The Girl in the Mirror

by Sarah Gristwood

  Outside, in the Strand, as I made my way to Essex House, the crowds were behaving as though it were indeed a festival. The vendors were out in force, and from the queues and the nudges around the pasty vendors, I’d say the rules about needing doctor’s order to eat meat were being broken pretty freely.

  Indeed, there was a curious feel of lawlessness, as if this were a crowd that could turn nasty – as all crowds can, maybe. The army was drawn up in the fields beyond the Tower, and after he’d joined them, Lord Essex’s path lay towards Chester, where the boats waited to take him to Ireland. He’d set out towards the village of Islington, not due west past the palace at Westminster, and the shadow of her majesty’s authority.

  They were coming. I could hear the shouts of ‘Hurray!’ and faintly, under them, the click of the horses’ hooves and the chink of armoury. Whatever privations lay ahead – and I knew enough now to be sure this expedition wasn’t flush with money – he’d make sure his personal guard made a fine show in their orange livery. And whatever sulks and furies lay behind, he’d greet the crowd smilingly. He went past in one long moment, the cool spring sunlight shining on his breastplate, decked out for battle already, as though he were going to have to fight his way through London. Maybe that was what he was trying to say.

  ‘God speed your lordship,’ people were shouting. And yes, they were throwing flowers in his way. But – perhaps it was only my imagination, but I fancied there was a faint undercurrent of mockery in the calls. A London crowd was a strange beast, savage, shrewd, and fickle – as strange as anything you might find in the Tower menagerie. We’d seen a noble young lord, tall and shining as a god, ride out on a venture of chivalry. But was it – did we think it – any more real than the feints and masques at the tournament on Accession Day?

  Yes, the air was chilling. I looked north, the way the army would go, and black clouds were massing in the sky. ‘That’s a bad omen, sure enough,’ said a workman beside me, cheerfully. ‘They’ll be soaked and sorry before they stop tonight.’ Sure enough, a few spiteful drops of rain began to fall as I turned and made my way back to Burghley House.

  Passing through the courtyard, I made my way into the garden, despite the moisture on the air. I’d be alone there. Except that I wasn’t – a small, dark figure stood by the aviary. From this angle his twisted shoulder showed clearly. I hesitated for just too long to be able to go back, then slowly moved towards him. I had a feeling he might welcome company. He turned at the sound of my steps, and I think his face lightened slightly.

  ‘Ah, Jan. We’ll miss him, won’t we?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I was taken aback twice over. Once, that Sir Robert had seen my feelings so clearly. Once that he, whom everyone thought was Lord Essex’s sworn enemy …

  As he turned, and began to pace the gravel, I was used enough to his ways by now to fall in automatically. ‘We were boys together – you knew that, surely?’

  I nodded. It was one of the old clerk’s favourite stories, about how Lord Essex had been made Lord Burghley’s ward, after his own father died in Ireland (in Ireland!), and how they should have seen this coming, even in the old days.

  ‘There’s good as well as bad in that, and they neither of them ever quite go away.’ He slipped a hand under my elbow. I’d seen gallants do it all the time, but from him, to me, the gesture was striking. ‘His father was dead then, and he was determined to see his work finished. And now my father is dead too, and I …’

  All I could do was bow my head attentively, while a tiny voice in my head whispered that this was a man who did nothing without a purpose, and why was he talking this way to me? But another, firmer voice spoke, telling me that sometimes conviction and convenience marched hand in hand. That whatever Sir Robert did to put stones in Lord Essex’s path – I was no longer as naive as I used to be – yet all the same, this was still a kind of verity.

  ‘We’ve both lost people, you and I. Oh, they’ve gone into God’s care, of course, and we’re still in the sinful world. Perhaps that’s why, sometimes, I swear, it can make you feel almost guilty.’ He wasn’t looking for an answer, and I couldn’t have made one easily. But as the rain began to fall in earnest, and he turned to precede me into the house, I thought that, for all its hidden secrets, that was the most intimate exchange I’d ever had with anybody.

  Summer 1599

  As the summer approached, with its odours and its whispers of plague – and its puffs of rose scent borne on warm wind too – I was told we were all going out from town, to Sir Robert’s family home at Theobalds, and that the queen was coming to stay.

  ‘Yes, I said “we”. You’re coming too,’ the steward told me irritably. ‘Her majesty loves a garden, and she’ll want to see all the work that’s been going on, whether it’s in the flowerbeds or the library. What do you expect Sir Robert to do, if the queen asks him about a plant you’ve drawn – say we’ll get back to her in a week or two?

  ‘What’ – as I began to stammer a feeble protest – ‘you’ve got something more important to do? More important than maybe meeting with her majesty?’

  I went back to my room that evening to pack my things with questions whirring in my brain. There were concerns – not least where they’d tell me to sleep. In a room with the other young men, all too probably. But there’d be ways. If need be I’d proclaim a liaison with a scullery maid and take myself off to sleep in a corner, out of doors, if necessary. And in any case, worrying was useless: clearly I had to go, or risk bringing questions on my head. In short, I convinced myself, surprised to find that, under the worries, there was a kind of excitement welling up in me.

  I’d heard stories about the old progresses, the ones the court used to take each summer, travelling like an army on the move, with the baggage train stretching from one town to another, and teams of decorators working in relay to prepare each of the queen’s stopping places on the way. I’d heard of whole new gardens thrown up overnight, of fireworks bought in from Italy, and entertainments so elaborate they put the hosts into bankruptcy.

  This wouldn’t be so grand. The queen was coming for the night, with just a small train, and only enough guards to ensure her safety. She knew Theobalds well already, and she might not now have the energy for spectacular festivities – though no one said that, precisely.

  All the same, the fuss seemed extraordinary. We rode out of town, along roads lacy with cow parsley, accompanied by every book, plan of works and musical instrument that might possibly entertain her majesty; a case of spices, to aid the Theobalds cookery; and half the treasures of the Strand house to deck the royal bedchamber, as if Theobalds weren’t furnished already.

  Nothing to do with me, thank God. I could frankly enjoy the ride. The marguerites on the banks turned their faces to the sun; now we bruised a patch of rank-smelling wild garlic, now we passed an open space where campion and foxglove showed pink under the broom, or a meadow yellow with buttercups. The smell of the elder must have made even the bees drowsy. I’d never seen flowers growing in such profusion, all untended by any. Of course, the lords and ladies left London every summer, to get away from the pestilence heat brought to town, but people like me didn’t have the opportunity.

  I’ll never forget my first sight of Theobalds – like something in a story. A forest of turrets, each flying a flag and guarded by a wooden beast, gilded brightly. Closer to, the magic changed, but it didn’t diminish. This wasn’t a house, it was a city. Parks and courtyards, stables and bakery. With no idea where in the world to go, I hovered at the steward’s elbow, anxiously.

  ‘Ah yes – Sir Robert says you’ll need a little closet room to yourself to spread your papers. They’ll bring you a pallet bed there at night.’ Did his tone suggest he thought it a little odd for Sir Robert to bother himself so particularly? I was just thankful to have got so easily over one difficulty. The master wouldn’t arrive till the next day, riding with the queen, and no one seemed to have any special task for me. I was free to explore – after all, g
ardens were supposed to be my subject, weren’t they?

  So much has been written about the gardens at Theobalds. It’s all true, that’s all I’m going to say. I saw pavilions and arbours, and meadows where wilderness had been tended to the perfect degree. Early roses beds, underplanted with periwinkle, pinks that scented the air (they scattered pigeon dung to make them grow larger, a gardener said), and pots of lemon trees. If Master Gerard supervised the planting of this, then I might begin to see him differently.

  I saw the giant Peruvian marigolds – Flowers of the Sun, they call them – with their brown-gold heads two handspans across, their stalk the thickness of a man’s arm, and I saw a whole bed of the new Turkish crown imperial, a ring of bright yellow bells on a thick stem, and inside each bell clear drops of honey. Just the way Master Gerard had described them in his book, I admitted grudgingly. If I spent much time here, I might start believing in the barnacle tree.

  They sent plants to us in town, of course, but nothing like this; and indeed, compared to what I was seeing here, our city gardens with their honeysuckles and gillyflowers seemed like the most rustic simplicity.

  We had a mound at the house on the Strand, but this mound here was planted with hawthorn trees, so that you walked up as if through a labyrinth, in mystery. We had topiary there, but here life-size hounds chased a deer across the lawn, all formed out of close-cropped box trees. The grass was so fine they must have been raking and scything it for an eternity. I swear, it even smelled different, as if it been manured with money.

  I saw a network of waterways, with trees planted around them for shade, so a guest could be rowed on the hottest day. I peered down through the water, and bright-coloured stones like jewels winked back at me. I saw a lake so broad it was no surprise when a gardener told me it was called the sea. I walked and I wondered, and it was only at night, as I spread the bedding on my straw pallet – none of the servants had had time to spare – I realised I had not thought of Lord Essex all the long day.

  The next morning we were up with the light. Preparations had clearly been going on for weeks – gardeners even forcing strawberry plants under glass, in hopes a single dish of berries might be ready early – but there was still everything for the servants to do on the day.

  Old Lord Burghley had built a new bedchamber for the queen, after she complained her old one wasn’t spacious enough, but the last time she came to stay, she’d chosen to sleep in the old one, just the same … They decided to prepare both, so as to be ready.

  As the delivery drays rolled up to the kitchen, even the clerks got involved, clocking in each plate of cakes or present of pike sent from neighbours through the surrounding country. In the end I slipped away. I’d still hardly seen the state rooms in the house, and I wandered unheeded past painted walls and carved staircases, through the great chamber where the columns were carved as oak trees, covered with real bark and leaves. The birds came in and nested there and I don’t blame them for being fooled. The whole house was like an allegory, a conversation where only the words were missing. Nothing was as it appeared to be. I was up on the roof when the cavalcade came on the Astronomer’s Walk on the flat leads, and I paused there to watch, shrinking back behind a chimney.

  She came on horseback, as she tried to do whenever her people could see her, but her stiffness as they lifted her down showed that she was weary. Sir Robert saw it too, from the speed with which he summoned a servant with a cup of cordial. But as they stood side by side, she was still taller than he. I could see why she called him her elf, or her pygmy. They’d dismounted in the courtyard, and she glanced towards the fountain in the middle. The first time she’d visited, with the whole court, they’d made it run with wine, both white and red, but this time she’d said she wanted no great ceremony. A gentle stroll, a little archery, a glance through whatever was new in Sir Robert’s collection of curiosities. She walked, just where I’d walked the day before. She was pleased to admire; and I believe she admired even my illustrations, which I’d been told to spread out ready in the gallery. Sir Robert must have explained them to her himself; in the end, no one needed me.

  In the evening the ladies danced for her; there was an acrobat; later there’d be a play. She seemed to enjoy it all, but looking around the court from my vantage point behind a pillar, I was struck by how young they all seemed in comparison, dare I say it, to her majesty.

  Theobalds had always been Lord Burghley’s house; Essex House had once been Leicester House, home of the old earl, Essex’s stepfather, Robert Dudley. But all the men of the queen’s youth were gone now, every one. Where once she’d had the fathers, she was left with the sons. I thought she must be lonely. And as I saw her turn her face aside a moment, the folds under the jaw sagging sideways beneath their mask of paint, I thought that for all she was treated as a goddess, there was one thing she could never allow herself to be, and that was simply an old lady.

  The great chamber was stifling, but a breath of fresh air to one side showed me a doorway. Maybe I could wait in the quiet, at least until the start of the main play. I edged my way through and found myself in an ante-chamber, full of what looked for all the world like someone’s upended laundry. Two doublets, a shirt, a stuffed parrot and a wig – with a start, I realised these must be the actors’ props.

  At the other end of the room a door opened and a man came in, in the great colourful suit of a braggadocio, all made up for the play. I began to make a quick apology, and turned back the way I’d come when, from somewhere inside the mask of paint, a voice said, ‘Jan? Jan? I never thought I’d see you here.’

  It was Martin Slaughter.

  I’d never have recognised his face, those ordinary, malleable features were hidden so completely. It was his voice that gave him away. He told me later his looks were at once his blessing and his curse – not dramatic enough for a memorable leading man, but adaptable enough to keep him in work pretty regularly. I must have gaped at him stupidly.

  ‘I thought I’d never see you again!’ In truth, the last eighteen months I’d hardly thought of him at all, but that wasn’t the thing to say. I settled for a more palatable truth. ‘After you left, for ages, I went to every play. I did. I began to think you must have died.’

  That mobile mouth twisted into the trace of a smile. ‘Once or twice, nearly. I told you I might be away. First in the country and then abroad. I was forced to go, you might say.’

  ‘Debts or some quarrel, I suppose!’ I couldn’t imagine why I was angry.

  ‘Not quite, though the debts did for an excuse.’ He’d always had the ability to convey much more than the words said, and I understood. I’d learned something these last two years, maybe. Actors often doubled as, well, messengers, agents – ‘Call us emissaries.’ I hadn’t thought my face was one to show my thoughts too plain, but he seemed able to read me easily. ‘It sounds so much nicer than spies. But what about you, Jeanne?’ This time, he said my birth name. It was so long since anybody had named me properly. Well, except for Lord Essex – but the thought passed, swiftly. And this was different anyway.

  I paused a second. He could see I had stayed in Sir Robert’s employ. I did not know what else to say. But he came to my rescue: he was someone who knew the many facets of a life, and knew it couldn’t be summed up easily.

  ‘Here – let me show you something.’ He took my hand, briefly, and tugged me towards a stairway in the corner. Up he ran, and up again, while I panted behind him. Whatever else they say about an actor’s life, it must keep you fit.

  ‘Martin, where in the world are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see – here.’

  We were up on the roof, in a dream world, lit by a white cheese of a moon, so much a picture from a storybook it made us both break into laughter, then look away, shamefacedly. Tall chimneys twisted like barley sugar reared up to make a stone forest against the sky. Without a word we both went over, to lean against the balustrade, facing out over the garden to the country.

  ‘You said you went
to the plays for a while.’ He paused. ‘I haven’t been away all this whole time, you know. I was playing in Southwark last summer, after I saw you.’ Last summer, when Essex kissed me.

  ‘I was … busy.’ I owed him more honesty, but I didn’t know what to say. How could I explain what had happened – or happened in my head, since nothing important had happened in reality, and I was beginning to understand that more clearly every day. But again he surprised me.

  ‘Perhaps I know more about it than you realise. These times with Essex have put all of us out of joint.’ There was too much clamour in my head to wonder why Lord Essex’s name had sprung to his mind so readily. I didn’t want to know whether gossip had reached him from some part of the dark spy’s world, or whether he was just speaking generally.

  ‘You feel his pull, don’t you? Well, of course – we all do, in a way. I’ve played men like him on stage, and I’ve always thought that they’d cause chaos in reality. But you must feel it, especially.’ He paused a second, and I had time to understand that though we hadn’t met these years, he must sometimes have been thinking about me. ‘When you have to – or want to – deal in illusion, there’s a fascination in anyone else who’s living their own fantasy.’

  He turned away with an air of conclusion, gazing out over the view, and began pointing things out to me. Disjointedly, I followed his lead, and began telling him my day’s adventures. Indeed, I found I was telling what I’d been thinking in the hall, which I wouldn’t have cared to do to just anybody.

  ‘I know. We were waiting in the courtyard when they set off this morning – rode out here behind the royal party, like the tail of the dog. I thought the queen looked as though she hardly wanted to set out on yet another journey.’