The Girl in the Glass Tower (17 page)

‘Your
loyal
man Dodderidge has named names; your chaplain Starkey is one of them.’

I was back in that moment: Starkey’s arms about me, his body pressing up to mine.

‘Not him!’ It came out as a cry. I had cursed them all, all who championed me. ‘I cannot … I do not … you must be …’ I rubbed my hand over my side; if I could, I would have ripped my dress from my body.
Treason, treason, treason
.

‘My Lady.’ Brouncker’s face was an inch from mine, as if he could see my soul through the orbs of my eyes. ‘You are not being clear.’

‘Clear!’ I couldn’t find words.
Peck, peck, peck
. A groan blew out of my mouth. ‘Perhaps …’ I needed time to collect my thoughts.

‘Perhaps?’

‘I could give you a written statement …’ Pain seared through me, impeding my breath; I thought I would faint.
‘Air!’ I dragged myself out of the throne-chair, taking a step towards the window, then became aware of the floor coming up to meet me with interminable gradualness as if time had slowed; the emerald dropped from my hair with a soft little thud, one shoe freed itself from my foot, whispering as it skidded over the matting, my skirts sighed as I crumpled to the floor.

Brouncker pulled off his raspberry doublet and shoved it beneath my head. It was coarse and itchy. He crouched over me, unsure what to do, fingers hovering, not quite touching.

‘Not this again!’ I heard Grandmother say. Her voice was teeming with disappointment. I felt privy to everything, the woodworm scuffling in the legs of the old chair beside me, the mice burrowing behind the panelling, the inner workings of Grandmother’s mind.

Uncle William got to me first, scooping me up into his arms. ‘Light as a cloud,’ I heard him whisper. I felt, in that moment, as if I could be invisible; the transparency that Grandmother accused me of could be turned to my advantage; I could disappear at will and reappear elsewhere, like the queen in Uncle Henry’s three-card trick.

I could hear Grandmother ordering Reason to get the doctor and then explaining to Brouncker that I had been ailing, that they had feared for my life. I hadn’t known that. People don’t tell you when they think you are dying, I suppose, unless it is sure and the chaplain is to be fetched.

Uncle William took me to my bedchamber. His solid grip was the only thing that prevented me from drifting off into the air. His face, behind that neat moustache, was stiff with concern. Uncle William could not have been less like his brother Henry; he had none of Henry’s abundant charm, was dependable, favoured pragmatism and hard work and the making of money. It was no wonder Grandmother favoured him. He laid me carefully on the bed and pulled a
cover up over me, before adding another log to the fire and stirring the embers until it was ablaze.

I drew myself into a ball as the pecking intensified; I began counting backwards again
.

‘I will fetch one of your women,’ he said quietly, leaning over me.

I gripped his wrist saying, ‘Not Joan, send the other one, the new one.’ I couldn’t remember her name. ‘Mary’s woman.’

‘You mean Bridget?’

‘Yes, her.’ My grip loosened. ‘And tell Sir Henry that I will give him a written account of events, as soon as I am capable.’

Once he had gone I was left with those vile birds, my circling harpies, and Grandmother’s words:
We feared for her life
. Was I dying? If so, was I afraid? I didn’t know.

‘Am I done for?’ I asked Bridget as she bent over me. She looked flushed, those round cheeks redder than ever, and was wiping damp tendrils of pale hair away from her face. She must have run up the stairs.

‘I don’t believe you are.’ She said it with such confidence I truly believed her. I could hear the now familiar chink and gurgle of the tincture bottle, imagine the relief it would bring. Opening my mouth like a baby bird as she poured it in, I readied myself for blessed oblivion. She tenderly manoeuvred me round and undid my gown, sliding it off and then my bodice, lifting it away as I began to drift. ‘We need to produce a measure of water for the physician to inspect. Do you think you are capable?’

I nodded and she slipped a shallow bowl beneath me, carefully, so carefully, as if I were excessively precious, one of Grandmother’s alabaster artefacts, or that glass vessel so fine its edges were like air. I felt my water come; it was a mighty release and eased the pain fractionally. She extracted the bowl and, though she tried to hide it, I saw the horror on her face as she inspected its contents.

‘What? What is it? Let me see.’ I don’t know how I found the words in my semi-stupor but there they were.

I could feel her reluctance.

‘Show me, Bridget!’ I said it like an order and she placed the bowl close to my head. It smelled strong and acrid. I tilted myself to see and was momentarily confused, thinking I had been bled and not been aware of it, for the bowl was full of blood. But it wasn’t blood; blood is a dense red and this was more translucent like carnelian, the colour of the Scottish Queen’s Agnus Dei. ‘Bring me my writing things.’

‘I think you should rest.’ Bridget set the bowl down and sat beside me.

‘I must explain myself to Sir Henry.’

‘Not now; later.’ She began to sing very softly, a lullaby, the kind wet nurses sing to fractious infants.

‘He’s gone,’ said Grandmother, looming over my bed. I was propped up with pillows and the sheets were spattered with inkblots from my efforts to articulate my account of things. I had done it once and was requested to redo it, for apparently Brouncker could not make sense of what I said. ‘This won’t be the end of it. When the Queen hears how you have confounded her agent she will be … well, I can’t imagine she will be anything other than incensed. All this business about a secret lover. I don’t know …’

‘A secret lover?’ I couldn’t remember exactly what I had written; my head was so muddled with the poppy. I focused my thoughts and a vague impression came to me of having invented another suitor to prove I didn’t intend to wed Edward Seymour. It had made complete sense at the time.

‘I have sent word to Her Majesty begging lenience,’ she continued. ‘But she is unwell. This is the last thing she needs.’ Grandmother seemed unusually distracted. ‘I don’t know, Arbella. You’d better find a way to explain yourself or you
will be on your way to the Tower – mark my words.’ She turned her gaze to the ceiling with a deep sigh.

My mind began to clear of fog: ‘I have become a liability, haven’t I? Perhaps it would be better for you if I
were
in the Tower and you and Cecil could wash your hands of me entirely.’

‘Don’t be silly, Arbella.’ She looked away as she said it and I knew I’d hit on the truth. The fog lifted further.

‘I
am
aware Cecil wants my cousin on the throne.’

‘I don’t know why you believe that. Cecil merely does the Queen’s bidding.’ She lowered her voice, smoothed it. ‘You’ve been very confused in your illness. I think you perceive conspiracies where there are none. We are family and Cecil has long been an ally.’ She straightened my rumpled coverlet. ‘Now, if you would just give me the name of this suitor –’

I spoke firmly over her. ‘I’d like Brouncker sent for.’ It came to me with brutal clarity then; it was not the Queen who was my enemy, it was Grandmother and Cecil who worked against me. Brouncker was a direct line to the Queen and if I pleaded with him directly, begged genuine forgiveness, neither Cecil nor Grandmother could twist my words to their own ends. ‘Now I am well enough I feel ready to make my deposition to the Queen. I will give the identity of my suitor to her, through Brouncker, and it will all be resolved.’

‘Dearest.’ She held her pearls in a fist by her throat, like a noose. ‘Write it all down and I’ll see it gets to Her Majesty. There’s no need for that dreadful little man to be called back.’

‘I
insist
upon his return,’ I said.

She took my writing box and set it down on my lap, opening it, pulling out a quill, thrusting it towards me. ‘For goodness’ sake, just write down his name.’ She was only just managing to control her temper. It was plain she couldn’t
bear thinking things might have occurred without her knowledge.

I took the quill from her and placed it back in the box. ‘Nothing will pass my lips until Brouncker is sent for, nothing, not even a sip of water.’

‘Don’t set your will against mine, young lady, for you will never win.’ She stood and swept from the chamber.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ I called out after her. I knew she was no match for me when it came to abnegation. I had been rehearsing my powers of self-denial for years, just as a young man prepares for the battlefield, with daily practice. Propelled by a surge of inner force, I got up from the bed and called Bridget in to help me dress.

‘You are up!’ she said. ‘I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better.’

‘I’m more than better.’

‘There is something –’ she began to say but I interrupted her, not taking in the look of concern she wore.

‘Has there been a reply from my aunt yet?’ I had written, some days before, begging Aunt Mary to return.

‘I have it from one of the pages that your letter to her was intercepted. Your grandmother threw it on the fire.’ She twisted her apron in her fingers until it was a mess of creases.

‘On the fire,’ I repeated, not knowing what else to say, thinking of all those burned letters, all the ash building up into a great black edifice of invisible words, thinking too of all those cracked seals, of the correspondence read before it came to me.

‘Is there another way to get word to her?’

‘There is a fellow in the stables.’

‘I’d like her to send help to Dodderidge, at least ensure he is comfortable and not suffering ill treatment.’ I wriggled out of my nightgown and raised my arms for a clean shift to go over my head.

‘Leave it to me.’

‘You have quite a network in this household, Bridget, with the friendly page
and
the stable hand.’

‘They are not my friends, My Lady, they are
your
friends. There are more here at Hardwick who support you than you think. There is Mister Chaworth who goes about with your glove tucked into his hat-band.’ Bridget began to lace my bodice with quick fingers.

‘Mister Chaworth wears my glove in his hat – goodness!’ I had always thought Chaworth just another of Grandmother’s many retainers. He had certainly never made himself known to me as a supporter. ‘What does my grandmother say of it?’

‘She doesn’t know it is your glove.’ Bridget raised her eyebrows and held my petticoats open for me to step into. ‘But there is something import—’ She tried to speak again and once more I didn’t take note and spoke over her:

‘I see now why my aunt has left me in your care. Can Mister Chaworth be sent to discover the whereabouts of Brouncker? I have asked my grandmother to call him back but she seems reluctant to do so. If we can at least get him as far as the gates … Tell him to say to Brouncker that I will reveal the identity of my suitor, to him alone. That way it will reach the Queen’s ears before Grandmother’s.’

She was at my front, fastening the hooks of my sleeves, and whispered, ‘This suitor is an invention, isn’t he?’

I nodded, whispering back, ‘But it’s turned out to be a good ruse to get the Queen’s agent back.’

‘But will your grandmother allow Brouncker in?’

‘I have a feeling she will.’

Bridget tipped her head as if about to ask what my plan was but seemed to change her mind. ‘There is something else.’

‘What else?’ Her crumpled expression made me instinctively brace myself.

‘Something they wanted to keep from you; they thought you too fragile.’

‘And do
you
think me too fragile, Bridget?’

She answered me with a question: ‘Who is Starkey?’

I shrivelled inside. ‘What’s happened to Starkey?’

‘He was dear to you, then?’

‘“
Was
”?’ My heart began to flap.

‘He took his own life.’

Someone let out a terrible howl, the sound of a man on the rack or a beast at the knackers. It was I who made that ungodly sound. It echoed about the room for an interminable time. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It can’t be possible. He was a man of the cloth. A man of God wouldn’t … You have misunderstood.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She was looking away from me.

I felt my flailing heart shatter, fragments lacerating my vital organs. First Dodderidge had lost his freedom and then Starkey, dear Starkey, cast himself into eternal damnation, all for me.

‘They said he was disappointed at the loss of a position. He hanged himself. I don’t know more.’ She spoke quietly, shaking her head.

Desolation took hold in me – desolation and remorse, mingling to make a monster. I knew it wasn’t Starkey’s thwarted prospects that led him to suicide; I knew him too well to believe that – people don’t kill themselves over disappointment, least of all Starkey. It was the fact that he had aided me in my unsuccessful treason; however small his part in it was, he would have found a way to render himself culpable. Perhaps he believed he had led me to it.

Brouncker’s voice resonated in my head:
Dodderidge has named names; your chaplain Starkey is one of them.
Had the authorities grilled Starkey too? Had he feared revealing something under interrogation? Perhaps he knew more than I thought he did.

He would have rather died than unwittingly betray me; that I knew. He would have meditated on other noble deaths, Cleopatra preferring suicide to dishonour, Socrates choosing hemlock rather than flight – the upholding of justice.
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness, for that runs deeper than death.
We had talked often about such things but always hypothetically; I had never believed either of us would have to make that choice.

I imagined him buried in unhallowed ground, condemned for eternity. Remorse swelled in me, clogging my thoughts, and I found myself on my knees, pleading with God to see my dear friend’s actions as those of a martyr rather than a sinner, for what he did, he did for me, for my cause. When did he abandon his belief in God’s plan?