Eagerly I read what was written there.
“Robert threatened my Little Black Hen (one of her pet names for Heneage) with a stick. So tiresome! His constant jealousy, his fits. He is getting old. I found three gray hairs in his beard. I laughed at him and told him to go dye it. And he did. Fool! My Little Black Hen would never do so foolish a thing. Nor would my Christopher, though he would do anything for money. Christopher wants money, Robin wants power. Oh, for a man who wants neither.”
Another entry read, “Quarreled with R. He is jealous again.”
I saw that the queen had noted in her book what had happened recently with the Queen of Scots. How she had chosen to marry the handsome Lord Darnley, and was with child by him. (“This boy may be England’s king,” Elizabeth had written, though at that time Queen Mary’s child had not yet been born. Elizabeth could not have known it would be a son.)
“We cannot dally together in my great bed,” she had written. “We can never share Robin.”
These words both repelled and puzzled me. Had Elizabeth really imagined that Robert would marry the Queen of Scots and bring her to live in England, and that he and his wife would share Elizabeth’s favors? Did she mean that they would all curl up like kittens together, or cosy cousins, in the great cedarwood bed? Or could she possibly have meant the other, the sharing of bodies and lusts?
Elizabeth was a very strange woman, but that, I thought, would have been beyond strange. Beyond imagining. Only in my later years have I become more open to understanding how wide, how varied are the ways of human love. At that time I was shocked, uncomprehending.
I returned to my reading of the diary. One bit of writing, above all the others, caught and held my attention, and set my heart to pounding.
“R and L,” the queen had written. “Are their hearts joined?” And then she added, “R and D. Mischief and woe.”
I knew at once that by “R and L” she meant Robert and me. And that what concerned her, more than our physical lovemaking, was whether or not there was a bond of romantic love between us. She suspected it, but she wasn’t certain.
But what was I to make of “R and D”? Who was D? And what did she mean by “Mischief and woe”?
Try as I might, I could not dismiss the nagging question from my mind. Who was D? Was she Robert’s lover? Was she young and beautiful? Was she unscrupulous? Would she take him from me?
Few women’s names began with D. There was my daughter’s name, Dorothy. And Diane, a French name that was occasionally given to the daughter of an English house. I had once heard of a nun called Deodata. None of the maids of honor or married women I knew had names beginning with D, other than Dorothy. And the Dorothys I was acquainted with at court would not appeal to Robert. They were plain, or aging, or petulant, or all three.
Perhaps D did not stand for a name at all, but a nickname. Elizabeth loved to assign nicknames to people. Often they were unflattering, especially the ones she gave to women. Dolt. Dunce. Donkey. I thought of others.
Then an image came into my mind. And a memory of a name, an odd name: Douglass. There was a young woman named Douglass who had come to court a few times. Girlish, pretty, flirtatious. Just the sort of girl who would appeal to Robert. A girl as I had once been, ten years before. She was one of the Howards, I remembered. Slender and graceful, with auburn hair a little like mine and a turned-up nose. I remembered seeing her dance and thinking, she dances almost as well as I do.
I asked Mistress Clinkerte if she knew of this girl named Douglass.
“You mean the wife of Lord Sheffield,” she replied at once. “The one everyone has slept with.”
“Everyone?” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “Surely not Lord Robert?”
Mistress Clinkerte guessed the seriousness of my question at once.
“Everyone,” she said with finality. “From the grooms to the most exalted.” And she began to whistle “King Robert’s Jig” softly. “This Douglass Howard is worse even than Catherine Howard was, in her day,” she added in a whisper. “Everyone knew about Catherine Howard and her lusts except the king.”
“Does the queen know about Douglass’s indiscretions?” I persisted.
“Of course. I don’t know why she hasn’t banished the girl from court. She would never be given a place in the royal household.”
“No, of course not.”
“Even Whaffer is astonished—and he has been at this court since the days of Lady Anne Boleyn and your own grandmother Lady Mary Boleyn, two of the most—”
“Hush, Mistress Clinkerte! I know well what is said of those two ladies.”
“Mind your own reputation doesn’t suffer,” the tirewoman remarked. “With your husband away, and you with idle hours on your hands—”
She didn’t need to finish her thought. I knew well enough what she meant.
She was right, I did have many idle hours on my hands, and I turned, joyfully, to Robert to fill them. Walter was often away, and when he was nearby we continued to find that we had less and less in common, less and less of that pleasant dailiness that binds couples who have been married for a number of years. There was only a soured familiarity, a reluctance to converse. A withholding. And, on my part, a deepening physical loathing.
We were distant, yet we continued to share a bed, and on one of Walter’s visits to Chartley I conceived another child. This time we both hoped it would be a boy, to take the place of the baby that had not survived.
For most of my pregnancy I stayed away from court, pampering myself and resting, getting fat from growing the baby—who was very large, making my belly swell much more than it had with any of my other children—and from eating quantities of ripe plums and peaches and the baked apples that the old farmer who tended the orchard roasted in the embers of his fire. Though I missed Robert, who came to visit me only rarely at Chartley, I was surprised to find myself quite happy. I sewed and embroidered caps and blankets for the new baby and made perfumes and cordials in the stillroom and fed the chickens and the songbirds that swooped in and out of the old trees that sheltered the dovecotes. When it was time to take my chamber to await the birth of my child I did so willingly, waiting patiently and prayerfully for my pains to come on.
Though the baby was very large, the birth was not an arduous or especially painful one. I had a skilled midwife and a woman from the village with swelling breasts who had been engaged to be wetnurse to my baby. During my labor she aided the midwife, who was her friend; she sat beside me and held my hand, saying comforting words and assuring me that all would be well. Before my pains began I had had my bed moved near the tall high windows of the bedchamber so that I could watch the golden leaves fall, and throughout my labor I watched them, concentrating on their floating, twirling descent onto the ground. I was in pain, yet all was stillness and order, thanks to the comforting words and the midwife’s guiding instructions.
With her help I delivered my Robert at dusk on a November evening in the year l567, just as the Evening Star was rising in the western sky. It was an omen, I thought. An omen of a grand destiny. I told myself that this boy, whose loud cries brought the entire household into the outer chamber to welcome the newest Devereux heir, might well become a great warrior, or a champion at the jousts, or a magnificent court figure like my beloved Robert, handsome and full of vigor and life.
I fell asleep dreaming of his great future to come, with his small fair head cradled in the crook of my arm, and a feeling of exceptional contentment suffusing me.
In all I was away from court for over a year, and in that time much had changed. When in response to the queen’s summons I returned to my post as a lady of the bedchamber I discovered that Robert and Douglass Howard, Lady Sheffield, were not only bound together as a couple, as the queen had written in her book, but that they had become parents!
Elizabeth was annoyed and angry, Robert was in disgrace. Douglass was living far from court, on her husband’s estate, with her bastard child. Her child by Robert. A child whos
e birth, I felt, could only lead to mischief and woe.
TWENTY-THREE
My brother Frank surprised us all by arriving at Chartley with a Spanish pony as a gift for little Robert, beautiful pearl necklaces for Cecelia and me and a trunk full of gold.
I threw my arms around Frank’s neck and kissed him on both cheeks, overjoyed as I was to see him after such a long absence. How handsome he looked, and how well-to-do, wearing a velvet doublet with embroidery of cloth of silver, silken hose and with jeweled buckles on his costly shoes.
“Frank! You should be at court! You would outshine all the queen’s men, even the splendid Christopher Hatton, with his sparkling cloaks and ruffs and chains!” And you would compare with Lord Robert favorably as well, I thought, though I did not say it.
“Never mind my finery, Lettie. What about my gold!” And he had his trunk of treasure brought in—it took four strong men to carry it—and opened before our wondering eyes.
I could only gasp when the lock was opened and the lid thrown back to reveal a horde of gleaming gold coins—Spanish ducats, Frank told us proudly.
“That’s Peruvian gold,” he said. “We were sailing north of Valparaiso when we came across two Spanish treasure ships. One was listing and the other we blew apart with our guns, but we saved most of the cargo. Oh, the silver! Tons and tons of it! And a great store of Spanish gold. What you see here is only part of my share.”
Our father happened to be visiting Chartley when Frank arrived, and I hurriedly sent a messenger to Cecelia on the nearby Wilbraham estate, telling her that our brother was with us and urging her to come at once.
“Have you become a pirate then, son?” our father asked, taking in Frank in all his splendor and with his mound of coins. “Or are you still a good and honorable seafaring man?” Mother’s death had aged father, we all noticed it. Yet aging had only sharpened his stringent moral standards. No one escaped his scrutiny—or his judgment.
In the years since I had last seen him, Frank had sent letters telling me how he had progressed from a mere apprentice, learning from an elderly captain how to sail a small ship up and down the Cornish coast to becoming a master himself, setting out for deeper waters and deeper profits.
“I serve the queen, father,” Frank said. “I go where she sends my captain, Francis Drake. We have chased the Spaniards across many stretches of water.”
“So that is the queen’s gold you have there,” father went on. “Not your own.”
“It is part of my own share. Allotted to me by my captain.”
“Yet those are stolen coins.”
“Seized as a prize of war, father. Won on the battlefield of the seas.”
Father shook his head. “Blood money,” he said disapprovingly. “Give it back!”
A spark of anger ignited in Frank’s dark eyes. “And to whom would you have me return it, father? To the Peruvian slaves who mined it, under the Spanish lash? Or to the murdering Spaniards, who sank three of our ships, with the good men who went down on them, including my closest friend?” He shut the lid of the chest with a resounding bang.
“No, I think not,” he said. “I risked my life and fortune to win that gold, and the rest of my booty. I was nearly three years at sea with Captain Drake. Our barque almost foundered on a reef in a distant ocean, an ocean so far it has no name.”
“It is known to God,” was father’s quiet reply. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. And we will speak no more of this at present.” He turned his face away.
I took Frank by the arm and led him away from the others and into the nursery, where he met Penelope and Dorothy and my precious Robert, a big, smiling, energetic baby who roared in his high voice and waved his toy horse in the air. Frank swept him up in his arms and took him outside to see his pony, the girls coming with us, Penelope wrapping her arms around Frank’s leg and Dorothy with one gentle hand grasping her uncle’s doublet.
“And what about you, Frank?” I asked later, as we all watched the groom lead the pony around the courtyard with Rob crowing and laughing as he swayed from side to side, tied into the saddle by bands of strong cord. “When will you have girls and boys of your own?”
Frank smiled, a rueful smile. For a moment he petted the heads of the girls, then sent them off to play and led me over to a bench and sat next to me.
“I am married, Lettie,” he said. “I married a wealthy woman, a widow who lives in Plymouth. She is there still, I believe. We are still husband and wife.”
“But you did not marry for love.”
“No. For money.” He shook his head, as if in an effort to shake off the past. His eyes held sorrow.
“You remember how young I was when I left for the coast, to take up the apprenticeship I was offered. I was full of excitement. I was escaping father and his religion, all that dour talk of the devil and hell and damnation. I was getting free!”
“And I envied you that freedom. I have envied it ever since.”
“But I had no money. Father told me that if I left, I would have to make my own way in the world. He said he would not give me anything, even if I was in desperate need. I knew that. I welcomed it. I wanted to prove myself, to prove to father that I could find my way without him and his dark view of life.
“For several years I worked hard and did well. I gained a knowledge of winds and tides, of the treacherous shores of the western coast with their rocks and shallows. I found myself at home among the men, real men, men who cursed and quarreled and got into drunken brawls in dark alleys behind low taverns. Oh, I had my share of those fights! I have a few scars I could show you.”
I could not help smiling. Frank was so proud of his battle scars.
“I would be willing to bet that our father was never in a fight in his life.”
We both laughed. “Not a scrap in a back alley,” I added, “though I know he is locked in combat in the queen’s privy chamber, with the other councilors, nearly every day. A more subtle sort of combat, but equally vicious. But please, go on with what you were saying.”
“Well, after a while my master died, and left me his ship. He had no son of his own to leave her to. I was proud. I continued to do what he had done, taking the little vessel from one coastal port to another, and often to places along the coast where there was no port, in the dead of night, delivering wine or oil or soap or salt from France and taking on cloth or grain or sometimes lead from the local producers. Our father would turn pale if he knew how much trade goes on behind the backs of the royal officials!”
“He knows. All the court knows. Half the fine ruffs from France and Holland worn at our court come ashore in the dark and are never taxed. And much of the wine and spirits too.”
“Well, I prospered—but I wanted to do more. See more. I kept hearing stories about Captain Francis Drake and his venturing. How he explored not only the coastal waters but the seas, how the queen favored his adventures and commissioned him to take Spanish prizes with the right to keep a share of the treasure he recovered. Sailing with him, becoming a part of his ventures, required money. Quite a bit of money. The widow told me that if I married her, her money would be mine. So I did. Heaven help me, Lettie, I did. Though I have regretted the marriage ever since.”
“But not the venturing.”
He smiled. “No, never that. Nor the pirating I did for England. But I paid too high a price for it.”
“What price?”
He knit his brow. It was some time before he spoke again.
“There was a girl,” he began softly. “A lovely trusting young girl, with soft brown eyes and gentle hands. Marianna. She was just sixteen. She lived with her family in the stinking hulk of an abandoned ship. Her poor father made what little he could as a renegade preacher, with a small congregation of sailors. He was filled with the spirit. I admired him. But there was never enough to feed all eight of them in the family.
“I loved her, I swear I did! But I saw that if I married her, I would have to support them all. They
barely had enough to eat. Marianna took in the sailors’ laundry, and her brothers gleaned in the fields after the harvest was over, scavenging like the rooks and the mice.
“Oh, Lettie, I saw that if I married her, I would never get to see the world. And every time I looked out to sea I wanted to break away from the coast, from my little vessel. From the life of being tied to others.
“So God help me, I took the widow and her money, and sold my small ship and signed on with Drake. I have been paid back a thousandfold—but I always regretted losing Marianna. When I went back to try to find her, the hulk was gone. Broken up in a storm, the entire family tossed to the winds. I was told that she died.
“If I ever have another ship, I will name it the Marianna. I will dedicate my entire life to her memory.”
He put his head in his hands.
I put my arm around his broad shoulder, but I could tell that there was no comfort I could offer that would redeem what he had lost. Over the following days I was to hear much more about his remarkable travels, and his stories of the New World. But behind his words there was always a veil of sorrow. He had gone searching for adventure, and found much that was strange and wondrous. He had found gold. But he had lost something more precious, the source of his worldly happiness. He had lost his love.
TWENTY-FOUR
As soon as I heard the clopping of the carriage horses at the entrance to the castle I became tense. It was Cecelia’s carriage, coming from the Wilbraham estate nearby, and although I loved my sister I did not relish having to cope with her moods. In those days she was very moody indeed.
Rival to the Queen Page 11