Watch the Lady (33 page)

“I wish I could stay a child forever,” Lucy says in a small voice.

Penelope holds her daughter, feeling a surge of love and remembering the disappointment she had felt when this child was born. But it was not the usual ordinary disappointment parents have at the birth of firstborn girls. It was a backward shift in the path of her agreement with Rich. Sidney's ghost looms. She is reminded then of Doctor Lopez, his kind words, his extraordinary empathy; a sense of desolation sweeps through her and with it a twist of anxiety at the thought of the truth being so far beyond reach. She still refuses to believe in his guilt—though there was incontrovertible evidence of his dealings with Spain. He will always be the man who saved Lucy's life.

“You will never stop being my child,” she murmurs, peeling away Lucy's coif and smoothing a palm over her molasses-dark hair.

“I am afraid, Mother. The servants were talking the other day . . .” Oh God, thinks Penelope, girding herself, hoping desperately that Lucy hasn't got wind of her father's sexual proclivities. She is a girl who struggles to control her curiosity, listening at doors, sifting through things, reading letters, as if she has a need to make sense of the world to make it seem safer. Penelope has always carried a burden of guilt for her daughter's insecurities, as if that initial rejection imprinted itself on the child indelibly.

“What is it, my love?”

“Will the Spaniards come?”

Penelope is momentarily confused. “Spaniards?”

“They burned four Cornish towns to the ground—I heard them say so.”

“There is no reason to fret over that, Lucy. It was just a raid, not a proper army . . . they were opportunists . . . not even towns, barely villages . . . it was nipped in the bud. And besides, Cornwall is just about as far as you can get from Essex and still be in England.” She rocks her daughter gently. Lucy is not the only one vexed over the Cornish raids; the whole of the south of England is on tenterhooks. The Spanish are calling it a triumph—the first step in their invasion—and they were aided by English Catholics. Thoughts surge into her unbidden of that French massacre, the way Jeanne's eyes seemed to contain all the horror of that night when she talked of it, only ever in fragments, as if to describe its entirety might be to enter hell itself.

“But it is what they did to—” She stops, as if she is unable to say the words, and Penelope is wondering about what she might have overheard the servants talking of—lurid stories of pitched battles and burning houses, no doubt. “The womenfolk,” blurts Lucy, eventually. “They did terrible things to the women—had their way with them and tore them limb from limb.”

“It is only stories, exaggerated each time they pass from tongue to ear, my love.” But they are not stories. War is brutal, as much for the women as for the men, and if Penelope allows herself to ponder on such things she risks losing her grip. The raid originated in Brittany, where the Spaniards had overcome the French. It is too close for comfort.

“Fire must be fought with fire,” she had said to Essex when they were discussing it with the Bacon brothers. “Burghley's diplomacy is an ineffective tool for dealing with the Spanish. Take a force to Spain, Robin. Burn their fleet.”

“You will earn glory that way,” said Anthony Bacon, rubbing at his thigh to ease his gout.

“The Queen will take some persuading,” said Francis with a graceful wave of his hand and a little sniff. She has noticed he often punctuates his discourse with such sniffs and wonders if it means anything, like a “tell” in cards. “Cecil will not like it.”

“All the more reason,” chipped in Anthony.

“I will quietly work on the Queen,” Penelope said. “And you must too, Robin. But subtlety is what's needed. She must think it is her own idea.”

Her brother had flashed his beguiling grin at her then. “I think I can manage that.”

“But don't—” She stopped herself from telling him not to get too full of himself.

The Queen's regard is a powerful force, and her brother seems to rise and rise in her favor, whilst all the other favorites pale beside him. She fears it has caused him to think himself invincible. It makes her uneasy, for when you are elevated to the very pinnacle of things there is only one way to go. There are many who would like to see Essex topple, and Penelope feels the pressure of needing to protect him, ensuring he remains measured in his actions, keeping his mind on what will happen next; Elizabeth cannot last forever and they
must
ensure that it is James who succeeds, for the Devereuxs' prospects are now linked inextricably with the Stuarts. She has worked hard to win the Scottish King's confidence. All that secret correspondence, and all the fear that it will visit trouble on them one day, is a weight perpetually about her neck.

“I wish I were a boy,” Lucy says with some force, turning Penelope's thoughts back to her daughter. She unfolds herself from her mother's arms and looks at her directly. “I should like to learn to fight like Uncle Essex.”

“It is your wits, not brute force, that make you strong, my sweet.”

“What use will my wits be against a marauding army?” Lucy spits out an acid laugh as she says this.

“You'd be surprised,” says Penelope, glad to see some of her daughter's spirit return. “Think of the old Duchess of York.” She has told them many times the story of the woman they called the Rose of Raby, who, a century and a half ago, reasoned with a bloodthirsty army to spare her life, and her children's. “Here, pass me the comb.” She unravels Lucy's plaits and begins to run the comb carefully through her hair, remarking on the beauty of it, glossy like treacle. She imagines how, were Lucy called to court, she would see the other maids and want it hidden beneath a wig of colored frizz dripping with pearls, real or false, just like them—what a shame that would be. She remembers how she had felt so very out of place on her first day there, in her dark velvet, yearning for those gossamer wings—how quickly she had bored of them, the discomfort of the wires that poked into the flesh at the back of her neck.

“What was he like, your Sir Philip?” Lucy holds up the book of poems. “I have read them. They made me cry.”

Penelope wants to compare him to Blount but Lucy doesn't know Blount and it saddens her to think of her life so harshly divided into its separate parts, like preserves bottled and sealed and stored on a shelf. One day perhaps it will not be so—she entertains the idea of living with Blount and her children at Wanstead. It is always Wanstead she thinks of—the house of happiness. But it is a daft dream, in truth. “He was someone who was not afraid of his own . . .” She seeks the word, not finding one that fits exactly. “Of his own softness.” As she says it—softness—it sounds silly, inappropriate, but the truth about Sidney is impossible to articulate: his brooding nature, his absolute conviction of love, his hatred of senseless violence, his pursuit of truth. That was what she had meant.

But Lucy doesn't ask for an explanation. “I have read it in the poems. He was battered by his emotions.”

Penelope buries her face in her daughter's hair, breathing it in. It smells of wildflowers, as if she has been rolling about in the fields, a gloriously unadulterated scent, and she thinks she too would like Lucy to remain a child always. The things she cannot confide, the truth about her father, her love for Blount, silt her up, make her feel dishonest. “We are all battered by our emotions,” she says. “Sometimes love is hard to resist.”

“Are they all about you, really?”

“The poems? Yes, that
was
me—another me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Time and circumstance can change people beyond recognition.” She is thinking of the egg and the oyster.

“How old are you, Mother?”

“I am thirty-two—goodness, how the years pass, without one realizing.”

Lucy flashes a glittering, open smile and they fall into silence once more with just the soft scrape of the comb passing through Lucy's hair, until they are interrupted by the clatter of feet on the stairs. The children rush in, jabbering excitedly, with Spero, who had traveled down in the luggage cart, scampering after. They throw themselves at their mother, smothering her with kisses and thanks for the two piebald ponies she brought them from Essex's stables.

“Can we take them out?” asks Hoby.

“The groom said they were too tired from the journey,” says Essie.

“He's right. It's quite a hike from Wanstead.” Penelope cannot help thinking of the previous night spent at Wanstead with Blount, and the wretchedness of their parting, assuaged only by the thought of being reunited with her children. “You can put them through their paces tomorrow.”

“Mother, why has Spero got a grey muzzle, when it used to be black?” asks Henry, who is holding tight to the dog's collar to prevent him from getting at the guinea pig.

“He is an old boy. Dogs go grey as we do,” she replies, placing an arm around her smallest son's shoulders.

“Like Grandmother! I saw her without her wig once,” says Hoby.

“You should never look in at a lady when she is not dressed, Hoby,” says Lucy primly.

“I didn't mean to, she was just—”

“I don't want Spero to be old,” interrupts Henry, and Penelope can see the maneuverings of her son's mind, as he ponders on the finite nature of things. She feels clogged up then, thinking of all the years she wished for time to pass more quickly so she could have her freedom, and yet also wanted time to stand still. Her agreement with her husband, it strikes her only then in such a way, has been a little like Doctor Faustus's pact with the devil in Kit Marlowe's play. Not that Rich is a devil, just a man who is not well designed for this world. He is a benign soul really, unlike some others who are too close for comfort.

Cecil's man places the carton on the floor of his study. “Shall I open it for you, sir?” He brandishes an iron prise bar.

“No need,” says Cecil.

“It will only take a moment.”

“I said, ‘No need.' ” Cecil is finding it hard to keep the vehemence from his voice, knows he mustn't attract attention to the package. He has been waiting for this delivery. “It can be done later. It is nothing more than some Spanish volumes on garden design and I have important papers that need my attention.”

“As you wish, sir.” The man turns to go.

“Leave the tool,” says Cecil.

The man places the prise bar carefully on the carton before exiting.

Cecil sits for a moment, looking at his long-awaited consignment of books. A letter had been delivered a few weeks ago, from a trusted contact in Spain, informing him of the imminent arrival of this crate. The letter, though in cipher, seemed clear enough. The gist was that the package would contain the means to bring down his “greatest adversary.” There was only one person that adversary could be. Now the awaited shipment is here before him, his anticipation has reached a crescendo. The intensity of the feeling twists in his gut; it is almost painful, like colic.

He opens the door, casting his eyes about to ensure he will not be disturbed, and takes up the prise bar, hooking it under the join where the lid has been nailed down. The wood makes a satisfying crack as the cover comes away. He gets down on his knees, pulling out fistfuls of the straw packing, scattering them over the floor, not caring about the mess he is making. He lifts out the books, one after the other—several large tomes—flicking through one or two to see what is inside them. He finds the expected drawings of plants and plans of gardens, a fountain here and there, some ornamental ironwork, but nothing else.

A few more books come out, still nothing, and he wonders if perhaps there is something coded and buried within the pages of one of them, beginning to seek clues, burrowing simultaneously with his hands in the straw. He takes out another book; it is smaller than the rest and rather beautifully bound in red stained leather. He opens it, reading the frontispiece:
Conference on the Next Succession to the Crown of England.
This is it! The mere existence of such a tome is treachery; all such discussion is forbidden within the shores of England.

There is a tremor in his breath as he reads on:
Directed to the Right Honorable the Earl of Essex
. Treachery in the name of Essex, then! The author is one Doleman, doubtless a pseudonym, but it is the dedication that is making anticipation flutter through his body. A leaf of paper slides to the floor. On it are written a few numbers. He shuffles through, searching for the indicated pages, skimming the dense text, finding, with a thrill that runs all the way up his spine—somehow making him feel that it is straighter, its kink ironed out—a passage so deeply drenched in treason that he has to read it twice to believe his eyes. It argues the validity of the Spanish Infanta's claim on the English throne, tracing her line back to the third Edward. This stinks of Catholic treason and Catholic treason dedicated to Essex. Cecil can barely catch his breath.

He sits back on his heels, running his fingers over the soft leather, and has a momentary gruesome fantasy that the book is bound in the earl's skin. He has heard stories from the New World about savage men who keep the scalps of their slain enemies as trophies. He continues to fondle the smooth surface, his thoughts turning unavoidably to the sister—her pale smooth skin, the hidden skin of her body that he has only ever imagined. How had Sidney described her in those poems of his:
of alabaster pure
? He finds himself wondering, not for the first time, if the love between Lady Rich and Sir Philip Sidney had been chaste—if he had passed his fingers over those secret parts of her. It is certainly possible, given her brazen behavior with Blount. The idea partly ignites his disgust but also that other feeling, the one he does his best to suppress.