Lady in Waiting

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Ralegh was at work in his hen-house laboratory, assisted by a tall young man with a thin, eager face, and ruffled hair of the Stuart gold, who sat on an upturned tub, plying a pair of bellows. The blue reek of a fire burning leaves in the Lieutenant’s garden drifted in to mingle with the smells of herbs and chemicals, the fumes of a charcoal table brazier, and the unpleasant odour of some fluid which Ralegh was tending in a glass alembic over the heat.

  The young man seemed to be suffering from suppressed excitement of some sort, under the influence of which he was plying the bellows faster and faster, until Ralegh, becoming aware that the brazier was now glowing red hot all through, checked him. ‘Gently, gently now; you will not hurry the process by blowing us both up.’

  The young man apologised, flushing a little, as though caught out in something, and returned to a more gentle rhythm.

  Presently the contents of the alembic ran up into a burst of bubbles, and began to syphon a clear violet-coloured fluid drop by drop down the tube into a receiver which was already half full of something that looked like muddy water. The smell grew steadily more vile. Ralegh watched the process intently for a short while; then straightened. ‘Well enough. Let her cool down now,’ he said.

  He turned away, and seating himself on the one stool which the place boasted, produced his tobacco box and began to fill his pipe. ‘Anything further blown up concerning this marriage plan of your father’s, Harry?’

  ‘No. There is a lull in that quarter for the present time. I laid before him all those arguments that you made clear to me; how that it would be but a one-sided bargain, pledging England to neutrality while leaving Spain free to trample out the Netherlands. I told him that ‘twould be a deal better policy, instead of marrying Elizabeth and me to Savoy’s son and daughter, to pleasure Spain — which is a waning power at best — to stick to the old plan, and marry Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine and leave me in reserve against a greater need.’

  ‘And was the latter argument used with the country’s good in view, or Princess Elizabeth’s? — or Prince Henry’s?’

  The Prince of Wales laughed. ‘All three. I do not pretend myself eager to be married off willy-nilly to a Princess I have never seen. I’d as lief be left to myself for a while yet. My poor little sister has seen neither of her candidates, but the Elector is at least of her own faith.’ A hint of steel crept into the young voice. ‘I’ll not have two religions lie in my bed, and if I can help it, neither shall she. As for the country, I’ve no wish to see England become even as Savoy, a Spanish vassal, though my father seems to think it a fate altogether desirable.’ He shifted abruptly, and his tone lightened. ‘Ah well, he has let the plan drop for the time being, at least so far as I am concerned; though doubtless ‘twill be all to do again in the New Year, when the new Spanish Ambassador arrives. Rumour saith that he is being sent “to keep the King good”, though the need is past my imagining, with the King growing more to the Spanish party every day, and the whole Court rotten with Spanish gold.’

  ‘Treasonable talk, my friend,’ Ralegh said softly. ‘Also the King is your father.’

  The boy looked at him levelly, his young face suddenly bitter. ‘The King is my father,’ he agreed. ‘He eats too much and drinks too much, both messily. He is full of learning that he cannot digest into wisdom. He is cruel and sentimental and bigoted — and he means well. There’s not a living soul, saving yourself, that I could or would say that to, Sir.’

  Ralegh said, noncommittally, and puffed in silence for a while, his gaze very kindly as it met his companion’s. ‘Do you know yet, who this new Spanish Ambassador may be?’

  ‘Yes. Count Gondomar — Diago Sarmiento de Acuna, Count of Gondomar.’

  ‘Sarmiento de Acuna,’ Ralegh said, as though testing the name on his tongue. ‘It has a familiar ring. Now where under Heaven ...’ He plucked his pipe from his mouth. ‘Yes! One of my ships took a prisoner of that name once, and got a fat ransom for him, too. Now I wonder —’

  There was a pause. A faint shadow of anxiety seemed to dim the eagerness of the Prince’s face. ‘I hope you’re wrong,’ he said. Then, the shadow passing, ‘At all events I am glad that he does not come until after Christmas.’

  Ralegh cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Why so portentous?’

  ‘Did I indeed sound portentous? I had no reason — none in the world,’ the Prince of Wales said quickly; rather too quickly.

  Ralegh’s eyebrow remained cocked. ‘You are a poor liar, Harry. You have some especial reason for not wanting Count Gondomar until after Christmas. Has it any bearing on whatever it is that you have been hugging to yourself all morning like the key of the comfit box?’

  ‘Nay, but there is nothing,’ Prince Henry began. Then suddenly he gave a crow of excited laughter and shot to his feet. ‘Yes there is! There is! Oh Sir, I had not meant that you should know until nearer the time, but God’s my life, I shall split like an over-ripe fig if I keep the thing to myself another hour. And — and —’ he began to stutter.

  Ralegh had risen also. ‘And what?’ he said, ‘And what, Harry?’

  ‘And — I can scarce believe it myself as yet — at last I have g-got my father’s promise that you shall go free! — at Christmas! Your enlargement is to be part of the Christmas festivities, and he intends making a n-noble gesture of it, but doubtless you can abide that —’

  ‘Yes, I — can abide that,’ Ralegh said. He staggered slightly, dropping his pipe, and sat down, rubbing one hand across his forehead. He smiled into the anxious face bent over him. ‘A mere trifling dizziness. The air of the Tower is not over-healthy for a prolonged stay, and — I begin to grow an old man, Harry. I am sorry to receive your news in manner so lacking in appreciation, but I am not ungrateful, and presently, doubtless, I shall even come to believe it.’

  ‘Forgive me. I am a fool. I should not have spewed it out like that,’ the Prince said remorsefully. ‘But it is true, Sir, as I live, you shall be a free man by the New Year!’

  *

  But long before the New Year came, the Prince of Wales was dead of typhoid fever.

  Ralegh grieved for him as for a son whom he had loved less than Watt but infinitely more than Carew; grieved also for the loss of all hope of freedom. He had too much and too bitter experience of James to imagine for an instant that he would honour his promise to the dead boy.

  A few days before Christmas, Bess sat sewing by the fire in her lodging. Carew, his bedtime drawing near, was sprawling on his stomach in the firelight, playing with Hodge, the spaniel puppy which his Uncle Nicholas had given him, and old Joan sat opposite, with a great basket of hose to be mended.

  ‘Maister Watt’s late,’ grumbled the old woman, drawing a dark green stocking from the basket and surveying it with grim disfavour. ‘A dinner party, this was meant to be, not a supper party.’

  ‘He is not so very late,’ Bess said, looking up from the shirt that she was making for Carew. ‘And you know how it is, when young men meet together; they forget the time.’

  ‘I’ve no patience with young men and their wild ways! Beating up the Watch and writing poetry!’ sniffed Joan, whom the years had not mellowed, though she had been Watt’s adoring slave since the day that he was born. ‘And what he does with his hosen passes my understanding!’

  Carew rolled the puppy on its back. ‘I wish I had some chestnuts to roast,’ he said. ‘The fire is just right for them — clear red all through.’

  ‘Aye, ‘tis the frost makes it burn so,’ said Joan. ‘And by the same token, it needs another log on it.’ She bent forward, then checked with an old gnarled hand to the pile of logs beside the hearth. ‘There’s Maister Watt now — and the lad’s in a hurry.’

  Flying footsteps were coming up the narrow stairs two at a time, and the unmistakable urgency in them had Bess out of her chair even before the door burst open and Watt appeared on the threshold, his cloak flung back to reveal his primrose satin doublet, his face very white.

  ‘Watt!’ she exclaimed.
‘My dear, what is it?’

  ‘It is father,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He collapsed in his laboratory this evening. Talbot found him, and went for Dr. Turner. I met him at the door here, come to call on his way back, and he’s gone on ahead. I told him we would follow. Where is your cloak, darling?’

  Joan, lamenting shrilly, had already gone scuttling to fetch it, Carew had leapt up and flung himself on his mother, demanding: ‘Let me come with you! Let me! Oh do let me! I’m all but eight, and —’ his voice cracking into a wail, ‘And I love father!’

  ‘Not now, sweetheart. Later — a little later,’ Bess said. She found she was still holding the shirt, and looking from it to Watt and back again. Then she put it down on the table. Her ears were full of Carew’s tearful clamour. Joan was muffling her in her cloak and she tore herself away from Carew, leaving him in the hands of the old woman, hearing his despairing wails grow fainter behind her as she followed her elder son downstairs and out into the street.

  The moon was rising, and the ruts were full of thin ice that glittered at the edges and crackled underfoot. The lights of the houses on Tower Hill seemed very far away; below the dark wharves the river ran molten silver, and ahead loomed the black many-headed mass of the Tower. As in a dream, she began to run towards it, turned her foot in a frozen rut, and would have fallen but for Watt’s hold on her arm. ‘Steady — steady, Mother. It is as slippery as glass.’

  ‘Watt, do you know anything more? — more than you told us just now?’

  ‘Nothing. Talbot was in too much haste to get back to father.’

  ‘He did not leave him alone, did he?’

  ‘Surely not. His faithful watchdog was with him.’

  ‘His dog? But he has not —’ she began stupidly. ‘Oh, you mean Lawrence Kemys.’

  ‘Yes, darling. Here we are.’

  The men on guard were clearly prepared for their coming, and they were passed through without trouble, and the black mass engulfed them. It was very dark in Water Lane, but the windows of the Lieutenant’s Lodging were full of light, and Bess realised with a sense of shock that it was quite early, not black midnight at all.

  Talbot was waiting for them at the foot of the Tower stair. ‘Oh, thank Gawd you come, My Lady, and you too, Master Watt,’ he greeted them. ‘No, I don’t know nothing more, My Lady. He was fair knocked out when I found him, breathing queer and heavy like; and Captain Kemys and I got him to bed, and Dr. Turner is with him now — and I always ‘ave said as those stinking broths ‘e brews weren’t ‘olesome!’ They had reached the stairhead by that time, and Watt checked her as she turned to the familiar doorway.

  ‘Wait here, Mother. I go in first.’

  She looked at him, realising that this was a new Watt, not the lad she had seen off to his dinner party at the Mermaid. ‘Very well, my dear,’ she said docilely, and he pushed open the door and went in. She glimpsed a dark figure stooping in a blur of candle-light, heard a murmur of voices; and then the door shut again. She waited a few agonised moments with John Talbot, and then the door opened and Watt came out.

  ‘Watt?’ she could not, she dared not, frame the question.

  ‘He is still unconscious,’ Watt said quietly. ‘Dr. Turner would have you wait a short while. He is bleeding father now; and as soon as he is done, you shall go in. Come now.’

  Bess found herself in the closet looking out into Water Lane that had been Watt’s before he went to Oxford. ‘We will leave the door wide,’ Watt said, ‘so we shall hear the instant that Dr. Turner comes out.’ His voice had deepened lately; it was deeper than his father’s, with a caressing quality in it.

  Bess turned her face to him, white and pleading. ‘Watt — is he going to die? He’s not — If he were dead already, you would not keep it from me?’

  His arms were round her, holding her close against his hard young body. ‘I would not, darling Mother, on my own life, I would not. ‘Twould take much more than this to kill father.’

  Presently they heard the other door open, and Bess was out on the stairhead on the instant, to face Dr. Turner as he emerged. Her whole body seemed shaken by the drub of her racing heart, but she heard her own voice quite level, and controlled once more, asking for news.

  ‘Your husband has had a seizure, Lady Ralegh,’ the Doctor said bluntly. ‘I have let him a pint of blood, and he lies easier, but we shall not know fully how much mischief has been done until he regains consciousness. We can only hope, putting our trust in God.’

  ‘Is there any hope?’ Bess asked very quietly.

  ‘Surely. Sir Walter is a very strong man.’ He hesitated. ‘In some sort it is his strength — his superabundance of life — that has come near to destroying him; and paradoxically, that same superabundance may well, if I read the signs aright, be the means of saving him.’

  ‘I understand. May I go in to see him now?’

  ‘Aye; but he is quite unconscious, and you must make no trial at rousing him,’ the Doctor said. ‘And you, also, Watt; you may go with your mother.’ He touched Bess’s arm with a blunt, kindly hand as she went past him. ‘Keep a good heart, My Lady.’

  Then she was beside the bed. The curtains had been drawn back, and the window stood wide, and the room was full of the cold clean tang of the winter night, and underlying it the faint, frightening smell of the blood they had drawn from Ralegh. He lay high on his pillows, his arms at his sides outside the coverlid. The whiteness of a bandage showed on one of them. That was where they had drawn the blood, she thought. His head was a little turned towards her, his dark face was darker than its normal colour, and he breathed heavily, snoringly, in a way quite unlike the quiet breathing of sleep. She was unaware of the slight movement as Lawrence Kemys, who had been standing at the bed foot, went out, the faithful watchdog yielding up his vigil to those who had a nearer right.

  Dr. Turner was setting a chair for her beside the bed. She sat down, and very gently stole a hand over the one of Ralegh’s that was nearest to her; his left hand, with the Queen’s diamond on it. Watt had taken up his stance in the shadow of the curtains at the bed head. The Doctor settled down at the table, with a candle drawn close to him, and taking a book from his pocket, began to read. Bess knew that book of old; it was a pocket herbal; to the Puritan Doctor it was the companion volume to his Bible.

  Slowly the hours trickled by; from time to time Watt would move to set another log on the fire; from time to time the Doctor would turn a page worn so soft by many turnings that it scarcely rustled, or lean forward to snuff the candle. Bess never moved at all, nor did the lax hand under hers. Her gaze seldom left the congested face on the pillow; a gaunt and haggard face, deeply lined round the eyes and mouth; and it came to her with a kind of wondering pity that it was the face of an old man. A worn-out old man, and he was only sixty-one. James had done that; might his dull soul rot for it! Sometimes she prayed to the orthodox God of her own simple philosophy, who had never satisfied Ralegh’s questing spirit. ‘Dear God, don’t let him die! You cannot let him die — you cannot be so cruel! Dear God, don’t take him away from me! I will be good, I will remember my prayers always, I will never question your mercy again, if only you will not take him from me!’

  Sometimes the draught from the open window set the candle flame leaping, and the shadows ran flickering up the walls, so that the figures of Hector and Andromache on the tapestry seemed to move as with a kind of stealthy life. Once the candle, neglected too long, guttered over; and a long winding sheet spilled down its length, crystal clear, clouding to opal, to dull yellow wax. Dr. Turner, the Puritan who should have had no truck with superstition, leaned forward and pinched it off.

  At last, in the early hours, Ralegh’s wandering spirit came back to his body. He began to grow restless, frowning like a sleeper who is uneasy or in pain. Little by little his breathing changed its rhythm and grew lighter, and his head moved slightly on the pillow.

  Dr. Turner, the little herbal back once more in his pocket, was beside him now, and Bess looked up mu
tely in an agony of hope, then down once more at the man on the bed. Ralegh’s restlessness was increasing as the minutes went by; his whole face seemed to contract as though in pain or weary effort; once or twice he caught his breath in a moan. And then with startling suddenness, his eyes opened, the male-sapphire blueness of them clouded in bewilderment, and focused with a frowning effort on her face. He seemed to be struggling to speak. For an instant the words would not come, then he said thickly, ‘Bess?’

  Bess smiled at him. ‘You have been ill, Walter, but you are better now, much better. See, here is Dr. Turner.’

  She drew back a little, making room for the Doctor, but he gestured her to keep her place. ‘Nay, do not you move, Lady Ralegh. I can manage,’ and he bent over the sick man. ‘Ah, Sir Walter, this is famous.’

  ‘What — happened?’ Ralegh asked, stumbling a little over the words.

  ‘You collapsed in your laboratory last evening. It is near morning now.’ The Doctor was busy with his examination as he spoke. ‘You are doing well, my friend,’ he added after a few moments.

  Ralegh’s mind and speech were already clearing. It was typical of him that even now there could be no half measures for him, no merciful threshold state between conscious and unconscious. He said, ‘Turner, what the devil’s amiss with my left arm?’

  ‘Like as not you jarred it when you fell,’ Dr. Turner said easily.

  There was an instant sharp and absolute silence. Then Ralegh said, ‘There is no need that you should lie to me, my friend. Thank God it is my left arm, at all events.’

  ‘If you lie quiet and obey orders, I see no reason why it should be more than a temporary inconvenience, Sir Walter,’ the Doctor told him, tranquilly, finishing his examination and drawing back.

  Ralegh turned once more to his wife, fumbling his right hand weakly across his body to find hers. ‘It is no use you holding the other, sweetheart. I cannot feel it.’

  ‘You will soon,’ Bess said, ‘quite soon. Try to go to sleep now.’

  ‘Where is Watt?’ Ralegh demanded, ignoring the suggestions.