by Karen Brooks
Finally, after what seemed an age, I withdrew from Papa’s arms and wiped my face. My head pounded, my limbs were heavy, but my soul felt lighter than it had in over a year.
‘I do not deserve such understanding, Papa,’ I sniffed.
‘You deserve that and so much more. God forgive me I ever doubted you.’ His eyes were wet, his regard intense. I began to weep again. Papa bundled me close once more. My son had not only been denied a life, but a father. I was so blessed with this one. The man who would have been my little Gideon’s grandfather, his nonno.
I didn’t realise I’d spoken aloud until Papa stiffened in my arms.
‘Does Francis know about … your son?’ he asked softly.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want him to, either.’
‘Forgive me, but I must ask: does anyone else, apart from Shelton and the women?’
I stared at Papa. His urgency brooked no hesitation. ‘Caleb … I told Caleb.’ An acute observer, Caleb had guessed upon my return. When he asked, I simply nodded my assent without sharing the painful details, and thus told the crux of my sorry tale. The guilt, however, was mine alone to bear.
Papa gazed into space, neither speaking nor moving.
‘Papa?’
‘Mallory.’ He gathered my hands in his. ‘You must promise me that you will tell no-one else of your loss. Promise me.’ He searched my face gravely, his fingers tightening around mine. ‘Others will not be so forgiving as me, as Caleb. We who love you. Should knowledge that you have borne a child out of wedlock — let alone that he died and in such dreadful circumstances — come to light, it’s you who will suffer. Your reputation, which is only lately restored, the goodwill you’ve worked so hard to engender, would be lost like that.’ He snapped his fingers.
‘I … I had no intention of sharing this …’
‘Good. Do not. For regardless of Shelton’s part, it is you, the woman, who will be called to account. Even the most considerate and understanding of men will find this tragedy impossible to reconcile without viewing you as guilty. It’s unfair, unjust, but that’s the way of the world. Only silence, only keeping this close to your heart will protect you — you and your boy’s memory.’
Aye, silence. And mediocrita. Acknowledge the pain, but pretend none exists.
‘I promise, Papa.’ Truth be told, it was a relief to make such a pact. I reached for my locket. He may never be spoken of again, but he would never be forgotten.
When I had tucked my kerchief away, Papa led me to a stool, sat me down and hovered over me, unwilling to relinquish my hand.
‘Thank you for trusting me, Mallory.’
‘It was never an issue of trust, Papa, but shame.’
‘I could never be ashamed of you.’ He kissed my hand.
Damn. Those tears began to fall again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about … about my birth?’
‘I should have. I should have trusted you. Us. My biggest fear, Valentina’s, too, has always been that we’d lose you. I was afraid that once you knew, you would cleave to Francis; forsake me and those who’d been your family for him and what he could offer.’
Shaking my head, I gave a weak smile. I’d been tempted — not to abandon Papa or my family, but by what Sir Francis could offer, what his name could offer. But not for long. Mamma had been right about him. His work was more important than anything. I was more significant as an asset, a watcher, than as a daughter.
‘You will never lose me, Papa. Learning Sir Francis was my father, working for him, made me understand something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It doesn’t matter who created me, whose blood flows in my veins or who I resemble. I’m your daughter, Papa. I always have been and I always will be.’
We held each other for a long, long time without speaking, without weeping. Just drawing comfort and strength. I thought of my son, denied life; of Caleb, who was disowned by his father; of Beatrice and Lord Nathaniel, who were also without a father. I’d no need of two, not when I had this wonderful man to claim me as his.
As the sunlight won its battle over the rain, we sat together, as if we had just weathered our own storm. Side by side, we polished keys, quietly conversing about the last few weeks, about Angela, Caleb, Lord Nathaniel and Beatrice — even Sir Francis. We spoke about how we would remember Mamma and how, because of her final words, we now had a new beginning.
PART SEVEN
Great is the Danger of Mastered Might
As by Aeneas first of all,
Who did poor Dido leave
Causing the Queen by his untruth
With sword her heart to cleave …
Jason that came of noble race
Two ladies did beguile
I muse how he durst show his face
To them that knew his wife
— Isabella Whitney, ‘The Copy of a Letter’, c.1567
Her Majesty to be depriv’d of life,
A foreign power to enter in our land:
Secret rebellion at home be rife,
Seducing priests, receiv’d that charge in hand
All this was cloaked with religious show
But justice tried, and found it was not so.
— Anthony Munday, spy for Sir Francis Walsingham, c.1581
FORTY-SIX
WARHAM HALL, KNIGHTRIDER STREET, AND HARP LANE, LONDON
March, Anno Domini 1582
In the 24th year of the reign of Elizabeth I
It was nearly three months since we buried Mamma one cold day in late December, but the time had passed quickly and the confessions her death had facilitated eased the life we now found ourselves living.
Guilt no longer pursued me like a rabid hound. At Papa’s insistence I was trying to transfer the burning self-loathing I felt over my son’s death onto Raffe. Papa could barely say his name without slamming his fist on the bench top or grinding his teeth. His reaction gave me grim satisfaction, but its rawness and intensity puzzled me. Raffe and what happened was in the past. The past could not be changed — a precept Papa liked to proffer to the apprentices and me to steer us out of dangerous emotional waters. Yet here he was, being tossed like flotsam on the tide. Only much later would I understand why.
As a belated New Year’s gift Papa gave me one of Mamma’s rings, a lovely gold and ruby creation he said she had always intended me to have.
‘It once belonged to your nonna, and so is a family heirloom, too.’
‘I will wear it in memory of both my mothers,’ I said, and found myself astonished at the obvious revelation. Just as I had two men who were my father, I also had two mothers. I found myself twisting the ring upon my finger all day long. Each time I did, I would think of Mamma and her sister, the mother I never knew. Papa also gave me a bound book filled with blank pages. There was a metal faceplate on the cover that, when locked, sealed it so it couldn’t be opened except by a beautiful small key he’d crafted.
‘I made it for you,’ he said. ‘So you may record your deepest thoughts and feelings, something I believe you need to do, but without fear of them being seen by others.’
‘A book of secrets,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ said Papa and demonstrated the lock.
Now I could have my own Book of Secret Intelligences — only, unlike Sir Francis’s, which contained the secrets of the realm and beyond, mine would hold the secrets of my heart. Slipping the key on the chain that held my locket, I smiled. All my secrets would be kept close to my heart.
That night, I made my first entry. I wrote about Papa and Sir Francis. I wrote about my son. After a little thought, I also wrote about Lord Nathaniel. The longer I spent in his company, the more I found myself considering him in a different light.
Along with a note expressing his deepest condolences, my Christmas present from Sir Francis was a sum of money for me to spend ‘on sundry items as I saw fit’. I could not help but compare it to the present Papa had given me, but made sure that when I saw Sir Francis at Mamma’s funeral, I th
anked him prettily.
From his lordship I had received a superb fox-lined cape. Midnight blue, it was made from velvet. It was one of the most beautiful garments I’d ever owned. I tried to thank him, but it came out clumsily. I stopped and felt my face growing warm.
‘Just as I thought, your eyes reflect the colour.’
I touched my cheek. What I really wanted was to touch his. When I explained I’d nothing to give him and asked if, when I found a suitable present, I could deliver it, he laughed and graciously accepted.
The gift that pleased me most was the one Beatrice received from her brother. It was an exquisite jewelled necklace nestled in a silk-lined box with a new key and a very familiar lock. Beatrice opened it and exclaimed with delight, insisting her brother clasp it to her neck immediately. Lord Nathaniel held his sister’s shoulders and winked at me behind her.
‘If you lose the key, I know a good lock-pick.’
It wasn’t simply because I recognised the jewellery and the role I had played in liberating it, but because I remembered how his aunt had asked that he find a woman worthy of wearing it. His choice was most appropriate, and I found myself floating about the house most of the day.
Lessons with Beatrice continued in earnest. Her fluency in Italian and Latin, as well as her skill with the clavichord, were things that, like a proud mother or older sister, I would oft boast of to Lance, Mistress Margery, Master Bede, Papa, Angela and, of course, her brother. Not that this was required. Since my mother’s funeral, Lord Nathaniel spent less time at court and more at Warham Hall. Uncertain whether the loss of my mother had reminded him of the death of his own and thus accentuated his awareness of his responsibilities to Beatrice, or whether he determined to check the type of companionship I offered, he would oft sit in a corner of the parlour while his sister and I read aloud to each other, compared translations, and discussed poetry and philosophy in different tongues. Sometimes he would join in, and I discovered that Lord Nathaniel was no slouch when it came to foreign languages, having picked up a number of them while circumnavigating the globe. He was also far more widely read than I would have guessed, even for a man who once desired to be a scholar.
Whether or not he joined our dialogues, I was always painfully aware of his still presence, of his eyes upon us, upon me, and wondered what he was thinking. I found myself taking greater care with my dress and hair lest his lordship appear. It wasn’t only Lord Nathaniel who intruded upon my lessons with Beatrice. Whenever he was present, the two ship’s cats also decided the parlour was where they wanted to be. It was quite a sight, the huge, beautifully dressed man with impossibly broad shoulders, scars that would make a pirate wince and long legs, seated by the window with a large ginger tom on one knee and a mangy-looking black cat with half an ear and one eye upon the other. Sometimes their purring as he stroked them was such a distraction, Beatrice would bid them be silent. Ignoring her as they did every other human except their master, they continued their sounds of pleasure without a care.
At night my dreams would oft feature the cats, only I’d replace them upon his lordship’s knee and his hands would not be stroking fur but flesh … I recorded my dreams in my little locked book. My ‘treasury of secrets and hope’ is how I began to conceive of it.
I continued to write to Papa every other day, and every Sunday after church I would spend my free half-day with him, either in his workshop or in the parlour. Occasionally Caleb would join us, but I had the feeling he was avoiding me. If I hadn’t been in the habit of attending the theatre once a week and seeing him on the stage, I could almost have declared him a stranger. He even found excuses to avoid invitations to dinner at Warham House, declaring his writing kept him busy. I didn’t believe him and felt he didn’t want to face any questions from me about that Godforsaken chest. I sent him a couple of notes urging him to leave well enough alone, hoping he understood. He sent cordial responses and, in his own poetic way, told me not to concern myself, that all was well.
Well. That word again.
Forsooth, the chest and its contents played on my mind continuously. I wanted to ask Papa if he knew about it, if he’d made the lock, but if I was wrong and he hadn’t, then I didn’t want him to be aware of the danger sitting in his house. Papa had enough to consider without being alarmed by that. I would protect him, and protect Caleb as well.
To make matters worse, it was evident from the correspondence I received from Sir Francis that the search for the Catholic material continued unabated. Frustrated by the lack of success, Sir Francis assumed that whoever held it was waiting for the weather to improve and the roads to clear. He told me to step up my watching and be prepared to act immediately.
Justice will be swift and unforgiving, he wrote.
That’s precisely what I feared the most. I had to do something about the chest and its contents, and soon. But what? Persuading myself that as long as the chest remained locked, the family would be safe, I pushed it to the back of my mind.
I also learned from Sir Francis that the Jesuit Robert Persons had fled back to France and was beginning to plot against the throne with deadly intent. More priests were arriving on our shores and thus far two had been found hiding in London. I could not help but wonder what had happened to the one who tended Mamma in her last moments.
As winter passed and the snows melted, revealing the dirty cobbled streets in all their glory, and the morning mists parted to admit a watery sunshine, Londoners appeared like butterflies emerging from a dark chrysalis, pale and wide-eyed. Soon the lanes, alleys and major thoroughfares were crowded and noisy again. The river was busy with boats, wherries and many a sail on its great pewter expanse, as well as swans followed by arrows of fluffy cygnets.
Stepping out into the spring fray, Beatrice and I, together with our maids and two of the guards appointed by his lordship to accompany us wherever we went, attended the theatre as often as we could. Seeing Caleb in his element, I could briefly forget the risk he was taking and the danger to which he had exposed Papa and the household in Harp Lane. I laughed at The Scold’s Husband, The Mercer’s Malady, King John and the Earl’s Errand, wept over the futility and tragedy of Gorboduc and the sorry, fantastical tale that was Circe’s Chains, but it wasn’t until I saw Dido’s Lament at the Cardinal’s Hatte inn on the 18th of March that all the transformations I swore had taken place within me were put to the ultimate test.
For it was while I was sitting next to Lord Nathaniel, who’d chosen this of all days to accompany us, caught up in the tragic story of Princess Dido and her love betrayed, that I saw the man who had once betrayed mine; the man whose son I had borne and lost and who, with all my ravaged heart, I wished I’d killed.
I saw Sir Raffe Shelton.
FORTY-SEVEN
THE CARDINAL’S HATTE, SOUTHWARK
The 18th of March, Anno Domini 1582
In the 24th year of the reign of Elizabeth I
Aware of Lord Nathaniel — his fragrant velvet doublet, the strands of glossy hair sitting just above his ruff, the rumble of his voice as he whispered to Beatrice — while I tried to concentrate on the action taking place below, I had the sensation of being watched. The inn was crowded; people were thrilled with Caleb’s latest creation that had been so long in the making. Music blared as soldiers marched across the stage, confronting Aeneas and his crew as they sought to flee Carthage. All eyes were upon them, with the exception of a man almost directly opposite me. Seated above the stage, near the musicians, in a position usually reserved for the nobility or those prepared to pay extra to be seen, he stared at me, a frown upon his face.
Of middling years, with a strong build and square jaw, he was dressed in the height of fashion. The rim of his bonnet shadowed the top half of his face, yet there was something familiar about him … He sat between two women. On his left was an elderly one, the plumes in her hat a terrible distraction for the person sitting behind her; on his right was a sulky-looking woman wearing an elaborate coif and a crowned hat atop it. She
was about his age, rather plump, with large, protuberant eyes. Her arms were folded over her ample breasts. She might have once been pretty, but her mouth was turned down, dragging all her other features with it. When she leaned over and said something to the man, he completely ignored her — that was, until she struck him on the cheek with her fan. Nodding frantically at what she was saying, he continued to look directly at me. I tried to ignore him and concentrate on the stage, but something drew my gaze back towards him again and again.
As he tipped his head back, revealing his face, we locked eyes and the space between us contracted. Everything around me disappeared in a great cloud of darkness — all except a pair of eyes and a leering mouth.
Oh dear God.
It was Raffe. Slightly older, his beard thicker, and staring as though he might devour me. I swear my heart ceased to beat; certainly I forgot to breathe.
‘Are you quite well, mistress?’ asked Lord Nathaniel.
‘It’s him,’ I whispered.
‘Who?’ asked Lord Nathaniel, earning a disapproving glare from the person in front of us.
‘The man I called husband.’ The words left my mouth before I could prevent them.
‘Husband?’ he followed the direction of my gaze. He stiffened beside me and his eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you a widow, mistress.’
Horrified I hadn’t controlled my tongue, I rose swiftly and begged to be excused. Lord Nathaniel started to stand. ‘Please my lord,’ I placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I just need some air.’
He reluctantly sat down and indicated Tace was to follow me. There were murmurs of annoyance from the other patrons as we cleared the benches, and Tace gave a click of disgust that I should choose the climax of the play to absent myself.
