A Traitor's Tears (5 page)

There was a horrified silence. Then Jane exclaimed: ‘What is the meaning of this? How dare you break in on us in this unseemly fashion? Mistress Stannard, is this the way your manservant behaves?'

Dale, gasping, ‘Roger! You're hurt!' started towards him.

Brockley wiped his nose with an angry movement, and said: ‘I beg your pardon, Master Cobbold, Mistress Cobbold, and you, madam. I beg all your pardons. But a man has a right to defend himself and his employers, too. Master Cobbold, I have punched your spitboy on the jaw and he is now unconscious on your kitchen floor, and the uncommonly rude individual, who calls himself your assistant cook, is sitting on a stool, doubled up and moaning. I punched
him
in the stomach.'

‘Brockley!' I said, horrified. Dale was now beside him, examining the state of his nose.

‘This is
disgraceful
!' Jane cried. ‘Mistress Stannard, can you not keep your manservant in order?'

‘They said things, madam,' said Brockley, ignoring Jane and addressing me. ‘Unforgiveable things. It's all right, Fran. I think it's almost stopped bleeding now. I won't repeat them, madam, but they were about yourself.' He turned to Anthony. ‘Master Cobbold, you should warn your servants to guard their tongues, especially when the people they are talking about are actually under this roof. I never wanted the matter to turn into a fight. I spoke up when ugly insinuations were made to me, and your assistant cook sneered at me and struck me in the face. I struck back and the spitboy joined in. It was two to one and I was the one – though I trust I gave a good account of myself. Your chief cook did nothing to control his subordinates. In fact, he stood by, laughing. Madam, I am sorry for this intrusion, but if I may advise, I think we should go home. You have been insulted here and it won't do.'

‘Dear God!' said Anthony.

Jane, scarlet with mortification, said: ‘This is what happens when we invite questionable people here.'

‘That is enough!' said Anthony. Whereupon Jane burst into tears and ran out of the room.

I said, ‘Your pardon, Master Cobbold. But I think Brockley is right. We should leave.'

We took ourselves off. I remember apologizing to Anthony and remonstrating with Brockley, though not very drastically because, after all, what had he done wrong? He had spoken up for me when someone talked of me in an offensive way, and hit back when he was attacked. I couldn't blame him for that.

Anthony seemed to understand. He assured me that he realized how Brockley and I felt and promised to speak to his kitchen staff in the sternest terms. He bitterly regretted that basic laws of hospitality had been broken in his house. He did not mention Jane, who didn't reappear.

Brockley's nose had by then quite stopped bleeding and he was able to help the grooms to harness our horses. Dale and Sybil were silent and shocked. When Brockley came to say that the coach was ready, Anthony saw us into it and through the window had a few last, quiet words for me.

‘I meant well,' he said. ‘Jane is so … virtuous. Such a good woman. But anything can go too far, even virtue. I thought … travellers tell of far-off places where everything seems strange to them, the animals, the birds, the plants, the houses. But to the people who live there, these things aren't strange at all. They see them every day and they're used to them. I thought, perhaps if Jane sees you often enough, in time she'll grow accustomed to you again, as she used to be … Well, it didn't work. I am sorry. But if eventually I invite you here again, please don't be afraid to come. Please
don't
. Nothing like this will ever happen again, I swear it.'

‘All right, Master Cobbold,' I said, and through the coach window, I gave him my hand. ‘It wasn't your fault,' I said. ‘I know that. Goodbye.'

I was shaken, though, and badly. It seemed that my reputation in the district was in worse tatters than I had ever foreseen. Would I ever live down the untimely birth of Harry? One thing seemed certain. Incidents like this wouldn't help. Once home, I had a private word with Brockley.

‘Brockley, this sort of thing just must not be repeated. Even if you do hear me harshly spoken of, please don't get into fights on my account. In fact,' I said, militantly, ‘I forbid it! If there's another such occasion, then kindly go deaf.'

‘I'll try, madam,' said Brockley reluctantly.

He kept his word for quite a long time, though according to John Hawthorn (who remained in regular touch with his cousin), this was as much as anything because he had indeed given a good account of himself in the Cobbold kitchen. The news got about and no one was particularly anxious to provoke someone with such a ready fist. Spiteful tongues might wag and no doubt did, but not where Brockley could hear them.

As for me, I thought it best to stay at home, out of sight, and let time do its healing work. The autumn passed. We held a quiet Christmas feast. In the new year, Brockley went to Woking to buy salt and candles and some other necessities. He came back with a black eye.

‘Well, I'm sorry, madam, but there's a groom at the Lion who always gives me sideways looks when I go there and this time there was a new young lad working with him and you know how it is – old hands like to impress youngsters. He pointed me out to the lad as … er …'

‘Go on, Brockley.'

‘A fellow who thinks a mighty lot of himself, though he works for … I
can't
go on, madam. And I couldn't go deaf. It was just too much, too insulting. I told him to stop his vile talk. I said he didn't know what he was saying, that he didn't understand the circumstances and shouldn't be passing judgement on things he knew nothing about. That made him angry. He said I was calling him a wantwit, and he wasn't one, and with that … he took a swing at me. So what could I do?'

‘Hit back,' I said resignedly. ‘How is he now? And the lad?'

‘The boy just stood there gaping. I left the groom lying in the straw, nursing his ribs. I pulled him away from the horse he'd been wisping, though. I didn't want him trodden on or kicked.'

‘Very well, Brockley. But you're not to go to Woking again for a while. Or Guildford either, I think. Hawthorn can do the errands – he likes doing them, anyway. If he's too busy, Ben can go, or our new man, Alfred.'

We had taken on a new man as a general help because we needed one. Hugh had always looked after the rose garden himself and often lent a hand in the adjoining knot garden too. I had little spare time and lacked his skill. Roundel's new foal, and my purchase of Jewel, meant that the stable work had increased as well. Alfred had presented himself when Wilder had our requirements cried in Guildford, and he seemed to be good both with horses and gardens. He was in his mid-twenties, the youngest son of a farmer some distance away, and had left home because when his elder brothers married, there was no longer room for him. He was therefore a newcomer to the district and didn't know much about me. He took me as he found me: a widow with a small son to bring up. He was quiet-spoken, with a tendency to surliness if he was criticized in any way, but he seemed honest and he was certainly industrious.

But after a month or two, somebody must have enlightened him about the respective dates of Hugh's death and Harry's birth. I chanced to be in the great hall, which had a side window overlooking the courtyard, when I heard his voice out there, announcing, apparently to Brockley, that he'd now found out just what kind of household he had accidentally entered.

I went to the window, which was partly open. Alfred was enlarging on his discoveries and his opinion of them. I also saw Brockley seize him by his shirt collar, run him across the yard and plunge his head into the water trough. I didn't call out in protest. I had with my own ears heard myself described as a whore. I found that I approved wholeheartedly of what Brockley had done about it.

Alfred was off the premises the same day. I told him, as Brockley had told the groom at the Lion, that he did not know the circumstances, that Harry's father had once been my husband, that in Catholic eyes he still was, that he had rescued me from being thrown to the mercies of the Inquisition, and that we had briefly come together again afterwards. I said that I would be happy if Alfred would put these points to anyone he heard speaking ill of me in future. I also declared that after what I had heard him say, I could not go on employing him. I gave him a written reference, describing his honesty and industry, and handed him a month's money. And then sent him off, looking chastened up to a point, but also
very
surly.

There would, I supposed wearily, be further incidents. I sighed, thinking that I only wanted a quiet life.

It was an optimistic hope. Fate was laying out the pieces on her chessboard, and the first pawns had already been moved. In the August after the death of Norfolk, on the Eve of St Bartholomew, there had been a massacre in France. Thousands of French Protestants, who were known as Huguenots, had been murdered. Through England then ran a wave of loathing for the Catholic faith, which had very likely helped to injure my reputation, wiping out any sympathy I might otherwise have won.
Mistress Stannard has a son by a former husband who's a Catholic. Shame on her!

And then, in the spring of 1573, a further new piece came into the arena. Francis Walsingham, that stark and determined Protestant, who had for so long been Elizabeth's ambassador in France, came home.

‘Y
ou are sure you want the sand-coloured one?' said Christina Ferris, deftly slipping a needle into the back of the white kid glove that she was embroidering. ‘He has a sweet nature but a ferocious appetite. He'll eat anything! What will you call him?' she added, with laughter in her dark eyes. ‘Must it begin with an H? Herod?'

‘Certainly not!' I looked across the stretch of grass to where a trio of half-grown dogs, respectively black, brown and sandy yellow, were gambolling together. ‘Just because we called our dogs Hero and Hector,' I said, ‘doesn't mean we can't have a different sort of name for this one. We'll probably call him Sandy. We won't mind his good appetite. It will make him grow quickly.'

Christina called to the animals and they came bounding towards us. I held out a hand to the sandy one and he responded at once, as if he had recognized me as his future owner. I stroked his smooth golden head. He was only half-mastiff and would never be as big as a pure-bred, but he would be quite big enough, as the size of his paws, which were like overstuffed cushions, made plain. He was still growing to fit them.

‘We'll send him over to you at the end of the week if it's not convenient to take him now,' Christina said. ‘I'm sorry about Hector. He was a lovely dog. You'll miss him.'

It was four days since our second groom, Simon, who also looked after the dogs, had come to tell me that on the previous day, our beautiful Hector hadn't wanted his food or been willing to come out of his kennel, and that this morning, he had been found dead. We would need a replacement, I said, and remembered that the last time I saw Christina Ferris, she had told me that one of their mastiff bitches had a new litter.

‘Not pure bred,' she had told me ruefully. ‘Ruby got out at just the wrong time, ran off, and got together with a sheepdog! But the puppies will be handsome enough. I hope we'll find takers for them.'

Now, lacking Hector, I had ridden over to Christina's home, White Towers, to ask if any of the litter were still available. Hero and Hector were only half-mastiff; another crossbred suited me well enough.

All three young dogs were still available. Christina showed them to me and then suggested that we should sit out in the July sunshine. She brought her sewing with her. Then, with her head bent over it so that she need not look at me, she confided that she was pleased to see me as there was something she wished to discuss with me. When I heard what it was, I shook my head vehemently and said: ‘No, Christina. No, really,' and turned the conversation back to the dogs. But now, as we sat petting them, she returned to the attack.

‘I wish you'd change your mind about this afternoon. It will be quite informal – it hasn't been arranged in advance.'

‘I daresay! You and Thomas started planning it the moment you saw me arriving!'

‘It's a glorious day. We can admire the Cobbold Hall gardens. They are a picture this year. And perhaps things will begin to smooth over for you. Surely you want that? I certainly do. I don't like having my mother at odds with my friends. Thomas feels the same. We don't like feuds. Look at the trouble the old quarrel between my family and the Ferrises used to cause. Thank God that's all over!'

‘That's all very well,' I said. ‘But …'

‘Oh, dear Mistress Stannard! It's over a year since Brockley had that fight in my mother's kitchens. No one at the hall will say anything unkind about you now. I heard all about it, you know. My father was furious.'

‘I hope no one lost their place over it,' I said. ‘The trouble was …' I stopped, feeling awkward.

‘The trouble was,' said Christina roundly, ‘that my mother's servants were only repeating her opinions. But Father says he has forbidden her to utter them ever again in the servants' hearing. He didn't dismiss anyone, but he did make it clear to them all that they must watch their manners in future.' She put in another couple of stitches and added: ‘How odd. This is the first time we've talked about this, though we've met from time to time since it happened. I felt too embarrassed to mention it.'

‘I rather hoped you knew nothing about it!' I said. ‘That's why I never mentioned it either. Only now …'

I didn't add that even if Jane was now entirely silent on the subject of myself, the unpleasant gossip which had in the past year got Brockley into another fight and lost Alfred his place, could probably be traced back to her. Christina's suggestion that I should accompany her to Cobbold Hall on a spur of the moment visit after dinner, and pretend that last year's debacle had never happened, was kindly meant, but it made my spine stiffen.