A Net for Small Fishes

by Lucy Jago

  ‘No, I was …’ I could not admit to sniffing walls.

  Frankie embraced me and then stood back a pace, to study me. ‘Are you quite well again? You are grown thin.’

  ‘I will fatten up. I have to tell you, Frankie, Simon Forman is dead.’

  She stared at me, uncomprehending.

  ‘How can he be?’ she asked, and I understood her confusion. Forman was so close to the angels that it was a shock to think they had taken him.

  ‘He predicted it,’ I said. ‘He told his wife at supper one evening that he would be dead within three days. She twit him in the teeth as he sat there full brimming with life, but he was right. He went out on the river to a warehouse in which he had an interest, suddenly stood up in the boat, then fell down dead.’

  ‘We will miss him.’

  ‘When I was with him, it felt as if George was still alive.’

  Frankie nodded and took my hands. She squeezed and rubbed life back into them, for they are always cold.

  ‘I have his recipes,’ I continued quietly so as not to be overheard. ‘I will have our decoctions prepared by the apothecary who makes up my yellow starch. But the angels … I cannot persuade them to my bidding as he could. I went to his house this morning and made his wife give me everything from his study that pertained to us, especially your letters,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure she kept something back.’

  ‘She would not dare blackmail us, she is too timid.’

  ‘She is resentful.’

  ‘Much else has changed in your absence; the angels are already busy on our behalf. Come,’ said Frankie, leading me towards the men hanging the painting. One, taller than the rest, bowed low as we approached. I remembered him. He had accompanied the painter in Frankie’s vestibule, the first morning I came to Court. He was perhaps Arthur’s age and well favoured, although his attire was unusual, as if he had lived a long time abroad and wanted people to know it.

  ‘Mistress Turner, this is Mr James Palmer, Prince Henry’s purchaser of paintings, who is also finding wonderful things for the Viscount Rochester, for my great-uncle, and now for me.’ I curtsied and he bowed again, very correctly. ‘Mr Palmer has not yet succeeded in persuading me to sit to Larkin for my portrait.’ Frankie’s mother had long argued for it but Frankie refused to commemorate her marriage to Essex in any manner. ‘But he has found me this.’

  So shocking was the image before me that I was silenced. A young woman was severing a man’s head from his large, strong body. Ribbons of blood flew out from the butchered neck as the man gazed beseechingly at his killer, from whose strength of purpose the artist had not shied away. Before this I had only ever seen portraits, the faces all much alike, on bodies stiff as corpses.

  ‘Judith and Holofernes,’ said Mr Palmer, ‘by an Italian. The artist has captured Judith’s strength, has he not?’

  ‘Indeed. These Italians are well formed,’ I said.

  ‘It is thanks to the eye and talent of the artist as much as the beauty of the sitter, I believe. In this country, we seem rather more interested in displaying wealth than feeling’

  ‘It is so like life, I expect the figures to move,’ I agreed.

  ‘Mr Palmer paints too,’ Frankie said in a soft voice, not sure if he would want this known. Painters are a low lot on the whole, on a par with actors, living amongst the rougher sort while not being quite of them. That Mr Palmer should willingly associate with such people was most eccentric. He laughed.

  ‘In this country it is freakish to paint for the love of it, and yet the noblest of men redecorate their houses and reorder their gardens,’ he said.

  ‘They do not dig them,’ I said.

  ‘They do, in secret, for there is much satisfaction to be had in it. Look closely at Lord Salisbury’s hands and you will spy calluses. I have found you a Susanna and the Elders,’ he said turning to Frankie and pointing to a large canvas propped against one wall. We gathered around and he turned the painting towards us. In silence we stared at the two old men hidden behind bushes, peering at a naked Susanna. So real was she I could feel the heaviness of her breasts, the slight swelling of blue veins under the skin.

  ‘That is allowed?’ I asked, in a display of prudery of which Prince Henry would have been proud.

  ‘It is a Bible scene,’ said Palmer, his eyes full of amusement at my response. ‘Susanna refused their advances, hence the old men accused her of adultery; ever the recourse of frustrated men.’ Frankie and I glanced at each other in delight at our outspoken guide. ‘What think you of it?’

  So rarely was my opinion sought by anyone other than Frankie that my tongue was slow. I enjoyed Mr Palmer’s attentions, yet felt exposed by them.

  ‘The artist puts us amongst the Elders,’ I finally replied. Mr Palmer let out another great bark of laughter.

  ‘You have it exactly! The artist makes oglers of us all.’

  ‘Come and see my cabinet,’ said Frankie, her patience with the flirtations of others short-lived. I dropped a quick curtsy of farewell to Mr Palmer and noticed, with pleasure, that he held my hand longer than necessary when he kissed it.

  ‘It’s beautiful, don’t you think? Prospero likes it,’ said Frankie, nodding towards a black lacquer cabinet set between two windows atop which the parrot was perched. When Brutus spotted the bird he jumped up at it, clawing a surface shinier than anything I had seen before.

  ‘Down! You will scratch it!’ scolded Frankie, smacking the dog’s nose. Purkoy was too well trained to do such a thing. ‘It is from China,’ she said, opening the doors of the tall cabinet whose black lustre was inlaid with flowers and insects in ivory and mother-of-pearl. I would not have been surprised had one of the insects begun a courtship dance. ‘There are smaller cupboards and drawers inside. It is a marvel that human fingers can coax out such beauty. I am making efforts to learn about painting and sculpture and such curious chests. Robin knows so much. He has been made a knight of the Garter now, with my cousin.’

  Robin? That silenced me. The last time I had been with Frankie it was ‘Sir Robert Carr’ or sometimes ‘Viscount Rochester’. With every new title the King gave him, it seemed the favourite grew closer to Frankie.

  ‘Great-uncle Northampton has finished his new house at Charing Cross and he invited me to view his collections. Robin was there. He told me that my great-uncle reminds him of monks he met in Europe; they wear black and are profligate, just like my great-uncle, so Robin and Overbury call him “The Dominican”. Clever, don’t you think?’

  ‘Robin’ was every other word she spoke! He would not have thought of ‘The Dominican’ himself; such archness could only have been Overbury’s.

  ‘I told him that we call Sir Thomas Overbury “The Cockerel”, which perhaps is not all that quick-witted as he resembles one so completely, we cannot have been the first to think it.’

  ‘You told him we speak ill of his best friend?’ On her breath I smelt both wine and tobacco.

  ‘He thinks it is funny. We are not alone in finding Sir Thomas arrogant; he’s been banished from Court, have you not heard?’

  So much had occurred in my absence; illness had a high cost for me.

  ‘Overbury and Robin were in the Privy Garden while the Queen was at her window. She claims that they laughed at her.’

  I am sure they did laugh; Carr innocently, Overbury because he considered himself above any woman. The Queen would not lightly suffer such an insult and I was glad she had protested.

  ‘She says she will return to Denmark if the King does not punish them. Robin has apologised but Overbury has refused and been banished. Robin threatened to leave as well, if Overbury was sent away, but instead he has been very much with my great-uncle. We have met several times in the Long Gallery at Northampton House.’

  I could picture it exactly. Lord Northampton had provided Robert Carr and Frankie with a haven in which to become better acquainted, away from Whitehall, her husband and the gossips of Court. The political advantage to Northampton of a connection with th
e King’s favourite was obvious, but would he gamble for it with the honour of his great-niece? It was a dangerous ploy, at least until her husband had known her fully. I wondered how intimate she had become with Robin Carr.

  ‘My parents are trying to buy my obedience, so they paid for the new decorations. My great-uncle values the influence he enjoys with Robin through me, so he bought me the two paintings. Robin found the cabinet and I suppose he paid for it,’ Frankie continued, ‘or at least he has not presented me with a bill. All manner of people have come to admire it.’

  She laughed. I did not. I felt as if we were standing on a precipice, danger a mere step away, but that she refused to see it.

  ‘He uses all his ingenuity to meet and he wrote me another love poem,’ she said, pointing to a little scroll in a secret drawer. ‘We have kissed,’ she whispered, her face momentarily full of wonder and earnestness, as if she were the first person in the world to experience a kiss and unsure how to convey the thrill of it to me. I was appalled. ‘He sent this too,’ she said, lifting on her finger the new chain that I had noticed around her neck the moment I saw her.

  ‘What does your husband say?’ I asked.

  ‘He thinks the gifts came from Lord Northampton.’

  ‘But will he not ask Lord Northampton about them?’

  ‘It was my great-uncle who told me to say that.’

  My wits felt dulled, unable to keep up with the changes that had occurred in my brief absence. I could almost hear the thoughts in my head clanking and groaning like Inigo Jones’s mechanical scenery, never quite setting one scene before the next was called for. It scared me to know that Frankie was meeting Carr; I feared he would replace me in her affections, or perhaps I did not want to be tainted by the scandal that would result if they began an affair and were discovered in it.

  ‘Robin saw bruises on my wrists and complained to the King about them,’ she said. ‘My husband is with Lord Salisbury now, being reminded of his duties to a wife; he was Salisbury’s ward, so it is not the first lecture he has received from that quarter.’

  Given that Frankie’s own parents did not chastise Essex, it was hard to see what Lord Salisbury could do. ‘He must feel remorseful, having arranged the marriage.’

  Frankie clicked her tongue. ‘Never has love, nor charity, nor remorse interfered with his pursuit of self-interest.’

  ‘Do you hate him?’ I asked. She had spoken no more of Lord Salisbury than she had of God. His was an all-powerful presence from which flowed both punishment and preferment.

  ‘If he can make my husband stop hurting me, I shall be glad, but I bear no love for him. He is little, crooked, lacking good ancestry and ruthless, but I wager he is the greatest bedswerver amongst the King’s nobles. He is rumoured to be the lover of my mother-in-law as well as my mother. He will not understand my husband’s reluctance.’

  ‘Are you not afraid Lord Salisbury will goad him to greater effort?’

  ‘I will never have my husband in my bed again.’

  ‘That will limit other possibilities.’

  ‘Neither Lord Salisbury nor Lord Northampton know that I am still a maid,’ said Frankie, ‘nor do they know about the worst that Essex has done. But I will tell them if he attempts to enter my bed. As you told me once, things always change.’ I could not help feeling that I was being left out of a secret.

  ‘Sir Thomas Overbury and the King will not wish you happiness if it is found with Robin, for they want him for themselves.’

  ‘Everyone wants him, but I have him,’ said Frankie. She opened her mouth as she laughed, took my hands and whirled me around. I was worried for her but felt relieved to be in her confidence again. She began to hum a tune, then sing, and we danced together on that soft carpet knotted by Turkish hands, steeped in the perfumes of Arabia and Spain, and I laughed at her boldness and joy. Frankie’s energy was catching – I was glad to be alive, grateful that my children were well again, and I felt a little drunk without having tasted a drop. It was unfortunate that the Earl of Essex chose that moment to enter the room, although his humours were so bilious he would not have been appeased had we been at our prayers. He stopped short at the sight of us dancing and the sound of our womanish cackling.

  ‘My lord,’ said Frankie, sinking into a deep curtsy and staying there while she composed herself. Lord Essex walked warily towards us, as if coming within reach of two hissing vipers, but was still clearly furious from Lord Salisbury’s command to bed, not beat, his wife. ‘Do inspect my new cabinet. It is of the finest workmanship imaginable,’ Frankie said on rising. ‘The marquetry is the most intricate to come to our shores.’ The Earl of Essex looked everywhere but at the cabinet and his wife. ‘It is in remarkably good condition for having travelled such a distance.’ She was trying to provoke some reaction in her husband to the beauty before him. She pulled open the tiny drawer inside which lay Carr’s poem, but Essex ignored her. ‘I sense you do not care for the new cabinet, my lord,’ she finished, her arms dropping to her sides.

  ‘I prefer English furniture,’ he said, speaking at last. ‘It is in keeping with our surroundings. One soon tires of exotic frivolities. I imagine it was very costly? It is important that those with means spend them on English craftsmanship so that our own people enjoy the benefit of the current profligacy.’ At this he shot a sideways look at the little group absorbed in hanging the painting.

  ‘I believe there is no one in this country who could make such a cabinet.’

  ‘Because the cold and damp will soon warp it. An English craftsman would know that.’

  ‘I am sorry it does not please you.’

  ‘It does not. We leave for Chartley in two days. Alone,’ he said, looking at me with dislike although it was misplaced, for I shared his disappointment that all efforts to inspire love between him and his wife had failed.

  ‘For how long?’ Frankie cried.

  ‘As long as it takes.’

  Essex would break her body and her spirit at Chartley, where there would be no one to stop him. I had thought him capable of killing Frankie since I first met him, but it seemed she only believed it then. Her provocative gamble had rebounded. She had thought her husband too spineless to fight back, most bullies cower when confronted, but she was wrong.

  She yanked at the front of her dress as if to help her breathe, turned and walked to the door. I followed. Suddenly, there was an almighty crash. Spinning around, I saw the cabinet on the floor, pieces of splintered wood and shattered inlay all around it, the parrot flapping and screeching in alarm above the ruins. Essex was smiling.

  ‘As I said, not sturdy.’

  10

  So began a strange period in limbo, with Frankie gone but her predicament close. All we could arrange before Essex chased me from her room was that Richard Weston would act as messenger between us. She asked me to be her eyes and ears at Court; I was an unwilling spy, but could not sever the cord between us. She had become as near to me as my own heart. On All Souls’ Day, Weston delivered a letter from Chartley. The night was clammy; thunder rolled over the city and a damp breeze rattled the candle flame as I read.

  October 1611

  Sweet Anne,

  I crave your love and hope I have it and shall always deserve it. Please send me what Forman promised, for it remains as ever here. Send me some good fortune, for truly I have need of it.

  My husband is merry and drinks with his men; he abuses me as doggedly as before and I begin to think I shall never be happy in this world. I beg, for God’s sake, get me from this vile place.

  Your affectionate, loving friend,

  Frankie

  The first fat drops pelted the window. I put the letter down and looked out. The rain quickly grew fierce, falling in sheets on the roofs and streaming noisily into the street below. I wondered if Frankie was also up late, staring out at the pitted surface of the deep moat that surrounded the manor. She had already told me of it, and I could picture her in the room that had once confined the Scottish Queen Ma
ry, using the same desk at which the Queen had written the letters that led to her execution. Through the night and the rain, was she gazing in despair at the muddy fields of Staffordshire? Frankie would have been alone as she wrote, her spying servants asleep, and the darkness or her distress had rendered her hand less elegant than usual. The words had a rushed air, like a note stuffed into a bottle and hurled quickly into the sea, the sooner that it may be recovered.

  How could I get her from that ‘vile place’? If force were required, her brothers would be better placed to take her from Chartley to a Howard residence. All I could do was to send her Forman’s tinctures. Before he died, he had made her a new one, brewed from galls caused by insects, fungus, parasites or injury, to temporarily weaken the force of the person who imbibed it, not unto death, only unto discouragement.

  ‘She despairs because her youth is almost over,’ he had said to me during our last consultation. He had recently acquired a huge, striped cat that he led about on a leash. ‘Fourteen to twenty-four are the years of youth. Twenty-five to forty-four are the years of middle age. Forty-five to fifty-five, one is aged. Fifty-six to death, one is old. I am fifty-eight and too old for anything but honesty. The astrological figure I drew for the Countess of Essex shows my future to be as full of contention and misapprehension as has been my past.’

  ‘Your future is in her chart?’ I asked. Forman shut his eyes, as if the knowledge gave him a splitting headache.

  ‘The connection destroys my reputation after my death.’

  ‘In truth?’ I said.

  Forman patted my hand.

  ‘Calm yourself. The stars can exaggerate.’