by Jeane Westin
‘Look in thy heart, and write.’”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
Frances knew that she was acting the fool. Still, she refused to listen to her own caution.
She was determined to approach her father one last time to show him a sealed letter that she had opened and closed. She had broken a short practice cipher from one of her father’s books. It was not a simple one, and she had solved it alone. There was something logical about ciphers that revealed themselves to her as a painting made an image where the colors connected. With practice, she would advance to even more difficult ciphers, perhaps even double substitution. She was convinced she could, if only she had an opportunity.
And that opportunity would soon be hers. The queen had summoned her to Whitehall! She had not been meant to overhear the news, but like any good intelligencer she had her senses alert to all she was not supposed to know, especially to a lathered horse whose rider wore the royal livery and was then closeted with her father.
Frances looked again at the letter she’d prepared just this morn. There was no trace of tampering on the signet seal, the Walsingham family device of a cinquefoil five-leaf clover. By the seal he would know that she had done the work, or was it so undetectable that he would think her a liar, a sin that he hated above all things? Still, she must take this chance—nay, take every chance! Perhaps he would see her determination, and surely recognize it as an essential part of a good spy’s character.
Hurrying around the formal knot garden in front of the manor entrance, she walked along a wide avenue of yew to the rose gardens that fronted the dock on the Thames. Her father’s barge was anchored there, oars up in salute, ready to take him on the flood tide to London. The queen’s urgent summons of her spymaster to Whitehall Palace could not be delayed for even a half day. Her Majesty was upset with the demands that far-flung spying on the continent made on her treasury. Her spymaster would need new evidence-filled reports from his agents to allay the queen’s ever-present suspicion of waste.
And, Frances reasoned, a good daughter should wish her lord father a safe trip, even if she had secret knowledge that she would follow him to London soon.
She accepted some roses from a gardener, the thorns having been removed in readiness for her bedchamber, and sat on a stone bench to wait in the heavy, spreading shade of the old elm trees.
Frances lifted a blossom to inhale its spicy scent. This had been a day for farewells. Just after sunup, she had seen Philip off to London with his servants and baggage wagon. He could not wait to be gone, though she knew that he would need to busy himself with his uncle the Earl of Leicester at Leicester House on the Strand until the third hour after noontide, Lady Rich’s appointed time for their tryst.
Yet it was Frances Walsingham who was Lady Sidney, and not Penelope Rich. She remembered the thrill of first writing that name…Lady Sidney. How young she had been, her head brimming with Philip’s love poetry. Would he write such words for her as he had written for Stella? That She, dear She, might take some pleasure…When had she begun to doubt that she would ever be Philip’s “dear She”? When had her innocence begun to fade? Within a year? Perhaps less? She had fiercely resisted losing her girlish dreams, though now she was happy they were dead and gone. Love dreams were a burden, and she would have none of them ever again.
It had been a more mature Lady Sidney who had received Philip’s kiss this morning near the stables. He had not murmured in Frances’s ear, “Eternal love, maintain thy life in me,” as he had written for Stella, lines copied by half the young gentlemen of England. He had leaned down from his saddle and spoken of another life, the son he hoped he had planted in her womb.
She had managed a blushing smile, as would any goodwife, and she did not say that she hoped with all her heart not to be found with child in London. She would be sent back to Barn Elms immediately and eventually be shut into a dark, hot chamber to wait for the birth, kept from her books and her hopes, from any life that she would freely choose.
Philip had taken her hand gently. “Wife, I will send for you when it is safe in Holland.”
“That is my dearest wish, husband,” she murmured, not able to say the words with more force, having little more than a sigh in her heart.
Philip rode away, and she watched him grow smaller before crying out, “Stay safe, husband.”
She watched, but he didn’t turn for a last wave of farewell. He urged on his horse beyond hearing until his little company rounded a bend in the road and was out of sight, leaving a dusty, echoing space. She took a small pleasure in the thought that her kiss would still be on his lips before another’s could be. It was a small sin of pride that she deliberately allowed herself.
Servants began to pass her carrying her father’s chests, which contained his many unadorned black suits and hats proclaiming his Puritan leanings to all, even to Queen Elizabeth, who disliked strict religion. She preferred the middle way of her father, Henry VIII’s English church, far from the dangerous shoals of religious extremes that were troublesome to the peace of her realm.
Frances ducked her head as a laugh escaped her lips. The queen’s spymaster, the same one who urged Frances to follow a daughter’s assigned path, could not travel Her Majesty’s own middle way. Still, she thought it best to keep that thought to herself or forget it altogether. Her father had not the slightest appreciation of drollery.
His papers and books paraded past her, yet he did not appear.
She dug in her basket for a book to fill her time. Today she had been careful in the one she had chosen from her father’s library, knowing he would not need to take this particular volume, since Dr. John Dee, a mathematician and one of the queen’s closest councilors, had copied it more than once for the lord secretary. Pushing aside the roses, she opened a handwritten copy of Trithemius’s Steganographia, Book Three. She had studied the German abbot’s great cipher work many times, and each time its secrets became clearer to her, though she desired a teacher like Dr. Dee to help her understand even better.
Frances had not long to read before she heard her father’s cane as he walked rapidly toward her on the packed-earth path. It was amazing that he could move so quickly despite his aching joints, but he had discovered that walking fast helped him to keep a better balance. She covered the forbidden book with roses and looked up, smiling.
“Good morrow, daughter,” he greeted her, and sat down heavily beside her, a little out of breath.
“Lord father,” she answered softly, looking on his lined, dark face, and seeing that he was ailing again.
“How grow the gardens?” he asked in a preoccupied tone that told her he was not interested in their symmetry, scent, or beauty, but in their maintenance for the queen’s infrequent visits. For him, they were a symbol of his station as one of the queen’s chief councilors.
“The gardens grow well, Father, although the roses will soon fade, and I will direct the pruning and mulching of the beds, which must begin in a month or so.”
He shook his head hastily. “The chief gardener will attend to such.”
She pretended an affront. “Surely you trust that I can order—”
“I bid you, daughter, do not look for ill, because you will surely find it.” His slight smile took away the censure. “Her gracious Majesty has sent word that you are not to languish for a day longer than necessary at Barn Elms with Sir Philip gone. She commands you to court as a lady of the presence chamber.”
Frances showed all the surprise he expected. “To court!”
This was where she wanted to be, but not as one of the ladies who provided a pleasing background for Her Majesty’s audiences. Nevertheless, at court she would be near her father and his work, near Dr. Dee and Thomas Phelippes.
“A great honor, Father. This is a court position to bring credit to our family. Any woman would long for such favor.”
Any woman but me, she thought, though she knew better than to speak the words. Her father was used to seeing beyo
nd words.
“Alas, there is no joyfulness in your face, Frances. You are too glum with no reason, since your husband is also about the queen’s business. I bid you to keep a cheerful face at court, or Her Majesty will not seek your company.”
Frances changed the subject. “I will have many hours when I can care for you, if you have need.”
It was true; he would need her camphor poultices to draw heat from his joints and cool his aches, which kept him abed sometimes for days. Physicians with all their bloodlettings and vile diets had never done better for him. When she cured his pain he would listen to her, hear her dreams, and grant her a place in his work. Her spirits lifted with the hope that she saw the future truly.
He took her hand. “I am happy to hear that being a pleasing background is agreeable to you, daughter.” The deep worry lines on his face relaxed. “You have the fair coloring and large gray eyes of your mother…her sweet beauty.” His face sagged for a moment with painful memory.
“Father, I am sorry to remind you of your loss.”
“You do not,” he said firmly, his jaw tightening. “I but remember her much softer nature. You, Frances, are unrelenting in your wants.”
“In that I am like you, Father. Surely it is not only sons who inherit strength and courage from their fathers.”
He dropped her hand, studying her closely, as if just now seeing her clearly. “As I said, unrelenting.”
“Perhaps, Father, you see me truer than I see myself,” she said, careful to keep her tone from being quarrelsome.
“You have my black hair,” he said softly, as if he were just noticing. “I will order red wigs for you. Everyone at court is wearing them, as the queen does.”
Frances knew she would look dreadful in a red wig, but she did not want to stand out from the other ladies and draw unwanted attention with her dark hair flowing free. It was unbecoming of a married woman. Although she expected no good outcome, she could not stop herself from one last appeal, and she held her breath as if leaping into a fast-running stream.
“I will be of very good cheer and please the queen, but I will have many hours to fill my days with other work, Father…work with you.” She pulled the letter from her basket and held it out to him. “This I have done, teaching myself to remove the signet seal of this letter and return it so that its opening cannot be detected. See here; the seal’s edges are not even raised….”
His face tightened with her every word until her voice trailed off into silence.
“Daughter, have a care that you do not become shrewish. I have a good man for such work in Arthur Gregory. You do not make me…proud with these fanciful and unwomanly ideas.”
She had no breath left to argue. He didn’t disbelieve her, as she had feared. He simply did not care whether she could remove a signet seal. Her skill was a burdensome embarrassment.
“Let me hear no more, unless you deliberately wish to add to my cares.” He stood too suddenly and winced with pain, his dark gaze on her. “Such disobedience brings shame to you, Frances, to your dear husband, and to me. Remember, resignation and submission are the greatest womanly virtues, and not to be ignored because you fancy your learning and brain. I made a mistake in allowing you to read and study beyond your sex.”
Of course, she knew that many people thought thus, but it hurt her more when it came from him, who had heard her lessons with such pride, a pride that disappeared once she reached womanhood.
He swayed and she put out a hand to steady him, but he waved it off, his proud face adamant. “I’ll send my man Robert Pauley to escort you to Whitehall. Be ready to leave in three days…and be ready for Robert Pauley.”
Frances was puzzled. “Father, what should I be ready for?”
“He has great pride for a commoner, but is a good man for all that, and a trustworthy one.”
This information barely reached her before her father, scowling, was walking swiftly toward his waiting barge, his back straight despite the cost to him in aching joints.
She had to clutch tight to the bench to stop herself from running after him, begging his forgiveness, trying to make him understand. No, that would need more time than he had. She would convince him at court.
Patience…she must learn patience. If she would be an intelligencer, patience was a prime skill to have, and she must own it in plenty. Somehow she would convince her father that she was worth more than he thought, and through him perhaps she could convince Philip. Staring after her father, she lifted an already wilting rose to her nose, the petals drifting across her breasts. Perhaps convincing Philip would take even more than her father’s great skills. She surprised herself with how quickly her girlish dream was revived. And it was too late…altogether too late. It had been too late for her the first day Philip saw Penelope as a just-blossoming girl at Chartley.
Lifting her gown from the dusty path, Frances ran to the dock to wave her father off. She watched the oarsmen take the barge to midstream and pick up the tide, its flags flapping in the wind, a drum in the bow thumping as the oars kept time. She waved her kerchief, and once her father lifted his hand in farewell, as if half forgiving her.
Frances raced back to the manor house. She was going to court!
The next three days were a happy frenzy of airing her gowns, making them more fashionable with the addition of cutwork lace and the black and gold silk embroidery of Jennet and the maids. Several seamstresses were called in from nearby Mortlake to sew new gowns, bodices, oversleeves, and cloaks. Panels and taffeta lining were added to good country gowns so that they would be full and outstanding enough for court, although Her Majesty had declared they must be no wider at the hem than four feet. Two of her favorite places, Nonsuch Palace and her hunting lodge, Oatlands, were small. Moreover, no other gowns could be as wide as the queen’s.
Cobblers were called, and the sound of hammers echoed through the great hall from early morn until dark. In a few days many pairs of pinked leather slippers in a rainbow of colors, some with fashionable wooden heels, all lined with satin or tufted velvet to match her gowns, were quickly made. Frances tried on every pair, testing the best of them for the hop and leap of the lavolte, the queen’s favorite dance, knowing that she often asked her ladies to dance for her.
Frances smiled at the story her father had told her of Queen Elizabeth dancing the lavolte alone every morning for exercise.
At almost the last hour, Frances remembered the queen rode out on many a fine day, and she ordered buskins with heels for riding. Perhaps she would be among the ladies of the queen’s party, especially once Her Majesty saw how well her new lady sat a horse.
Frances oversaw the packing of lace-edged gloves and upstanding neck ruffs, heavily starched and pleated in their wooden forms. When they were finished, she added close-knit hosen with ribbon knee ties. Lastly, her coffer of books and writing materials was included, and all carried to the great hall below.
Frances was unable to sleep the night before she was to leave for court. She lay awake, sensing that her life was about to change in ways she dared not allow herself to imagine. Watching clouds pass before the moon, she wondered what the next weeks and months would bring to justify the excitement she was beginning to feel for a court position she did not truly want.
Though she had been to court several times, she had gone as Sir Walsingham’s young daughter, and not as a lady in the queen’s own entourage. Was that why she felt such anticipation and yet some unease, as if she were entering an unknown and dark forest track, unable to clearly see the road out and into sunlight? Finally she was wearied from her own thoughts. It was always so much easier to read other people’s. She smiled at that, thinking how unladylike her father would consider it.
She turned from her window and sank into her soft bolster, eventually easing into slumber.
After eating a bowl of thick pottage, barely warm when it reached her from the distant kitchen, Frances made her way with Jennet to the carriage and drivers her father had sent from London. Her
washerwoman and maid of the chamber climbed into a wagon that would follow.
Her father’s man, called Pauley, was tall, with a thin mustache tracing his upper lip and leading to a strong, beardless chin. His clothing was well cut of very good cloth and drape on his wide shoulders and well-proportioned body, all worn with an ease of manner that separated him from other servants.
He held the carriage door open and lowered the step for her.
“You must be Robert Pauley,” she said.
“I am, and have no doubt from your father’s description that you are Frances.”
Jennet quickly stepped forward and in a guardian’s voice said, “Lady Frances to you.”
The man bowed low. “I beg pardon, my lady. I am used to hearing your father speak of you as Frances.”
She was surprised to hear a learned man’s speech, and more surprised that her father had spoken of her to his intelligencers. “He speaks of me?”
Pauley bowed again, and Frances remembered that her father had called him overconfident for a commoner…nay, proud. She would be on the watch for any self-importance that might lead to disobedience. Her face might betray her youth, but not the steel behind it. She would never be one of those poor creatures who was ruled by her servants.
“He is very proud of his daughter, the wife of England’s foremost poet…of love.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Pauley’s mouth. Was he mocking her? She was ready to be furious if the man was sly or arrogant, both insufferable in a servant. He held an obvious good opinion of himself, clearly much above his station.
“Well, Pauley, please make certain that all my chests are securely tied,” she said dismissively, treating him as the servant he was supposed to be. She was able to recognize in his proud manner that he was ill at ease with his position, since she, too, was never quite at ease herself, always pretending to be someone she was not.
He moved quickly toward the wagon to verify the stowing of all her belongings. Without appearing to watch, she saw him check the tie ropes, cinch one, and say something to her maid that made the girl giggle and blush. This Pauley merited her close attention if he sought to jolly every serving maid in sight. A mistress must set the rules early and keep to them.
