Dark Lady

by Charlene Ball

  Emilia looked up at her, wordless joy and pain mingled in her chest. Lady Suzan kissed Emilia’s cheek, rose, and left the chamber.

  CHAPTER 2

  A Masterless Maid

  February 1584

  “Jenny, peel the pears and set them to cook over the fire. I’ll put in the sugar and spices.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Now Jenny called her “Mistress,” even though she was only a girl of fifteen. When she had first returned home, she had feared not knowing what to do, but her older, married cousin, Lucretia Lanyer, had looked in often, given advice, and brought her some needful items. Lucretia had also said she would take Emilia and her mother into her own household, warning her against the law that said unmarried women between the ages of fifteen and forty had to be apprenticed or employed. Emilia could be snatched up by a constable and put into someone’s house as a servant if anyone noticed no man living in the house, Lucretia said. The law applied to unemployed men too, but women were most often caught. If they were thought to be whores, they were sent to Bridewell and whipped. Mistress Vaughan, who lived next door, had told Emilia the law was to ensure that everyone had work and would not be a burden on the parish.

  But Emilia would not budge. “It doesn’t apply to me. My mother owns the house, and I will inherit it. Her will says so. And I’ll receive a hundred pounds when I’m twenty-one or when I marry.”

  Lucretia shook her head. “You must marry soon. Our family will find someone suitable.”

  So Emilia now worried about who the family would make her marry. And she worried about what would make a constable think her a whore. Shabby clothes? Hair unkempt? Would he believe she had houses and a dowry, let alone that she knew noble folk and had lived at Court? She kept her hair covered and wore sober, mended clothes. Her velvet gown from Lady Suzan lay folded at the bottom of her chest.

  She looked around the parlor—at the table and bench, the chair with threadbare cushions, the joint-stool, the leaded bay window, the painted cloth on the wall, the tiled fireplace. Everything looked small and poor. A month ago, sweet-smelling hay had been spread on the floor, cornflowers and wild daisies caught in the fragrant bunches. Now the floor was littered with dank weeds, for she’d forgotten to buy fresh rushes. Her mother used to strew the floor and inspect the clothing and linens to see if anything needed mending each week.

  The laundress came once a week to wash and iron their smocks, stockings, linens, and sheets. Emilia paid her eightpence, and a tuppence more for soap. Ten more pennies gone. She and Jenny made conserves, cordials, and syrup for her mother’s cough. Bottles of preserved fruits and simples sat in rows in the storeroom. Court had taught her something useful, thank goodness. She had time to read only a few lines in her Bible each day and occasionally write in her commonplace book.

  Master Vaughan, who had been her father’s friend, collected the rents from three rental houses and presented Emilia with a small sum each quarter. The rest went to pay her father’s debts.

  She heard through the Bassano grapevine that Lady Suzan had married Sir John Wingfield and gone to the Low Countries. Meggie Carey had married Lord Hoby. Emilia wondered whether Lord Hunsdon was still in the North fighting the Scots and whether the Queen was still dancing high with Lord Robert, leaping with her thin legs in embroidered stockings.

  Each morning, Emilia took broth to her mother and held the bowl, guiding the spoon to her lips. She wiped her face with a cool cloth, plumped up her pillows, and blew out the candle when she complained that the light hurt her eyes. The sour smells of her body clung to Emilia’s nostrils, along with the odors of her sweat-soaked linen shift and matted hair. She bathed her mother in water warmed over the fire as Jenny held the basin.

  “I’m so much trouble,” her mother murmured.

  “You’re no trouble at all, Mama. Raise your arms.” Emilia slipped a clean shift over her head, pulled it down over her bony hips. “Now lie and rest.”

  On wet winter evenings, dark fell around four o’clock, and Emilia and Jenny lit tallow candles. Wind roared around the eaves, and rain fell in sheets off the roof.

  Her mother did not like to hear Scripture, so Emilia got out her Ovid in the evenings and read her fantastical tales about love and changes. She showed her mother the illustrations—animals and birds in curling leaves and flowers around the capital letters, woodcut pictures of a girl’s body emerging out of a tree trunk or a man who was half fish—and when her mother was tired of words, Emilia played her recorder or sang soft Italian airs as she played the lute.

  “Your father sang that to me in his chamber in the Charterhouse.”

  Margaret Johnson had been a wild girl, sister to musicians, and she had set her cap for Baptista Bassano, the youngest of the Italians who lived in the Charterhouse, a former monastery. Baptista invited her to his room to hear some “real Italian folk music,” and one thing had led to another. In the middle of the night, his older brother Alvise had pounded on the door, and Baptista had bundled her out into the garden, where she’d hid behind a rosemary bush. When Alvise was gone, Baptista had let her back in, dew all over her bare feet and legs. She’d stayed the night and left at cockcrow, climbing over the wall and catching a ride home on a wagon driven by a countrywoman on her way to market.

  Margaret Bassano lay back. “I’m tired. Play for me, Emilia.”

  Emilia took up her recorder and began to play.

  “Ah, if you had only been a boy,” her mother murmured. “You could have taken your father’s place in the Consort.”

  The thin, sweet thread of music twined through the room and out to the kitchen where Jenny lay on her pallet. The next morning, Jenny said she’d dreamed of angels’ music.

  Late at night, Emilia sat at the parlor table, candle at her elbow, going over accounts. We have enough for food and malt to brew small beer. I can afford a few yards of woolen cloth for a new kirtle and bodice for me and one for Jenny. I will buy beef and bacon and hang it in the storeroom. I’ll get milk, butter, and cheese at market. When spring comes, we’ll buy cherries.

  Emilia imagined the vendors singing down the alleyways, “Cherry ripe, come buy, come buy! Sweet as a maiden’s kiss, Cherry ripe!” Sweet as a maiden’s kiss. Who would wish to kiss her now, her dress covered by a worn apron, her hair bundled under a cap, hands calloused from working alongside Jenny? I’ll have to marry someone the Bassanos choose. And mother will die, and what will I do then?

  June 1585

  “Oysters, mussels, fresh from the sea!” cried the fishwife, her baskets swinging from a yoke across her shoulders. “Come buy, come buy! Alive, alive-o!”

  Emilia pulled out three pennies from her drawstring bag. “A half dozen of your largest oysters!”

  The woman gave her a scornful glance. “I don’t sell by the half dozen. Couldn’t make anything that way, could I?”

  “But . . .”

  The woman flounced off, and Emilia dodged a splatter of mud flung from a cart.

  “Cousin!”

  She whirled and saw her cousins Alfi and Roberto behind her, splashing in the puddles. Alfi munched on a savory pie while Roberto spat an apple seed into the street.

  “Hallo, Cousin Em,” said Alfi. “Want a pie?”

  Savory steam rose off the pastry. She was hungry. “Thanks, Alfi.”

  “Don’t call me ‘Alfi’! I’m Alfonso now. I’m almost twelve.”

  Emilia bowed in mock apology. “Well, Masters Alfonso and Roberto, what brings your worships to Bishopsgate?”

  “We’re going to the Theater,” said Roberto. “It’s great fun! Trumpets and sword-fighting, and dead bodies all over the stage!”

  “You say so?” Emilia blew on the hot pie.

  “Sometimes they show ghosts and devils on the stage, and women shriek and faint!”

  Emilia shrugged, broke off a corner of the pastry, and nibbled at it.

  “Or there will be a play about the Seven Deadly Sins,” said Alfi, “with devils and firecrackers coming
out their arses.”

  Emilia finished the pie and licked her fingers.

  “Come with us, Em!” said Alfi.

  “How long does it last, and how much does it cost?”

  “About three hours,” said Roberto, “and you pay a penny to stand in the courtyard, tuppence to sit on the lowest bench, and three pence to sit in the gallery.”

  “Come on, Em!” begged Alfi. “We’ll treat you.”

  Their dark eyes were alight with fun. Emilia hadn’t spent time with people her own age for ever so long. As she hesitated, Mistress Vaughan appeared, her maidservant following with a basket. “Emilia, how does your mother this day?”

  “She continues weak, Mistress Vaughan.”

  “Are you young fellows away from the shop on business?”

  Emilia said quickly, “They’ve been excused to go hear a play.” “A play!” exclaimed Mistress Vaughan. “I do like a good play. Are you going with the lads, Emilia?”

  “I can’t leave my mother.”

  “Oh, go on, child, ’twill do you good to get out of the house. Your Jenny can watch her.”

  Emilia looked back at the boys. “Yes, I’d like to go.”

  The boys cheered, and the three cousins hastened along the muddy street toward the gate where Bishopsgate Street led out of the city, Emilia in her cloak, the boys wearing the blue caps that marked them as apprentices. Rain drizzled, but the sun began to break through.

  “What play are we going to see today?”

  “It’s called The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, and it’s either a romance or something about God, I forget which,” said Roberto.

  “I saw plays at Court.”

  “Court plays aren’t as jolly as the ones at the Theater.”

  The Theater looked like a round wooden ship standing in a muddy field. A crimson pennant on its roof fluttered in the wind. People were heading toward the doors—boys in apprentice caps, pushing and shoving; groups of men, swords clanking; well-to-do town couples. One woman leaned on her husband’s arm and held up her cloak as she stepped upon the plank that led across the mud to the doorway.

  Emilia noticed a group of women wearing velvet and silk cloaks and stiffened cloth masks that made their faces look eerily blank but for the living eyes that darted about. Their bosoms, powdered to a gleaming whiteness, were bare. Their fanciful headtyres made them look unnaturally tall. One caught Roberto’s eye, and he grinned and tipped his cap. She pursed up her lips and blew him a kiss.

  “Who are they?” Emilia whispered to Alfi.

  “Ladies of pleasure!” He guffawed.

  The cousins passed through the doorway, where a boy took their pennies, and then they climbed a narrow flight of steps to the second gallery. At the top, a woman took a second penny for each of them.

  “We usually stand in the pit,” explained Roberto. “But today we’re getting a box.”

  Below lay an open space like an innyard with a raised stage thrust out into the middle. A roof extended over it. People milled around on three sides, chattering, laughing, eating, and drinking. Vendors pushed through the crowd shouting their wares—bottled ale, apples, oranges, nuts, and meat pies. In one box, a young lady in a fur-trimmed cloak sat next to a finely dressed gentleman. Her auburn hair was elaborately curled and braided. Even at a distance, Emilia could see her gleaming emerald necklace.

  She gasped. “It’s Meggie! Margaret Carey, my friend at Court.” Roberto narrowed his eyes. “She’s wearing the price of a small galleon in jewels.”

  “She married Sir Edward Hoby. He’s rich.”

  “She looks kind of rabbitty, if you ask me,” said Alfi.

  Trumpets roared a fanfare, and the players marched onto the stage to cheering, applause, and a few catcalls. One of them stepped forward. The trumpets ceased, and he began to speak.

  For Emilia, the play was a blur of color, sound, and spectacle, speeches and sword fights, ladies who fluttered their fans at gentlemen, clowns who tumbled and fought, and a man who pretended to fall dead. A monster made of painted paper roared onstage. A knight fought it, and it tumbled to the floor with smoke pouring out of its mouth. Men dragged it through a trapdoor in the floor while the knight made a speech to a lady in cloth-of-gold with a rouged face and a blonde wig. When the play ended, the actors lined up and bowed. Then they performed another play, full of bawdy jokes and a dance that Alfi said was called a jig.

  On their way out, Emilia saw Meggie and her husband. “Meggie!” she called.

  The couple turned and stared, and the man rested his hand on his sword.

  Emilia stopped, suddenly unsure. “Meggie, it’s Emilia.”

  Meggie looked at her, taking in her plain mended dress and cap. Recognition touched her face. “I remember you now.” She turned to her husband. “She waited on me when I was at Court. A daughter of minstrels, I believe.”

  Emilia kept enough presence of mind to curtsey and say, “Lady Hoby, I hope you are well.”

  Meggie gave a nod. “And you, Mistress.” She slipped her arm through her husband’s, and they walked away.

  Emilia muttered, “Let’s go.”

  The three cousins walked along Bishopsgate Street. Alfonso kicked a stone and snorted. “What a pruneface!” He put his arm around Emilia’s waist, and she mirrored the gesture.

  “My Lady Hoooby!” hooted Roberto.

  They laughed and pranced along, kicking stones into puddles and making splashes. The sun came out, and the cobblestones glittered as though diamonds lay flung and scattered all over the streets.

  November 1585

  At Gray’s Inn, dozens of blazing lights from candles, rushlights, and torchiéres filled the hall. Satins and damasks, silks and taffetas, starch-and-sweat-soaked lace ruffs, stomachers, petticoats, chemises, hair pomades, face paints, and feathers and flowers—some real, some silk—adorned the folk that surged onto the dance floor. The gentlemen at the Inns of Court mostly entertained their wives and the daughters and sisters of knights or minor Court functionaries. But Emilia glimpsed one or two low-cut necklines with powdered nipples above the lacework and saw the telltale line of a courtesan’s mask where stiffened fabric met smooth cheek.

  She had come with Alfi and other young musicians who hoped to make a few extra pence. The boys played a lively French dance, recorders and viols swooping together to make a floor of music upon which the dancers trod, laughing—music more free than the carefully trained measures of Court.

  Emilia watched a dark young man dance with a citizen’s daughter under the watchful eye of her mother. When the dance ended, he bowed and turned away, and Emilia felt her face flood with heat. It was Arthur Trevelyan.

  “They want Venetian music.” Roberto drained his mug. “Em, can you and Alfi play that duet?”

  Emilia nodded, and Alfi tuned his lute while Emilia took the other one and tightened a screw—listened, plucked, strummed, tightened. She stroked the hollow of the curved wood and, laying her palm over the strings, looked out at the audience. Smoke from torchiéres and candles spread a hazy glow over sweaty, laughing faces as hands gripped hands and arms circled waists.

  “Ready?” Roberto raised his hand like Augustine and nodded. The viols started. At Roberto’s second nod, the viols fell back, and Alfi and Emilia began to play. She took the melody at first while he played obbligato; then they played in unison, looking into each other’s eyes, communicating in the way of musicians. They ended with a volley of hard strumming and a flourish. Emilia heard scattered applause, but most revelers simply continued to talk and laugh.

  “They didn’t even listen to us!”

  Alfi shrugged. “That’s how it is. We’re background noise.”

  “Let’s get something to eat before it’s all gone,” said Roberto.

  Emilia volunteered to stay with the instruments.

  “Fine playing, that.” A light male voice spoke above her head.

  She looked up to see Arthur Trevelyan. Her heart thudded, and her face grew hot.

 
He smiled. “Mistress, the last time we met, you stepped on my foot.”

  She could hardly speak. “I ask your pardon, sir.” “The fault was mine.”

  He continued to smile. Emilia felt aware of her plain dress and cap.

  “Mistress, will you accept my apologies and read this?” He held out a folded paper. When he put it into her hand, their fingers touched, and his eyes met hers in a bold, intimate gaze. Then he spun on his heel and was gone.

  That night, she opened the letter:

  Moste lovely and fair dame, th- paine ye dealt mee foot was but naughte compared to tht in mee hart. Forgiv mee ore I wil languishe in sorrowe. I begge ye to meete me in the gardin of St. Botoph’s by Bishopsgate wall on Thursday evening at dusk. Y-rs, AT.

  Emilia pressed the letter against her chest. This is what happens in romances: a youth sends a message to his lady, and they meet in a garden. He pays her compliments and gazes into her eyes and then—what? She did not know, but she meant to find out.

  She left the house at dusk that came early now, for the year had turned toward winter. The banked kitchen fire smoldered, and Jenny drowsed before it. “I’m going to Mistress Vaughan’s,” said Emilia. “I’ll be back before long.”

  The wind whistled along narrow Bishopsgate Street. Emilia shivered and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. Under it, she wore Lady Suzan’s cast-off velvet dress with a lace-edged chemise that showed at the neck, and her best kidskin shoes, which had soles so thin she could feel every stone under her feet.

  By the time she reached St. Botolph’s, night had fallen. The church stood outside the old city wall. When she slipped inside the gate, she looked around but could see nothing. She heard a crunch like a shoe on gravel and whirled.

  “Oh!” Her arm was seized in a hard grip and a hand clapped over her mouth. She was pulled backward through a door into total darkness. She was too surprised to struggle at first, but when she tried, the grip grew tighter. A cloak muffled her face—thick, soft wool and fur. She heard the clank of metal, then hard breathing and a muffled laugh.