The Dark Lady's Mask (50 page)

At the top of the page, Aemilia wrote the title that had come to her, as if in a dream, three years before:
Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
Beside her stack of writing paper lay the Geneva Bible open to the Gospel of Matthew. Let her words create a tableau of the Passion, of the suffering yet victorious Christ as Margaret's true and eternal husband, as lovingly rendered as Jacopo Bassano's paintings.

Jacopo's voice whispered in her ear, telling her to turn to the Canticles, the book of wedding poems in the Old Testament, for inspiration. The words flowed from her quill like paint from a brush.

This is the Bridegroom that appears so fair.

His lips like scarlet threads, yet much more sweet

Than is the sweetest honey-dropping dew,

Or honeycombs, where all the Bees do meet;

Yea, he is constant, and his words are true,

His cheeks are beds of spices, flowers sweet;

His lips, like Lilies, dropping down pure myrrh,

Whose love, before all worlds we do prefer.

S
UMMER PASSED IN
a round of poetry, lessons, and walks up and down Cookham Dean. In the evening, the three of them gathered in the great hall to sup beneath the tapestry of the dancing goddesses. Come nightfall, Aemilia followed Margaret into the moth-haunted garden where they harvested flowers and herbs under the rising moon.

“So much beauty,” Margaret murmured, as she filled her basket with blooming roses, their scent heavy and sweet in the cool air. “Is this not a glimpse into paradise?”

Aemilia lifted her eyes to the waxing moon sailing high, pouring her silver on meadow and grove. Enchanted by the night, she began to sing as she and Margaret worked together.

Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through briar,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere.

And I serve the Faery Queen

To dew her orbs upon the green.

Only when she had sung the last note did Aemilia remember that this was what she had sung for Harry and Will that midsummer night at Southampton House a decade ago.

“Your voice is still as lovely as when you used to sing at court,” Margaret said, plunging Aemilia even further into her past.

“I was just a girl then. Barely older than your Anne.”

“The dark jewel of the court,” Margaret said, her skirts rustling like the wind in the leaves as she moved through her garden. “Isn't that what the Lord Chamberlain used to call you?”

In the darkness Aemilia felt herself blush. Why did Margaret speak of that now?

“If only you knew how I envied you then,” Margaret said. “In those days I would have given anything for my husband—or any man—to look at me the way Henry Carey looked at you.”

“He was a good man,” Aemilia said. But something about the intimacy of the moonlit night demanded greater honesty. “In faith, I doubt any woman envied me when he put me aside and married me off. I envied highborn ladies like
you
who seemed so secure.”

Margaret laughed. “Ah, but now you know better. Sometimes I think you are my confessor, Aemilia Lanier. You know my every secret. But to me, you still seem a mystery, like a lake hiding an entire city in its depths.”

Aemilia remained silent, cutting the lavender. The night breeze touched her nape, sending a shiver through her. “You think I conceal some terrible scandal?”

“Forgive me lest you think I pry, but sometimes when we bear our secrets alone, the burden becomes so heavy. You helped lift my burden and I would help you bear yours—if you let me.” She peered into Aemilia's basket. “I think that's enough lavender. Now let's take this to the still room.”

Following Margaret down the flagged path, Aemilia thought how she had yearned for a true friend all her life. But to have a friend, one must be a friend. She thought how she had lost sweet Olivia by keeping so much hidden from her and telling her too many lies. Her soul's depths she had revealed to Will, who had betrayed her, but never to another woman.

In the laboratory they worked by lantern light. After stripping the lavender blooms from the stalks, Aemilia ground them with mortar and pestle.

“My entire life I have worn a mask,” she told Margaret.

“So have we all,” Margaret said, grinding rose petals. “Most people's masks slip from time to time. But you wear yours so well, I cannot tell where the mask ends and your true face begins.”

Aemilia carried on pounding the lavender until her muscles ached. “Is it the secret of my lover? He was . . . he is a poet. Would you know his name?”

“You misunderstand me,” Margaret said. “I don't believe it's a scandal you hide, but something precious and rare.”

Aemilia thought how Jacopo had borne his secret regret for his forced conversion all his days, only unburdening himself to her as he lay dying. Would she go to her grave with all this heaviness in her heart? The pestle slipped from her sweat-slick hand.

“I am a Jew's daughter,” she said.

Margaret touched her face, wet with tears. “Come, sit you down. You're shaking, dear.”

“When I was a child,” Aemilia told her, “my sister's husband tried to blackmail my father on account of his religion. What Papa suffered! He was the greatest, kindest man I ever knew.”

She went on to tell Margaret of her childhood, the Hebrew singing in the cellar, the secrets Papa had kept even from her. As she made her confession, she realized that in writing of Jesus as King of the Jews, it was her own father she sought to resurrect. She told Margaret of her journey to Italy with Will, her visit to the synagogue in the Venice Ghetto, her time with Jacopo Bassano, all of this driven by her love and longing for her lost father.

“Papa told me that hell is empty,” Aemilia said. “All the devils are up here in plain view.”

“Did your father ever meet my husband?” Margaret asked, making Aemilia laugh in spite of herself. “You are a paradox, my dear. A Jew's daughter who writes Christian poetry that moves me to tears. Your work surpasses that of Anne Locke and her son.”

Aemilia squeezed her friend's hands. “That's because I have you for my sweet Muse.”

O
VER THE COMING WEEKS
, Aemilia shared her every secret with Margaret until there was nothing left to hide. A chamber that had been dark and dank was now bathed in summer sunlight. With Margaret, she could show her true face, live in the open without a mask. Margaret embraced her as she broke down and told her, sobbing, about losing Odilia. Margaret, in turn, revealed her own heartbreak over the deaths of her two sons.

“Every day I thank God I still have Anne,” Margaret said. “Now I understand why you're so fond of her, almost as if she were your own daughter.”

A
T DAWN
A
EMILIA VAULTED
from bed and, still in her nightshift, began to write until she could write no more. She longed to capture the sweet magic of Margaret's moon-drenched garden.

When shining Phoebe gave so great a grace,

Presenting Paradise to your sweet sight,

Unfolding all the beauty of her face . . .

She wrote and wrote, no longer caring that her poetry was as much a celebration of her love for Margaret as it was an homage to Margaret's God. For Margaret had revealed to her that the only religion was love.

A
T SUMMER'S END, WHEN
rosehips and hawthorn berries bejewelled the hedges, Queen Anne summoned Anne Clifford to court. But Margaret remained resolute in her wish to remain in her rural retreat.

“Truly, I have retired from that world,” she told Aemilia, as they headed up to the towering oak tree to view young Anne's progress down the Thames toward Whitehall. “In my mind, all the joy of courtly life died with our dear Elizabeth. This Scottish King is no lover of women. He and his Queen keep separate courts—his for politics and influence and hers for empty-headed amusements.”

“My cousin Ben writes that the Queen is a great lover of the masque,” Aemilia said. “In fact, he has written some for her.”

“Did you bring Master Jonson's letter, my dear?” Margaret seated herself on the weathered bench encircling the great oak. “Pray, read it. I am a great admirer of his.”

Pulling the folded letter from her pocket, Aemilia began to read aloud while Winifred unpacked the fruit, cheese, bread, and wine she had carried up in a basket.

Indeed, Fortune smiled on Ben now that he had gained the Queen's patronage, but he complained that Will had bested him, for James had become the official patron of Will's theater company—the King's Men.

“
Master Shakespeare has staged a murky Scottish tragedy full of ghosts and murder, all in our Sovereign's honor,
” Aemilia read. “
Most curious were his three witches—the Weird Sisters. Strangely enough, they reminded me of your Weir sisters.
”

With a lurch, Aemilia stopped reading.

Winifred was outraged. “Ooh, the wicked man! To insult three honest sisters from Essex!”

“Peace,” said Margaret. “The court is but a shadow box filled with vanity and illusion. Pay such folly little mind. I do hope our Anne doesn't become too frivolous in such company. Back in Elizabeth's day,” she said, gazing at Aemilia, “a lady of the court might aspire to learning and brilliance. Like Mary Sidney. Like
you,
my dear. Now what have you been writing?”

Aemilia reached into the basket and found the bundle of pages written in her best italic hand. “An apology in defense of Eve.”

Margaret's smile was as rich as claret.

The passage was long and Aemilia read it with care, knowing that both Margaret and Winifred listened with their full attention, as if in firm belief that her words were inspired. Here on this hill, she was a poet with an audience that imbibed her words.

Her poem argued that while Eve was blamed for humanity's fall from grace the sin was actually Adam's for taking the forbidden fruit. For he, unlike Eve, was fully aware of the consequences. Out of selfishness and the desire for power, Adam let Eve take the fall.

If Eve did err, it was for knowledge sake,

The fruit being fair persuaded him to fall:

No subtle serpent's falsehood did betray him,

If he would eat it, who had the power to stay him?

Not Eve, whose fault was only too much love.

Winifred nodded. “How right you are, mistress. It's about time someone defended poor Eve.”

Margaret remained in contemplative silence as the wind passed over the long waving grasses. “Pray, make fair copies of all your poems,” she said at last. “So I might keep them and reread them again and again.”

 

ITH THE FIRST SNOWFALL
, Aemilia and Winifred boarded a wherry for London to spend Christmas with their families. Winifred clutched an overflowing sack of gifts for her sisters and Tabitha's new baby girl. Bursting in her excitement to see them again, she kept nagging the wherryman to row faster.

But Aemilia felt an emptiness spreading through her chest with each mile separating her from Margaret and Cookham. Already she longed for her room beneath the eaves and the endless supply of writing paper, the admiration in her friend's eyes when she read each new poem. Even on the wherry, new verses spun themselves in Aemilia's head, though she had nothing to write with.

J
ASPER AWAITED
A
EMILIA AT
Billingsgate landing, accompanied by a tall, dark-haired youth she scarcely recognized until he called her Mother. She threw her arms around Henry and embraced him with all the force of her stored-up love.

“My darling, you must have grown three inches since I saw you last!”

In her satchel she had a brand-new cloak for him. She hoped the new garment would be big enough.

“Where's Alfonse?” she asked Jasper, when at last she released her son.

“Carry your mother's satchel,” Jasper said. “There's a good lad.”

While Henry walked on ahead, her cousin spoke in a low voice so the boy wouldn't overhear. “Your husband was arrested in Hackney for disturbing the peace. He and another gentleman from the Irish military campaign, I believe. I fear he shall have to spend a day in the stocks before they release him.”