The Girl in the Glass Tower (36 page)

‘No, no. You first, I insist,’ was my reply, in the full knowledge that etiquette dictated she do my bidding. I watched her take one and nibble at its surface. If you’d seen her expression you’d have thought it poison, not sugar.

‘Delicious,’ she said through tight-drawn lips. ‘Will
you
take one?’ She held the dish towards me.

I looked at the confections, coloured like an array of summer fruits, impossibly pretty. ‘I think I won’t.’ Her distress was my triumph – surely no one could compete with me when it came to the resistance of temptation.

It was a desperate attempt to arrest my body’s disobedience, its unbidden swelling, its new unwanted plumpness, and in my lucid moments, which became increasingly few and far between, I understood that I was treading on the very lip of my sanity. It alarmed me greatly when I thought that only death would see me out of my situation – that thought lurked permanently in the shadows.

With hindsight it was inevitable that my harpies would return at a time of such great fear and vexation. And so they did, with their ruthless pecking and the excruciating pain, the delirium and the fever and my waters red as wine. Bridget called for Doctor Moundford, administering the familiar tincture while awaiting his arrival. She was as well acquainted with those harpies as I and knew the only respite from them lay in that cordial which loosed me entirely from reality.

By the time I was sent up before the King to account for the rumours that I was carrying an infant, I no longer was. Though I only knew it was so because Bridget told me. When
I began to bleed, she said that I was so loosed from my sanity I couldn’t tell the difference between my waters and the blood.

That second loss confirmed my belief that my body was not well designed to harbour an infant safely.
Was it too cold
, I asked myself,
too sharp, in there?
I barely felt the pain of it then – perhaps I was afraid to give vent to my weakness even to myself – but now the anguish over those lost babies is manifested in a profound and unrelenting wretchedness.

Tap, tap, tap.
Perhaps it is my babies knocking.

‘So, Cousin,’ said the King, ‘what can you say about all this talk?’

I could barely hold myself upright and begged for a support. Someone dragged over a prayer stand. I knelt and imagined for a brief moment that I was before God.

‘I am not with child,’ I said, knowing only that I was free from the sin of a lie, unable to make sense of anything else. The Privy Council appeared as a host of angels and I believed myself delivered from life; but then I found I was back in the barge with the bitter winter wind cutting through my coat and the ice-cold water flicking from the oars on to my face, pulling me out of my dreams.

Silence wells, thick and sticky as the honey that creeps from the broken jar. The tabby sniffs at it, taking a tentative lick. Goodwife Stringer raises her eyebrows as if to say:
There is my proof
.

Ami’s mouth is dry, her tongue swollen, and even if she knew what to say in her defence she isn’t sure she would physically be able to speak. Whatever she did say wouldn’t be believed; that is clear as day. There is no space for the truth in this small room that is becoming ever smaller, the walls closing in.

She wonders where Edwin Mansfield ran off to – to fetch the vicar or the constable? Her imagination casts her into scenes of being lynched by the crowd of ghouls outside.

She waits for the woman to make her move, wondering what had ignited her suspicion in the first place, rummaging around for reasons, when she knows full well that conclusions can be drawn on the most spurious of excuses. Was it the fact that she defended Eve in her poetry, poetry that Goodwife Stringer has never even read? Was it her perceived morality based on her past, or the simple fact that she was different from the other women in the parish, that she was educated and so they couldn’t place her tidily in their scheme of things? She is one of life’s misfits, like Lady Arbella.

The gathering outside mumbles on like some kind of Greek chorus.

All at once a great rage ripens in her, handing back her voice. ‘What do you intend to do with me, Goodwife Stringer?’

‘It will be for the magistrate to decide.’

‘And you will be content, I suppose, when you have seen an entirely innocent woman on the gibbet for sorcery. When it comes to Judgement Day –’

‘Don’t talk to me of Judgement Day,’ she barks and Ami can see she has hit a weak spot, for the woman is flustered, reddening and breathing uneasily. But it is only a moment before her composure is restored.

A figure appears in the doorway. It is Joyce; Edwin is with her, hand in hand and following behind are Mansfield and his wife, babe in arms and the other children, like a clutch of ducklings in their wake.

They all crowd in.

‘How I am glad to see you, Mister Mansfield.’ Goodwife Stringer is simpering, impressed by this man who started as poor as the rest of them, yet has become wealthy by his own hard graft.

Mansfield is an example to them all.
Not like me
, thinks Ami, who has slid down in the other direction.

‘This woman has brought terrible misfortune on you and your family,’ she continues, ‘and I am glad to tell you that justice will be meted out on her.’

‘Misfortune, you say?’ Mansfield takes a step towards Ami, who shrinks back. He takes hold of her upper arm.
I am done for
, she says to herself, preparing to submit to whatever horrors she is about to face.

There is the ghost of a smile on Goodwife Stringer’s lips.

‘It’s true misfortune
has
visited our family, in the death of our little lad. But it’s not in the shape of Widow Lanyer, who’s done nothing but help us.’

Mistress Mansfield speaks up now; she is a small woman but has dignity and poise and projects her voice clearly through the room. ‘She cared for our boy but God chose to take him back.’ She also comes to Ami’s side and, hitching the baby on to her hip, takes her hand.

‘She’s bewitched you all.’ Goodwife Stringer appears genuinely distressed and turns to the people in the window. ‘
You
can see it, can’t you?’ she says to the gathering. ‘They’ve all been enchanted.’

But the crowd looks away, clearly uncomfortable, and one utters, ‘I’d say you’re mistaken.’

‘Widow Lanyer is teaching our children their letters,’ says Mistress Mansfield. ‘She’s a woman of education, a published poet, yet humble enough to take in laundry, break her back earning an honest crust. And
you
would seek to condemn her. Shame on you!’ She stands to her full if inconsiderable height, pushing her chin up. ‘I’ll tell you this: my husband sought to seduce her – yes, he confessed as much to me on bended knee, full of shame – and Widow Lanyer sent him packing. If
that
is what you call enchantment, then it’s you whose mind is skewed.’

‘My wife speaks the truth,’ says Mansfield. ‘I was weak, which I deeply regret, and I truly apologize to both these good women here.’

Beyond the window there is a murmur of approval.

‘But that is a witch bottle.’ Goodwife Stringer points at the broken vessel. ‘See the spells written on it …’ She sounds less sure of herself.

‘How d’you know? You can’t read,’ comes a voice from outside.

‘It’s just a jar she found in the house when she moved here.’ It is Joyce piping up. ‘Filled with honey. Look.’ She crouches down to dip her finger in the remains of the jar, bringing it to her mouth.

‘I’d say you’ve nothing but rumour and supposition to go on,’ says Mansfield. ‘It is busybodies such as you who bring shame on our parish.’

Someone laughs outside. It is the pie-woman from the market. ‘Gone too far this time, ain’t you.’ There is a general
muttering of agreement amongst the gathering. ‘I reckon the magistrate’ll have
you
up for making trouble, put you in a scold’s bridle, that’ll stop your tongue.’

Goodwife Stringer visibly crumples, losing her shape. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs into her collar, unable to meet any of their eyes. ‘It seems I was mistaken.’

Later Ami finds a pie has been left for her on the window sill and with it a basket of fruit and a jug of ale. Joyce reappears at the door.

‘Come and sup with me, dear,’ Ami suggests. ‘The pie won’t keep in this weather, it’s far too much for me alone and Hal will have eaten already.’

Joyce bursts out with, ‘Fa’s come round! He says I can learn my letters but he won’t pay for it, says I’ll have to offer to help you around the house or something instead. He’s shelling out enough for the boys, he said.’

‘Oh, Joyce, this is wonderful news. I’m sure I can find some things for you to do. It won’t be long before you’re proficient enough to help me with the little ones.’

‘Do you mean it?’ She is beaming as if she’s just learned she’s to marry the heir to the throne rather than skivvy for a tutor.

‘Of course I mean it. Now help me get that pie on the hearth to heat.’

‘I’d like to learn some Latin,’ says Joyce, beginning to lay the table, hiding her face behind her hair as if she’s embarrassed to admit such a thing.

‘Anything is possible,’ says Ami, ‘if you set your mind on it.’

It makes her think of Will Seymour, who swore he’d never be able to forgive her but seems to have done so. Has he really, though? She will know soon enough.

‘The Bishop of Durham,’ I said. ‘Durham House is only a short way across the river. I’m sure I can see it from my window.’ I felt lighter.

The little of importance I had learned from my most recent audience with the King was that I was to be moved from Parry’s care. I had envisaged a journey, a rustication, and had worried about travelling when I was still so unwell, not to mention the idea of a physical distance opening up between Will and myself, to thwart my fantasies of a joint escape. So over the river to Durham House felt like a reprieve.

Parry, his head tilted in pity or something like it, replied: ‘No, My Lady, the bishop is to take you to Durham in the north.’

Rain thrummed at the windows and a shutter banged. ‘The
city
of Durham?’ It was twice as far as Hardwick; that was all I knew of the place. You couldn’t be further from London and still remain in England.

‘The rumours of your, your’ – he looked uncomfortable and was stuttering slightly – ‘… your previous … um’ – mumbling now: ‘condition’ I think he said, ‘makes His Majesty feel it would be cir-circumspect to ensure you do not have further opportunity to see your, your husband.’

What do
you
know?
I thought, holding on to the shreds of lucidity.
Has someone here made you aware of that night visit? Did you pass it on? Or was it your wife?

‘Condition? There was no “previous condition”.’ My lie was unfaltering. ‘I have been unwell, that is all. I remain so.’ I stopped. Parry looked rueful and I felt a little sorry for him, being set a task that he clearly found repugnant. ‘I can’t think
why His Majesty is so afraid that I might make an infant with my husband, when I am kept here and he in the Tower.’

‘It is a case of mitigation.’ Parry seemed not to know what to do with me. He pulled a ring on and off his finger repeatedly. He would be glad to see me gone, I felt sure, if only to relieve himself of the responsibility.

‘Besides, I don’t know why he thinks an infant of mine such a danger to his throne when he has three heirs of his own body.’

‘I suspect it is since the French King was assassinated last year.’ The ring fell to the floor. He stooped to gather it. ‘He fears plots.’

‘But Durham?’ The distance of the entire country would certainly be an effective barrier to conception, but I also knew there would be no return. I would go there and be forgotten. It would be as if I were dead.

I remembered the Scottish Queen and her years traipsing between my stepfather’s houses in the north as Elizabeth’s prisoner. Had Elizabeth hoped
she
would be forgotten? I felt the air about me thin, had difficulty breathing.

‘I question the legality of my being held indefinitely without trial. I have not been accused of a crime; I have not committed a crime.’

‘I’m sorry, My Lady,’ he said, heaving out a sigh. ‘I’m sorry to have had to be part of this.’

‘So you agree, then, Parry, that it is not legal?’

He looked at me, shrugging minutely, and said quietly, as if afraid to be overheard, ‘You might write to the Lord Chief Justice.’

‘I will. I will demand to be tried and, as I am entirely innocent; they will be obliged to free me.’ I was already composing the letter in my head. ‘My husband too. It is right, is it not, that we are innocent?’

He closed his eyes and lowered his head before lifting it
again slowly, which I took to be a gesture of agreement. ‘I have instructed your servants to make you ready to leave next week. Hopefully the weather will be better. The bishop will accompany you on your journey north.’

‘And a consignment of guards, I don’t doubt.’ I didn’t seek to hide my scorn. ‘In case there is an army of Catholic insurgents waiting to convert me and make me their puppet queen.’ I felt trapped in a life that travelled in circles, always arriving at the same point, ad infinitum.

‘Yes … I mean, no. You will be accompanied, yes, but for your safety.’ He seemed embarrassed, slowly shaking his head, and put the ring back on his finger. He was a decent man at heart; perhaps he didn’t agree with my banishment. ‘But you may take your immediate household, your maids, your steward, your doctor.’

My first thought, before writing to the Lord Chief Justice, was to get word to Will, and once Parry had left I penned a letter explaining the plans that had been made for me.

… But I will endeavour to thwart them, so await my word, for I will NOT go to Durham – not if I have the power to prevent it.

I sounded more optimistic than I felt.

I am insisting upon a trial, for we have done no wrong. It is not within the law to hold us without a formal accusation. Make yourself ready, my love. Your wife, Arbella Seymour

On the twenty-eighth day of February – AD 1611

As the days passed and nothing came from the Lord Chief Justice I began to sink back into despair. Crompton and Dodderidge tried to distract me with chess. Crompton let me win, thinking it would please me, but I was furious, in a manner that was out of all proportion.

‘If
I
win it will be on my own merit,’ I shouted, swiping at the chess pieces with my forearm so they spilled over the floor. ‘I am not a child to be indulged!’

Crompton’s apology was effusive and authentic, provoking my shame. How could he have known his misplaced gesture would infantilize me, render me voiceless. I felt my only means to make myself heard was to continue scrawling out letters. I wrote in desperation to anyone I could think of who might be able to help me but my pleas in the best part went unanswered.

Uncle Gilbert’s efforts to petition the King were equally ineffectual. A letter from Aunt Mary – a small ray of hope – arrived via Crompton, in a packet of embroidery silks:

If it comes to it, we will get you away – and your husband. You must do everything you can to make your progress slow once you are on the road. I am raising funds; I have already sold some of the Scottish Queen’s fine needlework, which fetched an exorbitant price – all the Derbyshire papists regard such things as relics and if those few bits of needlework can serve you they are well dispensed of. Do not write to Gilbert of this, indeed tell no one, not even your close household, not for the moment. Your loving aunt, Mary Shrewsbury.

March, the second day, in the year of Our Lord 1611

My illness, which had been slowly receding, made a resurgence as the date of our departure neared. Doctor Moundford and Bridget became increasingly concerned for my welfare, tutting and muttering at the foot of my bed like a pair of magpies. But in my lucid moments I insisted upon continuing to scribble out pleas, which Dodderidge transformed into a legible state in his neat secretary hand. The act of writing, however futile, felt somehow life sustaining.

The idea of Durham had become in my mind akin to the idea of death – the two places, each as abstract as the other,
were pressed up together so tightly that not a sliver of light was discernible between them.

The Bishop of Durham arrived just after dawn. On first seeing him from the window of my bedchamber I had thought him to be dressed in purple robes, the full regalia, but I must have been delirious because I saw, as I approached him across the hall, that he wore black travelling garb. He had a small face that was lost in an ample beard and sharp eyes that gave little away. His manner was not exactly terse but it was tidily clipped and had nothing of Parry’s undeniable warmth.

My appeals to have my case heard in court had fallen on deaf, or at least reluctant, ears, for still no reply from the Lord Chief Justice had materialized. There was nothing to do but commence the journey north with the fading hope that something might change. My ever-diminishing prospects lay with Aunt Mary. I waited in my chambers longing for the arrival of a messenger or something at least that might delay our departure. Nothing came, but I clung to my hope.

I entered the hall, barely able to walk unaided, propped up on Doctor Moundford’s arm, my pain dulled by an assortment of tinctures. The bishop’s annoyance at having been kept waiting was palpable, despite his attempt to hide it beneath a mask of formality. Neither could he disguise his shock on seeing me; it was there in the slight intake of breath and the widening of those sharp eyes. Until then I hadn’t considered how my illness might have ravaged me, I hadn’t thought to inspect myself in a mirror, but realized I must have appeared horribly gaunt and I could feel the film of cold perspiration over my face and the flush of fever beneath it.

After our greetings were made he said, ‘There is a litter awaiting you at the Westminster pier, My Lady, furnished
with cushions and well curtained from the wind. I was informed that you might be too unwell to ride.’

The mere thought of rattling about in the back of the litter increased my feelings of dread. But I wouldn’t allow that vague spark of hope to be doused. I thought of Will, downriver. What was he thinking; was he too was quietly negotiating ideas of escape?

Once over the river I was dismayed to discover that the bishop intended to travel in the litter with me.

‘I should like my women to join us,’ I said, perturbed at the thought of being alone with him in an enclosed space.

‘I really don’t think –’ I could see I had upset his carefully aligned plans with this request. ‘I must insist –’

He was trying to speak but I continued. ‘I’m not entirely sure it is appropriate that I should travel unchaperoned. I know you are a man of God but …’ I left my words hanging and watched as somewhere beneath his voluminous beard he pursed his mouth and I assumed he was weighing up whether it was a battle worth fighting. I wondered if he was having regrets about assenting to the task he had been set in becoming my jailer, though it was likely he’d had no choice in the matter.

After a long pause he said through gritted teeth, ‘As you wish, My Lady.’

It was just as well Bridget was there, for we had barely reached London’s northern outskirts when the motion of the coach had become too much for me and were it not for her swift intervention, shouting for the driver to halt, I might have spewed all over the bishop’s sumptuous black travelling habit.

This happened several times, with Doctor Moundford insisting on each occasion that we stop for half an hour for him to administer to me, until the bishop’s patience was demonstrably threadbare.

‘I really don’t think she is well enough to be making such a journey,’ muttered Margaret to Bridget more than once. Though I was feeling abysmal I recognized, through the miasma of my nausea and the excruciating pain in my side and head, that some advantage might be gained from my poor condition, for at the rate we were progressing, a decade would pass before we arrived in Durham.

Darkness began to close in long before we reached Barnet, where it had been arranged that we would spend the night. We had only travelled as far as Highgate and a decision was made that we should stay there, so lodgings were hastily secured. I was unable even to walk myself to the door and the bishop, clearly exasperated paced up and down as Doctor Moundford carried me upstairs to a bedchamber, where a maid was hurriedly changing the linens and another was laying the fire. They both turned and gawped, dropping hastily into curtsies. Someone must have told them the King’s cousin was arriving, though judging by their expressions they had not expected such a miserable creature.

Memories of my time at Highgate are vague but I was aware of the bishop and Doctor Moundford in a heated altercation beside my bed as to whether I was in a fit state to travel. The bishop crumbled under Moundford’s insistence but after some days, in which, shattered with pain I drifted in and out of awareness, the bishop came to me and announced that our journey was to recommence on the King’s order.

‘It’ll risk her life,’ said Bridget under her breath. The bishop must have heard, for he looked momentarily stricken, revealing at last a glimpse of conscience.

I had to be carried back to the litter for another excruciating journey. Six miles took the best part of a day and we didn’t arrive at the Barnet inn until early evening. Bridget and Margaret, horrified by the flea-infested pallets, insisted on all the bedding being changed and so the innkeeper’s wife, a
loose-faced woman with a large bosom, hadn’t a shred of good will towards us.

The following day Moundford firmly refused to let me travel further and at some point one of the royal physicians arrived with orders from the King to ascertain whether I was fit to continue the journey. I remember clearly the look of horrified fascination on the doctor’s face as he inspected my waters – his brow furrowed, his head shaking slowly from side to side.

The doctor’s report must have convinced my doubting cousin, for I was allowed a month at Barnet to recover my health and a house was commandeered for our use. We were all thankful to leave the infested inn but it meant another agonizing leg of the journey, though happily only of a mile’s duration. The bishop left us there, to go on to Durham and prepare for my arrival, or so he said, kissing my hand and smiling. It was the first smile I’d seen from him. I supposed he was greatly relieved to be passing the responsibility for me on to another for the time being.

That other was Sir James Croft, an affable man who was to prove quite well disposed to me. I received him in the bedchamber, where I lay propped up on a heap of pillows, drifting in and out of consciousness, with my guardian angels Moundford and Bridget standing one at each bedpost. Margaret sat quietly sewing in the corner and Crompton and Dodderidge hovered by the window, beyond which a cherry was in full blossom, wavering in the breeze, torturing me with memories of happier days at Sheen.

My recovery was slow but steady, though we kept news of my revival within my close circle. Crompton procured, as if by magic, letters from Aunt Mary. Arrangements were being made to get me to the Continent with my husband. In addition to the Scottish Queen’s needlework, she had sold some jewellery but needed still more funds and had to raise them
without Uncle Gilbert’s knowledge. His position on the Privy Council might compromise him, she said, and force him to reveal our plan. She asked whether I had anything of value that might be sold. I had little: a few jewels, mostly paste and inferior metals, some rather second-rate pearls, but then I remembered the glass vessel I had chosen from Grandmother’s things.