Dark Lady

by Charlene Ball

  She ended up writing nine dedications in verse. One was a pastoral dream-allegory for Mary Sidney, since she herself had written a pastoral. Another was to Lady Bedford, who had been their lively hostess at Cookham, as well as Jonson’s patron. Sauce for the goose, she thought. She wrote a respectful poem to Anne, Lady Dorset. She wrote dedications to the Queen and the Princess, and also to the King’s cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart, known for her learning.

  But how to write a dedication to Lady Cumberland? So much depended upon her liking it. She would not read anything ornate or fulsome. But prose . . .

  Lady Suzan had returned to England. Would she remember me? Emilia wrote her a dedication.

  “Oh, I can’t write something to every woman who has helped me!” she exclaimed aloud in frustration. She settled for a poem she called “To All Virtuous Ladies in General.”

  Thinking of virtuous ladies, however, made her think of their opposite. The thought of Margaret Hoby’s treachery still made her fume. So she added a prose piece dedicated to “The Virtuous Reader,” in which she voiced her anger at women who slander other women. That made her think of men who had slandered women, so she flung some angry words at them—“evill disposed men, who forgetting they were borne of women, nourished of women, and that if it were not by the means of women, they would be quite extinguished out of the world, and a finall ende of them all, doe like Vipers deface the wombs wherein they were bred . . .”

  Like Christine, she praised good and brave women of old: Deborah, Judith, Susannah, Queen Esther. She wrote how the Lord Jesus himself had healed women, pardoned and comforted them.

  When she finished, she sat back, sighed, and stretched. She felt as though a heavy burden had lifted. I would like to include so many other good women: my mother, Moll Frith—and Lucretia, whom I am betraying.

  “Cousin,” said Emilia, “may I talk with you?”

  As she seated herself, she noticed as though for the first time that her cousin, whom she had always thought of as ageless, was older. Lucretia had grown stout and moved slowly. The folds of her rich, dark gown fell around her feet as she sat in a heavy chair full of cushions. She still wore her hair in the old-fashioned Italian style, with brows and hairline plucked, but now a few gray hairs lay among the dark ones that showed under her fine lawn cap. The lines in the corners of her mouth cut deeper as well.

  In the familiar parlor with its odors of orange and rosemary burning in a brazier, Emilia sat, sipped from the offered goblet of spiced wine, and gathered her courage. “Cousin, I have written a book.”

  “Ah,” said Lucretia. “You always were a scholar. Is it about huswifery?”

  “No, Cousin.”

  “It must be a translation of one of those Latin poems.”

  “It is a book of religious poetry.”

  “Religious poetry?” Lucretia’s almost-invisible brows rose.

  “It is about the crucifixion of our Lord.” Emilia’s words flowed out in a rush.

  Lucretia repeated the words, speaking deliberately. “The crucifixion of our Lord.”

  “I want you to hear it from me before you hear it from others.”

  “What do you mean?” Her cousin squinted, tilting her head like a plump, wary hen.

  “You know I served the Countess of Cumberland,” said Emilia. “And that she dismissed me because someone unjustly slandered me. I hope by this book to regain her friendship.”

  Lucretia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What makes you think she will listen?”

  “I do not know, Cousin.” Emilia said. “I only know I must try.” She hesitated. “I once promised her I would write a poem about a place she loved. I’ve included that poem in this book. And there is another poem, one I started long ago about Eve. It turned into a poem about our Lord.”

  “You say you write of our Lord?”

  “I have dedicated my book to Lady Cumberland, her daughter, Anne—Lady Dorset—and other learned ladies,” Emilia said hurriedly.

  Lucretia said nothing, but her eyes narrowed.

  “Cousin,” Emilia said, “you know I did not grow up in the faith of our family. I didn’t know we were Jews until I was grown.”

  “This is true for many of our people. My own sons say the Christian prayers.”

  “You know I more than say the prayers. I pray them with my heart.”

  Lucretia shook her head. “Others do not write books about their devotion to the god of the Christians.”

  “It is the same God.”

  “It is?” Lucretia’s voice held growing anger. “A man who eats and drinks and laughs with his friends, and dares claim to be the Messiah? Who dies a criminal, and whose friends then say he rose from the dead? The Lord of our fathers is unseen and all-powerful. He is eternal. He cannot be seen by human eyes nor touched by human hands.” Lucretia shook her head. “How could you reject your kin, Emilia? Think of your father. And of your mother, who loved him though she was a Christian.”

  “I do not reject my kin, Cousin. Please do not judge me until you have read my book.”

  “I do not read.”

  “Let me tell you about it.” Emilia leaned forward. “Men have unjustly slandered women. This slander stems from the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. And we women slander other women. But the Lord Jesus treated women kindly.”

  Lucretia bit her lip.

  “He welcomed women as His disciples,” Emilia struggled on. “He treated them with respect. He thought of his mother even as He was dying. When He rose from the dead, He first appeared to a woman. All through His life, He spoke of peace and forgiveness. He fed the poor, healed the sick, gave to those in need.” She heard her voice shake and struggled to keep it steady. “He created men and women to be equal, as well as rich and poor, lowborn and high.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I think He might be the mother face of God.”

  Lucretia closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Emilia blinked hard and held out a sheaf of papers. “Here is a copy of the manuscript. I wrote it out for you. Alfi says he will take it to the printer for me. But before it is printed, I want you to hear it. Ask someone to read it to you.” She looked imploringly at her cousin. “Try to hear what I say, for it is from my heart.”

  Lucretia sighed. “Emilia, my cousin, wife of my son, I told you that if you stood by your people, we would stand by you. Have you abandoned us?”

  “No!”

  Lucretia’s voice struck her like a lash. “Then how can you join those who persecute us?”

  “I follow a man sent from God, a Jew himself, who persecuted no one. I have written what was in my heart!”

  Lucretia set her mouth firmly. “Do not come to my house again.”

  “Ah, no, Cousin!” cried Emilia. “I am your son’s wife and the mother of your grandson. Do not cut me off. For their sakes, if not for mine.”

  They looked at one another, both faces set and streaked with tears.

  Lucretia closed her eyes, voice weary. “Very well, Emilia. I cannot be the judge of what is in your heart. You may come here for the sake of your husband and son.” She paused. “I cannot say more now, for I am sorely troubled.” She shook her head. “The Jesus of the Christians may have been a good man, but he is not God.”

  “I do not know who God is,” said Emilia. “I know only that I was in despair, and a good Christian lady encouraged and believed in me. It is for her that I wrote my book.”

  Lucretia shrugged. “Some of them are good people. But I trust none of them. Even the good ones look the other way when their leaders persecute us.”

  “She was kind to me.”

  “But she cut you off.” Lucretia said. “She listened to slander. How kind was she, after all?”

  Emilia said nothing.

  “Emilia, come back to us,” Lucretia urged. “Make one at our table, say the prayers. And do not print this book.”

  Emilia shook her head. “I must publish it.”

  Both of them were quiet a moment.
r />   Then Lucretia sighed. “So shall I see you on Friday night?”

  Emilia rode in her carriage to Clerkenwell, her heart jumping in her chest as though it were a hare on the heath. Am I a fool? she wondered.

  She wore her best gown: a dark blue serge with matching overskirt that separated in front, revealing a burgundy underskirt. The chemise that filled in her bodice neckline was fine, pleated lawn. Her new hat, also dark blue and festooned with a smart, burgundy feather, sat just so on her head. Lady Cumberland would see a respectable gentlewoman come to pay a call, not a pitiable suppliant.

  Her carriage pulled up before the wall of the familiar house, and she stepped out. At the door, she gave the blue-liveried footman her name.

  “Wait here,” he said, and he shut the door.

  She clenched her fists.

  At that moment, another carriage pulled up, an elegant two-seater with a pair of matched grays that stamped and tossed their heads. They came to a stop as the coachman pulled back on the reins, making them whuff and snort. As Emilia watched, the coachman sprang down and helped a lady step down.

  She was not tall, but held herself straight as a soldier. Her frizzy auburn hair was streaked with gray, and her freckled face bore lines of age around the mouth and eyes. When she saw Emilia, her gingery brows rose in a questioning look. She walked toward her, her steps crunching on the gravel, her skirts swaying.

  “I know you, do I not?” she asked.

  Emilia started to say, “No, my lady”—but then with a rush she knew who it was. “Lady Suzan!” she exclaimed. “I mean—Lady Kent—I mean . . .” She sank into a deep curtsey, her head down.

  “You were Emilia Bassano, were you not?”

  Emilia looked up, blinking away the tears that had sprung to her eyes.

  “Yes, Madam,” she whispered.

  Lady Suzan laughed and held out her hands, and Emilia placed her own hands in them. “Rise, Emilia,” the lady said, pulling Emilia up. They were of a height. “I am Mistress Wingfield now,” she said. “And you, I hear, are Mistress Lanyer.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Emilia could not keep her voice from shaking or stop the smile that spread over her face even as fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

  Lady Suzan laughed again, more softly this time. “How well met we are! I had not thought to see you again.”

  Her clear voice touched a rush of memories in Emilia—of stories of snow and a covered wagon dashing through a forest, soldiers in pursuit; a lady holding the reins, a small child clutching her skirts—

  “We must go in and see Lady Cumberland,” Lady Suzan said. “She will be delighted to see us both. I have heard much good of you from her. And I want to hear all that has happened with you.”

  Emilia felt her joy burst and drain away. “Madam, I came to see Lady Cumberland, but I was just leaving. I do not think she wants to see me.”

  “What do you mean?” Lady Suzan tilted her head.

  Emilia shook her head. “It would take a while to tell, my lady.”

  Lady Suzan’s brow wrinkled. “I am staying in the Barbican, my mother’s London house. You know it, of course? Will you come and see me tomorrow?”

  Emilia hesitated. Then she nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

  The Barbican was a former fortress on the London wall where the Duchess of Suffolk had made her London home. Emilia was greeted warmly by Lady Suzan, who sat with her in her solar on plump cushions. They sipped sweet wine from Hungary, nibbled on seed cakes, and remembered their time together at Court.

  “Do you remember,” said Lady Suzan, “how my father would play primero with my mother, and how she always beat him?”

  “The Duchess was the best primero player I ever saw,” said Emilia.

  “My father never cared about winning himself, but he so enjoyed letting her win.”

  Emilia was quiet, remembering the Duchess of Suffolk. “It was the Duchess who first put the idea in my mind to write a book,” said Emilia. “She said that if God told a woman to write, she must do it, never mind what men might say.”

  Lady Suzan smiled. “She ever believed in speaking her mind.” She looked Emilia in the eye. “So what is the trouble between you and my friend Margaret of Cumberland?” Her voice was soft but firm.

  Emilia told her, finishing with, “I did consult the doctor, as did many others, for my health and for reading of my charts. But I never engaged with him in the dark arts, as God is my witness.”

  Lady Suzan nodded. “I believe you speak the truth. Let me talk with her and see if I can persuade her to see you again. She is firm in her beliefs, but she has a kind heart.”

  “Thank you, my lady. I will be ever in your debt.” Emilia bowed her head.

  Lady Suzan smiled. “No talk of debts between us. Now, would you like to hear some music I brought from the Low Countries?”

  CHAPTER 21

  The Wind and the Rain

  October 1610

  Emilia heard he had been ill. She sent a letter to the Globe and received an answer the next day. He would meet her at the Mermaid at three o’clock.

  When she stepped through the tavern door, she looked around anxiously. The last time she was here, she had been ordered not to come back. But no one paid her any mind as she looked around the dim interior. Dark paneling, cushions on some of the chairs and benches, a fire burning in the stone fireplace. A man, thin and stooped, sat at a table against the wall.

  He was wrapped in a cloak, hat pulled low over his forehead. His sparse, gray hair curled out from under the brim.

  She went over and sat. “Hello, Will.”

  He looked up. “Emilia. You had no trouble finding the place?”

  “No. I’ve been here before.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. Noises from the street were muffled by the stone walls of the tavern. Through the leaded window by the table she could hear carriages rumbling, horses clop-clopping, indistinct voices. The autumn sky through the open window looked pale blue, almost gray.

  “Would you like some wine?” asked Will.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  When the flask of claret arrived, he poured her some, then some for himself.

  “How have you been, Will?”

  “I’m sick,” he said. “I’m going to die.”

  “I am sorry. Do you know the cause?”

  “Ha!” he snorted. “Life is the cause.” Then he added, “Actually, it’s the pox. I took the baths years ago and thought I was cured. But the disease has a long, hidden life.”

  The innkeeper brought them a warm loaf of brown, fragrant bread and a wedge of crumbly cheese. Will took up the bread, pulled off a piece, and bit into it.

  “Tasteless,” he muttered. He offered her a piece. She cut a piece of cheese, put them together, and took a bite.

  His face looked thinner. Lines creased his high forehead and dug trenches on either side of his mouth. He hunched into his cloak as though he were cold, despite the fire that blazed nearby. His shoulders slumped, and the wrists sticking out of his wrinkled linen cuffs looked knobby and thin. Freckles spotted his hands.

  “You’re looking well, Emilia.”

  She imagined what he saw: the gray threads in her black hair, her thicker waist, her fuller bosom. She felt her careful preparations being burned away by his gaze. Did he see an aging woman gotten up to impress a former lover? Well, what of it? She was not ashamed of her years, nor of their traces on her face and body. She sat up straighter. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad we were able to meet,” he said. “I’m not in town often any more. I’m staying here to be close to the Blackfriars theater. One of my plays is being shown there now.”

  “I just saw it. The one about the magician—The Storm, it was called?”

  “The Tempest.”

  “I liked it. I especially liked the speech about how everything is a dream: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on / And our little life is rounded with a sleep.’”

  “Everyone told me to take that speech out. It doe
sn’t quite go, interrupts the action, and so on. But I insisted on keeping it.”

  “I’m glad you did. It’s beautiful.”

  He took a swallow of wine. “It wasn’t bad.”

  “I’ve written a book,” she said.

  “Have you,” he said in a flat voice.

  She took a deep breath. “It’s about our Lord’s crucifixion and how women have been falsely slandered by men.”

  “So you’ve become religious.”

  “I think loss has turned me toward God.”

  He swirled the wine in his cup. “I never prayed much. Now I never do.”

  “One poem has a part about Eve. I defend her.”

  “You haven’t given up defending women, have you?”

  A spark of anger flared and fizzled out. “I also wrote about a country house where I went with Lady Cumberland.”

  “Trying to hobnob again with the nobility, are you?”

  “What about you?”

  He gave a short laugh. “I’ve given up. They forget so easily.”

  People came into the tavern. Emilia heard voices and scraping as benches and chairs were pushed back, a laugh, an order to the innkeeper. Looking up through the window, she saw that the sky had darkened.

  She drew a deep breath. “Will, who was she?”

  He frowned. “Who?”

  “The woman in your sonnets.”

  He laughed. “I’m flattered you read them. They weren’t that popular.”

  “They stayed in my mind. The summer’s day, going out without your cloak, the yellow leaves, bare, ruined choirs, mourning those who have died . . .” She felt her throat tighten. “They moved me.”

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  “Was that woman me?”

  “Emilia, no one in those poems is anybody. I made it up.”

  “I don’t believe you. It’s too real.”