The Tutor (32 page)

Joan wrapped the woolen shawl tenderly around Matilda.

“Come, girls,” Matilda said, passing in front of Katharine.

Isabel and Joan followed her out the door. Katharine trailed the sad procession and wondered if one of the witches had indeed placed a curse on this house. They had not descended the stairs, not even passed through the gallery, when they saw a man striding toward them.

Matilda stopped abruptly. Isabel gave a cry. Joan gasped.

It was Ned. He was down on his knees in front of his mother. She put her hand on his head, and ruffled his dark curls the way a mother would a young boy rather than a grown man. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

—

Ned had brought
his father’s body back. It was no small feat. Katharine could only recall one other such journey in recent times—that of Sir Philip Sidney’s body after he was felled at the Battle of Zutphen. Usually a nobleman who died across the sea was interred at the place of death and then the family could move the bones. In the olden days, the corpse was “boiled up” for the long journey home: the body disemboweled, dismembered and cooked, the flesh and entrails buried nearby and the bones taken to the burial site. Or the body was buried locally, while the heart made the crossing.

All had assumed Sir Edward would be buried at the monastery, but Ned had done the nigh impossible. Ned recounted how he had arrived at the monastery too late for his father’s final breath. The brethren assured Ned that his father’s passage to the great beyond had been gentle and pious, a good death. The prior told Ned that Sir Edward, with the pallor of death already upon him, had sat up in bed—while one of the brethren steadied the paper—and described his last wishes. He had wished his body returned to Lancashire for burial in the ground of his ancestors. Ned had worked miracles: his father’s embalmed body was encased in lead and carried across the Channel from Calais to Dover in a ship rigged with black sails; the coffin was placed in the sterncastle of the ship, two candles burning around it. Upon the ship’s docking, the coffin was loaded onto a cart and draped in black, as were the horses, traveling first to London and then on to Lufanwal.

The family would give him a proper burial, as proper as they could with no priest in the house. But he would be buried in his earth, with the
bones of his people around him. Ned’s presence at the dinner table was like a candle: his flame flickering and bright. He had grown into his body, no trace of the sapling remained. He was fully a man now. He had changed from his riding clothes into a velvet and satin doublet; plum and violet threads coursed through the fabric, highlighting his amethyst eyes. Katharine had seen the servants carrying trunks from the carts, trunks filled, no doubt, with riches from Italian tailors.

Two young squires, Englishmen who like Ned had been living abroad, had traveled with him and were to stay at Lufanwal for a time. They were both fair and close to Ned in age. One hailed from a town in Berkshire down south, and the other was raised in Warwickshire, a few towns from Stratford. The two gentlemen were vague about their travels. The squire from Berkshire had matriculated at Oxford but left to study in Rome. The young man from Warwickshire was shy and spoke little. Their speech and manners conveyed education and gentility.

That night Ned came knocking at Katharine’s door.

“I so hoped you would come,” she said. She was in her smock and her tattered emerald velvet dressing gown; her hair was brushed and down.

Ned clasped her hands, and they stood gazing at each other, both smiling, both moved to tears.

“Why are we weeping?” Katharine asked with a laugh.

Ned brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. “I have missed you, dear Kate.”

“Oh, and I have missed you,” she said. “How could you leave me for so many years? I should be furious with you, dear, sweet, gentle Ned, but ’tis impossible. The years do wear on me, yet you wear them with beauty.”

They embraced and stayed together, as if the moment could erase the lost stretch of time.

“If I believed you were worn and weathered,” Ned said, “I would
not hesitate to tell you, but as I sat at the table tonight, I marveled how in my absence you have merely ripened.”

They stood apart.

“How is it,” Ned continued, “that a woman past thirty can look as lush and enchanting as a maid half her age?”

“’Tis nothing more than the trickery of candlelight.” Katharine brandished a strand of hair. “’Tis silver.”

“And thou art gold and as precious a metal as when I left, more precious, methinks.”

“Come, enough flattery, sit by the fire,” Katharine commanded. “I had forgotten how you fill my well with serenity, and serenity, my dear Ned, is what I long for.”

Katharine sat. Ned added more wood to the fire, then stretched his long legs and slid comfortably into the chair next to her. The fire before them caught the shine of his black hair.

“Mother looks ravaged by time,” he said.

“Time has been a cruel verse of late,” said Katharine. “Every day brings a new line of tragedy. Poor Ursula.”

“’Tis God showing us the way,” said Ned, then added, “Jesus suffered for our sins.”

Katharine remembered when Ned, as a boy, seemed to care little for the Bible. He had matured, she saw, in many ways.

“I am afraid to ask, but will you stay?” she said.

Ned looked into the flames and then turned to her.

“I have come home. Though I may not be in residence here at the hall at all times, I will not be abroad.”

“You will commit to court and charm our Protestant queen?”

“I will not dally at court, nor will I pander to Her Royal Highness.”

“Where will you be, Ned, if not here at Lufanwal, nor at court?”

“I have my work,” he said.

“Your work?”

“My work will take me far and wide.”

Ned’s solemn tone surprised Katharine. As a lad he had been all gaiety and mirth.

“What work?”

Ned stared into the fire and did not answer.

“Ned? Are you an agent?” Katharine ventured.

He turned to her, still silent.

“For the queen?” Katharine pursued, for she had heard how the queen turned young Catholic men into agents to spy and plot against their own kind.

“Dear Kate,” Ned said softly. “I am an agent of God.”

Kate gasped.

“’Tis that bad? My vocation?” he said.

“Oh, Ned.” Katharine leapt from her chair and knelt by him, taking hold of his hands in hers. “I did not expect this.”

“Did you think my life these seven years was all folly and foppery?”

“Well . . . I . . .”

“You did.”

“I might have thought it was aglitter.”

“It was for me aglitter, but not from candles at court.”

“But what of Florence?”

“’Tis a city that outshines all, but not a place to dedicate oneself to God. Too many delicious distractions.”

“And all these years?”

“Spent in study.”

“And these young men with you are seminarians, too?”

“We are priests and we are Jesuits and we are members of the English mission and will try to carry on that for which our martyrs have died.”

“Did your father know?”

“Father and Mother were the only ones who knew. These times are harsh.”

“Isabel?”

“We thought too young.”

“Your older sister?”

“We thought she might tell her husband.”

“Oh, Ned, and I thought you a—”

“Dissolute, drunken, dissipated, disreputable rogue?”

“Aye.” Katharine laughed, then stood and started to pace. “How did I never guess your business, when you lived all these years in the land of the Pope? Sir Edward kept the secret well. He must have been so proud of you, Ned. But now the air is foul for such a calling. They’ll string you up a traitor if they catch you.”

“I desire to offer to God my blood and my flesh as He offered for me,” Ned said.

His voice was calm, content even. Katharine marveled at his strength and his conviction.

“How did you pass from sea to land?” she asked.

“My two brethren and I said we were three brothers of plain and humble origins bringing our father’s body back home for burial. We flanked Father’s coffin on the ship and on the road.”

“But how did you explain the cost of such transport?”

“We spoke of father and sons having prospered abroad, as cloth merchants in trade and export, and how it was our honor and duty to our father to comply with his last wishes—that part was true. We maintained an air of coarseness throughout the journey—laughed loudly when we could, spoke words rude and uncouth in nature. We played the parts of those whose coffers are newly brimming, spent money wildly and comported ourselves with utmost vulgarity.”

“You had fun!” Katharine said, sitting sidesaddle on her bed.

“We did.” Ned rose.

“Art thou weary?” she asked.

“I feel awake with an odd, restless vigor.”

“’Tis your first night home in a house newly framed with sorrow.”

Ned was quiet and looked as if he did not know what to do, which way to turn.

“Sit by me a few minutes more, dear Ned. You have heard many stories tonight of the fate of your family, but I have yet another story to tell.”

Ned removed his boots and his doublet, and they lay side by side as they had when they were young, but now with age they seemed an old married couple. Ned sighed, a deep sigh.

“This is home. I might never move from your bed, Kate.” He rolled onto his side and, resting his head on his hand, said, “Begin.”

She told him of Will, how he had left his family in Stratford to go to London to the playhouses, then came to Lufanwal to tutor, rarely, and to write, much, and how she had in a manner started to tutor him, to help him first with sonnets, then guide him in the long poem he was writing. She told Ned of Will’s smile, his rich voice, his skill with words, his swift intellect. “His mind does move like a bright goldfinch hopping from branch to branch,” she said. Then she told him of the embrace at the dance, the unpinning of her tresses, the kiss when he lingered.

“There’s more,” she said.

“You are in love with this man,” said Ned.

“I am.”

“And what will come of it? A man like that may linger in a kiss or an embrace, but he will not linger here.”

“He said he would take me with him.”

“Where?” Ned’s eyes opened wide.

“Well, to wherever he goes next. To London, methinks.”

“And you think he will?”

“He has said it.”

“He has said much to you, dear Kate, and in exchange for all he has said you are giving him much. He is wont to play with you in exchange for what you inspire in him. But is this a man who translates words into action? If the air is as fiery as your description, why has he not gone farther with you? You have, as you say, been quite alone with him. Most men, being naturally of a beastly nature, would have pressed on with their desires.”

“Perhaps he is trying to protect my position,” she said.

“You are unmarried and you have but meager goods and chattels. I am sure my father has marked you in his will, but that I assume will care for you while here, at Lufanwal, in the utmost comfort. I am not trying to be cruel; I am trying to help you see the reality. What position is he trying to protect?”

“Perchance he is trying to protect my virtue.”

“Come, now, Kate. You are a widow of many years. Is there virtue lurking about you? Under those skirts? In this bed? I pray not!”

Katharine smiled. “You are a priest, Ned, you are not to speak with such lewdness!”

“I am a priest, yes, but I am your kinsman and your friend and I have loved you dearly for many years. I fell in love with a poet once.”

“I remember.”

“Words are sport for them. And they use words as instruments or tools, sometimes as weapons. What they say, dear Kate, or what they write might not necessarily issue from the heart. Your gentle soul, your open heart, are not accustomed to such dissemblance. And with this Will, thou art doubly in trouble, for he is a player as well. He has skills you might not dream of, knows how to employ his voice, his eyes, even the slant of his shoulders, to tug at the emotions of those who pay their
pennies to watch him. I have witnessed those players—they are artful and quite able to confuse the stage with my lady’s bedchamber—or my lord’s.”

“Do you ever think of your poet?” Kate asked. “Did he break your heart?”

“He practically broke my back, but he didn’t break my heart. He was too much for me.”

“Oh, Ned, you mustn’t talk thus.”

“You love it when I talk thus.”

Katharine laughed again. “’Tis true. What happened to your backbreaking poet?”

“I used to hear reports of him. He, too, writes for the playhouses and has had success. He was crazy, but utterly entertaining. I was young. He was young but older than I. I was provincial and not Oxford-bound and his wit was savage and divine.”

“Did you love again?”

“Florence is a city full of sumptuous men—fine and elegant even when they are not rich. And the light is always in their eyes. I must have fallen in . . . well, a lusty sort of love or a loving sort of lust, at least ten times that year.”

“What happens with your heart now?”

“I have bequeathed my heart to God, I suppose. I have much to do on this island. I cannot let my heart or any other part of my anatomy get in the way of the mission here. We have to bring our dear country back to the Pope.” Ned yawned and closed his eyes. “Lo, what look will be planted upon thy servant’s face when she finds me aslumber in your bed, dearest Kate? The tongues will wag.”

Katharine watched Ned sleep. After seven years, they had fallen right back into the roots of their affection. Ned was in truth more beautiful than Will; the source of Ned’s beauty lay deep within. He had always been sweet and honest; his newfound conviction added a stunning depth
to his features. By stepping on English soil, a Catholic priest was in Elizabeth’s eyes a traitor and could be executed. Katharine leaned over and kissed Ned’s forehead. She remembered the years when they were young and spent hours on her bed, laughing, eating, reading, writing, whole afternoons filled with idle talk. Ned would rest his head upon her lap, or they would lie on the bed, their limbs linked.