The Winter List, page 26
part #6 of Damian Seeker Series
Thomas dropped the comb and found himself unable to offer even the most perfunctory of greetings. It didn’t matter. Anne Winter was smiling as a friend might smile who has caught a fellow in a misdemeanour.
‘I thought His Grace had left York three days since, but it appears you have not yet got over a night in his company, Sir Thomas.’
He struggled for an answer, but then saw that it was not necessary, because her face had become serious. She had come to do business. Behind her, like a hooded crow, watched Griselda Duncan.
Thomas gave one last smooth to his hair then extended his hand. ‘Please, your ladyship, take a seat. Francis, bring in some refreshment.’ To the Scotswoman he said nothing.
Anne Winter sat down on the seat across the desk from his own. ‘I have come to say goodbye, Sir Thomas. I am leaving York today.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I am sorry to hear it. You will not stay here for the winter, after all?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I was not in a position to be entirely open about my reasons for coming here, which I hope you will excuse, but my business in York is done now.’
Thomas could not help but glance at Griselda Duncan who remained standing, and looking straight ahead.
‘I . . . I understand that it is not always possible, or politic to reveal one’s business, but I hope whatever brought you to York has reached a,’ he searched for the right words, ‘satisfactory conclusion.’
‘It has, Sir Thomas. And I am confident there will be nothing further to come from that business, for me or for anyone else.’
Anne Winter was not a woman who was easy to read, but in that moment Thomas was certain she was telling him more than she was openly saying.
‘Then I am pleased about that,’ he said.
Now she smiled again. ‘As am I. But I am come to beg a favour.’
This was more his territory. ‘Anything, your ladyship, anything.’
‘I wonder if you would continue to stable my horse, and Grizel here’s too, until such time as the way is more suited for them to be ridden back to Northumberland.’ She placed a bag of coins on the desk. ‘I will pay, of course, for their stabling and for lads to ride them back. Grizel and I leave by water today.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But really, the money is not—’
‘Take the money, Sir Thomas. When you come into your estate at Langton you will need it for your own stables, no doubt.’
Thomas felt a mix of discomfort and relief. Whether Anne Winter knew it or not, he had only just the means of stabling his own horse as his affairs currently stood.
‘Langton is a very pretty estate, I think,’ she said.
‘Not as wild as Faithly,’ he conceded, ‘and a tidy enough place.’
‘And a good halfway between here and my house in Northumberland, too.’ She stood up. ‘I hope you will think to visit us, should you ever be up on the coast.’
‘I, yes,’ he blustered, ‘of course.’
‘Good.’ She stood, just as Frank returned with the cake and Canary wine Thomas had sent him for. ‘Oh, I’m afraid we have not the time to wait. We must get to the posts and then make ready for our journey. Come, Grizel. Time and the day move on.’
Thomas felt a panic begin to rise in him as the women made to leave. The maidservant had not moved from where she stood since they’d arrived in the room. She could not possibly have laid down the letter she had promised him without him having seen. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘You have taken no refreshment. A long journey in this weather – let me send for some hot food at least.’
‘We will find somewhere to eat before we board, Sir Thomas. Grizel and I are seasoned travellers.’
He was walking towards the door, as if he might stop them leaving. ‘But surely . . .’
Anne finished putting back on her gloves, Griselda Duncan turned around with a sharp, ‘We must be gone, Sir Thomas.’
Thomas watched, helpless, as the Scotswoman followed her mistress out into the anteroom where Frank, paying attention for once, was ready to escort them down the stairs.
‘Don’t put yourself to the bother,’ he heard the maidservant say to the boy. ‘We know the way.’ And she left, taking with her the evidence that might seal Thomas’s fate.
‘I hope Sir Thomas will find that sketch of Maria Ellingworth down by his chair where I dropped it,’ said Anne. ‘And I hope he will get his estate back. He is not a man at ease behind a desk.’
‘Hmm,’ said Grizel, casting her a suspicious glance. ‘If he gets his estate back, it will be because God wills it. But . . .’
‘What?’
‘I am sure even the Lord does not will that I set out on our journey without my black muffler.’
‘I thought you had it with you when we left Thomas Faithly’s chamber,’ said Anne.
‘If I had it then, I do not have it now.’ Grizel held out her empty hands.
Anne sighed. ‘I suppose we had better go back up.’
‘No, I will go back up. He has done enough gazing at you with those blue eyes for one day.’
Grizel was back up the various flights of stairs leading to Sir Thomas’s offices in very little time. She had long perfected the demeanour of someone who knew where she was going and was not to be interrupted.
Thomas Faithly’s clerk, his mouth full of cake, was clearly surprised to see her back so soon, and he said so, showering his waistcoat with crumbs.
‘I have left my muffler,’ she said, brushing past him and back into Thomas’s room unannounced. The boy called after her and came running through the door behind her. Thomas Faithly, looking even more dishevelled than earlier, stood up, knocking a goblet of wine over the papers scattered on his desk.
‘I’m sorry, Sir Thomas, she just . . .’
‘That’s all right, Frank,’ he said. ‘I think Lady Anne must have sent Mistress Duncan back for something. You may close the door.’
He did not invite her to sit after the boy had gone, and himself remained standing, facing her. ‘You have brought it? The letter you said you would bring?’
She slipped her hand inside her cloak, and brought out a letter, its seal broken, and laid it on his desk.
He felt almost afraid to touch it. ‘That’s the one from Seeker? To Lawrence Ingolby?’
She nodded. ‘The original, that confirms your role in spying for him on behalf of the usurper Cromwell’s government. He sent it as a protection for Lawrence Ingolby should you ever chose to betray Ingolby.’
Sir Thomas shook his head. ‘Lawrence is my friend. I would never betray him. Besides, he never claimed to be a Royalist. He has always just wanted to get on with his own life, regardless who might be in power.’
‘Well, we must envy him in that, you and I, Sir Thomas.’
Thomas reached out a hand and touched the paper. ‘And you have really not shown this to Lady Anne, nor told her of it?’
‘Your interview with her this morning would have been of quite a different nature had she known of this letter’s existence, I can assure you, Sir Thomas. And now, you must keep your bargain.’
He nodded. ‘I am to give no credence to whatever David Ogilvie might tell me of you, and impede him from acting on it while he is in the territory of the lord lieutenancy.’
‘Precisely.’ Grizel Duncan turned to leave, but then turned back to him. ‘Mind, if you do not, I will hear of it. I may not have the letter any more, but I know every word that it says, code or not. Should you go back on our bargain, I will tell Lady Anne what I know, and she will inform L’Estrange, and you may be assured he requires no proof but her word, and she requires no proof but mine.’
‘I have given you my promise. I think I must count this nameless grievance between yourself and David Ogilvie to be my good fortune, I suppose.’
‘Hmmph. You might add my affection for Anne Winter to the debit side of your account also. I kept Seeker’s letter about you from her to protect her almost as much as to use on my own behalf.’
‘How so?’ he asked. ‘Is she taken up in this thing with Ogilvie too?’
Grizel shook her head. ‘She never heard his name until the day you introduced them, and knows him only as your friend. Ogilvie is nothing to her. But if I had passed that letter to her, you may be in no doubt that she would have passed it on to L’Estrange, and you would even now be in a dungeon in York Castle or on your way back to the Tower. She has a powerful sense of duty, and of honour too. But she also holds you in a strange regard, perhaps even affection, and I think it would have been like a canker in her to know she had sent you to the executioner’s block. I kept the letter from her not just for my own sake, and certainly not for yours, but for hers, Sir Thomas.’ She put her hand on the door, then paused. ‘See that you do visit her in Northumberland. She has never invited a single soul there before.’
Back out at the gates to King’s Manor, Anne was waiting for her. ‘You have got it?’
‘I have got it,’ answered Grizel, holding up her muffler.
‘Good. Then all that remains is for us to go to All Saints and put the letter exonerating Sir Thomas into L’Estrange’s posts, and all will be well.’
Grizel gave a brisk nod of her head and walked on.
Madge was in her element, observing the work of the new maid lately taken off the hands of her sister Flo, to fill the place of Grizel Duncan. Madge had liked the Scotswoman – she kept a trim house and waste was anathema to her – but there had been perhaps a little too much presumption on her part. There was only room for one mistress in the kitchen of the house on Fossgate, and her name was Madge Penmore.
This new young woman showed promise, and Madge was confident that under her guidance the deficiencies in the girl’s training would quickly be made up. For now, though, she was content to remark in loud asides to Manon Ingolby that ‘the lass has been got out from under Flo just in time.’
Manon watched all from the firm, high-backed chair that Lawrence had carried down from the parlour. It was one that her father had made for himself and that used to sit by the hearth of his room on Knight Ryder Street. Cushions had been added, that Manon had embroidered, with acorns and birds and brambles, and it soothed her to sit on the chair, with Lizzie nearby. Lawrence was fearful that she might trip going up and down to the parlour without him. It had been the same when she’d been carrying Lizzie, although she had not been so vast with Lizzie, she was certain of it. ‘A lad,’ Lawrence had pronounced of this second child. ‘A big strong lad that’ll probably carry you one day.’ Manon liked to be in the kitchen in any case, even when she could do little to help, other than nod at Madge’s pronouncements or give encouraging smiles to the new housemaid, attempting to communicate to the girl that all would be well.
And all might be well, or so Lawrence was determined on persuading her, and sometimes she felt herself almost convinced of it. Lawrence had written to her father that an agent of this Roger L’Estrange, the man so determined to have his revenge upon him, was on his trail and like sometime soon to track him to Massachusetts. The letter would be in her father’s hands before L’Estrange had managed to decipher and follow up on those that had been stolen from their home, her husband had assured her. It might be many months before hired assassins such as Marvell had told them were hunting down the regicides on the continent found their way across the Atlantic.
The baby in her womb kicked, and she smiled to see the rounded outline of a sturdy heel pulse through the layers of her clothing. Lawrence was certainly right – despite all their concerns of the past few weeks, this was a strong and healthy child. She looked over to Lizzie, who had been following Madge and the new housemaid all morning around the kitchen and into the larder and out to the yard. She was almost like her old self, happier by the day, and the memory of being locked away in that shed three streets away perhaps fading a little, though she was still seldom to be persuaded to relinquish hold of her kitten.
Madge was explaining the rhythm of their day to her new acolyte. ‘Master’s in midday, regular as the bells of St Saviour’s, and he’s not one to wait on his dinner. Good wholesome English food he likes too – won’t touch that French muck Flo preens herself on.’
Manon’s heart swelled towards the old woman. Madge’s sister Flo had been apprenticed to a French lacemaker in her youth, and although she was a very fine lacemaker, she had picked up the culinary tastes of the land of her apprenticeship, but sadly not the attendant kitchen skills. Madge had told her that poor Jed had had to spend half their recent evening at Flo’s out at the privy, on account of the badly dressed crab Flo had pressed upon him at the start. ‘Frozen, he was, out there all that time, poor lad,’ she had said. Suddenly, at Manon’s feet, Prince Hal’s ears pricked up. She glanced to the clock on the kitchen dresser. It still wanted a half-hour of midday – too early for Lawrence to be coming back from the Merchant Adventurers’ down the street, where he had said he would have business all morning. The clock had also been her father’s, one of the few ornaments in those sparse lodgings of his. Manon felt a bleak surge of longing for those days when she had sat at his feet by the fire, his great shaggy hound, Dog, nuzzled into her, and he’d told her tales of his itinerant northern childhood. Perhaps it would not be so hard a thing for him, in Massachusetts, to be forced to move again . . .
She jumped as Prince Hal stood up on his stubby legs and set to a furious yapping, almost before the sound of rapping came from the knocker on the front door. Lizzie hid behind Madge’s skirts and the housekeeper directed the maid to answer the door. ‘Tell them Master’s not in, and they’ll have to come back after dinnertime. ’less it’s Sir Thomas. You can let him in.’
When the girl went to the door, Manon said, ‘But what if it should be business for Lawrence, Madge?’
The housekeeper shook her head, implacable. ‘Business or not, I’m not to let anyone in when Master’s not here, not with Jedediah being away an’ all. Them’s Master’s instructions.’ As she said this, she patted her apron, and Manon realised that what she had thought to be some utensil Madge had put in there for handiness was in fact Lawrence’s pistol.
‘Come to me, Lizzie,’ she said to her daughter.
Whatever was being said at the street door could not be heard properly from the kitchen, but the maid’s voice was raised before there came the sounds of a mild scuffle, then a firm closing of the door as the girl ran back into the kitchen. ‘I said no one was to be let in, missus, but . . .’
Manon looked beyond the girl to the figure standing behind her in the doorway and a chill went right through her as she saw standing there the man she had seen watching her on the street, that Griselda Duncan had hurried her away from, and that Lawrence had given orders should never be allowed into their house.
Twenty-Four
Extraordinary Things
As the papers in the grate began to yellow, then to brown and smoke until at last the flame took hold and set about destroying the proof Damian Seeker had penned against him, Thomas sat back and closed his eyes. He hadn’t known an hour’s peace, hardly a minute’s, since the day Lawrence Ingolby had told him of Andrew Marvell’s clandestine visit and his warning of the spy sent by Roger L’Estrange. But now, with Anne Winter and Griselda Duncan gone, and Damian Seeker’s letter against him burned to ashes, he felt the tension and anxiety leave him. Examining again the condition of his clothing, his hair, he could scarcely believe that he had allowed himself to fall into such a state. He called Will and told him to ask for hot water to be brought up. ‘And a tub. I am of a mind for a good wash. And have a barber sent for, too.’
The barber arrived before the tub and made short work of trimming Sir Thomas’s moustache and banishing the stubble from his jaw. With a ruinously expensive pomade, he worked a comb expertly through the knots in Thomas’s hair. The pleasurable scents of orange and bergamot had almost lulled Thomas to sleep by the time the tub and buckets of hot water had been set ready for him in front of the fire. He tipped the barber handsomely and told Will to bring him a glass of sack and to fetch his satchel.
‘The one with my personal correspondence. Set it down on the chair there, and put the wine on the side table. I have the leisure to read my letters at last and to consider what will be my responses.’
The boy raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely the letters risk getting wet, Sir Thomas.’
‘Don’t concern yourself, Will. I don’t intend to throw the water over them. Now, put some more coals on the fire, and then you and Frank may go to your dinner. And for God’s sake, tell Frank to lock the outer door lest any more women find their way to this chamber!’
When the boys had gone, Thomas stripped and stepped into the tub. He took a cake of soap of Castille and, filling a jug with warm water from one of the buckets, he poured it over his shoulders and began to scrub. He breathed deep as the steam from the water rose to mingle with the oils in his hair, infusing the air with scents that took him back to places he would likely never see again. He did not care. His travelling days were over. Give him the scent of God’s own Yorkshire earth and nothing else and he would be happy. Perhaps he might ride up to Northumberland from time to time, to the coast. The buckets emptied of warm water and his skin rubbed pink, Thomas cast about for the clean hose and stockings his page had looked out for him and slipped on the pale blue, long-sleeved silk vest that had been a gift from the King himself. Wrapping himself in his best, fur-lined dressing gown, he sank into his favourite chair. He felt as if he had rid himself of the dirt of years.
Outside, the snow was falling lightly, but Thomas was content. He rummaged in his satchel and brought out first a letter from a fellow he had known abroad who now hung constantly about the King’s court in the hope of a preferment that was never going to come. He returned it to the bag. He was not in the humour for the pettiness and backbiting that such communications invariably contained.
