To Shield the Queen (5 page)

“Oh, he won’t do that,” said Dudley easily, and to my surprise, caught my eye. “He can’t afford to mount an invasion. He’s up to his Hispanic beard in debt. Ask Mistress Blanchard there. She knows.”

To my embarrassment, they all stared at me and began pushing their horses closer to Speedwell. Arundel’s guest said in astonishment, “I don’t understand.”

“This is a friend of mine, Matthew de la Roche,” said Arundel. “Matthew, this is Mistress Ursula Blanchard, who has recently joined the court. Her husband died last winter.”

“They were in Antwerp at the time, with Sir Thomas Gresham,” said Dudley. “Her husband was well placed and I have sometimes heard Mistress Blanchard speak of Antwerp myself. You always preserve admirable discretion,” he added, addressing me directly, “but there is no need for that in present company. Council members and their advisers can be trusted. Why not speak for yourself?”

Coming from Dudley, it amounted to an order. “Gerald—my husband—did work for Gresham,” I agreed. “And yes, he did mention to me that King Philip was known to be in debt.” Gerald, in fact, had been the one who discovered the details. “King Philip of Spain has been borrowing heavily from the Brussels bankers,” I said. “It is true that he isn’t at present in any position to mount an invasion.”

“Ah. Sir Thomas Gresham. A famous name, these days. That explains it,” said de la Roche. “Gerald Blanchard?” He smiled at me. “A French surname and an Irish Christian name. Unusual.”

“And you, Mistress Blanchard? Are you all English, or do you have varied origins, as your husband did?”

“I’m entirely English—my maiden name was Faldene. Your own name sounds French, too.” He also had a trace of accent, I thought.

“My father was French,” he said, “but my mother was English. I’m also a cousin, in a remote way, to FitzAlan here. But from what part of England do you come?”

“Sussex,” I said.

“Ah. I thought I knew the name Faldene although I haven’t met the family. I have settled in Sussex myself. I have been most of my life in France, but when my father died last year, my mother grew homesick for England, and I came over with her to buy a property here. Sadly, she too died not long ago. But I shall make the best of the place we bought—although it needs much setting in order. It has kept me so busy that I have had no time for social contacts.”

His voice, accent and all, was pleasant. He was not a conventionally handsome man, not with that long chin and those wide, bony shoulders, but there was an attractive quality of vigour about him, and I liked his eyes. They were dark and diamond shaped, set under dramatic black eyebrows, and they had in them a glimmer of amusement. His way of studying the person to whom he was talking, as though truly anxious to know what they were thinking and how they felt, reminded me of Gerald.

Lady Catherine Grey answered for me. “No, Ursula has no horse of her own. She borrows from the royal stables.”

“No horse of your own?” De la Roche sounded quite shocked. “But why ever not? Someone as skilled in the saddle as you are should have her own mount. You must buy a horse without delay. Arundel, can you not recommend a dealer for Mistress Blanchard?”

A moment ago, I had liked him. Now, without warning, I was convulsed with fury. I was so sick of my straitened circumstances and the embarrassment of trying to hide them, in this court where to be hard up was to be second rate.

You must have a maid. A white or silver under-kirtle, perhaps, with matching sleeves. Buy a horse without delay
. Spend money I hadn’t got!

“I can’t buy a horse,” I said. I forgot about not being sharp. “I can’t afford one!”

“Can’t afford one? But, you are a Faldene and surely they are a family of some eminence. And your husband was a successful man. I don’t understand . . . Mistress Blanchard! I beg your pardon. I see I have said something I should not.”

I had turned away my head but he had still glimpsed the tears in my eyes. They were mostly tears of rage. I found myself looking at Lady Catherine Grey instead of de la Roche, and she was clearly amused by my discomfort. I straightened my back and addressed de la Roche once more.

I waited, simmering, to see if contempt would now appear on the face of de la Roche.

It did not. Instead, he said seriously, “In such circumstances, did neither of your families . . . No, forgive me, it is not my business. But . . . ”

I had banished the tears, by sheer willpower. “My own family offered me shelter of a kind,” I said. “I preferred to enter the queen’s service and earn my stipend. It is modest but I am glad not to be living on grudged charity. I have no complaints. However, I cannot afford to buy, or keep, a horse.”

“I am
very
sorry.” Master de la Roche looked quite shaken. “I did not know. Please accept my apology. I had no wish to hurt your feelings. I have the utmost respect for anyone, like yourself, who bears up under such misfortune. If there is dancing this evening, and I ask you to partner me in a galliard, will you accept?”

I looked into those dark, diamond-shaped eyes and I saw contrition, and sympathy, and something else.

I saw admiration, not just for a young widow making her way in the world under difficult circumstances, but the admiration of a man for a woman he desires.

We were in the midst of languorous summer, and Gerald had been gone now for more than six months. Deep within me, momentarily, something stirred in answer.

I stamped on it at once. No, said a shocked voice inside my head. No! He isn’t Gerald. There can be no one for you but Gerald.

Matthew de la Roche laughed. “Mistress Blanchard, I prefer conversation to have a little salt in it, like a good dinner.”

I laughed, too. I was being pleasant, making amends. I hoped he would see no more in it than that. I hoped there
was
no more in it than that.

• • •

During the next few days, Matthew de la Roche was hardly ever out of my sight. It seemed that I had ridden out hawking as an unattached young widow and come back with a suitor. I didn’t want a suitor, or so I told myself, but I let him dance with me that same day because I wanted to dance. After that I could not have got rid of him without being rude and I didn’t want to do that either.

It was quickly obvious that he was behaving towards me as Dudley was behaving towards the queen. He was always there. We danced together; he rode out with me. He invited me to watch him play tennis or practise tilting. He did both very well and I knew that he was proud of his skill and enjoying showing it off to me.

When, with others of the court, I accompanied the queen out walking, I found him at my elbow. He was at my elbow the following Sunday when the public were admitted to the Presence Chamber to see the queen pass on her way to the chapel. He seemed to like me in the same way that Gerald had, because he thought my dark hair and pointed face attractive and because the edge on my tongue was to him exciting instead of objectionable.

“Ursula, my dear.” Mistress Ashley patted the window seat beside her.

Sensing that some serious matter was about to be raised, and not knowing what it was, I remained standing. “Yes, Mistress Ashley?”

“This is so difficult. We are only concerned with your welfare. But even the queen has noticed that Arundel’s guest, Matthew de la Roche, is very much in your company. We understand that he is a widower. Does he have serious intentions towards you?”

“I don’t know, Mistress Ashley.” Kat Ashley always made me uneasy. She took the same avid interest in matters of love and marriage, as any village woman whose favourite occupation was gossiping round the wellhead.

“There is nothing against him as far as anyone knows, but no one seems to know a great deal.” Lady Katherine, who had also remained standing, spoke seriously. “However, I must tell you, Ursula, that the queen is very much opposed to any sign of scandal among her ladies.”

Alarmed, I said, “Has the queen actually . . . ?”

I nodded. Matthew had told me about himself. I was aware that he was a widower, and I knew that the young wife who had died in childbed had been French. I also knew that both he and she were Catholic. I had been very silent when I heard that. “I will be careful,” I said.

“I was sure you would be sensible,” said Lady Katherine. “The queen is impressed with you, you know, Ursula.”

The summons from the queen came the next day.

• • •

Elizabeth had been shut away all morning. Kat Ashley was with her but all the rest of us were out of doors, taking advantage of the bright light to get on with various kinds of stitchwork. I was making a pair of white silk sleeves with silver leaves embroidered on them. It was cheaper than buying them ready made.

We had chosen to sit out in a walled garden, a favourite place of ours because it was so pretty, with its rose arbour in one corner and the fruit trees trained round its mellow brick walls. It had a scythed lawn with a yew tree in the middle, and neat, geometrical flowerbeds aglow with phlox and gillyflowers and here and there the tall spikes of lupins, and delphiniums like blue flames. The flowerbeds were edged not with lavender, as in the big entrance garden, but with box, which had its own, more subtle fragrance. It was a charming place.

Lady Catherine Grey had a real talent for the acid-in-honey kind of remark. It put my much simpler form of sharpness to shame. I was a frequent target because I was hard up and I had rebuked her for gossiping about Sir Thomas Gresham; and at the hawking party I had admitted in her hearing that I was illegitimate. But I was learning how to retaliate. Smiling at her, I said I enjoyed the satisfaction of doing good work and then added, “Of course, it requires concentration.”

Lady Catherine was quite a skilled embroidress but she was incapable of concentrating for long at a time and sometimes abandoned projects halfway through. Lady Jane quite often finished them for her. I saw some of the others glance at us with covert amusement.

It was said that Lady Jane Seymour’s brother, Lord Hertford, was sweet on Catherine and she on him, and it was true that they often danced together, and that she always watched him, and looked resentful when he danced with anyone else. She was pretty in a way and might have been nicer if she had met with more kindness, but her parents, dead now, had been noted more for their ferocious ambition than for their loving natures, and Elizabeth candidly disliked her. Most of the people close to Lady Catherine seemed either to value her or detest her because of her royal birth, and none of them, except for Lady Jane and her brother, were at all interested in her as herself. Perhaps Hertford, if her sulkiness didn’t discourage him too much, would one day make her happy and soften her edges.