The Lady of Misrule (14 page)

That door was so much bigger than I was but I'd come this far and couldn't let it refuse me. I settled on the simplest course of action: I'd to give it a try, even if I was likely to come humiliatingly up against a lock, a bolt.

To my surprise, though, when I turned the handle, there was give, and actually it was too much too soon because then there I was, in an open doorway but no nearer knowing how, in all that darkness and silence, to make my presence known.

But for a moment I forgot about that, forgot about me, because the darkness and silence inside that room was so different from everywhere else in Shelley Place and the difference of course was his being in it: he was there, I knew, even though there was nothing of him to see or hear. He was there,
he was there
, and for a moment that was enough.

But then it wasn't. I paused in the crack of the door, hoping he'd become similarly aware of me. But no word, so I was
going to have to do a little more. I pushed the door wider although I myself didn't move.

Still nothing.

I made myself speak: ‘You awake?'

Within the bed-hangings was an abrupt and drastic shift: him, caught unawares.
'Lizzie?'
Startled, but a squeak of protest in it too.

I closed the door behind me.

‘
Lizzie?'
pitching upwards, towards panic, with a buffeting of the hangings: he was up and at the edge of that bed to ward me off.

And I felt for him, I really did, even as I wanted to laugh, because I knew he had to do the protesting and objecting, and I understood he even had to
feel
it, too. But it was pointless, it was wasted effort, because whatever would happen would happen. I wouldn't be discouraged. This was for me to do; he couldn't do it – family friend, older man, household guest – but I could. He had to let me do this, he had to leave it to me. I was the one who had to cross that room. Me: walking tall, luminous.

He kept up his complaint as I moved towards his voice. ‘Lizzie, you can't do this, you can't come in here.'

But it was nonsense, and undeserving of a reply. What I said instead was, ‘I'm freezing,' which was true, although coming from the staircase into an ember-lit room, I should've been warming up. ‘Let me in.'

He had no choice, I was climbing in anyway and the onus was on him to shift.

The warmth of him alone was an embrace, snatching me up so that there was no turning away, and instantly I was lost to it.

‘You
are
cold,' and he had to take hold of me because not to do so would've been unkind. With a little laugh at my audacity, he asked, ‘What are you
doing
, coming here?'

‘This,' I said, and kissed him.

And so there we were, kissing again, just as we'd kissed before: all the time in between collapsed to nothing. The muscularity of his mouth, yet nothing softer. He took a breath to say, ‘You should go back,' and I said, ‘I will,' which was true: I would, sometime. But in the meantime, there was no one to know I was there. This night was not the mere dark half of a day; it was made of different stuff. it was vast – stretching from the bed, the room, the house – and it was all for us.

I laid myself down along the length of him. I'd landed: fallen, and landed. I was heavy on him, substantial, real. We lay bound in linen, a tangle of limbs, every bit of me dwelling on the sensation of every bit of him. This was my world, now: I was home in the grain of his stubble, on the plane of his breastbone, up against the uncompromising collarbones. But we stayed wrapped chaste in our nightshirts: kissing was all we did, that long first night, and at the time I assumed that his reticence came from consideration for me, but later I wondered if he'd been scared.

I should go back: we both said it often enough but there came a point when it was indisputable; I really did have to go
back to my room or I'd fall asleep and be found by his servant in the morning. So, back I went to my room, but lost no sleep over it; it was, I knew, no more than an interruption.

From then onwards, all I did was wait for the next time. Whatever was going to happen would have to keep to the moments between moments and to places that didn't really exist. Spring was coming, the better weather making for easier rides home, for fewer occasions when Harry would stay overnight. I had to find places other than the guest room. I needed to furnish our shared time, and who better to do that than me? Me, who'd spent my life in the numerous nooks and crannies of Shelley Place. Now, suddenly, I was running the show and I was good at it, delving into corners which previously I'd avoided, where before perhaps I'd been scared or lonely or cold or bored. I had good use for them now.

On the day of the duke's execution, Guildford's presence in the neighbouring tower lay heavy on me, but I watched in vain for any sign that it was the same for Jane. What was it that I wanted her to do? I had no idea.
Something
, though. Shouldn't we be doing something for him? Weren't we in this together?

No word came from him for many days afterwards and eventually I felt compelled to raise it. Over dinner, uncomfortably aware that I was straying into territory that wasn't
mine, I asked her, ‘Do you think you should see Lord Guildford?'

I wasn't sure I'd ever even spoken his name before.

She looked up from her slice of apple tart. ‘Why?'

It was the most open of looks, but then again, was it? Or, in holding my own gaze as it did, was it a tad defensive?

If it was, she won, because I found I didn't know how to answer. And if she truly didn't know, then I couldn't tell her.

Returning her attention to her tart, she said, ‘You go, if you want to,' and again, there might've been some indignation in it but it could as well have been genuine, because when did she ever say something that she didn't mean.

You go, if you want to.

But that was ridiculous. And I didn't want to. Did I? Of course I didn't. And it wasn't for me to do, anyway. What could I do for Guildford?

But I did end up going to see him, and at her behest. It was September before he broke his silence, via Mrs Partridge; and to Mrs Partridge

Jane was all acquiescence, properly wifely, agreeing to be there for her husband as long as the rain held off; but then, that afternoon when the chapel clock struck three, we were still in our room and she gave no indication of being about to leave. I stood abruptly, attempting to look purposeful, hoping to prompt her. But she glanced across at me to say, ‘Tell him I'm ill.'

Him.

she'd intended this all along, I realised, and now it was too late for me to do anything much about it.

And
ill?
A lie, from her?

I stood there, gormless, dropped right in it, charged with doing her dirty work. She looked back down at her book in order to dismiss me – but guiltily, I was sure of it, as well she might because what had happened to only ever telling the truth? And I could've said so, I could've thrown a hissy fit, refused to go –
Your
husband,
your
duty' – because she couldn't have made me do it. But he was already waiting, that bereaved boy, up there on the wall, composing himself for the encounter, perhaps even rehearsing silently for it as he watched the rooftop door for her arrival. I didn't have to like him to feel sorry for him. I simply hadn't the heart to leave him there like that. It was common courtesy and cost me nothing to go and put him out of his misery.

As I stepped up through the doorway, he watched me intently. No, actually, he didn't, he watched intently for Jane and let me go across his vision. I could almost see myself gliding across the surface of his eyes. What I saw of him was how awful he looked, and I had an urge to explore precisely how, but was wary of staring. His attendant, surveying London, kept his back to me. When Guildford realised I was alone, he focused on me just enough to hear me out.

Apologetically, I said, ‘She's ill,' delivering what I knew was a lie, which he didn't deserve, and squirming in case he saw through it.

But he looked a bit dazed. ‘Ill?' It seemed to worry him and
I realised too late that she hadn't provided me with details as to what else I could say, what explanation I might give. He shouldn't have to worry, I thought: he'd had enough to worry about. I should let him off that hook, so, ‘Oh—' and I shrugged,
just general, nothing serious,
which could've been an oblique reference to ladies' problems.

He looked at me – kept looking at me – in that same expectant manner, then almost shook himself, remembered himself. ‘Oh. Well, tell her I'm sorry to hear it.' Which was of course the right response.

And it was a dismissal, too, but as I turned away, I realised I didn't have something similar for him and he was the one who'd suffered. So I turned back, just enough to say, ‘And she's sorry—' but stopped because it was another lie and the hunger in his eyes was a blade to my heart.

Sorry that she hadn't turned up? Sorry that his father had been killed? It could've been either but anyway it was a lie and he knew it. What I'd done was worse than if I'd merely left it be.

But then came just the faintest concession – I couldn't have called it a smile, it was nowhere near as much as that although there was something of a smile in it. It was an acknowledgement, or an acceptance: he knew very well she hadn't said she was sorry, he knew that had come from me, but he took it for what it was.

The very next day, Jane dropped me in it again – but at least this time she was honest about it: ‘I can't,' she said, and it was
a plea:
I can't
,
but you can.
She'd waited until we were at the door before saying it and those amber eyes of hers held mine in a way that was new; she was hanging on my response, offering herself up in her helplessness, which turned me upside-down.

‘Jane,' I said, a plea of my own,
don't make me do this.

‘I just can't do it,' and this time it was said with a note of panic, although there was something stronger, too, in it: a certain reckoning; she'd asked nothing of me so far, in all the time we'd been together but now she needed my help.

Without another word between us, I undertook to do it, which meant I was on my own as regards the excuse. But then, what would it matter what I told him? Because whatever it was, it would be a lie.

I stomped up to the wall-walk, frazzled and flushed. I had a job to do, as I saw it, and I'd do it, I'd do whatever needed doing, but however quickly I was able to get back down to our room, it wouldn't be soon enough. Even sewing, I told myself, was preferable to Guildford. As for what I was going to say to him, I decided I'd think about that when I got there. I'd think of something.

There was a nick of rain in the air. Guildford looked worse than before – was there really nothing that gloomy attendant could do? He was obviously disappointed to see me in place of his wife. He said, for me to confirm it, ‘She's no better,' but there was no recognition, this time, of it being a lie: he'd said it gravely and so we were to take it as the truth. Well, if he could do it – if he were generous enough or deluded enough
to be able to do it – then fine. I shrugged, leaving it up to him. He could think what he liked.

But then came a flicker of reflection, and he kind of laughed it off: ‘Well, you know, I'm not so great myself.'

No response from me would've been less than trite, but nor could I just turn and go; a respectful pause was required, and mine was genuine enough. So there I stood, resisting the urge to reach over and somehow tidy him up, perhaps reset his cap, do the job of that loafing, London-fixated attendant; just something – anything – to help restore him to himself. A buzzard drifted overhead, a moth-like underside to its wings.

And then he was asking me, ‘Are
you
married?' Although he didn't sound much interested.

I shook my head, which got me a lofty, world-weary ‘Oh well, then: just you wait.'

As if he were an old hand, but I bet I knew a great deal more about any number of things from the times that I'd spent in the Shelley Place clock cupboard than he did from a few months of his so-called marriage. And anyway, how pitiful, this attempt to make his wife's refusal to see him into some run-of-the-mill marital spat. And why bother? I mean, it wasn't as if I cared.

And,
just you wait
? I resented that assumption. He knew nothing about me. I was nothing like his many sisters, all of them – I knew, because everyone knew – so very well married off: there'd been a roaring trade, in recent years, in Dudley-daughter marriages.

‘I might never marry,' I countered.

He was unruffled: ‘Oh, a life of contemplation, is it, then, for you?'

A religious life, he meant, and I didn't know why he just didn't say it.

‘No.'

He smiled, sort of, to himself. ‘Not your style.'