In recent years, Dale had been finding horseback travel more and more difficult. The very idea would make her prominent blue eyes bulge, and the old, faded pockmarks left by a childhood attack of smallpox would somehow become more noticeable. They always did when she was upset.
But it didn’t matter because although Brockley and I, and now Joyce too, preferred to travel on horseback, a stay away from home meant luggage. I always equipped myself with at least one fairly formal gown and of late years, even moderately formal dress had become so elaborate that just one gown could occupy an entire hamper. It certainly couldn’t travel in a saddlebag.
I possessed a coach, which Hugh had used when his joint evil became too bad for riding, but it was big and unwieldy, requiring two horses and sometimes four, depending on the number of its passengers. I had therefore had a small carriage made which could be drawn by one horse. Dale could travel in this, along with the baggage, and Joseph, one of my grooms, could drive it while the rest of us rode alongside. Even so, Dale grumbled, saying that she couldn’t abide these sudden journeys; she’d woken that morning in her own bed and she hadn’t expected to find that she’d be going to bed that night in Withysham.
‘Where you and Brockley have a pleasant chamber on the west side and well you know it,’ I said, laughing at her. Fran Dale had been with me for years, and had been through much with me, even into serious danger. She was welcome to grumble if she liked. I still needed her help to get in and out even of a semi-formal gown. Some brocades can almost stand up by themselves.
We took an early dinner. My tall, broad-built cook John Hawthorn shook his head over that but as ever, he and his contrastingly short, bald assistant Ben Flood, provided an excellent meal, with fresh caught trout from our own lake, baked with almonds and accompanied by beans in a dark meaty sauce, with preserved plums in a spiced custard afterwards. Then Brockley and Joseph together put a placid horse called Rusty into the shafts of the carriage, put the baggage inside and saddled the riding horses. Brockley handed Dale in and then Joyce and I and Brockley mounted, Joseph jumped into the driver’s seat and away we went.
‘This is a strange turn of events, madam,’ Brockley said as we started out. Brockley had a high polished forehead strewn with a few pale gold freckles, very steady grey-blue eyes and a general air of calm dignity, but at the moment he looked worried. ‘We have never had trouble with dishonesty like this before, and I can hardly believe it of Robert Hanley.’
‘Nor can I,’ I said. ‘That’s the reason I want to know why.’
We made the best speed we could but February roads are usually muddy and it was past nine o’clock when we arrived, according to the little timepiece, another gift from the queen after my efforts at recruitment, that I carried at my girdle. As we rattled through the gatehouse tunnel and into the courtyard, Hanley came out of the house to meet us. He looked much as usual. He was a stocky, quiet mannered man, not striking in any way. He greeted us in his usual courteous fashion, called to the two Withysham grooms to help Joseph and Brockley with our horses and told me that our rooms had, as always, been kept in readiness. Had we taken supper on the way? If not, it would be set in hand at once.
Everything seemed normal. But I knew Hanley well. He should have been surprised to see us so unexpectedly, and he should have been smiling. He didn’t look in the least surprised nor did he smile and in his indeterminately coloured eyes, there was fear.
It was too late that day to start an inquest into financial irregularities. We accepted some supper and then retired. But next morning, I had us all up betimes and personally took the disputed ledgers to the room I used as a study when I was at Withysham. ‘As I’ve already said,’ I told the others, ‘I’ll see Hanley on my own at first. There may be some simple explanation. I hope so!’
‘I can’t imagine one,’ said Brockley candidly.
Before King Henry the Eighth, the father I had never known, disbanded all the monasteries, male and female alike, Withysham had been a house of nuns. It was an old grey stone building on the northern edge of the Sussex downs, and many of its windows were the original ones, almost as slender as arrow slits, an echo of the times when only the wealthier houses could afford glazing and to let in light was also to let in the cold. Withysham had never been wealthy. It had had no cloisters, no guest-house, no separate lodging for its abbess. It was so unobtrusive that it was a wonder that King Henry’s officials had noticed its existence.
I had had the windows glazed and some of them exchanged for modern mullions. The atmosphere of the house, which was one of serenity, the result, no doubt, of the centuries during which prayer had soaked into the walls, remained unchanged. The main hall, though, where we had eaten supper, was not so much serene as austere. I had tried to temper this with new mullions, and by hanging lively tapestries on the walls and flinging an eastern carpet, all azure and vert and rose, over the long table, but austere it unconquerably remained.
The study also had new windows and I ordered a fire to be lit in its hearth. It was far more comfortable than the hall. Brockley drew the square oak table that did duty for a desk near to the warmth and pulled a couple of stools up to it. I set out the ledgers and asked Brockley to tell Hanley that I wanted to see him. Then I waited.
Hanley came promptly, but his unhappy face was enough to tell me that he knew why I had come. I asked him to be seated and he obeyed. His hands were tremulous and he looked at me with hangdog eyes.
‘I have been expecting you, madam,’ he said. ‘Ever since Master Brockley arrived here to collect the ledgers, saying that you wished to do an unexpected audit.’
‘And if I had not done so?’
‘Master Brockley glanced at the ledgers, saw that one set seemed to be complete, while the other one had no entries after last summer, and took the complete one. If I had had time, I would have filled in the other set with … with the extra expenditure more widely spread and hope that it wouldn’t attract attention. Those ledgers are the ones I would have handed over for inspection. I knew I had done it too roughly, in the set that Master Brockley took. I am not used to these deceits. I …’
He ran out of words. His expression was agonised.
‘So you know why I’m here,’ I said. ‘You’ve been expecting me, in a state of dread, I fancy. I am glad to hear that you’re not used to deceit, but why did you do it at all?’ I was more bewildered than angry. For years, Hanley had been a byword for trustworthiness. If he had been falsifying his accounts, it wasn’t because of innate dishonesty. He had a reason. And then I saw that he was crying.
‘Hanley!’ I said. ‘Please don’t. I want to know why you have been doing this. And for how long.’
He found a napkin under his black woollen doublet and wiped his eyes. ‘Since last summer. At first it wasn’t noticed.’
‘My fault, and Wilder’s,’ I said candidly. ‘We’ve grown complacent. I’ll repeat my first question. Why?’
He looked straight at me, gathering some shreds of dignity about him. ‘I have been desperate, madam. I have an uncle …’
He stopped, which made it sound as though an uncle were some kind of disease or deformity. ‘Most people have uncles,’ I said. ‘What is wrong with yours? Hanley, this is like drawing teeth. Please explain properly.’
‘His name is Crispin Hanley and he lives somewhere in south Devon, I think, probably not far from Plymouth. I don’t know exactly but all the couriers he sends say they come from around there. I make a point of asking them! But none of them know just where he lives. The same man never comes twice.’
‘And they started coming last summer?’ I queried. ‘Asking you for money, I take it? How often?’
‘Every six weeks or so, madam.’
‘Why do you send it? Is your uncle very poor?’
‘I don’t know. But he … he knows something about me, madam,’ said Hanley wretchedly.
‘Go on.’
‘He’s told me – written – that he tried for a long time to find me but up to last year, he couldn’t. Then he did. I don’t know how. I don’t know whether he’s rich or poor. Madam, he … says he will tell everyone what he knows about me, tell you, the people here, unless I pay him. Only I can’t afford what he asks, not out of my wages, so …’
‘What is it that he knows about you? Are you wanted by the law?’
Hanley shook his head. ‘No. Not that. When I was a boy of sixteen, I was a fool, that’s all.’
‘Boys of sixteen frequently are,’ I told him. ‘Did you steal something? Or was it to do with a girl?’
I knew at once that I had put my spade into a buried hoard. His eyes flashed. ‘I was so stupid,’ he said bitterly. ‘And so ignorant.’
‘All right, what happened?’
‘I couldn’t – I can’t – bear anyone to know. I …’
‘Did you murder the wench?’
‘No, no, of course not!’ I had hoped for an outraged denial and here it was. But then he added, cryptically: ‘Well, not exactly …’
‘Hanley, I find it difficult to understand how anyone can not exactly commit a murder!’
‘I was born in a Hampshire village. My father was a steward to a big house there. I was walking out with the daughter of one of the tenants. I was sixteen, she was fifteen, and one evening we were in an empty barn and … and … cuddling … oh, God …’
‘And it went too far?’
‘She cried stop and I couldn’t … well, I didn’t. Afterwards, she hit me and said she never wanted to see me again but she wouldn’t tell anyone; not ever. She said I’d taken her virtue from her … God’s teeth, how she wept.’
Hanley’s voice was bitter but he was no longer hesitant. He had embarked on his tale and it was carrying him forward by its own impetus. ‘It was only the once,’ he said, ‘but it got her with child. Eventually, she couldn’t hide it so she had to tell her parents and they came after me. They found me working in the fields and said I was to come to their house. They said they’d tell my father if I refused. So I went. When I got there, there was such a scene; the wench and her mother weeping …’
‘What was the girl’s name?’ I asked.
‘Marion. Does it matter? Her and her mother howling; her father raging and saying I’d raped her and brandishing a great whip and telling me I was to put things right or he’d half kill me … it wasn’t rape!’ Hanley was crying again. ‘I didn’t jump out at her from behind a bush. She wanted me to … to pet her. I think she … she wanted the other only she didn’t dare to but she let me get so near it that I couldn’t … couldn’t …’
‘All right, you needn’t go into details. I know what happened. You couldn’t stop. You were told to put things right. You mean you were told to marry her?’
‘Yes. I had to tell my parents but they weren’t so bad. These things happen, they said. My Uncle Crispin said that too. He lived with us; he was a groom at the place where Dad was a steward. So Marion and I were married. We were far too young. We were given a cottage to live in; my father arranged that somehow. Marion did her best, I suppose. She could cook quite well; she tried to keep our home clean and tidy; she tried to make me love her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I said, I was stupid and ignorant at that age; I almost blamed her for getting pregnant. I knew it wasn’t her fault but I wasn’t reasonable, and she got fat and bloated and kept on being sick and I was disgusted …’
‘Go on,’ I said relentlessly.
‘Her time came. The baby was stillborn and Marion died. That’s what I meant when I said it wasn’t exactly murder. But in a way I killed her. I am still so ashamed.’
His voice dropped and he would not meet my eyes. ‘I got away from Hampshire after that,’ he said. ‘I found my first post as an assistant to a steward in Berkshire. I never went back. My parents died. Uncle Crispin sent word to me about that. He’s my father’s brother. He’s much younger than either of my parents were. He’s still very much alive. It’s all more than twenty years ago and ought to be forgotten but no. I changed my post and I lost touch with my uncle. I heard nothing from him for years until he found out where I am and he’s been demanding money and now, I suppose, you will dismiss me without a character. Well, it’s just as well that I never married again. I’ve no family to be flung into despair. I will take my leave as soon as I can pack up and give some instructions to whoever replaces me. I ought to replace the money and I will try but I don’t know how, what with my uncle …’ He ran out of words.
I suppose most people in my position would have dismissed him without a second thought and ordered him to repay me or be arrested – or possibly be arrested anyway. Perhaps my curious career, which had frightened me nearly to death at times and also widened my horizons far beyond the norm, had something to do with it. Instead of doing what most people in my position would have done, I said: ‘No, Hanley. You will stay put and not, ever again, falsify your accounts. We – Wilder and I – will notice if you do and that will indeed be the end for you. I will also remit the debt. But you will never pay your uncle another penny. I will deal with your Uncle Crispin. I will visit the West Country myself and try to find him and if I succeed, I will make it very clear to him that he is to cease plaguing you, and that extortion is unlawful and we are being merciful in not going to the law about this.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to go to law about him,’ said Hanley, looking horrified. ‘Not my own uncle! And my past would come out! That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid! I’m so ashamed of it … so ashamed.’ His eyes were the pleading eyes of an injured dog. ‘If only,’ he said, ‘he would let me be, perhaps I could … not think of it so much. I didn’t mean to hurt Marion but she’s dead and nothing can change that and it’s all my fault. But what he is doing is cruel and … what if there are others like me?’
‘If I find him,’ I said grimly, ‘I will answer for it that there will not be others like you. He will never trouble anyone in such a way again. It may even be my fault that he traced you,’ I said ruefully. ‘You say that he suddenly found you last year. I was in south Devon last year on a family visit, to my daughter’s in-laws. I met many people and sometimes talked about Hawkswood and Withysham. I probably mentioned my stewards. Meanwhile, I repeat, don’t pay your uncle a farthing more. Understand?’
‘I am not dismissed, then?’
‘Hanley,’ I said, ‘what you did is what thousands of foolish boys, and men too, do all too often. It is very wrong, but it isn’t always a disaster. Many marriages begin that way, but turn out well and at the end of their lives, the pair are adoring grandparents and devoted to each other. You were unlucky. No, you are not dismissed, though you will be if you ever do this again, and in future both Wilder and I will, as I said, be much more watchful.’ I stood up. ‘I must now prepare to travel to the West Country.’
First of course, I had to return to Brockley and Joyce, waiting in the hall, and tell them my decision. I expected them to argue but they didn’t. ‘Boys of sixteen … no need to brood about it for ever. Poor old Hanley,’ said Brockley, quite kindly. Joyce said: ‘You mean to keep him on? Are you sure? I don’t think my father would have been so merciful.’
‘I am not your father,’ I said and that appeared to be that. I added: ‘We must go home now, and do some extra packing. We will probably make quite a stay in Devon.’
One of the drawbacks of being half-sister to the queen and also one of her agents was that Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham (very likely at the queen’s behest) felt it necessary to keep me under observation. They said it was for my own good, my own safety. It was probably a wise precaution but I disliked it.
I was well aware that Laurence Miller, who was officially the chief groom at my stud of trotters, was also Cecil and Walsingham’s current watchdog and would report my intended journey and its purpose to his employers. I wasn’t surprised therefore when a message came from Sir Francis Walsingham. Since I would be in the right area, the message said, it would be a good chance to see how the two agents I had found in that district were performing. Their last reports had both said they had heard of money being collected, possibly for Mary but neither could be definite. No further reports had arrived. Please would I find out if they had discovered anything more.
‘I was going to talk to them anyway,’ I said crossly.
‘Oho,’ said Gladys Morgan. ‘Trouble. That’s what this is. Trouble.’