Queen of Ambition (16 page)

I nodded gravely. “Go on.”

“I gave the letter to Mistress Brady next door,” said Ambrosia miserably, “and she said her serving lad would take it today. He’s just got back and he brought the letter back with him.” The tears began to flow again. “My poor tutor. He was so very old and he’s been ill for a long time—his housekeeper was there, the boy says, crying her eyes out. He had some sort of attack on Friday, just after eating his supper, and died the next day, on Saturday. The funeral is today—it couldn’t be delayed longer because of the heat. The letter hasn’t reached my mother—and I’m sure at heart that you’re right and she
is
my mother—and poor Dr. Barley is dead, like Thomas, and I couldn’t go to say good-bye to either of them!”

My first thought was:
another
coincidence. Though how it fitted, I couldn’t see. Dr. Edward Barley hadn’t been making assignations with me to discuss suspicions of the students’ playlet. I stood there, patting Ambrosia’s shoulder, trying to think it out. “You say he had been ailing?” I inquired carefully.

“He had breathless attacks and pains in his chest sometimes,” Ambrosia said, still sobbing. “He told me in his letters.”

And so indeed he had, and there was nothing strange about it. Such things were common enough in old people; my own grandfather had died after similar symptoms. One must not see plots and murder everywhere. Old, ailing men do die, sometimes suddenly, and there
are
such things as genuine coincidences. This was surely misfortune, pure and simple. Mistress Jester’s misfortune, very likely, if we didn’t act swiftly.

“Ambrosia,” I said, “get up off that bed, go straight upstairs, write a new letter of warning to your mother. You can address her as Mistress Smithson, but make sure you tell her that when she comes to Jackman’s Lane, she’ll be brought into Jester’s Pie Shop; that will be warning enough. Then get next door’s boy to take it straight to Brent Hay.
Quickly
. Your father will be back any moment and he mustn’t have a chance to see who you’re writing to and question it.”

“Oh, do you really think I’m so stupid?” Ambrosia snapped. “I’ve done that! Or tried to!” She sat up, dashing the tears from her eyes, and from under the pile of pillows at the head of the bed (one advantage of plucking all those fowl was that we did have soft pillows), she pulled out a second sealed missive. “I worded it the way you’ve just said, too, but I signed it
Ambrosia Jester
. If Mistress Smithson is my mother, she’ll realize at once that I know where she is and what the warning is all about. But next door’s boy can’t go this time! They’re expecting guests—a married son and his family. The boy and the maidservant in there are far too busy to run errands for me today or probably all week, either. Sometimes it’s like that. It’s never mattered before.”

I gnawed at my lip, thinking fast. I would of course be free to go out the next afternoon and although I wouldn’t be able to get as far as Brent Hay, I could hand the letter to Fran or one of Rob’s men then. But I hoped to meet Brockley then and hear anything further that he had to report, and besides, a day would have been lost and the more warning that Mistress Smithson-cum-Jester had, the better. Also, I couldn’t
quite trust to being free tomorrow afternoon. I had only to irritate Master Jester—which was never difficult—and he’d make me stay at the shop and peel onions. I wanted to get this letter safely on its way
now
, before anything happened to prevent it.

“Are there any customers needing pies to be deliv—ered?” I asked her.

“Only one,” Ambrosia said. “The Hardinge family—the people in that cheap jewelry place three doors along.”

“Yes, I know where you mean. I need an errand to take me out of the shop,” I said. “I could deliver that order, take it along early. When your father comes back, say you sent me … no, wait, just taking pies up the lane won’t give me anything like enough time—is there anything else I could get while I’m out? Can I make a dash for the market and bring back some … some …” Ambrosia tended a herb patch in the back garden so we never bought herbs from the market, but there were other things. “ … some mushrooms or peppers? We use a lot of them.”

“Yes, we do. Get both,” Ambrosia said. “I’ll say I told you to. What are you going to do?”

“Find a messenger,” I said. “Give me that letter. And wash your face, for the love of heaven! Your father mustn’t see you like that.”

I was afraid of meeting Jester on my way out, but there was a quarter of an hour still in hand and he was no doubt still sketching somewhere. Armed with a basket of pies, I sped to the jewelers and delivered them, murmuring something about them being freshly baked and they’d heat up nicely or would be
just as tasty cold. Then, carrying my basket with Ambrosia’s letter in the bottom of it, I sped on, making for the heart of Cambridge, where the produce stalls were, and the lodgings where I had originally meant to stay.

From the start, I had insisted that a small room be hired there for Brockley so that he and Dale could sometimes be together. Married though they were, my unfortunate servants often had to sleep apart because ladies’ maids were supposed to share rooms with their mistresses. I used to send Dale to her husband at regular intervals, though, and when I first moved to the pie shop, I thought it would be a good chance for them to have a few connubial nights. Now, of course, Brockley had moved into Giles Woodforde’s rooms. But I hoped to find Dale in our lodgings.

I arrived breathless and very hot, my face shiny and dust on my plain brown skirts along with traces of the flour I had used that morning making pastry. The ultra-respectable landlady opened the door to me, looked me up and down, and raised inquiring eyebrows.

“Is Frances Brockley here?” I inquired.

“And who might you be?”

I blinked and then realized that she hadn’t recognized me in my servant’s garments.

“I am Mistress Ursula Blanchard,” I said with dignity. “I have lodgings here although I am not at the moment using them. I am also the employer of Frances Brockley. Is she here?”

“You’re Mistress Blanchard? You don’t look much like her, I must say. She’s a court lady.”

“
I’m
a court lady,” I said sharply. “I’m dressed like this because I am making a private inquiry on behalf of the queen and need to look like a plain working-woman. Now, is Frances Brockley within?”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, my good woman, but I do know this—court ladies don’t go round dressed as cookmaids with flour on their skirts and no one sends a woman to make private inquiries as you put it, for Her Majesty or anyone else. Private inquiries for the queen, indeed! Be off with you!”

I was aware of time sliding past, being wasted, while Master Jester was by now, no doubt, back in the shop and wanting to know why there was quite such an urgent need for mushrooms and peppers. Ambrosia and I had laid our plans in haste and I had an uneasy feeling that there was a basket of each on the pantry shelves.

“Fran will know me,” I said through my teeth. “Please call her.”

“Mistress Brockley’s working for the queen, right enough, and proper woman’s work, at that. She’s sewing and she’s got a lot to do and I’m not disturbing her for the likes of you.”

“Oh, for the love of heaven!
Fran!
” I bawled. “
Fran!
FRAN!
”

“Stop that! Shouting like a fishwife on my very doorstep! I never heard the like. And me with a sick man upstairs who isn’t to be disturbed! What are you? Some kind of gypsy woman with no manners?
Oh!
Now see what you’ve done! There are my neighbors looking out of their windows to see what all the uproar is about. You’re making a spectacle of my premises. Go
away at once—at once, do you hear, or I’ll send my girl for the constable!” She made a violent shooing gesture with one hand and started to close the door with the other. I rammed my foot into it.

“Stop being ridiculous! I
am
Mistress Blanchard and …”

“How
dare
you? Joan!
Joan!
”

“
Fran! FRAN!
” It was turning into an absurd shouting contest. People really were putting their heads out of upstairs windows to see what it was all about.

Mercifully, the racket had roused people inside the house as well as outside. One of the landlady’s cowed maidservants, presumably Joan, now came running up from the basement, just as Fran herself, holding a threaded needle, and Rob Henderson, wrapped in a bed gown and looking wan, came down from their rooms above stairs.

“Ma’am!”

“Mistress Blanchard!”

“What is it, madam? Is it one o’ they nasty vagabonds?”

“
Is
this Mistress Blanchard?” inquired the landlady, addressing Fran and Rob together, and folding her arms in an outraged fashion.

“Yes,” said Henderson. “It is. Come in, Ursula.”

“Very well, Joan. Back to your work. I never heard the like. No one’s more loyal to Her Majesty than I am, but I must say her coming to Cambridge is doing Cambridge no good. Why, they said a Cambridge woman was to give her flowers and they picked someone who doesn’t even live in the town anymore, as if
them that do aren’t good enough, and I have to say that I don’t care for her taste in her court ladies!”

“Mind your tongue, woman!” said Rob, managing to summon up a commanding tone from somewhere. “Better come up, Ursula.”

The three of us went into the Brockleys’ room, where the settle was heaped with a mass of green and silver silk, on which Dale had presumably been working. “It’s curtaining,” she said as she pushed it aside so that I could sit down. “Oh, ma’am, there’s so
much
of it; I’m right tired of it. I can’t abide being told to embroider fast. It spoils the work.”

She herself took a stool and Rob sank down onto the window seat. Eyeing him with anxiety, I asked him how he was. “Brockley told me you had the marsh fever.”

“I have but I’m better,” Rob said. “The fever died out by sunset yesterday. I’ll be about again by tomorrow. The physician said I should rest today. Never mind about that. What’s brought you here, pounding on the door and in such a hurry that—well, I heard our landlady say you had flour on your skirt and so you have. Didn’t you even stop to brush it off?”

“No,” I said brusquely. “I haven’t had time. I have a letter to be taken to a place called Brent Hay Manor, just to the north of Cambridge. It’s urgent. I would send Brockley but he isn’t free. I thought Fran might go … unless your manservant could?” I looked at Rob hopefully.

“I’d send him or any of my other men gladly but I’ve lent them all to the Gentlemen Ushers for the day. There’s so much going on and I’ve been too sick to
work—I thought at least I should provide what help I could,” Rob said dispiritedly. “And Fran here is stitching away, as you see. She’s been seconded to the Wardrobe, as it were. She’s not free either.”

“Oh yes, she is. Dale is my tirewoman and I never gave permission for her to be seconded to anyone.” I was too hot and exasperated to waste time being tactful. “Dale, I would go on this errand myself if I could, but I can’t, not if I’m to keep my place at Jester’s. I’m in the same position as Brockley. You must go instead. Be my Mercury, my winged messenger! Here’s the letter.” I opened my basket and took it out. “It is to go to Mistress Sybil Smithson at Brent Hay Manor, on the north road out of Cambridge. I believe it’s quite easy to find and if it’s a manor house I expect it’s fairly big. You can ask the way. Take my mare, Bay Star, from Radley’s. I’ll give you a note for Radley so that he’ll know that it’s all right to let you have her. He can read. The letter is very urgent indeed. The embroidery will have to wait.”

“Mistress Smithson? Isn’t that the woman who is to present the flowers?” Rob asked. “What on earth can you have to say to her, Ursula?”

“Her name isn’t really Smithson,” I said. “It’s almost certainly Sybil Jester and she’s the wife who ran away from Roland Jester and it seems that this playlet is going to bring her straight back into his pie shop and she doesn’t realize it. She thinks she is only coming to Jackman’s Lane. She’s worried enough about that! Her daughter is horrified and so am I. I’ve had some experience now of Master Jester. The daughter and I are trying to warn her!”

I looked around and cursed because the need for a note for the stable had only just occurred to me and I hadn’t brought one with me. “There’s nothing here to write Radley’s note on. Just a minute while I go to my chamber and see to it.”

“What a fuss you’re in!” said Rob. Illness seemed to make him querulous. Ignoring this, I raced to my own chamber, found everything undisturbed and my writing set on the table, scribbled the note, raced back again, and thrust it into Dale’s hands. “Go on, now, Dale. Don’t delay. I have to get back to that pie shop. Don’t just stand there. Hurry!”

Sometimes, getting people to cooperate was amazingly difficult. It could be like trying to move a boulder or shift a balky mule. Dale never did like being harried and it took several maddening minutes to get her shoes changed and her hat on and to make sure she had some money with her in case she had to ask directions from the kind of person who needs tipping. I got her on her way at last and then I made further kindly, if brief, inquiries after Rob’s health, took my leave without seeing the offended landlady again, hurried off in search of mushrooms and peppers and remembered, too late, that in all my anxiety to communicate with Mistress Jester, I had forgotten to ask Rob if he had talked to Shawe’s fellow students yet. Well, it was too late now.

It was the wrong end of the day for buying produce. I found some peppers but there were no mushrooms to be had. When I brought my inadequate booty back to the shop and took it through to the pantry, Jester was there, poking about on the back of a shelf. He
spun around at my entrance and I saw that he was in a thoroughly bad temper.

“And just where d’you think you’ve been? Mushrooms and peppers indeed! We’re not short!” Reaching back, he snatched a couple of baskets off the shelf and brandished them at me. “What’re these then? Just because they’ve somehow got pushed to the back, Ambrosia can’t see them! She ought to use her eyes and so ought you. Wasting good money like this! Now get to your work before I lose patience with you altogether!”