The Golden Widows Read online

  ‘Astley is perfect, Grey, except that the Sheriff of Coventry has seized possession and taken everything I own except the upstairs floorboards.’

  ‘Already? We sent a messenger off yestermorn to warn you.’

  ‘We passed no one from you on the road, Uncle.’ Tom shook Grey’s proffered hand with no enthusiasm.

  Ignoring the boy’s comment, Grey gave orders to the grooms to bring in their baggage. ‘Go in to the fire!’ he said sternly, pushing Dickon towards the house.

  ‘You knew this might happen, Grey?’

  ‘We had a visit from the Sheriff of Leicester because of John’s attainder. Mother was able to produce her dower deeds and prove her right to the barony.’

  ‘Well, I wish I’d had mine. They even took the Hart hanging that my grandmother gave me.’

  ‘Have you no copy of your pre-marriage contract?’ He halted and turned, frowning. ‘I went through all the family deeds last week and there was nowt here of yours. Are you certain John did not keep it at Astley?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Grey.’

  ‘Aye up, I must have missed it, then,’ he replied smoothly, ‘though there’s a chest of John’s in the guest bedchamber that I haven’t been through yet.’

  An ill feeling began to build in her belly. ‘No matter, I’ll look for myself in the morning. In any case, you can testify that you heard John promise me a third of his lands on our wedding day.’

  He did not answer but opened the door of the solar for her. ‘Mother! Elysabeth and the boys are back with us. The Sheriff of Coventry has taken Astley on Warwick’s orders.’

  Lady Ferrers rose to usher the boys to the fire. Her pleated coif of widowhood was gone. Instead, her brown hair was gathered up beneath a cap of dark blue velvet and the square neck of her blue damask kirtle framed a dainty undergown and permitted a generous summer cleavage.

  ‘You are looking very well, madame,’ Elysabeth told her sincerely.

  ‘Yes, you look different, Grandmama,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘Not so old.’

  ‘How can people look older or younger than they are?’ asked Dickon. ‘Grandmama is two score years and two, and twenty-seven days.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Dickon.’ The teeth on a crocodilus would have looked friendlier. ‘Has your mother told you I am marrying again, boys?’

  Tom did not meet her eyes. ‘I suppose so. Maybe I wasn’t listening.’

  Another strained smile. ‘Well, Thomas, in a week you will be meeting Sir John Bourchier, the new Baron Ferrers.’

  Tom’s gaze was on her face now. ‘But I’m Lord Ferrers, Grandmother.’

  ‘No, Thomas, not anymore, you are not.’

  This would be as futile as hunting for dragons’ eggs, Elysabeth warned herself, as she opened the door to John’s old bedchamber next morning. She might have accepted Tom’s help but there was none on offer. Taking Dickon, he had disappeared across the fields, resentment still curdling. It was she, not his grandmother, who had borne the bedtime accusations of betrayal.

  Barring the door of the bedchamber so none might disturb her, she paused alone with her memories, wondering if John’s ghost watched her from the shadows, shaking his head at the mess she seemed to have made of things. For a few minutes she wept softly, leaning her cheek against the bedpost and trying to muffle her sobs in her kerchief, and then shakily she returned to her purpose and knelt before the oak chest that stood at the foot of the bed.

  Grey and his mother had not touched anything, or so they claimed, but the chest was unlocked and the doublets and stomachers that John had kept in the upper tray of the chest had been removed. She was grateful for that, and staring round her, she was aware of the other changes. New wall hangings had been put up. Above the pillows, the painted cloth of St John experiencing revelations had been replaced with a besotted Tristan and Iseult plighting their troth. These differences helped exorcise the pain in her heart but the bedcurtains were the same and so were the towels of Coventry blue hanging on a wall rail by the ewer stand where John’s razor and her combs had lain.

  I must not waste time. She fed another log to the fire in the hearth and then started on her task, planning to lift out all the ribboned bundles of papers in the chest onto the floor and then replace them one by one, after she had checked the contents. A painful business indeed. Each bundle was wrapped with a label in John’s Italian hand, and at the bottom of the chest nestled on the folds of an old cloak were treasures from his childhood: a cloth bag of marbles, knucklebones, a toy dagger with a blunt blade that rattled back into the hilt, an old copy book in a spindly script and a painstakingly whittled knight, its sword broken. There were no loose papers. The smallest packet – bearing her name – contained the few letters she had sent him in the early part of their courtship. She never knew that he had saved them. One even held a daisy chain she had made playfully to garland him, but where was the leather sheath in which he had kept their pre-marriage contract? She retied the ribbon and then she went through the next bundle and the rest. Had someone removed the contract?

  Outside it had begun to rain and plump drops of water cascaded down the panes like tears. Elysabeth found a candle stub, spiked it onto an empty candlestick, lit it and carefully lowered it into the darkness of the chest in case she had missed something.

  Flakes of paint from the little knight argued that the cloth on which it had lain had not been disturbed for a long time. Setting aside the candle, she lifted out what appeared to be a child’s cloak. Beneath it was a rolled vellum document. With relief, she discovered it was the document drawn up six years earlier confirming the trust that John’s father had set up for them before he died: a hundred marks a year derived from two manors in Northamptonshire and one in Essex. Relieved that her quest had not been fruitless, she replaced everything else except her love letters and John’s treasures, then she closed the lid and sat for a moment, running her finger pensively over the clasp of the lock before she rose with a smile.

  Grey was in the accounting room.

  ‘Found nowt, I suppose?’

  ‘Not the dower deeds, but I came across the trust document your father set up for John and I.’

  ‘What, in the old chest? Well, plague take me!’ This time his surprise seemed genuine. Suspiciously so.

  ‘And have you found my pre-contract, Grey?’ she asked, wondering if he’d tell her if he had.

  He sucked in his cheeks. ‘Found Mother’s but not John’s. The sheriff’s officers went through our muniments, maybe they took it.’ That was possible after her experience at Astley, but why did Grey no longer look her in the face? He unhooked the keys from his belt and held them out. ‘Here, you are welcome to search for yourself, Elysabeth, but Mother and I are invited to dine at Mayor Sheringham’s in Leicester and must make shift. I’ll see you at supper.’ He grabbed up his hat and gloves.

  ‘Grey?’

  He looked round, his eyes meeting hers at last. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I hope there is still friendship and trust between us.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. An abrupt, why-would-you-ask ‘aye’. Then he looked away like a child caught out. There was no green suitor in him now.

  ‘I am pleased, Grey.’ Though I don’t believe it.

  ‘Good, then. Lock everything when you’ve had enough.’

  She spent the next half hour searching through the rolls and documents to no avail and her heart only lightened when Dickon wandered in. Mud buttered his boots but she was so pleased to have his company, she could not rebuke him.

  ‘Where is Tom, love?’

  ‘With the dogs.’ The child picked up a manor roll and a cushion, wriggled into a cross-legged position, spread the parchment out and stared at the columns of figures. Three heartbeats and she wagered he’d cast it aside.

  Twenty heartbeats.

  ‘Mama, the numbers do not add up properly.’

  Elysabeth set down the trust document she had been reading for the umpteenth time. ‘Show me.’

  ‘This side,’ he p
ointed to the left column, ‘adds up correctly. But this does not.’ Laziness in Lady Ferrers’ steward? She wondered. But that did not matter. Her five-year-old son had just added up over a score of numbers.

  ‘Dickon, if I have 576 horses and 89 cows, how many animals do I have?’

  ‘But you don’t, Mama. Astley doesn’t have the pasture for that many. We have sixty sheep if you do not count the lambs that died.’

  ‘If I did have those horses and cows, Dickon. How many beasts?’

  ‘Six hundred, three score and five.’

  Marvelling, she picked up a quill and dipping it in the inkwell, wrote down six numbers. Dickon added them up in an instant, faster than she did. When she handed him one of John’s receipts for bricks, the child was interested in the numbers but not the words.

  ‘Your tutor schooled you well in arithmetic,’ she exclaimed, giving him a hug. Since his fall, he had never hugged her back. Nor did he now.

  ‘I am far better at numbers than Master Anstey was,’ he stated.

  ‘You are not very good at cuddles, though.’

  ‘Do I need to be?’

  Dining with a closed order of nuns would have been more exciting than breakfast at the Greys, Elysabeth decided, as she finished her breakfast of pottage next morning. It was time to pursue John’s mother to the solar and mention money. A deep breath was necessary as she ventured in. Not because the chamber was scented like a mercer’s shop from the bales – amber velvet, green satin and a moonlight gauze – cluttering the broad windowseat, but because she was desperate.

  ‘Madame,’ she exclaimed, edging the twirls of embroidered ribbons along the settle so she could sit down, ‘we need to talk about the future.’

  Lady Ferrers gave a flick of her fingers and her tiring women rose, curtsied and, clutching their unfinished sewing, quietly left the room.

  ‘Mine or yours?’ The green eyes above the needle glittered sharply.

  ‘Mine, madame. Until I regain my right to Astley, we need to make some other arrangement for my dower entitlement, if you please.’

  Thimbling the needle through the layers of fur and velvet looked conveniently difficult; it not only required Lady Ferrers’ concentration but made the cruel answer easier to deliver.

  ‘Out of the question at the moment, I’m afraid, Elizabeth. Your father still owes a hundred and twenty-five marks of your dowry and my lawyer tells me there can be no settlement until that is dealt with. And since your sire is still in the king’s custody, I’m sure that will take some time.’

  Knowing how stretched Father always was with money, and that the new king might extract a hefty fine before the shackles were unlocked, Elysabeth could believe it. Or was her mother-inlaw lying about the dowry payment?

  ‘John never told me there was any problem.’ Perhaps she had been foolish not to ask him but then she had never imagined he would be dead by the age of twenty-nine.

  ‘Ah well, he wouldn’t, I daresay, but there have been letters back and forth and I’m afraid your father can only show receipts for the first two hundred marks.’

  Elysabeth tried to keep her temper. ‘In the mean time, there is the trust that John’s father arranged for us. One hundred marks a year, the income from Newbottle, Brington and Woodham Ferrers.’ She unrolled the document to show Lady Ferrers but she did not let it leave her hands.

  ‘Hmm, I remember that being drawn up and a great deal of fuss it was too. We had to sort matters out in the Court of Common Pleas. It was to avoid John having to pay any duties on the lands on his father’s death. Those manors belonged originally to my grandfather but the cleric William Walesby holds the title and fee simple now. He granted it to several men for their usage but we paid them to pass that use to John.’

  ‘It seems very complicated.’

  Lady Ferrers read it through. ‘Well, there you are then, consider that your dower instead until you can find your deeds.’

  Instead!

  ‘However, Elysabeth, a word to the wise. You will need to confirm the matter once more with William Walesby and apply to each of these other men to reconfirm the enfeoffment. I daresay they will need depositions from witnesses to say that you and John were lawfully wed.’

  Lawfully wed? Never say that this infernal family were going to dispute the legality of her marriage!

  Her mother-in-law had yet another warning. ‘The deed mentions John and the heirs of his body, and these men may have concerns that if income from these properties is granted to you, you may dispose of these manors at some future date.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t if it’s for my sons.’

  ‘True, but, as you say, any matters concerning land are complicated. Perhaps you need to ask your father to commission a diligent lawyer to sort matters out.’

  ‘I am quite capable of finding a lawyer but all this could take weeks, madame.’ Let alone be expensive!

  She vaguely remembered John’s verdict after he had spoken with Walesby and met with the trustees. Sir Thomas Fyderne, Isham and Bolden, he considered to be upright, worthy gentlemen but the mercer, William Fylding of Lutterworth, had an oilier rub to him. ‘Not the sort of fellow I would buy a horse from, but Father seems to trust him.’ What if this Fylding proved difficult? Where could she find money to grease his palm?

  ‘It has to be done according to precedent and procedure,’ her mother-in-law was saying.

  ‘Yes, I realise that,’ Elysabeth answered tersely, appalled that there seemed to be no iota of sympathy in Lady Ferrers’ demeanour. Unhelpful answers tripped too readily from the woman’s lips.

  ‘I recall that Sir Thomas Fynderne was made Lieutenant of Guisnes. Whether my lord of Warwick has reappointed him is another matter. Anyway, Elysabeth, you will have plenty of time to gather any depositions. The annual payment is not due until All Saints Day.’

  November! Six months hence? How could she manage until then? She needed to find a new tutor for the boys as well as support Tamsin and the few servants she had left. And Tom had almost outgrown his boots. It was pathetic to cry penniless when there were poor peasants who scarce had a crumb to assuage their hunger, she would just have to find a way.

  ‘Surely there must be some funds to carry us through?’

  ‘No, Elysabeth, to my knowledge there’s naught to hand. I daresay you’ll find that John put most of what was spare into building that ridiculous tower of his. Which reminds me. I must give you these.’ She reached out to the pile of papers on the small table next to her sewing basket and handed them across.

  Bills. Mostly from the master mason for bricks and labour, but the timber merchant was overdue for the cost of the joists and scaffolding, and then there was the roofing slate and the transport thereof.

  ‘John never settled them,’ her mother-in-law informed her, ‘and I’m certainly not doing so.’

  Elysabeth stared at her with narrowed eyes, and panic churning her insides. ‘But it’s on your property, madame. You agreed that the adjoining lodging would be useful.’

  ‘No, I certainly did not. Where did you get that notion? This was John’s enterprise from the beginning. Don’t badger me to share the cost, Elysabeth. It is entirely due to you. And in any case, I have no ready coin. All my income is bound up in the estate.’

  There was money. Ever since Lady Ferrers had brought her rich inheritance into the family, the Greys had never been poor.

  ‘But the Groby fleeces sold well, so surely…’ Her gaze took in the costly wedding fabrics and she had her answer. Or part of it. It was not John’s mother’s wealth but her goodwill that was lacking.

  ‘Oh, by the Blessed Christ!’ she exclaimed, her hands fisting the air. ‘It’s not for myself I ask, madame, but for Tom and Dickon. Surely you do not want to see your grandsons penniless?’

  Lady Ferrers set down her sewing. ‘Heed me, Elysabeth, if I was in my dotage I should make over some of my inheritance to Tom, but these are uncertain times, two of my sons are dead, and I have my own future to consider. I cannot go to m
y new husband empty handed. Come, be understanding, Elysabeth. What choice do I have? Bourchier will not be wanting to wed a pauper, especially as he is a younger son.’

  Understanding! The selfish shrew. What was she expecting her to do? Grovel?

  ‘I know we have had our disagreements, madame, and that you were displeased that John married me but, I beg you, Tom and Dickon are your family. Surely you could cede something to Tom in the meantime?’ She paused. Lady Ferrers’ attention was on threading her needle. Was she even listening? If Tom had not been so sullen and silent since his father’s death, then maybe his grandmother would have been showing compassion.

  ‘A small annuity perhaps,’ Elysabeth pleaded. ‘Just a little amount that will keep him until he is a man and may find his own way in the world.’

  Her mother-in-law moistened the thread and tried again. ‘You are years late with that idea, my duck. If you’d have taken my advice when he was seven, he’d be high in a great lord’s favour by now and not a worry to you. Quite frankly, there’s little of the Ferrers family between Tom’s ears and nothing at all between Dickon’s.’

  ‘That’s a despicable thing to say of your own flesh and blood.’ Elysabeth was tempted to grab the cursed woman’s needlework and fling it in the fire. ‘John’s children and you do not care a jot. Must I take your family to court for my dower?’

  Lady Ferrers knotted the thread and jabbed the needle up through the collar. ‘With scarce two pennies to rub together for a lawyer? Let’s not mince words any longer, shall we, Elysabeth? You are welcome here for a week longer but after that you must fend for yourself. I don’t want Bourchier to see you drooping around, all mardie-faced.’

  Not mince words. Very well, then. ‘Why is that, madame? Are you afraid I might rob you of your suitor?’

  The older woman drew a ragged breath and the envy that had been suppressed since Elysabeth had first come to Groby was plain now in her narrowed eyes. ‘I thought my son’s death left you inconsolable.’