The Tutor Read Online Free PDF Page B

Florence and then in Rome.
    A servant rang a bell and the room hushed. Richard started to speak. “Our great family . . .” He coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. “Our great family has resided in Lancashire for centuries upon centuries. Our esteemed ancestor, the courageous Walter Grancourt, was a great companion to William the Conqueror, and our lineage on the maternal line is descended from the great Lady Wenlock, wife of Prufroc, Earl of Bucknall. The good Lord has smiled upon our deeds and our lands have grown and we have as a great family prospered. We are now and always have been the most loyal of subjects to great England, our motherland. Thus it is with great sadness that I relate to you that certain recent events have caused us great concern and that because of these events, my esteemed father, Sir Edward, has found it necessary to leave this country for France. He has safely made passage . . .”
    It was true, then, the rumor Katharine had heard from her maid Molly, who had heard it from Ursula’s maid Audrey, who had heard it from Harold’s manservant. That was how news traveled at Lufanwal: as if the dairy barns, hawk houses, chicken coops, stables, kitchens, nursery, schoolroom and maids’ chambers were all inns along a post road, where tales of indiscretion, sickness and death stopped for a brief rest.
    Richard droned on. How many times could he use the word great in one address? The word should have been hoarded and used only once, to describe Sir Edward, for he was a great man and certainly more eloquent than his eldest son. And“certain recent events ” seemed a tame way to describe the gruesome tales that arrived daily: the beheading of Lord Maltby on Shrove Tuesday for his supposed ties to the Irish rebels; the jailing in the Tower of the Jesuit Christopher Bagshaw, upon his returnfrom France—Bagshaw would probably never make it out of his cell alive.
    On the way back to her chamber, Katharine heard Harold’s youngest son, Thomas, say to his older brother, Henry, “I think it shows a weakness, the running away. I would have stayed. Even if they locked me in the Tower. Even if they chopped my head off.”
    Henry, who was now fifteen, tapped the side of his little brother’s head and said, “’Tis complicated, Thomas. You are still a child and know nothing of this world.”
    I know nothing of this world, Katharine thought as she climbed the stairs. She had felt Sir Edward’s exile the night she watched him leave under the moonlight but had not wanted to admit it to herself. He was gone. He was across the sea.
    —
    Ursula rarely played with children, hers or anyone else’s, but today she was gamboling across the tilt field with her little spaniel Guinny, and the younger children were running after her.
    Lufanwal Hall was on a hill. When it was first built in the eleventh century, the steep incline made it a natural fortress. The surrounding valley was rich with rectangular fields, apple orchards, plots of woad and weld and madder. Even with the dearth of rain, the land below seemed the stuff of a weaver’s loom, with warp and weft of orange, red, purple and green.
    “Put that book down and join us!” Ursula squealed as she scampered past Katharine, who was reading The Faerie Queene .
    After Sir Edward left, a servant had brought Spenser’s leather-bound volume with a note tucked in its pages: Though we started this together, you may take the virgin read. I will resume when I return.
    Ursula wore no cap, and her blond hair was spilling out of its pins. Shelooked more a girl than a mother of four. She had tiny hands and tiny feet, and her waist was the size of a man’s neck. Katharine reckoned she could put her hands around that waist and her fingers would touch. Ursula’s eyes were light blue and her skin naturally white. She began to twirl, and the children watched her with glee.
    “The world is turning,” she cried, her skirts and her petticoats swirling around