her head twisted in an unnatural way.  Even before I rush over to her and fall down on my knees to take her hand, I know that she’s dead.

Scandal

Mrs Picto’s scream brings
everyone running. Sir Anthony pushes his way through the group of servants crowding the door.

       “What is it?  What has happened?”

       “It’s Lady Dudley, Sir,” says Mrs Picto, wailing, “She must have fallen down the stairs.”

       “Is she breathing?” Sir Anthony bends over the body and holds his hand to her throat.

      “No, Sir,” I reply, “She’s quite cold.  She must have been lying here for some time.”  My voice is hushed and I can hardly speak the words.  I feel as if I am about to choke.

       Mrs
Odingsells is at the back of the assembled group now and is followed by Mrs Owen who walks slowly with a cane for assistance.  “Has Lady Dudley had an accident?”

       “Yes,” says Sir Anthony, “It appears that she has fallen down the stairs and broken her neck.”  He lifts Amy’s head from its unnatural position and lays it straight.  I can see that there is no stiffness; the head is as floppy as that on a rag doll and yet the fall has not
dislodged the little lace cap that she wears around the manor house when she is not receiving visitors or dressing for dinner.  On other, more formal occasions she would be wearing her finery and decorated hoods. 

       “Did you not hear anything?”  Sir Anthony asks Mrs
Odingsells.  No use asking Mrs Owen who is as deaf as a post.

       “Well I did think I heard a sound as we were playing cards early in the afternoon.  It was as if someone had dropped something but we knew we were alone in the house and I believed that the cat had been after the cream in the buttery again and had knocked over the jug.”

       “It was quite a clatter.  Even
I
heard it.  I thought the wind had blown a bench over in the courtyard,” said Mrs Owen.  “We laughed about it, didn’t we Mrs Odingsells?”

       The full implica
tion of what has happened is now beginning to reach me and I can see from Sir Anthony’s worried frown that the same thought is occurring to him.  The wife of one of England’s foremost courtiers has been found dead in his house and under circumstances that are not at all clear.  It is entirely possible that Amy could have taken her own life because of her agitated state of mind just before we departed.  Heaven knows that her husband had given her cause for such agitation. 

      
But the whole affair will reflect badly upon Sir Anthony and his household.  Perhaps he should not have left her in an empty house with only two elderly ladies for company.  Perhaps people will think that she was not cared for adequately at Cumnor Place.  Worse still, in view of all the gossip surrounding Sir Robert Dudley and the Queen, people may suspect foul play.

       “We will have to send for the coroner,” says Sir Anthony, “And Sir Robert will have to be informed as quickly as possible
, naturally.”  He looks at the darkening sky.  “Unfortunately it is now too late to do anything of practical value.”

       Sir Anthony summons Mr Bowes and two of the stable lads.  “Help me to carry Lady Dudley up to her chamb
er.  We will lay her down on the bed until we can start the necessary proceedings tomorrow.  Mrs Picto and Mistress Katherine please follow us.  Perhaps you will keep a night vigil over Lady Dudley’s body.”

       Mrs Picto and I light the candles in Amy’s chamber and take up our seats either side of the body in the two chairs that Sir Anthony brings up for us.  We take it in turn to go down to the Great Hall to eat but we have little appetite.  Stiff and uncomfortable we watch over Amy, Lady Dudley, as she begins
her final sleep of all and we’re glad when the first rays of light shine through the shutters in the morning.

       Everything then happens very quickly.  Mr Bowes saddles his horse and prepares to ride to
Windsor where it is believed he will find Sir Robert, given that the court is already there.  The coroner and an undertaker are sent for and arrive with a horse drawn cart and a bier on which Amy’s body is placed.  There will need to be an inquest to ascertain the cause of death so we have not laid out the body, washing it and placing it in a shroud, as would be normal.  The undertaker’s women will perform that final ritual after the members of the coroner’s court have carried out their inspection.  I know what the procedure will be – my friend’s naked body will be placed before the court so that the men can pull it this way and that to search for any marks that may provide clues.  How Amy would have hated to think that she would suffer such an undignified end.

       As they depart, a group of the cottagers at Cumnor has already assembled outsi
de on the road to pay their respects.  News will spread fast and I wonder what the local people will make of it.  We make our way back to the house and wait for events to unfold.

      
Cumnor Place today is a very different household to the one that awoke to the prospect of a fair and a holiday.  The servants speak in whispers and the two older gentlewomen keep to their own chambers.  Country folk are very superstitious and the day after Amy’s body was discovered they’re already claiming to have seen certain signs, a mist over the pond out of which a lone swan took flight, a flock of ravens in the meadow, the shepherd’s dog that sits each night on the terrace by Amy’s door and now howls continually at the sky and a dove that is trying to enter Amy’s shuttered window instead of the dove cote.

       The following day one of the servants returns from Cumnor village and says that all the talk is of how Sir Robert will be free to marry the Queen now that his wife has been murdered.  Sir Anthony is distraught; his reputation it seems is in ruins but his mind is put at ease by the arrival of someone that Amy would not have been pleased to see had she
still been alive.  By midday Blount stands in the courtyard.

       “Welcome Cousin Blount,” says Sir Anthony
, ushering the new arrival into the hall, “We had not expected to see someone from court so quickly.”

       “No indeed,” says Blount, “And I would have been here even sooner had I not stopped overnight at the inn at Abingdon to ascertain what the folk there made of this sad matter.”

       “But Mr Bowes only set off with the news yesterday morning.  Surely he did not reach Windsor in time for you to set off, stay overnight in Abingdon and arrive by this morning.  That would have been a ride for him of merely a few hours and from here to Windsor it’s a distance of almost forty miles.  Where did he find such fast horses?”

       Blount smiles his lop sided smile.  “By strange coincidence, I was already travelling north to Cumnor
yesterday when I met Mr Bowes changing horses at the post inn at Wallingford.  He told me of Lady Dudley’s death and the strange circumstances surrounding it.  So I decided to stay the night at Abingdon to hear what the local gossips had to say.  After all,” he leans back in his chair, “My Lord Robert will not be pleased if suspicion falls on him.”

       “Why should it?  Lady Dudley had a fall down the stairs that is all.  There
is no hint of foul play; it was merely an accident.”