Текст книги "Lion Triumphant"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Jake was mellowed, I believed; there seemed a certain contentment about him. He had accepted the fact that we were not going to have a son.

On my birthday he gave me a cross studded with rubies. It was a beautiful piece. I wondered whether he had taken it from some Spanish home, but I did not ask him because I did not wish to question a birthday gift.

He liked to see me wearing it so I did often.

A few weeks after he had given me the cross I began to suffer from an occasional headache and when this was so I used to take my food in my room. Jennet would bring it to me because in spite of our differences I had always wanted her to be my personal maid.

Jake had little sympathy for physical ailments. He never suffered from any himself and his lack of imagination made it impossible for him to understand other people’s feelings.

When I was not feeling entirely well I liked to be by myself and these were the occasions when I remained in my room. Linnet would come and talk to me. She was always tender toward me and had taken up a protective attitude, which amused me, because I had always been well able to look after myself.

On this occasion Jennet brought me a kind of soup dish which contained that novelty, the potato, and some kind of mushrooms and meat.

It was tasty and I enjoyed it, but in the night I began to feel ill. I was very sick and feverish and I wondered whether there had been something in the dish which had not agreed with me.

I went to see the cook who told me that others had had the dish and suffered no ill. They were fearful, I could see, lest I had contracted the sweat after all.

I said it contained mushrooms and there were toadstools which looked very like mushrooms. Could it be that one of these had been used?

The cook was indignant. Had she not been cooking for twenty years and if she didn’t know a toadstool from a mushroom she ought to be hung, drawn and quartered, that she did.

It took me some days to recover my health, but in a week or so I had forgotten the incident until it happened again.

I had eaten in my room half a chicken with a loaf which I had washed down with a tankard of ale, and as I was drinking the ale I was aware of a strange odor about it. I had drunk little of it but was determined to drink no more, for it was at precisely this time that a horrifying notion came to me.

I had eaten of the soup dish. So had others. I had been ill. Mine had been brought to me in my room. What had happened to it on the way up?

I smelled the ale. I was becoming more and more convinced that something was wrong with it.

Somebody had tampered with it on its way to my room. Who?

I found a bottle and poured some of the ale into it. I threw the rest out of the window.

I felt mildly ill and I was certain that the ale had been poisoned.

Could it possibly be that someone in this house was trying to poison me?

I took the bottle out of the drawer in which I had hidden it. I smelled it. There was a sediment.

Oh, God, I thought. Someone is trying to kill me. Someone in this house. Who would want to do this?

Jake!

Why should he immediately come to mind? Was it because when someone wished a woman out of the way it was usually her husband? Jake had chosen me. Yes, to be the mother of his sons. Could it be that he wanted sons so much that… I would not believe it.

Life was cheap to men like Jake. I saw a vivid picture in my mind of that scene when he had run his sword through Felipe’s body. How many men had he killed? And did his conscience ever worry him? But they were enemies. Spaniards! I was his wife.

Yet if he wanted me out of the way…

I sat at my window looking out. I could not face him. For the first time I felt unable to stand up to him. Always before I had been conscious of his great need for me. Now I doubted it.

I went to the mirror and looked at myself. I was no longer young. I was in my mid-forties and getting too old to bear sons. One does not notice one is growing old. One feels as one did at twenty … twenty-five, say, and imagines one is still that age. But the years leave their marks. The anxieties of life etched lines around the eyes and mouth.

I was not a young woman anymore. Nor was he a young man. But men such as Jake never feel their age. They still desire young women and think they should be theirs by right.

I went back to the window and sat down.

The door opened softly and Linnet was there.

“Mother,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“I was looking out of the window.”

“You are not well.”

She came and looked at me searchingly.

“Are you ill?”

“No, no. A little headache.”

I took the bottle of ale to the apothecary in one of the little streets close to the Hoe.

I knew him well. He mixed scents for me and I often bought his herb concoctions.

I asked if I might speak to him in private and he conducted me into a little room behind the shop. Drying herbs hung on the beams and there were pleasant smells which were intensified during simple time.

“I wonder if you could tell me what this ale contains?” I said to him.

He looked astonished.

“I fancied that it was not as it should be and I thought you might be able to tell me why.”

He took the bottle from me and smelled it.

“Who is your brewer?” he asked.

“I do not think this has anything to do with the brewer. The rest in the cask was well enough.”

“Something has been added,” he said. “Could you give me a little time and I might be able to discover what?”

“Please do,” I said. “I will call in two days’ time.”

“I think I shall have an answer for you then,” he replied.

I went back to Lyon Court and there seemed to be a sudden menace about it. The lions which guarded the porch looked sly as well as fierce, sinister as well as handsome. I felt that I was being watched from one of the windows, though through which I could not say.

The thought kept recurring: Someone in that house wants me out of the way.

I was sure now that my soup had been poisoned. And now the ale.

So much depended on what the apothecary would have to tell me in two days’ time.

I was sleeping badly; I was pale and there were dark shadows under my eyes. I would lie in bed with Jake beside me and say: Does he want to be rid of me?

I thought of life without him and I felt wretched and lonely. I wanted him there; I wanted him to go on desiring me more than I desired him. I wanted to quarrel with him. In short, I wanted to return to the old relationship.

But he had changed. I had thought it was because he had become preoccupied with the coming war with Spain. But was this so?

Strange things began to happen.

Carrying a candle, I was mounting after dusk the stairs to the turret whither I had been earlier that day. I had discovered that I had lost a bow of ribbon from my gown and wondered if it was there. It was lonely in that wing of the house. Normally I should not have thought of this, but of late I had become nervous and was startled at the least sound. And as I mounted the spiral staircase I thought I heard a noise above me. I paused. The candle in my hand cast an elongated shadow on the wall. I noticed what looked like a grotesque face there—but it was only the shadow caused by the shape of the candlestick.

I stood very still. I was sure I could hear someone’s breathing above me. The turn of the staircase made it impossible to see more than a few steps ahead and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. All my instincts were warning me that I was in danger.

“Who is there?” I cried.

There was no answer, but I fancied I heard a quick intake of breath.

“Come down, whoever is there,” I called.

There was still no answer.

I felt as though I were rooted to the staircase. For some seconds I could not move. Someone was waiting for me up there … someone who had sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage, someone who had poisoned my soup and my ale.

Good sense was saying: Don’t go up there. Don’t attempt to find out now. This is not the time. It could be fatal if you took another step.

I thought I heard a board creak. And turning, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could.

I went to my room. I lay on my bed. My heart was beating madly. I was frightened. This was unlike me, but recent events had shaken me more than I had realized and I was not in my usual good health.

I must be strong, I thought. I must find out what was happening. I must know if someone was in fact threatening me.

You know, said a voice within me.

I don’t believe it, I answered myself. He couldn’t. I know he has killed many times. He has taken what he wanted … always. Oh, no, it can’t be.

But why not, if he no longer wanted me? Why not, if I stood between him and something he wanted? Perhaps a young woman who could give him sons.

The door of my room opened suddenly. I knew it was Jake who had come in.

Had he come straight here from the turret? What would he do now?

Could it really be that he wished to be rid of me? Fiercely he had wanted me once; now did he as fiercely want someone else. Jake allowed nothing and no one to stand in the way of his desires. The lives of others, what were they? I kept thinking of Felipe lying dead on the floor of the Hacienda.

Jake had never shown any remorse about killing him.

He was standing by my bed looking down at me. He whispered my name quietly, not roaring it as he did so often.

I did not answer. I could not face him now with these dreadful suspicions in my mind. I could not say to him, “Jake, are you going to kill me?”

I was afraid.

So I pretended to sleep and after a few minutes he went away.

I went to the apothecary’s shop.

He bowed when he saw me and invited me into the room where the herbs were drying on the oak beams.

“I have found traces of Ergot in your ale,” he said.

“Ergot?”

“It’s a parasite which grows on grass, very often on rye. It contains poisons known as ergotoxine, ergometrine and ergotamine. It is very poisonous.”

“How could it get into the ale?”

“It could be put in.”

“How could it be?”

“The leaves could be boiled and the liquid added. I believe people have died through eating bread which had been made from rye which had this parasite growing on it.”

“I see. Then the ale I brought you was poisoned?”

“It contained Ergot.”

I thanked him and paid him well for his trouble. I intimated that I did not wish him to discuss this matter with anyone at the moment and he tactfully gave me to understand that he realized my wishes and would respect them.

As I walked back to Lyon Court I tried to remember the little I had learned from my grandmother about the things that grew in the fields and which could be used to advantage in cooking.

I remember her saying: “You must know the difference between good and evil. That’s the secret, Catharine. Mushrooms now. There’s many been caught on mushrooms. The most tasty food you could find; but there’s wicked growth that masquerades as good in the fields as there is with people. And you must not be deceived by looks. There’s Fly Agaric, which looked wicked enough; there’s stinking Hellebore, which would drive you off with its smell; but the Death Cap toadstool and the Destroying Angel are white and innocent-looking as any good mushroom.”

I had been amused by the names of Death Cap and Destroying Angel and also my grandmother’s earnestness. Perhaps that was why I had remembered.

Someone had put a Death Cap or Destroying Angel into my soup. Someone had put Ergot into my ale. A long time ago someone had sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage. Someone wanted me dead.

If I was going to save my life I must find out who was my would-be murderer.

I laughed at myself and said: You know.

But I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe … not then. It was not until later.

How strange it is that one does not see something which concerns one deeply and would be obvious to many. And then suddenly one discovers something which can be linked with other things and the truth is revealed.

I was looking from my window and I saw the three of them by the pond. Romilly, Jake and Penn.

Penn had a model of a ship and he was sailing it on the pond. Jake knelt down beside him and guided the ship. I could see he was pointing out something to Penn.

Romilly stood there, arms folded, the sunlight gleaming on her luxuriant hair; there was something about her which told me. She was complacent, satisfied. And I knew.

Romilly and Jake! He had brought her to this house as a young girl—was she twelve or thirteen? She had not cared when the tutor had been found in Jennet’s bed, for he was nothing to her. She had been ready to marry him, though. Yes, because she knew that she was to bear a child.

Jake had said: “We must care for her. Her father was one of the best men I ever sailed with.”

He did not add: “And she is my mistress.”

But of course it was so.

When Jake came into our bedroom I said to him, “Penn is your son.”

He did not attempt to deny it.

“So under my own roof…”

“It is my roof,” he replied shortly.

“She is your mistress.”

“She bore me a son.”

“You have lied to me.”

“I did not. You did not ask. You presumed it was the tutor’s. There seemed no reason to upset you with the truth.”

“You brought that girl into the house to be your mistress.”

“That’s a lie. I brought her here because she needed a home.”

“The good Samaritan.”

“God’s Death! Cat, I couldn’t leave an old seaman’s daughter of that age to fend for herself.”

“So you brought her here to bear your bastard. I wonder what her father would say to that?”

“He’d be delighted. He was a sensible man.”

“As I should be, I suppose?”

“No, I wouldn’t expect that of you.”

“You are a considerate husband.”

“Oh, come, Cat, what’s done is done.”

“And the girl is still here. Is there another on the way?”

“Stop this. The girl had a child. It was mine. There, you know. What’s to it? I was home from sea. You were having a daughter. There’s little time I have ashore.”

“You have to make up for your celibacy at sea of course, because raping dignified girls and sending them mad does not count. You have much to answer for, Jake Pennlyon.”

“As much as most men, I’ll swear. Oh, stop it, Cat. I took the girl. There’s no harm done. She has a fine boy who is a joy to her.”

“And a joy to you.”

“Why not? I get no sons from you. You can get a son with a Spaniard and for me … daughters … nothing but daughters.”

“Oh, I do hate you, I do!”

“You have said that often enough, God knows.”

“I had thought that we might come to some good life. I had pictured us … our grandchildren in our garden … and you contented…”

“I’m not ill content. I’ve got three fine boys that I know of. And I wouldn’t want to part with one of them. Understand that, Cat. Not one of them. I’m proud to own them. Proud, I say.”

“Proud of the manner in which they were begotten, I doubt not. One from rape of an innocent child, the other one a lustful serving girl and another on this sly creeping … insect who crawls into my house … who is a poor little orphan who lies about the tutor and all the time is laughing because she has your child.”

“Oh, come, Cat, it’s long ago.”

“Long ago, is it? Is she not still your mistress? I see it all now. The ribbons she puts in her hair; the manner in which she pushes the boy under your feet. What plans has she, this sly little crawling thing? What does she hope for, to take my place?”

He was alert I fancied. “How could that be! Don’t talk nonsense, Cat.”

“Is it nonsense?” I asked slowly. “How do I know what is happening in the house? I am deceived all the time. My daughters are nothing to you. But you have ever made much of your bastards.”

“They are my sons.”

“Mayhap this woman … this Romilly could give you more sons. She has given you one. I am beginning to understand. I see so much.”

“You see what you want to see. You are an arrogant woman. You led me a dance as no other woman has. You belonged to a Spaniard before you did to me. You gave him a son and what have I had?”

“Was it my fault? Everything that has happened has been due to you. You raped Isabella, Felipe’s bride. It was on you that he sought to revenge himself. What have I ever been but a counter in your games … your wicked cruel games? Jake Pennlyon, I wish to God I had never seen you. It was an ill day for me when I met you on the Hoe.”

“You mean that?”

“With all my heart,” I cried. “You blackmailed me because of what you saw in the leper’s squint.”

“You were playing a game with me. Did you think I didn’t know that. You wanted me as I wanted you.”

“So that I pretended to have the sweat to escape you?”

“By God, I’ll never forgive you for that.”

“What does it matter, eh, now that you have Romilly? She gave you a son. She can give you sons … sons … sons … for as many breeding years as are left to her.”

“She could,” he said.

“They would only be your bastards unless…”

“Who cares for that?” he said. “I have three fine boys and I’m proud of them.”

I wanted him then to seize me, to shake me roughly as he had done so many times before. I wanted him to tell me that it was nonsense. Penn was his son. He had gone to her when I was ill and he was sick with disappointment because I had not given him a son. I wanted him to tell me that it was all over and done with. That he had been unfaithful as I knew he must have been a hundred times … a thousand times during his long voyages from home.

But this was different. He went away and left me and I did not see him again that night.

It’s true then, I told myself. He wants to be rid of me. He wants to marry Romilly, who can give him sons … legitimate sons.

I knew instinctively that my life was threatened and there seemed no doubt by whom. My husband wanted to marry another woman and the reason he wished to marry her was that she could give him sons. This sly creature who had wormed her way into my household with her pliable ways was threatening me.

It was not that she meant more to him than hundreds of other women had. But she had proved that she could give him sons … and men like Jake wanted sons. It was an obsession with them. We had the example of a recent King who had rid himself of several wives—and the great theme of his life had been “Give me sons.”

It was the cry of arrogant men. They must continue the family line. Daughters were no use to them.

Boys adored Jake and he was interested in them; girls meant nothing to him until they reached an age when they could arouse his sexual desires. Jake was a fierce man, undisciplined, a man who had always known what he wanted and gone out to take it.

That was what was happening now.

I was no longer desirable to him because I could not hold out any hope that I would give him sons. He wanted me out of the way.

I thought then of Isabella. I remember the calm intensity of Felipe. He had wanted me; he had wanted to legitimize our son. Isabella had stood in the way of Felipe’s marriage to me as I now stood in the way of Jake’s to Romilly.

Isabella had been found at the bottom of a staircase. She was not the first to die in this way. Long ago the Queen, some said, would have married Robert Dudley. But he had had a wife and she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase.

Beware, unwanted wives.

What could I do? I could go to my mother. I could say: “Mother, let me live with you because my husband is trying to kill me.”

I could tell my daughter perhaps. But how could I? She hated her father already. There was too much hatred in the house. And somewhere at the back of my mind was the thought—the hope—that I was wrong. A part of me said: He would not kill you. He loved you once—oh, yes, this emotion he had for you was love. You are the same except that you are ageing and can no longer bear a son. He would never kill you. You still have the power to infuriate him, to anger him. How could he forget the passionate years, the delight you have had in each other, for it is true that you have. Battles there have been, but have not those battles been the joy of both your lives?

This was why it was so wounding and so impossible that Jake should want to kill me.

I would wake in the night trembling from some vague nightmare.

Jake was away a great deal and I was often alone. He was visiting the towns along the coast where preparations were going on for the possible coming of the Spanish Armada.

I was glad in a way. It gave me time to think. I went over many of the little incidents of our life together. I remembered vividly scenes from the past. And always afterward I would say: It is not so. I don’t believe this of him … not of Jake.

I refused to see Romilly. She was aware, of course, that I knew who Penn’s father was. Jake must have told her.

Penn was kept well out of my way and I never saw the boy. I could not bear to look at him—sturdy, healthy, his home my house, the son another woman had given Jake when I had failed to do so.

Linnet was worried about me. “Are you well, Mother?” she asked constantly. She would make me lie down and sit beside me.

Strange things started to happen. Once I awoke in the night when Jake was away and saw a figure in my room. A shadowy figure dressed in gray. It stood at the door. I could not see the face, for it was as though it were wrapped in a shroud.

I screamed and some of the servants came running into my room.

“Who is there?” I cried. “Someone came into the room. Find who it was.”

They searched, but they could find no one. Jennet appeared at some time later, half-asleep. I knew she had had farther to come than the others—from the bed she was sharing with a lover.

“It was a nightmare,” said Linnet. “I shall write and ask my grandmother to send something to make you well. You are not yourself.”

Who had come into my room, and for what purpose? What was the matter with me? I was not the sort to be intimidated. Why was I overcome by this strange lassitude so alien to my nature?

Linnet said I was to stay in bed for a day. I had had an unpleasant shock. She brought my food to me. I felt very sleepy.

“That is good,” she said. “It shows you need a rest.”

I slept and when I awoke it was dusk. I saw a shadowy figure by my bed and I cried out. Linnet was bending over me.

“Everything is all right, Mother. I have been sitting with you while you slept.”

Yes, I was different. Something was happening to me. I could not throw off this tiredness. I found that I was falling asleep during the day.

What is changing me? I asked myself, and once again I thought of my grandmother who knew so much about herbs and plants and how she used to talk to me when I was a child. My attention had often wandered, but my mother had said: “You must listen to your grandmother when she talks, Cat dear. She is very clever about these things and they are important to her. When terrible tragedy came to her she went into her garden and found solace there and she prides herself on her knowledge as you do on your riding.”

To please my mother I tried to listen and as a result certain things she said remained with me.

“There’s everything here in the ground, Catharine. There’s life and there’s death. There’s things to cure and things to kill. There’s things to make you lively and things to make you sleep.”

To make you sleep. There was poppy juice, I knew. That could make you sleep.

I thought: Someone is trying to unnerve me. Who was it who came into my room? Where in this house is there a gray shroud. Who wore it to stand at my door?

Why should I, who had fought Jake Pennlyon and sometimes been the victor, why should I be gradually growing into a lethargic, frightened woman?

I was going to find out.

I was sure that someone was tampering with my food. Romilly and Jake would work together. Did they talk together of how they would rid themselves of me? Did Romilly picture herself the mistress of this house? Were they impatiently asking each other: “How long must it be?”

Felipe had never talked to me of his desire to see an end of Isabella. Yet Isabella had died and the day she died the household had gone to the auto-da-fé and neither I nor Felipe was at the Hacienda.

Jake was away. Was he deliberately away? Did he, when he returned, hope to find me dead … say, at the bottom of a staircase?

Who would throw me down? Who had thrown Isabella? The man Edmundo had done it. He had confessed. But he had done it for Felipe and that was Felipe’s guilt. Who would do it for Jake? Jake was surely a man who would do such things for himself. Would he creep into the house by stealth when he was supposed to be far away? Would he come to my room and drag me to the top of the staircase and hurl me down? Would he strangle me first? It could be done, I had heard, with a damp cloth pressed over the mouth. That was what was said to have been done to Isabella.

I must regain my former strength and courage. I must first find out what was changing me into a feeble, defenseless creature.

I was no longer Jake’s wildcat; I was his tame mouse—frightened and caught in a trap. I was a woman who allowed others to plan her death while she waited inactive.

No more, I said.

I would never drink anything in my room. That would mean that my food could not be tampered with, for if I ate at table I would take from the dish which everyone partook of.

That was the first step. I did this and it was amazing how much better I felt.

There at the head of the table I sat—since Jake was away. Romilly was present, sly, eyes downcast. It was small wonder that she dared not look at me.

Linnet was delighted.

“You are getting better, Mother,” she said.

For three days my strength returned. I laughed at myself. I even laughed at the idea of Jake’s wishing to marry Romilly. How could she hold his affections? He would tire in a week of her meekness. I was for Jake as Jake was for me.

It had taken more than twenty years and threats of murder for me to realize this.

Then strange things began to happen again. I looked for a cloak in my wardrobe and could not find it. I sent for Jennet; she could not be found.

“That woman is useless,” I stormed.

I went into the garden and there I found her among the herbs and lettuces we grew for salads.

I said: “I sent for you.”

“Why, Mistress,” she said, “I was here, you see.”

“I cannot find my green cloak. Where is it?”

“Why, ’twas there but this morning, Mistress. I saw it when I was putting your clothes away.”

“Well, ’tis not there now.”

“Then where can it be to, Mistress?”

I went back to my room and she came with me.

She opened the wardrobe door and there was my cloak.

“’Twere here all the time, Mistress.”

“It was not,” I said.

“But, Mistress, ’tis there just as I hung it.”

“It was not there ten minutes ago.”

She shook her head with a disbelief she dared not utter.

This was constantly happening. I would miss something, question its disappearance and then find it miraculously in its place.

The household was beginning to notice and Linnet was distressed.

I often went down to the hut where we had hidden Roberto. Ever since he had ridden away that morning I had been anxious about him. I had heard nothing. What was happening to him? I hoped that he was not involved in anything that would bring him to trouble.

He was young and impetuous. What match would he be against men such as Walsingham?

I would creep into the hut and look around and assure myself that he was not hiding somewhere.

There was so much talk now of plots and the Spanish menace that my anxieties had grown concerning him. I would not have been surprised at any time to find him there.

But I was feeling better. If it had not been for the apothecary’s evidence I would have told myself my fears were the result of my foolish imaginings. I was certain now that Jake had had no hand in any plot against me. Romilly must have poisoned the ale and the soup. She must have sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage all those years ago? Had Jake ever told her how I had evaded him long ago? Had she thought to murder me in such a way as could never be traced to her?

And then Jake had gone away and was lost to all for all those years. I was out of danger then. Had Romilly made the wax image of me? Then how did it come to be in Jake’s pocket? Had she put it there—why?

Now Jake was back; Romilly’s and his son was growing up. Jake wanted a legitimate son; she had borne him one; she had proved she could do so. She could give him his legitimate son … if I were out of the way.

It fitted.

I tried to work out what had happened. I had taken the whole of the soup and I had had a comparatively mild attack afterward. So whoever did it either did not wish to kill me or did not understand what quantity was needed to bring about the desired effect. The same may have applied to the ale. But who could want to make me ill and yet not kill me?

Romilly! She knew of the effects of these plants but did not know the extent of their deadliness. What could I do about Romilly? Send her to my mother. Send a potential murderess to my mother! I could not do that. And what of Penn? She would not go without him and Jake would not let him go.

I must lay my own traps. Thinking thus, I wandered down to the hut. There was no sign of anyone there. The relief was great, for I could not imagine what would happen if Jake discovered Roberto in hiding.

I stood for a few moments in the hut recalling those anxious times and when I went to the door I found that I could not open it. I pushed with all my might and could not budge it.

I’m locked in, I thought, and I felt the hair rise from my head.

For what purpose? Here I was some distance from the house. If I called no one would hear me. Strange things had been happening to me and now someone had locked me in this hut. What was to happen to me now?

I looked up at the window high in the wall through which Roberto was to have escaped into the bushes had he been surprised. I did not see how I could reach it. Then I should have to break it and jump through.

I turned back to the door and hammered on it. There was no response.

I leaned against the wall.

“What is happening to me?” I asked myself.

There was a key to this hut. Manuela had found it hanging inside. She had said that we would lock Roberto in and no one would be able to disturb him. Then if the Queen’s men came for him he was to jump through the window.