A Net for Small Fishes

by Lucy Jago

  She drained the glass and released my hands. Standing, she moved between bolts of fabric, lifting the materials and observing the way they fell. I noted what she touched; translucent stuffs mainly. ‘The Scots are all there, snatching what they can,’ she continued. ‘The privy councillors squabble over Salisbury’s monopolies, expecting to be granted what he had. The place is far more exciting than usual.’

  ‘Your family must be sad,’ I said, for Salisbury was their great ally.

  ‘God, no, all of us loathed him except my mother. He spied on us. My great-uncle was always plotting to be appointed Secretary of State in his place. Now he might succeed. My lady mother pushes Father forward and grumbles that Northampton is trying to profit at their expense. She cries a lot. She must have loved Salisbury in her way. The King wishes Robin to mediate between the Howard and the Essex camps, which he endeavours to do, but the task is impossible.’

  ‘No man has been as hardly treated in death as Salisbury. Have you seen the libels and broadsheets against him?’ I asked, ill at ease before Frankie’s nervousness.

  ‘He cannot read them now. A cancer of the stomach. I believe he suffered greatly,’ she said, with no trace of sympathy.

  ‘Have Forman’s measures continued sufficient?’

  ‘I leave my chamber only to dine, and that in order to give my husband the concoction. I have made resolutions during this exile, without Forman’s help, or even yours,’ she said, running her fingers over the different textures of cloth. ‘Will you make me a dress? Only three people will see it but it has to be the most beautiful you ever fashioned.’ I made clothes only for masques, for my children and, in recent times, for myself. Frankie knew that this was a point of honour for me.

  ‘You and I being two, and the third is not your husband?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Frankie. ‘I think he will soon die of an excess of bile.’

  ‘Simon Forman would have warned you of it. Predictions of death were his speciality.’

  ‘A simple gown,’ said Frankie.

  ‘What beneath?’

  ‘Nothing. Closed with a single lace.’

  I must have raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Reserve that look for your children,’ said Frankie, ‘I know what I am doing.’

  She unrolled a length of spangled silk. ‘He cannot stop writing of his love for me. It is his own hand, not Overbury’s. There is talk again of whom Robin should wed and every pretty child is put under his nose.’

  I thought it unlikely that another woman would tempt Robert Carr, for he loved her strength more than her youth or even her beauty. None were like Frankie. No other had the same rigorous ambition for her own happiness coupled with the wit and courage to achieve it. No other was as bold and alive. I sensed a new flintiness in her. She moved to another trestle and examined the fabrics laid upon it.

  ‘Will you let me meet Robin at your house?’ she said, without looking up.

  Surprise made me stupid. ‘The place is too shabby!’ I cried.

  ‘I doubt we will notice a lack of good hangings,’ she said, laughing. ‘You do not think I ask you to be my bawd?’

  ‘You compare yourself to a whore?’

  ‘What if there is a baby? I will want it too much to murder it in my womb.’

  For all this time I had been against Frankie becoming Carr’s mistress; in every way it was to her disadvantage. Men of rank are as openly admired for the number of women they bed as for the number of deer they kill. A married noblewoman, who had produced children with her husband, was allowed a little love elsewhere as long as she was discreet and remained obedient to her family. Frankie, however, had yet to fulfil the first duty of a wife. Yet I saw that her mind was fixed and closed to argument. If I refused to help her, she would act alone.

  ‘I can keep your menses timely,’ I said with a slight nod.

  Frankie put her arms around me and we held each other close for a long time.

  ‘If I wait longer I will be dead of greensickness, and I would rather die having loved Robin.’

  This resolve felt honest to me. ‘I will make you a dress, Frankie,’ I said, ‘and you will wear it at my house.’

  She kissed my cheeks repeatedly and the Ottoman brought us each another glass of wine.

  ‘For this I have put concoctions in my husband’s drink and offered prayers against my marriage,’ Frankie said, lifting her glass as if for a toast. ‘I defy the will of my entire family, except Lord Northampton perhaps, and imperil my standing at Court. I chance my soul by allowing Robin into my bed.’ We clinked glasses and gulped the wine. She was not terrified but elated. It was not a lack of religion, nor even that she believed Robin’s love was worth her soul; she was convinced that God would know how pure was her love and would bless it.

  Frankie soon left but I sat a while, cradling the empty glass. I watched the colours reflect on my skirt; little dark splotches that moved over the fabric as the moth shadows had over Arthur’s face.

  ‘It’s late,’ said a harassed old Maggie when I arrived home. She took my outer clothes as the younger children rushed up, shouting ‘Mama!’ Weston handed out their marchpane pigs and I picked up Mary who was coughing. ‘Let me sit awhile,’ I said.

  ‘There is no time,’ said old Maggie, ‘the Countess is here.’ She nodded towards the door to the parlour. How had Frankie come so quickly? Had she changed her mind? Was Robert Carr already with her? Above the sounds from the street I could hear high heels walking across the bare planks. Peeling plaster, cold ash, it would be worse than Frankie could ever have imagined. As if the visitor listened equally hard, the footsteps ceased.

  As I entered the chamber, I faltered. It was not Frankie but her mother. She stood in the centre of the room, as if keeping her distance from the four walls, for fear their shabbiness would infect her. Although she was in mourning, her hair was very high as were her heels.

  I curtsied deeply.

  ‘Rise, Mistress Turner. As you are close to my daughter, I presume that you are aware of her contempt, her utter contempt, for her husband and for her family who chose him? She was happy enough to marry at the time, but has made no effort to gain his love since. And now word comes to my ears that she loves another, is this true?’ Staggered by the directness of this address, although the same trait often surfaced in Frankie, I struggled for a politic reply.

  ‘Your daughter is a woman of exceptional beauty and nobility. She is courted by many but she never forgets her marriage vows,’ I said. The Countess waved a hand as if batting away my words.

  ‘Do not speak archly to me, Mistress Turner, for I am well versed in mealy-mouthed evasions. Is my daughter in love with Robert Carr?’

  ‘Madam, do you wish your daughter such poor friends as would lay bare her soul?’

  ‘I am her mother and the wife of the Lord Chancellor and you will answer me directly.’ Her eyelids were red. Perhaps, as Frankie had said, the Countess was grieving her lover Salisbury, whose death spelt change almost as great as if the King had died. To anger her would be folly; she was as spiteful as she was influential. I was amazed that Frankie had emerged from the womb of this conniving, covetous woman. Their only common features were obstinacy and beauty.

  ‘I believe that Robert Carr is enamoured of your daughter, perhaps to please the King whose love for your family is well known, but your daughter behaves with propriety.’

  ‘Such propriety that the Court is alive with rumour,’ snapped Frankie’s mother. She gazed about the room once more, a study in incredulity that her daughter should possess a friend in such a street, whose notion of friendship could surely be corrupted by her poverty. She had come to me, rather than summoning me to her, in order to see how I lived, to judge my motivation, and to better understand my weaknesses. ‘If your friendship is real, Mistress Turner, do all in your power to reconcile Frances to her husband. Such loyalty is pleasing to a mother.’

  Finally, she was offering me some reward for the responsibility she had handed over the first time s
he had summoned me to Court. I was neither surprised nor offended by the proffered bribe; this was a woman known to demand payment for any contracts awarded by her husband or, previously, by Lord Salisbury. She assumed I was the same. ‘Nothing can come of any other union but disgrace and ruin,’ the Countess concluded. ‘Hmm?’

  12

  A crepuscular shadow hung in the air, pierced by rays of dusty light that dodged the towering buildings of Paternoster Row. All day, with the heat and rushing about preparing the house, I was ‘fidgety as a flea’ as Mary put it, and not even sure they would come. And then it was night. Uncommonly hot, the malodour from the sewer outside seeped into the house.

  I was ready for the knock at the door but still I jumped. Frankie entered my tiny vestibule with Weston, who said nothing and went directly to the kitchen. Frankie opened her mouth to remove her mask. She knew I disliked that style of mask for it was held in place by biting down on a bead that protruded from the back of the mask on a little stalk. It prevented the wearer from uttering a sound so perhaps she chose it to avoid having to converse with Weston or any watchmen they met on the way.

  ‘I am broiling,’ she said, eyeing the difference in my circumstances as I removed her cloak. I wondered how long she and her kind would survive if all the servants in the world died or refused to leave their beds.

  ‘You escaped without incident?’

  ‘My younger sister is in my apartment to vouch she was with me all night,’ she said, handing me a jewellery case. I put it to one side and motioned her to the narrow staircase.

  ‘Wine?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘In the chamber.’

  ‘Windows?’

  ‘Closed and shuttered.’

  ‘The smell is bad.’

  ‘Not in there, I have strewn fresh herbs.’ Are men aware of the pains women take to catch them, or oblivious? Does it heighten or lessen the pleasure? Do they feel marched by an overbearing hand into the trap or are they flattered that such effort is expended to ensnare them?

  Entering the chamber, Frankie went straight to the bed. The sheets were fine enough not to chafe but not so fine as she was used to.

  ‘I am frightened,’ she said.

  ‘It does not hurt much,’ I said, pouring wine and drinking a glass at once. Frankie did not join me.

  ‘I am only afraid of what he may do afterwards.’

  ‘He has waited a long time,’ I said, knowing that did not guarantee he would love her after he had taken her. I loosed and brushed Frankie’s hair and began undressing her.

  ‘What must I do?’ she asked.

  ‘He will guide you,’ I said, my face flushing.

  ‘Of course, I forgot that I will not be his first.’

  ‘I am sure that you are the first he has loved. Do not be alarmed if this makes him fearful and he performs ill. Appear impressed, whatever happens.’

  Frankie nodded seriously.

  ‘I fear he will find me repugnant undressed.’

  I laughed. ‘That is one thing you need not worry about.’

  We started at the knock.

  ‘He’s come,’ said Frankie, grabbing my hand, her eyes unblinking. I remembered the first time George and I had lain together. I was fifteen, and George just shy of my father’s age when I gave my maidenhead to my husband. I had felt no eagerness, only worry that my repulsion would show. In fact, George had been gentle, wooing me with soft words and consideration. For Frankie though, I wished the sort of lust that Arthur provoked in me.

  ‘I can turn him away.’

  Frankie shook her head.

  I patted my hair as I hurried downstairs and opened the door. Lord Rochester’s groom nodded but did not announce his master’s arrival. I stood back to allow a cloaked, masked, and perfumed figure into the hall; a futile disguise, for the fancy shoe-roses gave him away immediately.

  The groom followed his master into the hall and I shut and bolted the door. Robin Carr had removed his outer clothes and was attired in crimson embroidered with gold thread, the doublet and hose matching in fashionable and exquisite precision. Carr would have disappeared in Frankie’s new parlour, so similar was his decoration. Especial attention had been given to his hair, which was brushed back from his high forehead and curled as it reached the nape of his neck. His cheek and chin were smooth, no hint of beard, his skin as plush as Frankie’s, a very particular mark of prosperity, the want of which no amount of rich clothes can conceal. In one ear he wore rubies that matched his silken garments so perfectly that no small work must have been expended in choosing and mounting the stones. My thoughts sped to my neighbour, almost blind from such delicate work as adorned his cuffs. How suffered the man who had wrought the miracle of craftsmanship that dangled from the ear of this favourite?

  Since Lord Salisbury’s death, Robert Carr was acting as the King’s Secretary of State, to the fury of all those who considered themselves better qualified for the role. I curtsied very low before beckoning him to follow. As harsh sunlight reveals every wrinkle on a face, the brilliance of Carr illuminated the poverty of my dwelling. I was acutely aware of the narrow staircase and the cracks in the plaster.

  I knocked at my own chamber door and heard Frankie bid us enter. As Carr passed me, his strong, sweet perfume filled my nose and I had a wild urge to touch him. His nearness to King and throne was as a saint’s to God. His glamour, the richness with which he was encased, the houses in which he lived, the beauty with which he himself gleamed, the deference with which he was treated – I wanted these. Although I felt nothing for him, I understood the love between him and Frankie; they were as perfectly matched as Carr’s earring to his clothes. Even before I closed the door they had reached for each other, full of their own daring, so fully occupying each other’s sight that the risks were nothing but little chittering creatures on the far horizon.

  I showed Lord Rochester’s groom to the kitchen where beer was waiting, but I myself sat in the parlour, on George’s chair, which I had redeemed from the pawn merchant with a brooch of Frankie’s, the cat upon my knee, a cup of wine at my elbow. The children were with Eustace, and the smell of the wild rose that grew on the back wall released its scent into the room and banished less pleasant odours coming from the street. I opened the jewellery case Frankie had brought. Inside was a gold chain that would keep my household afloat for three months at least, more if autumn was warm, and showed Arthur’s thin offering to be the shameful shortcut that it was.

  Some will judge me and say I was a pimp, a bawd. Others will picture my children’s faces and know that they would have done the same. Sometimes, as I am remembering, I cannot picture myself at all. I see Frankie and my children with clarity, but I am a cloud-person, ever-changing, seen not as I am but blown about by the force of others’ judgement. How stupid we are, not just us women, but all people. We think we act with nobility when in truth we run in circles too low to the ground to see which path leads to heaven and which to hell.

  13

  ‘Ow,’ said Frankie, as I pressed the thin blade into her heel until blood flowed in a slow but steady stream into the letting bowl. She was settled in a great leather chair, Brutus in her lap, taking care not to move her foot from its position on the stool. All the windows of the apartment were open to catch the breeze.

  ‘Where is Purkoy?’

  ‘Essex has taken him to Chartley,’ said Frankie. Her husband’s appetite for the education of his wife had been blunted by the months they had spent together away from Court; Purkoy, however, had become very obedient.

  ‘Does he suspect anything?’

  ‘He has always suspected everything since the day we married. Fortunately, he is not interested enough to notice any change in me. He has gone to Chartley simply because he prefers the country.’

  That summer, my home and a farm at Hammersmith, easily reached by boat, had become trysting places for Frankie and Carr. She was cured of greensickness but her menses were twice late. I gave her strong brews of boiled fern root, savin, mint and C
over Shame, to unblock the womb. When it failed, I let blood in the foot.

  ‘I hate this,’ she said.

  Indeed, it felt strange to be emptying her womb when she wanted a child above anything else.

  ‘Until a child is quick there is no life nor soul in it,’ I said. I had not been sad when her menses flowed again but Frankie was quiet for a few days.

  The ever-present need to keep Frankie without child had led me to strange quarters the previous few months. When I too often asked for herbs to avoid pregnancy, my usual apothecary in Bucklersbury pretended to have none. I trawled instead those hidden in squalid courtyards, littered with the cages of filthy animals whose parts or blood were used in preparations. I was grateful for Weston’s company. The badges of these ‘guild members’ were counterfeit; they were frauds and thieves in the main. If they had the ingredients I sought, I oversaw the entire decoction, to their annoyance, so little trust had I in their talents. At these times I missed Simon Forman terribly. His fondness for George and me was an assurance that his angelic intercessions and brews would work to our mutual benefit and not solely for his profit. In the dark alleys and courts, I had no such privilege.

  ‘I cannot stomach this for long,’ Frankie said. ‘We must find another who can work with angels. I have heard of a certain Dr Savery and of a Mary Woods who do the work we need.’

  ‘To truck with them would be dangerous and futile. The first is a charlatan and extortionist, the second an ignorant cunning woman.’ It was from the likes of Savery and Woods that I sought to shield Frankie; there were many quacks about, some harmless, some villainous. I had encountered one particularly vile creature in a back-street apothecary, lop-sided from venereal disease that corrupted the marrow of his bones and dressed in clothes of the wrong size, in colours never normally seen together. He talked to me with unearnt familiarity until Weston hushed him; the creature’s name was Franklin.