As I trudged away to mount the stairs, the muffled hubbub from the hall became more distant. I stopped at the large window on the landing, and stood to look at the moon, contemplating, like a lover in a poem, the tyranny of desire. Thinking of Troilus pulled back and forth by love, I basked in the frigid light, rolling her pearl between my fingers.
I heard a door sigh below. Air riffled over my skin. Then came the soft patter of footfall. I made to leave, reluctant to nod a greeting to whoever it might be. A touch, light as a feather, caressed my shoulder. Turning, I heard my name whispered, the sound bringing with it a trembling stupor, as if I’d been drugged.
‘I’ve been looking for you. Why do I always find you on the stairs? As if you only exist in the space between floors.’ She took my hand. ‘You’re cold as death.’
I feared I would wake and find I had dreamed her. She began to rub my hands between hers, bringing them up to her mouth, blowing hot breath on to them, as a mother would to a child.
‘Look at the moon,’ I said, willing myself to think of something less banal to say. I watched her gazing out, the sinuous curve of her neck and how the silver glow caught on the edges of her golden lace, reflecting a pattern like frost on her cheek. I remember, with a clarity that is undimmed by the five years that have passed since, the way that the moon was mirrored in her eyes, two bright spots in a sea of gleaming black, making my breath catch in my throat. She was talking, telling me how the poem she had recited earlier had made her feel a hypocrite.
‘It was a celebration of wedded bliss and I have found no contentment there.’ Her voice wound around me like smoke. ‘And there I was,’ she continued, ‘for all to see, reciting on the foolishness of lovers and celebrating the soundness of marriage. They are not my words.’
‘Not long ago I was offered a parrot at Billingsgate docks,’ I found myself saying. ‘A great beauty.’
‘A parrot?’ She seemed thoughtful, as if something sad had settled over her.
‘It spoke three languages, or so the vendor told me. But it didn’t have any words of its own, only mimicked those of others.’
‘Go on,’ she breathed.
‘I felt an affinity with that bird, dressed in its fine feathers spouting sentiments it didn’t understand.’ I looked at her fingers woven through mine. ‘I sometimes feel I am not my own person.’
Regret spilled into me: my confession made me seem horribly weak and I was desperate to think of a way to retract it when she said, ‘You see,’ so quietly I had to lean tight in, close enough to know she smelt clean, like a new book, ‘we are the same, you and I, just beautiful puppets.’
We stood in silence for a time. I was rejoicing – fireworks exploding in my head. She still cradled my hands in hers. The moon had moved slightly so the dark outline of a tree’s branches disrupted its perfect edge. I listened to the rhythm of her breath, matched my inhalation to her exhalation so I could imagine drawing invisible fragments of her into my body.
‘I had a parrot once,’ she said. ‘I have never loved anything as I loved Troilus.’
‘Troilus?’ I believed it an omen, good fortune.
‘He was dandelion yellow, with a crimson-hooped neck, and was small enough to sit on my hand. He was always with me, even perched on my bedhead while I slept. He used to incense Father by pecking at the plaster mouldings but I wouldn’t have him caged. I taught him to say, “I love you, Frances.” ’
‘Where is he now?’ I asked, afraid the story wasn’t a happy one.
‘When I was seven, he died.’ Her breath shuddered. ‘I killed him. It was –’
I held her tight to me, like a shipwrecked man clutching a piece of driftwood.
After a few moments she pulled out of my embrace and began to speak, her eyes cast to the floor. ‘I had almost finished a panel of embroidery. It had taken me four months, was to be presented to the Queen – the old Queen Elizabeth. I’d used gold thread, so precious not an inch could be wasted, and … It doesn’t matter really what I was making, only that it was the finest thing I had ever made. While I slept one afternoon Troilus pecked it all apart, shredded it beyond repair. Uncle – I mean Northampton – found me surrounded by the tattered remains crying my heart out.’ She looked at me then. I had never imagined sadness could be so beautiful and took my handkerchief to dab at her eyes, an act that felt more intimate than any kiss.
‘He told me there was a lesson to be learned. “A lesson that will make you strong.” He made me catch Troilus, watched me as I called him down from the ceiling. I’d had Uncle’s lessons before and –’ her breathing was jagged, as if something was stuck in her throat ‘– and once he was perched, almost weightless, his little claws clutched around my finger,’ she was shaking her head, shoulders hunched and holding out a hand as if remembering the bird there, ‘Uncle said, “Your embroidery was for the Queen. By destroying it your bird has committed treason.” Oh, God!’ She looked up then and I saw terror scored through her.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to –’
‘No, I do have to. I do have to. I’ve never told a soul and I can’t bear it any more.’ She stood straight, seeming to gird herself. ‘And he said, “What is the punishment for treason, Frances?” ’
She placed a hand over her mouth, talking through her fingers. ‘He forced me. “Now break its neck,” he said. Troilus watched me with his little trusting eye, thinking it a gesture of affection as I brought my hands about his throat. His pulse quickened – he must have sensed a change in me. “Go on!” His wings opened, flapping. Uncle was going to tell me to stop, to tell me it was just one of his tests. I waited, struggling to hold my grip. Troilus writhed. Uncle watched, saying nothing.’
She hid her face in her hands, her breath coming in gusts. ‘He said – he said that to kill something I loved would make me invincible. He said that I would hate him for it, but that one day I would understand. He said that to overcome love was the greatest lesson of all. He said I’d proved I was special, proved I was strong.’
I couldn’t speak.
‘I sat for hours with Troilus in my hands until he grew stiff and cold. I grew stiff and cold with him. It broke me. I’m still broken.’
‘But how did you – your uncle …’ I had an image of them together, tight as father and daughter. ‘You seem so fond …’
‘You don’t know him.’ She looked at me. ‘Nobody really knows him – only me. He genuinely believed he was doing something good. He wanted me strong, so I would survive.’ She fell silent, immersed in her own thoughts. ‘And doesn’t God ask us to forgive?’
‘But even so.’
‘No one knew. I lied about it. I was eaten away by it. I was so far under Uncle’s influence I had no will of my own. You see, we Howards are taught never to show weakness. Some of us are better at it than others.’
‘But you were so young.’
She turned away from me for a moment, then back, grabbing me with those eyes. ‘Not too young to know I’d committed an act of murder.’
‘You were a child. He made you do it.’ I was appalled, couldn’t equate such an act with the affable man I knew.
‘I could have refused. I live with the shame. I pray every day that the Lord will cleanse my soul.’
The fervour of her piety dilated my heart. ‘It’s not your shame –’
She stopped my words by placing two cool fingers over my lips. ‘But some things will not be shaken off or rationalized.’
We fell to silence once more. The moon had travelled and was half obscured by a filigree of branches. She shivered and said she must go. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’
That small yellow bird was planted in my breast, where it pulsated, forcing life to throb through me, whetting me, making me sharp and ready. She had shown me her broken self and it had become my mission to mend her.
Her
Frances’s fingers are white with cold. She reaches her hands over the fire attempting to warm them. ‘Anne Turner was devastated by t
he doctor’s death.’ Frances treads carefully, talking of Dr Forman. It had been that gruesome assistant of his, Franklin, who had come to give Anne the news. ‘He correctly predicted the time and manner of his own end. Imagine that!’
‘Really?’ Nelly seems thrilled by the idea, her eyes sparkling. ‘Sounds like the dark arts, I’d say.’
‘Don’t be silly. I expect it was just coincidence. Why –’ Frances stops herself saying what she is thinking: Why the pretence, Nelly? You must have heard of the doctor’s death – all London knew about it.
‘My ma thinks there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Either God’s plan or the devil’s, she says.’
‘That’s what Anne said of it too.’
‘I know what I think.’ Nelly seems so very sure of herself, leaning back in her seat with her hands behind her head.
‘If you anticipate something greatly, you can bring it on yourself.’ Frances pauses, then adds as an afterthought: ‘Despite God’s plan.’
The girl looks at her with a puzzled expression, suddenly seeming not sure of herself at all but naive, making Frances’s suspicion that she is a spy seem preposterous.
‘Anne was inconsolable,’ Frances continues, remembering clearly how her companion had become hysterical, white as a sheet, ranting and crying, as if the dead man had been her father or lover. ‘I hadn’t known she was so close to him. She’d never spoken of him in those terms to me. She insisted Franklin return all her correspondence with the doctor. I can’t imagine what she wanted to hide.’
‘Sounds like you were better off not knowing.’ A whimpering starts up from the cradle. ‘Are you upset, little love?’ Nelly’s voice is singsong as she addresses the baby, taking it in her arms, but then she turns to Frances, asking bluntly, ‘So, how did the doctor die?’
‘I don’t know much about it. I expect he was drunk and fell into the river.’ Frances will not be drawn to talk about another drowning. The mere thought reminds her of the water lapping beneath, seeping up through the stone. She can feel it in her lungs, blue mould growing there, clogging her vital organs, rotting her heart. ‘We left that day for Chartley. My great-uncle wanted me away from court by the time the King returned from Royston. He said it would inflame Robert Carr’s desire all the more if I were to disappear for a few months.’
‘Didn’t you ever think of defying him?’ The baby begins to howl. The sound gets under Frances’s skin.
‘Nobody ever defied Uncle.’
Nelly positions the baby to feed and the noise subsides. It has grown fat and round and dimpled. Frances wonders how it is possible for someone as slight as Nelly to produce so much milk.
‘Besides, what Uncle didn’t know was that I was falling for Robert Carr. I wasn’t meant to. Uncle believed love was a weakness. So in a way – a very small way – I was defying him.’
Him
We rode to Royston on one of those early-autumn days, balmy and blue-skied, when summer seems to have returned to collect something forgotten. My high spirits didn’t go unnoticed, and James claimed he’d been right in thinking all I needed was fresh air. He was in good spirits too, urging his horse on and singing a filthy ballad that was doing the rounds, guffawing at its obscenities. But we were barely there, not even in the door, when a dispatch arrived to dampen our spirits.
James crumpled the letter with a sigh. ‘It’s the French. They’ve got wind of my’ – his voice lowered – ‘Spanish plans. They need placating, and with Salisbury out of action …’ He dragged a hand over his brow. The secretary of state was still unwell and his absence was taking its toll on him. ‘No peace for the wicked.’
‘Here.’ I prised the paper from his fist. ‘Let me deal with it.’
A smile broke over his face. ‘What would I do without you, Robbie?’
‘You’d be lost,’ I teased, making him laugh, feeling deceitful.
Inside the scent of lavender hung in the air, bunches of it suspended from the low beams, and a fire blazed in the hearth. The rooms were small and warm, without the neck-cricking draughts that blew about the vast spaces of Whitehall. Royston reminded me, though my memories of it were vague, of the house I’d lived in as an infant before my parents died.
Scanning the letter, I was dismayed to see it was written in French. I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the language. In the past I’d always relied on Thomas to translate any French papers. It was a risk, but rather than admit to James the linguistic failings I’d always managed to conceal from him, I sent for my friend.
Since his exile our contact had been sparse, but as a lure I suggested I might be able to twist the King’s arm into revoking his punishment. I’m sure he’ll agree that you’ve stayed away long enough, I wrote, with details of how to take the back stairs directly to my room. No one will be any the wiser. As an afterthought, I added, I miss you, Tom. It was the truth. I sealed the note in haste and sent it with a trusted messenger, under strictest confidence.
Perhaps I was foolish to have gone down such a path but I had James’s best interests at heart. Without Salisbury, he was so burdened with responsibilities and desperately in need of a rest. I was aware that to carry some of his load would be of benefit not only to him but to England. The matter was pressing and calling on Thomas seemed the most efficient way of achieving such an end.
Upstairs the house smelt of fresh whitewash, and the brilliance of the walls contrasted sharply with the black struts and beams crisscrossing them. I had been allotted my usual room. It was a square space, vaulted into the roof with a door on three of its sides. One led, via a couple of steps, to James’s quarters, another to the main landing. I unlatched the third and, taking the pot of grease I kept for cleaning my pistols, ducked under its low lintel on to a tightly spiralled stone staircase that led to a quiet corner of the stables. I descended in the gloom to the door at the bottom and, finding the key on the cobwebby lintel, unlocked it. The hinges rasped loudly, as I’d suspected, so I doused them with grease, ensuring they were silent, and returned to my room to prepare for supper.
The following morning the fine weather broke and rain was slashing against the window. I woke feeling the worse for wear after the rowdy evening to find that James had joined me in my bed. He was always concerned that gossip about his private life would undermine his authority – perhaps, if I’d been another kind of man, I might have tried to turn that to my advantage – and in my room we were less likely to be interrupted.
It was cosy under the covers, warm and intimate. We began, in our half sleep, to indulge in the pleasures of each other. Some might think the acts we performed monstrous, certainly they contravened the law, but human desire can take many forms and something born of great fondness does not seem so sinful. Are we not all sinners in one way or another?
He had me in a tight grip, giving me no choice but to submit to his rhythm, his urgent breath heating my skin, the sheets flung back. My eyes were screwed shut, my thoughts running wild around Frances, casting her naked in the bed in his place. He reached a hand round to grab me. But it was her cool clasp that sent me juddering and he with me.
We were drifting in our post-coital daze, when, like a shot, James sprang out of the bed with a cry, to stand in the centre of the room.
I sat up to see Thomas in the dark opening of the door to the steps. He observed us, his body rigid. He was soaked, water dripping from the wide brim of his hat. His face was cast in shadow but I could imagine his expression. He must have been there for some time, as there was a puddle on the floor at his feet.
‘What in Hell’s name are you doing here? Explain yourself.’ The force of James’s rage was like a blow to the head, and I remember being glad that there were no weapons within his reach, noticing my sword propped in a far corner. He stood there naked, his member shrivelled in the cold, the tic in his eye flickering.
For a moment we were suspended in time, the air crackling with acrimony, until I sprang up to put myself between them and the blade. ‘I sent for him. It’s m
y fault.’
James slowly swivelled his eyes to me and back to Thomas, who was crouched into a half-bow, still dripping water on to the floor. He was trembling, I noticed, but not with fear.
Neither man moved. I snatched up the sword, skidding it out of reach under the bed, then flung a blanket around James’s shoulders and pulled on a pair of breeches, fumbling to fasten them.
‘What’s going on, Robbie?’ James’s face crumpled and I saw he’d misread the situation. He’d thought Thomas my lover. It was certainly how it appeared.
I stumbled out an explanation. ‘It’s not what you think. I needed his help with the French problem. You see – you see, my French isn’t up to scratch. I worried you’d think less of me. I was ashamed of it.’ A shot of tenderness crossed James’s features. ‘I wanted to save you from anxiety.’
He said softly, ‘Oh, Robbie, you can be so very naive.’
To Thomas, he was not so gentle. He strode up to him, swathed in his blanket like a togaed Caesar. ‘Breathe of this to a soul and I will find a reason to strike your head from its shoulders.’ Menace rattled in his voice. ‘Is that understood, Overbury?’
Thomas seemed to shrink. ‘I swear to it, Your Majesty. It is my solemn vow.’ He backed into the doorway slowly. ‘I humbly beg your pardon.’
James turned his back. ‘Just get out.’
As Thomas disappeared into the dark stairwell, James trained a look my way, direct as a cosh. I knew what he was thinking. He fell into a barbed silence as I helped him into his clothes.
Crouched on the floor, lacing his boots for him, I dared speak. ‘I know him. He’s trustworthy. I will vouch for his silence.’ I stood to stroke my hand over his hair. ‘James, please –’
The Poison Bed: 'Gone Girl meets The Miniaturist' Page 9