The Fugitive Queen (11 page)

Find out if the said Mary Stuart had tried to blow her husband up the February before last, as well! A hateful task and one
which I couldn't for the life of me see a way of accomplishing. All this, and the disaster with Harry, too. It was too much.

I did not speak of that last errand to Ryder but he saw in my face that I felt as though I were being pushed beyond endurance. “Mistress Stannard,” he said gently, “you should retire to your chamber. You need sleep. Mistress Jester and Meg are already asleep, I fancy.”

“Yes. They went up before you came back.”

“Join them. Things will look better in the morning.”

 • • • 

That night, since it was our first in this unfamiliar place, I had sent Meg to share the same room as Sybil and myself. She slept well, to my relief. I slept soundly, too. I hadn't expected to, but sheer exhaustion saw to it for me. I can't say, however, that the outlook seemed any better when I woke in the morning. In fact, it seemed just as harassing as ever. I still had no idea what to do about Harry or how to carry out Cecil's impossible mission in Bolton. I felt as though I were struggling along, head down against a strong, cold wind.

Pen and the others reached Tyesdale by noon. I had sent Ryder back along the track to meet them and make sure that they found the way. They had, of course, already heard of Harry's death, and their mood was somber. Pen and Dale looked frightened, as well they might.

However, as it happened, there was something at Tyesdale to lighten the air for us all. Agnes Appletree had duly found a couple of girls and set them to cleaning the tower rooms. They were laborers' daughters, glad enough to earn a little and willing to work. “Feeb”—whose name was probably Phoebe though I never inquired into the matter—was only about thirteen and was lumpish and slow, almost to the point of being a lackwit, but wiry little Bess, who though so small was actually about seventeen, seemed bright enough. They both wore clogs all the time and we could tell from a distance whose footsteps were whose. Tom Smith, who had liked Harry well enough, but was too
young and naturally lively to keep a sad face for long, found this amusing and said so.

“Feeb goes Clop, Clop, Clop,” he said, “and Bess goes clip-clop, clip-clop. Don't you, Bess? If I nickname you Bess Clip-clop, will you mind?”

“Nay, I'll not mind. Been called worse than that when I annoy my da,” Bess informed him with a grin.

Unlike Feeb, she didn't mind the Tyesdale dogs, either. I had by now made friends with the dogs and learned from the Appletrees that their names were Gambol and Grumble. They weren't used for hunting, but were guard dogs and ratters. Feeb was scared of them but Bess liked them and said that they regularly sired puppies on her father's brindle bitch, Streaks. I gave her the job of feeding them.

Agnes chivvied the two girls cheerfully about and I had the impression that in contrast to Whitely, she enjoyed having some life and bustle about the house, to the point that she kept on forgetting that the rest of us were in a state of grief. I couldn't reprove her for that, for after all, she had never seen Harry, and if Tom Smith could smile then surely Agnes could.

For the time being, I decided, reluctantly and angrily, but of necessity, I must accept that I could do no more about Harry. Though I would find a way of inquiring further, somehow, sometime, I told myself. Information would reach me or I would stumble across something significant and I didn't intend to leave Yorkshire until it happened. It was plain that Ryder and Dodd felt the same.

Meanwhile, I must turn to my other tasks, whether I liked them or not. The one immediately to hand was Tyesdale itself. From the moment that Pen arrived, I had realized that the impetus for rescuing it would have to come from me. Pen, who was after all the official mistress of the house and should therefore be the one most concerned about its condition, wasn't interested.

Pen, in fact, had taken an instant dislike to her new possession. She walked around it, wrinkling her nose with disapproval, and then told me bluntly that she thought it was a horrible place. She wanted to go home, to Lockhill or Hawkswood or
Withysham, she didn't mind which, as long as she didn't have to stay here. She didn't care if Tyesdale fell down around her ears; in fact she wished it would.

I sighed. Tyesdale was Pen's property and Pen was old enough to take charge. But now it seemed that I must shoulder the full weight of it, on top of all my other tasks. Well, I had better get on with it. I had brought a fair supply of money with me, but I would have to go into the Tyesdale finances, I thought. Dudley had told me that he had been receiving the profits from the wool and produce, and that he had allocated a sufficient sum to be kept back for the maintenance of the house and to pay its servants. I wondered how much of it had been used for that and how much had gone to Master Whitely's tailor.

In addition to all this, on our second night there, I sent Meg to share her bed with Pen, and Pen roused me at midnight because Meg was having bad dreams. I had to waken her gently and take her back to sleep with me. I had thought she was getting over her fright, but clearly it wasn't going to be as easy as that. During the night, she woke me twice more, crying out in distress, and I had to shake her back to consciousness and comfort her. I got up next morning feeling jaded. I hoped that I would at least find Pen in a more compliant mood but it was plain enough before we had broken our fasts that my irritating ward was still sulking.

And then, of course, the neighbors came to call.

The morning was bright and windy and I decided to try what fresh air and distraction could do for Meg. I called Brockley from the little chapel where he was interestedly peering into various cupboards and crannies and asked him to take her out for a ride. “Let her practice her falconry with the merlin, Joy.”

Meg was nervous. “Suppose we meet those men again?”

“They sent you back,” I reminded her gently. “I don't think you are in any danger. I'll tell Brockley not to go far from the house. See if you can bring down enough small birds to make a pie for supper.”

Meg accepted that, and went out accordingly. I then told Whitely that as steward of Tyesdale, he should have made sure that the abandoned plow in the barley field was removed and would he do so at once, and after that I wrote a letter to Sir Francis Knollys at Bolton Castle.

I knew I should also write to Hugh but I shrank from putting the news concerning Harry down on paper yetawhile. Knollys, though, would be expecting to hear from me very soon. Though Dudley hadn't sent a courier ahead to Tyesdale, Elizabeth had sent one to Bolton to smooth the way into the castle for me. Ryder, borrowing the gray cob once more, took the letter to Bolton for me. “Now for Pen,” I said to Sybil. “I must do something about her but I wish I knew how to deal with her.”

“I think, Mistress Stannard, that Pen is still not really well. She wasn't truly fit for the ride yesterday, except that we could see we were a trouble to the farmer and his family. The way they all looked at us when we went downstairs yesterday morning . . .”

“Yes. I see. You think that her bad temper is partly because she still feels out of sorts?”

“Yes, I do. My daughter never had this particular problem, but as a young woman, I did and I know what it's like. It will pass presently.”

“Very well.” I was relieved to think that perhaps I need not rebuke Pen, for the prospect gave me no pleasure. I found her in the parlor, sitting by the empty hearth and staring miserably at the fire irons. She stood up politely as I came in, but her face was mutinous and she obviously expected a lecture. Instead, I smiled and signed to her to be seated again.

“Pen, I think you need some further rest and quiet. Now, I want to examine the account books this morning. They'll tell us a good deal about the estate—and about Master Whitely's honesty. Will you help? It won't be arduous. We can sit in here—it's pleasanter and quieter than the hall—and I'll have a fire lit here instead. It's supposed to be July but it's astonishingly cold.”

Unlike most girls, Pen enjoyed figurework. For a moment, her desire to go on sulking visibly clashed with the prospect of an interesting task beside a comforting hearth. Then the accounts won and she agreed, if not altogether graciously.

I went to give orders about the fire and find the ledgers, taking Sybil with me for moral support in case Whitely proved difficult. But he had no doubt expected the request. He led the way to his office without demur.

I hadn't paid much attention to it when I wrote to the constable on the day of our arrival. Now I noted that it was a dull little room with plain, cheap paneling, and that its contents consisted only of a table, a writing set, a small coffer, and a shelf of ledgers, bound in brown leather, much like the ones my uncle Herbert had. “I keep a
little
money in the coffer,” Whitely said in his mincing way, opening it to show us, “and a few unpaid bills, but I'm a
tidy-minded man and I don't hold with keeping documents too long; they just get into a dusty muddle, to my way of thinking. I put the figures in the ledgers and that's where I look them up if I need to.”

He pulled a ledger off the shelf. “This has the incomings and outgoings for the last three and a half years. I understand double-entry bookkeeping and I trust you'll find
everything
in order.”

Thanking him, I carried it back to the parlor, where I found Agnes on her knees, encouraging the fire with bellows. As I came in, she rose, bobbed, and took herself off to the kitchen, leaving me and Pen alone. Knowing that we would have to go into estate matters, I had included an abacus in the baggage. Equipped with this, we settled down in the warmth to study the pages of notes and figures.

Sybil and Dale had gone upstairs to brush and press clothes that had become squashed in the pack-hampers. Bess and Feeb were cleaning the chapel. Smith and Dodd were outside with Jamie, tending the horses and mucking out the stables. For all of half an hour, the various members of the household worked undisturbed.

Pen and I found that the June wool clip had fetched less this year than last and wondered why, and we noted that the diggings I had observed when I arrived were indeed an abortive attempt at coal mining. Early in the ledger, three years before, we found a record of the payment to a company of prospectors. A note in the margin said that little coal had been found and the attempt had been abandoned.

Purchases of freshwater fish loomed annoyingly large. If Tyesdale's smelly, stagnant moat had been properly looked after, it could have supported a good population of tasty fish. There were no entries whatsoever concerning the repair or replacement of furnishings. The ledger seemed to be meticulously kept, but behind it was a picture that raised questions.

Then the peace was broken. The geese and hens in the courtyard started to cackle; Jamie's voice was heard raised in tones of inquiry; and then Agnes came knocking on the parlor door.

“If it please you, Mistress Stannard, there's folk to visit!”

 • • • 

“You're the hostess,” I said to Pen, daring her to resume her sulks in front of company. She took the hint and accompanied me into the hall, where we were confronted by a large, hearty lady in a black-and-white outfit of impressive formality compared to the plain gowns and narrow ruffs we had donned for a working morning. She stood in the middle of the floor like the fabled Colossus: vast farthingale, elaborate ruff, huge puffed sleeves encasing arms as meaty as legs of mutton. With her were two equally large and hearty young men. The hall looked overcrowded.

The lady surged forward, brushing Agnes aside and booming that she was Mistress Cecily Moss, and these were her boys, Peter and Clem, short for Clement. They bowed. They too were carefully dressed but such mighty hulks of muscle would have looked better in farmers' britches and jerkins. They had broad faces, broad smiles, and round, ingenuous blue eyes. Amiable souls, I thought, but without much intellect. The younger one, Clem, might be fractionally brighter than his brother; that was all.

“Good Catholic names; I make no bones about it,” bellowed Cecily. “We bow to t'law once a month in Fritton church but t'whole world knows what we think.” Her surroundings were probably deafened regularly by Cecily Moss telling them what she thought. “Tyesdale was always a Catholic house, as well,” thundered the lady. “Used to have its own chaplain till t'ould fellow died. Then there was an wandering priest that stayed here for a winter—there's always a few about; they come over from t'Continent to minister to t'faithful, and go from place to place, but they don't stop anywhere long in case t'law gets after them. Homegrown priests get winked at, but t'law doesn't like t'foreigners.”

“Tyesdale is still Catholic,” I told her. “This is the new owner, Mistress Penelope Mason, who is from a Catholic family in Berkshire.”

“Thee's welcome among us!” roared Mistress Moss to Pen, who took a step backward in alarm.

I introduced myself as Penelope's guardian, asked Agnes to bring refreshments, and led us back to the parlor, where I gave the largest stool to Cecily. Her farthingale and her puffed and quilted arms overflowed it, bulging out in all directions. “How did you know we had arrived?” I asked as we seated ourselves.

“Stayed at Grimsdales', last stop before Tyesdale, didn't thee?” said Cecily. Agnes came in with oatcakes, a jug of ale, and some pewter mugs, and set them before us. “Word soon gets round. Master Grimsdale were out on t'hills yesterday and met our shepherd. You'll have others calling soon. We're always interested in new folk hereabouts—we don't get so many. Looking for a match for t'lass here, so I hear?” said Cecily, engulfing oatcakes with gusto.

I had been wondering how best to go about seeking a match for Pen. It seemed that I need wonder no more. We wouldn't have to search for prospects. They would come to us. This was the first contingent.