The Dark Lady's Mask (47 page)

“And that's my son,” she whispered, pointing to Henry in the choir.

“The child has an air of nobility about him,” Susan observed, making gentle note of his parentage.

At ten, Henry was tall and solemn, with his natural father's penetrating gaze and his mother's dark eyes and hair.

The Queen's funeral service was half in English, half in Latin, as if the country's religion were again uncertain. Everything might be turned upside down, as when Elizabeth ascended to the throne after her Catholic sister Mary Tudor's death. The new King James was Catholic Mary Stuart's son, but he had been raised a Protestant. Who could say what the new order might bring—the Scottish monarch had yet to show his face in London or Westminster.

A
FTER THE FUNERAL HAD
ended, Aemilia walked with Susan through the throng of grandees gathered outside Westminster Abbey.

“Nothing in this world is constant,” Susan whispered, her face white with indignation. “Just look at them all.”

The lady's eyes darted to the noblemen who muttered behind their hands, as though already plotting how to secure their positions in the new court even though the old Queen's coffin had barely been laid to rest. Aemilia, likewise, could read the thoughts emblazoned on the courtiers' faces. They could barely contain their jubilation to have a man back on the throne after two reigning female monarchs.

“Now watch them take flight,” Susan whispered. “They'll gallop to York to greet the new King, killing three horses in a day to try to get there before all the others.”

Susan pointed out a man whose face bore an expression of barely concealed impatience, as though he couldn't stand to wait another minute before racing north to stake his claim. With his sweeping dark hair and black-velvet doublet, he cut a dashing figure, but his entire mien was of insufferable arrogance.

Aemilia recognized him at once—George Clifford, the Earl of Cumberland, the late Queen's champion of the tiltyard. Beside him stood his wife, Margaret Clifford, the Countess of Cumberland, who still looked much the same as Aemilia remembered from her days at court. She was a lady with the modest manner of a virtuous wife, except her husband appeared as though he couldn't stand the sight of her. Even Aemilia had heard the rumors that George Clifford had all but repudiated his wife. Margaret's face, clenched in humiliation, tore at Aemilia's heart. She knew that pain only too well.

Beside Margaret stood a slender girl whose eyes gleamed falcon bright. Aemilia noted the way the girl stood close to her mother and held her hand, as if to shield her from her father's disdain. Aemilia could not take her eyes off their clasped hands. Love seemed to radiate from mother and daughter like the glow around a lamp.
At least you have this consolation,
Aemilia longed to tell Margaret Clifford. Her own arms ached for the daughter she had lost.

The crowd began to disperse, and already George Clifford was walking away from his wife and daughter. Before they, too, could depart, Susan drew Aemilia forward and greeted Margaret Clifford and her daughter, Anne.

“This is my dear friend, Mistress Aemilia Bassano Lanier, wife of Captain Lanier, a most loyal servant of our late Queen.”

Aemilia was mystified why Susan should make such a show of presenting her, but she dropped down in a curtsy just the same.

“Aemilia Bassano,” the Countess of Cumberland said. “Yes, I remember you from your time at court.”

Aemilia was on fire before her gaze. Margaret Clifford had witnessed her downfall, the ignomy of fainting in the masque then coming to in that room full of scandalized, gossiping women. Only Margaret had looked on her with compassion.

The Countess now regarded her with dark, serious eyes in a face that was as pale as the pearls at her throat. Aemilia could sense the intelligence pulsing inside her. This was a woman of great forbearance.
She showed me kindness that day because she knows what it is to suffer and be shamed.

“I educated Aemilia when she was a girl,” Susan told the Countess.

“And a fine education that was,” Margaret Clifford said. “I remember your many accomplishments, Mistress Lanier.”

“My Lady Margaret, would she not make a fine tutor for Anne?” Susan spoke smoothly with a subtle smile.

Aemilia could not believe her mentor's boldness. Meanwhile, Anne seemed to examine Aemilia with sharp, inquisitive eyes.

“Master Samuel Daniel is my tutor,” the girl said grandly.

“The renowned poet!” Aemilia interjected. She couldn't help herself. “How I admire his
Complaint of Rosamond.
”

“You yourself are a poet as I recall,” Margaret said. “Did you not once write a poem for Her Majesty?”

“My lady, I did.” Aemilia was light-headed with elation that the Countess remembered. “Though it was but short.”

Closing her eyes, she recited the poem that she had offered to the Queen when Lord Hunsdon had first introduced her at court. Her voice wavered in grief at Her Majesty's passing. Though Aemilia had suffered the Queen's ire and banishment when she fell pregnant, Elizabeth had been the bedrock on which this realm had stood for Aemilia's entire existence. How could England go on without her courageous Queen?

The Phoenix of her age, whose worth does bind

All worthy minds so long as they have breath,

In links of admiration, love, and zeal,

To the dear Mother of our Commonweal.

The circle of women remained silent, heads bowed.

“Elizabeth was truly the phoenix of our age,” Margaret said, tears in her eyes.

Aemilia saw the genuine love on Margaret Clifford's face, for had she not been one of Elizabeth's most trusted Maids of Honor? The Countess had attended Elizabeth on her deathbed.

“In faith, Mistress Lanier,” Margaret said, drying her eyes, “I think your talents would impress even Master Daniel.”

“She's fluent in French and Italian,” Susan said. “Are not languages a marvelous accomplishment for a young lady?”

“Father won't
let
me learn languages,” Anne said, with the savage bluntness of a maid of thirteen.

Aemilia couldn't hide her astonishment. “What, not even Latin?”

“My husband thinks it unbecoming of a woman,” the Countess said drearily. “The new King won't even allow his daughter to learn Latin.”

Aemilia wanted to wring her hands. The late Queen had mastered Latin, Greek, and many modern languages. What would James's reign hold if even the Princess Royal was forbidden a humanist education?

Anne exchanged a look with her mother, who seemed to view Aemilia more intently.

“What else can you teach, Mistress Lanier?” Margaret Clifford asked.

Aemilia's tongue froze in her open mouth.

“Music,” Susan said, speaking swiftly to hide Aemilia's awkwardness.

“I could teach your daughter to play the lute and the virginals,” Aemilia said, inclining her head in deference. “And to sing madrigals.”

“I could
sing
in Italian, could I not?” Anne looked at her mother. “Father only said I couldn't
speak
foreign languages.”

“But you are married, Mistress Lanier,” the Countess said. “Would your husband permit you to live elsewhere?”

“My husband is often away at court,” Aemilia told her. “He would begrudge me no honorable occupation.” Alfonse, she knew, would kiss every coin she could bring to their household.

The Countess nodded. “Tomorrow my daughter and I ride north to greet Queen Anne, but when we return, I shall send for you to join us at Cookham.”

For a moment, Aemilia forgot to breathe. Then she blinked and the Countess and her daughter had departed.

Susan took her hand. “You said your husband has fallen into poverty and decline. Why should you not use your learning to raise yourself back up?”

 

LIMBING OUT OF THE
wherry at Cookham Village with its cottages hugging the banks of the Thames, Aemilia felt as wide-eyed and unsure of herself as when she had first made her journey to Grimsthorpe as an eight-year-old child. Though she was grateful to finally have a meaningful occupation, she had no clue what to expect from her new life as a tutor. Had the Countess of Cumberland hired her out of pity, as an act of charity to the wife of a man who had impoverished his family in service of the Crown? What if Margaret Clifford began to have second thoughts about hiring a woman of Aemilia's tarnished reputation to teach her innocent daughter? How easily Aemilia could slip up.

No such doubts seemed to cloud Winifred's mind. In her exuberance, her maid nearly capsized the boat as she scrambled out.

“
I
shall carry your lute,” Winifred declared, clutching her mistress's prized instrument in her huge arms as though the boatman couldn't be trusted to lay even a finger on it.

The wherryman heaved Aemilia and Winifred's boxes onto the landing.

Before paying the fare, Aemilia gripped Winifred's arm. “It's not too late to go back. Will you not miss your sisters?”

With Alfonse at court in the King's Musicke, Aemilia now employed at Cookham, and Henry serving his apprenticeship in Jasper's home, they had given up the rented house in Norton Folgate. Tabitha had married her wainwright and was expecting their first child. Pru had stayed behind to act as midwife.

“Don't you want to be there when Tabby's baby is born?” Aemilia asked.

“Who will look after you then?” Winifred sniffed and rubbed her eyes but stood as tall as a soldier. “A gentlewoman requires a maid.”

“I am now a gentlewoman
servant,
” Aemilia pointed out.

“Look, mistress! Here comes the cart to take us to the manor house.”

L
EAVING BEHIND THE VILLAGE
, the cart carried Aemilia and Winifred past cherry orchards and meadows of lacy flowers where cattle and sheep grazed. Though this felt like the deepest countryside, they were only twenty-five miles up the Thames from London and a short distance from Windsor and Maidenhead.

At last the ancient timber house came into view. Owned by the Crown and leased to Margaret Clifford's brother, Cookham Manor had become the Countess's refuge when the strain in her marriage had become intolerable.

Before the driver could help her down, Aemilia leapt from the cart and stood face-to-face with Margaret and Anne, her new pupil. Aemilia pitched herself forward in a curtsy, but Margaret grasped her hands and held her upright.

“Welcome, Mistress Lanier. I hope you will feel at home with us.”

“
Promise
me you'll teach me to sing in Italian,” said Anne, taking Aemilia's arm.

“A pity you missed Master Daniel,” the Countess said. “He was called away, but his poetry books are here should you wish to read them.”

Mother and daughter drew Aemilia into their realm, that masterless manor with no husbands or fathers.

A
MEDIEVAL HALL
, Cookham was nowhere near as opulent as Grimsthorpe, but it was all the more hospitable with its creaking oak floors and uneven walls with their faded tapestries of dancing goddesses.

Taking her new tutor by the hand, Anne led Aemilia through the great room and up the staircase.

“I hope you like to walk,” the girl said. “In fair weather, we walk for
hours.
Mother even lets me take my lessons beneath the oak tree on Cookham Dean.”

“That sounds delightful,” Aemilia said, mindful that her best manners be on display.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the Countess led them down a paneled hallway. With a flourish, Anne opened the door at the very end. “Here you are, Mistress Lanier!”

Tucked under slanting eaves, the room not only contained a bed but also a writing desk with an ink pot, a goose quill, a stack of freshly cut paper, and Master Daniel's book,
The Complaint of Rosamond.
A clay jar held a bouquet of bluebells.

“This was Samuel Daniel's room, was it not?” Aemilia asked.

The air seemed to shimmer with poetry.

The Countess nodded. “I hope you find it suitable.”

“My lady, it's more than suitable.” Aemilia paused, unable to believe her luck. “But it seems the good poet left behind his paper and books.”

On the shelf near the desk, she saw the Geneva Bible and
The Book of Common
Prayer,
along with Spenser's
The Faerie Queene,
and Arthur Golding's English translation of Ovid's
Metamorphoses.

“Mistress Lanier, they're for your use,” the Countess said. “You confessed your great love of poetry. I thought you might write some verse during your stay here.”

The sunlight streaming through the open window struck Aemilia blind. Then she blinked and peered through that radiance at Margaret Clifford.