The Poison Bed: 'Gone Girl meets The Miniaturist'

by E C Fremantle

  ‘So thick, so beautiful.’ Nelly wields the comb carefully. ‘Mine won’t grow below my waist and it’s all rats’ tails at the ends.’

  Frances looks down at her hands: she has bent a hairpin out of shape. ‘I should cut it all off for comfort.’ Nelly is aghast but Frances doesn’t mean it. She’d be afraid to lose her strength, like Samson.

  Nelly returns to the table, suggesting a game of cards, and they play without speaking for a while. Frances watches how Nelly holds her hand in a tight fan, ordering and reordering it with precision.

  Eventually Nelly looks up to say, ‘But I don’t understand why you had to marry a man you didn’t like. I thought your sort had the right to refuse a match?’

  Frances wonders what has made the girl think of that. ‘Normally it should be so,’ she explains, ‘but we were very young when the wedding took place. We couldn’t have possibly known how the marriage would turn out. Besides, I’d never have dared disobey my great-uncle and he was determined to tie the Howards and the Essex crowd together.’ She picks up the ace of diamonds, which gives her a run: knave, queen, king, ace. She places them face up on the table.

  Nelly sniffs, reordering her hand again. ‘The Essex crowd?’

  ‘They were all the friends of the old Earl of Essex, who would have been my father-in-law if he’d still been alive.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  Frances is astonished. The girl seems not to have heard of the earl and his disastrous attempt to unseat Elizabeth Tudor. But Nelly would have been a baby at the time. She is reminded of that portrait at Chartley. How she’d loathed the way he glowered down at her.

  ‘Executed,’ Frances says bluntly. ‘On the old Queen’s orders. But his supporters came into favour again because they’d helped King James to the throne. They made up the Protestant faction – had a good deal of influence back then.’ She can see Nelly is confused. It is no wonder. The court’s fluctuating allegiances are as complicated as the pattern in a Turkish carpet. ‘My great-uncle wanted their prestige to rub off on the Howards and it did. But the Essex crowd fell from favour. Essentially it’s all about power and proximity to the King.’ Nelly picks up a card and discards another.

  Frances simplifies it, saying, ‘Imagine the King is a lit candle. The closer you stand the more light you have. But too close and you’re burned. My great-uncle wanted power more than anything, you see.’ She stops, suddenly worried that she might have revealed too much, and pretends to focus all her attention on the game.

  Nelly’s expression ruffles with what appears to be genuine sympathy, allaying Frances’s concerns a little. ‘But why were they enemies in the first place?’

  Frances is becoming familiar with the girl’s direct style of questioning and she wishes there were an equally direct way to explain the old political rivalry between her family and the Essex crowd; the way her great-uncle had clawed himself back to royal favour from the wilderness after his own brother had been executed for treason decades before. She simply says, ‘They stood for different things.’ It is an unsatisfactory explanation, reduced to its bare bones.

  ‘I see,’ responds Nelly and, with a flourish, snaps all her cards down. ‘I’ve won!’

  A window bangs open, making them jump. It flaps, crashing back and forth, and rain gusts into the room. The candles stutter. Nelly gets to her feet to close it, saying, ‘The catch is broken.’ Frances passes her an old hair ribbon to tie it shut, and Nelly drags a stool over, clambering on to it, as the windows on the river side are set high. ‘Something’s happening. Look.’

  Frances steps up to peer out. Freezing rain batters at her face but she can make out a small boat, lit by a single lantern, tossing and bucking below them and dark figures aboard, hauling something heavy out of the water.

  ‘What in Heaven’s name are they doing?’ Frances can’t make out what it is. ‘Can you see?’ A large pale shape tumbles into the vessel.

  Nelly gasps, grabbing Frances’s shoulder. ‘Jesus, it’s a body.’

  Frances steps down before she falls. She cannot tell if the room is spinning or her head.

  ‘Oh, no,’ says Nelly, turning, laughing.

  ‘It’s not funny.’ Frances has no idea if she’s speaking aloud or not.

  ‘But it’s only a pig.’ A dark puddle is spreading over the floor. ‘I thought it was a –’

  Frances feels her throat tightening but manages to spit out, ‘For God’s sake, tie up the window.’

  Nelly does as she is told and the storm is shut out. It’s only when the girl asks, ‘What’s wrong?’ that Frances realizes she is standing like a lunatic with her head in her hands.

  ‘Nothing. I’m quite all right.’ She pulls herself together. ‘I saw a woman drown once, that’s all.’

  ∞

  Uncle and Harry left Chartley and I was abandoned in a place where time stood still. Essex made no effort to disguise his contempt for me, and if I tried to engage him in conversation or speak of our situation, he would demand my silence. We would dine together under the watchful eye of his painted relatives, with a handful of hushed servants, listening to the tick of the iron clock. Neither of us had anything to say to the other, beyond bland comments about the weather and requests to pass the bread.

  As soon as the meals were over I would return to my own rooms at the other end of the house, where he rarely ventured. Occasionally I would see his mistress lurking, a flash of embroidered ankle slipping out of sight as I approached. He never mentioned her and I never asked. I was unused to such a quiet existence, and sometimes I would go down to the kitchens, on some pretext to do with the running of the household, just so I could experience the warmth and bustle.

  Several weeks later Essex paid a visit to my rooms. I woke, disoriented in the pitch dark, to the sound of someone moving about. I asked who it was, assuming it was one of the maids up early to light the fire. But the bed curtain was swiped back sharply, causing me to gasp. ‘It’s your husband,’ he slurred and, slumping down beside me, lunged beneath the covers, tugging my nightdress up roughly.

  I heard the thin fabric tear. ‘Your hands are freezing,’ I said into the darkness. It was an attempt to create some small line of affinity with him, but I received no response, just the continued grappling.

  He manoeuvred himself out of his clothes, puffing and heaving, stinking of ale. Despite his fumbled efforts, and mine, his body refused to respond.

  I feared it was my lack of experience that was causing his frustration. ‘Tell me what it is you like,’ I whispered, tenderly running my fingers over the cratered surface of his face.

  He grabbed me tight by the throat, choking the breath out of me and muttering, ‘Shut that mouth of yours, you shameless piece of work.’

  Those visits became a regular occurrence. On hearing his footsteps, I would steel myself, but every encounter ended in failure and his angry outbursts made me increasingly wary of him. My reserves of stoicism were wearing thin and I greatly missed Uncle’s advice – he would have known what to do. I wrote to him often, unloading my woes and begging for snippets of gossip from court.

  The seasons eked by in this way, interminably, each day much like its predecessor. My married life had been staked out and I had no choice but to live within its confines. Occasionally family members, both his and mine, would visit to break the monotony and I would have to fend off questions about when we would produce a child. I learned to respond, ‘When God wills it.’ But, short of a miracle, even God’s will would have been insufficient in our case.

  The anniversary of my arrival at Chartley was nearing when I found a group of maids in a huddle, babbling about a fair that was coming to the village. Everyone had permission to go, I learned. They were teasing each other about the boys they liked and what they might dare do with them, emitting peals of red-faced giggles. For several weeks, there was talk of nothing else. I imagined the festivities, the music and dancing and the little intrigues, despondent in the knowledge that I would be left to rattle arou
nd the house alone with my husband for the day.

  On the eve of the fair, anticipation among the servants had built to a crescendo and I sat with Essex, as usual, in the heavy silence of our evening meal, broken only by the interminable tick of the clock. I was beset by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, a vision of my life stretched out before me, empty and meaningless. But rather than submit to wretchedness I became filled with a determination to resist my husband’s dull tyranny and suggested to him that we might profit from a little joy in our lives.

  He was puzzled. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps we might go to the fair tomorrow. A change of scene would do us good.’ I couldn’t look at him and fixed my eyes on a drip of wax that was running down the candlestick, pooling on the table.

  I noticed one of the servants whisper something behind his hand to another. We all waited for Essex’s response as he slowly finished his mouthful. I absently picked at the warm wax, rolling it between my fingers. He took a swig of wine, then another, finally saying, ‘I don’t see why not.’

  His transformation was a mystery to me, but on the following morning he even took my arm and helped me into the carriage, rather than leaving it to the groom. I felt a tentative sense of optimism as we drove along the lanes, while he pointed out the places he had liked to ride as a child and told me about the hound that used to follow him everywhere he went. His habitual bitterness seemed forgotten but I didn’t ask the reason for his bright mood, for fear of bursting my hope.

  We slowed to a crawl at the edge of the village in a line of carts and riders, making way for groups of people walking, bright with eagerness. A dog was barking manically – someone was trying to catch it but it kept darting away. There was music playing up ahead, the rhythmic beat of a drum, and the scent of roast hog filled the air, making my mouth water. A crowd had gathered around the pond, jostling and cheering at something. We came to a halt and I opened the carriage door so we could stand side by side on the step to see over the heads to what was causing the stir.

  A woman was being pulled from the river by two men. Water poured from her gaping mouth, her pale shift sticking to her body to outline her shape beneath. Her skin, where it was visible, was blotched purple and grey, like a bruise. She was dropped heavily on to the bank and lay there, twisted at an angle. We were too distant to make out her features but it was possible to see that her head had been roughly shaved, the scalp patchy and tufted.

  ‘Is she dead?’ It was a stupid thing to ask, given the ghoulish colour of her skin and the fact that the vicar was standing over her muttering prayers.

  ‘Witch,’ said Essex. ‘That’s what happens to women who don’t do as they’re told.’ I’d assumed it a warning but he nudged me with a smirk. He was joking.

  ‘Is that right?’ I watched in horror as her body, like any old carcass, was flung over the back of a donkey and crudely tied in place. ‘And what about men who don’t do as they’re told?’

  ‘Men are not witches.’ He puffed out a laugh and sat down inside the carriage, asking me to do the same.

  But a whip cracked and the donkey began to move slowly towards us with its grim cargo. I couldn’t prise my eyes away. As it passed close by I saw, where her shift had ridden up, an ankle embroidered with a pattern of roses.

  ‘Oh, God.’ I clapped my hand to my throat, thinking of Uncle – she can be made to disappear – but refusing to accept that he could have taken such drastic measures.

  Essex pulled me down on to the seat. He was still laughing, oblivious to the dead woman’s identity, and seemed not to notice my distress, as he said, ‘The bitch got what she deserved, I’m sure.’

  The next day he ordered the house to be packed up – we were to leave Chartley for London. He wouldn’t speak to me, couldn’t look at me, but I saw the devastation threaded through him, in his hunched posture, in his barren eyes. He was curdled with grief. I never mentioned it to Uncle. Perhaps I was afraid to know the truth.

  Him

  When I arrived, a boy levered himself from the tangle of bed sheets, pulling on his clothes as he slid out of the door. Thomas stood shirtless on the threshold, unsmiling, arms crossed. Squeezing past him into the room, I could smell the feral scent of the boy on his skin.

  The space was cramped and stuffy, with only the most rudimentary of furniture. I threw the sheaf of papers I’d brought on to a small table that was wedged into an alcove. I was there to ask for an opinion on some business. James had begun to trust me with increasingly sensitive state matters and, strictly speaking, the papers were for my eyes only, but Thomas was astute – sometimes ruthlessly so – and I wanted his advice.

  ‘This place isn’t fit for a dog.’ I was annoyed, as it was I who had asked the steward to house him and it seemed a personal slight.

  ‘I don’t mind. It’s not for long and I’m better off here than being fleeced by one of those boarding-house landladies at the Greenwich docks. You’ve become too used to luxury, Robin. There was a time when you were happy just to have a roof over your head.’ He picked up the papers, looked briefly at the heading and glowered at me. ‘It’s not the lodgings I mind, it’s seeing so little of you. We’ve been here almost a week and I’ve only seen you at a distance. When you do come it’s because you want something.’

  I leaned on the corner of the table and muttered some excuses about the King leaving me no time to myself, but I couldn’t control my petulant tone. Guilt powered my snappish mood.

  ‘It’s intolerable’ – I could see the hurt scored through him – ‘knowing you’re up there with him.’

  ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I expect loyalty.’ He turned his back, began to make the bed, violently banging the pillows into shape.

  ‘You got what you wanted.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to go so –’ He emitted a pitiful sigh and didn’t need to finish what he was saying. It was a conversation we’d had a thousand times over, how all he’d intended was for me to turn the King’s head for a while, so we could gain a little influence. I remembered his delight when James first noticed me. But neither of us could have anticipated that I would climb so high, almost beyond his reach, or that I would grow truly fond of James. ‘You were mine once.’ He turned back to me, stepping close to run his hand slowly over my cheek.

  I ducked away from his caress. ‘Don’t.’ His upset touched me but, since that encounter in the prince’s rooms, Frances had become a mania that left no space in me for other intimacies. ‘Look, you’re my friend. That’s all we’ve ever been – friends.’ I was being disingenuous, which made him remind me acerbically, as he often did, how coarse and green I’d been when he’d plucked me from obscurity and that he’d taught me all I knew. ‘How often must I voice my gratitude? I’m grateful, you know I am.’ I might have listed the opportunities he’d gained through me but I knew when to hold my tongue with him. He was a decade my senior, liked to think he’d made me from scratch, and sometimes it was easier to let him believe it.

  ‘I do everything and you take the credit.’ Rather than confront the resentment in his eyes, I looked at his mouth – his straight white teeth. He was very proud of his teeth and looked after them meticulously. ‘Then I have to wait patiently like a good dog for your scraps.’ A vein throbbed in his temple.

  ‘You’re suffocating me – I can’t breathe. You don’t own me.’ I took him by the forearms. ‘Look, we’re together now. Let’s not fight – please.’

  He apologized then, and I suggested we leave the paperwork for the time being and take some air. ‘Lucky I’m so fond of you.’ He gave me a playful push, his bad mood forgotten. ‘What’s this?’ He reached inside my jacket, pulling out the slender book that was tucked inside. ‘Troilus and Criseyde? I’ve never known you to read poetry.’

  ‘It was –’ I stopped myself before I revealed how the book had come to me. He was unequivocal about his dislike of Northampton and I didn’t want to have to field a series of probing questions. ‘It’s jus
t for pleasure.’ I tried to sound insouciant but those verses, like the encounter with Frances Howard, had transformed my inner world beyond recognition.

  He laughed. ‘As long as you don’t get the wrong kind of ideas about women.’ He was being ironic and couldn’t have known what was percolating beneath my surface.

  I felt a flush of heat and pretended to tie my shoe so he couldn’t see my expression as I said, ‘Women? Hardly!’

  As I looked up again he threw me one of his rare, flashing smiles. When Thomas Overbury gave you one of his gold-dust smiles you’d do almost anything for him.

  I lay back on the bed to watch him dress. I never tired of watching him. There was a particular kind of grace in the sleek musculature of his body and the way the different parts of his face – the straight nose, the sculpted cheekbones – conspired to create perfect harmony. In moments like that I often considered what our lives might have been had the King not come across me – but not on that day. Not ever again.

  ‘Here, help me with these.’ He held out his sleeves for me to tie, the amusement in his grey eyes telling me he was enjoying seeing me do the job of a servant for a change. I let him take his pleasure: it salved my guilt. I even crouched to help him with his boots.

  It was a perfect June morning, bright and verdant, the hedges twitching with little birds, and it felt good to be away from the grime and noise of London. The river slunk by lazily, watched over by the palace windows, blinking in the early sun, and we walked along the bank where the tall reeds rustled with invisible life.

  We stopped for a while to watch Prince Henry at a distance, bathing. It was a daily ritual of his, the morning swim. You wouldn’t have caught me dead swimming at Greenwich, downriver from the city, with all the filth the Thames carried, but the prince seemed to imagine he was immune to it. A few of his men were seated on the little pier, chatting easily, bootless legs dangling, with a pair of guards watching.