Authors: Fiona Buckley
“We’re on our way now, and that’s that,” Brockley said firmly. “You wouldn’t want to stay behind and neither the mistress nor I would want that, either. Madam?”
“Yes, Brockley,” I said. “We’re on our way.”
And so, calling good-byes to the shivering servants, we started out. As we reached the gates, I glanced back once more and noticed wryly that they had plunged back into the warmth of the house before we had fairly left the premises. The flambeaux were gone. Only the faint glimmer of candlelit windows remained. How long, I wondered, before I would see my home again?
I should never have agreed to this, but it was too late now.
• • •
My family, the Faldenes, had old-fashioned attitudes, and in more ways than one. They clung to the old Catholic religion despite Queen Elizabeth’s legislation against it, and their domestic life was similarly behind
the times. In modern households, it was now customary for the family to dine in private, separately from their servants. At my family home of Faldene House, where I was brought up, everyone dined together and the great hall was still the center of the household, just as it had been in medieval times.
It was also still decorated with the swords and pikes of bygone Faldenes who had fought at Agincourt and Crécy. According to my mother, when she came home in disgrace from the court of King Henry the Eighth, with child by a court gallant whom she would not name—presumably because he was married—her outraged parents and her brother, Herbert, marched her around the hall, pointing at these relics of heroism, and accused her of betraying them. Which was most unfair because many of the family’s bygone heroes had had careers that were as lively off the battlefield as on it, and we had plenty of unofficial relatives in Faldene village and beyond it, too, in the neighboring hamlet of Westwater and in the village attached to my present home of Withysham, five miles away.
I, Ursula Faldene, was the daughter born to my mother after her return home. When my grandparents died, the responsibility for my mother and for me passed to Uncle Herbert and his thin, sour wife, Aunt Tabitha. They discharged it dutifully, I suppose. We weren’t turned out to beg for our bread. That much, I admit.
I was even allowed to share their children’s tutor, and thus I did receive an education, though it was a grudging one. What I did not receive, however, except
from my mother, was kindness. When I was sixteen, she too died, I think worn-out by life in a constant atmosphere of disapproval. I might well have ended my days as unpaid dogsbody to my aunt and accounts clerk to my uncle (who eventually realized that an educated Ursula could be of more use than an illiterate one), except that I caught the eye of Gerald Blanchard, son of a neighbor.
Unfortunately, Gerald was betrothed to my well-dowered cousin Mary, daughter of Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha. I suppose it was natural for our respective families to be enraged when we eloped.
We never regretted it, though. With Gerald, I traveled to Antwerp, where he worked for the queen’s financier, Sir Thomas Gresham, and it was Gerald who gave me my dark-haired daughter, Meg. When he died of smallpox, Meg and I came home to England and an uncertain future, because neither the Faldenes nor the Blanchards were willing to help us. Mercifully, we had other friends, including Gresham, who were more generous. Strings were pulled; arrangements were made. Foster parents were found for Meg, and Ursula Blanchard, impoverished widow, became a Lady of the Queen’s Presence Chamber, and after a time, married again, this time to a Frenchman, Matthew de la Roche.
That was a passionate union but a doomed one, for he was Elizabeth’s enemy, working against her, which too often drove us apart. Now Matthew too was dead, of a summer plague, and I was widowed once more, but by this time I was well provided for. I was the chatelaine of Withysham, dignified and comfortable, with profitable land attached to it. I had expected to
live there, retired from court life and united with my daughter at last, and—well, yes—to enjoy the chagrin of Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha at having their despised and baseborn niece as a well-off, well-respected, and extremely well-dressed neighbor.
What I didn’t expect was to be hunted up by a distracted Aunt Tabitha and dragged, not by coercion but by pleading, back to Faldene and put in the position of one who could be their savior, if only I would let bygones be bygones and agree.
It had happened so quickly. Only twenty-four hours before that dismal dawn start, I had woken to what I thought would be an ordinary day at home. Before midday, I had been confronted in my own parlor by an Aunt Tabitha I hardly recognized, dressed in an old cloak that she must have snatched up without looking at, and with her gray hair escaping from a cap that didn’t even look clean and a desperate expression. Asked what the matter was, she said: “We need your help. Our son . . . your cousin Edward . . . he has gone to Scotland and . . . I think he’s gone to do something . . . something that people might say is wrong . . .”
“To do with Mary Stuart?” I asked sharply. Mary Stuart was Queen Elizabeth’s rival for the throne of England and she was in Scotland. And the Faldenes had conspired on her behalf on a previous occasion.
“Yes. Yes! He’s been before. Your uncle and I have been worried for a long time. I wanted to ask your advice in the summer, before you went off to court, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I could trust you. Not after what you did to my husband. Only now . . . we’re all frightened. His wife is frightened too and . . . Ursula, you’re the only person now that we
dare
trust. You’re family. We want you to go after him and bring him back and . . . stop him before it’s too late! It would be in the interests of the queen . . . yes, I know we’re Catholics, but we can’t let Edward risk himself like this . . . young people can be so passionate . . . Ursula, please help us!”
I asked her to tell me what she meant. “If it’s in Elizabeth’s interest,” I said, “I will help you if I can.”
“It
would
be to the queen’s advantage,” said Aunt Tabitha earnestly. “We want Edward to stop what he’s doing—stop completely. Ursula, come back to Faldene with me. Your uncle’s there, and Helene, Edward’s wife. They want to talk to you too. Come
now,
” Aunt Tabitha implored me. “Then I won’t have to explain it all twice.”
An hour later, I was in Faldene House, sitting by the hearth in the great hall. The fire was well made up against the cold and on a nearby table stood glasses and a wine jug, meat pies, and sweet cakes. A hovering servant girl was ready to refill glasses and offer the dishes.
Aunt Tabitha set great store by the social niceties. Her servants were so well trained that they were sometimes attentive to irritation point, and my aunt would always proffer refreshment to a visitor, no matter how odd or harassing the circumstances. When the Faldenes
went in for conspiracy before, Uncle Herbert had been arrested, and according to my kitchenmaids, who had kinfolk in service at Faldene, she had even offered food and drink to the men who came to do the arresting.
My uncle owed that unhappy experience to me. When I was at court, I had done rather more than walk, dance, and ride with Queen Elizabeth, and occasionally, as a privilege, carry her prayer book and hand it to her in chapel. I had also undertaken a number of confidential and sometimes dangerous tasks for her Secretary of State, Sir William Cecil. Withysham had been granted to me in payment for one of those tasks. It was my success in another that had led to Uncle Herbert’s removal, for several months, to the Tower of London.
In other words, I had first stolen his daughter’s betrothed and then sent my uncle himself to jail. It was hardly surprising that he detested me. Nevertheless, it was through the episode of the Tower that he and my aunt had learned of my secret other life. Now I sat sipping their wine and thinking that all this had an ironic side to it. In this hall, I had been shouted at and bullied and even beaten; in this hall I had wept with pain, trembled with fear, and seethed with rage that I dared not express. Now I was the one with the power. Today, they were in such desperation that they wanted to call on my services themselves.
• • •
It was plain enough, of course, that my cousin Edward was in some way breaking the law. That gave me a qualm, but if whatever was required of me really was in Queen Elizabeth’s interests, then surely I could do it,
and keep my family’s counsel as well. For one thing, although in the past I had suffered unkindness at their hands, I had not actually
wanted
to send my uncle to the Tower and certainly didn’t wish to do so again. Whatever pain he and my aunt had caused me in my childhood, I had already done them more than enough harm to outweigh it.
Also, like it or not, Aunt Tabitha was right: the Faldenes were family, and as I had never known my father, they were the only family I had. Big, fleshy Herbert Faldene, with his inborn stinginess and his gout, was nevertheless my uncle, my mother’s brother, and his son Edward, Helene’s husband, was still my cousin. Anyway, there were children involved.
When the rest of the family had joined me by the fire, Helene was the first to speak.
“You have come to see us at my mother-in-law’s plea. Does that mean you will help us? I beg you that you will, madame.” Helene had been brought up in France and had retained French mannerisms. Marriage, indeed, hadn’t changed her at all as far as I could see. She was still the same lanky young woman I had first met three years ago, with the same pale complexion, mousy hair, and round shoulders. “I have two little girls,” she said. “If anything befalls Edward, they will be fatherless.” She also retained the high-pitched and self-righteous voice that had always set my teeth on edge.
“It is a dreadful thing for children to be deprived of a father,” said Aunt Tabitha.
“He would be a martyr,” said Helene, “and that is noble—but . . .”
I couldn’t quite resist letting them know that old
hurts still rankled. “You feel that the substance might be better than even the most admirable shadow?” I said caustically. I turned to Aunt Tabitha. “I had no father,” I said. “And my daughter, Meg, lost hers and much you cared.”
“Please, Ursula.” It was extraordinary to hear that tone of appeal in my aunt’s voice.
My uncle was less restrained. “Your mother was always gentle in her manners, I’ll grant her that. You must take after your father—whoever he was,” he said. He leaned toward me as he spoke, his stiff, heavily padded red doublet creasing across his ample stomach. His right foot, sliding forward, bumped into the table leg. He yelped. “Damnable gout! It’s the curse of my life. Despite the fact that we didn’t know who on earth your father was, my wench, we gave you a home and an education. You owe us something. Without a good upbringing, you would not have been acceptable at court. Do you forget that?”
“Herbert, I beg you!” Aunt Tabitha protested, and Helene, taking out a handkerchief, wiped tears from her eyes. Her distress was obviously real, and in spite of myself, I felt sorry for her.
“You are our only hope,” she said tearfully. “Please don’t fail us!”
“I spoke my mind,” I said. “I admit I have a sharp tongue.” My second husband’s nickname for me had been Saltspoon. My saltiness was part of my attraction for him, although from the moment we were wed, he did his best to make me sweeter. Poor Matthew.
I would never hear him call me Saltspoon again.
No use to think of Matthew now. “Tell me the full
story,” I said. “My cousin Edward, I take it, has been dabbling in . . .” I was going to say
treason
but checked myself “. . . in politics.”
“As did your French husband, Matthew de la Roche,” said Uncle Herbert. “In fact, they were in touch, working together.”
The story came out, told by first one and then another. Being Catholic, my family did not regard Queen Elizabeth as the rightful monarch since their Church didn’t acknowledge that her parents, King Henry the Eighth and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, were ever lawfully married. For Catholics, the true queen was Mary Stuart of Scotland, an undoubtedly legitimate descendant of King Henry the Seventh.
“As you well know,” said Uncle Herbert grimly, “I was imprisoned for the crime of helping to gather money for her and collecting information about English households willing to support her claim. Ah, that Tower! The cold! I confess it—when I was freed, I feared to go on with the work, but my son Edward volunteered in my stead and his contact was Matthew de la Roche.”
“I was so proud of him,” said Helene mournfully. “But . . .”
“I knew that Matthew was engaged in dealings of this kind,” I said. “But we never discussed them and I had no idea that he was still in touch with Faldene.”
“As part of his work,” said Uncle Herbert, “your husband compiled a list of households friendly to Mary and sent it to Scotland. Edward was one of his informants, one of many, of course. When the civil war broke out in France, the work virtually came to a halt,
but last year, after the war had ended, Edward went to France.”
“He didn’t go on . . . on political business, not at first,” said Helene. “His purpose, madame, was to sell my property there. We hoped to use the money to buy a house here.”
“Edward, as you know,” said Uncle Herbert, “is not our eldest son. Faldene will eventually go to his elder brother, Francis. Edward and his family are welcome here while we live, but they cannot stay here forever.”
“Edward managed the sale and brought the money home,” said Helene. “But while he was in France, he also called upon your husband, the Seigneur de la Roche.”
“Did he? I had no idea.” I spoke bleakly, thinking with sorrow how much Matthew and I had had to conceal from each other. “I suppose I had come back to England by then,” I added.
Matthew and I had lived together in France for a while, and my visit to England the previous spring should only have been a brief absence from him, to deal with a family matter. But first one thing and then another had intervened to keep me on this side of the Channel, and then the plague had come and taken Matthew’s life.