The Dandelion Seed (20 page)

Annabelle waited below while Frances visited the duke in his chambers.

Henry Howard was very pleased to see Frances; he had always been fond of her. But today he was not well. His gout had become very bad and he was not in a very good mood.

‘Ah,’ he snarled as she came in. ‘Calling for your wedding present, are you? I suppose you are expecting me to die and that you might not get it.’

Frances smiled that rare smile that lighted up her cold countenance in a most charming manner. ‘Now, Uncle, I have come to cheer you up,’ she said, ignoring his tone. ‘I heard you had a touch of the gout so I have brought some balm for you.’

‘Take it away!’ he snarled. ‘I do not want any quack experimenting on me.’

But Frances clung to him coyly, putting her arm about his neck. ‘Oh, don’t be such an old grouse,’ she cooed.

Uncle Henry’s stern thin face immediately relaxed as he relented. He had a soft spot for women. ‘Well, poppet, what is it you want of me?’ he asked. ‘Since you have got rid of young Essex and are about to marry the King’s favourite boy, I should have thought that you had obtained all your desires.’

‘It is that man Overbury,’ said Frances pettishly. ‘Do you know what he called me?’ She repeated Overbury’s slander.

A grim smile played around the old man’s lips. Whatever the truth, Frances was a Howard and no one had any business saying things like that, he thought. ‘Oh, he did, did he?’ His eyebrows went up. ‘And you want me to defend you, eh?’

‘Please, Uncle. Did you know that he has written a dreadful poem about me?’

‘Looks like the fellow’s causing trouble,’ pondered Uncle Henry. ‘I will see what can be done for you.’

‘I will tell you a secret, if you promise,’ she persisted.

‘All right, I promise,’ said Henry, always eager for gossip. ‘What is the secret?’

‘His late Royal Highness left a bastard behind.’ Frances delivered this message quickly and dramatically.

Uncle Henry stared at her with amusement. ‘Well, well, little Frances, don’t tell me that you have been hiding the heir to the throne all this time?’

‘No, not me, silly,’ giggled Frances. ‘It’s a young girl in Essex.’

‘Sounds interesting. Tell me more.’

Frances then told him of Marcelle’s secret.

‘Can I rely on this information?’ Henry asked Frances.

‘Oh, yes, I have witnesses – Annabelle, my waiting maid, and also a girl called Ruth, who lives in the village and spent the night in the barn with Lord Hay who was supposed to be guarding His Highness.’

‘Well, ’tis certainly worth investigating,’ the old man murmured, stroking his pointed beard which was streaked with grey.

‘I will have to go now, Uncle Henry. You will do what you can for me, won’t you?’

‘You know I will, you little minx.’

Smiling sweetly, Frances left the large stuffy room. She felt well satisfied by her visit.

Annabelle was still waiting patiently for her downstairs and when she saw Frances’ triumphant look as she gracefully descended the wide oak stairs, she knew her mistress had got whatever it was she had come for. What she did not know of course, was that little Marcelle was to be sacrificed.

At Craig Alva, the lovely summer had come and was almost gone. Marcelle was very proud of Roger, her baby son, who sat up and cooed and laughed all that long summer as he swung in his homemade crib from the big oak tree. The baby thrived, the apples grew heavy on the boughs and the soft currants, black and shiny, were ready to be picked. While the sturdy Wanda cleaned the house, Marcelle dressed in a blue sun bonnet, picked the fruit and kept an eye on Roger’s curly head as he lay kicking and gurgling beneath the leafy green branches.

One afternoon, a carriage travelling along the narrow road outside, slowed down and then halted outside the gate. A servant came in and asked if the gentleman in the carriage could come into the shady garden to rest awhile. When Marcelle gave her permission, a tall distinguished old man climbed down from the carriage and walked slowly down the path with the aid of a stick. He was a cautious-looking gentleman in a dark velvet suit with a stiff white lace ruff around his neck.

Marcelle came forward and showed him to the old oak bench where he could sit in the shade to rest. The old man stayed for a while, drinking the cool ale that Wanda brought to him and frequently gazing at Roger who was enjoying all the extra attention.

‘He is a fine boy,’ he told Marcelle. ‘Such fine colouring. Only once in my life did I know of a family with such deep red hair and such bonny brown eyes. You must be very proud of him, my dear.’

Marcelle blushed shyly.

The gentleman did not stay long, and after thanking Marcelle and Wanda for their hospitality, he limped away down the path to the waiting carriage.

The weeks passed and when autumn gave way to winter, the frost lay like a silver blanket on the lawn. Each evening Marcelle would sit in front of the log fire knitting or working on a large tapestry – a country scene – which was to hang on the wall of the sitting room. One evening at about dusk as the needles clicked and the shadows leaped around the walls and the candles flickered, there was suddenly a tap at the front door. Marcelle and Wanda lifted their eyes from their work and then looked at each other, wondering who it could be at this time of day between dark and light. Visitors did not come calling at dusk; the road from the village was too dangerous at night.

Wanda rose and went to open the door. A little boy stood out there. His nose was red and he wore ragged trousers. ‘Yer muvver wants ter see yer,’ he told Wanda.

Wanda’s big moon face turned deathly white. ‘Why, what’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘I dunno,’ the boy replied with a shrug, ‘but they told me to say it’s a matter of life or death.’

And before Wanda had time to reply, the boy had turned and disappeared into the grey mist.

‘Oh dear!’ Wanda stood with her hands over her big wide mouth in shock. ‘What am I going to do? Something’s wrong with me ma.’

‘You had better go before it gets too dark,’ said Marcelle, standing beside her and trying to console her.

‘I can’t leave you alone all night. How am I going to get back?’ wailed Wanda.

‘Now please go,’ pleaded Marcelle. ‘I do not mind being alone. I am not nervous any more, not since Roger was born.’ She place a cloak around Wanda’s shoulders urging her towards the door. ‘Now take the lantern, dear, and mind how you go. Even if you don’t come back until the morning I will be all right.’

Fussing and clucking like an old hen, Wanda departed with the lantern swinging in the breeze and her dark cloak flapping like the wings of a bat.

After Wanda had disappeard, Marcelle closed and locked the door and retired to bed. She slept peacefully with her little babe asleep in his cot in the corner of the room. Soon after midnight, a pale wintry moon appeared from behind the clouds and the long dark shadows of two men threw eerie shapes over the garden path as they crept stealthily towards the house. They crouched down low and stopped just below a window. Then one man mounted on the other’s shoulders and, with the aid of a knife, he severed open the window and jumped through, dropping lightly inside the room. He then reached out of the window to assist his companion.

In the silence of the night, an owl screeched. A dog barked in the distance and Marcelle turned restlessly in bed. There was a hoarse whisper as one man indicated to the other the cot in the corner containing the sleeping babe. He reached out and swiftly picked up the little bundle. The baby let out a plaintive cry and Marcelle awoke immediately. As her terrified gaze caught sight of an evil face looking down at her, she opened her mouth to scream but a pillow descended on her face. In wild panic, she kicked and fought hard; she saw stars, then a blinding flash, and then knew no more.

A hoarse voice in the dark said: ‘’Ere, take it easy. We ain’t supposed to kill the woman, only snatch the nipper.’

Then out of the window they went, off into the night taking Roger, Marcelle’s son, away out of her life. And all the while little Roger was calling out for his mother as he was roughly thrust into a smelly cloak.

The horsemen were joined by another man who had been acting as a look-out on the road, and the three men, ruffians who did the dirty work for the Howard family, went speeding away through the silent village.

Down in the village, Wanda sat on a low rocking stool in the shack where her old mother lived and she heard the rattle of the horses’ hooves echoing in the quiet of the night. Mounted men! What could be happening? They could only be highwaymen, she thought, since they were travelling towards London.

Wanda’s old mother, wheezed and coughed from her bed in the corner of the shack. ‘I don’t know what made ye think something was wrong wi me,’ she grumbled. ‘Spoilt me night’s rest, ye have, dropping in on me sudden like that.’

‘I told you once, Mother, a boy brought me a message,’ replied Wanda irritably. ‘Don’t think I fancy sitting up here all night.’

‘Having a game, some boy was,’ argued the old lady. ‘What did he look like?’

‘Got a feeling it was Ruth’s little brother,’ replied Wanda.

‘Well then, there you goes,’ said the old lady. ‘Don’t like you, does she? Gettin’ her own back, she was.’ The old lady cackled and coughed. ‘Always a bit soft, you was.’

Wanda hunched her big shoulders. ‘Hurry up, morning,’ she cried. ‘I am worried over Marcelle and the baby; there seems some strange goings-on this night.’ But gradually her large head nodded and she dozed off. She awoke with a start some time later, just as the dawn washed the old wooden walls of the shack with a rosy glow. The fire had sunk low so Wanda threw on a few logs and watched as the sparks started to fly up the chimney. Taking a quick look at her mother, who was still snoring loudly, Wanda left the shack and started on her way back to her little mistress. She took the short cut over the fields tripping occasionally on some frozen ruts filled with ice. The sun was not yet warm enough to thaw the ground properly. She squelched and puffed her way sturdily towards the house. It was all very silent, and there was a strange feeling in the air, like the stillness before a storm.

The tenant farmer and his son were shovelling manure as Wanda tore past. The elder man looked round in bewilderment to see Wanda at this time of the morning rushing along, puffing like a pair of bellows and besplattered with mud. He was still gazing towards the house she had disappeared into when she suddenly reappeared screaming.

‘Help!’ she shouted, the range of her strident voice loud and clear in the still morning air. ‘My lady has been murdered and the baby stolen. Fetch a priest and the doctor.’

The farmer rushed over to Wanda and followed her into the house. In no time, Marcelle’s room was full of gawping people all jabbering excitedly as they looked at Marcelle’s scrumpled body on the bed, still and white as death, her head twisted to one side. And in the corner their eyes gazed at the empty cot as if expecting a miracle to take place and the missing baby to reappear.

The farmer’s wife calmed the hysterical Wanda, and then sent her son on horseback to the church on the hill to fetch the priest.

The new young parson came immediately, riding behind the farmer’s son. On arriving at the house he quickly dispersed the crowd of boys that had gathered outside. Then he shooed the neighbours out of Marcelle’s room and set about reviving Marcelle as best he could. He bent down and listened to her shallow breathing. ‘Thank God,’ he whispered to himself; she had not quite left this earth yet. The farmer’s wife sponged Marcelle’s body, and got herbs from the garden and held them under her nose. In the meantime the farmer was riding hell for leather to the town to get the apothecary.

Wanda began to recover from her shock and sat close to the bed watching her little mistress for real signs of life. To her immense relief, Marcelle’s heavy eye-lids started to flutter as slowly but surely life came back into the shattered body. Marcelle tried to struggle feebly and then dreadful chilling screams came from her trembling lips.

Wanda held her close, knowing that she was trying to tell them what had happened to the baby but then Marcelle had drifted back into unconsciousness.

The doctor had arrived and stated that there was no doubt that Marcelle had suffered an extensive shock and there were signs that her neck had been dislocated. She would require great care for quite a while, he told them.

‘But who could have taken the child?’ sobbed Wanda. ‘Someone has taken the baby!’

The doctor was very sympathetic. It would be reported of course, but so far no one knew what had happened.

‘But I heard them!’ cried Wanda. ‘I heard them riding towards London, I did!’

‘But, my dear, that is not proof, just because you heard riders in the night,’ he said kindly. ‘I will get in touch with her husband if it is at all possible.’

With tears of desperation running down her face, Wanda was insistent. ‘Find Ruth!’ she cried. ‘She used to be dairymaid here. She sent her brother to get me to leave the house. Something strange has definitely gone on.’

The elders of the village had sent for Ruth but they were informed that she had left in a grand carriage, or so the village gossips said. And her little brother only stared open-mouthed when they questioned him. All sorts of rumours spread like wildfire, and a constant little knot of people stood outside the house to stare, while there was plenty of talk of vampires and other evil things that swooped down in the night