Queen of Ambition (15 page)

“I think he wouldn’t have married her, if he’d had to take the child on as well,” Ambrosia said. “All the same, he was fair. He got my father educated. Uncle Giles was born a year after the marriage and when he was old enough to have a tutor, Master Woodforde arranged for Father to come and share the lessons. Father can read Latin!”

“And Greek?” I asked innocently, and Ambrosia shook her head, and even showed some amusement.

“No. He didn’t get far with that, any more than I did. He said the funny alphabet was too much for him. But Latin, yes; he learned that and he’s kept it up. He reads Latin poetry sometimes. So his mother and stepfather didn’t ignore him even if he didn’t live with them. When he married, Master Woodforde took a rented cottage near his employer, and that’s where Father went for his lessons, so his mother—my grandmother—saw him quite often. He told me once that when she realized he was clever at drawing, she encouraged him. He wanted to be an artist. But his
uncle said that no one could earn a living as an artist and wouldn’t have it. His mother took his part but neither his stepfather nor his uncle agreed with her. I didn’t know them; they died before I was born, but I remember my grandmother—she didn’t die till I was ten. She used to scare me rather. She always seemed angry, somehow. She had a very strong, fierce way with her.”

She sounded just like Lady Lennox. Possibly, to Giles Woodforde, Margaret Lennox really did represent his ideal of womanhood. Giles Woodforde was beginning after all to make sense.

“Anyway,” Ambrosia told us, “his uncle died when Father was about twenty, and the landlord thought him too young to take over the lease. His stepfather helped to set him up as manager of a pie shop so that he would have a business of his own. It wasn’t this shop; Jackman’s Lane was built only nine years ago. That was when my maternal grandfather bought the land on this side of the lane and designed the buildings and had them put up. He was an architect by trade.”

I nodded, remembering what she had told me previously. Ambrosia reverted to her original narrative. “I believe that my father’s stepfather was really quite kind when Father said he wanted to be an artist, but he wasn’t prepared to support him. He said my father had got to earn his living. He could draw for amusement, but that was all. Father himself told me once that he was upset at the time but that now he thinks Geoffrey Woodforde was right. He likes money. I don’t mean that he’s tightfisted,” Ambrosia added hastily. “But he’s, well, provident.”

I was listening intently, finding that Roland Jester too was beginning to make sense. From childhood, he had been torn between the tavern in which he was born, and the quite different world of his educated stepfather, and on top of that, he had had this improbable talent for draftsmanship, which had been crushed by his uncle and by the need to earn his bread and by his own fear of insolvency. Yes, it matched the man I knew.

“Then,” Ambrosia said, “Father met my mother.”

It had been a remarkable romance, for Roland Jester, pie shop manager and at that time anything but well-off, was hardly an ideal match for Mistress Sybil Jackman, daughter of John Jackman, architect, who had full coffers and fur-trimmed gowns.

“My father’s sketching had something to do with it,” Ambrosia said. “The story goes that my mother was out walking one day, with her maid, and saw my father sitting by the river with his easel. She was amazed by the work he was doing, and stopped to talk, and then came back next day and did the same thing and in the end they fell in love and she insisted on marrying him. Her father gave her a good dowry but he never liked the match. Later on, when he did the building here in Jackman’s Lane, he put almost all his money into it and when the work was finished, he sold all the other houses, except for this one. He gave this to my parents on condition that he should live here with them and have their company now that he was getting older. He’d got his money back, selling the others, but he did something with it so that when he died, my father wouldn’t have it. It’s with bankers in London,
until I have children and then it will go to them. If I don’t have children, it goes to a distant cousin and his descendants.”

“Indeed!” I said. Jester wasn’t as well off as I thought. His business was solvent enough but, I thought to myself, he does like money.

“We didn’t find out till Grandfather died—I’d just turned fourteen then. It was a bitterly cold January and he caught a chill that went to his chest. After he was gone, the will was examined and oh, my father was so angry!” Ambrosia said. “That was when he turned against poor Mother. She tried to hold out, but it was too much in the end. She ran away in the June. And now you tell me that she may be brought in here—right into my father’s hands! I’ve got to let her know! I’ve got to warn her!”

“Quite,” I said. “That’s why I called you down here. Could you find Brent Hay Manor, do you think? Neither Brockley nor I are free to go ourselves and besides, you are her daughter, anyway.”

“Find Brent Hay—oh, there’s no need.” Ambrosia brightened, as I had hoped she would. “I can’t go either,” she said. “Father wouldn’t let me go off like that and if I went without asking, there would be the devil to pay when I got home. It would be where have you been and who have you been with … he doesn’t usually hit me but he would for that. But … a year or so ago, my mother got in touch with me, through someone else. She said I was old enough now to keep a secret and that she trusted me not to let Father know we were exchanging messages. I don’t want to say any more but yes, I could get word to her. At least, if this
Mistress Smithson
is
she. She wouldn’t tell me where she was or whether she was calling herself by another name. But the … the person who is passing messages between us will know.”

“I won’t ask you to tell me any more,” I said. “But do it, Ambrosia. Warn her.”

“Mistress Brady, the bronzesmith’s wife next door,” she said, “doesn’t mind sending her serving boy on errands for me, if I pay her something and give him a coin or two as well. I have a small allowance. Thank you for telling me about this, Ursula, Master Brockley. Thank you.”

She sprang up and raced out of the room. I heard her feet going up the stairs, one flight and then two. She had gone to her attic. Brockley and I sat on, talking about Woodforde. Brockley had learned a good deal about his habits and interests. Archery with either the longbow or the crossbow was long outdated as an art of war, but it was still a favorite sport, and as many men did, he practiced it after church on Sundays; there were butts attached to King’s College and Giles Woodforde had won several crossbow contests. I pricked up my ears at that, but Brockley shook his head. “It’s a commonplace, madam. It doesn’t turn him into a villain.”

“All the same …”

“You’ve seen the arrangements for the queen when she comes to Jackman’s Lane.” The dais had been built by now and the supports for the canopy were in place. “Her Majesty will be shielded by the canopy from all directions except in front and the open front faces straight along the lane into Silver Street. There are no
dangerous vantage points, not even up on a roof.”

Cecil had said the same. “But I still don’t like it. I wish to God,” I said, “that Cambridge could have a really fierce outbreak of marsh fever! Then the Progress would be canceled and we could all go home. I’m missing Meg so much, and my husband even more …”

Memories suddenly flooded back and I checked myself. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t really wish the marsh fever on anyone. People can die of it, can’t they? One might as well wish for an outbreak of plague or smallpox! I’m afraid all the time that Matthew will fall victim to the plague. I’ve had no news from Blanche-pierre lately. And … I remember how my first husband, Gerald, just caught the smallpox and was gone in days …”

I was near to tears again, just as I was on the bridge, which had led to Dale finding me in Brockley’s arms. This time, however, they were stopped by the return of Roland Jester. The private door creaked open and then Jester, carrying his sketching gear, strode through to the shop, impatience billowing before him like smoke. He dumped his easel on the nearest table, unbolted the shutters, wrenched them open to let in light and air, and burst into speech the moment he realized that the shop wasn’t empty.

“I’m late … we’re due to open again … good God, girl, what you doin’, sittin’ there a-gossipin’? Come to see your cousin, Master Brockley? Well, fair enough but now she’s back on duty and if you want to buy a pie and some ale you can stop, but if not, don’t clutter up the premises. And why ain’t you swept the sawdust
up and put down fresh, Ursula? Get to it or else! An’ get some pies out here on the counter. I met Wat, comin’ back, and sent him round by the charcoal merchant so he won’t be here yet; you’ll have to take over. Where’s Phoebe got to?”

Phoebe appeared at that moment, breathless. Jester shooed her into the kitchen, exclaiming that Wat’s counter needed stocking and he had deliveries to make to two customers who had ordered pies for their supper. Ambrosia came down the stairs, looking quite normal, glanced into the shop, gave me a nod, and then called quite openly to her father that she just wanted to send off a letter to her old tutor. “All about the queen’s visit. It’s so exciting! To think she’ll be just outside this very shop!”

“She writes to her tutor but she doesn’t hide it from her father, it seems,” Brockley whispered, as Ambrosia went out to the street.

“Why should she? I told you—she writes in the Greek alphabet and Jester can’t read it,” I whispered back. “Just before you came, I was upstairs looking at her letters.”

“Risky, if you ask me,” Brockley said. He stood up to take his leave. “He might look over her shoulder one day, point to a sentence, and say
what does that mean?
”

“She’s sharp enough to invent something convincing,” I said. The threatened tears having receded, I managed a chuckle. “I find it rather delightful. Roland Jester strikes me as one of those people who are put on earth for other people to sharpen their minds on—thinking of ways to deceive him.”

“I’d best go, madam,” Brockley said. “But I’ll be by the river tomorrow afternoon, if I can.”

“I hope to see you there,” I said.

He went out of the shop. Presently, Ambrosia came back, smiled at me, and then went calmly to the kitchen. I wondered how soon the letter would leave the bronzesmith’s house and begin its journey to Mistress Sybil Smithson. It would be a relief, I thought, when we knew for sure that the message had reached her. I would also be glad to know whether or not she really was Sybil Jester.

The following afternoon, I met Brockley by the river as arranged. I was rather disappointed to find that Dale was not with him. I had hoped she would be, because I was sorry for her and did not want her to think that my meetings with Brockley were anything other than business.

Brockley, however, said he had tried to fetch her from his lodging but found her frantically stitching at a huge embroidered curtain that was to be used in one or the other of the queen’s apartments in Cambridge. “She couldn’t come,” he said. “She hopes you’ll come back soon so that she can simply work for you and not be made use of by all and sundry! Madam, Sir William Cecil is due here on Thursday, the day after tomorrow and Sir Robert Dudley too. I thought you’d like to know.”

“Yes, indeed. I must report everything that I’ve learned, such as it is,” I said. “Including the death of Thomas Shawe. Very likely, Cecil will think that the
playlet should be canceled and take the matter out of our hands.”

We strolled for a few moments more in silence, among the other townsfolk who had come out to walk by the river in the sunlight. The weather was fresher since the storm. As we turned to retrace our steps, we saw a woman in the black gown and veil of deep mourning, hesitating by the bank of the river. Brockley caught his breath and we both quickened our pace, thinking for a dreadful instant that the woman intended to jump into the water. As we started toward her, however, she stepped back and walked away, and we halted. Beneath the thin material of the veil we had glimpsed the generous ruff—the only bit of white in her costume—of a lady of means, who would probably not want to be accosted by a serving man and cook-maid. She was alone, with neither groom nor maid of her own, which probably meant that she had left them behind deliberately, out of a wish for solitude. She had a lidded basket on her arm and as we watched, she turned toward the bridge back to Silver Street and the town.

But her walk still spelled dejection. “Poor soul,” Brockley said. “Lost her husband, I daresay. Madam …”

“Yes, Brockley, I know.”

“Madam, you should be with him. Forgive me. I mean no disrespect. But you
should
be with your husband. It isn’t right for you to live alone and—well, life is never certain. You lost your first husband. You and Master de la Roche need to be together while you can.”

“I’m only waiting for him to call me back to France, when the plague is over. I’ll go to him immediately then.”

“I hope he calls for you soon. This present state of things—isn’t good for you.”

Or for us. The words were not said; we never, never referred in words to that night in Wales when we had nearly, oh, so nearly, abandoned the roles of employer and servant, and forgotten the boundaries of his marriage and mine. But sometimes reminders came without words.

“It’s time I went back to the shop,” I said abruptly.

I returned in good time. The moment I had stepped through the lobby into the passage to the kitchen, however, I heard the sound of sobbing, somewhere upstairs. I found Ambrosia in our room, lying on the bed, weeping bitterly.

“Ambrosia?” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.

She raised her face, blotched with crying, and without speaking, pulled a letter from under her tumbled skirts and handed it to me.

It bore the name of Dr. Edward Barley, and it was sealed. I looked at her questioningly. “I don’t understand.”

“Dr. Barley was my tutor. I used to write to my mother through him,” Ambrosia said dully. “When she ran away, she took shelter with him first, though I didn’t know it, of course, until she began sending messages to me through him. When I wrote yesterday, I sent the letter to him as usual. I don’t
know
that this Mistress Smithson at Brent Hay is my mother, you see, so I couldn’t write direct to her.”