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  In the meantime her present duty as hostess claimed her thoughts and actions. She took Katharine to the room hastily prepared for her, next to Francis’s, where a bright wood fire burned on the hearth and Lady Leslie’s maid was already unpacking her mistress’s baggage.

  While Katharine made the necessary compliments upon the room and its furnishings, at the same time remembering with a little spasm of anger that it was the same in which she had been delivered of Alec’s child, her husband came quietly into the room. Celia at once made excuses and left; Francis, with a motion of his hand, dismissed the maid.

  ‘Now, Kate,’ he said, quietly, seating himself in a stiffbacked chair near the fire. ‘Tell me to what we are indebted here for your unlooked-for presence.’

  ‘The Queen is ill,’ she said, as if that explained everything.

  He looked at her but said nothing.

  ‘Her Majesty goes to Bath to take the waters, but proceeds very slowly, for she cannot long endure the royal coach upon these execrable roads.’

  Francis smiled.

  ‘The roads are no worse than they have ever been,’ he said. ‘In fact better just at present, being fairly soft from August showers but neither deep in mud nor frozen into hard ruts as they may be a month hence.’

  ‘For horses they be fit enough,’ answered Katharine. ‘Her Majesty cannot endure the shaking and bumping of coach travel.’

  This was reasonable, Francis agreed. The royal coach was naught but a highly decorated, upholstered cart, with no means to soften the shocks its stiff wheels conveyed. Among other inventions he had heard discussed in the university, by clever young men interested in the philosophy of the universe and the natural laws, were bands of malleable metal fixed to absorb such shocks. Springs. After all, a good rapier would bend and spring back straight again. Even a broadsword would bend at the point. So why not—

  He sighed, seeing his wife’s face harden as he mused. Useless to discuss these vital things with her. Useless to explain the thoughts that were moving to supplant the old circumscribed ideas. Reform had passed far beyond religion. Had not Galileo—

  His thought, touching on religion, brought him back to the Queen, who was believed to have reverted entirely to the old Roman persuasion.

  ‘Her Majesty is not seriously ill, I trust?’ he inquired politely.

  ‘I do not know,’ Katharine told him. ‘I am not of her personal Court.’

  Francis knew this, with a pang of conscience. Should he have given more care, more sympathy, to her ambition? It had begun as an innocent wish to enjoy the grandeur and the excitement of life at the highest level, which to her meant the life of the Royal Court. And being a maid, the court of the Queen.

  But he had not been careful of her. He had allowed her complete and growing freedom, chiefly out of gratitude for her submission in bearing his two children. It was a measure of her fear, in no way of her affection for him. It had been a way to avoid punishment for her betrayal and having accomplished it she had felt herself released from further obligation except of the most meagre kind.

  But Francis did not know all and Katharine had no intention of enlightening him any further than she need.

  ‘Then why,’ Francis asked, ‘if you are not of the Queen’s Court are you here in Oxford and why so separated from her train? Is there some fault, some royal disfavour? Even some danger to us all?’

  His questions were not unreasonable. In the courts of learning that Francis and his brother-in-law frequented, the doings of the monarch and his courtiers were only vaguely known, but healthily feared.

  Katharine laughed.

  ‘I am here because her Majesty would go no farther than Littlemore today. But as I told you I am not of her train. I came hither with my Lady Carr.’

  ‘My Lady Carr. Yes. She being by many supposed to be wife to the notorious favourite or his younger brother, Alan. When Alec was here he told me your mother had mentioned her as Robbie’s wife—’

  ‘My mother was ill-informed. I am sure I never told her so. There is no close relationship. My Lady Carr is some distant cousin of my Lord Roxborough. Robbie—and he is now Viscount Rochester, I would have you know—hath no wife.’

  ‘That does not surprise me,’ said Francis, sourly amused by the way she ignored his mention of Alec to run on a little breathlessly with her chatter about Robert Carr. ‘How can he have a wife when he is himself in that relation to the King? Or is it husband? My knowledge of this vice is rudimentary.’

  He paused, looking up at Katharine, who appeared merely thoughtful.

  He said, ‘How then, if my Lady Carr be so distant from my new Lord Rochester, comes it that you are so close with him and his? It hath been told me you are seen everywhere with Master Alan Carr, the favourite’s brother.’

  ‘It was through Master Alan I was brought to the notice of my Lady Carr.’

  This explained nothing and she knew it, so she hurried on. ‘And now my lady purposes to leave the Court. She is a widow and her means would be quite exhausted should she stay another winter. She goes to other relations and hath joined the Queen’s present progress to take her in safety into Somerset where these people will receive her.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I would return to London with you, sir. I think you will not wish to abandon me to my brother’s unkindness.’

  She said this in a pleading tone, unwilling to put her exact feeling into words, half fearful he would deny her. But why should he? He had never seriously scolded her in all their unhappy, mostly separate, married life. He had seemed to prefer her long absences. Or rather his. It was his own wish to be in Oxford for the most part of the year. Especially since he had been given his doctorate. The knighthood had meant far more to her than to him.

  He was still sitting by the fire and she had stayed standing at the centre of the room. Her necessary approach to him became more difficult with every encounter, but she still trusted to her powers as a woman, and rightly so.

  She went softly to him and sank to the ground beside his chair.

  ‘Do not think me altogether worthless, my husband,’ she entreated. ‘I have no place now at his Majesty’s Court nor ever had at the Queen’s. I would make my place in future in my true home.’

  ‘For as long as the deficiency lasts, madam? Is that it?’

  He had begun to speak in anger, but ended in spite of himself with a half smile. Her hair had lost the pale gleam of her youth but was still golden and most lovely in its fashionable loose curls above the wide starched lace of her collar. The thin lawn that covered her neck above the low-cut velvet of her dress did nothing to hide the gently swelling peaks of her breasts. Her face was unpleasantly plastered with paint and powder but its shape was perfect; her eyes wide, violet-blue, beautifully fringed with dark lashes, her mouth irresistible to one as abstemious as Francis. Irresistibly close.

  ‘Say that I may come home to thee, Francis,’ she whispered, knowing she had already won that concession.

  He did not tell her so in words, but before either of them slept that night he had given her a quite sufficient answer.

  Chapter Two

  Among the letters brought to Doctor Richard Ogilvy from his parents in London was one for Sir Francis. It had been enclosed in the parcel brought by the family messenger, though it had been addressed to Francis at his kinsman, Alderman Leslie’s house. There had for some time been an arrangement between the two families for an exchange of letters carried by a single man for the combined service. The arrangement worked smoothly, though sometimes, as now, the total lack of privacy, far less secrecy, in the receipt of news did bring about a degree of embarrassment.

  For the letter to Francis came from far away, from distant James Town in Virginia, as was entirely obvious from its condition, the multiple wrappings and seals and signings it bore. It came in fact from Alec Nimmo, to announce his safe arrival that July after an uneventful voyage with his friend Captain Samuel Argall, by way of the Azores and the Bermuda Islands.


  Alec wrote in high spirits. He had found the colony beginning to thrive at last, men working hard now to maintain themselves, less illness, more order. Best of all his dear wife Polly had borne him a fine son, his little daughter was flourishing, also Polly’s mother and her strange wild brother.

  Francis read all this with pleasure and thankfulness, though with a slight pang, less of envy than of grief, at Alec’s success where he had failed, Alec’s present domestic happiness in spite of huge hazards past and perhaps to come, while he, sheltered and comfortable, still had no home of his own that he could call such with any truth at all.

  But as he read the concluding lines of Alec’s letter he did find a real satisfaction and thankfulness on his own account.

  ‘—I did visit the laird, thy father, at Kilessie, on my way to re-establish myself at St Andrews. I saw my boy and found him so closely knit with thy family that, even had I longed to have him, I could not have made any move that would not have been in the nature of a crime. Thy brother spoke most kindly of him, as did they all. He is strong, very lively, self-willed but able to take correction without bearing a grudge. They do not see him as a scholar, which in the circumstances is no matter for surprise, nor as a farmer, which is more questionable. But I have no right to say ought in the matter, nor do I wish for it. My dear friend, he is thine, if so be thou continue to take that interest in him thou hast of thy great goodness shown hitherto, and also to thine erring but always grateful and most loving former companion—’

  The letter ran on into much detail of the present condition of the fishing business that Alec had set up during the first hard years at James Town and now proposed to take over again and expand. He mentioned that he had been, while in Scotland, to Pittenweem and found both his parents had died within the first two years of his absence, his father’s fish business dispersed, his old home taken over by a couple from Anstruther.

  All the beginning and latter part of this long letter Francis read out to Richard and Celia when Katharine was with them, but the middle section relating to the young Francis he kept to himself, not even giving the gist of it to his wife. She had been taught to read but had taken so little interest in the art and had practised it so seldom that she was barely able to decipher any but clearly written simple notes, or write the same, of the kind she had sent to announce her presence near Oxford. Alec’s scholarship, never advanced, had not been improved by his wild life of the last five years. There was no danger at all of her being able to read his letter. Francis, accustomed to all manner of scripts, ancient monastic quill work as well as modern print and in several languages, had even so found some difficulty with it. So he put it away with his other papers, taking no care either to hide it or lock it up in case Kate should notice this and move to secure it for herself. Though she might not be able to read it, she could, without much trouble, find someone to read it for her. Francis shrivelled inwardly to think of the spreading circle of slime such an action would cast around him, around them all. Thinking on these lines, realizing in what fashion he now regarded his wife’s capability for evil, his bitterness increased but no longer shocked him.

  During the five days Queen Anne rested at Littlemore she held a very quiet reception for the learned professors and doctors of the university, the masters and provosts of colleges, the tutors and lecturers, together with their wives.

  Her Majesty’s courtiers, her ladies and attendants, came with curiosity, but were soon bored. The university magnates also came with curiosity, particularly their wives, sisters and grown-up daughters, and they were not bored because they all knew one another. They were subdued at first, very careful to show a proper respect and admiration as they were presented. But the Queen, tiring very soon, left the assembly, at which the university men, disregarding the presence of their women, began to form into congenial knots, while the ladies, finding themselves not fine enough in dress and ornament for the court grandees, in self-defence did likewise.

  Celia Ogilvy found the occasion enchanting. Her Majesty was much stouter than she had imagined, but she had a noble face and a gracious manner, even if she did not smile often.

  ‘She hath not much occasion to smile,’ Katharine told her, ‘being so far from well and set apart in all things from his Majesty.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Know you not of his proclivity? My Lord Rochester—’

  ‘He that was Robbie Carr? Oh, I know he is favourite and hath been for many years. But I understood the Queen—’

  ‘Hush, sister. There be ears more widely open in a throng such as this than in smaller company.’

  ‘Then the new Viscount Rochester no longer pleases his Majesty?’

  ‘Nay, we must not speak of this either. Present me to your friends, Celia. They seem to approach us and then turn away. I am a stranger to them, I suppose?’

  Certainly a stranger, Celia thought, and no doubt considered to be a member of the court, seeing the style and richness of her dress and her manner of wearing it. However, Mistress Ogilvy performed her duty of hostess to her sister-in-law, moving gently about, collecting friends who for the most part spoke a few words and then removed themselves, eager to spread gossip backed by scandal. Others, fewer in number, attached themselves for further gentle movement. So that soon the younger of the learned scholars began also to drift in the direction of Mistress Ogilvy’s group and having arrived were not detachable, but like limpets or barnacles formed a tight cluster determined to make the most of a rare occasion.

  Lady Leslie was enchanted, also very highly amused. To be admired was too familiar an experience to rouse any special delight in her. Besides, to be admired by these scholars was hardly a compliment, rather a nuisance, because it reminded her of Francis, of his former idealized love, his boyish infatuation, her own guilt, for which she never ceased to wish to punish him. But when she reflected upon her position in that place, upon the cold message from her Majesty that she must leave the progress when Lady Carr departed; when she looked about her at the worshipping, greedy or astonished eyes of these unworldly men, who imagined her to be a great court lady, then she did feel a very great childish mischief delight in gulling them.

  Unfortunately for her continued entertainment Mistress Ogilvy, who was no fool, understood the whole situation and determined to put an end to it. She declared that they must go home. They must find Richard and Francis, seek out the horses and be on their way.

  ‘You too, my lady?’ an earnest young man asked Katharine, making no move to free her path as Celia walked away.

  ‘I go with Sir Francis, naturally,’ she answered, with the briefest of cold smiles. ‘If you will kindly make way—’

  He bowed low, very awkwardly, without a word. The fairy tale was at an end. The fantasy exploded. The sparkle faded from the air, the silver music of a gay voice and laugh died with it. Somehow the whole occasion had become rather ridiculous. Lady Francis Leslie’s retreating back gave parting evidence of the provincial nature of that gathering.

  In the safety and quiet of the Ogilvy home Mistress Celia, encouraged by her brief encounter with high society, pursued her inquiries into her sister-in-law’s knowledge of the current affairs among the great ones. With no preamble she asked for more particulars of the Carr family, especially of the new Viscount Rochester and his brother.

  ‘You were telling me that some difficulty hath arisen between my Lord Rochester and the King?’

  Katharine hesitated before replying. What she knew as a fact was still at court merely a surmise, a rumour, a very carefully hidden up scent of scandal. But no less exciting for that. Only it would be very indiscreet to reveal it to Richard’s wife, who kept nothing from her husband, who in his turn was too intimate with Francis, now so thoroughly estranged, to make the story safe in the latter’s knowledge of it.

  ‘You have, perhaps, heard teil of the beautiful Lady Frances Howard, daughter to the Earl of Suffolk?’

  Mistress Celia’s forehead creased in perplexity. She had not he
ard of the lady but she knew my Lord Suffolk was very prominent in the Howard faction of magnates, who were in favour of the Catholic religion to which many of them belonged and so were opposed to the Church of England party, led by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Abbot, together with my Lord Pembroke, my Lord Southampton and others. The university hierarchy were strongly in favour of Archbishop Abbot and his followers, Richard had told her. She explained this to Katharine, who answered drily, ‘I know little of these religious quarrels, but only as they touch on my friends. My Lord Rochester is sad because his own favourite, Sir Thomas Overbury, is opposed to the Howards and becomes too loud in his protestations.’

  ‘Thus offending the Lady Frances?’ asked Celia, trying to understand the significance of all this.

  Katharine laughed.

  ‘Not exactly. I told you the affairs of state touch me not at all. Those of the heart, however, are of particular interest to me, especially in high places. My Lady Frances Howard should more properly be called by her rightful name of my Lady Essex.’

  ‘Essex!’ cried Celia, recognizing the name of a very notorious traitor who had suffered for his rebellion against the old Queen. ‘But he—’

  ‘Had a son to whom the title and some part of the estates were restored and who was married as a boy of only fourteen years to this same Frances Howard, herself but thirteen years of age at the time.’

  ‘Poor innocents!’ cried Celia, who together with many thinking women of her generation regretted the Royal dynastic marriage of mere children. Though at the same time she totally approved the arranged marriages between families of equal merit and fortune, with the willing, indifferent or carefully persuaded consent of the principals. ‘I suppose they did not immediately set up house together?’