The Fugitive Queen (12 page)

“Possibly,” I said, glancing sideways at the boys. Peter and Clem, who had planted themselves on the window seat, had said scarcely anything, but seemed to be studying Pen, though not in an altogether pleasing fashion. To my eyes, they resembled farmers at a fair, considering the merits of a heifer. On her side, Pen was eyeing them as though they were strange specimens in a menagerie.

“No doubt thee'll find someone quick enough. Plenty of good Catholic houses in Yorkshire, even if this place is lonely,” Mistress Moss told me. “Fritton's nobbut a village, though the church is fine enough. There's t'Thwaites of Fernthorpe, I suppose—their land marches with yours on the west. Their place used to be t'biggest round here till t'ould man made a fool of hisself—he were a young man then—and got mixed up in a rising and lost half his land. You know of t'Thwaites?”

“Not by name, Mistress Moss, though we've heard of their misfortunes. We had heard of you, though,” Pen said, and then
hesitated, glancing at me as if not sure whether she ought to have spoken or not. On receiving a nod of encouragement, she added: “We've heard of some people called Holme, too, at a place called Lapwings.”

“Ah, yes, we know t'Holme family very well,” said Cecily, and her two boys moved restlessly as though considering whether to say something or not, but seemed to decide against.

“T'Thwaites often get overlooked. Too unsociable,” Cecily said, “and there's no Mistress Thwaite now. Will Thwaite's been a widower these many years. But t'son's a young fellow and I did hear they were looking for a lass for Andrew, though I fancy they're aiming high. Mighty keen on money, t'Thwaites are, ever since they lost so much. Will means Andrew to marry it! He was after one of t'Holme girls, till he found out their dowries weren't nowt to get excited about. Not to be wondered at, seeing there's five o' them. Hah! Likely enough Andrew'll end up with some smallholder's girl with a dozen chickens and half a pig to her name!”

From the window seat, Clem said: “And talk o' t'devil! Here t'Thwaites come now. Will and Andrew both. Just riding through t'gatehouse, they are.”

Cecily heaved herself off the stool. “Time for us to leave, then. You've all to do here, that I can see, and you won't want crowds of guests all at one time.”

“Before you go,” I said swiftly, “we had a very bad experience on the way here.” Briefly, I told her the tale of how Meg was kidnapped and Harry slain. “Would you have any idea who could have been responsible?”

All three Mosses exclaimed in horror, with shaking heads. “This whole district's been quiet this last year,” Cecily told us. “There were the robber Morley, and he were a nuisance, but he was caught—they hanged him later—three months back and he worked alone, any road.”

“And he didn't go in for kidnapping,” said Clem. “Nor killing, neither. Just used t'hold folk up on t'road and take their valuables. That's shocking, that is. Nay, we've no idea who that could have been.”

“But we'll warn all our neighbors,” his brother said.

“See if t'Thwaites know owt,” said Cecily. “We'll be off. We'll see ourselves out. We brought a groom and told him to leave t'horses saddled. Good day to you all, and God bless, and we'll meet again before long, I don't doubt. Come, boys.”

We saw them to the main door. Whitely and the Thwaites, arriving at the foot of the steps at the same moment, stood aside while Cecily and her colossal skirts billowed down them, with her sons following. As our steward led the Thwaite family up to the door and we began welcoming our second batch of guests that morning, we could hear Cecily outside, bawling for her groom.

It was just chance that after exchanging greetings and introductions with the Thwaites, I lingered beside a window that chanced to be slightly open. As Cecily was being helped to mount her massive horse, which looked as though it had been bred to carry a knight in full armor, I heard her speak to her sons. If it had been anyone else, I probably wouldn't have caught the words, but Mistress Moss had a most exceptional larynx and didn't seem to be aware of it.

“She's a nice enough lass but t'poor thing's as plain as a yard of skim milk and I doubt she's got the strength to churn a pound of butter, and t'state that house has fallen into—you'll be better off with Kate and Mabel Holme, so we'll stick to t'ould arrangement. What do you say?”

Peter and Clem, who were mounting their own horses, didn't have quite the resounding voices of their mother, but their replies, though brief, were also resonant enough to reach my window. As they swung into their saddles, they both said the same thing at the same moment.

“Aye.”

 • • • 

Pen was on the other side of the hall, taking her visitors' cloaks, behaving, thank goodness, like a dignified hostess. Sybil and Dale had come downstairs, and Pen handed the cloaks to Dale, asking her to hang them up. She had not overheard the Moss
family's unflattering verdict on her charms. No one had heard but me. I smiled at her approvingly and went to join her.

Whitely had disappeared. Agnes, redder than ever with excitement, and apparently more pleased than otherwise at the prospect of providing refreshments for another set of guests, scurried off to the kitchen to fetch more oatcakes. I led the company back to the parlor.

Our few casual words at Grimsdales' farm must have swept across the neighborhood like the rainstorm two days ago. Maybe, I thought, the Grimsdales hadn't intentionally sold news of us—just gossiped to some chance-met acquaintance. First the Moss family, now the Thwaites. In view of Cecily Moss's comments, I couldn't doubt that father and son were here to introduce Andrew and inspect Pen. A few minutes later, I had decided that I didn't like it.

The Moss family had made me slightly uncomfortable but although I didn't think they were at all suitable for Pen—or Pen for them—I felt that they had warmth and honesty and would probably turn out to be good neighbors. Lacking in delicacy they certainly were, but they hadn't meant me to hear their parting remarks, and those remarks hadn't been spiteful, only realistic. They too had realized that Pen probably wouldn't fit into their family. The Thwaites, however, were different.

On the face of it, there was nothing amiss with them. The older man had white hair and a white beard and, as with so many older folk, half his teeth were missing and the rest were brown. He was obviously still active, though. His beaky-nosed face was bronzed with the sun and I had seen him dismount in athletic fashion, swinging his right leg straight over his saddle pommel and dropping easily to the ground.

Andrew was about twenty, and he too was lithe in his movements as well as being quite handsome in feature. He had escaped his father's nose. Their speech was Yorkshire but not to the point of being actually hard to understand, though Will Thwaite's teeth made his sibilants splutter. They were decently dressed, in a practical fashion, and were scandalized to hear of the attack on us. As Cecily had done, they insisted that the area had
been perfectly quiet since Morley was apprehended. They could not for the life of them suggest who the perpetrators might have been.

Agnes then arrived with the oatcakes and some very respectable wine, and seeing that my visitors wished to change the subject, I tried to embark on small talk. I mentioned the ruined lute and spinet in the tower music room. Will Thwaite at once declared that he knew of an instrument maker in Bolton who could provide replacements, perhaps even carry out repairs. Meanwhile, he added—and at this point his gaze fixed noticeably on Pen—if any of us wanted to practice music, he had a lute that his wife, God rest her soul, used to play. “In fair condition; Andrew strums a bit now and then. Visitors from Tyesdale would always be welcome.”

From that moment on, it was perfectly plain that they were here because they were interested in Pen. Andrew, agreeing with his father, and also staring at my ward, said he would be glad of a chance to practice dance steps. Did we know the latest London dances? Could Mistress Pen, perhaps, instruct him? There'd be a big dance when the Moss boys that we'd just met married the two Holme lasses they were betrothed to—did we know of that?—and he and his father would surely be invited but they didn't often go into company and he wished to acquit himself well. He'd much enjoy treading a measure with Mistress Penelope.

“Aye,” his father said, “and why not? I've no prejudice against dancing. I met my wife when I dined wi' a merchant friend of mine in Bolton, and there was dancing afterwards.” Then, without further delay, he came to the point. “Talking of wives—I hear you're after a match for t'lass there.” He nodded toward Pen. “And I also hear you've no objection to a Catholic family. Heard all that from t'fellow that tutors the Holme lasses—he visits t'Mosses now and then and he got t'news from them. He's a priest in our persuasion. He saw t'Mosses yesterday and came on over to ours as he does once in a while . . .”

He hesitated. “He says Mass for you in private?” I asked, smiling. “Well, many a family does that.” I added cautiously: “It's
what Pen's mother would want for her, given that the family is law-abiding and loyal.” Will Thwaite was presumably the man who had damaged his birthright by becoming involved in the Catholic rising thirty years or so ago. I wondered if he had truly mended his ways. “How people worship in private is their own business,” I said. “The queen herself says so. As long as they remain her true subjects.”

“We've naught to do with politics,” said Will. “That's a game for fools, as I learned long since. We're just plain Yorkshire gentry wi' old-fashioned notions of prayer. We've been at Fernthorpe for generations and we're hoping for a few more generations still. My wife and I weren't lucky with our children, but Andrew we reared right enough and now it's time he took a wife himself.”

It was normal talk for the circumstances and openness in these matters is usually accounted a sign of honorable intentions, but I found myself stiffening. Will Thwaite's gap-toothed smile was too assured and his chilly gray eyes were assessing the room, the furnishings, and Pen in a fashion that was much too proprietary for my liking.

Frankness is like many other virtues: usually admirable, until it goes too far. He had come to the point just a little too soon for my taste and he looked as though he thought it was for him to decide whether or not to take the merchandise on offer, rather than for us to decide whether we wished for his custom. As for Andrew . . .

One should not be blinded by prejudice, I said to myself. Just because Andrew Thwaite looked astonishingly like Henry Lord Darnley, the dissolute husband Mary Stuart had loved first and then hated and then quite possibly had murdered, didn't mean that Andrew too was foredoomed to turn into a vicious and promiscuous drunk.

Yet the resemblance was very strong. I had met Darnley in Scotland. He was taller than Andrew and Andrew was brown-haired instead of fair, but facially they were the same type. Like Darnley, Andrew Thwaite had wide eyes in slightly almond-shaped sockets, thin eyebrows in two perfectly matching curves, and pointed ears like a faun from Greek legend. The whole effect
was curiously cold and pagan and the color of Andrew's eyes did nothing to offset this.

Darnley's eyes had been just blue but Andrew's were blue with a ring of yellow in them. In a different face with a different expression it wouldn't have mattered. But Darnley's pagan features combined with those eyes were unnerving.

I said that the matter of Pen's marriage was something I meant to approach with caution and that we were in no hurry. I then firmly changed the subject and discussed harvest prospects until our visitors, looking rather thwarted, took their leave. As they said farewell, Will Thwaite said in a persistent voice that he hoped they would see us again soon, and perhaps might entertain us at Fernthorpe before long. They bowed very low to Pen before they went. We stood at the top of the steps to watch them ride away and then turned back into the hall.

“Not him,” said Pen, suddenly and passionately. “Not Andrew Thwaite. Mistress Stannard,
please,
not him! I . . . I don't like him! He makes me feel creepy!”

Pen, it seemed, could fall into aversion as easily and thoroughly as she had on previous occasions fallen into love. There was real fear, real loathing, in her voice and in her eyes.

“Don't worry,” I said, putting an arm around her. “He has the same effect on me. I don't like him either. You're not going to marry Andrew Thwaite. Rest assured of that.”

 • • • 

All the visitors had made me feel distracted. I couldn't settle to the account books again. From the windows, I could see Brockley and Meg cantering to and fro on a nearby hillside. Shadows raced across the hills and fields as a fresh wind drove brown and white puffs of cloud over the sky and I could see Meg snatching her cap off and waving it in excitement, while her dark hair streamed in the breeze.

Sybil understood accounts, too. I called her down, asked her to go on working with Pen, explained that my lord of Leicester had doubts about his steward's honesty and that she should look out for signs of this, and then, abandoning the figurework to the
two of them, I had Roundel saddled, and went out to join the hawking party. I found Meg flushed with enjoyment and wind-burn, pleased with Joy's performance, and obviously much happier. We came back in time for dinner, and Brockley led the horses away to the stable while Meg and I took the bag containing Joy's catch up to the hall. At once, I heard voices from the parlor and realized that we had yet another set of guests.

“Take the bag to the kitchen,” I said to Meg. “And then go and get tidy and come to the parlor. That's where I'll be.”

My first impression was that the parlor was full of outsize kittens. Then I realized that the assembly awaiting me actually consisted of one very pretty little woman with dark hair and beautiful blue-green eyes with a sparkle in them, and five equally pretty girls, of ages between twelve and twenty, all diminutive like their mother, some dark and some auburn, but all with those same exceptionally lovely and sparkling eyes.